When I was little, a bridge connected my house to my best mate's. Things were beautiful. I would run across that bridge and I was never afraid of how it swung and swayed with every bound. Now, it felt like I was swimming through the ether of an alternate version of time and space. The boards creaked, I clung to the rope guide rail for fear that the dilapidation of the wood would cause us to fall right through. Eerie, there was the sound of music and people singing still, past and present smashed together. The voices were different now, not Arddie's mum and aunts, the sound was men and children and my old friend singing along to Bobby Darin.
All of life is what if, what if everything was just a strange dream and I'd wake up surrounded by green. Mum used to say life was the dream and when we sleep, those are the parts that are real. This felt half real, half dream. The hot breath of a War Boy at my back was very real, felt like the heat of Shirley's exhaust. That fog, that music, that laughter in the distance, it felt like the dream.
I must have slowed, a thick hand dropped around the back of my neck to urge me forward. We'd finally decided to go now that the world was going dark and all that could be seen was the dancing lights in the mist as my initiate sister's sky fishermen clan gathered to clean their catch and roast it. I could smell the cookin' birds. Didn't smell as nice as people roasting in busted up rigs under the scorching noon heat. Couldn't help a quick glance at my Ducky as he shifted his grip to my shoulders and pressed to get me to move. I'm glad I was never quite desperate enough to make a meal out of the human wreck he was, but that thought did pass through my skull more than once on the first few days. Shiny now, ain't he? Deadly Shiny.
"Dune, Slit. There you are." Ard, sound of her voice still sparked and crackled in my ears with that thing Mama called nostalgia. Made me feel at home.
She appeared, as if materializing from dust at the other side of the short bridge, carrying two feathers in her left hand. Flight feathers of a crow. One was pushed into each of our hands, and then her right snaked around my skull to pull me in close. Like the first time, the eagerness of the reunion had our heads bonking together almost hard enough to inspire a throb of pain. Still, a true welcome home, it was.
As with any host welcoming others into their kip, she reached for Slit next, but he was quick to rear back his head and retreat a step to keep out of her reach. The movement was so swift that his metal leg clanked and rattled. Ardith's lips pulled into a tight lipped smile, half reassuring, half wary. It was like back when I first met Duck, didn't like bein' touched. Maybe I'd been an exception to the rule for so long that I had forgotten. Distraction, we all needed a distraction.
"Ey! That music, sounds like a gramophone. Pilfered that outta Ma and Pa's place eh?"
"Yeah, Sorry Dune. We didn't think anybody was ever coming back so we took what we could."
"You find the vinyls too, Arddie?" I asked, true curiosity this time.
"Hah! You bet your sweet ass I did!"
There were so many songs that I hadn't heard in so long. I can't even remember the names of the men and women slinging old familiar lyrics like bullets right to the heart through the fucking ear. Oh, did I ever have hope that Mum's favorites had survived. I wanted Slit to hear them.
Ard's childhood home, now the home of her own children, was a circular house made from the constituents of two dozen panels of corrugated steel, old chain link fence, patch jobs made of woven twigs and sticks. A mess of their stilts leaned against the west side of the home. Roof was nothing but a blue tarp now held up by what I may assume were the crow fishers old or broken stilts. A long time ago, that roof had been thatch and wood rafters. Inside were floors of cobbled stone, a fire pit in the center, half broken lawn chairs and tattered couch cushions littered around the fire in a circle. The tarp overhead had been cut with a hole in the middle to let smoke out.
Ard's arm was around mine and she may as well have skipped at my side as she led me to the old crate where Mama's records sat. I could sense Slit nearby, barely making out the sound of air fluttering around the feather in his hand as he spun it between his fingers. He was behind us as we sat on our knees flipping through the fat stack of covers.
"Yes! Bill Withers!... Aww, no. This one was Pa's favorite." Inside the album cover were only black shards and dust. Guess we wouldn't be hearing that again.
Ducky reached between us to pluck one of the albums up from the crate, sliding the black disk from its sheath and turning it in his callused hands. I could always see when the little gears and cogs in his melon were turning because his head would tilt, his eyes would narrow to slivers and you could spot his jaw working as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.
"How's this work?" He nudged at my back pocket with his peg leg to get my attention as he asked.
It was much easier to show him. I turned the cover slightly in his other hand to read it. Nina Simone, I remember that music. Not a bad choice, not bad at all even if he probably never heard of her in his entire life.
"Gimme the thing, Duck. We'll put it on the gram and listen to it."
I felt Ard's eyes burning holes in my face as I turned to find the Gramophone, she'd no doubt caught the pet same for the saved war mongrel. Ard's older stepson was minding the music, the designated dick jockey, handing his stepmother the previous disk and reaching out to take Nina Simone from me before placing the needle and winding it up to play. Sitting cross legged by the crate of vinyls, I tilted my head back to watch Slit's expressions as the initial crackling of the needle tickling the record began. It was the sound of strings, a quartet crying rivers of lovely tunes, the tinkling of ivory keys, the velvet voice of Nina.
Ducky's brows pinned themselves low over his eyes and his lips twisted. I could see his eyes searching in the nothing, making out the words and trying to stitch the meaning together with the tune.
"Never heard nothin' like that." He muttered once and pushed at some loose stone in the floor with the foot of his false limb.
Well, it was a start. He was thinking, hearing something new. The new is painful for him. I wonder if it's painful for all of Joe's victims. Passed Slit, Phil and the other two men Ardith called her husbands were around the fire with other clan members, many of whom wore goggles and respiration masks. One carried around a tank of breathin' air, who knows where the hell he got it. Phil had his head wraps off and his goggles pushed up on his balding head, he had pistons carved into his cheek bones and each sported a halo of flame. They were all rotating the skinny little bird carcasses over the low flames and chatting among themselves. Was it hard for Phil too? How did he get here? Must have been before the fall of the tyrant. Of the young children scurrying about near the adults and begging for a first taste of what was being tosses over the flames, the oldest had his rich skin tone and Ard's face shape. That one had been alive for at least a handful of years. Phil had a nagging cough and all could hear it. He'd been the one who first spoke when they surrounded Shirley, he had a rough, broken voice. Like fumes had choked him. Soon enough, his ragged voice called the rest of us to the fire. Food was being shared among all. Stunted little roots and tubers boiled soft in a bucket of water, the bird meat, something else I couldn't identify which had come out of old military rations. Everyone converged around the fire. As if by instinct, Ducky moved aside as a gaggle of children swarmed passed us toward the front of the disorganized line. Old plates were being used, interesting. Looks Like Ardith had broken out the good before-times china for the git-together. Still useful, albeit chipped and cracked. I remembered these. They had little blue sail boats carefully painted upon them in fading blue. Slit scrutinized his plate with squinted eyes before Ardith plopped down a halved bird over the design.
We arranged ourselves around the warmth of crackling flames. Bones held a toddler in his lap and sang with Nina as he used a threaded needle carved out of bone to patch a tear in the child's slacks. Others spoke and laughed in their own conversations. Slit watched them all, his eyes could be seen shifting to every face, taking in everything, sizing everyone up.
An old bottle was passed around and I recognized the taste of Theta's moonshine. Hadn't been expecting that. Couldn't help but cough on the sickly sweet taste of my initiate mother's terrible brew and the scorching burn biting at my gums. "How long you been holdin' onto that Ard? Good seeds and sprouts! Aw, forkin' hell! Slit, try this. It'll put lead in your pencil."
"Found her stash a couple years ago. Kept a few bottles and jars of it for myself."
Slit's reaction got us all a good laugh at his expense. He damn near choked on it. By force of will he swallowed a mouthful of the stuff and shoved the bottle back at me.
"Tastes like backwash from the bottom of a bunk still..." He grumbled as he shoved one of the scraggly root things into his mouth to cleanse away the taste, didn't look like it was much better than Theta's home made whiskey.
More for Ard and me then. Back and forth the bottle went before being handed around the circle again. Slit still tilted back the bottle when it passed him, guess he couldn't let the others laugh at him any more than they already had. Oh, his face had gotten all red and I almost felt sorry for getting my chuckles in. Been a long time since either of us had a sip of the creature I suspect, I was already feeling the burn of it spread out from my middle into all my limbs. Feeling loosey goosey. Talk of the lovely days came. We remembered old friends, likely all dead, but remembered none the less. Minutes fused into hours passing on by and time was lost. We talked and talked and talked. Ducky seemed unusually quiet. He said nothing, but every time I shifted he did the same. He closed every inch of distance and remained stuck close to my side if I turned or moved or scooted anywhere. Several times I thought to ask what was with him, but I was always pulled back into the memories with Ard.
"...Ugh, Skink-tail, she used to keep all those spiders in jars on a shelf like some sadist sicko."
"Hah! I thought that girl's pets were escape an' gonna kill us all one day."
"Remember that time Skink put a little green snake in Flick's boot?"
"She did that because she had some weird thing for Dune's brother."
"Ha ha! And then he threw it back at her."
"Almost got himself excommunicated for that, Arddie."
"I think the elders were just trying to scare him when they talked about booting him, Dune."
I shrugged. I was so little back then, all I could remember was how terrifying those old crones had been as they stood in a circle deciding what to do with my brother. They were half siblings to me, Russel and Flick. Weren't born here. They came in with Pa when Mumsy married him. They were already old enough to be 'bad seeds' as the older mothers put it. They'd seen life on the outside, and Pa had lived as a road warrior before landing here to stay. No one fully trusted Pa and his boys until years and years went by, and they were always walking a thin line. Bad seeds grow into weeds, weeds get pulled out of the garden. According to the elders, most bad seeds were boys. Bad boys get sold, good boys get to stay and plants seeds. Too many meanings in that rotten old saying, and it conflicted with the teachings that people shouldn't own people. I remember telling folks at Wilson's about the Green Place, they looked at me the same way I looked at folks who thought Joe Moore really was their redeemer. Mama told me not to let it get to me. Every place has its problems and every place has an evil. 'Ain't anybody out there made o' nothin' but sunshine,' She used to say.
No one's always right all the time and maybe we brought it on ourselves, the end of our Green Place. Maybe some of those bad seeds became War Boys. Maybe they grew up into the raiders who spoiled the water.
"Hello... Dune Buggy? Heheh, where are you in there? Come back to us, Baby."
I looked up from the tiny hole in my slacks where my fingers had unconsciously plucked the threads loose, guess I got to thinking about things too much. The group seated around the dying fire had thinned. Only the husbands and one of the children remained. Must have been wandering around in my head for some time. Remembering the good means remembering the bad too. I grinned for Ardith and she smiled back. That was when I felt that low grumbling and tooth grinding buzzing in my ears for the umpteenth time.
A glance to my right and there was Duck, looking like he hadn't shat in a week with his face pinched up like that. The fuck was his deal? Seemed like any time Ardith so much as breathed wrong, he was over there hissin' and growlin' like some old crocodile. Didn't make any sense to me, Ard had been nothing but a generous and entertaining host. Yeah, her brats were kinda irritating with their wild squeals and relentless bouts of play but that's what little sprouts are supposed to do, at least Slit didn't seem bothered by their noise. The oldest of Ard's blood babes, only four winters perhaps, he just sat and stared at my Ducky for the longest time while he was ignored. Then suddenly the tiny boy began to ask questions at rapid fire. Without looking up from his plate, Ol' Duck just answered in a word for every question, maybe two if the kid asked the right thing.
"Is that a knife on your arm?"
"Yep,"
"Can I see it?"
"Yep,"
"No! I mean can I hold it?"
"No,"
"Are you from far away?"
"Yep,"
"Why's your eye like that?"
"Got hit,"
"Why's your mouth like that?"
"Got cut,"
"By who?"
"An asshole who deserved what he got."
Slit spoke in a rumble that left his chest like a distant storm drawing nearer. Out snapped his wrist and the blade flipped forward. He leaned down toward the small boy, everyone around the fire went stiff as boards, all but me. Pretty sure I saw out of the corner of my eye the barrel of a pistol glittering in the glow of the fire light, but my eyes were on Ducky and the wicked grin stretching his ugly face the way it's supposed to be. Haven't seen that proper smile and those stained teeth in too long. The tight flex in my jaw let me know that I had begun grinning too, hard not to show the sharp and yellows when you got a lovely eyeful like that. Oh-ho! Yes indeed, I was enamored.
The boy was never in any danger. I knew this. Slit always licked his lips before he did something violent like, and those lips couldn't be dryer. The youngling sat there with wide eyes and braced himself on the ground with his hands as he leaned back away from the gorgeously hideous grin. Then the boy's eyes shifted to the blade as Slit moved it between their faces. Took the kid a second to react once he realized that he was not in any peril, but naturally his eyes lit up like big blue saucers at the blade.
"COOL!"
"Okay! I think it's time for you to go to sleep and let the adults have adult words, yeah?" One of the men around the fire, Bones it looked like from all the hundreds of bird remains dangling from his jacket, had shot up from his seat and leaned over to gather the sprog under the arms and lift him up off the ground.
The boy was whisked away despite his dramatic moaning. The kid wanted to stay. Maybe he wanted to hear stories. It had been too long since I was a seedling to remember what it's like being a child.
I glanced around, Phil was settling back into his seat and I did indeed spy a revolver being tucked away once more within his tattered patchwork jacket. Ardith was busy glaring over me at Slit, who simply shrugged. All of the young ones were now put away and in their beds. Featherknife left with Bones for a few minutes to check on the other young'uns that had at some point been laid down to sleep as Ardith and I picked up our conversation. We were remembering other sisters and the mischief we all got up to. Green scarcely threatened my vision at all so long as Arddie was the focus of my eyes, she was a tiny surviving bit of that former glory color.
"HAH! Truth or dare, I remember. We made Rus kiss a goat." It was a vivid resurgence of the forgotten, cherished things that had been swallowed up by the sand.
I felt the friendly slap of her palm across my shoulder. Ardith was laughing so hard she snortled. I'd forgotten that pure and joyous sound too. I could hear Slit grinding his teeth and I elected to ignore the grouch in favor of listening to my sister speak of the old days.
"And it bit his tongue! HA! Heheh, and he didn't talk right for a week. Ahaah! Feels like it was just yesterday! Gods, I miss those days."
"Dune too. Yeah. Dune too." A warm feeling was creeping up my legs and into my soul, it was heavy, holding down my body with the memory like a thick woolly blanket that stunk like musky body odor and motor oil- Wait a minute.
When I returned from my metaphorical journey back in time, Duck was shifting his weight over my walkin' limbs and using the bulk of himself to spread out my knees and lay between them. What a lounge lizard, settling himself right in, curling an arm around my right knee. The other hand still busy toying with the blade affixed to his bracer and knuckle dusters. He was wiping off the oils from where the steel touched his skin on my pant leg and inspecting the shine.
I looked to my left, Arddie's brow was furrowed, lips pulling into a tight, lopsided line. Well, this wasn't unusual. Ducky and I always have the touches in the night. I couldn't remember if I would have let anyone practically lay in my lap way back before the glory of the Vuvalini was tarnished and we left. Was it strange to see? Was it unpleasant from behind other eyes?
Phil didn't seem to care, he was leaning forward and stirring the embers around at the fringes of the fire before leaning back and grasping at more broken twigs and desiccated brush to toss in. Slit and Ardith though, I could taste the acrid scent of anxious perspiration and irritability, could smell it on both of them. Uh-oh, trouble. I wouldn't give a bloody damn, but I did, I gave every damn about these two. Past mates and present mates. Would they quarrel? Throw fists? Slit could break her neck in his enormous hands like crushing a crow egg, but she could slice him up into ribbons. The way I remembered it, Ardith always had a blade on her somewhere. Who would win?
Not Dune, she'd lose either way. Don't wanna lose either mate.
Duck folded back that blade of his again and clipped it secure against his forearm. I expected him to just drop his heavy noggin down onto my middle and start grinding his cranium into my guts until he received his precious 'shine hand' but no, his eyes were narrowed in their deep sockets and fixed to Ard's face. There was a twitching at the corner of his lips, as if poorly hiding some smug grin. Ouff, I think I know what this was about, and I think Ard knew too. He had been rather clingy, sitting too close, elbow or knee always touching, grumbling every time anyone so much as looked in our direction. This weirdness was unusual for the battle fodder outside of the way he piled himself across my lap just like any other evening, that was normal I guessed but I didn't expect him to do it in front of so many pairs of peepers. Bones and Featherboy -or whatever his name was- were back around the fire pit too. Slit was taunting Arddie by displaying a twisted, Joe fucked act of some kinda half-assed ownership.
Admittedly, there was some truth to the actions, I've never told him to bugger off when he wanted this treatment but it was a gift given willingly. Trust a war mongrel to take everything the wrong way, to feel entitled to something wherever and whenever he wished it. He owns my left hand, telling me to touch or not. I own his company, telling him to come and go. We've both partaken of the evil fruit, grown accustomed, not willing to share the spoils.
Ard's jaw was set, but she would not look at him. Instead, She ignored what was so clearly a warning and antagonized an already possessive Ducky. Being honest, I had no idea what to do as she slid her hand around my left elbow just as casually as I grip mama's rifle every morning. A very personal gesture, a reminder of how close we'd once been as children.
The new tension that I could feel in Slit's flesh and the way his lips peeled back away from his teeth told me plain, something needed to be done now to defuse the bomb about to go off in my lap, he could easily trigger Arddie's temper as well. She could be the human equivalent to a nuclear war head when somethin' got her all steamed, and Slit was certainly pushing buttons. Just as I felt in my legs the rumble of a growl climbing up his throat, I had no choice but to curl my arm so that I could swipe my fingers over his face. It was merely a distracting caress, like a fly's wings against the brow until I found what I was looking for. Where the shell of his ears connected to his skull, there was a tiny flap of extra skin. I always enjoyed playing with it, smoothing it out under the whorl of my middle finger and feeling the crease fold back into place. It was a cheap move, I knew damned sure that it was one of his favorite spots. Shut him up right quick too.
My Ducky took the touch easily and turned his gorgeously forked up face into it, seemingly having forgotten the wordless spat with my initiate sister. I could breathe a sigh of relief, one disaster averted and all it took to close the ugly green eye was a touch there, fingernails dragging through coarse hair here, a tickling forefinger grazing the stubble beginning to grow in just under the tear in his face and circling the remaining staples. He couldn't feel complete sensation in the furrow created by the scar, but he could feel things on the periphery of it.
Well, damn it all if I'm not put at ease by it too, touchin' him and watching the ill matched eyes close lazily while he rolled his head and tried to guide my digits to his lips. They parted for me and I felt the slick from inside as my thumb passed across the bottom. Good war boy.
"Where did you meet Slit?" Ard asked quietly.
I wondered if I should say. He was still so sore in the skull about that day. We don't talk much about history seriously. He must have heard his name. Saw his good eye crack open and roll up to glare, so I dragged my hand down his ugly mug and over his chin so that I could stroke from collar bone to hair line. Keep him placated. A slow hiss of air and a tilt of the head so that I could run my hand down his neck more easily told me that I had succeeded.
"Big mash-up a seven hundred and some days ago. Many, many wrecks. Dune found him in a metal tangle... Boss up at the Citadel fell."
"Immortan is dead?!" My attention was yanked away from my Duck and Arddie. That had been Phil, looking at me with dark eyes full of conflict. I could only nod. When my attention returned to Slit, his eyes were open.
"Slit told Dune he was dead a while back. Didn't tell her much else though."
There was a moment of quiet around the fire. Everyone else looked to Phil with some kind of knowing concern. Ardith leaned his way and reached out to grasp Phil's right knee, giving it a squeeze. Comfort, same as I do for Duck but different. For a moment Phil looked at us if we'd told him the world was ending all over again, but it seemed that he accepted the news quickly, leaning back in his seat again and settling with a pipe stem clenched between his teeth as he dug into his pockets for a piece of tinder to light the herbal smoke. It was a soothing smell, something from deep in my happy childhood. The old women would inhale the fragrant smoke to ease pain, so did my Pa for he was addled with scars inside and out. Wouldn't be surprised if Phil was just as chewed up by the world outside this place as Ducky and I were.
We watched the fire and the scent of the burning herb began to lull me. Slit turned his face into my palm and nipped fingers when they would stop their trailing along twisted flesh. I had seen the way he looked when the topic of his discovery and the fact of Joe Moore's death came up. Pain and confusion. These War Boys, they were orphans too, forged in the crucible of a scorched world. They were taken as children, gnawed up, heads emptied and refilled, then spat back out to spread across the lands and bring the fires of hell with them. Why'd they do it? For a cruel father who branded them and then told them that they were loved. I was reclined, half dreaming about bodies marching across the sands and swarming through the settlements painted in white.
"Dune, Honey. How long you been talkin' the way you do?"
Everything stopped for a moment, Ard's voice had pulled me out of the calm. Slit grunted and peered up at me now that my fingers had come to quite the disappointing pause. I was confused, what did she mean by a question like that?
"Huh? Watcha' mean Arddie? Talk like what?"
"Ya know," She said, nudging at me around the ribs. "Sayin' your own name instead of like, me or my or whatever."
"Uh. Er... I dunno." Honest, I seldom notice it, it just happens. Not sure when it started, I thought that it always just was.
"Ain't your fangin' concern." Slit scoffed, sitting forward and twisting around to glare and huff-puff at her, nose to nose. That left me practically lying flat out and almost entirely caged under his arms as he braced himself over me like some ruddy dingo guarding a bone.
"Hey, asshat! What the-" I grunted out between my clenched sharps but to no effect, if they were gonna take bites outta each other it was going to happen right on top of me
Ardith bared her teeth and stood her ground, not flinching at all as Slit damn near pushed her back with his face. She simply shoved him in return. Bones and Featherknife stood, but Phil's hand shot up from his lap and he stopped them from intervening. Maybe he could read something 'bout war boys that the rest of us couldn't, or perhaps he had enough confidence in his wife to know she could handle herself.
"Known her since- Hm, aw lemme think... Oh! Since we were fucking born. I think it damn well is my concern considerin' that she didn't talk in the third person the last time I saw her."
"You weren't there when she got lit up an' cooked. Weren't there when she got blown up by Joe-damned lightnin' either. Dune'll talk however the fuck she wants to, count yourself blessed by mighty V8 that she talks at all! So why don'tcha just shut your rust hole an' stop askin' so many shitty questions."
The crack of flesh against flesh echoed all through the hills. Slit tongued at the split in his lip were Ardith had slapped him hard enough to summon forth a fat red welt in the shape of her palm. They both looked at each other with brows pinned high on their heads, totally gobsmacked at what the other had said and done. Hell, my wide open face hole was liable to catch flies as my hands clung into his vest to hold him fast and keep him from doing something stupid. Slit looked like he was about to go kamikrazy on her and I could spy her hand sliding back toward the knife she kept on her belt.
I couldn't stand it, all that had gone on tonight had built up the pressure in me and I was fit to burst open like a can of beans left on a fire too long. Ugh, it felt like my skin was crawling with ants! Too much! Too much everything! I felt fire. It was scorching throughout all the pores and boiling the wet stuff in my veins. Felt like at any second, I might vanish in a puff of steam. It was all in my head, all in this rotten awful head.
Why did Ducky have to bring up that tripe? Why did I always have to be reminded of all the broken bits and just when things were almost sweet as peaches? Anger rose up in my throat like bile, or maybe it could have actually been vomit. I'm not sure. I could still feel the flames licking, blistering, eating up the flesh.
"Nnn-Gah!"
Out the pressure came. Slit was tossed away and unto his arse with two muddy boot prints smeared across his pullover and vest. He sputtered and hacked at being kicked away, but I didn't care.
"Dune! Wait!" He'd sprung up to catch my arm at the elbow just as I had scrambled away and gotten to my feet.
My backside and feet where numb from his laying all over me. Back around came that anger. It chucked a u-ey and threatened to run him down with all its burning fury. Not sure what takes over in those moments before I taste his blood, something so white hot and terrible that there's no Dune left to hold unto, just the thing born of the caverns I guess. The part that started to splinter off and do it's own thing long before the fateful day I found that wreck and the roasted battle fodder inside.
Before I knew it he was stumbling back and tripping over that metal leg as he gripped his bleeding wrist. It was thick on my tongue, the blood. The taste was like licking old coins from the before times. I ran for the bridge, I needed to get back to where I was before. Needed to speak with Mama, Maybe Pa too.
"Dune! Honey, come back!" That was Ardith this time. No, I couldn't look back. Just couldn't. I wanted to bolt for cover, far away from everything... Everyone. I'll beat the flames dead on my own. I will.
