Up The Road
She churned the bike over a gravel hill. What was his name today? She had a lot of names for him. She tried to recall:
i.Stinky Steve
ii.Runt
iii.Boy
iv.Weasel
v.Dead Weight
vi.Lil’ Lolly
vii.Mop
viii.Burden
ix.Sweet Cheeks
“Boy!” she snarled.
“How are you doing?” she didn’t say.
“Yes?” came the squeak. He sat in a makeshift wagon wobbling along behind her bike, affixed by a steel cable to the seat, which was missing its cushion. The wagon had two big scooter wheels and two that came from a plastic toy.
“I’m an old woman, you burden,” she snapped. “You should be pulling me along.” With each grueling pedal, she grew more irked by his cushy in-tow existence. Her left shoe had worn a hole and her heel smarted. Her calves kept pumping, though.
The road bumped up and down with root fissures and in some places vanished entirely. When the pavement failed, they would bump along deer trails. She hoped nothing else was using the trails today. The fluffy earth coated the wheels a muddy grey. Stone walls and brick sheds were all draped in fog. It wasn’t quite fog. It was more like snow. Fat flakes of grey skin, mostly. Some hair too.
Stinky Steve’s tiny mouth was covered with a thin sleeve of sparkly gold polyester. He wore a leather cap with flaps over the ears that was sure to help keep out the ash. His bright pupils peered at the horizon over a pair of pink sunglasses. In some places the horizon was dark, in other places tall spires of orange bloomed up, casting shadows on the clouds. Everywhere else it sleeted something that looked like red woodchips. It smelled like fried bog.
Something especially hard clinked on the boy’s plywood seat. “Edith?” he called timidly. She glared around to see him holding a toenail.
“Throw it away,” she said.
He stared at her. The pink-rimmed sunglasses had slipped down his nose.
“Eat it, you weasel! Quit bothering me.”
She shifted to the 3rd gear on the handlebars. Downhill at last. There was a skeleton in an oak tree so severely burned that the forehead draped like a stalactite.
Edith ignored it and ignored the whimpers of Sweet Cheeks behind her. Her left foot definitely had a blister or two by now. The pedal really bit through the sole.
“Why don’t you cry?” He sounded somewhat accusatory in his singed coat and mittens. “Do you like this?”
“I want to live in a world where it’s written in history books that secretary Bill Clinton gave President Monica Lewinsky sloppy cunnilingus with his pointy chin on the oval office swivel chair,” she growled. “Does that sound like this place?”
“No,” he guessed. Not that the six-year-old knew what the hell she was talking about.
“Right, sweet cheeks. Instead I’m here taking care of a useless little man.”
They sprayed down the hill and rounded a corner, where the shell of a ranch-style home stared from beneath a layer of ash. It glowed from the inside, still stuffed with embers. By its curb knelt two women, one with a kitchen knife, facing away. They were engrossed with a lumpy grey item welded to the sidewalk. They carved the rock-lump down the center and steaming guts spilled like marmalade.
Edith jammed one pedal backwards to brake, found the MAC-11 pistol in the water-bottle holder between her legs and wrenched it out. The tall woman wore a beautiful aqua windbreaker and jeans, the squat one only a ripped sweatshirt and track pants. Edith waved the gun at them, though of course it was empty—hell, she didn’t even have a magazine for it.
Not that these fine ladies knew that. Goodness did her left foot sting. “Drop that cutter!” she barked. The two women scrambled like crabs, leaving the blade behind. Edith twisted her lip into a cruel expression. “Throw over that blue coat or I’ll turn you to a red colander! This gun is called, Big Bitchifier; I’d love to introduce you!”
The tall one, Lanky Egg, threw her windbreaker over to the bike. The silver hail immediately riddled her exposed arms with burn-dots. “And your sweatshirt,” Edith snapped, swinging Big Bitchifier towards Stepstool. Stepstool pouted but removed the garment, tossing it not quite far enough. Edith nodded backwards, and the boy darted from his wagon to scoop up their winnings.
“The knife too!” He retrieved it, legs scurrying over the fried snow. Edith gazed at the pair of victims curiously as their skin boiled. Egg-sucker’s face was still smeared in glitter makeup from before the bombs. The girls would need to find shelter soon. She didn’t particularly hate them. Especially not Stepstool. Being short and grumpy with big feet was tough. Edith would know.
“Give me your left shoe,” she said.