Callisto

by Torsten Krol

  The door down there with the smashed computer in front of it opened and here comes three soldiers with pistols in their hands. I jumped back in the cell and slammed the door, then went over to Fogler and scooped up his baton. By the time those soldiers got to my door I had got that baton tucked up real tight under Fogler’s neck, holding him in front of me like a shield. They stopped when they saw that. I told them, “If you come in here I’ll pull his goddamn head off !”

  “Just let him go and that’ll be fine . . .” says one of them.

  “No it won’t,” I said, “it won’t be fine. I let him go and you’ll beat the shit out of me. Well, I already had enough shit beat out of me, so fuck you!”

  “Listen, buddy, you’re making it worse for yourself . . .”

  “I know! I know I am! I don’t care!”

  I hitched the baton up tighter and Fogler made this gurgling sound. Those soldiers didn’t know what to do about this, no more than I did. We just looked at each other and wondered what next? Fogler’s head smelled like shit and chemicals right under my nose.

  Next thing Lieutenant Harding comes along and he can’t believe what he’s seeing. “Release that man!” he yells at me, but I didn’t. He yelled it again, then he yells at the soldiers to get in and take me down, but they didn’t want to, they can see I’m crazy and willing to hurt them all, even hurt myself maybe.

  Harding, he tried it another way then. I watched him rearrange his face and voice and say to me all wheedling and fake-friendly, “Now, listen to me, Deefus, you can’t treat my men like that. Let him go and we’ll just back off, okay?”

  “You’re lying!”

  “No I’m not. Now, listen, you have my word on this. Let him go and there’ll be no retribution, I mean it . . .”

  “I don’t know anything and I didn’t do anything!”

  “Right, I understand that. Those aren’t my men, the ones asking you questions, that’s another outfit entirely. That man there, he’s one of mine, so I’m asking you to let him go and I can promise you he won’t come near you again. Think about it. You have my word as an officer. If that means anything to you at all you’ll see this is the way for you to go, the sensible way. Just let him go and we’ll get him out of your life, okay?”

  “And no retribution.”

  “And no retribution.”

  “And no more phone calls.”

  “No more phone calls.”

  “And a TV.”

  “What?”

  “I want a TV. I like to watch TV.”

  “Okay, a TV, but that’s it. You let him go and none of this happened, plus you get a TV right here in your cell.”

  “And some hot water and soap and another set of clothes. This stinks!”

  “A trip to the shower unit and a fresh outfit, fine. Anything else?”

  “Another dinner. I puked up that one before.”

  “Another dinner, no problem. Is that it?”

  “You give me your word as an officer?”

  “I’ve already done that. Let’s not waste any more time, that man looks unwell.”

  “Okay then. Your word as an officer.”

  “You’re doing the sensible thing, Deefus.”

  “Do you get cable and dish here?”

  “We get everything they get stateside.”

  I let Fogler go and he slumped onto the floor, coughing and gasping very hard. That sounded good. He started crawling away from me towards the door. I waited for them to rush me when he passed through to the corridor, but that didn’t happen. They helped Fogler get on his feet and two of them went away with him. The rest closed the door and stayed where they are.

  “The baton,” says Harding.

  I took a chance and walked over to him and passed it through the bars.

  “Thank you,” he says, then they all left.

  I waited. They hadn’t locked the door, which means they’re coming back with the TV like Harding promised. Maybe it means that. Maybe it means they’ll be back with something else. He gave me his word but that didn’t mean squat. Everyone here is a lying son of a bitch that I can’t trust. I only let Fogler go because how long could I have held them off that way without them bringing in tear gas or whatever, so I let him go and now I’m waiting to see if they are good as their word or not. I am expecting Not.

  Here they come back along the corridor, a bunch of them with Harding. They stood outside the cell and they weren’t carrying their pistols, which is a good sign. One of them is carrying a portable TV, which is another good sign, so maybe I’m wrong. They put the TV on the little table that the computer had stood on. It must be the battery kind because there’s no electric outlet I can see. Then one of them puts his hand through the bars with something in it, something like a big old electric shaver, like he’s offering it to me, but then he presses a button and something shot out from that thing and stuck me in the side like two little knife points. There was two wires stretching from the gadget to my ribs and I’m wondering what that is...and then someone turned off my switch. That’s what it felt like. I fell down twitching and could not control any part of me. They did it again, sending a shock through me, so this is one of those police Taser guns to knock out guys that are fighting drunk and don’t want to get arrested. This second shock, it made me quit twitching, took hold of me all over so I’m lying like a dead man.

  I’m on the floor again, no part of me moving now except my brain. They come inside the cell and stood over me. I looked up at them, hating them because now they can do anything they want, even kill me. I couldn’t see batons or boxing gloves but they all have got boots on for kicking.

  Harding, he kneeled down next to me and says, “This is what happens when you don’t give us what we want. These are important matters you’re expected to help us out with, but you’re not cooperating at all.” He pulled out the Taser barbs and stood up. “Hose him down,” he told the soldiers. I could not see any hosepipe so this was strange, then they took out their dicks and pissed all over me, three of them but not Harding because I guess officers don’t do stuff like that. Worst of all was the one guy that made sure he pissed in my face. Him I wanted to kill for the extra insult. They run out of piss and Harding told them to go away, which they did.

  He says, looking down at me, “You think this is no way to behave, I know, but the thing you have to bear in mind is this – you are not a human being. You are a terrorist, which is a thing shaped like a human being but is not a human being. You don’t think like we do. That’s why you do the things you do. These are bad things and you have to be stopped. I’m here to stop you. We all are. There is absolutely and positively no chance you’ll get what you want. You want to see America on her knees, but that can never happen. If you weren’t completely crazy you could see this. America is the greatest nation the world has ever known and ever will know. Nothing will stop America. You’re like an ant raising its fist to an elephant. If I didn’t hate you I’d feel sorry for you. The worst thing is, you were born American. If you were some kind of towelhead I could feel sorry for you because you come from a part of the world where everything is shit. But you don’t come from there. You come from Wyoming. They must hate you there, Deefus. You can never go home again. Even after you break you’ll be held in some federal prison for your own protection. Even there you’ll need to be kept in solitary confinement because the other prisoners will be Americans, real Americans, and they’ll hate you enough to kill you. Me, I’d release you into the general prison population and watch you die in twenty-four hours, but we Americans are too softhearted so you’ll live. If you can call it living. Give us what we want, Deefus, and you can leave here to begin again in some other cell stateside where the climate is kinder and the treatment is gentler. Cooperation would be your best option, believe me.” He stood up. “I’m a man of my word, so you get your TV.”

  He left me soaked in piss and not able to move a muscle. I heard him close and lock the door. He switched on the TV out there in the corridor and walk
ed away. I heard a voice talking about something but could not take it in. This had got to be the worst single moment in my life, lying in the piss of three men and staring at the ceiling. No shower and change of outfit and no meal too, but I only half expected these things. I did not expect to get pissed on like this. The shame of it was terrible, enough to make me cry if I was not so strung out about all the other things they did to me. They had done so much I could not cry about it, only lie there feeling like this is all a nightmare happening while I’m asleep or something. But it is not.

  After awhile I could move again and sit up, then a little while later I could stand up. I took off the stinking orange jumpsuit and flung it in the corner, then I sat there naked and watched some sitcom rerun with my eyes but not with my brain, if you know what I mean. Then it was over and here’s the late news. About three items in there’s something about me, with pictures taken from that interview with Sharon Ziegler for Channel 12, only it’s not really about me, it’s about Feenie Myers. When the FBI set up the fake breakout they must’ve followed the car all the way to Denver as well as following me to Kansas City, because they interviewed Feenie after they caught up with the hitchhiker guy, Wendell Aymes, and he told them who he’s supposed to deliver the car to, which is Feenie. So here’s Feenie now getting interviewed, and she’s saying that she remembers me from Kit Carson High but we were never friends and “Odell Deefus couldn’t even spell terrorist, let alone be one, it’s just ridiculous,” which is a pretty nice thing to say, so thank you, Feenie. She looked a lot different to when I remember her back in school, with this wild hair and nose-ring now, a real college student type. They went on to say that I’m helping the FBI with its investigation, which is not true, the FBI got left behind when I got on the plane with Pitface, but I guess nobody told the news people about this.

  Then I got a real shock because there’s my old man walking fast away from the cameras with reporters asking him to comment about his terrorist son, only he doesn’t want to and all he’ll say over his shoulder is, “I don’t know anything about him, I don’t know anything about him,” which was probably a true statement that could’ve been made years ago. And that’s all there was about me, not much more than a minute and most of it bullshit.

  I kind of drifted off again for the rest of the news, then perked up again when Preacher Bob come on with his Friday night show. He’s pretty damn agitated tonight, jerking his glasses around and he kicked the little Bible platform one time by accident he’s so upset, and here’s the reason why. “My friends,” he says, “those of you who tuned in last week would have heard me say some words of praise for Senator Leighton Ketchum, words that most of you out there would have been in agreement with. His suitability for the post of President is what I’m talking about here. That’s my opinion on the matter and I make no pretense of not feeling that way. That’s free speech the last I heard, something we’re all entitled to in this great land of ours. Free speech, it’s in the Bill of Rights. But you know what I discovered, friends? I discovered there are forces at work within our society to curtail that right. You’ve no doubt heard that odious phrase, ‘separation of Church and State,’ and thought, like I did, that this doesn’t mean I can’t express my opinion inside my own house of worship. But that’s exactly what these malign forces are suggesting to me through my lawyer. Oh yes, I have a lawyer. I have Jesus Christ beside me at all times, but for certain earthly matters it’s best to rely on your attorney.”

  That got him a good laugh from the congregation. He twirled his glasses and let them fall against his chest on their little chain and gripped his Bible hard. “Every law worth listening to and obeying is found within these covers! There are other laws we must respect, of course, as well as those laws handed down to us from God by way of Moses. Good laws, fine laws, sensible laws for the most part. But, my friends, all of these man-made laws are open to . . . interpretation. Yes they are. And one man will interpret them thisaway and another man will interpret that very same law thataway. And there you have the seeds of discord nicely planted among us.”

  He walked around a little while, thinking hard. Preacher Bob does this real good, you can almost see the thoughts pouring through his brain just from that crease he gets down his forehead. He looks up all of a sudden and says, “Secular law says I can’t say that about Senator Ketchum because it’s a political opinion, and political opinions have no place in the house of God. You know what, folks? I take exception to that interpretation, I surely do. I take ex-ception to that because I know in my heart – which belongs to the Lord my God – that some political matters transcend the label ‘political’ and are the very essence of God’s work. We are surrounded by enemies of the state, my friends, and at their mercy when they explode bombs among us without warning. Those bombs are political statements in the mind of a terrorist, but the evil behind them is religious in nature, being as it were inspired by a certain religion that is not our own. But, of course, I can’t say what that particular religion calls itself. I spoke its name last week and have got myself into hot water over that also. Tonight I’ll be diplomatic and not speak its name. I can’t state plainly and openly its name because if I did so, folks, there would be blood-letting across the world. You know what I’m talking about, yes you do. Everyone knows what I’m talking about ... but we can’t talk about it! How about that for a conundrum, my friends. We know something bad is smelling up the planet but we dare not speak its name because to do so will create riots and revenge attacks and outrage that will spill innocent blood. Because evil does not like to hear itself spoken of with disdain. Evil is offended by that. Evil, the practitioners of that other religion would have us believe, is sensitive, and will have its finer feelings offended by a bald statement of truth!”

  They all agreed with that and give Preacher Bob a fine hand of applause to keep him going. He waited till they’re all calmed down again, then he says, “So the forces at large in the world, both here and abroad, my friends, are telling me – telling you – that we must not speak our minds for fear of a bloody result, an incident – many incidents – of carnage that would be avoided by keeping our mouths shut. I ask you this – is there any real difference between those voices overseas telling me to keep my mouth shut and those voices here at home telling me the same thing? Can you see any difference?” The congregation could not, no way, and Bob goes on. “So this thing that we call free speech, this thing sanctified in the Bill of Rights, is in fact a will-o’-the-wisp, a thing that isn’t really there, or there part of the time but not there all of the time, according to your politics. This very day, my friends, this very day I have been informed by certain members of Congress that what I did last week was not allowable under the law of this land. That I cannot and must not endorse a political candidate for the highest office over the airwaves because this violates the separation of Church and State. I have been warned, my friends, that if I persist in doing this I will be audited by the Internal Revenue! They say I’ll have the tax-exempt status of my business – which I remind you is also God’s business – removed! Removed! They think they can dictate to a man of principle simply by way of the office they were elected to by the good people of America. Well, I have got news for them. The good people of America will not take kindly to having their churches messed with by the Internal Revenue! Remove our tax-exempt status? I’d like to see ’em try!

  “Americans are not cowed by threats, not even by explosions in our midst as happened in Kansas just four days ago. That was a bomb went off by mistake, I think that’s plain. Who knows what its intended target might have been. I do know this much, friends. If that bomb had gone off as planned right next to the target of choice, Americans would have died by the hundreds, if not the thousands. They are not done with us yet, those terrorists. That bomb in Kansas proves it. That bomb, my friends, was our latest wakeup call. And I make the following statement to our elected representatives in Washington as their wakeup call. I say to them – we will not defeat this implac
able foe by dividing our house! We will only survive this onslaught from within and without by electing men of purpose and will and grit! We will not survive by endlessly talking and accommodating and backing down before our enemies! America must realize, once and for all, where its destiny lies!”

  They just loved Preacher Bob for what he says, and it sounded good to me too, only I didn’t get to hear more because one of the soldiers comes along then and switches off the TV and picks it up to take away. I told him, “The Lieutenant said I could have that,” and he says back at me, “Lieutenant Harding just now said Go get that TV, you’ve had enough.” And away he went with it. That’s all I got, less than an hour. Listening to Preacher Bob, I felt like joining the Army all over again to defend America against all those crazies that want to kill us and change us into Islamites, but now with the TV gone it made me think how shitty it’d be to serve under someone like Harding. Playtime is over and I’m a prisoner again.

  I didn’t know what time it was, but Preacher Bob’s show comes on late so it’s getting near midnight now. I got to this place before dawn and went through a whole lot of bad shit already. I did not earn any of this except by being dumb, not mean, but nobody will believe this. Getting punished for being dumb is not fair, but so what, it’s happening anyhow so I have just got to tough this situation out and hope someone gets through to Preacher Bob and Chet about me. Those two will get me out of here even if nobody else gives a damn. If I was the praying kind I would send a prayer asking them to hurry up and spring me before I get stomped down into a greasy spot on the floor here. I bet Bob would tell me I had to have faith, and I do, I have got faith in Bob and Chet. They are real men that know who I am and have been friendly. I could not send a prayer to God instead of them, because if he’s there, God is too busy with the big jobs like keeping all those planets and stars and so forth from bumping into each other out in space. So I have just got these two on my team, but it’s enough to let me lay down all stinking and naked and turn my face away from the light and slide away into sleep at last.