Page 153 of The End of the World As We Know It

The weirdest part—oneof the weird parts—was that they’d had no idea anyone else was living so close to Edmund’s boat until it became a spectacle. Through the entire episode, Edmund had been grinning his face off while Marie trembled, praying no one had seen them to disturb their hideaway.

Marie and Edmund had waited until all they heard were seagulls, and then crept to the pier. They’d found the Boat Man spraying his burning vessel with a fire extinguisher, sobbing. “Don’t just stand there, you little fucks—help me put it out!” he’d shouted. But they hadn’t moved or spoken to him. His boat was a lost cause. Marie didn’t know why he didn’t just choose another boat, or if he’d earned the attack, which felt more personal than random. Now the Boat Man spent most of his time wandering in the open, cursing at the sky.

Edmund’s face wrenched into a toddler’s pout behind the black horn-rimmed glasses he said had belonged to his father. “Thatfreak?” But he was intrigued by the adventure of visiting him. “Okay, but I’m taking my guns.”

“Just one gun,” she said. “And keep it hidden under your shirt.” Edmund moaned with disappointment. Half the fun of a gun, for him, was waving it. Edmund’s uncle had collected guns and bullets the way Granpè Jean collected water. “And no firing unless we’re attacked.”

“I could fire a few rounds just to keep ’em away.”

“It’s stupid to bring them right to us.”

“They’ll just come tell me to join ’em.” He said it like it was a badge of honor.

Marie’s stomach cramped the way it had when she stepped away from the safety of her house. The pirateswouldprobably want Edmund to join. And that might seem just fine to Edmund. That was part of her hurry. They both had dreams about Las Vegas, too, but Marie’s made her wake up sweating and Edmund only told her stories about the thrill of his life on a concert stage.

“Maybe,” she said. “But they won’t ask me a damn thing. My skin’s too dark.”

“So?”

Marie didn’t have enough time left in the day to explain. She barely understood herself.

“So… that matters to some people. Alotof people.”

The only times Marie had ridden her bicycle far enough to glimpse the pirates near the yachts they had taken over at the fancier marina, every man, woman, and child among them had been white. Maybe Edmund hadn’t noticed, but it might come in handy to travel in the company of a white boy and a man whose olive skin was hard to place, probably just a suntan. Other Black people must have survived on the island, but she hadn’t seen any. That could be a coincidence, or maybe her black skin would be target practice for pirates like the chickens were to Edmund.

She didn’t know if she could trust the Boat Man, either. But only one way to find out.

Marie reached into her wagon to grab the weapon she had chosen for this mission: Granpè Jean’s machete, which he’d kept sharp in the hurricane supply closet. Granpè Jean had warned her that people would swarm over the weak and timid like locusts, given half an excuse.

“Hey—no fair!” Edmund said, his eyes mesmerized by the machete’s gleaming blade while she tested its weight. “How come you get to carrythat?”

“I need it more,” she said. “Plus, how do you hide a machete?”

Edmund bent over to stomp in a regimented circle, lost in his daydream again. Even her machete couldn’t distract him from Michael.She wondered how much of Edmund was still intact after the Tripz and how much of the real Edmund was dead. Maybe hewasa zombie.

But not her. Anyone she’d known would still recognize Marie, and she was proud of that. When her parents died, she’d dreamed that she was staring at her eyes in the mirror and said,You are still you, Marie. Your life is not ruined. Then she realized it was Manman’s face in the dream mirror, not hers. But Manman didn’t come to her dreams anymore. Marie thought she might never forgive that old lady in Colorado for crowding Manman, Papa, and Granpè Jean out of her dreams when they must be trying so desperately to comfort her. Maybe she wanted to go to Colorado mostly so she could free up her dreams again.

The day before, she’d followed the Boat Man to observe his behavior. He stayed clear of other people just like her, pulling back if he thought he heard noises. He seemed afraid, although he spent much of the day shuffling on the beach. Or sitting on the pier by the marker, staring out at the sea.

The designated Southernmost Point of Key West had a concrete marker painted like a giant buoy in red, black, and yellow. Granpè Jean had taken Marie there when his cousins from New York came to visit, posing for photos. It was one of the nicer areas in Key West, so it was in pirate country.

“He’s probably way down south,” Marie told Edmund. “We’ll have to go closer to them.”

Edmund halted his stooped stomping and turned over his shoulder to look at her, holding his pose. Just like in the video. His face glowed with glee.

“I’m bringing two guns, then.”

Marie struggled to keep the machete balanced across her Schwinn’s handlebars without slicing her fingers as she pedaled. The pirates probably had scouts, so she was careful to lead Edmund through alleysand over bumpy soil and sand rather than riding in the road. Edmund had refused to take off his red jacket as he pedaled his BMX racing bike behind her, so his hair was dripping with sweat and pasted to his forehead by the time they rode to Southernmost Point.

She saw the buoy from a distance on the pier—and a shadow she was sure was the Boat Man—but she held out her arm to keep Edmund from charging ahead. She climbed off her bike and left it behind to walk the last stretch, motioning for Edmund to do the same.

Look right, look left. Look behind. Look everywhere. Vigilance was exhausting.

Ahead, the vastness of the unbroken sea whispered courage in her ear.

“Walk slow,” she said. “We don’t want to scare him.”

“Why not? We can make him do what we want.”