Callisto

by Torsten Krol

  The guy on the ground got up okay and I got brung inside by all of them. There is this desk and some filing cabinets and a Coke machine in a long room with two electric fans pushing the air around. “Number three,” says the officer, and they hustled me along a corridor to a cell with one wall made of bars just like in the Westerns. There was a bunk bed and a basin and a toilet with a plastic bag underneath, a chemical toilet which I can smell the chemicals in it. They took off the handcuffs and pushed me inside and closed the door.

  “Beat it,” says the officer, which is not the way officers are supposed to talk to soldiers, not in the movies they don’t. They went away and he stayed behind, just staring at me like I’m an animal at the zoo, and not the kind you admire like a tiger maybe, more like a fleabitten chimp or something. He was in his thirties with a crewcut like they all have got or else shaved completely, and a mustache.

  “So you’re the one,” he says.

  “What one?”

  “The one that set off that bomb in Kansas.”

  “No, I got blown up by it.”

  “Yeah? I see a little cut on your head. That was a big bomb, big as the Oklahoma one. I had a cousin died in that blast. She died in the childminding center they had there. One minute it was a childminding center and the next minute it’s a graveyard with small bodies blown to pieces by a coward with a grudge. What was your intended target, some government building?”

  “It wasn’t my bomb . . .”

  “Right, you were minding it for someone.”

  “No, it was put in my truck.”

  “So it’s your truck bomb.”

  “No, it was Dean’s truck.”

  “Your buddy Dean Lowry who wants to kill Senator Ketchum.”

  “No . . . Dean’s dead.”

  “Not according to my information. What happened, he leave you stranded when the bomb went off by accident?”

  “No, nothing like that . . .”

  “The reason you’re here is to get information from you the system stateside ordinarily isn’t able to extract. Ordinarily you’d be dispatched to an unnamed foreign country for interrogation, but that system got blown out of all proportion by the media, so now we do what we should’ve done from the start with terrorists – handle it ourselves below the radar. That’s why you’re here. Do you understand?”

  “It’s a mistake . . .”

  “The security services of the United States do not make mistakes. Is your name Odell Deefus or is that a cell name?”

  “That’s my name. What’s a cell name?”

  “Odell Deefus is a nigger name. Are you a nigger?”

  I did not like this man. He had it all wrong about me and didn’t want to listen. He could see I’m not black but he asked the question like it’s serious, so I know this is some kind of act he’s putting on to make me afraid. Since I got off the plane they all wanted me to be afraid and I was, kind of, but then I decided to show him I’m not.

  “I repeat,” he says, “are you a nigger?”

  “Yes I am.”

  “What kind of a nigger are you, Deefus? Are you a light-skinned nigger or a brown nigger or a nigger black as the inside of your own asshole?”

  “That’s a dumb question,” I said. I hated him now for play-acting so dumb.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can see what color I am just by looking.”

  “That is an incorrect statement. The color you are has got nothing to do with race. The color you are is determined by what kind of asshole you are. Do you want me to tell you what kind of asshole you are, Deefus? You are the worst kind of ass-hole. You are the kind of asshole that blows away women and kids and old people in wheelchairs because they don’t worship the same god you do, which is your miserable cunthole excuse for killing them, isn’t that so, Deefus.”

  “No.”

  “I’m surprised to hear this. Please explain to me the reason why you like to kill women and kids and old people in wheelchairs.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “Because you made a faulty bomb that went off prematurely and was a wasted bomb, isn’t that so, Deefus.”

  “No ...”

  “And isn’t it a fact that only lies and Muslim propaganda spill from that ugly mouth of yours.”

  “No.”

  “You are two kinds of color, Deefus. You are Muslim green and coward yellow. Do you know what color gets made when Muslim green and coward yellow are mixed together, Deefus?”

  “I don’t know...Orange?”

  “When Muslim green and coward yellow are mixed together the resulting color is blue. That’s the color a white face goes when deprived of oxygen. It doesn’t get so blue unless close to death. This is the shade of face you would see in a mirror if a mirror was provided to you. This is the color face you will have soon because I intend depriving you of oxygen. Your face will get bluer and bluer until it reaches a very deep shade of blue that I like to call nigger blue. You were funning with me, Deefus, when you told me you’re a nigger, but believe me I am not funning with you that you will indeed reach that shade of nigger blue before you are much older than today.”

  The words come spilling from him at a regular rate like a news ribbon at the bottom of a TV screen, all the same speed and tone like he’s reading from an invisible book. “This is my solemn promise to you. I swear by the faith of our founding fathers I will have the truth out of you or humble myself before God and tell him out loud I have failed in my mission, and if there’s one thing I hate to do, Deefus, it’s fail in my mission and have to humble myself before God and admit that failure. Failure before God is unforgivable and will be passed on to you, Deefus. Your denial will fail and then your spirit will fail, and then your lungs and heart will begin to fail until you become a complete failure. I, Lieutenant William Harding, faithful servant of the United States and God Almighty, do promise this.”

  He didn’t wait to hear anything back at him from me, just turned away and walked off down the corridor with the heels of those officer shoes hitting the concrete floor hard and crisp, like something being smacked over and over again, trailing off into the distance. After the place was quiet a thought come tiptoeing into my head very meek and mild, almost like it didn’t want to be there, and the thought was this – I am in the hands of a crazy person that wants to kill me dead. The thought spoke its words again in my head and I began to understand them better, like it’s an important lesson I’m teaching myself, one side of my brain talking to the other side, getting it to understand this simple fact about the crazy person wanting to kill me. And then I was afraid.

  A soldier come back with a one-piece orange jumpsuit. He told me to get naked and hand over my clothes, then put on the jumpsuit, also he had these little black slipper things for my feet because my new sneakers and socks got handed over too, which he carried these away. The jumpsuit has got no pockets at all. Then another soldier come along and stares at me awhile. There were no windows in my cell and none along the corridor that leads there, but it had to be broad daylight outside by now, so I asked him, “What time is it?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “Time has got no meaning for you no more. That light up there, that’s the sun far as you’re concerned, only it’s a special sun that don’t ever rise or set or go nowhere at all. Only time you’re gonna get away from that sun is when you go to the romper room.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Kind of a exercise room playroom kinda thing, you’ll see.”

  “Is the food here okay?” I asked him, wanting to maybe make a friend.

  “Most of the time it’s okay, but that’s our food I’m talking about, not yours. Your food is shit. I hope you like to eat shit ’cos we got all the shit food you can handle.”

  This guy was not suitable for a friend, but I had seen at least a dozen soldiers around the place since I got there so maybe one of them is not a complete asshole like the rest of them and their off
icer. What I would have to do is be friendly even if they didn’t treat me the same way in reverse, and not get them riled about things that they have got wrong. If I did this they would sooner or later come around to seeing the true way things are regarding me and terrorism, what I mean is, no connection there at all, but I saw it would take awhile to convince them about this. If only Dean’s body had not been taken away from where I left it there would not be this problem about disbelieving me, and I still could not figure out who did this and why. They have got me in the biggest kind of trouble because of it whoever they are.

  “Thank you,” I said to the soldier. This was my first move in the official policy of friendliness.

  “Fuck you,” he says.

  He went away then and I lay on the bunk, which was hard but not like a rock. I just had to wait out this bad situation and they would set me free. It was not like I did anything so very bad I could get myself executed over it. This was all just a mistake that should not have got made but it did.

  The light in the ceiling hurt my eyes it’s so bright, two hundred fifty watts easy, so I flung an arm over my eyes to shut it out. That worked for a minute or so then this same soldier comes back and tells me I have to take my arm away from my face or else put myself in deep shit. “Why?” I asked him and he says it’s the rules.

  “We can see you all the time,” he says, pointing up in the corner of my cell, where I saw this tiny camera up there like a spider on the wall. “That thing is never shut off,” he says. “We watch you day and night, eating your shit food and shitting it back out again, sleeping and not sleeping, beating your meat, walking around, whatever, we’re watching you. We see you try to damage the light or the camera and we’re on you so fast you won’t believe it. You won’t like it, what we do to prisoners that don’t take the rules serious. When you lie on the bed you keep your arms at your sides or across your chest if you want, but not over your face like you did just now. That’s a bright light there, makes a big electric bill, so we want you to appreciate how bright it is all the time, see?”

  “I see.”

  “Hell you do, you’re just pretending, but you’ll see.”

  He went away again. I closed my eyes but the light come through my eyelids like sunshine through a cheap window shade. I turned on my side away from the light, half expecting the soldier to come back and say that’s against the rules too, but he didn’t, and so despite everything that happened and all the crap surging through my brain like shit through a sewer pipe I fell asleep.

  They brung me breakfast later on after I woke up. It isn’t shit like that soldier said, just Corn Flakes and milk, nothing wrong with that, and while I’m eating it here comes another soldier looks just like the rest only it isn’t, he’s a chaplain, you can tell the difference by the little chrome crosses on his lapels there. He says he’s Chaplain Turner and can he get me a Bible or do I want a Koran, he can get either one, which is the rules here, freedom of religion. He says the Koran comes with a little cloth sling that you can hang it up with so it doesn’t touch the ground, which is against the Muslim religion for that to happen, a big insult to the words of Mohammed. “But I’m sure you know that already,” he ends up saying, which I didn’t, how could I?

  “I’ll take a Bible,” I told him, to be friendly as per The Plan. It felt like I’m ordering the Big Mac instead of the Whopper, that’s about all it means to me, but I wanted the chaplain to think I’m a real Christian so they quit thinking I’m a terrorist.

  “I’ll bring it tomorrow,” he says, then, “Are you really a Christian?”

  “I pretty soon will be.”

  “So you’re converting?”

  “Just catching up on what I’ve been missing, I guess.”

  “A latecomer to the fold,” he says, looking suspicious but trying not to.

  “That’s me, always late and never at the right place neither.”

  I laughed but the chaplain didn’t. He says, “Is there anyone on the outside who you’d like to send a message to?”

  “A message? Like to a lawyer?”

  I’m thinking if Johnnie Cochran got OJ Simpson off a murder rap he’s definitely the guy for me, but then I recalled hearing he died a few years back, so that won’t work, but there was another lawyer on that case that’s still alive, I think.

  “Effley Bailey,” I said. “Send him a message, please, that says I need him pretty bad because I’m innocent, that should make it easier. Effley Bailey, he’s my man.”

  “I meant to a family member or associate, a personal message.”

  “Oh. Well, now, I don’t get along with my old man so that’d be a waste. Can’t seem to think of nobody else ...Maybe if you ask me tomorrow I’ll know.”

  “There are no associates you’d like to contact?”

  Now I saw what he’s doing. He wants me to give him the names of all those crazy Muslim terrorists I’m supposed to hang with, like I’m some kind of idiot fool that doesn’t know he’ll take those names directly to the FBI, but there’s one person, or two really, that maybe can help me here.

  “Okay, tell my associates Preacher Bob and his number one guy Chet Marchand that I can use a little help here, so maybe they could put in a good word for me, okay?”

  That made him blink. He says, “Preacher Bob? Robert Jerome of the Born Again Foundation? The Preacher Bob?”

  I held up two fingers twisted together like pretzels. “Him and me are like that. He even got me my own little cell phone because he likes me so much, just you ask him about that. Yeah, Bob and Chet even invited me to the big meeting in Topeka July Fourth, kind of a special guest, you might say. That’s not long now, too bad I’ll probably be stuck here for something that’s all a big mistake anyway. Bob’ll be kind of pissed about it, me not showing up, I mean, but when you tell him how I got sidetracked I guess he’ll understand okay.”

  He looked at me like I’m making a joke, so I said, “No kidding, I’m their buddy. Just you ask the FBI if they didn’t tap my calls back and forth to those two, well, mainly to Chet, calls I made on that phone they gave me for a gift and issued the invite to Topeka on. Talk to Agent Kraus and Agent Deedle, they’ll tell you, okay?”

  “Okay,” he says, but like you’d accept street directions from a totally drunk man.

  “Maybe they can spring me outta here,” I said.

  “You’ll get that Bible tomorrow,” he says. “Are there any other works of a religious nature you might like?”

  “Well, there was one religious book I read all the way through, it’s called The Way of the Nun, but I don’t think it’s so famous as the Bible is. Or you could get me my favorite reading book which is The Yearling. Did you ever read that? It won the Pulitzer Prize. But not the short version for kids to read, the long one with everything in it the way the writer wrote it in the first place, that’s the one I want.”

  “I don’t run a lending library,” he says.

  “Okay then, just the Bible.”

  He went away and I did some walking around in the cell, thinking this is the most exercise I’ll get, walking circles in the cell, until I get to see the romper room that is, which is for exercising in, that soldier said. And while I’m thinking about him along he comes, and this time I read the name tag on his shirt, hard to read because it’s black on brown, but this guy’s name is Fogler, and he did not look happy, kind of chewing his own lips he’s so mad about something.

  “Quit that!” he barks at me.

  “Huh?”

  “Quit walking in a circle that way! You can walk back and forth or back, along the wall there, then come up to the front again, but no going circular. It’s directly back and forth or in a square kinda, but circularizing is out, you got that!”

  “Okay. I didn’t know.”

  “Learn!” he says and stomps away down the corridor again. He must keep his eyes glued to the TV screen out there every second in every minute. This would be a big embarrassment the first time I had to take a dump with him or someone els
e watching. There is something not decent about that, I think.

  Lunch was beef patties and fries, not bad at all. Fogler was just fooling with me about the shit food here. Then I got another visitor, this one is bald, also with glasses. He said his name is Lieutenant Beamis and he’s there to ask me some questions, get-to-know-me kind of stuff he says, but what it is is these sheets of cardboard he starts holding up with splatters of black ink across them.

  “You’ve probably seen this in the movies,” he says. “Just give me your first impression of these as I hold them up.”

  “It’s to show what kind of guy I am, I’ve seen it.”

  “You could put it that way. What’s this one suggest to you, straight off the top of your head without thinking about it?”

  “Someone dropped the paint pot.”

  “And this one?”

  “Damn, he did it again.”

  “This?”

  “That is one clumsy son of a gun you’ve got making these.”

  He let the sheets down. “I’d advise you to take this seriously, Deefus. You don’t seem to realize you’re in the worst kind of trouble. I’m actually here to help you, to customize our approach to your problem so we can resolve this.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought you just wanted information, like where Dean Lowry has got his hideout.”

  “Revealing that kind of thing could be useful in this instance, yes, but bear with me a little while and I’ll just run through these. It’s the way we do this.” He held up those cardboard sheets again.

  “Okay, that one is two zebras with football helmets.

  “A butterfly that has got tattered wings.

  “A face with eyes but no nose. That could be a mouth there.

  “Elephants walking away from each other. Maybe they had a fight.

  “A jungle plant with flowers, also beetles all around.

  “Now this one ...I don’t know...a feathery ladies’ hat? Exploding?”

  He set the inkblot sheets down and opened up a notebook and clicks his pen, then starts asking questions about my life so far, childhood memories and so forth, so I was happy to do that, then after awhile he wants to know, “Where and when did you begin to feel that society failed you?”