Orphan by Pete Barnstrom

Say what you will about the end of civilization as we know it, but the sunsets are lovely.

No, not the spectacular, 120-count Crayola box skies of the time when pollution filled the air, that’s true. But a simple, lonesome nighty-night from the sun. Lovely.

Over my shoulder, couples lean against each other on Baker Beach, watching it through the bridge, like a moving postcard.

I watch alone.

Always.

I start the motor back up and direct the boat toward the dock.

There’s a Chinese symbol carved into a wooden plaque on the back end of the boat, the stern. Plenty of Chinese people still around, as much as there is any other flavor of folk, and I’ve heard it pronounced, but I don’t know if it’s for real. It’s supposed to translate as “Orphan.” Could just as well say “Nancy,” or “Gon’ Fishin’,” or even just “Boat.” I don’t guess it matters. I like “Orphan.”

No one claims ownership. Whoever owned it must have been taken by the disease. It’s sort of understood that if you want to use the boat, get on it, and motor it out of the Bay before you put the sails up. An honor system kind of thing, you board understanding the risks, and with the assumption you know how to use it.

As I get to the dock, Miles is there to help me tie off. Wiry guy, always smiling, skin baked the color of a Bosc pear. I think he sleeps on one of the boats, not this one. He’ll brief you on how a boat works. Clearly knows his stuff.

I’d never sailed before, my first time, so I asked and he took me out on the water. He showed me what everything was, where it went, why it did what it did. I learned a lot. It was a nice day.

When we got back to the docks, he asked me out, and that’s when I realized that the whole situation, under different circumstances, might have seemed intimate. Romantic, even. I guess maybe it was.

But not for me.

I explained my situation.

Still smiling, he said, “Oh, you’re that guy.”

I’m that guy.

The disease took all of them, except me. Left only the ones who didn’t play the Reproduction-Game, as the black-humored called it now, when they bothered to refer to that time at all.

Those of us old enough can remember the persecution, the ostracizing. A minority suddenly on top, they’d have every reason to hate me, even though I was never part of that hate for them. But none have been mean to me. I’m kind of a celebrity.

Lemuel Ortega, the last heterosexual man on Earth.

I have an apartment. Don’t know why I still live there. No real reason I have to. I could take one of the emptied Mission Revivals, or a Painted Lady; most were claimed after the bodies were removed, but there are still some to be had.

Or I could even leave for another city, one less populated. Where I could be alone, away from them, all of them, everyone. Where I wouldn’t have to be reminded every day of what I’ve lost.

Not that we’re living on top of each other here in the apartment building. In fact, just about everyone has left for home-ownership, if such a thing still exists. Only people still here are the elderly bow-tied couple on the first floor, Svetlana the Scavenger on the second, and me on the top.

It’s surprising how little changes once three-quarters of the population leaves us. There are still plenty of doctors, lawyers, construction workers; after all, those newly expanded living spaces need renovations. The workers are mostly female now, though.

There’s even babies being born. Artificial fertilization may have sapped the fun out of reproduction, but it made it possible for the race to continue, even without what was once the most common method. Hundreds of happy new families everyday.

But not mine. Mine’s gone.

Alone.

Look, I know it doesn’t make any sense. I’m aware that sexuality’s on a spectrum, not hard and fast. But it just doesn’t work for me.

And, hey, I’ve tried. You don’t know how I’ve tried.

There was Herschel, the chef who made me a four-course meal under the supposition that I just hadn’t met the right guy, and he could teach me. I gave it my best effort, but all I learned is that I can’t kiss a hairy face good night. We ended it with a handshake.

There was Nanette, the massage therapist who said she’d once dated a guy, in the before-time. Maybe it was just me, but she appeared to have lost that facility. At least I got a backrub out of it.

Sevan was a younger man who barely remembered the disease, much less the time before it. He had daddy-issues, I supposed at first, but I later realized he mostly wanted to find out what breeders were like. I don’t believe he left impressed.

And then came Ruth, who had an ulterior motive of her own. She was a psychiatrist. They still have psychiatrists, although they’ve had to change their direction in a lot of ways.

Didn’t last long with her, either. I asked, if it’s true that there’s this spectrum, then how did this happen? Why did they all die? Why didn’t I?

“You know, I’m not a biologist,” she snapped at me. Lots of reasons we never worked out.

She referred me to other therapists. They didn’t know, either. Instead, they suggested everything from conversion therapy to electroshock. But the diagnoses all pretty much came down to learning to live with being alone.

The way I’ve learned to live with it is to embrace it. I am alone. I see people, I am not impolite, but I do not enter into their orbits, or let them into mine.

Alone.

I don’t do a lot now. I don’t guess I really did much before. I franchised a sports bar from a national chain, which was a good investment once, but there’s not a whole lot of team sports going on these days. Some golf and tennis, and figure skating of course. And they are still being broadcasted — the entertainment industry made it through the end of the world unscathed, it would seem.

But interest just isn’t what it was, except during the Olympics, which also did okay through the disease, in case there was any question how the world’s greatest athletes swing. My bartenders run a karaoke twice a week that does a small business, enough that I can pretend the place is operational. Not a lot of overhead costs these days, so I suppose it is.

I go to the place just about daily, make sure the televisions work, the taps still pour. I don’t know why I bother. Something to do, I suppose.

Every day as I return to my apartment, I nod to the elderly gents on the first floor. They sit out on the stoop and hold hands, and I can hear some sort of old-timey jazz music waft softly through their open window. They always invite me in, for tea at one time of day, for brandy at another. I always beg off.

Up the stairs, I see Svetlana. Barely clad at all in cut-off military surplus, her head shaved ringworm-close when she remembers. She’s knocked out the walls on most of the second floor, studs and braces placed around to keep the upper floor from coming down on her. She’s filled the space with the stuff she finds in all the homes the disease left abandoned.

You might think San Francisco wouldn’t have lost as many as some places, but yes, well over half the homes in the city were emptied, and more in the suburbs. Since there’s not a whole lot of money exchanged since it all changed, people need a place to look for new stuff, and Svetlana’s got it. She’ll take loads down to the sidewalks of the Haight every day, and usually come back up with more after it’s all gone.

“Hey, Lemmy,” she calls in her accented tones. Like me, she lives alone. She seems happier about it. “I find you some.”

She hands me a stack of old magazines with meaty women in leather biker gear. Not the sort of thing I’d have gone anywhere near in the old days, but Svetlana couldn’t know that. Besides, the porn industry was never much on celebrating happy, mutually-satisfying relationships.

And it doesn’t do anything for her. “Once I get peep at boy-boner,” Svetlana says, “I lose mine.” So when she finds the old filth, he puts it aside for me. No one else is going to want it. Kind of her.

I was self-conscious about taking it at first, but the Internet changed almost as quickly as my dating pool, and it’s hard to find anything for my tastes. So I’ve developed a routine of taking it from her, getting drunk, and then stowing it around my apartment in unlikely spots. I inevitably forget where, and so it’s an Easter egg surprise when I stumble across an old issue of “Riding Crop,” or a DVD entitled “Silky Slaves.”

It’s the sort of thing that once would have disgusted me, but when you don’t have options, there’s no real point in being discerning about such things. Not like my parents are going to see it. And my wife… well, she was gone before the disease came, even.

I used to take my kids to the zoo. Not here; we lived in the middle of the country back then. I wonder if that zoo is still there. I hope someone’s taking care of it.

The zoo here mostly survived. The disease didn’t appear to affect animals. And I hadn’t been aware there’d been such a strong lesbian contingent among the ranks of zookeepers, so the place is kept in good condition, and I head out there pretty regularly.

I like to visit the tiger. There’s only one, a male. He paces the enclosure where they’ve got him, restless, bored. Probably a little angry. I lean against the chain and watch how his thick fur rolls as he strides, smell the dank musk of animal on sawdust.

They’ve tried to get him to mate. But without a female there with him, they bring in loaner tigresses from outside. This never ends well. Apparently, tigers like to get to know each other before getting intimate, or at least this one does. And he expresses his disinterest violently.

So, no litter of cute, stripey kittens is in the offing. Already an endangered species, now he’s the last of his kind. Here, anyway.

I visit him a lot.

I mentioned doctors before, and mine’s named Brian. With the population reduced as it is, and most (but not all) of the more recalcitrant politicians removed, there are no longer obstacles to getting medical treatment on demand. So I see him a couple of times a year.

He’s got tattoos from neck to knuckles, which he snaps into a nitrile glove as he tells me to lie on my side and pull my knees to my chest. I feel the lubricated pressure and grit my teeth, and it’s usually done in a few seconds, but not this time.

“Um, Brian…?”

“Hold on, Lemmy. I need a minute.” He sounds distracted. Feels like it’s been more than a minute already, but I try and relax and let him do his work. Maybe his finger’s numb.

Then he pulls it out and tells me to stay there for a bit, he’s going to bring in another doctor, and he leaves the room. That’s when I start to worry.

Once all the testing is done, they talk about options. Surgery, they tell me, is the quick fix, but they can’t be sure it’s contained. Radiation, and oncological pharmacotherapy. Guess they don’t use the word “chemo” anymore.

But it’s so far advanced, and so suddenly. I tell them I don’t understand. I ask how this could not have been detected until now. I demand that they explain something, anything.

All they can guess is that it had something to do with the disease. The disease that skipped me once, and now maybe is catching up with me.

I walk onto the street with all the options in my head. Including the one they didn’t mention.

Not a long walk to the docks. I clamber aboard the “Orphan.” I’ve taken it out a lot, about once a week, and I contribute to getting it fueled up. I think of it as a timeshare.

I could take it now. Run it until the gas runs out, then put up the sails and go until the wind runs out, too. See how far I can get before decide I can’t anymore, and then I could stop and then I could be done.

Alone.

“You gonna take her out?”

I swivel the bucket-seat captain’s chair, see Miles. How long have I been sitting here?

He smiles his easy smile. “I like to sit in them sometimes. Think.” He looks out at the water, thoughtful. “You remember how it was before?”

Remember? It’s the only thing I can think about. I don’t speak.

“All the tourists,” Miles goes on. “Boats coming in and out. Container ships. Crabbers. Cargo ships. Even cruise liners. So many of them, so busy.”

Wait, is he talking about the water? That’s what’s on his mind from that time?

“And this city was better than most. They tried to keep it clean. Environmentally responsible. Still a disaster, though.” He looks back at me now. I hate to think what my expression is telling him, but whatever it is, he doesn’t seem to notice.

“I came up here from down the coast” he says. “You know what I used to be?”

I want to say sailor, or fisherman, but I know how people have changed. Everything has.

“I was an accountant.”

That must alter my expression, because he laughs.

“Yep,” he says. “I had a cushy office job, sat behind a desk, weighed about twice what I do now.” He pats his flat belly. “But I needed to do something else. Something I could believe in.”

I look at him. “Believe in?”

“I was good enough at what I did,” Miles tells me, “but I was just that. What I did. Made a good living, but with nothing to live for.”

“And now?” What does he have? Out here by himself, sleeping on boats, watching the water. “What do you have?”

His smile widens. “I have you, Lemmy. And everybody else who comes out here.” He stretches his arms, wide enough to encompass the world. “I have this whole city.”

I stand, put the key back on the pegboard. He says he’ll see me later. I don’t say anything to that.

I go to the zoo.

The tiger and I look at each other a long while. Until a zookeeper comes to tell me that they’re closing soon.

“Do you think he’s lonely?” I ask her.

She looks at the tiger. “If he is,” she says, “it’s his own damn fault.”

I think of how he was said to have fought off any potential mates. Rejecting opportunities to be happy. I guess I can see her point.

I walk back to my apartment building. The old men sit out front, smiling mildly, fingers intertwined, the music lilting around them.

“Would you care to join us, Mr. Ortega? We’re going to watch the sunset.”

I look at the two of them, sitting on their cold stone step, shoulders touching.

“No,” I say. “But why don’t you come with me?”

I get them out there, rocking slowly, just in time for the best moment. Sun glinting off the bridge and the water, hitting our faces warm and orange. I turn the motor off, feeling the quiet, the waves slapping gently.

“You know what I just realized?” I ask, then I look at them, the two old men, mouths gaping as they see the beauty of the end of day, and the promise of a new one.

And I see that they already knew. Had all along.

And I smile.

—

Pete Barnstrom is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker whose projects have played at theaters and film festivals all over the world. He’s shot documentaries in Greenland for the National Science Foundation, made movies with the Blair Witch guys (not that one), and seen one of his films screened at the Smithsonian. His experimental short films earned a grant from the Artist Foundation, and Amazon Studios bought a family film screenplay from him. He lives quietly in Texas and loudly elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter at @MistahPete and on Instagram at mistah.pete