What Once Was

Here goes, Joey thought. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, slowly and deeply, listening to the birds, the insects, the frogs. It was funny how quickly the animals had come back to the city.

Joey pulled on the handle of the balcony door. It was unlocked. The great pane of glass moved soundlessly, with the heft and ease of a well-made thing. He turned to look over his shoulder before entering the house. From here, high up on the hill, he could see several small points of light - here and there people had gotten their hands on generators and the fuel to run them - but most of the light was provided by a very full moon in a nearly cloudless night sky.

The house was so quiet. It had once been beautiful, Joey could tell. His heart quickened for a moment as he thought about what treasures he might find but also, at the idea that Squatters might be lying in wait, ready to ambush him. He closed his eyes again and took another slow, practiced breath in through his nose, willing his pulse to slow down.

The deep breath calmed him but also told him that he was indeed alone. If there were Squatters, he would smell them. Live like pigs and effin' stink, he thought, as he moved slowly into the gloom. As his eyes adjusted, he assessed his surroundings. Wealthy people had lived here. There were large pieces of abstract art on the walls, expensive-looking leather furniture, and the wood floors were true parquet, laid in an intricate herringbone pattern that could not have been cheap to install.

Damn, Joey thought, and for just a moment longed for the old days. Days before the pandemic, the drought, the floods, the food shortages, and the corruption that had led to the civil war that had gone nuclear, literally. Now, there weren't so many people around and the ones who had survived seemed to be the most vicious, the cruelest.

Joey was lonely.

He appreciated the beauty of the room and yet it didn't serve him. He needed things he could carry out in his worn backpack: cash, jewelry, weapons, and then food. Always food.

Despite the obvious emptiness of the house, Joey still felt nervous. He wasn't good at this, this...survival of the fittest stuff. He moved quickly upstairs. When he walked into the first bedroom, his heart sank. Dresser drawers hung halfway open. The contents of the closets had been strewn across the floor. The bathroom was the same: An elegant carved wooden jewelry box that stood on the marble countertop had been all but emptied.

Dammit! Joey thought. Dammit!! He'd had this house on his mind but he hadn't had the nerve to move on it, not before tonight. He'd waited too long.

He knew this house from Before. He used to watch it from the bus stop down the hill, waiting on the 923 transfer to carry him that second leg of his commute up to the university. He had worked second shift. Officially, he was a janitor, but he found himself acting as handyman, too. "Man, you Mexicans can fix anything!" one particularly out-of-touch employee had marveled. Joey might have expected more from an Ethics professor at a major university, but what did he know? He didn't even bother to tell the guy that he was from El Salvador.

He'd been part of the cleaning crew but man, he was going to go to school there one day, he knew it. Or at least he'd been on his way to becoming a student; the campus had been shut down after several students died, crushed to death, in an anti-government riot. By that time, death had already ceased being shocking to anyone.

Joey had sat nearly every day at the bus stop, watching the huge Range Rover wind its way down the hillside avenue (Mommy and boy, probably on the way to swim lessons or the park) or the gleaming Maserati head home, late in the evening (Daddy, professional something-or-other at an extremely lucrative position somewhere-or-other) and now he was here, in their house. Looking around him in the dusty darkness he wondered where they had gone. Or if they were alive. He shuddered, just slightly, and got back to work.

None of the four bedrooms he searched yielded anything. Neither did the bathrooms. He looked carefully in each closet for strongboxes or safes, only using the flashlight he had brought when he was sure that its light wouldn't be seen through a window by someone on the outside. One could never be too cautious.

There was one more bedroom - the little boy's - and Joey stalled in the doorway. He'd seen the little boy a few times, blond with a big grin. He'd even heard him shout and squeal with laughter when his Mom would tickle him, playing out on the deck. It was funny how sound could travel.

He turned around abruptly and went back downstairs. What kind of kid has cash and jewelry hidden in his room, anyway? he thought. It was just too much.

He moved quietly across the kitchen to the pantry. There was more food inside than he had expected. Maybe it had just been full to cracking to begin with, more than anyone else could carry at one time. He found canned peaches and a box of peanut butter pretzels. He put that and anything else that would fit into his backpack. He thought briefly about some of the electronics that were sitting on the countertops but dismissed the idea as quickly. There were no functioning cell towers that he knew of, no internet, and electricity was hard to come by. Somebody might know what to do with the innards of the machines, but he didn't. They'd just take up space in his bag and weigh him down.

Joey was frustrated and tired. He'd had such high hopes for this house. He thought briefly about sleeping here - those sofas were huge and looked pretty comfortable - but it seemed too dangerous. If someone came in, he'd have nowhere to go. It wasn't as if he had anything worth stealing but most people had gone crazy, it seemed. They would kill just because they could.

The kitchen walls were just windows, really, looking out over what had doubtless once been a spectacular nighttime cityscape. Joey scanned the large moonlit room hoping to find something, anything, that would make this worthwhile.

Suddenly, he felt exhausted, just gutted by the ridiculousness of what life had become. He stood completely still, listening to his breath. Out of the dark, a vast future of nothing and no one yawned before him and he was overtaken by a blinding rage. Joey spied a knife block on the countertop and lunged, grabbing the only implement left in the wooden housing: An ice pick. He strode towards the enormous couches, growling without hearing himself. He stabbed violently at the soft leather, dragging the tool through the cushions, making jagged tears, chunks of foam flying out of the sofa and landing silently on the lovely parquet.

Next, Joey went for the paintings. He was making more noise now, grunting and making strangled yowls and yips, beginning to sweat. One of the huge canvases came loose from its moorings and crashed to the floor, revealing a swath of wall behind it that was now cracked and pocked with holes. Joey yelled.

Enraged by the pain and fear and unfairness of life, of everything, he smashed the sole of his heavy boot against the iron frame of the modern coffee table until the glass surface shattered, breaking into ten thousand tiny stars and falling, sparkling in the moonlight, onto the opulent Oriental rug.

There was a small desk in the corner of the room. It was delicate and seemed very old. It had one neat drawer and Joey went for that next, taking the drawer by its cut-glass handles and wrenching it from the body of the desk. With a guttural scream he threw the drawer onto the floor. It broke, wood cracking like a shot.

Joey gave up. He sat, heavily, on the custom parquet floor of this stranger's once-gorgeous home. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

He cried like that for a while. When he ran dry, he took his hands from his eyes and looked around. He was immediately overwhelmed by a deep sense of shame. I'm part of the problem, he thought. I am part of what I hate.

The full moon shone just outside the glass walls that lined the kitchen, casting a big rectangle of cool light on the floor. Joey saw something lying near a bank of cabinets. He got up and moved over, crouching down to see what it was. His eyes were blurry from crying but he could see that it was a pendant on a chain. It was heart-shaped and rather large. It appeared to be made of gold.

Where the hell did that come from? he thought, puzzled. Seeing the broken drawer of the antique desk he realized, with embarrassment, that the necklace must have been inside.

The pendant was heavy, old gold with an intricate design. Joey saw a clasp on the side and realized that it must be a locket. With nervous fingers, he fumbled with the clasp. He pulled the heart open and his breath caught in his throat. He made a sort of gurgling noise - half cry, half cough.

On the left half of the locket was a photo of an older woman with dark hair and bright eyes. She had a brilliant smile. She was the spitting image of Joey's grandmother. Engraved on the golden surface of the opposite side were the words, "Mi amor es para siempre." My love is forever.

Joey closed his eyes as silent tears slipped down his cheeks. In his mind's eye, he saw himself as a young boy, wrapped in his grandmother's arms. She was kissing him on his ear as she whispered, "Mi'jito, te quiero a tí y mi amor es para siempre."

Sweet boy, I love you and my love is forever.

Joey could smell her, like warmth and good soap and homemade pupusas. She had raised him, and if she could see him now... He got quickly to his feet and stood in that rectangle of moonlight and felt the weight of the locket in the palm of his hand. The heavy gold chain swung against his fingers. He was stunned, stunned by this tiny photo of a stranger who looked at him with his grandmother's eyes, smiled his grandmother's smile. And Spanish? He was baffled. He wanted to take it and he couldn't. He just couldn't.

But neither could anyone else.

Joey rummaged through the kitchen drawers and found a stack of cloth napkins. He paused, breathed deeply, and took one last look at this woman who reminded him of everything that had been good in his life. Then, he carefully wrapped the locket in fold over fold of cotton napkin. He was thinking hard about a hiding place when the air conditioning vent caught his eye. It was near the window, above the kitchen sink. Nimbly, he hopped onto the counter and with some effort, removed the metal register. He squeezed the locket in his fist before sliding it into the air vent, pushing it as far as he could from the opening in the ceiling.

He replaced the register, jumped down from the counter, picked up his backpack and put the straps over both shoulders. He opened the balcony door and stepped out onto the deck. The evening breeze felt cool against his damp cheeks. He wiped his nose against the back of his hand and pulled the balcony door shut.

"Abuelita..." Joey whispered. It was the first word he had spoken in days.