The War Game

by Black, Crystal

  I didn’t really get Sue’s deal. She didn’t really know how to apply makeup, her long hair could have been combed but it never was. She wore just a skirt but other than that, she didn’t try that hard.

  Then I started to feel bad because everything that could be said about Sue, could be easily said about me too. I think I might have just described myself.

  My moms never bothered to wear dresses and kept their hair shoulder length or shorter. My memories were rather choppy. Sometimes I didn’t know if I could tell the difference between remembering something and making something up. Or know how much had been lost. I think I could remember more dreams than memories of my mothers.

  Dreams tended to either reinvent the truth or reveal the truth. Sometimes they did neither.

  Sometimes I might see or experience something really, really insignificant. For example, Ricky made a paper mask out of a page from an old newspaper. I didn’t think much of it but yet my mind stored it in my brain. I dreamed about the soldiers gassing us. They locked us into a room and looked through the window on the door. The soldiers were wearing gas masks but they were made out of paper.

  ~~~

  A small plane dropped some clothes today. It landed on the roof of the building and some people volunteered to go climb and get it. It took them awhile and when they returned they were wearing brand-new outfits. Well, brand “new” old outfits.

  The clothes came from the Underground, I assume. It sure as hell wasn’t dropped by the soldiers. It was nice to have clean clothes and I know I shouldn’t complain. For every nice, hooded sweater or a clean shirt without some company’s promotional lame catchphrase on it, there’s ten thousand pairs of tapered pants, blouses in the colors of sea-sickness green, orange cat vomit, and mustard, and shirts that had noticeably yellow sweat stains in the pits.

  I occasionally rifled through the bags of clothes but rarely did I find anything nice. It was hard to find stuff in my size, let alone something a teenager would like. But since there's only one teenager for every hundred adults, I never let my hopes get even marginally high.

  As soon as I let my hope float away of ever finding a treasure such as a band T-shirt of a band that I had actually heard of or didn’t suck on the pirate stations, I came across “the” dress.

  Now, for some girls, “the” dress was a little black one you’d wear while sipping on a cocktail and smoking on a cigarette. Or “the” dress might be a red one that you’d wear to the ten-year high school reunion. Miriam told me that a high school reunion is where you went to see all your old classmates. You stayed for about ten minutes, just long enough to show all those jerks that made fun of you of what they could have had. Then you took all the food, stuffed it into your purse, and left.

  Searching through the endless pairs of ripped-up jeans, I thought I would have to eventually settle for “a” dress.

  At last, I came across “the” dress. It was hiding under a horrible dress that looked like it was designed with peace and free love in mind. It was backless. The straps tied around my neck and had place holders (that’s the only way I can describe the pockets that some dresses have made specifically for boobs) for my lack of rack. But luckily, this was a prom dress.

  Miriam also told me that a prom was the one night out of the year where guys dressed up nice, pinned a flower on you, took you dancing, and then they got laid at the end. So she said. She said it was a school-sponsored event but I didn’t know if I believed her this time.

  Oh, and “the” dress was pink. Normally, I would not be seen wearing a pink dress anyway but it was a raspberry pink with black lace.

  Now I just needed an occasion or excuse to actually justify wearing this. Dining in at the slop tables, better known as the pig troughs? A stroll through the barbed wire enclave?

  ~~~

  Between the four of them, they could have painted an entire cast of clowns for a circus. There were lipsticks in reds, pinks, purples, and nudes. Eye shadows in gold, brown, purples, pastel pinks, and blue (which was nearly empty with only a few uses left). There were two old wands of mascara, a black eyeliner, two blushes, a short powder brush (Sheila called it a kabuki), and lip gloss that came in a plastic palette in the shape of a hand bag. There were almost a dozen different nail polishes, including black.

  “What color did you want your nails?”

  “Black,” I said without hesitating.

  “Baby, black ain’t your color.” Dana stood with her hands on her hips.

  “I would have to agree with Dana. I think a more neutral pink would best suit your skin tones. I could totally envision you in this,” Miriam picked up the pink blush and handed it to me. The plastic cover fell off as I opened it. I snapped it back together and handed it back.

  “Exactly. That’s too safe. I need something unexpected.”

  “Then why didn’t you just say so in the first place!” Dana started flying around the room, excited at the prospect of dressing up a real live doll. That doll being me.

  Black nail polish. Red ruby lips. Smokey eyeshadow. A little peach blush. When Miriam took over, she insisted on drawing a fake mole with a brown eye-liner. A “beauty mark” as she called it, but I desisted each of her attempts. It looked stupid. And I didn’t care for the fact that many movie stars can’t be seen without one.

  “Danny boy, what do you think?” Miriam called.

  Dana is adorable from a distance but now she was just getting on my nerves. Everything and everyone was so “darling” and she was always doing just “fabulous.” She’d been bugging me to do something with my hair. I’d given up on my hair. There was a bird’s nest in the back of it that only intimidated brushes.

  I needed to find someone with a scissors, I started to tell her. Before I could explain why I had the need to get the bird’s nest out so it could be brushed, Dana started jumping up and down, exclaiming in her faux British accent, “What fun! A new haircut! I get to be your own personal hairdresser!”

  Great. How did I find myself walking into these situations and how did I walk backwards out of them?

  I started making a lot of requests to insure my sanity. Just two inches from the bottom! No bangs! She just shooed me off with, “Don’t worry, Darling. You’re going to look darling!”

  I’d gotta get that kid a thesaurus.

  Dana was rifling through everybody’s clothes, trying to find something suitable for me to wear. “Aww, now, that’s just gorgeous. If I had a camera, I’d take a thousand pictures of that face! And honey, you are going to melt hearts tonight.”

  “Don’t worry, girl. You look so pretty! Any man would be lucky to shag it up with you!” Miriam said from behind the makeshift curtain stall door.

  Umm, thank you? Same back at you? I wanted to say. I tried to smile in return.

  Dana’s hair was getting longer, I could see some wisps curling up under the brim of her hat.

  “Don’t mention it, darling. Just be sure to spill all the details when you come back later tonight. Now I’ve gotta run to the market and see if I can find me anything that will remove nail polish before it gets too dark. Don’t do anything I would do! Ta da, love!”

  And what would that be? I wondered.

  ~~~

  I hung out in the courtyard after hours. Most people tend to turn in at sundown (long before the soldiers “tuck us in”), no matter what time sundown happens to be. There was enough moonlight so I took a stick and practiced drawing good luck symbols in the dirt. Me in my dress, playing around in the dirt.

  “What are you doing out here?” demanded a voice from the dark.

  I turned around but I didn’t need to. I’d know that voice from anywhere. It was John.

  “None of your business.” Who was he to try and tell me where I can and can’t go? Let a soldier do that, we can’t do all the work for them.

  He eyed me up and down freely. I felt suddenly uncomfortable in my dress and with my face caked with makeup. “It would be a wise decision if you went back inside.”

/>   “I can do whatever I want, I don’t need your permission.”

  “Get back inside,” he said through his teeth.

  “No,” then I leaned against the wall as if I intended to stay.

  Then his shoulders dropped and he seemed to relax. “Pearl.”

  I waited a moment, “What?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “You’re so naive.” He started to turn around, like he was talking to an irrational child about wearing a cape to the doctor’s office.

  “Fuck you!” I screamed. I lost my cool, not as if the tension wasn’t already soaring from the beginning.

  He mumbled something nearly intelligible, like a cursed grumble. It sounded like he said, “Yeah, I wish you would.”

  I walked back to the beds. I left him standing there. I’m glad I got to be the one to leave this time.

  It felt like the air dropped at least ten degrees since I came out here.

  ~~~

  Something had changed. Felt it in the atmosphere before I stepped into the sleeping area. Had someone gone missing? I counted the people I knew, everyone was here. Dana, Miriam, Sue, Sheila, Luann, and Ricky. John was somewhere. Who cared where Laura was.

  Miriam looked on the verge of either breaking or erupting. She paced around a little bit, alternating between eyes becoming wet and worrying and then turning red and tightening with rage. Dana was face down on the bed, covers and all. Sheila was reciting some poem or prayer in Spanish. Sue even looked sympathetic to whatever was going on. She sat on the bed with her hands folded in her lap. Waiting to be called on for whatever might be needing to get done, I suppose.

  Then I settled in for the night next to Ricky. I moved his arm over to his side of the bed. I let it go and it flopped like a limp rag doll. He was sound asleep and just as oblivious as I was to whatever went down while I was gone.

  I knew now would not be the time to ask.

  The Ladies were much too quiet. I hoped that someone could tell me what happened in the morning, although I really wanted to know right now. Maybe Luann would know. I’d ask her in the morning.

  ~~~

  I was awoken to a loud megaphone of a soldier spitting out directions. Everyone was slowly spilling out into the courtyard. I was just about to pull Luann aside but John got to me first.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “About what?” I inquired. The heart can continue to beat even when separated from my body. Another useless fact that would do me no good. The heart could still live on a little, even if my head were to be sliced from my neck.

  “Hey,” he said. He sat down beside me, pulled his hair through a thin elastic loop (Sheila has about a hundred of these things), and put his hands on his knees.

  He stopped and started a couple of times. Then he took my hand.

  “I just don’t want to be part of something that you might later regret.”

  “Regret what?” I didn’t know if I needed to be mad.

  “Regret this. Me. What could happen between us.”

  “But I won’t regret it.”

  “We could be bombed at any time. We could be packed up like sardines and shipped off to separate camps. I could die.”

  That didn’t seem possible to me. I didn’t want to say that so I lied, “I know. We all could.”

  “Don’t take it as if I don’t want to be with you or anything like that, because I do. I know you may not believe me, but I do care for you. That’s why it’s better if there’s a distance between us.”

  “No, I don’t. You don’t know what I’ve been through.” Right after that, I regretted saying those words. I knew he probably had been through more than I would in three lifetimes. But he didn’t come back with that.

  The words “I’m” and “sorry” have never left my lips in that order in a quick procession. And they wouldn’t tonight, but they were caught in my throat.

  “Do you still like me?”

  “I have not granted you permission to ask questions.”

  I was pissed he was avoiding my question. Now that he’d decided to talk to me and acknowledge my existence, he still had to make a game out of everything.

  Fed up with his word play, my voice was a little shaky when I said, “You know what? I don’t even care anymore.” I walked away.

  I could feel the tears swelling and sitting on the edge of my lower eyelid. They were ready to plummet. I kept walking and he kept staying. Didn’t men know they were supposed to fix things? If he liked me, he would try harder to be with me.

  “Wait!” he yelled, interrupting my pity party of one. He started walking and I stopped. I was frightened now, trying hard to control the shaking.

  Of course, I wanted him to run back after me. Of course, I wanted him most of all to be on his knees and begging. Of course, I wanted him to forget that Laura even existed.

  Now that I had what I wanted, what the hell did I do next?

  Time seemed to be frozen or, at least, have considerably slowed down. He took my face in his hands, like a scene out of an exotic romance novel, and kissed me.

  Well, probably the tamest scene out of an exotic romance novel.

  ~~~

  Laura was gone the next day. I was wandering around the slop tables to see if the soldier that she had been getting friendly with would be here today.

  But he wasn’t. The trucks came early but they didn’t bring any food. They brought extra buses along with them. They made everyone stand in long lines and the soldiers picked people out.

  I try to guess why they chose the people that they did. They picked me and John. They also picked Miriam, Sheila, Luann, and Ricky. Sue and Dana were left standing in line, as well as tree girl.

  I think they picked out the better-looking people, to be honest. Not just healthy-looking, but also more attractive.

  John and I stood a foot away from each other, trying to think of something to say. Something important. He took my hand instead.

  He took off my bracelet.

  “What’s this silly thing?” he asked, examining the symbol on the charm.

  “It means good luck.”

  “You don’t need objects to bring you luck. You make your own luck.”

  He slides it back on my hand, slowly up my wrist.

  “She broke your heart, didn’t she,” I asked. People used to believe, in a different time, that hearts could move around the body whenever they pleased. Wished mine could. I’d hide it behind my kidney or something so no one could stab it.

  “No, she wasn’t the one I gave it to.” He looked at me, trying to read my thoughts.

  “Do you like me?”

  “Let’s just say that it wouldn’t be a misconception to say that I do.”

  He kisses me. I kiss him back. Again and again and again. I don’t know whether time is standing still or if it’s warping right past us. Either way, I didn’t care.

  He leaned to kiss me again but instead his lips touched my ear. “We’ll get to Canada, no matter what. Like I said before, people risk their lives for pearls.”

  The soldier broke us up and directed us onto our buses. John was on the bus next to me. I took a seat in the middle of the bus, and opened the window. I only managed to push it halfway down before it got stuck. He took a seat so we could see each other.

  I waved, he gave me the peace sign. It was just a few minutes until both engines got started. Soldiers did a head count and the buses started down the road.

  Our buses rode along side each other. John tried to tell me something but I couldn’t hear all of what he said.

  I shouted as loud as my lungs could carry me, “Tell me later, okay!”

  He mouthed, “Okay.”

  The buses pulled near an intersection. I thought hopefully that maybe the buses would eventually stop at a red light so John and I could continue talking. The light ahead was red, I said a little quick prayer that it would stay that way. “The light better not goddamn change.
Preferably for a while, at the very least.” And then I realized my prayer was probably canceled out with taking the Lord’s name in vain. But maybe He would understand.

  John was looking straight at the light too, concentrating on it. Probably thinking the same thing as me.

  As the buses started to slow down, that damn light changed to green. I cursed it in my head.

  My bus began to accelerate towards the green light, John’s bus was staying the same, slow speed.

  Damn it, I thought. With all these buses, his bus probably won’t be able to catch up.

  Then John’s bus turned right.

  I screamed in my head. John had his head out the window, screaming something out loud. I could only watch. I felt frozen.

  He was going to a different place.

  And I said it out loud for real for this time.

  God damn it.

  People turned their greasy heads around to stare at me but I didn’t care. God can damn them, too.

  “Heading south on 77. Looks like they could be headed in Camp Z’s direction. Splitting the deck.”

  I turned around. Behind me was a fat, burly man looking aimlessly out the window, oblivious to my trauma. Next to him was a slim guy wearing the biggest pair of eyeglasses I had ever seen. With his pointed nose and long, thin hair, he looked like a greasy mosquito.

  “What exactly is Camp Z? Do they really hunt people?”

  “Yes, they hunt people as if they were animals. In fact, Camp Z is an abandoned zoo. I knew a guy who somehow transferred from out of there. Or maybe he escaped, he didn’t quite say. Men with hunting rifles drive around the park and shoot people. An electrical engineer in the lynx’s lair. 10 points. A fitness trainer in the lions’ den. 15 points.

  “How do they choose who goes?”

  “Sometimes they send people who have committed a crime. And leave them there to die. The guy who I knew killed a soldier with nothing but a pen. But the way that they choose people to go to Camp Z is mostly random. Just like the cards.”