People Park by Pasha Malla Page A

channels. We gave you the paperwork.
    Just doing our job, called Reed from the cab.
    Pop wailed, Injust, degenerational, vandalistic, totalitary! Unsuppositionant, predominary, predilicted, no, reprehensitory, no, unfoundational, no, declensionive, no, anti-popularly, no, not fair, not fair, not fuggin fug fuggin fair.
    Meanwhile Walters secured his houseboat on the trailer, strapped it down, locked everything into place. Listen, he said, smoothing his moustache with thumb and forefinger, just check the paperwork. There are processes for this sort of thing.
    Processes? roa red Pop. I’ll tell you a processional thing or two. If it didn’t mean defiliating the hollowed ground of my establishment I’d process my foot through your cranial lobe right now, both of yous, evil ones!
    Walters nodded at Pop’s stockinged feet. Would you now?
    This is my home, Pop said. He fell to his knees. My home . A quartered century hencefrom. Whereupon am I supposed to sleep?
    Reed honked the horn.
    Read the paperwork, said Walters, and hopped into the cab.
    Pop knelt in the gravel, watched the pickup pull onto Topside Drive, houseboat swinging behind atop the trailer, slid into traffic — and just like that his house was gone.
    AS REED PILOTED them west toward the dump, Walters opened his briefcase and took out a packet of Redapples. He offered one to his partner. No, sir, said Reed, quit those things years ago.
    Smart, said Walters, unrolled his window, lit the cigarette, took a long, deep drag, and blew smoke into the oncoming traffic. On the shoulder, someone had painted over the Guardian Bridge turnoff sign with a solid black rectangle.
    Look at that, said Walters. Those fuggers are getting bold, coming this far east.
    Try blacking out the Temple though, said Reed, and they’ll see what’s coming.
    Or, you know, they won’t.
    Won’t?
    See what’s coming, sighed Walters. Hence the surprise, Reed, of whatever what is.
    In the sideview mirror Reed checked the trailer. It rolled along steadily behind the pickup, a boxy shadow back there in the purple evening. From the cupholder he took a walkie-talkie, confirmed the seizure and signed off: D-Squad, Good lookin out.
    Poor guy, said Walters between drags. You got to feel sorry for him.
    Reed merged onto Lowell Overpass. How do you mean?
    Oh, he’s a total applehead. I mean, what’s he doing, living in a parking lot? It’s amazing it took this long to get him out of there. Still though, he said. Still . . .
    Enh, said Reed. You heard the HG ’s: this weekend’s supposed to go smooth, no hiccups. Who knows what trouble that guy might have had planned. What did Magurk call him? A genital wart on the dong of the city.
    Walters ashed out the window, inhaled, blew smoke into traffic.
    You think too much, Walters.
    So what? We’re just doing our job?
    Exactly. We’re just doing our job.

    DURING THE DAY THE ZONE was a storybook of wonders: why did that person have a parrot on her shoulder? What was happening down that alleyway with three men arguing around a dolly heaped with copper? This litter of thousands of orange paper dots — who, how, when, what? But in the cold, still night with the only life her own jammering heart and the cloudpuffs of her breath, Debbie’s curiosity shrivelled. You bundled against the cold. You were wary. Any shadow could morph into a thief slinking at you with a blade.
    After sunset the Zone always felt a little chillier, the air a little thinner, than the rest of the city. It didn’t help that the breakwater subdued the tides, or the lack of lights in the old stockyards cast the western side of F Street in gloom, or that UOT and Blackacres emptied at dusk: the soup kitchen and shelters and Golden Barrel began to admit their nocturnal clienteles, the shops lowered their shutters, families withdrew into their houses for the night. The only people out would be patrols of Helpers, whistling cheerfully as they strolled the streets, clubs hidden in their