Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

She pulled out her Book, which like the others had the state seal of a blue circle on the cover, and read from a section called Guileful Innocence, quoting authorities I’d never heard of such as Stormberg and Mauser. “Oh, the hell with you,” I said, and spit through the hole in the window, and the blob landed on the page she was reading from. She became hysterical, and in seconds had a crowd questioning her. A third bus drove by, stopped, backed up, and parked behind the second bus. Most of the passengers got off, and once they got wind of the story, joined the crowd around the woman. “Look,” she said, and showed them the stain my spit had made on the page. The crowd looked angry, even though I swore I was sorry and that I’d only done it to get their attention in some desperate way. “I’m being held for no offense against the state other than what the driver had either lied or misconstrued as one.”

“But no offense, young man,” an elderly woman said kindly, “can be worse than the mistreatment of our good book.” She read from her copy. “‘Crimes considered perfidious in previous eras, such as rape, infanticide, selling or giving of state secrets to state enemies, are still not ranked as base as the purposeful desecration of the Book of the State. Defiling and burning the Book are considered primary crimes. Malicious language about the Book is considered a secondary crime. Permitting the Book to fall into disrepair — a tertiary crime but one not punishable by imprisonment — may be considered a secondary crime if the offender, once admonished, doesn’t repair the Book in the time specified or return the Book to the State Book Depository for a new one.’ Also: ‘Any Book willfully or carelessly allowed to be destroyed, damaged or fallen into a questionable state of disrepair by one’s offspring under the age of sixteen—’”

The crowd got angrier as she read and some called for immediate trial and punishment. The driver, to no effect, told the crowd he was a public servant and thus a state officer and had everything under control. He then called Intercom from the bus and asked what he should do, and they said they’d be right out. Someone asked who I was, and my driver took my passport, recited my name and address and said he’d in fact just seen my loved ones a few miles from here at a bus stop. Then let’s get them before they escape,” one of the other drivers said, and she and about thirty people got in her bus and started out after my wife and child.

I’d never felt such fear for my family. What did the Book say again about punishing an offender’s immediate loved ones — those in close association, the genetic offspring as compared to the adopted children? And was the punishment harsher for the loved ones of a Book of the State desecrator — one who spits on the Book, no less? I’d never read the Book. It had all been such infantile nonsense to me. I’d stuck with the disenfranchised novels and poetry anthologies, books kept in my house illegally and which they’d now find. I had to help my family and didn’t see any other way of doing it except by calculated violence, which had to overcome my growing hysteria. I edged myself nearer to the driver, who along with the crowd was waving at and cheering the bus that had pulled away. I found a wrench under his seat, came down on his head with it and, as he was trying to hold onto my legs from the floor, his head gushing blood, I pulled the door lever and shoved him outside, his body knocking over the people trying to get in.

The key was still in the ignition switch. I started the engine, almost had to run over a group of people to get past them, and drove after the other bus. I began gaining on it, this bus pulsing with excited passengers, and through the rearview mirror I saw the other bus behind me, though its headlights gradually getting smaller. I overtook the bus in front, passed the stop my wife and child had been at, and drove to our home. I left the engine running and ran through the house till I found them in the kitchen, both weeping. “Dearests,” I said, “get into the bus outside — quick. No time for explanations”—when Janet asked me for one—“just move, move.” But she looked even more bewildered, even frightened, and withdrew with Lila behind a chair.

“Goddamnit, do what I say before they get us.”

“Who is they?” she said.

The people: Intercom, psychopaths, latent killers.”

“And why should these people be after us?”

“Because we’ve desecrated the Book of the State — now I said move .”

“I didn’t desecrate anything. And Lila and I can’t be responsible for another one of your dangerous acts.”

“Because I’ve desecrated the Book,” I said, thinking that even though I still loved her I’d never seen her so stupid, “it means all my immediate loved ones who are either living with me or are my genetic offspring, are almost as responsible as I am.”

Then I’ll simply explain that I never loved you and you’re not the father of my child. And that I lived with you only because you were emotionally ill and I was paid to be your nurse and cook.”

They’re after the emotionally ill also. I read it in the papers before. The president’s going to sign the bill into law tomorrow. And one amending provision states that anyone living with the offender for two months or more will also be judged emotionally ill. Now come on, Jan, for your one chance of freedom is with me.”

We got on the bus just as the other buses were pulling up, the passengers frustratedly banging their Books on the windows at us — acts of desecration, I thought, tertiary, maybe even secondary crimes that could also penalize their families. I drove on and in a few minutes they were nowhere behind us. Intercom could be close, but I knew these roads well, so I might be able to elude them. Suddenly on the Intercom band a man was speaking to us. “Haven’t a single chance, Mr. Piper. Your lines are tagged, Mrs. Piper. Lila, you awake? Seven minutes to capture, friends. Why resist any further? Stop now. Feel relieved. Better an authorized state Intercom officer than a mad state mob. Press button G to confirm message and detail pickup site.” I pressed G and roared obscenities till my breath gave out, though no doubt swearing on the state radio was another crime, maybe major. Then I told Intercom I was shutting them off because their mechanical dictums were distracting my in-flight skills, and smashed in the radio with the wrench and pulled out the wires.

I drove out of the city, through suburbs and then suburbs of suburbs till we entered that part of the state where there was still some untouched land left. I saw a cow and pointed her out to Lila, who squealed with pleasure. Janet apologized to me, rested her head on my thigh and said she was scared but was glad I’d convinced her to come with me. Lila was on my lap, pretending to be the driver, laughing when I told her to pay more attention to the road.

“Where we going?” she said.

“As far to the state border as we can get.”

“Drive carefully, darlings,” Janet said.

Lila soon fell asleep, her hands still on the wheel. We drove most of the night, over backroads where I hoped Intercom wouldn’t be able to tail us in the dark. When the fuel gauge was nearing empty I turned into a dirt road and drove the bus another twenty miles before we were out of gas. I rested Lila on one of the back benches, covered her with my jacket, and in the middle of the bus we settled down ourselves. “Kiss me,” Janet said. We were in the mountains, close to the border of the adjoining state. This state also had a Book, though I’d been told by ex-lawyer friends that it had a very progressive policy regarding college-educated immigrants, substituting a few years of unpaid military service as punishment for major crimes committed in another state. In a few hours we’d make the journey by foot. We had to start over someplace, no matter how restrictive it might become there. I kissed Janet. We hugged each other and I told her what my driver had said about her ass and boobs, and she seemed pleased, became giddy and playful.