For Maria

It’s a blisteringly hot day as the flatbed truck pulls up to the bombed out shell that used to be a block of condos. Miraculously, a third of the building is still standing, although there’s no guarantee that it will remain so. The rest is a pile of concrete, wood and rebar. A cracked and weathered sign still stands, proclaiming this ruin ‘Greentree Condos.’

I tie a cloth handkerchief around my mouth as we approach, along with the rest of the scavengers crushed into the back of the truck. It’s scant protection, but it’s better than breathing in dust mixed with the fiberglass used to insulate these buildings. The truck rolls to a stop and we pile out.

Most of the scavengers go to the piled rubble, but me and two others head for the part of the building that’s still standing. It’s more dangerous going into a half-collapsed building that could go the rest of the way at any time, which is why it pays better. But I’m small and pretty quick, and I’ve been lucky so far.

Another eight months of this and I’ll have enough for a plane ticket. I hear that Brazil has started accepting refugees from Greater Texas. I don’t speak a word of Portuguese, but I speak enough Spanish that maybe I’ll be able to get along. I have a passport, all I need is money.

When the country once known as the United States of America collapsed it was like this building, falling into a million little pieces of rubble. Some bits are left standing, like the Republic of California or the Northeastern States, but the supports are still shaky.

And so I dive into a half-collapsed building, along with four others. We divide the first floor apartments among ourselves efficiently. I pop the lock on one door and find myself in a kitchen that has been sheared in half. I test the floor. It feels solid.

I start with the wiring, pulling a screwdriver from the toolkit at my waist and opening a socket in the wall. The power has been out for days, but nonetheless I test the exposed wiring for a charge. When I feel nothing, I pull out the wiring by the fistful, curl it up and stuff it in my bag. Later, I’ll strip it for precious metals to sell. Copper wiring nets a pretty penny these days.

My next find is an intact refrigerator. I’m not looking for food, not here. Without power all of the food that was inside has likely spoiled. But the refrigerator moved away from the wall a bit in the bombing, which means that I can squeeze behind it and get the back open. Its guts bared to me, I start going to work disassembling the pieces.

In all I probably get around thirty pounds of usable scrap from the refrigerator, which is now leaking on the laminate floor like a bleeding animal. I go through the rest of the kitchen, hoping to find coffee. People will pay more for a bag of coffee than they will for good scrap, sometimes. I come up empty.

I take one last look at the abandoned apartment and move on. I find a stairwell and take it up to the second floor. A couple of the other scavengers are up here already, with bags fuller than they were an hour ago. I nod and acknowledge them, but don’t speak. We’re all competing with each other for the best finds here, so it’s best not to get to know anyone too well.

The next apartment is unlocked, but I have to shove against the door to get it to budge. The door frame is warped, and I’ll probably never get it closed again. I survey the apartment at a glance.

It’s the same layout as the condo downstairs, with the front door leading into the kitchen. Over a half-wall I can see into the living room, where the water-damaged detritus of a life is scattered about. A pipe must have burst somewhere above, leaving the ceiling caving in and the couch sodden. There’s a television on a shelf. The screen is cracked, but it’s a good find.

I make my way over. Beside the television in a small puddle of stale water something glimmers. It’s a locket, one of those bulky heart shaped ones that opens up into two halves on a hinge. Someone has wrapped the chain carefully into a coil. I lift my bandana from my mouth and test the locket against my teeth. It’s real gold.

It’s not my typical find. Most days, people don’t have trinkets like this-- and the ones they do have are kept close. The fact that it’s here tells a story all its own-- and not a pretty one.

I try the clasp of the locket. It springs apart remarkably easily. Inside there’s a picture of a dark haired woman, only a little marked by the water the locket has been sitting in. She’s pretty, probably no more than thirty with dark eyes rimmed by thick dark lashes and brown skin. She’s laughing in the picture, at what I can’t begin to guess. On the other side the locket reads For Maria.

I look at the picture of the woman in the locket and wonder: is she Maria? More likely she is Maria’s sister, or daughter, or lover. Was the dark haired woman the giver of the locket? And what is she doing now, if she’s even still alive? Did she live in these apartments with the equally mysterious Maria, or did she manage to get out-- to Brazil, to Germany, to Canada or Argentina? There are no answers to such questions. They all flutter through my head as I hold the delicate little locket in my hand.

Whoever Maria is, she’s not coming back for her locket. She might even be down below, in the pile of rubble my fellow scavengers are picking through. In my head I write a story for her, where she got a chance to flee for Brazil and had to pack so fast she left her locket. She’s there now with the dark haired woman and they’re laughing on the shores of Rio de Janeiro. It’s a nice story, and there’s no way it’s true.

I close the locket up. I don’t put it in my bag with the rest of the scrap. Instead I slip the chain around my neck and let the locket hang close to my heart like a talisman of good luck. I know a guy who’ll pay a lot for gold. Eight months and I can buy a plane ticket. I hear Brazil is taking in refugees these days.

I adjust my scarf so that it covers the delicate chain. “Thanks for the locket, Maria,” I say to the empty condo.

I move on.