Future Home of the Living God(55)

We become hysterical, breathless with fear of what we are about to do and what we have done. We eat one Power Bar each, holding each little pinch on our tongues—a taste out of the world of before. Then at last we hear it, the scream from the other end of the hall, the patter and slam of panic, running, the diversion that our friend has devised to shield the sound of breaking glass.

We shut the door, set the odd, canelike gadget under the door handle. I start the little tape recorder with the volume turned all the way up. There will be eight minutes of silence and then voices will start responding to anybody trying to open the door, so that nobody thinks we’re gone yet. Tia gets our clothes and packs and I take the hammer out from under my pillow and begin to smash the window. It doesn’t break into jagged pieces, but with about the sixth blow it turns into a web of glass pebbles and just comes apart, tumbling out of the frame and down the side of the building. There’s a wild rush of air. The lights on the towers glitter in the clear night. The two of us tie the rope to the leg of Tia’s bed, pushed tight against the wall, and we throw the rope out the window. It slithers down, nearly touching the roof of the floor below, I think. It’s long enough.

The air rushing in is excitingly cool, delicious. We are used to the stable indoor air of the hospital. We’ve got the clothes we came in underneath our hospital gowns—my jeans slide dangerously down my hips, completely unzipped now. I need suspenders. Tia’s got her possessions bound onto her back—the tiny layette, her few extra clothes. Letting her go first is the only thing to do. She’s much lighter. If I break the rope somehow or the knot won’t hold, that’s two of us who won’t escape. There is no moonlight, and except for the lights on top of the radio towers, just a few places illuminated below us. The city is dark now, mostly, and the bridge across the river ghostly black. The Mississippi glistens like an oiled muscle. Tia says, “Here I go.” She carries her baby gracefully, a compact slope of belly, and as she climbs up and balances on the sill she looks nimble as a dancer, and eager.

“Wait!” I say. “All the glass!”

I put a pillow under the place where the rope will pull taut going over the edge, so it won’t fray. Smiling at me, Tia sets her legs on either side of the rope and then edges out and over the ledge of the window. I secure my pack, kneel on the sill and radiator, looking over. I watch her teeter down the wall, carefully, but quickly as she can, too. When she’s about halfway down there is a knock on the door. Then a crunch as someone tries to open it. I tap the rope to let her know, and she scrambles down more quickly. I hear a thunk and the rope bounces up—I am afraid she fell hard at the end. I am over the edge quick as I can get there, braced at the side of the brick building. As I take the first steps down, I hear pounding and the tape recorder switches on. Sera’s voice, very loud, on the edge of panic. “Wait a sec, something’s jammed! Okay, I’m trying, too.” And so on. The stick against the door is one of those instant security locks that you can take to a cheap motel. Intruder safe. I can only hope that it will hold.

The Power Bar and the adrenaline make it easy for me, at first, and I glide down scarcely thinking of the height, which is good. About halfway down, I get dizzy and have to pause, cling to the rope, and brace myself against the wall. I look down inadvertently, or not exactly down, but over my shoulder across the river, which is worse. Because I’m just a big-bellied spider on a string and my arms are shaking. The sky’s so big, so dark, and there is nothing between me and the roof below, except this braided rope. I think of Grandma Virginia, her dry little claws, still braiding, and the scratchy breathless fever of her laugh. “I’ll help you!” she says, and at the thought of her, so frail and endless, I keep going. Tia’s at the bottom, holding her belly, breathing hard, silent, waiting, and when I touch down I am suddenly so drained with relief that I don’t think I can move.

“C’mon!” Tia’s frantic, tugging my arm. “Your mom’s blocked the door open. I can see the light. Get your ass up, quick.”

And so we creep along the wall until we get to the door that Sera’s kept open with nothing more than a salad fork. We melt inside and start running down the stairwell. Then all of a sudden, Sera’s charging up the stairs—there’s something wrong. We’re supposed to meet her at the bottom. She grabs us. “Move, move.” And we hurtle down the last of the stairs and out to where a recycling truck idles alongside six huge green Dumpsters. We vault into the passenger’s side door as the truck pulls out of the service lot. We’re on the wonderful slimy floor of the cab, which smells more of feet and burnt rubber than garbage. Mom grabs us and helps us into a well behind the seat, full of clothes and tools. We feel the truck moving. The motor rumbles powerfully under and all around us. I am holding on to you, and on to Sera’s shoulders, just trying to get my breath back. She strokes my hair, tells me to put on the padded coveralls, the reflective-signal-taped jacket, the helmet. Tia, curled in the seat between Sera and the driver, is rolling into the huge clothes. The helmet balances on her head, her neck a frail stalk. She grins at me.

“Shawn.” The driver, a skinny, rickety man, tall with cavernously beautiful brown eyes, in his thirties, puts a hand out. He’s a heron man with a big pale beak. And those eyes. You could fall into his eyes. Hands on the wheel in tattered fingerless gloves. “We’re going to our new MRF, Material Recycle Facility. First stop on the underground.”