Ish was not the first, second, not even the 10th body to wear this old flannel. It was almost as thin as paper, but never tore a whole in all its years. It was a size large on him and sat like loose bags on his arms so that air could rush in and out. He chose shoes that were falling apart with the sole needing to be reglued and a gash in the side under the eyelets of the laces and they were held on by a thin strip of brown leather a previous owner had cobbled onto them. Ish owned nice shoes, collected them and traded them like they were salt in a time of war or commodities in a stock market, shoes held their value even when famine struck or water rations dropped to 0.
Walter was gathering himself in the small lobby of the tenement, hunched over various items in states of disrepair strewn about in no particular order on the former desk of the concierge. Walter is small and thin, only a bit older than Ish, but his body has taken to the end of the world poorly. He didn’t have a single hair on his entire head save for a few wild and wirey hairs sprouting from his brow, his skin was dark and mottled with precancerous growths. Walter reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of goggles with his arthritic hands which had nodules of calcium erupting from every joint and they tremored as they always did when he went to grab something, tremored like he was shivering how he would when he was young and in Wisconsin and water fell from the sky in the form of snow, white and airy. He looked at Ish with sunbaked eyes that like Walter himself were set on top of dark and exhausted half moons, and like his hand his tiny lip began to shattered like he was frigid
“Re ya leavin righ nowr? Aye’ll be a feow more minits.” He said.
“Yes.” Ish replid.
Walter hovered a bit as the rusty gears in his head turned, screeched and scraped, he went to say something, but stopped. Then he tried again, but he couldn't get the words right in his head. Walter prepared himself like a linemen ready to make his debut in a varsity and then gave the words one last good try, but shrugged his shoulders and sighed with frustration.
“I don’t think the ministry will take much notice of us leaving at the same time Walter.” Ish said plainly.
“Yes, thank yer Ish.”
Ish bowed his head and paused it there for a moment while looking at Walter and then excused himself to the door. Ish pulled red tattered cloth his neighbor Emma made for him has a shemagh over his face and opened the door.
A storm of dust with biblical fury was raging in the cracked streets of the LAFPZ. Ish looked up to the end of the road his building is on at the 200 foot white pillar that hosts a state of the art security apparatus on it.
Walter came out behind him and the wind nearly knocked him off his feet. He had donned a cracked pair of goggles and a similarly wrapped cloth over his mouth and nose. He joined Ish in looking at the barely visible white needle, it stood juxtaposed to the crumbling brick buildings it’s next to with its almost alien design. A giant prod sticking right out of the earth glistening with sensors and cameras.
“No pwer, right Ish?”
“Probably not today. Not here----- I am going to Haymarket. What do you need?“ Ish said, feeling he can tolerate Walter a bit longer.
“Heh? Cent hear nuthin!” Walter replied.
Walter removed part of his shemagh and stuck his ear so close to Ish’s face it would have gone in his mouth if he didn’t dodge it.
“Stay safe” Ish said
A local pan handler emerged from the dust storm only a vague figure at first, though from the gait of the shuffle Ish knew who it was. A slow moving woman of gaunt features with a large nose that might fit well on a more nourished face. The skin on her arms was bare and she didn’t wear much protection on her face, she held up an old handkerchief to shield her eyes, she was clad only a shirt and in a thin skirt with a pattern that blended into the storm and it dragged behind her frayed. Her skin was raw and bleeding.
“Hiya Linder” Walter shouted
Walter, being a kindly and gentle fellow, albeit perhaps a bit demented, pulled a single script from his pocket, but Ish stayed his arm.
“Not here. Not in front of the tenement."
The 2 then realized that Linda didn’t even see them in the cloud of dust, she walked right on by them without asking for a single sip of water or acknowledging their presence in any way. She moved at a painstaking pace, every step looking like it could be her last. The reaper lurked for her around every corner, but she also moved with great focus. Every step choreographed, her focus so intense that Ish thought her to be on some kind of divine mission but he didn’t stick around to find out what it was and departed for the haymarket.
The dust blasted more and more recently in LA FPZ, it covered everything like a brown layer of frosting and created numerous tripping hazards. Ish thought a pair of goggles like Walter had might not be such a bad idea. On his way Ish tripped on what he thought was a trashbag, but was actually a body covered completely in 3 inches of dust that shook loose when he kicked it, some of which collapsed into the stiff bodies open mouth and Ish could see the eyes remained open, having shriveled up into little raisins and sunken back into the mostly empty sockets.. He pulled his collar taut to knock some dust off and pushed on, the wind was getting worse and the cool underground of the haymarket was only a few minutes away.
Brown weeds desperately spurt from the cracked pavement towards the sun, only to find there will not be any water for 40 weeks and a decayed bur is perfectly aligned in the road from its former planting spot on lay dead on side walk just like it lay dead for 50 years.The wood has become dried and cracked, just like the pavement. Ish ran his hand over it as he passed. It was smooth and dry as a bone, but not a bone that a vulture would like to pick at. It’s dry like the dust of a desert. It’s as dry as he imagines Mars to be, a dryness consisting of small particles so sharp that they rip apart any microorganism that tries to reconstitute the dead organic material into something new.
The gate of the underground Ish likes to use to enter the haymarket was once the cellar of a mexican restaurant, it had a wall blown out that connected it to an adjacent series of tunnels that led to an open huge open cistern the city blasted out a millenia ago to hide water from evaporation. Ish descended the steep staircase and knelt his head to avoid a low hanging jutting piece of rebar, entering into a dank space that felt both very moist and very dry at the same time. An old world light dangled from the ceiling and thinly lit the room while it hummed. Ish one time stepped on a rusty nail in the foyer and scolded the gate guards many years ago. It has always been kept nice and tidy since then, though today there was a pile of refuse in one corner. He knocked the knock on the door, made of metal and resembling something that might be an old submarine.
Dun Dun Dun-Dun
Ish heard someone lift themselves out of chair with great effort and an exhale, yawning before lazily approaching the door, not picking up their feet all the way and shuffling with each step
“I can alway---- always tell. Its you. Even before you knock! but the knock always seals it.” A voice from the other side of the door croaked with a slur.
Jimmy Minge didn’t even bother to open the small slit to inspect the room, he just started to open the door. Ish’s neck cranked to the side, his eye twitch while his nostrils flared. He stood himself and listened closely, Jimmy Minge unlatched the slide and then after he ticked the door lock, Ish plowed through the door and reached his arm around to grabb Jimmy Minge, he throwing him into the arc of the swinging door and pinning half his body with it. All the air exited his lungs in a single gaspy grunt as he squirmed trying to free himself and while doing so his pants dropped revealing his limp pecker. “This is the only door that still opens in. And you stand on the inside of the swing. Are you trying to fuck it?” Ish growled as he pins the door harder into Jimmy, daring him.
The smell of his breath impacted Ish like a truck, like too much bad gin and rotten sausage. Jimmy Minge thought about fighting back, the adrenaline sobered him up a bit and allowed him to have thoughts once again. Pride and rage and ego and an idea of himself as a man all called on Jimmy Minge to fight back and yet even so the little voice in the back of his mind that deeply desired to live and preserve his own life squeaks and squeaked, Jimmy himself was no small man, but not compared to Isherwood. And if he enraged him enough he would tell Nadia, who would do something worse to Jimmy Minge and maybe even someone he cares about if she had the extra manpower that evening.
Ish pushed the door in 1 more time, compressing him so hard Jimmy thought his eyeballs might pop out, the last ounce of air was forced out of his lungs as they flattened like pancakes, Jimmy tried to take in more air and couldn’t, he tried to tell this crusty rebel he used to look up to that he couldn’t breath, that he was killing him, but no words would come out. Just a tiny little squeak like the mouse might make while it gets crushed by a boot. Rage was boiling in Ish’s eyes and Jimmy thought he actually might have intended to take his life. Then the door and Jimmy dropped to the floor just as he was on the edge of unsconsciousness, he barely caught himself, his lungs finally expanding all at one causing him to cough violently as he desperately tried to suck air in between the fits. Ish closed the door and latched it shut. He went over to Jimmy’s chair, capping his bottle of gin and slid it in his bag without saying a word or looking over at Jimmy's pathetic attempt to muster himself for round 2 which he only marshalled the strength for after he saw Ish’s back.
Jimmy tried to stand, but failed to pull his pants all the way up and stumbled as he coughed some more. The drunkenness returned to him and the room was spinning, he tried to plant his arm on the ground to balance himself and eventually stand up, but it slipped and he resigned himself to laying down in the dank tunnel.
“I’ll tell Nadia. You aint nothin anymore” Jimmy Minge said
Ish didn’t show any sign of acknowledgement after picking up the gin and went on to the haymarket, so Jimmy yelled it again to make sure Ish heard.
The maze of tunnels the city built to move and protect water sometimes claim the lives of drunkards and vagabonds, but Ish has moved through them so many hundreds of times he doesn’t even turn his lamp on. Besides, the bustle of the market that day was so loud he just followed the growing growls and hums of the crowds.
When he enters the old cistern the dank smell went away and the roasting smell of algae noodles took its place. Dozens of shops lined the main street, all dimly lit by various implements ranging from neon lights to gas lanterns. The one closest to him says “LATINAS” in a vintage neon side in a neat cursive font, while a blinking pattern of a woman making a lude motion with her legs flashed to its side.
An ominous darkness loomed over the top, like a cloudy starless night with no moon. Small enclaves of mercantile dotting this lone strip of activity in a void of a size Ish isn’t really sure of. In reality the cistern is much bigger, full of dead bodies, supply caches and vagabonds, but this strip is where everyone congregates.
Peg, a serial victim of Ish’s schemes, and another ancillary named Herman were smoking a cigarette outside of a brothel, Herman is ogling over a small Mexican woman he was about to spend his week's wages on even though she was plainly not interested in him. She waved to Ish and Ish tipped his hat, Herman scowled at the exchange as his cigarette barely clung to his lip. Ish wonders about the cigarettes, he saw more and more people smoking them recently, especially ancillaries. The tobacco in the one he lifted from Peg did not have the dry and crumbly texture old world cigarettes used to have. Ish nodded to Peg and Peg nodded back before taking a final drag of his own cigarette and walking his stiff leg to the thin curtain of the brothel entrance before pushing it aside so he could go about his business. Ish liked Peg, but not enough to not steal from him. He was also an ancillary, albeit an extremely corrupt one. He was good for information, for fencing, for buying narcs, but he did not inspire loyalty in way and taking advantage of him came naturally to Ish.
Okawa, an underground associate, was the first stop for Ish.. He stopped in front of the store and looked at the glyph burned onto a small corner of a freshly cut 2/4 creating an entrance way. 2 parallel lines intersected by 2 other lines, 1 curved and 1 straight with a big dot in the center. It looks like a cat’s eye. Ish looked at it for a long time and thought deeply about many things before continuing.
The Japanese man of taciturn expression and large eyebrows was inside patiently waiting to attend to any customer. His wide mouth can become very animated after 1 or 2 drinks, but he takes on a viciously mean temperament after more than that. When Ish entered the store it had the same smell it always had. Incense. The different variations Ish could never distinguish, but Okawa was a savant of incense. One time Ish came in and a man dressed far too well for the apocalypse and was claiming to be from Seattle, had come all the way to LA to buy incense from Okawa. A shrine to the Bhudda sat on the wall elevated above the teller with a Japanese inscription on it that Ish never bothered to ask about. Various building materials were neatly organized and labeled with prices. Knives, precious chemicals, adhesives and rare tools were in grated boxes under lock. Okawa sported a large pistol on his side and he sat comfortably on a stool, still as a statue and staring calmly at nothing with a mind as empty as the open sky when Ish entered. When he noticed Ish, Okawa calmly stood up and walked through a doorless hallway into an unseen room, Ish followed him.
When Ish rounded the corner, Okawa’s son, Satumi, was sitting in a chair with a double barrel shotgun tucked in his lap, the chair he was in had many wooden shims shoved under the short leg and he was picking at his finger nails with a knife. Unlike his father, Satumi has thin eyebrows and usually was jolly without a need for social lubricant like absinthe or gin.
“Hey bud. They going to let you back in across the street after that fiasco last week?” Ish said
Satumi profanely confessed to Ish they probably wouldn’t, and that if he was the purveyor of that establishment he wouldn’t let him back in either. He had beaten a man too close to death for the 2nd time over a woman whose affection was transactional and limited to the hour. His father shook his head saying nothing and not changing the expression on his face, his bushy eyebrows completely neutral; but Satumi took pride as Ish chuckled through the telling of the story.
Ish liked the boy, he was in the midst of becoming a man. He had spirit and was good in a scrap, but he could be dismissive and brash to people he didn’t respect and his temper was short, Ish was unsure if he was trustworthy for anything more than muscle. He suspected Satumi had the same inclinations as Ish, the idea that one can will themself into anything with strength and competence, which Ish believed himself to have in plenty even though he would never admit it out of fear of being boastful. Satumi was strong, whether he was competent was still on trial in Ish;s mind. He was a stupid kid who unlike Peg, did inspire loyalty.
“You’re not that cool you know. Not yet atleast. Not cool like me.” Ish said
As if Okawa was reading his mind, he called sternly to Ish and shook his head again.
“We have business.”
“Yes” Ish said
He was still drawn to watch Satumi some more, he always carried around old world textbooks, today it was Elementary Inorganic Chemistry, a marble noteback with crumpled pages and a spine barely holding it all together lay next to it with a pencil down to the nub.
“Ish! Pencils! Let me know if you see any!” He let out, revealing joviality only a curious child could muster.
Ish nodded his head in affirmation and smiled, before beginning the conference with Okawa. Ish looked around like an inspector while he came in close to Okawa. His neck turned and his eyes glanced up and down the seams of the walls, to the framed picture of a wave painting in water color, to the racks of storage holding implements of all kind, all around the room at every crevice, every clever hiding place. He scanned it all as if he had the supernatural ability to detect listening devices, which Levy did proclaim Ish have.
They spoke so close that Okawa’s exhale became Ish’s inhale, the air in their lungs mingling intimately. In the softest of whispers they discussed LA FPZ supply convoys, the conversation lasting almost 20 minutes. When Satumi was young his father would harshly scold him for trying to listen, today he sat restlessly in his shimmed chair reading about the hebescher process.
“Your glyph looks fresh. Because of recent events?” Ish said
Okawa’s face didn’t change. He had the same face he always had on, which could be interpreted as anything by different people, and Ish noticed that whatever mood he was in was the mood he projected onto Okawa’s calmly stoic affect. Ish was feeling irritated by the business with Jimmy Minge that day so Okawa’s face looked annoyed at his question.
“Wilton twins found a 10 acre warehouse of sealed woodstuffs. I fronted them the script to labor it back. I got selected too. I had half a mind not to put the glyph back up.”
“That’s it.” Okawa added after.
“You don’t believe in the cause?” Ish said sarcastically
“I’m just like you, friend. Happy to wear the glyph and take their script.” Okawa said flatly.
“Ya” Ish replied.
“I have my son to think about.” Okawa said, his eyebrows finally moving, flaring upwards.
Ish purchased a spool of paracord and left, not getting a discount for their long association.
Upon reentering the Cistern the smell of noodles greeted him again, along with a wave from Levy. He was winning the affection of the small Mexican women to the great disapproval of Herman. Levy was wearing a flared sombrero that an old world cowboy might wear and he was sporting more facial hair than usual, which to any eye other than Ish’s would look just like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. But Ish knew he had trimmed it and cast much judgement onto his friend’s sense of vanity.
Levy had pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and was reading it off to the woman, whose attention had now fully lapsed on Herman, he stood by restlessly, sucking on his lip and shuffling in place while he decided whether to interrupt or to play along and listen as closely as she was. Herman tried to think quickly about which act would win more affection from the whore, but he couldn’t come up with any reason to pursue 1 act or the other. And beside, this skinny prole had just come along and took the attention of his woman. He’s so gaunt he looks like he hadn’t has a sip of water in a week, he was touting himself a poet and reading barely rhyming verses in an accent Herman had never heard, he could only tolerate so much. Above ground this slimy prole wouldn’t even speak to him let alone step all over his toes like this. The mexican woman’s giggles almost sent him over the edge, but it was the caress of her shoulder from Levy after the reading of many poems that resulted in Herman stepping between them.
“Enough. Enough. Enough.”
He pushed Levy away with his forearm while stepping forward as Levy yielded all the space Herman was taking. Ish took a few steps closer and unholstered his blade.
Levy was entirely amused by the situation and let out a wet laugh, some spit getting into Herman’s face, but he barely noticed.
“I can still have you dragged away in the middle of the night.” Herman said, his face ripe with anger.
Herman was a much bigger man than Levy, who was tall, but built on a lean frame. They had moved a considerable distance away from the brothel out into the darkness of cistern and Ish couldn’t see them very well anymore in the fading bubble of light that the strip was in, though he did see when Levy finally offered some resistance and the 2 entered into a clinch that Ish thought could go either way. Herman, furious and raging like a honeybader, forgot about the rest of the world, but his hind brain was still unconsciously weighing whether or not a fight here would really work out for him. The mouse squeaked, but Herman’s mouse had never been very persuasive as evidenced by the many scars on his face and hands, undoubtedly many more marked the wartorn body of a career soldier under his municipal gray ancillary jumpsuit. Levy was calm, flowing through the motions of the clinch and enjoying the chance to tussle with an ancillary. The commotion attracted Peg, who came out of the brothel buttoning his pants and looking more disheveled than when he went. His uniform was only half tucked in and his pant leg was stuck in his sock. He stiffly ran over to the clinch, which had not yet boiled over into a full brawl. He grabbed Herman’s shoulders and reminded him about where they were.
“Herman THINK for a second.”
Peg pleaded with him to stop fighting, but nothing could release his grip. He had become entranced into what was starting to look more like a dance than a fight to Ish.
“If you ruin this place for me I will have YOU dragged off.” Peg finally said.
Levy was still smiling and enjoying the scuffle. Herman regained composure and snapped his head towards his friend glaring at him with insolence before letting go of Levy and walking off without saying another word. Apparently it also reminded Levy of a dance because when it was over he inferred that they were doing the Waltz and Herman had taken the feminine position.
“If you wanted a lesson you could just ask!” Levy yelled at the figure who was fading into the dark. Of the large crowd that had gathered to watch, only small mexican woman laughed as his quip. Peg apologized profusely, unscuffling Levy’s shirt and fixing his collar while his own clothes remained disarrayed, desperately hoping the brute he had brought to the underground with him hadn’t burned any bridges with Levy or the community. Ancillaries aren’t frequently let into the haymarket and he wasn’t about to give up his privileges without giving groveling a good try. Levy didn’t seem to mind much whether Peg brought brutes or butterflies, or if they rounded up a unit to crush the market again. He patted Peg on the back and said everything was okay. Ish came over and insisted that bringing ancillaries down here was dangerous to everyone. He thought that to be obvious. No matter if Peg was as crooked as his leg, the haymarket exists because above ground the government enforces a serfdom. He didn’t know what gate guard had let him in, it wasn’t his business anymore. But Ish was going to speak his mind on the subject, to Peg eagerly admitted his fault zealously.
“Hey you know we are moving pharmacy stuffs? Ya! We are moving A LOT.
Peg was talking loudly, Ish looked over both his shoulders and stared at Peg.
“Whole bunch! Painkillers, uhhh, stimulants! Errhhhuhhh OH and anticoags! I get the orders on my desk everyday and audit the shipments. Well I usually send Herman. They are all going North.”
Both Ish and Levy began to grow embarrassed for Peg, his speech was pressured as if he were speaking to the barrel of a gun.
Ish’s attention slowly began to fade and he looked at Levy, whose attention equally was straying. Ish’s legs got restless before his mind did and he was shifting his weight, the beginning of the impulse to generate walking away. Then Levy turned, so Ish did too. Peg grabbed him.
“WAIT! There’s a kicker! We are always short. Always. Someone always pilfers and Big Brother has an allowance for it, but a few weeks ago a shipment was way over. Missing too much. The fraud guys came and took the whole crate, loaded it on a truck and I saw that JUST SITTING in their yard, there’s barely a barbed wire fence around it.”
Ish shrugged Peg’s grasp and said nothing. Levy turned around and gave an astonished face. His eyebrow scrunched and he puckered his lips while looking at Peg with menace.
“Wait wait wait wait. You grabbed his arm.” Levy said
Peg stood there for a long moment, dumbstruck.
“What?” He said, drawing out the word to 2 syllables.
“Herman attacked ME. Would’ve kilt me I bet. I don’t blame him much, I made him look like the damn fool he is. We both turned to leave you here while you piss around here, content for the situation to be over and you grabbed Ish’s arm. Not mine. I have to say that’s the only thing I’ve been offended by here.” Levy said. He folded his arms and looked at Peg expectedly.
Ish looked at Levy, he hadn’t even noticed that Peg went for him and he was amused that Levy was slighted by it. Usually he had no time for Levy’s skits, but this time he decided to match Levy’s posture.
“I---I,” Peg was stammering. And all of a sudden worried he might be beaten, dragged off with a black bag put over his head never to be found again. These proles have cultural norms he never would understand and now he just violated one. They were as foreign to him as China and for all he knew he could have just committed a grave offense. Herman knew where he was, but they didn’t end on the best of terms. He might disappear down here and no one would ever be the wiser. All the color drained from Peg’s face and Levy started to feel sorry for the shriveled little man.
Okawa came out of his shop at the start of the Brawl and went right into the Brothel. Now he and the Matron, a woman named Charlene, were walking towards the group. Charlene was both young and old looking, with high cheek bones, dark skin that was unblemished and splays of crows feet at both eyes. She had long curly hair and she smelled nicely of perfume. Levy used to see her frequently before she became the Matron of the establishment, they greeted each other warmly.
Okawa did not acknowledge either Levy or Ish’s presence, he came over to insist that no matter how much anything changed, ancillaries should not be welcome in the haymarket. Charlene sucked at her teeth, pausing a moment and looking up in the air before agreeing with Okawa. Peg wasn’t going to give up that easily, the whores down here are much cheaper than the state approved ones at his barracks, he kept groveling, pleading his case like a cornered lawyer while Ish and Levy both tipped their hats and walked off back towards the strip