The bridge over the L.A. River by Matt Wall

Jack walked out of his apartment, across the street and onto the bridge that goes over the dried up L.A. river. It was a warm evening and the sun hadn’t gone down yet. Jack squinted his eyes to see better and saw Ian waving to him from the other side. Jack waved back and once he got half way across the bridge, he stopped, and faced west, the sun still warm, shining on his face.

Jack pulled a pack of smokes from his front shirt pocket and lit one up. A moment later, once Ian had arrived and perched himself next to him, he handed Ian a cigarette. Ian lit his and they both looked into the sun.

“I’m waiting,” Jack said.

Ian chuckled and open the brown paper bag that he had brought with him and pulled out two, ice cold, glass bottles of beer. “Here you go.”

Jack smiled. “This is going to taste so good.” He took a long pull on the bottle. He started to say something, thought against it and pounded the bottle until it was empty. He belched loudly. It echoed beneath them along the concrete walls of the dried up L.A. river. Jack screamed and threw the bottle into the river and the sound of the glass smashing against the concrete was sadly softer than he hoped.

“Another?” Ian asked.

“Please.” Jack took the bottle from him and opened it. “I hate having to wait until evening to have a drink. This is torture!”

“How long has your community had booze banned now?”

“Six months and twenty-seven days. We are as dry that fucking river below us.” He guzzled half the bottle down. Belched loudly. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Ian.”

“That’s okay, Jack. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be able to ever have another cigarette. They banned those in my community a year ago!”

The two men smoked all the cigarette’s and finished off the six pack with hardly saying another word. They said their goodbyes and then Jack walked back Northeast across the bridge to his community and Ian walked back down Southwest to his.

The next night the two men met again in the middle of the bridge. Jack handed Ian a smoke and Ian handed Jack a beer.

“Things are getting weird over in my community,” Jack said.

“How so?” Ian asked.

“Well, there’s a food shortage and a lot of people are starving, I guess.”

“Yeah?” Ian said. “We sort of have the same problem in mine. No meat.”

 Jack continued, “So there was this big meeting with the whole community and everyone is shouting at everyone else and people are getting upset so I said, why don’t we just eat people? We got a ton of those!”

“People?” Ian asked, lighting another smoke.

“People.” Jack said, opening another beer.

“You think they’ll go for it?”

“I don’t know? There’s another meeting tomorrow.”

“Would you do it?” Ian asked.

“Fuck no!” Jack shouted. “I’m vegan now and fast four days a week anyway. When we eat, it’s mainly soup – of some kind.”

“I didn’t know that about you.”

“It’s kind of a new thing. This girl I’m dating is vegan and she moved into my place last month so…”

“I understand,” Ian said.

The next night Ian beat Jack to the bridge by a couple minutes. When Ian asked what took Jack so long, Jack said, “You’ll never believe it. They took a vote today and cannibalism passed. People can eat people in my neighborhood now.”

Ian handed him a beer and said, “That’s great, man. You must feel really good about it.”

“Not really. Everyone has been chasing each other around all day trying to kill each other with the stupidest things. I don’t think people know how to hunt anymore. Come to think of it, I don’t either.”

“Give me an example of what you saw.”

“Well, I saw a woman chasing a man down the alley behind my kitchen window. She was chasing him with an electric carving knife, but the knife wasn’t plugged in and the guy was running from her! Scared!”

“Why don’t people just shoot people?”

“Guns? We banned those things years ago.”

“That’s right,” Ian took a long drag off his cigarette. “We have guns coming out our ears in my neighborhood.” Ian took a swig off the beer and said, “You know what Jack? You’ve inspired me. I’m going to call a meeting tomorrow and tell them all the great things you’re doing in your community and see if we can follow suit.”

They finished the beer.

They finished the smokes.

They went their separate ways.

The next night, Jack was hanging his head low. He met Ian halfway and lit a smoke and grabbed a beer. “Well, it started,” Jack said.

“What did?”

“Someone finally caught someone else, and right this minute, they are cooking them over a fire.”

“How do you know?”

“I can smell it. It’s making me hungry, but I’m a vegan and this is one of my fast days anyway.”

Ian shook his head. “Your willpower is amazing.”

They both finished a bottle and threw it into the dried up, concrete, L.A. river. 

Ian said, “I talked to my neighborhood and they are voting on cannibalism tomorrow. I think it will go well. There is no protein in my community. Everyone has these fucking gardens and shit and all they do is grow vegetables.”

“Really?” Jack said. “Like what?”

“Everything you could think of and some others that you can’t. Lettuce, tomato, onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, eggplant, cucumber, zucchini, pumpkins, watermelons, and the corn! Jesus Christ there is so much corn!”

Jack’s mouth was watering. “Could you bring me some of that tomorrow?”

“Like what?”

“Any of it. We can’t grow stuff in my neighborhood. We are allowed to but no one knows how to do it and we don’t got any dirt. It’s all concrete!”

The next night, Jack’s community was on fire. It was terrifying. There were gunshots, people screaming and buildings collapsing. Jack got there early. Not because he didn’t want to be in harms way, but because Ian promised him some veggies.

Ian showed up, this time carrying two big brown paper bags. One had two six packs in it and the other was a colorful explosion of veggies and fruits. Jack’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. Jack handed Ian a cigarette.

“I feel bad,” Jack said. “First the beer and now this? I just bring you smokes, man. I need to do something else.”

“You already have.”

“What do you mean?”

Just then a truck drove over the bridge and slowed down by them. Ian waved and the truck drove away.

Jack shook his head. “I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone drive on this bridge.”

Ian took swig of the beer and said, “We passed cannibalism in our neighborhood today.”

“That’s great, man. Really,” Jack said. “You guys should have no problems.”

“I know! What made it better was the fact that your community passed it too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because now we can just go into your neighborhood, where no one has any guns, and kill people there and bring them back to our neighborhood without anyone getting hurt.”

Jack nodded. “That makes sense, I guess. This morning I looked out my kitchen window and saw a little old lady, curly white hair, sunken eyes, kneeling the street, she was chewing on this big fat guy’s belly. He was laying in the middle of the ally wearing nothing but his tighty-whities. She saw me and sat up to wave. I was expecting blood and guts and shit, but she smiled and there was only drool. That was it. She didn’t have her dentures in. She was just gumming him to death. Then, while she was waving, the fat guy just stood up and walked away. I think it was a sex thing or something.”

Ian shuddered and said, “The freezers in town are almost all full of dead people. Our town will be eating good for months.”

“What happens when the food runs out again?”

“I guess we will turn on each other.”

They shrugged and finished their beers.

“Goodnight, Ian.”

“Goodnight, Jack.”

Jack walked back across his side of the bridge and walked through town. He didn’t see another living soul. There weren’t any bodies in the street either, too valuable. He went home and placed his brown bag of veggies on the counter. His girlfriend wasn’t there. Somebody must’ve got her, he thought.

He walked over to the community center where the meetings are held.

Empty.

He sat in the biggest chair. He picked up the gavel. It felt good. The weight of it in his hand. Then he said, “I herby make into law, from this moment forward, that alcohol is legal once again in this community.” He slammed the gavel down two or three times and smiled. 

He stood up and was nearly dancing as he walked out the door and back down the street. then he stoped.

“Shit!” he said. “There’s no one left to sell beer to me.” 

He went home with his head hangin low. He lit a cigarette, shut his door and grabbed a cucumber, counting down the minutes until he would met Ian on the bridge tomorrow night, until he saw a truck full of armed men crossing the bridge from Ian’s neighborhood into his. Swallowing that first bite of cucumber became difficult. 

Billy lived in North Hollywood. It used to be a nice place. Then, the Red Line stop was put there. Now, it isn’t so nice. Make of that what you will.

Billy was a writer who had never sold anything. He was living off of an inheritance and if things kept up the way they were going, which wasn’t well, he would be broke and out on the street before the year’s end. 

Instead of writing, Billy was constantly thinking about his money running out and how awful things would be then. “It couldn’t be worse than living in this flea bag apartment building,” he thought, at least when he was feeling optimistic, but that didn’t happen very often.

It was hot and it was night. Billy needed a drink.

He walked out his door on the third story of the building and blocked out all the screams of madness that usually littered those hallways. He had to. He would have been driven mad long ago if he didn’t. But, if he had listened to those screams, he may have noticed that tonight, they were a little different.

He went to the corner shop, dropped a ten on the counter and walked out with a case of Natty Ice. He liked the taste of Natty Light better, but Natty Ice came in black cans. He thought black was cool. He always wore black. So, he logically thought that his beer cans should also always wear black.

Minutes later, as he was walking through his building, he was still blocking out the screams of madness that usually came from his little square of NoHo. He had to. It would’ve drove him nuts if he had to listen that everyday.

When he was slipping his key in the door, he heard a voice coming from behind him.

“Can I have one of those beers you got there?”

The voice was deep, but, it didn’t sound threatening. Billy was always worried about getting robbed. He heard of many people in the building getting robbed. Usually he heard of this when he was checking his mailbox since he rarely ever talked to anyone in the building. 

“Is this how it happens?” Billy thought. “Is this how people get robbed?”

“Hey!” said the voice behind him, “I asked if I could have one of those beers?”

Billy slowly turned around and made eye contact with the man’s chest. He moved his eyes upward and eventually came to the man’s face. He had a hard face, but the guy was wearing a black shirt and Billy took that as a sign of camaraderie. 

“Shit, man. I’ll give you a dollar for one of those beers,” the man said. 

Billy thought about it. The case of Natty Ice only cost $7.99. A normal case only comes with 12 beers. If he sold each beer for a dollar, he could be up $4.00 minus tax. But this case, this was one of those cases that gives you three extra Natties. That meant that Billy had 15 cans of beer in his case. The ROI on this deal could end up being a very lucrative scheme. If the writing thing didn’t work out…

“Jesus Christ, buddy,” the man said, “forget it!”

“No! No!” Billy said. “It’s okay. I’ll give you one.” Billy opened the door and was about to ask the man if he wanted to come in, but found after he put the case down, the man was already in the apartment and had shut the door behind him. Billy also noticed that the man was wearing a skirt.

The man saw that Billy’s eyes were fixated on his attire. “It’s a kilt.”

Billy titled his head to the side. “Is it? It looks like a skirt.”

“It’s a kilt.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Goodwill.”

Billy rubbed his chin. “What department?”

“What?”

“Like, what else was around it?”

“I dunno, clothes.”

“Ladies clothes?”

“I said, I dunno!” The man snapped. “You trying to be funny or something?”

“No!” Billy shuddered.

“The thing is plaid and it has pleats! It’s a damn kilt!”

Billy wanted to tell him that all catholic school girl’s skirts did too, but let it slide. He ripped open the cardboard case and gave the man a beer. Billy waited. The man opened it and took a long pull on the can. Billy waited. The man offered no money and Billy’s heart sank. 

Billy opened a can for himself and sat down on his tiny couch that he found near the dumpster seven months ago. The pattern on it was disgusting. Something grabbed Billy’s attention.

A drop of blood fell on the hardwood floor. It came from in-between the man’s legs. Another drop fell.

“Oh shit!” Billy shouted. Was this man having a period? Was this a woman before him? Had he misgendered this person? His mind raced. He wondered if he had said anything to the man or woman that would indicate what sex Billy figured the man or woman to be. He panicked. Just a few weeks back, Billy was cancelled off of Twitter for accidentally misgendering someone. He thought his life was over. In fact if it wasn’t for the first three episodes of The Mandalorian on Disney Plus, not having any female roles, he was sure that the cancelling would’ve followed him to Instagram and Facebook, as well.

The man looked at what Billy was looking at. He saw the blood.

Billy looked at the man’s face. He didn’t look so good. He was pale, but with a yellowish tint. He was dripping sweat. The closer Billy looked at the guy, he thought that he would pass out. 

There was a long uncomfortable silence.

Then, something made a splat sound with light thud, on the floor.

Billy looked down. “Oh my Jesus! Your ball fell out!” Billy even pointed in case the man didn’t know what he was talking about.

The man slowly looked down to the floor. Sure enough, there was a a roundish object, covered in blood on the hardwood. He picked it up and lifted his skirt. Billy was horrified and now certain of the man’s sex. The man’s scrotum was huge, discolored and looked infected. The guy had a pretty decent pecker in there, too, but it was the sack that was the grotesque freak show. It had a slit near the top by the penis that was about the length of a thumb. The edge of the slice was disgusting and red, and scabby and crusty. Greenish puss oozed out of the wound. Billy stared at the sack and it looked like a leather pouch filled to he brim with marbles. It seemed that there were tons of balls in there. He couldn’t understand it.

The man lifted the ball up off the ground and smiled when he showed it to Billy. It wasn’t a testicle. It was looking back and him. It was a fucking eyeball!

Billy shrieked in terror and spilled his beer. He tried to jump back over the couch but it was against a wall and he had nowhere to go. 

The man pulled down on his sack to open the slash and forced the eyeball into his scrotum. He winced and once it was inside, he dropped the skirt and lifted his hands toward Billy, opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. 

Billy had nowhere to go. He was a weakling and had never been in a fight in his life. He had no idea what to do so he froze. The man grabbed him and put his mouth over one of Billy’s eyes. His breath smelled like spoiled milk, electrical fire and asshole. His skin was sweaty and clammy like dead fish. Billy screamed as he felt his eye pop out of the socket. Billy was sick. The pain made him sick but the sound made him even more sick.

Billy puked down the front of the man. All he had eaten that day was a bag of ramen and half that beer.

The man backed up in disgust. Then, he puked a little. 

Billy saw his own eye on the ground in the man’s puke. He reached up to his empty socket and felt tendrils and other shit that he couldn’t explain coming out. He screamed and ran for the door. He opened the door and ran into the hall, screaming. He finally stopped zoning out the other screams in the building. 

“My eyes!”

“I’m blind!”

“Where are my fucking eyes!”

These were the screams that Billy heard. 

“Help!” Billy shouted, but realized everyone was in the same boat as him. 

Doors opened. People stumbled out. The people had bloody holes in their heads where eyes should be.  They’re arms were outstretched, feeling their way through the hall. Then, he heard the man stomp into the hall.

“I’m gonna put your eyeballs in my bloody, bloody ballsack!” The man shouted.

“Help!”

“I’m gonna put your eyeballs in my bloody, bloody ballsack!”

He was getting closer. Billy felt like he was having a heart attack. If he let the man have his other eyeball, he would leave him alone. That’s what Billy thought.

Billy stopped running and turned, back against the wall. Everyone still screaming through the building. The man stormed towards him. “I’m gonna put your eyeball in my bloody, bloody ballsack!”

As the man painfully sucked his other eyeball out, Billy remembered that the man with the bloody, bloody ballsack still owed him a dollar that he would never see.