The Street Cleaners

A family gets swept up into some trouble when a giant falls from the sky and crushes their neighbor's house.

The Street Cleaners

Bobby Mercer slipped the Bic into his pocket as he stepped out of Opinder’s corner store. He cracked open the cold can of coke and took a sip. It had been a long while since he’d had soda. It was sharp and sweeter than all hell. He’d read online that a good way to break a habit was to replace it with another one. A can of soda seemed like a decent alternative despite all the sugar. All the sugar was what made it a good alternative. Still, he didn’t think it would hold him over for more than an hour.

            The lighter, the one he’d just picked up at Opinder’s corner store, was for his son. Bobby knew that Greg was probably sitting on the porch with the entire box of sparklers laid out on the steps. The boy would be watching for his father to come round the bend and driven half insane by the anticipation. Bobby remembered lighting sparklers as a kid too but he didn’t think that he had ever been half as excited as Greg was. Bobby thought it had to do with the Harry Potter books Tammy read to him.

Bobby made no effort to hasten his walk though. He had often made that same walk before and it was something of a ritual. Usually on the way back he’d smoke the first cigarette of a new pack. That cigarette was always sort of special. It had been a few days now since he’d last had one and even though he knew the worst of the nicotine withdrawal was still around the corner he already felt pretty good about himself just for trying to quit.

Tammy was happy about it too and she’d made a point of showing it. He got to thinking about how she’d shown it and felt himself stiffen against the seam of his jeans. Bob had always thought that his wife was a real knockout, even when they were growing up. She knew exactly what got him going too and as Bob walked he shamelessly fantasized about his wife.

            His daydream was interrupted by a loud crash. He turned his head to look up and down the street expecting to see a car accident and a right unfortunate one from the sound of it but there was nothing on the street. The sound had come from overhead.

He looked up and saw the last moments of an explosion high up in the sky. Trails of burning wreckage spread out from it in every direction like the first firework of the season. Something particularly large was hurdling straight down towards the ground. Bobby thought it might be an airplane but as it fell it took on a peculiarly person-like shape. It had to be a very big person judging by how far up in the air they had to be. Bobby dropped his coke on the pavement and it spilled upon his shoe.

            Bobby realized that whatever it was that was falling was going to land immediately up ahead - on their street. An image occurred to him of his son leaned over a pile of sparklers like some sort of oracle being suddenly and violently crushed by an airplane propeller. Bobby ran the rest of the way home. As he ran he heard the crash from up ahead. He still could not see his house and his lungs burned in his chest. When he rounded the bend he saw his son and his wife standing unharmed upon the lawn.

They were looking at the giant man who had fallen on top of Mrs. McCarthy’s house. Greg saw his father and said “Dad did you see the explosion!?”

            “I saw it.” Bobby said. He was still catching his breath as he joined them on the lawn and looked out over what had happened.

            Bob had never been a particularly imaginative person. Even as a child. An art teacher had told his mother that he was a dullard. He certainly hadn’t imagined that something like this might have happened to him. Or to anyone for that matter because in the ordinary world, which as far as Bob was concerned he no longer inhabited, giants were not supposed to fall out of the sky.

There was something of a crater around where the man had fallen. Mrs. McCarthy’s grassy overgrown lawn had sunk some six feet and the city street had cracked in wide webs around where the giant’s legs had struck it. The giant was completely naked. He had penis the size of a small elephant. His massive feet were in the street. Long black hairs curled up about his toes. One twisted leg had crushed Mrs. McCarthy’s Mercedes into a jagged metal Mercedes throw pillow. The giant’s body had smashed through the roof of Mrs. McCarthy’s two story house and now he sat as though reclined against the now crushed remains. His head was hanging back awkwardly such that they could not see his face from where they were. They could only just make out the bump of his Adam’s apple. He looked to be either dead or unconscious.

            Tammy was visibly shaken and she took Greg up into her arms. “We should go inside,” she said, “we should call the police.”

            “Yeah,” Bobby agreed, but he didn’t move. Greg was shouting something about giants as Tammy took him inside. Bob was looking down the street at the little crowds that were forming. Up and down the street people were gathered upon their lawns gawking at the giant. Some people were taking pictures with their cellphones too.

            “Bob,” Tammy called from in the house, “can you call the police? I can’t get through.”

            Bobby took out his cellphone and tried the number but it wouldn’t even ring. His phone returned a message saying that there was no signal. “I don’t have signal,” Bob told his wife. Tammy peeked out the front door. She was still holding Greg and she was looking back and forth between the giant and her husband. Something about the look in her eyes reminded Bobby of a mother lion preparing to defend her cub. What even Tammy’s lion aspect could do against a goddamn giant, Bob had no idea but he himself knew better than to cross his wife when she had that look in her eyes.

            She said “I don’t have signal either. Come inside, I don’t like that thing.”

            “One second,” Bob said, “I’m going to see if the neighbors have called anyone.”

            Mr. Gill was on his porch with his wife and his dog. His dog was barking at the wreckage and Mrs. Gill was trying to quiet the pup. Mr. Gill was an older Sikh gentleman who had taken to exclusively wearing a red turban around the same time he put the Trump-Pence sign out on his lawn. They said they couldn’t call either. They had even tried using their landline.

            Bobby thought that this in particular was odd. By the time he stepped back onto his lawn though the sound of sirens could be heard approaching. Bob looked back towards the giant and noticed two things. Firstly that the Giant was bleeding and bleeding a lot. Dark red blood swirled with foamy traces that looked to be water bubbling out from broken pipes. It flowed down what was left of Mrs. McCarthy’s front porch like a waterfall and gathered in the crater about the giant’s butt. The second thing Bob noticed was that a fire had started somewhere in Mrs. McCarthy’s house. Smoke was billowing up from somewhere inside of the smashed ruins. Bob wondered if Mrs. McCarthy was still inside there somewhere. He supposed that she must be since her car, what was left of it anyways, was still there beneath the giant’s enormous calf.

            Bob heard sirens approaching from multiple directions. The local sheriff made the scene first followed by two CHPs, three fire crews and a couple of ambulances. The sheriff began going from house to house and telling people to go inside. He was a heavy set man with a thick mustache. He looked like he was as spooked by the whole thing as Bob was. “Sir, go inside, we are putting this area under quarantine until we can sort things out.”
            “But officer, what is that thing?” Bob heard Mr. Gill say.

            “I don’t rightly know, but I promise you we’ll sort it out. Please go inside for now.”

            So Bob went inside and so did Mr. Gill and so did everyone else in the neighborhood. But no one stopped watching. Bobby and Tammy certainly didn’t. Tammy tried to put the television on for Greg in the other room. “The cable is out,” she said. Bob tried to look online for  more information about what was going on but there was no internet connection either, even after he restarted the modem. It was as though they’d been cut off completely from the outside world. The only thing they knew was what they could see through their own little windows.

            So they sat and they watched and they did what they could to keep Greg occupied while they watched, which turned out not to be so difficult because he was just as interested in everything that was going on as they were. For the first twenty minutes the police seemed to take charge but it became clear very quickly that they didn’t know what they were supposed to do. Some firefighters got set up to put out the fire but the giant’s body was in the way so they started spraying at the ruined house as well as they could even though they couldn’t yet see the flames. The police and firefighters began to argue about something which seemed to go nowhere. The paramedics, seeing no one whom they could immediately help save perhaps the giant, not that they had the right equipment or training for that particular job, simply waited around and gawked at the giant.

            Then came the fleet of unmarked white vehicles. One after another they poured into the neighborhood like some great caravan. There were vans, busses, sedans, large trucks, small trucks and trucks with trailers carrying large pieces of strange looking equipment. They made the neighborhood their own, parking on lawns and in driveways and making no pretense of minding where private property ended and began. A large truck carrying what looked like a bulldozer with teeth drove right up onto their lawn and parked there. It blocked their view of the giant but they could still see the army of men and women who were setting up around the giant and that was interesting in and of itself.

            They wore these white jumpsuits and many of them worse what appeared to be gas masks. Some wore full hazmat suits. Those were also all white. That much appeared to be something of an obsession for the strange organization which had just rolled up onto their lawn. Bob couldn’t tell exactly who these people were because just like their vehicles there were no markings of any kind on their uniforms. These workers moved with great speed too, as though they had been drilled for occasions just like this. Everything was a blur of heavy machinery and those rotating orange safety lights. Even from in the house they could hear much shouting along with the burr of so many engines and the precautionary reverse sirens of their vehicles.

            “Daddy,” Greg said, “Who are they?”

            Bob was unsure what to say but Tammy, ever thinking on her feet said “Those are just the street cleaners.”

            “The street cleaners? Like the garbage truck?”

            “Yes, like the garbage truck.”

In a matter of minutes the ‘street cleaners’ had already started to unload so much equipment onto the street that their neighborhood appeared to be undergoing a transformation into a sort of temporary encampment. There was a perimeter of canvas tents and flying columns of bizarre looking machinery. All the while more vehicles with more equipment poured in. Some vehicles wormed their way out just to make room for the new ones. There was even a helicopter which dropped off a small cargo container.

They began to unload another large piece of equipment onto their lawn. It looked like a circular saw on steroids. It had a rounded steel shell that housed a network of interlocking metallic teeth. “What is that thing?” Greg asked, awestruck.

            “I’ve no idea.” Bob said. Bob didn’t know what much of the machinery was that they were unloading �" none of it looked like anything he’d ever seen before. It was as if the strange workers were from some other planet, which Bob thought wouldn’t be the strangest thing ever considering a giant had just fallen out of the sky.

            Things did not calm down outside for even a second. Everything was in a constant movement and soon they heard the whirr of the heavy machinery. It was terribly loud and it rattled the windows.

It was not long after the machinery started that they came to the door. Bob saw them having a little parley on the lawn before they came to the door and he did not like the look of them at all. He saw another party gathering in front of Mr. Gill’s house and he imagined there were more such parties going to other houses in the neighborhood.

            They rang the doorbell. “Mr. and Mrs. Mercer,” a woman’s voice said, not unkindly, through the door, “We would like to speak with you for a minute about what you saw here.”

            “They know our names.” Tammy said, half-panicked. Tammy was the sort of woman who cried when she was received speeding tickets. In most circumstances she was tough as nails but there was something about the weight of the united states judicial system that made her just a little bit anxious. “How do they know our names?”

            “Mr. and Mrs. Mercer?” the woman on the other side of the door asked.

            Bob wasn’t sure how they knew their names but he didn’t think it would go any easier if he pretended that they weren’t home. Of more significance to Bob was that he saw how shaken up both his wife and son were. It didn’t seem like it would do any good for either of them if he started shaking in his boots now. Even if deep down he wanted to. And he did want to. Bob wished that he had gotten the cigarettes, quitting or no, this seemed like the kind of thing that made cheating acceptable. A goddamn giant had fallen out of the sky after all. Right out of the sky. Poof. Splat. Dead.

            Bob opened the door about half way and stood between his family and the four white jumpsuits standing on his porch. Each of them wore a near identical gas mask sort of array over their heads save one, a woman, who stood at the front of the party. She was wearing a surgical mask and a pair of safety goggles with a rubber strap that held her curly blond hair down on the sides of her head so that it bunched up awkwardly. She was holding a clipboard along with some papers and had a pencil in her hand. “Hello. Is this the Mercer household?” she said. She might have been smiling behind her mask but her eyes said otherwise.

            “Yes. How can I help?”

            “We just want to ask you some questions. Is that alright?”

            “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know anything about that thing.”

            “We just want to take down anything you might have seen. For the record. Please come with us.”

            “Who are you people?”

            “Is your wife home also? We’d like for her to come with us also.”

            “I’ll be happy to answer your questions right here, but we aren’t going anywhere.”

            “What about your son? Is he home with you?”

            Bob didn’t like this strange woman or these strange people on his doorstep and he especially didn’t like her asking about his son. What did they want? To interrogate a five year old? Bob snapped at the woman. “Look, I think you guys probably have your hands full with whatever the f**k that thing is. I’d appreciate it if you left us out of it.”

            Bob made to close the door but the woman stuck her foot through the jam. “What the f**k?” Bob said. Then she was prying the door open. Then the other white jumpsuits were helping her and Bob was doing everything he could to hold the door against them. Bob was losing though and he knew it.

            Greg said “Daddy said f**k!”

Bob glanced toward Tammy. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, he could hear it in his ears and he felt the surge of adrenaline like a hit of cocaine. Bob had never done cocaine but he’d seen guys in movies take a hit and then kick the asses of four or five or six tough looking set pieces. Bob didn’t think he’d have that sort of luck even if he did have a quick hit. He locked eyes with Tammy. His eyes said “Take the kid and run.” And she did. She swept Greg up into her arms but she hadn’t even made it out of the room when the four strangers pushing against the door were able to slip an arm around the door and shock Bob in the forehead with the quick tzzt of a tazer. Bob didn’t go down but he recoiled and then they were inside. All four of them and two of them had guns, big guns, drawn on Bob.

“What the f**k!” Bob shouted, “Get out of my house. Who the f**k are you people.” The three white jumpsuits were on Bob without a word, the one with the tazer did not hold back with it and shortly they had Bob pinned on the ground. They flipped him about and put handcuffs on him.

The woman with the clipboard said “There is a woman and a child.”

“Stay away from my son!” Bob shouted.

From the kitchen he heard a commotion and he heard his son begin to cry and shriek. “Son of a b***h!” shouted one of the white jumpsuits, this one was a man.

Then another voice, “F**k! F**k!” There was a struggle in the kitchen and Bob heard his wife and son both shouting over the jumpsuits.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Greg shouted.

“Bob? Are you okay Bobby? What is happening?” Tammy yelled.

“It’s going to be alright,” Bob shouted, “Greg, can you hear me? It’s going to be alright.”

One of the jumpsuits emerged from the dining room, he was holding his hand on his thigh where a field of blood was spreading and running down his leg. He was bleeding an awful lot.

“God damnit Charles,” the woman with the clipboard said, “Go to the medic. Can you walk?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Charles said.

“What happened?”

“The f*****g kid stabbed me.”

The woman with the clip board laughed. “That’s a first. Alright, get out of here. Are you sure you can walk?”

“Yesum,” Charles said and limped out of the house. He left a trail of blood behind him.

The other two men emerged from the dining room a little while later leading Tammy and Greg who were both handcuffed. Greg was crying. He had a fat lip that was already swelling. There was blood dripping down his chin.

“What did you do?” Bob asked his son, unbelieving.

Greg shrugged. His son looked absolutely dazed. “Did that son of a b***h hit you?” Bob said.

“Who are you people?” Tammy said, she was looking at the woman with the clipboard, “We haven’t done anything. That man hit my son. He hit my son. That isn’t okay. None of this is okay. You need to let us go right now.”

 “Look,” the woman said, “We just need to ask you some questions.”

            “You’re so full of s**t.” Bob said.

            Greg smiled but he didn’t say anything. The woman with the clip board ignored them and gave instructions to the other jumpsuits. The jumpsuits took them out onto the lawn where they were made to sit for a little while. Bob heard a gunshot from Mr. and Mrs. Gill’s house. Shortly thereafter he saw Mr. and Mrs. Gill escorted out of their house in the same way they had been. Bob wasn’t sure what had gone down over there but Mrs. Gill was sobbing.

            From where they were on the lawn they were able to see the giant again. There were many machines and tents erected between them and it so that they could only see his abdomen and neck as he was propped up against the house. Outside the sound of the heavy machinery was much louder. There was a pulpy wet sound and then a grinding and a crunching sound followed by the whirr of something that sounded like a buzz saw.

            Then bob noticed the strangest thing, and it was something that was only noticeable because of the strange organization’s obsession with white. The tops of the white canvas tents and the tops of the vehicles grew very faintly pink. Then bob saw it in the air, a mist of blood that fell upon everything like morning dew. Bob understood then what was going on a little better. These people really were street cleaners of a sort.

            Through a crack in the white canvas Bob saw one of the giant’s feet on the bed of a semitruck. It came out from behind the tents, into full view. In a little clearing in the street a team of men went about fastening it down with tie downs and tarps. Like the rest of the operation these men worked very quickly, tossing the tarp and the tie downs over and across the severed foot with such synchronicity and ease, it was as though they were attending to any other old job. One man signaled to the driver when they were finished and then he was off and another truck came into position, this one carrying a segment of the giant’s shin.

            They could not see them tie down this piece because a van pulled up on the sidewalk in front of them. Bob and his family were made to get into the back of the van. The McCallisters were in there already, sitting on one of the little metal benches that ran along the sides.

            “Oh, Bobby, Tammy,” Mrs. McCallister said, “Oh, your boy!”

            “Quiet down hun,” Mr. McCallister said, “Quiet down now, it’s going to be okay. They just want to ask us some questions. It’s going to be okay.”

            “No George! It isn’t going to be okay! Look at the boy! What kind of people lay a finger on a child?”

            “I don’t know,” George McCallister said.

            The van doors were slammed shut. The van moved forward, bouncing up and down over the sidewalk and grass. The van stopped. The doors swung open and into the van got Mr. and Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill was still sobbing, she was inconsolable. Mr. Gill was furious. “They shot Thakur.” (Thakur was their dog).  Mrs. Gill burst into even more tears.

            “What kind of people shoot a dog George? What kind of people?” Mrs. McCallister said.

            “I don’t know.”

            The van went on, down the street picking up the Jennings and the Lunas and Suzy Fielding. The van was too full and the rest of the Fieldings were left behind. “You’ll get on the next one,” one of the white jumpsuits said to little Bobby Fielding and his father.

            “I’ll see you there!” Suzy Fielding shouted to her son through closed doors. The van doors had little windows so they could see out. The van went out of the neighborhood amidst a caravan of other white utility vehicles and headed towards the outskirts of town, then out into the countryside.

            Vehicles in the caravan turned off here and there until only the same unmarked vans remained traveling together toward their destination. The vans turned onto a utility road that followed some train tracks. When the tracks came to a tunnel that cut beneath an overpass the vans drove up onto the tracks and into the tunnel.

            The vans turned off somewhere inside of that tunnel and began a descent down into the bowels of some hidden place.

            “Daddy,” Greg said, “Where are we?”

            Bob didn’t know what to say. Tammy answered for him. “It’s a surprise.”

            “A surprise?”

            “That’s right. A surprise.”

            “Can we go home?” Greg said.

            “Later, we’ll go home later.” Bob said.

            “Can we light the sparklers when we get home?”

            “Sure.” Bob said, “We’ll light them as soon as we get back.”

***

            “A gas explosion killed 123 people in the southern Yuba City yesterday and destroyed several homes. Authorities indicate that the explosion which occurred at 1:30pm was caused by outdated equipment but added that they are still investigating the specific cause of the explosion. A service will be held at the community center on Thursday.”

            June 6th 2020, The Appeal Democrat.