Kurt Schlichter: Indian Country

Beth, the high schooler, was at the table reading her American history textbook, Legacy of Hate .

“Test today?” Dale asked.

“It’s all such bullshit,” she replied.

“Beth!” Liz snapped. “Watch your mouth. You can get in trouble talking like that.”

“Honey, you need to not be difficult. You want to get into college, right?” asked Dale reasonably.

“You think I’ll ever get into college? From here?”

“Your grades—”

“Grades don’t mean anything. You’re an insurance salesman. Mom’s a housewife. Our name is freaking ‘Chalmers.’ You don’t know anyone with connections. I’m fucked!”

“Beth! Don’t say things like that,” Liz said. “And don’t say the f-word either,” she added.

Beth took her book and left without another word. Jimmy shrugged and followed. The bus might or might not be coming and they needed to be at the stop in case it was their lucky day.

“Should we leave?” Liz asked, again. Dale crunched down the dry flakes in his mouth and put down his spoon.

“Now you want to go? I thought we agreed to stick it out. And what about your brother? Your mom?

“We could take Mom with us,” Liz replied.

“She would never leave. She’s been here all her life. Hell, we’ve been here all our lives. What would we do in wherever – Texas?”

“We don’t have to go to Texas. Maybe we head over the border to Kentucky. That’s still close to home.”

“They’re talking about sealing the border. And leave the business? I built that office for 20 years. I’m 45. I can’t just start over in a different country.”

“A lot of people are. Todd and Katie Terrell left with their kids. Just picked up and left their house last week. Supposedly, they went to Florida.”

“So we go and we have no money because you know we can’t take anything with us. So I have to find a new career. You have to get a new job. We can’t vote because we’re not vets. Our kids have to join the Army if they want to.”

“I can’t see Beth in the Army…,” said Liz.

“Right? Is that what we want?”

“No, but it’s just – everyday it’s something new. We can’t drive our car on odd days, the reparations taxes, all the politically correct stuff. The fighting—”

“There’s no fighting around here. Look, all this politics – it’s got to get better soon. People’s Republic, USA, none of it matters to us – everything’s going to calm down and get back to normal. It has too. We just have to wait it out. Anyway, I need to get to work.”

“Is your new employee going to show up for once?” his wife asked.

Dale frowned. Three weeks ago, a sour-faced bureaucrat from the Fair Employment Commissioner had walked into the offices of Chalmers Insurance Brokers and informed him that one Leon Williams was to be hired immediately as part of the new full employment program. It was not a request.

Williams looked fidgety and disinterested; Dale suspected he was one of the drug convicts granted blanket pardons as part of the criminal justice reforms designed to make amends to those who had been caught violating racist, classist, and similarly terrible laws. But Dale tried to show him the ropes and Williams paid attention for a few minutes then announced he needed a break. He showed up for three days, then on the fourth day he called in sick. On the fifth he didn’t call at all. But when Dale stopped paying him, assuming Williams had lost interest and quit by default, he got a prompt call from the Fair Employment Commission informing him that he had failed to meet the new good cause standard for terminating an employee and that Mr. Williams would be by to pick up his check. And Mr. Williams did come by for his check, then smiled and walked right back out the front door.

Dale muttered something, and left for work.

It was two miles to the office in downtown Jasper, but it was a beautiful day in Indiana. The road had no sidewalk along that stretch, just a ditch off the shoulder to catch the run-off. A gentle uphill slope of green grassland on one side of the road led up to a line of trees. On the other, corn grew out to the blue horizon. Dale wiped his brow, then turned around upon hearing the crunch of gravel under tires behind him.

Cop car.

Ted Cannon, his brother-in-law, was at the wheel, in his tan uniform. The door read “Dubois County Sheriff” Dale relaxed, then thought it odd that he had tensed up seeing the light bar. He had always considered the police his friends. Until now.

“Odd license plate, huh?” Ted said when Dale walked back to his driver’s window. “Hop in.”

Dale came around and got in the passenger side. An old 12 gauge Mossberg was in the rack between them.

“Thanks.”

“I’m really not supposed to,” Ted said, maneuvering the cruiser off the shoulder and back on the street. “But whatever. I’ll deal.”

“You busy today?

“Not really. I’m not allowed to do real police work anymore, so that makes it easy. It’s oppressive to hassle scumbags these days.”

“You don’t want to be oppressive.”

“Yeah, well, the people worried about the scumbags being oppressed aren’t the ones getting their houses broken into. Since they collected up the guns, the scumbags think it’s open season.”

“I have a feeling that not all of them got turned in,” Dale said.

“Hell no,” scoffed the deputy. “There are guys I know – guys I hunted deer with – who I know for a fact had dozens of guns who shrugged when the collections officers came to their houses and swore they didn’t have a one. Searched their places and nothing. Man, I bet if you go into those woods and turn over a shovel full of dirt you’ll probably find an arsenal.”

“That seems risky, you know, just for a gun.”

“Five years minimum. Remember Joe Jordan from school?”

“Of course. He puked in my house at a party when my parents were away.”

“They brought him in yesterday. Deer rifle. Five years, man. He had it broken down, but if it had been assembled when they came I bet he’d have capped a couple deputies. Bad shit. This is getting ugly. You know, the day after they announced that we will be absorbed into the People’s Security Force, four deputies disappeared. Went South, I hear.”

“You ever thought about going south?”

“Your wife would kill me if I even suggested leaving. Our mom would too.”

Dale didn’t mention his talk with Liz that morning. He trusted Ted, but it just didn’t seem… wise.

They were passing the skeletons of the old furniture factories, now closed due to environmental regulations. Apparently the chemicals Americans used to make beds and desks and tables were so damaging to the environment that the Americans had to be laid off; apparently these same chemicals had no effect when used by the Third World laborers the work was outsourced to.

“We have to start wearing those black PSF uniforms too,” continued Cannon. “Tan uniforms are soothing, you know. People see you as one of them, a local. Black ones are scary.”

“Maybe that’s the idea.”

“Yeah, maybe. I know we’re getting a lot of pressure to start enforcing all these new rules. I thought the new constitution had free speech in it too, but I’m not sure they meant it when they put that in. You know – don’t tell anyone – we’re supposed to be looking for people who are illegally organizing political groups. Supposedly from the US. Infiltrators.”

“ Illegally organizing political groups? I thought this was supposed to still be a free country after the Split.” said Dale. “Maybe freerer.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure. Just watch who you talk to about politics. They seem a lot more interested in pointing us at people saying the wrong things instead of real criminals. This is your stop.”