Monday May 16, 2011
Roosevelt
Chapter 1
It was July 4th, 2008. No work. My plan was to get foolishly drunk. Then watch the fireworks explode over the Brooklyn Bridge. Back in the 60s, they used to do the fireworks on the Hudson, but who wants to give New Jersey a free show? The East River is the city’s river, they should be there. It connects everything. Everything except Staten Island, but then again, going to or being from Staten Island isn’t really a New York thing.
The barges would travel down from those prefab steel warehouses in the Bronx and anchor off Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was all computer models and Japanese ignition switches, but for some reason the show always felt personal. I imagined blue-collar union men flipping open their Zippos and lighting each charge by hand. I know that it isn’t the way it is… that story just feels better. (Just a note, most of the reason I keep this journal is to indulge myself, so if you happen to find this and are reading it… sorry.)
Anyway, the barges are the reason I’m still here. Why the two of us, are still here. There are only three ways to get onto Roosevelt Island, where I currently reside. It’s either the subway, the tram, or the draw bridge. That Independence Day, the bridge went up to let the barges through, and wasn’t scheduled to go back down until they had begun their slow ascent home. This was the first coincidence which kept the island removed.
If you haven’t figured it out, something fucking insane happened. World ending, mind altering shit happened. Best I can tell? They’re zombies. Violent, brash creatures under some sort of delusional premonition. 28 Days Later style assailants. I don’t know if they are necessarily “undead”, because I don’t know what that term means. How can something be in motion, animated, if it isn’t alive? Even in some fucked up sense of the word, they are alive. They aren’t human anymore. That much is true. Blood shot eyes, translucent skin, dead teeth. Their teeth are nothing more than disgusting brown and yellow mounds of decaying calcium. It still makes me throw up. Zombies are to humans as penguins are to birds. Same parts, different outcome.
They have been holding true to that zombie characteristic where they tear people apart. I got to see a lot of that in the first couple days. All from my barricaded apartment building. Through a pair of borrowed binoculars.
The subways just stopped in their tracks about an hour after the messages started to come over the T.V. and radios and helicopter flybys. Everyone abandoned them. The MTA drivers clearly weren’t turning to the proper emergency procedures. Good thing they left though, those tunnels took a little over 6 hours to flood. Pumps and diversion tubes must have been ignored or something. I don’t know, I’m just making that specific up. Shit, fan, etc.
I stayed put through all this. It was a deadly combination of fear, lust, bravado and an even sexier version of lust. A version I had made up over a lifetime of lonely nights under my blue flannel sheets. She didn’t leave in those first twelve hours when there was still a chance, so neither did I.
That was coincidence number two. The flooding kept the albino individuals from coming through the tunnels and up the stairs of the F-Train station. I quickly had my own my personal Troy. “She” was my neighbor Carrie. Or Helen in the Troy metaphor. Or Kate in a LOST metaphor. Or… well I could go on forever.
“Carrie Bryant.” I found her name on her mailbox. I’m not obsessed. I was never obsessed. We had exchange “Thank Yous” with door holdings. But my mental relationship mirrored the real world one. I wasn’t going to Son of Sam her. I had an indie movie plan to woe her with mix CD after mix CD. But that shit’s harmless. A little Elliot Smith, some Replacements, you get it…
I will admit for this record that they did try and get me. The powerful United States government tried to save my precious soul. I realize I sound a tad unappreciative but they probably caused all of this. I’ll bet the farm on that one. Do I have any proof? No. Since when did that matter?
All I needed to do was make it to the Brooklyn Navy Yard or the Southern tip of Manhattan or to LaGuardia or a variety of other places I had no fucking way of getting to. I live on Roosevelt Island. Three ways off, two of them already incapacitated. Oh, and I wasn’t going to try and swim. I can’t swim and I’m not learning now. Though this really would be the time…
I could hear her in her room. It’s across the hall from mine. Everyone else was packing shit, screaming, crying, running out the building. All so dramatic. My roommate never even came back from work. He probably made it out. But she stayed put, television on, door locked. So I decided to hang back, leave when she left. We could be in the same refuge camp or something. But she didn’t. So I didn’t. Then it was too late.
That’s enough history. Let’s flash forward to now.
Wait, no. One more piece of history. The Tram, the third and final way off the island, what about that? Yes… what about that… It was working initially. It got 99.9% of the island, off the island. But then it just stopped. When the screams were first audible to me, it stopped. In my imagination, aka, in some action movie parody of what happened to New York, the man who stopped the tram would be some kind-hearted elderly black man. A Vietnam veteran whose son is a doctor. He would hit the Tram “Kill Switch” just in time, so that no zombies were whisked across. Saving me and Carrie’s chance at love. That’s not what happened, but again, this is my story, not the story.
—-
Let’s flash forward to now. The calm after the storm of human extermination.
This morning I saw Carrie riding her bike. She has a bike and she rides it all the time. I don’t think she ever did that before, but she’s all about it now. We are different people, her and I. A game I like to play is going through people’s apartments, finding their keys and trying to find the corresponding cars in the parking garages. Then I drive them around till they run out of gas. We’re different people, her an environmentalist, me a thief, but sometimes that works out.
Today is the day I’m going to talk to her. Something along the lines of, “It’s been a few weeks, the paralyzing fear of imminent death has subsided, and we should eat dinner together.” I should be more casual. You’d think it’d be easier to talk to a girl when you’re the only boy left – It’s not. The competition is far easier, but the implication of rejection? Much graver.
There she is. Walking the loop around the island. Talking to herself. I’d think less of her except I do it all the time. I’m always asking myself what I want for dinner. So I walk down the stairs, down to street level. I take the steel bars off the door and let myself out. I didn’t sneek up on her, that would be ill-advised. So I just walk down the road towards her. She walks towards me. It’s awkward when you have like 400 meters of “casual” walking to do before you run into someone. I should have just started sprinting and screaming, “I love you.” But I’m glad I didn’t.
As we got within 20 yards of each other it got super awkward. It was akin to when you run into a cute girl you knew in college, except now you’re both professionals and living in a foreign city, and it just made sense to get coffee, but would you? Actually, you know what, it was not really like that. It was just weird. So I broke the ice. I said “hi.” She said nothing at first. So I said, “crazy weather we’re having.” Which was a super solid follow up. Then she started talking.
“I was wondering when you would come talk to me.” That’s a good start. “I always see you watching me, which is creepy, you know that’s pretty fucking creepy right?” That’s not as good. “Yeah, but I’m the least creepy thing happening at the moment.” She smiled the tiniest bit. A victory I quickly dashed. “We’re the only ones on the island, we’re like Adam and Eve.” She didn’t like that nearly as much. “So you think we’re meant for each other? Was this god’s way of getting us together?” I wasn’t as stupid this time. “No, I was just making conversation.” “Practice a little more, and maybe we can try this again sometime.” She walked passed me. She yelled back, “Seriously, stop watching me.”
Right at the moment we walked away, one of those deafening screams came across the water from Queens. I call them rattlers. The kind of scream a human makes when he meets his/her end, the bone shaking, heart sinking, instantly depressing, screams. The kind we don’t hear too much anymore. But it made Carrie stop in her tracks for a second. She looked back then continued on, sassy as before, but this time I knew she was faking it.
I don’t know where she lives now. She used to live across the hall from me, but she probably moved to one of those sweet condos on the North side of the island. I just prefer a more comfortable setting. That, and I turned my roommates room into a walk in pantry. I mentioned that I talk to myself right? Here is a typical conversation.
“How about soup?” “We had soup last night.” “We had stew, that’s different.” “Not different enough.” “Whats going bad soon?” “That cereal isn’t good forever.” “True. So we’re talking almond milk and cereal.” “Yeah, lets do it.” That was me talking to myself. How much does that help you figure out stuff about the survivors? I can tell you this much, probably not good that I refer to myself as we. That seems looney.
Forensic psychologists will contribute my continuous alcohol consumption to my slowly deteriorating psyche, but I was drinking a lot of beer before the 4th and wasn’t nearly as bonkers. So don’t title your book some bullshit like, “Case Study: Alcohol’s Negative Effect on Males Suffering from PTSD.” I think it should be more along the lines of, “Case Study: Beer keeps Male from Ending Life in Hopeless Situation and Gets Him to Talk to that Pretty Girl.” You could get Budweiser to sponsor the study. Though somebody might determine that to be a conflict of interest.
I know she goes out with her flashlight sometimes, trying to signal those jets that pass over NYC every few weeks. It’s a fool’s mission, but I have to give her credit.
So later that night, I walked to the southern end of the island. Out to the open field where the mental institution keeps it’s ruins. Roosevelt Island has had all sorts of cheerful names before it jumped on the FDR bandwagon. Welfare Island, Smallpox Island, Prison Island. It used to house a mental institution and a prison and smallpox hospital. Those were the days.
Did people think that disease’s were done? Damn bitch you that stupid??? Sorry. But yeah. I just felt like Avian Flu would have set off some alarms, but it was back to life as normal right after all that. Diseases like to mutate. It’s a beautiful game of chess that evolution plays. Humans vs. microorganisms. Children vs. Their Parents. Unfortunately in this metaphor, we aren’t Deep Blue. We’re that Russian dude. Humanity might not be in check mate, but after this latest thing, we’re sure as hell in check. We have our King and a few pawns. I hope they make it. They usually never do.
Carrie is just sitting by the water flashing the light up and down with the kind of effort a kid puts into her last day of school. So I walked up, careful to announce my arrival. “It’s me, came to say hey again, give it another shot.” “You’re already doing better.” A moment. “How so?” “I’m much more depressed now, so I’ll talk.” Win one for me?
Next to her, with the help of a full moon we could see the outline of Manhattan’s skyline. City Hall was always my favorite. “What do you think happened to everyone’s pets?” She said quietly. “I don’t know.” I said. “Yeah you do. They died.” A moment. “Why’d you ask then?” “I don’t know.” I think she had a cat before, but I didn’t ask.
“Why don’t they just bomb NYC? Whats the benefit to keep all this around?” “The city is tag sale junk now. Just get it over with.” She is depressed. Probably not a win for me. So I said, “Maybe there’s hope that this situation isn’t permanent, if they can destroy all of them, or even cure them, the city could come back.” She turned towards me. Eyes blue, but black in this light. “You really think that? – Everything about this city is done. – It’s Nagasaki now. It’s history, it’s people, it’s architecture, none of that matters. – It’s only going to be known for one thing.” She got up and started to walk away.
I stayed seated. “I don’t think I did that good a job saying hey.” “No, you didn’t, but that’s okay. We’ll try again.” She walked away. I stayed there starring at the skyline. I settled on a building where I interviewed for an office assistant job years ago. Typing up emails and taking out trash for an executive. I didn’t get it. This isn’t better, but it’s not a lot worse. Goodnight for now.
