American Apocalypse (5 page)

Afterward, I thought about how much my vocabulary had changed since I’d become “self-employed.” I thought about the Tower of Babel; Americans pretty much spoke the same language. Yeah, there were the various slangs of different subcultures. The difference was that the new subcultures, embryonic as they were then, were beginning to become full-on cultures—in some areas, the dominant ones. It was still years off, but I could see it happening in front of me. The clans spoke a language with a lot of loan words from online. They were usually the tech-literate ones without too much emotional damage. The Tree People had their own slang that reflected their living conditions. The rest of the homeless had their own language. It was generally spoken only by them, and most of their conversations were held with themselves.

Clans were still rather new. They had existed in the gaming world for years. I was a member of one myself. Yet I had never met anyone from my clan and had only listened to them through my headset or talked on a webcam. There wasn’t a real sense of camaraderie. But the need for community, combined with the need for stability, brought people together. Since people, no matter their age, seek out like-minded people, and the only commonality they shared was online gaming, that became the basis for a lot of groups or clans.

Plus, parents looked to them for help with their kids. When the foreclosure rate skyrocketed, parents found that keeping a family together in a tent in the woods was not always a good idea. It wasn’t that Social Services made a big deal out of the poor conditions; SS were almost nonexistent due to budget cutbacks. It was that parents wanted better conditions, including protection: the Fat Man wasn’t the only one of his kind out there.

So the kids got farmed out to those who had a roof, or they just left if they were old enough. They would find an abandoned house or business and find a way to get power to it. The older members of clans would hustle food and whatever else was needed for the group. They were just beginning to branch out into cash-generating sidelines when I hit the street. Sometimes, especially in tight-knit ethnic groups, a family that had the space and enough extra to feed more mouths would take kids in. In the online world you never used your real name. You usually created a name that reflected the game you played the most. This transferred to the IRL (in real life) clans, where these kids would often recognize you only if you used your online name.

I had no idea exactly who would be living at the motel. It wasn’t like there were a lot of tourists anymore. The Washington, D.C., area still got tourists, but they could find nicer motels much closer in now. I hoped they were the younger clan kids, who were not as aggressive yet, especially since I would be an outsider. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was primarily an Asian clan.

The Anchorage Motel had survived for years on county money. The county paid the owners to rent rooms to the homeless, which meant the motel avoided having to do any costly upgrades to stay competitive. That worked fine, until it didn’t. When the county went bankrupt, so did the money for the homeless. The social safety net, already savaged by the Bush administration, collapsed from a lack of taxpayer money. Some money still came from Washington to the county in the form of emergency grants. The politicians weren’t insane; they knew the situation was becoming unstable. Just enough federal money came to the county and state that they could continue to provide the minimum of services. But minimum services no longer included free rooms for the homeless at the Anchorage Motel.

The owners of the Anchorage were Asian. Six members of the Golden Dragon Clan lived there, all of them teens. They were a splinter of the main group that I had done some work for. Their leader was a girl who used her
online clan name when she was introduced to me. The short version, which I was glad she used, was “Night.” Her full online name was “YellowNightMare4U,” which was a little unwieldy during an online battle. Clanmates were allowed to call her Night. I was clan now. It meant she accepted me as a part of the clan for now, until she could make her own judgment of me. She was perhaps eighteen, looked sixteen, and was seriously one of the smartest people I ever met. She was also very good at hiding this. When I met her, she had self-appointed bodyguards at her side: a pair of Asian boys, maybe fourteen years old, who thought they were ninjas. I didn’t care: I was tired. I wanted a shower. A long shower with hot water and soap that smelled good. Then, best of all, to stretch out and go to sleep on a real bed.

They showed me to my room. I liked the sound of that,
my room
. It was nice: a bed, a light, a dresser, and a nightstand in contrasting wood stains. Plus, a mold-free shower and a jack for the Internet. It had been cleaned recently and the smell of institutional strength cleaner lingered in the air. I took a deep breath. It smelled good. Being in the clan suddenly seemed like the best decision I’d made in a long time.

I was so tired all a sudden that I that ended up falling asleep with my clothes on, barely managing to wait until they left. I’d shower tomorrow. I slept eighteen hours straight that first day.

The next time I tried to be a hero, I got my ass kicked and was left for dead. The ass-kicking really was probably the best thing that could have happened to me, but I didn’t figure that out on my own. It was pointed out to me much later. I had gone to the shelter hoping for a
winter coat. Much to my surprise I was told that Carol had left word she wanted to talk to me. I was surprised at how good that made me feel. It was still late summer, and I didn’t really need a winter coat yet. I just liked dropping by the shelter.

Carol was waiting for me in her office, which she shared with her assistant. And a very unimpressive office it was: metal cabinets, metal desks, old computers. I made a note of that. The computer fairy was going to have to leave a package on the doorstep here one morning. Kid scribblings were taped to the file cabinets, and a couple of framed photos were on her desk. The assistant left after saying “Hi” to me, pulling the door behind her as she went.

We passed a few minutes with the usual “Hey, how you doing?” but Carol wasn’t big into bullshit. Unusual in a woman, I had always thought. She quickly got to the point: “I want you to find a kid for me.”

“Okay.”

She just looked at me.

I guess I was supposed to be asking questions.

“Here’s a picture,” she said. It had been scanned and then printed on a HP color printer that needed new cartridges. I took it. It was of a white girl about twelve, brown hair, a crooked smile. She was going to need braces, and that was probably not going to happen. She did not look happy despite the smile.

“So where is she and why me?”

I was rewarded with a smile. I guess I was finally acting like I had a modicum of intelligence. Carol gave me the background on the kid. I felt like I was back on the job, trying hard to look like I was paying attention. I looked
at the picture trying to imagine what the girl would look like if I added a year or so to her age.

“You’re not paying attention are you?”

“Ah, no.”

“Look, Mike, here is the short version. Her mother sold her to some asshole who probably lives with her in the woods behind the old Kmart. Her mom has sobered up, is living here, and wants her kid back. I said I would do what I could. Can you look into this for me? Please.”

Damn
, I thought,
she would have to whip a
please
on me
. “Sure, so who is the guy she was sold to?”

“The mother really doesn’t remember a lot, but she is sure she saw him in line the last time the army was through here handing out MREs. She remembers the name Jackson, so I asked around. I’m pretty sure it’s the guy who is living in the woods. I was also told he has been seen with a girl who somewhat matches the description.”

“Somewhat?” I asked.

“Well, her hair is blue now. At least check for me, okay?”

“Sure.” I really didn’t want to get out of the chair, but Carol’s body language was telling me my time was up. She really had this manager stuff down pat. “Okay, I‘ll start on it right away. I’ll be in touch to let you know.”

Just as I had my hand on the doorknob and was turning it, I heard, “Mike,”—a pause—“be careful.”

“Not a problem,” I tossed over my shoulder without looking back. I didn’t look back because I was afraid what my face would have told her.

I knew where she was talking about. Sometimes a group of homeless people used the Kmart for parties that stopped only when a majority of them fell asleep or passed out. It happened only sometimes because the neighbors
would get tired of the noise, drinking, and shopping cart races, and would call the police and keep calling until a couple cars got sent out to evict the partiers. That would last a few days, maybe a week or two if the police pushed a patrol past every day. Then the police would find something else to do, and the homeless would be back. The neighborhood HOA had boarded up the back entrance that was being used. It was to no avail. These people would gnaw through cinder block walls if they felt like it. There was a church nearby that was good for clothes, food, and a few bucks, so they were always guaranteed to return. This meant that there was always a hard-core group living in the woods next to it.

I didn’t know anyone in this bunch, but I knew someone who did. I had done a guy named Rooster a few minor favors, like letting him use my laptop to send e-mail. He wanted to take it in the bathroom at McDonald’s, but no way was I going to let that happen. He could find another way to check out porn sites. But he owed me, so I went looking. I found him sitting on a milk crate, just hanging out with a couple other guys, and passing a bottle. They were observing proper protocol this close to the shelter—the bottle was disguised by a paper bag.

Rooster had found some cardboard to cushion his ass on the milk cartoon. A drunk he was, but stupid he wasn’t. He was happy enough to see me. The other two had a decent buzz on; they were discussing the riots in the UK. I listened for a bit and was impressed. I asked one of them how he knew so much about England. In return I got a condescending look, along with the reply that he had been an analyst specializing in the UK for an investment fund. I suppose he was disappointed because I did
not look impressed by that tidbit. Lately, half the people I talked to had been millionaires six months ago—or so they claimed.

I took advantage of the lull in the conversation to ask Rooster what he knew about the Tree People near the Kmart. He had nothing new to add since he was the one who told me about the water. The other two, from their reactions, hadn’t known there was a working faucet there. They weren’t the only ones. I hadn’t known about it either.

One of them asked me, “Why you wanna know?”

I told him the truth. Someone wanted me to look for someone.

“Who?”

So I told him. He laughed. “That little bitch. I know her. She will steal you blind in a heartbeat.” Then he belched. The fumes from that knocked me back about a foot and probably killed any flying insects within ten feet. He wound up dead of stomach cancer six months or so later.

It also discouraged me from asking any more questions, which would prove to be a mistake. I figured I would just ride on over there, lock the bike down far enough away that no one would mess it up trying to steal it, and see what I could see. If she was there, we would talk, she would see the light, and we then would head back to the shelter. Upon our return, I would be greeted by Carol and her staff as a hero. I would, of course, act modest and do my
aw, shucks
routine.

I was already basking in the future adoration I knew awaited me as I rode over there. One of the reasons the authorities considered the Tree People to be less than, well, model citizens was that they refused to live in
the official tent cities the government was setting up. Others—usually those who had a streak of romanticism or still had a roof over their head—thought of the Tree People as outlaws, like Jesse James or Robin Hood. I was still, at least partly, one of those idiots.

Tent cities were never an option for me. In the beginning there were West Coast tent cities, and East Coast tent cities. The West Coast ones were usually wild ones—unplanned, unofficial. They just sprang up like mushrooms after a spring rain. Big tents, little tents, colorful tents, and plastic tarps all mixed together. Trash pickup was nonexistent, ice chests and lawn furniture were haphazardly arranged. Dogs ran around taking doggy dumps whenever the desire struck them. Sometimes a local church, or a coalition of churches, would arrange to have a couple of Porta-Potties dropped off. The churches usually never did any follow-up on the actual cleaning or emptying of them, so the smell, when the wind was right, added to the ambience. At any given time, half the population over the age of seven was stoned, drunk, or both. The local police knew everyone by first name.

The East Coast encampments came later—mostly in reaction to the idea that the West Coast-type tent cities might actually bloom in people’s backyards like poison ivy crossed with kudzu. For my area, outside of Washington, D.C., that meant Homeland Security got involved. They were just finishing up the first one in the D.C. area. It was to be the model for the new federally funded initiative to provide housing for our less fortunate citizens.

The new model, “Camp Forward,” was getting a lot of media attention. It was laid out like a military encampment. Camp Forward didn’t even have tents
.
The authorities
brought in recycled prefab housing units left over from the military’s deployment to the Middle East. Later they would find that amazing things came with these prefabs: scorpions, yellow lizards, camel spiders, and Kurdistan vipers. That came as an unpleasant surprise to the occupants.

The media and the public called them East Coast tent cities, despite their having, at most, three tents. They were fenced in, complete with a gate, ID check, and uniformed security. The fence was explained as necessary to protect them. If pushed, the administrators would say, “It’s for the children’s safety.” It was tough to argue against that. You needed an ID card to enter the facility, which meant a background check, which in turn meant that some people found themselves taken to a different facility. There were organized activities for the kids, workshops, and staff who were willing to work with you if you had the “right attitude.” Some people, usually ones who had homes in the area, loved them. How did I feel about them? They gave me the creeps.