Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

“Not yet.” She kept walking.

They marched by starlight and the wan glow of the moon. Another hour slid by. Bill marched with his head down, his back bent, carrying the sack of goods from the Joey’s pantry. At last, Sheila halted, looked about, seemed to get her bearings. She dove into the woods, and Mortimer found himself on a narrow path.

The path soon opened into a clearing, and Mortimer made out the vague shape of a structure. As they approached, he saw it was some kind of picnic area.

To Bill Sheila said, “Get wood if you want a fire.”

Bill dropped the sack, started picking up sticks.

“What is this place?” Mortimer asked.

Sheila relit the candle and held it up to a brown sign with yellow lettering. TVA STATE PRESERVE. PICNIC AREA E.

“We were here when it got the worst,” Sheila said. Her voice was flat and cold. “A Brownie troop. Kyle was the husband of our den mother.”

Mortimer was glad it was dark. He didn’t want Sheila to see the look on his face.

Bill dropped an armload of wood next to the fire pit. “Let’s get this f-fucking thing lit. I’m freezing my b-balls off.”

They made a circle around the fire and ate chunks of brown bread taken from the Joey’s pantry. Nobody had the energy to cook anything. Sheila pulled a tightly rolled, very thin sleeping bag out of her backpack. She unrolled it three feet from the fire and slipped inside. The sleeping bag was pink, with pictures of the Little Mermaid on the front.

Mortimer gave his thin blanket to Bill, who didn’t have a coat. He used his tote bag as a pillow. The fire took the edge off the cold. Even Bill had stopped shivering.

In spite of a deep exhaustion, none of them could fall immediately to sleep. The buzz of the danger they’d left behind still coursed through Mortimer’s veins, his mind tumbling and turning with a hundred thoughts. Maybe the others felt the same way. Mortimer glanced around the small camp and saw open eyes glinting in the firelight.

“Maybe we should count sheep,” Mortimer said.

Bill yawned. “That’ll just make me hungry for mutton.”

“How did you end up at the Cleveland Joey’s, Sheila?”

She didn’t say anything for a while, like she was trying to figure out how to start. Finally, she said, “I sort of panicked after Kyle was killed. I know that probably sounds stupid, but you get used to someone telling you what to do all the time, when to eat and when to sleep, and, well, just everything. I went back to the firehouse at first.”

Sheila sat up, wrapped the pink sleeping bag around her, stared into the fire. “After spending one night by myself, I knew I couldn’t just stay there and do nothing, if only because the food would run out. But it wasn’t that so much. I just felt I had to go, you know? I haven’t really thought about it until now, not clearly, not asking myself what I was thinking or if I had any plans, because I didn’t. I didn’t have any plans except I had to go. But thinking back, I guess I knew that it was up to me. That I could go or stay or live or lie down and die and it was completely up to me and nobody else. It was scary that first day, not having anyone tell me what to do, but once I packed everything and left the firehouse, I didn’t see how I’d ever lived before. I guess I hadn’t lived, not actually. I was just this thing that Kyle used. When he died, I started living.”

Mortimer propped himself up on one elbow. “What happened?”

She pulled her gaze away from the fire, met Mortimer’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, to end up at Joey’s. You were suddenly free, but then you ended up…” Mortimer couldn’t bring himself to say a whore. “It seems like you went from serving one man to serving any old man who walked through Joey’s front door.”

Sheila cocked her head to one side, eyes squinting like she was trying to understand a duck that had suddenly started speaking French.

“It’s different,” she said. “You don’t understand at all. Men come from miles around to see me. They need what I can do for them. Kyle made me think I needed him. And that was wrong. Men want me. Need me.”

“Don’t get upset,” Mortimer said. “I didn’t mean anything.”

“I’m not upset. I just can’t believe you don’t understand. If you think being at Joey’s is the same as being with Kyle, if you don’t see how it’s totally different, then I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

Now Mortimer sat up, made vague shushing motions. “Look, I know it’s a lot safer at Joey’s. They treat you well and feed you and it’s like a million times better than what Kyle was doing. Of course it was a better situation.”

“You still don’t get it.” She did appear angry now, her hard eyes flashing in the firelight. “I have worth. At Joey Armageddon’s they recognize that worth. They showed me I have value. All those years, Kyle wasn’t raping me. He was robbing me.”

Sleep came eventually. Mortimer awoke the next morning to the smell of sausage and coffee and thought he’d weep for joy.

“Morning.” Sheila tended the fire, cooked the mystery sausages in the pan Mortimer had purchased just yesterday. She didn’t seem upset. The morning was bright. Birds sang. The air was crisp and sweet.

“Where’s Bill?”

She said, “Off somewhere taking a shit, I think.”