Failed State

by Christopher Brown

  As they trundled on past Napoleon, picking up a passenger here and there, the signs of fighting became more evident. Long blocks of empty lots, many of them burned, a few of them leveled. Graffiti like fresh petroglyphs encoding a secret history of all the back-and-forth between the different factions. Parking lots and side streets taken over by weeds coming up through cracks in the blacktop. A city whose true rulers were the feral cats and dogs that patrolled the nights, and were reportedly being displaced by the new breed of coyotes that had mixed with the big dogs. Through the window, Donny saw one dog lope off into the tall grass at the sound of the trolley, too fast to see closely but with something pink and fleshy hanging from its mouth.

  They were still adding to their serve count under the Golden Arches, but the arches were shattered, just the flimsy aluminum frame left, all the wiring stripped out for salvage. Under new management by the customers, who started the morning off with fair-trade chicory and fried dough liberally seasoned with the sugars of free peoples. The staff at the inn that morning had told Donny that was a good option for breakfast, but he didn’t have time. Nor the inclination—until he noticed the garden they had grown where the drive-through used to be, and the gang of children spread out on a giant picnic blanket while their teacher handed out strawberries the size of baseballs. Something about that happy scene opened up the valve that contained his grief, a valve whose welds were cauterized by the cynicism of a lawyer who had seen some of the worst things people were capable of.

  The nervous-looking woman in the seat next to him caught him crying, and gave him a look of understanding, if not of sympathy. And when she saw Donny’s eyes, she clutched her travel papers tighter, pushed her suitcase closer to her husband, and looked past him at the old billboard by the roadside. A worker was up there pasting a new poster over the palimpsest.

  come to greenland

  And the thing was, it was actually green. Even the new houses of the model village. And the people were wearing shorts.

  The one thing he didn’t see through the window were the blue helmets of the international peacekeeping troops. They had left New Orleans six months earlier. He opened up his briefcase, and dug back into the file he had not had enough time to study on the unexpectedly complicated trip down.

  He was rereading the French news report on the Tributary when the streetcar stopped at Lee Circle for the security check.

  Lee Circle, which no longer had that name, marked the western boundary of the secure zone beyond which outsiders were restricted. When the streetcar turned into the roundabout and stopped, two paramilitaries boarded the bus.

  “Good morning, travelers,” said the younger of the two, a twentysomething black woman wearing a purple beret and a Kalashnikov. “If you are not already known to us as a member of our community, please have your IDs and travel papers out. I know it’s a hassle, but we’ve had a lot of infiltrators lately. And if you are headed to the port, please get off here and wait for the cart that will take you down there.”

  While she spoke to the passengers, her colleague, a bearded old white guy with a beat-up Saints cap and a shotgun slung low, was already sizing them up. Donny looked away.

  Through the window he could see the monument at the heart of the Circle, the one that had once vaulted the Confederate general a hundred feet up in the air to watch for invaders from the north, not knowing the real danger came from the people at his feet, people who had finally gotten tired enough of the power he stood for that they were willing to do something about it. When the column that held him was toppled, they ritually buried the general in the muddy fathoms of the river. In his place, in the stump of rubble that was all that was left of the column, they planted a tree. It was some kind of oak, one that had been a sapling when they first liberated the city, but had grown remarkably fast since Donny’s last visit, big enough to create some shade under which a trio of young people were sitting and talking.

  Donny watched from the corner of his eye as the old rebel guard, who Donny now realized actually looked a little bit like Robert E. Lee, made a pair of young guys get up out of their seats for handoff to the other guards waiting outside.

  Donny looked back out the window, as if he had nothing to worry about.

  Beyond the tree, Donny could see the high-rises of the old Central Business District. Most of them were still standing, especially the older ones that had been built with more lasting bones, but you could also see the vegetation coming through the cracks and holes that brought the rain and sun. As he sat there in the long minutes waiting his turn for interrogation, one ear listening to the questions Old Boy was asking the other passengers and trying to think of clever responses while the other ear tuned in to the world outside the open window, he was struck again by the quiet of the city, even as they were at the edge of downtown. But it wasn’t silent. Now you could hear the sounds of people working, hammers and blocks and men yelling, building a new place that was something different from a city, without the aid of power tools. And just then Donny heard a screech in the sky, and when he looked up he saw a bald eagle soaring over the ruins of Downtown, a thick, shiny catfish in its talons. He watched it fly home, right into the open window on the top floor of the brutalist tower that had once been the US headquarters of Royal Petroleum.

  The building where, the French magazine profile reported, the diligent scriveners of the Tributary were preparing their cases, mining forgotten sins and distributed profits from the well-maintained and regularly audited books and records of vanquished petrocapital.

  “What’s your business inside the Circle?” said the old guy, now standing over Donny. He did not sound at all like Robert E. Lee, unless Robert E. Lee sounded like a guy from Brooklyn crossed with a guy from France.

  Donny looked up at the guy. He did not look especially hostile, despite the gun.

  Donny decided to try the honest approach. He reached into the side pocket of his suit coat, pulled out a business card, and handed it to the guy.

  DONALD F. KIMOE

  Attorney at Law

  Washington • Houston • New Orleans

  1–800-Freedom

  “I’m headed to the courthouse,” said Donny. “The Tributary, on Camp Street.”

  The courthouse was just a couple blocks away, right past the barricades that demarcated the true bounds of the Circle.

  The man read Donny’s card and looked him over.

  Donny tried his best smile. The trust-me smile, as Percy used to call it when they worked cases together, always reminding him it usually achieved just the opposite.

  The man tucked Donny’s card into one of the bib pockets of his overalls, behind the brass and red plastic of a ten-gauge shell. Then he pumped the shotgun.

  “Get up,” he said.

  Donny complied, and stood in the aisle, both hands on the handle of his briefcase.

  “I’ll take that,” said the man, grabbing the briefcase and setting it on the empty seat next to him.

  The other passengers were all watching. Even the ones who had stepped off the trolley with their luggage and were now lined up on the street outside, under watch by other guards.

  “I got him!” yelled the man to his colleague.

  The woman with the purple beret walked down the aisle to join them, while the driver left her seat, drew her gun, and guarded the remaining passengers.

  Old Boy handed Beret Girl the business card. She read it, then gave Donny her own lookover, followed by a pat-down.

  “Easy,” said Donny, which produced the opposite response. When she was done, she made him sit back down.

  She had his wallet out, and looked through its contents.

  “My bar card’s right there.”

  “I have it,” she said, holding it up along with his Texas driver’s license. She looked at her colleague. “Did you get his phone?”

  He shook his head.

  She signaled Donny to hand it over.

  “Open it up,” she said.

  “I don’t hav
e to do that,” said Donny. “Not without a warrant.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Give me the phone.”

  Donny handed it to her, still locked.

  “You’re coming with us,” she said.

  She pocketed his wallet and phone. Then she tried to open his briefcase, but found it was locked too. A simpler lock than the phone, a physical one with a three-digit code.

  “What’s the combination?”

  Donny didn’t answer. Beret Girl took out her knife. Preparing to carve open the gift from his grandmother.

  “Fine,” said Donny, holding up his hand to halt her. “One-one-one.”

  She opened it, and leafed through Donny’s files.

  “You know that material is protected by attorney-client privilege,” said Donny.

  “Whatever,” she said. She flipped through the file he had on the Tributary. Pictures of the judges, who were also the jury. Not all 501, but the ones thought to be most influential. The pictures of Heather. The background material her family had provided, which included some reports by private investigators whom you could more accurately call corporate spies.

  “Seriously?” said Donny. “This is what we fought for?”

  “Doesn’t look to me like you did too much fighting,” said Old Boy. That was when Donny took a good look at the tattoos on the guy’s forearms, some of which evidenced uniformed service in the wars of Donny’s youth, others the fresher ink of the uprising and the secret battles that preceded it. The right arm had a puckered scar carved into the muscle.

  “He played a role,” said Beret Girl, putting the papers back in the folder. “But looks like the reports are true. He’s switched sides.”

  “It’s not like that,” said Donny.

  “Uh-huh,” said Beret Girl. She dug deeper in the briefcase and pulled out the inlaid little wooden box he kept in the inside pocket. A souvenir from the tourist shop in Matamoros, that day he got Joyce across. “What’s in here?”

  “Medicine,” said Donny.

  You could tell she knew what he meant. She put the box down, and waved the files on the Tributary at him.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “That’s confidential,” he said.

  He wondered which gun butt would hurt more, and settled on the metal folding stock of Beret Girl’s AK-47. But so far these two were more restrained than the government paramilitaries he had gotten used to in the years before.

  “Let’s go,” she said, signaling him to get back up.

  “I don’t have time for this,” said Donny, not budging. He thought about what was really at stake, and corrected himself. “We don’t have time.”

  “We have all the time in the world,” said Old Boy, smiling. Then he nudged Donny with the barrel of his shotgun. “Come on, dude.”

  “Am I being arrested?”

  “We are taking you to the courthouse,” said Beret Girl.

  “Okay,” said Donny, standing. “Thank you.”

  Old Boy chuckled.

  “Not like you think,” said the woman. She grabbed his briefcase, with all its precious contents, and tossed his wallet and phone in there with them. “Come on.”

  They marched him off while the other passengers watched, some in fear and some in judgment, maybe some with both. One German-looking dude in fresh Birkenstocks took his picture. As he stepped through the door and felt the sun on his face, Donny realized he had already sweat through his suit coat.

  They watched as the streetcar started back up and trundled on. The transit passengers still lined up nearby watched Donny try to maintain his lawyerly composure. You could tell it wasn’t working, and they just wanted to look away and avoid catching whatever he had.

  “This way,” said Beret Girl. They hadn’t cuffed him, but Old Boy kept the shotgun in his back as Beret Girl led the way. They followed the tracks through the checkpoint, past the emplacement of guards who waved them on from the machine-gun nest while the snipers watched from the rooftops.

  Inside the Circle, the streets were mostly gone. Concrete dug up, replaced with dirt and gravel, grass coming up in patches. Donny gawked, until Old Boy shoved him on.

  The last time Donny had argued in the Fifth Circuit was three years earlier, when the city had been occupied by the troops of the prior regime, and the appellate courthouse was used for the federal tribunals that adjudicated the internments of rebel fighters in the Superdome. Those were hard fights, and he had won more than most. Some of his clients from those days were now on the Council that ran the city. Its leaders, not that they used that term. When he called Lou to offer to help, to go back to what they now called the Free City but everyone outside worried was something very different than that, Donny had convinced himself those relationships would at least earn him safe passage. That they would give him a hard time, but they would talk to him, and work out a deal. But when they walked into the square and he saw the scene in front of the courthouse, he could feel that confidence drop while the butterflies in his stomach started knifing their way out.

  “What the fuck?” said Donny.

  In the middle of the muddy lawn that used to be called Camp Street, three human-sized cages hung from steel armatures. Two were occupied, by a man and a woman. The middle cage was open. Donny looked more closely. The guy stood. He was young, wearing chinos and a white Izod shirt. No shoes. The woman was slumped, in shadow, eyes closed. Hard to see. But it had to be her.

  “Heather!” he yelled.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Help me!” said the dude.

  “Quiet,” said Old Boy.

  “HEATHER!” yelled Donny.

  She opened her eyes. She looked out of it.

  Izod dude started rattling his cage.

  “Get me out of here, you freaks! I want to leave with that guy.”

  “You need to let that woman go,” said Donny.

  “What if she doesn’t want to go?” said Beret Girl.

  “Let me talk with her,” said Donny. “She’s my client.”

  “That is not your client,” said Beret Girl.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lawyers are forbidden here.”

  “Then how will these people be defended?”

  “By the People’s Defender.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you. Not until it is your turn in the box.”

  “I want to talk to someone on the Council.”

  “You will only talk to them when it is time for judgment.”

  Izod guy started shaking his cage again. The whole thing was swinging.

  “Careful!” yelled Beret Girl.

  The cage door popped open as he shook it, and Izod guy fell to the ground, which was mostly pavement. He hit hard, and stopped screaming. Stopped moving.

  “Jesus,” said Donny.

  “Take him to the infirmary!” yelled Beret Girl to the other guards standing closer to the courthouse.

  “Come on, son,” said Old Boy, pushing Donny toward the middle cage. “You can lose the coat and tie if you want. It’s gonna be hot today.”

  Donny looked at the guy to make sure he really meant it.

  “You have got to be kidding,” said Donny.

  The shotgun was pointed right at Donny’s guts.

  “Come on, man!” pleaded Donny. “I don’t have time for this. I came to meet with the Tributary. I need to do that and get back to Houston. If I don’t—”

  “Don’t make me gag you, lawyer. We all know that tongue in your mouth is the one that freed the president from the punishment he deserves. Now, go on and get up there. Or I’ll cut your tongue right out of your mouth, toss it up there, and let you go chasing after it.”

  Donny looked the man in the eyes and decided to stop talking.

  The ladder was a lot shakier than it looked.

  22

  When the treaty negotiators let the rebels keep the territory they had occupied in New Orleans, it was damaged goods. A big chunk
of the eastern part of the city—the property whose remediation Lecker had funded—was a toxic site that had been cleared out for as long as most folks could remember. The north and the middle were underwater much of the year. And the rest of it had been emptied by hurricane, uprising, and occupation, a cycle that repeated until most of the infrastructure was shot and the buildings abandoned.

  The new owners would be so busy trying to get the city functioning again that they couldn’t cause any more trouble for their neighbors. That was the idea.

  For the rebels, it was everything they had fought for. Real autonomy. A chance to prove their ideas in action.

  They invited Donny to help the working group that would develop the new legal code. It was a volunteer gig, but one he was happy to take.

  They all liked the idea of starting their own truth and reconciliation tribunal, but they were bound by the general amnesty. El Presidente was the only one of the domestic war criminals who would face real justice. So they got creative.

  Donny told them about the work he had done representing the nutria of Houston. About the smattering of cases over the years that had flirted with the idea that animals, plants, and even entire ecosystems might have rights under the law. Others on the committee had similar ideas, informed by their own work helping build the fresh constitutions of other newly liberated territories elsewhere in the hemisphere. As it took shape on a big blackboard in the old church where they met, the Tributary looked more like a tree, with elaborate branches of sources and outputs at both ends. In action, it would be a different kind of truth and reconciliation commission. One where the genocide was not of a people, but of a place. An entire ecology of diverse lifeforms that had been extinguished by human appetite.

  The committee couldn’t agree on what penalties their new court should impose. In the beginning, that didn’t matter.

  This was the third Tributary to be held. The first was right after the uprising, and did not garner much attention. Donny had watched it. It was more like a lecture than an actual trial, because the accused were tried in absentia. The second had not gathered much more attention, until the deals were announced. By seizing property, including drilling platforms in the area under its government’s control, which extended from New Orleans out into the Gulf, the Tributary managed to extract substantial sums from the companies that owned the property. That had helped generate some funds—almost $20 million, which helped pay for much-needed solar cells and other infrastructure on the list. But it didn’t produce much of a sense of justice, let alone authentic reconciliation. And they soon ran out of property to seize inside their territory, and with it, the means to enforce their judgments.