Trashlands, page 8
“We hid it. My family had a garage. A house farther outside of the city, before the floods. We stayed there for a while, but the neighborhood got overrun. Too many people came together, and then they wouldn’t leave. So we had to.”
Coral had heard of this, whole communities taken over. She had never lived in a house and had no memory of her parents. Her life began, as far as she knew—her mind began—with a circle of sky as she lay on her back on a blanket that smelled of smoke. Her first memory. A sky swirled with clouds.
Mr. Fall had found Coral in the rubble of a Dairy Queen. He had set her on a blanket outside the building. She swore she remembered this, or maybe he had just told the story to her so many times. Maybe she had been born in a factory, Mr. Fall had told her when she was old enough to ask. Maybe her parents were young and couldn’t keep her. Maybe, though Coral thought this only later, her mother’s pregnancy had not been her mother’s choice.
Mr. Fall had found Coral on a mission. They had netted a lot of plastic that day in the burned-out Dairy Queen: tables and chairs, plastic dishes. The door was smashed, the entrance smoldering. But not much had been destroyed inside. No one could tell her why the building had burned, why Coral had been left or survived there behind the counter, which the pluckers ripped apart.
It was a long time before Coral understood what a Dairy Queen was. A store, just a store that sold food. A long time before she understood that she was not royalty, like she had mistakenly thought. Not a princess left in the ashes for her parents to reclaim, left a throne to retake later. She was not magic. She was not special.
Though Mr. Fall said ice cream was special, very special indeed.
Coral led Miami beyond the well, around the walls made of pressed-together cars. She used the wrecks to guide herself. There was the car without a roof, just married spray-painted on its side. There was the long, dark vehicle Mr. Fall said had been used to carry the dead.
She paused on top of a hill. Below them, near a bend in the river, was the market. People shook plastic out onto scales. There was haggling, shouts, sometimes pushing or worse, knives drawn. Then a price was decided upon and exchanges made: plastic for food, for clothing or tools.
“It’s only men down there,” Miami said.
“Yes.” She watched him take in the sight of the men, dumping the weighed plastic into giant baskets and bins, then loading them onto boats in the river.
“You don’t sort the plastic?”
“Children do,” Coral said. “I thought you knew that.”
It was terrible work. Dirty, dangerous. Coral couldn’t look at the market anymore. When the boats passed her in the river, she turned her face away. Once, she had tried following them, swimming until the water reached her chin, her nose, until she began to swallow it, to sink low in the waves. New Orleans had run back to the school, to get Mr. Fall. The two men shouted for her to stop, wading after her until she listened, let herself be pulled back. They were all soaked to the neck, Mr. Fall’s face wet with tears.
On land, in the trees, she lost the river’s path. She couldn’t find where the boats went. Was it where her son was? Some people said the boats took the plastic to horse-drawn wagons, which carried it to factories. Other people said there were no horses anymore, and the collectors used cars.
Coral knew that part of the story to be true.
She took a metal rod leaning against the nearest pile of junk and began to draw in the dirt. She drew Trashlands, Summer’s and Foxglove’s places, the rainbow bus down its hill. She drew circles for the well and the market, and marked where she and Miami stood on the rise.
“People don’t bring in a lot of new scrap these days, not big like a car,” she said. “If they do, it’d be near the entrance. You can’t get stuff very far in.” She made a line in the dirt and set the rod down. “I can only give you a day of my time.”
“One day?”
“If we haven’t found your bracelet by dark, it’s probably not here. Or you won’t ever be able to find it.” She straightened, adjusted her empty pack on her shoulders, not looking at him. “And I get paid no matter what. Whether you find what you’re looking for or not.”
“That’s only fair. How much?”
“How much?” She had expected he would argue over her time. All men wanted more for less. That was what Summer and Foxglove had taught her. That was what Coral had experienced herself. She remembered staring at the icehouse door, and still Robert would not move from her.
“What’s your price as a guide?” Miami asked.
Coral looked down at her leg. The clove oil burned in her mouth. She thought of the most expensive plastic she could imagine. “PMMA,” she said at last. “Acrylic.”
“I don’t have that with me.”
“You can get some at the market, buy it with paper money. Or give me what it costs, and Trillium can go. You don’t have to pay me right away, though.”
But he said, “I will. I’ll pay you as soon as I’m back to my room.”
She looked at him. He squinted in the light, behind his glasses. The sun was blinding, yellow-white. He didn’t wear sun protection, though his hair covered his ears. He wasn’t wearing plastic boots. What had led him to Trashlands? Was it really just the first place he came to? Most outsiders couldn’t handle a day in the junkyard.
“Do you have a hat?” Coral asked him.
9
Mr. Fall
It was easy to wake up. Achiness woke him. Achiness and dew.
The pain radiated in his bones, and the dampness seeped from the ground. The sun might grow hotter, as the ozone protecting the planet thinned to nothingness, like the stringy white of an egg. The earth might grow arid with dust, he knew—history had taught him—could blow the very roots of the plants out of the ground and sweep them away. But under the bus, Mr. Fall still woke up.
He didn’t mind the dew. That was Nature. Nature continuing, and that was good to feel. The achiness, however, the pain in his joints—that would end him. He balanced on his elbows and rose slowly. He wondered if Coral would get this pain eventually, if she would know arthritis.
He had protected her for so long. She was grown before she even had so much as a broken bone—and it was a tooth, at that. Maybe that wasn’t best, though. Children healed faster than grown-ups. Grown-ups might not heal at all.
He had protected her from bad men, of which there were many. He had done a good job since that teacher hurt her, he told himself. Trillium was good. Mr. Fall had had his suspicions at first. A man older than her. An artist. A quiet man. But Trillium had proven himself, he had been loyal. He had not forced her to have more children. He had supported her in her art in the woods, work she felt she needed to do, though neither Mr. Fall nor, he suspected, Trillium, understood it very well.
He had let her down about Shanghai. But they had all been helpless about that.
Mr. Fall crept out from the bus. Luckily neither Coral nor Trillium were around to see him struggle. They would protest, insist he sleep inside. He reached back under, feeling as he did the pain in his back. He managed to roll up his blankets inside the foam pad he slept on. He tied the roll with a rope of plastic bags.
He put on his boots, found his hat and placed it squarely on his bare head. Only skin up there now, tanned till it peeled. He had freckle-like spots he didn’t want to think about. There was nothing to be done about them, anyway. No doctors to see, no insurance to worry about, no bills to come in the mail. No mail at all really, nothing reliable. Nothing to do except see Ramalina, who could soothe with plants, and who would cut when soothing failed, slice out from his body what the herbal medicine couldn’t help.
There were still medical drugs in some places, he imagined. He had read about that in the newspapers that made their way to the yard. Everyone traded the papers, and when they were done, Mr. Fall used them for teaching. One day he would organize them by date. Or maybe that was a job for the children, to keep them occupied, help them remember their numbers.
Maybe some of the children would keep up the act of preserving, after Mr. Fall was gone.
It was because of the artifacts that he couldn’t sleep in the school tent. Books crowded it, stacks of papers, chairs they had salvaged or made. And the found things that he thought the children should see. It was a library of items that had outlived their usefulness, items that weren’t plastic and couldn’t be melted down, and those he had kept from Coral’s curious fingers. The library included computer parts, a flip phone, a scooter whose motor and tires had been stripped. He let children take apart clocks and coffeepots and circuit sets, and try to put them back or arrange them into something else.
“Everything is useful,” Mr. Fall would say. “But everything also has a story. Sometimes an object’s purpose,” he said as a girl fiddled with the phone, “is just to tell the story.”
The flip phone didn’t flip anymore. Its hinges had snapped, and now only cords connected the two pieces. The child was careful not to rip the cords. She ran her fingers over them, thinly ribbed. “What’s this thing’s story?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Fall said. He had learned the best way to teach was to ask questions. “What do you think?”
“People loved to talk a long time ago?”
“Maybe.”
“Did they use this for more than talking?”
“Yes,” Mr. Fall said.
The girl tried again: “People loved to have possessions, things to occupy themselves? Things to make them feel special, help them belong?”
“I think so,” Mr. Fall had said. “I think that was it.”
* * *
On his way up to the school he saw a man, heading down the hill. The only thing down that way was the bus. The man was dressed nicely, too nicely. He must not have been in the junkyard very long. There was only one place he could have come from: Trashlands. No one emerged from the woods this early in the morning, not unscathed. Mr. Fall saw no wounds on the man, no tatters on his clothes, which were a little dusty, that was all.
And the man wore glasses. With unbroken lenses.
“A little early for a tattoo, isn’t it?” Mr. Fall said, friendly.
The man looked surprised.
“Do you know what you want?”
But the man didn’t respond. It seemed like he didn’t know what Mr. Fall was talking about. How strong was the wine they were serving at Trashlands these days?
Mr. Fall gave up.
Then he heard the man say, “I do know what I want, thank you.”
It was pleasant, neutral. Mr. Fall waved over his shoulder and kept on walking.
* * *
Summer was up. She usually was, whatever time he came by. He knew she had trouble sleeping. She had dressed already, in a faded flower-print dress and shoes with high clear heels.
Mr. Fall took off his hat and called through the screen door. “Are you working today?”
She kicked her heel. “Would I wear these if I wasn’t? Actually, I probably would. Coffee?”
Mr. Fall opened the door. “Yes, please.”
“Breakfast?”
“What do you have?”
She rattled something in a metal can. “Black walnuts. I was going to roast them, once I get the fire going. Or raw, if you can’t wait.”
“I can wait,” Mr. Fall said. He hung his hat beside the door and pulled up a turned-over plastic tub to sit on. “I saw a man headed down to the bus this morning. Man I’d never seen before. Nicely dressed. Young.”
Summer looked up from the can, where she was picking out walnut hulls. “Glasses?”
“Yes,” he said. “You know him?”
“I bet he’s that reporter, hanging around Coral.”
“Coral knows him? A reporter from a newspaper?”
“All the way from The Els. He’s here to write a story. And to look for...something or other. Coral’s helping him. I’m pretty sure he’s sweet on her, though. Who wouldn’t be?”
Mr. Fall said, “Does Trillium know about him?”
“No.”
“Well, he will. The man was headed that way. A reporter, you said?”
“From a paper in the city.”
“What would he be writing about?”
Summer said, “Human interest story?”
He was surprised she knew that phrase. But it was probably from one of the old newspapers. Mr. Fall realized the man might have papers with him, more recent editions. He might be able to speak to the children about being a reporter, about life in the city. He tried to temper his excitement. “Why was he interested in Coral?”
“Are you kidding me? Your baby is grown up and beautiful.” Mr. Fall must have looked horrified because Summer said, “He said he was hiring her. As a guide. He lost something here and he thinks our girl can help him find it.”
“Here in the junkyard? Good luck.”
“I’ve gotta get that fire going if we’re gonna have breakfast.”
She moved to go past Mr. Fall but he touched her leg. “Let me take a look at those shoes. What are the heels made of?”
“Broken wine glasses.”
“How did you manage that?”
She kicked her heels again. “I took off the stems and attached them to old soles.”
“You’re a genius,” Mr. Fall said.
“I just don’t want to waste money for shoes.” She kissed him. She tasted of the bitter Kentucky coffeetree pods they boiled and drank.
“I wish you wouldn’t go in today.”
“I’ve got to eat,” Summer said. “And so do you.” She took the can, rattling with walnuts, out the door.
* * *
Mr. Fall made enough to keep the bus repaired, enough to contribute some to their food stores. Parents gave what they could to Mr. Fall, when they could. Some gave nothing at all and that was fine too. Better the children learned to read, learned history. So many of them slipped through the cracks. So many were lost in the woods, locked in apartments, especially the girls.
Summer felt lucky, she said. She had a roof over her head, a roof with wheels that could, in theory, roll again. She tried to keep the tires patched and had stored a small canister of fuel for the future. She hid the canister under her bed. She didn’t like dancing so much but she was paid, and she made more money selling food and doing hair and costumes. She was saving, he knew. She would be ready if she had to move again quickly.
If they did.
Approaching the school tent, Mr. Fall waved to the woman who lived next door. She was hanging clothes to dry on a satellite dish. He pushed open the tent flap. Already a boy waited inside, Golden Toad. He often arrived early. His mother worked at Trashlands, and he didn’t like to stay in their car alone without her.
Mr. Fall didn’t blame him. He nodded at the boy, sitting on his knees in the center of the circle, in front of a pile of ashes. “Have you eaten today, Toad?”
The boy shook his head.
“Get some kindling from the box and we’ll get a fire going. I’ve got some walnuts for you.” Mr. Fall pinned the tent flap back with a rusted clip. He waved to the two girls coming through the yard, sisters. He hoped he had enough walnuts for all of them. Behind him, he heard Golden Toad scrounging around for kindling.
It was important that the boy learn not only reading and history, but how to forage and cook and build a fire too—that all the children learn. It was important that they had somewhere to go while their mothers worked, that their mothers could work. He had seen what had happened when families didn’t have enough to eat.
He wouldn’t lose another child to the collectors again.
10
Coral
Coral felt less safe around people than she did around trash. She and Trillium hadn’t made love much the nights they spent at the casino camp. It felt like they were never alone there.
The pluckers had set up their camp on the outskirts of a parking lot, against a line of trees. Evergreens, Mr. Fall told her. The trees lived up to their name, sticking around and staying verdant. On the other side of the camp stretched rocky dunes. Dirt would blow in the wind, stinging her eyes, getting into her hair and mouth, and hissing in the campfire. At night the wind peppered the bus with a sound like rocks in a can.
The collectors had come to the casino camp at night. They had come in a caravan of cars with fire to see their way, and guns to get their way. Coral knew the guns were loaded because the men proved it. They wasted ammunition, shot bursts into the sky that, from a distance, sounded like thunder.
“Is there a storm?” Shanghai asked in his sleep.
They slept three in the bed then, Shanghai nearest the window, Trillium by the aisle. Mr. Fall slept on the floor. It was cramped in the bus and cramped in the bed. Coral knew Trillium wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement, but what could he say? What else could they do?
They were married now, Coral and Trillium, as married as they could be without rings or ink. Sometimes at night Trillium would touch Coral’s hair above the child’s head. Or they would exchange long looks. But the moments they had alone together were stolen, in the woods or in an abandoned car, and only moments. Coral associated the smell of mice with making love. Mouse droppings and leaf rot and mold. It was better than associating love with ice, as she had before. And touch with pain.
Shanghai was about seven, a blond head between them, hair as white as a slice of moon. He asked again, “Is there a storm?”
“No, honey,” Coral said.
Then she heard the screaming.
She sat up. Shanghai rolled over, bumping into Trillium, who was waking too. It wasn’t dogs she heard. And not a single scream either, which could mean anything: grief, labor. Coral heard the yelling of multiple people, and the rumble of cars moving through the camp. Running cars?
