Kindness eases Change

EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING SUNDAY, AUGUST 1, 2027

HARRY SLEPT MOST OF the day today Zahra and I took turns staying with him. He has a concussion, at least, and he needs time to heal. We haven’t talked about what we’ll do if he gets sicker instead of healing. Zahra doesn’t want to abandon him because he fought to save her. I don’t want to abandon him because I’ve known him all my life. He’s a good guy. I wonder if there’s some way to get in touch with the Garfields. They would give him a home, or at least see that he has medical care.

But he doesn’t seem to be getting worse. He totters out to the fenced back yard to urinate. He eats the food and drinks the water that I give him. With no need for discussion, we’re eating and drinking sparingly from my supplies. They’re all we have. Soon we’ll have to risk going out to buy more. But today, Sunday, is a day of rest and healing for us.

The pain of Harry’s headache and his bruised, beaten body are almost welcome to me. They’re distractions. Along with Zahra’s talking and crying for her dead daughter, they fill my mind.

Their misery eases my own, somehow. It gives me moments when I don’t think about my family. Everyone is dead. But how can they be? Everyone?

Zahra has a soft, little-girl voice that I used to think was phony. It’s real, but it takes on a sandpaper roughness when she’s upset. It sounds painful, as though it’s abrading her throat as she speaks.

She had seen her daughter killed, seen the blue face who shot Bibi as Zahra ran, carrying her. She believed the blue face was enjoying himself, shooting at all the moving targets. She said his expression reminded her of a man having sex.

“I fell down,” she whispered. “I thought I was dead. I thought he had

killed me. There was blood. Then I saw Bibi’s head drop to one side. A red face grabbed her from me. I didn’t see where he came from. He grabbed her and threw her into the Hsu house. The house was burning everywhere. He threw her into the fire.

“I went crazy then. I don’t know what I did. Somebody grabbed me, then I was free, then somebody shoved me down and fell on me. I couldn’t get my breath, and he tore my clothes. Then he was on me, and I couldn’t do anything. That’s when I saw your mother, your brothers…

“Then Harry was there, and he pulled the bastard off me. He told me later that I was screaming. I don’t know what I was doing. He was beating up the guy he’d pulled off me when a new guy jumped him. I hit the new guy with a rock and Harry knocked the other one out. Then we got away. We just ran. We didn’t sleep. We hid between two unwalled houses down the street away from the fire until a guy came out with an ax and chased us away. Then we just wandered until we found you. We didn’t even really know each other before. You know, Richard never wanted us to have much to do with the neighbors—especially the white ones.”

I nodded, remembering Richard Moss. “He’s dead, you know,” I said. “I saw him.” I wanted to take the words back as soon as I’d said them. I didn’t know how to tell someone her husband was dead, but there must be a better, gentler way than that.

She stared at me, stricken. I wanted to apologize for my bluntness, but I didn’t think it would help. I’m sorry, I said in a kind of generic apology for everything. She began to cry, and I repeated, “I’m sorry.”

I held her and let her cry. Harry woke up, drank a little water, and listened while Zahra told how Richard Moss had bought her from her homeless mother when she was only fifteen—younger than I had thought—and brought her to live in the first house she had ever known. He gave her enough to eat and didn’t beat her, and even when her co-wives were hateful to her, it was a thousand times better than living outside with her mother and starving. Now she was outside again. In six years, she had gone from nothing to nothing.

“Do you have someplace to go?” she asked us at last. “Do you know anybody who still has a house?”

I looked at Harry. “You might be able to get into Olivar if you can walk there from here. The Garfields would take you in.”

He thought about that for a while. “I don’t want to,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any more future in Olivar than there was in our neighborhood. But at least in our neighborhood, we had the guns.”

“For all the good it did us,” Zahra muttered.

“I know. But they were our guns, not hired gunmen. No one could turn

them against us. In Olivar, from what Joanne said, no one’s allowed to have a gun except the security force. And who the hell are they?”

“Company people,” I said. “People from outside Olivar.”

He nodded. “That’s what I heard, too. Maybe it will be all right, but it doesn’t sound all right.”

“It sounds better than starving,” Zahra said. “You guys have never missed a meal, have you?”

“I’m going north,” I said. “I planned to go anyway once my family was back on its feet. Now I have no family, and I’m going.”

“North where?” Zahra demanded.

“Up toward Canada. The way things are now, I may not be able to get that far. But I’ll get to a place where water doesn’t cost more than food, and where work brings a salary. Even a small one. I’m not going to spend my life as some kind of twenty-first century slave.”

“North is where I’m headed, too,” Harry said. “There’s nothing here. I’ve tried for over a year to get a job here—any job that pays money. There’s nothing. I want to work for money and get some college. The only jobs that pay serious money are the kind our parents had, the kind that require college degrees.”

I looked at him, wanting to ask something, hesitating, plunging. “Harry, what about your parents?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t see them killed. Zahra says she didn’t. I don’t know where anyone is. We got separated.”

I swallowed. “I didn’t see your parents,” I said, “but I did see some of your other relatives—dead.”

“Who?” he demanded.

I guess there really isn’t any way to tell people that their close relatives are dead except to say it—no matter how much you don’t want to. “Your grandfather,” I said, “and Jeremy and Robin.”

“Robin and Jeremy? Kids? Little kids?”

Zahra took his hand. “They kill little kids,” she said. “Out here in the world, they kill kids every day.”

He didn’t cry. Or maybe he cried when we were asleep. First, though, he closed himself up, stopped talking, stopped responding, stopped doing anything until it was nearly dark. By then, Zahra had gone out and come back with my brother Bennett’s shirt full of ripe peaches.

“Don’t ask me where I got them,” she said.

“I assume you stole them,” I said. “Not from anyone around here, I hope.

No sense making the neighbors mad.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t need you to tell me how to live out here. I

was born out here. Eat your peaches.”

I ate four of them. They were delicious, and too ripe to travel well anyway.

“Why don’t you try on some of those clothes,” I said. “Take what fits you.” She fit not only into Marcus’s shirt and jeans—though she had to roll the jeans legs up—but into his shoes. Shoes are expensive. Now she has two pair.

“You let me do it, I’ll trade these little shoes for some food,” she said.

I nodded. “Tomorrow. Whatever you get, we’ll split it. Then I’m leaving.” “Going north?”

“Yes.”

“Just north. Do you know anything about the roads and towns and where to buy stuff or steal it? Have you got money?”

“I have maps,” I said. “They’re old, but I think they’re still good. No one’s been building new roads lately.”

“Hell no. Money?”

“A little. Not enough, I suspect.”

“No such thing as enough money. What about him?” She gestured toward Harry’s unmoving back. He was lying down. I couldn’t tell whether he was asleep or not.

“He has to decide for himself,” I said. “Maybe he wants to hang around to look for his family before he goes.”

He turned over slowly. He looked sick, but fully aware. Zahra put the peaches she had saved for him next to him.

“I don’t want to wait for anything,” he said. “I wish we could start now. I hate this place.”

“You going with her?” Zahra asked, jabbing a thumb at me.

He looked at me. “We might be able to help each other,” he said. “At least we know each other, and… I managed to grab a few hundred dollars as I ran out of the house.” He was offering trust. He meant we could trust each other. That was no small thing.

“I was thinking of traveling as a man,” I said to him.

He seemed to be repressing a smile. “That will be safer for you. You’re at least tall enough to fool people. You’ll have to cut your hair, though.”

Zahra grunted. “Mixed couples catch hell whether people think they’re gay or straight. Harry’ll piss off all the blacks and you’ll piss off all the whites. Good luck.”

I watched her as she said it, and realized what she wasn’t saying. “You want to come?” I asked.

She sniffed. “Why should I? I won’t cut my hair!”

“No need,” I said. “We can be a black couple and their white friend. If Harry can get a reasonable tan, maybe we can claim him as a cousin.”

She hesitated, then whispered, “Yeah, I want to go.” And she started to cry. Harry stared at her in surprise.

“Did you think we were going to just dump you?” I asked. “All you had to do was let us know.”

“I don’t have any money,” she said. “Not a dollar.” I sighed. “Where did you get those peaches?” “You were right. I stole them.”

“You have a useful skill then, and information about living out here.” I faced Harry. “What do you think?”

“Her stealing doesn’t bother you?” he asked. “I mean to survive,” I said.

“‘Thou shalt not steal,’” he quoted. “Years and years—a lifetime of ‘Thou shalt not steal.’”

I had to smother a flash of anger before I could answer. He wasn’t my father. He had no business quoting scripture at me. He was nobody. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t speak until I knew my voice would sound normal. Then, “I said I mean to survive,” I told him. “Don’t you?”

He nodded. “It wasn’t a criticism. I’m just surprised.”

“I hope it won’t ever mean getting caught or leaving someone else to starve,” I said. And to my own surprise, I smiled. “I’ve thought about it. That’s the way I feel, but I’ve never stolen anything.”

“You’re kidding!” Zahra said.

I shrugged. “It’s true. I grew up trying to set a good example for my brothers and trying to live up to my father’s expectations. That seemed like what I should be doing.”

“Oldest kid,” Harry said. “I know.” He was the oldest in his family. “Oldest, hell,” Zahra said, laughing. “You’re both babies out here.”

And that wasn’t offensive, somehow. Perhaps because it was true. “I’m inexperienced,” I admitted. “But I can learn. You’re going to be one of my teachers.”

“One?” she said. “Who have you got but me?” “Everyone.”

She looked scornful. “No one.”

“Everyone who’s surviving out here knows things that I need to know,” I said. “I’ll watch them, I’ll listen to them, I’ll learn from them. If I don’t, I’ll be killed. And like I said, I intend to survive.”

“They’ll sell you a bowl of shit,” she said.

I nodded. “I know. But I’ll buy as few of those as possible.”

She looked at me for a long time, then sighed. “I wish I’d known you better before all this happened,” she said. “You’re a weird preacher’s kid. If you still want to play man, I’ll cut your hair for you.”

Monday, August 2, 2027

(from notes expanded SUNDAY, AUGUST 8)

We’re on our way.

This morning Zahra took us to Hanning Joss, the biggest secure store complex in Robledo. We could get all we needed there. Hanning vendors sell everything from gourmet food to debusing cream, prostheses to homebirthing kits, guns to the latest in touchrings, headsets, and recordings. I could have spent days just wandering through the aisles, staring at the stuff I couldn’t afford. I had never been to Hanning before, had never seen anything like it in person.

But we had to go into the complex one at a time, leaving two outside to guard our bundles—including my gun. Hanning, as I had heard many times on the radio, was one of the safest places in the city. If you didn’t like their sniffers, metal detectors, package restrictions, armed guards, and willingness to strip-search anyone they thought was suspicious on the way in or out, you could shop somewhere else. The store was full of people eager to put up with the inconvenience and invasion of privacy if only they could buy the things they needed in peace.

No one strip-searched me, though I was required to prove that I wasn’t a deadbeat.

“Show your Hanning disc or money,” an armed guard demanded at the massive gates. I was terrified that he would steal my money, but I showed the bills that I intended to spend, and he nodded. He never touched them. No doubt we were both being watched, and our behaviors recorded. Such a security conscious store wouldn’t want its guards stealing the customers’ money.

“Shop in peace,” the guard said with no hint of a smile.

I bought salt, a small tube of honey, and the cheapest of dried foods— oats, fruit, nuts, bean flour, lentils, plus a little dried beef—all that I thought Zahra and I could carry. And I bought more water and a few odd items: water purification tablets—just in case—and sun blocker, which even Zahra and I would need, some stuff for insect bites, and an ointment Dad used for muscle aches. We would have plenty of those. I bought more toilet paper, tampons, and lip balm. I bought myself a new notebook, two more pens, and an expensive supply of ammunition for the .45. I felt better once I had that.

I bought three of the cheap, multipurpose sleepsacks—big, tough storage bags, and the preferred bedding of all the more affluent homeless. The country was full of people who could earn or steal food and water, but could not rent even a cot. These might sleep on the street or in makeshift shacks, but if they could, they put a sleepsack between their bodies and the ground. The sacks, with their own strapping, fold to serve as packs during the day. They’re light, tough, and able to survive most abuse. They’re warm even if you have to sleep on the concrete, but they’re thin—more useful than comfortable. Curtis and I used to make love on a pallet of them.

And I bought three oversized jackets of the same thin, breathing synthetic as the sleepsacks. They’ll finish the job of keeping us warm at night as we moved north. They look cheap and ugly, and that’s good. They might not be stolen.

That was the end of my money—the money I had packed in my emergency pack. I haven’t touched the money I took from the foot of the lemon tree. That I had split in half and put in two of my father’s socks. I kept it pinned inside my jeans, invisible and unavailable to pickpockets.

It isn’t a lot of money, but it’s more than I’ve ever had before—more than anyone could expect me to have. I pinned it where it is, rewrapped in plastic and secure in the socks on Saturday night when I had finished writing and still couldn’t stop thinking and remembering and knowing there was nothing I could do about the past.

Then I had a kind of tactile memory of grabbing the money packet and a handful of dirt and stuffing both into my pack. I had an incredible amount of nervous energy that was spending itself in jitteriness. My hands shook so that I could hardly find the money—by feel, in darkness. I made it an exercise in concentration to find the money, socks, and pins, divide the money in half, or as close to in half as I could without seeing, put it into the socks, and pin it in place. I checked it when I went out to urinate the next morning. I’d done a good job. The pins didn’t show at all on the outside. I’d put them through the seams down near my ankles. Nothing dangling, no problems.

I took my many purchases out to what was once the ground floor of a parking structure, and was now a kind of semienclosed flea market. Many of the things dug out of ash heaps and landfills wind up for sale here. The rule is that if you buy something in the store, you can sell something of similar value in the structure. Your receipt, coded and dated, is your peddler’s license.

The structure was patrolled, though more to check these licenses than to keep anyone safe. Still, the structure was safer than the street.

I found Harry and Zahra sitting on our bundles, Harry waiting to go into the store, and Zahra waiting for her license. They had put their backs against a

wall of the store at a spot away from the street and away from the biggest crowd of buyers and sellers. I gave Zahra the receipt and began to separate and pack our new supplies. We would leave as soon as Zahra and Harry finished their buying and selling.

We walked down to the freeway—the 118—and turned west. We would take the 118 to the 23 and the 23 to U.S. 101. The 101 would take us up the coast toward Oregon. We became part of a broad river of people walking west on the freeway. Only a few straggled east against the current—east toward the mountains and the desert. Where were the westward walkers going? To something, or just away from here?

We saw a few trucks—most of them run at night—swarms of bikes or electric cycles, and two cars. All these had plenty of room to speed along the outer lanes past us. We’re safer if we keep to the left lanes away from the on and off ramps. It’s against the law in California to walk on the freeways, but the law is archaic. Everyone who walks walks on the freeways sooner or later. Freeways provide the most direct routes between cities and parts of cities. Dad walked or bicycled on them often. Some prostitutes and peddlers of food, water, and other necessities live along the freeways in sheds or shacks or in the open air. Beggars, thieves, and murderers live here, too.

But I’ve never walked a freeway before today. I found the experience both fascinating and frightening. In some ways, the scene reminded me of an old film I saw once of a street in mid-twentieth-century China—walkers, bicyclers, people carrying, pulling, pushing loads of all kinds. But the freeway crowd is a heterogenous mass—black and white, Asian and Latin, whole families are on the move with babies on backs or perched atop loads in carts, wagons or bicycle baskets, sometimes along with an old or handicapped person. Other old, ill, or handicapped people hobbled along as best they could with the help of sticks or fitter companions. Many were armed with sheathed knives, rifles, and, of course, visible, holstered handguns. The occasional passing cop paid no attention.

Children cried, played, squatted, did everything except eat. Almost no one

ate while walking. I saw a couple of people drink from canteens. They took quick, furtive gulps, as though they were doing something shameful—or something dangerous.

A woman alongside us collapsed. I got no impression of pain from her, except at the sudden impact of her body weight on her knees. That made me stumble, but not fall. The woman sat where she had fallen for a few seconds, then lurched to her feet and began walking again, leaning forward under her huge pack.

Almost everyone was filthy. Their bags and bundles and packs were filthy. They stank. And we, who have slept on concrete in ashes and dirt, and who have not bathed for three days—we fitted in pretty well. Only our new sleepsack packs gave us away as either new to the road or at least in possession of new stealables. We should have dirtied the packs a little before we got started. We will dirty them tonight. I’ll see to it.

There were a few young guys around, lean and quick, some filthy, some not dirty at all. Keiths. Today’s Keiths. The ones who bothered me most weren’t carrying much. Some weren’t carrying anything except weapons.

Predators. They looked around a lot, stared at people, and the people looked away. I looked away. I was glad to see that Harry and Zahra did the same. We didn’t need trouble. If trouble came, I hoped we could kill it and keep walking.

The gun was fully loaded now, and I wore it holstered, but half covered by my shirt. Harry bought himself a knife. The money he had snatched up as he ran from his burning house had not been enough to buy a gun. I could have bought a second gun, but it would have taken too much of my money, and we have a long way to go.

Zahra used the shoe money to buy herself a knife and a few personal things. I had refused my share of that money. She needed a few dollars in her pocket.

The day she and Harry use their knives, I hope they kill. If they don’t, I might have to, to escape the pain. And what will they think of that?

They deserve to know that I’m a sharer. For their own safety, they should know. But I’ve never told anyone. Sharing is a weakness, a shameful secret. A person who knows what I am can hurt me, betray me, disable me with little effort.

I can’t tell. Not yet. I’ll have to tell soon, I know, but not yet. We’re together, the three of us, but we’re not a unit yet. Harry and I don’t know Zahra very well, nor she us. And none of us know what will happen when we’re challenged. A racist challenge might force us apart. I want to trust these people. I like them, and…they’re all I have left. But I need more time to decide. It’s no small thing to commit yourself to other people.

“You okay?” Zahra asked. I nodded.

“You look like hell. And you’re so damned poker-faced most of the time…”

“Just thinking,” I said. “There’s so much to think about now.”

She sighed her breath out in a near whistle. “Yeah. I know. But keep your eyes open. You get too wrapped up in your thinking, and you’ll miss things.

People get killed on freeways all the time.”