(Brand spanking new fiction. Does this man called Roger love this woman called Maggie? How are there half a million people left living in Manhattan? And who or what is Henny Newton?)
THE EAGLE calls in the middle of the night.
You're up? He says
Now I am, she says.
I'm not in Mexico, he says.
No?
New Mexico.
The ceiling. 4AM. Holding the little candy bar phone to her mouth. Those green boxer shorts she's wearing, they're his.
He says, We rode up along this old highway -- not a real road anymore -
The window is blue.
-- Down along this corridor, Tucky's telling us, you know, with his hands, because we're on the bikes, but all I'm seeing in the dark is his right hand -- "This is it.", "I know this place.", and guess what --
What?
Wrong way.
Closes her eyes. Ceiling's ugly. Window's blue, the ceiling's like green teeth. He says, I wanted to say, Hello Darlin, I'm on the beach, wish you had come. But no beach. We found a motel.
Seven motorbikes in a dirt lot. She thinks of this man, Roger Kent, baggy camo shorts, white t-shirts, his face like an eagle. A dirt lot and a motel she saw (in a movie?), a Santa Fe desert inn, pink with blue swallows painted all along the U-shaped perimeter. In the shadow of a mountain.
On the phone he says, I'm sitting here alone.
In the yard, in her mind, this movie she's cut and pasted, Tucky and the boys at their bikes, Tucky using his hand motions to guide her to the proper room of the motel.
Dust, golden edible dust, swirling around her force-field, as she walks along the yard of the motel to the room, (something her father had said once to her, a blue barrette clipped over the flaxen of a Saxon; that's this motel and desert). An open door, she wants to see Roger Kent at a small desk -- I'm imagining your room. Is the window open? He says.
And says, Does it feel longer than a day?
She opens her eyes. Mistake. Blue window a yellow window.
It's a big bed. Without me there. (His statements sound like questions).
That's sunlight in the window. Eyes closed trying to maintain the motel room, the desert -- a botched fantasy is worse than none at all: one can spend a lot of nights scraping the flint on the steel not getting back.
Hey, he says.
She says, Don't go yet.
I won't.
I don't want to wait on calls.
Back to work tomorrow?
Today, she says.
Be careful, he says.
Beep, the phone says.
Hello?, She says, but the line's dead.
There's pigeon shit on the windowsill. She gets up and showers. Empty bed. Birds chirp after she leaves the room.
SHE TAKES big headphones to the street. 8AM. Kate Smith, God Bless America -- a crucifix: two hundred something days in a row listening to it on a loop as she walks to work, and no incident.
There's a skirt that would have looked good in New Mexico; you can't wear a skirt here; it's not law law -- worse: natural law.
Boys crouched on the stoop of a deli. She mutes Kate to hear their eunuch chirps -- Cesario, Ganymeyde, she names these boys, but she's the girl/boy. Has to be here. They watch her pass.
Soldiers with stubbed M4s stare at her as she beats them on a signal.
A bug hotel, and old men wave at her, and she does not wave back.
Southbound men turn for a second look:
(If a man with seven wives will steer south to that what wiggle, what of these drawn street creeps starving?)
She walks four blocks north, pace constant;
She makes every light, never turns her head;
Her tunnel vision? No waiver.
It can feel like the world is full of men; to a beautiful woman it can feel like this in a church. Her world is full of men. There's half a million people left in the skillet of Manhattan -- (you know where they all went, no need to rehash that). Half a million, a fifth of that is the state; of that, twenty thousand do what she do: hack media for the government, (she's called junior coordinator for a Unified Democratic Party), the rest keep the computers running; thirty thousand military here to protect the state workers; twenty thousand cops rehired to apprehend the VDCs, and there's eight thousand bridge and tunnel security, not that there are bridges. The rest, the bugs, voluntary dislocated citizens: island people. Those who stayed. When they're caught, they're shipped, but they have a lot of hide in them. And blocks yet to squat in.
THE ROOM where she works. Long narrow grey, freckled with cheap paint. A dozen clean plastic desks. There's a glass door and windows at the end, yellow frosted glass like a motel shower door. A figure in the glass office, talking on a phone. The figure waves her in. She goes behind the glass. Alan Marybella, with black eyes, an overbite, and neck folds: he's a newborn turtle. She sits behind his big boy desk, a George the III Mahogany, here before they were. He says, It's stalled. I gave everyone the day, but they're through; they don't know yet, but, yeah -- good luck in Pahrump. So. Timing, right? How's the .. (now he's being funny with the thoughtful pause) The, uh --
Roger.
I'm thinking up a nickname.
Crunch.
A new one.
He's fine.
Guarding the coppers from the Marines?
South America. Do I have a job, Alan?
I gotta go to the movies. Private Bridge and Tunnel's not looking after you -- you walk here alone? Fine. You're a woman, this is the century for it. Just not the city.
He sweeps paint chips off the desk with his hand.
Wanna go to the movies with me?
TO THE theater next door with the Turtle. Alan knocks. An Indian unlocks it, lets them in, and nods as he walks out in front of them. A steep stair down into the dark of the theater. It's just them. Lights, Camera, Instrumentation. She smells marijuana; not smoke, but some real nutty paper bag weed smell.
(She thinks: the Red Paint could have offered concessions).
On the screen a Fade In: Two French actors fake doin it to a mechanized beat. The Newborn Turtle giggles. Same movie they've played for a year. He can watch any movie he wants at home -- as he'd say: I love the theater.
Gun fire on the street. The Indian comes in, and waves that it's safe. Whatever it was it went east. She says, Do I have a job?
Twenty minutes into the movie Alan falls asleep.
WHEN THEY return to the office Alan goes behind the glass, and gets on his phone. She goes to his door. He pad and papers numbers, he taps the desk with a ring on his pinkie, turquoise in silver. The call ends, but he keeps holding the phone:
I'll take you to dinner, He says.
I would have left with Roger.
Wear something nice, I'll have escorts at your place. Eight. It's a thing! For you. I'm trying. Dinner. Go home. Something nice.
Walk me home, She says.
Too many cops.
She lives safe down there, but cops loved harassing turtle types.
Maggie. You would have left? He didn't ask you.
She'd like to say to him, Roger is an eagle, and you but a newborn turtle, Roger would pluck you up, fly around, get bored, and drop you on a tragedian's head.
Instead she asks, What happened to Henny Newton?
Who knows.
He's been down here a year and it fell through?
Went with someone else I guess. Go home, look like a woman later.
A world of men. The shitheels.
THE NIGHT she met the Eagle was a dinner with her work mates, sitting in on Alan Marybella reporting to High Office on his first Henny Newton meeting. Noodles on the table, rice wine, and riflemen at the door. One of those riflemen was Roger Kent, watching the street. It wasn't strange that of all islanders Japs who cooked good noodle worked in the open, cops bypassed them as wartime priests; these Japs kept entire buildings stacked atop their restaurants -- they had protection: here was Roger, ordered to watch this place called Mulberry Field, and this VIP meet. She stared at him. His profile was red-rimmed under the crab-shaped lights -- no crab, a long time since anything but noodles, but they kept the neon characters, as in the old days, to light the way. Roger Kent was tall. He kept his rifle leaned against the wall, and looked like a daydreamer.
Alan was tipsy, and as these stiffs were down from up north to hear a report on Henny Newton, and as there was the perceived future advancement Alan chirped of on slow days in the office, when they'd come get him out of this place, and bring him to Philadelphia, if Henny's project stayed on track, and more importantly, on-message, and again, as Alan was tipsy, he oversold the Henny meeting -- (Henny Penny. Filmmaker. The only man with State permission to come in the skillet and machen schöne bilder! A million stories from this one or that one hired to protect him around the city, or guard his depot of computers downtown: he was working for a terror outfit, and somehow, because of his Iraq movies, they'd sneaked him by Homeland Security; he had the reputation with the cops of being a black magic man. Alan said Henny got off the chopper, and walked with him through the park, and just as Alan began to say, "Welcome to the city!", Henny Penny said, "This isn't a city anymore."
"No?" Alan asked him.
"Smell this place. Old world stink. It's the shortage of women, there haven't been this many fey sarges in one place since Thermopylae."
Alan looked around the table, I was about to ask him what he meant, when one of his flunkies shushed me -- he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to his recorder. He was. "Mr. Newton, at least let's take the tour." He said, "Show me where they bulldoze the garbage."
One out of High Office spoke up, This doesn't sound like a pro-New Dem vision."
No, no, Alan said, Don't fret. He's an artist, he was blabbing. I didn't mean to make him sound like -- listen, he is on-board. We took him down to the dump, we showed him process. He picked a building down there! No Mid-town aviary for this one, he said he wants to smell the garbage! What a Cat!
Alan slurped and grimaced rice wine. Maggie caught Roger Kent watching her. She put the palm of her hand up under her throat, as a hello wave. He nodded, and looked out at the street. High Office cigars were handed out. Japs brought beer. Alan got everyone drunk, and promised in a week he'd set up a second dinner with Henny in attendance. Never happened. A year later, here they were, just She and Alan, sitting with the same noodles, in the same little room, with Roger in New Mexico, and Henny Newton hiding out downtown, with nothing to show for it --
We're probably out. Alan said. But there's one last move.
Just as he said it the front entrance was open, and a strange little cloak with a man somewhere inside it, rushed in to the shop -- Alan jumped, but what the creep came out of his jacket with was a camera. He snapped pictures of them, Alan turtled on the floor, and Maggie sitting stone-faced. And then he was gone, running into the street. Alan looked up,
Fuck, man! What the hell was that?
She said, It's done.
ALAN TOOK her out back where the old Japs were building noodle stock. They sat in the can pantry, and she felt so bad for poor Alan, that she rubbed his wrists for him -- he had a bad arthritis.
Maggie, listen; he's downtown sitting on a building full of computers, and a lot of money. He keeps sending messages up the hill that he's nearly finished the picture, but no one has seen it, no one knows what it is! He won't let me down there, but I talked to his courier last week while you were out. They'll let you meet with him.
Will they? How's that?
I can only guess. They remember you, the couriers, you know the toads -- will you meet with them?
By myself?
It has to be that way. Please --
For what? For your ticket to Philly?
I'll get you sent out west.
She saw something new in Alan Marybella, not like anything in the years she worked for him: He was unreadable.
How far west?
All the way. You and Crunch can guard each other on the beach. I'll have the both of you transferred. He'll be out there waiting for you. Maggie? I can do that. But I need Henny's movie. The couriers down at the trash heap specifically requested you.
THE NIGHT of that first dinner, after Alan cleared them out so he could suck up to High Office in private, Roger Kent called in his reserve, and walked her home. He did it, and no one questioned it -- he was one of those that had power above his station --respect they used to call it. For all the shortage of females, he stayed with her that night, and didn't push it. He laid with her, and told her about places he'd been. He'd missed some wars, hit the last couple skirmishes. He had started as an MP, and he was ending as an MP: one more year of this place, and he would head back to Worcester, Mass, where he was from.
Then what will you do?
Write a book.
About what?
What are books about? Myself.
They were together after that. He'd come to her place at night. They would talk about everything off of the island, and eat MREs. They'd talk about places to visit in the west. Like New Mexico.
ALAN MARYBELLA pulled his hands away, then renegotiated back, holding her hands in gratitude.
Let's get out of here, Maggie. Just go down there, and tell Henny Newton he's a genius, and ask him to see the movie. I need a nice desk in Philadelphia. You'll get what you want too.
You know I don't believe you.
Yeah, sure. I know.
When?
Tomorrow.
She did not have the flaxen of a Saxon. She had dark hair cropped short -- nothing to draw attention. The rule here was: unsex yourself.
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