Wasteland Blues (2 page)

“I know,” said John. “But if it’s God’s plan, how could I say no?”

Derek smiled. Things were always easier when you had God on your side. “Good. Meet us at the edge of town in fifteen minutes. After today, all roads lead east. To New York City.”

***

Derek and Teddy snuck back home. They stood just outside the ramshackle RV that hadn’t moved since Derek was five. The tires had long since rotted away, and the vehicle had settled onto its undercarriage in a roach-infested nest of dirt and filth. Derek looked over his shoulder. No one was looking their way. Returning here was risky, but he needed to collect a few things before they left.

He wanted to make it quick, but Teddy wouldn’t step inside.

“C’mon,” said Derek in his calmest, most soothing voice. He knew any hint of impatience would just set Teddy more firmly on his haunches. “C’mon, Ted—it’s okay. The body isn’t even here anymore. We tossed it, remember?”

“No,” insisted Teddy. “There might be…spooks.”

Derek sighed. Teddy’d been spending too much time listening to John. Spooks and angels. On the road, he’d have to watch that. “All right, fine. You wait out here. I’ll be right out.”

A meaty hand clutched Derek’s arm in an iron grip. Teddy’s fingers dug into Derek’s bicep.

“Just one minute,” said Derek firmly.

Teddy released him. “I sorry, Derek. I didn’t mean to make him deaded.” Teddy frowned, squeezed his eyes shut, and began to cry.

“Hush!” Derek hissed. “Just shut your fuckin’ mouth!”

The Elders tolerated non-believers, barely, but not murderers. Justice would be swift and certain if they were discovered. The crane in The Heap transformed into a makeshift gallows. His and Teddy’s bodies would be left to swing for a year and a day, food for crow and fly.

“You be quiet,” hissed Derek. “What happened, happened. It wasn’t your fault.” He grabbed his brother’s left wrist and pulled back the sleeve to reveal a trail of ugly red burns. “It wasn’t your fault, see?”

Teddy yanked his arm away and pushed his sleeve down. He sniffled mightily and turned from his brother. “Go fast, Der-Der.”

Chapter Two

Derek and Teddy met John at noon, just as the village was settling in for siesta, when it was too hot to work, too hot to be swathed in the rags needed to protect the skin from the ultraviolet noonday sun. Derek didn’t want anyone to see them leaving. There would be questions, and Teddy was a poor liar.

But Derek’s hope to leave town unobserved was thwarted before the journey had begun in earnest. At the edge of town they ran into Leggy, the crippled, old village drunk. He was sitting in his wheelchair and urinating on a thorn bush. He zipped up as they passed.

“’Nother piss-ass day,” he said. “How many more before I’m quit of this place?” The old man’s legs had been sheared away at the knees by a bug, and the ugly, cauterized stumps poked from the dilapidated wheelchair like an accusation.

“All in God’s time,” muttered John.

“God’s a cocksucker,” said Leggy, inching forward on the battered rims of the chair—a wet patch stained the front of his pants where he’d hastily zipped them.

John ignored the blasphemies. The old man was famous for them. The Elders let him get away with it because they said he would have to reckon with the Lord when he passed. John reckoned that the Lord might be into more than He bargained for in trying to reckon with Leggy. Derek knew that the Elders let Leggy’s colorful blasphemies slide, not just because he was the oldest man in the village, but because Leggy was the only one who could get the generator working—and keep it working. When they had fuel, that was.

“So where are you ladies off to this morning?” Leggy asked. “Headin’ over to Sanger to catch yourselves some wives? Does this mean somebody’s finally takin’ my advice about not layin’ with their sisters?”

“We’re going to New York,” said John proudly.

Derek stiffened. He hadn’t wanted to broadcast their plans.

“Really now?” Leggy stroked his grizzled chin. “That’s ambitious. Too bad you won’t make it.”

“We’ll make it,” said Derek.

“
You won’t. And so what if you do?” asked Leggy. “It ain’t gonna be no different than here. Bound ta be a Helluva lot worse. If it’s even still there, that is. Heh, heh.”

“Derek believes there might be angels in New York,” said John. He lifted up his copy of “The Book of Joseph,” a gift from Elder Hale last season on his sixteenth birthday. “‘And the angels came to the great cities of the world to render the Word, so that man might know his sin and repent.’ The Book says New York was a great city. So maybe the angels are there. Derek thinks they are. He—”

“It was a great city,” interrupted Leggy. “Till they nuked it. But don’t let me piss on yer parade.” He cackled and bugged his eyes out at them.

Leaving Leggy’s biting laughter behind them, the boys hefted their meager gear and walked out of town. The disc of the sun hung lazily overhead. They had only gone a few yards past the scrabble of wild bramble and rusted tracks that marked San Muyamo’s border—the path led into a decrepit forest of dead cacti, petrified signposts, leaning telephone spires, and long, thorny brambles—when the old man shouted after them, “When you get to the Wasteland, you’d better bottle your piss. You’ll probably need it.” He laughed again, turned his wheelchair back toward San Muyamo, and began to sing in a shrill, nasal voice. “
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me haaaaappy….
”

Then the land dipped, and their home was behind them.

***

Derek’s face grew red and he trembled with rage as he turned the Legless Wonder’s words over and over in his mind,
“When you get to the Wasteland, you’d better bottle your piss. Too bad you won’t make it.”

Who did that old bastard think he was to cast doubt on
their
plans? And if that senile fuck told anyone else where they were headed, the villagers might track them down.

Derek waited until they had gone another mile or so into the bramble, then suddenly stopped and whispered “You hear that?”

He knew there was nothing out there, but was satisfied that the others had stopped.

“Could’a sworn I heard something,” said Derek.

John squinted his eyes in concentration. After a second, Teddy mimicked this action, squeezing his own eyes shut and poking his huge purple tongue from the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t hear anything,” said John.

“I’m sure I heard something,” Derek said. “You two wait here and I’ll run back and take a look.” He reached out and touched his brother lightly on the elbow. When there was no response, he poked harder. “Teddy, open your eyes,” he commanded.

Teddy responded obediently. First one eye popped open and then the next. He grinned sheepishly and sucked in his tongue. “I wuz fallin’ sleepy-sleep, Der.”

“You stay here with John. Don’t go nowhere.” With that he turned and began to tread stealthily back in the direction from which they had come. “Don’t move.”

“But—” John began.

“I said stay put!” hissed Derek.

John sat down hard on the packed earth and the contract was sealed—Derek was giving the orders.

***

Derek crept back to the edge of town. Leggy was wheeling himself slowly along the road, still singing.
“Ooyyyy-yoouuuu yeeeeeeeeee!!! Please don’t take my sunshine awaaaaaay…”

In a quick motion Derek pulled his father’s bone-handled hunting knife from his belt and lunged. Leggy’s voice cracked and his singing abruptly stopped as Derek grabbed a wheel of the chair with one hand and held the knife across the old man’s throat with the other.

“Now listen to me, you legless old
fuck
,” Derek hissed. “You don’t tell anybody that you saw us goin’, you got that?” He pressed the blade hard against the man’s grizzled neck. “You don’t say shit about this to no one!” He pulled the knife away and wheeled the old man roughly around to face him. A thin line of blood appeared on Leggy’s neck. “One word about this and you’re dead.”

The old man blinked, but remained silent.

“You understand me?” Derek spat at him.

Leggy was nonplussed. “If you’re really leavin’, how are you gonna know if I told anyone I saw you go?”

Derek shook with fury. The knife trembled in his hand. He opened his mouth to speak, but could think of nothing to say.

Without a word he moved forward, gripped the chair by its tattered rubber handles, and wheeled the old man off into the scrubland.

***

The wheelchair bumped and rattled as Derek forced it over age-old remnants of cracked, sun-bleached pavement. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the old cuss. He could roll him several miles outside of the village. By the time the old man wheeled himself back, Derek would be long gone.

Or he could finish the job he’d started with the knife.

Leggy cleared his throat. “I been across the Wasteland, you know,” he said, his voice cool and calm. “Several times, actually—before my accident.”

Derek stopped.

“What’re you talkin’ about you lying cocksucker?”

“No lie. I haven’t always been a cripple. Back in the day I used to scout for traders. Led caravans all over the place—including through the Wasteland.”

Derek smirked. “Well, shit! If you could do it, if you could cross the Wasteland, then why can’t we?”

“Because I’m smarter than you,” said Leggy.

A red flush crept into Derek’s cheeks. He wanted to cuff the old man, a hard blow across the temple that would send him sprawling out of the chair and into the dust. “So maybe you want to share some of them smarts with us.”

“With you lot?” laughed Leggy. “Why should I waste my breath?”

In a quick, fluid motion the hunting knife was back at Leggy’s throat. “Tell me how to cross the Wasteland, or I’ll kill you,” said Derek.

“That’s just what I mean about you not bein’ too clever, boy. You cut my throat, and you’d be doing me a favor. And you’ll still be no closer to crossin’ the Wasteland.”

Derek searched the old man’s face. He saw fear, but he saw truth, too. He cursed himself. He wanted to cut up the old man for his disrespect, for his casual insults. For being ugly and crippled and old. For not being scared.

Derek’s brain began to cloud over with hot rage, like a clump of flies on the carcass of a rat. It was the same feeling he used to get when his father tried to work him through a math problem. His breathing grew heavy and strained, his head begin to pound.

The voice of David Cane echoed in Derek’s memory. “You have to learn this, Stoopid... Can’t you see how important this is? You need to understand this if we’re going to rebuild. Just put your mind to it!
Think!
”

But Derek’s mind would never cooperate. David had been a teacher but, like his son, lacked patience. Lessons begun in hope invariably gave way to bitterness. “What’re you, a stilbirth? Are you an idiot, boy? Like your brother? Good, then be a retard. Just like your brother. See where it gets you.”

Inevitably Derek would fling the book onto the floor—his father’s precious book. Inevitably, David would lose himself to rage, and try to
burn
the answers into his son with his cigarillo.

And now Derek had worked himself into another mental corner. He needed Leggy’s knowledge, but he couldn’t bully it out of him. A seeming no-win, a real bumfuckery. Then an idea came to him. He sheathed his knife and pulled a hank of twine from his knapsack. He roped it around Leggy’s torso and pulled it tight.

“What the Hell are you doing?” demanded Leggy.

“Taking you with me,” said Derek, removing the old man’s head scarf.

“Am I being kidnapped? By a kid? I knew it was gonna be a fucked up day, but not like this.”

“You won’t tell us how to cross the Wasteland? Fine. You’ll show us.”

Derek gagged Leggy with the scarf, then forced the wheelchair around and headed back toward his waiting companions. It was rough going and the wheelchair seemed heavier with each passing minute, but Leggy was coming with them.

***

By the time he’d reached the tangled copse of acid-wood where he’d left John and Teddy, Derek was breathing hard and drenched with sweat. He felt dizzy. The wheels of the chair had lost their rubber ages ago, and while the steel frame was sturdy, it wasn’t meant for dead roots and the cracked pavement of an old highway. Derek had to heave and shove with every step.
Leggy must have some strength in those scrawny arms,
he thought. But the old bastard wouldn’t lend a hand. Derek grinned. He supposed it was unreasonable to expect his victim to cooperate.

John and Teddy were nowhere to be found.

Derek cursed under his breath. He left Leggy at the edge of the tanglewood and pushed his way into the thicket to find the others. He must’ve been more tired than he thought because he tripped on a root and went down hard. His sunshades skittering away into the dust. Behind him, he heard the muffled cackle of Leggy laughing behind his gag.

Derek’s eyes were flooded with the dangerous rays of the violent afternoon sun. He blinked and raised a hand to shield them. A tall figure emerged from behind a clump of scrub—it was larger than life, too tall to be a man, and it seemed to be glowing from within, radiating a dazzling, preternatural light. The figure loomed over him and seemed to fill the world—golden flame seemed to envelope it, a pillar of holy fire stretching from the earth up toward the sky. Colors shifted into shadow, taking the blasphemous form of a man. Derek was still on his knees, cringing and backing away from the apparition.

It’s an angel,
he thought, wildly,
It’s one of John’s damned fucking angels come all the way from New York to kill me for my sins.

He threw up his hands. The angel lumbered closer, reaching for him, a golden five-fingered aura. Derek closed his eyes to the burning light of the outstretched hand. Suddenly he felt his sunshades being put clumsily back over his eyes.

“You praying, Derek?” Teddy asked. “That why you kneeling? You getting ready for sleepy-sleep?” The behemoth kneeled down beside his brother, the sun less dazzling now behind him. Teddy clasped his own huge fists together. “Now I lay me down to sleep—”

Derek clipped him roughly on the side of the head. “I told you to stay put!” he said angrily.

The giant said nothing. Behind him, John emerged from the brush, another glowing silhouette eclipsing the hot sun. “You did,” he said, “But you were gone a long time, so we went looking for you.”

“Next time, stay put when I tell you,” said Derek, rising to his feet. “Come on, I got something to show you.”

The trio marched out of the copse. John blinked in surprise to see the old man, bound and gagged. He eyed Derek suspiciously. “What’s up?”

“He’s coming with us,” said Derek. “He’s going to help us.”

“That old coyote? What’s he going to help us with, our curse words?”

“He used to run the Wasteland. Back when he could run, that is. He knows how to get through. He wants to help us get to New York,” said Derek.

“Him?” said John. “This trip is getting crazy.”

“You want to go back?” asked Derek. “If you do, now’s your chance.” He pointed toward San Muyamo, knowing full well that John knew the direction.

“I’m going forward, not back,” said John.

“Good. Then let’s get this show on the road. Teddy, you push the chair.”

***

The old cripple showed no signs of resistance, and after an hour of travel Derek removed Leggy’s gag.

“I’d appreciate if you’d get this fucking twine off me too,” the old man said. “It itches like Hell.” Derek made no move to untie him.

“Look boy, I ain’t going nowhere,” said Leggy, nodding toward his legs, or lack-thereof.

“Bullshit,” said Derek. “The second you get a chance you’ll slip away.”

“And do what? Wheel myself back to San Muyamo? It’d take me twice as long to get back without the help of Mr. Big here,” he said, patting one of Teddy’s meaty hands. “And believe me, that shithole ain’t worth my effort.”

Derek relented, but that night he bound the man’s hands, just in case.