Speaker 1: Aol Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book club book club book club. That's the new jingle. Hey,
Speaker 2: I figure if I set up a bit where I
Speaker 2: use a new jingle every single time I introduced the episode,
Speaker 2: then I'll regret it in probably about a month. But
Speaker 2: this is cool Zone Media book Club, which is a
Speaker 2: book club run by cool Zone Media. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Markaret Kiljoy and with me today as my guest is
Speaker 2: Mi a long Hello.
Speaker 3: Hello, I am booking, I am clubbing, I am pounding
Speaker 3: the tables going book club.
Speaker 4: This is an exciting moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is a book club kind of in
Speaker 2: some ways it'll have we're still it'll develop as it goes.
Speaker 2: But right now it's a story club where I read
Speaker 2: you a story. I'm going to read me a story,
Speaker 2: and Mia, by proxy is you the listener.
Speaker 4: And I feel so powerful.
Speaker 2: I know you represent everyone. Wow, that's wild. That's a
Speaker 2: I think that makes you more powerful than most elected officials.
Speaker 4: I have become god. Oh no, someone must kill me now.
Speaker 2: Okay, someone has actually come and killed Mia, so I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to do most of the rest of this
Speaker 2: on my own. That was a joke, MIAs.
Speaker 4: Still yeah, no, I'm not dead yet.
Speaker 2: Unless you're listening to this like seventy years in the future,
Speaker 2: in which case and we're just talking to you from
Speaker 2: this is okay, whatever, Okay, I'm gonna read a fucking story.
Speaker 2: And this is the first week that we are reading
Speaker 2: a story that, you know, we started the book club
Speaker 2: by me reading a novella of mine called The Lama
Speaker 2: Slaughter or The Lion, and then I've been collecting stories
Speaker 2: from different authors that relate to the themes of the
Speaker 2: show It could Happen Here, that talk about people working
Speaker 2: together or the world changing due to climate and other crises.
Speaker 2: And I'm really excited about the story that I'm gonna
Speaker 2: read today because I think it I think it kind
Speaker 2: of helps set the tone for a what a slow apocalypse,
Speaker 2: like what we're dealing with is really all about. And
Speaker 2: I think we're all living through times where we're gonna
Speaker 2: have to start blurring the lines of what is science
Speaker 2: fiction and what is reality? You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So.
Speaker 2: This this story is by Nicassio Andres red and it's
Speaker 2: called Lebong Lucsa. Salt had crept in while he was away,
Speaker 2: and now the freshwater wetlands of Gino's childhood are a marsh,
Speaker 2: brackish and fickle. There is the soccer field where he'd
Speaker 2: stained his knees. It had been a low, dry rise
Speaker 2: of earth bracketed by mud and cord grass, and today
Speaker 2: is impassable, a thicket of cattails and algae, skinned water,
Speaker 2: a humming choir of insects. And here the Jiffy lube
Speaker 2: where Gino got his first job, and a stand of
Speaker 2: trees outside it where Gino smoked his first cigarettes. A
Speaker 2: line of fat old maples that in the summer had
Speaker 2: dropped their seeds in spinning helicopter wings by the whirling hundreds,
Speaker 2: and in the autumn had lit up like match heads,
Speaker 2: screaming into the sky first week of June. Now and
Speaker 2: they're not doing much of anything, their branches almost bare, bark,
Speaker 2: corpse gray from drinking salt water. Around the corner to
Speaker 2: Mifflin Street, past the strip bones of the gas station,
Speaker 2: up two blocks to the high tide line of the
Speaker 2: sand bagged steps of the shop, and go the empty
Speaker 2: lot opposite repurposed into a dock for the neighborhood fleet.
Speaker 2: Half a dozen rowboats with their oars padlocked, a thwart
Speaker 2: one eight seater bow rider with yellowing upholstery, one jet
Speaker 2: ski and as they come into dock the roofed pontoon
Speaker 2: that Gino caught a ride on, a habitat for humanity
Speaker 2: donation forty Benji, the helmsman, get out of here, you know,
Speaker 2: sucking his teeth. We got a problem, naw man nah.
Speaker 2: Gino digs out his wallet.
Speaker 4: Cash.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I figured y'all get a lot of outages. Benji
Speaker 2: counts through the ones and fives more power outages than power.
Speaker 2: We on generators, if we on shit, Benji shakes his head.
Speaker 2: Is what it is? You need directions? I'm good, Thanks,
Speaker 2: I grew up around here. The boardwalk from the boats
Speaker 2: to dry asphalt is made of wooden shipping pallets, new
Speaker 2: ones stacked on top of old when they've started to
Speaker 2: molder as the mud takes them. Gino slings his bag
Speaker 2: over his shoulder and walks across with his eyes on
Speaker 2: his feet, distrustful of the dark patches where it looks rotted.
Speaker 2: Through the street is a relief, even with sedge and
Speaker 2: woolgrass cutting up through the cracks in the pavement. For
Speaker 2: the first few yards past the water line, the distance
Speaker 2: from the stop and go to his childhood home is
Speaker 2: the length of time it took to eat a bag
Speaker 2: of spicy pork skins and throw the evidence in a
Speaker 2: neighbor's garbage can, so his mom wouldn't know he'd been
Speaker 2: ruining his dinner, but he'd measured it in a teenage
Speaker 2: boy's appetite. And the walk seemed quicker now. The street's narrower,
Speaker 2: the telephone poles shorter, the sky closer, everything more squat,
Speaker 2: and the gritty smell of the marsh clinging on even
Speaker 2: two blocks up the street. Still, it's late in the
Speaker 2: afternoon and the sun on the clouds is starting to blush.
Speaker 2: So folks are setting themselves up on front stoops and
Speaker 2: threes and sixes, with cigarettes and beer bottles and babies
Speaker 2: on bouncing knees, their friendly racket sounding to Gino something
Speaker 2: like a first language, so familiar, unheard for years. He
Speaker 2: gets a couple nods and throws them back, but nobody
Speaker 2: knows him on sight. He turns the corner on South
Speaker 2: Bosnel Street. The sidewalk is broken in all the same
Speaker 2: spots he didn't know he knew until he sees them again,
Speaker 2: and then he knows every fissure and crack, every dog
Speaker 2: pole mortalized in wet cement. No parked cars, a lot
Speaker 2: more boarded updoors and windows than there used to be,
Speaker 2: although there had always been some. There were never any
Speaker 2: front yards in the neighborhood, all the basement windows looking
Speaker 2: directly out onto the sidewalk. Now every house on the
Speaker 2: road that still looks occupied as a rain barrel out front,
Speaker 2: and a couple have one of those larger galvanized metal
Speaker 2: cisterns that look like fat, little grain silos. There's a
Speaker 2: line of grass growing right down the middle of the
Speaker 2: street s edge, probably a bad sign on what used
Speaker 2: to be high ground. And then inevitably there is number
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. He's been gone almost twenty years, and it
Speaker 2: looks not the same, but like a faded photograph of itself.
Speaker 2: Gino doesn't know if it's looked like that for a while,
Speaker 2: or if it happened all at once. If a year
Speaker 2: ago when his father died the color drained from the
Speaker 2: house's facade, he could still turn around. It's not that
Speaker 2: he hasn't thought about his father's death or how it
Speaker 2: would be to come home and see the place without him,
Speaker 2: but he's been able to think about it from a
Speaker 2: distance know it without seeing it, and that's worked for
Speaker 2: him overall. But from the bottom of the steps and
Speaker 2: through the screen door, there's his mother's voice telling someone
Speaker 2: to bring out the good plates, the ones for company,
Speaker 2: so much clearer than her voice over the phone, telling
Speaker 2: him she'd understand if he couldn't make the trip, like
Speaker 2: she was forgiving him for disappointing her even before he
Speaker 2: did it. Gino wants very much to be someone who
Speaker 2: doesn't need to be forgiven, so up the stairs he goes.
Speaker 2: Gino was five years old when the bulge of the
Speaker 2: schoolkil river met the fat and trickle of cobs creaked
Speaker 2: to the east, and together they fingered their way west
Speaker 2: through parkways and back yards to touch the gutted Delaware.
Speaker 2: It was then declared that everything south of the Roosevelt
Speaker 2: Expressway was officially part of the Greater Chesapeake Floodplain. The
Speaker 2: majority of Philadelphia was under at least six inches of water,
Speaker 2: so the entirety of it was legally classified it as inundated.
Speaker 2: The news his folks, every adult he knew, kept track
Speaker 2: of the losses. The city took bids on where to
Speaker 2: relocate the Liberty Bell and crowd funded the removal and
Speaker 2: transport of the arch at the foot of Chinatown, the
Speaker 2: neighborhood threw up barriers around the Pentecostal church on Snyder
Speaker 2: Avenue and brought up in replanted mangroves from nurseries on
Speaker 2: the Jersey Shore. They were losing more ground than they saved, though,
Speaker 2: for as long as he could remember. When he was eight,
Speaker 2: the block half a mile away where his mom grew
Speaker 2: up was evacuated, and his Grandpap moved in with them.
Speaker 2: Slept on the couch. His sharp pressed slacks and red
Speaker 2: striped shirts displaced Gino's clothes in the closet. His basketball
Speaker 2: games and bachi club pushed Gino out of the afternoons
Speaker 2: he'd spent with his dad, and his voice, old Philly
Speaker 2: short vowels running up into each other, filtered into every
Speaker 2: room and out the front door onto the stoop every day,
Speaker 2: adding to the to his eulogy for the city. Grief
Speaker 2: was the background static of Gino's childhood, every one else's
Speaker 2: grief for a place he'd never been. Gino's family was
Speaker 2: in West Pasiunk, a little too distant from the heart
Speaker 2: of old Italian Philadelphia to benefit from the touristing nostalgia
Speaker 2: and too black and brown for their one sob story,
Speaker 2: among many to generate charitable donations, like for the black
Speaker 2: folks down in king Sessing Up in Kensington. The official
Speaker 2: plan was to leave it to rod in the water,
Speaker 2: but the less than a mile square from twentieth Street
Speaker 2: to twenty sixth sat on a rise known only to
Speaker 2: the kids who'd biked it, pushing and sweating up one
Speaker 2: way and gliding legs storked out down the other, while
Speaker 2: the rest of the neighborhood went to algae and rot.
Speaker 2: Gino's old block and the couple dozen around it became
Speaker 2: an island in the marsh. It was almost lucky a
Speaker 2: mile in any direction. The government offered to buy homeowners
Speaker 2: out of their property for less than a quarter of
Speaker 2: how much it would cost them to start over somewhere
Speaker 2: further inland. Most people took it because, in the choice
Speaker 2: between an insultingly low offer and nothing at all, they
Speaker 2: figured it was better not to wait around for the
Speaker 2: insulting offer to expire. Up in the neighborhood, basements flooded,
Speaker 2: tap water went funny, electricity flickered and failed, but no
Speaker 2: buyout offers came and even as everything else changed, the
Speaker 2: old rule still held true. If you didn't get out
Speaker 2: of the neighborhood by the time you were eighteen, then
Speaker 2: chances were you were never getting out. Gino left when
Speaker 2: he was eighteen. Gino's older brother, Stevie, got married at eighteen.
Speaker 2: Stevie's in his forties now and on the couch this morning,
Speaker 2: his knees as high as his chest because his spot
Speaker 2: on the far corner has sagged under the years he's
Speaker 2: spent there. There's a stack of dishes and cutlery on
Speaker 2: the coffee table in front of him. He's the ghost
Speaker 2: of their dad, heavy brows, a twice broken nose, an
Speaker 2: ancient thick sweater despite the heat, and a smile that'll
Speaker 2: never let you in on the joke. More hymn than
Speaker 2: their mom, some more Filipino than Italian, and Gino never
Speaker 2: pegged as either remembers again to resent him for it. Jesus,
Speaker 2: you actually showed, Stevie says to him. There's a pause
Speaker 2: where Gino's supposed to say something biting, but he doesn't
Speaker 2: rise to it. Stevie shrugs. He got about a minute
Speaker 2: to turn around and leave before the rest notice you're here,
Speaker 2: Eugenio Stevie's husband frozen halfway down the stairs. Got some
Speaker 2: fucking nerves showing up here. Kevin Gino says he hasn't
Speaker 2: set his bag down yet. You look good, change your hair,
Speaker 2: don't tell me how I fucking look you. Geno his
Speaker 2: name Ricochet, is down the hall and around the kitchen,
Speaker 2: then back out into the living room, carried on the
Speaker 2: high voices of his nieces, who make him hug them.
Speaker 2: One of them takes his bag upstairs, whispering something strident
Speaker 2: to her dad on the way. Jasmine. Geno thinks, the
Speaker 2: one with freckles is Jasmine. The other one is Roxy,
Speaker 2: who's telling him about what they're making in the kitchen,
Speaker 2: what they had to substitute in the ponset, what they
Speaker 2: grew in the community garden. Cousins, assorted children, neighborhood aunties,
Speaker 2: and their husband cycle into the room with dry kisses
Speaker 2: and slaps on the shoulder, telling him he hasn't changed
Speaker 2: at all, telling him he's gained weight. Kevin slips behind
Speaker 2: them all and into the kitchen, and Gino tells everyone
Speaker 2: that he needs to go volunteer to help out his mom.
Speaker 2: Before word spreads that he rolled up to her house,
Speaker 2: expecting to stand around being waited on. He steps heavy
Speaker 2: down the short hall back to the kitchen, less to
Speaker 2: give Kevin and his mom warning he's coming, and more
Speaker 2: to spare himself whatever they were saying about him, which
Speaker 2: might have been a sound strategy in another family. Don't know,
Speaker 2: I bothered, Kevin is saying, from less of a distance.
Speaker 2: Now Gino can see white in his hair, and that
Speaker 2: pinched line between his brow never quite disappears. Kevin spots
Speaker 2: Gino in the doorway and turns back to tell his
Speaker 2: mother in law, it's a cruel thing to do to you, Francesca.
Speaker 2: God knows he's just going to turn around and leave tomorrow.
Speaker 2: His mom, her small hands shining with oil inflecked with
Speaker 2: carrot skins, turns and sees him well. She says, will
Speaker 2: you head out tomorrow? Hey ma? Nah, No, I took
Speaker 2: the week off. Takes about a day to get back, though,
Speaker 2: took a day to get here, so I can stay
Speaker 2: a couple days. She looks him up and down, then
Speaker 2: away just as quickly and goes back to chopping a lemon.
Speaker 2: He adds, right now there's a break between the last
Speaker 2: project and the shoreline thing in Maine. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you've heard about it real. Glad you could squeeze
Speaker 2: us into your busy schedule, Kevin says, about a year
Speaker 2: late for the funeral, but it's the thought that counts right.
Speaker 2: He leaves a heaping bowl of rice under one arm
Speaker 2: and a pan of lasagna under the other. For a
Speaker 2: long minute, Gino just watches his mother work, reaching for
Speaker 2: this and that, washing her hands. There's less of her
Speaker 2: in reality than there had been in his imagination. She
Speaker 2: tells him the garlic bread is ready, and he falls
Speaker 2: into the routine of ducking outside to turn off the gas,
Speaker 2: grabbing the wire basket on top of the fridge, a
Speaker 2: cloth from the drawer on the left, and plucking the
Speaker 2: steaming slices from the oven pan, folding them under the cloth.
Speaker 2: With the buttery smell of a thousand ancient dinners. Around
Speaker 2: the kitchen table. There's a lot of chatter coming from
Speaker 2: the front room, and someone comes in and out of
Speaker 2: the back door to bring in the folding chairs that
Speaker 2: have been rusting out there since before Gino was born.
Speaker 2: Gino hovers in the middle of the kitchen. He's spent
Speaker 2: an inordinate amount of time over the past weeks thinking
Speaker 2: about what he'd say to her. Even in his imagination,
Speaker 2: he never quite got it right. Finally, he asks, is
Speaker 2: there anything else to do? His mom waves a hand
Speaker 2: at him without turning around. Take those out there, okay,
Speaker 2: and then he tries, I'm sorry, ma for what he's
Speaker 2: wiping down the counter now piling pans and ladles in
Speaker 2: the sink. Or Gino takes a couple breaths. He's feeling
Speaker 2: a little sick, which isn't the same as feeling sorry,
Speaker 2: but it is close enough that he's sure it is
Speaker 2: what he should say. I should have been here last year.
Speaker 2: His mom is brisk, business like with her hands. She
Speaker 2: shakes her head. You were gone a long time before
Speaker 2: that you knew you weren't coming back, she says it, plainly,
Speaker 2: without accusation, right, Gino says okay. He carries the basket
Speaker 2: of bread into the front room. Out front, there are
Speaker 2: people everywhere on mismatched chairs, kids cross legged on the floor,
Speaker 2: and not enough plates for everyone. A neighbor comes in
Speaker 2: the door with a package of paper plates to make
Speaker 2: up the difference. Stevie gestures Geno over to a spot
Speaker 2: he's saved on the couch, and their mom comes in
Speaker 2: and settles herself into the big, cracked leather armchair that
Speaker 2: used to be their dad's. There's a moment where everyone pauses,
Speaker 2: leaning over their plates. The youngest kid in the room
Speaker 2: asks if they can eat now, and Uncle Lenny turns
Speaker 2: to Gino's mom and says, hold up, Francesca, you want
Speaker 2: to say something. She says yes and puts her plate
Speaker 2: down on her lap. She'd insisted on taking one of
Speaker 2: the paper plates. She runs a quick hand over the
Speaker 2: arm of the chair. It's strange to see her in it.
Speaker 2: It's strange to see her. I hear it's not always
Speaker 2: easy to get here across the water these days, and
Speaker 2: it's nice to see you. Who did? She nods at
Speaker 2: some folks eu Gino didn't know had moved away. The
Speaker 2: house is always better with a whole lot of people
Speaker 2: in it, even if it's a little crowded. Nato and
Speaker 2: I moved in here him a few months before Stevie
Speaker 2: was born, all the way across town for an extra bedroom.
Speaker 2: When we had Eugenio and he wanted his own room.
Speaker 2: Nato told him, you can make a down payment, then
Speaker 2: you get your own room. There's some laughter in Gino's direction.
Speaker 2: His mom turns to her own brother and Lenny, you
Speaker 2: know our dad, God rest him. He didn't like me
Speaker 2: taking up with Nato, didn't like us moving away from
Speaker 2: the old neighborhood. And we had some conversations about all that.
Speaker 2: Lenny chuckles, incredulous that what you want to call it?
Speaker 2: All right, she says, we had some loud conversations about
Speaker 2: all that, But then give it ten twenty years and
Speaker 2: him and Nato were best goddamn friends, getting up to
Speaker 2: all sorts of trouble together here in this house. When
Speaker 2: Dad passed, it was a mess, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I wasn't ready for that. She looks at Gino for
Speaker 2: a moment, then at Stevie and your father. He held
Speaker 2: me up and gave me ways to say goodbye. We
Speaker 2: did this for my dad the year after. And if
Speaker 2: anyone said it was a little strange to have a
Speaker 2: babang lusa for some old Italian from South Philly, then
Speaker 2: they had to have a loud conversation with me. She
Speaker 2: clutches a hand on Lenny's knee. This year, us of
Speaker 2: all held me up, So let's eat and say goodbye
Speaker 2: to Nato. Kevin and a cousin who Gino couldn't place
Speaker 2: take charge of dishing out food. There's a massive salad
Speaker 2: that he hadn't noticed before, weighed down by a mount
Speaker 2: of black olives and grated parmesan. The lasagna is meatless,
Speaker 2: but the pansup beyond his chicken and liver. And there's
Speaker 2: something that smells like a dobo, even if it doesn't
Speaker 2: look like it. Jasmine and Roxy start a folk war
Speaker 2: over the best looking corner slice of lasagna, which Kevin
Speaker 2: settles by taking it for himself. Gino lets mostly everyone
Speaker 2: be served before him while he tries to unclench his
Speaker 2: hands and his jaw from his left. Lenny shovels all
Speaker 2: the olives from his own plate onto Gino's an old
Speaker 2: joke he'd forgotten they shared. Good to have you around here,
Speaker 2: Lenny says. Can't get anyone else to take those off
Speaker 2: your hands, not all of them at once. I got
Speaker 2: to do two here, three, there, hit five, six plates.
Speaker 2: It's a logistical nightmare. That's rough man. Luckily I'm a
Speaker 2: logistics guy. Oh yeah, you uh still with the uh?
Speaker 2: What's the thing? Army Corps of Engineers yeah, Gino catches
Speaker 2: Lenny's searching Look almost ten years now, he offers. Roxy
Speaker 2: breaks off talking to the neighbor kids and shoots Stephen, accusing, Look,
Speaker 2: Uncle Gino's in the army. No, Gino answers for her cors.
Speaker 2: Mostly see, we do infrastructure projects, building stuff. They did
Speaker 2: the levees downtown. You worked on that, Roxy lights up.
Speaker 2: The levees would have been big news in the city
Speaker 2: when she was a kid. They're half the reason their
Speaker 2: little island is still above water. No, Kevin says, he
Speaker 2: was long gone, but the mail still came. Then he
Speaker 2: sent you postcards from all his little projects. When was
Speaker 2: the levee? What year was that? Hmm? Roxy looks uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: but Jasmine puts in that she was in sixth grade, right,
Speaker 2: big year. You were in that inner city youth boxing thing, Jess.
Speaker 2: She made the quarter finals. Where were you that time?
Speaker 2: Eugenio Gino isn't sure what year Jasmine was in the
Speaker 2: sixth grade or exactly how old she is now, but
Speaker 2: he can see Kevin waiting for him to ask. Connecticut.
Speaker 2: He says, coastal restoration. Oh yeah, how'd that work out
Speaker 2: for Connecticut? Come on, keV, says Stevie. Gino says, not bad.
Speaker 2: Last I heard, I've seen worse. Yeah, me too, Lenny says,
Speaker 2: and jerks his chin at the front window. Everyone laughs.
Speaker 2: Gino nods, which is close enough to laughing. Another neighbor,
Speaker 2: a big guy whose name Gino can't come up with,
Speaker 2: asks use guy's got work planned down here, and the
Speaker 2: woman next to him, his wife maybe, says oh, they
Speaker 2: should put up boardwalks, and somebody else we've been saying
Speaker 2: there's plenty of high enough ground for boardwalks to connect
Speaker 2: up to downtown. They gonna do that, Gino, They don't
Speaker 2: really tell me that kind of thing. I just keep
Speaker 2: the truck and everything running. I'm a you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, A glorified mechanic. He trails off, and his
Speaker 2: brother laughs. Please. Stevie says, they're not gonna do shit.
Speaker 2: I mean, sorry, but you're not right. The levee was
Speaker 2: what eight years back and nothing since that they gave up. Francesca,
Speaker 2: who had been quiet eating, says they did, but that's okay.
Speaker 2: Everyone is allowed to give up when they got a
Speaker 2: from the tension in the room. A popular statement, but
Speaker 2: nobody argues her on it. After a second someone brings
Speaker 2: up the NBA finals and how piss Nato would have
Speaker 2: been that the Raptors made it this far again, and
Speaker 2: then his general grudge against Canadian teams in the NBA,
Speaker 2: and then his earnest incompetence on the court himself as
Speaker 2: a young man. And then a picture is brought out
Speaker 2: of a shoe box, and it's Gino, perhaps three years old,
Speaker 2: with a bowl cut and a look of childish ecstasy
Speaker 2: up on his father's shoulders, his father's hands holding up
Speaker 2: Gino's chubby, childlike legs, Gino's arms up at the end
Speaker 2: of an arc, a basketball in the air, suspended in
Speaker 2: the moment before it fell short of the net. Gino
Speaker 2: ducks out to sit on the front stoop and finds
Speaker 2: a pack of Stevie's cigarettes where he's always left them,
Speaker 2: in the nook of the broken corner of the top step.
Speaker 2: He lights one just as the screen door creaks open
Speaker 2: and shut, and his brother sucks his teeth at him
Speaker 2: and says a asshole. Gino hands him the one he's
Speaker 2: lit and takes another for himself. They settle into their
Speaker 2: old arranged Gino facing the street on the middle step,
Speaker 2: Stevie behind him, leaning back against the railing between the
Speaker 2: two of them, A view of the narrow street and
Speaker 2: the intersection nearby, and all of the folks who would
Speaker 2: wander over to shoot the shit. Nobody wandering today, Just
Speaker 2: the distant figures of other stoop loiterers at another house.
Speaker 2: A familiar view, but uncanny. It's so quiet around here,
Speaker 2: Gino says, it's weird. It's been this quiet for hell years.
Speaker 2: You just weren't around to notice. Gino grimaces, shakes his head.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to keep apologizing for living my own life.
Speaker 2: Didn't ask you to. I'm just saying right, sorry, shouldn't
Speaker 2: put words in your mouth. Stevie never won to let
Speaker 2: discomfort sit for long. Ask Gina how work is and
Speaker 2: you've still seeing that girl, Tina Trisha Tanya says Gino.
Speaker 2: We call it quits. It's the job. I'm somewhere for
Speaker 2: six eight months, than a couple weeks of nothing, being
Speaker 2: a bum on her couch, then some other place, do
Speaker 2: it all over again. I like the work, get a project,
Speaker 2: see it through, tie it up. I like that, But
Speaker 2: I think she got sick of the whole thing. Dolan says, man,
Speaker 2: I'm good, so who's couch you bumming on between projects? Now?
Speaker 2: Stevie asks, you know, shrugs, just still around. Really, HQ
Speaker 2: has some ten housing, so I'm there mostly, bro Hold up?
Speaker 2: Are you homeless right now? Gino shoves back against Stevie's knee.
Speaker 2: Fuck off, man, I just I don't need a place
Speaker 2: as all? All right, all right. I was going to
Speaker 2: say he could crash here, but being honest, I think
Speaker 2: I'd have a heart attack if you said yes, and
Speaker 2: Kevin would fucking kill you or me. Stevie grunts an agreement.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't stand a chance. He's a bitter too. Gino sputters,
Speaker 2: Come on, man, I don't even know that shit. He hesitates,
Speaker 2: then says, you guys don't have to stay here either,
Speaker 2: you know, Gino just saying I know what it's like
Speaker 2: to feel trapped here, but you're not. You don't have
Speaker 2: to stick around and watch it all sink. You know
Speaker 2: I can help. We can pack up Ma, and Stevie
Speaker 2: cuts him off. I'm the fuck on, man. You think
Speaker 2: Ma's leaving this house? You want to pry her out
Speaker 2: of here with a crowbar? You're gonna break her heart
Speaker 2: with that, And who's gonna take care of her, then
Speaker 2: you I could help you get set up somewhere. Get
Speaker 2: the fuck out of here with that. Come on, I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, I know what you're saying, but be real, Okay,
Speaker 2: Ma's not going anywhere, and if Kevin and I leave,
Speaker 2: there's no one to be with Ma. You're not dropping
Speaker 2: everything and coming back. So yeah, you're not trapped because
Speaker 2: I am. And that's not on you. I'm glad you're
Speaker 2: out there doing your thing. You're my little brother, you know.
Speaker 2: And you're a smart kid, Stevie. I'm thirty six. See,
Speaker 2: you can count real high and everything. Stevie laughs at
Speaker 2: his own joke. That loud on self conscious snorting that
Speaker 2: always makes Gino smile. Jesus listen to us like we're
Speaker 2: in therapy or some shit. I am, actually, Gino offers,
Speaker 2: for real. Yeah, Stevie nudges Gino's back with his foot.
Speaker 2: So he goes on work, has these folks on staff,
Speaker 2: and it's free, so I figured it might as well,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Huh, nice of them. I
Speaker 2: guess what do you us talk about? Geno Crane's neck
Speaker 2: around to glare at him. What I've never been to
Speaker 2: therapy before I'm curious. Come on, it's personal, all right, fine,
Speaker 2: don't tell me anything. It's like, aa, you know, it's confidential.
Speaker 2: How much confidential shit could you even have? Oh? Come on,
Speaker 2: screw you, Stevie, He laughs again, kidding, I'm kidding. Gino
Speaker 2: finishes his cigarette and rummages in the pack for another,
Speaker 2: offers Stevie one, then lights them both. Overhead, the sun
Speaker 2: is behind gray clouds, and some sort of hawk or
Speaker 2: kite is making high, irregular circles. He's cool the therapist
Speaker 2: they got. Gino says he thought coming here for this
Speaker 2: was a good idea. He's kind of a hard ass, though,
Speaker 2: you know, calls me on my bullshit. That's a big job.
Speaker 2: You're full of bullshit. Hilarious, I know, right. Stevie taps
Speaker 2: a little song on the top step of his fingertips.
Speaker 2: Inside the house, Roxy and Kevin are talking fast, back
Speaker 2: and forth, loud and happy enough. So go on, Stevie says,
Speaker 2: what kind of bullshit? Gino sighs. He gestures with his
Speaker 2: chin back at the front door. This kind mostly for
Speaker 2: a session we had. He gave it fifteen minutes before
Speaker 2: asking why I kept getting angry at myself for having feelings.
Speaker 2: Oh fuck yeah, I almost walked out, and he was like,
Speaker 2: see right there, there it is again. He shakes his
Speaker 2: head smiles. Bastard, you still do that, though, Stevie says,
Speaker 2: with all the self assurance of someone who changed his stipers,
Speaker 2: I do. But I notice it now, which he says
Speaker 2: is good. Stevie blows smoke out of the corner of
Speaker 2: his mouth and they watch the hawk drop out of
Speaker 2: sight somewhere over the marsh. Is it good?
Speaker 1: Nah?
Speaker 2: It sucks now I get angry about being angry. Stevie
Speaker 2: laughed so hard that both his daughters and his husband
Speaker 2: bang out through the front door to see what they're missing,
Speaker 2: the three of them fitting themselves into Geno and Stevie's
Speaker 2: stoop arrangement and a new configuration that makes him feel
Speaker 2: crowded but at least not crowded out. The kids surround
Speaker 2: him on the steps, long teenage limbs getting everywhere. Kevin
Speaker 2: even offers him a bite of a slice of pie
Speaker 2: he carried out with him and barely makes a face
Speaker 2: when Gino uses this fork. Gino walks with his mom
Speaker 2: to his dad's grave about a five minute trip up
Speaker 2: the street. It was Kevin who pointedly heard at his family,
Speaker 2: and everyone else left at the house to clean things
Speaker 2: up and follow a long afterwards. So Gino and his
Speaker 2: mom are alone together for the time being, in the
Speaker 2: dim late afternoon, walking through sticky air and the droning
Speaker 2: noise of a neighbor's household generator. It's slow going, not
Speaker 2: because of any infirmary on Francesca's part, but because she
Speaker 2: walks slowly and always has an infuriating trait in a
Speaker 2: city person. Finally at home, now that this part of
Speaker 2: the city has been cut off, made circumstantially provincial. Gino
Speaker 2: doesn't mind meandering, but he's not used to the sound
Speaker 2: of his mother not talking. Stevie's girls look all grown up,
Speaker 2: he says. She nods. She puts her hand on his
Speaker 2: arm and folds it so that her hand is tucked
Speaker 2: into the crook of his elbow, and they walk like that,
Speaker 2: a dignified little procession. He's a good father. She says,
Speaker 2: you're still not seeing anyone, Nah, would you tell me
Speaker 2: if you were, Gino put docs his head. Probably they
Speaker 2: come to the graveyard. Steevev had written to Geno about
Speaker 2: the place and sent some pictures, but it's more odd
Speaker 2: more abrupt to see it in person. What used to
Speaker 2: be a messy six way intersection in the middle of
Speaker 2: the neighborhood had become just so much useless space. When
Speaker 2: the seasonal flooding stopped being seasonal and residents were cut
Speaker 2: off from the closest gas station, now half an hour away,
Speaker 2: over the water, folks brought out the sledgehammers and tore
Speaker 2: it down to the dirt. The original plan had been
Speaker 2: to till the soil and put in vegetable crops before
Speaker 2: they started planting. Someone on twenty third Street died, and
Speaker 2: all at once the residents of the Newborn Island realized
Speaker 2: that they didn't know what to do if they're dead.
Speaker 2: Cemeteries in South Philly had been exhumed and relocated long ago,
Speaker 2: well before most of the living started to leave. If
Speaker 2: the bereaved were so inclined and could afford it, they'd
Speaker 2: ship their dead up to a plot in the northwest
Speaker 2: of the city, or even to the suburbs. Churches and
Speaker 2: mosques and synagogues pitched in, but most people, if their
Speaker 2: faith allowed, opted for cremation. The shore had been in
Speaker 2: flux their whole lives, and there was no assurance their
Speaker 2: kids wouldn't have to dig up Grampa and ship his
Speaker 2: bones even further inland a couple decades down the line.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for the remains of west passiunc However, when the
Speaker 2: water rose around them, no crematoriums remained on dry land,
Speaker 2: so they had the body of a young woman whose
Speaker 2: heart gave out and a fresh field of open dirt.
Speaker 2: They planted her in it, and then the next death,
Speaker 2: and the next one. By the time Gino's dad was
Speaker 2: buried here yet plenty of company. The graveyard has the
Speaker 2: long triangular shape of the old intersection, enclosed by a
Speaker 2: chain link fence to keep out dogs and raccoons. The
Speaker 2: grass is clipped short, the regular sort of lawn grass,
Speaker 2: instead of the mess of marsh grasses that have crept
Speaker 2: in everywhere else. White forget me nots are dotted in
Speaker 2: among the plots, and one corner of the yard is
Speaker 2: taken up by a huge mess of purple aster. The
Speaker 2: markers are pale wood names and dates burned into them
Speaker 2: in a dark, neat script. Gino's mom leads him to
Speaker 2: his dad's plot, which is catching some late light. Gino
Speaker 2: knows his father is dead. He's known it for a year,
Speaker 2: but seeing a grave with his father's name on it
Speaker 2: feels like coming down off a high wire. Sickening and sudden.
Speaker 2: He sits down in the grass, and after wiping some
Speaker 2: dust and grit off the marker, his mom sits down
Speaker 2: next to him. You should come visit him in the morning, too,
Speaker 2: she says. A lot of bees then, and bluebirds. I
Speaker 2: almost move that feeter over here, that one he put
Speaker 2: out by the back door, But then they wouldn't come
Speaker 2: to the house so much. They come here already anyhow.
Speaker 2: Gino doesn't trust himself to speak yet. He hadn't known
Speaker 2: it would feel like this. He had hoped to avoid
Speaker 2: feeling like this indefinitely, the finality of it, and the
Speaker 2: premonition that she would be gone soon enough too, and
Speaker 2: even Stevie one day, and that this gentle garden of
Speaker 2: the dead would flood with salt water and he wouldn't
Speaker 2: get another chance to be brave enough to stick around.
Speaker 2: He thought he'd buried them for himself already by leaving,
Speaker 2: by not watching it happen. But they're still here, and
Speaker 2: all he'd done was lose time that he'll never recover,
Speaker 2: and let Stevie dig their dad's grave, all on his own.
Speaker 2: Gino's squeezing his hands, one in the other, and his
Speaker 2: mom rests hers on top of them. A question. He
Speaker 2: shakes his head convulsively. Is fine, sorry, I'm fine, sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. All right, she says. She squeezes his hand,
Speaker 2: rubs his back. All right, you go on. He knows
Speaker 2: what Stevie said, but he's got to ask. It's clawing
Speaker 2: at him. You and all of them could come back
Speaker 2: with me, Gino says, I can take some more time
Speaker 2: off and find a place. Doesn't have to be that far.
Speaker 2: There's a whole lot of Pennsylvania. We can get you
Speaker 2: out of here. It's time to get out of here,
Speaker 2: all of us. She looks at him like he just
Speaker 2: spat in her face. Your brother can make his own decisions.
Speaker 2: And you, baby boy, I'm happy to see your face.
Speaker 2: But you can go any time. She nods at the grave.
Speaker 2: But I'm not about to leave him, don't you ask
Speaker 2: me to. I'm sorry, ma for leaving, for coming back
Speaker 2: for the moment a few days from now, when he'll
Speaker 2: leave again. That's all right, it's all right to have
Speaker 2: things you're sorry for. Your dad lived a good, long life,
Speaker 2: and he left, still sorry for all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: You go on, be sorry, that's okay. A trio of
Speaker 2: swallows have landed on the fence and are calling their
Speaker 2: clear tittering trills into the dusk. Insects are flitting around,
Speaker 2: and the birds take turn launching themselves from the fence,
Speaker 2: diving in wild arcs, then coming back to rest, the
Speaker 2: other two waiting chirrup, laughing, the insects droning on, oblivious
Speaker 2: to the game that's been made of their fate. I
Speaker 2: couldn't watch, Gino says, leaning into his mom's hand on
Speaker 2: his back. I couldn't watch it happen dad, the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Her hands stills, Then she passed him briskly and stands. Stevie,
Speaker 2: Kevin and the girls are coming through the gate into
Speaker 2: the yard, chattering like birds. Well, anytime you want to
Speaker 2: see us, we'll be here, his mom says, whether you're
Speaker 2: watching or not, that's the story.
Speaker 4: Right before he died, Mike Davis gave this interview where
Speaker 4: he was talking about one of the sort of like
Speaker 4: giant struggles that people do in America, and the thing
Speaker 4: he was talking about was the story of people sort
Speaker 4: of fighting tenaciously to stay in their home, and something
Speaker 4: I've been thinking about a lot more. I mean not
Speaker 4: just from you know, it's people losing this fight, and
Speaker 4: this has been you know, this is in essence, this
Speaker 4: is the story of America, right, is the story of
Speaker 4: people fighting to stay in the place they love him losing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, each successive cycle of people gets
Speaker 3: driven further and further and further and further until you know,
Speaker 3: the places they love are gone and there's nothing of them,
Speaker 3: well little of them left, And you know, I think,
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's something I think I like about
Speaker 3: this story a lot is like there's you get that,
Speaker 3: and you also get this sense that sort of you know,
Speaker 3: is the apocalypse is you know, it's slow, it happens
Speaker 3: through yeah. Yeah, but also that you know, like this
Speaker 3: isn't the first time this has happened. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 3: you know and like yeah, like the sort of horror
Speaker 3: of it, right is like it will it will keep
Speaker 3: happening and people will live.
Speaker 4: On and it will sort of just keep rolling.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I I read this story and I kind
Speaker 2: of like there's a bunch of other stories that I'm
Speaker 2: also really excited about to shine with everyone, but I
Speaker 2: like really wanted this one to be first, because I
Speaker 2: I really wanted to talk about the way that the
Speaker 2: apocalypse is not just slow but like a reflection of
Speaker 2: the way that everything changes and everything ends, and like,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm really like interested in the idea of,
Speaker 2: you know, the son who moves away, who like the
Speaker 2: family accepts it, but it's kind of going to give
Speaker 2: him shit forever for it. And like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it's just a really human thing and I
Speaker 2: think it helps like because also, like, Okay, this hasn't
Speaker 2: happened to Philly yet, right, This has happened already many
Speaker 2: places in the world, and will happen many places more
Speaker 2: places in the world. Like that is an inevitability at
Speaker 2: this point, right, and just like we need to start
Speaker 2: grappling with that, you know. Okay, So I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: gonna read his bio the author's bio. Nicassio andras Read
Speaker 2: is a writer, poet, and essayist whose work has appeared
Speaker 2: in venues such as Strange Horizons, Light Speed on Canny Magazine,
Speaker 2: and Shimmer. A Philadelphia resident until age nine, he now
Speaker 2: lives in Tagateay in the Philippines with four dogs, some
Speaker 2: family and the occasional uninvited monitor lizard. He's the poetry
Speaker 2: editor at the dead Lands and is working on a
Speaker 2: novel about the history of Filipino migrant laborers in Alaska.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 2: I asked, I basically asked him, since he's not on
Speaker 2: here to plug things people already know. Miya Wong, you're
Speaker 2: the host of the podcast whose feeds are probably in
Speaker 2: statistically and if not go listening could happen here. But
Speaker 2: I asked, I asked Nico, and he said and for
Speaker 2: an additional plug, I don't have any recent pubs, and
Speaker 2: I feel slightly bad about Wetlands being the de facto
Speaker 2: bad guy in the story, So I'd love to shout
Speaker 2: out the Society for the Conservation of Philippine Wetlands, which
Speaker 2: is at Wetlands p. The Philippines is one of the
Speaker 2: most dangerous places in the world for environmental activists and
Speaker 2: land defenders, who are often red tagged, that is, publicly
Speaker 2: labeled as members or supporters of the armed communist insurgency.
Speaker 2: For many years now, it's been open season on red
Speaker 2: tagged individuals, State forces and private corporate armed groups alike
Speaker 2: kill them with impunity, almost always in the name of
Speaker 2: land grabbing. At the same time, we are one of
Speaker 2: the countries facing early and extreme effects of climate change
Speaker 2: and the damage that these land grabbing entities due to
Speaker 2: our natural resources is making things worse fast. A healthy, diverse,
Speaker 2: resilient wetland barrier to typhoons is one of the most
Speaker 2: vital things for us, for us to rebuild and protect.
Speaker 2: So that is the plug for this episode and we
Speaker 2: will catch you next week on the cool Zone Media
Speaker 2: book Club.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: Copy