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He'd only seen four pools in the area between the Scarlolfos' home and the hospital. He had counted them down the hill before dropping down to the housing development. All contained ash and debris. After finding a dead cat in the first pool, he peered anxiously in each of the others, fearful of finding worse.
Which pool would be best, one closest to the hospital or one with less debris? How should he know? He could he decide? He supposed Washington would choose quickly, and if Richard asked how he'd made the choice, Washington would probably say, "It's obvious." But it wasn't. It never was. To know what was right, or best, sometimes took so much weighing. Maybe just making a decision, any decision, was better than endlessly agonizing.
"Dog," he said at the third pool, after going back and forth several times. "It'll be this one. Now we've got to figure out how far it is to the hospital so I can get the right amount of hose. Where will I get it? And we're going to need a pump and some gas, Mr. Scarlolfo said. And a flashlight, because pretty soon I won't be able to see anything!"
The dog wagged his tail in sympathy and lapped at the cruddy water. Suddenly he turned and growled menacingly. Richard jumped. Approaching me was a man with a gun aimed at him. The man stopped about 10 feet away. "Hands up! Who are you? What d'ye think you're doin'? What do you want?"
Richard's mouth went dry, and his heart began to pound. He lifted his hands slowly. He had thought the home to which the pool belonged was deserted because there had been no sign of life when he'd passed on the way to the backyard. The man's eyes looked strange, even from a distance, as if he couldn't see well. Could they have been affected by the bomb's light?
"I---I'm just checking to see if this water's drinkable..."
"Don't buy it! Hands up! You come any closer, you're dead!"
He can't see well, Richard thought. His eyes must have been hurt by the flash. Slowly he bent to hold the dog's collar, shushing him, one hand still raised. "The hospital needs water! There's a DWP engineer on Via Carlotta who says we can pump it from pools to the hospital."
"I said I don't buy it! A snot-nosed kid, from the sound of you. They're not gonna send a kid to a man's job." He thrust the gun out aggressively and glanced around.
Richard began to sweat. He followed the man's gaze. Was he looking to see if Richard might have brought help, or if someone might see him when he pulled the trigger?
"Look, mister!" he cried. "Sssh, dog! Down! I'm not looking for trouble. I'm telling you; they're just going crazy at the hospital. Water pipes are broken, and the bottled water is all gone. There'll be help, but maybe not till tomorrow or the next day. Meanwhile, they need drinking water."
"I'm listening....." The man kept the gun trained on him.
"So maybe your pool is polluted, but they'll know how to purify it. They can find out through Goleta; they've got radio contact there." Richard's heart was pounding so hard, he thought the man could hear it. "Mr. Scarlolfo said we need a pump. You got one? He says most pool owners in these hills have pumps so they can use their pool water in case of wildfires."
"Scarlolfo?"
"The water and power man I told you about!"
The man lowered his gun slowly. "Okay, I'll bite. How you gonna get the water all the way to the hospital?"
Richard gestured downhill toward the hospital building. "I can't do it by myself. We'll have to get to a hardware store, I suppose, and get what we need. Will you help me?"
Shakily the man wiped a hand across his eyes. "I can't leave. My wife's inside. She's pregnant."
What would radiation do to an unborn child? Richard banished the thought from his head. "She can stay at the Scarlolfos'. They're nearby." He paused. "By the way, my name's Richard." He waited a long, anxious minute before the man finally replied. "Mine's Macchio. Huey Macchio. Yeah, I got a pump, but the damn thing's outta whack."
Mr. Macchio tucked the gun into his belt and walked slowly to the edge of his property where he could look down at the hospital below. "It's almost dark. We'll have to move fast. 800---1000 feet of hose? Maybe. Don't know how we'll carry all that." He squinted through the gloom. "God, what a mess. And we're lucky. We weren't in L.A. And there's help coming. What would it be like if it was all-out war?" He shook his head and stepped back.358Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpg1fup6DOi
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It was dark by the time they brought Mrs. Macchio to the Scarlolfos' home and were on their way again, this time with a lantern. Despite his back pain, Dan Scarlolfo hobbled along on his crutches to the pool. There he remained to work on the pump while Richard and Huey Macchio went after hoses. Richard had reluctantly tied up the dog, but its outraged bark followed him for a long time.
"How come you didn't take off like most of the others?" Richard asked as they made their way by back streets to the shopping plaza. Several times he'd reached a hand out to guide Macchio, sure he didn't obstacles until he was nearly one them.
"It's safer here, that's why, even with the crazies running around. Can you imagine what it's gonna be like when the million or so scared people get to the desert? They'll be sick, out of food and water, desperate....and not enough camps set up to help them. You think the Palmdale and Lancaster residents are gonna open their homes to them? No way. Fifty refugees, maybe, a hundred. But a million---or millions?"
"Aren't you afraid to stay because of the fallout?"
"Aren't you?"
For a moment Richard considered the question. He hadn't had time to look ahead. Then he said, "Until my mom's on her way to a burn center and I've found my dad, I don't care what happens to me."
Macchio cleared his throat and didn't speak for some moments, then he said, "The way I figure is that until they tell us where that cloud's gonna spill its poison, this place is good as any. With Nena pregnant, we couldn't go far anyway. We'll just wait and hope the army gets here soon and takes all out to wherever it's safe."
What then? Richard thought. Would they have to relocate to another city and state? Probably. Their home, all their things, were gone. Without water or power and with all the devastation, no one would be living here for a long time.
As they came closer to the shopping center, Richard could see and feel the throbbing mass of refugees still moving along Verdugo Road across Foothill Boulevard, up Angeles Crest Highway to the mountains. He glimpsed the church spire and, for a hopeful moment, considered cutting through that thick rope of people to see if Stacey and Washington were there. But he knew he mustn't. By now the hospital would be desperate for water. Other orderlies would be "liberating" the contents of hot-water tanks in nearby homes and appropriating distilled water from the nearest supermarkets, if those machines still operated. But such measures hardly amounted to anything. It was like throwing a bucket of water on a massive forest fire. Even the nurse who had sent him to the DWP engineer seemed to doubt anything could really be done. Well, maybe she was right.
"Oh, God!" Richard exclaimed when they finally arrived at the shopping plaza. "Oh, no!"
That morning, when he'd first left the Del Carlos with Stacey, he'd seen death on the Crest Highway. He'd seen overturned cars and cars that had exploded, their victims trapped behind wheels or incinerated. But he had seen it without letting it sink in. He had deliberately stayed his distance, partly because of Stacey and partly because he had always been repulsed by death, ever since he'd been expected to kiss his grandfather goodbye when he died.
Now, in the shopping plaza, he saw death---true death---everywhere. A woman lay half-in and half-out of her car trunk. Two women, probably on their way to the Safeway at the moment of the blast, lay on the ground some distance away like broken dolls with empty eyes. A small breeze blew cartons and paper around the mangled steel.
And yet, people moved amidst this death. As they cut through the parking lot, they surprised a man pushing a corpse aside to reach canned goods strewn inside the car. Two women were fighting, tearing at each other's faces and hair over a can of V8. A woman with a child in her arms came out of the store sobbing, empty handed. What food the store once displayed on its shelves had already been taken by the thousands of people on their way to the desert.
The glass window of Builder's Square had also blown in, and broken glass lay everywhere. Mr. Macchio, leading the way, grunted as he nearly tripped, and at his feet Richard saw a man, mostly covered by debris. A shard of glass was embedded in his neck. He suppressed the nausea rising to his throat and moved on.
In the dim light he saw nothing but chaos. Heavy shelves were topped. Tools, paint, kitchen utensils, and patio furniture---everywhere. Several men, startled by their presence, glanced up, then returned to their looting.
He could understand needing wagons or barrows, things with wheels that might carry loads, but these men were looting anything and everything, regardless of immediate usefulness.
"Over here," Macchio said. "Under all this mess."
Richard set down the lantern and began lifting the pipes and fittings, under which were the hoses. He had been working only a few moments when he sensed someone behind him, and suddenly the lantern disappeared.
"Hey!" he called, straightening up.
He turned to see a man holding a wrench in one hand and the lantern in the other.
"What are you doing? What do you need garden hoses for? You gonna water your lawn?" The man laughed as if he'd said something very funny.
"I'll take that lantern, buddy," Mr. Macchio said. "You just mind your own business and leave us alone."
"Hey, guys!" the man called over his shoulder. "We need garden hoses, right?"
"No!" Richard cried, clutching one of the hoses to his chest. "We're trying to hook up water for the hospital."
"Hey, guys!" the man called again. "Some good Samaritans here. They got water somewhere. Where, kid? Where?" He held the wrench threateningly.
"I'll take that lantern," Huey Macchio said. He was suddenly in front of Richard, and his gun was drawn. "Get going or I'll use this."
"Chill out, dude!" The voice lost its cockiness. "Okay, okay, we're just fooling around."
"Put it down. I'll count to three."
Richard moved closer to Mr. Macchio, aware that the other men in the store had come up from behind.
"One....two....."
The man looked around anxiously, expecting help from his friends. When no one reacted, he slowly put the lantern down.
"The wrench, if you don't mind."
"Sure, man." The wrench dropped to the ground with a clatter.
Richard sensed a slight movement behind him and turned quickly. One of the other men seemed about to throw something. Without thinking, Richard put himself between the man and Macchio. "I wouldn't do that!" he cried.
Macchio swung around abruptly and fired. The shot made a loud ping on metal nearby. "I'm not much on killing," he said. "There are enough dead already, thanks to John Hinckley Jr., but if I have to...."
No one moved. Richard's legs trembled. He could smell the sweat of fear all around him. Did Macchio deliberately miss, or hadn't he been able to see well enough?
"Okay, you assholes," Macchio said after a moment. "This is how it's gonna be. You're gonna be real men for a chance. You're gonna grow a heart! Now get your asses over here and pick up these hoses, then come along with us." He waved the gun around to emphasize his words.
As the men moved forward and began marching under the rubble, Macchio put a hand on Richard's arm. "Don't disappoint me," he whispered, pressing the gun into his hand. Softly he added, "I think I've been flash-blinded."
Richard's sweaty hand closed on the hard metal. He had once held a BB gun and shot it at squirrels and birds with a 10-year-old friend. But when the friend hit a bird, he'd vowed never to touch a gun again. He licked dry lips and stepped back, beyond reach. Breathing hard, hand unsteady, he raised the gun and held it on the men.
What if they ran him off? What if they turned on him? Would he have the nerve to pull the trigger?
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