by Jack Lothian
No. Surely not.
I realize I’m breathing hard. I focus on calming down. I hear a soft padding on the floor behind me and turn to find Franco standing beside me, worry etched across his face. I try to grin, but it’s useless. My eyes lock with his.
“Open up!” the voice bellows again and I twitch. “Open up now, or we’ll break the door down!”
I’m sorry, I think. But I can’t seem to vocalize the sentiment. He nods like he understands. We can’t run. By now they’ve surrounded my tiny excuse of a home and are ready for any attempt we might make at an escape.
“Okay,” I whisper, taking another gulp and step toward the door, placing my palm against the cold knob. I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a brief second. Then I turn it and pull the door open.
The man behind the door, the one who was screaming for us to open up just seconds ago, pulls his hand back, apparently about to knock again. He’s a younger officer, late twenties, maybe earlier thirties, with a full head of hair and dressed in an all-black officer’s uniform, muscles bulging around his neck. The uniform is one of the few remnants of our society before the “ascension” of the church, before the church became everything. Behind him I count four others, all men, all standing at the ready, batons in hand.
“Kael Lawson?” the man asks, his tone calmer now.
“Yes, that’s me,” I tell him, trying to hide the worry in my voice. I see the man’s eyes shift from me to Franco.
“And are you Franco Wilder?” the officer asks, an air of importance and expectation in his voice, it almost sounds snide.
I nod slowly as Franco speaks up.
“Yes, I’m Franco,” he says.
The officer shifts on his feet, straightening, a grin forming across his thin lips.
“By order of the Fellowship, and the supreme Under Shepherd, you are both under arrest,” before he can finish speaking, the men behind him swarm in, swooping into my home and pinning my hands behind my back. I look over my shoulder to find Franco in the same predicament. A pained expression on his face sends a bolt of anger up my spine. I twist and turn, trying to pull my hands from their grasp. But I’m no match for the church’s police, trained from a young age, even before the church became all-powerful, to be master of both body and mind, to hunt and contain.
They pull my arms back together and slap a pair of handcuffs tightly around my wrists. I yelp as the cold metal rakes against my skin.
“You have no fucking rig—“ I try, but my words are cut off by the blunt impact of a large fist against my mouth. If it weren’t for the men holding me up from behind, I’d be on the ground right now.
I drop my face, squinting away the pain and letting my vision clear up. I lick my lips and taste the bitter flavor of blood trickling down my mouth and chin.
“I have every right. And watch your mouth,” the officer says before nodding to his men. “Bring them outside for public judgment.”
My eyes bloom open at his words and immediately I’m searching for Franco, craning my neck around to see behind me. I find him a few steps back to the right, as the officers march us out onto the concrete sidewalk that leads up against the edge of the road. There's a sorrow in his eyes, much like my own probably, but it's tempered by a strength he's always managed in the harder times. That’s something I could never master, not with all the shit I’ve been through. Not after every sin in the Bible was codified into law and interpreted by some high-minded bunch of so-called deacons who thought they knew what was best for everyone and what wasn’t. Pharisees, I call them, the whole lot.
At first it hadn’t been bad, at least compared to now, that is. At first the big sins where punished with fines, or public humiliation. Then it became jail time and "restitution" to the church. The first crime to be newly minted worthy of the death penalty had been blasphemy and denying their God. Since then the list has grown and public judgment usually meant an immediate death penalty.
I twist my body to the side, trying to escape the grasp of the two men holding me. It's useless, though, as they continue to press onward as if my struggle is nothing to them. I break my gaze from Franco and scan over the neighborhood, cast in the glow of the evening sun. I swear that everyone is standing outside, gawking at our misfortune. I wonder what they're thinking.
What did they do? I guess they're getting what they deserved. Damn ingrates. Sinners.
I wonder how many are cheering on the police. Our neighbors. People I’ve talked to almost every day, or at least passed on the way to work or town. They just stand there on their lawns, watching.
Do something! Help us! I scream inside, but I know it’s out of the question. Helping us would implicate them in whatever it is the church has deemed us criminals for. There will be no help coming.
To my left I catch David, my neighbor of three years, who I wish a "good morning" to every day before I drive off for work. He's grinning, lips pursed and expectant, hands clasped.
Did he know about the plan? Had he somehow overheard Allison, Franco and I discussing the rebellion? Or what was left of it at least? That has to be it. No. They'll come for her, too, then.
At the edge of the sidewalk, against the road, the officer barks an order I fail to make out. Without warning, the men behind me kick my knees in from behind and a hand shoves me forward. I collapse to the sidewalk, my knees scraping against concrete. I grit my teeth at the pain as another hand grasps my shoulder to keep me from planting my face onto the road. I glance to my right as Franco is dropped to his knees next to me. I try to smile. I don’t know, maybe I did.
This is it.
I refuse to break my eyes away from Franco as the officer who announced our arrest stomps around and stakes his place in front of us, demanding our attention.
“Kael Lawson,” he bellows, a proclamation to be heard by all around us, but especially for our busybody neighbor, David. “Franco Wilder. For the crime of…”
I drown out his words. I don’t want to hear them. I don’t need to hear them. I know what’s coming and I know why now. It’s hard to believe in this moment that there was a better time. A time when men and women chose their own destinies, when people were free to speak their mind, to disagree, to be a rebel. But now is not that time, and I know now that I’ll never see that time again.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Franco, tears pouring down my cheeks. I can only imagine how I look right now to the people standing around us, watching the night’s spectacle, but I don’t care.
“No. Don’t be,” he tells me between a stutter. A weak yet perfect smile interrupts the tears running down his face.
As the officer's words touch my numbed ears, a few words hit me from his decree. They're not here because of our involvement in the rebellion, they apparently don't know.
“…by order of the Fellowship and the Under Shepherd, you are hereby sentenced to summary execution.” His voice is strong and commanding as he utters the end of our lives. I want to hate him so much, to hate everyone around me, the church, everyone. But I can't. I hate what they're doing, what they've brought us to, but I don't hate them. I pity them.
In that moment, I glue my eyes to Franco as the sound of the officer racking the slide of his pistol back reaches my ears, a bullet in the chamber, ready. Time slows as I focus on those hazel eyes. I clench my bound fists behind my back and hold on to a scared smile.
Franco grins back at me through tear-stained lips, eyes sad but somehow happy in the same instant. As I hear the faint click of the trigger just before the finale, one last thought rolls through my mind.
What was my crime? I had done a forbidden thing. I loved him.
To Market, To Market
J.C. Raye
I put Biya in the lower kitchen cabinet. We go over the rules about quiet, calling out, and listening for our code word: ziggles. She is not afraid of staying in the cabinet anymore. I am not sure if that makes me feel better or just sick to my stomach. I kiss my daughter and the doll on the forehead. The hinge creaks
as I gently close the door. I make a mental note to oil all the cupboards tomorrow. I lock up, and head down two flights of stairs to the street.
* * *
It’s raw out tonight. Windy. The howly type. Penetrating pores and chilling bone. Searching for vital organs to freeze. A wind with a purpose, my Beth used to say. So far, I haven’t run into anyone, marked or unmarked, for four of the eight icy city blocks I’ve walked to Tommy’s Deli. Lucky. Good. But even unmarked, what a sight I must be. A six-foot-five weirdo, sporting what is clearly a woman’s puff jacket (could not get the bloodstains out of my parka), in a lovely shade of violet blue, oh so carefully positioning my big man tootsies on scattered patches of dry pavement, whipping my head around with every step, expecting who the hell knows what. No doubt I look as if I’m fully prepared to pitch myself into a dumpster, should I hear even the tiniest rattle of a tuna can rolling down the street. My bristly red, mis-self-shaven head is fully exposed to the unforgiving gusts of late January. Ears starting to painfully tingle. But still, it would have been much too dangerous to wear the winter hat. No way.
Shame, though. It’s the hat Biya gave me for Christmas. A really uncool, monstrosity of a cap. Dark grey, with a strip of those white Aztec triangles which scream ski lodge, or marshmallow s’mores, or just, old guy. I don’t know if I fell in love with that hat because it was the first gift my 4-year-old ever gave me, or because it was so freakin’ warm. Berber lining. Fold-down, faux-fur brim. Generous ear flaps. Damn thing is even water repellent.
“You always get so cold, Daddy,” Biya said, eagerly fastening the velcro under my scraggly cinnamon beard. I had barely peeled all the green foil wrapping off the gift and she was on me, smelling of cinnamon apple oatmeal and yanking the side flaps down with purposeful kid grunts.
“It’s for out of doors men,” Biya continued, eyes skyward, carefully repeating what I am sure Beth told her to say. “Oh!” Biya added, remembering, “and trapped men.”
At this point my wife, Beth, could barely contain her giggles and jumped in, “That’s trappers, honey. You know, like hunters?” But Biya was already a hundred miles away. Having officially bequeathed her gift to me, she was now on to liberating her plastic tea set from the overkill bondage of the cardboard display box. The packaging for the set—pot, sugar bowl, creamer, and service for four—was adorned with a hideous mix of lavender, navy blue and popcorn yellow flower designs, making me think of the Scooby-Doo van for some odd reason. She was now tearing into it, kid grunts reemerging, as if she had some game show time limit for getting it free. Biya had no idea that the days of having tea parties with friends were pretty much over now. As were the days of hat wearing, despite the season.
* * *
But you don’t really know what I am talking about, do you? Well, if you had asked Beth, she probably would have regaled you with all the details, beginning to end. ‘Cause she followed it, you know? She didn’t work, choosing to stay home with Biya till she started first grade. So Beth followed it night and day while it was happening until— Well. She followed it. I wish I had followed it. I keep going over it in my head now, wondering if I had taken it more seriously at the beginning, if I had seen how quickly it was becoming scary, how I might have decided to get my family out of the city. I heard some people did that. I heard a lot of people say they were going as far as Canada.
Our landlord, Dell, across the hall in 201? He took his family to his sister’s place in some remote part of Maine. Like literally, the tip of Maine. “Whatever,” I said to Beth. “Let him do his paranoia shuffle, just like all the other idiots. So long as he doesn’t kick us out, or expect me to a pigeon to drop him a rent check in Maine” I mighta, coulda, shoulda paid a little more attention to the deep lines of worry on my wife’s face as she relayed the story of how our landlord was abandoning his own building in quite a hurry, or the one about how she had to hit three markets that week to find one with some eggs. Instead, I did what Doyle always does best when anything happened; make his panicked wife feel as if she was totally, and womanishly, completely overreacting.
If you want an exact start date, it was November 14th. My wedding anniversary of all days. I missed the first broadcast that fateful night. But come the next morning at Wheelset Manufacturing, I found several of my work buddies in a cryptic huddle, intensely debating their theories about it, about her. I remember pushing past them to the timeclock. They were way too embroiled in their conversation to even scold me for jumping the line, and that was damn weird.
Anywho, at 8pm on November 14th, everyone’s cable had gotten interrupted, or hacked, or hijacked, or we all got hypnotized (everybody jumped in with their own personal theory and highly credible hearsay…my sister’s cousin’s friend who does the wife of a cable exec said…) No matter what show or what channel, anyone watching the tube got to see her for the first time; the her I will now refer to as the Gidgidoo. At 8pm, the Gidgidoo materialized on computers, televisions, phones, tablets, to make her first prediction, or whatever you want to call it, and started the damn apocalypse.
So how do I describe her? Well, I am pretty sure she was Indian. Indian, from like, India. Yep. Okay. You’re right. I’ll never be a poster boy for political correctness, and Beth would have scolded me for just making an assumption like that. But this is my yarn, dammit, and the big, bad “G” looked Indian to me. You work in a loud, sweaty machine shop all day with a bunch of old white guys, no radio, and two glorious 15-minute breaks, and let’s see how globally educated you can get. And I didn’t start calling her, a her. That part was not me. Everyone was calling it a her. Maybe it was just easier to think of it as a woman. She sure as hell inflicted pain like one. Yeah, that was probably a sexist remark, too. Congrats on catching it. If your ethical odometer is on overload, you can always stop listening.
So, whatever, there she was. This person on TV. Telling us that the very next day, all child abusers would wake up with a purple mark on their foreheads, so all the world can see the truth. That was her first broadcast, and those, her only words. All of Gidgi’s broadcasts always went down the same way. Any channel you were watching would fade out to a white-grey static, like in Poltergeist with that guy from Coach? Then this skeletal figure slowly comes into focus. Creamy, light brown skin, dressed in a white gown (looked a lot like those paper napkin gowns they give you at the doctor’s office), seated on a white floor, in a white, windowless room. A crumpled, somewhat dirty, urine-yellow blanket was laid over her skinny legs. Course I never saw the legs. I just assumed she had legs and wasn’t a mermaid or something. Her stick-like body would be turned away from the camera, and her twizzler-ish arms pushed straight down onto the floor, as if supporting what weight she had. But her head would be twisted backwards, looking back at the viewer over pointy and protruding shoulder blades. It looked really uncomfortable for her, but that was how she always appeared. Same way, every time. Like some sexy model position for a magazine that could have been titled Disturborexia or Brittle Broads or some such thing.
One of my friends, Lens Sozak, called her “The Mantis,” which was a darn good description if you ask me. Good old Lens was killed in a mob-action, as they’re being called these days. He developed a blue mark while vacationing at the Grand Canyon with his family. Nobody stopped to ask him if his mark was due to being a war vet, which he was. A crowd of people just picked him up in some sort of mosh pit ballet, and tossed him over the South Rim, right in front of his wife and three boys. Mob-actions were like that in the beginning. Now you really don’t see mobs, everyone pretty much stays on their own. But, it still doesn’t make strangers any less dangerous.
The Gidgidoo’s skin was pulled smooth, which might have made you think she was maybe twenty-five or so, but her eyes were kind of…sunken. Big, round, black-pupiled oglers, with wide, dark, old lady circles cradling beneath. To me, they made her look about two hundred years old and counting. And then, of course, there was her hair. She did have hair, a long, black shiny mane, probably her most
woman-like feature, but only in some places. So if you’re having trouble with the visual, just picture an upside down spaghetti strainer, with black clumps of hair pulled through just some of the holes. And no, it wasn’t like she lost the hair. It looked like that was just how it grew.
* * *
Three blocks from Tommy’s Deli now and crossing the street. My heightened peripheral catches a flash of light. A flashlight, to be precise. Someone is hanging out in a side alley with a flashlight. They aren’t moving, and they aren’t chasing me, so I just keep on. The top tips of my ears feel like they're literally burning off my head. Wicks on a roman candle. Idiot, I could have at least wrapped up my ears. I’m already in a purple quilt, what difference would a set of Biya’s socks around my ears make at this point?
* * *
It was Biya that named her the Gidgidoo. I never really asked why. The name seemed to fit. And I don’t talk about that with my daughter at all anymore. She’s got few other ideas to stew on as of late. Like why she can’t go out, or when’s Mommy coming home, or how come we only eat once a day.
I never saw the Gidgidoo interruption that first night. I was in the basement of our apartment building, battling with a broken storage cage. My jerky neighbor had yanked it off its post when he forgot the combination to his kid’s bike lock. Joys of renting, baby. Guess he thought destroying our shared storage space was a far better idea than just asking someone if they had bolt cutters. The only reason I found the damage in the first place was because the storage locker was my only safe, Beth-Free Zone (thank you, mini-centipedes) for hiding her anniversary present, a jet black angora sweater. It had a cowl-neck, was tight, and kinda beatnicky. We had seen it in one of the ladies boutique windows in town. Think the shop was called Mystafy Designs, but of course I was teasing Beth and calling it Misfire Designs. I made her go in and try it on. I knew she loved it when she emerged from the dressing room, all a-smile. God, she had a great smile. While waiting for her to sweater-up, I had uncomfortably perched my butt on a cubed platform, under an armless mannequin garbed in some red atrocity of an evening gown, punched with silver rivets. Rivets make the woman, you know. Two pinched-faced sales-women-witches, clearly unhappy with me parking there, and thus ruining the strategic and cohesive visual design of the entire store, shot me occasional glares as they busied themselves organizing silk scarves by color and shoving credit card applications into the unwilling hands of strangers. Beth had half-popped, half-snuck out of the little stall in the sweater, and I whistled loudly. More to annoy the sales staff than embarrass my wife. She then took one look at the ornate gold cardstock tag bearing the $189.00 bad news and guffawed like a donkey. Pinch-faces rolled their eyes at us, and I knew right there that little angora number was going to be the best surprise gift ever.