Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"It's a long way back."

"There's a lot more ahead!"

"More of this?" Echols said.

Fisher snorted, because he didn't know and didn't want to admit it. But he knew that they saw the future outside and were alarmed by it. He saw the past and was consoled.

"You've been here before?"

"Oh, sure," Fisher said, exulting, because he meant the past. "But, hey, I always feel at home in my helmet."

He sensed that he had bewildered them by saying that. Good! Bewilderment would make them rely on him.

"I used to be afraid of places like this when I was a kid." He thought: I was a kid until I was kidnapped.

Valda was holding his free hand in her hot fingers. He was glad she hadn't given up on him. He had always regretted having said to her: Shall I stick my finger into your bum?

He said, "Know what? I've discovered I like weather. I never liked it before. You don't have to change it — you can change yourself. It can make you happy, too. It's better than music."

The morning was drizzly and still warm, and the foliage seemed swollen and sodden, like rags thickened by moisture. The trees were heavier in the mingled steam and smoke; the drooping branches hung almost to the ground. There was a blackness in the green that summer rain always brings to trees and grass — so the day seems gloomy. The pale sifting mist streaked past the door of the boxcar, and the warmth only made them more conscious of the humidity. The freight train moved along the tracks on screeching wheels.

"Philadelphia," Fisher said. As always his helmet distorted his voice and made him sound like a talking animal. "But this train's going straight through, so there won't be a scan. It's got checkpoint clearance."

He had just heard that phrase on his radio. He was monitoring the engine now.

"What happens in New York?" Echols said.

"We won't get that far. The city's sealed. Or do you have an ID and a work permit?"

"I didn't want to be here," Gumbie said.

"Then why did you come!"

He saw in their momentary puzzlement that they had forgotten why they had come, and when they remembered they blinked — did they regret it?

"Maybe your friend Bligh can take you back!"

He was hearty: this seemed to frighten them. He wanted to frighten them further. Fear made them so attentive! They had never listened to him this way before. He liked that. He knew it was not friendship, but there was something touching and equalizing in their dependency. It was not that Valda was holding his hand; he was holding hers too. He needed those people and he was glad they didn't know it.

"One of the biggest checkpoints in the world is near here," he said. "It's a high-tech filter. It can detect anything — drugs, weapons, diseases. Everyone is scanned — every vehicle, everything. Hey, don't even think of squeezing through!"

They were never more frightened than when they saw some people outside in flying suits and helmets and thick-soled boots. At first, Fisher did not understand their fear— the folks outside were lolloping in a park, faceplates down, probably children. Then it struck Fisher that they were dressed as he was, except in cleaner suits, and so he did not seem absurd anymore, but rather in his element. It was then that they realized that they were the aliens — strange, naked, and weak; and hunted.

"They call it the Wall, but it's not a wall," Fisher said. He was still talking about the checkpoint from New Jersey into New York. "And don't think we can sneak under it like we did in the Red Zone Perimeter. You want to drown?"

Talking in this way he had made them curious, but when they looked out of the moving train all they saw were huge rusty drums and girders, and flaring chimneys behind high fences, and tumbled stacks of broken bricks on the burned earth. Where it was not burned the ground looked soaked in black oil. This low scorched place, without a tree, without a person — and where was the checkpoint? — seemed to contradict everything Fisher had said about the high security and technology. For that reason, it was much more worrying,

"There's the river, too — they've got gunboats and missiles! They use them! And there's aerial patrols on twenty-four-hour watch, with high-resolution cameras. You'll hear them — aerial patrols make the most noise."

But it was quiet now, except for the rumble of the train. It looked as though a civilization had burned to the ground— not a great civilization, but a flimsy flammable one, with nothing under it but shallow cellars into which it had tumbled. And its embers lay in the streets — sprinkled with broken glass and looking greasy in the light rain. The civilization had been temporary but its ruins were permanent.

"You can't fly in, walk in, sail in, or drive in, unless you've got papers — an ID, a work permit, an entry pass or proof of residence. You need two stickers for a car. They detain people by the thousands every day, and if you look like a tool or a dimbo they'll jail you on suspicion. They're not supposed to, but they do."

"We never had anything like this in Chicago," Echols said.

"That where you're from?"

Echols said, "A long time ago," and left it at that.

Once Echols had said, I abused my position, and Fisher had hated him and imagined something very crooked. But now he felt sorry for the bearded, beaver-faced man, and the others, too, huddled in the boxcar. They had lain in the darkness ever since Pittsburgh, and even Mr. Blue seemed nervous. They had glanced through the crack in the door, but they no longer hung there gaping. It was as though they did not want to see too much, as though this was more reality than they could take. O-Zone aliens in New Jersey! He could tell they were shocked: they had not expected this. He wanted to say, You O-Zonians haven't seen anything!

"What are we going to do when we get there?" Valda said.

"We're not going to get there."

"She means to the Wall," Mr. Blue said.

"I'll call my mother."

In a whimpering voice Rooks said, "He'll call his mother!"

Echols said, "You could call her now."

Rooks the toughie, and Echols the scientist, spazzing out at the sight of New Jersey!

"I don't have the range yet," Fisher said. It was a lie but it made them listen. When had they listened like this to him before? Yet, telling them not to worry and showing them this terrible place, he felt tender toward them.

Passing a settlement of old half-collapsed towers with lank gray laundry hanging straight down from clotheslines, they saw children playing among smashed cars in a sealed-off street. There were the inevitable fires: junk fires, children's fires, cooking fires, and smoldering dumps. The earth burned here — nothing in particular, just the oily ground. The drizzle made the fires smokier, and in their disfigurement was a look of utter futility. They had no fury. Their pallid flames and their gas were just another aspect of the ruin. And among all those fires a burning building — fifteen stories in flames — did not seem unusual. This one burned in silence. No fire engines, no hoses or alarms, no shouts: just a black tower going up.

"This is all Roaches. As soon as it gets dark they swarm outside," Fisher said. "There's a law against fires, but no one enforces it — too dangerous."

They did not talk much — the smell choked them. It was a dark brown stink of burned rubber and heavy gas, human waste, ditch water, and oil; it was scorched cloth and the reek of food being boiled in dented pots — bad meat and slop, that seemed the more disgusting when Fisher told them that someone out there intended to eat it.

"Retch-retch," he said, and clicking his faceplate into position, "Too bad you guys don't have masks."

They wrapped cloths around their faces and squatted like bandaged patients. They said nothing, and he admired them for their toughness. And he was grateful: they had made him tough. The very idea of this place used to paralyze him; so he did not blame them — they were aliens, after all, but not Roaches or Skells. And it was a terrible place.