The Grinding (11 page)

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now as I
write this down, and I’ve decided I’ve been unfair. Back in my writing class,
the teacher was very specific about the definition of a story. A story is about
conflict. And conflict—not always, but usually—involves bad shit.
This story is no exception to that, so as a result I’m laying out all sorts of
bad shit for you to read.

(By now, hopefully, you’re realizing that most of
the crap they’ve been piling on you for the past six months is just plain
wrong. Operation High Noon and what happened right afterwards is no exception.
Fucking government cover-ups. I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of what
they did, but I hate that they don’t have the balls to tell the truth about it.
We haven’t gotten quite to that part of the story yet, so I’ll leave it at that
for now.)

So now I’m in the middle of telling you about all
the terrible crap that happened that night and the next morning—and
believe me, it gets fucking worse—and I’m adding some context and back
story here and there so some of this shit makes sense. However, I’m starting to
realize I’m getting pretty heavy with the bad-stories-about-Nif, and I’ve told
you very little about some of the awesome things she had done, about what it
was about her that made me fall so hard in love.

I’m thinking that might skew how you see her a
little bit, and it’s important that you see her how I saw her. It’s important.

I can’t tell you everything. There is a lot. I
could write an entire sappy, boring-ass book about how she once saved this
kitten after she found it duct-taped to the road, started an internet campaign
to find the asshole who did it, and got his ass arrested, but not before he was
tarred, feathered, and anal-raped by a pitchfork-carrying internet posse bent
on revenge.

Or I could tell you about her punk rock Smurf
collection. She collected the old-school, ‘80s plastic Smurfs and spent hours
painting and altering them with an Xacto knife to make little punk rockers with
mohawks and chains and pissed-off expressions. She’d photograph them and put
them up on eBay, selling them for tons of money. Once, she made the band KISS with
Smurfette dancing in a cage. She had a stage set and everything. It took her
two months to make it, and she sold the whole set for over a thousand bucks.

I liked watching her work. She’d stick her tongue
out and squint her eyes in concentration. I could tell she was happy, perfectly
caught up in the work, caring more about the process than the final result.

I could tell you how she named every vehicle we
had, from bikes to cars. Our current vehicle, the El Camino, was named Doofus.
She’d scream and swear at him when he wouldn’t start, heaping enough insults to
guarantee an NC-17 rating if it were ever a movie. And when the car finally did
start, she’d hug the steering wheel and apologize and say things like, “I only
do it because I love you, Doofus.”

I could keep going. Instead, let me tell you more
about how we hooked up.

About four months after Nif and I had sex that
first time, she walked in on me crying like a little girl in the tiny break
room at Big Shot Chicken. I had been sitting there for almost an hour, alone, poring
over my college letters. Graduation loomed in just a few short months, and I
still hadn’t made my final decision about where to go. Time was running out.

Shit, I was overwhelmed. I don’t even know why. A
crushing feeling pushed in on my chest as I looked over all the possibilities,
and I just started crying.

My dad had been getting sick lately, too. My mom
was saying it had to do with demons. My mom occasionally said weird shit like
that, so I learned to ignore it. But my dad getting sick meant he was unhappy,
and when my dad got unhappy, we moved. When they moved this time, I wasn’t
going with them.

They hadn’t taken care of me in years. I could’ve
dropped out, flunked out, been a serial killer, and neither of my parents would
care. Sometimes I’d spend the night at Royce and Randy’s or Monobrow Sam’s
house, and they wouldn’t even notice I was gone.

It was the realization, not that I was going to be
alone, but that nothing was going to change, that brought me to tears. I know,
it doesn’t make sense. But that’s what it was.

Nif came in, saw me wipe my eyes. She sat down
across from me at the table. We were still doing the pretend-it-never-happened
thing.

I didn’t know it at the time, but she’d had the
abortion just four weeks earlier.

She grabbed my hand.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m fine.”

She looked into my eyes. Those goddamned brown
eyes of hers took a bit of me away every time they zeroed in. “You’re a lot of
things, Adam. But you’re not a liar. Don’t become one now. Tell me what’s
wrong.”

I sighed. “I don’t know what to do, and it’s
freaking me out.” It seemed so stupid when I said it out loud.

“With what?”

“My life.” I even told her about my parents and
how I felt about them. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t spoken of them since that
time I had broken down about the tadpoles and my folks to my old lady neighbor when
I was ten years old.

The whole time we talked, Nif held my hand, and
stared right into my eyes. I know it’s funny, but for the first time in my
life, I didn’t feel alone, and it was the warmest, happiest thing I’d ever
experienced. Even when I’d thought I was in love with Samantha, I’d never felt
anything like this.

“Fuck your parents,” Nif said. “And fuck whatever
responsibility you have. Do what’s in your heart. In fact, you know what…” She gathered
all the papers into a pile, and smacked them face down on the table. “You need
to stop looking at this bullshit. Don’t even think about it until Monday. We’re
going to finish our shift, and afterwards, you’re coming to my apartment. We’re
going to sit on my couch, play some Nintendo, and then I’m going to cook you
dinner. When was the last time someone cooked you dinner?”

“Uh…” I said. “Well, my mom…”

“Fuck your mom,” she said.

After work, I followed Nif to her apartment, a
tiny little studio on the south side of town. She was 18 by now, but she’d had
the place since she was 17. I never asked her how she’d pulled that off. I
walked into her home, spent some time talking about all the Pee-wee Herman and
Bad Brains stuff she had all over her walls, and then we sat on her ratty old
couch.

“Rule number one,” she said as she put her feet up
along the wall. She lit a cigarette then laid down on the couch and talked at
the ceiling. “We don’t talk about college or our futures or our sad, miserable
pasts. We just, you know, talk about unimportant bullshit. The purpose of
tonight is to veg and chill and de-stress and not do anything or make any
decisions that will impact our lives beyond the immediate.” She waved her
cigarette in the air, as if it were a magic wand, and she cast a spell upon us
and the evening.

“What’s rule number two?” I asked, amused.

“Don’t be afraid,” Nif said.

She stood before I could respond or even try to
figure out what she meant by that.

She bowed, talking with a fake English accent. “Anyway,
sir, since I don’t live in the gilded, Big Shot Chicken manager’s office, I am
required to touch dead chicken as a part of my duties. As a result, I smell
like a yak. I’m going to take a shower before I cook you a non-poultry dinner. Entertain
yourself in any way you see fit. You’ll find my ancient Nintendo 64 has the
biggest library of games you’ve ever seen.”

She turned and marched off. A moment later, I
heard her shower turn on, and she began to sing “No Direction” by Bad Religion.

I thought about rule number two.

Don’t be
afraid
.

After a few moments of hesitation, I decided not
to be. I joined her in the shower.

My legs burned as I sprinted the rest of the
distance back to 5th street.

The white Volkswagen still sat on the side of the
road, though now the roof had a huge dent where the soldier had landed on it.
To my relief, the duffel bag remained untouched in the hedge. I grabbed it,
tossed it into the car, and got in. I rolled the windows up tight in case a
roving plague of bugs descended upon me.
You
were spared earlier
. I shuddered.

I turned the key—
please start
—and the engine roared to life.

For several moments, I sat still, breathing,
thinking about everything that had just happened. My ear ached. Above, a jet
streaked through the hazy, red sky. I wondered if the military knew about the
roving tractor-trailer taxis, picking up the Grinder’s orphaned drones. If they
did know, I wondered if they were doing anything about them.

I could feel it. The Grinder beckoned me. Stronger
than before, even though it was still far away. It was like a sixth sense
pulsating in my chest. I still had my mind, my reason, but it scared me. It was
getting stronger, more insistent. It felt like I stood on an uneven surface, tilting
further and further sideways. I knew if I just closed my eyes and went slack,
I’d fall in the direction of the monster. How soon before it became too much?

Why me? What was different about me than the
soldiers, who didn’t feel this call?

Nif.
I
thought about the doctor who had run away, what the drones had told her, that
somebody named “Joey” was safe. They had said the same to me about Nif. Since
Nif was captured, and we were close to one another, the monster somehow knew
me. I suspected every time it captured someone new, it got into their head, tuning
into their mind like a station on the radio, broadcasting directly to your
loved ones and pulling them in.

Be strong.
Remember rule number two
.

I backed the car off the sidewalk, and the side
panels shrieked as I pulled between a truck and a fence. I maneuvered onto a
side street where I had more room. I drove, wary of going too far south toward
the Grinder, the bugs, and the roving semi truck.

I turned up the volume on the radio.

“…reiterated his promise not to use nuclear arms,
under any circumstances on American soil,” the female radio announcer said, her
voice tired and strained. “However, in light of these new developments, many
are questioning this policy. Earlier, Admiral William Lexington, former vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had this to say:”

A new voice came on. “Certainly, we want to stop
this threat without resorting to a nuclear arsenal,” said the gravel-voiced
man, “especially when that threat remains within the confines of a major
American city, but if this…
entity
splits
and spreads, it is our duty to the American people and our way of life to
contain it before we lose another city.”

“So,” said the interviewer. “Are you saying we’ve
lost Tucson?”

“If these new reports are true,” said the Admiral,
“then, yes. We’ve lost Tucson.” A long pause. “If not all of southern Arizona.”

“But what about the people still trapped in the
city? We have confirmed reports of military checkpoints not only detaining, but
quarantining civilians.”

“Look,” said the admiral. “We don’t know what this
creature can do. We do know, however, that this…this…”

“They’re calling it ‘the Grinder.’”

“This Grinder’s influence is getting stronger as
every minute ticks past. We have people, seemingly normal people, suddenly
acting out in response to this contagion. Until we figure out what this is, how
it’s spread, and how it can be cured, we have no choice but to quarantine
anyone who may have come in contact with the infection.”

“But if we use nuclear weapons,” the reporter
asked, “won’t it put these so-called quarantined individuals, many—if not
most—of whom aren’t infected, in danger?”

“If we do exercise the nuclear option,” the
Admiral said, “then it’ll be because we have no other…”

I couldn’t listen any more. I flipped the channel
until I found more news. It took me a minute because the car’s owner didn’t
have any talk stations on her presets. It was disconcerting how many stations
were still playing music as if nothing was going on. I continued down the side
street, heading downtown.

A male reporter spoke. “Meanwhile, the massive
dual pileups, a 40-car, multiple fatality accident near Casa Grande, a town
approximately half way between Tucson and Phoenix, and an even larger one just
outside of Benson, has completely shut down Interstate 10. I-10 is one of only
two major arteries out of Tucson. Traffic is further mired by people abandoning
their cars in droves. While most of the refugees are taking to walking toward
the military checkpoints, we do have reports of people turning back toward the
city after learning they won’t be allowed any further.”

Another younger, male voice asked, “How can they
contain so many people? Not everyone will remain on the roads with checkpoints.”

The reporter continued. “That’s exactly what’s
happening. CNN is showing footage of hundreds of 4x4 trucks crossing the desert
in all directions. I-19 toward Mexico is still moving, and the military has yet
to stop the flow of people that way. Plus there are other, smaller state
highways to and from. Listen… Pima County is over
9,000
square miles. People are going to get out. If I was stuck in
the city, I’d be trying to get out, too.”

“Hell,” said the other voice, “They can’t even
keep people from crossing our border up from Mexico.”

I flipped the channel again, and it was some nut
screaming about the apocalypse and Jesus. I couldn’t understand what he was
saying, though he reminded me of Reverend Snow, the preacher Nif had gotten
tangled up with. I soon realized the rapture-and-death mindset was a running
theme amongst most of the channels.

“Professor, tell us what the Hellmouth is,”
another interviewer asked. “And tell us why you think it’s pertinent to the
situation in Tucson.”