My eight-year-old self peers out past a thick cloud of leaves enveloping the balcony, dangling lemons and gleaming eggplants, through the wrought-iron rail at cobblestone streets three storeys below, the Coliseum rising above rugged rooflines, a little black and white dog chasing pigeons in the piazza. My mother calls to me from the kitchen, telling me to pick some tomatoes and basil for the pasta. Wine glasses clink. My father is chatting about the boat rental later this week. My small hand wraps around a ripe tomato. I tug. The crimson ball resists, then breaks away from a vine which rises out of a terra cotta pot the size of my dollhouse at home. The smell of tomato plants fills my nostrils.
Ken coughs. My eyelids burst open. My cheek was resting against the thigh of his clean khaki pants, my hip digging into the splintered boards of the bench.
“Holy shit.” I sat upright. “I was sleeping. You shouldn’t have let me sleep.” I tried to stand but fell back heavily on the bench.
“You looked like you needed the rest.”
I lifted my head and focused my eyes down the street. Sky and water glowed indigo. The lights of Newark glittered. “It’s night,” I said. “We can’t be here.” I stood, wobbled, steadied myself on the back of the bench.
“It’s so peaceful,” he said, crossing one leg over the other. Sperry Topsiders and no socks. Not really a socialist look. “The air feels wonderful after these hot days.”
“Get up.” I half-whispered, suppressing hysteria. “It’s not going to feel wonderful when the drones start shooting.”
“I thought they were uptown?”
“Hell no. Fuck this shit, c’mon, we gotta go.” On cue, a buzzing shape whizzed across the park. The crows rustled in response. My legs started shaking. Ken stood. I reached for his hand and looked straight into his alert eyes. “Run,” I said. “If I fall down, keep going. Three blocks west, old brownstone, lime green door.”
We lurched, half-hobbling, half-running, ducking into doorways when the drones looped overhead.
“Around back,” I said, slipping between two buildings, a passage so narrow it didn’t qualify as an alley. We’d learned they won’t send the drones in places less than 15 feet wide. The drones are only about three feet across, but they must be expensive, especially the ones with guns. Not worth risking destroying a multi-million dollar killing machine by clipping a wall chasing down two people.
I unwound a string wrapped around a rusted bolt sticking out between wall stones. I heard the small tinkle of a brass bell over the hushed tones of worried conversation upstairs. Cara appeared on the fire escape. “Native, thank god.” She lowered the ladder.
I scrambled up. Ken followed, awkwardly uncomfortable with ladders. The rat-a-tat of machine gun fire two blocks north in the meatpacking district echoed sharply. Ken froze. There might have been a scream, or a whistle.
“Move,” I hissed.
Cara eyed him suspiciously. I made introductions. “How’s Curvy?” I asked.
We moved into the crowded kitchen. “Still alive,” she whispered. “Barely. Did you bring food?”
“No, I...”
Ken swung an old-school black-and-yellow neoprene messenger bag around from behind his back and rooted around inside. “I have a few Kind bars,” he said, holding out a large, doubled Ziplock bag with a dozen bars, some cough drops, and three oranges. Real oranges. “Does that help?”
“Get the kids,” I told Cara. She fought to pry her eyes away from the bag.
The littles crowded in. “You guys,” I said, pointing at the pack of twelve-year-olds at various stages of puberty growth spurts. “Up here. You’re in charge.” I did a quick head count. Eighteen littles. Six pre-teens. “Make three groups. Each group gets one orange and two Kind bars. You are to make sure that every single person in your group gets an equal amount, you hear me?”
The leadership committee groaned. “That means math,” one said.
“Yes. It’s called adulting.”
“But there’s twelve bars,” Ken said. “They can....”
I handed him a bowl. “Break them up in here. That’s gotta get passed around to all the rest of us.”
He blanched. “That can’t feed all these people.”
“It’s all we got. We haven’t eaten anything in three days except those last cookies.”
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