“I’m hungry, weary, but I cannot lay me down
The rain comes, dreary, but there’s no shelter I have found”
America, “Man’s Road”
The city of Clovis, California, was burning. A couple of hundred miles to the south, Bakersfield had been overrun by Zombies, just as Sacramento had a month earlier. Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area had fallen prey to nuclear terrorism, vanishing from the Earth in several large flashes, the ash they left behind carried west into Arizona and Nevada. A hurricane which bore a striking resemblance to the Eye of Jupiter took out most of the rest of the country, except, of course, for Florida, which was overcome by a sudden massive blizzard, freezing the state solid. Before the power finally cut out, I remember reading something about Europe being eaten by a giant lemur, but by that point, I didn’t really care. The entire world had been swept away around us, leaving only Fresno to wait for the final boom to be lowered.
It was under these less-than-ideal circumstances that I found myself riding a donkey down Blackstone avenue, headed up to Bill Jacobs’ house to await the inevitable and possibly place bets as to whether it would be the walking dead, irradiated fallout, weather disturbances, or giant blood-drinking space manta rays that took us out. My ride was pretty calm about it; so were most of the people I saw as we clip-clopped down the road, pulling a cart loaded down with warm beer. The streets were clear of cars and people walked around serenely, carefree expressions on their faces. Some were playing music on old, battery-powered boomboxes. Others sang. Some were just talking quietly. Children ran, played, smiled, and laughed. I felt like the only person in the city who was still afraid.
On the corner of Ashlan, an old black man had set up one of those big, steel drum grills. I could smell the meat from a block away. People of every color and background had lined up for a plate — he was happily doling out tri-tip, pork chops, and slabs of ribs dripping with rich barbecue sauce. They sat anywhere they could find a spot: perched on cars and in the backs of pickup trucks, sprawled out on the grass or crouching down on the pavement, greedily devouring what was at least their penultimate meal, if not their last. I grabbed a plate and waited in line. As the woman I assumed to be the man’s daughter globbed a double-helping of potato salad on my plate (“…for your donkey”), I turned to him intent on speaking, but my mouth refused to engage.
“Only got pork chops left,” he said, looking me over with a wide smile.
“That’s cool. Thanks,” I replied. “I’m, like… surprised. I… I dunno, I didn’t think anyone would be having a barbecue. I was thinking, y’know… it’d be rioting and looting and stuff. Big fires. People throwing molotov cocktails and shit.” I stood there next to him for awhile, watching him turn chops as I nibbled on my own. “Seriously, man, who woulda thought it would end like this? I’m scared shitless. Seriously, I’m all messed up. I can’t understand why everyone’s so… calm.” I took large bite, chewed quickly, and choked it down. “How the hell are you dealing with all this?”
“What do I look like, kid,” he replied in a manner that was half-snarl and half-chuckle, “the Magic Negro?”
“Morgan Freeman and shit,” the woman added, laughing.
“I’m sorry, I just…” I sputtered.
“Would you mind sharing some of that beer, please?” he asked, the smile broadening.
“Sure,” I responded, taken aback. “I’m headed to see some people so, like, just one for everyone, ‘kay?”
An old filipina lady handed out cans as I finished my pork chop. I mounted my patient steed and continued on. Two blocks up the road was Shaw avenue, where I would need to turn to go up to Bill’s house. Four corners that had only two months ago featured crowds of Persians holding signs decrying the Iranian elections now had people from all over the city, holding hands, singing, and praying. The songs were not mournful, and the prayers were not begging for forgiveness or mercy. They thanked God for what they had been given, and asked only that there be something waiting for them when it was all over. I wasn’t a praying man.
I stopped next to a catholic priest who was giving Last Rights to a crowd of Latinos.
“Father,” I asked after he had finished, “do you know if the road is clear up to Marks?”
“Sure, sure,” he said, wiping his forehead with a paper towel, “say, didn’t I see you during the protests?” He studied my face for a moment. “Yeah, you were in your car. When you pulled up to the red light you started blasting that Beatles song… ‘Revolution’!”
“Uh, yeah,” I replied, a bit embarrassed. “I was kinda, like, giving encouragement?”
“I love the Beatles,” he laughed. “Best band ever. Where you headed, mijo?”
“Up to the Bluffs,” I replied. “Some friends of mine are getting together for one last…uh… get together.”
“That must be what all the beer is for,” he smiled. “I don’t suppose you could spare a few?”
I gazed over the entire crowd.
“I don’t think I have enough, Father.”
“Oh, just some for me and my parishioners,” he said. Leaning in close, he continued: “These protestants… they don’t drink. Been on the wagon for seven years, myself, but, the way I figure it, what is twelve steps worth when you’re two steps from the End of the World, huh?” He laughed. I started handing over the booze. I stood on the corner with him for a half an hour, in silence, taking in the pure lunacy of it all. The world was ending, and these people weren’t happy about it, but they were happy, nonetheless.
Finally I said to him: “Jesus, are you people crazy? I mean… we’re all gonna die! At any moment something… awful… horrible… is going to come raining down on us! Seriously, what the hell are we doing here? Why aren’t we running? Why are you all just standing around like its a fucking ice cream social?”
“Son,” the priest said with a grandfatherly etched across his face, “I think you’re late for your party.”
Another half hour later, I was three blocks away and down to a single six-pack. The street was mostly deserted. At the corner of Palm an old stray dog was trying to stick his head in an abandoned McDonalds bag. I got off the donkey and approached him, and he came right up to me, licking my hands like I was his master just home from work. I opened the bag for him, and pulled out a relatively fresh double cheeseburger. I dropped it to the ground and he went to work on it, sucking it down like a vacuum cleaner. I looked up to see a group of homeless guys, all white men, laying out on the grass next to the office building which housed most of the local radio stations. They were passing around a joint. I could smell the cheap ditch-grown marijuana wafting through the breeze. I’d been sober for months, but right then and there, I wanted little else but a drag of it. I grabbed the last six-pack out of the cart, unhitched the donkey, and sent him on his way. If I were ever going to make it to my friend’s house, it might as well have been on foot – it seemed cruel to use up his last hours with physical labor.
I approached the men with beer outstretched. Pointing to the joint, I said:
“I’ll share if you will.” An old man, perhaps in his sixties, clothed in stinking rags, held it out to me, and I exchanged it for the six pack. I took a long, deep drag from it, the chemicals immediately flooding my bloodstream. My nose got numb for second as I exhaled.
“Careful with that shit, dude,” the man replied, his voice much younger than I expected. “There’s coke in there. Don’t wanna get addicted or nuthin’!” They all laughed. I still couldn’t. I sat down in the grass, waiting for the gentle embrace of Mary Jane to take away all my cares. It didn’t. If anything, it made it worse. I was semi-incoherent, even sadder, and now my teeth were itchy.
“This is a bunch of bullshit,” I said, anger starting to boil up. “What the fuck, man? Is that all I get? 34 years of… aimlessness… shit jobs… bills!!! People driving BMWs and eating motherfucking caviar and shit while I struggle to put Mac’n'Cheese on my table… and you guys… dig your dinner out of dumpsters.” They laughed. “Bad teeth… wars all over the place… people… starving in Ethiopia… kids shooting each other in gym class… cancer! AIDS!!! Animals dying out left and right…” They passed the joint back to me, I took another hit, passed it, and went on. “And for what? Now its all ending for no good fucking reason, and… what do we get? One last afternoon?”
The old man looked up with pity in his eyes.
“Its more than everyone else got.”
Daniel Latta
