Sherwood Nation: a novel

by Benjamin Parzybok

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “I’ve talked to most of them. Look, Leroy vouched for you, I know your reputation. Some cannot stay. I need a patrol, and I need someone who can lead.”

  Gregor studied Leroy. He knew Leroy only vaguely as a homeless man who pushed cans around his neighborhood in a squealing grocery cart, and he wondered what weird role the man had ascended to in her play organization.

  “He said you ran an ethical operation here.”

  “You’re talking about war,” he said quietly. “You’re asking me to go to war against the others.”

  “I’m asking you on behalf of the people in all the neighborhoods in the Northeast to stand up for them. I’m asking you to be the police chief of a new country.”

  “You have no country. The answer is no.”

  There was silence in the room then. The conversation was over for him. He waited for them to understand and leave.

  “You understand I will go to someone else.”

  “Lady? Jesus Christ. Lady. I understand you have some popular support—”

  “As do you.”

  “Not the same thing. You’re going to squander yours anyhow. How are you possibly going to manage this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and then she pointed at him. “I’m going to do it with you.”

  Gregor sat back in his chair and appraised each in turn. Leroy he realized he might have underestimated. Leroy always appeared to be on speed, and Gregor had just assumed he was getting it elsewhere. The few times Gregor had spoken to him, he’d frenetically rambled, aggressive and near-incoherent. He looked more settled now than Gregor had imagined the man capable of, the mania concentrated in the actions of an ashtray. The amazon woman was alert, but in the way his men were alert. Her tea sat on the table untouched. There was something coiled about her, a well of potential energy. She was listening to the conversation, but also to the room and outside the room. She was a soldier.

  The Maid Marian woman he couldn’t make out at all, other than she obviously had no sense of self-preservation. With her impassioned argument she had raised some buried instinct in him, to his surprise, and he contemplated this. For an instant, he’d felt a desire to join in, to bind and save the neighborhoods.

  After a while he said, “I am sorry. But there’s no way in hell your plan is going to work. I wish you luck.”

  After they’d left, he stood at the window for a long time watching the dust and debris blow around in the street outside. He realized the city, like his tea, was in the act of divining. When the wind stopped, the future would be declared across its geography.

  He needed to speak to Jamal.

  The mayor and Christopher were out for a drive. Except you couldn’t ever go alone anymore, Christopher thought. They were driven. The idyllic romantic wanderings of a couple in the car became more of a traveling circus of mismatched personalities.

  The driver, who wore a hat in such a foul, bedraggled state that Christopher could only imagine the man had fished it from the bottom of some cabbie’s grave, ran a barely audible Mexican-accented commentary about everything on the road. The only coherent parts were when the dialogue crescendoed hotly into profanity. In the passenger seat beside him sat an officer of the law, a quiet, brooding man in his forties who had told Christopher his name enough times that he could not bring himself to ask it of him again. He was, Christopher thought, the type of man whose personality is like fog. You grasp at it, and when you open your hand, there is nothing there.

  He and the mayor sat in the back like two kids strapped into car seats on the way to a soccer game. It had been Christopher’s idea to take the drive. He couldn’t stand being inside any more. He’d complained that they were holed up like they were under siege. He argued that they needed to see what the mayor governed in order to govern properly. Begrudgingly, the mayor set down his video game controller and agreed to go.

  Christopher reached out and looped his index finger through the mayor’s, and the mayor took it absently. He remembered when the two of them would go on drives. They’d make a day of it, lazily wandering east through the Gorge, eating a nice dinner in Hood River, sleeping at a bed-and-breakfast if the mood hit them. Happier times, he thought to himself.

  The mayor sat forward in his seat, anxiously looking out the window as they moved from one neighborhood to the next. A squad car tailed them, as ordered. As they drove from Southeast Portland to Northeast Portland, the vista became progressively worse. The windows became coated in drought-dust, whipped up by a wind that came in overnight, blowing wispy, insignificant clouds across the sky and reducing visibility.

  As if to taunt them, mid-drive a dozen fat raindrops hit the car in an agitated pattering, their dirt consistency and weight more akin to a squall of bird droppings.

  “What was that?” the mayor said, his hand pressed against Christopher’s chest protectively. He cursed when he realized it was a weird rain, ejaculated from a sky empty of rain clouds. Minutes later the windshield was dry again.

  In the Southeast many neighborhoods still had the feel of being generally intact. But as they progressed toward the Northeast they saw burned-out or abandoned houses with children garbed in only underwear standing on desiccated lawns, watching them go by.

  It was depressing. Christopher would not bring it up to the mayor though. There was a history of poverty and crime here, and he knew they were repeating a cartographic racism that had been institutionalized. Parts of the Northeast had perennially diminished city services and in the past violence tended to be the police force’s first course of action. It was no wonder they were worse off during the drought.

  Each neighborhood tended to resemble its former self: the harder neighborhoods were that much harder, and often run by the strongest individual on the block. The better neighborhoods were hardly better. He knew the mayor perceived the same things, but bringing up any observation would cause his partner’s blood pressure to rise, cause him to spout out invective that ran on parallel tracks of guilt and defensiveness.

  But he couldn’t help it. Christopher squeezed his shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Brandon, you know.”

  “Of course it is,” the mayor said. The mayor was turned away, but Christopher observed him shift subtly, so that they no longer touched.

  Christopher stared out his window, wishing he’d said nothing.

  “We need a campaign for here,” the mayor said. “We need people in these streets.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I don’t know. Something—goddamnit—something fucking cheerful or something.”

  Christopher nodded. “A job might be kind of cheerful.”

  “Security has to be first. We’ll put together a task force when we get back. Have Sue head it up.” The mayor linked his fingers back through Christopher’s as he spoke. “Six, eight people—who do we have that’s from the neighborhood? If only there wasn’t a mud sinkhole of a city council to wade through.”

  The driver swerved and squealed to a stop as, this time, a patter of small stones hit their car. Half a dozen children were in the street blocking the way. The driver accelerated to the right and the tire bumped joltingly over the curb. Behind them the squad car turned on its siren and the children scattered. Another series of stones hit their car.

  The mayor sank down in his seat as they accelerated. “Oh Chrissy, I feel sick.”

  Christopher nodded grimly but said nothing to the driver. He wondered if the mayor could stand to feel this sick a little more often. He noticed another squad car had joined behind them now. The police didn’t like them driving in a red zone—lone cop cars for miles around. “I doubt they knew it was you, love. They’re pelting cars. Let’s drive straight across to the river.”

  The mayor nodded and looked out the window.

  At an
intersection they paused and a group of six bicyclists rode by in formation in front of them, all of them dressed head-to-toe in green. The mayor and Christopher watched as they glanced over at the car, some smiling, and continued on.

  “What was that?” The mayor said.

  “They had outfits. They matched.”

  “That looked like that girl . . .” The policeman in the front seat said and then his voice faded away unintelligibly.

  The mayor sat bolt upright. “Maid Marian? In the middle? Follow them!”

  The driver stomped on the accelerator and they turned the corner in pursuit. The bicyclists were easily a block ahead of them now, and the street was littered with debris. Couches and burn barrels and discarded trash were everywhere.

  “Go, man!” the mayor said, but within a few minutes of steering their way through the obstacles, the bicyclists had turned and were out of sight. “Goddamnit. What’s with the fucking uniforms?” There was something about seeing them that gave the mayor an immense chill.

  The driver cursed his way into the street until there was no more going forward. “Look at this,” he said, “just look at this.” There was a makeshift barricade in front of them that had been disguised by debris until they’d gotten closer. Burnt-out cars had been pushed together in such a way that nothing beyond the size of a bicycle could pass.

  “Sons of a bitch,” the driver said, “we will have to back out now.” He leaned out the window and waved frantically at the two police cars behind that blocked their return. There was chatter over their police radio, mixed with static and too many voices trying to talk at once. “Go back, pendejos!” the driver yelled, swallowing the last word, and then he took one sweeping look at their situation and ducked his head down. “It’s trap!” He punched at the window controls frantically, causing the windows to pulse erratically upward.

  “Trap?” the mayor said, lowering himself further into the seat. “No?”

  The cop leveled his gun across the dashboard.

  “I don’t see anyone,” the mayor whispered. Behind them the two squad cars were slowly orchestrating the logistics of backing up through the maze of the street.

  “It does look like a trap,” Christopher said, “but no one is here to claim the prey. Maybe we’re too big a fish for this trap.”

  They watched the streets for sign of attack while the driver jerked his way backward.

  “Let’s go, man,” the mayor said. He had seen someone watching them from a window. “Get us out of here.”

  On the way home they held hands, the ability to be intimate eased by adrenalin and its subsequent letdown.

  “That was her, wasn’t it?” Christopher said after a while. “In uniform, too.”

  The mayor sighed with disgust. Among these other problems, why her? Why does it have to be a coffee barista. A Latina college student. In his mind her citizen-ordinariness loomed as a super power against him in the fight for the public’s heart. He stared out the window as they cruised back toward their mayoral encampment downtown. He wanted a bath and a cocktail. “What should I do, Chrissy?” the mayor said.

  Christopher shrugged. “I think the Northeast needs to think you’re still on their side.” The mayor extracted his hand immediately and Christopher looked wryly at where his hand lay dejected on the seat of the car.

  “I am on their side!” The mayor gripped the seat back and glared off toward the front windshield, not quite meeting Christopher’s eyes. And then he dropped his shoulders. “I am on their side,” he said again weakly, “but I see your point.”

  “You asked, love,” Christopher said. “How about spearheading some kind of neighborhood association that works in conjunction with the police. How about a neighborhood patrol.”

  “Yeah. We need security back there. Nothing is going to happen until the people feel safe. But where will the money come from? Where will the police come from?” the mayor said with increasing despondence. In his mind he saw only her, surrounded by a small troop of bikers. “It needs to be secure and cleaned up.” Why was she in uniform?

  Hey Boyfriend!

  Yeah so like all things being what they are this is like, boom. Right? Happening. This is time for one of those will-like letters where I’d bequeath to you the pearl necklace my mother gave me and my collection of first edition novels, were such things to actually exist. Things are so tense here I run around quaking in my cowboy boots, no joke, and at any moment—not to cause any concern to himself, please, things are what they are and what they are is what they are—I might end up in a hole too deep for the shovels this life has equipped me with.

  But.

  But I feel like what I’ve begun to build here is like a dust devil that’s begun to suck up its surroundings, and for each thing it devours it grows in size. At the edges of the periphery it hovers close to a house, equal-sized to itself. What will happen? They want to know. Is the house too stable a force? Or, instead, does the dust devil grow and devour, disassemble the house shingle by shingle, sucking it in, loosing nails from the sheathing, glass panes exploding outward, furniture pulling from the gaping maw and into the dervish. And again, the dust devil becomes more powerful. . . .

  No please, don’t put the letter down, I can desist with the long drawn metaphors, serious, scout’s honor! But what I’m saying is, things are starting to be the shit, here. And I’ve a captain-ish feller whom if he joins in, well then a tornado are we, with bells on.

  If he, the letter recipient, will remember how 100 thousand years ago she was losing a sense of what the hell she was even on the planet to do? So the narrator figured that shit out, ok? At least for the time being. It’s in the sack. Packaged up, receipt dangling out, bought and sold.

  I hope this finds you well, good sir, who were he here his ____ she’d put in her mouth, until roofing nails & dust devils, etc. She would, if he knows what she’s saying, make it worth his while. & she does love to make his cheeks flush so by the saying of said things. But also listen here’s the thing.

  There’s an aspect of this I don’t know how to properly say without the way it’s said sounding . . . off. I’ll go ahead and say it, then you tell me how it sounds.

  Actually no, let’s take the weakling’s offense and fall back on metaphors again: Imagine you’re juggling a whole lot of balls. Cupcakes. Whatever is his fancy. A lot of them, more really than you’ve ever done before, by such a wide margin. At any one time there are what, four or fourteen or forty of them in the air, and only one, really only goddamnit ONE in your hand. There’s only a single ball at rest in your hands at any given microsecond. That’s the one you know. That’s the one you can depend on. That’s the one you can trust. All the rest of them are in their arcs, bent under the pressures of gravity or acceleration, liable to run into each other and go spinning off, their collisions a sort of betrayal to the juggler who has set them in motion.

  Crystal clear now right? Dustdevils and balls, cocks and cupcakes. She’s gone batty, he says, shakes his head, crumples the letter and tosses it in the trash.

  A few minutes of pacing later he retrieves it, oh he does! And continues onward.

  Hello Boyfriend!

  But see what I’m saying here is: You’re that ball in hand. Why are you not here, on-hand?

  Balls!

  —W/so/much/love: -r (MM)

  Gregor sat on his raised wooden front porch in an old rocker and stared out into the neighborhood. There were many smells in the air—rot; the dry, stifling smell of dust, smoke from something that should not burn, a car perhaps. He did not flatter himself that he could, as the saying went, smell change, but there it was, clear on the air, an edge that insinuated a new front. It was an indefinable wisp, a whisper of something else in the decay of the drought. With the stem of the pipe he carried with him but did not smoke he tapped out a rhythm on the arm of the chair. Or perh
aps, he thought, it was simply the perspective with which one inhaled. Not an external scent, but an internal revision.

  He called to his man on the porch for a cup of tea, and the message was passed into the house. There was always someone with him. He was not without enemies, and he was not incautious.

  It was probably too hot for tea, but the tiny cups—served in sake-like earthen mugs—hardly warmed one, and they helped him think.

  Jamal had been with Maid Marian for a few weeks now, he’d learned. The converted. That was fine, the presence of Jamal would keep Gregor in her thoughts. Her organization grew every day, Jamal told him. A small army of fresh workers showed up at her house. Word of her spread across the neighborhoods. A day did not go by when he didn’t hear at least one weirdly enthusiastic account of her. He still could not understand how she held sway over others—other than they so desperately needed someone to believe in. By all accounts she was doing what she had claimed she’d do, that day in his house, with a touch of insolence. Perhaps, he thought, tapping his pipe on the arm of his chair, he’d been hasty to dismiss her. But no.

  How was she not yet in city hands? Did they think her too hot to handle? They must be willfully ignoring her, he thought, hoping her plan might fizzle into complicated community politics, or be overly burdened by the dull routine of survival. Perhaps they did not yet realize it was survival that birthed such plans. Perhaps they did not know about the truck.

  It was a silly pot to throw in with. After all these years of running a successful business, he was comfortable and could obtain what he wanted, could provide for those he cared for. But if change were upon them, if she were going to challenge the city for the whole of the Northeast, then he would inevitably be involved, on one side or the other. It was a trap she’d laid for him. She was choosing a general, and it could either be him, or not him. A binary choice, and the implications of each spun out in terrifying fractals.