This Is the Night

by Jonah C. Sirott

  “I hadn’t heard that,” Terry said. “And I read all the papers. There aren’t any bugs. They just won’t let us farm.”

  “It’s a morale thing,” said Lance. “If we let women do everything, it’s like we’re going extinct or something. But damn, what I wouldn’t do for an apple.”

  As Lorrie cleared her throat and readied her rebuttal, Lance saw the road sign he had been waiting for.

  “Take that route!” he shouted.

  “But it’s totally out of the way,” said Terry.

  Lance pressed his case for taking the coastal corridor toward the edge of everything, the brim of the Homeland. Once there, Lance knew his mind would be calmed by the fact that he couldn’t go any farther. In the end, the two women agreed, if only to quiet him.

  After a few distance-units, the mountains parted, and for the first time, Lance saw the ocean. They parked the car and headed down the craggy path to the beach, where Lance realized that not only had he never seen the ocean, he had never seen people like this. The beach was packed. His eyes fell on an enormously fat woman in a ridiculously small suit rubbing cream into her dog’s fur. So even the dogs out here had sunscreen. Next to her lay an oiled-up old man in a stained bathing suit slurping watered-down fruit juice through a straw, the red liquid spilling from his lips and sliding down his cambered chest. Lance watched the two of them adjust their ripstop nylon chairs to maximize their sunlight. He noticed that Lorrie was watching the heaving chest of the man drinking the fruit juice. At first Lance thought that she might have a thing for old guys, but after a moment, he realized she was looking at his drink.

  “Let’s grab a spot,” he said. Nearly every speck of sand was taken.

  Patterns emerged, the ways of the beach. The young women rotated themselves on schedules, the middle-aged men beside them daring Lance to look. Most of the women seemed unable to help themselves and threw long, possessing glances in Lance’s direction. A few of the more lecherous ones yelled their plans and fantasies at him, but Lance kept on walking. The rotating women were everywhere. None of these beachgoers were casual tanners, poseurs pretending at a lifestyle. Lorrie had described it beforehand: anthropologically, she had said, these people were the beach. She had read several books on Western Sector beach culture, simply, as best Lance could determine, for fun. The white sand and the blue breakers, she explained, this was their natural habitat, like those specialized parasites that can only survive in the ear of a cow. Take it away, and they wouldn’t just be lost or confused. Without the beach, these people would be drained and sapless, close to dead.

  Lorrie went around a corner and changed into shorts and a bathing suit top patterned with small birds, and the two of them left Terry to explore, taking off down the shoreline. Lorrie’s shoulders, Lance saw, arched in perfect coexistence, beautifully sloped and delightfully muscular.

  They walked on the beach together for a long time. Lance decided that, if anything, he had underestimated the moving production of her beauty.

  “I want to ask you so many things,” Lorrie said. “But I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

  “Ask away.”

  Lorrie looked toward the ocean for a moment before turning back to him. “Are you scared to go to war? Do you think you might have a way out? If you did have a way out, would you feel guilty about it?”

  He had never even considered the fact that his own freedom might come at the cost of someone else’s. Though her carefully considered inquiries about his life touched him, he did not dwell on her actual questions, and he didn’t want to think about his impending induction. For it was not what she asked, Lance realized, but how she asked it. There was such an overflow of passion that the intensity of her emotions spilled into him.

  Once their legs tired, they sat next to each other on the warm sand and looked out at the shallow sandbar before them, the joyous blasts of hot wind so welcome after long hours glued to the sticky seats of the car. Lance did his best not to gaze for the ten millionth time at the bright fabric birds flying across her breasts. Above Lance and Lorrie, shrieking gulls, dazzling red cliffs, and everywhere beautiful women, though none of them, Lance knew, beamed brighter than the woman next to him. They sat upright, staring out at the sea, doing their best to ignore the jealous glares and wordless grunts of the envious women surrounding them. Why, the women seemed to be asking, should she get a healthy one?

  A few minutes passed. His stomach making short leaps, his breath shallow, Lance reached over and placed his hand on the smooth spot just above her knee.

  “This,” said Lorrie, still looking outward, “is amazing.”

  Lance felt her weight shifting, and soon he brought his hand higher up, sliding from knee to thigh. Together they lay flat in the sand, rolling waves in their ears, runs of foam at their feet. Right here, Lance thought, ear to the earth, the world was perfect. The wind turned and began to blow over them, a warm unraveling rushing over their bodies. First her soft, loose lobe, then her neck, then finally his lips touched hers. On his skin, he felt the narrow beams of warmth shining down from above, and he moved his hand onto her breast, his palm smothering the bright birds of her swimsuit. Through his fingers, he could feel the radiant energy of her low breaths, the soft push of her hard nipple. Eyes closed, bodies joined, he could not see anyone, could not hear a single soul, could no longer feel the collective ache of the missing men his age. There was nothing but Lorrie.

  But it was all too idyllic, the sheer beauty of it all, Terry complained. Somehow she had found them, despite Lance’s best efforts to lose her. “The heat must shrivel their brains,” Terry added, gesturing at the beachgoers surrounding them. “Up in Western City North, it’s colder, more intellectual.”

  Lance and Lorrie shrugged their shoulders and slapped the sand from their feet with their socks. Right then it was decided: the three of them would head up to Western City North.

  On their way out, they drove past another beach, this one slightly hidden in a small cove and bordered by ramshackle homes. “Stop the car,” Lorrie said. “I’ve read about this place, too.” Lance pulled over at a graveled lookout point with an expansive view of the sea. The hike down the cliff was steep, but even from their perch on high, the three of them could see that the beach below was different. White sand, blue water, sure, but there were no rotating women, no umbrellas, no nylon chairs. No women at all, just young men, rubbing and blinking, scratching at their bandages, turning their good ears to hear each other, reattaching the cuff straps of their plastic legs around the residual limbs that remained.

  No one spoke. Finally, after a dismal pause, Lorrie cleared her throat and told them what they already knew. Veterans Beach, she said, was where men recently returned from the jungle went to sunbathe, partly so no one would have to see them, but mostly so they didn’t have to be seen.

  “Let’s get back on the road,” said Terry. “We have plenty of driving left.”

  Lance quickly agreed with her, one of the few times he had done so after several days in the car. They drove away quickly, speeding over potholes rather than swerving.

  By nightfall, they had arrived in Western City North.

  Terry surprised everyone by deciding on her second day that the city was not for her. She sold the old Brand 8 to a man with half a nose who asked her why she didn’t want it anymore. “I’m going rural,” she explained. “Once I get where I’m going, I’ll get a new one. Besides, you can’t really see this country from a car.” Lance and Lorrie saw her off at a bus station. Lance watched a small stripe of tear run down Lorrie’s face as they waved good-bye. He wiped it away for her, but he wasn’t sad to see Terry go.

  Lance and Lorrie had no possessions, but the city was well stocked with furnished apartments. “Registry-runners,” the disgusted landlord told them at the first place they saw. “The last boys just up and left. Two more upstairs I’m keeping an eye on. You can’t always spot the weak ones.”

  Lance and Lorrie nodded.

  “Overall, it’s a
good building,” the landlord continued. “Six units total. Some immigrants from Neutral Country P right across the hall. Bad smells, but great cooking. In that other unit, a friendly asthmatic gal. Her husband was a hero. We’ve got good people here.”

  “We’ll take it,” Lance said.

  “A good omen, taking the place today.”

  “What’s today?”

  “Don’t you two read the papers? Today’s a day for celebrating.”

  From the side of his vision, Lance watched as Lorrie made a rapid attempt to rebuild her face, quickly working to disinherit the scowl that had appeared the moment the words left the man’s mouth.

  The landlord seemed to take the masked looks in front of him as close emotional bonds and continued to speak. “That’s right. Just last night our boys took back a nice little chunk of the jungle. Sure, we lost a few, but those cold-blooded Ideology Five fanatics, may the Young Savior curse their name, lost even more.”

  “Seven hundred casualties,” Lorrie mumbled, “is not ‘a few.’”

  Lance elbowed her, and the two of them shook hands with the landlord. He had no idea whether the number of dead referred to citizens of the Homeland, Foreign, or both. A feeling of relief passed over him that he didn’t read the newspapers.

  Inside the apartment were pots and pans and even a pair of jeans that Lance found fit him quite well. The two of them slipped right into those other people’s lives. Lorrie put up a new pair of curtains and slowly began to toss out the old occupants’ things and replace them with their own. Lance wanted her with him at all times.

  2.

  Outside, the air was warm; the deep-red sun burned hot and luminous. Joe and Benny were both broke, but their empty pockets were the least of their problems. They could hear the landlord on the stairs, showing the empty apartment below. Both knew that come Monday, they would have nothing to offer to the wiry old man with the harsh teeth and pale scalp when he tapped on their door to collect. Their imaginations had been stunted, and Joe and Benny had censored their thoughts away from what they were sure was unthinkable. Now they had nowhere to live and much bigger worries. The Registry had found them.

  “The girl sounds hot,” Benny whispered.

  The two of them sat on their old couch, doing their best to limit all sounds of life.

  “Be quiet,” said Joe. “I think he’s showing the place to two girls.”

  “Yeah, and one of them sounds hot.”

  “You know that ‘sounds hot’ is a stupid concept, right?”

  Benny shrugged. Insofar as Joe was concerned, a Benny shrug was a concession to the rightness of his own point. They waited for the landlord’s footsteps outside their door, for the terrible knock, but when they heard him mention heading out for lunch, the two of them began stuffing clothes into bags. They would take only what they could carry.

  “So we’ll meet on Friday, right?” Joe said.

  “Right,” said Benny. “At the Blue Unicorn.”

  Joe felt a serious terror when they parted because he knew their carefree times were gone. Not that their time together had always been so great; the fear came because Joe had no idea what kind of life might replace it.

  Benny headed out first, his cracked leather bag slung across his shoulder.

  First, the familiar sounds of Benny’s hard footsteps, clunking down the stairs. But then a pause, the chiming voice of what could only be one of the neighbors. Joe had seen the guy and his girlfriend around for a few days now, and had even run into them a few times in a coffee shop, but with each encounter, he had made sure to be as bland and quick as possible. Destroy all references, the saying went. Leave no images behind. He overheard that the couple had moved to Western City North from elsewhere, that the guy was some sort of artist, and that the girl was interested in hosting political meetings for some cause or another, but that was it.

  Pressing his ear against the glazed glass of the doorway, he heard Benny and the male neighbor exchange greetings. Benny was careless like that. Had Joe encountered someone on the stairs, he would have lowered his eyes and mumbled a soft greeting without breaking his stride. But Benny wasn’t the type who might stop and think that for anyone with an exacting eye, a living, breathing young man with a well-stocked bag around his shoulder was unlikely to return to wherever he was departing from.

  Through the door, Joe heard the guy introduce himself to Benny. Lance. Just another name, just another roadblock. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed Benny the smarts to give a fake name back. He did, and Joe let out a long breath he did not realize he had been holding. Why make it any easier for the Point Line than he had to? Whoever this Lance was, Joe wished he would head back indoors. He too had a bag to carry out, a life to leave behind.

  Joe caught a ride across the bridge to a student co-op in a small college town. The next two nights he spent in a wall closet, a pile of clothes stuffed into a pillowcase under his head. That night, he dreamed of a soundless Benny, gesturing to him wildly, unable to speak, further details slipping away the moment he woke. On Friday, as planned, Joe went back to the Blue Unicorn and waited for Benny to show.

  As Joe sat in the café, an emptiness skidded across his stomach, and he sneaked small bites of forgotten food when no one was looking: stale bread, hard cheese, salted beef. A full day of waiting, and still no Benny. Normally, Joe liked to be alone, needed it even. Most people drained him or filled him with a profound sadness that human interaction was, by definition, such a chore. But not Benny. Around Benny, his gloom was swept away. Benny recharged him.

  After hours of waiting, Joe hitchhiked back across the bridge to the co-op. It was an old building with an apexed roof that dropped shingles onto the front yard at menacing speeds. Inside, the hallways were lined with paint streaks and posters offering discredited or fanciful explanations of official versions of events. Every door was closed, but from behind each one escaped loud, thudding music, the scratches and wobbles of banged instruments shifting at an ever-changing tempo. These days in the Homeland, there were only two types of music: clanging songs of war or the sad, slow tones of women who wept alone.

  There were so many people in and out of the co-op that no one gave Joe any trouble. Women and vets, for the most part, a few of them Substance dealers, none of them with any idea of who was lost and wandering and who actually belonged. A few of the dealers had approached him, but Joe turned them down. He knew Benny messed around with Substance Q occasionally, but it was clear that these folks were slinging new derivatives that were much more extreme.

  That evening, Joe called his parents collect. He knew they would want to hear from him, and besides, maybe they had some information he could use. His mother yelped when she heard him on the end of the line.

  “Calm down, Ma,” Joe said.

  “Where are you?” His mother always began conversations like this.

  He told her he was at a co-op for college kids, and she began to cry. “Are you going to church?” his mother sniffed. “Tell me you go. I do hope you’re going, Joe. I really do.”

  A bone-thin man without a shirt walked by and blinked his eyes in Joe’s direction a few too many times. Joe let his eyes pass over the man’s thin limbs and sunken chest, noting his missing ear and scarred torso. “Look, Ma, this is collect. Don’t you want to call me back?”

  A debate broke out between his mother and father over which was more expensive: a collect call or a long distance one. After a few moments of letting them argue, he shouted the co-op’s number over their voices and hung up. The shirtless man walked past again. A small gust of desire drifted into Joe’s chest, but he stamped it out quickly. There were no friendly faces in this strange place. Besides, the man in front of him had some sort of problem.

  “What?” Joe asked the man.

  With a slim finger, the man pointed to the phone.

  “I’m waiting for a call,” Joe said.

  The man’s face got tight, but he kept quiet. He took a cross-legged seat on the floor, folded up at
Joe’s feet. Eyes closed and breaths slow and troubled, the man seemed to be shutting out all external stimuli. Finally the phone rang again, Joe’s parents already midargument the moment he picked up. His father’s hearing had begun to fade; each word was initiated with an excess of volume. He heard his father grunt something to his mother about telling him now. Not yet, the pitted voice of his mother said. Whatever his father thought he should know was put on hold; she had more to ask him: Where are you, how are you doing, and what is it that you think you are doing wherever you are?

  Well, Joe thought about telling them, there’s a one-eared cross-legged man with piped veins and heavy breaths folded at my feet. “It’s my turn now,” he heard his father say. An involuntary clutch pressed into Joe’s back and thrust his spine straight. Even though it had been two years since Joe had been under his roof, the voice of his father still whipped his skin; each sound he spoke birthed tiny welts in the center of Joe’s chest.

  “They came in person, Joe. The Registry. Showed up at our door at dinnertime.”

  Joe said nothing. The cross-legged man lifted his head and looked up at him. As their eyes met, the man unfurled his palm to reveal a fiery flash of red. It was a crumpled peony; Joe recognized the flower from his mother’s garden. What he meant by it, Joe had no idea.

  “‘Three notices,’ they said. Three notices you ignored. Scared the heck out of your mother.”

  “Tell her I’m sorry about that.” Below him, the bright red petals of the peony lay flat on the cross-legged man’s upturned palm. Maybe he was one of those vets Joe had heard about: stable on the surface, but saddled with an inner world of deluded landscapes and bristling misconceptions. Unless the flower was some sort of signal. But Joe’s father was still talking: notices ignored, official documents, last chances.

  “You can’t ignore the Registry, Joe.”

  For once, his father was right. So many years into the war, the Homeland was getting desperate and the Registry more vicious.