DMV, page 9
He had gone into the woods not only to discover if there was a way out, and, possibly, learn where they were geographically, but also to get away from everyone else and be alone.
He didn’t think he was alone, though. He could have sworn that he was being followed, that someone was tailing him, because each time he stopped walking, he heard several seconds of noise not his own, crunching sounds, as though a person was walking over leaves and rocks and dirt. Once, he thought he saw a shadowy figure duck behind a pine tree.
The surveillance was unsettling but entirely believable. It seemed to him that this was as much a concentration camp as a training camp, and Jorge vowed that as soon as he was released, he would bring everything to light. These bastards were going to pay.
In the meantime, he would toe the line, bide his time and do everything he could to make them think he was falling for their happy horseshit. He knew the whole point of this camp was to break him down, brainwash him, make him into a good soldier, but there was no way in hell that was going to happen. He wasn’t some weak-minded pato who could be programmed to join the team. He knew exactly what was going on and was well prepared for it.
Jorge heard Durrell stirring on the other side of the door. Taking off his pajamas, he got into the shower. The warm water felt good, but it didn’t last long, and he finished pretty quickly. He would have taken an even shorter shower had he been rooming with someone else, but Durrell washed himself only every other day and wouldn’t need hot water this morning.
The bathroom was pleasantly steamy, and he dressed slowly, enjoying it
“Why so long in the bathroom?” Durrell asked when he came out. “Spankin’ your franklin?”
Jorge didn’t bother to answer. He’d gotten used to his roommate’s rude remarks, and while Durrell might think his witless banter was helping them bond, it just made Jorge think he was a jerk. A redneck jerk.
That was another thing Jorge had noticed about the camp. The lack of diversity. From his own observation, many people of color seemed to work at his local DMV. At least, it appeared that way whenever he was there. But here at the training site, there was…him. Everyone else was white. There was no one else Hispanic, and no one Asian, African-American or anything else.
That seemed suspicious.
The actual training was going well, however. For the moment, they were alternating between two classrooms, a small one with only a blackboard and two rows of desk chairs, and a bigger one with computer stations for each of them. Against his will, Jorge found the classes interesting. He was legitimately learning a lot, and even if he didn’t end up working for the Department of Motor Vehicles—and he had absolutely no intention of doing so—the skills he gained would definitely help him find employment elsewhere.
The strange thing was that only trainees seemed to be living here at the camp. As far as he could tell, they were out in the middle of nowhere—so where did the instructors stay? Or the administrators and service workers? Or the “customers” and “staff” of the replicated DMV office? Were they driven in each day? There was zero indication of that—no vehicles ever seemed to enter or leave the camp—but neither, as far as he could tell, were there any accomodations for them.
The whole thing was confusing.
Early on, he had tried talking this over with Durrell and his other fellow “recruits,” but he’d quickly determined from their lack of curiosity that they had no interest in learning about this place where they were confined.
Another reason to be suspicious of them.
There’d been no sign of “Mr. White” or “Mr. Black” since he’d arrived, but the individuals conducting the training program, as well as the considerable support staff, all had similarly suspect names: Mr. Street, Ms. Rhodes, Mr. Light, Ms. Trucks.
While Durrell was in the bathroom getting dressed, Jorge walked over to the cafeteria. Assigned partners were supposed to eat breakfast together, but after that first morning, Jorge had successfully avoided going anywhere with Durrell. The last thing he wanted to do was spend more time with that hillbilly than he had to.
He was the first recruit to arrive, and after picking up a plate of French toast with bacon and a cup of black coffee, he sat down at a table near one of the windows, looking out at the administration building as he ate. A few minutes later, Jean, one of six women in their group of trainees, walked over and, without asking, sat down at his table and set her tray down. “Good morning,” she said.
He nodded silently. He resented her being here, and wondered why she hadn’t chosen to sit at one of the other, empty tables. The two of them had never really spoken before, and it was odd that she’d suddenly decided to sit with him.
“So how do you think things are going?” Jean asked.
He came right out and said it. “Are you here to spy on me?”
“What?” Her surprise was genuine, but he couldn’t tell if she was startled by the accusation or by the fact that he had correctly guessed her intent.
Her followup reaction was equally suspect. She laughed. A not very believable laugh.
Jorge looked straight into her eyes. “I was asking if you sat down at my table in order to spy on me.”
Jean stood, picking up her tray. “If I’m not wanted…”
“You’re not.”
Offended or mock-offended—it was impossible to tell which—she left, moving to another table, but soon after, Al, a burly talkative truckdriver who’d told Todd on the first day that he was applying for a job at the DMV because he wanted to change careers and “become one of the regulators instead of the regulated,” sat down in her vacated seat. His partner, Jay, was right behind him. “Where’s Durrell?” Jay asked.
Jorge refused to look up from his plate. “Don’t know, don’t care.”
“You know,” Al said, “that was pretty good yesterday when—”
“I don’t get why you’re here,” Jorge said.
The other men looked at each other, seemingly puzzled.
“There are plenty of empty tables, it’s pretty clear I’m not a morning person, and you’ve never eaten with me before. What’s so special about today?”
Jay seemed flustered. “Well, we…”
Jorge stood. “The table’s all yours.” He had finished eating, and he took a last sip of his coffee before walking away and leaving his plate and cup behind.
Outside, he breathed deeply. The air seemed cooler than it should be for this time of year, making him think that wherever this place might be, it was probably at a higher altitude than home.
Home.
What did Beverly think was going on? He had no idea, but he was sure that she missed him as much as he missed her. Hopefully, she was looking into this, trying to find a way to get in touch with him and maybe, eventually, get him out of here. Because she had to know that this wasn’t the way a real recruitment worked. Whether it was a private corporation or a government agency, thugs didn’t just show up to your house and take you away for “training.” There was something seriously wrong here, and Jorge hoped that Beverly was smart enough to rope in Rosita and get her involved, because if anyone would know how to take this on, it was his sister.
He probably had over an hour until the first class today. Not everyone had come to breakfast yet, and they always gave everyone plenty of time to eat, as well as some time afterward, before starting instruction. There were no clocks in the camp, but a series of bells alerted them as to when activities began and ended. The one for the initiation of breakfast had sounded only recently, which meant that he had some time before the bell signifying the end of the meal would ring, and another five or ten minutes before the start of classes.
It was an opportunity to explore a little, and he slowed his pace, glancing around. There were surveillance cameras on the roofs and side walls of every building, no doubt, trained on this entire area, but he saw no one about, other than a few straggling recruits walking toward the cafeteria. If anyone was outside and watching him, Jorge could not see them, and he decided to take a chance. Sauntering casually, he followed the walkway that led around the library and study center…then continued on, stepping off the concrete path at a point where the foliage was thickest. He maintained an air of nonchalance, as though this was something he did all the time.
Jorge smiled to himself. If any of those whitebread nazis attempted to stop him, he would say it was a cultural thing. Si, Mexicans liked to walk after breakfast. It helped to digest.
But no one stopped him, and moments later he was in the woods, out of sight of any building. He paused to listen, but heard no sounds other than crows cawing overhead and a nearby scuttling lizard.
There was no indication that he was being followed.
This direction was opposite of the one in which he had gone before, and the terrain here was slightly different. On the other side of the camp, it had been flat, and he’d encountered nothing other than trees and bushes before reaching the wall. But here, there were jutting rocks and a dry stream bed, as well as a wide arroyo. If there were a wall here, it was farther away from the buildings than it had been on the other side, and soon he was so far out in the wilderness that he wondered if he would even be able to hear the bells if they rang.
Keeping an eye out for hidden surveillance equipment, Jorge decided to go down into the arroyo. If there were some sort of barrier marking the edge of the DMV’s property, it was conceivable that this ravine might continue to run beneath it.
He was attempting to keep track of time, but that was almost impossible without a watch or phone. He figured he still had a good half-hour until class started, though, and while it would probably take him longer to climb out of the arroyo than go into it, he should at least be able to check it out and get an idea of what was down there before having to return.
He started walking along the edge, looking for a path.
What would happen if he didn’t show up for instruction today? he wondered. Undoubtedly, they would send someone after him. And after he was found? It would be nice to think that he would be expelled from the program and sent home, but Jorge doubted that would be the outcome. More likely, he would be punished, and as crazy as it sounded, he could see himself not just confined to quarters but imprisoned in some sort of cell— or even beaten.
Could he hide out here and avoid them until he found a way to escape?
That seemed unlikely, and Jorge decided that his best bet would be to return on time and avoid arousing suspicion.
So maybe he’d save the arroyo for another time.
He could still walk along the edge of it, though.
He continued on, peering through the trees and trying to find another wall, but the way ahead was unobstructed by anything manmade, and it was clear to him that the DMV owned far more land on this side of the camp than the other.
Why? Jorge wondered. Was there something out here?
He continued on, thinking that he should probably turn back soon. Moving away from the arroyo, he followed what looked like some type of animal trail through the woods.
The buzzing was so subtle at first that he thought it was his imagination or the result of an auditory problem. Too much wax in his ears, perhaps. But the sound grew stronger, and Jorge quickly realized that the noise was coming from up ahead. He’d been about to return to the compound, but he pressed on a little further, walking rapidly. Through the trees and bushes, in stark contrast to the surrounding greens and browns, he could see a series of off-white objects clustered together in a grassy clearing. They were far taller than he was, and symmetrical in shape, but it was impossible to tell what they were.
The closer he approached, the louder the buzzing grew. It sounded like…bees, and as he slipped sideways between two sticker bushes, Jorge understood that the whitish things in the clearing were hives.
He stopped and stood at the edge of the glade. The beehives resembled nothing so much as a small city, although, looking at them, Jorge was not even sure that they were beehives. Rather than the roundish blobs hanging from trees that he’d seen in illustrations for children’s books, or the stacks of white boxes that modern beekeepers tended, these objects were sculpted out of what appeared to be honey-filled wax fashioned into geometric shapes. Swarms of the insects, thousands of them, moved purposefully around and between the shapes in ordered uniformity. He was hypnotized by their movement, and their buzzing no longer sounded like undifferentiated noise to him but a song or language. It rose and fell, displayed different tones and registers, had a sort of rhythm.
Above or behind the buzzing, Jorge heard the sound of crackling leaves and rustling bushes. Someone running. More than one person. Seconds later, his arms were grabbed from behind.
Yanked around and found himself facing two men in security guard uniforms. The one holding his arms was younger than he was, with a shaved head and an angry expression. The other was heavy and older, with a thick mustache. “This is a restricted area,” he said.
“Sorry,” Jorge told him. “I didn’t know.”
The skinhead leaned forward. “The shit you didn’t, wetback.”
Jorge looked him in the eye, spit on the ground. “Pendejo.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s how your mama described you last night.”
The older man laughed. “Come on,” he said, slapping his partner on the shoulder. “Let him go. He needs to get back to his training.”
Indeed, faintly, from far away, Jorge heard the bell announcing that breakfast was over.
The skinhead let go of him, and although his first impulse was to kick that racist’s ass, Jorge managed to restrain himself.
The older guard pointed. “Head straight through there. It may not look like it, but it’s a shortcut.”
Jorge nodded.
“And make sure you don’t come back. This area’s restricted.”
He didn’t respond but set off the way he’d been directed. Oh, he was coming back here, Jorge thought. Something was being kept secret, and if they didn’t want him here, this was exactly where he ought to be looking for it.
He made it back to the classroom just as the final bell rang.
TEN
Opening the mailbox, Danny saw on top of the small stack of bills and ads a purple-edged envelope from the DMV. He frowned. That couldn’t be right. He hadn’t taken the driving test yet, and his learner’s permit wouldn’t expire for another four months. Looking at the envelope more carefully, he saw that it was addressed to his dad.
His mom pulled the stack of mail out of his hands as he brought it into the house. She frowned as she saw the top envelope. “What is this?” She tore it open, her expression growing increasingly confused as she scanned the single sheet within.
“What’s it say?” Danny asked. If it involved his dad, he wanted to know.
“It’s about the Jeep,” she said. She reached a point where something in the notice shocked her, and a look of black anger animated her features. “What the hell?”
“What is it?”
His mom glanced up. “The Jeep was used in some sort of robbery, and it says that makes Daddy legally liable.”
“Even though he’s…?” Danny could not even say the word.
“Well, we’re responsible now. Or, rather, I’m responsible.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t make any sense. He sold that junker three years ago. If the new owner used it in a crime, what does it have to do with us? It’s that guy’s fault. Or whoever he sold it to.”
Danny took the paper from his mom’s hand and read it. The consequences weren’t spelled out, but it did say that because his dad was “legally liable” for “providing material assistance in the commission of a felony” there would be “significant penalties.”
His mom was right. It didn’t make any sense. How could a Jeep they no longer owned be their responsibility?
“Do you know who he sold it to?” Danny asked.
“I’ll have to look it up. There’s probably a file for it.” Her voice softened. “Daddy was always good about that. He kept track of everything.”
That was true, Danny thought, and, as stupid as it was, recollection of his dad’s organizational skills made him tear up.
Almost anything connected to his dad brought tears to his eyes now. There was so much about his father that he’d taken for granted, and it was only since he’d been gone that Danny realized how truly lucky he had been, how lucky they had all been, to have him.
Needing time alone, Danny went back to his room, holding in his tears until closing the door behind him, then angrily wiping his eyes. He hated feeling like this, and the horrible part was that there was no one who could make him feel better. His dad was the one who’d been chief consoler in the family. His mom was naturally more negative, and his dad had always been the one telling them to cheer up, look on the bright side, that whatever was weighing them down was only temporary and would soon be gone.
But this was not something that was ever going to go away. It was the way life was now. The way it was going to be forever.
Moments later, his mom knocked lightly on his closed door, then pushed it open. “I found it,” she said. “The paperwork for the Jeep. I thought we’d sold it to someone, because I remember several people coming to look at it, but it turns out Daddy donated it to a children’s charity. I guess the tax write off was more than what he’d get for that hunk of junk if he sold it. I have the title transfer here, though, and the receipt for the donation, so there’s no way we can be blamed for anything. Although how a charity got itself involved in a robbery is a mystery. Probably one of their loser volunteers took the Jeep.”
“So what are you going to do?” Danny asked.
“I’ll call the DMV and try to straighten this thing out, if I can get through. But I want you on the other line,” she told him. “I want a witness.”
