The Walk

CHAPTER SIX

3:50 p.m. Tuesday

Marty scrambled to his feet and fled down the nearest side street, screaming “poison gas” as loud as he could.

But no one was listening to him.

For one thing, his words were muffled by his dust mask. For another, everyone was too busy evading the hailstorm of dead birds. The high-velocity, feathered bombs were pelting people off their feet, thunking into parked cars and collapsing make-shift shelters on impact. Compared to that, a lunatic running down the street yelling something unintelligible was easily ignored.

Marty ran in a panic, stumbling and tumbling over the debris in the street, stealing looks over his shoulder at the brown, roiling cloud of toxic smoke. He ran as if the dark cloud was alive and in pursuit, tendrils of insecticide reaching for him, hungry for his flesh. He ran until he couldn’t anymore, until his stomach cramped up and each breath felt like a sword being shoved down his throat.

He pulled his dust mask down and looked back, relieved to see the noxious cloud was no longer above him but moving eastward, pushed by a gentle breeze. But Marty’s sense of relief was obliterated by a body-buckling cramp and the sudden terror that he might lose control of his bowels.

And that possibility, that Marty might crap all over himself, right there in middle of the street, was more frightening to him than the toxic cloud ever was.

He didn’t worry about whether he’d already been poisoned and this was just the beginning of a gruesome death. He didn’t wonder if the horrible cramps were from the pesticide or his Authentic Kosher Mexican Burrito. The only thing Marty Slack was thinking about was finding a working toilet in the next sixty seconds, because that’s how long his biological stopwatch told him he had until his sphincters burst open.

One of his worst nightmares, far more frightening than the Big One hitting, was the fear of losing control of his bowels without a toilet nearby. This nightmare was topped only by the fear of the big one hitting while he was on the toilet.

Even under normal circumstances, the idea of someone seeing him on a toilet, having a regular bowel movement, made Marty dizzy with terror. Even in his own home he locked the door whenever he used the bathroom-he couldn’t face the possibility of Beth walking in on him.

Marty had already decided, moments after his decision to walk home from downtown, that he wouldn’t take a dump for the next few days. He was determined to be constipated for the duration of the crisis or until he could find a porto-potty with a strong interior latch.

So much for his resolve.

Like every other promise Marty had made himself that day, this one would be broken, and within the next few seconds. His body was rebelling, his intestines twisting into braids. He had to do something.

Marty couldn’t ask somebody if he could use their toilet because even if they said it was okay, he couldn’t risk going into a house that might collapse on him. What he really needed was a hiding place.

He had ten seconds to find one.

Why hide? Drop your pants and get it over with, right here in the street, or on that lawn over there. Who’s going to care? The city is in ruins. There are people bleeding and vomiting and dying all over the place; do you think anyone is going to give a damn about some guy taking a shit?

Marty couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. There had to be someplace to hide.

Then he saw the court-yard apartment building on the corner, and the big, ragged hedge that ran alongside one wall. There was no one near it.

Clutching himself, Marty hobbled quickly to the hedge and dived into it, scratching his face and tearing his clothes on the thorns. But he didn’t care, he wanted to be enveloped by the shrubs, totally hidden from view.

Marty unbuckled his pants, slid them down to his ankles, and squatted in the sharp branches, a mere instant before his sphincters blew. Grimacing, he closed his eyes tight and cowered in the bush, tortured by the cramps, the sounds, the smells, and the overpowering humiliation of his nakedness and vulnerability.

Intellectually, Marty knew there was nothing shameful about this. He was a human being. He was ill. He had no choice. But there was nothing he could say to himself to ease his embarrassment, which was even greater than his considerable physical discomfort. Marty pulled the dust mask over his nose, kept his eyes closed, and prayed that no one would walk by as his body convulsed, cramped, and purged.

A wave of heat washed over him, and he was floating, in a fishing boat on Deer Lake, his grandfather holding the rumbling outboard motor with one hand, his eyes on the trolling pole, waiting for a bite.

It was a hot day made even hotter by the reflection of the sun off the aluminum boat. They were a frying pan drifting back-and-forth across the stagnant water. Nobody built homes on Deer Lake. They parked them and put a picnic table in front of the door and called them fishing cabins.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Marty whined for the sixth or seventh time, rocking on his bench, sunburned and uncomfortable, his arms wrapped around his stomach.

His Grandfather, Poppa Earl, held out a rusted MJB coffee can to him. It was full of cigar stubs and ashes, fish guts and peanut shells. “Piss in this. The fish are biting.”

“I can’t,” Marty smelled like a coconut, sweating off the gobs of Coppertone his Mother made him put on every time he went on the lake. “It’s number two.”

“Then you can hold it a while longer,” Poppa Earl decided, absently picking dried fish scales off his pants, while keeping his eyes on the line. “We’re on top of a school of silvers. They’ll be hopping in the boat soon.”

They’d have to. The last fish they caught was three hours ago, and it was a thin, sickly one that probably swallowed the hook on purpose to end his miserable life. They hadn’t had a bite since.

“We can go in for a minute and come right back out,” Marty argued. “The fish will still be here.”

Poppa Earl shot him a furious glance. “You can’t catch fish with your line in the boat.”

That was Poppa Earl’s all-purpose observation on everything in life, from his brother’s impotence to the invasion of Grenada, a line of inarguable wisdom that took on even greater, almost religious significance when, in fact, he was actually fishing. When Poppa Earl made that statement, ten-year-old Marty knew no amount of whining, begging, or cajoling would change his mind. So Marty just sat there, staring at the dead fish in the Styrofoam cooler, floating in the bloody ice water.

When Marty couldn’t hold it any longer, when he was sobbing with shame as his bowels emptied into his bathing trunks, Poppa Earl was too busy to notice. He’d gotten a bite. Poppa Earl was standing up in the boat, reeling in the leaded line, giving his standard play-by-play the whole time.

“It’s bending the pole in half, look at that! It’s a monster! It’s got to be the killer mack, biggest fish in the lake. They’re hungry bastards. I once caught a thirty pound mackinaw on ten-pound test line. Did I ever tell you that? Nearly pulled me out of the boat. But I got him. Oh yes, that fish met his match in me. I’m the nightmare of the dark waters, you know that? For sixty years, I’ve been coming and killing. They fear me. It’s instinct in them now, part of their fish DNA. Whoa, this one is fighting! Don’t he know who he’s up against?”

And on and on it went, Poppa Earl oblivious to Marty’s plight until the six-inch silver, every bit as thin and sickly as the one they caught hours ago, was in the boat and Poppa Earl was back on his bench, yanking the hook out of the fish along with most of his internal organs.

“Lookee there,” Poppa Earl held up the fish’s stomach between two fingers. “He’s been eating somebody’s white corn. Who the hell uses white corn for bait?”

Poppa Earl tossed the fish into the cooler and the guts overboard, and was washing his hands in the lake when he sniffed something foul. “What the hell is that smell?”

Marty couldn’t look at him. He just hugged himself, trying to become as small as he could, sobbing quietly.

“Did you just shit yourself?” Poppa Earl yelled, rising to his feet. “God-damn it, the fish are biting!”

Poppa Earl picked up Marty under the armpits and threw him into the lake. His grandfather sat back down in front of the outboard, wiped his hands on his pants, and steered the boat back the direction they came.

“You can’t catch fish with your line in the boat,” his grandfather said, shaking his head disgustedly as the boat chortled off.

The water was cold and light as mist. It smelled of pine and hospitals and clean counter-tops. He was swimming in a lake of Lysol.

Marty opened his eyes and was blasted in the face again with disinfectant. Someone was holding a can of Lysol out of the window above the hedge, dousing the bush with spray. Before he could say anything-not that he could in his present disoriented, poisoned, and disinfected state-the spraying stopped and an old lady stuck her head out, her smile revealing a row of blazingly white false teeth. Around her withered neck, she wore fake pearls the size of jawbreakers and as white as her teeth. It was all hurting his eyes.

“I hope you’re feeling better.” Her voice was filtered through a mile of gravel road. “I’ve got a nice glass of ginger ale and some saltines for you in the courtyard. The gate is open, be sure to close it behind you when you come in.”

She dropped a roll of toilet paper into the bush and disappeared. Marty was mortified, but not so much so that he didn’t quickly clean himself off, hitch up his pants, and escape from the bush, carrying the rest of the toilet paper roll with him.

He tumbled out of the junipers and tried to regain his balance, feeling as if he just got off a ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Everything was spinning, but at least the cramps were gone. He wandered around the corner to the front of the 1940s-era, white-stucco apartment building.

The courtyard was secured behind a wrought iron gate that nearly reached up to the Disney-esque, second-floor turrets on either side of the entrance. Marty went through the gate, closed it behind him, and discovered a lushly landscaped garden, with potted flowers and bird feeders everywhere, the elegant patio furniture arranged around a small pond and a stilled fountain.

“Over here, sweetie.” The old lady was waiting for him in a one-piece bathing suit at one of the tables, her bony legs crossed, nervously shaking one foot, the sole of her house slippers slapping against her heel.

Her skin was unnaturally weather-beaten and creased with use; it looked like someone had stretched a loud floral bathing suit over the cracked leather driver’s seat of an old car, then strung a necklace of enormous fake pearls around the headrest.

“Come, sit down, before the ginger ale goes flat in this heat,” she motioned to the pitcher and two plastic glasses, which were on the table beside some suntan lotion and a beaten-up John Grisham paperback.

Marty took a seat and stared at her as if she was an apparition. The air itself was shimmering like a TV signal that refused to come into focus. All he could do was lamely offer her the roll of toilet paper back.

“You keep it sweetie,” she waved her hand at him, each finger ringed with an enormous glass jewel. “In case you have more tummy troubles.”

Either he was dying, he thought, or this is just what the body does after riding a fireball, getting shot, and running through a cloud of toxic gas. In which case, shitting his guts out and losing any sense of physical or mental equilibrium would be totally normal and healthy.

Marty set the toilet paper down on the table and reached for the pitcher of ginger ale, but had a hard time capturing it because it wouldn’t stay still. Nothing would. He finally managed to grab the pitcher and pour some soda into his glass, but he had real trouble getting any in his mouth, spilling half of it down his shirt before he realized he was still wearing the dust mask. He tore the mask off his face and swallowed the tepid, lukewarm ginger ale in one, long gulp.

It felt good. He immediately filled the glass again, drank it all, then settled back in his seat. The air was rich with the scent of fresh-blooming flowers and a hint of coconuts. For the first time in hours, he felt at peace. Safe. He could stay here forever.

“It’s very peaceful here,” he said.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Much better, thank you.” Enough to feel embarrassed again for what he had done. “I’m sorry about your bush.”

“Bushes are ugly things,” she said. “I don’t care about bushes.”

“Why did you help me?”

“We don’t get many guests here at the Seville,” she took a saltine and swallowed it whole in her huge mouth. “And it’s such a nice day.”

If this was a nice day, he couldn’t imagine what her bad days were like.

“Besides,” she smiled, “we entertainment professionals have to stick together.”

“How did you know I’m in the TV business?”

“Your bag,” she tipped her head towards his gym bag, which had the network logo on the side. “I’ve done many fine productions for your network.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a featured player,” she reached over to the seat beside her and lifted up a huge photo album. “I’ve been in hundreds of productions and worked with all the major stars.”

Marty had absolutely no idea what a featured player was, but at least now he knew why she rescued him from having to wipe his ass with a leaf. Even though her true intentions were revealed, he didn’t feel in any hurry to leave. He still felt light-headed and the solitude of her courtyard was soothing.

She opened her album on the table and turned it around to face Marty. “That’s me in Hello Dolly with Barbara Streisand.”

She tapped her gnarled, bejeweled finger on a photo of a crowd outside a train station. “I’m the pretty woman standing behind Walter Matthau.”

Before Marty could find her in the picture, she flipped the page to a still from Planet of the Apes. “That’s me, the monkey woman holding the basket of fruit, two monkeys to the left of the marvelous Edward G. Robinson, though you can’t really tell it’s him with that make-up on. It was one of my richest roles.”

Now Marty understood what the term “featured player” meant. It was either an antiquated description of what she did, or a phrase she made up to make her work seem more like genuine acting. She was an extra, one of the countless, nameless background faces hired at $70 a day plus meals to fill out corridors, streets, and crowd scenes in shows.

She flipped rapidly through the pages. “I left the business after being a nurse for a few seasons on Diagnosis Murder. My character just wasn’t challenging any more. Most of the time, she walked up and down the same corridor holding the same files. I really felt my character should be answering phones, perhaps even consulting in the background with other physicians. The second assistant director wasn’t willing to take the creative risk so I resigned. I’ve been waiting for the right role for a comeback.”

“I see,” Marty nodded. “I’m afraid I have nothing to do with the casting of featured players.”

“But you’ll keep an eye open for any interesting roles?”

“Certainly.” Getting her a job as an extra was easy. It was the least he could do for her. He was grateful for her kindness. Then again, he thought about what she might say on the set. Oh, he’s a delightful man. I met him when he was shitting in my juniper bushes.

Perhaps he’d just send her a lovely fruit basket instead. Or some flowers for her garden.

“You live here by yourself?” he asked to change the subject.

“Oh no. The Flannerys are upstairs and Mr. Cathburt is relaxing over there,” she waved to someone on the other side of the pond.

Marty craned his neck and saw two bare feet and part of a mangled chaise lounge sticking out from under a massive slab of stucco, tile, and glass. The startling sight seemed to sharpen his vision, enough to finally notice that the roof on the second floor had caved in. When he turned back to the old lady, the air wasn’t shimmering nearly as much and his pulse was pounding in his head. Death, and the fear of dying, brought things into focus once again.

“Mr. Cathburt likes to take a little nap in the afternoon,” she whispered.

“I don’t think he’s napping.”

Marty got up and hurried over to the crushed chaise lounge to see if there was anything he could do for Mr. Cathburt. There wasn’t.

Mr. Cathburt was smashed under the remains of a second-floor veranda. On the patio, a few inches away, a glass of iced tea sat undisturbed on the latest issue of The Globe, which was crusted in a dried puddle of blood. The iced tea was cloudy with particles of plaster and stucco, and the headline on The Globe shrieked: Inside Clarissa Blake’s Lesbian Love Den! Her Bisexual Galpals Revealed! As curious as Marty was about Clarissa and her galpals, he wasn’t about to touch the magazine.

“When he wakes up, Mr. Cathburt and I usually water the garden,” the old lady was just chattering away. “Everything would die if it was left up to the Flannerys.”

Marty heard another voice, barely audible. At first he thought it might be Mr. Cathburt, squeaking from underneath the veranda, but then he recognized the scratchy broadcast cadence: the voice was coming from a speaker. He looked around and found a tiny head-set dangling from a cord that was pinched between the rubble and the smashed chaise lounge. Somewhere under all that, a Walkman had survived. The cord was sticky with blood, but Marty’s desire to hear some news was stronger than his revulsion. He crouched beside the late Mr. Cathburt, picked up the head set, and held it close to his ear.

The newscaster’s voice was weak and quivering, as if he was fighting himself to speak at all.

“… total, catastrophic devastation. The destruction is simply indescribable. The death toll is surely in the thousands. We don’t have details because the city has gone dark, there’s no electricity, the phone lines are down, all we know is what we’re seeing from our traffic chopper and picking up on the police band. We do know the epicenter was somewhere around Chatsworth, and damage extends as far north as Santa Barbara and as far south as San Juan Capistrano. There have been two strong aftershocks and dozens of smaller ones.

The coastal communities of Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey, and Playa Del Rey have been decimated. Wildfires are raging in Baldwin Hills, Malibu, and above Sherman Oaks. City Hall, the Griffith Park Observatory, the UCLA Medical Center, Dodger Stadium, the Santa Monica Pier, and Sleeping Beauty’s Castle are a few of the prominent structures that have crumbled. We’re hearing widespread reports of chemical spills and explosions, landslides, and bridge collapses. Underground gas lines have broken, fueling intense firestorms that have razed neighborhoods in Chatsworth, the Fairfax district, and Culver City.

Every freeway has sustained massive damage and most major streets are impassable, drastically impeding official rescue efforts, which are sporadic at best right now.

Los Angeles International Airport is on fire, its runways destroyed. Van Nuys Airport and Santa Monica Airport have also suffered severe damage.

The National Guard has been called in, but with virtually no way into the city, it could be days before they arrive in significant numbers.

We are on our own…”

Marty dropped the headset, his hand shaking. He was scared. There was no news about Calabasas, his home, but he didn’t take any relief in that. Calabasas wasn’t far from the epicenter of the quake and more than once had been threatened by fires that spread from Malibu canyon. Was their house destroyed? Was his wife about to be consumed by a raging wildfire?

“We spend the whole day out here, Mr. Cathburt and I, reading mostly,” the old lady was still talking. “It took Mr. Cathburt three weeks to read The Pelican Brief. I finished it in a weekend, but I’m not like most people. I like literary fiction.”

“You should go,” Marty got up quickly and went to her. “It isn’t safe here. The rest of this building could come down.”

“I have all the John Grisham books, if you’d like to borrow one. We could read here together, by the pond.”

The garden didn’t seem nearly so peaceful anymore. Now he could hear the flies buzzing over Mr. Cathburt, the wailing car alarms on the street, the thup-thup-thup of a helicopter in the distance, the tingle of bits of glass still falling to the ground.

“I have to go,” Marty told the old woman. “You should, too.”

“Where would I go?” she looked him in the eye. “I’ve lived here for forty-seven years. There is no where else. This is my garden.”

Marty nodded. “Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

“Yes, please.” She slid the straps of her bathing suit off her shoulders and smiled coyly.

Oh God, no, Marty thought.

She handed him the bottle of Hawaiian Tropic. “I could use some suntan lotion on my back.”

Marty didn’t want to do it, but he was so relieved that was all she was asking, he quickly squirted some lotion on his hands, rubbed them together, and smoothed the cream on her shoulders. It felt like he was polishing a dashboard with Armor All.

“That feels so good,” she purred. “Your hands are very soft.”

“You shit in her bushes,” said a familiar voice, “that doesn’t mean you’ve got to fuck her.”

Marty turned and was stunned to see Buck leaning against the courtyard gate, shaking his head in disgust. Wasn’t there any way to escape this guy?

“To each his own, I suppose,” Buck shrugged and left.

“Thank you again for your help,” Marty hurriedly wiped his hands on his jacket, realizing too late that now he’d be carrying that coconut scent with him the rest of his journey. Then again, it beat the scent he’d been carrying so far.

“Come back and visit any time,” she smiled. “And keep your eyes open for the right script for me.”

He forced a smile in return, took the toilet paper, and left, closing the gate behind him.