Chapter 8 – Alice

Alice staggered off the bottom stair and opened the industrial door to the building lobby. She and Daisy, panting from their rigorous stair workout – running up and down the building’s nine stories four times in a row – emerged glowing, not just from sweat-soaked skin, but each from that inner victory light that comes with surviving torture. They took long pulls on their water bottles, and Alice cast a lusty look toward her favorite perch, the leather couch near the window, blissfully unoccupied at the moment. In the last few days, she’d spent so much time sitting there that Leo teased that her butt left an indentation.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Ernie shouted, emerging from his little office. He looked Alice and Daisy up and down.

“We weren’t going to sit,” Alice lied, a few beads of sweat escaping her hairline and dripping toward the marble floor. She covered them with the toe of her sneaker. “That would be gross.”

Before Ernie could call her bluff, a rat scurried along the rich mahogany paneling of the wall about ten feet to their right. Alice jumped back while Ernie swore in Spanish and chased the thing until it disappeared under a radiator.

“You need to get an exterminator in here,” Alice huffed, a little more huffily than she’d intended.

“We need the trash to get collected.”

“Just turn the dogs loose,” Daisy said. “They’re barking like crazy through the building. There’s probably a nice Rottweiler or something that could take care of it for you.”

As if on cue, a short woman in long shorts walked in through the front door, holding the leash on an excited Boxer. The dog beelined toward Alice like she was a raw steak, tugging the little woman behind, sniffing ferociously.

“Frederick! Frederick!” The woman scolded, “Knock it off.” She apologized to Alice. “He’s in a mood today, very hyper. Must be something in the air.”

“No problem,” Alice responded, holding a hand out so the dog could get her scent. He sniffed quickly, then pushed his face against her knees. “Hey, buddy,” she said. She liked dogs, but this one was a little bold. “What did you call him? Frederick?”

“He’s named after my ex-husband,” the woman replied. Alice looked into her face to see if she was joking. She wasn’t.

“Hello, Mrs. Lutz,” Ernie said.

“Ernie,” she nodded, straining to hold the dog leash. Frederick was sniffing around Alice’s shorts in a most ungentlemanly fashion.

“I’m afraid Frederick’s got the manners of my ex-husband as well,” she grunted.

Alice tried to smile while swatting the dog’s snout from her thighs. 

“Ernesto.” An elderly woman approached. She was wearing a loose button-down orange shirt over track pants and Birkenstock sandals with socks. She carried a straw basket. “I saw a rat.”

Ernie looked warily at the basket. The woman followed his gaze and tugged the basket back with an exasperated roll of her eyes. “No, it’s not in here.”

Ernie looked relieved. “I’m sorry –”

“For forty-two years,” the woman cut him off, “I have lived in this building, and I have never seen a rat.”

“Yes, Mrs. Meissner. Things are a little unusual right now. I’ll set some traps and work on getting the exterminator, but –”

Frederick’s bark, charged with predatory energy, split the air, and he pulled against his leash, dragging his owner toward the wall.

The rat was back. 

“Oh my,” Ms. Lutz gasped. The rat quickly disappeared from view again, but Frederick’s barking persisted. Ears forward, teeth bared, he sniffed along the wall. “He has a temper like my ex-husband,” Mrs. Lutz said weakly. 

Alice backed away and ran her hands up and down her thighs, wiping dog slobber on her shorts. The elevator pinged open, and her friend, Leo, followed by his dad, Steve, approached. 

“What’s going on?” Leo shouted toward Alice, eyebrows raised like he’d just stepped through a portal into Crazy Town.

“There’s a rat,” Alice said with a shrug.

“Garbage is piling up,” Steve said, matter-of-factly. Steve was an NYPD officer who’d been shot on the job. 

Ernie ran an agitated hand along the back of his head. “I’m doing my best,” he said a little defensively.

“Hey,” Steve gave Ernie a friendly slap on the shoulder. “It’s not your fault. Municipal services are slowing down, and it’s probably gonna get a lot worse.”

The woman with the dog, Ms. Lutz, had quieted him somewhat and was now directing him toward the staircase. “I’m sorry,” she turned and gave Alice and the others a rueful look. “I really am. He’s just excitable, like my ex-husband.” She opened the door to the stairwell and disappeared with her dog.”

The air in the room seemed to re-equilibrate, and the tension diminished several notches.  Alice and the others exchanged grins, then started laughing outright. Only the old woman, Mrs. Meissner, remained stern. 

“My goodness,” the widow began, “I thought things were loud in my apartment, but it’s a regular three-ring circus down here.” Alice guessed the “loudness” in her apartment was from her grandson, Robbie. Mrs. Meissner had lived alone in the building for as long as Alice could remember, sometimes even babysitting young Alice when her parents were at work. But sometime when Alice was out west with her dad, the old woman had gained a long-lost daughter, one who returned toting a cherubic, bright-eyed, yellow-haired ball of energy named Robbie. 

No questions, Alice’s mom had warned Alice.

A father? Alice asked.

No questions, Alice’s mom repeated firmly.

So, Alice knew little of this mystery woman and the world from which she and her little son came. She was very pretty, with wide eyes and a light dusting of freckles across her nose, which made her look almost like a child – a look that matched her demeanor, which, to Alice, seemed a little unsure and highly deferential. In some vague variation on the circle of life, Alice sometimes babysat the grandson, and Alice noticed that Evelyn – or Evie, as everyone seemed to call her – deferred always to her mother on issues of child-rearing and deferred to just about anyone else on just about anything else that came up. Alice guessed that whatever world she had come from, it had not been without its problems. 

“I’m going to set myself down here and do a bit of needlework,” Mrs. Meissner said, “and, hopefully, things will be a bit quieter now.” She glanced toward one of the Queen Anne chairs on the far wall of the lobby, then paused and gently placed a hand on Alice’s forearm. “How are you and your mother holding up, dear?”   

“Actually, my mother’s on assignment, but I’m hanging in.”

“Have you been able to speak with her?”

Alice shook her head.

“And what about your father?”

“No communication with him, either.”

Mrs. Meissner frowned. “Ernie, why don’t you let her use the landline in your office to call her father?”

“I have!” Ernie said quickly, defensively. The fact was that Alice had tried several times – easily over twenty – to call home, as well as her dad’s lab, but there was never any pick-up.

“Strange,” Mrs. Meissner said. “Well, dear, we’re here for you. Come right on up if you need anything, anything at all. I mean that.” She turned and slowly ambled toward a chair.

“Thank you.” Alice smiled, heat creeping into her cheeks. Say what you will about New York, there were good people in this city. And a lot of them lived right here in this building.

“You know that’s true for us, too,” Steve added to Alice. 

Leo had dropped his skateboard to the floor and was standing atop it, expertly balanced. “Yeah, come to our place, anytime,” Leo said, echoing his dad. Alice smiled just as Steve whacked Leo on the back of the head. “No skateboards in the lobby.”

“You two heading out?” Ernie asked.

“Yeah,” Steve said, looking doubtful. “Grocery mission.” 

“Oh,” Daisy said, “please, bring me back soy milk if you find any.”

Ernie rolled his eyes at his sister. “Why don’t you go find your own soy milk?”

“I should go out there?” Daisy shouted, gesturing toward the front door. The truth was the streets had rapidly become unpredictable, and it wasn’t wise to move about alone.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Daisy shouted at her brother. The grocery stores had been cleaned out almost entirely by the end of the second day. Once the reports of a giant solar flare and consequent total grid failure reached the people, they freaked. Small businesses closed, there were stampedes at the grocery stores, and looting began. Street vendors started hawking paper goods, batteries, and candles on street corners at about a thousand percent mark-up. 

“The thugs and the rapists –” Daisy was on a tear.

Ernie raised his hands in a placating gesture. “No, no, it’s best you stay inside.”

“– and the radiation!” The total devastation was still being assessed because many satellites and communication systems were also damaged by the resulting radiation storms. 

“Yeah, what about the radiation?” Leo whispered to Alice as the siblings argued. “What do you think it’ll do to us?”

“You’ll probably grow a third eye.”

“Oh, cool,” he responded. “Maybe you’ll grow a third boob.”

Leo’s dad elbowed him in the ribs and gave him a warning look. He turned to Daisy. “We’re just going to take a short look around. I want him to see what it’s like out there.” He addressed Leo. “Leave the board in the office down here.”

“But Dad! Don’t you want me to be able to move fast?”

“Leave it!” Steve looked at Ernie, who nodded his head and held a handout. He took the board and turned to his office just as a man – a big guy in a dark suit with equally dark hair slicked back with either gel or sweat – came in the front and intercepted him on the way.

Alice heard, “Hey, Super, I need a word.” 

Ernie stopped walking. The man began, “I’ll need exclusive use of the elevator for about thirty minutes tonight. My guys –”

Steve muttered something under his breath. “Let’s go, Leo.” 

Alice asked, “Who’s that?”

“Dionysus Salvatorio.”

“Dionysus?” Alice laughed, but Steve didn’t.

 “Goes by the name ‘Salvo.’ You never seen him before?” 

Something in his tone of voice took the smile off Alice’s face. She studied the man. He stood about four inches taller than Ernie and much wider. The suit jacket he wore stretched tight across the shoulders, and his gut strained against his waistband. His shoes, Alice noted, were polished to perfection. Who goes out in a suit and polished shoes during a global crisis? Alice shook her head. “No, I’ve never seen him.”

“My advice: Stay away.” Before he could say more, he and Leo turned to leave. Over his shoulder, he nodded to Daisy. “We’ll look for soy milk.” Alice noted that Steve gave the Salvo guy a wide berth as he and Leo passed.

Daisy, looking at Salvo, muttered something in Spanish that sounded like el puerco, then waved to Alice. “I’m going to go take a bath. Same time tomorrow, okay?”

Before Alice could say “no,” the elevator door opened, and out walked Evie, holding hands with four-year-old Robbie. She looked around the lobby with a slightly lost expression, then spotted her mother and pulled Robbie over. Alice saw the little boy place a small head and set of sticky-looking hands on his grandmother’s lap in way of greeting, then he ran to Alice and hugged her legs, grinning up at her like a little imp. 

“Hi, Robbie,” she said. He clung to her legs, circling them as if she were a maypole, and Alice scrunched up her nose, thinking of the sweat and dog slobber those legs had weathered that afternoon.

To her right, Alice heard the man with Ernie, Salvo, saying something about expecting a delivery at – did he say 11 PM? – and needing Ernie to leave the back loading bay open. Ernie was shaking his head.

To her left, Mrs. Meissner asked her daughter, “Do you need me?” 

Evie shook her head. “Just down for a change of scenery.” 

“We schedule deliveries during business hours,” Ernie persisted.

The man snarked something about taking it up with the co-op board. Sweat rolled off his forehead, and his cheeks reddened. He flung an arm wide toward the lobby, then froze for an instant as he spotted Evie about twelve feet away trying to coax Robbie, commando-crawling across the large Oriental rug in the central part of the lobby, off the floor. She was negotiating with the little boy and had leaned over, bending so the neck of her shirt hung down, revealing cleavage that drew Salvo’s eye like a shark to a wounded dolphin. Alice watched the man stare at Evie’s breasts, and she felt guilty – almost dirty – for just being there. 

Mrs. Meissner must’ve seen the same thing. She summoned Evie and slammed her needlework into its basket. “We’re going upstairs,” she said.

“Mom, we just got down here.”

“Now,” Mrs. Meissner said. “You too, Alice.” 

Maybe Alice should have bristled at a command from a woman with no authority to command her to do anything, but she didn’t. The Salvo guy had brought a bad energy to the room, and Alice shared a desire to get as far away as possible. She moved to the elevator with her little group just as the doors opened and, this time, Mr. Primrose, an oldish man with a kyphotic spine and wheezy emphysema, stormed out holding what looked like a boot box in outstretched arms. 

“Rats!” He shouted across the lobby at Ernie.

Mrs. Meissner harrumphed in commiseration as the man marched past her. Ernie stopped bickering with the Salvo guy. 

“Rats!” Mr. Primrose yelled again. It seemed that everyone froze to watch the spectacle play out. Alice couldn’t remember ever seeing the lobby as hopping as it was today. Even Salvo stopped talking to watch the enraged man. 

“There was a rat in our kitchen,” Mr. Primrose spat, seeming to enjoy the room’s undivided attention.

“Yeah, Mr. P, I know,” Ernie began. “We’re gonna set traps. It’s because of the garbage, the –”

“My cat, Mr. Paw-paw, chased the rat.”

“Okay –”

“Cats chase rats.”

“I know.” Ernie eyed the box which Mr. Primrose thrust toward him. Ernie made no move to accept it. “What’s this?”

“Take it.”

Ernie looked around the lobby, saw that everyone was watching. He made brief eye contact with Alice, then took the box.

“Open it.”

“I don’t need to see a dead rat,” Ernie said, his gaze shifting to little Robbie standing with his grandmother near the elevator. “Really, I’ll just dispose of it in the back.”

“Open it!”

Ernie sighed and pulled the cardboard top off the box. His face changed instantly, and Alice, unable to help herself, took a few steps forward to see.

The box did not contain a dead rat. Instead, it held the badly mangled corpse of Mr. Primrose’s cat, Mr. Paw-paw.