Sherwood Nation

by Parzybok, Benjamin;

  “Ready?” she said to the person off-camera.

  “Hello, Portlanders,” she said and nodded her head toward them, and they felt how her voice had a pull on them, how their hearts lightened with hope as she spoke. “I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to meet my merry men and women.” She smiled, acknowledging the wordplay. They had given her the name and she had used it. The camera panned to the side of her and faced a window. Beyond in a large brown field standing very still was a large formation of men and women in the same green uniform. There were easily hundreds of them, and the camera panned slowly across their length. “They are called Green Rangers,” she said. Behind the formation there was another mass of uniformed people, each standing straight with one hand resting on his or her bicycle.

  The faces of the rangers were not those you would see on a military lineup. Their ages spanned fifty years. They looked up toward the camera and blinked, dressed, as if taken by surprise, in their new uniforms, obviously sewn together from what material could be found. Their faces were not the cold, obedient faces of some nation’s army, but appeared as if they’d just that moment stopped speaking, their heads tilted upward in hopeful anxiety toward Maid Marian’s vantage; some smiled and one or two waved. They were mixed racially, reflecting the neighborhoods from which they came, and this certainly gave the TV viewer pause. In a mostly white city, the riot footage had mostly been of a similar racial mixture as this new, sudden army.

  “Together, we are a new country. From Fremont Street to Columbia Boulevard, Martin Luther King to 205—if you live within those borders you are now a citizen of a new tiny nation called Sherwood.” She paused and the camera panned back to her.

  “Mayor Bartlett, I am taking your greatest problem from you, freeing you to care for the rest of the city. We are within your borders, and will respect the essence of the law. We are your good neighbors. Give us what is ours: the U.S. government water trucks may enter by their usual routes, but we will manage distribution. We will pay for our services, but no city police or worker may enter our borders without our permission. We free them of their duties here to attend to the rest of the city, where, I’m sure all will agree, they are needed.”

  “And to Northeast Portland—Sherwood”—she held up a small, clear glass of drinking water—“let us share water together. We will keep you safe and healthy. We will make sure that what water and food we have is distributed fairly and quickly. We are your government, and we will not fail.

  “To those on the streets tonight, or with friends and family on the street, I urge you to go home. See your families. Be with the ones you love. This is your country now. Tomorrow we work. Tomorrow we build. Tomorrow is ours.

  “To the rest of Portland, I invite you to consider Sherwood. Doctors and naturopaths, farmers and bikers, scientists and artists, we’ll consider everyone. Come live in a new country. Your water will be delivered to your home. Your streets will be safe. Your children will go to school.

  “Reporters and newscasters—you are welcome to come see us. Please do. Your press pass is your open passport to Sherwood.”

  “Sherwood is now a country within a city, an enclave. Our primary immigration office is at Ainsworth and Martin Luther King Boulevard. Please come visit us. Thank you.”

  The tape ended and the pretty blond newscaster came back on. “That was a recording from the so-called Maid Marian, sent to us earlier today. She’s leading an effort to have Northeast Portland secede from the city. Is this heroism or terrorism? Robert, what are your thoughts on that?”

  The view switched to a male newscaster. He waved the camera away, but in the briefest glimpse of him the TV viewers saw that he was visibly shaken, tears welling in his eyes.

  Zach watched the news with his mouth open, his body in a state of semi-shock. It was really happening. At the top right corner of the screen they had placed a still shot of his girlfriend’s face in a green uniform, below it the map of the new territory.

  The news anchors scrambled to find pundits who could intelligently talk on the happenings. All other news stories were cast aside and all of the city sat in front of their televisions listening with hunger for anything the news could tell them, to help them make sense.

  An older, weathered newscaster spoke: “As far as I know this is unprecedented in our history as a nation. The city will feel compelled to intervene. Whether they can afford the resources is another matter entirely.” The newscaster paused and stared into the camera, unsure of his ability to predict any next outcome, and Zach could see him struggle to come up with something else to say. “Marcie?” he said and looked off-stage, “can we get a response from the city yet? No? Maid Marian is a popular figure and I think the level of her popularity is indicated by what’s going on in the Northeast right now. The Sherwood Club that preceded this, as many of you may not know, was already providing security for a large section of that area, and so many of the people who live there might have a good sense of what they’re getting. We’re told the announcement has served to quell the violence almost entirely. That’s something the city obviously couldn’t do. James, how about we get a view of that?”

  The view switched to a silent, darkened neighborhood presumably in the Northeast somewhere. “Not much to see there. Half an hour ago? An hour? This was complete chaos. There were looters and gunfire and massive property damage. You can see by this serene view that everyone must be inside, pondering Maid Marian’s message and, we presume, the prospect of their new citizenship.”

  Zach scoffed with annoyance at the broadcast. The news had gone increasingly toward an on-the-fly, seat-of-the-pants production style, as if every event happened exactly at the time of air time and they were lucky enough to find a camera in their hands. It made the news feel sudden and amateur. Though partly driven by a lack of resources, it was obviously stylistic.

  “OK, we’ve got Professor Marylin Carvat here and she’s going to give us a history of secessions in America. Marylin? What can you tell us about other neighborhood secessions?”

  “There haven’t been any, Robert. We’ve got South Carolina, which seceded after Lincoln was elected. But that was by vote of their state congress. Which of those citizens living in Northeast Portland voted on a secession? Which of them had a choice? See, I’m not sure this is secession—it’s more akin to an invasion, technically.”

  Along the bottom of the screen the word INVASION showed, in red with a line circling it, the font-style of a rubber stamp.

  “But they live there already!” Zach yelled.

  “An invasion,” Robert said, and Zach could see the word was distasteful in his mouth. “But she has stopped the fighting instead of starting it, and the invaders do not normally provide a suite of services. You saw what those neighborhoods look like now?”

  “Yes, and by what armed power did she enforce that? I would be very afraid to be living in that section of the city right now. She’s there illegally—the city will have to respond with force. But we have to ask, where was the city’s force during the riots?”

  Zach yelled bullshit at the television and paced across his living room, his fists clenched to his chest and then just as quickly sat back down.

  “But, Marylin—you’ve got to remember her popularity is terrible trouble for the city. What kind of issues might the city face if they went in and shut her down? Did she promise to dissolve her organization at the end of the drought?”

  “Dissolve?” Marylin said with scorn, “To my knowledge, dictators rarely surrender power. We can’t allow our cities to become subdivided like this.”

  “Come on, you motherfuckers!” Zach yelled and swiped the large stack of newspapers off the couch. Their speculative drivel was driving him mad. “What does the city say?”

  “The other question is: does the city actually have the resources to handle this situation? I understand police and National Guard forces are extremely constrained. There are riots in Los Angeles again, and they’ve been flying National Guard out o
f here to help down there.” Bob looked at the camera. “It’s eight o’clock. Stay tuned, folks. This is KATU News and we’ll have the story for you. Have a good night. Stay safe out there.”

  The KATU logo went up for a long second and then the television and house lights shut off as the power went out. The moment it did he tuned into the sound of the wind outside, wailing at the building, blowing mercilessly in great gusts. It carried with it a thick, unbreathable dust that worked at the window sills, trying to get in. He could taste it on his tongue and feel it in his nostrils

  At dawn Zach climbed to the roof. He waited for the power to resume and the morning news to broadcast so that he could find out if Renee was still alive, and to see what the city’s move had been.

  With a sudden jerky hum the power came on and he listened as items sucked up the life in the wall sockets. On TV Robert narrated over what was essentially a very empty, calm neighborhood. Zach breathed a sigh of relief. No wars had sprung up in the night.

  As he waited for news, they went through the entire recap again and Zach kicked at his old coffee table, the legs gnawed on by a Dachshund from his youth.

  “OK, I’m getting something here . . .” Bob said and stared at the camera intently, Zach realized he was reading something on the teleprompter. It was disarming, looking the newscaster straight in the eye, without him talking, as if he were waiting for Zach to respond.

  “What?” Zach finally said. “Come on, you dumb sonofabitch.”

  “I’ve learned that so far no water trucks have been seen entering Sherwood. All water trucks have already been to the airport and are on their way to the distribution points, except for the neighborhoods under Maid Marian’s control. There have been no statements issued from either the mayor, the National Guard, or Maid Marian yet. That’s all I have right now—we’ll tell you more when we have it.”

  The camera angle widened to include another news anchor sitting a few feet away at the same long desk. She was a young and heavily made up woman who, to Zach’s eyes, appeared as though she’d been dipped in some kind of liquid plastic.

  “Are we officially calling it Sherwood now? Isn’t that giving them some recognition they shouldn’t have?”

  Robert frowned. “Yes, that’s what they call their country, I don’t see why we shouldn’t refer to it as it’s named.”

  “Well, sure, a country needs a name, right?” the made-up woman said.

  Zach turned off the television and spent some time fretting. He went up to the roof and paced across its length, eyes toward Sherwood. He fiddled around with making a telescope, but did not have the tools or glass to complete it. Then he slumped back into his TV couch downstairs and waited. The power was off again and would be for some time. She’d been gone a long time.

  After the news a deep, unsettled quiet lay over the city as the mayor and the police and the new citizens of Sherwood tried to digest this unexpected turn of events. Arguments broke out at the policemen’s union, some arguing that the territory was a festering cesspool of crime, prostitution, and drug use, and good riddance. Others argued that Maid Marian was the biggest criminal of them all now and must be crushed, and many others made muted comments of relief, that policing of the area was now in someone else’s hands.

  In the nation of Sherwood, where there had so recently been rioting and violence, people poured from their houses to take a new, fresh look at the place in which they lived, as if simply calling themselves a different name allowed them a new perspective, a moment of reflection in which they might emerge, chrysalis-like, as someone else. Their fear turned to curiosity. Everywhere they turned there was another Green Ranger standing next to his or her bike or walking along with a unit gallon of water, offering a poured unit to whomever held out a cup. To all questions they answered, “Maid Marian will make sure there is peace,” or simply, “We haven’t been told what’s next.” There was a tentative and heady feeling of being at the threshold of deliverance.

  Nevel hid his family in the tunnel during the riots. While they were downstairs, he paced nervously from window to window watching for a sign the riot would turn toward their home. He’d purchased a handgun on the black market he had never fired, and he held it up as he paced, thinking that were some explosive branch of the riot to come toward his house he could at least wave the gun insanely in the air.

  No, he realized with sudden clarity, when they came he would break his own windows. He would howl and thrash about as if he were the alpha looter. He would employ the coward’s defense. He scanned about the room for the first things he might like to destroy, and after a moment he realized that to the last one they all belonged to his wife. The bland painting of a farmhouse, the strange statues, the knick-knackery. He thought about how he might crush the painting over the top of a gaudy ceramic vase she’d bought on a trip to Mexico. He picked up the vase and hefted it and realized he’d gotten it backwards—the vase would go into the painting. A far more satisfying crunch could be had there.

  “Hi, Dad!”

  Nevel spun to see his five-year-old Jason standing in the living room in his pajamas. Nevel quickly scanned the windows for signs of violence.

  “What are you doing with the vase?” Jason said.

  “You should be downstairs!” Nevel yelled, and then, after the downcast look his boy gave him, said, “I’ll bring the TV down, it’ll be like a movie party. When the power comes on.”

  “Yay!” Jason said and ran in place Road Runner style, and then disappeared back down the stairs yelling unintelligibly.

  Nevel carried the television to the basement. He strung the cord deep into the end of the tunnel where, sitting on beanbags on a plywood platform, lit by the light of flashlights, his children looked thrilled and his wife miserable and anxious. He set the TV down in front of them.

  “How are my stowaways?” Nevel said brightly.

  “Lovely,” Cora said. “Would you like a turn in the hold? I’m perfectly capable of waving a pistol around.”

  Nevel felt for the gun he’d tucked self-consciously into the back of his pants. He liked its presence there and admired its lines and hardness. The gun was his and he wanted the heroic job up in the living room. He switched on the television and found that most stations were already covering the riot happening outside at that very moment. It was a strange sense of alternate reality, where the faraway third world scene he watched on television was in fact a few blocks to the north. He watched with fascination and a detached compassion for anyone living in such a place where something like that could happen.

  “That’s Safeway!” He clutched his throat and watched the store get swallowed in flames. He feared at any moment he would see his own house, hordes of Molotov cocktail–throwing rioters at the doorstep. “I’ve got to get back up there.” Nevel touched each of their heads and his wife emitted a tired, fearful sound.

  Back upstairs he tried to place where he’d been. There was something about the tunnel that always reset him. There was a crash from across the street and the fear returned, but it was quiet enough through the windows that he wondered if people were rioting privately in the comfort of their own homes. Then he remembered where he’d been with the vase and the painting. He picked up the vase again.

  There was a terrific yell from the basement and the vase leapt from his hands. He clumsily bounced it from hand to hand in a futile attempt to regain purchase until it rebounded off of the front door, through the grip in his hands, and clattered heavily to the floor, confirming his suspicion that the ugly thing was unbreakable. There was another loud call for him and he worried suddenly the tunnel had collapsed. He sprinted back to the basement.

  The tunnel was lit blue by the light of the television like some strange route to the afterlife.

  “Look,” his wife said, “it’s her.”

  Nevel saw Maid Marian on the television briefly and then the newscasters were back on, showing a map of Portland with a red outline around a quadrant of the Northeast. In the center they’d writte
n, Maid Marian claims Northeast Portland.

  “That’s us,” he said, pointing stupidly at the television map and feeling far from comprehending what was happening.