by Chad Leito
“It sure is,” I said. Tall grass was standing as far as I could see. I had never seen grass before. I knelt down and felt it. It was tougher then I had expected and I compared the feeling of it to a soft plastic. Saul put some of it in his mouth. I watched him curiously and then he made a disgusted face, spat it out and began to scrape the stuff off of his tongue.
“It doesn’t taste good,” he said.
“Why did you try it?”
“I don’t know. I was curious.”
All around me, the Grecos who had just gotten off of the ship were running around like school children let out for recess, examining their new world. Grown men were on their hands and knees, digging into the earth. People were standing around, gazing up at the sky—the clouds were at an incredible height compared to the ceiling of the ship. Women and men were rolling around in the grass. Children were yelling as they trotted over the ground of their new home. “I wish that our parents could have seen this,” I told Saul.
The grass came up to my knees and I bent down to pet it. I then saw a green stem sticking out of the ground with a white ball on top. I had seen one of these in movies. A dandelion. I walked over and picked up the plant. “Saul, watch this!” I blew and the white seeds on top detached and the fuzz floated out into the blue sky. Saul laughed with joy and picked one up to do the same.
A deep voice filled the air, “Saul Higgins, Walter Higgins, Marcy Anderson, Verne Foster, Mike Nelson, and Nancy Nelson—come over here and line up.”
The source of the voice was a tall man wearing a cowboy hat, a checkered long sleeve shirt and blue jeans that covered the top of brown leather boots. Beside him stood another man in the same attire. Saul and I walked over to where he had called us. The closer I got to the cowboy, the odder he and his friend looked to me. They were both tall and lean, with strong, veiny necks, and were both completely bald. The skin on their scalp, above their eyes, and faces where their beards should have been was completely smooth. They were pale and their lips were almost nonexistent. Their noses were small as if part of them had been cut off. They had great strong canine teeth. They had told us in school that the people on the other ships were exposed to different gene pools, and could therefore look different. The idea hadn’t been real to me until I saw it in person.
A Greco man came up beside us. “Hello, Mr. Nelson,” Saul said whenever we made it over to the group. Mike Nelson was Miss Mary’s son and he had been called to the same group that we had.
“Hey Saul. Walt.” He shook hands with both of us then asked, “Have you met my wife, Nancy?”
“No,” I said. She shook hands with both of us and we exchanged ‘nice to meet you’ s.
The two bald men in cowboy hats walked over to our group. The taller one began to talk to us, “my name is Di, and this fellow over here is Hank.” Hank waved at us and then Di went through a list that he was holding to make sure that everyone that he had called had found his or her way over to him. I noticed that both Di and Hank had bows and arrows strapped across their backs and whips and swords resting on their hips. Di sucked all of the spit in his mouth to the center and then spat darkly onto the ground. I had seen people dip tobacco in movies but never in real life before. “Hank and I will be your guards for the remainder of your stay here at Mungus. You will be working for my boss, Glen Taylor. Now put out your hands so that Hank can get the cuffs on.”
Hank pulled a long chain with handcuffs off of a trailer behind a spotted white and brown horse. The horse’s ears flicked and it shook its head, rattling the reigns.
Hank came over to the group and Mike Nelson shook his head and stepped forward. “I’ve got an issue with this, guys.” He smiled and tried to be nice to the guards and they just sneered back at him. “There’s been some kind of confusion. We’re not supposed to be working for the remainder of our lives, just for the next seven years. And we’re workers, not slaves or criminals. I will not put those handcuffs on.”
“Really?” Di asked, and walked up so that his cowboy hat was shading Mr. Nelson’s head. He was so close that if they had extended their lips, they could have kissed. “You won’t put those handcuffs on like I told you to?”
“Really.”
Di moved quickly. He spat in the man’s eyes, brought a knee up into his groin and then brought his boot heal down on Mike’s foot. Mike let out a yelp and fell to his knees. Hank grabbed his hands and secured them in the cuffs. I looked around to see if anyone had seen the injustice that had just occurred and found Captain Geoffrey Chalmers standing out in the breeze, the grass dancing below his knees. His carefully styled black hair reflected the sunlight. He was wearing sunglasses and smiling in my direction. He gave a wave at me to let me know that he had seen and didn’t care.
The rest of us complied and put out our hands. Hank came over and secured the cuffs onto my wrists. “Hey Di,” Hank called over.
“Yeah?”
“Doesn’t this one look like a Salyer with a wig on?” Hank grabbed me by the collar. He smelled like horses.
Di laughed and said, “Yeah, he does.”
Hank told me that my new name would be “little Salyer.” I looked up at Hank’s hairless and lean figure and could not see how I looked anything like him. The cuffs locked around my hands and Hank moved over to cuff Saul. The metal was warm and I let my hands hang by my side. The weight of the metal chain and cuffs pulled down from my shoulders. I hadn’t known that handcuffs were this heavy.
When we were all secured, Di got onto a tall black horse and began to walk along the grass and away from the ship. Mike Nelson was in the front of our chain gang line and when Di hollered for him to follow, he obediently limped along. Once we were walking, Hank and his spotted brown horse began to follow us. Behind the horse was a trailer with all of our possessions in it. Our chains clanked at our waists with every step that we took. We were moving further away from our ship and further away from my home.
4
The Theatre
Only a few days ago I had been excited to be on Mungus. Only a few hours ago I thought they were good people. Only a few minutes ago I still held out hope that I wasn’t a prisoner.
These were my thoughts as I walked under the hot sun. The handcuffs pulled at my wrists as I trudged along in the chain gang. I followed Saul, who followed Verne (he had already fallen down twice), who followed Nancy Nelson, who followed Mike Nelson who followed Di on his horse. I watched as Di’s brown boots flipped up and down against the horse’s ribs with each step of its hooves.
Up ahead, the tall green grass turned short and well groomed. Buildings and carriages rose up in the distance. It looked like the kind of small town that I had seen in Western movies. I wondered if this was where Glen Taylor, my new boss, lived. We walked on and my shoulders became tired with the weight of the cuffs. The chain made a drastic dip from Saul’s hands to mine and it swung back and forth with each step that we took. Hank called up from behind us, “Di, are we going through town?”
“Yep,” Di called back and then he spat tobacco juice to the side.
We took a few more steps and then Hank called up, “Why’s that?”
Di’s horse stopped and he looked back at Hank from under his cowboy hat. “Don’t you listen to anything?”
“I do, Di.”
“Apparently not, because I’ve already told you that Mr. Taylor wanted us to get him a newspaper! Listen when people talk!” Di’s horse turned back around and again began to trot towards town. His boots flipped up and down and soon we made it onto a dirt road labeled “Main Street.” Di spat and his saliva hit the ground just short of the wooden sign.
The town was alive with people and animals bustling around. Most of the people had the same hairless bodies and thin frames as the two guards who were leading us. I gathered that these were the Salyers—the passengers of the first ship to arrive on Mungus and the founders of Ramus. They rode horses and walked on bare feet. Children played ball and drew in the dirt with sticks. It was almost impossible to
tell the bald Salyer boys and girls apart except for the clothes that they wore. The little girls wore dresses in pastel colors that ran down below their knees and the boys wore pants and suspenders with old button up shirts underneath. Most Salyers wore hats to keep the sun off of their hairless heads. There were straw hats and cowboy hats. I saw Saul looking enviously at a blue baseball hat that a little boy was wearing—it almost looked like the ones that the Yankees wore. Clay buildings rose up on either side of us as we walked down the dirt road of Main Street. There were vendors on the sidewalks standing behind wooden counters and selling fruit, water, bread, and toys. Signs rested atop most of the buildings to indicate what they were. “Barber Shop.” “Saloon.” “Tom’s Grocery and Drug.” I looked and saw that in the glass window of Tom’s Grocery and Drug there was a ‘Wanted’ poster. They were looking for a man who had committed a triple murder and at the bottom of the page, below the man’s picture, in red letters was the word, “REWARD.”
Di stopped at Tom’s Grocery and Drug, tied up his horse and went inside. Hank waited with the prisoners and we all stood in the street, handcuffed to one another. People stared at us as if we were criminals. I saw a woman staring through the blinds of an Ice Cream Parlor at us. Little girls were sitting on a wooden bench outside of a flower shop and eating cups of ice cream and giggling as they stared. When Di came out he was holding a rolled newspaper. He swung onto his horse and we were about to walk off whenever another Salyer in a cowboy hat approached on a brown horse.
“Howdy, Di.”
“Hey, Claude.”
Claude pulled his horse closer and they both shook dusty hands. Claude looked over at us and said to Di, loud enough for us to hear, “this is an ugly bunch you’ve got here. A bunch of runts if you ask me.” He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and tossed it in the middle of the road.
“Grecos are nasty little creatures, aren’t they?” Di spat tobacco juice onto the dirt and wiped the excess saliva off with his shirtsleeve.
“Can’t fight worth a darn, either,” Claude said, nodding his pale head.
“How do you know?” Di asked.
“They had four or five of ‘em in the Theatre last month!”
Di shook his head and smiled. “Oh, c’mon! You’re lyin’, Claude.”
“It’s true,” Claude pressed. “And they’re supposed to have a whole lot of ‘em there today,” he pulled out a rusty conductor’s watch from a leather pouch tied to his horse’s saddle. He opened it up and squinted at the numbers, “in about 20 minutes, in fact. Are you going?”
“I wish that I could, but I’ve got to watch these guys,” said Di, motioning behind him.
“Why don’t you just bring ‘em in?”
“I can do that?” Di spat in between the two horses.
“Sure you can. It’s free. And I think that it would be something good for them to see. It’ll let them know a little bit about our culture. I’ve got to be goin’, but I’ll see you later.”
Di said goodbye and Claude clunked off on his horse. “Hank, come up here,” Di ordered. He pointed to a spot beside him and Hank trotted up on his horse.
“Do you want to go to the Theatre today?” Di asked.
“Sure I do,” said Hank. “But don’t we got to be back at a certain time?”
Di spat onto the dirt, hitting the same spot that he had last time. “That’s what I’m thinking. So I reason that it would be okay if we go, but we’re gonna have to walk late into the night tonight. We’ve got those oil lamps so it should be fine. Sound good?”
Hank nodded his head. “Yeah, Di. Sure.”
Di put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. He called us, his chain gang, over by saying, “come here, dogs.”
Mike Nelson led us over to the side of Di’s horse.
Di spat in the dirt at Mike’s feet, looked into the sun, and then looked at us. “How would you guys like to see some live entertainment?”
We didn’t know what to say; we didn’t know if it was a joke or not, so we remained quiet.
“Well, answer,” said Di.
“I’d like to go,” said Saul. “What kind?”
Di laughed and gave a sideways glance to Hank, “You’ll see.” Di turned to us with a smirk on his face and said, “here’s the deal. There’s a show today. It’s a free show for all of Ramus. Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to take you to that show, okay? But it would be best if the boss man, Mr. Taylor, never knew that I took you to it, okay? So you guys won’t ever mention it. Do we have a deal?”
The chain gang gave out a halfhearted agreement.
“Or I can just kill you right here,” Di laughed and spat. His face turned serious. “If you tell, I’ll kill you, understood?” He took out a knife from his hip and flashed it in the sunlight.
This time all of the prisoners let out a, “yes,” in unison.
“Good. It’s good to hear that you guys aren’t too stupid to understand some simple directions.” He spat and then turned on his horse and headed forward on Main Street. “Follow me,” he called behind him.
We walked beneath the hot sun, following our new leader to something called the “Theatre.” I had a sick feeling in my stomach and wanted to go home.
I could see the Theatre from half a mile away. The structure stood tall above the others, spanning high into the sky. It was made of white rock, distinct against the blue sky and city of clay buildings. The building was a giant circle that only seemed to grow bigger as we got closer. It was surrounded by big, open stone doorways that Salyers of all ages were pouring into. Clowns were standing outside of the entryways making balloons and vendors were selling cotton candy and popcorn. Whenever we got closer, I saw that there was a field of green grass beside the Theatre with hundreds of horses tied up on wooden poles that protruded from the ground. Di and Hank gave a man some coins so that they could park their horses on two of the poles.
Di walked in front of us and Hank walked behind us, just as they had ridden. As we got closer, I heard the cheering of a large crowd and agonized screaming. I shook my head to make the hallucination stop, ‘surely no one is screaming.’ But the sound never went away. Di strutted ahead of us under his cowboy hat and with each footprint that his boot left and with each swing of the chains I became more and more certain that I was hearing shrieking coming from the giant structure.
We passed by the popcorn and cotton candy vendors and entered under one of the stone arches. It was much cooler under the shadows. Di spat on the stone floor. Salyers of all sizes and ages were working their way through the crowded halls. The ceilings of the building were high and the air was filled with the scent of sawdust. Di led his prisoners through the crowd of people down a big hallway, then up a wooden, spiral staircase. The sound of people screaming was unmistakable now. “Help me! Please, God!” Our chains rattled as we walked up the stairs and a hollow sound came after each step of Di’s boots. When the staircase ended, we came out into the open air and I saw a circle of stone bleachers facing into an oval arena. The arena appeared to be the size of a football field and circled around the edge of it, just off of the sand, were hundreds of locked jail cells with prisoners inside. Some screamed to be let out, some stared at the crowd through the bars, and some lay down on the floor. All of the prisoners had hair. I looked up at our bald guards and then at all of the hairless men and women in the audience. The Salyers seemed to be running the show.
We found our seats up high in the stadium and I sat with my handcuffs on top of my lap and my chains drooping off to both sides. I looked around and noticed another race of people. They were short, stocky, and most of them had beards and hairy arms. I determined that these people must be the Beardsleys.
Di and Hank sat on either side of the chain gang. There was no shade except for when a stray cloud would drift in front of the sun. “What do you think this is?” Saul asked. He was smiling and hadn’t picked up on the clues that I had. “Do you think that it’s a play?”
A prisoner reache
d out of his cell and screamed, “God will judge you for this!”
Saul heard this and laughed. “They sure are getting into it.”
I looked up at Saul and shook my head. “I don’t know, Saul.”
“What’s wrong?” Saul asked. He tilted his head and didn’t understand why I was sad when I was about to see a show.
“I just don’t think that I’m going to like this play.”
The Theatre’s seats were nearly full on each level when a clown walked out onto the sand. Applause erupted around the stadium and thousands of citizens of Ramus clapped as he made his way to the center. The clown was tall, I could see even at a distance. His pronounced cheekbones, small lips and nose indicated that he was a Salyer. His shoulders were wide and thick under his red, blue and yellow jumpsuit. The outfit stopped at his shoulders in frilly bunches of color and thick veiny arms hung on either side of his body. His face was painted a sick white—not the white of a cloud or of a dove, but the kind of white that can be found on a fish’s belly. It was the color that a man turns when he is drained of all of his blood. The clown had about thirty thin strands of black hair hanging off of his scalp and falling all about his head. His lips and nose were painted a crimson red that speckled onto his cheeks as if he had just got done eating straight from a carcass. His eyes were deep purples and swollen blacks. His irises were a washed out blue that made him look blind.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome! Good morning to all!” the clown said. His voice echoed through speakers around the Theatre. The crowd hushed. “As many of you know, my name is Georgie the Clown.”
The crowd again erupted in applause and whistles as Georgie turned and took animated bows towards each section. The clown was flexible and with his knees locked he bowed so low that his black hair touched the sand. “Thank you!” Georgie licked his lips all the way around his mouth. “We have a great show at the Theatre today. You know, one of the things that I think we need to do here is to lighten up. We need to laugh more.” Georgie’s eyes opened wide and he fell into hysterical cackles. Scattered people in the crowd laughed along. The clown was scaring Saul, so he buried his eyes in his hands. Georgie wiped his eyes and after laughing a little more he said, “So, without further adieu, I present to you, a little game of cat and mouse…or something like it.” Georgie opened his hands up to indicate the prison cells underneath me that I couldn’t see and then scooted to the side of the arena.