Out of Salem

by Hal Schrieve

  14

  The police had guns—you could see it as they crossed the blackened garden. Carmen threw the curtains closed and Josh looked around with an expression of panic. Aysel thought, It isn’t pretend anymore, and then she froze up and didn’t think anything except: Where is Z?

  Aysel had felt really daring when she had run out the door yelling over her shoulder to Azra about how Z needed help with homework. She knew that Azra barely heard her, and that she was hardly intelligible, and in some part of her mind knew that Azra was going to worry about where she was, was probably going to pray for her, but the hurt that thought brought on hung where it was, far away from the present. Aysel’s feet had splashed through puddles on the way to the bus and the wind had whipped her heart into a delicious feeling, a feeling of bright future. Even Z’s somber dead face and the smell of liver and onions and cats in Mrs. Dunnigan’s kitchen couldn’t dampen her mood—on the contrary, it was wonderful, Aysel thought, to be watching Z pulling on red rain boots in the bright kitchen as the sky darkened outside. It was already night, really, and the clouds hung down thick and the sun was nearly set as they went out together and caught the bus. Cars passed in the night and Aysel rocked side to side in the seat of the bus, barely containing her smile.

  The house had been full and there was the smell of food—rolls from a can that had been pulled apart clumsily and baked in the crusty rusting brown-black oven on a blackened cookie sheet, and vegetarian chili, because some of the wolves said they were vegetarian when they weren’t in a moon and some of them even when they were. Alice had made the chili, and Aysel heard people call out compliments to her. There were bowls of chips that were a little stale but tasted fine, said Chad, when you dipped them in salsa. And someone had made big mugs of coffee for everyone; Aysel didn’t know her name, but she had green hair.

  There were the zines everywhere, and all of the art supplies that had been used to make them, all the pens and stencils and two or three typewriters and pieces of loose paper. A couple of wolves were lying around on the floor making drawings on paper, still, and the fat guy, Josh, was stapling copies of the zine. Aysel picked up one of the zines that was sitting on top of a pile and flipped open its gray cover. There was an image on the inside cover of several photographs of wolves, cut up and with the heads on human bodies, next to a little drawing of a turntable and a box of records and some beer cans and pizza, and underneath this was a table of contents. Aysel ignored this and flipped through the pages. She had read zines before and was used to them being slightly illegible and weird, and she sort of liked it when the font was really small, because it made you concentrate. Though it was true, in the dim light of the black house, with one lamp on in the corner and a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, it was hard to read. But it was clear there were things in there that Aysel was going to have to come back to and read, like: “Punk Rock and Lycanthropy,” “How I Survived Prison,” “The Real History of Werewolves.” There was a really grainy badly copied page that had a poem on it by Audre Lorde, and someone had made a border for it out of exclamation marks . . .

  Aysel sat down on the floor and pulled Z down next to her and felt the crumbs from other people’s snacks under her knees and didn’t care; she handed one of the zines to Z and said, Read this, and Z had obediently opened it up and looked at it. Aysel folded her copy of the zine and stuffed it into her shirt pocket and stood up, because she had seen Carmen. Carmen’s eyes widened in deep shiny delight—

  “I’m so glad you could make it, Aysel,” she said. “I hope you aren’t going to get in trouble with your mom.”

  That made Aysel a little embarrassed, but she smiled. “You’ll take care of me as well as she would,” she said to Carmen. For a moment she really meant it—maybe longer than a moment.

  Z went outside after about ten minutes and Aysel had thought that was fine, because Z didn’t feel comfortable around so many people. Aysel thought Z maybe didn’t feel like they belonged right now. But it was okay, because Aysel felt sure Z would see that they were a part of all this too, part of the movement that had to happen. The police brutality, the oppression was based on being a werewolf or homeless, and Z was luckier than a lot of the people here, but they felt the pain Chad and Carmen and everyone felt. Maybe it would take a couple of meetings, but they would feel it too. Aysel handed them her cigarettes and smiled at them as the door shut.

  The meeting itself wasn’t really all that comprehensible to Aysel. The people were all continuing a conversation they had started earlier, that much was clear. Of course it was about the two who had died during the full moon. Everyone was really tense, and Aysel thought she understood. A question was hanging in the air, and Aysel thought it had something to do with nobody knowing if they were safe anymore. Chad, who had talked a lot in the first part of the meeting, left and went onto the porch when someone tried to argue with him.

  “What we have to ask,” Josh said, “is how much our current strategies of organization are sufficient. At some point we have to be visible, and we have to take action that makes it clear that we refuse to be seen as monsters, or as diseased. We’ve been talking about imitating some of the strategies of Act Up. Matilda, you especially seemed to want to talk about that.”

  “That’s not what I said,” Matilda said. “Anyway, why are you saying we? You aren’t a werewolf.”

  “Well, I thought that was what you were saying,” Josh said. “Anyway, if we did do that, it probably wouldn’t be an action centered in Salem, since there’s so much risk. But if we persuaded some of the people down in Oakland and the Bay, like Jake’s friends, that they should do an action with us, we might have enough numbers to make a national statement.”

  “What the hell would you have us do, a die-in where we all lie down in the street? A march on the capital?” Elaine said. It was the first time she had spoken.

  “Well, I’m not saying the strategies others have used are going to work here—”

  “Josh, most of us are illegally in Oregon. We haven’t even been in the registration office in years. We’re homeless, we’re poor, and we’re afraid. Police are everywhere trying to arrest us. Do you understand that?”

  “That’s exactly why we have to show that we’re not defeated, that we can’t be defeated, by doing something visible that has dignity. Something that demonstrates our humanity and shows that we’re angry, but that we’re controlled, organized, reasonable.”

  “Let some liberal do-gooder do that,” Carmen said from a seat near the door, where she was periodically checking behind the curtains. “God knows there are enough of them in San Francisco. I’m with Elaine. We were talking about how to get people out of the state last week, and then two of us die and now you want to be more visible to cops? I still got a scar from the last time I was in a protest.”

  “Part of the point,” Chad said suddenly, opening the door, “is being committed to change. Isn’t that right, Josh?”

  Josh looked uncomfortable. “I mean, Carmen has a point,” he said. “I think it is important to make sure everyone is safe.”

  Aysel didn’t understand anything about what was happening, but she was intrigued.

  It was also clear that there were rules for who got to say what when, because Josh was taking up the most space talking, and it seemed like he was the president of whatever it was that they were trying to do, but after a while other people started talking too, without raising their hands or anything, and they would disagree with Josh or agree, and sometimes they would be loud, and there were some people who never said anything. Aysel knew some of them were the homeless people who were just here for the camp. She wondered if they had come, not because they liked werewolves or things that the guy named Josh liked, but because it was supposed to be safer than being downtown. Outside it was dark and cold and quiet and in the black house the yellow lights burned warmly and everything was so full of heat and smell and sound that Aysel knew she was a part of something.

  And then the police came.
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  Carmen was the first one to notice. “Are those sirens?” she asked loudly, over Chad, who was talking about someone named Emma Goldman and someone else named Bakunin. Chad stopped mid-sentence, and the couple of people who were whispering to each other near the entrance to the kitchen also became quiet. Everyone listened, and sure enough, the sirens were there.

  “They’re getting closer,” Alice said after a second. Everyone looked around uneasily.

  “Maybe it’s time to call the meeting,” someone said. “Disperse.”

  “What do you mean, disperse?” a woman in the corner asked. “Where are we supposed to go?”

  “We better move to the basement,” a guy said who was sitting on the floor near Aysel. Aysel had not been introduced to him, but she thought he was Craig.

  “We don’t need to move to the basement and we don’t need to stop talking. There’ve been cops all around for days. They don’t know we’re here,” Josh said. There was a pronounced, careful calmness in his voice. But he said this softly, and Aysel could hear the sirens getting closer in the background. Everyone was a little tense.

  “Maybe move just in case,” someone said, and there was a general shuffle of standing. Matilda and Alice disappeared around a corner. Elaine rolled off the couch and rose up, looking at Aysel with concern.

  “You might want to leave,” she said. “I can’t tell how close those sirens are. Everyone’s getting a little nervy and weird anyway and this meeting isn’t going anywhere.”

  “I like the meeting,” Aysel said. “I like hearing people talk.”

  “Those sirens are really close,” Carmen said.

  Alice went over to the window and looked out. “Shit, you can see the lights a street over. They are coming here.”

  Aysel was left staring at Elaine for a second as around them everyone leapt from where they were and moved rapidly. A few people immediately raced for the back door, but more gathered around as Alice unlocked the door to the basement. Then Elaine grabbed Aysel’s hand and pulled her toward the back door. Aysel looked over her shoulder, and she saw through the curtains that the cops were pulling up, and the lights were flashing, and they were getting out of the four cars, and they had guns . . . Carmen pulled the curtains shut, and ran for the back door . . . and some people had gotten into the basement, but some people hadn’t, and one of the people who had gone down the stairs threw the door shut. Elaine managed to push Aysel into the kitchen and behind the corner into the hallway that led to the back door. Elaine and Aysel hunkered down there as the front door flew open. Aysel could see the reflection of the cops in the glass of the kitchen window.

  And so Aysel thought: Where is Z?

  “Freeze,” one of the officers said to the four or five people who were still in the room. He was tall and blond in the dark reflection of the window and reminded Aysel of one of the actors who played soldiers in movies. Not the ones who died, because they could look like anything, but the ones who lived, who all had strong jaws and cheekbones and always had light hair and ruddy pale skin. This officer seemed to think he was a soldier, too, because he shot twice at the wall behind Chad’s head as Chad raised his hands in surrender. Chad dropped to the floor and covered his head with his hands.

  “Jesus, what’d he do to you?” someone shouted. Aysel looked over at Elaine. Elaine, still crouching, turned and looked at the back door. Carmen had gotten away through it and it was still standing slightly open, letting in cold air from outside. But if Aysel and Elaine stood up now, the police might see them, and they had guns . . . Aysel could tell Elaine was thinking the same thing she was. Both of them stayed very quiet. Aysel closed her eyes. There hadn’t been any shots before the officers entered the house, and so they may not have seen Z. Z might have even gone home before the police arrived . . .

  “This is suspected to be the site of a meeting for an illegal terrorist organization,” the officer who had shot the wall said. “In addition, it has been determined that you are illegally squatting in this building. Everyone present is under arrest for suspect connection with the murder of Archie Pagan, and we have a warrant to search the building and confiscate any illegal materials we find.”

  “Like this thing,” one of the officers said, from a part of the room not visible from the kitchen. Aysel knew the officer was holding a zine, even though she couldn’t see it. “Just what the hell is this? Wolf Guts. Let’s see, what’s in here. This your magazine? For your little group? ‘Destroy Capitalism, Up the Wolves,’ says here. You all don’t beat around the bush.”

  “Sounds about right,” Blond Soldier said. “How ’bout that altar-looking thing in the corner? Five guesses what the hell’s that’s for. All these werewolves. Archie Pagan probably never knew what hit him, did he?”

  “What the fuck,” Chad said very loudly, and Elaine tensed up more until her veins showed, because he was running his mouth with all those guns around, “None of us had anything to do with that. We don’t give a shit about Archie Pagan. We never attacked anyone, and everyone’s coming after us.”

  The officer did not seem to be paying attention. He picked up a goblet. It wasn’t an abnormal goblet, just the kind used to make household spells if you were old-fashioned. The wolf carving on it was unusual, but it didn’t change anything about the magic. “Some kind of dark artifact. God, right under everyone’s noses. What the hell were you planning to do?” This question was directed at the girl who had shouted when the officer shot the wall. The gun was now leveled at her head.

  “We weren’t—” she began.

  “You haven’t read us our rights,” Chad said from the floor. “We’ve got the right to remain silent—” There was a yelp as one of the officers kicked him.

  “You fuckin’ better remain silent except when we’re asking you a fuckin’ question,” the officer said. Aysel could feel Elaine tense up even more. “You’re gonna shut your damn mouth, not bite anyone, and if you move a muscle I’m going to shoot your goddamn brains—”

  “I’m unarmed,” Chad said. “Look, I’ve got no guns. I don’t have anything.”

  “Fuck,” Elaine muttered. She grabbed Aysel’s hand. “We’re running for it first chance we get, okay?”

  Aysel nodded, mute.

  “Don’t move,” the officer shouted at the werewolves in the front room. He turned and said something quietly to a woman officer—all this in the dark reflection of the window. Elaine pushed Aysel back a little and shifted her position. She leaned out from around the corner very slowly, and Aysel saw her mouth something at Chad. Then Elaine braced and tightened her grip on Aysel’s arm. Aysel’s foot was falling asleep and she tried to tense the muscles in her leg so it would stop and she would be ready to go.

  Suddenly there was a noise from the front room, and one of the police—a woman—screamed.

  “There’s something—a monster outside!”

  There was the noise of a table overturning, and then a gunshot and the sound of breaking glass. Aysel couldn’t see the source of it, but Elaine was already on her feet and opening the door, so Aysel only managed to turn around briefly and catch the slightest glimpse of what was happening through the back door as it swung wide. Z’s disappearing form was retreating from the window, and Blond Soldier was jumping to open the door and chase Z. And Chad was getting up from where he had been on the floor, and there was nothing in his hands, but as he raised himself up he was shouting, loudly, incredibly loudly, words that weren’t spells, not even curses, just insults. Chad was gesturing at the people against the wall to run—a few of them turned and ran toward a window, toward the kitchen—Blond Soldier was turning to look back inside, from the porch—

  —and there was another gunshot, and the back door shut. Someone else had gotten out the back door and was running toward the street around the side of the house. Aysel and Elaine were in the garden, running, and they reached the edge of the garden and now Elaine was trying to push Aysel over a fence. This was a difficult task because Aysel, even if she felt very sm
all right now, was as solid and large as she had ever been. Aysel managed to heave herself over and pulled Elaine after her. Then they were in someone’s backyard, and a dog barked at them. Elaine and Aysel ran. Behind them there were more gunshots from the direction of the black house, and then shouting. The police knew that someone had left. The grass was wet and Aysel’s feet were going to get soaked. Bushes from people’s hedges scratched at both of their faces. They went through what seemed like a hundred backyards and dark neighborhood streets, Aysel’s heart pounding in her throat.

  “Did you see who they shot?” Elaine half said, half shouted over her shoulder. Her hair was wild and all over the place, surrounding her face in a haze of reddish-brown tight curls.

  “The door had shut,” Aysel gasped back.

  Fear smells like sweat and it tastes like salt and iron,

  Aysel thought, and there was a great sweaty blur in her memory for a little while as her feet thumped away beneath her, painfully—she had a rock in her shoe. She focused on Elaine, who ran mostly in front of her. Elaine had on really old messed-up hiking boots with brown and pink and maroon and green, the colors so bright you could see them in the dark.

  They came to a settled stop once they were out of the dark neighborhoods, and there were streetlamps around them. By that time it was clear that the police didn’t know how to pursue them. There had been the sounds of sirens for a little, but they had died away. Aysel was seeing dots because she didn’t run very much. She heaved several breaths and then found she was starting to cry. She looked up and saw Elaine was crying too, though she seemed to have it more under control. Elaine hugged Aysel and Aysel let herself have three good sobs against Elaine’s collarbone before she pushed herself back and looked around. They were next to the dumpsters in the parking lot of a strip mall Aysel vaguely recognized. There were only a few cars parked around. The stores were all closed except for one twenty-four-hour doughnut shop, the lights of which were flashing. Inside there was an old, sedate couple with two cups of coffee and a man at the counter reading the paper. It seemed enormously bright against Aysel’s tears and the dimness of the parking lot. She breathed a little.