We Are All Crew (17 page)

“The
Tamzene
?”

“That’s the one. Them that’s on it is the most sinful pack of so-and-sos I ever did run across. And I must atone for my sins with the Steak Shack in Crofton, Kentucky. They’re gonna be smote to pay for my sins.”

“You were aboard the
Tamzene
?”

“O-o-oh. Y’all were looking for it too? I knew the police must’ve been after them. They had a man shot and weren’t taking him to no doctor—and not because modern medicine is a sin, neither. Yessir, I been aboard the
Tamzene
. Been tracking her downriver. And when I catch her, I’m gonna blow her to smithereens in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

“Do you know where they’re headed?”

“They’re headed in the direction this boat’s going in,” Bowden said. “I sure as shootin’ talked to them. I thought they were a Christian lot because they took me on board, and one of the young ones looked like he might be a member of the Holy Warriors of Jesus Church since he was carrying the patch with the cat face on it.”

The man in black made a motion the crows couldn’t see. “This one?”

“That’s the one.”

“Says here you were a member of the Holy Warriors of Jesus Church. Church of the Reverend Harlan Spikes?”

“Harlan Spikes,” Bowden said. “Wonderful God-fearing man. He’s the one who taught me and the rest of them about how your body can be a vessel for God’s will. Eric Rudolph was his star pupil. We all aspire to—”

“What happened aboard the
Tamzene
?”

“Why, they’re nothing but sinners there. Bunch of shellfish eaters. I done tried to do the Lord’s work, and they stopped me. Took my bombs. Thought they got the best of me. But the Lord will smite them yet. By my hands too.”

“You say somebody aboard the
Tamzene
had one of these?”

“Yessir. A boy. Winthorpe. I thought that . . .”

Another man in black appeared on deck. He whispered something to the other man.

“Give us a minute, will you, Mr. Bowden?”

Both men disappeared into the cabin.

Minutes passed. The crows waited, silent as shadows.

Both men stepped outside the door and stood next to the cabin. One waved his hands rapidly.

“. . . can’t in good conscience,” he said. “I’m mean, but Christ, the guy’s a fucking psychopath.”

“But high functioning, right?”

“You mean to say you agree with this horseshit?”

Neither man said anything for a long time.

“He’s one of Harlan Spikes’ boys. A guerilla fighter.”

“He’s a psycho.”

“Orders are orders.”

One man in black let out a long sigh. Both men stood in front of Bowden.

“Charlie Lee Bowden,” he said, “our orders are to take you to the nearest town and procure for you the best small boat money can buy. We’re going to outfit you with as much plastique as said boat can carry. Then you’re going to find the
Tamzene
. And . . . I’ve got a personal message for you from Rev. Spikes.”

Bowden blinks. “You do?”

“
Keep up the good work. The Lord will reserve for you a special seat at the supper of the lamb.
”

Bowden’s face breaks into a smile. “Well, I’ll be,” he says. “I certainly will be.”

noise

An explosion awakens me.

The sky is still grayish pink. The loud snap echoes and wigs out the birds. They swarm out of the trees.

The forest is a canopy over the boat. Through the branches I can make out a few houses on shore. Is it the Green Police or Charlie Lee shooting at us? When I search the deck I see Kang and Seabrook on their knees, peering over the gunwales.

A rattling noise follows the bang. The trees roar, and the sky is suddenly filled with birds.

A man appears next to one of the houses. He rattles the inside of a pot with a ladle, and each time it clanks, birds scatter.

“What’s he doing?” I ask Seabrook.

The Reverend Doctor is pale, his eyes blazing red. He leans against the side and rubs his temples. “I don’t know. Scaring the birds, it looks like.”

“Why are there so many of them?”

He looks skyward, but keeps both palms planted on his temples. “They look like grackles,” he says.

“Where are we now, Doctor?” I ask.

“Missouri,” he says. “But I’m not exactly sure where. My GPS locator doesn’t seem to be getting a signal here. I think it’s safe to go ask the gentleman where we are, Mr. Brubaker.”

Arthur and Esmerelda are sleeping in the aft end. The two of them have been whispering and giggling lately. I’m right back where I was at Primrose, people. Arthur’s the one she likes. Why does Arthur get all the chances to be cool, saving her life and everything?

So I make it a solo mission. I wade through the shallow river, which comes up to about my waist. When I’m about halfway through, another firecracker goes off and I fall in, soaking myself.

“Hey, you all right there?” yells the man from the shore. He’s an old-timer with gray hair. He lets the pot and ladle slip from his hands.

I sputter and drag myself through the water the rest of the way toward shore.

“Sorry,” the man says. “I didn’t see you.” He looks up. Birds are zooming everywhere, and the trees are still cheering. They look like pepper flowing through milk.

“Damn birds,” the man says. “They make a god-awful mess. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Why are there so many?”

He shrugs. “I read something about it in the newspaper. Weather is haywire this year. Usually they fly further south this time of year, but it’s so warm here. Seems to get warmer all the time. They roost in the trees and sh”—he glances at me—“poop all over everything. That’s why I got my boy out front with the firecrackers. And I bang these pots and pans. Beats cleaning bird poop.”

While he talks the birds settle down. He bends, picks up the pot and ladle, and starts banging away again.

“What’s the nearest town?
”
I yell.

“What did you say?” he shouts back.

“The nearest town!”

He stops clanging. The birds are mad loud. He tells me that if I follow the river about twenty miles or so, I’ll reach the town of Blysse.

“But don’t . . .” Another firecracker goes off in the front yard, so I miss what he says. I thank him and go back to the boat.

* * *

Back home the Paste Eaters are the most dependable guys I know. They’re constant: other than a handful of righteous bands, movies, and video games, everyone and everything is
weak
,
rank
or, as Burton Trotsky says,
Dickensian
. Pep rally bonfires?
Gay
. Good grades in school?
Lame
. Dating a hot cheerleader?
Please, dude
.

Above all, one Paste Eater would never bie Lee scrambles

Chapter Twenty

blysse

A baby cries. Nothing else in Blysse makes a sound, except the
drip-drip
of a busted pipe and the
snap-crackle-pop
of a bare wire. Heaps of rubble and broken glass lean over the streets.

It’s total bullshit, people, that after so much time in the woods dicking around with the trees, the first town without pot fields or Shrub People or seafood restaurant bombers is a pile of garbage. I know what irony is. We studied it in English. I hope God is laughing his ass off.

Here and there, a house has been spared from whatever smoked this place—Bricker’s Hardware Store and Home Cookin’ Diner haven’t been touched. But their windows are dark.

I look around for the bawling baby, which turns out to be a hunk of metal moving around on its hinges—a weather vane. It must have once been on top of a building; it’s now lying on its side near a tall mound of stone, held to a slab of roof shingles by a black iron rod nearly as tall as me. The cast metal figure of a knight on horseback forms the working portion of the weather vane, his lance pointing in the direction of the wind. Written in raised type on the knight’s cape are the words:
Town of Blysse, Mo., Est. 1855.

Nothing moves. Rats and snakes and creepy-crawlies probably live in the big piles, but they aren’t moving. Only the weather vane bawls.

“What the hell happened?” I say. My voice sounds loud.

“Had to be a tornado,” Seabrook says. “You can see the winding path it took.”

All I can see are piles of debris leaning—and in some cases spilling—over the road. The foundations of buildings still stand, and inside are couches, desks, and broken TVs. Poles and bits of wire mark where there were once traffic signals and streetlights. Reams of paper curl and dance in the breeze.

“What happened to the people?” I ask. It’s like that old-school
Star Trek
episode where Kirk and the gang beam down to the planet and find buildings and electricity and stuff, but all the people are gone. Only they’re not gone—they’re just moving so fast you can’t see them.

“Most likely they’ve evacuated.” Seabrook stops walking. A blue-and-white striped couch with a University of Missouri throw blanket still draped across it sits on the sidewalk in front of him, just sitting there like it was pering sound. The

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

the winds

The winds never knew the name of the towns through which they blew. They only knew that here in the flat part of the country, they could whip with ease through the canyons of brick and metal and stone the men built, carrying paper and hats and kites and voices away in their arms.

When the snow melted and the ice receded every year, the winds in this part of the world wreaked havoc, sometimes turning over and over on themselves until they became what they sometimes heard the snatches of voices they carried call
Fingers of God
.

Spring had passed. It was not the season for the Fingers of God. But when the thought came, they rose from lazy summer slumber and chased one another round and round until they formed a point.

The point plowed northwest through forest and fields until it sliced into the town. It uprooted houses, consumed buildings, livestock, trees, and gardens. It cut into stone and blacktop until it reached the place the thought had ordained.

It meant nothing to the wind—just another of the stone boxes men build. It had seen stronger and it had seen much weaker. But the thought had ordained this place, so the winds went round and round and round and round, faster and faster.

The stone box did not budge, so the Finger of God rolled onward until it died.

Amid the wreckage of the town, the stone box was one of few surviving structures.

And what was inside remained unharmed.

george romero

Seabrook was right about the tornado. Roy says it was a category F-5 bastard that started out in Alabama and burrowed its way northwest. It took a right around Memphis and tore into Missouri, hugging Pemiscott, Butler, Carter, and Oregon counties before it hit its first town: Blysse. It roared through at about two a.m., leveling nearly everything in its path, and withered and died almost immediately after exiting the city limits.

No one in Blysse died in the tornado, Roy says.

The first things we see when he leads us in through the front doors are large storage containers stacked to the ceiling of the lobby. They’re piled between the receptionists’ desks and copy machines and take up most of the first floor. Some are marked
Campbell’s Tomato Soup
, others
Bounty Paper Towels
and
Ramen Noodles
.

“Come on,” says Horace, the short one. He leads us up a flight of steps lined with boxes of toiletries and Deer Park water.

The staircase leads to a long hallway. At the end of it, a metal detector flanked by two folding tables arches over a mammoth wooden door. A brass sign hangs over the door, etched with the words:
Parish County Court of Common Pleas
.

“We got her set up in there, but then you knew that,” Horace says. “Y’all wait here a spell while Roy and me let them know you’re coming.”

Horace and Roy go through the door and close it behind them.