Colonization

by Alex Lang

  I’m wobbly again. I stand under an old lamppost and watch the plaza slide slowly side to side. Thoughts move in my head, but they don’t get far, fuzzing out into nonsense.

  I don’t see the police at first when they make their move. When I’m jolted into noticing them, though, I realize I haven’t nodded out on duty, precisely; rather, the cops were in the plaza all along, disguised as bench bums. Four of them are suddenly on their feet and converging, hidden badges now on display. I see Dad as he halts, as he straightens from his pathetic hobbling crouch. He doesn’t try to run.

  But I do. I have to. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to help him.

  I’m grabbed after I take two steps. She’s been waiting behind me apparently. Not a cop, though there are two officers standing a little farther off; obviously her backup. She is dressed in a social services uniform, and she looks very smart in it.

  “Everything’s okay, Ceddy. He’s going to be all right.”

  I almost blurt out that my name is Bright Estabrook, but that’s just some weird buried instinct from all the times I’ve imagined this scenario. She’s taken me by my elbows, her grip strong. I try not to twist in her grasp, but even when I do, I’m horrified to find how weak I am.

  “It’s okay. Calm down.”

  The strange thing is that I am kind of calm, like this is no surprise at all, like I was expecting this inevitability on this very day, from the moment I woke up. It’s bullshit, of course, but the feeling is vaguely comforting and I grab onto it.

  “It’s okay,” I repeat back to her.

  She gives me a grim smile. “Good. That’s good.” She relaxes her hold on my elbows and takes a step back. She looks me over from head to toe, and it reminds me of when Brett did that to me. A pang accompanies the memory, then fades to nothing.

  I hear a commotion behind me but don’t turn. I don’t want to see Dad getting beaten to the ground by police batons. I wish the dumb bastard would just go quietly.

  “How are you, Ceddy?”

  “I’m fine, Adalia.”

  The grim smile curls at one corner, ironically. “We’re going to have to take you in too. Not to arrest you. But you can’t be out here alone. Right now you’re a danger to yourself and others.”

  Behind, a voice rises, cursing; but it doesn’t sound like Dad. Another feral shouter joins in. I say to my sister, “It’s like I’m a … sinner. Isn’t it?”

  Her face goes still. In a low tone she says, “Don’t start talking like that, Ceddy. Or there won’t be anything I can do to help.”

  “Was it so bad? What he was doing?” I still don’t turn, even as I now do hear, distinctly, a blunt object impacting a human body.

  Adalia’s eyes flick past my shoulder, then back to me. She’s so grownup it’s unreal-her face, her body, her bearing. “What he did is a crime, a serious one. The world has had enough. We’ve had one too many religious wars. We’ve had a hundred too many. No more. It gets cut off at the source, Ceddy.”

  I know all this. Any kid who’s learned the alphabet knows it. I ask, “Are they hurting him

  bad?”

  She frowns as one of her backup officers breaks off and goes racing toward the plaza. I still don’t turn around. She says, “Dad’s just standing there, not resisting. It’s these others, the ones who were listening to him, that are going apeshit. Nothing’s going to come of it, though. We’ve got enough personnel to handle it.”

  Apparently they do. A minute later, peripherally, I see Dad being led away to a police van. He’s not struggling. He doesn’t look our way. I wonder if he’s even noticed his daughter.

  God help him.

  Adalia tugs on my arm, and we walk the other way, toward a nearby car.

  God help us all.

  Pain

  HE STOOD HIS GROUND AND GOT kicked in the face for the third time that night. His nasal bone snapped. An instant later, he heard the center judge shout that the match was over.

  Rolle exhaled through swelling nostrils, knowing the real agony would come later, once the shock wore off. Delayed pain. Something to look forward to.

  His opponent-the long-legged blonde who moved like liquid mercury-waved to the shadowed crowd. Sparse, polite applause came in return.

  Thanks to the poor turnout in his division-the lowest of three-Rolle’d had to battle for second place with the girl who’d lost to the same guy who’d beaten him. Once on the mat, she’d baited him, letting him get an early point so he’d underestimate her before responding with a point of her own. Then, another. Then, the nose-breaker.

  Third place with a losing 1−2 record. Not what anyone would call an accomplishment, he thought. But he’d get paid. Placing in the top three provided a share of cover charges and the sparbar’s entertainment budget, winnings most contestants in his shape would use for some walk-in rhinoplasty.

  Rolle needed rent money more than a straight nose.

  He stuck around until closing time to collect his cash, trying not to spend it before he had it. The last bout of the night was ending-two Division One sparrers so enhanced each point strike sounded like monster truck tires slapping together. Rolle knew that the patrons came- when they showed up at all these days-to see these Division Ones who sank every payback into new physical upgrades, becoming unbreakable, indefatigable brawlers. As the pummeling continued, Loudon approached Rolle with a gratis bottle of beer.

  “Try not to have so much fun, man,” he said.

  Rolle forced a big smile and wrapped his index finger and thumb around the bottle’s cold neck. He sipped. When he started this, he’d wanted to make a living from it-work his way up the local rankings, get offers in other towns for guaranteed money. Three years later, he wasn’t really “getting started” any more.

  The chick who’d beaten him strolled past, her ponytail bouncing. No nod, nothing.

  Camaraderie be damned. Without her protective flak, she looked younger and skinnier. She spun around and fluttered her eyes at him.

  “How do I find out when pay’s in?” she asked.

  For a second, he thought she was playing dumb until he understood. She wasn’t like him.

  She was used to having everything retscanned into her baby blues.

  “Chair up and wait,” he said.

  They sat in tense silence until Loudon came around again.

  “One for her,” Rolle said.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Not many of the other sparrers buy me drinks, especially once they find out I’m … I guess some folks don’t like my kind around here.” She laughed dryly and drained half the beer in two swigs.

  “Don’t feel too sorry for yourself there, Second Place,” Rolle said, as Loudon passed along her winnings in cash.

  Her cheeks reddened under the bright, white overhead lights. She got it.

  “I’ve got no right to whine,” she said. “Sorry about your nose, man.”

  “I’ll heal. See you around.”

  Rolle watched her leave, stared a bit too long. Her shoulder was still pink from a fall in an earlier round. Slow to heal, like the other Division Threes. At a window booth, two of the nights’ Division One losers chowed down on some noodles with their girlfriends. Can’t even tell they’ve been sparring, he thought. In the bar’s center, a bouncer began to spray down the mats with disinfectant, the acrid lemon smell of closing time.

  Loudon handed him seventy-five bucks. Rolle mentioned his little conversation with the blonde.

  “She’s good. Not one of us,” he said.

  “Look around, Eyesore. Hardly any of the new sparrers are.”

  ***

  Rolle stepped out the door and into the humid, concrete parking lot. The place sat in a turn-of-the-century strip mall where empty bottles and white fast food sacks littered islands of unkempt grass. Sparbars were always the lone bastions of hygiene in these abandoned neighborhoods-filthy on the exterior but scrubbed to shiny whiteness inside, like the hospital classrooms he’d passed through during med school.

  Ove
r the entryway, where anyone else would have a flat-screen marquee, a big silver sign

  read:

  Glass Joe’s

  Competitive Sparring:

  YOU Are the Entertainment!

  “Damn right I are!” he said aloud to the night sky, fists above his head in mock triumph.

  An acre of parking spaces stretched out like yellow tournament brackets along the asphalt. Across the lot, a bus stop beckoned.

  He had almost walked the length of the parking lot when he heard a shout.

  “Eyesore!”

  A shiny, yellow, electric sports car swerved down the street, its windows open. Rolle stopped. He knew what came next. Everyone he knew had had run-ins with teenagers looking for trouble outside of sparbars. They might just drive by and throw something. Or they’d stop, and if he didn’t act fast, he’d have more than a broken nose to worry about.

  He felt the emptiness of the parking lot in his bones, dropped his bag and wriggled out of his jacket. The car sped toward him. Rolle crouched a bit, his muscles still limber from the night’s workout.

  These poor saps couldn’t have picked a worse time to mess with him.

  As the car slowed a few yards away, he charged. He heard cheers from inside as the driver slammed it into park and began to get out. Rolle’s front kick snapped the door shut, pinning the driver halfway in and halfway out, one arm dangling from the car. Rolle grabbed it and twisted the wrist until it snapped. Spiral fracture to the ulna. The driver howled. Doors slammed shut on the other side of the car and two passengers charged Rolle.

  Rolle kicked the door once more, then spun to face his assailants. He straightened, showing them his full six-foot, three-inch frame, lifting his arms so they could see his bulk. He stepped into the tallest one’s oncoming punch, blocked him and kicked the back of his leg, pushing the attacker’s head into the concrete. A soft thud.

  The last one charged him. Rolle dodged and delivered a jump side kick to the lower back. It felt like kicking the side of a house.

  Enhancements. Somewhere, Rolle knew, this kid had parents who’d told him that only the strong survived, and that the world was tough and he’d have to be tougher, then paid thousands to give the kid artificial muscles and thickened skin. He’d never lack medical treatment and would rarely need it.

  The driver had exited and was dragging the tall one back to the car, his left arm contorted. The last attacker turned.

  “Eyesore prick!” he yelled.

  Rolle’s leg ached, but he crouched down into an L-stance and raised his fists.

  Light punches, he thought. Don’t break your hands.

  Rolle delivered a quick backfist to the last guy’s jaw, keeping his left arm up to guard his nose. A fist slammed into his tightened stomach muscles.

  Rolle clutched the assailant’s chin with his left hand, latched his right hand to the base of the skull, and spun, dropping to one knee. The big sap had no choice but to follow and land on the ground.

  If life were like the mat, they’d have been done when Rolle landed his backfist. One point. Real life didn’t work like sparbars.

  Instead it took two more moves exactly like the first. Give a punch, take a punch, grab him, drop him.

  lurched forward while he had only one leg through the door. The car sped away. Rolle walked back to gather his stuff from the concrete, holding his injured side. Bus headlights appeared down the block.

  On the ride back to his apartment, an older lady shouted to her companion about better days when buses still had TVs on them. Rolle sighed, mentally tallying his assets. Fifty dollars in checking. A flunky security job that left evenings free to spar and mornings eventless for recuperation. And that night’s winnings. He couldn’t afford his apartment any longer and didn’t have any friends who’d let him crash.

  No matter what, he told himself, I’m not moving back in with Mom.

  ***

  Rolle knew his mom wanted him to be a doctor even before she took him to Josh

  Rendina’s house to catch chicken pox. Rolle was seven. His mom called it a “play day,” and she

  drank coffee with Josh’s mom while the boys ran microcars up and down tracks made in the folds of Josh’s blanket. It had seemed odd to play with someone who wasn’t supposed to get out of bed. A few days later, Rolle came down with chicken pox himself, a fairly easy bout that left him with two tiny, white scars on his stomach and a lifelong immunity.

  His mom didn’t lie about what she’d done. In fact, as she rubbed cool calamine lotion on his spot-infested shoulders, she told him how it had happened, and why it would be better to have it then rather than later. One thing about his mom, she always told the truth-at least partially.

  Years later, Rolle learned that most kids received immunizations for chicken pox. Most moms took their kids to doctors who prevented diseases with syrups and injections rather than controlled contamination. He gradually realized that just because Mom wanted him to be a doctor didn’t necessarily mean she liked them.

  ***

  “You’re always welcome here,” said his mother.

  “Just a month,” he said.

  He’d stashed his bag by the door. His pride was in there somewhere.

  Her house felt cramped despite its Spartan array of white, plastic furniture. Rolle eyed the living room’s carpet. The vacuum cleaner had been broken when he last visited. It still must’ve been.

  “I sold your bed in the yard sale last summer,” she said.

  He hoped he wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor.

  The air conditioner kicked on outside. At least the house had one convenience.

  “It’s OK,” she added. “We can move the futon into your old bedroom.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  “And try to lay off that Mr. Monosyllabic bullshit,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me all your secrets and dreams while you’re here, but please at least use some halfway intricate language when you speak to me.”

  “Sure,” he said, just to push her buttons.

  “Wiseass.” She smiled.

  His old room had the same eggshell white walls and popcorn ceiling, but she’d moved his things somewhere-the microscopes, the slides, the fun stuff. He tried not to ask what she’d done with it. It was her stuff now, not his.

  “I put all your things in storage.”

  He shrugged. “Money.”

  “Language, Rolle.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to spend what you don’t have chasing an old dream.”

  “Mine or yours?” she asked.

  “Yours,” he said. “You can pitch that stuff if it’ll save you paying for a storage unit. I’m not pre-med anymore.”

  “You still could be.”

  Here it comes, he thought. Her usual lecture about how the clinics needed him, how there should be more doctors who were Eyesores-although she wouldn’t use the word. Being a doctor wouldn’t be enough for her. She wanted him to be her kind of doctor, one who’d treat diseases instead of symptoms, who’d heal sick people without filling them full of chemicals to keep them from getting sick in the first place, who embraced illness and disability and death as natural parts of life.