Lines
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
~ “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen
“Me, again.
“For the most part, things went well today. My line stretched almost a mile this morning, and it took me eight hours, but the weather was beautiful. Not really cool, but just the hint of fall in the air.
“I’ve become an expert at biding. I brought my privacy screen and piss-jar, my folding stool, and enough water and snacks to keep me comfortable but not too much to attract attention or weigh me down.
“Let’s see, describe what it looked like … okay, the people around me were subdued and there was little chatter. There were men and women, a few older children, a few courageous elderly without anyone to look after them, trying so hard to endure. Most were dressed in government-issue drabs. A few of the younger women and teen girls managed touches of color — some wore earrings, or bracelets, or hair-beads, or flaunted hand-painted designs on their t-shirts. None of them smelled too bad. I think most of us save our one bath a week for when we have to queue. I know I do.
“Um, it was a whites only line. Supposed to be a straight Christian-only line, too, but who can be sure about that. You can’t always tell a Jew or Muslim or gay or lesbian or even atheist these days to look at them. Ha Ha. There were enough signs everywhere to let you know who was who and what was what, in windows, draped as banners across the street, on billboards, saying things like “We are God’s Country,” and, “Jesus Makes Us Great,” and, “God Bless the Christian States of America,” and “As the Founding Fathers Intended.” Being Jewish — me, Nathan, my sister Salma and her husband Julian — we can pass. We nod our heads when they preach at us, and pretend we’re listening. I don’t really care; I should care. I try not to think about the other lines, for the ‘other’ people.
“So, anyway, we were backed up along Market Street, from forty-second down to thirty-fourth. The rations were being distributed from one of Drexel University’s old recreation buildings.
“The patrols were fairly mellow today. National Guardsmen aren’t so jumpy and quick to abuse people just because they can. Most of the personnel I saw, strolling with rifles at ready, up and down both sides of Market, were from Pennsylvania units. They were fully geared-up — flak-jackets, helmets, ammo-packs. Grey-green armored vehicles rested at each intersection, facing the crowd. They looked like giant dogs from hell, to me, quiet except for red gleaming, infrared eyes mounted on top of the left and right gun turrets.
“There was a man and his girlfriend behind me. A couple of younger women ahead of me. I have a rule: if anyone wants to borrow something, they need to be either right in front, or in back. My portable, light-weight folding privacy screen, that I invented and built out of poles and old sheets and carry secured to my pack, is what most of my neighbors want to use. It has four sides, and just after the line advances a few feet, when the guards are as far as possible before they pivot and return, I quickly detach it, unfold it, set it up around me. I pull out the catch-jar and unscrew the cap, then unfasten my pants, squat, place the container right on the crotch of my panties, and relieve myself.
“When one of my neighbors begs to use it, I help them set it up, but they need to have their own urine collector. I’m not that generous.
“So far, I’ve gotten some questions from guards, and one of them wanted to inspect it last month, but none of them has gone all ‘rules, you have to obey the rules’ on me.
“Wait … what?”
“…”
“That was my boyfriend, Nathan, and he reminded me that the screen itself is not really against the ‘rules’ — but that no citizen of the U.S. can congregate in a hidden way, or hide what they’re doing in public. So, that’s how you can get in trouble using it.
“Anyway, as I said, it was a fairly uneventful day. I did get in a discussion with the guy and his lady, as they borrowed a lot of stuff from me throughout the bide. I think she might be pregnant; don’t know if they’ve reported it yet. They were both very flushed and enthusiastic and gushed about the New America and the current moral and legal order of things. I asked him, ‘You don’t have a job or your own home or hardly anything else if you’re in this line with me, why do you spout that drivel?’ I think I made them nervous. I almost laughed. I know where the cameras are, and I know how to keep my voice down. They never use more sophisticated sensors and microphones with a crowd unless they see something stirring.
“…”
“Okay, Nathan is annoyed with me now. I kept talking to them, about all kinds of things, and avoided touchy subjects. Honest. I told them, did they know in Euclidean geometry, that a line is considered a straight curve? I really love that concept. You think it’s just a flat-dimensional distance between two points, but that’s an illusion. It’s really a curve in space … Euclid was considered archaic for hundreds of years, until Einstein and physics proved he was right.
“…”
“Sweetie, okay, okay … I didn’t talk much, honest! … I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry, now. Yeah, yeah, we still have our books. It’s not ‘Fahrenheit 451′ yet. As long as we keep our heads down and act all jolly and praise Jesus and the president every other sentence, and don’t talk about things like social justice and democracy and civil rights and how the morons of our parents’ generation voted it all away.
“Yes, you can let me out in public, frickety frick.
“So, where was I … Nathan’s day was successful. He waited for six hours and was able to find one gallon of gasoline and thirty ounces of oil, so he’s going to try and get our car running. Salma and Julian … Salma waited ten hours, but came home with butter, six eggs, and cheese! Yay! And Julian loaded up with dry-goods supplies. I ended up getting four large loaves of bread, a sack of rice, another sack of flour, and a box of powdered milk. Like I said, it was a very good day for all of us.
“The car would be nice though. I had to walk a long way home and I was tired; I wasn’t so afraid someone would rob me. The cameras are everywhere, and so are the police and military. You try and steal any extra portions, or get caught buying black market, you go to jail for life, and your entire family loses all their rations. Not worth it for most to take the risk. We don’t have to be afraid of those criminals, those immigrants, those people who are not like us, robbing and mugging us. The white, rich men who run the New America have seen to that, and in exchange they’re allowed to take everything we have left….
“…”
“No I will not erase it. This is my private journal. The new laws claim we have privacy rights. All public criticism of the New America was banned years ago. Journalism was all about marketing and promotion anyway, by then, and it’s all we have now. In fact, the first people thrown in jail after the crucial elections thirty years ago, were the reporters and writers who continued to point out the lies and hypocrisy….
“‘Wrap it up, wrap it up’ … yeah, I’m doing that. My honey is right, this digital recorder runs on batteries, and batteries are at a premium. Hard to come by. Oh, and I wanted to say one more thing — life’s not so bad. Not for us, anyway. We have a nice apartment for the four of us, we have just the right amount of electricity and other utilities, and we have Internet access and every kind of communication that we can afford … all monitored carefully of course, but that’s for our own good. And we have all kinds of visual media entertainment, available on just about any size screen in any location. It’s a wonderful life! We are happy and content.
“So, this is Shelley Weiss, on a Monday evening, September 11, 2051, signing off.”
FBI Special Agent Harry Blankenship thumbed the silver button on the side of the small recorder. “Well, what’ya think?” he asked the two other men standing on either side of him in the small, darkened apartment.
Officer Philip Raglan, of the PPD’s security office, shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “Can’t really charge her or any of them with seditious conspiracy or conspiracy to teach, not yet,” he added after a moment.
The man on Blankenship’s left, Specialist Jarasky of the U.S.Army’s Homeland Security and Intelligence Office, nodded. “We don’t have enough, yet. I say leave everything here like it was, and continue surveillance. There’s no hurry.”
Agent Blankenship pursed his lips and grunted lightly in agreement. He used both gloved hands to carefully lower the gleaming three-inch device, until it rested once more in the small drawer of the desk. He slowly slid the drawer closed. Then he picked up his playing-card sized portable controller, and expertly reset the lock key, erasing any evidence that it had been interfered with. He slipped the controller into an inner jacket pocket.
As they were heading for the entrance, Officer Raglan asked, “Do you want a report for just the Weiss girl, or all four of them?”
“Nah,” Agent Blankenship said as he pushed the door aside so they could exit ahead of him, into the narrow, carpeted hallway of the apartment building. He pulled the door after them, securing the locks and bolts from the outside using another piece of electromagnetic tech. He turned to face the policeman. “This is a general interest investigation for now. The boss doesn’t want to roust and rile any Jews just yet. We have other fish to fry.”
