"Why don't you come inside and get something toeat?"
Clara didn't say anything. She just kept surveying thefences, the worried look on the soldiers' faces, and the growing throng of thedead. "Hey, you ok?" Joan asked.
Clara turned to Joan and said, "No. I'm not ok.We're not safe here."
Joan laughed, dismissing Clara's worries. "What areyou talking about? Look at all these soldiers. If we're not safe here, thenwhere are we safe?" Clara looked around the courtyard, taking in the somberfaces and the worried looks.
"Nowhere probably," she replied.
Joan put her arm around Clara's shoulders, and turned heraround. "Come on. Stop worrying. You'll feel much better after youeat."
Behind them a new group of survivors was being forced tostrip. Clara didn't want to see the large ginger naked anyway, so she let Joanusher her inside. The Coliseum reeked of stale glory and the spilled beer thathad sunk into the spiderweb cracks that laced the utilitarian concrete floor.The floor was lacquered to a shine, but the smell was still there, clawing itsway up her nostrils. It was a better smell than outside. Damn that hot weather.The stench of the dead was starting to become overpowering. A couple of hoursago, a soldier had begun handing out camouflage bandanas for the men on thefences to put over their faces. She wished that she had bugged the soldier forone, but he seemed in a hurry, and she wasn't quite sure of her place in therefugee camp. Everyone seemed nice, but she felt like a child in a classroom,the soldiers the teachers. She was sure her autonomy was just an illusion, andthat it could be taken away at any moment.
They walked around the concourse, Joan nattering on andon, as if they were at some sort of ridiculous sleepover where the entire cityhad been invited, alive or dead. "I think we have it good here," shesaid. "I've seen their set-up and everything seems to be running nice andsmooth. The triage center is largely empty, but they're letting me helpout."
"That's great," Clara said noncommittally,imagining Joan as the teacher's pet of the classroom. They stood in line, andClara suffered through Joan's mindless chit-chat. They had been through a lottogether, and though Clara didn't necessarily like Joan, she was the only personshe knew in the entire city. Clara had kept largely to herself. After highschool, that had been the way of things. The friends she had made in highschool drifted away, people she had thought would be in her life forever justseemed to sort of vanish into thin air. So-and-so had a child. So-and-so wentoff to college. So-and-so moved to Europe.
Her own family had moved around the country, dispersingafter she graduated as if to say, "Well, we did that. Another one fit forsociety. Now we can retire to Florida." Her parents had only existed inpost cards and Facebook posts for the last five years. Then her mom died, andit was if her father had died as well. The post cards came less and less, andthey only occasionally talked on the phone. How long had it been? Six monthssince she had talked to him? She hated herself for that.
Her life had largely been a solitary one, until Courtneycame into her life. Rough around the edges, snarly as hell, but sweeter thansweet underneath the tattoos and attitude. No one had ever treated her like hehad. She was his entire world, and he was hers. They had spent years existingin each other's presence, and then he was gone.
"Look at that. I'm starving. What is that?Chicken?" Joan was rambling on about the food while Clara was lost in herthoughts.
"Could you shut up about the food?" shesnapped. Joan closed her mouth. They stood in silence as soldiers ladled scoopsof food onto white Styrofoam trays with different compartments pressed intothem. The silence was large, so large it threatened to crush Clara down ontothe concrete floor and press the life out of her. "I'm sorry. I didn'tmean it."
"No, I'm sorry. I'm treating this like some sort ofvacation, but the truth is, I still don't feel like I'm able to believe that thisis all actually happening."
"I was thinking of Courtney. I was thinking of howthe entire last decade of my life was spent being with him, eating with him,sleeping with him. We did everything together, and it was always alright. Nomatter what happened at college, no matter how the loans kept piling up, Ialways knew he would be there, and now he's not. The time when I need him most,and he's gone."
Joan had no words for what Clara was feeling. Her ownexistence had been one of petty self-involvement. The moment she could move outfrom underneath her parents' Rockwellian existence, she had jumped at thechance. They walked through the concourse, words dying on their lips.
Chapter 18: Ginger Fluff
Rudy sat in a run-down bathroom stall of the Memorial Coliseum.Shame still burned through his body. Rudy had never willingly taken his clothesoff in front of anyone, and then he had been forced to do it right there infront of the most beautiful woman he had ever met... he thought he was going todie from embarrassment.
Right there in the sunshine, he had pulled his shirt off,exposing his pale skin. If he had to give a name to the shade of his skin, itwould be "milkworm," a special combination of skim milk and maggotwhite, dotted with freckles that made him look like the first drips of aJackson Pollock painting.
The shirt was bad enough, but the rest had been evenworse. "C'mon. Pants too, Chubs," one of the soldiers had said. Helooked at the soldier, pleading in his eyes. "Anything but that," hiseyes said. The soldier's look was hard and disinterested. He was too busyogling Chloe to stare at the fat pale man who looked like he was on the vergeof tears.
Rudy had undone
