It was deathly silent after that. Alan wondered how long it would last: when would he be hauled away to the Board? He already had one strike, on his first day no less, so it was entirely possible he’d be gone within the month. He looked down at his dresser, the top drawer open and half-full of simple t-shirts. His hand rested on a watch lying on top of his shirts. The watch was from home, a simple weekender styled number with leather strap and analog face. It held two very conflicting memories for Alan, memories that liked to rise to the surface every so often; especially when he looked at the cracked glass on the face.
Alan soon realized he had an audience and looked up. Athena was standing in the doorway, and Marshall jumped out from behind her, as if Alan couldn’t see his hulking frame behind Athena. Alan stifled a laugh.
“Hey, Alan, you ready for week two?” Marshall asked enthusiastically. Athena rolled her eyes, her arms crossed and her left shoulder leaned up against the doorway.
“Sure,” Alan replied half-heartedly, and he put the watch back in the dresser, trying to push the memories - like the drawer - back out of sight.
“Yes, week two is just week one… again,” Athena joked, this time a small crack in her smirk, revealing more humor than cynicism.
“That sounded almost excited, Athena,” Marshall said with a big grin, and the three of them walked down to the lobby for week two of Alan’s job.
Everything seemed to be marching in rhythm now: same lobby, same people, same bus, same route, same site. It was all a matter of routine, and it gave Alan time to ponder how his week had been.
Another day, another beam. Alan tried to pretend he didn’t notice the rest of the Magnet group giving him the evil eye as they began working. He couldn’t blame them. Nick was gone. He was the type of gone that nobody really understood until they lived it. Nick was an unperson. Nobody mentioned him in roll call. The supervisors acted as if he’d never existed. Save for a few sparse remarks from his coworkers, Nick was little more than a fading memory to workers of 308. Alan had ruminated on this fact the entire week and had come to a conclusion: never again.
Alan decided at some point in his sleep-elusive nights that he was going to be different. If this was the hand he’d been dealt, then he would be as safe as possible. It was one thing getting yourself in trouble; getting someone else in trouble was another thing entirely.
“Never again,” Alan mouthed to himself as he lifted his hand and played support to one of the other Magnet crew members. He was going to make sure he never got someone a strike again, and he was going to honor Nick by playing by the rules.
✽✽✽
The lunch bell rang out, echoing in the open air of the construction yard. Alan joined Marshall in line outside the food truck, where the groups were receiving their chicken or bean tacos. At least, Alan assumed it was chicken. Castor was standing next to Athena, his face hovering over a cauldron filled with meat ingredient. Alan could see the dead eyes; he knew that look.
“Chicken or bean?” Athena asked Alan.
“Um… what would you recommend?” Alan asked with a toothy smile, an eyebrow raised.
Athena made a half-smile and looked at the two options. Castor was pulling a ladle up and down, the soupy brown mush of the beans drizzling out. Athena’s stomach turned for a moment, and she looked back at Alan. “I think I’d go with chicken.”
“Then chicken it is,” Alan said, his voice slightly more optimistic than it had been all day. His eyes then reluctantly moved over to Castor, who was none-too-happy to see the newbie giving him requests. Castor rolled his eyes and prepared some tacos; then he placed them in a paper box on top of some Spanish rice. Alan smiled at Athena - who smiled back - and Alan took his meal back to the picnic tables adjacent to the concrete foundation of their construction site.
Alan looked down and saw oozing refried beans cascading down his tortillas and onto his rice. Alan let out a deep, frustrated sigh.
“Castor,” Alan clenched his teeth, his emotions pitching toward anger.
“Didn’t you order chicken?” Marshall asked with a big grin, and he set his tray down on the table next to Alan.
“I thought so. It was all a blur,” Alan replied in a sour tone.
“I figured as much. Here,” Marshall put his plate in front of Alan. They sure were chicken-esque tacos. “I actually like bean tacos. Everybody thinks I’m nuts, Athena included.”
“She seems to think that about you in general,” Alan joked.
“Oh, look at that. New guy’s got jokes,” Marshall smiled. “Good to see you getting acclimated. Yeah, Athena thinks I’m crazy in general, but aren’t we all a little crazy?”
Alan thought about it for a minute. Marshall had a point. Everyone seemed to be on the verge of antisocial aggression, save for Marshall. It didn’t take much effort to push Nick over the edge toward homicidal behavior. Castor almost melted Finch’s arm off over a seemingly insignificant slight. Athena had bitten Marshall’s head off at dinner merely because Marshall was trying to be positive with his outlook.
“Yeah, everybody seems crazy here. Everybody except for you, Marshall,” Alan said, and he took a bite of his chicken taco.
“What’re you talking about, kid? I’m the craziest one here,” Marshall fired back, his face lacking the trademark smile Alan had grown accustomed to.
“Everyone here is looking for a reason to start a fight, and you just try to keep us sane. What makes you crazy like us?”
“Because, kid,” Marshall replied, and he looked down apathetically at his meal. He stuck a fork in his rice and cleared his throat. He locked eyes with Alan, and, suddenly, he appeared far older than Alan had considered before.
“I chose to be here.”
✽✽✽
The next day was much the same: another sleepless night, more bossy supervisors, more beam placement, and a really sore back from standing around all day.
Alan groaned as his body slumped down into one of the lawn chairs out in the courtyard. Several of the other workers - George, Marshall, Athena, a woman named Lara, and Castor - were with Alan sitting around a small foldout table. Everyone but Athena had playing cards in their hands, with a pool of random odds and ends in the center of the table. Loose cigarettes, bubble gum in foil sticks, one blue macaroni and cheese box, and a pair of new tube socks.
“I take it Athena isn’t allowed to play,” Alan joked.
“And talkative little bitches,” Castor interjected, his eyes still locked in on his cards, which were shit as usual.
Athena’s mirthy smile broke open around her caramel lips as she responded to Alan’s question. “Yes, I’m not allowed to play. I’ve been told I cheat. But I’ve yet to see any credible evidence.”
Athena turned her gaze to Marshall who was still agonizing over his pair of twos and the loose bubble gum sticks piled up around his elbows. Athena cleared her throat and Marshall looked up from his cards. He looked back down at his cards and answered in a bored monotone.
“It is guilty until proven innocent in poker,” Marshall replied and then raised his voice as if reading off some grand prologue to a fantasy epic, “Prove your innocence and you can enter to win this vast treasure.”
“I’d rather watch you morons try to win with a pair of twos, a suicide king, and two cards short of a straight. And, George, you’re never going to get that second Ace,” Athena said in a dry tone. Everyone at the table threw their cards down in unison and groaned Athena’s name as loud as possible.
“Seriously, what the hell, Athena?” Castor shouted. “I’m going back to my room. You nerds can eat it.”
Castor pulled back from the table and went upstairs with what little winnings he had left. Alan, eyes wide and lips curled downward, looked around at the rest of the group.
“Eat what?” Alan asked.
“I’m not sure Castor even knows,” Marshall replied.
“I know he doesn’t,” Athena joked through squinting eyes and a big smile.
The group ch
ortled, and Marshall pulled all the cards together into a pile and stacked them up. If they lost anymore cards, they’d be hard pressed to put a straight together. Not that anyone ever really got anything that good to begin with.
“Who wins the pot?” Alan asked.
Athena looked down at the pile of loose junk sitting at the center of the table. “Is it really winning? I mean haven’t we won the lottery already?”
Athena raised her arms, motioning to the courtyard around them. George and Lara chuckled, and George grabbed one of the cigarettes from the pile and handed it to Lara who lit it immediately with her fingers. Marshall grabbed the box of macaroni and cheese before anyone else could. Alan raised an eyebrow at him.
“What? I like mac and cheese,” Marshall said defensively. “It’s the little things.”
“I’ve heard we have limited choices at the market, but that stuff has to be passed expiration,” Alan pointed at the blue box in Marshall’s hands.
Marshall looked down at the battered box. “Mac doesn’t go bad, Alan. Just crunchier. Besides, you can never find them at the market. When Castor put it down on the table, I knew it was my lucky day.”
Lara took a drag off her cigarette and let the smoke spill out of her mouth in trails. “Never seen a man so overcome by pasta shells and cheese dust.”
“It’s the little things,” Marshall acknowledged, shaking the box around to hear the melodious cascade of dried pasta. He nodded in Lara’s direction. “There is not a lot to savor here, but at least I can get my mac and cheese.”
Alan recalled what Marshall admitted to him earlier in the day. Marshall was here voluntarily. His admission now sat in Alan’s mind, festering in every conversation they had. It was hard to bear the tension.
Alan got up from the table and went back into the lobby where Finch was sitting at his desk watching the news play on a TV attached to the adjacent corner walls.
“This is not a time to be soft, Senator. Our very way of life is in jeopardy because of these individuals. Incarceration is the last of our worries,” the guest replied to the other show’s guest, a Senator from Oregon. The Senator was older, perhaps in her early fifties with graying hair, light skin and rosy cheeks. Her eyes squinted at the other guest’s remarks.
“Forgive me if I don’t see how these people should forfeit the rights we all hold so dear just because they were born different from us,” the Senator responded. “Do we represent freedom for all, or just for those we want?”
“Senator, we can’t afford the luxury of freedom for individuals who represent an existential threat to us. They could upend the fabric of society!” the man raised his voice, and the moderator intervened.
“It seems that we still have a lot to talk about, so we’ll return after these important messages…”
A commercial came on for a local politician. It started with a black and white photo of a smiling candidate and was interrupted by a voice over a man with a low, ominous tone.
“Senator Randall Marks put your children in danger by allowing genetic deviants to remain in your schools all across the state and made your tax dollars pay for it. This is not America. This is not California. This election day, say no to Senator Randall Marks.”
Finch flipped the channel to local sports and clapped the remote back down on his desk.
“Something I can do for you, Mr. Mitchell?” Finch asked, without looking up from his paperwork.
“No, nothing I can think of. Just thought I’d hear what was going on in the world.”
“Best to keep it out of your mind. Nothing either of us can do about it anyways,” Finch responded, and then he rubber stamped a document with a loud thud. Finch looked down at the names on the triplicate sheets, then cleared his itchy throat and ripped off the bottom copy and stuffed it into a red folder that then went into a filing cabinet. Finch slammed the filing cabinet drawer shut and looked back at Alan.
“We have an early morning tomorrow, Mr. Mitchell. Please, just go to your room, and leave me in peace. I don’t want to add any more names to the sheets tonight.”
Alan could feel his chest tense up. His eyes traveled from Finch’s eyes down to the pink sheets sitting on Finch’s desk. The bold heading jumped out from the page: Request for Removal. Everyone who got three strikes off the clock ended up as a name on a sheet and shipped out the next day. Poof.
Alan looked past the header: a list of names and serial numbers. Alan scanned it quickly. He saw a G and L name with serials.
“George and Lara?” Alan didn’t realize he said the names out loud.
“Mr. Mitchell,” Finch interjected. “I’m not interested in this right now. It’s been a shit day, and tomorrow’s going to be a. Shit. day. Just go to your room and thank your God in heaven that your name isn’t on this list.”
six
“Alan!” Athena’s voice echoed inside Alan’s brain, ping-ponging its way between his ear drums.
Alan was dazing at a box of cereal turned backwards on a rickety metal shelf in the old, repurposed grocery store. His eyes strayed away from the cartoon characters making fiber and iron puns to look at Athena, who was standing next to him in the aisle.
Alan couldn’t remember the last time he saw such a terrible grocery store. There wasn’t produce or meat; really, anything fresh was lacking. Alan looked back at the box of cereal, the date marked way past its expiration.
“Get out of your head, Alan. We don’t have much time left to get stuff before curfew,” Athena coaxed.
But Alan couldn’t get out of his head because he was still conflicted about what Marshall told him earlier at work. How could someone pick this life for themselves voluntarily? Alan contemplated that some special form of madness was constricting Marshall, pressing him into compulsory labor.
Alan gritted his teeth and picked up the dented cereal box. The faded orange box sported five different kinds of oats. Five, stale kinds of oats.
“You get out of my head,” Alan chided, his eyes slowly turning back to look at her. He smirked and tipped the box of cereal at Athena.
“I’m not, but don’t give me any ideas,” Athena said with an innocent smile.
Alan didn’t wait for her to finish and changed the subject to something that was bothering him.
“When Marshall said we were going to a grocery store, I thought maybe it would have… groceries,” Alan said with a grin and a raised eyebrow. Athena gave a short chuckle and looked at their aisle, sparsely filled with mostly boxed cereals and snack foods. The aisles to either side were also comprised of mostly canned foods and other snack foods that lasted a long time.
“Yeah, and they don’t replenish the stock very often. Just don’t lose your toothpaste. Trust me.”
“Oh, was I supposed to be brushing my teeth?” Alan joked, and he shook up the box of cereal. Athena punched Alan in the arm playfully. Alan feigned a groan of pain at her fist, cereal shaking around in its box. He sucked a breath in through clenched teeth and gasped.
“Stop!” Athena laughed, and she put Alan’s box of cereal back onto the shelf. “And you don’t want that. Especially if you won’t be brushing your teeth for the foreseeable future. It’ll rot them right out, and we can’t ruin that cute smile, can we?”
“Cute smile?” Alan questioned, his smile ear to ear. Athena felt the blood rush to her reddening face. What seemed like an hour was merely a few seconds before Marshall came jogging into the aisle with a basket full of mac and cheese boxes.
“Guys! Mac! They have mac finally!” Marshall showed them his haul, his outstretched hands holding up a plastic orange basket filled with an odd assortment of blue boxes with macaroni scrawled in elegant cursive. They rattled as he shook the basket, enthralled with his find. “They never have mac and cheese. This is the best day.”
Alan was still taken aback by Marshall’s revelation early, and now he was aghast that Marshall hardly seemed to care or remember what they had talked about before. Alan didn’t realize he was giving Marshall a weird
look until he noticed Marshall giving him the same look back. Athena had been talking in the void of conversation about missing chocolate, specifically dark chocolate in squares, when she noticed the two men were exchanging glances.
“Do I need to give you two a minute?” Athena asked, a box of shells and cheese in one hand and her other hand outstretched to the boys. Alan and Marshall looked at each other, not sure what the other was thinking. The one who could read minds didn’t much feel like doing it, and she was losing her patience with the deaf and mute routine.
“I can go back to the bus. Nothing looks good to me anyway,” Athena motioned to the entrance where the bus, and most of the crew, were waiting. Alan nodded. It seemed like the only thing his mind could do. Athena grabbed a box of cereal, a raisin and bran type, and dropped it into Alan’s basket.
The Department for Mutated Persons (Book 1): The Department for Mutated Persons Page 4
