The City Below
Bill scooped up the vitamin pills from his plate, swallowed them one by one, and started munching on his toast. He always took his pills before eating breakfast, which was a habit he had picked up from his father.
“Grandpa,” Bill said. “Your name came up in the class yesterday.”
Grandpa looked up from his plate and blinked twice. “Why?”
“Dad,” Bill’s father said. “You haven’t taken him out during his classes again, have you?”
“No, Daddy,” Bill said. “Miss Pepper mentioned that Grandpa is the oldest living person in the entire City Below.”
“Oh, really?” his father said. “I didn’t know that.”
“And, she said Grandpa is the last living person in the City Below who was born in the City Above.”
Grandpa got up and walked out of the room, leaving half of his toast and all of his pills still on his plate on the table.
“Daddy,” Bill said. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, Bill. Grandpa is just not feeling well today. He will be all right, you don’t worry.” He looked up at the clock on the wall, and said, “You better hurry or you will be late for school.”
Bill ate his remaining toast in silence, looking at his grandpa’s plate on the table, then picked up his lunch and ran out of the house.
He walked a few blocks down the dusty street, and as he was about to turn the corner, he saw his grandpa sitting on a bench on the sidewalk. Grandpa looked like he was on a stage under a spotlight, for the lamp-post that stood behind the bench shone on him, and everywhere else around him was dark until the next lamp-post, which stood a few feet away.
Bill saw his grandpa wiping his eyes and cheeks, and he felt something heavy drop in his stomach.
He ran to his grandpa, hugged him, and kissed on his cheeks, then looked up at his face. At his long beard and a much longer hair. It was something unusual and unique to his grandpa, for the City’s guys go bald in their early twenties itself.
“Grandpa, I’m sorry,” Bill said to his grandpa’s belly. “I know I said something that upset you.”
“No, no, Billy. You didn’t do nothing. It’s just some old memories.”
“Memories of your childhood? In the City Above?”
Grandpa nodded his head.
“Do you miss living up there?”
“Yeah.”
“Why? What do you miss so much?”
Grandpa looked up at the metal ceiling of the City for a few moments, and then laughed.
“Everything. Everything, Billy. The first thing that comes to my mind is the summertime. The scent of the freshly cut grass in the air. And the smell of the first rain at the end of the summer. God, I can’t remember the scents anymore, but I remember I felt fresh and happy whenever I smelled them.
“Then my window to the new worlds. That’s what I called the large window in my room. Every night before I fell asleep, I’d look out at the dark sky and the moon and the million stars, and I’d imagine a lot of new people and stories on them.
“Above all, I miss the bright morning sun. Every Sunday morning, I’d go to the Central Park. Not like the one we got here that has only rocks and rubble, but a blanket of grass and trees covered all over it. I’d go over there with a book under my arm, find a nice and large tree, then sit back against its trunk and read the book until the sun sets down. Now, all we got here is just boxes of buildings. Boxes and boxes and more boxes of buildings. Only rocks and concrete. Nothing’s fresh here; even the air we now breathe is not fresh.”
Bill saw his grandpa’s eyes had become wet and huge, as if his past life was pulling his eyes out of its sockets.
After a few moments of silence, Grandpa closed his eyes and sighed, then said, “Okay, young man. You run along now, or you gonna be late for school.”
Bill nodded and pulled away from his grandpa, and walked along the street towards his school. He didn’t understand everything his grandpa had told him, but he was scared. Scared as though he had seen a ghost. In a sense it was true, for he had just met the ghost of his ten-year-old grandpa.
Bill kept seeing and hearing his grandpa’s eyes and voice all through his morning classes, and every time he remembered those huge eyes, his heart beat faster and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Then the lunch break came, but he sat alone in the classroom as if he were under a spell, and Teddy came up to him and asked if he was sick or something.
“Huh? Nothing,” Bill said. “Where are you off to, Teddy?”
“To the library. Got to do a book report.”
“What? What report?”
“Oh, that. I asked Miss Pepper one myself,” Teddy said, and grinned.
“If someone asks, we are not friends anymore.”
“Come on, reports are fun. But seriously, what’s the matter with you? Why are you sitting here alone?”
Jeez. Of course, Teddy wouldn’t leave until he told him.
“I saw my grandpa crying today, okay?” Bill said. “I always pictured him as a superhero, like he is the strongest and the bravest of all, and I never once thought he would cry like normal people do. And, he cried because of me.” Bill bent his head down.
“Why, what did you do, man?”
Bill told him what had happened that morning, and then said, “I still don’t see why he loves that City so much.”
“It must be very beautiful up there,” Teddy said. “I’ve read one or two books about it. But we can’t get the exact feelings by reading the books; we got to experience it for ourselves.”
“True,” Bill said, then a moment later his eyes grew wide, and he looked up at Teddy. “Hey, let’s go to this City Above and check out. Later, we can take my grandpa, too. He will be so happy, you know.” Bill began to picture his grandpa in the City Above, happy and laughing.
“Yeah, right.” Teddy threw his head back and laughed.
“Dude, why are you laughing?”
“Because you cracked a joke. Right?”
“No, no, I’m serious. Let’s go up there and see what’s so great about that City and that round fiery ball thing up on its ceiling.”
Teddy stared at Bill with his mouth open.
Bill stood up and put his hands on Teddy’s shoulders, and said, “Don’t be a pussy. Let’s go, man.”
“W-what? Do you know what’s the punishment if they find one of us up there?”
“Um, no.”
“Or, at least, do you know how to go up there?”
“I was kinda hoping you’d know that, you know, you are the one who reads all the books and stuff.”
“No, Billy. Nobody in the City Below knows the way to go up there. I’ve read that, in the early days, there were guys searching all the blocks, every nook and cranny, looking for anything that goes up. But there was, and there is, none. No elevator, no stairway, not even a ladder.”
“Or, nobody found any yet,” Bill said. “Okay, what if we just break — ”
“Some even tried to break the ceiling open, but nothing we got here could even put a small hole in that metal. Even now.”
“Oh.” Bill slumped down in his chair. “There must be something,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his temples. “There must be something, Teddy.”
Teddy sat beside him and put his arm around his shoulders, and a few moments later, he said, “Maybe, we can check the old books and newspapers in the library.”
“Yeah, that’s a great start. You help me in this, Teddy, then I owe you one.”
“You owe me big.”
“Right, let’s go.”
They got up and stepped into the hallway, turned the corner, and began to climb down the stairway leading to the library on the second floor.
Teddy carried a tall stack of books, which went up until the tip of his nose, and placed them on the table before Bill.
“Hey,” Bill said. “How did you take books from the adult section?”
“Oh, Miss Pepper got me special access when I finished reading the children’s section.”
“Okay, this is not fair.”
“Yeah, but it helps us now. So, shut up,” Teddy said, picking a book from the stack.
“Just saying it’s not fair at all,” Bill said, and opened a book titled The new underground world for the underprivileged.
Bill started reading the book with no idea of what he was about to learn. He began to shiver a little when he read past the first few pages of the book, and as he turned every new page after that, he shivered more and more.
“Jesus Christ,” he said an hour or so later, closing the book.
“What happened?”
“I can’t believe this, man,” Bill said, shaking his head. “This book says that, at first, the government snatched their lands and houses to increase agriculture and stuff because of the growing population, um, that was when the population of the city had grown over fifty million, and the world population had crossed twenty billion.
“Then they moved the people to small housing quarters. But, as the population still grew fast over the next years, the housing department continuously revalued and reduced the size of the rooms, and at one point, the size of the single occupant room got down to just three square meters.”
“Boy, how can you live in a closet?” Teddy said.
“Wait, that’s just the beginning. All along those years, they were secretly building an underground city. And one day, they moved, or pushed, half the population of the city, mostly the poor and invalid, to the underground. That’s what we are, and that’s where we live now.” Bill’s body shuddered as he finished.
“God, it must have been horrible then,” Teddy said.
“Yeah, we are lucky in a way. But anyway, now we can confirm there is a path that connects the City Above and Below, right?”
“No, there was one,” Teddy said, pushing the book How to live in the City Below? towards Bill. “This book says they tore down the path and sealed the opening after they moved the people down. Now, the only connection is a narrow pipe, through which they send us food and pills and other stuff from time to time.”
“Oh,” Bill said, and closed his eyes. “I don’t believe this narrow pipe crap. How are we getting new books and clothes and all? There is some other way, Teddy.”
But they found nothing more in the books. So they began to go through the old newspapers, and Teddy found a picture of Bill’s grandpa in an issue.
“He must be in his twenties when this was taken,” Teddy said.
“Is that a protest or something?” Bill said with a slight tremble in his voice.
“Looks like it, Billy.” Teddy picked up the paper and got it closer to his eyes. “The board in his hand says, we are not garbage, we are humans too.”
Bill leaned back in his chair, and looked out the window at the next building, all dark and dreary. Teddy put his hand on his and pressed.
Bill felt he had to do something. He got to avenge his grandpa, he had to change everything wrong. But he didn’t know what he could do. First, he should take his grandpa to the City Above. Then, everything would be all right.
“We got to find the way,” Bill said, and went through the books and newspapers again.
After a while, Teddy leaned his head on his arm on the table and dozed off. But Bill went on reading.
When Bill was about to give up and throw all the books at the tall shelves, he found a copy of an old blueprint of the City Below.
“We got it,” Bill said, and threw a book on Teddy’s head.
“What?” Teddy said.
“Look here. We got it. I can feel it, man.”
“Oh, wowwie wow.” Teddy looked down at the blueprint. “Where’s our block here?”
“This area seems to be our block. And this large square must be our school.”
“Oh, yeah. Then this must be the hospital.”
“Right.”
After several minutes of going through the blueprint, Teddy said, “Shit, there is no mention of any path to the City Above in this.”
“Keep looking, Teddy. What are these small lines here?”
“I’m not sure. It couldn’t be a stairway, because, if so, there must be other sets of lines to show the stairway in our school and the one in the hospital.”
Bill put his hands on the table and laughed. “Told ya, we got it, man.”
Bill got up and headed out.
“What?” Teddy said, following him.
“The stairs in our school and in the hospital,” Bill said, “and the entire second floor were built recently, my daddy worked on them. And if that old blueprint shows a stairway, then — ”
“ — it’s the stairway to go up to the City Above,” they finished together.
Bill and Teddy stood in front of a small house on a dark street. Bill looked at the blueprint, then down the street, and back at the house.
“Do you see any staircase, Teddy? No? Fuck, it’s just another house.” Bill crumpled the blueprint and threw it at the front door.
“God, this whole street stinks so bad,” Bill said, kicking a rock. It flew off and fell down with a plop.
“Looks like an open sewage channel,” Teddy said, and pointed. “You know, before this whole City Below, they used to dispose the sewage using the underground sewer tunnels, where our City is now.”
“Aw, thanks, Teddy. That cheered me up now.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s go back. I told ya, there is no way to go up.”
“No, wait. What if the staircase is inside this house?”
“Yeah, fat chance.”
Bill went closer to the house and looked through the window. A feeble light flickered alone in the house. He pushed the doorbell button and heard it ring inside. Nobody answered even after half a minute had passed, so he rang the bell again. After another thirty seconds, he got fed up and leaned on the button, and waited. A full minute later, he heard someone yelling from the house, “Stop it.”
Then came a sound of heavy footsteps approaching the other side of the door, and a coarse voice said, “For the love of God, stop it. I’m coming.”
He stopped pushing the doorbell button just as the door swung open. A bald guy with a big mustache stood in the doorway.
“Eh? What do you want kids?” he said.
“We want — funds,” Bill said. “Yes, we are raising funds for our school teacher, Miss Pepper. She is very serious and they need a lot of money for, er, surgery and stuff. Shall we come in, sir?”
“No need.” The bald guy took a few dollar bills out of his pocket and gave it to Bill without counting, then shut the door even before Bill opened his mouth to thank him.
“Let’s go, Billy,” Teddy said. “There is no staircase here. Just an old guy in an old house.”
“No, no, no, no,” Bill said, shaking his head, and kicked another rock. Again, it flew off and plopped into the sewage channel.
“Yes, that’s it,” Bill said. “You slipped into the sewage.”
“What?”
“If you fell down into the sewage, we can ask him to let us in, you know, to wash you up.”
“No way, I’m not going to do that for you,” Teddy said, his hands up in front of him, and stepped back. But he tripped on the curb and fell head first into the sewage himself.
Bill caught one of his legs, the only part of his sticking out of the sewage, and pulled him up, then helped him sit back against a dead lamp-post.
Sewage dripped from Teddy’s hair and trickled down his face. He looked down at himself, then threw up beside the lamp-post.
“You okay, man?” Bill said.
“NO. I’M NOT OKAY.”
“Awesome, that’s what we need.”
Bill saw Teddy’s nose and lips twitched and trembled, while his eyes had narrowed to slits.
Teddy tried to get up. “Ow, looks like I’ve sprained my ankle.”
Bill helped him stand leaning against the lamp-post. Then he ran to the house and rang the bell again.
The bald guy opened the door and looked out with a tired look on his face.
“Now what, you little punk?” he said.
“My friend slipped into the sewage, sir. He sprained his ankle. And he stinks. Shall we please use your bathroom, sir?”
The bald guy came out of his house and looked at Teddy, then looked down the street for a few moments.
“All right, come in. Just the bathroom.”
Bill thanked him, then took Teddy’s arm over his shoulders and helped him get in.
“That’s the bathroom,” the bald guy said. “Wash up and get out quick.” He looked at Teddy, who was shivering a little. “You need some hot water, sonny?”
“Um,” Teddy said. “Can I get some hot tea — please?”
“Eh?” The bald guy raised his eyebrows and stared at Teddy. “All right. And one thing: go anywhere else in the house, I will slice you two into pieces,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, then turned and walked off without waiting for a reply.
Bill took Teddy into the bathroom and helped him sit down, then said, “I will go and look for the stairs. You wait here.”
“Billy, don’t take too long, he gives me the creeps. And, you be careful.”
Bill nodded, and said, “You clean yourself up, man. You really stink.”
Bill saw him smile, then turned and stepped out of the bathroom, and looked around. It looked just as any other house in the City, but there was something odd in that house. Something in the shape or the size.
He tiptoed to the bedroom, opened the door, and looked inside. Only an old metal bedstead stood in a corner. He closed the door and turned. But then he felt something, so he turned back and opened the door again, stepped inside, and closed the door. He looked at the space behind the door. Unlike other houses, this one had a much bigger space behind the door, and in that space stood a rusty spiral staircase.
He reached out and clutched the railing, and a chill went up his arm and ran down his back. He went around the staircase and began to climb up. At first, he climbed slowly, step by step, then he skipped every other step, and at last, he was running up the stairs, skipping two or three steps at a time.
He ran up, and up, then several minutes later, he found himself standing at the top, facing a hatch with a handwheel.
He rotated the handwheel; it creaked and grumbled and protested on every rotation, and pieces of rust fell out of the hatch on his feet. Finally, the rotation of the handwheel reached its end with a loud grunt, and the door automatically swung inside an inch, which made way for a sliver of light to fall inside upon the floor.
With trembling hands, he pulled the hatch open and looked outside. It looked the same — people walking and driving just as what they would do in his City. No, wait. It was much brighter up here. Whoa, the lamp-posts were not even turned on.
He climbed out into the sidewalk and looked around. He looked at the plants and the trees for the first time.
He felt his face and hands getting hot. He looked at his hands, front and back. Light purple spots appeared on the pale skin of his hands.
The spots grew darker and bigger, and thin wisps of smoke curled up out of his skin. Then, he looked up. Looked straight at the sun, for the first time in his life, and the first one to do so in his family after his grandpa.
A sudden pain shot through his eyes, as if a burning needle was stabbed into them. He covered his eyes with his hands and screamed. His legs gave out and he dropped to the floor. Then he began to crawl back to the hatch, to the safety, to the dark underworld, to the City Below.
