Bite-Size Billionaires by Richard Downing

EDITOR’S NOTE AND DISCLAIMER : The views expressed in this fiction are those of the author alone. Names of persons or brands or entities mentioned are for satire and used for adult humor only, liabilities arising out of which are those of the author alone. The publishers declines all responsibility for losses incurred through the mention of the same under fictional satire and fantasy crime story titled “Bite-Size Billionaires” as written by “Richard Downing”. This author is solely responsible for the content, accuracy, and any potential legal claims or consequences arising from this fiction story. The publisher shall not be held liable for any damages, losses, or legal actions that may result from the use of copyrighted material, trademarked brands, or the portrayal of real people within this work.

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Bite-Size Billionaires by Richard Downing

 “When the people shall have no more to eat, they will eat the rich”
 — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Then it happened.

Shit storm.

Perfect.

Jet stream bouncing around like a crazed kangaroo on acid—and bad acid at that. “Weather patterns” gone oxymoronic. Greenland living up to its name. Antarctica divesting its white wealth into a wet memory. You can bet a lot of penguins would like to have traded their flippers for fingers so they could flip us off right there at the end. Rain seemed like it would never stop—or it would stop completely. Period. Crops either drowned or shriveled—brown leaves crunching into dust between your fingers or under your feet. Pretty soon people were at each other’s throats. Literally.You need to eat and drink? You do it anyway you can. Period. Pundits with opinions all over the news—experts—right—you’ve got to laugh looking back on some of those assholes. Blah, blah, bullshit. I guarantee none of them lasted very long when it really hit. And it hit in a hurry. Hard to eat a suit. Last period.

Shots of the mega rich became big news. Lots of jumpy cell-phone videos of the billionaire crowd trying to shore up their lives with their money. Riches turning into walls and guards and the latest security technology.

Of course we ate them.

When he died, we ate Jeff, for God’s sake. Jeff! How many richer than Jeff!?

“When he died—” sounds funny now, almost quaint. Skinny little fucker. Nice clothes, no meat. Kept us going a few more days though. I just wouldn’t call him prime. Stringy maybe, but no, not prime. Jeff was the first for Betz. I remember she threw up right in the middle of dinner—we still called it dinner. Why not? Betz did not like it that she threw up, not at all. I remember her wiping her mouth with her sleeve, muttering something about Jeff always had a shitty return policy, then finishing her meal in two big gulps.

Betz’d eat a donkey’s asshole now.

We all would.

& & &

We’re currently stalking #332. We’ve numbered our billionaires according to the number of billions they’ve got—this according to a still-readable Forbes magazine T’shan found in an abandoned Bimmer’s glove box. This particular asshole’s got 332 billion. Yippity-shit. It’s funny if you think about it—or even if you don’t. Three hundred and thirty-two billion’ll buy you the same as three hundred and thirty-two cents today. Which is to say, nothing, nada, zippo. And SpaceX—eX?—won’t be taking you anyplace better anytime soon. Better have something you can chew if you want to do business today … something besides yourself, that is.

& & &

How’d we come up with the idea of eating billionaires? Same way back when you and your high school buddies decided it would be a good idea to steal the principal’s car and three liters of bourbon from the ABC.

Someone just says it.

And it becomes the thing to do. That’s just how that works.

“Hey, let’s jack Principal’s Schnecker’s car and go out drinkin’.”

Why not? you think. It’s Saturday. Or not. And pretty soon one of you’s at the wheel of a two-year-old Honda Something-or-Other parked outside the liquor store while the other three are inside, one chatting up the clerk while the other two are stuffing bottles down their pants. Then we’re all so surprised that the clerk’s called the cops—like there’s no way he could’ve been suspicious of two guys walking out like they’d just had major hernia surgery. T’shan was just lucky he was with three white kids. Couldn’t bust just one of us. We saved his ass more than once that way. Stupid thing was he was the one who didn’t drink—but it was his idea to do stupid shit as often as not. That was back when it was really starting to matter who was white and who was black—or Latino—or Arab—or Chinese for God’s sake—it was starting to matter in scary ways. Proud Boys, scary—Ben’s side scary—I’ll get to him in a minute—his side had more guns but fewer people. But it didn’t matter who had what— everyone ended up fucked. Or—the lucky ones—dead. Now that the shit’s hit the biggest fan around and all the fallout’s pretty much fallen out, no one gives a shit about any of that. Hunger’s equal opportunity. So’s wanting to stay alive. Funny thought: we oughta go find out if Schnecker’s still alive. Just for shits. Haul him out of his house, build a fire in his front yard and cook his ass. Too bad he’s not a billionaire.

& & &

I could hear his voice, not hers. Ben was leaning into Betz, squeezing out what little personal space was left between them. I wasn’t close enough to make out the words, just the tone: rough, deep and direct. Betz didn’t move—“flinch” is a better word—as Ben’s face tilted closer. For Christ’s sake, it was like I could feel the heat of his breath, but Betz just stood there.

I started over. Ben looked at me, back at Betz and pushed his mouth an inch from her ear. His whisper was an audible growl, but again, more sound than words to me. He shot me a grin then straightened, turned, and headed toward his bunk beneath the oaks.

“What was that all about?”

Betz was still staring straight ahead, at the space Ben had just filled.

“Betz, what was that all about, with you and Ben?”

“Nothing.”

“Sounded like something more than nothing. You want me to talk to Ben?” I hoped she’d say “No”—prayed she’d say “No”—and I’d say, “You sure?” and she’d say, “Yeah, I’m sure,” but none of that happened.

“He said he was going to fuck me tomorrow and that I was going to like it.”

“He what?”

“Like I said, it was nothing, nothing at all.”

& & &

I woke up the next morning to the smell of smoke and meat. I blinked away the crap in my eyes and swatted at an imaginary mosquito out of habit—a habit everybody out here gets pretty quick. A decent fire was going, a large piece of meat skewered by an old piece of scrap wire suspended over the flames with tepeed oak branches just far enough from the heat so as not to catch on fire themselves. I squinted at the distorted figure sitting on the opposite side of the flames. Betz. I’m not sure if I walked or crawled over. It was early—4 a.m. by the moon.

          I cleared my throat. Twice. “So what’s for breakfast?” My words stayed garbled in my throat. I told you how early it was.

          Betz looked up from the flames, her face dancing slightly as the flames flickered before her. She was not a beautiful woman. But Ben was right. You did want to fuck her. At least I did at that moment. Early morning testosterone rush was my easy answer.

“What’s for what?” she asked, and I found myself staring.

          I cleared my throat a third time, looked past the flames, and just like that I wanted to be sitting next to her—that’s all. Fucking? Not fucking? Didn’t matter—I just wanted, right then, to be sitting—right beside her, watching her, watching our shadow-faces in the dance of flames. “I said, ‘What’s for breakfast?’”

          “Ben.”

          And he was.

          She lifted a large can from the edge of the fire, making sure a thick layer of moss was wrapped around the metal, protecting her hand from the heat. She pulled out a knife from inside her boot, stuck it straight down into the can, then held up a round muscle impaled on the end of the blade. “You want this? It’s done.”

          Ben’s heart. I was pretty sure I hadn’t just witnessed the first time the knife had entered. “Sure. Why not?”

& & &

You get to talking to yourself after a while—even if you’ve hooked up with a group—you just start rattling away to nobody in particular—at least I do—tromping through the woods and rattling on, trying to put everything back together in a way that makes sense—but it never does—just like it never really did before the shit storm—I mean, if it didn’t then, why should it now?

I know for sure Ben’s given me the weird eye when he’s heard me talking to myself—like I’m some kind of crazy. “Hey, Ben, who hasn’t gone crazy out here?” But I’m not going to say that out loud—at least not loud enough for him to hear.

          I just keep chatting myself up—maybe I’m just trying to remember, that’s all. Not figure out—just remember. Maybe I’m trying to get straight everything that’s happened—get the memories in order, nothing more than that.

& & &

T’shan’s the only nigger left in the group. That’s funny, the way everybody always said “n-word” instead of “nigger.” Or more accurately, “the n-word,” as if saying that was somehow proving how not a racist you were, which is bullshit of course ’cause if you’re taking the time to think “nigger” and then censoring the word before it leaves your brain and then pushing “the n-word” out instead so that every listener’s first thought—before their brains flip—is “nigger”—well then, everybody’s just said “nigger.” Just not out loud.

Me: n-word. You: nigger. See what I mean?

          T’shan laughs about it too. He knows everybody’s a racist—knew it then, knows it now. “Just a matter of degree,” he likes to say, “and what you’re willing to admit to yourself.” He’d always smile when he said that last part. I started to notice that.

All those old taboo words are just sounds for us now, now that everything’s gone to shit. “Nigger’s” no more than the rustle of the wind through dry oak leaves or the hoo hoo hoooo of the barn owl I heard earlier this morning when I couldn’t sleep. Kept thinking about our plan to get Mr. Billionaire. Thinking, not worrying. What could happen? We get caught by his guards? Killed on the spot? Like being dead wouldn’t be some kind of relief? C’mon now. Not that I want to be dead. For the most part, I like who I’m with. T’shan and I go back to high school. Not that we ever talked about much ’cept getting what we needed for the weekends. And most weeknights for that matter. And baseball. We both liked to talk baseball. Probably the last two fans of the slowest sport in the world—the pre-world, that is, before this one. No baseball here. Unless T’shan and I are tossing a rock back and forth, and we pretty much stopped doing that when our hands started getting too fucked up. “Baseball,” T’shan would say back then—“spit, scratch your balls, spit twice more and ‘ball two.’ No sport like it. Gives you time to think.”

& & &

T’shan and Betz are good people—seem like good people as far as I know them … as much as you can know anyone. Tell you what, though, you get to see other sides of folks when everything changes just like that—snap—and by “just like that” I mean goes to hell in a hurry. Now Ben, he was pretty much all asshole—which, FYI, was the one part of him we left on the fire—but I only knew the Ben that joined up after the shit had gone down—see what I did there, with “up” and “down”?—that’s how you get to know people, by knowing them through the ups and downs, through their ups and downs, and yours—which is to say you’re never going to really know them, maybe not at all—people’s ups and downs are different. But you’ll think you do—and sometimes that’s enough—why not? Not like there’s a choice in any of this. All that aside, for someone who’s not what you’d call a natural beauty, Betz’s starting to look pretty hot.

& & &

Full disclosure: I’m getting more careful about what I say around Betz, about my choice of words. I try not to let her see me watching her, but you never know—and I got to sleep sometime. And I’m not quite ready to wake up to the smell of my heart roasting in a tin can.

& & &

Let’s just say it: Betz was right to stick Ben in his sleep—or to be more accurate—in his heart. He told her what he was going to do to her the next morning. Bullshit? Maybe. But better to be the sticker than the stickee. Just ask Ben. Oh, that’s right—you can’t. See what I mean? Right or wrong, Betz was right. That said, I wish she hadn’t. I don’t miss Ben. You don’t miss an asshole. But he was muscle—sure, head included—and he could handle just about anybody. T’shan’s fit enough. I’m wiry and that’s about it. Beth —she can handle herself, for sure … but upper body strength is upper body strength—and Ben could snap you in half if he had a mind to. Or if he just didn’t like your looks. Or was bored. OK, so Betz’s sticking of Ben isn’t all bad, but “bad” and “good” don’t mean what they used to. Ben could kill you fast—and Ben was with us. That was “good.”

& & &

Now I’ve got myself thinking about Ben. Can’t sleep anyway, not with that barn owl hoo hoo hoooing away. You know it’s really a lot like Ben, that owl: it sees something, it takes it—snatch—just like that. Bap. It’s his—or hers. ’Cept owls are born that way—with those instincts. They just do what they do. They just do—period. Humans—God knows what drives us. God knows what drove Ben—figure of speech, “God,” but I’ll tell you, some days the hungrier I get the closer I come to believing in something—or wanting to.

          I mean Ben might snap this guy’s neck for looking at him funny or that guy’s neck for dinner. And God help you—I told you: figure of speech—God help you if you were a woman and Ben took a liking to you. “Liking?” “Liking’s” not quite the right word I’m looking for. “Wanting?”—took a wanting to you? That’s close enough.

          So I’m lying on the pine needles, awake, wondering, psychoanalyzing—I can be a real cause-and-effect guy—wondering if Ben was abused as a child. Severely. Was that it? If he was, I’d bet the barn it was his dad. Probably a big guy himself I’m guessing. And brutal—guessing on that one too, but I’m a big believer in genetics. “Here’s your genetic hand, kid; now go play life.” Free choice my ass. ’Cept sometimes. Like when we chose to go for Jeff. Actually, T’shan just pointed to a picture of him on an old magazine cover we found while scavenging pine needles for beds. Forbes again. Funny what people hang on to. Cover read: “Richest man in …” and the rest was pretty much too stained to read. But T’shan just pointed and said, “There’s our meal ticket.” Even Betz laughed. And then it became the thing we would do.

          Or maybe Ben had his neck wrapped up in the umbilical cord a few seconds too long, cut of the blood flow to the part that makes you fully human. Ha. Take that back. Look around at what’s left of this place. That’s what being fully human will get you. That cord’s been cut.

          Maybe a car accident. Hit his head on the windshield. I remember as a kid reading in the newspaper—newspaper—that’s funny—reading about some serial killer who his family said was a pretty regular guy till he got his head banged up against a windshield in a car accident. I think his mother was killed in the crash. Might’ve been his wife—it was a long time ago.

          So what’s the bottom line? Genetics? Semi-strangulation? Concussion?—maybe Ben’s like all of us: a whole bunch of whys wadded up into the ball of who we are at the moment. But Ben was one badass ball, that’s the truth.

& & &

So why was Betz so … beautiful for someone who was not so beautiful? This is the shit you think about—talk to yourself about—when you’re scavenging the woods for edible anything and setting snares for the same reason. I’d often lag behind so I could just watch her and try to figure it out. Not supermodel slim but not a fattie. Nobody stays a fattie out here very long. You don’t like the term “fattie?” I could give a shit. Or couldn’t. But Betz wasn’t fat. She was … sturdy. On the small side but sturdy. And dark. Hair. Eyes. Eyebrows especially, very dark. Always a slight squint to her eyes even at night—like she was trying to figure something out about you—or she just had, and now she was looking for a place in her brain to compartmentalize it. Put this, say, into the Ben Slot or that into the one she held open for me. Yes, I am projecting.

          But none of that was why I’d lag behind and watch her step over fallen branches, often pausing on one foot, balancing—for an instant, perfectly—the ball of her foot supporting her on the round of the branch. Or march herself straight into high brush, not even parting the branches with her arms, choosing to let her arms hang, relaxed, at her sides as she entered into God knows what. Me? I push all branches away from me, especially from my face. I want to see exactly what’s inside the thicket before I’m inside the thicket. Betz would be a maze of superficial cuts on her forehead and cheeks as well as her forearms from the stiffer branches. She didn’t seem to care. I took the time to notice her balancing acts, her straight-ahead plunges into whatever was in front of her, the slight cuts around her eyes.

OK, I’m rambling. Why not? I’ll tell you what I came up with, why I became so fixed—fixated?—on Betz. Not her sturdy build—that even sounds stupid—or her dark features—not at first at least. No. It was her movement as best I can figure. Her movement—as in singular—every step she took, her foot placed on a branch in a way I can’t describe but can still see too clearly, every facial gesture, squint, eyebrow raised or knitted—they were all one. Betz was movement, a single, beautiful movement. And I found myself at first wanting to follow, then having to follow. I needed to witness. It was a movement that always seemed to know where it wanted to go. I’d never seen that in a person—not so completely.

& & &

I think it pissed Ben off that he couldn’t crack Betz’s code. If he could get her to show fear—of him—she’d fragment. A piece of movement—of Betz—would break off from the whole. And then, I figure Ben figured, he’d have her. That, I think, is why he told her she was going to be his the next morning. Rape time, Betz. She’d have to start shaking over that—I mean, where you going to run to out here? No chance on your own. So Betz, I again figured Ben figured, would spend a restless night shaking off bits and pieces of herself—enough until she was sufficiently broken and his—figuratively and literally.

I doubt Ben was factoring into his equation a knife through the heart as he slept. Too bad. For Ben, I mean. At first I thought Betz whacked him for obvious reasons: better him than her. But I’ve thought about that, that and the way I found her the next morning with part of Ben being roasted over a fire. The killing, dressing, cooking—I didn’t see it, but I had followed Betz—watched her long enough even then to know—to see it in my mind—not grotesque acts—just extensions of movement—the knife thrust, the gutting and bleeding out, the making of the fire—just extensions of her whole.

I could be wrong.

But I don’t think so.

Sometimes it’s best just not to think. At all.

& & &

Only once did I ask Betz about that night, why she did what she did to Ben. Her eyes went full squint, and I remember her answering with what I took to be a slight smile: “Let’s just say I just stole his heart.”

And that was that.

& & &

I slept with Betz. Once. I was no virgin, but I hadn’t slept with that many women. Truth be told, I was wary of Betz—I think even a bit afraid. Maybe that was the attraction then. Before I really started to see Betz, how she moved. She was sitting next to the fire, and the flames seemed to distort her posture as if her whole body was engaged in a slight swaying motion—back and forth while sitting still. I don’t know if it was the hypnotic back and forth or the flames or the fact that after a long enough time tromping through various fields and forests you just get horny—how’s that for a greeting card?—anyway, I sat down next to her. I remember I had something in mind to say, but I can’t remember what it was. I do remember that I couldn’t remember then either.

I smelled her.

Now no one was smelling particularly rose-like, not the way we were living, but I smelled … her. Faint, distinct, Betz. And I was wanting really badly for the right words to come out … when she just lay back on the grass. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look at me. Eyes on the stars I suppose. And that’s where they stayed. And that’s how it went: full missionary position until I came. I can only speak for myself, but I came hard enough that I surprised myself, pushing harder, deeper right at the climax. I sat up on my knees, still inside her, my hands on her ass, pulling her toward me as I thought about where we were and what to say. “I’ll call you next week.” “Are you busy this Saturday?” “Movie?” “Dinner?” “Drive you home?” A small movement of her left wrist. Her index finger motioning me down toward her face. I leaned forward and closed my eyes as our lips grew close.

She hit me.

Hard.

Closed fist.

Head jerked back. Eyes wide open. My open hand over my right cheek bone. “What the fuck was that for?” Sudden shrinkage. I was no longer inside her.

And we both laughed. I’m still kneeling above her, straight up now, limp dicked and massaging my cheek, and we’re both laughing—I don’t know why. No idea then, no idea now—but I suspect it was for different reasons.

I may have stood up or she may have pushed me off—it doesn’t matter.

& & &

I still want to ask her if it was any good. After all this time and that’s what I want to ask her. Typical guy, I know. But I think of her in other ways too, ways that just confuse me. Maybe it’s just easier to wonder if the sex was good. For her.

& & &

Ben looked just like the lumberjack guy on the old Brawny paper towel packages ’cept Ben’s face was ruddier. And the guy on the package was always smiling. And I never saw Ben as someone who’d get that excited over paper towels. And now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t remember Ben ever smiling. Brawny guy always had that constipated smile plastered on like he’s saying, “Hurry up and take the fucking picture—I can’t hold this pose all day.” Now Ben did say “fucking” a lot. Pretty good at conjugating “fuck,” too—from past to present through all the participles. Isn’t that what they’re called?

Tell you what, just forget the Brawny man. Ben may have just seemed more like him than looked like him. Both had nice hair though. And forearms that looked like they could punch a fist through a Buick. Put Ben’s picture on the Brawny package with Ben’s arms crossed across his chest and the image may be similar—even strikingly similar—but I guaran-damn-tee you sales would drop. Consumers don’t generally gravitate to products that scare the shit out of them.

And Ben could do just that.

Just by being Ben.

Ben wore steel-toed boots and he made sure you knew it. For example: Once we were deep in the woods looking for edibles—“edibles”—it’s what we called anything green that you could keep down—or mushrooms—dandelion tops—the contents of birds’ nests—anyway Betz was holding up a handful of dandelions when three guys just appeared out of a maze of scrub oak and wisteria vines. If the Brawny guy had three brothers—and all three were assholes—they were these guys. I have never been compared to the Brawny guy or mistaken for one of his siblings. Middle one spoke first: “We’ll take those.” He was pointing to where we’d stacked our backpacks while we searched for food. “And we’ll take her.” Now he was pointing at Betz. The two guys at his sides smiled—no show of teeth, just slight upturns at the corners of their mouths like every asshole villain you ever saw in a shit action movie, and, I swear to God, that’s just what I thought: “I’m in a fucking B movie.” Evidently, Ben had been cast in the same movie. Not a word. He just walked straight up to the middle man, fixed him with a stare, then sucker punched the man to his right. Right hook. Flush on the temple. Dropped him like Newton’s apple. Splat. And that would be the only punch thrown. Before I could take my eyes off fallen man, Ben was kicking what had been the middle guy in both shins. Swear to God I heard bones crack. Like pine branches in the hottest flames. That old saying “You don’t know whether to shit or go blind”—that’s the third guy. He’s just standing there, mouth open with apparently nothing to say when Ben’s left boot toe delivers a blow to the groin. Third guy’s down. Mouth stays open. This all seems hyper fast and slow motion at the same time when I try to picture it now. I’ve tried to remember how it seemed to me then, when it happened, but the best I can do is to know it happened.

Next thing happened in real time, I do know that. Ben just walked over to each man as he lay on the grass and gave each a single shot to the face with the toe of his right boot. And that

was that. Then he looked back at no one in particular and raised his right foot up slightly and out a few inches. “Steel toes.”

There could not be enough Brawny towels in the world to soak up the blood. Head wounds are like that. The ground would have to take care of it. Betz prepared a fire while I stripped the clothes off the bodies.

& & &

So what happened to the dandelions tops? Betz ate ’em—I saw her—ate ’em like popcorn—while watching Ben redefine the phrase “kicking the shit out of someone.”

& & &

T’shan never made a move on Betz. They talked, sure, maybe more to each other than to anyone else—although T and I would talk baseball a lot. But never like he talked with Betz. I’d see them, and the body language was different. Not intimate like lovers. More like two people just listening to each other. I don’t consider myself a jealous person, but I admit that when I’d see them talking, I felt pangs of something I didn’t like—not because they were talking toeach other but the way they were talking, what they must be saying to make them lean in slightly like that, to nod that way, to look as if they wanted to know what the other person had to say, as if it was important to them to know. Yes, that. I was jealous of that.

& & &

Funny how a minor thing—a trivial gesture—can fuck up a day. Not that most days weren’t pretty much fucked up anyway what with scrounging for food, water that didn’t roil your insides, and a passably clean shirt to pick off the latest body you just found in the woods—but everything’s relative. A trivial gesture—in this case the hand signal Ben used to replace much of his speaking with—raised right hand, tip of thumb arcing to tip of index finger forming a circle, middle, ring and pinkie fingers spread and raised straight up from that circle. That’s right. Universal OK signal. Flash that to somebody and that somebody knew that what they just did or were doing or proposed to do was OK. And it meant they were OK, too. At least for that moment. At least in the eyes of whoever was flashing the sign their way. In my case it was usually Ben—and that didn’t square at all—not one bit—with the sides of Ben I’d gotten to know: the anger, the looming threat of, well, Ben, the homicidal boots. But I didn’t care about—let’s call them his murderous sides—no, not when he was flashing me a sign that said I was OK. Hey, you take what you can in this world—and I mean in this world, this one right now.

So one day T’shan and I are hauling back branches and pine needles for the night’s beds and fire. T’shan’s dragging a pretty heavy load, so I dump mine by the fire clearing and go back to give him a hand. And it was heavy, what he’d been hauling. But together we get everything to where we want it and assess the haul: enough branches for an all-night fire and for frames to hold the pine needles in place—warmth and beds for each of us. I punch him in the shoulder when we’re done and he slaps me on the back. We both laugh—the way you laugh when you’re dog-tired but for good reason. And that’s when it goes to shit. I’m mid-laugh when I spot Ben on the outer edge of the camp flashing me an OK sign. T’shan misses it ’cause he’s kneeling, crisscrossing the kindling to start the fire. I send the same gesture back to Ben as I finish my laugh. T’shan sees that.

“What’s that all about?”

The ambience has suddenly dimmed and not in a good way. “What’s what all about, T?’

“You some Proud Boy?”

“Some what boy?”

T’shan’s still kneeling. He shields his right hand with his body and replicates Ben’s gesture. “I see him—” T motions with a slight shake of his head toward Ben’s side of the camp “—flash it around, but I never figured you to be a—”

“—to be a what?”

“White. Supremacist.” The second word is a hissed sentence. His eyes are now fixed on the nascent flames, just flickers at first, and he’s fanning them slowly, being careful not to fan too hard and snuff them out—best to save what we can of the lighters.

I look down at my right hand, and slowly touch my thumb with my index finger then look back at T’shan.

He smiles but nothing’s funny. “You don’t know, do you? You really don’t know. Just an ignorant, little white kid who doesn’t know.” He shakes his head and spits a laugh into the rising flame. With his left hand still fanning the fire, he raises his right—thumb and index finger in a circle, other fingers straight up. “W P—white power, my friend—it’s not OK.”

He laughs at his unintended joke—a real laugh, the one I’m used to, and I breathe out.

“So I can still call you nig—”

“Coming from you, it’s just a sound, my friend, just a sound.” T’s voice is even. His eyes are back on Ben—on Ben’s back, actually—T may be steamed inside but he’s not stupid—and I feel a part of each of us—Ben included—being tossed into the flames.

& & &

Closest I came to getting into it with Ben—and when I say “getting into it” I mean getting stomped into a bloody pile of edible flesh inside of, oh, say, a nanosecond—involved Betz. How it involved Betz I don’t remember. At that point the three of us hadn’t been traveling together all that long, so we were still trying to feel each other out—which is to say, trying to get to know who you could trust and with what and when. I say “get to know” knowing full well that in this world you can’t know a goddamned thing. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been the first person traipsing through the woods with his new-found friends, trying to find something, some way, to keep alive for one more day—only to be bopped over the head with an oak branch and invited for dinner in the worst possible way. You needed friends to survive. You needed to be careful of your friends.

Probably Ben said something vulgar to Betz, made a move on her, something. And I probably thought I should be the protector. This is all saying a lot more about me than either Ben or Betz. T’shan liked to call my occasional “chivalrous” ways “white boy’s disease.” I’m pretty sure I swallowed the last of those ways right along with my first swallow of Jeff—and shit all of it out—repeatedly—for the rest of that day. Later that night T’shan had poked me with a rib bone and pronounced me “cured” and we both had laughed and he was pretty much right—pretty much.

What I do remember is putting my hand on Ben’s shoulder to turn him away from Betz and Ben reaching up and grabbing my wrist and turning me around so he was now standing behind me, holding my wrist behind my back and pushing it upward toward my neck. He chose not to snap my arm from my shoulder—I know this only because it’s still attached. Looking back, I assume that was an example of his good side. Instead, he lifted his right foot so that his boot curled around to the front of my ankle. Then put his free hand on the top of my head, squeezed until it felt like my eyeballs were going to pop, and tilted my head forward and down so that I was looking directly at his raised boot—specifically, the toe of that raised boot. And just as quickly he released some of the pressure on my head and wrist, held a one second pause, then full release as if to say that he was in total control of whatever moment he chose to control—and I must say that I was listening.

Weeks later I would come to understand—to witness—the full impact of his boots, of the toes of Ben’s boots. And some time after that those boots would become permanently empty.

& & &

Billionaires stockpile. That’s what they do. Or did. An example: Jeff’s place had boxes of freeze-drieds. Stacked high. We stuffed ourselves then stuffed our backpacks. Tell you what, his security sure turned on him fast—almost too easy. I honestly think they just hadn’t really thought about it before. Jeff was their security. It’s just how it was. Sometimes something goes on for so long that it just becomes what’s supposed to be. If it ain’t broke …’cept now pretty much everything was “broke,” and they had to know it whether they wanted to admit it to themselves or not. There were eight of ’em. All dressed the same: camo shirts and pants, black boots, and— this one got me—orange ball caps with Jeff’s company’s logo on the front. Like somebody’s gonna place an order—with what?—smoke signals? Two cans and a fucking string? Not only was Jeff feeding them, he was dressing them—as if all this, all this blown up, burned up, dried up, shot up, shot down world was just a movie and he was the director—which, I suppose, he was if you think about it.

We just walked up to the place—the elaborate configuration of electric gates and high-tech monitors were as dead as most everyone affected by the Great Northwest Riots. Oregon and Washington—that’s where it started, the riots—mini civil wars they were called at first ’cept it got trickier and trickier trying to figure out who was against whom. Pretty soon Chicago, then the Southern border. It was spreading up the East coast when the news stopped completely as far as I could tell. Anyway, T’shan and I told the eight guys in the orange ball caps that all this—Jeff’s place, Jeff’s food, all of Jeff’s stuff—could be their place, their food, their stuff—they could be their own security. Betz only spoke once: “After all these years—” here she paused to scan each of them, look each straight in the eye “—you deserve it.” The pause—genius—everybody thinks they deserve whatever their particular it is supposed to be. Then as her left index finger traced a half circle, she squinted, tilted her head and nodded slightly. “Just turn your backs.” And they did—they each nodded affirmatively—and then they did.

 Ah, human nature—“the more things change” and all that.

T’shan said he wanted to run Jeff to death—get him inside one of his storerooms of stash and just keep running him from box to box till he dropped. I suggested we just whack him, grab what we could before the ball cap boys started having second thoughts, then haul his body out into the woods for a late meal. From his expression I suspected T’shan had had some past experience with Jeff’s company but figured now was not a good time to discuss it—plus, I didn’t really give a shit. That was then.

What we didn’t know but found out when we entered the mansion—I call it a mansion—seemed the size of a small city—enough rooms to house a lot—a lot—more people then Jeff and his second wife, who I had to assume was lying low in one of those rooms and beginning to reassess her relationship with her security team—what we didn’t know was that Ben had already gone inside, found Jeff. It looked like one boot to the side of the head did it. He tossed T’shan and me a sheet to start wrapping the body to make it easier to carry. It would get easier—that part.

& & &

Sure, I wondered who these people were. We were keeping each other alive and we didn’t even know each other, not really. I mean, I knew T’shan got baseball and I knew our high school bullshit, I knew how Betz moved, and Ben scared the shit out of me, but that was pretty much it.

          One day we were walking through a mixture of scrub oaks and spruce toward the sound of water running—it was gray and spitting light rain with a side of lightning, distant—and I was thinking, what if we all just sat around the fire one night and talked—not Ben at the edge of the camp looking like his head was about to explode about God knows what, or Betz, expressionless, poking at a fire that was already set to burn all night, or T’shan and I tossing some stupid rock back and forth and calling strikes and balls till our hands hurt too much to continue—no—what if we sat and talked, told about ourselves—the selves that existed before the water ran out or the fires spread or the gangs grew or the small nukes fell? Sure, you could say anything you wanted about yourself—make yourself into anybody you wanted to be—no one here was going to know the difference—but what was the gain in that?—I mean now—the way things were—why not just go with the truth? I envisioned us as I walked, sitting around that night’s fire. Ben—even if you could get him to sit in the circle—sure as shit wasn’t going to open up. But see, that was where I might be wrong. I mean what did I know about Ben? He may start in on himself and go all night. Didn’t seem likely, I know. And Betz—she’d sit there all right, but that was about it. Still, you couldn’t know for sure. T’shan was the most likely to reveal some parts, but for it to work all of us had to be in on it, and that meant Betz and Ben—and T’shan was not too hot on getting too close to Ben since the OK sign turned into a Proud Boy hello. So I’d start. There you go. I’d start it off, tell the group who I was, really, what I was all about—what I was all about before the shit happened. So I start thinking about that—about exactly what I would say. And I kept walking and I kept thinking and walking and thinking—until I just kept walking.

& & &

Sometimes we’d get around in suicide cars. At first it was surprising how many you’d find in the woods. Then it made more sense. A lot of folks after the climate-crazed, riot-raged, small-nuke shit storm chose to opt out of the new order, permanently. “New order”—pretty much a fancy name for gang-driven, desperate, disorganized scavenging—and pretty much a joke. More like “no order.” I couldn’t blame anyone for choosing to check out. Better to end it faster than slower—that made sense. I just didn’t have the balls although I thought about it. A lot. Especially early on. These guys in the suicide cars—mostly guys, not all, but mostly—don’t ask—I’m not a psychologist although I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the suicide car drivers were. OK—that’s not fair. Pet peeve. Let it go. There. Gone.

I know we’re all supposed to be different, but I started to see a pattern: You’d drive your car as deep into the woods as you could—which I never understood—shallow, deep—what’s the difference when you’re going to whack yourself. But that’s what you’d do. You’d be amazed where we found some of them. Then you’d park the car. That’s right. Almost every one of these guys parked their fucking cars. You could tell. Not just crash through the woods willy nilly till you hit a tree and then blow your brains out with one shot to the temple—no. First you parked the car. Usually in a small clearing beside the largest tree—again, you’ll have to see the psychologist on that one—he’s probably in the next car over. Shit, one guy even backed in. You could tell. Rear bumper right up to the trunk of a white oak but not quite touching. Nice and straight, too. I’m guessing he got out and checked.

Money was part of the pattern. More often than not there’d be money—always in the front seat—sometimes on the passenger side, sometimes in the driver’s lap—usually in a briefcase or a cloth bag, never just stuffed in—no—bills were mostly snapped smooth and in stacks that you could tell had been counted—the presidents’ heads all pointed the same way. ’Cept for one guy—my favorite—and I mean that in a good way. Bills everywhere—like he just threw handfuls up in the air so that they landed all over himself, in his lap, on the dashboard, the floorboards. Then he put a bullet right between his eyes. Only one to do it that way. Hey, exceptions make the rule.

Most of the suicides did shoot themselves—but first surround themselves with bills—a few even had their checkbooks—then bam!—bullet to the temple—usually with a handgun. Traditionalists. There were some who hooked a hose up to their car’s exhaust and ran it inside, using rags or their shirt to seal the crack at the top of the almost rolled up window. I figured they were either engineers or accountants. Detail oriented. A couple were even wearing suits—like they were going to work. The business of death, I suppose.

One other thing about the pattern—most of the suicide cars had full tanks of gas, siphoned from their other vehicles probably, as if the drivers were preparing to go on a long trip. Which maybe they were, what do I know?—but not the kind that took a full tank.

& & &

Odd thing—in one of the suicide cars I found a manuscript for a book—a book! What century had this guy been living in? No wonder he blew his brains out. Probably had to decide between that and hanging himself with the cord of his landline phone. The manuscript was 602 pages long—I didn’t count them—God, no—the pages were numbered. And they fit perfectly inside the cardboard box on the passenger seat, barely an eighth of an inch to spare on each of the four sides.

I removed the title page while Betz and T hauled the body out of the car—it couldn’t have been sitting there for more than a day—that was good. Ben already had flame coming from the kindling of an impromptu fire. My first thought was just to take the manuscript. I liked to read and did a lot of it all through school—anything that wasn’t assigned. Good reader, shit student—should’ve had that emblazoned under my yearbook picture. Anyway, it would’ve helped pass the time in the evenings once whatever we’d scavenged that day had been cooked and eaten and the pine needles for the beds had been arranged. Betz returned to the car, removed two lighters from the center console and slipped them into her pocket. Can’t have too many lighters—but you can have too many book manuscripts—which in this case was one, this one. Too big, too heavy. I decided I’d just sit by the fire and skim it.

Turns out it was a memoir:

The Life and Times of R. Henry Birchwald
by
R. Henry Birchwald

Didn’t take too much skimming to discover that my new friend R. Henry had the unrequited hots for a Miss Jennifer Smittenson, a.k.a. “Jenn” in the steamier sections, which involved R. Henry’s dream sequences of Jenn—fully clothed, by herself, and staring longingly out of assorted windows. I took it upon myself to mentally de-clothe R. Henry’s Jenn and fuck her. I did this on page 418 right smack in the middle of a dream passage where R. Henry “could almost hear her thoughts and hope they included him.” Sorry to say, R. Henry, old buddy, but in the dream on page 418 Jenn was pretty much focused on yours truly.

          To say I skipped huge chunks of the Birchwald opus would be an understatement. It became quickly apparent that once you’d read one dream passage you’d read them all in the sense that you just knew R. Henry wasn’t getting laid—ever—not even in his own book.

          I felt bad for what I’d done to Jenn behind R. Henry’s stiffening back—and I did do some things—not bragging, but I got the feeling that she welcomed me into R. Henry’s Life and Times with open arms—and legs—and whatever else I could think of. I was discreet though—I kept it to a page. What’s really odd is I didn’t want Betz to know what I’d done.

          Ultimately, I decided to put what remained of Mr. Birchwald and his dreams out of their miseries. I did this respectfully, taking care not to ding the corners of any of the pages as I let the manuscript fall back into the box. I folded the four flaps over in such a way as to seal the book inside. Then I walked over to a now surging fire and let the cardboard box drop into the middle of the flames.

          Ben looked up, one nostril slightly flared: “What the fuck was that?”

          & & &

There were other bodies in the woods. A subset—the suicide walkers who chose to leave their cars at home—who just walked until they starved to death or died of thirst, no apparent attempts to scavenge a few more days. And there were those who probably had every intention of living, but they just ate the wrong leaves or grasses or vines or mushrooms or drank from a shit stream. A lot of the time, with this group, it looked—smelled?—like they shit themselves to death. Which might have been the case. I’m not a doctor. Betz might’ve been though. She’d autopsy this last group, the ones who looked and smelled like they’d swallowed some of mother nature’s poison apples. She wanted to know what was in their stomachs—it was usually too late if the contents had gotten through to the intestines—she wanted to know what we shouldn’t eat—or at least what she shouldn’t eat.

I thought the first … autopsy …would be hard for me to watch, but it wasn’t. I think that before the shit storm I would have been revealing the contents of my own stomach. But this was after, and I just watched.

Betz wouldn’t bother to look up. She’d just reach into a newly excavated stomach, pull out anything that was still recognizable, hold it up for me and T’shan and Ben—yes, Ben, before he’d been autopsied—she’d hold it straight up and say, “Visualize—got it?”

We’d say, “Yes.”

Repeat.

& & &

Before I check out—and I’m not looking for it to happen anytime soon—let me tell how it all came to this. I’ve called it a perfect shit storm because that’s what it was. Hard to believe it all caved in at once. Like a row of dominoes with a suicide pack—but instead of plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, each one bumping into the next—just one, single, goddamned PLOP! Almost makes you believe in a higher power—and not a particularly benevolent one at that.

Almost.

I’ve got enough to think about.

Here’s how it went down—used to hear that line in a lot of movies. Ha. Whole fucking world’s turned into a bad movie—starring Me as me, T’shan as the Black friend—told you it was like a bad movie—Betz as the mysterious surgeon, and Ben—in a cameo appearance—as the asshole. Projecting again? Maybe. But this is my movie. But what’s next isn’t:

As best I can figure, here’s my equation for the perfect shit storm—give or take a few ingredients—I’m mixing my metaphors, I know—I can do that now—here’s the equation give or take a few factors, and you can put this shit in any order:

Plastics + fracking + industrial waste = – potable water = wildfires x (droughts + torrential flooding) = crop failure = discontent + hunger + tribalism = anger = pliant politicians = corporate greed + corporate $$²= political prostitutes = corporate $$$³ = (racial + social + economic inequalities) x television pundits = riots + (anger > calm) = more riots + (blame > dialogue) = water wars + race wars + tribal wars = global wars + a jet stream not streaming = (rising tides + super hurricanes) x refugees¹⁰ + chemical weapons + biological weapons < small nukes = You are here.

Might be a little stream of consciousness infiltrating my math skills, but the equation is close enough—at least for partial credit. What the hell—there’s enough credit to go around for everybody to have some—even those of us who are left. All of us.

& & &

Communications went down with the grid, so a lot of what I know—a lot of what I think I know—I gleaned from bits and pieces—from people who were fleeing with you, from you, dying in thickets or cars or under large oak branches or amid the rubble of what had been 116 Shady Elm Lane or, most often, people who were just pointlessly wandering. Everybody had a story—of what happened and why—and everybody’s story was all that mattered. In that way it wasn’t that much different than before the shit fell—’cept then everybody seemed to be in front of a camera.

And some of what I learned came from observation: of parched fields—or blackened—of lakes and streams—either fishless or with fish floating in their own stink—shells of cities and towns—some in various stages of rubble, others just abandoned, their inhabitants driven out by fear. Fear. Shit. Left that out of the equation. Too obvious, I suppose.

& & &

We slogged through it all—or drove when we found an operable car. You hooked up with whoever seemed best able to keep you alive. That explains Ben. I can’t say I miss Ben—and who can blame Betz for sticking the bastard?—but I’ll hold to it that I miss his muscle. It helps to have somebody who cannot just kick ass but wants to kick ass. Yes, yes, projecting again. It’s what I do. True, I can’t know Ben liked doing what he did to people—it’s just that he did it so much.

So you pretty much hooked up just to up the odds of seeing the next sunrise. Bonds could make and break in an instant—over a lost water bottle or a clutch of dandelion tops. At first I tried to stay on the edges of whatever group had coalesced—choosing pretty much to just tag along and watch as some joined while others left—or were shed—and not always in the most pleasant of ways.

For a long time it was just the four of us—T’shan, Betz, Ben, and me—and then the three of us. I say “a long time”—who knew really? Time was an early casualty. Pre-shit storm, time pretty much ruled—career goals, college funds, retirement planning for God’s sake—all poofed away along with the need for calendars—coins disappeared from a magician’s hand. Now it’s just the sun and the stars and trying to believe your reasons for trying to get where you’re trying to go.

& & &

I’m trying to remember how we ended up together. I’d split with my previous group—they thought I’d slipped a canteen from some else’s backpack—maybe yes, maybe no—it was early days in a brave, new world—and at that point I was not particularly adept at providing the “brave.” Not that I’ve improved much. I tromped around for a few days, eating what I’d been able to stuff into my pockets and backpack before unceremoniously—and discreetly—splitting. I kept moving toward the sounds of water, filtering what I found through my shirt into my shoe—much like those old TV survival shows. I have to say I grew increasingly concerned about my own imminent cancelation.

One night I was alone, sitting beside a small fire, trying to keep warm, and roasting some insects I’m choosing not to remember when I saw Betz. Just standing there beside me like she’d been there the whole time. Should have scared the shit out of me, but it didn’t. I held out a roasted God-knows-what and she took it—ate it as I recall. And Ben showed up right behind her. Was he with her? Following her? Stalking? Just coincidence? Didn’t know then, don’t know now. Did know enough not to ask Ben—first impressions aren’t always wrong.

T’shan came later. Ben, Betz, and me—in that order—entered a clearing in the woods and there sat my old high school buddy, skinning a rabbit. Truth be told, I wasn’t surprised to see him. The wildfires where we used to live pushed everybody in pretty much the same direction, and I knew we both had to be pulled toward the sounds of what would prove to be a decent-sized river. T told us he’d killed the rabbit with a rock—told Ben and Betz that he used to pitch some in high school. Had a decent fastball—which was true—I remember. It was a useful skill. Probably why Ben didn’t just snap T in two and take the rabbit. Instead, T’shan shot me a quick nod of recognition, held up the meat, and motioned the three of us over. The four of us ate well that night.

& & &

We were sitting on a low oak branch, Betz and I, skinning something—or somebody. I remember how hot it was, how we were both sweating, quiet and sweating. Her voice was unexpected: “When you sleep with me all bets are off.” She was watching a drop of blood cling to the tip of her knife, vibrate slightly, then drop. Then she stood abruptly and walked into the shade of a nearby water elm.

I didn’t get what she’d meant, still don’t, truth be told. All bets are off … when you sleep with me … all Betz … off. Betz … bets. The more I play it in my head the more confused I get—but I still parse that sentence most nights when I’m lying on my back on the pine needles, listening to a river in the distance, and just looking straight up, past myself, at whatever she once saw.

& & &

So #332 is next. We head to where we think Tesla guy lives. Betz says she has some recipes in mind. I never could decide on Tesla guy—good guy, bad guy—I know, it’s never that simple. He was definitely out front with electric cars—we should’ve followed him on that one. But like a lot of us, the more you got to know him the more whack job he seemed. Sure, he was all power to the people … just hold the people. If he’s next on the list, so be it. Truth be told, he probably ought to thank us for taking him out.

Or maybe we’re the ones going to get whacked. Or maybe just me. Or maybe Tesla guy takes me out back, behind the garages with all the cars we should have driven, where, son of a bitch, his rocket—Starship—is on the launch pad just waiting to be manned and he pushes me toward it like T’shan in high school would give me a push out of somebody’s car toward the liquor store and I’d say “I’m going, OK?” and, like T, Tesla guy would punch me in the shoulder and we’d both laugh and he would help me up the scaffolding toward the nose cone and open the hatch for me, slap me on the back and say “Get on in there, buddy” and I’d want to ask “What about my space suit? Don’t I get a space suit?” and maybe he’d laugh and maybe he wouldn’t and it didn’t matter because somebody would’ve already closed the hatch and hit the button and shot me straight to fucking Mars.

& & &

I wasn’t … glad when Betz killed Ben—at least I tried not to be. That’s not the person I want to be—even now—when it doesn’t matter a whole lot. But when I was alone and the three of them came through that clearing, the only one I saw at first was Ben—and the only thing—and I do mean thing—he saw was me, a nigger. I’m not alone in knowing the look, not by a long shot. Worse yet, I was a nigger with food. A rock wasn’t going stop this guy. Ben was a big man. No one can throw that hard. I just held up the rabbit—I think it was a rabbit—told my tale and hoped for the best. I still do.

& & &

I can feel his eyes on me again—every step I take. Like a bad song lyric. I know that’s why he lags behind. His eyes even follow me into the thickets. So what? I’m going to call the cops? That’s funny. Not that I would even if I could.

I will say it’s an odd feeling for me—being noticed this way, for this long. I’m having trouble processing it. I might—might—even be OK with … noticed. I’m not sure. But obsessed? Oh, I’m sure about that.

What if he’s not just about being horny?—yeah, and the earth’s flat. I suppose some part of him could really want to know what makes this girl tick. And that’d be just one more thing this girl doesn’t give a rat’s ass about. Tell you what—he needs to just let it go. Just keep finding food and water and let the rest go. You don’t know anything about me. Nothing. Zero. How could you when I don’t know a goddamned thing about myself?

Good God, I almost laughed at that—“I don’t know a goddamned thing about myself.” You know what? That alone makes me the most self-aware human being out here. Hey, over here, folks!—representing the beautiful city of St. Dystopia, California, is the very lovely, the very talented, the wouldn’t-be-caught-dead-in-a-swimsuit—Miss … Self … AWARE!

Crown, please. And pass the knife.

& & &

OK, I’m not going to fuck her tomorrow. Just because I said it doesn’t mean I’m gonna do it. Some girls like it when you come on strong, talk rough. Thought I’d try it. Mighta got lucky. Nothing to lose out here. Plus you gotta do something to stir up the pot—you die of fucking boredom looking for food, looking for food, looking for food—did enough of that shit growing up.

Sometimes you just say shit—or do shit. I know I got a temper and that doesn’t help. Or maybe it does. I mean this ain’t Kansas anymore. Sometimes you just do shit and it’s done. Over. Like Pop’d pop us one out of the blue. For what? Or Mom—smacked her more than once. “Keep her in line” he’d tell me and laugh—until I’d laugh—and it did keep her straight—right up to the day he gave her his best shot.

But I wouldn’t fuck Betz. I mean, I would—but she’d have to be in on it. Now that T-what’s-his-name—he talks to her—I’ve seen them talking. It may seem weird, kind of creepy I suppose, but I’ll watch them talk—no, I’ll listen—from across camp, behind the fire, eyes closed. Can’t make out the words—just the sounds, and that’s enough. That other guy—always mumbling to himself and bringing up the rear—can’t get a bead on him, not that I’m trying to.

But Betz and … T’shan—that’s his name—they seem … comfortable together—they sound comfortable. I don’t know why, but it relaxes me when they talk. He’s not so bad, T’shan. One of the good ones.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Richard Downing 2025