J. Curtis - Calexit - The Anthology

This time it was Jen that reached across the little table and squeezed his hand. “I know, babe,” she said. “I love you, too. We’ll figure it out.”

They both stiffened when they heard the chime of the doorbell. Mark got up and warily approached the door. He peered through the peephole, then looked back over his shoulder.

“It’s Ramon,” he whispered.

“He and Jimmy are coming over for dinner tomorrow,” Jen replied in a hushed voice. “What’s he doing here tonight?”

Mark opened the door and peered out at their visitor.

“Let me in,” Ramon said. The gentle affectation he normally kept in his voice was gone.

“Ramon, what’s going on?”

Ramon hurried in from the chilly evening air and waited until Mark had shut and locked the door. He put his finger up to his lips and motioned toward the tiny kitchen. Soon, all three of them were huddled around their table.

“I was down at the mercado getting some coffee and I heard something about you two.”

“What?”

“Two of the Brownshirts were talking. Said that the neighborhood council is trying to get you kicked out of your place.”

“Can they do that?” Jen asked. Her face had gone white with shock.

“Your landlord’s on the council, isn’t he?”

Mark thought for a moment, then nodded.

“One of the Brownies said that they didn’t want someone like you in the neighborhood.” He looked at Jen. “Said that this wasn’t a place for a racist Okie to live.”

“They can’t do that!” Mark erupted, getting up from the table. “We’ll get a lawyer!”

Jen looked down at the table, then up into Ramon’s eyes. “That’s not what frightened you, is it, Ramon?”

Ramon bit his lip, then said. “They said they’re going to get a bunch of homeys from downtown and throw you out tonight.”

Mark stopped at that. The Brownshirts rarely had to resort to violence anymore, but when they did, it was done to send a brutal, public message.

Jen was the first to speak. “How long do we have?”

“An hour, maybe two. They were just ordering their food when I left.”

“What do we do?” Jen asked, looking to her husband. “If I leave the house, they’ll send me to prison.”

Ramon put his hand up. “Do you have family here?”

Mark shook his head. “My folks died a couple years ago.”

“My folks left after Calexit. Went back to Alabama.”

Ramon breathed out through his nose. “I know somebody who can get you out, but it’s not cheap,” he said in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

“Out?” Mark and Jen said together.

“To Nevada, through the mountains.”

“Ramon, it’s illegal to leave without permission,” Mark objected.

“It’s illegal to leave the house, too,” Jen said flatly. An idea formed in her head. “If we can get to the States, Mom and Dad will help us.”

Mark thought for a moment, then nodded. He turned to Ramon and said, “What do we do?”

The screen in front of Jiminez flickered once or twice as the breeze made the small camera one of his men had placed in the bush outside Jen and Mark’s building wave up and down. The basement room he occupied was otherwise dark and quiet.

“How much longer?” he said quietly, then snorted when he realized that his quarry was a mile away.

“I told him to have them on the road by ten, so pretty soon. They’re certainly taking enough crap,” the man sitting at the desk to his left said.

Never been kicked out of an apartment in the middle of the night before , Jiminez thought derisively. Typical rich people .

They watched as Mark helped Jen into the back of a beat-up minivan, then got into the passenger seat next to Ramon. The ancient motor cranked a few times before catching, and soon it was out of sight of the camera. The screen in front of Jiminez changed to show the view from one of the normal surveillance cameras, which showed Ramon’s van making its way down the street.

“You gave him the name for that place over in Rosemont?”

“Yes,” Sadana, the woman who sat to his left, replied. “We’re pretty sure the old man doesn’t know that he’s been compromised.”

“Good,” Jiminez said. “Lucky break, catching that guy’s boyfriend in a prostitution sting.”

“Lucky, my ass,” Sadana said with a chuckle. “We’ve been trying to get something on him for a month.”

Ramon drove them across Sacramento using surface streets. He and Mark kept checking their mirrors to see if they were being followed, but Jen just sat and watched the darkness roll by the van’s dirty rear window.

She lost count of how many times they turned before Ramon stopped the van and put it in park without shutting off the motor.

“Stay here,” he said nervously. “I’ll get us in the garage.”

Jen strained to look out the front window, but saw only the hazy reflection of a dim yellow light off the dirt on the windshield. She heard something clank in the quiet night air, then Ramon was back in the van.

Without a word, he put the vehicle in gear and eased it forward. Jennifer watched the light bend around the front of the van, then Ramon stopped. The light from the rear window cut off as she heard someone lowering a door.

Immediately, the sliding door next to her opened, revealing a fat man in a dirty tee shirt. In his free hand, he held a long length of pipe. The man peered around the interior of the van, then motioned to Jen.

“Come on,” he said in a phlegmy voice. “Get out of there.”

Jen unfolded herself from between their suitcases and stepped out with a groan. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, but her nose tickled with the scent of old motor oil and grease.

Mark got out of the passenger door and put a protective arm around his wife. “We’re…” he started to say.

“Shut up,” the fat man snarled. “Don’t need your name, and don’t ask mine.” Now that Jen was close to him, she could smell alcohol on his breath.

Ramon walked around the front of the van. The man looked at him suspiciously.

“You sure you know Bill?” His words slurred a bit. “Not normal to get folks in like this.”

“Bill told me to come here in an emergency,” Ramon stammered. He pulled the thin packet of money Mark had given him before they left the apartment and held it out to the white-haired man. “These guys are going to get picked up by the Brownshirts tonight.”

The man looked each of them over, then shrugged. He took the envelope and put it in the back pocket of his jeans. “Well, if Bill said its okay, then let’s get them downstairs until the truck gets here.”

He motioned with the pipe toward a door on the other side of the van. Beyond it was a creaky set of wooden stairs that led down into a concrete block chamber. Several chairs sat around a folding table, while some rusty cans of food peered down on them from shelves bolted to the wall.

“Old bomb shelter,” the man explained. He stopped to cough wetly. “Granddad put it in when he built this place.”

Ramon cleared his throat. “Can we get their stuff out of my van so I can get out of here?”

The man nodded. Mark and Ramon went back up the stairs and returned a few moments later with their bags.

Ramon set down his load, then hugged Mark and Jen. “Good luck,” he said. His voice was tight and pitched higher than normal. “Be careful.”

“Thank you,” Mark replied. “We’ll send something when we can.”

“No,” the man said. “No contact after this. Brownshirts’ll notice and then we’re all fucked.”

After a few more goodbyes, Ramon made his way back up the stairs, followed by the fat man. Jen heard the garage door open, then after a moment, close again. The stairs creaked as the man took a few steps down.