Sherwood Nation

by Parzybok, Benjamin;

  “Roger . . . come on,” the mayor said, “this isn’t city politics. This is a secession in the city. This is a criminal warlord who has taken one-third control.” It was absolutely impossible for the mayor to get a read on the commander’s mental acuity.

  “I see it as city politics!”

  “Roger, for fucking . . . excuse me, sorry. So you talked, you talked to her?”

  The commander might have said something that was the equivalent of assent. Er, or arj, or eur, the mayor was unsure.

  “Can we at least have a meeting to discuss this? Partners in the stewardship of this city and all? Or let me rephrase: this is my city, and the Guard works under my direction.”

  “I’m not really sure I see the point of it. My responsibilities, as I said, of course are to the city, but primarily to carry out the US Humanitarian Aid Act. We distribute water to civilians within the borders of the US. I intend to be very literal in these obligations.”

  “Ah ha!” the mayor said. “But they call themselves an enclave, they are not Americans!”

  “To me, they are within our borders. What they call themselves is irrelevant. It’s your job, if you don’t mind my saying, to resolve the city’s conflicts. Mine is to ensure that there is access to basic humanitarian aid!”

  The mayor tried like hell not to bring up the situation in San Francisco, which weighed on him daily. “So you recognize their statehood, is what you’re saying?”

  “I do not recognize anyone’s statehood!”

  “—gah.”

  “Let me qualify that. It is not my business to recognize anyone’s statehood but the government of the United States of America!”

  “Whose side are you on, Roger? If you don’t mind my asking.” The mayor realized he really preferred not to have an answer to that question.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Brandon, but I don’t take sides. This is not San Francisco. I’m here to do one job and one job only!”

  “I wish we could establish some means of regular communication between us, beyond what we have? Twice-weekly meetings, say? I take my own stewardship quite seriously, and the performance of my job would be significantly enhanced were we to communicate and agree on our actions.”

  “As I said here, Brandon, this issue is really not my concern. Now, if you have any further questions?”

  The mayor did not. He told the guard commander he appreciated his time, and there was an acidity to the remark that would have caused him and Christopher to fight for hours, but the commander did not seem to be keyed into subtleties of human language.

  “Well, it’s nice talking to you too, Brandon!” Roger said.

  After they’d hung up the mayor struggled with the twin opposing desires of wishing to seek solace in Christopher’s embrace, and the shame in having to admit to him he’d lost so much of his city and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it, presently.

  Nevel and Cora watched the evening news after they put the kids to bed.

  “How would you like water delivered directly to your door? I’m not talking about in the pipes, I mean through your front door! Our KATU citizen correspondent Dan Barmann shot this film from his very own house in Northeast Portland—Sherwood—and we have it here to show you now.”

  The screen switched to a poor-quality video and in the center of it, presumably, was Dan Barmann. He was unshaven and holding his own camera pointed at himself. The camera jiggled and Dan went from the center of the screen to a tilting off-center. Nevel knew that were he to see the man coming toward him on the street, he’d give a wide berth, not of fear, but because of the need in his eyes. The man had the look of someone who would tail you around and ask for a favor or to sign his petition or maybe just a hug.

  “Hello, citizens. This is Dan Barmann. I live up in Sherwood, and while this whole experience has been on the scary side, something happened yesterday morning that started to change my mind about it. It’s about to happen again in a minute, and I’m going to tape it for you, yes, you, KATU watchers.”

  The video paused and lines of text overlaid the still image: “Recorded earlier today. Dan Barmann, citizen reporter.”

  The camera view spun to Dan Barmann’s floor, and the edge of his door. “That guy needs some training, right?” Nevel said. “I mean come on.”

  “Nevel.”

  “Why are are we looking at the floor still?” They heard the sound of a doorbell and the view of the floor persisted. “I don’t have time for this, right? Why can’t the studio spend ten minutes editing the thing?”

  “It’s true, you’re a busy man, you’ve got a tunnel to dig.”

  Dan Barmann opened the door and on the other side was a cute, bob-headed woman with long eyelashes. Two tattooed bluebirds were visible at her neckline, just above her T-shirt. “Hi,” she said and then noticed the camera being pointed at her.

  “Well, hi there!” Dan said.

  “That guy is an idiot,” Nevel said. “Right? Isn’t that guy an idiot? She’s cute though.”

  “Stop,” Cora said in a manner indicating she was no stranger to, nor particularly troubled by, Nevel’s commentary over the course of a decade and a half of marriage.

  “Well, she is.”

  Cora exhaled. “Agh—it’s going to be awkward if they don’t start speaking.”

  The water carrier cleared her throat. “I’m here to bring you your unit gallon,” the woman said. She held up a unit gallon for the camera and handed it over.

  “And, oh, OK,” Dan said, and while he talked the camera drifted into her hair and then sky, “tell me about this. Why are you bringing me water?”

  “Maid Marian is running a water distribution network so we don’t have to go to distribution. It’s less dangerous, creates jobs, and saves people a lot of time. Also, it gives you a direct connection to Sherwood government. You get two units fewer, but it’s delivered to your door.”

  “Now we get to it,” Dan said. “Two units tax! That’s a big deal—skimming from the top. That doesn’t sound like robbing the rich to me. What’s she doing with all the extra units?”

  “Well it’s just one twentieth of your take,” the woman readjusted her glasses and explained patiently. “Extra units will go to clinics and the needy and be saved for future emergencies.”

  “I see, OK, and what about you. Do you want to come in?” Nevel could hear the note of hunger and a loneliness, and it roused the part of his body reserved for screaming “No!” at the television while watching horror movies.

  “Thank you, but I’ve got other deliveries,” the woman said, confirming for Nevel that in real life the hero is rarely ever innocently lured into the villain’s house. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Everything OK here? Anything you want me to pass on to Maid Marian?”

  “Oh. Tell her good job from me, ha ha. Water delivery is nice.”

  The water deliverer almost, but did not quite, roll her eyes at the camera and then said see you tomorrow and Dan turned the camera back on himself. Nevel thought he remembered seeing the correspondent before, reporting with youthful bluster on missing dogs and odd little factoids, a sort of independent camera junkie that sent stuff into the stations. But he appeared to have taken a few wrong turns since then.

  “A unit or two fewer is a serious deal, make no mistake about it. On the other hand, let me show you this.” The camera seesawed as he made his way back through the house, past dirty dishes and piles of clothes and other domesticities Nevel would have preferred not to see, and out the back door. In one corner of the backyard was a large wooden box with sheets hanging from it. “That’s my new outhouse. These are mandatory in Sherwood, and there are crews going house to house building them.”

  There was something about seeing this man’s own personal outhouse that made Nevel shudder.

  “They came and built mine yesterday. Sure, there are some inconveniences here, but I’m saving far more than the couple of units per day they skim off, water that would have normally gone toward sanitati
on control. And that’s my report from Sherwood.”

  “Huh,” Nevel said.

  The anchors wrapped up and the power shut off.

  “We could build that. You like to dig,” Cora said.

  Nevel stood up and looked across the street. Even in the evening his previously humble intersection was busy. In the moonlight he saw people queued there from both nations—looking to do trade or send messages back and forth. A Green Ranger stood half-in and half-out of her guard post. Everyone needed cleared for entrance.

  He hated going to distribution. It was a hassle and sometimes frightening. “I want my water delivered,” he said.

  “By a cute lesbian,” Cora added. She picked up a novel, folding sleepily into his vacated spot on the couch.

  Nevel lit a candle for her to read by, but he could tell it wouldn’t be long before she was in bed and then he’d go to work on the tunnel. “How about you?” he said. “You could be a Sherwood deliverer, stop by with unit gallons for me.” And it sparked a desire. He admired her form on the couch and thought ahead briefly to the first fifteen minutes down in the basement, when he would lie on the floor of the tunnel and fantasize about his wife two stories up. Like many things, doing the job yourself was easier than asking for it.

  “True. If somebody built us an outhouse, unusual things could occur.”

  It did not happen in a covert manner, not in any secret meeting exactly, though later Renee thought back on the moment many times and each time saw it in a new light. It happened in the hallway on the first floor of Sherwood Nation HQ, between their offices. Around them the employees of the small nation continued their business.

  “I want you to take a look at something,” Gregor said.

  She was on her way to meet with the volunteer crew. Gregor seemed disheveled, or as if there was some kind of physical strain on him.

  “You alright?” Renee said.

  “Eye the list,” he said and handed it over.

  The list was written in pencil in Gregor’s stunted, blocky penmanship, and surrounding the names were many other lead-gray marks as if the pencil had struggled with each line, tapping out time between letters written, or written and then erased and written again. There was no title and no other text on the paper, which appeared to have been cut down to fit exactly the five names it held. The edges of it were worn, as if it had been worried around in someone’s pocket for a while. Seeing the names there all together gave Renee a terrible shudder that came on suddenly and then continued to reverberate through her body. Her teeth chattered and she gripped her arms about herself.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “It’s OK,” Gregor said.

  “Can’t we give notice first? Like to flee?”

  Gregor looked pained at the suggestion and leaned against the hallway wall. “We can . . .”

  “I’d prefer it that way.”

  “It’s—it’s more dangerous, you know, if they . . .”

  “Of course,” Renee said, “but some of them will.”

  She leaned against the wall and faced him, still battling her shivers into stillness. They didn’t say anything for a while. People passed next to them, sensing something of gravity in progress that could not be interrupted. It was intimate, Renee clutching the paper, Gregor facing her, patient.

  “Warn first,” Renee said.

  Gregor nodded and took the list back. “It’s complete?”

  “Yes, complete.”

  The nightly news reported on four gun-related deaths in a single night in Sherwood. The territory seemed to be arguing with itself. The news asked Maid Marian for an interview; the city wanted an explanation. An internal inquiry determined that Rangers had not been involved in any of them.

  In the country of Sherwood, by order of Maid Marian, the second amendment was repealed.

  “Fuck it,” she said, deeply aware of the taking away of rights. In her mind marched a procession of Sherwoodians past HQ with signs and banners and the appropriate chants, asking what rights were next to go.

  She offered a five-gallon trade-in program per gun and ten units per box of ammo, and that message was carried through the water carrier delivery network. They received four hundred and eighty-two guns in all, far more than she had expected to receive, and surely a fraction of what still remained hidden in the neighborhood. These were hard times for the giving up of weapons.

  The next day, Maid Marian sent another letter: She began with an impassioned plea, to mothers and fathers, to the common sense of the people. Security was taking hold in Sherwood, and she would guarantee theirs. Anyone caught with a gun by day number seven of the new country would be booted out, back to live in the city, no matter what family or possessions remained in Sherwood. They received another two hundred thirty-three guns.

  Sherwood was gun free. Or at least that’s what Jamal told himself, as he steered his giant tank of a battalion through training exercises. They had ammo for a small war now. People had saved up for end-times.

  He trained them in crowd control, emergency management, siege, sniper fighting, and survival tactics, making up most of it each night as he prepared for the next day, scrawled out on notebook paper. When one of the brigade knew more than he did, which was often, he put them in charge of that exercise. They trained for hours a day, but most of all, he trained them in restraint. As a shiny new country, a single entity in the sea of a greater city, they could not risk giving anyone an excuse to take back control. One death and one news exposé and the experiment could end.

  “Someone gets trigger finger, you come see me,” he said. “Your neighbor gets trigger finger, come tell me. We’ll go down to the train tracks and shoot some dead freight. You want a brawl—be a Green Ranger, go on a water route, you’ll see action. But nobody here shoots anything, anything, unless I say so. After you leave practice, you are a lamb, understood?”

  Zach wanted to go north, and each day he toyed with a plan in that direction. But he believed what the news implied—that it was too dangerous to travel to Sherwood. Not Sherwood itself, which the news continued to portray as if they were on the personal payroll of Maid Marian, but the neighborhoods that lay between his building and Sherwood.

  In some semi-suicidal gesture, someone would set his own house on fire, or in a feud, his neighbor’s house. With the city as dry as it was, all it took was one fire before a huge swath of homes would become blackened holes. It’d already happened twice—great plumes of smoke made columns into the air. Fire trucks circled around the neighborhood looking for a place to make a stand. Their tanks contained precious fire suppressant—waste water and liquified sewage—that they dared not use on a house that could not be saved. Bulldozers lined up to build a dirt moat around the blaze. They cut down any tree that might be a bridge for the fire to travel along.

  The daily death toll for the city stood somewhere between ten and forty, and yet he knew that much of this was concentrated into pockets of violence. And not just random violence; there were always small wars going on, gang vs. gang, neighborhood vs. neighborhood, for resources or control or just desperation.

  Twice he’d packed up his gear and sat next to his bicycle on the ground floor until the light left the sky and darkness fell, but his house was a castle to him, it was his wizard’s tower. It contained family history and secrets and projects and—he admitted it—his bed, which he liked very much. He wasn’t like her. The physical unknown that might await such a journey daunted him.

  And so he spent countless hours on his roof, his telescope trained on Cully neighborhood where she’d found refuge. A mere five or six miles away.

  Seventeen days after he’d sent Renee and Bea into hiding in the north, a body slipped into bed beside Zach in the middle of the night. He leapt up, pulling whatever was at hand to him in defense. In this case the sheets, which he held in front of him now like a shield.

  In the moonlight he could not see her face, just a long naked body, scars and moles and blemishes air-brushed away by the dim light o
f the moon, leaving a polished creature, a marble-smooth statue that lay there like some apparition come to love or destroy. Helix strands of intrigue and fear spiraled up his spine and he froze like that, his sheet bunched menacingly in front of him.

  On the floor below, in his kitchen, he could hear what sounded like an invasion by a family of bears. Things rattled and bumped as their clumsy paws attempted to discover the subtle opening mechanisms of pantry and refrigerator.

  “Hey,” said the body on the bed, turning onto her belly—for it was definitely a woman—squeezing the pillow to herself in a hug, her face pressed into it.

  He stared at this new topography of her.

  “I’m not going to be able to stay awake much longer. Your bed is so much more comfortable than what I’ve been sleeping on.” He could hear the sound of her grinning through her words.

  He let down his sheet guard and got into bed beside her. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. He kissed her back and let his head rest there, his head turned toward the hills of her buttocks in the dim light. “Now that you are, I’m going to tie you up, so you cannot leave again.”