Briarwood

By TR Clayton

Briarwood is a tight clover of cul-de-sacs adrift in a sprawl of office parks and strip malls. It's a development that bottles the affordable comfort and easy commute that is the birthright of every 21st Century American - a development that allows dreamless men and women the illusion of success in the face of lives that have settled into flat trajectories. On a Saturday morning, it all disappears. Electricity is vanquished. Cellphones connect to nowhere. Radios and televisions beam nothing but dead air. And, most ominously, Cincinnati sits under a cloud of smoke, only twenty miles away.

Norman Quinn finds himself in the middle of the growing decline. He is a man consumed by loss and pursued by memories of mirth and success. What he discovers upon leaving Briarwood is bleaker and more malevolent than anything he could have imagined. Over the course of the day, the collapse of society inspires brutality, hopelessness, and resignation as Norman and his countrymen struggle to stay alive, facing desperation and violence at every turn. Their biggest foe proves not to be the forces of evil that roam the exurbs, but the dejection that rots from within. For some, the decline and fall of the United States becomes an unburdening; it becomes an escape from lives that were freighted with disappointment and fear long before the ash fell and the cities burned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TR Clayton
• Release date: Jul 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476308043

TR Clayton

Just a man and a laptop.

Book preview

Part I

The Exurbanites

They are gone now. Fled, banished in death or exile, lost, undone. Over the land sun and wind still move to burn and sway the trees, the grasses. No avatar, no scion, no vestige of that people remains. On the lips of the strange race that now dwells there their names are myth, legend, dust.

Cormac McCarthy,The Orchard Keeper, 1965

1 - An Actual Giraffe

Airports distil modern life. If Walt Whitman had been born in the age of the airport, he would have parked himself at a Chili’s Express to absorb the vibrant, varied America that passes through the earth-toned transit hubs each day. Moving walkways convey every breed of citizen at the same morose speed: dowagers of the coasts returning from Art Basel who drag Louis Vuitton while bundled in fur made from endangered jungle cats; fraternity brothers traveling to Mazatlan who backslap and probe with a curious level of familiarity; landlocked vacationers draped in sports jerseys who squish their way to Key West in vibrant, capacious Crocs; bland walkers who are so unobtrusive they seem born of the quartz-and-beige scenery itself. Televisions are ubiquitous. Flat-screens can be seen from every conceivable vantage point, ensuring that Americans’ hunger for cable news is always sated. Airport dining is a lightning-paced, trans-fat laden ordeal. Congregated around horseshoe-shaped bars - slurping Caesar salads and imbibing microbrews before noon - are grandmothers flying to Portland for family reunions and business travelers itching from hotel bedbugs and the guilt of workplace indiscretions. A placid voice from the sky announces the current Threat Advisory Level, which ranges from troubling to ominous. Lightly motivated, lightly jowled security workers screen travelers for hand grenades and tactical nuclear warheads. Airports bustle with a society at the forefront of an era. More specifically, airports are the only venues where Americans have a simple answer to the two most consuming questions of the twenty-first century: where have we been and where are we going?

After what happened in August, every airport in the nation had been converted to a military base and detention center. Black Hawk helicopters thundered above desert-hued Humvees that idled on runways; well-fed detainees ambled in terminals and on tarmacs as they awaited adjudication and release.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans had been stranded abroad when everything collapsed. Commercial air travel had been prohibited until that morning. It had taken twenty days to figure out how to get everyone home. Repatriation was commencing.

For the first time in the history of aviation, a flight from Ottawa sparked a blaze of anticipation. The detainees and armed servicemen stopped what they were doing and faced the woolly roar coming from the north, somewhere beyond the bilious gray.

The excitement coursed through the plane too. Weary, unkempt heads were pressed against the multi-paned portholes. They descended into cloud cover. The bright, heavenly expanse gave way to a dark purgatory of mist and rain, before their homeland appeared beneath the slowing jet. The shadowy countryside drifted under them. Acreages of corn and milo were quilted amid the serpentine forests. The appearance of the city elicited a fusillade of gasps and murmurs of disbelief. The charred cityscape was littered with the hollow shells of demolished skyscrapers. The conflagration had poured out of downtown and scorched the hillsides like the aftermath of an Old Testament scourge, where a vengeful God eradicates apostates in a rain of fire. They had been watching the news reports in Canada, but to actually see it was staggering.

Instead of a flight attendant, there was a Department of Homeland Security representative. His Omaha drawl was guileless and incongruously upbeat: Okay, folks, as you can tell, we’re approaching our destination. Make sure you have your passports and your DHS Re-Integration Form. It’s very important that you have that form. Please bear in mind, this is an active military base, so follow any-and-all instructions once we’re on the ground. Welcome back to the United States!

Norman swayed in the rain-dotted wind that cut through the fence. He watched the 737 touch down in a spurt of heated rubber. The saccharine pungency of jet fuel sprawled around him. An electric chill seized his spine. He wasn’t just witnessing another flight landing at an airport. The plane’s return was another step in the reconstruction of America - the first civilian plane to touch down since the Incident. It was another reminder that life was continuing outside the detention center where two thousand citizens were housed.

The plane came to a graceful stop in front of two school buses. The passengers and luggage were disgorged. They clumped together in front of the buses, bobbing and twitching like sparrows as they tried to gauge this new reality. They stared at Norman and the other detainees behind the fence like Western tourists eyeing a Rio favela or Soweto shantytown. They were shaken, intrigued, and confounded.

The man next to Norman ended the silence: This is a good thing. This means things are slowly goin’ back to normal. They watched the arrivals through the gray wire. I’m not sayin’ it will ever go back to normal, (not normal-normal) but it’s a start. The stranger’s hair was knotted in black rows. Since they had been detained for over three weeks, he was suffering from an insurrection of rebel follicles. While his hair made him look unhinged, his drooping eyes and sincere smile made him easy to like. You wanna play catch?

Catch? Norman asked.

He pulled a tennis ball from his pocket as though it were contraband.

They commenced a mindless game of catch next to the chain-link fence that hummed in the whipping breeze. They hadn’t met until that day, but detainees generally meshed well. Any activity that subdued the boredom became a bonding experience. Any distraction kept them from contemplating the future.

What’s the craziest thing you saw that day? he asked Norman. The ball thumped in his palm.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Norman responded, catching the ball and deftly flinging it back. What about you? What’s the craziest thing you saw?

Man, I saw a giraffe.

Giraffe?

Yeah, man, a giraffe. I live in Avondale, by the zoo. When everything went down and the fires started, I just crawled into my attic with beer and a baseball bat. Through a window I could watch all the nastiness happenin’ - neighbors were shootin’ each other, throwin’ rocks into windows, torchin’ cars - nastiness, you know. Then, all the sudden, everyone I’m watching just kinda stops and looks down the street. And there it is - a giraffe. It’s walkin’ down Harvey Avenue.

An actual giraffe was in your neighborhood? The animal?

Yeah, man, you can’t make this stuff up. A fifteen foot giraffe is walkin’ down my stretch of the ghetto. You never seen so many jaws on the curb.

They shared a laugh. Norman pursued the errant ball.

The man continued: That’s when I realized things was really bad. The zookeepers must have let all the animals out that day. They must have thought the animals would have a better chance in the city than in their cages. Can you imagine? It’s like Noah’s Ark in reverse. When I get out of here, I’m goin’ straight home, and if there’s a lion or a chimpanzee chillin’ in my kitchen, I’m goin’ kill it. I don’t care if they endangered.

So how’d you wind up in here?

I had to get more beer. The man’s toothy laugh was dulled by the screech of a military plane departing behind him. I went down to the convenience store ‘round the corner, to look for some Miller Lite, but people had already tore the place apart. I found a pack of cigarettes and a can of Pringles. I was leaving the store when they rolled up on me. The army busted me for looting. Thank God I was too drunk to try and fight, because I would have ended up at one of them other detention centers where they ain’t no tennis balls or fresh air.

So you’re in here for looting cigarettes and a Pringles can?

Yes, sir.

You’ll be out of here in no time.

You’ve got to have a story from that day. Everyone has a story from that day.

He was right. Survivors carry narratives. For Norman Quinn, the story of his survival and capture that balmy August day was just an addendum to the fractured narrative he had shouldered for a long time.

You got time to hear it? Norman asked.

I ain’t going nowhere. After we’re released, who knows what’s waiting for us out there. Might as well talk now. It can’t be any crazier than a giraffe.

Norman raised an eyebrow at the challenge.

They suspended their game and watched the buses trundle past. The vehicles brought a slew of color to the bland terrain. The mango buses passed under an arch where a sign greeted the travelers to their destination: Welcome to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

2 - Twenty-One Days Earlier

It was the kind of heat that boiled the visible spectrum, melting the horizon into a liquid wiggle. Exiting the car, Norman was besieged by it. His surroundings shimmered in a mirage of cropped grass and bone-colored houses. If ever there ever was evidence of global warming, it was in the cauldron of exurbia which stewed that Friday in Briarwood. That muggy future was here - relentless and brutal. People would talk about downhill skiing the way they talk about homing pigeons, Norman thought.

Norman left the Honda in his driveway and forged through the morass toward John Brooke’s house. It was Katie Brooke’s fifth birthday. He carried the child’s gift with care as though it would detonate if jostled. He’d found an Easy Bake Oven at a toy emporium. He had no idea if five year old girls still enjoyed Easy Bake Ovens, or if they ever did. Maybe the gift was as outdated as an Erector Set or a packet of sea monkeys that get flushed after a week. Perhaps he should have asked if there was a virtual Easy Bake Oven for computers and cellphones.

Wayne Burkel’s bumble-bee yellow Hummer dominated the curb outside the Brooke’s home - flamboyant and obtrusive unlike its owner. The Massachusetts handicap tag that Wayne had pilfered from his late father’s belongings dangled in the rear view mirror (Wayne himself lacked any demonstrable handicap but the tag conferred VIP parking).

Balloons were tied to the Brooke’s mailbox. Some lifted skyward and bounced in the breeze, others wilted as though dejected with boredom.

Norman paused on the front lawn, listening to the ad hoc carnival burbling behind the house. Winsome squeals and flat adult chuckles sparred with each other in the backyard. A stereo blared the thumping melody of a pop song. He took a moment to breathe and prepare. Was this also part of the future, like thawing ice caps and expanding deserts? He considered a future spent arriving alone at birthday parties for other people’s children. He was a widowed 37 year old man living in a neighborhood built for families - ample lawns, four bedrooms in each home, and flat driveways for basketball hoops and spare cars. He’d only been in Briarwood for a year, but the kids’ birthday parties seemed to come every week. Every week he got a little older, a little grayer, a little more resigned. But the parties kept coming. He focused on what came next, like an actor steadying themselves before a performance they’ve conducted countless times. He shed the dark musings. He stepped into his congenial character and approached the stage.

He waded through the supple August air, stepping onto the front porch where only a dusty screen door separated him from the Brooke’s living room. He rang the doorbell.

No response.

The screen door gave an avian screech as he pulled it open and stepped inside. He moved through the cool, motionless interior, heading toward the backyard, knowing the way because every house in Briarwood was a genetic clone.

As he reached the kitchen, he heard Tabitha Brooke plod down the stairs. He could identify Tabith by the sound of her feet - petite size sixes, bony, dextrous, mildly unhinged.

Norman! Her mouth was encumbered by something small, something solid. She sipped from her red cup and the encumbrance was swallowed.

Hey, Tabitha, Norman said cautiously, using the tone he wielded when speaking to cops - obsequious, but cognizant of the holstered gun.

She hugged him - expertly matting her breasts against his chest. I’m so glad you came! As if there were any doubt.

Of course. He smiled good-naturedly. Here. He handed her the wrapped Easy Bake Oven, providing some distance between him and wobbly mother of the birthday girl.

Thank you so much! She was effusive and dramatic as usual. Tabitha was a professional mom and wife - Norman could never tell if she was on the verge of laughing or weeping. She stared at the gift like she was staring through it.

A seemingly vast silence followed.

Is everyone outside?

She nodded and gave a toothy smile - a touch of lipstick clinging to her lateral incisor. It seemed whatever she had swallowed was already working its magic.

* * *

A vista of exurban splendor was spread before him: children chased each other in clumsy pursuits; freshly liberated office workers created a mélange of button downs and cheap khakis as they drank in the shade; neighbors collected in minor conclaves, exchanging harmless gossip and summer vacation stories. Wayne Burkel, the yellow Hummer’s owner/handler, was marooned on a white plastic chair like a peculiar uncle people avoid lest they be dragged into a monologue about the Kennedy assassination or the time he met Sinatra as a boy. Wayne’s only companion was the smartphone he clung to. He spotted Norman and raised his beer, toasting his arrival.

Norman entered the emerald oasis, dodging raucous children as they sprinted past.

A centrally located table was jumbled with wine, beer, potato salad, potato chips, and microwavable potato skins. He gripped a bottle of wine. It was a thick glassed vessel of cheap swill. He picked up a red cup and checked to make sure it was unused.

The ambrosial liquid struck the cup as Wayne appeared alongside Norman. Wayne wore blue shorts and a red polo shirt; the shorts were held up by a piece of rope, a la Robinson Crusoe. Hey, buddy. I’m glad you finally got here.

Hey, Wayne. Norman smiled with genuine affection for his closest friend in the neighborhood. Wayne was the only other single man in Briarwood - a divorcé. Their solitary afflictions made the two of them highly compatible. What did you get Katie for her birthday?

I had about half a dozen video games that I’m tired of playing. I packaged them up and gave them to her. Is that tacky?

It’s very tacky. You’re lucky she’s five.

Yeah… Wayne drifted inwardly as he took in the strange festival swirling around him. Also, some of the games were the ones where you shoot guys in the head. That’s probably not appropriate for a five year old girl.

Norman gave a weak laugh and patted his friend on the back. There’s always next year. Eventually she’ll be old enough to enjoy shooting guys in the head - she’ll thank you then. He savored the refreshing, saccharine wine.

Wayne got closer to Norman and faced the opposite direction, whispering as though they were spies in a Vienna alleyway: You went for your - you know - you went for your prostate exam today, right?

I did - I’m totally healthy.

I haven’t gone.

Ever?

No, Wayne said. I’m too scared.

You shouldn’t be. It’s really nothing. I was asleep the whole time. We’re not young anymore. This is part of getting older.

Wayne grew sullen and introspective at the subject of aging, which was really the subject of dying. A peanut struck Wayne’s head - a projectile from the hands of eight year old Seth Weygand, one of several hellions in the community. The boy followed-up with a simian sneer directed at Wayne.

Babar! Babar! Want a peanut? He launched another legume at Wayne, which Wayne deflected with a gorilla swat.

The boy ran off - his cackle subsumed into the din.

Wayne’s bulbous, moist head blazed with an admixture of rage and embarrassment. I’m going to punch an eight year old in the face, if he doesn’t stop, Wayne weakly said, tracking Seth’s movements through the frenetic backyard.

Where are the guys? Norman asked, shifting the subject with Wayne who unfortunately was a bit elephantine as Seth Weygand had so keenly pointed out.

They’re in the corner.

There was structure to the social network in Briarwood, which contained only 28 homes. The nearby office parks were populated by massive corporate entities, rather than boutique firms, so many of them worked together. The working men and women of Briarwood congregated in the backyard based on whom they worked for: the Proctor & Gamble people were behind the stereo; the GE people were in the opposite corner, bantering among themselves with a dash of smugness. Norman and his quartet worked at an insurance company where the value of life and death was computed with the accuracy of a sports handicapping outfit; Wayne had been laid off three months earlier, but still held membership in their clique based on his familiarity with the byzantine web of personalities and policies.

Norman and Wayne joined John and Tom. They wore the skin of men who were outside only when the lawn needed mowing – the light complexion of an overfed and over-sheltered generation; men who were balding and bulging at an appropriate pace.

Norman, sputtered John, a fine trail of barbecue sauce streaking from the maw. What’s up?

Hey, guys. Norman noiselessly clanked his red cup with his coworkers/friends.

Tom Dowding began, racing out of the gates: You went to the doctor today, right? How was he? Was he gentle? It wasn’t even 5:30 and Tom was already soaring. His shaved scalp glowed warmly from his burgeoning buzz. Norman often wondered if he just affected his inebriation to have an excuse for misbehavior and off-color humor.

That’s not bad, Norman said mercifully, leaving it at that.

They generously laughed.

Settle something for us, Norman. John Brooke straightened his spine, palms up like a nineteenth century Bible salesman. Who would win in a fight between our friend Wayne here, and Frank McGrath?

Who’s Frank McGrath?

He’s the big guy from human resources.

Hairlip?

Yup. Wayne and Mcgrath – who wins?

It was a profound question in their circle - one that needed serious consideration. In the short time they’d known each other, they’d exhausted every personal anecdote and pre-tested joke. The subjects they could always tap into - conversational evergreens - were combat and sexual conquests (previous or desired), neither topic they had much experience with anymore. Norman placed a half-cocked finger to his lips and pondered the variables.

McGrath. He’s got a longer reach, broader shoulders, and more density than Wayne. Norman glanced at Wayne adding, Sorry, Wayne.

The other men nodded as though a great, ancient truth had been spoken.

Wayne’s head twisted from side-to-side in disagreement. You’re all wrong. You’re being wrong.

If it’s any consolation, Norman aded. I think McGrath’s about ten years older than you. So, statistically speaking, he’s much more likely to succumb to a heart attack during your fight. John would know more about the actuary tables than me.

He’s right, the odds are much greater for a coronary episode for a man your size who’s ten years older, John tossed out knowingly.

Someday I’ll prove you all wrong, Wayne said defiantly, looking straight ahead to where the future lay. He was more unnerved by the lack of peer support than the grim statistics John had proffered.

They portrayed arguments with bosses, cashiers, and creditors as epic battles between good and evil. They rhapsodized minor confrontations and opined on what kind of physical response they would have delivered if they weren’t constrained by law and decorum. They fantasized about it. They imagined themselves as fast-handed retributionists who neither bled nor bruised. They had no training in combat. In fact none of them had even been in a physical altercation since their distant childhoods. Sometimes, in the single-digit hours of the night, they would watch martial arts heroes dispense with evildoers. They would lay motionless on their sofas, transfixed by the pulsating throb of the television, while they unconsciously strummed their biceps. Later they would fall asleep in the cushioning embrace of decorative pillows.

Tom’s wife, Karen, appeared with a partial drag in her peek-toe clad step. Norman. The first syllable wavered as though she were ill. I want to talk to you.

The men grew quiet, observing bold, tipsy invader.

Okay.

I want you to meet my sister - my younger sister. She’s visiting next week. She’s getting her doctorate at the University of Chicago.

What’s she studying? Norman asked, like it mattered.

Austria…or economics, I forget. Anyway, will you meet her?

It had been fifteen months since it happened; thirteen months had been spent in Briarwood. Karen Dowding was the first person to try and fix him up with someone. It was inevitable, he supposed, but unnerving. He knew it took courage for her to ask. The ladies of Briarwood would talk about Norman - Norman was aware of this. He knew they had developed an innocent fascination with him. They were familiar with his past, as much as they could be through Google. Being dutiful mothers and neighbors, they had combed the internet for information about the single man who lived nearby. They had read the news reports, which bloomed and faded fifteen months prior. His loss had circulated through four days of coverage, before becoming archival. They knew he had suffered and was broken. They kept a nurturing eye on him - the wounded dog of Briarwood (the broad-shouldered 6’2" wounded dog of Briarwood).

Norman was trying to come up with a way to be polite but distant. He was thrown-off by the blunt intrusion. He had been standing with his friends, drinking wine and bantering about violence, when she came up and lobbed a matchmaking initiative with the subtlety of a neutron bomb. He knew she was only trying to help him - he knew she was probably emboldened by the margarita she clutched - but, to Norman, her attempt was as invasive and scavenging as an informal request for a kidney donation.

Karen, I’m really not up for it. She sounds great though - does she look like you?

Karen smiled and blinked a rapid flutter - dislocating a patch of eyelash. She looks like a young Joan Collins, very beautiful.

Thanks, Karen, I’ll keep it in mind. He wanted the subject to die a quick, noiseless death and he tried to convey this with a biting smile.

She touched his arm like he was an invalid and wandered back to the makeshift bar where the potato salad was approaching an unsafe temperature.

Tom leaned in. Just so you know, her sister looks more like Phil Collins than Joan Collins.

They laughed, except for Norman, who was too scrambled by the encounter to indulge in a backyard chuckle. He needed time to recompose.

Guys, I’ll be back.

Bathroom is upstairs and to the right, John offered, forgetting that the layout was identical in Norman’s house.

He strode through the obstacle course of lawn furniture and spilt potato chips.

He was stopped by a triumvirate of five year olds, including Katie Brooke who wore a bedazzled crown. The children looked up at him like there was serious business to discuss.

Are you a giant? the boy next to Katie asked. He started laughing before he could finish the sentence.

Norman was game: Do you mean like Shrek?

Katie was floored by the riposte and spun around in a nervous, hysterical fit, nearly dislodging her birthday crown.

Noooo! A giant! You’re tall.

I think what’s actually going on here is that you three are incredibly tiny. How tall are you? You’re like sixteen inches. You might qualify as a dwarf in the state of Ohio. He was rewarded with a collection of