'Reminds me of summer,' Nikki said.
Buckley found a curb and squatted. The chair Grandma Riggs was taped to rode so high on his back he was forced to lean a little before the legs met the pavement. When they did he slumped, grateful for the slack and removal of the weight.
'We’ll rest a minute here. Kid, get Grandma some water and then help her with the lighter. I think she needs some more crack. Eyes gotta be hurting her by now.'
'Don’t be trying to get me loaded, Mr. Adamski. No matter what you do, I can promise that I do not fornicate on a first date.'
Nikki stared in shock.
Sissy, Buckley and MacHenry grinned. Gert shook her head. Little Rashad was so embarrassed a blush crept up his neck.
'So don’t be getting your hopes up,' she added.
'I bet you were something in your day, Grandma.' To Little Rashad he whispered, 'Scratch the crack, Kid. I think she’s had enough. Just give her some water.'
'And don’t you be worrying about my eyes. I can see better than I ever. You should attend to Mr. MacHenry. He's about to be thunder whipped.'
Buckley frowned as he tried to decipher that last bit.
MacHenry massaged Gert’s shoulders where she lay. He spoke to her both softly and urgently. She shook her head in response, her shoulder's shaking as she sobbed.
Little Rashad arrived with a bota bag of water, which Buckley passed to Grandma Riggs. 'How are your lips, kid? I think we’re gonna be needing them pretty soon.'
'Okay, I guess.'
'Better massage them or pucker them or do whatever you do. When it's time to blow, we're going to need you ready.'
Suddenly the sound of laughter interrupted. Buckley and the boy turned to the sounds of Sissy and Nikki giggling by the side of the road, their heads together like school girls.
'She seems nice.'
'She doesn’t know much,' Little Rashad said.
'Guess you need to show her the ropes.'
'I guess I can do that.' He turned to look at Buckley. 'But…'
'Naw. We ain’t playing with
'Just me and her? Ain’t much of a future,' Little Rashad frowned.
'Hey! Your future’s as good-'
Buckley had intended on saying something more, but choked as a Maggie popped through the skin of his esophagus and into his throat. He coughed it into his hand and threw it angrily to the ground where it curled and slithered in the night air. Buckley stomped it dead, smearing it along the ground. Not satisfied, he spat on it for good measure.
Grandma Riggs offered her crack pipe. 'Want some of this, boy? It takes away the pain.'
Buckley shook his head. 'So does a.357 Magnum.'
CHAPTER 28
MacHenry rolled a wheel he'd found beside a nearby wreck over to where Gert had fallen. With his help, she managed to sit on the edge of the rubber.
'Jesus, but my feet hurt,' she whimpered. 'Help me with my boots, baby.'
Gert began to unloosen the knots on the work boots, as MacHenry knelt in front of her. He watched as each lace came free, apprehension carving his frown.
From the other side of the street Buckley whispered, 'Get ready, Grandma. We’re leaving here in a few minutes.'
Another Maggie popped free from Buckley’s scalp. He snatched the nasty thing and flicked it into the open window of a VW Bug. They were coming one right after the other now. It was only a matter of time before he went crazy. He had to watch himself. He'd come along to help everyone. Becoming a liability would ruin it all.
Sissy approached. Glancing at the maggie residue on the sidewalk beside him, she shook her head. 'How long?' she asked.
'Any second now,' Buckley murmured. He sniffed deeply. 'I can smell it, salvation. We're almost there, but it might as well be a million miles away.'
'What you most need is sometimes the most dangerous thing of all.'
Buckley ignored the remark. 'What I'd give just to bathe in the ocean. Like to see how the maggies deal with that.'
'I saw this show once,' Sissy began, her eyes focusing on a maggie that popped and fell from his nose. 'It seemed like so long ago, like it was someone else's memory.' She paused and gazed towards Gert and MacHenry. 'In the show, there were dozens of beluga whales trapped in the arctic ice after a quick winter creep. Taking turns, they’d swim to the surface to breathe. Their continuous motion was all that kept the water from freezing around them. They could go without food for a few months, but they had to breathe. They always had to breathe.'
'So all they had to do was wait for the ice to melt,' Buckley said, describing the obvious solution. 'How long did they have to keep doing it?'
Sissy held up her hand and shook her head as sadness crept into her eyes. 'Except they had a problem. It could have been just like you said. They could have just taken turns and risen to the surface, their body's feeding upon their own stores of fat to survive. But that didn't happen. There was a polar bear crouched outside the hole, you see, and it swiped one of its massive claws at each whale as it surfaced to breathe.'
Buckley blanched. 'Jesus.'
'This went on day after day after day, the water pink with beluga blood. When one finally weakened enough to be caught, the beast would feed. Then it would rest for awhile, allowing the beluga a false sense of hope. Before long, it would return to making the pink water again.'
'The pink water,' Buckley repeated.
'Yeah.'
'They had nowhere else to go. They were doomed from the minute the ice creeped over them, they just didn't know it.'
'And you know?' Sissy said. 'I feel like a beluga whale and I don’t want to die that way.'
'Beluga. That’s where they get caviar from, right?'
Sissy nodded. 'The real expensive kind. They were very rare.'
'Like you, girl. You’re as rare as they come.'
Sissy glared first at Buckley, then at the ground. 'I'm nothing special.'
'I remember when I first met you,' Buckley chuckled. 'You’ve changed.'
'I’m done changing. Now, I’m just tired. I want to rest. I want to get to the ocean so we can escape.'
'Even if it is just a false sense of hope?'
'Even if,' Sissy said. 'I guess it's the beluga in all of us.'
Buckley put a hand on her shoulder. 'Maybe it won’t come to that.'
Now it was Sissy's turn to laugh. 'It always comes to that. What was it you mentioned earlier? It’s survival of the fittest and we’re no longer the fittest.'
Buckley shook his head in wonder. 'I can’t get over how much you’ve grown. Your father would be proud of you. I'm definitely proud of you. If I had a daughter, I’d wish she was just like you.'
For the first time during the entire conversation, Sissy made eye contact with Buckley. A mix of joy and sadness painted her features as she battled with the inevitability of death and the contentment of sudden acceptance as a mature person. Then she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. The action surprised both of them.
