by Ginger Booth
That wasn’t so bad. I mostly returned to my native mental state, not exactly lacking religious convictions, but more like no conclusions regarding God. God and I coexisted amicably in the world, and I happily perceived Him in pretty things and math and cool tech. I haven’t heard of other adherents to my faith, but that’s OK. We wouldn’t get together and hold church services anyway.
The part where my handlers wanted me to reverse my forgiveness of Canber got pretty ugly. We eventually had to call that one a draw. They wouldn’t compromise on accepting mass murder as a means of serving God and saving the Earth. Opiate withdrawal sucks. I agreed to the terms. Mass murder is wrong. Mass murder is not what God demands of us.
Or at least mass murder was none of my business. In self-defense, I kept my private opinion of Rescos using death angel markers to myself. But the deprogrammers succeeded to the extent that I never wanted to accidentally discuss Canber, my abduction, Pittsburgh, death angels, or the dark side of Emmett’s Resco work ever again. Or take an opiate.
Yeah, I’d rather have stayed home, helped plan the near-term fate of Hudson, and gone out for Chinese with the guests.
“How about this one?” Emmett suggested, holding up a man’s simple stainless steel ring. His choice closely matched the engagement ring he’d picked out for me, only wider. We’d already selected a no-gem plain band for me to go with the engagement ring. We were rummaging in the wedding ring department of a huge pre-owned jewelry emporium in Midtown Manhattan, where Emmett found the ring he proposed to me with.
“I like it,” I assured him. “But do you? You can still have gold if you want, Emmett. They don’t have to match.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, and kissed me. “I want them to match.”
I’d admitted I didn’t really like him wearing Dane Beaufort’s wedding ring, inscribed for Marilou. A wedding ring should make him think of me, not Pittsburgh or the Beauforts, or Evangelism. And though the sentiment was kind of cool, the words ‘God For Me Provided Thee’ sounded stilted. I preferred a simple ‘Partners’ as an engraving for contemplation. We were partners in so many areas, and it meant something. You told a partner what they needed to know. You made the big decisions together, because the results had to be good for both of you. In life, in marriage, working on projects, partners are in it together. What God did or didn’t intend, or demand of us, didn’t seem to me to inform domestic compromise. The principles of fairness and partnership did.
Engraving the rings would take an hour, so we dawdled and window-shopped through the vast central recycled goods hub. I felt wealthy beyond measure. So much stuff, and I could buy anything I pleased. But I didn’t need anything. I laughed to realize that even the battery and electronics stores didn’t tempt me anymore. I did buy some massage oils and rocks, though, in a spa store, for later.
Emmett drew me along to the nearest Calm Park, with its fleet of food trucks. He picked falafels, me teriyaki chicken on a stick, and we shared and laughed and talked. The local goats came after us, so we climbed onto on a brick wall to fend them off while we finished eating. Those were some fat and pushy goats, by the food trucks. No pigeons anymore. It might take years for the pigeon population to recover from the starving time. Pigeons were good eating.
The engravings came out perfect. We put on our rings, and headed south. Our guards closed in tight through some rough neighborhoods, but mostly gave us space. We couldn’t walk through the Apple Core without them. But nobody tested their patience. Manhattan still held thousands of tall buildings, mostly empty, and probably would for years yet. It’s not easy to demolish a skyscraper.
In the shorter-building Lower East Side, on the way to the Brooklyn Bridge, we dropped by Ash Margolis’ apartment to show off our rings. Ash and Deborah insisted on celebrating with a meal, and took us to their favorite deli. Ash introduced us to Reuben omelets with potato pancakes and applesauce. Their son Shimon shared his ponderous choices about his impending bar mitzvah. The younger Shira bragged about her violin playing. On the way out, we dawdled to listen to a street symphony playing by their mini-city green. Joining them someday was Shira’s shining ambition, for now.
By then it was well after dark, so we took the nearest ferry back to Brooklyn Prospect.
We followed the instructions that came with my massage rocks and set Emmett up on the massage table in our room, each sipping a glass of warm hard cider. Definitely one of the better luxury toys we’d bought, that massage table. We’d learned that one or the other of us got a massage, not both in the same night. I pummeled him down and experimented with warmed rock placement until he was fairly dripping off the table in relaxation.
“You OK now, Emmett?” I asked, draping a towel over him. He wasn’t, neither of us were alright, when I came back from deprogramming. We clung to each other, anxious if out of each other’s sight and touch. He tried to leave for work in New Jersey the next morning, and came back five minutes later in a panic attack. We called Pete Hoffman and asked for a few days alone together to catch our breath. Pete was easy. He told us Newark wasn’t going anywhere. Emmett could take whatever time he needed.
“Uh-huh,” Emmett murmured contentedly. “Good day.”
“Oh, wow!” I agreed. “Two good days, in the same week! Maybe we’re getting better at this. We even got a good day on a day off.”
“Uh-huh,” said Emmett. Well, OK, we wouldn’t have goofed off all day if things weren’t going well in our world.
“Are we going to talk about what you’re doing in New Jersey, Emmett?” I asked softly. “You know, if you dread doing it, maybe you shouldn’t.”
That roused him. He sat up and wrapped the towel around himself. He thoughtfully took and held my ringed hand to his, so the rings touched. “What exactly do you think I’m doing in New Jersey, Dee?” His eye met mine searchingly.
“Calling in a death angel marker,” I said reluctantly.
“Several,” he agreed softly. “Just drugs, Dee. We offer good work, a good plan to follow. Neighbors tear down decrepit housing. Build themselves a good new place to live. People can choose that work, that new life. Or they can stay home in their shrinking ghettos, and take the drugs. Easy to get. Flooding the inner cities and delinquent hangouts and gangs.”
“Their choice,” I echoed sadly. “Do they get any food if they don’t do the work?”
“Nope. No one does.” He scratched his jaw. “Dee, there are guidelines to all this. Ones we should have followed all along. There’s no quota, you know. Not any more. As many people who want to take the high road, can have it. My part is to make sure that better option is as good as I can make it. Really tempting. Free of drugs and weapons and violence. A life worth living, doing work worth doing.”
“But a lot of people will choose the oxycontin,” I said.
I knew how many of the pills were doctored. Judgment forced Blake to do that, during his slave time. In a bottle of 50 pills, he’d take out 10 and dope them with something – he didn’t know what. Then he’d close the bottle cap and mark it. It drove him crazy while we were in the mobile home in West Virginia, to think of how many of the slaves would forget to mark the bottle cap. Not just oxycontin, either. All kinds of opiates, even the codeine-laced Tylenol. I was glad Blake didn’t tell Brandy and me until after our fevers had broken. I was pretty sure our drugs came from Canber’s private stock. But the man didn’t seem averse to a game of Russian roulette.
“People always pick the drugs,” Emmett confirmed. “People don’t like to change, Dee. These people have had a raw deal all their lives. They’re in their rut. But the rest of Hudson won’t support them for doing nothing. Not here in the Apple Core, not in Newark, not anywhere. And it’s no secret. They see people around them die from the drugs. We tell them the truth. But they’ll choose the drugs anyway.” His fingers slipped between mine to grasp my hand, still ring to ring. “Forgive me?”
I shook my head slightly. “Nothing to forgive. I understand.”
He leaned his forehead
against mine. “Thank you for making me say it. I should get back to work tomorrow.”
I nodded, kissed his nose. “If you can’t tell me, Emmett? Don’t do it.”
“Uh-huh.” He didn’t belabor the point, but that was a promise he couldn’t make.
32
Interesting fact: The word ‘kill’ in Hudson place names – the Catskills, Little Bunnykill, etc. – originated with the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam. ‘Kill’ in Dutch means ‘stream’ or ‘channel.’ The narrow tidal waters separating Staten Island from New Jersey are the Kill Van Kull to the north and the Arthur Kill to the west. These sound dire in English, but in the original Dutch meant ‘the channel from the ridge’ and ‘the back channel.’
I traveled to the Jersey Meadowlands with John Niedermeyer and another quiet Resco. I’d seen him before at a conference in Connecticut. He was a major, assigned somewhere in upstate Hudson. We didn’t discuss it, though, or use names. They joked that for today’s purposes, we were A, B, and D.
I met them at the Staten Island ferry terminal. John led us down the back stairs, and out a minor pier. We claimed a Boston whaler, already supplied with a gas tank, and headed off around the north side of Staten Island along the Kill Van Kull, a skull-name if ever there was one. Flowing between the rusty industrial shores of Staten Island and Bayonne in Jersey-borough, the Kill was not a beautiful river.
John confidently turned right and steered us north through Newark Bay, a once lively port now nearly deserted in the November chill and thin slanting light. Choked in dead industry and concrete, Elizabeth and Newark flowed past us on the left. Their unimproved state gave stark contrast to Jersey-borough on the right, which was already advancing in urban deconstruction and Calm Parks. Both shores were low-lying in the flood plains. The plans called for them to return to marsh and salt meadows again, someday.
We didn’t talk much in the boat. John – or ‘A’ – made clear the rules. He agreed that Emmett needed me to join them, but the other guests didn’t want to know me. Emmett had already warned me that Cam wasn’t invited, and to avoid mentioning him.
At the top of Newark Bay, we took the Hackensack River onward, snaking north. This was a familiar kind of river from home on the Connecticut shore. Built up at parts, but with pretty bits of salt marsh interspersed, and wide shallow places, a quiet tidal river compared to the mighty Hudson. The whipping wind quieted as we passed farther from the ocean. There wasn’t much sound, other than seagulls screeching and our outboard engine. Whatever people did on shore, whatever people remained here, wasn’t clear from mid-channel in late autumn. The highway I-95 ran alongside us for a while, with a smattering of traffic, mostly trucks bearing food.
Both of my companions were in civilian woodsy attire, with rubber-foot boots, like me. Unlike me, they were both armed. I saw no evidence of Hackensack River pirates, though.
Another bend in the river, and I-95 retreated. We came to a wilder space, with salt marsh to either side.
“Should be a channel coming up on the left,” A reported, “after the cell tower.” He found it easily, and steered us into the marsh.
“Need any help navigating?” I offered.
John, A, pursed his lips and shook his head ‘no.’ We zigged, we zagged, we outraged waterfowl. And we spotted Emmett and some other men standing on a roadway mere yards from the channel. “B, pull up the engine as soon as I kill it,” A directed. While B did that, saving the propeller from rocks and muck below, A expertly threw a rope, like a lasso, to a stranger on shore, who drew us in and beached the whaler.
“I’m A, he’s B, she’s Dee,” John announced to the dry-land group, as Emmett lifted me off the boat.
Emmett snorted. “I’m E. Welcome, Dee.” He held me close and hard for a moment, before he turned to exchange hand-shake and hug with A, and a more reserved hand-shake with B. For reasons not immediately obvious, the men with Emmett identified themselves as C, K, O, and V. They didn’t have much to say. They, and Emmett, wore civilian outdoor clothes as well, with handguns.
The others had arrived via a road here through the marsh. Their cars were parked in a circular wide grassy area bisected by the road.
Emmett hung onto me, and led the procession across the salt meadow toward a wooded rise. There were water channels to right and left, but it wasn’t too marshy where we walked. Emmett stopped just before the trees and turned back to admire the view, while the others caught up.
“Did you dig the grave all alone, Emmett?” I asked sadly.
He shook his head. “Canton did that. Before he emailed me. Then he took the overdose.” He pointed to a tree. “He sat down there and looked out over the view.”
While he died. It was a pretty view. I’ve always loved the stark beauty of salt marshes, even died back for winter.
“He was from here?” C asked. “Not Penn?”
“Yeah,” Emmett breathed. “As a kid. Moved to Long Island for high school.”
“Shit, his family died in the Apple Zone?” K asked.
Emmett shook his head minutely. “Don’t know. They weren’t close.” He sighed and turned to the grave. We all ringed it.
Someone – probably Emmett, hopefully not alone – had already lowered the body into the hole, and arranged it neatly, facing upwards, eyes closed, hands crossed over his heart. There was no casket, no flags. A few shovels stood waiting, stabbed into the mound of earth.
Nobody said anything. After a few moments, I started with, “Thank you for your service, Canton Bertovich.” Six servicemen turned their eyes to glower at me.
I continued, “You hated those words when I said them to you, Canber. And I told you what I meant. That even though I didn’t care for what you did. I don’t agree with what my country ordered you to do. Still, you served my country, and followed orders. Whatever you’ve done, I share in that. I don’t have to like it. But I know I benefited from it. We meant it when we offered you a way back, you know? Maybe that’s what drove you here. If you found peace, I’m glad.”
Emmett nodded, and hugged me close.
Slowly, C offered, “I can’t imagine – no, I don’t want to imagine, how you could do this job, Cant. But she’s right. We all share in it. God, if you’re listening, I know the blame is not all his. May God have mercy on our souls.”
C for Carolina, I thought, hearing his accent. V for Virginia, K for Kentucky, O for Ohio. Not that it mattered. But they’d traveled far to attend this funeral.
Like an open-air Quaker meeting, there between the browned marsh grass and the bare trees, under a pale blue sky, we fell into contemplative silence until the spirit moved another to speak, K. “I used your markers, Canton. My district needed them. And they worked. That’s all it needs to be, I guess. Thank you.”
Emmett took a turn next. “You were my friend, Canton Bertovich. Maybe I was your only friend here. You pulled away from me our second year at Leavenworth. I understand why. But you were more than a death angel. Canton was born here in the Meadowlands, to cold and crappy parents. He was brilliant, and sad. He became a doctor to do bio-research, and went with the Army to pay for his schooling. He wanted to save endangered species.” Emmett’s voice cracked. “He never got back to that. I know you hated this phrase, too, Canton, but I hate the sin and love the sinner. God bless, and rest in peace, friend.”
I squeezed him from one side, along with John Niedermeyer, A, from the other side. A shared, “I didn’t agree with Canton. No bones about it. I’m here to support Emmett. But if it’s any solace, he was the best of the death angels. The others just did mass murder. Crude. Somehow Canber came up with schemes for volunteers. Selective deaths. Not just wholesale slaughter.”
Eventually B, O, and V found their words as well, and offered them.
The men took up the shovels and turned the good earth back down onto Canton Bertovich. All the men except Emmett stood off, and fired three rounds into the sky. Emmett walked a couple hundred feet away and played a recorded taps from his phone, while they
stared out at the view, each with hand to brow, offering a final formal salute to the salt marsh.
We walked back to the SUV’s in silence, Emmett and I joined at the hip, arms around each other’s waists.
At the cars, Emmett let go, and pulled an envelope out of his shirt. “Any volunteer to take over Canton’s responsibilities?” There wasn’t one, but Emmett didn’t pause to see if there was. “Thought not. So we’ll share the load. I made accounts for each of the super-states.” He handed out a double-folded wad of paper to each of them except B, and still had a few left over.
I balked in silence. Can’t you just let this die with Canber? But they probably would, if they believed they could. My part here was to support Emmett. I had no say. Even Cam had no voice with this group, let alone me.
“I can deliver to Florida,” A volunteered, and accepted a second wad.
C looked relieved, and put his hand out. “Georgia.” K and O accepted an extra apiece.
“E, give me yours,” said B. “Penn and Hudson.”
“I do outrank you, you know,” Emmett pointed out.
“Not in this,” B insisted. “E, you’d suck at it. And you’re in the public eye. You can’t move quietly and get the job done. I can. Hell, I can even transfer to Elmira or something, if you back me up with Colonel Nasser.” Elmira was a Hudson town near the middle of the long upstate border with Penn.
“He’s right, E,” A said slowly. “You’re only taking this on because you think you’re responsible for Canber’s death. You’re not. A suicide kills himself.” Emmett looked mulish. “A vote then,” A said peaceably, holding up his hand. “Who thinks B should take Penn and Hudson, instead of E?”
The vote was unanimous against Emmett. He relented and handed over Penn’s death angel access packet to B. He scribbled Hudson’s codes on an envelope, and handed those over, too. I was relieved. Emmett just looked guilty, for handing off a duty he loathed but thought rightfully fell to him.