by Jack Womack
"Did they explain?"
"Once we talked to 'em. Said that since Mister Roosevelt set us free they didn't own us anymore. Said they didn't like it any better than we did, but they didn't have no choice. Couple of the fools asked if we could keep working for the company but they told us company'd been took over by the government. Wanted to make an example out of'em, they said; Lord knows they couldn't of picked a better one. We said, well how do we get home? They didn't know Said they was going to burn the barracks down so we'd better get out before they did. We said, where were we going to live, what were we going to eat? They didn't know Told us some feds be coming down in a week or so to help smooth things out. See, Cuba wasn't a state yet, just a territory, and they said because of that it'd take longer than usual. What about in the meantime? I asked. What were we supposed to do? They said more of us died now, more room there'd be in the boat going home, once a boat went home. Then they told us to leave. Shut the office door, locked it. That was that."
"Then?"
"Some of us wanted to be done with it, leave all the shit behind. Decided to walk down to Caibarien, that was the closest port, see if we couldn't work something out getting a boat up to Florida. Took us two days to get there. Wasn't much of a road to speak of, just kind of a narrow clearing. Didn't eat much on the way 'cause we didn't see but a few trees or bushes growing anything we recognized. Folks living on the little farms we passed weren't much better off than we were, most of'em didn't speak English and once or twice we got shot at and had to hightail it before they aimed right. Guess they figured we'd escaped and was hoping to get a cash money reward.
"None of the peons in town wanted shit to do with us once we got there, though. None of us had any money to pay 'em to take us across, nobody wanted us to work for 'em to pay 'em that way, and we didn't know what the hell we was going to do 'cause we sure weren't going to try and swim across. This one fellow down by the docks, name of Alfredo. Had the ugliest teeth I ever saw He talked to Norman and some of the other men. They made a deal. Alfredo wanted to hop the one other woman that came with us, her name was Sophie. Big strapping girl, had forearms like a man but an ass you could serve dinner on. Fine looking."
She paused, as if to retrieve breath.
"Sophie wouldn't hear of it first. She loved her man Robert so much she couldn't even imagine going out on him, much less whorin'. I couldn't say much good for it either except it'd get us back to where we could at least walk where we wanted to go. Took a while but I finally convinced her it was our only choice. Her only choice. I never have forgiven myself for doing that.
`Alfredo owned a thirty-foot fishing boat, carried a crew of nine. When we got set to sail, first thing they did was lock all the men up down below for the duration. Sophie and me, we went to Alfredo's quarters and waited. He came down, took his clothes off. Vilest, filthiest man I ever saw He took her. She just lay there with her eyes shut tight the whole time, she said. I don't know 'cause I couldn't stand to look. I was supposed to be there, see, to keep her company, and make sure she went through with it. He got up, unlocked the cabin door. Gave a whistle.
"They was going to go in groups of three, I guess. I tried fighting 'em off but two of'em held me down while the other one was goin' at it. They kept pushing her face down in the pillow like they was trying to smother her." She coughed. "Sophie nearly bit her lip clean through, holding back." Without audible sob great tears rolled down her dark face; brushing them up, she threw them away. "They split that poor girl wide open. When they was done with her, the bastards, they started in on me."
The shore seemed always so cold, whatever the season.
"Wish old Jake'd been on that boat with us," she said, laughing with true pleasure at the joy of imagined revenge. "We finally got to Florida. Came into port just north of Miami. Threw us all off. Sophie's Robert knew one was going to get to it, but didn't know the whole crew would, and he treated her like shit ever after that. Started whipping her, talking to her like she was a dog. We'd just reached the outskirts of Waycross one night, made camp. We had a big pot of hominy boiling on the fire. Robert came over, started in on her. Sophie didn't say a word, just took that pot, flung it over him. Didn't have any skin left on his head or chest. Sophie ran off that night." Wanda smiled; frowned. "Never saw Sophie again."
"Doc didn't act that way-" I said, rather than asked; knew the answer already.
"Norman always was a good man. I told him what happened, afterward. He didn't hold it against me, never even talked about it. Thing that tore him up was that I lost the baby," she said. "Too many uncles, I guess."
"You mean you were pregnant-"
"Six months," she said. "If we could've had another we would have, but we couldn't."
? "Why?"
"After he started that to-do in the Atlanta plant they gave him a two-part punishment," she said. "Least thing they did was ship him down to Cuba. Main thing they did was make sure he couldn't have any children. Much as they needed new ones, they didn't want any from bad stock, as they put it. Some of the owners were from Kentucky and they were used to horse bloodlines. Son of a bitch bastards, they didn't know I was already pregnant and I wasn't going to tell 'em." She sighed, her voice deepening as she spoke. "His voice had already changed but he never could grow a beard after that. Bothered him he couldn't. He said it didn't hurt much as he thought it would but they shot him full of morphine to do it and then kept him shot up for three weeks after just to be sure. It was hell when they took him off it and he never did break loose completely. Ever' Friday night he'd come home from the hospital in East Orange, go in the bathroom and let fly. Never more than once a week though. Just enough to help him keep going till the next time. "
"So you came north-"
"Ever'body come north except the ones too beat down already. Ever'body found out once they come north that if they was going to work they'd be working for the same people used to own 'em, 'cept now you had to pay for your own shack." Her eyes burned as they stared over the ocean, from a home never owned to a home never known. "Shit. Steal us to come over here. Work us to death. Kill our babies. Finally set us loose on a long, long leash. Start gettin' too far off, they pull on it till we choke. Day the market fell was the happiest day of my life. Let it all fall down, I thought. Let it all burn. See how they like it."
She lit another cigarette; shot smoke through her nostrils.
"You know the future, Luther. What am I going to miss?"
"This September Hitler invades Poland," I said, deciding for folklore's sake to follow our world's chronology. "Starts World War Two. Conquers most of Europe. Sets up death camps. Kills millions of Jews. Many know but none act-"
"Figures," she said. "Haven't there been enough dead already?"
In God's plan, I doubted that Hitler had ever had a cold. "Fighting Hitler's like makes us forever more like the fought," I continued. "We abyssgaze overlong. That's Europe. Another front opens in the Pacific. Japan attacks Hawaii in late 1941 with planes built"- I had to laugh, remembering now -"with scraps of the Sixth Avenue el. A bomb-"
"Japs?" she asked. "Good."
"Good?"
"They're colored people," she said. "True?"
WE HEARD A SUDDEN CRY COMING FROM TIE HOUSE; TURNING around on the rock, we eyed Jake, stepping out so far as into the garden to give his call without direct interruption.
"He's moving," he called, his voice fading in the air. "She thinks she has something."
"What's shown?" I asked, reaching him.
"Aiming northbound," he said. "On rubber, as evidenced. Undoubtedly in the company of others."
"What's Oktobriana's word?" I asked as we stepped back in, coming through the sun porch. I realized how strongly the house smelled of mildew and must.
"Unclear," he said; morninglight showed wrinkles cut into his face, new-pouched eyes and drawn cheeks. For once he almost appeared as his age, ten years younger than I. "Let's ask-"
"Lord," said Wanda, seeing as we saw. Oktobriana's body,
lying on the couch, had arched upward, describing a circle, the top of her head almost touching her heels. Her teeth sank into her lip; she was unable to give voice to pain; her arms flailed uselessly to either side of her self-made hoop.
"Her feet," I said. "Take hold and stretch them out." With my hands gripping her head, enough to hold though not enough to crush, I kept her positioned while Jake attempted to pull her sofaways once again.
"She's like iron," he said, struggling. "Wanda. Force her stomach down-"
"Gently," I said. "Not overquick. She might shatter."
Jake pulled, Wanda pushed, I held; slowly, carefully, we flattened her out once more, keeping her down once she'd settled. Bruises mottled her arms and ankles, showed at her neck, lent the appearance of flowered bracelets running up her legs. Adrenaline coursed through her body; her pulse raced like a marathoner's at finish line's end. With sinking stomach I noted that to touch her now was to mar her. I Ier eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings; as she strove to give word, froth bubbled over her bleeding lips. Then, from the depths of her lungs rose two sirenlike wails, echoing through the empty house, bearing in their warning nothing but full-body anguish.
"Calm," Jake chanted, again and again. "Calm. Calm, calm-"
"Lord," Wanda whispered, "please take her-"
"Not yet-" I said. As if limit had been reached, somewhere within, Oktobriana did begin to calm; the veins in her neck rose as she struggled to speak, and speak so that we might understand. Her hands shook as if they might shake loose from her wrists.
"Paper on floor," she gasped out; I suspected that the muscular contractions affected the lungs as well, and it seemed possible that her attempts to breathe might suffocate her. "Some things I have written down but let me tell." One of her knees shot up, driving towards her chin; Wanda and I kept it from striking. "Instructions worded so simple as possible. Get the machine if you can. Go to fair. When coil is switched on massive power will be released. If weather prediction holds true-" A sudden fit of hyperventilation kept her from finishing; her reddened eyes bulged from her bluedotted face as she tried to force her aspiration again into normal pace.
"Calm," Jake said, from her opposite end. "Calm, calm-"
Her right arm struck the couch as in fury, spinning dust motes through the air. "If weather prediction holds, thunderstorm tonight should bring additional possibilities. Nothing to count on. There on paper written. But go to fair after retrieval. Get within range of coil as it is turned on. 'T'imings and situation figured out-"
Without advance her legs flung themselves airways, knocking back Jake, sending Wanda rearward with a thud. As one of her Achilles tendons snapped she let out another long wail. Jake struggled again to lower her legs, and I cradled her head, brushing the loose hair from her face. She stared into my eyes, showing anger and incomprehension and scarifying hope; the blood on her lower lip had dried, and crusted as she smiled. As I looked at her, she slowly settled, her breathing quieting, coming lower and lower. Her visible body showed as a quilt of black and blue and greenish yellow. Her bloodshot eyes continued to look upward, flickering as if stirred by outside charge. She lay there, unmoving; Jake and Wanda pulled themselves closer to her face.
"Is she-" Jake began to ask.
"Not yet," said Wanda. "It's a blessing. Usually the fits keep up from here on out up till the end. Sometimes they get all quiet like this, though, and then stay that way until they have one last conniption-"
"Can she hear us?" I asked. "She's aware?"
Wanda nodded. "She won't answer, but she knows what's going on. They always know what's going on. Lord, Lord-"
The three of us rested for long minutes, feeling hearts pound away beneath chests, lungs aching with the gulp of air, the cooling feel of sweat as it dried upon the body. Jake stared at Oktobriana as she stared at him, or at any of us. He unpocketed the tracker, flicked it on and read.
"Unmoved, now," he said, his voice oddly calm, as if enough endorphins had passed through his own brain to bring a temporary peace unto him, or so at least it seemed. "Settled at First Avenue about Twenty-fifth. Righthand side."
"Bellevue," said Wanda. "They got him in the hospital."
"Bellevue," I repeated, thinking of our own day's germ-free Bedlam. "Why've they moved him-?"
"Let's find and discover," said Jake.
"There's a chance," I said. "If we get there in time-"
"Doom's certified, Luther," he said. "We've other purpose to serve as well." He gathered up the scraps of newsprint on which Oktobriana had transcribed late thoughts. "Hold these. They'll essential later on."
"We'd best go in caution," I said. "By now they've investigated the apartment. Certain to have word on the watch. How safe do you judge an approach, Wanda?"
"Not safe at all," she said. "But I gather we got to do it. Let's get going. Longer we kill time here, more time they'll have getting ready for us. "
"Jake," I said, noting his mask, his evident peace. "What's planned?"
"If not for him," he said, feeling beneath his jacket and coat for his securities, "we'd not have come. If he'd not incited, I'd not have thrown. If he'd not stolen, we'd have had and already tried. She'd shine with health," he said, laying no direct blame on Skuratov for the last specified. His face drew sheet white as his blood settled deep inside him. With both arms, good and bad, he lifted Oktobriana off the couch, pressing her against him as if to warm her. We left the house as we'd found it. In the west clouds showed; an oncoming front slowly taking the blue from the sky. The air was heavy with verdant flowerscent and seaborne salt.
"Why do you keep looking around?" Wanda asked me as we climbed into the car; Jake settled Oktobriana in the back, next to him. "I mean you know there's nobody around here-"
"Long Island unnerves me," I said. "I knew bad times here." Before she ignited, a sudden crash in the distance, the thump of waves shore-pounding shocked my mind into remembrance.
"Trouble?" she asked. "Had an accident out here or something?"
"Went to war out here," I said. We edged down the drive, our tires chewing at the gravel below. Jake drew out his pocket-player as he supported Oktobriana upright; her head sagged loosely on her neck, resting against her shoulder. He kept himself unphoned, so as not to lose himself too deeply-in event of Oktobriana's stirring, I supposed. When he switched on the player his music soaked us in acid's bath.
"Got to keep movin', got to keep movin'- "Blues fallin' down like hail, blues fallin' down like hail-"
"War?" she asked. "What kind of war?"
"Prolonged war," I said. "Twenty-odd years. I was here for just one, but it served purpose-"
"Blues fallin' down like hail."
"On Long Island?" she said as we turned onto the dirt road leading us back to the highway. "Why'll there he war out here? War with who?"
"With Long Islanders," I said, too overcome by onrushing memory to detail overmuch. "At a point later on it becomes neces- sary"-in our world, it became necessary-"to declare martial law due to a variety of circumstances. Most people went along with it. They didn't out here. That's it in basic."
She shook her head. "That's all right. I don't have to know "
"How long a passage in?" asked Jake. Oktobriana's eyes drifted from side to side; I wondered what she watched. I looked at Long Island as we passed through its daylight, its perfect weather.
"Not more'n an hour, if we're lucky," said Wanda. "I'm going to go in a different way, avoid all the fair traffic. Got to stop somewhere soon and get gas." We reached the main road; turned back towards town. "You going to bring this guy back out with you once you find him?"
"We'll bring what's needed," said Jake.
`And the days keep 'mindin' me, "There's a hellhound on my trail-"
On that perfect Long Island afternoon our unit had continued down Hill Street towards town. Seeing smoke rising from shore's direction, hearing the pop of distant gunfire, sounding as caps from a child's pistol, we realized that our fellow platoons were delayed a
t the beach, and so we marched towards the ocean to assist, nothing disturbing our ears but the wind's rustle, and the unending barrage. We crept across the rangy grounds of one of the neighborhood's older cottages, a blasted lowrambler that must once have held twenty rooms. Poised at the murky, brush-choked pool's patio were plastic flamingos of unusual heredity; each pink body carried two heads. Muller approached them, pulling his nonissue .44; he dropped to position and aimed at their dualities.
Yeeehah, he shouted. Ambients. Plug 'em.
He fired; they were boobied. Before the flashbulb splash, before the air split with explosion's sound, I'd flattened, as had most of the men, who generally did whenever they saw Muller act in moment's heat; the twelve nearest hadn't, and they writhed on the ground like fish blown from a barrel. Muller was beyond flattening. We radioed in to obtain wounded's airlift and prepped to call down vengeance on whatever we found.
"Hellhound on my trail."
"She's burning, Luther," Jake said, his hand pressing her forehead; he'd set his pocket-player's tune into recycling loop, so that the song repeated without end. "Warming like she's microwaved."
"Increased metabolism, Jake," I said. "Her fever."
We pulled away from the Esso station at which we'd stopped to refill; as we left its lot I looked beyond the tall, glass-domed pumps to see the three rest room doors at building's side: men, women and colored. The proprietors had no qualms over accepting our money. "How much longer?" I whispered to Wanda; she kept eye on the lane before her.
"Not over forty minutes, Luther. I'm going as fast as I can without getting pulled over-"
"I mean Oktobriana," I said. "How much longer, do you think?"
"Tonight," she said; the car's clock showed two-thirty. "Sooner, maybe. Depends on when she goes into another fit. Can't be much longer."
"No question?"
"She's lucky, under the circumstances," she said. "Man used to live three floors above us carne down with it. He had it three months before he got to this point. Believe me, Luther, it's a blessing she's going fast as she is."