Sherwood Nation: a novel

by Benjamin Parzybok

  “Thank you,” Renee said, wondering if she had just sold away a portion of herself, without really understanding the implications.

  “It’s best not to tell Mr. Bartlett about our agreement,” he said, and with that he turned and walked back toward his entourage of jeeps.

  She watched him go, his pale head floating like a second moon in the park. As soon as possible, she thought, I will sever my agreement. In the meantime, the small nation would have water and rations.

  Even so, water distribution was a clusterfuck. The trucks had shown up with extra National Guard, looking burly and paranoid and packing large weapons, and each of the many trucks that came in had its own ideas on how to conduct business, as if the commander had only suggested a rerouting but gave no formal commands to his troops. Or perhaps he wanted her to fail. Some drove to HQ and did what they were told: fill unit gallons for the water carriers. The water carriers stacked their unit gallons on bikes with customized trailers—some hacked together from grocery carts and other wheeled vehicles, others made from scratch—and then set off for delivery. The process was painstaking and kept a contingent of National Guard soldiers camped out in front of HQ all day, which made everyone uncomfortable. She smugly accepted the defection of one of the National Guardsman that first day, whom she installed immediately as a Going Street Ranger. Her mantra of those first days: trust first and completely; upon betrayal act mercilessly. Some of the water tankers drove to their old distribution spots, where a smattering of citizens showed up looking bewildered and scared, and their water carriers followed trying to usher them back to their houses.

  Bea and Renee met at 5 a.m. and wrote down a list of items that Renee called her faith list. After the mayor, in a bizarre television appearance, had mocked her call for the citizens to have faith in her, it became the internal buzzword, the HQ joke, and the first week’s agenda. Their job was to build a proof for faith. There were a thousand fires to extinguish, but the focus remained security and water delivery. When these were done she could point and holler justly: Has the city got these? We are Sherwood! (And the citizenry would raise their skinny fists in the air and cheer deafeningly, at least in her mind they would, no matter how hard it was to believe at the moment.) With each new item or diversion that demanded her attention, Bea stood at ready to pound the clipboard if the task did not help the faith list. At the volunteer office she spearheaded teams to build off-site water storage tanks, to research water cart vehicles, to lead donation drives for needed materials.

  She and Gregor refined, and then refined again the ongoing Green Ranger training. They met with their small army of trainers—thirty in all—to build what they considered the spirit of the Green Ranger. Vigilant, warm, practical, ethical. Never standing aloof to one side, but intermingling with the people of their assigned block, always aware of the people they served, memorizing their names. They created a two-week partner system, so that Rangers could learn from each other, but not be tempted to collude with one another. As she watched the training from her back window, she bit down on her knuckle. So far, it was working.

  Spinning up and sending out a decision was exhilarating, and she kept at it. In the mornings she woke with the thrill and terror of it. Now I am the boss of everything, she would think. Then the responsibility that came with the job would infiltrate her thoughts, sucker-punch her in the gut.

  She had notecards created with the Sherwood seal stamped at the top of them and with the help of Chris made out the list of needs. Concrete sealant, rollers, tubing, fifty-gallon barrels, bicycles to power pump apparatus, various seals and silicone caulking, nails, hammers, wood. Solar cells or crank powered mechanisms to hook to computers and phones. At the top of the card she wrote: If you have any of the following, Maid Marian requests that you donate them to Sherwood. Thank you.

  What a power it was when they loved you, when they dared not disappoint. At the end of a day she climbed the stairway upward, passed meetings in progress and went to the end of the hall where she shared her room with Bea. She was bone tired, as tired as she could imagine a person being, dead wood and ashes and dirt tired. There was nothing left to her. It’d been eaten out by the eyes that watched her as she passed, by the image she tried to project, by trying to be someone she wasn’t, not yet. She climbed into bed, pulled the covers over her head and wept until she slept. In the morning, she told herself, I will be stronger, within me will burn a fire of certainty.

  The mayor sat at his desk in front of the photo of 1950s Portland, which looked down on him now not only with disappointment, but with exasperation. He tapped absently on his field telephone with the tip of a number two pencil—not quite ready to pick up the receiver—and attempted pseudo-calls.

  “Hi, this is Brandon. May I speak to the douchebagging double-crosser, calls himself a soldier, manipufuckulador fuck? Yes—Hello?” The mayor put his face in his hands and waited. Maybe it would ring by its own self, an explanation on the line.

  “Hello, this is the mayor speaking, commander asshole asshole asshole asshole!” He stood up and circled his desk, following the track in the carpet worn there by himself and previous mayors. The desk was a perfectly stationed island in the room to circle in times of mayoral restlessness. He stopped at the corner, picked up the receiver and held it to his ear, but did not yet dial. “Hi, Roger! Oh it’s good to talk to you, too. Sure, sure, sure. I have one question.” Then he held the quiet receiver there for a time indeterminable to him, allowing the hard plastic to warm his ear and his mind to go soft with fantasies in which everything worked out in his favor, for once.

  There was a soft knock on the office door and he heard Christopher say, “You make the call yet?”

  “Working up to it,” the mayor said and didn’t like how it sounded in his voice. “Just about ready to!” he said, turning the tone at the end into a positive enunciation of the words, an engine that could, an I think I can.

  There were no further comments from Christopher, and the mayor imagined that he had wandered off to busy himself until it was over, worrying for him, which the mayor appreciated. He yearned to be out there with him, doing some domestic activity in tandem, this whole business with the call finished.

  He picked up the phone, and before he lost his nerve he dialed the number. There was always some subordinate who answered in succession, making the mayor feel as if he were dialing into the office of a swineherd in some high castle and had to work his way up the floors, scullery maid to chandler and so on. “Brandon Bartlett, calling for the commander,” he said several times, and then was subjected to various silent hold-periods when he wondered if they’d simply disconnected him.

  “Hello, Brandon,” Roger said over the line. He had a high, stilted voice, and spoke with strained enthusiasm, i.e. as a root canal patient receives a gift basket.

  “Roger, hello, good to talk to you. I’ll get right to the point.”

  “Oh, I know what you’re calling about!” Roger said.

  “I see, yes, of course,” the mayor said.

  “I’ve been expecting your call.”

  “Ah.”

  “You understand that my job here is very clear, to provide humanitarian aid via the aid act. It’s not my business to concern myself with city politics!”

  It was entirely possible that the commander had some kind of old vocal box injury, the mayor realized, something acquired in a military exploit. So that what he himself interpreted as shouting was simply the commander’s regular means of expression.

  “Roger . . . come on,” the mayor said, “this isn’t city politics. This is a secession in the city. This is a criminal warlord who has taken one-third control.” It was absolutely impossible for the mayor to get a read on the commander’s mental acuity.

  “I see it as city politics!”

  “Roger, for fucking . . . excuse me, sorry. So you talked, you talked to her?” />
  The commander might have said something that was the equivalent of assent. Er, or arj, or eur, the mayor was unsure.

  “Can we at least have a meeting to discuss this? Partners in the stewardship of this city and all? Or let me rephrase: this is my city, and the Guard works under my direction.”

  “I’m not really sure I see the point of it. My responsibilities, as I said, of course are to the city, but primarily to carry out the US Humanitarian Aid Act. We distribute water to civilians within the borders of the US. I intend to be very literal in these obligations.”

  “Ah ha!” the mayor said. “But they call themselves an enclave, they are not Americans!”

  “To me, they are within our borders. What they call themselves is irrelevant. It’s your job, if you don’t mind my saying, to resolve the city’s conflicts. Mine is to ensure that there is access to basic humanitarian aid!”

  The mayor tried like hell not to bring up the situation in San Francisco, which weighed on him daily. “So you recognize their statehood, is what you’re saying?”

  “I do not recognize anyone’s statehood!”

  “—gah.”

  “Let me qualify that. It is not my business to recognize anyone’s statehood but the government of the United States of America!”

  “Whose side are you on, Roger? If you don’t mind my asking.” The mayor realized he really preferred not to have an answer to that question.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Brandon, but I don’t take sides. This is not San Francisco. I’m here to do one job and one job only!”

  “I wish we could establish some means of regular communication between us, beyond what we have? Twice-weekly meetings, say? I take my own stewardship quite seriously, and the performance of my job would be significantly enhanced were we to communicate and agree on our actions.”

  “As I said here, Brandon, this issue is really not my concern. Now, if you have any further questions?”

  The mayor did not. He told the guard commander he appreciated his time, and there was an acidity to the remark that would have caused him and Christopher to fight for hours, but the commander did not seem to be keyed into subtleties of human language.

  “Well, it’s nice talking to you too, Brandon!” Roger said.

  After they’d hung up the mayor struggled with the twin opposing desires of wishing to seek solace in Christopher’s embrace, and the shame in having to admit to him he’d lost so much of his city and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it, presently.

  Nevel and Cora watched the evening news after they put the kids to bed.

  “How would you like water delivered directly to your door? I’m not talking about in the pipes, I mean through your front door! Our KATU citizen correspondent Dan Barmann shot this film from his very own house in Northeast Portland—Sherwood—and we have it here to show you now.”

  The screen switched to a poor-quality video and in the center of it, presumably, was Dan Barmann. He was unshaven and holding his own camera pointed at himself. The camera jiggled and Dan went from the center of the screen to a tilting off-center. Nevel knew that were he to see the man coming toward him on the street, he’d give a wide berth, not of fear, but because of the need in his eyes. The man had the look of someone who would tail you around and ask for a favor or to sign his petition or maybe just a hug.

  “Hello, citizens. This is Dan Barmann. I live up in Sherwood, and while this whole experience has been on the scary side, something happened yesterday morning that started to change my mind about it. It’s about to happen again in a minute, and I’m going to tape it for you, yes, you, KATU watchers.”

  The video paused and lines of text overlaid the still image: “Recorded earlier today. Dan Barmann, citizen reporter.”

  The camera view spun to Dan Barmann’s floor, and the edge of his door. “That guy needs some training, right?” Nevel said. “I mean come on.”

  “Nevel.”

  “Why are are we looking at the floor still?” They heard the sound of a doorbell and the view of the floor persisted. “I don’t have time for this, right? Why can’t the studio spend ten minutes editing the thing?”

  “It’s true, you’re a busy man, you’ve got a tunnel to dig.”

  Dan Barmann opened the door and on the other side was a cute, bob-headed woman with long eyelashes. Two tattooed bluebirds were visible at her neckline, just above her T-shirt. “Hi,” she said and then noticed the camera being pointed at her.

  “Well, hi there!” Dan said.

  “That guy is an idiot,” Nevel said. “Right? Isn’t that guy an idiot? She’s cute though.”

  “Stop,” Cora said in a manner indicating she was no stranger to, nor particularly troubled by, Nevel’s commentary over the course of a decade and a half of marriage.

  “Well, she is.”

  Cora exhaled. “Agh—it’s going to be awkward if they don’t start speaking.”

  The water carrier cleared her throat. “I’m here to bring you your unit gallon,” the woman said. She held up a unit gallon for the camera and handed it over.

  “And, oh, OK,” Dan said, and while he talked the camera drifted into her hair and then sky, “tell me about this. Why are you bringing me water?”

  “Maid Marian is running a water distribution network so we don’t have to go to distribution. It’s less dangerous, creates jobs, and saves people a lot of time. Also, it gives you a direct connection to Sherwood government. You get two units fewer, but it’s delivered to your door.”

  “Now we get to it,” Dan said. “Two units tax! That’s a big deal—skimming from the top. That doesn’t sound like robbing the rich to me. What’s she doing with all the extra units?”

  “Well it’s just one twentieth of your take,” the woman readjusted her glasses and explained patiently. “Extra units will go to clinics and the needy and be saved for future emergencies.”

  “I see, OK, and what about you. Do you want to come in?” Nevel could hear the note of hunger and a loneliness, and it roused the part of his body reserved for screaming “No!” at the television while watching horror movies.

  “Thank you, but I’ve got other deliveries,” the woman said, confirming for Nevel that in real life the hero is rarely ever innocently lured into the villain’s house. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Everything OK here? Anything you want me to pass on to Maid Marian?”

  “Oh. Tell her good job from me, ha ha. Water delivery is nice.”

  The water deliverer almost, but did not quite, roll her eyes at the camera and then said see you tomorrow and Dan turned the camera back on himself. Nevel thought he remembered seeing the correspondent before, reporting with youthful bluster on missing dogs and odd little factoids, a sort of independent camera junkie that sent stuff into the stations. But he appeared to have taken a few wrong turns since then.

  “A unit or two fewer is a serious deal, make no mistake about it. On the other hand, let me show you this.” The camera seesawed as he made his way back through the house, past dirty dishes and piles of clothes and other domesticities Nevel would have preferred not to see, and out the back door. In one corner of the backyard was a large wooden box with sheets hanging from it. “That’s my new outhouse. These are mandatory in Sherwood, and there are crews going house to house building them.”

  There was something about seeing this man’s own personal outhouse that made Nevel shudder.

  “They came and built mine yesterday. Sure, there are some inconveniences here, but I’m saving far more than the couple of units per day they skim off, water that would have normally gone toward sanitation control. And that’s my report from Sherwood.”

  “Huh,” Nevel said.

  The anchors wrapped up and the power shut off.

  “We could build that. You like to dig,” Cora said.
>
  Nevel stood up and looked across the street. Even in the evening his previously humble intersection was busy. In the moonlight he saw people queued there from both nations—looking to do trade or send messages back and forth. A Green Ranger stood half-in and half-out of her guard post. Everyone needed cleared for entrance.

  He hated going to distribution. It was a hassle and sometimes frightening. “I want my water delivered,” he said.

  “By a cute lesbian,” Cora added. She picked up a novel, folding sleepily into his vacated spot on the couch.

  Nevel lit a candle for her to read by, but he could tell it wouldn’t be long before she was in bed and then he’d go to work on the tunnel. “How about you?” he said. “You could be a Sherwood deliverer, stop by with unit gallons for me.” And it sparked a desire. He admired her form on the couch and thought ahead briefly to the first fifteen minutes down in the basement, when he would lie on the floor of the tunnel and fantasize about his wife two stories up. Like many things, doing the job yourself was easier than asking for it.

  “True. If somebody built us an outhouse, unusual things could occur.”

  It did not happen in a covert manner, not in any secret meeting exactly, though later Renee thought back on the moment many times and each time saw it in a new light. It happened in the hallway on the first floor of Sherwood Nation HQ, between their offices. Around them the employees of the small nation continued their business.