Amerika

by Brauna E. Pouns

Devin grinned weakly as she rushed into his arms. “Hi, Ali.”

  The others rushed around him, helping him to stand. Will stood back, watching. Devin was not certain what kind of reception his father might have for him.

  “Hi, Dad . . .”

  Will looked at his son and smiled. “Welcome home, son.”

  He walked up to Devin and embraced him. The others stood close by watching this touching moment, one which had been so long awaited.

  “Let’s get you inside.” Will held on to Devin’s right arm. As they moved slowly, Devin noticed the shell of the burned house.

  “My God . . . the house.”

  “I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell you,” Alethea quipped. “Your old room isn’t quite ready.”

  Devin felt incredibly weak and dizzy as he leaned into his father for support. “We’ll take you down to the cellar. It’s better than you’d expect.” He smiled at Devin and gave him a quick hug around his shoulders. “We’ll be rebuildin’ soon.”

  The Milford meat-packing plant was a large two-story building, corrugated metal from top to bottom. The factory-window glass was webbed with wire, giving it the look of a state penitentiary. The walls were straight, the comers of the building sharp; it possessed an overall boxlike shape without character or architectural style. The loading docks were falling apart; it was almost impossible to think that they had ever been used. The place was like a deserted tree house, beaten, weathered, and uncared for.

  Inside the packing plant, the residue of its past could be seen in the empty and rusted hooks and the conveyer belts, long since split and broken.

  Several people sat around a circle listening to the tinny sound of a small transistor radio. Kimberly sat next to Jeffrey, who held the receiver. The group listened intently.

  It was a Natnet announcement of the bombing of the Capitol the day before and the murder of more than a hundred members of Congress. The official report announced that American Resisters were guilty of the attack.

  Everyone in the group was horrified, their faces twisted with despair.

  “Why, how could anybody do such a thing?” It was one of the camera crew that had been in the psychiatric ward earlier.

  “Like a wounded animal biting itself,” Ken said quietly. He was another member of the camera crew.

  “We’re going insane, all of us—Resisters, collaborators ...” said a woman from the group.

  “Sure gonna make people think twice,” Ken said, shaking his head.

  “Think twice?” Jeffrey shouted.

  “About supporting any kind of resistance,” Ken continued.

  “I think people might just line up behind this new Heartland deal pretty fast.”

  “Andrei used to say that American resistance was like the outlaw theater we did.” Kimberly spoke quietly. “Fun and just a little daring, but ultimately safe.”

  Jeffrey stood, his body rigid, his face angry. “I’m going to Milford. I don’t believe all this crap, I don’t believe it about me, about a lot of folks I know, and a lot I don’t know. And I don’t believe Devin Milford’ll want to roll it up.” He searched the faces of the group intently. “I don’t, that’s for sure,” he added dramatically.

  Kimberly stood beside Mm. “Can I come?”

  Jeffrey smiled and looked at Ken, who shrugged and stood.

  “Sure can. You and any of the rest of you who want to give it a longer ride.”

  Everyone in the group stood except for one man.

  “There ain’t nothin’ I can do in Milford I can’t do in Omaha,” he said, shaking his head.

  The group started to walk toward the front of the warehouse. Ken turned to the man and yelled, “Stay tuned.” His words reverberated off the tin walls for several seconds as Jeffrey and his cohorts hopped into their cars and sped away.

  Chapter 15

  Marion was glad to receive the morning telephone call from Andrei.

  “Andrei, I’ve been trying to reach Petya. I can’t get through.”

  Andrei hesitated a moment. “Yes. How are you, Marion?”

  “I hope you are not part of this conspiracy . .

  “What do you mean?”

  “Devin has escaped. And the experimental conditioning unit has been compromised. Somehow Amanda Bradford was taking a public relations tour or something—the whole thing was photographed by a crew.”

  “Well, simply censor it, I don’t see what harm is done,” Andrei said with studied nonchalance.

  Marion struggled to maintain control. “It’s an obvious attempt by Peter Bradford to damage me. Well, he’s going to find things are a little more difficult than that. I’ve called a general strike. And we’re moving to take control of as many facilities throughout the area as we can.”

  Andrei’s voice grew sterner. “You’re overreacting again.”

  “We’ll see. I demand that you allow me to be put through to Petya. I want the SSU forces throughout the area on alert—and prepared to support the party—and you know that Petya will do it. And don’t try something to prevent me.”

  “Marion,” Andrei said evenly. “Samanov is dead.” Marion sat back, stunned. Her face was ashen. “You’re lying.”

  “I wish I were,” he said hoarsely.

  The tone of Andrei’s voice told Marion that he was not lying. But the terrible fact of her lover’s loss was momentarily subsumed by her compulsion to solve the immediate, problem. “He can’t be dead.”

  “There will be an announcement later in the day. Not just about Petya. I’m sorry.” Andrei’s tone softened. “I know you . . . that there were strong feelings between you.”

  Marion nodded absently, as though he had just reminded her of that fact. “We loved each other,” she said quietly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And the SSU?” In an instant she was back to business, unable to let go of the immediate situation.

  “I will retain exclusive control of the units,” he announced. “I will need them—all of them in America. You’ll soon understand why.”

  Marion sat at her desk, listening to his words impassively.

  “Marion,” he continued. “Find a way to reconcile with Peter Bradford. Believe me, it is best for both of you.”

  She did not reply.

  “Marion, did you hear me? Find a way to reconcile with Bradford. You must believe me, it would be best for both of you.”

  She did not reply but stared straight ahead, as if she had already disconnected the phone in her mind.

  “Goodbye, Marion. You cannot win. You can only bring chaos.”

  She heard Andrei disconnect and slowly, numbly, hung up the phone.

  The small farm jeep bumped across the Milford land. Will drove as Devin held on; watching the familiar land filled his eyes with joy. He appeared weak, but more rested since the ambulance journey. Finally Will stopped the jeep abruptly and walked over to the trapdoor. Devin climbed out of his seat gingerly.

  “Got a visitor,” Will said, banging on the trapdoor. The door slid back; a musty, earthen smell escaped. “We’re goin’ crazy in there. Can we come out? Especially Clayton; he can’t take it at all—” Billy abruptly stopped talking. He saw Devin standing by the jeep and yelped. “Dad!”

  He pulled himself out of the ground and ran full-tilt to Devin. The force knocked him down and Billy was instantly concerned. “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry. Did I. . .?” Devin started laughing and grabbed the boy back to Mm in a huge bear hug. Meanwhile, Clayton had climbed out and walked over to the father and son.

  “What took you so long?” Clayton asked, grabbing Devin’s hand.

  Will walked over to the trio. “Let up on him. He’s a sick man.”

  Clayton looked at Devin. “Well, is it over?”

  Devin, still hanging on to Billy for dear life, looked up to him. “It’s just beginning.”

  Calyton helped Devin and Billy up and followed Will to the jeep. They headed back to the farmhouse, where three more carloads of townspeople had arrived. When t
hey saw the Milford men reunited, three generations of them, they let out a great cheer. Devin waved to them proudly, and then his father and his son helped him into the root cellar that was now their new home.

  Amanda thought she would never trust a hospital again. She wanted Peter to see Justin too, to see what the wonderful “new regime” had done to this proud, brave, beautiful boy. She feared that Peter was so entranced by the charming Andrei Denisov and by the speeches and ovations that he forgot the ugly realities behind the scenes.

  But was that fair? After all, Peter had sent her there, with General Sittman, to do precisely what she had done. And the Natnet crew had rushed off, vowing to get their film on the air if Peter would stand behind them. It was all too confusing. All she really knew as she sat in the back of the ambulance, holding the broken boy’s limp hand, was that she felt profoundly sad and alone. Even with Alan there, she felt agonizingly alone. She thought of a scrap of poetry, half remembered: “man’s inhumanity to man.” It just kept getting worse. She dated her awakening from the morning she’d seen the exile girl in her yard, digging in her garbage, but that was nothing compared to this, this psychiatric unit, this inhuman destruction of the human body and soul.

  What more could there be? Tanks in the streets? Nuclear war? Death for millions? She was so weary she wasn’t sure she cared. She only wanted to be home.

  Home was not the white-columned mansion on a bluff outside Omaha, built by a meat-packing czar who had fallen into disfavor, but her true home, in Milford, where she and her family had true friends, and real lives, before they put on the borrowed masks and costumes of politics. But she couldn’t return, not yet, and so that afternoon the ambulance, and its national guard escort, stopped on the graceful, graveled drive in front of her “official residence.” She gasped to see her daughter running out to greet her and leaped out to intercept the girl.

  “Jackie—wait a minute!”

  “Justin—-you found Justin. What’s the matter with him?”

  The ambulance drivers were coming around to open the back doors. Amanda realized suddenly that her daughter had been shielded from the world’s ugliness all her life, that the worst she had seen was the wounds in the movies, where heroes wore a bandage around one arm, or over one eye, and said jauntily, “Just a flesh wound.”

  She held Jackie close. “Darling, he’s . . . he’s very sick.”

  Jackie didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. She was impatient to see Justin after all this time, and she was surprised, and a little annoyed, when Alan Drummond leaped out of the ambulance.

  He stepped before her, blocking her way, and she strained to see over his shoulder as the attendants lifted a stretcher from the ambulance.

  “Jacqueline,” Alan said cautiously. “You’ve got to prepare yourself for a shock.”

  “What shock?” she whispered, for she was frightened now. What could be so terrible about Justin?

  She broke away and peered at the figure on the stretcher. Suddenly nothing made any sense: she did not know this gaunt, hollow-eyed old man.

  “It’s not Justin!” she said, turning to her mother and Alan, seeing their anguished faces. Then, slowly, she began to understand.

  She looked again at the unconscious figure; she followed alongside the stretcher as they carried him up the steps, and then she cried out, “No, no, no, I don’t believe it!” and ran into the house.

  “Take him to the guest room,” Amanda said to Alan. “Top of the stairs.” Then she raced after Jackie.

  Jackie crashed blindly through the house, until the back door blocked her flight. As she fumbled with the lock, blinded by tears, her mother seized her. Jackie was sobbing.

  “It’s not him,” Jackie cried.

  “Listen'to me. That is Justin. And he’s been brainwashed. We don’t know how bad it is or if he’ll ever recover. Dr. Drummond will stay here and treat him. And we must help.”

  “It’s not Justin,” the girl said, suddenly calm. “Justin’s dead.”

  Amanda was angry now. “He’s not dead. He’s hurt. He needs us. He needs you.”

  “What for?” Jackie said.

  Amanda was chilled by the coldness, the toughness of her daughter’s question. Would she, to protect her own feelings, turn her back on the boy she loved?

  “My God, Jacqueline. He’s all broken up. He needs our love . . . your love . . . something to make him whole, to make him come back.”

  “Come back?” Jackie asked numbly.

  “In his mind. From wherever they’ve sent him.”

  Jackie looked away, at the floor, at nothing. Amanda wondered if her daughter had reached her limit. Was she only capable of Hollywood love, make-believe love, and not of the pain and toughness and compassion that were the real thing?

  “Jackie, you’re going to help him. This is the most important thing that’s ever happened in your life; someday you’ll understand that. You’re going to love him no matter how much it hurts, no matter how bad he looks, no matter if it all seems lost and wasted. Because love is never wasted. No matter how hard it is, you’re going to do it. Because, if you don’t, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

  Jackie looked blankly at her mother for a moment, then nodded slowly.

  Peter knew that Natnet would announce the news of the Capitol bombing at noon. At twenty minutes before the hour he had his driver take him home. He gathered Amanda and the kids before the TV console in the formal living room of their borrowed mansion, and he beat down Scott’s protests that he didn’t care about the news, except sports. “You will watch this with us,” Peter ordered, and his children obeyed.

  Scott slouched before the TV, looking bored. Jackie sank on the sofa wearily; she had slept little, as she and her mother took turns nursing Justin. So far there had been no signs of improvement but Peter was glad to see Jackie’s concern and her commitment: she was giving Justin the sort of dedication she had once reserved for her dancing. He never thought he’d live to see the day, but Peter was proud of his daughter’s devotion to that boy.

  Amanda was apprehensive—should he have told her earlier?—as the grim face of the Natnet anchorman filled the screen.

  . . terrorist bombing of the U.S. Capitol... a suicide attack . . . charges strapped to their bodies . . . more than a hundred dead . . . Fourth of July Brigade . .

  “Jeez, a suicide attack,” Scott muttered. “They must have been crazy.”

  Soon Peter switched off the news: there really wasn’t much to report, beyond those initial, scanty “facts.” “It’s a terrible thing for our country,” he said.

  “You knew,” Amanda said reproachfully.

  He nodded. “Andrei told me part of it last night.” “You could have told us then,” she protested. “Instead of leaving it to television.”

  “God, Am, what’s the point?” he demanded.

  She was angry, and tried to fight back her tears. “Look at our children, Peter. They don’t even understand what they’ve lost.”

  “Hey, Mom, I understand,” Scott protested. “But I guess I don’t see the big deal. I mean, it’s too bad a bunch of creeps blew it up and all, and I’m sorry somebody was killed, but we’re not a part of that anymore, are we?”

  “It was part of our heritage, son,” Peter said. “It’ll always be a part of us.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know why Mom’s always getting on my case lately,” Scott said heavily.

  Amanda stood. “I—Peter, it’s too much for me. I want to go home. Be in my own house. I want to walk down a street and know where to watch out because the elm roots are pushing up the sidewalk. I need to do that for a while. Maybe I can never be what you want—I could be your wife, but I’m not sure I can be your first lady. I’m sorry.” She was quiet for a moment, staring at the husband she loved very much. “Can you have someone drive me?” she asked. “I think I’ll take Justin back to his folks. Alan says the more he’s around people who love him ...” She was suddenly aware that everyone had been watching her
talk nonstop. She caught herself and shrugged. “Anybody can come. Scotty, Jac, Peter?”

  Peter leaned against the doorway, shaking his head in wonder. Andrei was unreachable, Marion had her stormtroopers in the streets, his new “nation” was on the brink of anarchy, and now his wife was leaving him. He shrugged his shoulders a little.

  “Maybe it’s a good idea,” he said. “For a while. This Capitol business is going to create some trouble; maybe Milford’s the safest place right now.”

  She moved to where he stood. “You’ll come?”

  “You know I can’t, Am. But I’ll come and get you as soon as this has settled down a little.”

  “That won’t be too late?”

  He smiled sadly. “It’s never too late. You know that. That’s what we’ve always said.”

  Jackie stood. “I’ll go with you, Mom.”

  Amanda was a little surprised. “Your dancing?”

  “It can wait awhile.” Jackie smiled.

  “I think I’ll hang around here,” Scott said, avoiding his mother’s look, staring down at his size-12 basketball shoes.

  “Sure, honey. Whatever you want.”

  Peter walked over to Scott. “He’ll be fine. We’ll batch it.”

  Amanda threw her hands open in a small gesture of uncertainty. Now that she had done it, she wasn’t sure she should have. And yet, someone had to decide where their home was, and did it matter?

  “Well,” she sighed. “We’d better get packed.”

  “The house is pretty empty, isn’t it?”

  “Not entirely,” she said. “We stored a lot of things in the basement. We’ll camp out, so to speak.”

  She smiled at her husband and walked out of the room quickly, before she could change her mind.

  Jackie looked at her brother, not quite sure of how to deal with her emotions toward him. Peter watched them a moment, then threw his arms open. Jackie ran into them.

  “Daddy, you’ll be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You could come, you know. Mom really wants you to.”

  Peter closed his eyes, taking in the scent of his daughter.

  “I know, baby. I know.”

  General Sittman and three truckloads of well-armed troops from the Heartland Defense Force pulled up to Peter’s home. As they sped away with her husband, Amanda idly wondered if they would ever give him back. Oddly, her speculation was more out of curiosity than concern.