Bad Glass Read online

  I peered up into the gray sky, noticing for the first time the freshly driven telephone poles standing on either side of the barricade.

  “Cameras,” I replied, feeling my knees weaken.

  “The roads are under surveillance. We can’t let anyone in … They’d see.”

  The soldier stared at me for a long moment, his deep blue eyes grabbing hold of my muddy brown ones. Then something happened to his face—a crumpling inward—and the sorrow returned, replacing that momentary burst of anger. “You need to get in there, don’t you? Your brother? Is that it?”

  I nodded.

  We stood that way for a couple of seconds, the soldier studying my face, trying to gauge my intentions. Then he looked away. “The cameras have a limited range, extending maybe twenty feet into that field over there.” He nodded toward the south side of the road. “Bobby and I … well, we tend to get distracted.”

  I nodded my understanding, and he pointed me back toward the car.

  I started to get in but stopped as soon as I noticed the backpack on the passenger seat. I could see my camera sheathed neatly within. I glanced up through the windshield and, for the first time, noticed the sign on Fort Wright Road: ENTERING SPOKANE. But the word Spokane was gone, hidden beneath midnight-black enamel.

  “Wait!” I called. The soldier had already started back toward his comrade, and there was a blank, drained look on his face when he turned back my way. I reached over to the passenger seat and pulled out my camera, holding it up so he could see. “I don’t suppose I could get your picture?”

  For a moment, the soldier looked confused. He glanced up toward the surveillance cameras, then back down, shaking his head in amazement.

  Then, slowly, that out-of-place grin reappeared.

  He was a pretty good subject.

  At first, he just gave me that shit-eating grin—wearing it like a protective mask—and that just wouldn’t work. He was standing on the edge of something dark and unknowable, not posing with his family on a holiday weekend.

  Finally, I had him grip his rifle in his left hand while holding his right out in front of his face, like he was trying to block my shot. I felt ridiculous moving the soldier around like a department store mannequin. I felt like an impostor.

  Is this what photojournalists do?

  Yes, I finally decided. Anything to get the shot. Anything to tell a story.

  I didn’t stage the bunny sticker, though. The bunny sticker was already there—a bright, childish icon stuck to the butt of the soldier’s gun.

  Before I pulled away from the barricade, the soldier told me about an overgrown lane a half mile back the way I’d come, whispering directions into my ear with a cautious glance up toward the nearest camera. It was barely there—a little woodland trail, almost invisible—and I had to jolt through a quarter mile of brush before I finally reached a small alcove sheltered beneath an umbrella of branches. A dozen vehicles were already parked back there, hidden away from the main road, some covered with a thick coat of fallen leaves, others looking car-wash clean.

  I parked next to a mud-splattered Jeep and got out of my car. Judging by the carpet of leaves on its hood, the Jeep had been there for quite a while. I walked a circuit around the vehicle, peering in through its windows. The passenger-side window had been left open just a crack, and there was a puddle of rainwater standing on the carpeted floorboard. The Jeep had specialty California license plates, and there was a stacked “P.P.” icon to the left of the number.

  “Shit,” I muttered, shaking my head. I’d seen that icon on the news. P.P. stood for “Press Photographer.”

  How much competition do I have? I wondered.

  I knew I wasn’t the first. Pictures had been leaking out of the city for weeks now—strange, beautiful pictures, unlike anything I’d ever seen. But how many photographers had beaten me here? Dozens? Were there parking spots like this at every entrance—alcoves filled with Jeeps and news vans and P.P. specialty plates?

  Is my chance already gone?

  Overwhelmed with frustration, I hauled off and kicked the Jeep’s bumper. The vehicle rocked back and forth on its shocks, but my boot didn’t leave a mark. I considered keying the car—just scratching the shit out of every visible surface—but decided to take the high road. Instead, I hauled off and spit a huge glob of phlegm onto the middle of its windshield.

  Then I got my bags ready and locked my car.

  My camera, camcorder, and notebook computer were all in my backpack, each tucked away in its own carefully padded compartment. The rest of my gear was crammed into an oversized duffel; my clothing and supplies were packed so tight, they threatened to burst the bag at its seams. As soon as I hoisted it onto my shoulder, the duffel’s strap cut off circulation to my arm, and its weight had me walking like a drunken hunchback, tilted to one side.

  I was already winded by the time I made it back to the barricade. As soon as I got near the cameras, I circled around to the far side of Fort Wright Road and made my way out into the field. The soldiers pretended not to watch, but I caught them shooting me furtive little looks. I stayed at least twenty feet from the road, and after about a dozen steps, I noticed a thin trail beneath my feet. Nothing like a well-blazed path—just a line of crushed grass and mud shooting back toward the road a hundred yards away—but I was certainly not the first one to make this detour.

  As I drew even with the barricade, I glanced over and found the soldiers watching. As soon as he saw me turn, the one who had been on the radio glanced away—an embarrassed, self-conscious movement—but his comrade, my soldier, continued to watch. He flashed me a bittersweet smile, then swatted at an imaginary fly, waving his hand in front of his face. It was a completely innocuous gesture—anyone watching on video wouldn’t give it a second thought—but I caught the meaning. A sort of “good luck.” I returned the wave, then turned back toward the trail.

  And that’s how I got into the city.

  Photograph. October 17, 04:43 P.M. Taylor Stray:

  Most of her body is in shadow, but not her face. It stands out like a spark of fire in a pitch-black cave. Her skin is on the dark side of Caucasian—vaguely Indian—but a narrow beam of sunlight makes it glow. She’s wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt; the cowl is pulled up, tented loosely over her head.

  Her eyes are dark and alert. Black pearls in milk. Focused and strong, absolutely un-self-conscious. The camera is the last thing on this young woman’s mind. It’s barely present, the least important thing in the room.

  Beams of sunlight stab down from the ceiling—out of frame—spotlighting dead leaves and litter on the linoleum floor. There’s a window on the left side of the room—a square of bright, hazy light, revealing no hint of shape or form on the other side. Nothing but glowing white fog.

  She’s holding a backpack by its strap, extended out toward the camera.

  She’s not smiling. The look on her face … it’s the same intensity that’s in her eyes, mirrored in lips, cheeks, and forehead. Reflected and amplified.

  She’s focused on something else. Something beyond the camera, beyond the room.

  Weasel found me at the edge of the business district.

  For the last hour, the sky had been spitting intermittent drops of rain, threatening to open wide and drown me in a torrent. There was a frigid wind blowing out of the north; it carried with it a faint taste of metal. I pulled my jacket tight across my chest and continued south, hoping I’d be able to find someplace safe and dry before the rain started in earnest.

  It was a three- or four-mile hike from the barricade to downtown Spokane, and my course took me through upscale neighborhoods filled with pristine white town houses, each two or three stories tall, with abbreviated yards and narrow driveways. It was quiet here. There were no barking dogs, no growling traffic, just the rustle of leaves caught in that cold, metallic wind. As I passed down the center of the street, an old black woman appeared on one of the front porches. She watched me draw near, slowly shaking her head back an
d forth. I offered her a wave, and in response, the old woman raised her middle finger and thrust it out at me. Then, still shaking her head, she turned and retreated back into her house.

  The buildings grew taller and more densely packed the farther south I got, until, finally, I hit the Spokane River and entered downtown proper. As soon as I crossed the bridge, I dropped my duffel bag to the sidewalk and started working at the pinched muscles in my shoulder, massaging the sore flesh and working it through a slow roll. When the numb tingle finally disappeared from my arm and hand, I pulled the camera from my backpack and started taking pictures. The view wasn’t exactly exciting, but there was something here I wanted to capture. The tone. The sense of desolation. I took shots of the deserted sidewalks, uprooted street signs, a toppled trash can lying on its side in the middle of the street. Unfortunately, the disconcerting aspect of the scene was something I couldn’t capture on a memory card—the silence, the utter lack of movement.

  There was nothing here. No life.

  After a couple of minutes, I gave up trying to capture this absence, this void, and sat down next to my bag. What now? I wondered. What’s the plan? Find someplace to hunker down and set up camp? Look for other people?

  I once again started to massage my shoulder, trying to knead the tension from my muscles. It was much easier to work at this than wonder at my next step.

  “Hey!”

  The sudden noise jolted me out of my thoughts. It took me a moment to locate the source: a small man rolling out of the window of a nearby building. The man landed on his feet, with his hand still up on the windowsill; then he started toward me, slowly.

  The approaching stranger made me feel nervous. I had a tripod strapped to the back of my bag—a collapsed aluminum frame that I could use as a weapon if pressed—but I didn’t want to go digging for it now. I didn’t want to turn my back on this man. Besides, I hadn’t come here to hurt people or make enemies.

  As if reading my thoughts, the man held out his hands, showing me empty palms. He was short, about five foot two, with an old-fashioned fedora pulled low over his eyes. He was dressed for the cold—several layers of flannel shirts, flashes of white long underwear peeking out through holes in a pair of ragged jeans, and all of it dirty. It looked like he’d been living rough for quite some time now.

  “I mean you no harm,” the man said, offering up a smile. He had a couple of decades on me, those years chiseled into deep trenches around his mouth and on his forehead. “Just curious, is all, you being a newcomer to our fair city.”

  “Yeah?” I grunted, trying to sound calm and hard-boiled, despite my nerves. “And you’re the welcoming committee?”

  “Something like that.” His smile twitched with nervous energy. “There’s no electricity, no cable, and radio reception’s for shit here … I gotta make my own entertainment!” After a moment looking me up and down, he offered me his hand. “My name’s Wendell.”

  “Dean,” I said, grasping his sweaty palm.

  “You a photographer?” He smiled and nodded toward my backpack. “I saw you with your camera, snapping away like crazy.”

  I shrugged. “I take pictures. I’m not sure that makes me a photographer, though … just a student, really.” I gestured toward my backpack and the camera hidden inside. “For the time being, this is all just … play. An unrealized dream.”

  “Fuck, man.” He laughed, shaking his head. “That’s a dangerous game to play—coming here to take fucking snapshots.”

  Annoyed, I turned and grabbed my duffel bag, slinging it over my shoulder. I could feel the man—this dirty derelict—standing behind me, and I paused long enough to mutter, “Yeah, well, my father always said I didn’t have a lick of sense.” Then I started walking away.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, kid. I was just kidding. We’ve all got our reasons.” Wendell broke into a trot, trying to catch up to me. “See. See. See.” I turned and found him pointing, with both hands, to a wide, shit-eating smile. “All you kids, you’re all so fucking sensitive. You’d think I broke your favorite toy … corrupted all your motherfucking MP3s.”

  “Just tell me where I’m going,” I said.

  “Sure, man. Welcome wagon and all of that shit. It’d be my pleasure.” He once again pointed to that creepy theatrical smile. There were way too many teeth there. It made him look positively demented.

  As we started south on Monroe, Wendell pointed to our left. There was a thin sliver of green visible between the buildings. “Riverfront Park,” he said. “It’s not that big—just a little slip of green—but it’s nice. A nice place to watch the river. There was some type of famous carousel there once, before the evacuation. When the word came down, though, they just packed up all the wooden animals and left.” An odd look passed across his face. “There are other animals there now, in the park. Not-so-friendly animals.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  Wendell shrugged. “Wild dogs, probably. I’ve heard people say wolves and bears.” After a moment of silence, he added in a lower voice, “And some talk about other things, too … animals you won’t find in any zoo.”

  I studied him for a moment, trying to read the blank look on his face, trying to figure out what he believed. “How long have you been here?” I asked. “In the city?”

  “I was here when the curtain came down. Government motherfuckers came in, and I never bothered to get out. No place to go.”

  “You should know, then … you can tell me what’s going on. Out there—” I nodded back over my shoulder, toward the outside world. “The stuff you hear … it doesn’t make much sense.”

  Wendell pulled to a stop. I turned to face him and found a bemused smile spread across his face, not the demented smile he’d flashed earlier, but something softer, more sympathetic. “If you’re looking for sense,” he said, “I can’t give it to you. Here, after a while, you stop looking for sense. I don’t know what you heard out there, in America”—the word tripped over his tongue, like it was part of some foreign language—“but in here, it’s just something you live with. Something in the background. There are vicious animals in the park, so you don’t go there after dark. There’s a warehouse on the east side—it’s been on fire for three months straight. So you stay the hell away. And if you see people in the street, people who shouldn’t be there, people whose feet don’t move when they walk …” He shrugged. “You just don’t see it. You don’t think about it, and you try not to remember.”

  “And that’s true? All of that stuff?”

  He shrugged.

  “But why?” I asked. “How? What caused it?”

  He gave me an amused look, then once again started down the street. He raised his hand in a dismissive gesture, flicking his wrist like he was tossing something away. “Everyone’s got their theories: chemicals in the air, contagious brain cancer, some type of terrorist attack, mutated animals, fucking aliens and demons and the dead spilling out of heaven and hell … Frankly, it’s all just religion to me. Unknowable. Meaningless.” He crossed himself and rolled his eyes in disdain. But his sarcasm fell flat; the gesture was just a bit too fluid, too practiced. “And if you came here looking for reasons, you’re just wasting your time.”

  He picked up the pace, and I followed, staying a step behind.

  After another block, he once again pointed to our left. “The government buildings are just over there, on Sprague. The military’s hunkered down in the courthouse. They’ve got armed guards and everything, but if you leave them alone, they won’t bother you too much. Same goes for the patrols and roving vehicles. The military here, they’re too busy to do much actual policing.”

  I looked over but couldn’t see anything from this side of the street. Just empty buildings and dark windows.

  “What’d you bring, anyway?” Wendell asked, nodding toward my duffel bag. “What’ve you got stashed away?”

  “What?”

  “Liquor? Drugs? Anything useful?”

  “Just clothing and supplies,” I sa
id, bouncing the backpack on my shoulder. “And photography gear.”

  “Shit. What a waste.” He shook his head. “I’d have given you a whole shopping list to smuggle in. Some vodka. A fucking Big Mac. People could use some relief right about now.”

  “How many?” I asked. “I mean, how many people are here? In the city?”

  He just shrugged and pointed me on. As we continued south on Monroe, I became aware of people watching us. At first it was just the uncomfortable sensation of eyes crawling across my flesh, then I started to see their faces—slight, pale moons peering out from the abandoned buildings on either side. Most of the windows had been broken out and covered over, replaced with haphazardly laid boards and sheets of plywood. Eyes peered from the occasional gap, and voices echoed out. A frantic peal of laughter emanated from the heart of a building on my right, and I turned to find an imposing man standing in a doorway. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, and his huge body took up the entire entrance. When my gaze lingered, the man frowned and wagged his finger back and forth, shaking his head.

  I recognized the gesture: Nothing to see here. Move along.

  “This is Homestead territory,” Wendell said, his voice dropping into a whisper. “Bit of a commune, really, put together by a man named Terry.” He shook his head at the name, a sad expression on his face. “People joining together. Power through numbers and all of that happy shit. They just like to fuck with people, act like they know best—bunch of self-righteous bastards, if you ask me. You probably don’t want to do anything too shady around here, though, or you’ll get your face beat in. For real.”

  I nodded, finally tearing my eyes away from the tough guy at the door.