When we pull up in front of Shaheen’s Grocery, I realize all the cops are in the wrong place. Frantic shoppers extend out the open doors in a line that’s crushing the weak and elderly against the door frame. Through the storefront windows, I watch men and women run down the aisles grabbing cases of bottled water. One couple stands in the frozen food section, the man heaving items into a shopping cart held by his wife. They’ve amassed perhaps twenty dripping bags of ice, but the man keeps loading until the buggy sags under the weight. A woman in a bathrobe holds five 2-liter bottles of soda to her chest. Each one is a different flavor. In the produce section, a man fills his coat with heads of cabbage that become leafy cleavage. The orange shaft of a carrot protrudes through his coat buttons as if he’s been impaled by an organic arrow. The cashiers are under siege, conveyor belts and scan guns unable to operate fast enough. Eventually, people begin to slap money down next to the register and leave.
In a few moments, the situation will escalate into looting. I’m about to tell Russell to just drive on, but he turns toward the backseat.
“You girls stay here.”
Russell jumps out of the car, dirty spats smacking the pavement as he runs for the door. I look in the back and see Caroline leaning her forehead against the window. Each of her shallow breaths fogs the glass.
“You okay?” I ask. “Because we need to get home.”
It’s probably already too late. I don’t think we can get past the protesters again to retrieve the truck. That leaves Russell’s hearse the only available vehicle. Rosita must recognize some desperation in my voice. She leans forward and puts a hand on my shoulder. Even through the fabric of my shirt, her palm is warm and sweaty, somehow more alive than any skin I’ve recently felt.
“She’ll be okay,” she tells me. “She’s just a little fucked up.”
Out the window, I see Russell push against the crowd to get inside. I consider climbing behind the wheel and driving on to find a less populated store, but the bastard took the keys with him. A smile spreads across Victor’s face as he watches the chaos inside.
“I guess this is what it takes for people to wake up,” Victor says. “Years of mines caving in, the mountains blasted away till it floods with every hard rain, cancerous chemicals in the groundwater, and now this. We gotta do something to make it stick this time. People can’t just ride it out and forget.”
“What are you talking about?” Rosita asks.
“I’m talking about rich boy in there,” Victor says. “He’s the key. We need him to deny his birthright. If he don’t get his head crushed in aisle eight.”
“You should go help him,” I say, but Victor doesn’t move. One of his arms is wrapped around Caroline’s waist. His eyes travel from this trapped appendage back to me.
“Somebody’s gotta stay here with the girls,” he says. “Keep them safe.”
Rosita rolls her eyes at this, but I’m not bothered. It’s just more of the same condescension I’ve always known. An average man burying my face in the dirt to make himself feel stronger. If he wants to humiliate me, who is going to stop him? The world’s reverted to survival of the fittest.
I look out the window again and see Russell has made it inside the store. Rosita will protect Caroline if I leave, but I’m worried about the guitar case. Victor isn’t the sort above sneaking a look inside. What if he finds the record while I’m fighting over supplies? Maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s not like he could listen to it now, but there’d be questions later.
“Will you be okay if I go help him?” I ask Rosita.
She nods, so I climb out on my cane.
Inside the store, a woman drags a chubby little boy past me as they sprint for the coolers in back. A father points to shelves as he shouts to young sons who move like soldiers receiving orders. Dropped cans of Coke and packages of shrink-wrapped meat lie in the aisles. The floor is sticky with spilled soda, so I move slow, depending on my cane. My back aches again, but I push through it. I don’t have any pills with me, so relief won’t come anytime soon. I can suffer through the pain. I’m more worried about losing the new song. It’s still there, playing low just under the surface of this commotion.
I pass the man loading bags from the ice chest. Up close, the ice hoarder’s neck and face shine red from the exertion. He looks ready to drop, but his wife screams for him to hurry as a pond expands beneath their cart. The man wipes his forehead with the back of a wet arm and leans down to pull another bag from the chest.
I grab two jugs of water from the nearby cooler. Behind me, a small man in a hooded jacket and basketball shorts edges his way between the couple. He’s almost squirmed close enough to take a bag when the big man turns and pushes him away. Just a single stiff-armed shove, but the smaller man slips in the accumulating puddle and tumbles backward.
“Back off,” the ice hoarder says. He tosses another bag onto his pile. I can see he is unhinged, the sort who has probably been waiting for a day like this one. Canned food covered in dust in his basement, a doomsday bunker of some kind buried in the soil of his backyard. He’s prayed on the inevitable approach of days like today, seen himself as above the help suggested at least once by a brave friend or relative. The wife looks like a believer, too. She watches as her husband loads the cart, her face twisted into the sort of violent contempt that might look appropriate on a comic book villain. Neither turn from their task to see if the smaller man is injured.
The cashiers are watching now, but with so many shoppers tossing money in their faces, they seem reluctant to abandon their post. The man in the hooded jacket climbs up off the floor. The back of his white basketball shorts drip and cling until I see the pale hocks of his ass through the material.
“What do you need with thirty bags of ice?” he asks as he gets in the hoarder’s face. “Ever heard of sharing?”
The ice hoarder hits him in the stomach. All breath leaves the smaller man in a gust and he crumples forward as if his waist were a well-oiled hinge. I think someone will step forward now and stop this, but the tiny man rises again, this time armed with a can of peas that have tumbled from a nearby shelf. He clocks the ice hoarder just behind the ear with the dented can, delivers another blow as the big man staggers, trips and collides into one of the cooler doors. The ice hoarder doesn’t go through the glass, just shakes the frame and slides down it. The smaller man tosses the peas aside and turns to grab his own bag. He’s hefting it over his shoulder as a gunshot rings out in the silence.
For one deafening moment, I know I’ve been shot. Pain surges in my back until I decide that must be where the bullet entered. In a moment, I’ll feel the warm leak of blood. Screams pierce the echo. I turn and see the ice hoarder brandishing a snub-nosed revolver from his prone position by the freezer. Glass shatters and frozen pizzas disintegrate like clay pigeons as he fires another shot. Everyone seeks cover, hiding behind display cases of beer and saltine crackers. One cashier covers her mouth with a wad of bills meant for the drawer, but the denominations do little to muffle her cry.
The shot man looks more surprised than harmed. He sits down in the water, his hand clutching the wound as he sinks back until his eyes lock on the lights overhead.
“Son of a bitch brained me with a can of corn,” the ice hoarder says. The gun hangs limp in his hand as he pleads his case. “What was I supposed to do?”
I dash for the exit. My back agonizes in protest, but I just keep moving, my jugs of water dropped and forgotten at the sound of the first gunshot. Russell clears the door with a gallon under each arm. Out in the parking lot, a man stands on the open tailgate of his pickup and haggles with a group about prices.
“Twenty dollars a case,” the man calls. “Best get it while you can. They’re all sold out inside.”
We jump into the hearse and lock the doors. The radio comes on at high volume as Russell turns the key. The announcer reports that the governor has declared a state of emergency. The National Guard is being deployed to offer relief.
“Things are only going to get worse,” I say. “The best thing to do is drive straight for the interstate. Hit the Kentucky line and get a hotel somewhere.”
The idea of a dingy Super Eight has never seemed so close to salvation. I can put Caroline to bed and take a shower. When she wakes, we’ll sit with our feet dipped into a chlorinated pool. Perhaps the girls will convince the other men to wade out in their underwear. I won’t participate, just be happy to watch those better-made bodies prickle with gooseflesh and grow high from the smell of pool chemicals instead of fearing the sweet scent from my creek. Only problem is, I’m still at the mercy of those with wheels, and I still covet the money Russell will pay for Angela’s signature.
“Or just take me home,” I say. “Please.”
Even the gunshot hasn’t managed to drown out my internal music. When I close my eyes, the musician I’ve invented walks with the boy, both in rotting garb that doesn’t manage to keep the sand from their crevices. The guitar’s strings are growing thin. The man knows the music will not last much longer. He needs to ration the art, play only the essential pieces from the old world for the boy. I feel that same urgency. I need to transcribe before this revelation leaves.
“Take me home?” I ask again, but Russell shakes his head. “Where are we going then?”
“We need to go to your father’s house,” Victor tell Russell. He’s leaned forward into the front of the cab until he’s inches away from Russell’s ear. I expect the conversation to proceed in whispers, but Victor continues loudly enough for all to hear. “We need to discuss this with him.”
“It won’t do any good. You know that.”
Víctor shakes his head. “It’s time he was held accountable. If you tell him about all you’ve seen, I’m sure he’ll listen. After all, you’re his son.”
There is a preaching quality in Victor’s voice I recognize from The Reverend’s sermons. Seduction clothed in the false garments of pride and concern. This is all fork-tongued lies, but Russell seems captivated by it.
“What if it’s just like every time before? What if he won’t listen?”
“Then we make him see what he’s done,” Víctor says.
Russell looks at his reflection in the rearview. Smiles wide until his fangs sparkle under the interior lamps. Rosita glances in my direction, but I know it’s best not to protest now. No sane conversation is going to end this. We’re going to confront Russell’s father.
In the back, Victor has the revolver in his hand. The cylinder hangs open as he loads it with fat cartridges. “I knew you wouldn’t disappoint,” he says. The brass gives a dull shine before Victor spins the wheel and snaps it closed.