Slow Apocalypse (34 page)

In their earlier days Dave and Karen had liked to come here. Cesar Chavez Avenue (formerly Brooklyn Avenue) and Whittier Boulevard bustled with small private enterprise, from the taco trucks parked at the curb to the fruit carts with their colorful wares peeled, sliced, and sitting on ice, ready to be bagged with a squeeze of lime and maybe a dash of chili powder, to the tiny storefronts jammed to the ceiling with cheap imported merchandise from China and Southeast Asia. Some of the best Mexican, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran food in the city could be had cheaply in the many tiny restaurants.

There was an orange plastic fence standing between the tent city and the lake itself, going all the way around the lake at a distance of about ten yards. National Guard troops stood guard. Dave realized they were using the lake for drinking water. Across from them, on St. Louis Street, there was a large tank with a wood fire under it and pipes attached to it. That fed into a big aboveground plastic swimming pool. They were boiling the water and letting it cool
in the pool. A long line of mostly women were waiting to get plastic milk jugs filled.

On the north side of the park, out on Fourth Street, dozens of blue plastic portable toilets had been lined up. The wind was blowing from that direction and the stench was pretty bad.

“I wonder how often they can empty those things?” Karen asked.

“Not often enough.”

On the southeast side of the park were even more tents and tarps, completely surrounding the lake. At the corner of St. Louis and Fourth were several trucks, one of them another grip truck that had been converted to a hospital, and another that was serving as a soup kitchen. A long line stretched away from that, too. He could see other trucks in the side streets. All of them looked to be wood-powered, with the telltale burner looking like a big water heater. Somewhere, there was a factory turning them out.

“This is terrible,” Karen said. “Understatement of the year.”

“And we thought we had it bad.”

“No, we’ve known for a long time that there were a lot of people worse off than we are. We’ve still got food, and a secure place to go to.” She looked up at Dave. “Are you sure that leaving is a good idea?”

“No, I’m not sure at all. But we still need to do more exploring before we can make an intelligent decision about that.”

“Not we. You. Like I said, we’re going to do what you decide.”

“I wish that made me happier to hear that. I mean—”

“I know what you mean. It’s a lot of pressure, and I’d hate to have it all on me. We should be working as a team, but Dave, I just don’t feel up to that yet.”

“Let me know when you do. It would be welcome.”

“Maybe soon.” She sighed. “Onward.”

They continued on the freeway. There were still people here and there, almost all of them going south. Most of the noise-reduction cinder-block walls had fallen down. For the first time driving down this stretch of road Dave was able to see what was on the other side of them. At first it was houses, then a mix of houses on one side and warehouses on the other. A monster fire had ravaged the warehouse district. After half a mile he realized he was seeing the burned hulks of houses, too.

A pedestrian overpass had fallen and entirely blocked the road. Someone had used wire cutters on the cyclone fence running on each side, and a hacksaw on the metal supports. Dave could see tire tracks where trucks had crossed it. They had to lift their scooters onto the shattered concrete.

Then there was the interchange with the I-710 Long Beach Freeway. From a distance it didn’t seem possible that they might get through. Great sections of the curving overhead ramps were missing. In some places nothing was left standing but the massive concrete supports.

Once again what was left of CalTrans, the highway department, had pushed a path through. It involved taking the ramp for the 710 and then crossing over many lanes of freeway, then onto a street called Triggs and down onto the I-5 again. It was so rough they had to get off and walk the scooters, but in five minutes they went down a bulldozed ramp and onto the freeway again.

They were well into the City of Commerce, in the heart of the industrial zone in southeast Los Angeles.

As its name implied, the City of Commerce existed to provide warehouses and light industry in a neighborhood where they could pay low property taxes. There was a small residential area squeezed between the 5 and the 710, but elsewhere it was deserted after dark except for night watchmen. It was surrounded
by little towns like Bell and Bell Gardens, Downey, Vernon, Maywood, and Montebello.

Over the muted noise of their engines Dave thought he heard gunshots. He eased off on the gas, and saw that Karen had already done so. They both braked and stood side by side, turning their heads for the source of the sound.

“Up there a little bit, I think,” Dave said.

“Shouldn’t we turn around?”

“It sounds pretty distant. I think we could venture forward a little bit.”

“If you say so.”

They went another three blocks, not hearing any more gunfire. Then at the fourth street they saw and heard a crowd of people. Off to their right was the big empty parking lot of a Home Depot. The crowd of people was almost directly in front of them. Many of them had the big flat orange carts shoppers used to wheel lumber to the checkout stand. There was an alertness to their posture, and they were all looking away from Dave and Karen toward something the two of them couldn’t see because too many people were in the street, blocking their view. But voices were being raised in that direction.

Some of the shopping carts were stacked with goods, cardboard boxes and big burlap sacks that might hold fifty or a hundred pounds of coffee or rice. Some of the sacks were paper, and imprinted with the Purina checkerboard.

“Are people eating dry dog food now?” Karen wondered.

“Could be. Or maybe they’re just feeding their dogs.”

There was a rattle of automatic weapons fire, and the crowd of people ducked as one. So did Dave and Karen. More shots, single ones this time, and many of the people in front of them turned and began to run. Some of them abandoned their carts, but more pushed or dragged them. The contents of the carts were clearly as important as life itself.

“Let’s get out of here!” Karen shouted.

Dave looked around and saw a warehouse off to their right. It was made of corrugated steel, and its big door was open.

“Over there,” he said. Karen saw the warehouse and took off for it, with Dave following close behind. He glanced to his side as the gunfire quickly turned into a full-fledged firefight. As he watched there was an explosion, then another. He couldn’t tell just what it was, but he thought it might be hand grenades. Was the National Guard down that street, or was it just the legendary heavily armed Los Angeles street gangs?

It didn’t really matter. His last glimpse of the action before the edge of the warehouse cut off his view was of two running men falling down, shot in the back.

When they came to the open warehouse door Karen was going a little too fast. She leaned too far into the turn and the edge of the scooter’s foot platform scraped the ground. Then the scooter was on its side and Karen was sprawled on the concrete. Dave jumped off his scooter and knelt beside her.

“Are you hurt?

“Just a scrape,” she said. “What do they call it? Road rash.”

He helped her up and followed her along the inside wall of the warehouse, behind some crates stacked just inside the door. They turned off their engines and propped their scooters on the kickstands.

“Let me see that,” Dave said, bending toward her leg.

“It’s all right, I tell you. I wonder if we can shut that big door?”

It was a roll-up door, wide and high enough to accommodate two big trucks side by side. And they were in luck, because if it had been electrically operated, there would have been no way to roll it down. But this was an old building, and no one had bothered to upgrade something that had worked well for years. They started toward the manual chain mechanism and were halfway there when they heard running footsteps outside.

They froze, bringing their shotguns up into firing position.

Two men came hurrying around the corner and into the warehouse. Both were black, one in his mid-forties and the other a teenager. They stopped when they saw Karen and Dave, and the older man put his hands in the air.

“We ain’t armed,” he said.

“Don’t shoot,” said the younger one. He looked on the edge of tears.

“Keep your hands up,” Dave said. The younger one quickly raised his hands.

“I surely will,” said the older one, “but staying here ain’t a good idea. There’s some bad dudes coming down the street.

As if to punctuate his words, there was another burst of automatic weapons fire and then single rifle shots in return. A bullet hit the outside of the warehouse and whined off into the distance. The steel wall rang.

“We need to take cover,” the man said.

“Get back behind those crates,” Dave said, gesturing with his gun.

“You got it.”

The two hurried to the crates, followed closely by Dave and Karen. They made their way back behind them, into a narrow aisle.

“Stop there,” Dave said. “I’m going first. Karen, you cover them. I want you guys to stop in the middle of the aisle here and sit down. I’m going to the other end, and Karen will be on the other side of you. She’ll stay twenty feet away from you, and she
will
shoot if you try anything funny.”

“Funny is the furthest thing from my mind. Come on, son, do what the man says.” The man and boy sat with their backs against the crates. The boy was shivering, obviously scared to death. Dave hurried to the end of the aisle and peered around the corner. From there he could see the street.

“What are your names?” he heard Karen say.

“I’m Justin, and this is my son Kareem.”

“Justin, I’m sorry about this, we don’t mean to—”

“Don’t worry about it, ma’am. I was in your position, I’d do the same.”

“What were you doing out there without a weapon?”

“What I was doing was looting.”

“Dad!”

“No point prettying it up. We’ve been hungry, my family and me. Heard there was food in some of these warehouses, being guarded by the companies that own it. That didn’t seem right to me. So we come down here to see what’s what. As to coming without a weapon, I had me a pistol until ten minutes ago. Lost it running away from all that shooting. I’m afraid I’m gonna miss that pistol.”

“Where do you live?”

“Live in Downey, work in Vernon.”

“Quiet, everybody!” Dave said in a loud whisper. “I think I hear someone coming.”

It sounded like a large group. Dave peeked around the wooden boxes. He saw four men, then six come running down the street. They all paused and looked into the warehouse. All the men were young, and looked Hispanic. They were all armed, with a variety of weapons, mostly handguns but two rifles that looked military.

One of the men said something in Spanish, and four of them took off. Both the assault rifles went with them. The two who were left behind looked like the youngest, and all they had was pistols. Dave now liked the odds better, but was hoping not to have to shoot. It was not only that he was loath to take a life, but the probability that the sound would bring the others back.

“You think they in there?” one of them said. He was wearing a red bandanna tied around his forehead. His skin glistened with sweat.

“How the fuck I know that?”

“Dude, I don’t wanna go in there. There a thousand places to set up on you, and those dudes could be in any of ’em. We walk in there, we sitting ducks.”

“But Cuchie say we should—”

“Yeah, and Cuchie, he down the street looking for them others. I say we cool it here ten minutes, then we catch up, say ain’t nobody here.”

“Sound like a plan. You got a smoke?”

“What I look like, a cigarette machine? I got three, maybe four I been saving. Ain’t no food coming into town,
damn
sure ain’t no smokes coming in.”

“Aw, c’mon, share one with me.”

“All right. But don’t just stand there, fool. Let’s get outta the doorway. Goddam shooting gallery, this is.”

Dave watched them hurry to hide themselves on the other side of the open door. He glanced back at Karen, who wasn’t pointing the shotgun at Justin and Kareem anymore. The two men still sat, heads down, trying not to breathe too loudly. Dave realized he had been holding his breath, too.

Neither of the bangers could have been much older than fourteen.

Dave could hear them talking on the other side of the steel wall. He realized he had very little idea what was going on, who was involved in the fighting out there. He thought it over, and then pointed at Justin. The man looked, raising his eyebrows. Dave gestured for him to come over.

Justin got carefully to his feet, making no noise. His son watched him fearfully. The older man walked carefully, his hands in the air. Dave signaled that he could put them down. Justin stopped five feet away, and Dave motioned him closer.

“Justin, I’m going to trust you,” he whispered.