This Is the Night

by Jonah C. Sirott

  “Well, truth be told, we’ve had some technical problems. According to our research, you mill down charcoal, add some everyday root killer, blenderize with a little sulfur, introduce a solvent or two, and you’ve got your hands on some pretty powerful explosive. Or you’re supposed to.”

  “So you do want to kill Homeland citizens, but you just need to perfect your methods?”

  The tall man laughed. “You make it sound so simple. But what you just saw upstairs, that’s important, that’s part of what we’re trying to do, too.” The tall man smiled, showed his landing-strip teeth. “We’re rewriting the words to the song, Benny. A little street theater—I don’t know if you heard about our little fashion show with stolen Homeland uniforms, but that was us—toss in some fake bombs that are never meant to go off, and, into that mix, some real bombs that are meant to go off. Keep people curious, keep things playful, right until they’re not. Phases, understand?”

  “All this so you can stop the war?”

  “Oh, we don’t want to stop the war. You think the prime minister would listen to us?”

  “So you support the Coyotes?”

  The man snorted. “Kid, you’re not getting it. The Coyotes, the prime minister. They’re the same thing. Just different systems of control.”

  “The Coyotes didn’t start the war.”

  “No, but this sick culture did. We don’t want to stop the war. This civilization, it’s too sick to be saved. We need to start over, and we know how to do it. First, you mock the culture. Then you flummox it. And finally, right when things are at their most confusing, when it’s spinning around and dizzy, you kill it. New culture, new world.”

  Benny could see from the tall man’s face he was very serious.

  “So why am I telling you any of this? First off, just like Alan here, you’re going to help us.”

  “Help you what?”

  “Second,” the man continued, “your help is not being requested here.”

  Benny didn’t understand. Apparently the tall man could sense his confusion.

  “What I mean,” the tall man said, “is that your assistance in this project is required. You have no choice but to help us.”

  Benny was starting to resent the tall man’s vague mixture of arrogance and assumption. He turned to Alan. “You want to help these crazy mother-rapers kill people?”

  “You don’t know me,” Alan said. “You don’t know what we’ve been through.”

  “Who the hell is we?”

  “Don’t talk to him, listen to me,” the tall man said. He was leaning forward now, his face close to Benny’s. “This is phase three. Right now. We’ve got the entrance to the induction center fully rigged. First Tuesday, everybody is going to be there. We have figured out this charcoal shit, and the games are over. When the place opens at six tonight, we’re going to explode it on the first person who walks through that door. We can’t get too near without raising suspicion, so we’re going to need someone to signal us, a kid who looks like he’s got his greetings. That’s you. As soon as the sun sets, it’s going down.”

  “And what if I don’t—”

  The tall man reached for the purple flowers, lifted up the vase, and opened the small wooden box upon which it rested. A small flash of light reflected off the object, and Benny saw that it was a small gun. The tall man removed it from the box, wrapped a hand around the grip, and pressed the muzzle into Benny’s earhole. First Tuesdays are the worst days.

  35.

  “You want to help these crazy mother-rapers kill people?”

  The words hover in Alan’s ears, a screaming rage coursing through him. That Benny had labeled him some unthinking murderer showed that the guy not only had no sense of the immorality of the Registry, but also of Alan’s larger purpose. Once again, Alan is in a van, the tinted windows smoothing all colors into elephant grey.

  The only reason he is in this van is to meet Woody Gilbert, and the only way he can meet Woody Gilbert is to fulfill the agenda of the baldheads. The tall man had laughed at his piece of Registry bus rubber. If this stunt is the only way to get introduced, so be it. Woody Gilbert is change, Alan knows. Woody Gilbert will purify him. Once the tall man presents him to HIM’s mysterious leader, Alan will shackle himself to the man, nibble at his mind, inhale each small puff of wisdom. Together they will make the world free.

  But what do any of these Majority Groupers know about freedom? With Woody Gilbert, he will be fighting for more than the small indignity of sitting out the war. In the row behind him, Benny and his privilege occupy the middle seat, a terrified expression smeared across his face. Look, Alan wants to tell him. If you escape the Registry, that’s it. You’re just a Majority Grouper living his life. But whoever heard of a Homeland Indigenous escaping anything? Whether the words belong to the Young Savior or Woody Gilbert, Alan cannot remember. Either way they apply: A people cannot be free until they are able to determine their destiny.

  Just as he is about to explain this to Benny, the tall man turns to him. In the tall man’s massive grip is a small device, all black save for a red button in the middle and the slim silver of a protruding antenna. “You keep your finger ready,” he says to Alan. Only a truly weak man, Alan thinks, could develop a plan that involved death and not see it through. No matter. All he needs from this baldhead is an introduction. Push a button? So be it.

  The whole ride over, Alan practices his first words to Woody Gilbert. Sir, I greatly admire your work. Too formal. Mr. Gilbert, I am Alan, Group F. No, too pandering, too eager to play the Homeland Indigenous card. Through the window, Alan watches the trees shake in the wind, the light slowly fading. Turning around, he can see the small pistol one of the baldheads has pressed against Benny’s ribs. The tall man drives, quietly explaining to Benny that the baldheads have rigged the doorframe of the main entrance along with a flower box in the first-floor window, ready to blast the first inductee of the day. But even if the bombs work—and the baldheads have yet to explode one successfully, Alan knows—the blast will do small damage at best, maybe knock off a limb of whatever unfortunate mother-raper happens to be first in line. Nothing too major, just another page seven article in a few dozen newspapers. Earlier, when Alan had been alone with the tall man, the modest scale and size of the attack had been made clear. But now in the car the baldheads are claiming the whole place might blow. Alan can see from the drop of Benny’s lip that he is scared, that impalpable sirens are screaming in his ears, that he feels both furious and helpless at the situation he has fallen into. Probably, Alan decides, the baldheads can see this fear too, and are trying to capitalize on it by inflating the bomb’s magnitude. Oh well.

  A massive pothole jolts the van. Finally they arrive at the induction center. A baldhead sends Benny out to a bench and tells him to stay seated until he gets the signal.

  “One more thing,” the tall man calls to Benny. He whispers in Benny’s ear as he hops down to the street.

  “Anything else I should know?” Alan asks.

  “Just keep your finger on that button,” the tall man tells him.

  36.

  A tiny border town at the northernmost edge of the Homeland. Nothing had happened yet, Lorrie thought, but anything could. The plan was fuzzy to her, the only fathomable parts being the ludicrous amounts of someone else’s Currencies they carried and the fragile fear that at any point—one incomplete step or sloppy signal—and she would be reborn into a new life of uniforms and cages.

  What on good roads might have been a half-day journey had stretched into an all-day drive. Now, Susan roughed the air of the small motel room with one cigarette after another. Outside, grey-blue clouds covered up the warmth of the sun while specks of frost dotted the dirty window that looked out over an old swimming pool. The entire town consisted of two gas stations, one bank, a barber shop, three churches, a diner, and, at the end of the street, a large, windowless box of naked concrete over which two banners were draped, one announcing the grand opening of the new police statio
n, the other, a Homeland classic encouraging people to use the Point Line. Plus their motel. Lorrie and Susan occupied a corner room. The solemn open spaces, the endless discolored farmland, suites of undisturbed lakes—all the stillness unnerved her. In the city, life was everywhere, and there were multiple opportunities for moments of connection. The great gulps of vast landscape left her feeling lonely. At least she had Susan.

  Susan twisted her hair with a finger. Lorrie stared out the window at the curved swimming pool, its lines forming the perfect shape of a kidney bean. No two moments, she thought, were ever alike. A small electric pump attached to a hose slowly sucked the water from the pool and flooded a nearby strip of grass. The seconds crawled forward, and the cursive neon sign of the motel gave off short flicks and long buzzes, sounds that passed easily through the thin windowpane. The room stank, but she was happy to be there, and even happier that Lance had no idea where she was. Let him search. Let him keep looking till the end of time.

  If the plan worked and they didn’t get caught—though there was every reason to expect they would—Lorrie knew she would be on that brilliant path toward actually making a difference. But there were so many ways it could go wrong. “Let’s go over the plan again,” she said to Susan.

  Susan sighed. “It’s simple. This kid, he snuck out of the Homeland and into Allied Country N. But he can’t find work because he snuck in.”

  Sneaked, Lorrie thought. “Got it,” she said instead.

  “And Country N, nice as they can be, won’t give work papers to people who enter illegally. They only want stand-up immigrants with lots of money and a job.”

  “So we smuggle him out of N—”

  “And back into the Homeland,” Susan interrupted. “That part shouldn’t be too hard. And then, once he’s in the Homeland, we help him get back to N legally. That’s where all this cash comes in. Plus, I lined up some fake employment papers.”

  A puff of air landed on Lorrie’s cheek as Susan waved the envelope stuffed full of Currencies. Who knew where all that money had come from?

  “And even with the Currencies and the fake promise of a job, they still might not let him in?”

  “Right, it’s called getting landed. And then, if they don’t land him, we’ve got a problem, because the Homeland will be right there, waiting to snap him up.”

  “Do we think we have a good chance?”

  For a long while, Susan was silent. “They’ll give us more directions over the phone,” she said. “We should get a call soon.”

  What were the penalties for smugglers, for collaborators? Lorrie didn’t know, didn’t want to ask. They sat beside one another on the outer edges of the old queen-sized bed. Neither dared scoot off the ledge due to a concave impression in the very center, an effect that gave the mattress the look of having been impacted by a small but determined asteroid.

  The two of them watched the phone. For a long time now, Lorrie saw, she had been waiting for whatever she was now waiting for.

  Susan leaned forward and flicked the ash of her cigarette into the tray. Opening her purse, Lorrie searched her eyes around its insides, just to have something to do. A slight stink wandered around the room, possibly emanating from Lorrie, possibly from the mildewed curtains and the heavy rug. Fear and excitement always made her sweat. The phone rang.

  “Tall,” repeated Susan, taking two short puffs of smoke into her lungs. “Okay, okay, right. Mustache. Check.” She hung up the phone.

  A question charged through Lorrie’s brain. Don’t ask, she told herself. Do not.

  “What?” said Susan.

  She asked. “Could it be a setup? Could he be a Reggie?”

  Susan made it clear that yes, Reggies were everywhere, even in other countries. “Anyone,” she said slowly, “could always be a Reggie.”

  Ducking into Susan’s car, they headed toward the border. Deep holes in the road were marked by ad hoc signals, usually a piece of bright fabric tied to a stick. As they drove, roadside signs updated their progress. “Country N Border: 1 Distance-Unit Ahead.” Susan flicked her ash through the window and drove on. “Country N Border: ½ Distance-Unit Ahead.”

  “Do you think all this is worth it, just to save one guy?” she asked Susan.

  “You know, for the most part, I don’t go in for that Young Savior stuff,” Susan said. “And not to be cheesy, but you know that one quote? ‘By making a difference in one life on an individual level, we begin to change and repair the world.’ I actually buy that.”

  Lorrie considered the sentiment, doing her best to ignore the source. A warm, yellow feeling rippled throughout her body and she found that without a doubt, she bought it, too.

  Ahead, all lanes converged on bullet-resistant booths with sliding doors where drivers presented their documents to agents of the Homeland. Large armored trucks were parked on both sides of the road. Spirals of rusted barbed wire curled around every possible illicit exit, followed by a trench and an impossibly tall electrified fence. To pass through a booth was the only way out.

  Susan pulled in the middle lane, away from the border store selling rare items untaxed by the Homeland. Perhaps Allied Country N was a land of bright pumpkins and juicy grapes, Lorrie thought. A begging, one-legged man tapped their window with his elbow stump. Lorrie handed him a few Currencies and forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand.

  A Homeland border agent motioned for their papers. After scanning the car inside and out for hidden men, he waved them through. Ahead, another agent, this one adorned with the mitered pocket flaps and purple epaulets of Country N, looked at their papers, rescanned for hidden men, and, upon finding none, welcomed the two of them to his country.

  Save for a family trip when she was seven, it was Lorrie’s first time in Country N. From the passenger seat, it was clear to Lorrie that this was a nation that possessed far greater agricultural prowess than the Homeland. Rows of what seemed to be alfalfa stuck out from the dirt, followed by fields of plums and peaches and other varietals of stone fruit of which Lorrie could no longer recall the taste. Deer grazed on blooming flowers by the side of the road. Perhaps such success was because Allied Country N, she thought, was allied with the Homeland in name only, a country that had not yet shipped off all the men who knew when to water and when to pick.

  As instructed, they stopped at the first bar in the second small town, a low-slung brick building with a domed awning over the entrance and two neon beer signs in the window, exactly as the caller had described. So far, so good. Lorrie’s and Susan’s eyes fell on a young man with a semblance of a mustache, alone at the bar, a small club soda in front of him. He was slumped forward in a manner that forced his upper back into a sharp, painful-looking curve.

  For a moment, the two of them stood in the entryway and watched, amazed there really was a man with a mustache who needed saving. Even more amazing were the other men around the tables, their eyes blooming, hair clean, all of them seemingly unaware of their fortune as they laughed and drank and thumped one another on the back.

  Focus, Lorrie thought. The young man’s pointed cheeks were specked with sparse stubble, his mustache—if he could be said to have one at all—was slight. Deep lines crossed his face. He couldn’t have been more than twenty. His clothes were simple except for a large and garish belt buckle that had been soldered into an unrecognizable shape. He was, Lorrie saw, only a kid.

  Lorrie exchanged looks with Susan. Setup? Clandestine Registry agent illegally operating in another country, waiting to bust them as soon as they returned to Homeland soil? “Well,” Susan said. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  The kid began an extended coughing fit, as though little kernels of rusted popcorn were bursting right there in his chest. Lorrie smiled; even the Registry couldn’t fake that.

  “You’re really here,” the kid said.

  “That’s right,” said Susan.

  The kid shook his head. “It’s just, I can’t believe it. I thought it was all over for me.”


  “No promises,” said Lorrie. “But the chances are good.” She ignored Susan’s frown. “Tell me,” Lorrie said to the kid, “about Allied Country N.”

  Allied Country N, it seemed, was filled up and overflowing with his kind, the generous social services stretched thin by a daily influx of Homeland deserters whose numbers no one had a realistic estimate of. “No one will hire us,” the kid said. “Not without the right papers. Runners are always last on the lists. When I first heard about you guys, I thought it was just a fairy tale.”

  Even so, the kid went on, “you wouldn’t believe the food up here. Strawberries so juicy they”—Another series of coughs, his inflamed lungs working overtime to push the phlegm out of his airways. “Of course, I was eating them out of garbage cans.”

  The kid shuffled off to the bathroom, and Lorrie took a look around the bar. Loud music with the volume adjusted to soft levels drifted from hidden speakers. The bar itself was angled like a bent elbow. Susan and Lorrie sat on two stools right in the crook.

  “He seems hungry,” Lorrie said to Susan.

  “He is hungry.”

  The kid came back from the bathroom, and soon they were back at the border, headed toward the Homeland. A creeping reminder came to Lorrie that if they didn’t do this right, it wasn’t just the kid who was going to suffer. The Country N border guard waved them right past, no inspection necessary. The Homeland guard did not.

  “Citizens?” the Homeland guard asked.

  All three nodded. As they had been told would happen, the guard gave the kid a hard stare but didn’t check his papers. What dodger who had made it out would ever sneak back in? In the backseat the kid tried to suppress the terrible coughs and hacks that came from deep in his chest. Lorrie wished she had something in her purse to give him. “My parents won’t talk to me,” the kid told them. “In our last conversation, my father told me he wished I had been shot in the jungle instead of killing him slowly the way I am now.”