Slices Read Free Page A

and the staff are just telling
everyone to be calm, just stay calm, everything is being handled, and
they look dead on their feet and ready to break.
    Mom’s
got all kinds of theories and I hear all about them while she holds
my hand death-grip tight, while she drifts in and out of coherence.
It’s the terrorists, she tells me. Or it’s the Jews, or
the blacks. Whoever she’s scared of right this minute, that’s
who’s doing this, and she’s scared of so much right now.
    I’m
not just catching snippets of news reports and half-glimpsed
headlines any more. Every paper I see is screaming about this on the
front page. Every TV I see in the hospital lounges has scientists and
experts calmly trying to figure out what to do.
    Last
fucking straw tonight, I was on the bus again headed home and the
passengers around me looked like they were being taken away to a
concentration camp, helpless and pale and thin, and this one guy —
    I
don’t even know how to tell you this part.
    This
one guy, he started coughing and retching, and stood up, flailing for
the cord to pull to get the driver to stop, clutching his throat with
his other hand, flecks of spit flying from his mouth, people bolting
out of their seats to get out of his way, and bulging from his open
mouth, his tongue was — his tongue looked the size of a fist,
the color of a plum, and he kept choking —
    Then
his tongue just. It just burst. Blood flew everywhere. People were
screaming. I think I was. I don’t know. The woman right in
front of him was wiping the blood from her face with both hands
screaming get it off get it off oh Jesus get it off me.
    The
bus hit something. Another car or a bus shelter or a mailbox, I don’t
remember. The doors opened and the driver was freaking out but trying
to stay calm and telling us okay don’t panic everybody off
single file someone call an ambulance and everybody went for the
doors at once. I was right in the middle of it and there was
something blocking the door at my feet, I was stumbling and I looked
down, there was a kid, I don’t even know if it was a boy or a
girl fallen down and the crowd just going right over and I wanted to
stop and help them up but there were people behind shoving me and
hitting and screaming so I just — kept going, stepping right on
the kid like everyone else and you would have done the same damn
thing if you were there. You would have.
    Somebody
should call an ambulance, somebody should do something, but everyone
just scatters. I drop to all fours, skinning my hands on the
sidewalk, and lose everything I’ve got in my stomach.
    Fuck
this. No way. I have to get out of here. I don’t think about
Mom, I don’t think about any of my stuff back at the hotel, I
just get on the next bus to the airport. Ambulances will come. The
police will come and take care of all this but I have to leave.
    But
I can’t. All the flights are canceled. There are men in black
BDUs with guns and gas-masks and riot shields blocking the gates. I
don’t know whether they’re military or the police and
they’re not answering any questions.
    My
cell phone gets no signal here. I find a pay phone. It takes me hours
of “all circuits are busy” messages but I finally get
hold of you and you think I’ve gone crazy. You’ve been
watching the news, you’ve been looking online, and there is not
a single damn thing about an epidemic here.
    I
get off the phone and just sink to the floor. That’s it, I
think, we’ve been abandoned. The world’s written us off.
They’re burying the story. They’ll be burying us next.
    I’m
getting out of the city even if I have to walk. So I get on a bus
that takes me as far from downtown as I can get and then I start
walking.
    This
is stupid. I know it is. If we’re really trapped here, if we’re
quarantined, there’ll be more men and more guns to keep me
inside. But I’m not sick. I’ve been keeping my hands
washed and drinking lots of liquids and following every stupid