Our Home is Nowhere (The Borrowed Land, Book 1) (9 page)

17

Claiming that he needed to see a friend about a dog, Zeb had left town and given Joe the evening off. So Joe sat around at the shop, lounging on the back deck, his feet propped up on the railing and sipping a cold beer, watching the trash barges amble slowly by on the river. His eyes wandered from the barges to the far shore that always seemed covered in a haze, like God’s breath. Curious about what lay beyond the
river, he locked up the shop and got on his bike.

He started off on the main street and slowly worked his way beneath the elevated highway where dozens of Slummers were preparing for a night of unsafe sleep. A young Slummer, no older than fifteen, was stooped over the curb creating a shiv by scraping a warped tin can against a rock. The Slummer looked up from his work, snarled, and jabbed the shiv in the air between him and Joe.

Joe wondered how the Slummers filled their days. Life couldn’t be much more than scavenging for food and supplies, hoping to stumble upon some kind of weapon for protection. Survival must be their main preoccupation, day and night, waking or sleeping; their beginning and their end.

Several miles past the highway, Joe found a bridge leading over the river. He stopped at its entrance. He tried to penetrate the haze that seeped over from the other side; he could just make out beads of light and thick towers. Blackened smokestacks rose from the grayness. Joe rode forward slowly, drifting eerily through the haze. It was sticky and wet against his cheeks. He blinked rapidly with the moisture and brought a hand to his face to wipe it away.

On the other side of the river the haze didn’t seem as bad. Many of the buildings’ windows were blacked out using tarp that shuddered in the wind. When he looked over towards his own side of the river, where the auto shop and the skyscrapers were, it seemed as if the haze had switched sides. The skyscrapers were barely visible with their thin heads protruding into the sky.

The roads on this side were better kept, Joe noticed, and smoother beneath his bike’s tires. Taking a hard right, he turned into a neighborhood. As he chugged past the houses, taking his time, he was reminded of Hell Paso before the war. The houses were well maintained and freshly
painted, the lawns were manicured, lush, and green. He passed a woman in a large sunhat tending to her plants, bent over them with a bright purple watering can. Joe stopped in front of her home. She lifted her gloved hand above her eyes, blocking out the sun, and stared at him.

Something moved among the bushes behind her. Joe lowered his foot to the ground, watching over the woman’s shoulder, prepared to yell
Watch out!
when a curved and colorful horn emerged from the bush, followed by a foot encased by a thick white shoe. A grown man stepped out, his face covered in white paint, a blurred smile smeared over his lips. His entire body jangled with bells as he loped towards the street, dragging with him a rope that pulled taut around his neck when he’d gone too far. He stopped halfway between the house and the sidewalk, and the jester—for that’s what he surely was—tucked his hands between his legs as if he desperately had to pee. He bounded up and down, blubbering something and staring at Joe with wild eyes.

Joe looked from the jester to the woman, who didn’t seem to notice the jangling. She smiled at Joe and came towards him, reaching into the pocket of her gardening apron. ‘Would you like to meet my son? He needs a new friend,’ she said.

Joe didn’t wait to see what she reached for—he sped off, glancing over his shoulder at the strange pair. The woman remained on the curb, the jester bounding up and down behind her like a jack-in-the-box, watching him as he disappeared around the bend.

He came onto a street lined with the types of warehouses he had seen through the haze. Some of the smokestacks were charred and webbed with soot. White smoke pumped from their mouths into the air, mixing with the fog. But as he followed the road, he eventually arrived at a small sandwich shop that looked as if it had been transported from a different era. It was painted red and white and had a sign that read ‘Queen Bean’. The small four-car parking lot in front of the sandwich shop was empty.

When he had been fourteen or fifteen years old, Joe had taken a job at a local restaurant as a dishwasher. Originally, he’d begged his dad to let him work at the auto dealership, but his mom had swiftly put a stop to that, claiming that he’d be mixing with ‘beer-bellied foul-mouths’. The irony was that the staff in the kitchen at the rundown restaurant that she finally allowed him to work at were all beer-bellied foul-mouths. Now that he was reminded of it again, Joe could see another irony—Terrance was ten times worse than any scrub he would’ve met at an auto dealership.

He parked the bike outside the Queen Bean and went in. He was the only customer. There were two rooms where he could eat: the main entryway or a room to the right that led to the kitchen.

A short-haired girl wearing light make-up and a loose-fitting t-shirt walked out of the kitchen at the back.

‘Evening,’ she said.

‘Hi,’ Joe said, taken aback. She didn’t look like anyone he’d seen in Slushland during his short time there—much too pretty. She had naturally blonde hair, its jagged edges suggesting that she had cut it herself, but it suited her somehow. ‘Do you have a menu?’ he asked, trying to avoid eye contact.

‘Right there,’ she said, leaning against the counter and pointing to the board beside Joe where the choices were written in chalk.

‘Thanks.’ He scanned board without really reading it. ‘What do you recommend?’ he asked eventually. ‘I’ve never been here before.’

‘The Zeus is my favorite. We put our special sauce on that one’—she lowered her voice and said ominously—
‘But don’t tell anyone. The Meat Master is also a crowd favorite if you’re really hungry. I hope you aren’t a vegetarian, because we only serve meat.’

Joe thought for a moment,
then said, ‘I’ll get the Meat Master and a cup of coffee.’

‘Your loss.
That’ll be six bucks,’ she said.

Joe fished some cash out of his pocket and handed it to her. She handed back some change, then pointed over his shoulder at the empty room. ‘Good luck finding a spot to sit. Your food will be out in a couple minutes.’

Joe sat in the corner window seat where he had a good view of the road and one of the warehouses on the other side of the street. He slipped off his jacket and slung it over the chair, letting the air conditioning cool his sweaty skin. The waitress brought his cup of coffee along with sugar and cream. Joe took it from her and set it carefully in front of him.

‘I haven’t ever seen you here,’ the girl said. ‘Why is that?’

‘I just moved to Slushland.’

‘From where?’

‘Hell Paso.’

‘Is Slushland treating you all right? She can be a fickle mistress sometimes.’

Joe poured some sugar and cream into his cup. ‘It’s not all bad. I actually got four hours of sleep last night. That’s a record so far.’ He stirred his coffee. ‘I do have a question, though.’

To keep busy the girl began wiping down the tables with a wet rag. She brushed her jagged hair out of her eyes. ‘It’s possible I might have an answer.’

‘On my way here I went through a neighborhood that looked like something before the war. And this shop, it’s the first like it that I’ve seen. Was this area of Slushland not hit as bad?’

The girl stopped wiping the table and leaned against a chair, smirking. ‘You really
are
new to the area.’

Joe sipped his coffee, embarrassed by her response.

‘Technically you aren’t in Slushland anymore,’ she explained. ‘This is Almost Sunny Springs.’

‘
Almost
Sunny Springs?’

‘That’s what the locals call it. It’s a suburb of Slushland. It actually used to be pretty nice in its day. Don’t let the green lawns and the Stepford Wives fool you. It’s an act. This place is just as crappy. At least Slushland doesn’t try to hide behind a veneer of wealth. See that?’ She pointed across the street to the warehouse with boarded up windows; it looked abandoned, its wood sallow and dry and broken bricks strewn across its front yard. ‘That’s what they refer to as a
bathhouse
. Otherwise known as…drumroll please…a brothel.’

‘There are tons of them.’

‘Just a few are in business, if you can call it that. Lots of Slummers are captured and forced to work in them.’

‘Don’t you get worried?’

The girl gave him a puzzled look.

‘You know. Working so close to them,’ Joe explained.

The girl let out an exasperated breath. ‘Thanks for the reminder. I’d almost forgotten.’

Their conversation was interrupted by the kitchen door swinging open. A boy a year or two younger than Joe walked out with a sandwich on a plate and set it on the front counter. ‘Foods up!’ he called before heading back to the kitchen.

As the girl picked up the plate and carried it to Joe, there was a loud crash in the back room. She and Joe watched the door swing wide to reveal two boys wearing aprons—twins by the looks of them—throttling each other and cursing into the air. The larger of the two threw the other to the ground and pounced, punching him in the face and chest. Joe leaned up a bit in his chair to get a better view.

‘Is there…should I do something about that?’ he asked.

The girl slid the plate onto the table and grabbed him some napkins. ‘It wouldn’t make any difference. They fight all day long no matter who gets in between. You’ll probably just end up sporting a black eye for nothing.’

Joe watched them beating each other for a minute or two before settling back down in his chair.

‘After a while you don’t even notice it,’ she said.

‘Like all the gunshots in Slushland,’ Joe remarked.

‘I live in Midland. We don’t have gunshots there.’

Joe was tempted to ask about Midland, but he didn’t want to show his ignorance for a second time. He took a bite, chewed, and had a good look around at the chipped red and white walls of the restaurant, noticing the slight imperfections, the wear and tear that was so obvious to the waitress. He swallowed, realizing he didn’t know her name.

‘I’m Joe,’ he said, wiping his hand on a napkin and holding it out to her. She took it. Warm shivers went down his spine when he felt her skin on his.

‘Pleasure to meet you, Joe.
My name’s Amanda.’

‘Amanda from Midland,’ Joe said.

‘You don’t know where Midland is, do you?’

‘Not a clue.’

.........

The Queen Bean disappeared in the mist behind him as Joe drifted slowly along the street, passing houses now wrapped in piercing darkness that cut deeper than bailing wire. Most of the lights across the river had died out and the skyscrapers were only visible when the moon appeared from behind ivory clouds. A floodlight from a barge tore open the sky before the light sputtered out like a blinking eye and the sky pieced itself back together.

Joe abandoned his bike in a ditch, laying it carefully on its side so that if anyone spotted it, they’d take it for scrap. He crawled out of the ditch and ran across the street to the fence line and followed it to the neighborhood he’d passed through earlier. The houses lay asleep, their curtains drawn and all the lights out. Joe surveyed them for several minutes, searching for movement on the street or in the windows. A cat slunk from a gutter and walked towards him before veering to the left and disappearing into a trashcan.

Staying close to the fence, Joe started down the silent street, fighting to keep his breathing steady and his nerves calm. Up ahead, the house he’d stopped at hours ago materialized in front of his eyes as if someone was slapping paint on a canvas. He looked along the eaves and blackened windows. The entire street was devoid of light and sound. Joe’s eyes fell on the bush he’d seen the jester hiding behind earlier. He waited for movement, then put his thumb and forefinger into his mouth and whistled softly.

Something jangled. A horn rose up from the bush like the head of a sea creature, before skulking back down again. After that there wasn’t any more movement. Crouching low, Joe crept across the street and ducked behind a circuit box covered in flowers painted by what looked like a child’s hand. He stayed there, listening and waiting.

The bulb sizzled in the metal arm of the streetlight above him, before flickering on and off and then sputtering out completely. Joe glanced quickly towards the front door then sprinted across the grass to the bush. The jester was sleeping peacefully on a multi-colored mat; a bowl of water and a wedge of meat sat in the dirt near his head. The rope
around his neck coiled beneath him, shooting out around his feet where it looped through a hook nailed straight into the brick. Joe laid a hand on his shoulder.

The jester jolted like a dog waking from a nightmare, bells jangling all over the place. Before he could call out, Joe threw a hand over his mouth. ‘Shhhhh,’ he said, holding a finger to his lips and turning to look at the front door. Joe’s palm glistened with spit when he removed his hand from the man’s mouth. Wiping it dry on the grass, he said, ‘I’m going to get you out of this place. Understand?’

The jester’s dull eyes glared at him for what seemed like a long time before he nodded, the bells jingling on his hat. The white and red facepaint streaked down his eyes and cheeks, barely covering the stubble on his chin.