Mad Boys (29 page)

“I want to fight, too. I want to die gloriously.”

“This is not your war, Web.”

“I have no father, no mother, no country anymore. All I have is the cause, the ideas you’ve given me.” I meant those words, and yet when I spoke them, they reminded me that there was more to say. I repeated, “The ideas and. . . .” I paused. I didn’t want to say any more.

Siena looked me up and down. She knew I was hiding something. “Yes, you have our ideas. They have become your ideas. They have become you. This we know. What else? What is it that we do not know?”

“Nothing,” I lied. But it was a weak lie. As Father used to say, you should never lie with your pants down.

“There is something else. What is it?” Siena’s voice was hard, cutting. “I can feel your concern for this other, this alien thing. What is it?”

I said nothing, but she pressed me.

“The love for your mother has returned, weakened you—is that it?

“No.”

“Another cause? You’ve been reading the propaganda leaflets dropped by the government planes.”

I shook my head. “No, nothing like that.”

She grabbed my shirtfront. We were eyeball to eyeball. She was exactly the same height as myself. Her smooth face, nose, lips were all like my own. The only difference between us was in the eyes; hers were like the black dimes of Langdon. “What, then?” she asked. “What else can rank with the great idea of freedom from repression? Or equality for all? Or wealth for the many instead of the few? What?”

“Ike,” I said.

She let go of me. “I should have known.”

“He’s my blood brother. We’ve parted over ideas and causes, but he’s still my friend.”

Siena poked at the fire. “It’s normal that you should love your friend.”

“It’s the only kind of love in me.”

“Do you believe in the rebel cause?”

“You taught me.”

“But do you believe?”

“Yes,” I said sincerely.

“At the same time, you love your friend and wish to see him free?”

“Yes,” I said sincerely.

“You understand that the love you feel for your friend betrays the cause.”

“Yes. Couldn’t you just let him go? He’s an American. He’s not part of our fight.”

“That was true until he proclaimed his principles. He is a dangerous adversary to all sides. Not only us rebels, but the government, the United States, and, most important of all, VRN.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Your friend is a professed pacifist. If he’s allowed to spread his ideas, it could be the end of the world as we know it.”

“I have to stick by him—he’s my blood brother,” I said.

“Web, I’ve tried to teach you about the cause. It’s all I have.”

She started to leave, and then she stopped. “I feel all these complicated things toward you. I couldn’t begin to explain them. You and me, we’re going to have to decide who we belong to, what we belong to.”

“You’ve already decided. You just told me.”

“Web, I’m as lost as you.” And she walked away from me.

I sat alone by the fire, empty and weak. I wished the war would start up again. These cease-fires were confusing.

The next day the Director himself arrived, not a holograph, but in the flesh, the real thing. He didn’t speak to us directly, but over an electronic bullhorn that made his voice sound even more like the Director in my imagination. And by speaking from a portable raised platform, dragged by a jeep, the real Director kept a distance between himself and the rebels.

“Siena,” called the Director. “Come here.” He spoke in English, and a translator put the words in Souvien.

Siena marched to the platform. “The following names have been supplied to VRN by rebel leaders. Siena, will you read them, please.” A VRN assistant delivered the list to Siena, and she read it aloud.

“These boys are Good Boys,” the Director said. “They will become Good Soldiers, and they will be allowed to fight in the great battle to come.”

A cheer went up from the troops. I did not cheer. Two boys were not on the list, myself and Ike.

After that the Director played a videotape of my conversation with Siena the night before.

“Siena,” the Director said, “You started strong, but you weakened at the end of the scene. Your loyalty to the cause has been called into question.”

“I will sacrifice my life for the cause, I will do anything for the cause,” Siena said.

“And you, Web,” the Director said, “You’ve undermined Siena’s resolve. You must choose between your friend Ike and the cause.”

“I choose the cause,” I said.

“It’s not as easy as that,” the Director said. “The two of you must pass a test. Siena, will you take such a test?”

“Itsyen,” said Siena in Souvien. (Translation: yes.)

“You, Web. Will you the take a test?”

“Itsyen,” I said.

A cheer went up from the rebel band.

The test was simple. I would be given a gun with one bullet in it. At a public execution, I would kill Ike. If I failed to pass the test, Siena would kill me.

THE EXPOSITION OF THE UNCANNY

In humans the past accumulates in the form of distorted memories that sicken us with questions. What is real? Who am I? Since the questions spring from experiences which are perceived only fleetingly and defectively, on the fly, as it were, and since the experiences are then stored in the defective database of human memory, it follows that our profound questions cannot lead to profound answers. So perhaps the cure for the malaise of memory is in the creation of an entertaining artificial profundity, an exposition of the uncanny

—From the Journal of Henri Scratch.

The order came: “Move out!” I’d done it enough to know the routine: gather my sleeping bag and my few belongings, stuff them into my backpack, grab my R.O.C.K. 99 machine gun, and fall in with my squad. Today everything was different. I packed my things, but when I slung my gun over my shoulder, Siena held out her hand.

“Web, give me the piece, please,” she said.

I unslung the gun and handed it to her. She took it gently. “It will be returned with one bullet in the chamber,” she said. The cold in her black dime eyes told me that she had decided she would kill me if I didn’t kill Ike. I respected her.

In the next moment, I got a glimpse of Ike at the end of the clearing in the woods, maybe a hundred feet away. They’d put him in a cage of alder saplings. I moved toward him, but Siena blocked my way. Four strong men lifted the cage and took Ike away. I watched them vanish in the trees.

Meanwhile, all the rebel units began to gather. It was the first time we had been brought together as a single group. I was surprised how big the force was, five or six hundred troops, including some village women and even a few children. Some of the Souvien soldiers shared cherries and apples picked from wild fruit trees. Others had adopted $$$ Indian ways, garnered from studying cave drawings created by native peoples of long ago. These soldiers painted raccoon masks around their eyes, wore Möbius strip earrings, and braided their hair. One soldier was weeping. He’d built a house of worship in the woods, but had been forced to abandon it. Another walked with his DC woman and infant, conceived and born in the mountains. I wondered what the child’s citizenship status would be. A way of life had been established on this soil, not exactly Souvien or American or Indian, but a combination of the three to create something new and different.

The newcomers who captured my attention, however, were recruits from the boy gangs. I saw Islands, the leader of the Souvz boy gang back in the South Bronx. His bodyguard, the Pope of Death, had been killed before he even reached the war, run over by a drunk driver when the boys were hitchhiking to the West. I saw Terry. He wasn’t fighting for the cause, but simply because he wanted to fight; he was a mercenary. Ronnie had been recruited by the Souvien government as a paid fighter, so it was possible that Terry and Ronnie might some day have to shoot each other. I saw Bik; his friend Nox had signed on with the government and been killed. Back home in America a fresh batch of boys continued the race wars among Shadows, Souvz, and River Rats.

Instead of moving by night in zig-zag lines, with our people spread out over miles of forest, we marched in daylight in a column of twos down a winding, logging road, through the big pines, through the junipers and mesquite, and into the desert all the way to Xi. For fighters who had been used to skulking, this direct approach was scary. We were sitting ducks for an attack by our mechanized enemy. After hours of walking, we reached our new camp designated by VRN, on the edge of the newest addition to Xi. To our back were hills and cliffs. To our front in the distance in the MZ was the government garrison, ringed by bunkers and barbed wire, tanks and howitzers. I half hoped they’d open fire, which would spare me the agony of killing Ike.

Waiting for us on the desert floor were a camera crew and other officials from VRN. Maintenance workers from Xi had built a bonfire heap out of wood refuse from the destroyed town of Sorrows. Surrounding us were platforms for holding lights and tracks for cameras.

In the woods, the sky had been blocked by the trees, but here under the desert floor, it was open and beautiful. It was like being back in Valley of Fires or on the deck of the mother ship, the universe spread out before me. The sky above, so immense and bright, did not seem real. It was too close. Ike flashed onto the screen of my mind. He was on his horse, galloping along the desert. The two of them, boy and pony, flew off into the sky. I trailed behind on my winged ATV.

I couldn’t eat dinner. I just wandered around the campground until the sun began to set. An electronic version of Souvien folk music played over a sound system. Soldiers stood outside their tents, first keeping time with the beat, then dancing in place. It was music my mother would have loved. When the last distant glow of the sunset had faded into black night, the music stopped abruptly, and a raspy voice came over the speaker: “Will you all please gather at the bonfire set.” The Director had spoken.

It took almost ten minutes for the soldiers to form a circle around the huge stack of boards and timbers from the wrecked village of Sorrows. I wasn’t exactly part of the group. I was kept separated and escorted by two armed guards. The rebels gave me a round of applause as they parted and I walked through them. Huge, portable lights had been set up, and I could hear the hum of electronics. American VRN workers in blue jeans paraded around giving orders. The cameras rolled. Giant television monitors had been set up, so that no matter where anyone stood in the audience they could see what was going on at the bonfire set.

The Director stood on a wooden platform like a lifeguard stationed at a beach. Bullhorn in hand, he spoke to the audience in his gargling, drowning-man voice.

“Thank you all for coming, thank you, thank you. Because many will die in the war scenes to follow, we are holding the cast party now. I have some good news for the soldiers fighting for all these months without female company. We have brought in a contingent of professional ladies from the bordellos of Nevada and points south in neighboring Mexico.” The monitors showed pretty women in their underwear. The men went crazy.

“We’ve had complaints that we’re rigging the war in favor of the government,” the Director said. “We’ve changed that. We’re giving you rebels some limited air support and a couple of tanks for your invasion of the garrison. We’ve tried to make the odds even-steven. We at VRN don’t care who wins. We just want action. The war resumes tomorrow, so make it a good party. We’ll start now!”

The soldiers clapped and cheered. I looked around for Siena. She stood beside the Director’s platform dignified as the sentry on the masthead of the Keene, New Hampshire,
Sentinel
newspaper; she did not cheer.

“Thank you, thank you,” the Director said. “Have fun. The festivities will culminate at midnight with the execution of Ike, the Bad Boy pacifist. Guards, bring Web to a holding cell.”

The spotlight left the Director and shined down on Ike’s cage. Hoots and jeers issued from the soldiers. Then the light fell upon me, blinding me for a few seconds. When I could see again, two soldiers stood beside me. They escorted me to the new wing of Xi. A giant sign said:

Inside were walls of unfinished sheetrock, stacks of flooring tiles and lumber. The soldiers locked me in the only room that appeared to be complete. It was an ordinary enough waiting room like you’d find in any dentist’s office. Small, with a single couch, magazine rack, brass lamp, and a painting on the wall. Only one thing about the room was uncanny, the painting. It showed a boy on a glowing rock. Myself. I stared hard. No doubt about it: the painting was one done of me while I was in the Catacombs of Manhattan. I paced around the room, vaguely hoping for a way out. There was none. I sat on the couch, and browsed through the reading matter to pass the time. It was the oddest collection of magazines I’d ever seen. They included the
Clean Slate Society Broadside
and the
Organ for the Institute of Original Sin
, the
Secular Humanist University Alumni Magazine
, and
Crit: an Anthology of Critical Essays of the Late 80s and Early
90s. I picked up
Crit
. The first article was by Henri Scratch. It took a second before I remembered the name. Back at Sally’s place in Steeltown, the Autodidact had read me Mister Scratch’s obituary. I read the first paragraph of the essay, entitled
Defrocked
,
or I Think
,
Therefore:
“I think; therefore I am. But when I think about who I am, I am not being who I am; I am thinking. If I just do it, I don’t have the satisfaction of knowing I have done it until I think about having done it, and then I am no longer doing it, and since I am no longer doing it, the understanding I have about the experience of having done it (the satisfaction) is, at best, slightly inaccurate. These, my words, constitute the impossible dream of trying to catch up with this me that was.”