Sherwood Nation: a novel

by Benjamin Parzybok

  “Hello, Gregor. We are not armed inside.”

  “Who am I talking to?”

  “This is Christopher. You don’t know me.”

  “I know who you are,” Gregor said, the photograph he’d taped to the wall of the map room of the mayor and his partner clear in his mind. “How do you know me?”

  “General of Sherwood Rangers? Wasn’t that hard to deduce, honestly.”

  “Is the mayor here?”

  Christopher hesitated. “Yes, he’s here. What do you want?”

  Gregor wasn’t sure how to answer the question. The want went deep, carved a ravine down the center of him. There was a dead wife and two boys, a neighborhood crushed by poverty, and a country that he wanted to phoenix. All of these things were unobtainable, and so what could be exchanged? “We want your heads.”

  There was a long pause from the doorway. Gregor signaled his Rangers to get in position around the door and at ready.

  After a while Christopher replied, “Obviously we’d prefer a different arrangement. Can we make an agreement that there will be no bloodshed while we talk this out?”

  “We’re coming in,” Gregor said. “Line up inside the door.”

  “No bloodshed?” Christopher said.

  “All right, no bloodshed while we talk,” Gregor said easily, the words meaningless to him.

  “If you kill us,” Christopher said, “then you have no leverage, and no protection against the National Guard.”

  “We have nothing already,” Gregor said. “We have no country to return to.”

  “No bloodshed,” Christopher said.

  “Goddamnit, you are in no position to ask such a thing.” They had little time—they ought to be under protection of the mayor’s office already. He walked forward and with the tip of his gun pushed the door wide. Christopher stood on the other side. He looked tired. He had aged significantly since the picture on his wall. He wore a white, collared shirt and blue slacks, both of which were cleaner than the clothes Gregor could remember seeing on anyone for quite some time. He smiled, as if it were standard operating procedure to welcome in a load of militants. There was a reasonableness to him, a quality of honesty, and Gregor wished momentarily that this were the mayor in front of him, that he could lay out a list of demands and that they could talk it out without bullshit.

  “Well, this is uncomfortable,” Christopher said.

  “Where is he?”

  “They’re all in there.” He pointed to a big oak door behind them.

  Gregor pushed Christopher in front of him and they all filed into a large conference room that had been made into the living room of the mayor’s quarters. With guns drawn they hurried in and spread out, covering the five people there. Gregor sent ten Rangers to seal and guard as much of the way as possible.

  At the end of the conference room was a wall of glass with glass doors leading out onto a balcony. He could see the smoke signal of what was left of Sherwood HQ, a line of smoke that tied the earth and sky together.

  “Everybody lie down,” Gregor said.

  He directed that the mayor and his team be searched. They looked scared and, considering that smoke signal out the window and how his leg felt and how tired he was suddenly, he thought they had good reason to be. He wondered if he could shoot them all and then just pretend he had a hostage situation. So much easier than keeping real, live hostages. He stared out the window over the city while his people searched the prisoners.

  “You got shot,” the mayor said.

  “Yep.”

  They were lying in front of the couch next to a giant TV which played the demo for a WWII video game. He recognized it. Jamal had roped him into playing it with him at one time.

  “Who shot you?”

  Gregor grimaced at the shiny-haired, bruised-eyed dude on the floor, the living symbol, in his mind, of the drought, the TV personality mayor, the crusher of Sherwood. Gregor sat on the plush leather couch with his boots a couple of inches from the mayor’s face. He leaned over so he could get a look at him. He felt hot and wondered if the leg had taken infection. He had not slept or eaten and he still wasn’t entirely sure why he was here.

  “You have a kitchen here?”

  “I could make you all sandwiches,” Christopher said.

  Gregor looked over at the immaculately dressed Christopher lying on the floor and felt a surge of gratefulness toward the man, and a little guilt for having him, who must have fought arduously to keep such a nice outfit in these times, lie on the floor.

  “Please,” Gregor said.

  “They’re turkey. I have chips and soda too.”

  There was a wave of murmuring that went through the Rangers at this news.

  Gregor turned and pointed at two Rangers. “Help Christopher.”

  Gregor looked down at the mayor again. “You play that?” He gestured toward the video game on TV.

  “You?” the mayor said.

  “Krauts or allied forces?”

  “Both.”

  He was looking for reasons to hurt him, he knew that. Any answer the mayor gave was going to piss him off; merely the sound of his voice invoked a desire for violence.

  He got up and limped over to the window where he could see Sherwood’s smoke column. The pain in his leg was severe now, with the adrenalin that had gotten him here spent. The red stain in the bandage had grown large and wet. He wondered if they were having trouble putting the fire out or if the intent was to burn the block down.

  “How many were arrested and how many were killed?”

  The mayor started to get up and Gregor yelled at him to stay down.

  “I need you to answer questions, Brandon,” he said, putting extra weight on the name. “Heartless Bartlett,” he tried, leaning into the syllables, “without any extra shit attached to them.”

  “We arrested twenty-eight.”

  “That’s it?”

  “We found forty-one bodies.”

  Gregor gritted his teeth. He watched the Rangers go tense, some overcome by the number. “Back down,” he said, waving at a few who’d stood, their faces contorted by emotion. “I want the twenty-eight released.”

  “And then you’ll let us go?”

  “Very unlikely. But we’re talking. I said I’d talk first.”

  “Eighteen of the arrested are in the hospital, including your son and his girlfriend.”

  Gregor said nothing.

  “You didn’t know he was alive?” The mayor sat up again. “He’s wounded. We could trade.”

  “For what? You think I’m going to let you go? Get back on the floor,” Gregor said, as if he was speaking to an idiot child. Gregor limped over to the couch with his gun raised.

  “I would prefer not to lie down.”

  “You would prefer not to? What is wrong with you?” Gregor gestured to the gun in his own hand, as if to say, see? We’re not alone here.

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” the mayor said, “I’m your only bargaining chip.”

  That, Gregor realized, was a logical point, though to which he had no attachment. He wanted his son back, and bargaining with this man might allow for that to happen. At the same time, shooting Mayor Bartlett outright would give him such an amount of satisfaction that in this particular moment he couldn’t be sure which he wished for more, and so he put a bullet in the mayor’s thigh exactly where his own bullet wound was.

  “Now we match,” Gregor said as the mayor hollered and cussed and writhed on the floor. He didn’t feel like he’d lessened his bargaining power any, either. Gregor sat on the edge of the couch and watched.

  “You fucker!” the mayor screamed. “You’ll never see your son again!”

  “It’s got more bullets,” Gregor said, gesturing again to his gun.

/>   Several of the mayor’s advisers were weeping, their faces pressed into the floor. He looked up and saw Christopher, whose expression had darkened. He regretted setting the mood in the room then, and again found the emotional complications of hostages wearying.

  “Ah hell,” he said. “First aid?”

  “In the bathroom,” an adviser said. The mayor had gone white and was breathing heavily and leaking blood onto the wood floor.

  Gregor fetched the first-aid kit himself from the small bathroom off the main room. He checked the faucet out of habit and found running water, which made him feel like putting a bullet in the mayor’s other leg. He turned it on and let it dribble over his hand. A miraculous thing, an order of wastefulness out of this time. The stream was weak but steady.

  He leaned out of the bathroom. “How is this possible?”

  “Water line hooked up to a tank.” Christopher shrugged. “It gets refilled.”

  “There’s running water,” he said to his Rangers as he went to attend to the mayor. “One minute each, take turns, don’t waste.”

  The kit was good. He laid it out next to the mayor and had two Rangers hold him down. “What a bloody mess,” Gregor said. There was a great pool of stickiness and already he couldn’t remember what he’d shot him for. All that and the bullet had gone to one side, tearing a chunk of flesh out as it passed, an inch and a half from missing altogether. He felt old. He tore open access to the wound and began to dress it as best he could, applying layers of gauze wrapped tightly around his leg. “Maid Marian,” he said.

  The mayor’s teeth were clamped and his back arched against the pain. “Where is she?” the mayor said.

  Gregor stopped to inspect the mayor. “You don’t know! Interesting,” he said. “She’s a wily one. Thought you might have got her. We really fucked up your pants.” He pointed to his own, where they matched. “Can’t help you with that.”

  Gregor called for some wet towels. “I like bandaging wounds. Sometimes my men used to get shot up, and if it was necessary we’d get them hospital ready. You wouldn’t believe how often that saves a man. It’s kind of like plumbing. You’re stopping the leak. We’re just systems of pipes. You made a terrible mess on your floor here, but since you bastards have running water here we can get this cleaned up. Going to scar pretty good, though.”

  Gregor finished and groaned with the effort of standing up. He’d been on his knees and his own dirty bandage had blossomed a deeper red. “Give him this—” Gregor pulled six ibuprofen from the kit and handed them to a Ranger, then took six for himself. “You can stand up now if you like,” Gregor said, but the mayor’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t acknowledging him.

  The Rangers were taking turns at the bathroom sink, drinking their fill of water, washing their faces, pleasuring in watching a small stream of water splash over their hands, like kids at a fountain.

  Christopher offered him a sandwich from a tray, his face rigidly held blank, a wax carving of himself.

  Gregor tried not to gulp down the sandwich but his hunger made his mouth work like a bear trap and he couldn’t help himself. Then he set his mind on doing what they’d come to do. He pulled the mayor to a stand on one leg, his eyes watering and his teeth clenched. “Come on, we got to release those prisoners. I’ll help you hobble. Between us we’ve got two good legs.”

  The mayor used the police radio to talk to the chief. He called for the release of the prisoners and pardoned those who were hospitalized so that they would go free when they were out of the hospital and as he did so Gregor wondered what kind of a mayor he’d make himself. He remembered that, given control of Sherwood, within twenty-four hours he’d formed an execution line and he thought perhaps that was his answer.

  “See, think what we’ve done to your reputation already, letting them go like that.”

  “I did not order the tank.”

  “Oh?” Gregor said. “I suppose it was the pope?”

  “I would never have killed so many.”

  “Listen, you did though. And we’re going to even up the score a little today.”

  The mayor blanched. “It was the National Guard.”

  “Don’t buy it.” There was no sign that the rest of the city even knew that they’d taken over the mayor’s office and he wondered what the hell was going on out there. Surely one of the policemen had a chance to radio off something?

  He could see the appeal of the job. This office, with the advisers and the power, commanding respect at the top. In theory, he liked the idea of school budgets and business development programs, but in practice he suspected his drug lord days, and Sherwood days, were more pleasurable. The neighborhood projects he’d supported felt more like flying in on the back of an eagle with a bag of cash. No proposal, no argument, no hassle. You’re a savior and then you’re done.

  Perhaps he could plant one of his Rangers here as mayor. He looked around the room for a likely candidate and, seeing no possibilities, realized it would have to be him. He wished Maid Marian were here for this coup d’état. And it occurred to him then that it was an absurd little fantasy. No coup was possible without her. She could have rallied the police force, he thought, quelled the Guard, ridden her reputation into change. As general, he could only expect bloodshed.

  He steered the mayor back to the couch, where he stared sullenly at the ground and asked for the release of his advisers.

  “Good man,” Gregor said. He signaled that the advisors could get up and pointed to chairs where they were to sit. He wondered how long they were going to have to wait for the mayor’s rescue team to show up. The Rangers were jittery; having sated themselves on sandwiches and running water, they were fiddling with their guns and looking for signs out the windows. The revenge they wanted could be had at any time. Gregor toyed with how much more they might yield from the situation. He hoped that she would materialize out there somewhere in the city, the news radioed into the mayor’s office. He decided to stall, to see if a course of action would come to him.

  “All right,” Gregor said, picking up a controller and offering the mayor the other.

  “You don’t want to play me,” the mayor said.

  “What else are we going to do?” Gregor laughed. “Talk? We’ve got a lot to say to each other?”

  The mayor stared at the floor.

  “We’re going to be here for hours, Bartlett. We may be spending the rest of our lives together, short as they may be,” Gregor said, “Or oh—wait, I understand—you’re worried about my performance?” Gregor smiled, felt himself acting it up a little, taking up the dead air on the stage he’d planted them on. “You’re worried you’ll beat me. That’s sweet of you. But you’re all slowed down with leg wounds, and I’m a good shot,” Gregor said. “Plus I’ve got this.” He held up his gun.

  “You’ll shoot me if I win?”

  “Haven’t decided yet.”

  The mayor tossed the controller to the floor. “You’re a crazy sonofabitch.”

  Gregor chuckled and enjoyed the idea both that his reputation might allow someone to think he would shoot them over a video game, and also at the idea of shooting someone over a video game. “Anyway, we’re going to play. While we do, maybe you can help me understand what we’re going to do with this city, and how we’re all going to get off this island without dying.”

  “Who all?”

  “Me all.”

  “Goddamnit,” the mayor said and took the offered controller. “My leg hurts.” He rapidly flipped through the startup screens and when he came to the screen where he had to decide whether to play Axis or Allies he hesitated and then chose Allies, then he leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes.

  “Whoa whoa whoa,” Gregor said. “Get back there, go back, you’re playing Axis.”

  “You invaded my office, I get to be Allies.”

&nbs
p; “No way, not after that blitzkrieg you performed last night—my office is destroyed. You’re playing Axis.”

  “Point blank executions? That sound like the Allies to you? What, are you going to play them ironically?”

  Gregor chuckled and looked up toward the rest of the onlookers, and he could see that no one in the room was having as much fun as he was. “I’m beginning to like this guy,” he said to no one in particular. “But you’re choosing Axis.”

  The mayor sat and obstinately stared somewhere to the left of the television.

  Gregor exhaled in disgust and gripped his gun and stared at the ceiling and thought through his options, of which the primary was shooting the man’s other leg. “All right,” he said after a while, “play your pansy-assed Allies. I’ll be the krauts. I speak German, und du wirst heute sterben, du saumäßiger soldat!”

  “Seriously?” The mayor looked across the room until his eyes met Christopher’s and they exchanged a look.

  Gregor shrugged. “My dad was stationed in Munich. I spent eight years of childhood there.”

  Gregor was grinning like a madman now that the game was about to start. He admired his white kraut, breathing patiently into the screen, tidy and rigid and vacant. Gregor was excited to shoot the piss out of everything. “Losgehen!”