J. Curtis - Calexit - The Anthology

“Fred, take a whiz. You need to, you just don’t know it yet. Then go wash your meathooks, and go get on the train. Third car from the front, please.”

The adrenaline is driving him so hard, he’s practically dancing. I hope it just looks like a widdle dance, and he’s out the door headed for the train. Sigh.

When I hear the whistle, I walk quickly, and hop into the train, holding the sliding door and winking at a little Latina, who gives me a slow up and down look and smiles. Even in post-Calexit Cali, women are proof that the gods love us and want us to be happy. There are no cameras on the train, but I’m not looking for cameras. Five minutes early, but expected, Fred comes hurrying down the aisle from the forward cars, and passes me, without even noticing me on the way back to his family.

We’re up to full speed and around the first corner on the way to Modesto, when I get up, and stroll back to the restroom at the back of the car, pause, and pull gently on the door, knock on the door, shrug, and step through into the next car. Pasting a mildly confused look on my face, I go from car to car, finally stopping in the car occupied by Fred and his family.

Taking a seat at the front of the car, I look at my charges. They’re sitting with the kids in-between them, stress clearly visible on their faces, holding hands so tightly I can see the white of their knuckles from here. It’s good to see… a… doting…

Shit.

There’s a Brownshirt on this car. And he’s on the job. Shit. Shit. Shit.

He’s a muscular bastard, bic-ink tattoos visible along his arms up to the Hawaiian shirt over a neutral t-shirt — much like I’m wearing, come to think — with an angular bulge on his right hip, scarred knuckles, and way-too- active eyes.

I take a newspaper out of my backpack, get up, sling the backpack and start walking back down the aisle, lost in the glories of whatever the celebrity du jour was up to. As I got level with the Brownshirt, I artfully stumbled against him, dropping the newspaper in his lap.

He grabs my shirt, lifting me off him, “Dude,” I slur, “I’m… like… wow. Sorry, dude.” I smile at him slowly, and get my balance back, he sneers at me, lifts the paper and smacks me in the chest with it. “Careful, pinche .” He gives me a shove, “Lay off the mota , fool.”

He’s right handed. Thought so, but the pistol might have been set-up cross-draw. I slide into a seat in the back row, tip my hat over my eyes. There was no way he was going to miss Fred and his family, but I could hope. And he spots them.

Well, hell.

Twenty minutes out of Modesto, the Missus gets up with the kids, and walks up the aisle to the next car. In the next car, she and the kids will go into the restroom and shed their bright outer garments, go the second car along and take a seat next to the door. Brownshirt watches them go, and looks really hard at Fred. Oblivious, Fred is staring longingly in the direction his family went. Five minutes later, Fred gets up and goes to the restroom in this car, and steps inside to shuck his orange fishing shirt. Brownshirt watches him go, and when Fred comes out of restroom in an olive drab t-shirt, the Brownie’s eyes go wide, and he gets up, moving quickly down the aisle but too late to stop Fred from getting into the next car.

Brownshirt stops at the restroom, and opens the door, not seeing me behind him. Things slow down as he spots the discarded shirt, he starts to turn, and I’m there, dagger point-down, my left hand sliding from behind to get a big handful of his right lapel, jerking it across his throat, cutting off his air. I hook the edge of my knife into the bend of his elbow, and rip back, severing arteries, tendons, pulling his suddenly-numb hand away from the grip of his pistol. As the knife comes free, I ice-pick into his subclavian artery, and shove the knife to lever him counter-clockwise, pulling firmly with his lapel in my left hand. The pivot slams us into the wall inside the restroom, and away from prying eyes. I jerk the blade free, hammer it into his lung, out, into the armpit for the axillary artery, out, and down into the femoral artery in his right leg, ripping out so hard I lift the dying man off the floor, and we fall sideways against the commode..

In less time than it takes for two slow breaths, I’m kneeling on a dead man, the old familiar stink filling the air. I reach back and push the door shut, turn the lock, take four deep breaths, stand-up — ow — and use my Hawaiian shirt and the sink to clear as much blood off of me as possible. A quick check of the mirror shows no blood, I drop my shirt on the dead guy’s face, I slip out in my black t-shirt, using a coin to spin the lock on the restroom from the outside. Hopefully my little murder won’t be found until the next time they clean the train car.

Two cars later, I take a seat. Four deep slow breaths, in through the nose, hold, out through the mouth, hold; and the adrenaline shakes start to level off. Once I’m in a state that I’m not liable to send Mrs Fred shrieking for the rafters, I move up to the car the family is in, and sit where they can see me. When the train pulls into Modesto, Mrs Fred gets off, holding the son. Fred and I move up a car, and get off on the same side, Fred holding the girl’s left hand, me holding her right. We step off, I paste a smile on my face, and swing the little girl back-and- forth playfully, just another Inclusive Modern Couple with their kid.

I left a rental panel van in the far parking lot — where the cameras probably weren’t well maintained — Fred lifting the daughter into the back, and we pull around to curbside pickup, where Mrs Fred puts the son in, then climbs into the front passenger seat.

We pull away from the train station, up onto Highway 108 towards Free America — excuse me, Nevada — and I set the cruise control at two miles an hour over the speed limit. Three hours later, we pull over at the 108/395 turn, I slip out, and open the back door. Inside the van is full of cases of bottled water. A very foo-foo bottled water, famous for foo-foo-ery in years past. Fred and I lift out the first four layers, revealing a padded cubicle with just enough space for a small family of four, they crawl in, and I replace the cases, bruises from my earlier dance with the Brownshirt screaming at me.

I get back behind the driver’s seat, make sure the air conditioner is on full, blowing through a hose to the hidden spot, and head towards Topaz Lake, Nevada; this time with the speedo at five miles under the speed limit.

Half of a sweaty hour later, and I come into view of the Cali Customs Station just this side of the Cali/Nevada state line. There’s nothing to show that anything’s up. The concrete barriers to force you to slow down and zig-zag aren’t blocked, the machine-gun muzzle in the guard tower is pointed skyward, and no-one comes out of the Customs shack for a moment as I come to a stop beside the mounted camera.

A moment, and the usual agent steps out of the shack. A rotund little guy, I always wonder what he did to wind up stuck out in the Great Back of Beyond, but my mama always told me not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Well, well, well. Mr Waterman! Starting to think your luck ran out and the Fascists caught you!”

I summon a grin, and hold my travel papers out the window. “Ah! You know, wife’s mother got sick, had to go down south.”

“Down south. You lucky fucker. How is civilization?”

“Not bad. Hot, though.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. So, let’s see it.”

Behind him, the shack door opens again, and an unknown figure steps out. My heart sinks. I don’t know this guy, but he has the stiff, pinched face, and fervent mien that usually belongs on the face of guys you see on the evening news after being caught with a basement full of young women and needles. I touch the butt of the pistol mounted under the dashboard for reassurance, but unless I’m very, very lucky, any dance started here will be ended by that machine-gun in the watch tower. I take a deep breath.