In Memory of Lupe and Gregory Garcia
[Steven Garcia straightens, hand on his back, and pushes his mop of hair away from his face. The Public Plumbing Works, a dedicated division of DeStRes, was founded shortly after a disastrous cholera outbreak at one of the unregulated refugee camps in Arnold, CA. Mr. Garcia was one of the first corps on the scene. Today, he grasps my hand warmly.]
Name's Steve. Good to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
[He takes a moment to adjust a ½" valve and throws me a wicked grin.]
They call us the Pee-Pee Men, you know. Public Plumbing.
[He nods towards his supervisor, a woman named T'Shawna. Today they are installing a new line of toilets at Central School No. 26 as enrollment has increased beyond the one bathroom's capacity.]
And women.
Did you ever see yourself doing this before the war?
Hell yeah! I was made for this! And now it's all "respectable."
I was crap at school, but my parents were real good about it. Junior year they told me that it was all OK, even if I didn't pull my grades up, I could still put my college fund towards trade school or summat. My mama had been the first one in the family with a degree, and I guess she was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be joining her, but she was real supportive. I was torn between the firefighting academy and a plumbing apprenticeship. Good money in that.
So that's what you were doing when the war started?
Nah. That was senior year. I'd just graduated – barely – and my dad and I were off road-tripping again.
Road-tripping?
Yeah, Yosemite this time. We were real close, me and my old man. We used to drive across the country every break, camping and staying in cheap motels. When we were really out in the middle of nowhere, sometimes he'd let me have a beer on the tailgate. Mama called it "male bonding time," and I think she was happy to get us out of the house. She'd spend the week cleaning and visiting friends and taking Titus to one of those frou-frou doggie salons.
Titus?
[Steve grins.]
Rottweiler. Still have him.
[He pauses to reflect, absentmindedly tapping a nearby sink with his wrench.]
I was adopted, actually. When I was five. I called Greg – my father – Greg, but my mother was always Mama. I had always wanted a real mama. Foster care just didn't cut it, I guess. I don't remember much of it, only wishing for a mama. Lupe and Gregory Garcia. They were good people. Older. Never did figure out why they didn't have kids of their own.
[He scratches his stubble with the same wrench. A sudden thud captures his attention.]
Hey! Don't play with that!
[The child drops a piece of PVC tubing and scampers away, her tongue out.]
Anyways, where were we?
The start of the war. But we can just skip to the Camp Arnold parts.
Ah, that. The freeway.
We were driving back from Yosemite, Greg and me, and the radio kept being interrupted with "urgent news alerts." It was annoying.
What were they saying?
Oh, you know. Traffic, outbreaks, Yonkers, Canada, Yonkers, zombies, Yonkers, Phalanx doesn't work, blah blah blah…
So you hadn't taken Phalanx?
Greg said it was for sissies. He said a real man would shoot a zombie in the face. That was the lesson from Yonkers, wasn't it?
That, and other things.
Well, we should have been more worried than we were, but we were trying to play it cool. Didn't want to overreact, lose face, that sort of thing. We had kept to our trip schedule as planned. Kinda worked out for us.
Kinda?
We kept our heads.
We were idling on the freeway. Traffic had been stalled for quite some time, and now we were actually listening to the radio, trying to figure out what was going on. We didn't hear any news from our area, but we soon figured it out. People were running past, screaming. There's only two things they do that for: earthquakes and zombies.
[He grimaces.]
What is it with people and screaming, anyways? It is not even helpful!
But mixed in with these people were zombies. They weren't moving as fast, but they were moving mostly in a single direction, which gave them an advantage over panicky people. Greg locked the doors and looked at me.
"Well, son," he said, uncharacteristically serious. "This is it. Judgment Day."
Greg wasn't a particularly religious man. I went to church with Mama on Sundays, trying to make sense of the garbled Spanish mass, but I didn't speak much anymore. Greg was more of a "God helps those who help themselves" type. I liked that.
We stayed put for a while. It was scary – I can freely admit that. Every so often, someone would bang on our windshield. I'm not sure whether they were trying to warn us or tell us to get out or what.
I was staring out the window, trying not to catch anybody's eye, and I realized what we were near.
What was that?
Hang on, I'm getting there.
[He's relishing this interview.]
"Greg!" I shouted, pointing. One of those light-up signs stretched across the freeway a little way's back. You know, one of the ones that's supposed to update you on traffic conditions and lane closures and so on?
[I nod.]
Greg nodded too. "Good eye," he said, and reached into the glove compartment. He kept a .45 in there. Ours wasn't the greatest neighborhood. Carjackings and so on. We also had our BBs and the two shotguns in the trunk. Target shooting was one of our pastimes, you see. I was a pretty good shot! And we still had sandwiches from the last rest stop, so we took those too. Greg stood guard while I grabbed the guns from the trunk. I'm sure people would have happily stolen them if he weren't right there. He shot one Z straight in the head. Brains everywhere.
So here we were, people stampeding past and dragging their kids by the hand and screaming as they tripped or were set upon or whatever. I saw one guy roll down his window to yell at a woman and Zack promptly grabbed him. We ran. We ran much faster. Greg was kinda jogging, actually. He was getting a little chunky.
"Get up!" Greg made me climb the service ladder to reach the sign. It was tough – really high up to keep people from doing that, I guess, but I'd been doing a lot of pull-ups lately.
[He flexes, obviously proud.]
Still in shape.
[He frowns briefly.]
There were more of them now. More zombies, I mean. I'm not sure whether people were turning or if they were just getting caught up, but there were an awful lot. I hauled myself onto the little ledge and stayed tight, training the shotgun on anyone near Greg. I shot one Z creeping up on a woman trying to navigate a baby stroller around abandoned cars. I wanted to yell at her, "Just pick up the damn baby! You'll go faster!" but I was busy.
Greg made it up with much panting and grunting and cursing. He looked ashen.
"Greg, you OK?"
"Fine, fine," he said, hanging his head between his knees. He'd been carrying the handgun between his teeth. "Just let me catch my breath."
"Whatever you say, Dad." The look on his face when I said that was beautiful. I never called Greg "Dad." Force of habit, I guess. "It's so good to hear you say that, son." He smiled at me. "Now hand me that gun."
Did anyone try to join you?
One guy did, but Greg thought he might have been bitten. There was blood running down his arm.
To be fair, he might have just smashed his way out of a car or something, but Greg wouldn't let him up. He trained his gun on him. The guy yelled for a bit, but Greg just wouldn't budge, wouldn't let him get a foothold. The guy finally jumped down, spitting that he didn't want to "share no sign with dirty spics anyways."
[Steve looks crestfallen.]
It's a dirty word. And it's really funny how during the war, when race mattered less than ever before, it was always the most obvious differences people seized upon. I guess you can't tell who's an F-6 – which is a real insult – just by looking at them.
[He sighs.]
We stayed up there for hours. The sun was even beginning to set. We gobbled up the sandwiches and were starting to get hungry again. Greg kept trying to have embarrassing conversations about growing up and being a man and all this. I tried to change the subject.
Why was that?
It was just… awkward. I mean, it's one thing to have a heart-to-heart when the subject is girls and you're stretched out in a tent after a long day of doing nothing, but in the middle of- of- of- an epic, it's just not right. We were fighting for survival! Talking about life and death was just so… morbid. And Greg just looked like death anyways. I was worried he'd have a heart attack or something.
Do you think your father was trying to tell you something?
Oh, definitely. The word "love," came up pretty often, and I listened to those parts and all… I liked to hear it. And he did impress one thing on me: that I had to take care of my mama. "You'll be a man soon," he said. "And a man's first duty is to his family." I was all "Yeah, whatever," but it really meant a lot to me.
The freeway had mostly cleared, but Zack was still wandering about, moaning and scrabbling at car windows. One guy just kept honking and honking and honking and they were all drawn to him. I doubt he made it. He was a dumbass. Greg just kept looking worse and worse. He was rubbing a spot on his ankle. I wondered if he had sprained it or something, but he wouldn't let me look. Eventually he scrambled to his feet 'cuz he'd been sitting down, and told me to turn around. When I asked why, he said a man's gotta have his privacy and jiggled his zipper, so I knew he had to go. I turned around and tried to keep myself occupied. There was this one chick who had been dragged down – I'd noticed her earlier and hadn't gotten to her in time. Anyways, by now she was with Zack and her clothes were all torn up and all. I know this is really sick, but I just couldn't look away. It's not every day you get to see boob on someone who could easily be a porn star.
[He forces a laugh.]
I heard a crunch. I knew instantly what had happened, and when I turned around, Greg wasn't there anymore. Nobody was there. I forced myself to look down, telling myself it couldn't possibly be true, and there he was.
He was infected?
He must have been. He wouldn't just leave me like that. He sacrificed himself to save me.
[Steve will not meet my eye.]
I'm just… glad that he hit his head. That my mama never had to see him like that. I guess he cracked it on the way down. It was pretty gruesome.
I'm sorry.
[Steve sniffs and rubs his nose on the back of his sleeve.]
Allergies.
...
Everybody lost people they loved.
[He swings his arms with faked exuberance.]
So I hear you're writing a book. That right?
Technically it's a report.
But people are gonna read it, right?
Well, it's going to be rather technical…
That doesn't matter. Just do me a favor, alright? If you can use any of this stuff and put it in your book or whatever, make it in memory of my parents, OK?
I promise.
[T'Shawna is calling for Steve to hurry up.]
Hey, that's everything, right?
Well, I really wanted to talk about Camp Arnold.
[Steve beats his forehead.]
Aaw, man. That's what you're here for. I'm sorry, man. T'Shawna's gonna be all up my ass. Can't you come back later?
It really won't take long.
["Steve!" T'Shawna's impatience is hard to miss. Steve just shakes his head. I take my leave.]
We'll see.