Part 2, Chapter 5

First off, congratulations to the Penguins winning the Stanley Cup.

Here's the penultimate chapter in Part 2. I'll post the final chapter on Thursday, and Part 3 will start next at the end of the week.

Enjoy!

Dave

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5

Over the next three days, I settle into a steady routine, hunting for supplies by day and playing poker or backgammon by night. I slowly move away from the friendships of a weary Hank and disillusioned James, and move closer to Timothy, the realist and straight talker. Yesterday, I led a truck up to Lawrenceville to collect James’, Hank’s, and my own possessions. The total that I collected barely filled a corner of the truck and took only twenty minutes for myself and Mitch, my new ever-silent work partner, to gather. Ben, the dog, was nowhere to be seen, but James has remained silent on the subject anyway. We have bigger things to worry about.

We still don’t have electricity in Mecca and the building is still colder than death. Most of the rooms now have propane heaters, but gas is strictly limited to nighttime use.

Right now, my watch reads 13:21 and thirty men congregate in the courtyard eating lunch. Mistress Sylvia sits at a central table, constructed of storage boxes, under one of the plastic shelters. Earlier, she offered a toast, “To the success of Mecca and a return on all our hard work!” Now she’s eating with three men who I can only describe as her servants.

Standing with the group of men with whom I’ve been playing poker for the past few evenings – a group that includes James on the periphery – we eat our barbecued sweet potatoes. Along with four or five other clusters of men, we try to ignore the cold, and satisfy ourselves with the heat of the food as it sits heavy in our stomachs.

Mecca has grown by eleven people over the past three days.

I’ve been in the courtyard for five minutes and the weather is fine. Cold, of course, but everywhere is cold, and the air is still and dry. Aside from the snow on the ground, standing out here is no different from standing inside Mecca: fucking freezing. Accordingly, Mistress Sylvia wears a long red coat with fur along the collar.

Soon enough a light sprinkle of snow falls from the sky and a few of the men laugh as they spot the first ice crystals in the air. In such dire situations, we have to laugh. “More of that great Pittsburgh weather for you!” Sylvia proudly announces and there are more chuckles from the gathered crowd.

In the far corner of the courtyard, her joke gets a poor reception. There’s audible anger and discontent. A short, heavy built man is raising his voice to those around him. He says something. I hear the word “fuck,” and his audience mutters and nods. Then he yells with such unexpected volume that I hop from my chair in surprise. “Fuck this! This is messed up. This just isn’t going to work,” he gestures to the middle of the courtyard, “and especially with this Sylvia running the show.” He says something else, which I miss, and the men around me turn to watch what he may do. Sylvia remains seated, still and calm. We all ask ourselves: where did this come from? “YOU!” the short man yells, and he glares at the back of Sylvia’s head. Slowly, she turns to face her provoker, ice-cold, and he screams, “FUCK YOU!”

Sylvia’s three servants have already risen from their seats in a defensive act but she remains as she was, staring back at him. “If you have a problem with this system,” she says as calm as possible, “then you’re more than welcome to address them with me, like an adult. Not with this cry-baby attitude. Otherwise, of course, you can leave.”

The short man rocks forward on his toes and contemplates moving over to her. He doesn’t. “Well yeah, I have a problem,” he says. The other men around him perch on the precipice of treacherous agreement and the safety of inactivity. But they’re safe, as Sylvia gives her sole attention to the short man and his quick machine-gun of words. “I’ve a problem with you and your whole God-damn shitty Empire. Sitting in your room, issuing orders, pushing us all around, and all the whole time you must fucking love it. Well who died and put you in charge?”

“Who—?” Sylvia pauses and tries to control her reaction. “Who?” She pauses for a long time, and then her exterior cracks, only for a moment, and she screams, red-faced, “EVERYBODY DIED AND PUT ME IN CHARGE!” Her voice is shrill and strained. “You know there’s nothing without me— and— and you know nothing about me!”

The short man rocks forwards again and finally takes a step towards her center table. “Yeah?”

“Hey, back off,” one of the servants shouts, a slim built beard who carries about as much authority as a burrito. From nowhere the short man throws a punch and several others run towards the violence, some to quell it, but more to escalate it, and there’s a sudden and unexpected chaos. I only watch, sure whose side I’m on, but unsure about this method of rebellion. Her three servants fly into the fray, concentrating on the short man, swinging fists at his head. Several times, they make contact, making him stagger backwards into the ranks of his supporters, who grab the servants and pull them into the crowd, punching them and dragging them to the ground.

Sylvia yells, “Stop it!” and tears of frustration run down her face. But before she can have any reasonable effect, the violence reaches her own body. The short angry man grabs her coat, ripping the collar and she emits a choked animal noise.

The sound makes me feel sick.

Sylvia squeezes out of her coat, to escape the choke, and slides onto the ground, to reveal an elegant ball-gown, striking in its beauty and impracticality. The gown's deep blood-red fabric is spotted with the damp falling snow, as she’s pushed out from under the cover of the plastic shelter. Amongst the chaos of fists and grabbing hands her dress is torn. The short man stands over her, grabbing her by her collar, sending fists into her face, blood exploding like fireworks into the air. Other men try to grab him, to make him stop, but he swings at their arms. I expect rape, and though the violence making me feel ill I’m paralyzed. People are grabbing at the short man from all directions, trying to pull him away, quell his sickening violence and then, as quickly as the violence began, the violence ends.

From nowhere, simultaneously across the yard, the violence ends.

Silence falls on the back yard of an old apartment building in the Southside of Pittsburgh where perhaps more men than anywhere else in the world stand gathered in awe. We all stare with ragged breath. Blood drips from various individuals, none more so than Sylvia. All eyes rest on her.

And it transpires, visible to all, that she is really a he and that Mecca is no more.

“The last great civilization falls, huh?” she laughs between globs of blood. Her voice chokes up under the weight of the tears we all feel forming, ready to burst once this shock runs its course.