The Stringers, page 38
We kept walking over to the door leading out to the tracks, hidden beneath a sea of grass and foliage that had risen up as seeds of neglect. I gazed at the tracks and tried to envision what it might have looked like two hundred years ago, maybe more, when it had been bustling with passengers, either arriving from the East Coast in search of opportunity, or those departing for the unsettled regions near the Cascades. In the station, I pictured passengers sitting at the benches with their tickets in their hands, their children running around. The station had been used well beyond its purpose before the government had thrown in the towel, conceding to the way of the future decades after it had become a part of the past.
Jean’s palm slid against mine as she asked me if I thought I was like my father. Clearing my throat and stopping us next to the door, I looked out the frost-tinted windows as I explained to her how he had first worked undercover, then as an editor when the first job had proved unsustainable. Though his work at the tech company had paid well, he had never seemed quite happy in the role; it was only when he got home to write that his face brightened. My aspiration to work as a journalist, I liked to think, highlighted our similarities.
“I can only imagine what he’d think of me now, working for a newspaper gang,” I said. “Probably be ashamed of me. So I guess we’re not the same that way.”
I was put off for a moment when Jean laughed for the first time. It was a soft, but devoid of humor.
“I do not have to worry about this as you do,” she remarked.
“Why? Did your father do the same thing as you, too?”
Jean stopped and let go of my hand. Her complexion had darkened, and her eyes were cold and hard.
“My father was a pacifist,” she said.
“Oh…”
“I wanted to talk to you. Do you know why?”
“No.”
“I need you to do something before I tell you.”
“What?” I asked.
She looked at me with glassy eyes. “Hold me.”
I shook my head, pulling myself away. “What?”
“I will explain. Please just do it.”
Tentatively, I took her and put my arms around her, every muscle in my body contracting in an act of defiance. In the back of my mind I was prepared to feel a knife plunge into my gut or a bullet go through my chest, shivering when I felt her body touch mine. Her hands had been mildly chilled, but through her coat I felt the deep freeze that permeated her skin.
“Were you tortured by the ISA?” she asked.
I stopped and gaped at her.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Did the ISA torture you?”
I winced. “Who told you they did?”
“It is not important.”
I looked away from her as I nodded slightly. For some reason I couldn’t look her in the eye or said it aloud. Was it shame? Or embarrassment?
“How long did they torture you?” she asked.
“A night.”
“They did not let you sleep?”
I nodded and explained how the voices, the faces, had kept me up, and even though I had seen them and had them surrounding me I had still felt alone as a man stranded on an island. Jean listened and seemed intrigued by my description of the holograms and the AIs. She nodded her head rapidly as if to confirm a suspicion of hers.
“Did you want to touch them?” she asked.
“No. I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to be let go. But mainly I just wanted to sleep, if nothing else. Their talking kept me awake the whole night and morning.”
Jean thought over what I said quietly, her head cast down at the ground. She pulled me closer to her and buried her head in my coat, then stepped back and took my other hand. Her eyes then looked up at me before glancing at the ceiling and then at the overgrown tracks outside.
“I like to touch people,” she said. “I like to know they are real. When you were there among those AI you did not want to touch them. You did not want to touch them because you knew they were not real. You knew they were just computer programs and they did not listen to you. You knew they were not human. You said your father would be embarrassed about you? You worry about it, because you do not know. I do not because I know my father would be embarrassed. He would be ashamed if he were alive. He could be alive. But he was not healthy. He gave up all he had for his faith. He believed what Tolstoy said about God. We were not to own land. We were not to hate. We were not to resist evil. We were to love our neighbor as ourselves. We were not to answer to the government, but to God. We were poor and hungry. I did not complain, because I loved my father and he loved our family. I was the youngest of five daughters and two sons. They called me the baby. My eldest sister and brother went with my father when he spoke at churches or at places. I had to stay home with mother. But I knew one day I would get to go with him.
“For a long time nothing happened. The government did not bother my father. He was not a threat to them. But then the country got into a war and my father did not like it. He did not like it when they raised taxes to pay for it and told the men they had to enlist to fight. Father did not believe in war and he did not believe in taxes. He did not believe in conscription. He said he would not fight and kill his neighbor and no one else should. He also said we should not be forced to pay for someone else to fight a war. He did not write until the war. When the war started, a news site had him write a column about it. He wrote in it that men should not enlist. He said that people should not pay taxes for the war. If they were punished they should accept it. Father said he would accept it. The ISA officer for the news site approved his columns. But after it was published, something happened. People did not pay the tax. The people did not enlist. A lot of them did not do what the government told them. The government blamed my father for it. They said he wrote things in his columns that were not true. They called it ‘disinformation.’ The ISA officer who had approved his columns later said he had not approved them. Father had to prove he had received permission. He could not prove he was innocent.
“I was at school the day they came for me. I was only five. Many men came to arrest me in my kindergarten class. I must have scared them. They had big guns and wore masks. They handcuffed me and led me to some building outside of the school. They put me in a room and asked me questions. I never answered them. They said things to me that I knew were lies. They said I would be in trouble and my family would be in trouble if I did not answer. They said I would not see them again if I did not say ‘yes’ when they asked me questions. I did not answer ‘no,’ but I did not answer ‘yes.’ I did not answer at all. I know now they did this to my brothers and sisters. None of them answered. Then, when they asked the same questions many times, my brothers and sisters answered ‘yes.’ I did not know this then, but they had taken my father away. Our answers would not have stopped them from taking my father away. They took my mother, too. They wanted confessions from us. They wanted me to say that my father did not feed me. They wanted me to say that my father had hurt us when he told other people not to use violence. I did not say any of this. But my brothers and sisters did. They went to live with foster parents. But they took me in a detention cell and told me I would not leave until I did what I was told. Father had taught me that we did not have to obey people who tell us to do wrong. We were to obey people who told us to do what is right. They had asked me to lie about my father. Therefore, I did not need to obey them.
“They wanted me to lie. But they did not lie to me about what they were to do to me. I lived in the cell for thirteen years. I never left it. They gave me food and clothing to wear. But they did not let me leave. There was not much to do. I had to listen to the people in the room who were not real. They talked to me. They tried to teach me things. Some of them taught me how to do math. One taught me how to read and write. One person talked to me about history. I did not believe much of it. When they did not talk about those things they told me to obey. Obey, obey, obey. Stop resisting. They asked me questions. Why do you hate your country? Why do you hate people? Do you not believe in fighting evil over there so they cannot hurt you here? When I was six, I cried. When I was ten I stopped crying. I knew they were not people. When you ask someone to stop hurting you and they do not stop, they are not people. People care about other people.
“I remember what my father said to me. When I was in the cell I stopped remembering things. I did not remember what he looked like. I did not remember what my mother and my sisters and my brothers looked like. I did not remember what any of them looked like. I did not remember what real people looked like. I did not remember what the world looked like. I forgot what it was like to have someone hold me when I was scared or sad. I forgot what it was like to touch someone. I had people talking to me. But they were not real people. I was alone. I tried to touch them. But when I tried to touch them my hand went through them. It did not stop me. I did it every day. I did not see why I should not. I did not know what they could do to me that could make me worse than I was. I screamed at the people when I couldn’t touch them. I screamed until I could not talk. I did this for a long time. I knew the guards were real when they came in one day and hit me. I was twelve. I could not stop them. I did not try to stop them. I believed what my father said about resisting evil. My behavior did not affect the guards. They hit me when I did not scream or yell. I got older. I got stronger. I thought about what Father said. He said if someone slapped us on the cheek we were to turn the other cheek. He did not tell me what to do when they did other things. If they took our cloak, we were to give them our tunic. I did not have a cloak or tunic. They had given me my clothes and when they took them off me I did not resist. They did not ask me to go a mile with them. They asked me to lie about my father. Or they did not ask me. They did things without asking.
“One day, a guard came in to hurt me. He thought I would not resist him as I had not many times before. But I had changed my mind. Father said it was wrong to resist evil with violence. I did not want him to hurt me again. But there was nothing I could do to stop him. I could not run away from him. I could not scream for help. I could not call the police. He was the police. I did not feel like I was doing right by allowing him to do wrong. When guard came to hit me, I hit him. My hand hurt, and he looked up at me from the ground. Blood was on his lips. He looked at me and did not say a word. He then screamed and used his taser on me. When he turned it off, he started to hit me. When he stopped I had blood on my lips, too. He laughed and used the taser on me again and then took me out of the cell for the first time in many years with something over my face. When I could see again we were in a vehicle and I saw an old bridge and a big lake outside. The guard said it was Lake Washington. He stopped the vehicle and pulled me out. He told me I was eighteen and no longer in their custody. He hit me before he drove off and when I woke up I was alone. Alone, yet free.
“I wanted to live in Bellevue. But it was hard for me. They have people like me there. But they have to hide and are not allowed to be seen. I had to spend most of the day in a room. I had lived in a room for thirteen years. I did not want to do that. I did not know anything. I had no Prizm. I had to rely on others to survive. I learned nobody gives you something for free. Someone would give me food if I gave them something. It seemed even when you have nothing you still have something they want. I left Bellevue and went to Seattle. I fit in better. But I still did not fit in. People looked at me and wanted me dead. I did not know why. When I was a child I had thought like my father and believed it was wrong to use violence. We were not to defend ourselves. But now I did not see how this worked. He was dead or in a cell. So was my mother. I had no hope of finding my brothers and sisters. I had been hurt by the guards. They had only stopped when I had hurt them back. They had liked it when I had not resisted them. I decided I was not going to do that. If someone wanted to hurt me, I would not let them. I found it was easy to hurt people who wanted to hurt me. I did not see them as people like my father or I. They were like the people who had talked to me in the cell. They spoke like people. They talked like people. They looked like people. But they were not people. People do not believe in doing things to others who are not hurting them. They are different. You can hurt them and they will stop hurting you. So I did to them what they wanted to do to me. Others liked what I did. The Fifth Avenue Boys liked it, too. They saw me fight someone and they talked to me about it when I was done. They let me be with them. They were not nice. But they did not try to hurt me like others had. They let me be alone when we did not work together. They want me to kill. I kill. I do not see it as resisting evil. I am not resisting evil. You cannot resist evil when you are not being attacked. If you hurt them before they hurt you, you are not resisting.”
She finished and looked at me expectedly. Caught wholly unprepared by her story, I was left in a disorganized state, lacking the confidence to say anything back. I assumed she wanted me to make a judgment about it. I had none to give. All I had the courage to do was to ask her why she had told me about herself.
“Do you understand?” she asked.
“I suppose.”
She kept staring at me with a blank expression. It was not like the stare people held while using their Prizms, but it betrayed no thought of hers, whether she was contemplative or infuriated by my restrained reaction. It was impossible to ascertain what it was exactly she wanted from me.
I winced, still wary of violence. “I hope that doesn’t anger you.”
“No. You do not anger me. I have not told anyone this but you.”
“Why me?”
“You are not like them.”
“Who?”
“The other people in this city,” she said as she looked up at me. “I trust you. I do not trust them. I want to talk to someone.”
“Don’t we all?”
“I did not want to talk to you when I first met you. But someone told me about why you were here. They said you would not betray your father. I trust you because of that.”
“I see…” I hesitated. “But that doesn’t explain why you pointed a gun at me the first time we met.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded and looked down at the ground. “I am sorry for that. I sometimes forget what is happening is real. I cannot tell if the person in front of me is real. When I saw more of your face you looked like the guard who would come into my cell. He was older, but you look the same. I thought you might be him. I felt sorry when I realized you were not him.”
I didn’t answer quickly enough for her.
“I lived in a cell for thirteen years,” she said. “I do things that do not make sense. If you lived in that room you would do the same things.”
I desired to be diplomatic, but I didn’t mince my words. I was too bewildered to speak delicately. She was also not a fragile creature, as I had seen. If she could endure a brutal physical beating, she could stand up under verbal scrutiny.
“Can you really blame me for asking?” I replied. “Forgive me if I am a little concerned.”
“I told you these things. Do you not understand?”
“I don’t know what to say, other than I’m sorry about it all.”
She started crying soundlessly, her tears glistening as they ran down the corner of her eyes in single streams. Her words squeezed out between controlled inhales.
“I know my father would be ashamed of me,” she said. “He is in jail now. I know it. He cannot see me. He cannot see what I do. But I know if he saw me he would want to stay in his cell. He would want to go back. It would be better for him than to see me like this. I did what I did because I loved him. I still love him. He may love me, because he is required to love me. There are people you love because you want to and those you love because God commanded you to. My father may not see me as his daughter anymore. I am a stranger to him. This is not the same for you. Your father is not ashamed of you. He does not know what you do. You can tell him if he does. Do you understand? I will not see my father unless I die. I cannot explain it to him. I cannot be anything but this. I am who I am. I tried to be like him but it did not work.”
“You mean what you do?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to kill people.”
She shook her head resolutely, as though she had debated the matter internally many times and come to the same conclusion.
“It is the only way I am free,” she said. “I am not good at anything but this. What else is there?”
A long silence pervaded us. For no particular reason, I felt the irresistible craving for tobacco. Probably to break the awkward lack of conversation. Hoping I still had some from Port, who was constantly stuffing them in my coat, I searched and grimaced when there were none. I had thrown them all out. I looked at Jean with a stupid look on my face.
“Got a smoke?” I asked.
Her scowl broke and she grinned, taking a small thin white stub from her coat. She pressed it into my hand and lit a match for me. The cigarette burned, waiting for me to breathe life into it. I held it back, afraid I was about to make a big mistake.
Tentatively, I inhaled briefly. I instantly tasted a mint flavor overlapping the bitter taste of the tobacco leaves. I didn’t get to exhale, though as I choked and coughed up the smoke. Jean giggled as I doubled over and cleared my lungs. I tried again and this time succeeded in blowing out a wisp of smoke without throwing my back out as well. I hated the taste of the tobacco; it was like drinking ten-day-old coffee warmed up in a microwave. But I definitely felt calmer.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
She stood still, her face equivocal.
“I want to trust someone,” she said.
“To do what? And trust is a two-way street.”
“I know. I will need your help. One day I will. Or you will need my help. I remember about my father. He had no friends. No one helped him. I do not know why he did not have friends. But I want to have a friend. I have no friend. I did not think I could have a friend. There was no one I wanted to be my friend. That is why you are different. I want you to be my friend.”
