“Howdy.”
“
John
! Es tan bueno oír de usted. He estado preocupado.”
“Worried?” Wayne frowned into the phone. “What’ve you got to be worried ‘bout?”
“Oí ese Joseph Stalin—”
“You ain’t been talking to Welles have you?”
“Orson? No. No, un periodista llamó esta mañana, lo buscando.”
“Reporters,” Wayne repeated sourly. He pulled out his cigarette packet and shook one of the slender white sticks into his mouth. “There ain’t nothing to worry about, love. Welles is just playing some sort of joke. Probably like that radio play stunt of his.”
“Ah, bien. El periodista no pensó era un chiste. Quizá debe ser usted un poco más cuidadoso?”
Tiny spark of fire, a burst of smoke around the mouthpiece. “I’m always careful.”
“Bien, quizá usted puede ser un poco menos crítico del Comunismo?”
“I ain’t going to be quiet with my opinion just cause of some story,” he replied immediately. “This is America and I got the freedom to say whatever I want.”
“
John
.”
“Don’t
John
me like that. I’m right, and you know it.” He drew a long, satisfied lung full of smoke—his first since meeting Welles. “People ought to be free to say whatever it is they happen to be thinking, no matter what other people think. That’s what being American is all about. And don’t you say you don’t think that, ‘cause I know a girl on this phone that damn well stuck up for her right to say whatever she feels, and that’s why she’s an American too.”
“Acabo de preocupar es todo.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong with worrying—ah, Christ, that’s the door. My food. Hold a sec.” Wayne placed the receiver down and, as he walked to the door, pulled his jacket off and tossed it onto another chair. He opened the door, and said, “On the phone to the wife—”
The world stopped.
In the hallway stood a silver cart with his dinner, but behind the cart stood two white men. The left man—the blond one—wore the uniform of the Waldorf, but was obviously too big for it, while the second man—dark haired—wore casual brown pants, a white shirt, and a thick jacket. But it was not the strangeness of their dress, or the cold look on their faces that caused Wayne’s heart to skip one of its life securing beats.
The men held small silver pistols with thick silencers at the end.
Welles’ egg shattered.
“
Shit
.”
Wayne had no time to move. It was a blink to take in the scene, and in that blink, the whispered spit of the bullet sounded and pain burst in his chest. Blood blossomed—his cigarette tumbled—then blood blossomed again. He stumbled backwards. He screamed—or did he? His perception swam through the pain wracking his body. Had he called out to Esperanza?
His voice failed to call out as the two men entered his room. One closed the door softly, and another stalked in squeaky shoes across the floor. Wayne tried to push himself up, to lurch towards the shotgun, to grab anything. Yes, it was unloaded, but just grabbing it would buy him precious moments. Outside the rain was falling harder against the windows, it’s tempo matching his pulse as he moved across the floor, pounding, pounding, urging him on, pounding the beat of life for everyone as he pulled himself up against the table and reached for the box—
There was the whispering spit of a bullet again, and pain in his back.
Wayne crumbled onto the carpet, the box out of his reach. Groaning, he rolled himself over so that he could face his assassins, and meet his death.
The dark haired man crouched down in front of him. “Well, goddamn, John Wayne, dead at my hands. Who would’ve thought?”
“You god . . .
damned
. . .
snake
. . .” he muttered harshly, spitting blood.
“You don’t die like your films,” the man continued, taping the silver, silenced end of the gun against Wayne’s head. “Shame. My folks love them. Real American they say. But look how you die, man, all covered in blood like you’re just anybody.”
His vision was slipping, turning grey, but he spat out, “
Traitor
!”
“It isn’t that simple,” the man replied, softly and with contempt. “But if it makes you feel any better, Stalin’s money will be going straight back into the economy.”
Wayne’s right fist connected solidly against the man’s face and a loud, bony crack followed. A bullet sliced into his arm, snapping Wayne’s vision back into focus. The blond assassin was taking aim; Wayne dragged his companion in front of him—the man, dazed, his noise crumpled, offered no resistance. On the floor, his pistol lay like a silver dollar.
The whispering spit again, and the dark haired assassin jerked, moaning loudly.
Wayne grabbed the fallen pistol and brought it up.
The shots caught the blond man in the chest and pitched him backwards. Wayne, his vision dimming again, pushed the dark haired assassin away, intent on shooting him too, but there was no need. The man’s eyes were wide and his lips bubbled with blood: his breath sounded in shallow gasps as if he were asking God how the world he had been so sure of had failed so suddenly?
“Yeah,” Wayne muttered faintly, “I got that question.”
Orson Welles stood in the waiting room of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. It was different from how he last remembered it, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what that difference was. It just felt
wrong
. In fact, everything of late felt wrong. But then why should it feel right? He was standing in the horrible, antiseptic smelling white waiting room of the emergency ward, waiting for the Doctor, fearing the worse, and feeling responsible.
The Doctor emerged from behind the white doors. He was a narrow, white man, with short grey hair. In a quiet, serious voice, he said, “I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just that he’s lost too much blood, and one of the bullets struck a vital organ—”
“When?” Welles asked, his voice sounding as if someone else had spoken it. Why didn’t he feel anything?
Shock. It must be shock.
“When did it happen?”
“Ten minutes ago.” The Doctor paused. After a moment, his carefully constructed façade broke and disbelief slithered across his face. “I did not think it was possible for him to . . . I just didn’t think he would. He was so strong—a healthy, vital man, in every aspect. I just—I just can’t come to terms with what I know.”
“Doctor,” Welles interrupted kindly. “He was just a man.”
“He seemed more, somehow.”
“The lie of the screen.”
“Don’t you have anything to say?”
“No,” Welles replied softly. “What does it matter what any of us say, now?”
I was eleven when you gave me the knife.
The day was cold, grey: the end of winter, but early enough that my final year in St. Mary’s Sanctuary was a long way from completion. Despite that, on the day that I met you I was thinking about how good it would be to no longer have to walk past the fences that ran outside the school in thick, sandy brick; how I would not have to see the white guards who scanned the bags of all the coloured kids thoroughly every morning; and how I would not have to sit in the back corner of the classroom, friendless and ostracized. The contraction between these thoughts and the fact that the corridors I walked through were empty and I was early, again, did not escape me either. Soon, you would tell me that was how you knew my uncle was staying with me. It was a lie, of course: you knew because you were me.
I pushed open the blue metal door to the classroom and saw you standing in front of a map of the world. At first, I thought that you were a relief teacher, and if not that, a rich mother. I did not suspect otherwise: you were not black, you were not tall, and you did not have the thick, black curly hair that I had. You were white, of medium height, and with close cropped hair that might have been black if it had grown out. In short, you were as physically removed from me as you could have been. You were right not to tell me that this was me, that I was staring at my own future self. You were right to start our conversation by saying, “The infected areas are coloured red, right? It has been a while since I’ve seen one.”
The class had put the map on the wall in the previous week. It was a flat world, its spherical dimensions opened for autopsy, and spotted with red throughout to represent outbreaks of the Alrea virus.
“There is a theory,” you said, still having not turned from the map, “that the virus is proof of alien life.”
I did not have a reply for that.
“It’s in this country already.” You turned now to face me, revealing a smooth face that was neither youthful, nor old; but rather, one that was curiously still, like a mask. “It’s in New Orleans, brought over by Baker Thomas. Right now, he lives in a small community of infected—the number is fifteen, if I remember right. It isn’t difficult for him to hide, but in ten years, it will be impossible to keep his community a secret and he’ll have to take action. Just like you will with your uncle, Octavia.”
There had been no movement towards me and I had plenty of distance from you, but I felt threatened. You tried to alleviate that by telling me that was how you knew I was early to school; that you knew I did not want to spend the fifty minutes alone with him that I would normally relish after Mother left for her work. I enjoyed that time when he wasn’t there, but with him there, you knew that if I stayed, he would step closer to me and touch me. You knew that his eyes had a hungry glint that I had not yet properly identified, but was unsettled by. His presence was like a heavy weight around me when I stepped into the house and you knew that I had taken to locking the bathroom door after he had arrived. You should not have known, but you did.
You smiled, faintly. “On the weekend, he will take you and your mother to a dog fight. Two nights after that, he will come for you.”
“Why?”
Your faint smile turned sad. “I wish I could explain it to you. I really do. But all I can do is tell you that this will happen. Don’t let him touch you. Don’t let anyone touch you if you can help it.”
It was then that you put the knife on the table.
“Don’t forget this, yeah?”
It was straight and sharp and the handle was made from hard plastic. It was not a kitchen knife: it had been designed to hurt someone, to kill, if used correctly. It was a horrifying gift to me, and when the door to the classroom opened, I grabbed it and pushed it quickly into the bag at my feet before it was seen. I was horrified, yet comforted, and the confused emotions were still at play in my mind when you began walking to the door, nodding at the small white girl who entered.
I would have to die before I saw you again.
On the day of the dog fight, my uncle drove my mother and I to Jersey. My mother agreed, despite her abhorrence to violence, because she could not deny her brother anything.
His name was Robert, but he liked to be called Rob. Mother called him Robbie, the only one who ever did. He was tall, dark, and good looking, the organic farms he worked on paying him well in both money and lifestyle. He was paid so well, in fact, that in the seasonal breaks he could travel as he pleased and, every year, he would spend at least a month with his sister. Whenever this happened, however, all the rules that I lived by during the rest of the year were suspended. An intelligent, insightful woman, it was always disturbing to watch my mother purchase alcohol and junk food before his arrival and, after, allow us to be taken out to events that she otherwise would have scorned and ignored. Often, the events were loud, violent, and unsuitable for her demeanour and my age, but she would listen to no comment that said so. Even after her brother had pushed open the door to the bathroom I was in by “accident,” as he said, apologizing with a smile and a stare as he leaned on the doorframe, she could see no fault in him.
The dog fights that he took us to were in a rundown neighbourhood dominated by overgrown yellow grass lawns and houses made from brick and fibro. They had been erected cheaply and would last for years, but were reliant on city generators for electricity and heat, which most of the inhabitants could not afford. They could not afford the private solar generators that would alleviate this, either; of course, having those required the rewiring of their old houses, most of which were cheaper to demolish and rebuild.
The families living in these neighbourhoods were mostly black and Hispanic and my mother noted that as we left the gated community she lived in miles behind.
“You act like you haven’t seen that before,” my uncle said. “Like we didn’t grow up in a neighbourhood just like this.”
My mother: intelligent, proud, a lecturer at Engelman, a private college. Her disposable income rivalled many couples and never did she or I want for anything. But she had grown up so poor that only a brief influx of government scholarships and luck had given her opportunities her parents could not have.
In her brother’s truck, she said, “Doesn’t it seem like it’s getting worse?”
“Not really,” he replied. “We had a Hispanic President five years ago, ninety-five percent of the population is bilingual, there’s a public health care program. When we were kids there were private health funds we couldn’t afford and a lot more segregation through economics.”
“But the problem is still there. It has just become easier to deal with because there have been changes. There are not slaves—”
“Yet the ways of slavery still exist. We have the slave conversation every year, do you know that?”
If another person had said that, my mother would have rolled her eyes and a biting, sarcastic response would have slipped out; but to her brother, she laughed, and turned her head away from her evidence. “Why are you taking us to this thing? We’re going to stand out like eighteenth century Muslim women on a beach.”
“Not a Jersey beach.”
She laughed again.
I was forgotten in the back of the truck as their conversation, half teasing, half an argument, funny to them alone, continued. I don’t remember much more. I drifted off as I sat there and was jolted back to reality when the truck pulled up to the cracked pavement shoulder, hitting it accidentally. Ahead of us was a line of old, gasoline using vehicles, no one with an electric engine like ours.
Out of the truck, I felt my uncle’s arm around my shoulder before I saw it. “You’re going to enjoy this,” he said, closing the door. “It’s real—better than those shows you watch.”
His grip was firm and I couldn’t shrug out of it easily, but I had learned to deal with it. It bothered me that I had begun to become acclimatised to his touch, especially because I was aware that his fingers had not gotten any less confident—if anything, they had gotten more—and that I was growing to accept them, to view them as normal behaviour.
The house that he led us to was one with a large backyard. In it was a sizable crowd and in the noise and bustle of it, I was allowed to slip from his grasp and move closer to my mother, who had an uncomfortable stiffness about her. She had caught the eye of people around her: her clothes, though simple in terms of pants and shirt, were a designer label and had strong reds and oranges through them, while her hair was streaked with brown and touches of honey that only money could buy. In comparison, the colours around her were opposites: faded blacks, blues, and whites. In simple jeans and boots and a cheap t-shirt, my uncle looked earthy and honest, and he greeted people by name, shaking hands, and laughing.
The pit that the dogs fought in was in the middle of the yard. It had been dug by shovels and had chains attached to the side. As I drew closer, I saw two dogs at the end of the long, thick chains. The first was smaller, a red-haired male that moved a lot, pulling at the chain leash it was on, full of energy and anger. Opposite it was a larger dog, a big Labrador, its short yellow fur turning white around its paws and ears with age. It lay on the ground, patient, its brown eyes watching the dog in front of it with a flat, unpleasant interest.
People were calling out bets and my uncle did the same, forgetting my mother and I for the moment.
When the fight finally began, I watched, appalled. My mother was similarly affected, but buried her head in her brother’s shoulder. “Too much of that nice living,” he said to his friends when he put his arms around her. They responded with barks of laughter. I, however, could not turn away. I hated the sounds the dogs made, and the pain that was evident, but I could see something of myself in the fight. The smaller dog spent most of his time trying to escape the larger dog, using his speed, his teeth, his anger to bite and tear, but ultimately it was for nothing. The larger dog took the bites, rode through the anger—I thought,
I yelled at him when he stood in the doorway of the bathroom, screamed even—
and then used its experience, its size, and its strength to wear down the other, to smother it into a crying submission while men and women cheered and booed around it.
The morning after I stabbed my uncle, my mother, upon returning from the hospital he was in, asked me how it felt to hurt someone I loved.
“Fine,” I replied.
In response, she slapped me.
Her brother had come into my room while she attended the retirement party of a colleague at her work. Mother had asked him if he wanted to attend but the response had been one of dismissal—a grunt and shake of the head. I do not know then if he planned to push my door open at eight in the evening and approach me; or if he planned to run his finger along my shoulder and up to my neck; or if he planned to lean against my ear and ask why I wasn’t wearing a bra; or to tell me that he knew I wore one and knew the size. I do know, however, that he did not expect your knife to slide out of the table. He gave half a laugh when he saw it in my hand, and opened his arms, as if to hug me. It was a test, a taunt, and your knife punched into him, the skin of his stomach giving way beneath my strength. He screamed and there was blood, but after that I do not remember anything. He had hit me so hard that when I came to, I was lying on the floor, alone. It was not until my mother came home that I learned that Rob had taken himself to the hospital.
My mother said she felt an immense disappointment in me over the incident; there was no hate, no anger, just a bitter taste in the core of her being. “You didn’t need a firm hand as a child,” she said when I was sixteen. “You were different from any other I had seen.” We were in the kitchen and she fed sticks of bright orange carrot into the food processor that chewed quietly with its blades. “You had such an independence that it would’ve been awful not to recognize it and to treat you like a normal child, giving you boundaries to live by. You did not care for toys, for frivolous activities, for anything that would be a disruption. You were better than that. But I was wrong, I think. No, I know. You needed a boundary. You needed to be guided. Perhaps you even needed a father.”
She told me—just as she told you—that my birth was the product of artificial insemination. The sperm was paid for, the father not required, the traditional parenting roles that had been forced upon her ignored.
At least, they had been.
My mother fed another of the chemically grown carrots into the processor. “I don’t think that I want you to see this boy.”
She was talking about Gregory. He was a year older than me: thin, tall, and white. He was the first boy that I had shown interest in. My memory of him now is static, his clothing a mix of black and white and his hair shaved fashionably close to his head. We walked home from school every day together, though it took me an extra ten minutes to go past the complex he lived in, but he waited for me after school even when he had a free period, so the trade off was fair. We talked about events outside school, but mostly about the Alrea Virus. It had been finally detected in New Orleans and the government had closed the area because of it. News feeds displayed images of empty, crumbling streets, houses boarded up, and homeless men and women living in cracks that well-paid reporters could find. These images were accompanied by videos of Baker Thomas, refusing to die.
“You should stop telling the world we are sick,” he said, his face barely distinguishable in the distorted video that all feeds played. “We are healthy. We are strong. We are change. We are evolution.”
The speech had been released the night before my mother spoke to me. It had been passed off in the same way that the videos of violent religious groups often were: a delusional threat that would be dealt with soon. Gregory, however, knew someone who was going to play a full and unedited version. Some sites on the internet had reported that only a portion of the video had been shown, and that images of New Orleans being rebuilt and Thomas’ accusations of government neglect had been edited it out. The group holding the screening was called Focus, and were planning to play it and a documentary about Alrea in Africa and its supposed origins. It interested me, but I must admit, it was Gregory himself that interested me more.