Wavering, he didn’t answer for a few seconds, just long enough for my anxiety to increase. “She’s my daughter,” Jim said finally, looking over at me. “I’ll do anything I can, her being stuck in there behind the fence and all. But you know the story, right? You’re thirteen, right? Everyone gets the story at thirteen. The magic age.”
Up ahead I could see a clearing with a tall metal gate.
“You’d better get in back,” he repeated.
Unhooking my seatbelt, I stood up and stepped over the console to get into the back. “Crouch down by that stack of lettuce boxes. I left a small space for you to hide.”
I did as he said, the anticipation of getting to see Penelope not as strong as I’d hoped, dwindled down by the worry over making my parents angry, the possibility of getting them in trouble taking some of the gloss off the occasion.
Suddenly, I saw the situation with clarity. If I was going inside the gates without permission, how would I get out again? “Are you going to wait for me? I mean, we’re just saying hello, correct?”
“Stay down now,” he hissed urgently. “We’ve just reached the gate.”
He rolled the window down and greeted the gatekeeper jovially. “Hello there! What a beautiful fall day.”
“What’s the delivery today?” the guard asked.
“Fresh fruit and produce. Same as always,” Jim answered, keeping the conversation to a minimum.
“Go on through. See you on the way out,” he said, raising the gate.
“Nope, I can’t wait,” he answered me at last. “I’m going to let you off right inside the depot where all deliveries are made. You’re to walk around to the back of the building. It’s huge, as big as a football stadium. Penelope will meet you at the transformer building. You’ll see the signs leading to it.”
“But how will I get out?”
Jim finally addressed my concern, a little surprised. “You don’t. Get out, that is. Once you’re in here, you stay here.”
“I can’t do that,” I said, my voice getting shrill. “I have to get home to my family.”
“This place is quarantined,” he said looking around. “If you want to see my daughter, you’ll have to stay with her. That was the plan.”
“That wasn’t my plan! I’m only twelve years old. I’d better leave with you,” I said, scared out of my skin, shivering, ready to throw up. “I can’t stay here, not even to see Penelope. I need to get home.”
“You don’t get it, Steve,” he said, backing the van into the depot. He appeared as frightened as I was, once I mentioned my age. “This van will be searched to make sure I’m not smuggling anyone out. You have to hop out now or we’ll both get into serious trouble. I’m telling you, these people don’t miss a trick. You don’t think they’ll let me get away with bringing a minor in here, do you? We’ll be imprisoned, or worse. Penelope won’t have anyone then.”
“Why do you get to come and go then?” I asked, feeling my voice getting shrill.
“Because I’ve been inoculated, I got the vaccine,” he said with urgency. “You have to get out the second I open the back doors of the van, do you understand me?”
“What’s a vaccine?” I asked.
“You know,” he said, impatient, pointing at his eyes. “You get inoculated against diseases. You probably had a few when you were a baby. But not for this.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Inoculated? For what?” Petrified on the verge of tears, I clenched my fists, ready to start crying.
“I’ll open the doors,” he whispered, ignoring my questions.
Opening the door, he looked back at me one more time before getting out of the van. I heard him conversing with another delivery truck driver, but he waited for the man to leave before he came around back to open the door. “You’re to go right over there,” he pointed to a small exit. “Take that door and turn right. Just follow the building around to the back. You’ll see all the electrical components. That’s the transformer building. Penelope will be waiting there for you. Have fun.”
He nodded his head for me to get out, keeping his eyes peeled on the entrance for another truck. I wasn’t fast enough for him, so he grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the truck. I landed hard on the pavement.
“Run!” he growled.
I was too young; too naïve to realize there was an alternative. What did I care what happened to Jim? I could have screamed that I was being kidnapped, should’ve never gotten in the van with him in the first place. Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I didn’t see Penelope waiting near the building where he said she would be, so I paused, looking over my shoulder at the depot, at her father watching me. Was he even her father?
Imagining my classroom; Miss Jay, our Junior High teacher, doing a head count and finding me missing made me sad all over again. Dreading school segued to missing it badly, wishing I was sitting in the hot classroom with my pals, passing lurid notes back and forth, walking back to the bus stop together, the ride home with the bus windows open against the warm fall afternoon.
Would the others tell her about the white van? Would the school call my mother right away? I imagined the anguish my parents would feel, Rose and Eleni meeting my father at the bus with the news. Or was having a son kidnapped serious enough for George to be dismissed from work early? Would Uncle Peter admit that he’d followed me to Tiresias? Would they blame him for my disappearance?
The first thing I would find out was how to get back home, how to get out of there. I’d spend a little time with Penelope, but I wasn’t staying there indefinitely. Her father was nuts.
I reached the transformer, a monstrous thing as big as a house with ancient steampunk components holding wires in place, gigantic glass insulators beautiful and intimidating. The original water wheel was now powered by some kind of fossil fuel, and at the present time, it was slowly turning. I would never forget the sound it made, a rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Penelope stepped out from the shadows of the generator. “Steve?”
My heart rate revved up. “Yep, it’s me,” I answered, stumbling over the words. Seeing her again both excited me and calmed me down, making me happy, but for just a moment.
Then everything turned askew. She took a step closer to me. I could see her face clearly for the first time, shocking me. In the light of day, it was clear she wasn’t eighteen.
“Penelope?” I asked, my voice giving me away.
Except for her eyes, she was a gorgeous, mature woman, not a young girl.
“Yes,” she said. “Are you disappointed?”
What could I say to her? No, I was not disappointed; I was scared to death. I was so in over my head. This was a woman looking for a man, not a little, scared boy. My emotions were jumbled up, streaking from anger to desire to confusion.
Her father had jeopardized his life to get me to her. His actions reminded me of my family, what they would do for me. I already missed my mother and father. I didn’t want to stay there forever. “I need to know what’s going on,” I said, close to tears. “Then we can talk about me being disappointed.”
Looking around, I saw little activity short of supply trucks pulling in and out of the depot. This gate must be in an isolated part of Tiresias.
“Your father said you were in quarantine, that I can’t leave now. I’m not happy about it.”
It was an understatement; I was scared to death, but I was trying to act mature.
Taking a step closer, she wrung her hands together. “I thought you wanted to be with me,” she replied. “There’s a way out, you know that. We figured it out together last week.”
The relief I felt remembering that tree and the old brick wall decompressed my anxiety so much so that my body sagged against the wall of the power plant, my head dropping into my hands. I’d still have to deal with missing school and my parent’s worry, but I wasn’t a prisoner there. I’d survive. Then I remembered what her father had said.
“Wh
y are you in quarantine?” I asked.
It was slowly sinking in that Penelope had something physically wrong with her beyond blindness, but I was too young to figure it out.
“What else is wrong with you besides being blind?” I asked.
Dropping her hands, she turned and hurried behind the building, feeling the wall as she went along. “Follow me in case someone heard you. You don’t want that gang of men discovering you too soon.”
I thought of those ruffians. “Are they blind, too?” I asked, following behind.
“Yes,” she said.
If I’d known they were blind the night they’d met me at the fence, the gang wouldn’t have frightened me as badly as I allowed because I had the advantage; not only was I on the other side of an electric fence, I had my eyesight. It was a lesson for a young man on the cusp of adulthood.
“You’ve had a bad shock,” she said, trying to placate me. “Steve, you should try to think about how good you felt on those nights we were together. What happened between us was good.”
“But I thought you were eighteen,” I said. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” she answered, defiant. “I’m eighteen.”
What did an eighteen-year-old look like? I doubted it was really her age. My eyes traveled over her body, immediately my body responding, out of my control. She wouldn’t know I was looking as I concentrated on the forbidden.
“I already told you I was worried you wouldn’t like me if I was older.”
“That’s not true,” I said finally answering her, searching for an excuse to cover my fear. “I don’t care how old you are. I just don’t like to be lied to.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Now tell me what’s going on here? Why are you quarantined? Does it have anything to do with your eyes?”
“Let’s go to my apartment,” she said, reaching out for me again. Her hand was hot, and the current from it sent electrical charges down my arm. “No one’s there this time of day. We’ll be alone, completely alone.”
I let her grab me, falling against me, our bodies pressed together from legs to shoulders. Everything I’d fantasized about her was now in my midst. Closing my eyes, she felt exactly as I imagined she’d feel. Although I didn’t understand the ramifications yet, instinct told me the longer I interacted with her, the greater the chance I’d be ensnared. Staying at the depot wasn’t so bad, but going into the community, hanging out at her apartment, getting physical with her would alter everything because my exposure would increase. But her allure was too much for me and I couldn’t pull away, just yet.
“Come back to my apartment,” she whispered in my ear. “I’m going to tell you the truth.”
Hands crept up my chest to my face and she found my mouth, kissing me. It wasn’t what I expected, her tongue jabbing between my lips made me want to pull away from her, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings again. Her hot breath smelled human enough to help kick me out of my trance. A hint of intuition maybe, or wisdom, or simply self-preservation bubbled up to the surface and I knew I shouldn’t go to her apartment, that if I went, I’d be trapped there.
“We’d better stay here,” I said, gently pulling away from her. “I have to get home soon. We can stay close to the depot now, but later on I have to walk to the opening in the fence and you’ll have to take me. I don’t know where I am. My parents will be crazy worried about me, but I can’t be seen in daylight.”
“You won’t be able to leave during the day,” she retorted, stamping her foot. “It’s better you stay here until sunset. If you’re caught, you’ll be taken away. There’s no telling what they’ll do to you. Or to me, for that matter.”
“Okay, so tell me the truth.”
The expression on her face transformed from caring and sweet to something else. She wasn’t getting her way and she didn’t like it.
“Everyone here is blind!” she said, pulling her hands from mine. “I would have thought you’d notice when you saw us.”
“I couldn’t see anything,” I said, almost slipping up and saying, in the dark, I was as blind as she was. “It was too dark. I could hardly see my hands in front of my face. There are no lights at night, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” she said, tossing her head. “Remember, I don’t need light.”
“Why are you here, inside?” I asked. “Why are you quarantined?”
She turned from me and ran her finger along the concrete block walls of the building. I had to follow her to hear her, she spoke so softly. “It’s from a virus, a real contagious virus. It was an accident, some government project gone wrong. But you won’t hear that version these days. It happened during the revolution.”
“But I thought you were born after the revolution,” I said. My parents said often enough that the twenty year anniversary of the end of the rebellion was coming up quickly.
“Let me finish, please. The people who caught the virus first and spread it around are just dying now of old age. But new cases pop up from time to time. Me, for instance.” She turned away again, flipping her hair off her back. “The guys who harassed you the other day? They’re soccer players who caught it during a trip to Arab to play a foreign team. I heard they’re home base is a city nearby. Every quadrant has its island, a protected area, just like this. But their quadrant was full and they wanted to stay together. So they were allowed to come here.”
I was speechless. Athletes were like gods. Who among them played well enough to challenge a foreign team? I didn’t know much about Coalition teams; the only exposure I had was listening to my dad and Peter talk. Sports were for the wealthy, those who could afford to travel to games. We didn’t even have a radio in our house to listen to broadcasts. And I’d never heard of an entire hockey team leaving town and getting sick. Her claim that every quadrant had what she called a protected area? I couldn’t fathom it. I didn’t even know what a quadrant was yet.
“Your dad said he’d had a vaccination so he could come inside. Why don’t they give it to everyone?”
“It’s too expensive, probably,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “How should I know?”
“Why’s it a big secret then?” I asked. “I don’t get it.”
She turned back to me and smiled. The smile transformed her face. “Are you serious? Can you imagine the droves of curious little jerks who would come here to see the blind people? It’s too dangerous. You’re probably infected now, just by standing this close to me.”
She didn’t say it, but I’d figured it out, if the blind people who had the virus weren’t quarantined from the rest of us, soon it would spread and we’d all be blind. Even at age twelve, I wondered why the government didn’t simply put the people in Tiresias permanently asleep, like the rumors that the old and sick were euthanized. I put my hands up to my eyes, imagining what it would be like to lose my sight and it petrified me. “I’m leaving,” I said, moving quickly away before she could grab me again, her words ringing in the air.
“Don’t go, please,” she pleaded, but I ran from her as fast as I could, back to the depot, going around to the front gates. She stepped back into the shadows, and when I turned to look, she was gone.
Chapter 8
By the time I reached the guard house, I was panting, scared to death. Stepping out to see what the commotion was, the guard’s eyebrows were down, mouth turned down in a grimace, furious.
“Help me,” I cried. “That delivery man, Jim kidnapped me and brought me here. I live in Europe Town. I want to go home.”
“Stand back,” the guard shouted, pulling his gun out, aiming at my forehead. “Don’t get any closer. Explain to me, just how in the hell did he kidnap you?”
“He was waiting for me at my school bus stop,” I stammered. “My friends will tell you. He said he was taking me to see his daughter. But I didn’t know he’d bring inside here or that I wouldn’t be able to leave.”
“Old Jim, trying to hook up his kid
again,” the guard said, shaking his head.
I didn’t know what hook up meant. “I want to go home! My mother’s going to be so worried.”
“I guess you’re fucked,” the guard said. “Don’t move unless you want your brains blown out. Mommy worrying about you will be the least of your problems.”
Never taking his eyes off me, he spoke into a radio device and within minutes, vehicles full of uniformed men surrounded me. They looked like the same men who came for Mrs. Polsky. I wondered if I was going to be murdered on the spot like she was.
Bounding out of the cars, no one said anything. One of the men grabbed my wrists and roughly cuffed them behind my back. Another strong man lifted me off the ground and put me into the back of a black van, buckling my seatbelt. My stomach grumbled and I was afraid I might throw up all over him.
“Kid, if you puke on me, you’re dead,” he said.
I was too shocked and frightened to cry. I didn’t even ask where they were taking me, figuring whatever was going to happen to me, it couldn’t be good. I kept my eyes on the window and was surprised that we were heading out of the gate in a caravan of cars. I thought they’d take me somewhere inside. It took another five minutes before I realized there were other people in the van; a woman in scrubs held on to a counter until the road smoothed out. With precision, she drew something up in a syringe and came at me with a vengeance.
First, grabbing ahold of my face, she squeezed my cheeks together so hard with her fingers that it brought tears to my eyes. “Do you know what you’ve done?” she hissed. “You could’ve ruined your life. How could you be so stupid?”
I couldn’t answer her because I couldn’t move my mouth. I drew air in through my nostrils, the pain in my face intense. She let go at last, clutching my upper arm, pulling the sleeve of my t-shirt up. “Don’t look,” she said, grabbing the needle cover off with her teeth and jabbing my arm with the needle.
The pain shot up into my neck and I yelped involuntarily. “Trust me, not getting this would have left you vulnerable to much worse pain. Much worse. Ask your girlfriend, if you ever see her again.”
Memory of the Color Yellow Page 9
