This Is the Night

by Jonah C. Sirott

  “The laundromat, the hot one, last wash is at eight. I thought maybe we could get a load in.”

  “After coming all this way, you want to leave so we can get a last load of already clean sheets in?”

  Turning away, Lorrie edged to her side of the blanket.

  “Are you serious?”

  Lorrie shrugged.

  A low, heavy quiver spun and hissed its way through his body before exploding in an outburst of indignation. “We washed a load yesterday and the day before that! I drove us all the way out here, to our favorite place, I packed us a fucking picnic, and still you can’t think about anything else but those stupid sheets.”

  “Forget it,” Lorrie said softly.

  “No, no. That’s what you want?” Lance sprang to his feet. What did she know about trouble? He was in the crosshairs, he was the one who would be gathered up to die. Couldn’t she see that? Of course not. She was too worried about herself, her imaginary fucking bugs.

  “I said never mind,” Lorrie said.

  “No, no. It’s me.” Above them, a stack of clouds traveled through the air, blotting out the sun. “I’m sorry for trying to make you feel better. For navigating the craters in the road, for making us sandwiches, for bringing some books I thought you might want to read. Please, by all means. Let’s get out of here.” He grabbed their bag of blankets, books, and sandwiches and tossed it toward her, a little harder than he knew was necessary. He had thought Lorrie was facing him, but as the bag sailed through the air, he saw that she had turned away. With his mind simmering, Lance said nothing, called out no warning, instead watching as time slowed down and the abundantly beautiful face of Lorrie spun once again toward him, the bag slamming into her cheek as she did so.

  On the drive back, Lance accelerated past Veterans Beach as fast as he could—potholes be damned—and as his foot pressed down against the hanging pedal, he saw Lorrie make the smallest flick on the tip of her nose. Just the beginning. In two minutes, he knew, she would be pawing at it furiously with her fingernails. It was the first time Lance started to wonder about her parents. Who were they, and what did they need to know?

  5.

  The blackout is over, and the lights have come back on in Alan’s cell. How many more hours until they release him? Four years ago, the first thing he noticed upon arriving at the School was how far it was from everything, so private and lonely that not even animals came around. Not that Alan cares much about animals, though he makes an exception for the sled dogs belonging to Ricky X-P, the main character in his favorite book. The one thing Alan’s father was right about: the library here is better.

  Mornings at the School bring a dead, hollow silence. Back home, unseen thrushes and wrens and creepers would pile their croaks and whistles on top of each other as if they each had something to say, without being bothered to listen. At the School, the skies are always empty. The silence is creepy, but Alan knows that the broad gap in sound means nothing more than that he goes to a school on such shitty land that even the lowest animals can find a better place to be. There is a hum, a lyric vibrancy to the clamoring of the outdoors where his parents live. But here in the dead desert of the School, there is no illumination of sound, only stumped, dried trees and the plentiful acceptance of everyone wishing they were elsewhere.

  Rules and regulations cling to them like vines on a tree. Outgoing mail is monitored and read, fruit is canned and sugared, cheese is old and yellowed. A stream of well-adjusted Homeland Indigenous veterans visit their classrooms, a succession of different men who have all come to the same conclusion: that duty and service must be prized above all. Students at the School are allowed to speak Homeland language only, nothing else.

  The moment he arrives, Alan is determined to find a way around the ban. Homeland words don’t always fit. Sometimes they’re flat, filthy, worthless words that drop cold and weightless from his tongue to the floor. Sometimes he just needs to speak Group F.

  Sister Ava Azor stands at the front of the classroom. “Today,” she says brightly, “we will discuss your uniqueness. The Indigenous way of thought—your way—is very special, very different from Majority Group. Take these facts, for example.”

  She reaches for a cracked leather book on the edge of her desk and begins to read. “Members of Homeland Indigenous Group P, who suffer from bad posture, are convinced they stave off scoliosis by thanking every dandelion they see.” She pauses and rotates her neck slowly, letting her eyes fall upon the class. Alan takes out Crafty Beryl—a new book by his favorite author, the one who wrote about Ricky X-P—and starts to read under the desk. Sister Ava Azor either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. In this story, Beryl is a sailor on a boat from a country that doesn’t exist, although he’s on an ocean that’s very real. Alan has never seen the ocean.

  “It is a very old superstition,” Sister Ava Azor reads, “for members of Indigenous Group T to not comb their hair at night.”

  There are no Group Ps in the school, so no one in the class can be sure about thanking dandelions, but there are plenty of Group Ts, all of whom Alan and the rest of the class have seen comb their hair after dark. Alan shakes his head and goes back to his book.

  If thoughts are thought with words, Beryl says, then there is nothing unsayable.

  This book is not nearly as good as the author’s first one. For twelve pages now, Beryl has been staring out a window, considering decisions he made in the past. Write a sequel to your first book, Alan would tell the author if he ever met him. No one cares about this new stuff.

  Sister Ava Azor continues, spewing gigantic facts that range from the Group Js at the northern border and their propensity for dining on flavored buffalo shit (the roars and groans of the class are difficult to silence for at least three minutes after she reads this sentence) to small groups on isolated islands who refuse to partake in any fruit that has already ripened. She is, Alan knows, reading failed words from failed books, words bent out of shape by time and now worn, stripped, and jammed into a wrong place in which they’ve never belonged.

  Now, locked in a cell, Alan can still remember his response to these “facts.” Four more years, he had thought, just four more years until I can leave this place and get some facts of my own.

  “On to the next lesson,” Sister Ava Azor had said. “Can anyone state the Homeland’s purpose in engaging the Foreigns?”

  No one speaks.

  “Now, I know none of you were born at the time,” she says, her upper lip raised and tightened, “but that doesn’t mean the reasons have changed. Why, class, are we at war?”

  Silence again.

  “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. It’s very important to me that all of you understand this. When Homeland Indigenous start to misinterpret their history, very bad things can happen.”

  A small boy raises his hand. “What kind of bad things?”

  Sister Ava Azor narrows her lips. “No need to dwell on the negative. Now, we all know about First Aggression and the origins of the conflict, but who is willing to give an explanation of the potent and hateful system of government known as Ideology Five?” Sister Ava Azor clasps her hands together and lets out a humongous fart.

  Every boy in the classroom bites his lips hard. They cannot laugh. All of them know that if they do, Sister Ava Azor will screech a threat of pinching noses till their mouths fall open and she can pour detergent down their throats.

  “No one”—her voice now plunged in anger—“is willing to explain the tenets of Ideology Five? No one can elucidate the nature of this tyrannical system? This system that all present will be expected to fight against?”

  More silence from the class, until another gassy wheeze dribbles from Sister Ava Azor’s butt cheeks.

  The fart opens up a space within him. Respect is worth four gallons of swallowed detergent, and Alan immediately recognizes the opportunity to increase his sphere of influence. But he must act fast, must execute properly. First, Alan looks for the right words, and of course the Home
land language can’t fit around them. The right joke would be neutered and lost if he choked it out in Homeland. He needs the raw specificity that only his own tongue can provide. A deep breath in as he turns to the three Group F boys next to him—they always sit together—and he says the joke in his language. All three of them shriek and wail, collapsing into their laughs and writhing about with giggles. The other boys in the class may have not understood the words, but the shape of the joke is clear. Mission accomplished.

  “Enough!” says Sister Ava Azor.

  The laughter stops.

  She can’t impose as strong a penalty as she would like because she doesn’t know what Alan has said. Making a joke at a Sister’s expense is a huge punishment. Speaking your own language is a lesser one. Alan may escape the detergent yet. Even so, the salty swallow of fluid would be well worth it. The other boys look at him, the slow bloom of respect blossoming on their faces. In the front of the classroom, a half-breed swivels his head to look at Alan. They’ve never spoken, but Alan knows that the halfie who has turned is Gad. Gad’s face is easy to read. The heavens have unrolled before him, Alan thinks. In this cruel place, a half-breed on his side is just what he needs. From this day on, Alan and Gad are always together. With Gad by his side, the sad world around him feels just the tiniest bit happier. Since that day, until Alan’s punishment, the two of them have never been apart.

  6.

  Benny’s problem was simple: he owed his dealer more money than he had, and his dealer was starting to get unhappy.

  “That was bad money, Benny, and you know it.” They eyed each other across the small round table.

  The Millhouse was divided by an invisible barrier: on one end, clean-shaven older men in shiny medallion shoes and ironed silk ties sat alongside young women in high-buttoned dresses and tasteful neckwear, all of them gulping down large cups of coffee before work and staring disdainfully at the other side, that section of the coffee shop that consisted of prickly, exhausted young men with ruddy smells bursting from their armpits, men with baggy eyes and last night’s clothes. This second group grasped their mugs for warmth and barely sipped from them, silently staring at one another—Who are you? Why are you still here?—no one acknowledging that they were all about to be snapped up or had to disappear, all of them sure that at least a few in the crowd, with the dirtiest being the most likely candidates, were probably Registry undercovers anyway. Whatever. Benny knew which side he was on. Sure he stank, but those clean men would be in his place any day now.

  “You understand me, Benny? You understand that this is serious?” his dealer was saying. For health or fashion reasons, Benny was never sure, his dealer always wore a flowered lei around his neck. Now the wreath sagged flat on his dealer’s chest, the pinks, reds, and whites sick and wilted. “I’m not happy with you,” he said. “Not at all.”

  “I understand,” Benny told him. From the side of his vision, he eyed a woman across the coffee shop with long legs and plump lips.

  “This is bad, Benny. Really bad.” His words weren’t friendly, but Benny’s dealer had a talent for staying calm when he was deeply angry. Besides, he was right: Benny had spent twenty real Currencies in order to get the fake sixty.

  “Well, give me the bad Currencies back,” Benny said. “And I’ll get you the real money.”

  “I don’t like that you did that. It’s not a good-faith move by a customer. It doesn’t inspire confidence.” The dealer rocked back on the rear legs of his chair. A thin creak floated up between them, the sound, Benny knew, of his dealer’s false limb interacting with the hard floor. Benny had seen his dealer’s prosthetic on a humid day a few months back. The skin color of the substitute leg wasn’t even close, but then again, at least the dealer had one. With the nationwide shortage, few of the amputated had a good match.

  “So we’re clear? We’re good?” said Benny. Was the plump-lipped woman from across the room winking at him?

  “No, we’re not good. You paid me in crap. Sixty worthless Currencies.” The dealer closed his eyes for what seemed to Benny like too long a time, and then opened them again.

  “Right,” Benny said. “So now that you’re awake, I’m going to need those fake Currencies back so I can get you your real sixty.” Benny didn’t have any other connections, and his dealer’s stuff truly was the best. The plump-lipped woman smiled at him yet again, but this time Benny ignored her, the realization of his dealer’s anger now occupying all of his attention. With the walls of his veins throbbing, he knew he would tell his dealer anything he wanted to hear.

  “Maybe you don’t understand, you stupid mother-raper,” his dealer said, voice rising. “I’m keeping the fake stuff. But that bullshit money doesn’t settle your debt, not even close. So now”—he leaned forward, a vein about the width of the temple tip on a pair of spectacles bursting from his forehead—“you are, shall we say, obligated to get me my sixty real Currencies.”

  Smile, Benny thought. Show him that whatever he wants is no problem. A quick thought crossed Benny’s mind that he should Point Line his dealer, but he knew that all a pointing would do was save a few Currencies and leave him in the same spot: without his dealer’s stuff. Then he remembered that you can’t point a veteran. New tactic. Give the guy something to identify with. “I’m having problems with the Registry,” he told his dealer. “I’m up on First Tuesday.”

  A smile followed a sneeze, the fringe on his dealer’s vest flying up and then back down again along with his high-pitched spasm. “You read A Thousand and One?”

  Benny didn’t know if the conversation was turning in a way that was good for him or not. He shrugged.

  “C’mon, Benny. A Thousand and One Ways to Beat the Registry. You want to end up with one of these?” He knocked on the knee of his plastic leg. “And that’s the least of my problems. The things I saw. So many—”

  “So what’s this ‘thousand and one’?”

  “It’s a book, Benny. And damn the Young Savior if you aren’t going to need it more than anyone.”

  “How do I get it?”

  “Well, that’s just it. You can’t just get it. Unlike almost every piece of information in this country, what with our ten thousand radio stations and two million newspapers or whatever, the stuff in this book is actually hard to find.”

  “Okay,” Benny said.

  “But luckily for you,” his dealer continued, “even though you are by far my shittiest customer, you are still a customer. You’re going to be in the hands of the Homeland anyway. I see that. So I’m cutting your bill in half, a debt to a future serviceman.”

  “You don’t know that,” Benny said. “I could still run.”

  The dealer brought the lei over his head and placed it on the table. It clumped in front of them like some bright piece of roadkill. “I feel like slapping you,” his dealer said. “You don’t just run. Whole underground organizations are out there, and they’ve given this a lot more thought than you have. Maybe someone might have been able to just up and run in year twelve, even year fifteen, but now? There’s a whole industry for runners out there, if you can find them. Of course, that’s the whole point. They don’t want you to find them. But if you can, you’ve got your baldheads; they have this game where they scream at each other—I’m not quite sure how that gets people out of service, but they say it does; you’ve got the Homeland Indigenous Movement, not that they would help you out. The point is, you’ve got to plan to run, to join up with people. Running isn’t just running. Running is planning.” He paused and grinned to himself. “Running.” He laughed. “They’ll run you right down.”

  “Allied Country N is just a two-day bus ride.”

  “Right. You got a lot of places to crash in N? Do you even have a real winter coat? You think that flimsy jacket you got on will work up there?”

  “I’m a friendly guy.” Benny rubbed the fabric of his coat between his thumb and forefinger. “I could get those things.” His dealer was right, though. It was a thin coat.

&n
bsp; “How about you read the paper for once, listen to the news or something? Did you know that up by the border, no one is fixing the roads? That half the cars are wrecked from minicraters, that buses can barely pass? Or how about the rule changes? That you’ve got to show employment before they let you in now? Did you know that, Benny?”

  “Sure, I know a lot of things.”

  “I highly doubt that. You can’t even fake sixty Currencies right.”

  “I could get it right if you’d give them back to me.”

  “Shut up, Benny.” The dealer sniffed loudly and closed his eyes again. Maybe the guy was allergic to his own lei. “I’m going to do you a favor,” the dealer said. “Bring the Currencies—real ones—to this address. Just half, that’s the first part of the favor.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  “Damn the Young Savior, you’re a greedy bastard. These guys you’re bringing half the money you owe me to, they have a copy of A Thousand and One. Tell them you know me and that your induction is just a few days from now.”

  Through the window, Benny spotted Joe and did a funny jump to his feet that twisted his back. “Don’t talk to me for a minute,” he told his dealer. “I’ve got to handle some stuff.” Benny walked to the counter and leaned forward, squinting at the sour baked goods he did not have enough Currencies to buy. Anything to make it seem as though he had come alone.

  “Get that money to that address and we won’t ever talk again,” said the dealer to his back.

  “Why would you say that?” Benny asked, turning around to face him. His dealer really did have the best stuff.

  “You’re an idiot, Benny. Either you’re going to be blasting little Foreign babies’ heads off, fighting the good fight against Ideology Five, or you’re going to be moving around every three days and looking over your shoulder. You’re not going to be here, hanging out. Do you understand that? Look around.” His hands slashed the air, palms up. “This is done. Over.”