The man had a point. He walked into a group of strangers and never worried about getting mugged. Luthor didn’t respond.
“You see,” Roc continued, “I like to believe that people have generally good intentions. I don’t expect you to hurt me, and there should be no reason you expect me to hurt you. You are welcome to accept my offer or reject it. Nevertheless, I freely offer my services. You may even bring your weapons, now that I am confident you will not use them wantonly.” He patiently waited for a response while more big drops of rain crapped on his head.
Tanya wanted to go with him. There was something that was instinctively trustworthy about the man. His calm demeanor and kindly countenance bespoke a good soul. She believed that he truly had no intention of harming them.
“I have just one question then,” Luthor said, “if you have food and shelter to spare, why give them to strangers?”
“You ask a theological question, friend. Suffice it to say that my Lord once fed the poor and needy and I now seek to follow in His footsteps. I will not deceive you, we don’t have much, but perhaps even a little will feel better than a completely empty stomach. And a warm dry fire might be preferable to a cold wet sidewalk.”
“We do need someplace dry to make the phone call,” Michael said.
Luthor ignored him, addressing the priest, “you haven’t even asked us who we are, why we are homeless, or why we are armed.”
“I don’t care. All are sinners in the eyes of God, yet He loves us all the same. It is not mine to judge. Perhaps you fell on hard times, perhaps you are criminals on the run, or perhaps you are fellow Christians seeking asylum. It doesn’t matter.”
The decision made, the four got up and began trekking through the sodden, trash-lined street. The rain obscured the buildings ringing the garden. Tanya could make out a glow in the distance. Perhaps that was where their fire was. She quickly saw that they were approaching the telltale overhang of a solar farm covering the slim alley between buildings. It stretched out over the larger road that bordered the park. Vegetables drooped over the edges. The pillars supporting the farm were unfortunately as wrapped in razor wire as the garden was. She wouldn’t be able to climb up and get any of the food. A windmill loomed amid the plants, blades slowly turning in the dripping wind of the storm.
Next to the solar farm, emblazoned with red LED running lights was Tony’s Italian Restaurant. Just seeing a food establishment made her stomach clench with hunger pains. It probably owned the solar farm and used the fresh vegetables to supplement its stores.
It felt wonderful to finally be out of the rain. Tanya took a moment to ring out her hair, hoping that the rain had pushed her amber locks toward something that approached clean. Father Roc led them toward a small group of men and women gathered near the side of Tony’s. The glow was coming from a rusted steel garbage can with bullet holes perforating the sides.
The group saw them coming and parted to allow them room around the garbage can. Strangers smiled at them with gaunt, but kind faces. Smoke from the garbage can obscured some of them. Tanya silently prayed that this had been a good idea.
#
“What are you doing?” Michael blurted, “you didn’t tell me that you had real fire going!”
“Is there another kind?” asked Roc.
“Yes! Damn it, there is the legal kind. You know, an electric fire?” Michael frantically searched around for support, finding none. Tanya couldn’t blame him, she hadn’t been near a real fire since she’d been a child. It was too dangerous for the environment to burn things.
Too much carbon. Whatever burned in there certainly wasn’t wood.
A very tall man with wild red hair who looked like he could have been a body-builder at an earlier time in his life, burst out laughing. He had a deep, brawny voice.
“What’s so funny?” Michael said. “What if the carbon police catch you?”
“What are the carps gonna do to us?” the tall man said, “arrest us? That would really suck. Getting two square meals a day and shelter all year long? Sounds like a really shitty deal to me.” He laughed again. An equally massive black man standing next to him joined in.
“You have to pardon Thaddeus and DeShawn,” Roc said, “they don’t mean any harm. It’s just that we don’t worry about the carbon police around here. We have an understanding with them.”
“We’re already screwed for life,” said a woman with the voice of a life-long smoker. Her dreadlocks suggested she had been on the street with no respite for quite a while. “We can’t never buy or sell nothing legally no more. We can’t get no jobs, can’t own property. Not since they took our Marks.”
“They took your marks?” Tanya said, not quite believing what she was hearing.
“The jails get full pretty quick these days, just about everyone and their mom would rather go there than starve to death on the streets. So, if you get arrested more than once then they just take your Mark. It’s cheaper than prison and pretty damn effective at discouraging repeat offenders.”
Tanya began to see why the priest wasn’t too concerned if they were criminals or not, he already lived with an entire group of them.
“And you can’t ever get another one?” Tanya asked.
“Nope. If you don’t have one, you can’t get one. They only replace broken ones. They won’t issue new ones to people that don’t have nothing implanted. They say it’s a security issue. We’re stuck on the streets till we die.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You got that smogging right,” said the red-haired man Roc had called Thaddeus.
The black guy next to him punched him hard in the arm. “Come on Thadd! You told Father Roc you were gonna watch your mouth.”
“Sorry man. I mean sorry, Father. Shit. I’m supposed to apologize to God.” He looked up and folded his hands like a child first learning to say his prayers, “sorry Jesus.”
Tanya fought back laughter. The priest was more than just a member of the group, it seemed he was the spiritual leader as well.
“You all lost your CPI chips?” Luthor asked.
“Everybody but Father Roc,” said Thaddeus. “Never got one in the first place.”
DeShawn grinned. “Getting arrested would be about the best thing that could happen to us. We can’t even buy drugs without a Mark. So, I say burn as much trash as we can!”
Michael turned green. “You’re burning trash? What about the pollution? All those greenhouse gases!”
“When you cold and tired, it’s easy not to care,” said DeShawn. “Global warming sounds amazing when you freezing to death in the winter and can’t make no fire.”
“Who’s gonna get screwed by the warming anyway?” Thaddeus pointed up at the buildings, “all those bastards up there, they put us on the streets in the first place with their smogging carbon regulations and Marks!” DeShawn hit him hard in the arm again. “Damn it. Sorry Jesus.”
Tanya found the conversation stimulating. Besides her parents who had fled society altogether, she had never been given the opportunity to hear the perspective of a Markless stuck in an urban setting. Tanya never imagined that anyone would become a Markless except by choice. The idea of someone’s Mark being taken against their will horrified her. With the way the world now existed, it was basically a death sentence—albeit a long, drawn-out one by starvation or disease. A lucky Markless would get shot stealing food, they wouldn’t have to starve. It made this group’s generosity and openness that much more remarkable. They truly had nothing, yet offered it to strangers without the hint of complaint. Tanya wondered how much of that could be attributed to the priest’s influence.
“Father Roc, why are you here?” Tanya asked. “Every other priest I’ve heard of is either still in the church, or retreated to the country.”
Rocky stroked his beard thoughtfully. “We all had a choice to make after Paris 2 and the CPI regulation. The alarming similarities between the CPI chip and the Mark of the Beast described in the book of Revelation made it a
difficult one for me. The new mandates seemed to be too much of a coincidence to be anything other than a stepping-stone to the end times. The Catholic Church didn’t share my fear, claiming they could not identify a specific Beast. Therefore, without a Beast, how could a CPI chip be his Mark? They claimed any similarity was mere coincidence and not the fulfillment of prophesy.
“I didn’t know if I should I follow my conscience and refuse the Mark. It would be tantamount to officially rejecting the Church’s decree and thus my own priesthood. In the end, I lost trust in the Church when they violently disagreed with my beliefs. So, I left it and my priesthood behind. The Lord has written His law on our hearts in the form of a conscience and I followed mine. If there was even a chance that CPI was the Mark of the Beast, I was not willing to take it.”
“So now that you’ve been a Markless for twenty years, who do you think this Beast is anyway?” asked Michael.
“Another time,” he replied. “Now is not the time for sermons.” The priest’s soothing voice was easy to listen to and comforting. In the tumultuous situation they had found themselves in, it refreshed her. He never showed a hint of judgment that they had not made the same choice. He simply described his own life and his own decisions. Her parents had come to a similar conclusion, except they fled to a farm their church had purchased in Iowa. The priest had chosen to stay. Why? Tanya asked the question.
“I don’t want to belittle your parents’ decision by any means. But I don’t believe Jesus would have retreated to the industrial farms of the Midwest like most of his followers. He would be here, in the mix of things, serving the poor and loving sinners. So that is where I have been. What you see here represents the small flock that has decided to follow my lead. We are all dedicated to the same purpose, serving the poor and outcast.”
Over the next half hour Father Roc introduced the rest of their little band. They were quite an eclectic group. Thaddeus had been a farmer in Pennsylvania, forced out because of skyrocketing oil prices in the twenties. He had moved to New York City but never found work. DeShawn played D1 football in college as a linebacker but never made it to the NFL. He had lost everything due to a gambling addiction and ended up on the streets.
A cadre of women accompanied the two burly men. Serenity became a prostitute when she was sixteen. After the carbon regulation, carps arrested her five times for drug possession and solicitation. They removed her mark after the fifth one and she wound up here.
Abigail, a blond haired, single mother had been an executive at a safe manufacturing company. The plummeting demand for safes and vaults after the CPI regulation bankrupted her. People just didn’t need as many safes when paper currency, paper identification, and pretty much everything else that came in a hard-copy had been abolished. She explained how her situation had grown dire with the introduction of the carbon credit. Her large savings accounts quickly became worthless as the value of the Dollar plunged. Her millions became pocket change that couldn’t buy anything without a Credit to accompany them. She lost her house and fled to the city in hopes of finding food. After stealing a second time to feed her starving children, the carbon police removed her Mark. Then the state took her children. Tanya fought back tears when she told them she hadn’t seen them since.
“I think it is about grub time, Father,” said DeShawn. “Would you bless the meal?” What meal? Tanya didn’t see any food.
A side door opened on Tony’s restaurant and flooded the area with artificial light. A man handed a large plastic garbage bag to Thaddeus who set it next to the fire with reverence. “Ladies, gentlemen, dinner is served.”
Roc prayed—a sincere, but thankfully brief prayer. Abigail produced a stack of multicolored, plastic plates. Everyone eagerly lined up around the garbage can in what was clearly a nightly tradition. Trepidation and bile rose in her throat as Tanya realized that the contents of the garbage bag was dinner.
“Are you barbarians? What are you thinking?” yelled Thaddeus. “We serve the guests first!” Sufficiently cowed, those in the front of the line moved away, making room for Tanya, Luthor, Michael, and Vika. “Don’t you morons remember what the Lord said? The First shall be Last. And I sure as hell don’t want to be last at His feast.”
Tanya would have much preferred to have Luthor go in front, but Thadd insisted “ladies go first”. There was just no messing with him, he had to be 220 centimeters tall, and had an over developed sense of male courtesy. Are we really eating garbage? I appreciate it and everything, but gross!
Abigail smiled warmly and handed her an orange dish and an overlarge wooden spoon. She then placed a slice of bread on her plate. Thaddeus loomed in front of the garbage bag and smiled at her with a gap-toothed grin. He reached in with a gnarled gardening trowel and shoveled a scoop of mush on her plate. A mixture of indistinguishable noodles, tomato and potato peels, crusts of bread, scraps of vegetables, and tiny morsels of meat and trimmed fat globbed in an ungodly marriage of sauces and seasonings. She left the line to stand awkwardly by the fire, waiting desperately for someone else to try the food first.
Abigail smiled encouragingly. “It’s okay Tanya, you can start without us. The food has already been blessed.”
She hesitated as Vika received her own plop of refuse. She sat next to Tanya and began eating with what looked like a chipped plastic spork. Looking at her own wooden spoon, Tanya realized that she had been given the finest utensil they had to offer.
“This is good!” Vika said in a rare moment of genuine excitement. She shoveled the food in as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Can’t really blame her. Tanya thought. She hasn’t.
Michael and Luthor took their seats next to her and dug in as well. They hadn’t been given any utensils at all; they used their bread as a spoon and ate with their hands like cavemen. Luthor hummed softly to himself. The food looked so gross! But she was so hungry. Maybe just a bite.
She ladled a bite onto the spoon and gingerly put it in her lips. It was cold, almost clammy; the slimy consistency was odd—at best—but it tasted… amazing. The spices and flavors mixed in a way that was utterly surprising and supremely satisfying.
Moments later her plate was clean, and she longed for more. Everyone else sat in silence as they munched the dregs of Tony’s restaurant. She got up and walked over to father Roc with her empty plate tentatively in her hands.
“Is there enough for seconds?” she whispered.
DeShawn, who sat next to Roc, burst out laughing. She had whispered too loud. “We don’t have much, but I’ve always got some to spare for a hottie like you,” the large man picked up the whole garbage bag and emptied it onto her dish. Stray noodles, peels, and sauce speckled her plate. It might have been enough for a couple more spoonfuls.
“I’m sorry, but we’re out of bread,” Abigail said. “We weren’t able to earn any more today.”
In moments Tanya had cleaned her plate again. Michael and Luthor looked longingly at their own equally empty plates. Luthor wiped around the edge of the plate with his bread and proceeded to lick each individual finger. The others ate unhurriedly, methodically chewing and savoring each bite. Tanya envied their restraint. Their ability to not give into the hunger and wolf down the food as fast as possible allowed them to feel fuller, as well as enjoy the flavors. Each of them had their eyes closed, blissful expressions plastered to their faces. The light from the garbage fire highlighted their emaciated bodies and sunken cheeks.
Tanya’s jealousy quickly faded as she realized how they had acquired the virtue of restraint. Each of them had been on the verge of starvation for the last ten years.
It fascinated her how they could remain so positive and generous in the light of such a difficult existence. Their faith went far deeper than a set a theological precepts they accepted. It led to action, to conviction, and a purposeful life despite their surroundings. Every single one of them believed in God like He was right there eating out of the garbage with them. And that was something to be jealous of. That sort of belief was som
ething she had never experienced herself, but had secretly longed for. She wanted a faith of the same type her parents held; the type of faith with enough weight to give them the courage to flee society.
Michael licked his lips longingly at the now empty garbage can. “So how did you guys score this kind of food here in the city? Why hasn’t anyone come in to try to take it?”
Thaddeus laughed. “Let them try.” His smile suddenly appeared feral in the firelight.
“It wouldn’t go well for them,” said DeShawn, cracking his knuckles.
The priest interrupted, “we have entered into a covenant with the restaurant.”
“As you might imagine, security for a food establishment is both difficult and important,” Abigail added, “but typical security detail drastically inflates the cost of an industry with an already vanishingly small profit margin. So, the restaurant is forced to choose between prohibitively high prices or risk vagrants living nearby which scare away their wealthy clientele. Not to mention nearly guaranteed robbery in a place that stores food.
“We provide an excellent alternative. We provide around the clock security and keep the exterior of the building free of garbage and suburban panhandlers.”
“Why do that for them?” Michael asked. “It’s not like they can pay you. You are Markless.”
Roc nodded. “True. But they do give us exclusive rights to their garbage.”
“You’re telling me you work all day long, just to get their garbage?” Tanya asked.
Abigail frowned, “we take what we can get. And every one of us is grateful for it. You actually seemed quite fond of that garbage on your plate.”
Tanya flushed in embarrassment.
Roc smiled kindly. “Tony’s is a restaurant. There are certain things they aren’t allowed to sell by law. Uneaten food, scraps, leftovers, and the like. Anything the employees don’t want goes into the trashcan for us. Without this food every night, each of us would starve.”
“Or we’d have to do some illegal… crap, just to make ends meet,” said Thaddeus.
Scarcity Page 25