I wheeled my bike out of the garage, hopped on, and rode east, waving goodbye to Perkins and my father as I did. Three times a week we spent a few hours making rounds throughout the area. Since managing to scrape together enough gasoline to make it to Baltimore and back in August, we hadn't ventured more than five miles from the house, but we watched those five miles closely. We'd heard reports of gangs forming, growing more organized, and claiming various territories. But we'd never actually seen them, and we were hoping it would stay that way.
I pedaled until I reached a five-story office building, my normal vantage point. I parked my bike and jogged up the rusty metal staircases on the side of the building until I reached the roof, then pulled out my binoculars. It was much colder up here. I zipped up my coat and put my hood up, then leaned against the sill and waited. The view was great up here. The entire sky was clouded over. Above downtown Washington the yellow hue had not subsided, not even after eight months. I looked straight up and remembered something Wes said one time during a day like this one -- no blue to be seen, only a solid sheet of grey. We had just walked outside after being let out of class back at Florida State. He suddenly stopped, pointed to the sky, and said, "That one looks like a really fat guy!" For a moment I set my binoculars down and started laughing. I'd heard so many jokes and seen so many funny movies in my life, but it was always the dumbest stuff I seemed to remember.
For a few minutes I scanned the horizon as best I could. The binoculars were cheap; I think my dad got them for some appreciation week at work or something. The world was the same dull interactive photograph it had been for months. It was rare to see other people anymore; nearly everybody had either died or given up on the prospect of aid ever reaching the outlying D.C. area. Nearly everyone had subscribed to the rumor that food was being made available in Baltimore or Richmond or even Philadelphia, and packed their bags. A privileged very few drove; many decided that walking for hundreds of miles was preferable to remaining in the suburbs of a demolished city and waiting to die. I thought about Matt and Wes. I wasn't particularly sure why I started thinking of them -- I wouldn't have called them among my very best friends, really. And honestly, our stunts we had pulled with the modems the year before didn't occupy me much. Even after the unthinkable catastrophe happened, even after Perkins told me about what he saw. It was just silly to think about. Regardless, I tried to remember what each of us wrote in ours. Mine was a stupid, forced attempt to be funny, I remember that much. I just copied and pasted the U.S. Constitution and added an amendment about how the NFL season had to go year-round and that each team was required to play five games a week. I thought about it some more and remembered that I made another amendment that the 3Com people didn't wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Chuckling as I descended the stairs, I got back on my bike.
I took Broad Street on the way back to complete my circular patrol. A few minutes later, in an area of town obscured by another building from my vantage point on top of the roof, I spotted a fire. My pedaling quickened as I chased the column of smoke. I turned right on Garwood, left on Indian Spring, right on Flower. The plume of smoke was even bigger than I first realized. I rounded the corner to turn left on Marshall, expecting to see a house on fire. I saw about ten houses on fire, and a few more already burned to the ground. A few dozen men were yelling and throwing things at the houses. One produced a rifle from the back of a white van and fired it into the sky. Crudely spray-painted on the side of the van in red were the letters "RCA".
Other men were tied to telephone poles with sacks over their heads, slumped over. They were dead. I was too busy staring. I didn't bother to stop my bike. One of the men turned, pointed, and shouted. My feet went numb and lost their pedals.
I next found myself on the pavement. My mouth was bleeding. The yells grew louder and I heard several sets of footsteps. I pushed myself up, straightened my bike, and attempted to jump on it, but stumbled. I fell to the ground again. I heard a gunshot and a "whizz" just past my ear. Once more I picked up my bike and mounted it, and this time my feet stuck. I pedaled so furiously that I feared I would lose control yet again and fall over. I didn't. I turned the corner and didn't dare to look back. My ears perked when I heard a noise I hadn't in months: a car engine. My lungs burned. I heard tires peel and an engine rev. I turned around; it was following me. A man leaned outside the passenger-side door, screamed something I couldn't understand, and fired again. This shot wasn't as close, but I still heard it pass me. I rounded yet another corner and spotted a house with a fenced-in yard. Now I'll have to say, to this day I'm still pretty impressed with what I did next. I jumped off the bike without letting go of the handlebars and flung it over the fence, then grabbed hold of the top of the fence and struggled to pull myself over. The engine was getting closer and louder. I was sure I was done. Tires began to peel one last time as it rounded the corner, and that was the moment my arms finally managed to bring me to the other side. I hit the ground on the other side of the yard just long enough to see the van speed by through the slats in the fence. I looked for it again because I simply didn't believe it the first time. Kind of strange that I could swallow that my world had devolved from a squeaky-clean near-utopia to a giant ghost town in which gangs openly murdered and destroyed, but that I just couldn't wrap my head around the van with "RCA" slapped across the side. The former was jolting; the latter was just surreal.