They say they are precise, but they are casting a wide net. They are bottom trawlers. They sweep up everything and sort it out later.
They will be found out by their grandchildren. Much in the same way that some poor folks found their grandma's Nazi memorabilia, their grandchildren will find something. The mask. An ICE vest. A hat. Something.
And they will be filled with shame.
Democracy was a fever dream, I guess. It was bound to burn out. The statue of liberty will rust away to nothing. No one will travel, even if they do have their "papers."
When true evil takes a human form, all we can do is push back. Hope. Pray that the country will come to its senses.
When it does, if it does, we're going to have some explaining to do.
(Save for Mr. Mader)
ReplyDelete“Ed. Ed? Ed?”
ReplyDeleteThe single syllable pounded against my skull. Holy crap, why is my knucklehead brother still up? “Go to sleep, Frankie.”
“Can’t sleep. Ed?”
I sighed. “What, Frankie?”
“You think we’ll catch some bad guys tomorrow?”
“I don’t know, Frankie. Go to sleep, and we’ll find out tomorrow.”
“I keep trying, can’t sleep. You think they’ll be in that gang? You know, with the tattoos? The Trendy guys?”
“Tren d—I don’t know, probably not.” I could have bet Dad’s house on the not part, if I still had Dad’s house. Then again, if I had Dad’s house, I wouldn’t have had to take this shit job, and wouldn’t have had to take Frankie with me.
“Yeah. Those guys. I bet they’re scary.”
Undoubtedly they were. But did these guys seriously think they were going to catch any of those gang guys hanging around the parking lot at Home Depot? Those guys weren’t out looking for honest work. They were probably holed up somewhere, or had long fled the country. All this crew would find here were poor schlubs trying to make a few bucks for food by working on someone’s construction crew. Or picking strawberries. It was stupid. So fucking stupid. Every other day, I wanted to quit. Just rip off the stupid mask and throw down my gun and walk out. But then what would happen to Frankie? I saw Dad’s face in my mind, the last day at the hospital, asking me with one of his last breaths to look out for Frankie. So what do I do? Bring him along on some job that involved guns and bad guys – and the baddest of the bad guys were the ones who worked alongside us.
But Frankie got roped into signing up with one of his other knucklehead friends, thinking they were going to go play cops and robbers, or be superheroes or something, then that friend ghosted him, and Frankie said he was going anyway, no matter how hard I tried to stop him. My final gambit was to sign up too. The only way I knew how to save him.
“Think if we found enough of them, we’d get medals? I bet we get medals. Like Dad got in Nam. Like we’re fighting for the country.”
“You listen to too many of those stupid podcasts. They’re not gonna give us medals. We’re gonna get paid, then we’re gonna try to get Dad’s house back. You want to live in Dad’s house, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but—you’re wrong. We’re gonna get medals. Roger said so. He never lies to me.”
Yeah. Your knucklehead friend never lies to you, and that’s how you got roped into this operation in the first place. But I couldn’t tell Frankie that. He’d start wailing or something, that thing he does when he’s upset. I was always good at trying to calm him down, but I didn’t know if I could do it quick enough to avoid scrutiny. These guys—like I said, they were probably more dangerous than the supposed gang members we were supposed to be chasing down.
“Okay, Eddie. Maybe we will get medals, if we do a good job. But that means staying quiet. It means getting a good night’s sleep so we’ll be able to do a good job tomorrow. Okay?”
(continued)
(continuation)
DeleteEddie was quiet for a moment. I could hear him on the edge of tears, on that snuffly edge where he’s trying to hold it in, to soothe himself.
“Give me ten deep breaths, Eddie. Okay? Just let’s do that. I’ll do it with you.” By four, I could hear his breathing become steadier, and by eight almost back to normal. After ten, he sounded like his usual self. “Better?” I asked.
By the dim exterior lights shining through the window, I could see him nod.
“Now go to—” Then I saw my chance to get us out of this place, out of this terrible decision. Fuck the money. There were other things I could do. It might take longer to save up, but we could do it. The door was propped open. I remembered the last camping trip we took with Dad. One of those crystalline perfect evenings. We were almost kind of…happy. Eddie would bring it up every so often, asking when we could go camping again, if we could even do it without Dad.
“Eddie? I don’t remember reading any rules when we signed on about having to sleep in the barracks. I don’t think anyone would mind of we slept outside. It would kind of be like camping. Except it would make us extra brave.” I could sense his growing excitement. “But we can’t wake anyone else up, because that wouldn’t be nice,” I told him. “Just grab your bag and follow me.”
Eddie followed.