The Occupation of Emerald City: The Worker (14 page)

I know this building. This was a government building once. It was
for the water department. Now, there’s a soda company logo hanging over the
double-doors opening to the sidewalk. A man with a loudspeaker stands on top of
a tipped-over plastic garbage can on the sidewalk, the kind I used to have to
drag from my condo parking lot to the curb every Monday and Wednesday. The man
looks in his mid-thirties, with a brown five o’clock shadow and bushy blond
hair. He has a square jaw, broad shoulders and a fat stomach that he sucks in
as he takes a deep breath.

There are Muslims in the crowd. There are Christians.

“We had a garbage collection in place!” he says. “It was run by
elected representatives from our city and collected by city workers in city
trucks!”

The crowd cheers.

“We had clean water!” he shouts. “Where did the water go?”

The crowd boos, feeding off its own energy. I can feel it all
around us. This energy carries with it a promise of redemption without
violence, a longer path with more barriers, but a path nonetheless. Above, a
drizzle of raindrops has begun to spatter the crowd, dotting their dirty clothes
in a dark polka-dot pattern. Some of the people look as unclean as us, their
jeans laced with streaks of dark dirt and the knuckles of their fists lined
with multi-colored smudges that could be anything from dirt to ketchup to blood
to shit.

“And now I’ve got four bags of trash sitting out in front of my
apartment!” the man continues. “Where are the workers to collect the garbage?”
The crowd erupts and the man takes another deep breath. “Where did all the
clean drinking water go? This was our water utility! Why is it being run by a
soda company?
Why does a soda company
need men with machine guns on the roof of their building
?”

The crowd erupts in cheers. They’re in a frenzy. Everyone’s
shouting at the building.

The man with the mic looks up. “It’s going to rain hard,” he tells
the crowd. “And if you put out a bucket to collect the water,
The soda company is going to charge you
.
They’re going to charge you for the rain coming from the sky!”

I turn to Joshua to tell him this is our chance, right here, this
is our purpose. But the moment I open my mouth there’s a loud pop of a machine
gun. I don’t know where it came from, only that everyone is ducking down, and
now my ears begin to ring as more shots ring out. The woman next to me
collapses and blood sprays across my pants. She starts sobbing but the sound is
muffled by more shots. I grab her under her shoulders, pulling her hands away
from the oozing bullet hole in her chest, dragging her back toward the
intersection and behind the apartment building on the corner. Her stiff legs
drag along the ground and she mumbles a prayer between sticky red lips. I can’t
tell if she’s praying to God or Allah. It doesn’t matter. Whoever it is has
missed his chance to help.

Everyone is panicking, running in every direction away from the
front of the building while the guards on the roof continue firing into the
crowd with calculated bursts. Before I can turn the corner, I see a teenage boy
standing near the curb. He throws a small chunk of broken sidewalk concrete at
the men on the roof, and the men on the roof aim their guns but then Joshua is
in front of the boy, pushing him behind a boxy red Ford. The men on the roof
open fire and Joshua seems to slowly fall over onto the curb. He crawls on his
back to me, leaving a trail of blood on the sidewalk.

Drops of rain pepper the concrete. A few drops splash into small
pools of blood.

I turn the corner and set the woman down, then grab Joshua and
carefully pull him to safety.

“Profit,” Joshua says, dropping his weight onto the concrete steps
leading up to the apartment building’s locked doors. The handicap ramp next to
the staircase is a pile of smashed concrete from some previous event, so I grab
Joshua and lay him on the sidewalk. He sighs softly when I let go.

Behind the building, I hear more gunshots and more screaming.

“What profit is there in this?” Joshua asks. He clutches at a
growing red spot on the right side of his stomach. Between his fingers I can
see the blooming puncture hole in his nylon jacket.

“They can’t do this,” I say, holding one hand down on the hole in
the woman’s coat. Her eyes are closed, her breathing slow. I can feel the warm
blood on the palm of my hand. It reminds me of warm jelly on soft bread.

“They can do anything they want,” Joshua says. “That company, that
…
monstrosity
that calls itself a
corporation … it owns the water now.”

“You can’t own the rain,” I say. “You
can’t
.”

“They can sell the water anywhere they want,” Joshua whispers.
“Anywhere. Whoever’s the highest bidder. There’s no reason for them to keep it
here unless we pay more than everyone else. That’s why our water bills are so
high.”

“Help. Help me,” the woman whispers. Her body stiffens. I lean
down and press an ear next to her mouth. I feel a warm passing of breath that smells
like spearmint, and then nothing.

“Help,” Joshua says quietly. From around the corner, women and men
cry out for help. “I used to cry out like that in the cell. But I’m not afraid
now.” He chokes on his own laughter. “Damn it, I’m not even afraid of dying.”

I pull my hand away from the woman’s wound. I can smell death. I
can
smell
it. I can taste it in my
mouth. Here, in front of me now, I can see it. My entire body feels hot.

“Something good has to come of all this,” I say.

“It’ll get broadcasted on that Coalition network,” Joshua says.
“They’ll put our names up and tell everyone we started it.”

“I have to get you to a hospital,” I say. The rain is picking up.
It’s cold, stinging, just a few degrees too warm to come down as snow.

Joshua shakes his head and points to my stomach. I look down and
instinctively wipe at the blood splattering on my raincoat. The blood is warm,
and I feel a tingling sensation along the left side of my body when I realize
it’s mine.

“Okay,” I say carefully, as if breathing might move the bullet
inside. I can’t feel it but now that my heart’s beating faster the blood is
seeping out quicker through the hole in my raincoat. “We need a hospital.”

“Hospital,” Joshua mumbles. He’s too weak to fully open his mouth
and his words slur together. “WhatHospital?TheNearestOneWasBombedOut ...”

The gunshots continue. I clutch my stomach, listening to a siren
growing louder. I see an ambulance turn the corner up the street, pushing its
way slowly past the crowds of people motioning toward the soda company
building. There’s only one ambulance. There are no other sounds in the
vicinity, not even the gentle hum of a faraway Coalition armored vehicle.

The city is quiet. Heavy raindrops pelt store awnings and
rooftops.

“Go,” Joshua says with a deep breath. Droplets of rain splash
across his face, traveling between the whiskers on his cheek. He pulls his hand
away, and the blood exiting the wound flows out quickly, washed away by the
rain. “Look at me. I’m done.” He takes another deep breath. His left eye
closes. “And I’m not afraid.”

I lean over, slowly, feeling a brief splinter of pain. I rest a
hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I killed you.”

“No,” Joshua says, smiling. His hand reaches out for mine. He
squeezes it tightly. “You
saved
me.”
His right eye closes and his breathing stops, but the smile doesn’t disappear.

I turn back to the intersection. What remains of the crowd is
standing in street, huddling behind the parked ambulance, only one person
boldly peering around to watch the paramedics randomly pick out one of the
wounded laying on the wet street, deliberately avoiding getting any closer to
the soda company building. The rainwater dilutes the blood gathered around the
bodies, guiding it to the curb drains that are clogged with garbage and rotting
leaves and paper. In the street, the bullhorn sits idly next to a parked pickup
truck at the edge of the intersection, its owner clearly missing. A young man
and woman turn away from the crowd. More begin to follow.

Across the street, the vendor has begun putting the assorted
fabric products away in large cardboard boxes that are already soaked dark
brown by the rain. I see stacks of black PVC raincoats sitting on the far end
of the table and run as fast as I can across the street.

“How many raincoats do you have for sale?” I ask.

“No raincoats for sale,” the man says, continuing to place the
already wet merchandise into their respective soggy boxes. He has an assortment
of red and white t-shirts and a few pairs of jeans left on the table along with
the raincoats.

“Those,” I say, pointing to the stack of ten. “Do you have more?”

“No raincoats,” the man says, glancing over my shoulder. “None of
this is for sale. When the white trucks come, I leave.”

I reach into my pocket and pull out the last of my money. All I’m
worth. “Every raincoat you have.”

The man looks at the money. He watches the rain soak through it,
the first few drops sliding off the material. He grabs the stack of raincoats
and throws them in a box by his feet, pushing it under the table with one foot.

I pick up the box and walk slowly across the intersection,
glancing once down the street where the contractors are still stationed atop
the building, their rifles pointed down at the crumpled bodies in the street:
nine men, and a young woman with short black hair and a pink spring jacket.
None of them move. The surface of the concrete around them is blistered and
broken with where bullets have shredded the concrete. I turn away, moving to
the bullhorn and carefully bending over to grab it, sending a shooting bolt of
pain through my side that quickens my heartbeat.

But I’m not afraid.

I stop in the center of the intersection and drop the box.
Everyone huddled behind the ambulance can see me. The guards can see me, too,
but only my back.

I’m not afraid.

“Listen to me,” I say into the bullhorn. Some are watching me,
expecting, waiting for something to latch onto. They
want
to do something, but they just don’t know
how
to do it. “Listen to me!” I call out louder.

Everyone stops and looks. I open the cardboard box and begin
tossing the raincoats to the men and women in the crowd. Everyone immediately
unwraps the plastic packaging and ties the hood tightly over their faces to
shield themselves from the downpour. They look like black ghosts, the bottom of
the coats flapping hard against their legs as a breeze picks up, the rain drops
hitting their shoulders and sliding down the black fabric.

“This will not end until we fight back!” I shout into the
bullhorn. I can feel blood oozing out of my stomach, and the adrenaline has
stopped masking the pain—I don’t have much time. “The water under this
city belongs to you. If you don’t fight back, if you give up,
you will lose it all
. Come with me. Come
with me.”

I turn, facing the intersection and the bodies lying in the
street. Two paramedics are moving from person to person, checking for a pulse
but now they stop to watch me. The boy huddled behind the Ford across the
street is watching me. Behind me, dozens of pairs of eyes are watching me.

The first step is the hardest. For a moment it’s silent, just the
sound of rain pelting the roofs of the parked cars, but then I can hear the
quiet whispers of the raincoats behind me, black ghosts gliding toward the
building.

I take a deep breath and look up. The guards have disappeared from
the top of the building. All that stands in our way now is a single glass door.
Locked, I’m sure.

But there’s no stopping this crowd of ghosts now. We’ll take back
this building. We’ll take back our water.

We’re not afraid.