Cyberpunk

“You see it. Don’t even have seed coin for the cap, man.”
    “So you ain’t been getting any gardening work lately?”
    “No, no. Not lately. I do all right here, though. People still pay for music, man, some of them. Music’s the angle.” He looked at Lee, face twisted up against the sun. They had worked together for the park service, in times past. Every morning through the summers they had gone out and run the truck down the streets, stopping at every tree to hoist each other up in slings. The one hoisted had to stand out from truck or branches like an acrobat, moving around to cut off every branch below twelve feet, and it took careful handling of the chain saw to avoid chopping into legs and such. Those were good times. But now the park service was gone, and Victor gazed at Lee with a stoic squint, sitting behind an empty hat.
    “Do you ever look up at the trees anymore, Robbie?”
    “Not much.”
    “I do. They’re growing wild, man! Growing like fucking weeds! Every summer they go like crazy. Pretty soon people are gonna have to drive their cars through the branches. The streets’ll be tunnels. And with half the buildings in this area falling down . . . I like the idea that the forest is taking this city back again. Running over it like kudzu, till maybe it just be forest again at last.”
    • • •

    That evening Lee and Debra ate tortillas and refries, purchased with the last of their money. Debra had a restless night, and her temperature stayed high. Rochelle’s forehead wrinkled as she watched her.
    Lee decided he would have to harvest a couple of the biggest plants prematurely. He could dry them over the hot plate and be in business by the following day.
    The next afternoon he walked east into no-man’s-land, right at twilight. Big thunderheads loomed to the east, lit by the sun, but it had not rained that day and the muggy heat was like an invisible blanket, choking each breath with moisture. Lee came to his abandoned building, looked around. Again the complete stillness of an empty city. He recalled Ramon’s tales of the people who lived forever in the no-man’s-land, channeling rain into basement pools, growing vegetables in empty lots, and existing entirely on their own with no need for money . . .
    He entered the building, ascended the stairs, climbed the beam, struggled sweating up to the fourth floor and through the hole into his room.
    The plants were gone.
    “Wha . . .” He kneeled, feeling like he had been punched in the stomach. The plastic pots were knocked over, and fans of soil lay spread over the old wood flooring.
    Sick with anxiety he hurried downstairs and jogged north to his second hideaway. Sweat spilled into his eyes and they stung fiercely. He lost his breath and had to walk. Climbing the tree was a struggle.
    The second crop was gone too.
    Now he was stunned, shocked almost beyond thought. Someone must have followed him . . . It was nearly dark, and the mottled sky lowered over him, empty but somehow, now, watchful. He descended the tree and ran south again, catching his breath in a sort of sobbing. It was dark by the time he reached 16th and Caroline, and he made his way up the busted stairs using a cigarette for illumination. Once on the fourth floor the lighter revealed broken pots, dirt strewn everywhere, the young plants gone. That small they hadn’t been worth anything. Even the aluminum-foil rain funnels on his plastic jugs had been ripped up and thrown around.
    He sat down, soaking wet with sweat, and leaned back against the scored, moldy wall. Leaned his head back and looked up at the orange-white clouds, lit by the city.
    After a while he stumbled downstairs to the first floor and stood on the filthy concrete, among the shadows and the discarded bottles. He went and picked up a whiskey bottle, sniffed it. Going from bottle to bottle he poured whatever drops remained in them into the whiskey bottle. When he was done he had a finger or so of liquor, which he downed in one long pull. He coughed. Threw the bottle against the wall. Picked up each bottle and threw it against the wall. Then he went outside and sat on the curb, and watched the traffic pass by.
    He decided that some of his old teammates from Charlie’s Baseball Club must have followed him around and discovered his spots, which would explain why they had looked at him so funny the other day. He went over to check it out immediately. But when he got there he found the place closed, shut down,