This Is the Night

by Jonah C. Sirott

  Susan went on. She knew, she said, a way that could help the men ensnared.

  “Gay?” Lorrie guessed.

  “Oh, gay is out. They’re giving them full rights and then snapping them up the moment they peek their heads out. Besides, the gay angle is pretty unethical, if you ask me. That whole ruse the Center runs about pretending to hate gays so they’ll think you’re gay?”

  “What about it?”

  “It validates the hate! So wrong. But again, what I’m into is way beyond any of that.”

  “Fake papers at a three-digit university? Respected Doctors notes?”

  “Don’t joke. Those have been gone for months now.” She wiggled her fingers, a signal for Lorrie to pass the rum. “Even the kids with mommies and daddies who shit Currencies can’t snag those notes anymore. I’m telling you, this is different. Can you get out of town for a few days?”

  Lorrie thought about her started-over life once again. In high school she had taken a few classes in Foreign before the ban kicked in, and she knew the language had a word for the concept. She had looked for that started-over word, asked around, even queried a librarian at the neighborhood branch with the smooth stone walls and the well-kept window trim. She had never found the word, but the way Susan smiled at her, she knew she was living inside one, even if old shadows were still about.

  “So are you in?”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  Susan gave a sad shake of her head. “Let’s do something that matters. We can’t let another year go by. Let’s do something real, Lorrie.” She held the bottle toward Lorrie with an outstretched hand.

  “But is it dangerous?”

  “Of course it is.”

  27.

  Tuesday morning in the cabin. No one to talk to, no one anywhere. Benny did this to you, he told himself. Pumped his body full of Substance, got caught, and left you up here to rot. Outside the cabin were jagged trees, a massive boulder field, the harsh quiet of total emptiness. No sounds but those of his own deep breaths. In the silence, Joe could see clearly that no one should have to pursue their own ruin unless they chose to. But running on your own was no kind of life. Induction was at six p.m. To show up was an either/or proposition. Either you surrendered your freedom at sundown or you didn’t. One could not report late; today is Tuesday, he thought. This is the night.

  First Tuesdays are the worst days.

  28.

  Leaving the truck, the unchecked darkness in front of him, Benny counted steps. Knowing he was far from the city, after every hundredth step he started the count again, the numbers edging out all pain, thirst, and desire. Large tasks, he knew, were less daunting when chopped into small, manageable pieces. Getting back to the city was a large task.

  As he walked, he asked himself why he was going back to Western City North at all. Most of his friends had been snapped up, a few had disappeared, and others had simply lost it, wandering around the city like starving dogs. And yet, the city called to him, from its small neighborhoods of low-slung buildings to its massive steel skyscrapers, their sharp tips pointing toward the stars. New waves of people would replace those he was missing, other like-minded souls who managed to give the Registry the slip. Each day could still be an adventure. His ankles became weak, every new step igniting a small wildfire. Just a hundred more.

  Sometime after first light, Benny reached the city. He could sense his own stink from the way people flung their eyes elsewhere as he passed. He found a bench and sat, caught in a dark turn between fear and exhaustion. Now, drawn out by the rise of the sun, people emerged from their houses, on their way to work, to school, to some life Benny couldn’t conceive of.

  The slatted wood bench was painted dark green, though most of the paint had peeled. To finally sit was to experience, if only for a moment, a perfect world. No past, no future. But as he sat, he stuck his hands into the huge pockets of his coat, and the world to come invaded. No Currencies, not a one.

  “You’re all pinned-up, aren’t you?” A girl slid onto the other end of his bench. She was young, maybe a few years younger than him. Her face was long and slender, topped with wide, ranging eyebrows; he had noticed those right away. Bushed and crow-colored, they hung over her sockets in a way that shielded her eyes. “You’ve got it bad, I can tell. You’re knotted up, big time.”

  “Fuck off,” Benny told her. He didn’t need this right now. He was bone-tired, and besides, women in Western City North were always coming at him. Part of him couldn’t blame her: undamaged men stood out like exotic animals surrounded by drooping cats and limping dogs. But when had he last slept? Again he felt around in the big canvas pockets of his coat, unable to shake the dim memory that there had been a few Currencies in there earlier. Glossed and slippery paper touched his fingers, and he pulled out a bus ticket. Benny studied the destination to see what he could make of it.

  “Going somewhere?” the girl asked. “Me, I’m trying to get out of town. Maybe make it down to Western City South.”

  She hadn’t taken the hint, he noticed, but a woman not taking the hint wasn’t surprising. Most of them, once school was over, barely got a chance to speak to a man their own age in possession of two arms, two legs, and a small serving of sanity. This one next to him didn’t seem willing to let the opportunity slip away.

  “I don’t feel like talking,” he told her. With these women who were not used to male conversation, directness was essential. The bus ticket in Benny’s hand was yellow and crumpled; it would have looked fine under museum glass. A closer look showed it had expired. He couldn’t quite make out the numbers.

  “What’s the big deal? I’m just being friendly.”

  Benny shrugged. What the fuck was this ticket? The sky was grey, blanketed by one gigantic cloud. Benny looked down at the paper in his hand. Destination: Rural Sector M. His uncle’s cabin.

  Joe.

  Out of survival mode and momentarily safe from the Registry, arteries fully sober, only now could Benny recognize what he had done to his friend. He knew he had convinced Joe to head to the cabin and was somewhat sure he had passed off the key. Joe would be fine without him; Joe could be all right on his own, as long as he had the key. Desperately, he again plunged hand into pocket.

  “Lose something?” the girl asked. She was turned sideways and hugging her knees.

  The pads of Benny’s fingers touched cold metal. “Fuck!” Wrapping his hand around the key ring, he ripped it from his pocket and threw it as far as he could. It landed in the grass with a soft plop.

  “No one can stop me from leaving,” the girl said. “I’m getting out of here. Western City North.” She shook her head. “It’s completely wild, right? Too wild.”

  “Sure, sure,” Benny mumbled. If she had an agenda, he couldn’t focus on it.

  Responsibilities pierced him. Events from his dealer’s house, the squalid truck, the Blue Unicorn Café, all of them were now connected and destroying what little harmony he had. Who he was, what he had or hadn’t done; it all came back to him. Joe had gone to the cabin to think about induction.

  Joe alone was not a good thing. Like no one else in his life, Benny felt a responsibility toward his somber friend. It wasn’t just the fact that Joe secretly loved him—Benny had known about that for as long as he could remember. Instead, the responsibility came from a different place. Joe was as soft as a soap bubble. He took jokes too personally, he couldn’t dance, his frail body unable to perform any of the required graceful motions, but most of all, those childhood religion classes had seeped into him in some deep and haunting way. No, Joe was not like any of his other friends. Joe needed him. And he had let him go.

  The keys sat on the damp grass in front of him.

  And still there was more. My greetings from the Registry, Benny thought, my order to report. He was sure he was up on the same day as Joe—hadn’t that been what they’d talked about in the Unicorn?—but he needed confirmation. The Substances were fucking with his head—that much he could tell. But Joe was up at t
he cabin—that was right. Only he couldn’t be inside it. And how cold was it up there at this time of year? Cold as fuck. Had he been somewhere close to Joe last night, stuck in the back of a truck? Hard to say. All Benny knew was that his greetings had called for him and that Joe was alone and waiting. Had his greetings been for yesterday? Today? The particulars escaped him. If the induction date was yesterday, he’d missed it. But then again, missing it was okay, if missing it was what he wanted to do. But that meant he was again a criminal, a dodger. It was all too much. A pretty moth or an ugly butterfly settled on the wood of the bench between Benny and the woman.

  “What day is it?” he shouted at her. His voice sounded like rubble.

  “Monday,” she told him.

  So his greetings were tomorrow. The first Tuesday of the month, he knew, that arrogant, fatal day for a huge chunk of men. First Tuesdays, the phrase went, are the worst days.

  “What’s that book?” the woman said. “I could use some reading for my travels.”

  “What book?” She had no way to understand his problems. Her tomorrow could be anything. Benny actually had to be somewhere, and so did his oldest friend in the world, who was stuck outside a cold cabin with no keys.

  “That little book in your pocket.” The girl was still talking, nodding her head toward his coat.

  Benny looked at his other pocket, the pocket that hadn’t held the bus ticket and the keys and the reminders of his orders to report. With his hands tied behind his back in the truck, all the information in his pocket had been moot, unreachable. Now, the coat continued to cough up little bits of paper that helped him recall the various people and institutions he had let down.

  “You’re a real dazed kind of guy, aren’t you?”

  The pleasant thought came to Benny that maybe his coat had a bad-news pocket as well as a good-news counterpart, a left-hand path and a right-hand one. And the woman was right—from the top of the good-news pocket poked the pages of a tiny book, smaller even than the pocket scripture carried by Offshooters attempting to convince passersby that the terror they all bore was just another plan of the Young Savior’s.

  Benny looked at the engraved title pressed on the bonded leather. One Thousand and One Ways to Beat the Registry.

  Incredible. Someone in the dealer’s house must have slipped it in his pocket. To think, there could have been anything in there: a few Currencies, one of those little scissors to cut fingernails, some last bits of Substance. But there was a book, the best of all books, the only book he had ever needed. Benny looked at the girl. She was here, he saw, for him, set down in his midst to point out the small soft book in his humongous pocket.

  “That sure is a lot of ways to win,” she said. The sun bent around the girl like a spotlight.

  “You,” Benny said, sliding toward her. Paint chips from the slats of the bench crinkled under him. She was glowing. “You’re an—”

  “Just trying to make my way up north.” Benny could have sworn she’d said she was going south a minute ago. The whites of her eyes were fresh and laundered; the dazzling sunlight poured over her.

  She was in flames, and Benny told her so. “You’re glowing,” he said. “On fire.” She smiled because the flames could not consume her; she was meant to do what she had just done: bring the dawn and exile the doom. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. She was hot all over, and her chest rose up and down, sweet and panting.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” She did a wiggle dance and pushed herself from his grasp. Just as quickly, the light was off her and so was the fire. “You think because there’s no men left,” she said, leaping off the bench, “you can put your dirty hands on me whenever you feel like it? I’m out of here.” She sailed across the park, a small little spot. “And by the way,” she stopped and turned, yelling over her shoulder, “you smell like death!”

  Benny shrugged. It didn’t matter if she was going north or south, or what he really smelled like; the girl had done what she needed to do.

  His hands flipped the book like a fan, and his eyes jumped up and down the cascading pages. Surely Joe would tire of waiting for him at the cabin, would surrender to what he thought was his fate and head back to the induction center. Only what Joe didn’t know was that Benny would be there, bathed in bright light, ready to intercept him with whatever was inside these pages. There were one thousand and one ways to beat the Registry, but Benny needed the number that was right for him. He looked down, into the book.

  Stretch yourself on a rack till you’re so tall they won’t take you.

  Marry your mother.

  Marry your father.

  Blow up a bridge.

  Marry your sister.

  Wear pants made of pudding.

  Grow nine toes in the middle of your forehead.

  Make the world go away.

  He stared at the pages and tried to rearrange the letters into opportunities that meant something, actual, real ideas that were usable. Maybe there was still more Substance left in his system than he had thought. Maybe numbers twenty-five through thirty-two were jokes. He flipped toward the end.

  Solder your eyelids shut.

  Round up your friends and get them to crucify you.

  Develop a language that you speak only from your anus.

  Tell the Registry that you’ll leap into your own grave laughing.

  Grow old fast.

  A dark horror started at the base of his back and coiled a wicked path up his spine. Like a dog digging for a buried bone, he rubbed the words on the page with his thumb and forefinger, wishing hard that these sentences were the painful trick of the final drops of Substance in his body. But the words didn’t rearrange themselves, didn’t change at all. The cells of his nerves were sick, and the book made them sicker. Leaning forward, Benny pressed his body in half and vomited on the grass in front of him. Out poured a thin, yellow bile.

  A bunch of jokes, he thought. His sentence was carved in the form of a thousand and one stupid jokes. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and swallowed.

  So the angelic eyebrowed girl had been entirely mortal. Of course she was. When had the Young Savior ever done anything but make a mess for him?

  Another spasm in his stomach, and he knew his body had more to empty. Fingers loosening, he dropped the book to the ground, a direct hit into the yellow pool by his feet. A small splash on the legs of his pants, and the edges of the paper began to darken, soaking up his juices. Another go, and Benny heaved a final load of yellow onto the cover. The book was fully soaked. Huddling knees to chest, Benny curled into a ball, his chin tucked in, an attempt at darkness. A book of jokes. His hot breath was as old and flavored as a dying man’s. He pressed his eyes shut. Not to sleep, but instead to stop, if only for a moment, the rest of the world from coming in.

  One thousand and one ways to beat the draft, and he had vomited on all of them.

  29.

  I have left Gad, Alan thinks, or he has left me. Either way, we are separated.

  One final bus ride away from Western City North, he feels that his life until now has been a series of extended naps. Upon arriving in that city, he will surely be forever awoken. So tomorrow, he can weep for his missing friend. Or maybe find a new one. But right now, he has a ticket to Western City North. Ten minutes till departure.

  Through the stained window of the depot, Alan sees an unmarked bus pull into the parking lot. One by one, young men, their heads newly shaven, step down to the concrete. All of them exit with a thicket of nervousness. They are, Alan realizes, being bused off to war. A few circle up in a vacant space near the bus and begin a game of keep-it-up with an old ball. Others pull out cigarettes. Enjoy it while you can, Alan thinks.

  Without Gad, there’s no one to inform him of the genius of his plan. No matter. Alan steps outside. As he exits the station, the heavy hiss of idled motors whizzes through his ears. The panel doors of the Registry bus are open; he can see the driver resting up before the next shift. The air is warm and s
moky. With a nearly invisible gesture, Alan reaches into his bag and wraps his fingers around the smooth steel handle of his hunting knife. Just a quick check to make sure.

  “How long till your bus leaves?” he asks the group of soon-to-be soldiers.

  “Half hour,” comes the response.

  Wherever HIM is, whenever Alan links up with the group, he will need some sort of lurid souvenir. Now is his chance. Thanking the soldiers, Alan slinks away, turning the corner and walking to the other side of the bus where he cannot be seen.

  I don’t know how tires work, he thinks. I haven’t learned the proper angle, the most effective way to stab. Would there be a loud pop, a rush of air? But as Woody Gilbert wrote in the pamphlets: action must divest itself of awareness in order for true skill to occur. Removing the hunting knife from his bag, Alan slides the blade from the sheath and, in one smooth motion, plunges it into the sidewall. The rubber is tougher than he expected. Pushing down, he grinds the serrations of the blade against the tire. Finally he hears the small hiss of air. Funny, he thinks, I thought it would come so much quicker.

  On the other side of the bus, he hears the yelps of the future soldiers and their game of keep-it-up. Alongside the deflated tire is another one, parallel, just waiting to experience the same impersonal pain. Looking over his shoulder, Alan sees no one. Lifting his arm high in the air, he feels the crude and shapeless joy of destruction as the point of the blade enters the rubber. Each stab is natural, a reflex. When he finds HIM, when the baldheads make the introduction, he will find people who understand. He will show them this slice of Registry rubber. And they will show him—

  He does not know what they will show him. And that is exactly the point.

  Alan checks his watch. His ticket will expire if he does not get on the next bus to Western City North. He gets on the bus.