David Means - Hystopia

Sit down at the table, Hank said. Join us. We got nothing to hide from you, nothing at all. And we don’t have much against the Corps. As a matter of fact, we’ve both had a form of the treatment. She had the official version and I had my own version. Black market or not, the Trip is Trip. I’d like to exchange names, Hank said, if that’s all right with you. I’d like to establish an atmosphere of trust quickly because, in case you haven’t heard, all hell is breaking loose downstate and it’s heading up this way, the chaos, not that it hasn’t been here already. It’s not going to take folks out there long to figure out that Rake isn’t around. When they do, they’re gonna come to extract some revenge for the things he did and the things they imagine he did.

Where is he? the agent said.

Hank leaned back and tweezed his beard. To let them know Rake was out of action would be to open the door to a new place, and that fact would either placate them or, if they were rogue, give them a new sense of freedom and lower their fear level a notch.

* * *

In the mission report, he’d describe it as a static scene with a domestic aura. The smell of baked bread. He’d say the girl looked rested and calm, with a small scar on her face. Eyes: blue. Hair: dirty blond. Targets offered hospitality in the form of drink and food. He’d explain that he withheld trust as was warranted in this kind of field situation, assessing for hints, taking as much time as needed, avoiding any kind of interrogative stance until it was proved necessary on account of the fact that it seemed possible that information would be forthcoming if trust could be established. He’d try to describe the old lady, leaning back against the stove and shaking violently, making strange guttural sounds — and the solitude, the sense of seclusion in the kitchen — the exchange in the tension of the guns, the heated delusional space in the fear, and the sense that he had of knowing exactly how to handle it, aiming away from time to time. He’d try to explain how the big one, named Hank, had gone to his mother, kneeled down, kindly, gently, with his big hands on her shoulder, and soothed her, speaking gently, urging her over to the table and pulling the chair out for her, telling her to sit, making her sit down and getting her a glass of water from the sink. The woman was mumbling things, speaking of the end, something about the end, the beginning and the end together. (He’d summarize in the report, explain that the old lady was demented in the way of someone hearing voices that are speaking what seems, to her at least, to be the truth.)

* * *

The big burly one was trying to exude a calm. “If you take our point of view, I mean our vantage, if you can do that you’ll understand that we can’t be totally sure you’re not two rogue agents or Black Flaggers in disguise. For all we know, you two are wheeling in here to poke around and see if Rake’s really gone or not, and if we tell you he’s gone you’re gonna play it out to the end, take what you can, get your revenge on us. So I’m not ready yet to say he’s not coming back any second. He might be. He might not be.”

“We’re not rogue agents,” Wendy said. She took a sip of her drink, raising her glass as if in a toast.

“Radio reports say it’s pretty bad down there. Radio confirmed the Kennedy’s genuinely dead this time, no miss, and they say whoever becomes president next is going to walk right along in his footsteps and keep the ball rolling. They say that in theory nothing’s really gonna change and that the chain of command has been passed according to the Constitution and all that.”

“What’s your name?” Wendy said.

“I go simply by Hank and this is Meg Allen. She’s the one you’re looking for, if you’re looking for a girl who was kidnapped by Rake. If that’s what you’re looking for, that’s who you’ve got right here. And over there is my mother, who got the name MomMom by me when I was a little kid — I could only say things twice, I guess, when I was a certain age — and when she got her dementia she had to be called that or her fits would get worse, so we all just got used to calling her that,” he said.

“MomMom’s sick,” the woman named Meg Allen said.

“She’s up and about now, but she’s been bedridden since the report came in about the president. It would help us if we see your badges,” Hank added.

“They’re in the car,” Wendy said.

“In case we caught you and held you hostage.”

“You could put it that way.” Singleton lifted the gun slightly.

“You can put the gun on me as long as you want but I’m not about to tell you what’s going on until I’m sure you are who you say you are and doing what you say you should be doing.”

“You cover them and I’ll go to the car,” Singleton said. He felt the exhaustion of the last two days in his arms, holding the gun. The weight of being armed, Klein would’ve called it. Holding death at your fingertips too long was unbearable.

I had an intuitive recognition of the instability inherent in the scene and an awareness of my own awareness as it related to my enfolded material, he’d write in the report .

What is this sadness? It is the particular sadness that comes at the end of a certain sequence of planned events — an entire summer, in this case. Again, he had a sense that he knew the man at the table and perhaps the girl, too, and it saddened him. Had the entire summer been dedicated to achieving this scene?

“You OK?” he said to Wendy.

“I can hold them,” she said.

“How far up the road are you parked?” Hank asked.

“About a quarter mile.”

“That’s probably fine. Farther away you’d be in trouble because of Black Flag. They come in on recon missions, poke around, look for signs of change, and then leave. They don’t dare come up too close, not yet.

“I’ll pull into the driveway.”

“Make sure no one follows you in.”

It was a beautiful night outside. He kept his gun out as he walked up the road to the car. He stood for a second, listening to a distant bike roaring. Assessing, trying to pick up a scent, an awareness. He had — he admitted to himself — been hoping to put a bullet into the skull of the man named Rake, to get it all over in one quick action, to reach an end equal to what he imagined.

He could feel the wild rage of the lake just through the trees, the vast, heavy gravity of its cold depth. This was a land that held on against the forces of wind and raging snow, and the air had a hint of winter and iron. The brutal individuality of the men and women who lived here had been channeled by historical forces, by the anger in the wind, and yet he knew, he was sure standing there, taking another deep breath, lighting a cigarette, that there were also good people, and that it was just as likely, in the scheme of chance and luck, that a soft, warm, cleanly lit kitchen scene would be found in a house hidden from the road.

* * *

An hour later they were in the living room, still tense but exhausted. Two old sofas faced a coffee table and, in the corner, a wooden stereo console stood with records piled on each side. Sinatra’s youthful face stared out from one, his lips pursed in a smile flushed of irony. Don’t fuck with me, the smile said. I’m humorous but only to a certain degree. His hat was cocked to one side and he looked like a man — Singleton thought — who had been enfolded again and again until he lost sight of everything but his body and his voice. On the other side of the console the Rolling Stones sneered at the world, completely unfolded. They jeered and mocked and looked out with twisted lips and a frankness that was clear and brutal but honest.

“You folks go ahead and interrogate us now if that’s what you want to do,” Hank said. “If you want to start right in, feel free, but I’m not going to be ready to confess all the details until I’m sure you’re not just here looking to see if Rake is alive or dead, to confirm the information and pass it on to some gang members out there waiting to know the truth so they can strike as hard and fast as they want, and believe me, that’s what they want because Rake called in accounts all over the state, even up into Canada, and made as many enemies as he could.”