The Occupation of Emerald City: The Worker (3 page)

“Hey!” I say, grabbing the frame of the door so the soldiers
can’t push me inside. “Hey, I’m from your country!”

The man looks at me. Anodyne … defenders of freedom. That’s
what their slogan is. They’re defense contractors. They work for my government.
Our
government.

My fingers tense. The smaller of the two soldiers pushes
harder against my chest but I fight back. “You can clear this up. Listen.
Please, I don’t belong here!”

The contractor shakes his head, staring me right in the eyes.
Right in the eyes. “I don’t care,” he says.

My fingers give and I fall back into the spacious room. The
door shuts. I look up at the bright overhead light, at the long thin vent near
the ceiling. There’s a white blanket lying in the corner next to a small
bucket. I’ve apparently lost my mattress privileges.

I run a hand across the concrete walls. I’m looking for
something but I’m not sure what it might be. I expect more from this room. I
expect something to happen. I don’t trust this room to stay the way it is.

At some point the hatch at the bottom of the door opens and
someone slides through a glass of orange juice and a piece of bread with
butter.

Hours drag by and the lights never turn off. My eyes begin to
lose focus if I stare at the wall for too long. My fingers begin to pick at the
blanket, pulling at loose threads. I have trouble thinking about anything for a
prolonged period of time. My mind won’t stop guessing at what’s going to come
next.

At some point the hatch at the bottom of the door opens and
someone outside slides through a glass of orange juice and a piece of bread
with butter.

There is no day or night in this room, only “awake.” It’s too
bright to sleep—when my eyes close, the light shines through so I can see
the pink behind my eyelids.

At some point the hatch at the bottom of the door opens and
someone outside slides through a glass of orange juice and a piece of bread
with butter. I reach for it like I always do, and a hand on the other side
immediately pulls it away, shutting the hatch and spilling OJ on the floor.

“Why?” I ask, and get no answer.

I stare at the concrete wall. I watch cracks grow, disappear,
reappear and change with every blink.

More orange juice. More bread. I try to time the intervals
but get tired of counting. I think about who I could call if they were to let
me use a phone. Not my parents. They’ve disowned me. I don’t even know their
number anymore. I’m the Bad Son, the disappointment.

I could call a neighbor. Everyone in my condo has nearly
identical numbers, a ridiculous government regulation that’s been in place
since the start of the century. But would any neighbor recognize me? I played
poker once with the young man across the hall, Eduardo Something. It was a good
time but I was shy because I didn’t know anyone. I drank their beer and they
ate my pretzels. They smoked big cigars and played games I’ve never played
before.

But it was fun. It was nice to get out of my cave. Eduardo
wanted me over again for another poker party, but I had a double shift at the
plant. That was months ago. Maybe he’ll knock on my door, get nervous, ask a
few questions. Maybe he’ll try to find me.

“Yeah,” I tell the wall. “Maybe he’ll shoot his way in here
and rescue me, too.”

“It’s dark,” says a voice above.

I glance up toward the ceiling. The small thin heating vent
twelve feet up where the wall meets the ceiling has begun to talk. I’m losing
my mind … maybe insanity will be a good excuse to be released.

“Pretty dark,” the voice says through the vent. He sounds
old, middle-aged, maybe drugged given the way he’s dragging out each syllable.
“Nope,” the man says. “Nope! Can’t see.”

“You’re in a fucking cell,” I mutter.

“Hello?” he calls out. “I could use some water. Everyone
needs water.”

I don’t answer.

“Hello? It’s dark!” he calls out.

“Please, just sleep,” I say. “Do it while you still can.”

“Hello? Are you here?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Where are you?” the man asks. “Do you see my sister?”

“She’s not in here, pal.”

“She usually takes me home when it’s dark,” the man says.
“Yup, she should probably take me home.”

“She’s not here,” I say, irritated.

“Can you call her?” he asks. “Call her. Tell her I wet the
bed. She’ll know what to do. You just need to call her.”

He’s got a thick, rural accent, a matter-of-fact way of
talking. He talks like the two of us are sitting in a fishing boat, discussing
the choice of lure, the sun on bare skin, what’s biting and what’s hiding.
That’s why I didn’t immediately notice.

“Goddammit,” I say to the floor. They’ve got a retard locked
up. There’s no method to this madness. Whatever’s happening out there is
serious enough for them to take a fucking retard and throw him in a cell. I
feel my entire body numb. I tilt my head back against the hard wall, feeling my
skull absorb the blow with a soft thump. I do it again and again until the
numbing feeling in my body ceases and I start to feel the pain.

If they’re not letting a retarded man leave, they’re not
going to let me leave. The country has been invaded and I’m a prisoner. I slam
the back of my head against the wall again. Wake up.
Wake up from this nightmare.

“Pretty dark,” the man says. “Should probably get going soon.
Yup.”

“Listen,” I say, swallowing hard. “What’s your name, pal?”

“Hank,” he says in a cheery tone.

“Okay listen, Hank.” I swallow again. “Your … ah, your sister
can’t pick you up today, okay? You’re going to need to go to sleep, but first
you need to flip your bed. Okay?”

“Yup, yup. Sounds like the usual.”

I listen to him slide the mattress along the floor. “Hank,” I
call out. I hear the mattress slide again. “Hank!”

“Okay, what now?” he says.

“Listen, Hank. You’ve got to actually
flip
it.” No. Poor choice of words. Imagine I’m training a newbie
at the plant. Imagine he just started and never bothered reading any of the
training material. I gotta think on his level. “Hank, what you need to do is
push it against the wall.”

“Okay, yup.” I hear the edge of the mattress bump against the
other side of the wall dividing our cells.

“Now I want you to pick the mattress up and lean it against
the wall. Okay?”

“Yup,” he says. He groans almost comically loud. “Okay, yup.”

“All right.” I lick my lips, envisioning the mattress pressed
against the wall. I don’t know what Hank looks like but I picture him as a
middle-aged fisherman with a thick stomach and a pair of thick glasses. In my
mind, he doesn’t look scared or worried. “Okay, now grab the edge of the
mattress near the floor. You got it?”

“Yup, the usual,” he says.

At the power plant, if I wanted to really drill something
fast into a newbie’s head, I emphasized the action. It had felt strange the
first couple of times I did it, but the newbies would always remember. They
would always perform that action—like tightening a hot bolt—with
the same urgency every time they did it. Why not try it here?

“Now
pull it
!”

A thumping sound travels through the vent. “Okay, we’ve got
it over here.”

I smile. “That’s great, Hank. Just great. Press your hand on
the mattress. Is it wet?”

“Nope,” he says. “Dry as a bone. Comfy, too.”

“Great job,” I say. “Absolutely great. Try to get some sleep.
Your sister’s coming to get you soon. She’s just stuck at work.”

“Okay, no problem,” he says. “No problem at all.”

Pretty soon, Hank’s snoring. Loud, deep breaths through his
nostrils with just a hint of a whistle. I know I can’t sleep with the bright
lights but my mind keeps trying to convince itself the snoring is what’s
keeping me awake. My anxiety is picking up again. I’m becoming agitated. It’s
the sound. It’s making my entire body shake. And yet I don’t
want
it to stop. I don’t want to be
alone again in the silence.

I need my pills. I can’t stop sweating. Uncomfortable wetness
gathers at my back even though the room is cold. My legs fidget, bounce up and
down. I need to be
doing something
.

At some point the hatch at the bottom of the door opens and
someone outside slides through a glass of orange juice and a piece of toast
with butter.

I stand up, relishing the burning feeling in my joints. The
sound of my bare feet tapping on the floor barely registers in my eardrums. I
sit down in the corner and eat the bread and down the orange juice quickly
before anyone can come in and take it away. Then I sit and stare at the ground
again, chewing my fingernails and staring at the floor, trying to piece
together memories of old television shows to stay entertained.

The door in the next room opens with a loud groan.

“Sheila?” Hank calls out. Then he screams. In my mind, I
picture him seeing the guards dressed in black. Maybe one of their helmets
catches a glint of the light pouring in from the hallway and for a moment Hank
can see something in the soldiers’ eyes. He keeps screaming and I hear his body
slam against the other side of the wall with the distinct sound of something
flat coming into contact with fat flesh. I picture him naked, thrown against
the wall again and again while he keeps screaming and it’s all too much.

“Leave him alone!” I scream at the wall. I pound violently on
it with my fist. It’s not as thick as I thought and my pounding reverberates
against the surface. “Leave him the hell alone!”

The door opens and the guard points his M-16 at my face. “Go
on stomach and no fucking move!” he says with a strange accent.

I do as he says and feel someone cuff my hands behind my
back, pulling on my arm muscles. They put a black hood over my head before
dragging me out into the hallway. As I pass Hank’s room, I hear a quiet
whimpering. I hear men laughing. Someone with a high-pitched voice says something
in another language and someone else laughs.

The hood is removed just as I’m being pushed into the same
bland interrogation room as before. This time the interrogator looks like a
young soldier, with thin eyes and high cheekbones and a smooth face lacking
even a hint of whiskers. He’s smoking an herbal cigarette that smells like a
cigar and itches my nostrils.

The guard behind me unlocks the cuffs and sits me down in the
chair. I’ve been granted the wondrous privilege of sitting on an actual piece
of furniture.

“Look at this,” the boy says, holding out a piece of paper.

I take the paper and read through it. It’s an article from a
Web site written in my language but with tons of grammatical errors. Enough
grammatical errors to be something I wrote in grade school. The text is about
me, a news story about how I’m a loyalist to the corrupt federal government,
how I planned to kill Coalition troops while they attempted to restore
democracy to my once-great country. My name is misspelled multiple times.

“It’s fake,” I say.

The boy points to the paper, his thin brown eyebrows raised.
“It is a news story. People have read it. Your parents have read it.”

“It’s fake.” I toss it back on the table. “I haven’t talked
to my parents in two years. They don’t give a shit about me.” I’m just a
college drop-out, I want to add. “Even if they knew I was here, they probably
wouldn’t try to help get me out.”

“Your parents may be sent to prison,” the interrogator says,
“if there’s any evidence that they helped you in any way.”

“Good!” I scream, leaning forward. I jam my thumb into my
right pectoral muscle. “All I care about it me.
Me
. I don’t care about all of that ‘Unity’ bullshit my government
talks about. I don’t care about
my
government and I don’t care about
your
government. I don’t care why you’re here. All I care about is getting back to
my life
.”

The interrogator smiles. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be
friendly or condescending. He probably doesn’t know, either. He’s probably just
a grunt, thrown into this position as a punishment. He just does what he’s
told.

“There’s a retarded guy in the cell next to me,” I say. “I
don’t suppose that matters to you.”

“Are you a terrorist?” he asks.

“No.” What is this? This guy acts like he was just pulled out
of formation. Go do a little interrogation for fun, his superior must have
said. He probably doesn’t even understand me beyond “Yes” and “No.” I lean
forward to look at the paper in front of him. It’s in a different language, but
it looks like a numbered script. He’s probably never done this before. It all
makes me angry. Frustrated. I want my pills.

He watches me, then glances down at the sheet. Looking for
his place. A prompt.

“You are a member of the Green Party.”

“Yes.” No. That can’t be what this is about. “Everyone who
works for the government is. It’s a requirement. I’m not … I mean, I don’t
participate in party rallies or anything like that.”

“You are a member, though?” he asks, thin eyebrows raised.

“We all are,” I say. “So is every school teacher. So is every
garbage collector. You
have
to be a
member of the party to take a government job. It doesn’t
mean
anything.”

“If you are innocent, you will not confess.” He motions to
the guards and they grab me violently under each arm, throwing me onto the
floor. They replace the hood and cuffs.

“
I didn’t do anything
!”
I scream through the fabric. They drag me out of the room, pulling me and this
time I’m struggling because there’s something entirely different about their
manners—their grip is tighter, their pull stronger. The guards start
speaking to me and they don’t speak my language but the very inflection of
their words is enough to send adrenaline through my body. My anxiety begins
fueling my imagination and all I can picture are firing squads and nooses and
other things I’ve seen in movies.