The Apocalypse

By Barry Barnett Keith

A sequel to The Waiter (2000), The Apocalypse explores a time twenty years later in the life of Barnett Gary when millions of Blacks have perished from gun violence and AIDS, with the remaining numbers left to live on reservations scattered about the Washington D.C. area. When terrorist acts reduce an already desolate land to cringing in fear, the restaurant business that Gary has known and worked his whole life in is left in ruins for the lack of patrons. With his self-respect destroyed by the lack of ability to provide for his wife and son, Gary turns to Sylvia, a girl half his age who makes him feel wanted. Gary and Sylvia begin an affair that brings about devastating consequences for the both of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 27, 2004
• ISBN: 9781468514100

Barry Barnett Keith

Barry Barnett Keith is a 1983 graduate of the University of Delaware, and is the author of The Waiter (2002) and The Cycle (2002).  He is a native of Alexandria, Virginia and resides in Accokeek, Maryland.

Book preview

THE APOCALYPSE

BY

BARRY BARNETT KEITH

AH%20logo_Blk.eps

1663 LIBERTY DRIVE, SUITE 200

BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA 47403

[phone]

www.authorhouse.com

This book is a work of fiction. Places, events, and situations in this story are purely fictional and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

© 2004 BARRY BARNETT KEITH.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 07/27/04

ISBN: 978-1-4685-1410-0 (ebk)

ISBN: 1-4184-2527-3 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004093394

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For Cam and Baby

VAL

Spring is upon us now and

In a day or two

The clocks will move forward

The grass grows greener

Day by day

Life moves on

Though I feel the weariness

Of toiling day after day

Obligations, responsibilities

No end in sight

I confess

Sometimes for no reason

I wonder what it would be like

To go to sleep

And sleep forever

Away from the noise and

Away from the expectations

Knowing God makes old age a privilege-

One as sweet as your smile

BK

ONE

Even after the December snow started falling early that Sunday morning, I knew Rena would still find the hair salon crowded, as it always was on Sunday mornings, no surprise. The weather would not deter any of the regular patrons of the salon in the least, unless two feet of snow came down, but the forecast only called for two to three inches. As Rena stood in line, hair was being colored, nails were being painted and dryers were working overtime. Gray was being covered, and images were either maintained or invented. I saw it all in my mind; Rena finding the exact same people she always told me about there, the ones who always seemed to get the jump on her, along with maybe a few new ones trying out the salon for the first time. Down at the end of the line of women sitting under the dryer, would be Mrs. Harris, the wife of one of the deacons in the neighborhood church. Rena and I always spotted her up front within the congregation yelling amen whenever the Pastor absolutely had to have a witness. Mrs. Harris was a large woman and she always had been. If it was one thing Carlene Harris learned how to do from her mother besides reading and writing, it was cooking. She was a fundamentalist Baptist and a product of the south, from down around Mississippi way. The images of her mother and father working as servants to racist white folks was still fresh in her mind, and even long after the both of them had passed away, Carlene and the resentments she carried still wanted to get far away from the deep south. Rena knew Carlene disliked white people because of the tone of her voice when she talked about her home, and through her occasional side nudging remarks that let those around her know how deep down to the core, black folks just had more common sense than anybody else. According to Carlene, Black folk didn’t jump in the way of snakes and alligators, trying to greet them by shaking their hands and saying What a wonderful day! Black folk also didn’t find bungee jumping a safe activity, and whenever something went boo in a dark house, they usually went the other way. At least, they did according to Carlene. After her parents died, Carlene decided she would work to expand her possibilities in life, which meant getting out of Mississippi. She ended up in Maryland, hoping for a fresh perspective, but Rena could attest to the fact that wherever Carlene went, there she was.

A few chairs up, I bet Rena saw Mrs. Jenkins herself, the first lady of the church. Mrs. Jenkins was there just to get a few more blond highlights in her hair to complement her copper skin, and no one there, except the workers at the salon, had ever seen Mrs. Jenkins with her hair out of place. Oh sure, she had rollers in it from time to time, but no one had ever seen her with the electric shock, just woke up, nappy kind of coif that women went through from time to time. According to Rena, most all of the regulars in the salon had been seen by one another with it, which was no big deal to any of them, knowing that hair simply went through phases. To the women there, it was just part of having hair, and it even created a bond between them. No one there had ever seen Mrs. Jenkins’ hair in that state however, and even though she shared laughs and jokes with the rest of the women, that one element about her said I’m the First Lady. Mrs. Jenkins’ husband had been pastor of the Fort Washington Baptist Church for thirty-one years, and he represented the old way of doing things. As she sat in her chair under the dryer, falling asleep over a magazine, she wondered how much longer the clique loyal to her husband could stave off the new order growing within the church- the young ones who believed bigger was better- and their new way of doing things. The Jenkins’ knew how times were changing, and that somehow they needed to change with them.

Rena wore her hair long and straight. Once, she went through a phase when she just had to get it curled every once in a while, but she soon went back to wearing it straight. The shine of her dark brown hair looked wonderful against her sweet graham cracker skin, and her icy feldspar eyes. The first time I saw her, I thought I was going to lose my mind. I knew that one of Rena’s favorite things to do before church on a Sunday morning was to sit under the dryer at the salon. It was her quiet time, her time away from me and our son Cameron. It was not that either of us was a nuisance, on the contrary, we were her two favorite men and I knew she loved us both with her life.

Rena told me all of the other ladies who were regular patrons in the salon struck up conversations about their husbands here and there, tossing around the male psyche like a trashy magazine, but I knew Rena never talked about me in that way, which made the ladies curious. Rena never spoke of me as being the typical male who occasionally forgets anniversaries, or who forgets to take out the garbage. She never said I was reluctant to change our son’s messy diapers, or was lazy when it came to cleaning the house. I subscribed to the obligatory temper tantrum once in a while, but who doesn’t? I am not a Deacon of the church. I am not a Pastor, nor do I sit on the Board of Trustees. I am a server; a waiter in nearby Old Town Alexandria. I hold no position of glory, and no badge of prestige that allows me to come home after work demanding that my dinner be ready by a certain time. I am none of those things. Rena never said much herself within the group, but the women felt her strength whenever she entered the room, and they suspected I had something to do with that. I know however, that the strength they see in Rena has nothing to do with me. She had it before she met me, and she would have it should I ever leave. After getting her hair washed, Rena is always mindful of her time under the dryer, as she knows Cameron and I wait for her to come home. That Sunday morning, I suspected Rena fell asleep.

TWO

Snowflakes descended like magic out of the gray winter sky and upon the glass of my bedroom window. Millions of little flakes disappeared upon contact with the earth, which was still too warm for any accumulation, yet settled over all the houses on the other side of the community. Across the round, man-made lake next to the home that Rena, Cameron and I lived in, all the houses in the distance looked like a crowd of little huts with large white caps. Fifty or sixty geese waddled across the street of our cul-de-sac as a body of one through our open back yard, leaving deposits in their wake and not at all bothered by the precipitation. The snow may as well have been rain, as the flakes turned into only small puddles of water in the street. Cameron had just turned two and as he and I watched the birds from our front window, I marveled at the look of wonder in my boy’s big brown eyes at where the flakes and the birds could possibly be coming from. In his two years, he had seen snow five or six times, gazing with a wide-eyed look of novelty for each time it fell. Rena awakened and departed early for the salon, before the light of the sun popped up out of the lake across the street where Cameron believed it came from. Though the sun was covered with clouds in the sky, I told him it was standing behind a door waiting for a chance to come out.

Soon after Rena left for the salon, Cameron awakened and shook me as we both lay in my bed, saying he wanted Cheerios. Like Cam, I desired to wake up in the morning only wanting simple things like cereal, milk, and the love of my family. When I awakened each morning and considered Rena and Cameron, I knew I was lucky. I was no longer alone, as I was for the many years after a rift with my mother and father left me in exile. I still could not get over the fact that they asked me to leave their house. For years after that, I came home to no one, and I knew no one outside, even though I had served so many as a result of my trade. I wanted to continue building my life around them, and to think that when I found out Rena was pregnant, I was scared and not so sure.

Daddy, daddy, I love you daddy! Cameron said.

I love you too buddy, I replied, rubbing his head lightly.

Daddy, can I have apple juice? he asked.

Yeah bud. Sure you can.

After Cam got his juice, I turned on a video for him, one he had seen twenty times already, and even I knew it by heart. While he sat engrossed in it, I moved to the front window to adjust the curtains and the blinds so that I could see out into the street as I waited for Rena. I then went into the living room where Cameron watched his video and adjusted the curtains there. With the street still visible, I then sat on the sofa. He got up from the floor and came to sit into my lap. I watched Cam as he again became fixed upon the television and completely comfortable in the arms of his father. Looking at him, I knew there was nothing I would do to ever harm him or his mama, my two best friends in the world.

THREE

I never said, even to myself, that I did not trust my wife, but she was taking too much time to come back home. When I looked out the window for the sight of Rena’s little blue car to come around the corner from getting her hair done, I only saw a scorching summer wind carrying dust clouds across the parched plains of Accokeek. Rain was nowhere in sight, like the day before, and the day before that. Through the kitchen, I heard a popping against the windows of the doors leading out to the back of our house, which meant giant wasps and dirt doppers were out back terrorizing our weather beaten deck and patio. Because of a vast lack of rain throughout the territory, there was not a blade of grass to be found in our yard. What was left of it had burned, cracked and withered away under the feet of a hot, long dry spell. The silent Sunday morning temperature crawled slowly over the horizon like a pack of fire ants, quickly reaching over a hundred degrees for the sixth straight day, and for the forty-seventh out of the last fifty. Even in our air-conditioned house, I felt the humidity outside wagging a finger, daring me to come outside, in case I ever got too comfortable, or even too cold. I sat in the front window of our house in my favorite viridian suit, looking out the window and waiting for my wife. She left me in charge of getting Cameron ready for church, which meant I had to bathe him, iron his clothes, and put up with hearing him cry about how he never wants to go to urch. Two years old, and that little boy was going to be the death of me, I was convinced of it.

Daddy, daddy! Cameron cried. I sensed how he had become restless in the wait for his mama.

"What son? What is it now?" I sighed.

Daddy, daddy!

"Oh my god, Cam what is it?!"

Daddy, can I have ap ju?

"What?!"

Can I have app ju? he asked again.

"Ap ju- what’s that son? Speak up, tell me what it is you want!"

Can I have ap juice?

Ap-ple juice! Man, okay, just spell it out! Do me a favor, don’t spill this stuff on your clothes before we can have a chance to get out the door!

Mama! he cried. I had just about had it with his whining.

Mama ain’t here, she’s coming- what are you crying about now?!

Mama!

Go over to the sofa and finish watching your video, we’re getting’ ready to go! And stop all that crying!

The doorbell rang in between Cameron’s cries, and I knew anytime I heard that sound, it was usually someone who was not welcome- salesmen mostly, because we still did not know the neighbors that well, though we had been in the house for almost three years. The sun’s light, along with the hot winds, scorched my face as soon as I opened the door. Through the flying dust, a young white boy stood in a short-sleeved white oxford with his stringy hair disheveled by the wind. His shirt was not ironed; he wore a blue striped clip on tie with black leather shoes made tan by the rising dust. His cheap polyester pants were also wrinkled and stringy. In his hand, he carried a large black notebook full of what looked like pamphlets. A short distance away, an older, balding man with a face wrinkled and reddened from the sun and possibly excessive drinking stood in our driveway. He was dressed the same as the boy, right down to the tie, carrying a larger notebook. The man watched the boy intently with the glare of a mentor and a father.

Pardon me sir, I hope you’re having a good morning, the boy said, looking up at me and shaking.

I am, I replied, being careful to disarm his father by showing the boy courtesy. It was what I would have wanted for my own son. What can I do for you?

Sir, do you know that God is coming? he asked.

I was surprised by his question, expecting him to pull out brochures for washers or dryers, or even termite control. Uh, yeah, yes I do!

Sir, have you ever given thought to why there are droughts, and hurricanes and earthquakes, and the rain forests are dying and, and how they’re happening too much now, I mean, with more frequency?

Daddy! Cameron cried from inside.

I turned away from the boy. I’ll be there in a minute Cam, watch your video buddy! You were saying, earthquakes?

Yes, sir.

I mean, what were you saying about them? I asked.

The boy closed his eyes and cringed, feeling he had made a mistake in his presentation. Oh, yeah, well all those things are God trying to tell us something! Here’s a pamphlet that tells you all about it and, would you be interested in reading it?

Sure, why not, I replied, holding my hand out to receive it.

A smile came to the boy’s face and his eyes brightened. I was one at least who did not slam the door in his face.

Thank you, sir, have a good day sir!

You too, son, have a good day! I nodded to his father, who gave me a solemn look of thanks.

I went back inside, and sat down on the sofa in front of the television with the pamphlet in my hand. Cameron got up from the floor and snuggled under my arm.

Daddy? Cameron asked.

Yes, buddy?

Do I, have to go church?

Yes bud, I mean when me and your mommy go, do you want us to leave you here? I mean, you could eat cheerios for a while, and you could watch some cartoons, but what are you gonna do if you should need one of us and we’re not around?

Daddy, I don’t wanna go!

You’re going, bud, and that’s that!

Cameron began crying for a short time longer until he fell asleep. His learning video went off and cartoons blared on the television screen. I sat, feeling totally exasperated before the day even got started. I held Cam a little closer in the wait for my wife. The moment Rena came through the door, Cameron awakened, and I let him go to her in the hope that he would not start crying all over again.

Where in the world have you been girl?! Does it take that long just to get your hair done?

Listen suh, it’s not about you all the time you know! Rena replied in her Louisiana drawl.

"Do me a favor and just get him to shut up! I said. Are you ready to go?"

I just got through the dowa,’ gimme time!

After about thirty more minutes, we got into the car, and I popped in the same gospel music CD we listened to every Sunday, full of the customary yelling and screaming to God. Cameron fell asleep in a sweat with his head tilted to one side of the car seat, finally worn out from all his crying. At the time we rounded the corner of our cul de sac into the main strip of our reservation that morning, I began wondering what ever happened to the simplicity of my life. I then asked myself if there was anything more- anything more at all- to be had of it. Where did the glamour and intrigue I sought through driving my burgundy Ford Taurus disappear to, and why could no one in my immediate surroundings behave the way I thought they should. I knew Rena took her time that morning because she just needed time away from the both of us. My son was two years old, yet I was afraid to admit to Rena how there were times Cameron still felt like a stranger to me. My job often left me exhausted, even on my days off, and I only had enough energy when I was home to plop Cameron down in front of the television, and then check out any sporting events by way of channel surfing. As we drove around Bohac Lane, we happened upon a new SUV of a neighbor’s, still with temporary tags, sitting covered with the summer day’s flying dust. It in itself was a statement of defiance toward gasoline prices that had become astronomical. We rolled down blood-stained Indian Head Highway with black crows hovering in the sky overhead, readying themselves to swoop down over what was left of steaming, rotting crimson carcasses of deer and vermin that lay on either side of the road. Because new housing reservations were carved right out of the woods, many four-legged animals awakened from the night before completely exposed to all that might harm them, crossing the vast road in search of food and water between speeding vehicles. Outside my scorching hot windows, over the low volume of the music and even through the air conditioning blowing about us, I heard locusts feasting on what leaves were left on the wilting, graying trees.

At first, the plains were without humans, and the heat upon the road became visible in the distance, as the sight of cars wavered within it. Basketball courts in sight were devoid of young players pitting themselves against one another and pretending to be one-man franchises shaking and baking in the championship for that moment in time and nothing more. I was not sure if it was the heat that kept the youth