Potter felt for a dry spot on the bench, and then he sat, legs apart, hands clasped and swinging slightly between his knees. He stared at the row of brass hooks on the opposite wall.
"Calmed down?" Ginny said. "You scared me," she added before he answered. "You basically disappear, leave me hanging, and now you barge in on me? What're you thinking, Kyle?"
"What if we pooled our funds?" he said. "Enough to get an off-grid place together. You can work here. I can get day-work. Maybe a new job."
"No."
"Don't tell me to think of my wife and daughter. Lydia's getting a job on her own. She'll have a place. It's almost like before, you know. Just scaled down." Potter pictured the small apartments, probably one-room efficiencies, that both women would rent. Like before, he'd sleep at one, visit the other. Nothing had to change except for size and location.
"I'm moving on, Kyle." Ginny sat beside him. She took hold of his clenched hands. Her fingers warmed him.
Potter stood. He wanted to take hold of Ginny by both hands, sweep her into his arms, throw her across one shoulder and march out of the changing room, past the guards and out of the museum. She'd always enjoyed his bold acts, he recalled, and smiled with the memory of carting her from one room to the next, sometimes holding her at chest level, one arm behind her knees and the other across her shoulder blades, sometimes with her slung across one shoulder, her fingers slapping playfully at his broad back and her bare toes digging into his rib cage. A mock-battle. While she giggled like a child, like Carol, his twelve-year-old who giggled and laughed when he carried her around the house.
Ginny stood, moving her hands away from his, as though sensing what he'd do if he gripped her this instant. "Be realistic, Kyle. We're over. I enjoyed it. You enjoyed it. But nothing just lasts. Things end."
"You find someone else to pay your way? "
She stared at him, her eyes welling up with tears.
"Figures," Potter said. "It figures."
"You okay in there.?" The guard who'd been at the outside door to the actors' dressing rooms stood at the threshold to the changing room.
"Okay?" Potter said. "Yeah, she's great. She's always got something going for herself." He pushed Ginny aside. She plopped onto the bench. Head down, Potter bull-dozed past the guard, using his hands to push him to one side. In the next room, several more security men, two of them in black jumpsuits that marked them as private contractors, both of them armed with rail-gun pistols still in their holsters, let Potter pass.
"We don't want no trouble from you. So get out and stay out of here," one of the contractors shouted.
Potter stopped. He raised a fist. He could strike out and probably crush the man who'd spoken. Both contract cops were young. Inexperienced. Probably a second or two away from wetting themselves, he thought with a smile.
He turned away and walked along the corridor with the green strip decorating the cinderblock walls. At the end, he turned the corner and slapped at the "Employees Only" sign, which buzzed and flickered when he hit it, the legend momentarily changing to "Exit this Way" before reverting to its original form.
#
"You didn't ask."
Seated at the small kitchen table, Potter sipped coffee from a mug. Behind him, the coffee maker gurgled, the service software detecting Lydia's presence by voice alone and generating her usual morning brew. As newlyweds, he and his wife had experimented with different settings for the kitchen appliances, ordering different meals for the robotic appliances to prepare or for the food service to bring them. When their daughter came along, the process complicated itself with their different needs and the early morning hours necessitated by a newborn. Eventually they settled into a routine that went unchanged for years.
Lydia entered the kitchen, her silky pajamas catching Potter's attention. The material clung to his wife's body and made her more attractive than she'd been in a long time.
Carol bounced into the kitchen, bumping into her mother and then whirling around before dropping into the chair across from Potter. The juicer lit up.
"Not today," Carol said. "Choco-Milk."
The juicer light went out and another appliance on the kitchen counter gurgled as though coming alive. Milk and brown granules filled a cup, which shook for a few seconds before a rod descended and stirred the mix.
Lydia gave the glass of chocolate milk to the twelve-year-old. "It doesn't pick itself up and go to you," she muttered.
"No how now," Carol chirped, and repeated the phrase. "No how now."
Lydia retrieved her own cup from the coffee maker. Steam drifted into her dark face, wetting her cheeks.
"When did you get home?" Lydia said. "Kyle? I'm asking you, not Carol."
The twelve-year-old laughed, and then coughed, dark brown bits of milk sputtering from the lips.
"School," Potter said to his daughter.
"I got time, Dad. No rush."
"Watch for the bus." Potter waved towards the living room.
"I've heard you two argue before. No big one."
"This isn't an argument," Lydia said.
"Then what time did dad get home?"
"Late," Potter said. "Way too late." He tried to smile to lighten the mood. He'd walked from the museum, taking a circuitous route that led him to the Open Way, an indoor market in the south quarter of the city, where he found an outdoor kiosk selling pepper-uppers along with kick weed, and paper cylinders -- shorties -- stuffed full of equally illegal tobacco. The vendor, an old man with a full beard and thin hair covering a bald scalp, was the type Potter always enjoyed shaking down. The blend of legal and illegal drugs was profitable for both of them.
"Bus," Lydia said. Carol gulped the last of her milk and shot up from her chair and dashed out of the room. Potter glanced over his shoulder and watched her stand at the front room's picture window, a hand parting the curtain so she could see outside. She didn't need to watch for the bus, since a warning gong would sound when the vehicle approached their street, but Potter knew the girl liked to stand watch, a practice she began after seeing it in a picture book as a small child.
Watching for Daddy. That was the title. He'd read the book to her so many times, he knew the words by heart and the accompanying illustrations were etched into memory.
"You still haven't asked," Lydia said when Carol left the house.
Potter's All-Pod beeped. He looked at the kitchen counter, to where he'd left his Pod near the coffee maker. Lydia reached for it, handed it to him. "Missed a call?" she said.
"Job search," he muttered, and poured through the results his search agent had accumulated in the past hour. Only three. More than the hour before or the day before. But all of them were temp jobs, one-day contract work. Though better than nothing, it was next to nothing.
"I didn't get it," Lydia said."I didn't get the job."
Potter looked at her for a moment, studied how she stood at the counter, not far from him, her long face dark and brooding, her eyes moist, her hair curled at the ends.
"Your nightgown," Potter began, waving his hand in Lydia's direction. "It's stained."
She lifted a portion of the white nightdress, rubbed at a large brown stain from the portion that covered her midsection. "Coffee," she said. And then she added in a more forceful voice, "I didn't get that job. Don't you care? In a couple of more weeks they'll serve an eviction notice and then we'll wind up out of this house without a residency permit and maybe deported."
Just to scare her, Potter said, "You're right."
"What're you going to do?"
Potter glanced at the jobs listed on the All-Pod's screen. "I'll take another day job. I keep taking those, they keep giving me credit and extending the grace period. Okay? That okay with you?"
Lydia shrugged.
Angered by her response, Potter rose to his feet and stepped towards his wife. He grabbed her by the chin. She winced. He pushed her backwards, pushing on her jaw, his fingers moving to tighten against her cheeks, the point of her chin firm again
st the fleshy part of his hand between thumb and forefinger.
"Okay with you?" he said again. "Or do you have some other idea?"
"Dissolution," she murmured.
Potter let her go. She stumbled sideways, skittering out of his way. She backed up to the doorway.
"Do that," Potter said, "and you'll be Outside in no time."
Lydia moistened her lips. "If we divorce, if I file and get a hearing, Carol and I get an automatic 90 day stay at a shelter."
"And then what?"
"I don't know," she replied.
"You don't want to divorce me, Lydia. You'll lose Carol. You'll lose everything."
Lydia sighed, her chest rising and falling with the effort. "Will I, Kyle?"
Potter pushed past her, shoving her with one hand, making her gasp. He grabbed his jacket from the closet and left the house. Behind him, Lydia repeated what she'd said moments earlier.
"Will I? Will I?" With each repetition, her voice rose in volume, became more strident, almost a squeal. "Will I?"
#
The lines at the trailers melted away just when Potter arrived. All three job ads on his All-Pod pointed to the same set of six trailers sitting in a street that bordered a wide plaza where empty office buildings stood as testament to the recent wave of both municipal and private sector layoffs. A central fountain, where noontime workers once gathered for lunch during the spring and summer, stood empty and dry, the ornamental fish and nymphs no longer pouring water into a pool. In a roped-off area, crowded with broken food carts and kiosks on wheels, a few people stood watching the crowd outside the trailers.
A tall cop in dress uniform waved a megaphone in the air and announced that all jobs were filled for the day. Angry shouts followed. Not questions, not even demands. Just shouts. Incoherent words that accompanied shaking fists and stamping feet. More police arrived from the other side of the trailers. They formed a phalanx, steel clubs fully extended, four lines deep, all of them with visors down and body-length clear plastic shields raised.
Potter hesitated on the edge of the unruly crowd, hands in his pockets. He wanted to turn around and go home, back to a nagging Lydia threatening divorce, his frightened wife who seemed to be fighting the two halves of herself, pitting the frightened, meek waif she'd been years earlier against the mature and confident middle-aged woman she'd become. Potter felt like he'd been caught in the middle of this war, and on top of that he had diminished prospects for his own career.
The police didn't advance. They spread out, the four rows moving sideways to create a thin, curved line of resistance. Potter always enjoyed the moments before an officer gave the order to charge. He expected the cop with the megaphone, the one in dress-browns, a red cap on his head, to announce "Advance, advance" at any moment.
Potter drifted into the mob. He chanted when the cry went up at the front of the crowd. He chanted with them a demand for work and sustenance. Someone stood atop one of the trailers, arms waving, fingers pointing at the police. Just what they needed, Potter thought. A leader. Someone to guide them in their next steps.
Dress-Browns lowered his megaphone and retreated behind the line of police. People pounded on the doors to the trailers. They banged at the windows. When a throng began pushing at one of the trailers, making it rock on its small wheels, the police charged. Potter watched from the back of the mob, his hands in his pockets. Transfixed by the scene, he trembled, furious that he didn't have a club and a shield, that he wasn't one of the cops engaging the rioters.
Instead, he realized, and stopped shaking when that realization came to him, he was part of the horde, just one of the many who'd come to the plaza. The police swarmed at both sides of the packed mass, the middle of their line moving less quickly than the wings. It was a tactic Potter often found himself part of when he was on the other side. Envelop the crowd. Chase down stragglers at either side. Surround the middle of the mob and push them together, pack them so tightly, they find it difficult to fight back.
Potter watched the riot break up, as the police maneuver intended. Where the crowd thinned, cops used their clubs to beat anyone who fell, to quell the rising tempers, to stifled the fight in anyone brave enough to resist in the face of this disciplined onslaught.
The mob oozed, like a ball of foam squeezed out of shape, many in the mob falling back, some tripping and hitting the ground. Friends rescued friends. A large group of women screamed, fists shaking. They took on a squad of cops and the riot's leader atop the trailer urged them on. Potter laughed and shook his head when two of the police dragged some of the women away, one by her long red hair and others by an arm or a leg.
Fists up, Potter waited for the cop nearest him to advance. When the steel baton whipped at his head, he stepped up and grabbed the weapon close to the hilt. A young and frightened face on the other side of the plastic visor made Potter pause. All of the police attacking the mob looked young and inexperienced. Probably paid less than veterans, Potter thought, though he knew he didn't have time to contemplate anything. He had to fight.
He wrenched the steel club from the cop's hand, raised it, waited and watched the young face drain of blood, and then threw the baton at the ground. A step closer, a foot now inside the cop's protective shield, Potter tripped his attacker, but didn't kick him when he sprawled on the concrete pavement.
Too many other cops suddenly appeared nearby, all of them slashing at the rioters with their batons. A few had reduced the length of the telescoping rods. A good maneuver, Potter thought to himself. One he always used at close quarters. A short club made a better weapon when engaging near to the enemy.
Out of the corner of one eye, to his right, columns of police in long brown coats appeared. They marched four abreast. Border patrolmen. The same unit Potter belonged to at one time. As usual, they'd been pressed into service in the city's interior. Now, with the new arrivals pounding the pavement in unison, as though they marched in parade, the crowd retreated, a few of them running up the avenue and then into alleys and side streets.
But a large enough mass remained that the newcomers continued their march. They didn't carry shields. Their white helmets had no visors. Their coats swung back and forth in rhythm with their march. When their pace increased, Potter found himself standing alongside other men and women with fists clenched, legs apart. The leader atop the trailer exhorted them to fight back, though much of his shouting drifted into the wind, where his meaning became a matter of silent understanding.
Some of the border patrolmen raised short-range pellet guns. The projectiles peppered the street. Others fired pop-pops, but the sticky bullets fell short of where Potter stood and burst with fiery sparks when they discharged, delivering their shock to the dry asphalt. Soon, the four-abreast columns broke apart and a body of patrolmen charged, short batons raised, mouths open as they screamed.
Potter met the clash with fists and feet. He lashed out. These were older men, veterans, cops used to breaking up riots and restoring peace. Retreating, Potter tried not to hurt any of them. He kicked at exposed shins, ripped the lapels of one man's coat, head-butted another. Pellets sprayed people near him. Sticky bullets brought screams from those who still hadn't run off. People fell, squirmed in pain, dug at the spongy bullets adhering to their faces or to their clothes.
When he fell, Potter tried to crawl away. He rolled. A hand grabbed him and he saw a brown coat close up.
"Potter? Sergeant Potter?"
Potter looked up at the patrolman standing over him. He recognized him as one of his partner-for-a-day comrades. He didn't remember the name, but he recalled riding with him along the eastern fence one night. Like Potter, the man augmented his pay with contraband taken from criminals he arrested and payoffs for helping smugglers bring people in from Outside.
"Get out of here, Potter. Anybody we pull in is going to summary exile. No trial. No waiting period. We're dumping everybody we catch. Come on."
Potter felt himself lifted to his feet. His knees buckled. He hadn't r
ealized that a spongy mass clung to his pants leg. Most of the electric charge had already been delivered, but a few pulses remained. They hurt. He dug at his pants, pulled and twisted the cloth, and dislodged the lozenge-shaped bullet.
He looked at the stranger who'd helped him, this man who'd once been his partner on patrol. He remembered something about the pink round face and bright blue eyes, something vague that he couldn't name, couldn't describe.
"Come on," the patrolman snapped. "Potter. Come on. Run."
Potter sucked in a breath and looked around at the chaos surrounding him. Then he looked into his former comrade's eyes.
"Where?" Potter said, and went limp. He didn't fight back. He didn't help himself. He watched the street pass beneath him, his legs dragging. He watched a marble step rise up to strike his cheek. He had the sense of being rescued.
Part Three : City Elite
Chapter Seven
Without the rank that warranted a private car, Jonnie Jamerson always took a taxi from the airport. As a thirty-year-old, he thought he'd advanced far in a short time. Just six years after finishing school. Six years spent in the city's Municipal Office for Strategic Studies. Six years and he already had the respect afforded men much older than he.
Still, it rankled him whenever he flew back to Chicago and he had to call for a cab at the outdoor kiosk. Just the act of handling the keypad and touch screen annoyed him. So many of the people waiting for their taxies looked like lowly office clerks. He hoped he didn't look the same. His expensive coat with the faux-fur collar, the real leather shoes on his feet, and the cut of his thin brown hair should tell everyone that he enjoyed a higher status.
When he found the kiosk screen dark, and when he saw no one waiting on the pavement for their rides, annoyance changed to concern. Cold air wrapped around his legs, chilling him. Still dressed for the pleasant climate of California Free State, Jamerson hadn't expected to wait long for a cab. He had a priority code that would boost his standing in the queue.
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