"Things move quickly these days." My mother says, as if reading my mind. "But some of this was already pre-arranged. The wrong sort of people already knew about you, and this is the excuse they need to hunt you down. Once they have you-" She taps a finger to the maintenance port on my temple. "They’re going to do whatever they can to crack you open. And when their done, that’s what will literally happen, they’re going to crack open your skull and scoop the hardware out from inside."
I sigh deeply, and look around the lab. The entire thing looks haphazard now. Things scattered randomly. And then the explosive in the corner. Nothing my eye lands on calms me down at all. I find myself starting to hyperventilate. Sweat is leaking down my brow, to my neck, soaking into my bra beneath my shirt.
"Do you want a drink?" My mother asks. She pulls out a wine bottle from beneath the desk, and two white Styrofoam cups, most likely originally purposed for coffee. She fills mine to the brim, and I drink it deep, enjoying myself.
"When did you start drinking wine?" I ask, not adding or at all.
"Remember that movie we saw together?" She says. "About the two men, and the one was about to get married, in the wine country?"
"Sideways." I say. "With Paul Giamatti." By watching it together, my mother meant that I had been streaming it on Netflix, and she had stepped in the room long enough to catch the entire thing. I cannot remember a single instance of me and my Mother stepping foot into an actual cinema.
"I don’t know the names." Mother said. "But I liked it. And afterword’s, I looked up a few things, blogs mostly, about getting into wine."
"You sure you didn’t just go down to Safeway and pick up a box of Boones farm?" I ask.
"No." Mother says. "Drinking wine...it’s about quality. And I like that. Besides, it helps for stressful situations."
"Well." I tell her. "They say that light drinkers live longer than non-drinkers."
Mother shakes her head. "The research is skewed." She says. "The non-drinkers include recovering alcoholics, who have already done significant damage to themselves, internally, and shortened their lifespan."
"Can you unplug that tripwire thingie?" I ask her. "I'd like to continue talking to you with thinking that someone’s going to step through the door, and turn us both into ground beef."
As my mother heads over to the homemade explosives, I raise the Styrofoam cup to my mouth, to drink deep. In the next moment I am laying on the floor. Someone has turned off the lights, and the sound. I think maybe I am dead, or in hell. But then I feel the cup in my hands, and cannot imagine a punitive afterlife with Styrofoam.
My ears clear enough to hear a bell ringing. My vision clears enough to see what I can, which amount to a thick coat of grey dust. The side of my head is wet, and when I bring my hand away, it comes off sticky with blood. When I finally manage to stand up, I can see the corner of the room where the explosives were, is now charred black. My mother is gone, there are bits of her everywhere, smelling like burnt pork barbeque.
OPINION OF THE COURT
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 09-1154
OWEN MEANY
v.
BOARD OF EDUCATION
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the court.
The question in this case is whether users of biomedical technology (e.g. Activor Actuator units) are guaranteed a right to education under the Fourteenth Amendment. The respondent Board of Education asserted that said students wield on unfair intellectual advantage over their peers and faculty.
We hold that the use of biomedical technology constitutes elective surgery, and that there is therefore no protection for such citizens under the fourteenth amendment. It is the opinion of this court that students with this elected surgery would prove a disruption in a classroom setting, and should therefore be removed from an environment where they would be apt to cause a societal harm.
Furthermore, the court finds no bearing that these citizens be protected under civil rights statutes, and need be given equal access to learning facilities. If the students are educated at home, no state funds need be issued in recompense.
It is so ordered.
Three
I am shifting back and forth in the bucket seat of the big rig, trying to get comfortable. The driver has been gabbing nearly nonstop, since picking me up. She is the sort of lesbian commonly referred to as a bull dyke, big and butch, with a short haircut, and a fat, fleshy face, that could belong on a linebacker. I have never thought of myself as prejudice, but she makes me feel uneasy.
The story she has been telling me, is all about her former place of work. She was a contractor for a Homeland Security detention facility. "Full of Mexicans." She says. "There are two types of Mexicans, American Mexicans and Mexican Mexicans. These were Mexican Mexicans. They weren’t bad. Really keep the lawn clean, on the compound."
I take a moment, to bask in the irony, of one sort of minority judging another. Then I feel the maintenance port on my temple. I have no room to judge. I should be grateful for this ride. I look around, to take stock of my surroundings. The trailer cabin is a Google smarttruck. It doesn’t really need a driver, although sensor pads on the steering wheel will start blinking red if the driver takes her hands off the wheel for more than ten seconds. Five years ago a transportation company lost a major lawsuit when a smarttruck suffered a power outage, and ran head on into a school bus. As a result, living breathing drivers were instituted as "backups", but more likely to take the blame away from the company. There is really no kind of error like human error. I shift through my head, trying to think up lesbo's name, and a finally arrive at Debbie.
"The thing is." Debbie says. "Those years, working detention, they were really great. Best years of my life. I mean, yeah, we were contractors, and not technically working for the feds, but we felt like the feds. They used to have suits come in, all the way from central office, in Washington D.C., to inspect the place and tell everyone what a great job they were doing."
"So what happened?" I ask.
"The same thing that happened everywhere else." Debbie says. "It went to shit. When the feds started to run low on tax dollars, first they quit the war on drugs, then the war on terror, and finally the war on immigration. Shit, honey. This country has been running a negative immigration influx for the last decade. They can’t pay people to come here."
"I hadn’t noticed." I tell her.
"So when all that happened, well, the first budget cuts to Homeland Security, they cut loose us first. And it was like.." She thumped her fist on the steering wheel. "Bam! All of a sudden, no jay oh bee, no real even career field to work in. The way things were going, we didn’t even have any kind of 401k. Pensions were long gone, most gov jobs made you pay so much into your pension that it wasn’t even a choice. So I was out, after twelve years."
"Did you start driving right away?" I ask.
Debbie sighs. "Just a bottle." She said. "I was drivin' a bottle, right square away between my lips. Lost my girlfrien', hell, Megan had been with me two years longer then I'da been in detentions, so fourteen years then. Contrary to what you've heard from your preacher and Miz Bachmann, us ungodly homosexuals aren’t stuck in a constant orgy. Sometimes we settle down for a minute."
"I didn’t.." I'm stammering, my cheeks turning red. "I didn’t think..."
Debbie laughs , a characteristically mannish sound, deep and booming. "I'm just fucking with you, hun. You've looked so damn nervous since I picked you up. Just tryin to get you to chill out for a minute. Hey, pass me that box of weeds, wouldja?"
I do, and she takes a joint out of the cardboard, and light it with a bic. "You’re not sposed to smoke in these." She says. "But I got together with my doctor and my union rep, and told them how I needed my prescription for lower back pain. So they caved in and turned the fire alarm off in the cabin. Course, driving under the influence is still illegal
, so I'm sposed to park before blazing up, but fuck that. This aint no good job, really."
I decide to open up, a little. "They did the same thing with us." I say. "With teachers, I mean. When I started, I was a private contractor brought in when they were breaking the unions. I thought they would call us scabs, or something, and throw fruit or whatever, but they just stared with their signs, like they knew we were killing their jobs. The next couple of weeks, all of them were terminated, and I had my brand new teaching job."
Debbie grunts. "That what you were?" She says. "A teacher?"
The past tense hits me. What I was. What I am no longer. "Yeah." I say.
"Were you good at it?" She asks.
"I tried." I tell her. "I do- I did the best I could."
"I hated school." Debbie says. "I was old enough to go right before gay rights started kicking in okay, and kids still called you a faggot, for no reason. Some of the girls would play around, or whatever. But there’s a big difference between being a pretty cheerleader that kisses another cheerleader and giggles later, and looking like me."
"Did you-" I stutter a little. "I mean, back then."
"Yes." She says. "I have always, looked like me. Even had me hair cut pretty short in grade school. You can’t help who you are. Like that thing in your head."
The blush flares up on my face again. "So you noticed."
"Did you ever hear of the negro motorists guide?" Debbie says."
"What?" I ask.
"Back during Jim Crow." She says. "When black people wanted to drive across the country, they couldn’t stop just anywhere to eat, or use the bathroom. A postman named Victor Green came up with a book that told where you could go, without being run off, or worse."
"I haven’t heard of that." I say. "It was pretty bad back then, wasn’t it?"
Debbie wiggled a large finger in my direction. "Right now." She says. "They’re getting there for your'un tribe. Not quite at that point yet. But you need a guide right now, cause things are ugly in all the old ugly places, the south, and the bible belt. Of the last four hitchers I picked up, all of em were amps, and all of them were just headed away. You need to know where it is you can do that."
On the center console, which had been running a twenty-four hour news feed, a graphic of a ringing phone pops up. "Shit." Debbie says. She taps at the touchscreen, making the graphic go away. "How's it going, boss."
"Debs." Says a voice, with an overweight drawl. "Wires comin in from Homeland Security, looking for a few interestin persons."
"Bin Laden’s dead." She says.
"I know it." The boss says. "Were talking domestic stuff, terrorism speakin'. Some of those amp freaks all hard wired for killin' shit. Here’s pics."
On the screen flashes a series of pictures in various quality, mostly screen captures from security footage. A series of men, hard looking, plain. The last one with deep grey hair and stern features, like an old century multi-national CEO. The last picture is of me, from the yearbook.
"Shitsky." Debbie murmurs.
"What’s wrong?" Boss barks, unseen voice on edge.
"Nothin. Just thinking out loud, cops putting up roadblocks?"
"Right." Boss says. "But I've got you out of it, due to you hauling that agricorn load. National security matter. Just go straight on through."
I exhale, audibly. "Thanks boss." Debbie says.
"I still need to do a visual scan." Boss says. The hairs stand up on the back of my neck. For the first time I notice the blinking red light of the camera, where the rear view mirror would be.
"Oh yeah?" Debbie mutters.
"Yeah." Boss says. "And I know you just picked up a hitcher, I put a tattler in that passenger seat. That’s outside company policy, but so is picking up strays. So turn on the camera, so I can make a sweep, and send it over to the cops."
"She can’t do that." I blurt out.
"Why not, missy?" Boss says.
"She shaved her head." I tell him. "And I'm not dressed right."
"What!" Boss says. "What the fuck you got going on there, Debs?!"
"Hey boss." Debbie said. "Remember that one chick I brought to the Christmas party?"
"Christ." The voice says. "With all the leather and shit."
"This one’s bout the same." Debbie said. "Only not as pretty. And we’ve been doing stuff, so were not decent. I don’t think the cops want to see droopy-titted bull dykes with bald heads, do they?"
The phone icon flashes again on the screen. A pleasant female voice tells us "Call ended." Through the console.
Debbie shakes her head. "That’s one way to do it."
"Thank you." I tell her.
"Don’t mention it." She says. "Way I figure, you probably had a string of bad luck up until now, and your due some good." My eyes water up at this act of kindness again, and I think about all the bad thoughts I had about her, all the prejudice on the way she would look, or act, and how she was able to put it aside for me, at the risk of her job. The world has changed beneath my feet, and revealed itself to me in unexpected ways.
Debbie sighs. "I’m going to have to shave my head now." She says. "You realize that, don’t you?"
****
The Google smarttruck acts as its own Wi-Fi hotspot, and with Debbie's laptop, we find something for me close to a Negro motorists guide for Amps: A message board with phone numbers and e-mail addresses of Amp-friendly people, across the United States. A woman we contact in Arkansas named Kathryn agrees to take me the rest of the way to Haven.
I find my car ride in Kathryn's wood paneled station wagon somewhat less agreeable than the same in Debbie's rig. Kathryn was elderly, possessed of the elderly's odor, as well as some sort of animal funk. We spent the ride in silence, except for a religious station on the radio broadcasting a sermon. She asked what church I went to, and I told her I didn’t, and she sniffed and said. "Only the Lord can help you now. You and all the others, with your troubles."
"Is that why your helping me?" I said.
"The Bible says we are to love the sinner, and hate the sin." She said. "I noticed the woman in the truck was a Sodomite, and if she would have needed a ride, I would have offered her the same, along with the good news from Pastor Fletcher. I have compassion brimming over my heart for all those heading for the fiery pit of damnation."
I didn’t know what to say about that, so I didn’t say anything. Apparently my benefactors were united by the same divergence of opinions as all those against me, as an Amp. We ate cold sandwiches Kathryn provided that I hoped fervently were not made of dog food. From there we drove straight through to Oklahoma.
Four
The Haven trailer court, which could more accurately be termed a trailer park, sat behind a rusted, chain link fence, in the midst of a surprisingly thick forest. There was a sign out front, that appeared to be true fifties vintage, from the font lettering. It had been parched with holes from buckshot, and what looked like several larger calibers of firearm. The sign was hanging loosely on a rusted chain link fence, that stooped well above my head. Thankfully, there was no gate, merely a large opening where both sides of the fence ended. A gate would have been too much for me, as if I was self-surrendering for a lifetime term in prison.
When I went in, the air smelled strongly of a pine forest. Not in the artificial manner of some sort of chemical disinfectant, but like real, fresh oxygen. Birds were chirping. A weight I didn’t know I was carrying seemed to fall from my mind. It was early morning. I had driven through the night with Debbie and then Kathryn. Something smelled like food, bacon and eggs, that made my mouth water, and stomach grumble. An older man stepped out of a nearby double-wide, with a Hawaiian shirt, and the sort of grey ponytail frequented by men of a certain generation attached to the sixties, by deed or memory.
"Looking' for someone, sweetheart?" He said.
"I guess I'm lost." I told him.
"There are two kinds of lost." He said. "In this country, the United States, or in yourself, which is a whole nother cou
ntry. When someone is lost here, say in Oklahoma, they don’t have a job, or a place to live, and people probably think of them as dumb, dangerous, stupid, or all three put together. But when someone is lost within themselves, they might have things, and be respected, all the way until they overdose, or eat the barrel of a gun. In any event, the first way of being lost is better than the second, though too often they go hand in hand, nowadays."
It was a little more of a speech than I was prepared for, so I decided to go for broke and say simply, "I'm Kara Pierce."
"Ayuh." He said. "Glen Miller, like the big band man."
"Who?" I said.
"It doesn’t matter." He said. "A generational thing. They did a Gap commercial in the mid-nineties, and that might be the only reference you could get, if'n you were even old enough to remember that. A bitch getting old, when people don’t even get the stupid joke behind your name. Your mother always gave me a little shit over it."
"My mother?"
"She sent word." Glen said. "With all the commotion going on, I wasn’t one hundred percent that you would get here, but we had you pegged the moment you stepped through the gate." He laughed a little. "Aw hell. Where are my manners? You et yet?"
I told him no.
"Come on in, then. We raise our own chickens, so the eggs are good and fresh, and the bacon comes from this little farm near abouts. I always make enough for two, and if it’s just me I eat it all like a fat kid." He swung open the screen door. "Come on in, and take a load off."
The food was good, as he advertised. I had never been much of a breakfast eater, in what I was learning to think of as my old life. If I could cook like Glen, I would have changed that. While I ate, Glen wheedled bits and pieces of my story out of me, and added parts of his own.
Amped Up Page 2
