I walk in the fields, not near the highway. I want to be hidden and forgotten while I settle myself, get ready for what I need to do when I arrive. The tall grass undulates around me in the breeze, creating a glittering sound of rustle and high chatter. As if the universe were chanting some incomprehensible wisdom. Something I could understand if I could hear at that transcendental wavelength.
I conserve water by drinking small dribs from my bottle. I stop and eat crumbs of snacks. I sit surrounded by straight, thin reeds dancing softly. I study the sky's graying nature, the stormy clouds that refuse to release rain. It's drier here than the state next door. Arid and cooler. I think of how our science has zoomed ahead of us, but we don't know that. How a country's power grabs don't just affect our politics and defense budgets, but how we live, feel and suffer, how we turn the other eye. How we value the of lives of others.
The sun sets behind the screen of clouds and the temperature drops, but not too much. I make a bed out of bent reeds and settle down for sleep surrounded by the soft surf of grass. I feel safe and comforted for the first time in a long time. Surrounded and protected. Enough to dream and search and comprehend. It's enough.
Today I must find a ride to take me the rest of the way. I don't have much time. Friend will have the site up soon. I imagine him readying a new expression for his face. A relaxed, cool one, as if he were traveling for fun. He embodies the feel, shapes the mud of his smile. I imagine him wearing plain, unsophisticated clothing. Nothing too poor looking or ragged. Nothing that suggests refugee or squatter. And nothing hip or up to date. Just a know-nothing, middle-class bumpkin going overseas for the first time. He'll go through security with a loose body posture to deflect scrutiny, but keep his mouth closed with a wad of steel wool in it to obscure any potential signals that could pick up the black tooth. He'll traverse the port's many hallways, feeling set apart from the crowds. Somehow like an angel with the golden word. He'll find his seat and wait and wait. Then finally lift off into the blue skyway, feeling that immense god force upwards. And once the plane has left our country's air space, once he sees he's in the middle of an ocean, he'll lean back with eyes closed, breathing for what seems to be the first time in years while shedding a tear. He'll think that maybe in five years or so he can reach out to his family to say hello, to let them know he's safe, he's come through the demons of the past. Maybe the dogs will have moved onto someone else by then. Maybe their memory is not so long.
I walk next to the highway on the shaved land. Every now and then I turn around to see if a car approaches. Numerous trucks pass by, most of them of the robo kind in a long train manned by one human at the front. I wave my hand at the individual robo-cars to see if one will stop and none have so far. The humans in them read or laugh or eat while flying past. In one slow moving car, a child watches me curiously while eating a lollipop. But there just aren't many of them, not like in the past.
I wave my hand out urgently and a sleek, black car stops some feet ahead. The back door slides open. I lean in to find two young women in their twenties, hair coiffed and pampered, wearing refined yet casual clothing, sparkling a jewel or two. The one with short hair in a pixie cut says, hey, where do you need to go? I say my city's name. She tells me they can drop me off at the city square, that's where they're going. I say that's good and hop in. The other woman with long, blonde hair curled in the perfect, fashionable way sits back and watches, barely hiding her concern and disgust. It's a concern for them, not me. I settle in back without taking off my backpack. I want to get there quick, not interact too much. A scathing unease waits to bubble up here.
Pixie tries to make conversation and asks where I'm coming from. I say I got lost, that's all. Blondie smirks and says under her breath, god, from under what rock. Pixie gives her a dirty look and turns to smile at me. She says, that's cool, we'll be there soon, do you want a snack? She's trying to be kind, offering it to me because she thinks I'm homeless. And I realize that I actually am. I want to be proud and say no, but I have to be realistic about my situation so I say sure. She hands me the basket holding the snack bags. I hesitate, my mind whirring and calculating, and finally take all five of the bags quickly before she can see that some of my fingers don't have nails. I shove them into the pockets of my old jacket while looking out the window. She takes the basket back without a word. I can't see blondie, but I can feel the derision and judgement. I am a vulgar one.
I'm tightly wound with worry and focused on the need to survive and they are loose, blasé, narcotic and calm. Just having fun, just having a ride to downtown. Jamie was the same. I can't help but notice the difference between our mindsets. I don't begrudge them for it, but I do begrudge blondie for the lack of simple acknowledgement that everyone deserves dignity. That's all I ask for from these pretty, washed, fashioned women with their casual airs and moneyed lives. They continue conversing amongst themselves about how so-and-so did this and that. About the next home and party. And I wish I could feel invisible. But instead, I feel very present and hunkered, very ugly and dirty with unwashed teeth, old, baggy underwear with an old period stain and a scuzzy film of oil on my skin. A vagabond rodent in their company.
We float towards the city for some time, almost twenty minutes or so when I see the clouds of dust from afar. The heavy cover over the skyscrapers, as if it were a city of surreal doom. I hold my breath, I'm going underwater.
We park in the city square that bustles with busy people on their way to somewhere. They pull their jackets, gloves and ultra-clearify masks on while I wait in the back for the door to open. Pixie turns to me with mask on, notices I don't have one. She's about to ask something, maybe if I'm alright, but she stops herself. Looks down for a moment and pushes the button to slide open the doors. We climb out and I can feel her turn for a second as if to say goodbye, but I'm long gone. Disappeared.
THE SIGN
I remember the sign. I remember the neighborhood, it's old coffee cafes and sordid pawn shops. The crowds of unkempt intermixed with a few grungy musician types. Corroded street signs that light up the streets jagged and irregular. I just need to get my whereabouts and find a way there. I should turn right here and go straight until I see the familiar. I've re-entered their maze. Of my own will. And I'm ready.
I hunch over to avoid the swirling dust, hide behind the frayed collar while peeking out to see where I'm going. People are a blur, mounds of objects I need to maneuver around to fulfill my mission.
After many blocks, something familiar catches my eye. But it's not the sign I'm looking for. It's something else. In a window high above on the third floor, a purple, electronic lotus pulses, its tubes of lavender blinking on and off. It's a curious sight and incredibly clear, a lighthouse on a foggy, deserted night.
I continue on and after a block or so I see something else. Someone has printed large stickers of a purple lotus. Its glittery paint shimmers through the clouds of dust, like a magic spell or an iridescent jewel. Not tacky, nor a loud shout, but dignified posture. Radiant peace. They're posted on light poles here and there. I'm wondrous, something rises within me. I can't identify it because I've never felt it before. Could it be solidarity. A bit of my loneliness ebbing away.
I walk further, another half mile or so. And I see a worker beginning to paint a sagging billboard that's perched atop a building like an old king, the spotlights illuminating the crippled visage. Its broken royalty. He stands at the corner with his black paint and begins painting over the bold splashes of purple, glow-in-the-dark graffiti, which says...
I AM A FREE BEAST
FREE BEAST FOREVER
I stop and stare. I can't move, but my mind spins with mental vertigo. I want to laugh and cry. Jamie, do you see this. The worker stops after painting over the “E” and “R” as if questioning whether it's the right thing to do it. He reads the message over and over, weighs the consequences, waits. Then continues on, slow and deliberate. He's only one person, an identifiable one who could be punished.
D
OE-RAY-ME
There it is. The bright, orange sign to “Franken's Drugs” lights up the veiled sky. Jamie had pointed it out to me as we passed one day. He said it all began there. The man gave him a chance and it germinated from there. I pace across the street while I gather my nerves and tactics. What do I say and who do I say it to. I cross the street.
Bells tinkle when I enter and I look for the sales counters. There's only one and a middle-aged man works it, checking out customers who pay with their phones, watches or the chips in their forearms. He's not friendly, no small talk, no bit of smile. But not hostile either, just business-like as he collects the funds. His short salt and pepper hair is traditional and his clothing is plain. His Asiatic eyes efficiently sort his duties and tasks. Next to the register, a book splays open. When it's my turn I can see that it's religious text. Not from the Sun Temple, but from times past. An older religion.
He stares when I get to the counter. I'm suddenly sweating and I turn my head slightly to see if anyone stands behind me. No one. The store is empty.
“Hi... do you have any tips for growing lotus?” I make direct eye contact and speak low and clear. I don't want anything to suggest shiftiness.
“No,” he says as he looks away and towards the back of the store. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
I can't exactly detect if he's telling the truth or if he knows but is scared.
“Do you know Jamie? He had blonde, curly hair.” I'm earnest, silently pleading.
“No.”
“He said you gave him a chance.”
Silence.
“He's gone now... And I have the next story. The most important one.”
Just a stare.
And suddenly... “I remember he said you called him a devious bastard.” He had said it with kindness, in awe of Jamie's idea.
A subterranean recognition passes under the shield of his face. He visually checks the front door, searches the back of the store and glances out a small peek of window to his right as he says airily, “Tomorrow afternoon.”
I walk out into a gust of cool air. It's late afternoon. Where do I sleep for the night. I don't want to go too far from the store, I need to keep it in my sights at all times. I know it's irrational, but I fear it'll disappear into thin air.
I should sleep somewhere in the open, not near an alleyway or near a crevice that I can be stuffed into. And I should avoid the homeless shelters because of the fingerprint, retinal and voice scans they take which are matched to the ones you took when you became an adult. The government would know that I'm free and alive. I remember taking the mandated scans at twenty-one years old. The pad warming my fingertips. The red laser gliding over my eyes, vibrating its way into every dark and light dip of my iris. My voice singing doe-ray-me-fah-so-la-tee-doh twice so my voice chords could be recorded. The way it felt as if my sight and voice were being stolen from me and I could do nothing about it. As if I weren't allowed to have my own independent, private sight and voice. The way it didn't seem to bother anyone, only me.
I eat sparingly. I use the bathroom in a run-down cafe. The grandmother behind the counter graciously fills my water bottle. I pass the time by wandering the neighborhood, but never straying too far from the drugstore. And when the dismal sun sets, I squat down for the night, crouching on the street right across from the drugstore in plain sight, not in a doorstep and not on a bench. I curl myself into a small pod on the ground, rounded and closed like a cannonball, my limbs turned in towards myself so no one can grab them and pull me into a sadistic nightmare. They would have to lift me instead, a heavy spore of human. And the crowds of people ignore me, they're used to seeing the homeless in this neighborhood. And the silence in the dead of night is beautiful and frightening. As if anything good or violent could happen to me and no one would know.
The man sees me in the morning as he opens the store. He turns his head away as I look up, my eyes crusty and breath sour.
FERMENTED CABBAGE
I walk into the drugstore and the man nods. Looks to the back where the storage room is as he helps customers. I walk through the aisles of healthcare items, the creams for counteracting the dust. The gloves made of a new high-tech material that makes your hands younger. The cosmetics that promise to camouflage crepey, onion skin, like mother's. And I open the door.
There are two men. One looks similar to the produce delivery driver with his long scraggly beard, cold eyes and rough clothing. All the outward signs of a rebel. The other looks like a buttoned-up accountant. A corporate bean counter with newly pressed slacks and shirt. The one who follows all the rules, even the sub-categories of rules. I don't know what to make of the pair, but I remind myself that this journey has shown me that no one is as they seem. That there are vast dimensions past the external shell and disguise.
I say hello and tell them that Jamie is gone. And that I have the next and final story. I plunge in and don't hold much back even though I fear I may be telling the wrong people. I have to trust so I pour all of it out. The torture, the safe house, the videos. I don't tell them about the website, I want to hold that back for now to protect Friend... just in case... And I tell them about Jamie, my link to him, how he's gone now and presumably dead. I end with one question... “Do you have ink?” I know that's a put-upon, that I'm presuming and moving ahead too quickly for them. But I need to push, there isn't much time. The ink is a potential roadblock since it's tracked carefully. Jamie used a vegetable dye made in the country and sold on the black market.
They ponder quietly, weighing the pros and cons. How authentic is this? Are we willing to go ahead? All the things that have happened in the past couple of weeks. The pop-ups of lotus here and there and the government's arrest spree of dissidents. It's in the headlines and part of the nervous, stuttered chatter I hear as I sit in the old cafes. What are the stakes. Who is this young woman standing before them, reeking of body odor, telling them fantastic tales of revulsion. It moves too fast for them.
They ask if I have the text for the story. I say no, but I'll write it now if you give me paper and pen. They turn to each other and read the sign language of the other's thoughts. OK, they say. Give it to Franken. One of them leaves and returns with a pen, paper and envelope. I'm to write the total number of flyers I want printed, the maximum being fifteen hundred. I'm to deliver it by the end of the day and the flyers will be ready for pickup in two days, the afternoon.
The scraggly guy looks back as they leave and says, “We won't help you give them away. That's on you.”
The next two days are a zombie nightmare of walking, resting, eating, keeping on the move. Sleeping here and there during the day out in public and staying alert and awake at night for safety. I go into bathrooms and try to scrub my mouth with water and soap to keep my mouth clean. Wash my face, neck, armpits and feet. And I keep moving while drinking mostly and eating a bit. I worry if I stay in one place too long an officer will stop me and drag me into a homeless shelter. I try to walk at a slow pace to conserve energy. It's a good thing I gained some weight at the safe house. It serves me well now.
I straggle in on the day. I'm a little crazy, but trying to keep myself grounded. The lack of sleep bounces my mind from here to there, as if I'm shaking a leg to keep awake. I'm coherent but then I'm not, in a daze, walking half asleep and half awake. Garbled and frantic. Franken puts out the “closed” sign, takes me to the back and shows me the large garbage bag full of flyers. Fifteen hundred. I open the bag, take one out and check the ending. Yes, they printed it, the web address. Just like I wrote. The ones who've created hidden access points to the unapproved parts of the internet can view it.
“Is it all true?” He asks as I run my finger over the purple lotus at the top. It's volume 10.
“Look at my fingers.” He studies the stubs without nails, the alien, fetal look of them.
He's solemn, not a man of many words. His pale lips are so motionless and yet I feel they want to shake loose and sputter something.
/> “How many do you want?”
“Twenty five.”
I count them off and hand them over, wishing he had said one hundred. Am I crazy for doing this. I'm in over my head. “Do you know who else I can give these to?”
“You don't know?” He's surprised.
“No... I never asked Jamie much about it...”
“Any store with a certain sticker in the window.” He walks out of the storage room and to the front where he points to fifteen square stickers in the window. Some are new and others peel at the corners. They're cluttered and jostle amongst other signs for liquor and cigarettes. They're small badges to promote lotteries, different packaged foods, and an assortment of cosmetics. He points to one with a green cookie and head of cabbage. It's called “Fermento” and the tagline says, the best fermented cabbage cookie. He laughs at my grossed-out expression, “We had to make it sound bad so no one would ever ask for it.” All these symbols for other symbols. Double meanings and stand-ins for a voice.
I leave the store with the giant garbage bag in my arms, like the heaviest baby in the world. I plan to walk through this neighborhood and the two or three next door. Look for the fermented cabbage cookie. The site will be up soon.
ANCIENT WELL
I enter the first shop and take a deep breath. It's an old-fashioned bakery without the charm, crumbling with ungraceful, unfinished, old wood. I ask to speak with the owner and take her aside. Her face and arms are a mixture of plump and strong. Freckles and powdered sugar hover on her alabaster skin making her seemingly capable of fairy magic, and thin, red veins crawl up her forearm in complicated webs. I note the array of her work behind her. The glossy red cherries plopped into cookies, the sparkling diamond dust of rock sugar. How they must provide a momentary peak of happiness in all this gray. I tell her I have the final installment of the flyer. She stares. I say quietly, how to grow lotus. Without a word, she turns and walks to the back. I pick up my garbage bag and follow to the privacy of the dark room where the bags of flour and sugar curve deflated and low. An emaciated mouse scatters as we approach. Can she distribute the flyer to those who ask for them? She nods and takes the twenty five I hand over. Give me more, she says and I want to hug her. Thank you, I say and slip out the front as the workers watch me bumble along with the giant bag.
Free Beast Page 21
