Authors: Benjamin Parzybok
His communication’s director waved at him and he realized he’d been mouthing
bullshit
into the mic. It had gotten Councilwoman Jacobsen’s attention but she continued heedless, bulldozer-like, her lipsticked mouth moving like a puppet’s maw. There was far more applause when Councilwoman Marybeth Jacobsen finished her shrill speech, that was clear. Was he simply unpopular? Did they really think her plan so much better? He felt, and then managed to overcome, the impulse to throw something, an impulse that, admittedly, he’d not had the wherewithal to overcome in previous, they-would-not-let-him-forget-about-it council meetings.
He opened his plan again and read the summary to see how crazy it sounded. Opportunity Pipeline? It sounded insane.
But then he realized the essential question. The revelation vaulted him right out of his seat.
Keep cool, cowboy, keep cool
. Since he was standing, he plucked the microphone out of its holder and thanked Councilwoman Marybeth Jacobsen for her balanced plan, his arm pointing out into the air like Elvis Presley.
The council president was frozen, his mouth pressed to his microphone, on the verge of reprimand. “If you all will indulge me for one more moment,” the mayor said, “I have an addendum to make.” He tried to reel in his Elvis arm in a muted fashion, to keep his hips from shaking.
His advisers all seemed to be standing on the tips of their toes, leaning forward at thirty-degree angles.
“My friends, here is the essential question, the one each of us should be asking ourselves. Is this merely a long period of rotten weather. Or are we in a new era? Sure, your answer might pin you as an optimist or a pessimist. But it is vital that we ask this question of ourselves. It deeply informs the governing of this city, as well as our own lives. Do we make plans that make do, or do we stare hard into our future and create a city that thrives?
“You might call me a pessimist, then, when it comes to the weather. How many years more will we stumble weakly along, hoping for our deliverance? The drought is here to stay, folks. I’m a pessimist on the weather, but I’m a huge optimist when it comes to our city. I want us to thrive again! Fellow council members, as you consider these two plans I want you to look into your own hearts for your ambitions for this city. Are you planning to pass time, or are you planning for the future?”
If standing on the table now and Elvis-air-humping could in any small way add credibility to his speech, he would have done it in a heartbeat.
“My team and I have taken a stance. These are hard times getting harder. Our plan is skating ahead of the puck—” He realized he’d just used a sports metaphor and felt a moment of self-disgust.
“Thank you, Mr. Bartlett, Mayor,” Councilwoman Jacobsen said. Her mouth had gone strangely askew, gnawed on, one horrid red lip dry-stuck on a tooth, leaving a vampiric smear there. A few strands of her long brown hair were sweat-glued to her forehead. “I don’t think anyone here today is anything but hopeful and optimistic for our city. They’re all here, right? We’re all here putting in time to make the city better.”
It did not feel natural to stand any longer, and so he sat. As he did so he saw at the back of the chamber, slouching deep into his chair, Commander Roger Aachen of the National Guard. Immediately he felt in trouble, chastised. The commander hovered over them all like some parent, the mayor thought, checking to see if the chore he’d tasked his children might need to be redone.
A man of seventy or eighty came to the citizen mic and spent some time adjusting the belt of his tan slacks, after which he told the mayor what he thought of his plan: He loved it. He then proceeded to tell a
well-when-I-was-a-kid
, with the hard work and etc. The mayor imagined and immediately dismissed the idea of embracing the man, foreseeing the heart attack it might give the elder heterosexual.
More citizens came to the mic and spoke, many he’d seen before, passionate activists who had caused him constant side-ache. His advisors had copies of his plans for anyone who wanted one. Questions were asked and answered. Councilwoman Marybeth Jacobsen droned on.
A woman of about sixty, dressed in a patchwork skirt and a turquoise blouse, approached the microphone. “Mayor Bartlett? Many of us would like to know if you have caught Maid Marian.”
“Yes?” the mayor’s voice came out gravely and he cleared his throat. He’d been slouching in his chair, only marginally paying attention, his body’s gravity heavier in assumed defeat. Paying attention and not paying attention, a useful skill for weathering the umpteen million city council meetings he would attend in his lifetime. “I’m sorry, what?”
“This meeting stays on topic,” the council president said. “We’re discussing youth employment, not criminal activity, so I ask—”
“Have you caught Maid Marian?” she repeated.
The mayor had fixed the National Guard commander with a sort of internal tracking device, constantly aware of his movements, and at the repeated question felt rather than saw him lean in to absorb the answer.
“No,” the mayor said, “though I prefer not to call her by that name. The police chief and I are working hard on it. While we do not know the age of the suspect, these proposals”—here he gestured vaguely in the direction of the other council members—“will certainly go a long way to address issues such as”—he held his fingers in air quotes—“Maid Marian, meaning crime. I don’t think we’re entirely off-topic here,” he said, trying to win some small favor with the citizen at the mic.
“What about the illegal water routes that came out of her political action?” she asked.
“Ma’am?” the council president said.
“I—action? We consider her actions a crime, robbing a truck is a crime,” the mayor said. “But of course the truck—we are looking into it, but having water itself is not a crime. There’s no evidence that—”
“—If you do not stay on topic,” the council president droned on, “we’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“We need water transparency! Unequal water distribution is a crime, not the other way around,” the citizen said. Violent applause broke out across the room like a string of firecrackers.
“Ma’am?” the council president said in a voice laced thick with condescension and weariness, “OK, goodbye. Goodbye.” He turned to a policeman standing against the wall, “Officer, please remove the lady from the microphone so that we may stay on topic for once.”
“I hear that,” Mayor Bartlett said. He looked up at the audience uncomfortably as the officer took the woman by the elbow and steered her toward the exit. “I completely, totally hear you, and my office and the police force are working to address those issues.” He watched as she was maneuvered toward the doorway.
Commander Roger Aachen stood and followed the citizen out, and the mayor stared for a moment, transfixed by the closed doorway through which they’d exited, while the council meeting continued.
Riding in the dark, Renee was struck by the stench first. When they crossed into Northeast it was easily apparent that city services were breaking down.
There were great piles of garbage at the curbs and it reeked of rot and dead animals. The houses were dark but she heard people on their porches, sitting on their dried-out lawns. There were sounds of argument and violence, of doors being slammed and glass being broken, and she felt conversations go quiet as they rode by. She was thankful they were on bikes and moving along at a good clip, even as they hurtled recklessly through the night. She tried to search the road in front of her for objects and gripped her handlebars tightly. Further in was a great bonfire at the center of an intersection. People carried items from their houses and dumped them and the fire blazed wildly, sending a plume of sparks upward. She could see the skeletal hulk of a car in the blaze.
The dust storm had covered everything in a fine grit, and Renee tasted this on her tongue now as she rode. She was scared, and immensely happy Bea rode with her, conscious of what it had cost Bea already.
They turned toward the Cully neighborhood and two streets up, cycling hard in the dark, they collided with something stretched across the street, made invisible by the darkness. It clanged metallically when they hit and Bea and Renee were thrown from their bicycles, landing hard on the ground.
Renee stayed down, her cheek pressed against the blacktop. She tried to breathe through the new pain, a complement to the old. She could hear the scrabbling of feet and someone calling out but she was disoriented and didn’t move.
“It’s a motherfucking fence,” Bea said.
“Did what it’s supposed to.” A man’s voice in the dark. “You head back the other way now, and quick.”
Bea reached down for Renee’s arms and pulled her to a sitting position. Renee couldn’t get control of her breathing.
“We’re just passing through,” Bea yelled. “What the hell? Dumb droudies.”
“This is a safe area.”
“Safe from what?” Renee said.
“You,” the man said.
“Asshole,” Bea whispered. “We should go around. Can you get up?”
Renee stood and tried to see into whatever encampment was on the other side of the fence but it was too dark. They were a compound of some sort, she thought. “Maybe it’s safe in there.”
“You want to go in there?” Bea sighed disgustedly, and then yelled: “It’s Maid Marian.”
“No,” Renee whispered.
“Who’s that?” the man yelled back, but they could hear a hushed discussion on the other side of the fence and they picked up their bikes and waited, unsure of what to expect.
“You can pass when it’s light,” the gruff-voiced man said.
“But it’s Maid Marian.” This was a woman’s voice, and more hushed argument followed.
Somewhere to the west of them they heard two gunshots in quick succession, followed by another some seconds later.
After a scuffling and whispers in the darkness, a woman’s voice asked if they had a place to stay.
“We don’t know if they still live up here,” Renee said.
“Stupid to be out in the night,” the man’s voice said. “Come into the light.”
He cranked up a hand-powered flashlight and they proceeded toward the glow.
Renee leaned into the light and pushed back her helmet, conscious of her wounds. She looked at their faces as the shadows flickered over them and saw a range of ages and races that seemed to have nothing to do with each other. They were neighbors, she realized, banded together.
“It’s her,” the woman said.
“You better stay here tonight.” A woman emerged into the light, a pink headscarf wrapped around her hair, the tired marks of vigilance in her face.
Renee hovered close to Bea. It was only a dozen blocks or so to where they were going but her optimism had turned and running into the fence had jarred her. “Should we?” Renee whispered.
“It’s safer,” the woman with the headscarf said. “Sometimes at night there are raids.”
“Zombies,” the man said.
“—people on the lookout for water and food he means. They scavenge the empty houses, but they don’t exactly turn back when they find someone still living in one.”
They walked through a gate and passed men with guns and entered the block, fenced off at both ends. The woman with the headscarf walked in front and they followed in the dark. “I’m Lisa,” she said. “Each night two families keep guard. We work together, like a wagon circle.”
Lisa had two daughters, ten and fourteen, who scurried around preparing a guest bedroom by candlelight. She had an open intelligence in her eyes, the look of a woman who might have taught college or run a non-profit at one time, before the larger world turned violent and she’d turned inward to protect her family. She smiled at them, but couldn’t hold their gaze, dipping her head in embarrassment or shame or because she was afraid, Renee didn’t know which. Renee noticed her daughters stealing fleeting glances at her. She smiled back.
“What are you doing?” Lisa said. “I mean up here.”
Renee shrugged and thought about the answer. “Looking for the rest of our group,” she said finally. “We were separated.” She hunted around for something else to say. “We’re regrouping.”
Bea cleared her throat. “We’re going to find more trucks. We’re going to redistribute the stolen water back.”
Lisa looked up at Renee and she saw that there was awe there. It humbled Renee, someone older and wiser and more experienced looking at her as if she were someone who could really solve their problems. It made her feel like an impostor, like a sham, and she tried to rise to expectations. She swallowed and smiled. “My name is really Renee,” she said, “and this is Bea.”
In the morning, the Cully neighborhood in Northeast Portland felt like a strange desert outpost, with trash and dust blowing around in the street and people staring suspiciously from their porches. They heard another round of gunshots and accelerated toward
their destination.
When they arrived they stood outside their friends’ house and saw that it had burned. Dirt had been used to put out the fire, or to keep it from spreading to neighbors, but it had burned almost to the foundation. In the front yard there were scattered belongings and clothes, charred and filthy. The refuse left over after scavenging. Pieces of furniture and other unrecognizable items had been dragged from the scene and then discarded. Renee found among the detritus a trampled and heat-warped photo of her friends, the couple and their child posing in a pumpkin patch.