Dark Ages: 2020 (Dark Ages Series Book 1)

by JD Dutra

  “You can bunk here with us, Mr. Danny, that lower bed on the edge of the tent has no owner. The guy who was there left two days ago.”

  “Thanks, but I got a bed at another tent already, I —”

  Whitey cut him off.

  “You need to stay with people who will watch your back Mr. Danny. Has anyone in your tent taken the time to tell you about the rules and the law around here?” Asked Whitey, his voice still sounded a little maniacal, but the twitching and scratching was gone.

  “Not really, people tend to keep to themselves there, from what I saw,” replied Danny, now realizing that the men around Whitey were going about their business inside the tent, paying no attention to their conversation.

  “Rule #1 - Stick to your own race.” Whitey grabbed one of his blistered fingers to keep count.

  “Rule #2 - Give respect and get protection. You respect and watch our backs and we do the same for you. There is strength in numbers Mr. Danny, and here that’s more true than anywhere else in the world. Do not give respect and you don’t get protection. You following me?”

  Danny nodded and looked over his shoulder, trying to decide if he could leave.

  “Rule #3 - Don’t do anything stupid and that is the most dangerous part of living here. The opportunities to do something stupid are too many, that is where most people fail and they end up either beaten up pretty bad or dead.”

  The way Whitey said rule #3 was like it was friendly advice, but his voice had an edge of menace to it; this was all Daniel needed besides worrying about his children and having several government agencies digging through his personal and business life.

  I have to get out of this infernal place and get my life under control again as soon as possible.

  “Let me give you a few examples Mr. Danny. You disrespect someone from a different race for no reason, we have to get involved. That is something stupid. You raise the suspicion of the guards and they come toss our tent, and find all of our toys and sacred things that are forbidden around here. That is something stupid. You rat out people for any reason. That is something stupid. You see, the guards have a set of laws you gotta follow, but in reality, to survive around here you need to follow a set of rules that is completely different from theirs.”

  Danny nodded, thinking that this actually sounded just like the world outside the correctional system. The government gave you a set of rules to live by, but reality forced you to follow another. Whitey continued with his sermon.

  “Rule #4 - Do your job well if you get to work in the chain gangs. Let the guards get to know you as much as you can, they’ll treat you better if you are more to them than just another bald headed criminal.”

  “What do they have us do when you’re part of a chain gang?”

  Whitey sighed as he slipped a blistered hand under a mattress and pulled out a cigarette, which was a forbidden item in the tents. He broke the filter off and hid it in his underwear, the rest of the cigarette was crushed into his mouth, paper and all, and he began to chew.

  “Dig graves, pick up trash on the highway, make license plates, cook, that sort of thing. They make you work for free in here,” Whitey said while chewing on his cigarette, his brown stained tongue arranging the moist tobacco under his lower lip.

  “What’s gonna happen to that guy, the one who ran his mouth in the lunch room?” Daniel asked, wanting to satisfy his curiosity before leaving.

  Whitey snarled and cackled, slipping the same blistered hand under the foam roll of his bed again and looked at the other men from one side to the other.

  “Anyone wanna tell Mr. Danny what will happen to that fool?” Said Whitey, preparing another cigarette to be chewed on.

  A man around Danny’s age, bald and with a face weathered by a hard life of drugs stood up and looked over his shoulders, making sure none of the patrolling officers were nearby.

  “That guy will be beaten up until his eyes are too swollen to see, until his legs are too sore to stand on and his balls are the size of apples. Then he’ll be put in solitary confinement, until he heals up. Probably a month or so,” the man said. Nodding slowly, the other inmates around Whitey’s tent clearly agreed with him. Whitey nodded, swallowed some of the tobacco juice in his mouth and took control again.

  “Rule #5 - Mr. Danny, do not provoke the guards. They will not be disrespected, especially in front of everyone else. It’s not good for their image you see, so the Sheriff has given them orders to make an example out of anyone who tries to make them look weak. They go out of their way to find people like that guy in the lunch room. This time, he came to them instead.”

  Whitey let his words hang in the air for a moment, his eyes staring at Daniel in a way that made him uncomfortable. He had to look at the other inmates to get a sense of what Whitey’s mood was. No one was looking at Daniel and he felt like a sheep who was being encircled by wolves, with the most rabid of them all measuring him up for dinner.

  “Thanks for the advice fellas, I better go back to my tent now,” Daniel said not knowing how that would be taken, but the urge to get out of there was too great.

  “Sit down Mr. Danny. We ain’t done yet,” Whitey said with a cold stare, his face slowly turning from side to side. The men who were round Whitey all looked at Danny in a way that he felt it was best to just do what he was told. If a fight were to break out, he could take one of them but there were 8 or 9 of them plus Whitey here now.

  Suddenly a sharp voice filled the air via the sound system, it was so loud Whitey had to hold his tongue for a moment.

  “Inmate Daniel Cross, report to the visitor’s center right away; message waiting.”

  The phrase was repeated twice, and maybe it was the way Daniel reacted when he heard his name spoken aloud in jail that made Whitey grin his yellow, tobacco stained teeth at him.

  “You don’t want to break Rule #5, Mr. Danny. Go now and we’ll continue this conversation later. I expect you to bring your stuff and sleep in that bed tonight. You may leave now.”

  Daniel stood up and nodded at everyone, then began his walk towards the visitor’s center. How would he get out of this one? Maybe the message waiting for him was that his hearing actually happened today and that he would be getting out within the hour.

  That would be too good to be true.

  A reinforced glass counter separated him from a female police officer, who looked at his face then at his mug shot on her computer screen.

  “I’m Daniel Cross. The announcement said I have a message waiting?”

  “I have a message for you, Mr. Cross; it’s from your attorney, Mr. Saucedo. I’ve printed his email, here is the copy. You can read it, but you can’t take it back to the tents with you, do you understand?”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  Once she handed him the sheet of paper, Danny looked at the sender and the recipient. It was from him alright. The message was marked urgent.

  “Mr. Cross, I regret to say that your hearing has been pushed back for another 30 to 45 days. His honor Judge Salazar who is handling your case had to take some emergency time off and your hearing has been put back in the queue. The law says you must stay there until you have served your sentence in full or an appeal is heard and your sentence is overturned. I am sorry, I am doing all I can to expedite your appeal, but these things just take time. As for the investigation on your business, the Phoenix Judicial System wouldn’t allow me to help you at the tax payer’s cost in that regard, they just want me to defend you against the obstruction of justice charges. They won’t pay for anything else. I can help you privately, at the rate of $175 an hour, billed weekly, just let me know. Hang in there.”

  Danny very carefully read the entire message over again, wondering if maybe he had misunderstood it. When he was done, he handed the email back to the officer with a trembling hand.

  Chapter 9

  Scottsdale, Arizona

  Wednesday, October 21st, 2020

  1:12pm

  “Downward Dog.”

 
The soothing voice filled the hot air inside White Lotus Yoga Studio, and Mei Lin Tao did the best she could to keep her body in the shape of a math compass, with her hands and feet planted firmly on the ground. She remembered when there was a time she use to struggle with this pose and many others.

  “Hold it,” the voice said, and the calm Tibetan music expanded her mind, the pain from her calves all the way to her shoulders made her forget about the day’s tasks, about her past and about her uncertain future. Yoga cleared her mind and body, and it was one of the few times when she dedicated all her efforts to herself alone.

  “Fall into Plank,” the instructor continued, and she kept her chin paralleled to her yoga mat while pushing her toned body forward, and then upward.

  Fall into chaos… If Ping is right, this may be my last yoga class. It may very well be the last yoga class of my entire life, same thing for these women around me. Actually, this could be one of the last yoga classes ever held in the United States.

  She forced the thought out of her mind; she needed the blank space there even if it was just for an hour. By the time she was done she felt physically spent, but her mind was still full and her heart was empty of answers; the fundamental change the world was about to go through was all she could think about. She cherished that yoga class as if it were the last time she’d attend it. At any time she would have to abandon it forever, after doing it almost every day for the past 12 years.

  She went into the ladies locker room, took a shower in a single stall and after drying herself, she did a quick check on the .45 compact pistol in her purse. Her delicate fingers arranged her long silky hair in a bun and she put a metal stick through it. She was out of the shower and dressed in a colorful long layered skirt and white blouse in 15 minutes, before most of the women in her Yoga class were even done washing their hair. The only makeup she ever wore was strawberry colored lipstick.

  It was early in the afternoon in Phoenix and the heat of the sun was already burning her skin, and when she got to her Mercedes, she took her time to look around the upscale neighborhood where her yoga studio was located. People were riding bikes, walking their dogs and talking as if it were just a normal day. When she looked at the sky, she realized the airplanes had left an unusually large amount of white streaks in the blue above Phoenix. She had never seen anything like it.

  I wonder why on some days the airplanes leave more residue than on others. Shouldn’t they leave the same amount, since flight times are the same every day?

  A middle aged couple walked by and pulled her thoughts a different direction, they were exercising together and talking about a vacation they were about to go to in Europe. Mei Lin knew that vacation could turn into their worst nightmare and she wondered if she would tell them anything if she were allowed to. Even if she did, they probably wouldn’t believe any of it.

  The drive to The Housing Grace Foundation was filled with a sense of sorrow she could not shake off. Everything around her, every aspect of people’s daily lives would change, never to be the same again; and she would have her share of the blame for it. She was as prepared for the event as well as she would ever be, having spent hours double checking everything after meeting with Ping, but her head wasn’t quite in order yet.

  She walked into The Housing Grace Foundation, very conscious that this also would be one of the last times she’d get to be who people thought she was.

  “Good afternoon Mei Lin!” Monica’s friendly voice greeted her once she walked into her office.

  “Hello Monica, how are things?”

  “Well, we have lots of applicants for your final review today. Some of them have asked to be reconsidered; they were very persistent. I told them I’d mention it to you that they wanted to be looked at again, but made no promises.” Monica sighed in a way that told Mei Lin that these applicants were more than desperate for the grant.

  “Who are they?” Mei Lin asked.

  “The Melendez family.”

  Ever since Mei Lin came up with this new housing assistance program, which initially helped cover up to 90% of someone’s rent, The Housing Grace Foundation had record applicants month after month. It was a very successful program that reached out to local businesses for donations, then turned around and redistributed the money to needy families. They needed to qualify by living clean and holding down a job within 3 months of moving in, and The Housing Grace Foundation would begin to cut the assistance little by little over time until they were on their own. It was Arizona’s most successful housing assistance program with a 70% success rate within the enrollees’ first year.

  “Please do me a favor Monica, have them resubmit their drug screening test and references again, as well as bring in employment applications from a few places. I’ll look at their file then, and if everything checks out we can reconsider and expedite it.”

  “No problem. I left a stack of today’s applicants on your desk for your review, let me know if you need anything” said Monica, cutting herself short to answer the ringing phone on her desk.

  Mei Lin smiled to herself, taking in the satisfaction of helping the needy get a new start in life. She would expedite that grant and any others that could qualify.

  I’ll give away as much as I can, for as long as I can… spend it while you can folks.

  She went on the rest of the day checking various applicants’ documents, approving a few and denying others. Her staff sorted and screened the applicants, but for the final approval she trusted no one but herself.

  She almost forgot that at any moment’s notice she’d get a text message or a phone call and she’d have to abandon everything that instant, never to come back. She wouldn’t be able to say a proper good bye or warn anyone, not even Monica.

  Poor Monica, she’ll be worried sick about me, until she abandons this job too and moves on somehow.

  Like she was watching a movie in her head, she would miss this life, even her car. As she had these thoughts and sipped her green tea, she had no idea that out on the street near the parking lot of The Housing Grace Foundation, a very different Mercedes was parked there, waiting for her.

  Hours later, Oneita brought down the sun shade visor in Baby Ray’s Mercedes, to take a look at her eyebrows. She couldn’t find the dark eyeliner pencil, so she used one her friend DeShawndra had; it was strawberry blonde. It looked good and made her eyes and her skin pop out more. She noticed Jimmy looking into the mirror, narrowing his dark eyes at the reflection of the golden arches on her forehead. She slapped the visor up quickly. Baby Ray’s cousin Jimmy gave her the creeps.

  How can someone look so different after just one year in prison? What did they do to him in there?

  Cousin Jimmy had gone into prison over a year ago, morbidly obese and scared out of his mind, with a homemade tear drop tattoo on the corner of his eye. The man who sat in the back seat of Baby Ray’s car had tattooed his entire face, had rippling muscles and a permanent scowl. He had become a very intimidating man, and even Baby Ray stopped making jokes at his expense like before. Now he treated him with respect.

  That’s what I need, thought Oneita. I want people to treat me with the respect I deserve.

  Jimmy’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “That her?” Cousin Jimmy lowered himself in between Baby Ray and Oneita and brought a hand to his lips, biting on the side of one of his fingers as his eyes carefully analyzed the beautiful Asian woman walking towards her luxury car.

  “It’s her alright,” said Oneita rolling her eyes, annoyed that she had to wait for that woman for three hours out in the sun when Ray refused to turn the AC on.

  “What time is it?” asked Jimmy as he sat back in his seat.

  “7pm,” said Baby Ray after a glance at the dashboard clock. He’d got it working again a few days before.

  “Alright. Follow her but don’t get too close,” said Jimmy, wondering if the lady’s house matched her nice Mercedes.

  Before she drove away Mei Lin looked at her phone again. She knew she h
ad no messages, but it was hard not to keep checking. While she was glad that there was nothing from Ping, part of her felt lonely that no one else had texted her either. The sun was going down and she wished she was going home to get ready for a date with someone interesting. She had to let go a few boyfriends over the years, not wanting them to get too close; for everyone’s sake.

  As she eased into the late evening traffic, her mind drifted around things from her past as if she were browsing in shop full of memories. Things she should’ve done differently took her to considering a future she wished she could have. Thought of her childhood and her parents made her wonder what they would say once she suddenly vanished. That would be the hardest thing she’d ever have to do, but it would be worth it.

  The drive to northern Scottsdale wasn’t bad this late in the day and the traffic jams were gone. Once she got to the neighborhoods, the dramatic light on the upscale homes made each mansion look like mini Spanish themed castles. The tall palm trees gave sound to the cool wind of the evening, and wherever she looked the thick and expensive gates kept intruders out and lavish spending in.

  As she checked her mirror before making the turn into her home, Mei Lin noticed a car a few yards back pull suddenly over and stop by the sidewalk. She could tell the car didn’t belong in this neighborhood even while dark, the headlights were too worn out and dim. She parked her car in her driveway, waiting to open the gate while she had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps it was the pressure of the uncertainty of her situation or maybe she was being too cautious or even paranoid. She decided to wait for a few moments, and just watch the car from her review mirror.

  A few seconds that felt like minutes went by and a couple got out of the car parked a few houses down from Mei Lin’s home. They looked around and then began to sort through the garbage, going from can to can, collecting bottles and other recyclables and putting them into a large plastic bag.