Kurt Schlichter: People's Republic

There were plenty of buses–wheezing, dirty buses driven by unionized drivers who answered to no one and ran on their own personal schedules that bore only a glancing resemblance to the optimistic ones the transit authority published. Near the intersection of Pico and Livonia Avenue, Turnbull was nearly sideswiped by a bus driver who felt no need to signal as he wheeled his rickety vehicle away from the curb and into traffic. On its side was a fading, tattered banner depicting an angry woman of ambiguous ethnicity, naturally with her fist in the air, under the superimposed words “WOMYN WILL SMASH SEXISM, RACISM AND DENIAL!” It was remarkable how a nation so focused on rooting out what it called bigotry under various labels always seemed to uncover more and more of it lurking inside itself.

Their destination was not far now. Switch out the car, siphon the gas, get on the freeway, get as far east as possible and make the crossing into Arizona on foot. His mind ran through the checklist again; food, water, clothing for the hike. All good. Travel passes with carbon offsets accounted for, good to go. He had paid enough for them. Blues always talked a good game about being progressive, but they all had their price.

His weapons? Ready to rock, if need be. Hopefully, there would be no need. Not that shooting blues made much difference to him – his time in Indian Country had disabused him of any illusions about the value of human life in the People’s Republic. Avoiding trouble was solely a matter of convenience. It was simply easier to avoid a fight if he could. This trip should be a milk run, but with everything falling apart, who knew. It was always worse every time he came back, but this time it was a whole new level of bad. He had almost got caught in a mini riot in Santa Monica surveilling the kid before grabbing him. Better to have superior firepower and be safe rather than sorry.

In all of Turnbull’s life, he had never once regretted being too well-armed. Never once.

Now an electronic noise derailed his train of thought.

Da-da-da-da-da .

Turnbull’s head swiveled right. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I’m sorry,” stammered the kid, digging inside his jacket for his cell phone.

Da-da-da-da-da .

“I asked you if you had a cell. You said ‘No.’ By that I foolishly inferred that you didn’t have a fucking cell phone.”

“I forgot,” the kid replied miserably. Turnbull made a mental note to always search his package. Trusting civilians not to be stupid was a bad bet.

The kid looked at the caller ID. “It’s my mom.”

“Don’t answer it,” Turnbull said. He assessed what he could do to undo this screw up. He settled on a plan.

Da-da-da-da-da .

“Give it here, genius.” The kid handed the phone over and Turnbull rejected the call.

“Now roll down your window.” The kid complied and Turnbull glided the Dodge to a stop in front of a packed bus stop. “What’s the unlock code?”

“Uh, one, two, three, four.”

“Of course it is,” Turnbull replied, and then he yelled over his passenger out to the puzzled riders waiting at the curb.

“Who wants a free phone?”

The riders stared back, their faces thin, their clothes ratty, unsure, unwilling to move. Was this some trap? After a few moments, a young Hispanic woman stepped to the window.

“Free? I’ll take it.”

“The code is one, two, three, four,” Turnbull said, tossing her the device. She caught it, smiled, and stepped back as the Dodge headed down Pico again. Hopefully, she would lead anyone following them on a merry chase across the length and breadth of the Los Angeles public transit system.

“Why did you do that?” the kid asked, petulant. “It’s got my address book! I don’t even know my mom’s number. I just hit the favorite!”

“You understand you can’t talk to your mother, right? You get that she’s going to report you’re gone and that we’re fugitives and that that phone could track us, right? Geez, are you really that stupid?”

The kid’s eyes welled with tears. Apparently mommy had never let her magical unicorn child in on the fact that he was a numbskull. Turnbull pitied the kid’s drill sergeant, assuming the kid had the stones to volunteer.

“We have to lose this car.” Turnbull turned off Pico south on a side street. “Now listen, you do what I say when I say it. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” said the kid, petulantly.

“Okay, any more surprises for me? Any other cell phones, personal computers, trackers, smoke signalers, anything on you?”

“No.”

“Good. Like I said, you just do exactly what I tell you when I tell you and in a couple of days you’ll be in the red and wondering why your mother ever brought you to this shithole.”

The neighborhood between Pico and the 10 Freeway felt abandoned, as if everyone had just vanished and nature had started to reclaim it. The buildings were decaying, and the yards had gone feral in the rows of houses liberated from their owners in the wake of the Split. Green weeds sprouted from cracks in the asphalt. Someone had left a broken couch on the sidewalk, and someone else had set it on fire.

And in the midst of all the emptiness were more lies. There was another billboard, brand new but stuck incongruously in a deserted neighborhood. This one depicted a smiling young blonde woman, well-fed and happy, and therefore likely a fantasy. “I LEFT TEXAS AND TYRANNY TO COME HERE! BE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR FOOD AND FREEDOM!” And in the corner, yet another version of the rainbow flag. The top stripe on this one was mauve. Turnbull had no idea what race, ethnicity, or personal lifestyle choice that tint represented either.

After a few moments and a couple turns, they reached a forgotten commercial area. Turnbull parked the Dodge on a quiet street in front of a tan Ford Taurus from the mid-2010s. He said a silent prayer of thanks that it was still there after 12 hours. The Taurus was a bit beat up too, but the engine was still good. It would do the job. Turnbull used the key remote to unlock it.

“Grab my duffle and put it in the back seat of the Ford. Then get in the car and sit there. Don’t open the bag. I’m going to siphon out the gas from this one to fill the Ford’s tank. Should take me maybe 10 minutes. Don’t do nothin’. Don’t touch nothin’. Don’t say nothin’. Just sit there and wait. Got it?”

The kid nodded, and they got out of their respective doors. The kid opened the Dodge’s back door and dragged a large olive drab duffle bag with a zipper across the top off of the back seat and onto the cracked sidewalk.

“This is really heavy,” the kid said, hefting it over his shoulder.

“Why are you still talking?” asked Turnbull, scanning the area. Nothing but old gray industrial buildings, largely abandoned. It’s hard to manufacture without raw materials. He went to the trunk and popped it; it held two empty plastic jerry cans and a siphon rig.

There was movement down the street. Turnbull stepped out from behind the trunk. About 50 yards out was a scraggly man on an ancient bicycle, plastic bags full of what appeared to be salvaged junk swinging from the handlebars. He was probably in his fifties, dirty, with the look of a druggie.

Oh, great.

“Uh, sir? Sir?” shouted the rider, coming closer, now maybe 20 yards out. “Sir, could you spare –“

“No. Move on.”

“You look like you got some extra –“

“Move on.”

The rider stopped perhaps 30 feet away, straddling his bike frame in the empty street.

“Why you so selfish? I know you got stuff. I just want a little.”

From behind, the kid leaned his head out. “What’s going on?”

“Get your stupid ass back in the car,” Turnbull snarled over his shoulder, then returned the bum’s stare.