"He"s a very troubled young man," Dallas says. "I hope you find him because I honestly don"t know what he"ll do out there on his own."
The guard steps in front of Ally, leans over to look her in the eye. He smiles and bats his lashes. "Do you know where Dallas Richmond is, sweetie?"
We hold our breath and try not to stare too hard.
She shakes her head. "He left when Daddy got home."
"What time was that?" the guard asks.
"Six o"clock."
"Do you know where he went?"
"He disappeared."
"Did he say he would meet you somewhere soon?"
"No. He just disappeared."
He nods, glances at his colleagues who are checking our tires, turns back to us and nods again. He heads into the office building while the others place our belongings back in the trunk. The vinyl cover won"t stretch over top this time. My tent sticks up too high. They try to ram it down.
"Just leave it," Mom says. "It"s fine."
The mascara man returns with his orders. "The boy"s father suspects he"ll follow you on foot. It"s imperative that you understand this boy is a minor and he is not allowed to leave the country without his legal guardians. He will not get across this bridge or any other border crossing. You understand that if you"re waiting for him he will not be leaving and you will not see him again."
"Yes, we understand," Mom says.
"He"s not coming this way," Dallas says. "He"s going south, to Dallas."
The guard sighs. "You"re free to go." He pa.s.ses Mom the car registration and pa.s.sports. She checks to make sure they"re all there. "Keep them handy," he says. "You"re going to need them in a minute. You"ll also need your birth certificates and immunization records. Do you have those?"
Mom nods. "We have everything."
The guard shrugs. "Once they pa.s.s you on, I can"t let you back in."
"That"s what we"re hoping," I say.
The metal gates swing closed behind us. We drive slowly across a thousand feet of two-lane suspension bridge that hasn"t been repaired for decades. The headlights barely penetrate the fog.
Although I know how overbuilt old bridges area"it"ll be centuries before the bolts rust outa"it smells like decay, and I can"t help fearing that the steel deck might collapse beneath us.
Mom rolls down her window as if it"ll help her see. The bridge is lined with streetlights that burned out ages ago and no one from either side of the border is willing to replace. The air is cold and wet with the scents of the poisoned river and the damp concrete suicide barriers. I wish it were daytime so I could step out and look at the world we"re heading into.
My fear doesn"t lessen when we reach the border crossing near the end of the bridge. There"s a tiny building not much bigger than a toll booth with a swinging metal arm barring the road. No spotlights glare at us, no armed guards survey us. It"s unsettling because it implies a serious lack of financing in this country. There"s no room to turn around and we"re still a hundred feet in the air, so if they don"t let us in I can"t see what they"ll do with us except throw us over and steal the car.
Three guards are crammed into the one little booth, visible through a window that takes up half of one wall. They"re smoking cigarettes and drinking from thermoses and talking like they"re friends. It"s jarring because since the vaccinations I haven"t seen anyone talk like this, just shooting the breeze, laughing, pa.s.sing time. It"s not the sort of behavior I expected from border guards. They"re all in their thirties, all white men with short hair under blue caps. They wear blue uniforms with silver badges like police officers. But they don"t act like police. They act like we"re not even here. They smile at each other and speak loudly, happily, like they"re in the stands of a ball game. One cuffs another on the shoulder and the third rolls his eyes.
"Should I honk?" Mom asks.
"Are you crazy?" I say.
"Just wait," Dallas says. "This might be some kind of test."
"It smells funny," Ally says.
I reach out and pat her head, but she gives me a look like I"m defective, so I curl back into myself and stare out the window.
One of the guards sticks his head out and shouts, "Just a second!" He ducks out of view. Spotlights flicker and blaze around us. We"re momentarily blinded. I feel like we"ve been ambushed by trigger-happy soldiers. The guard steps out of the booth with a metal rod that he stuffs in a holster. He takes off his cap and smoothes back his hair. It shines red in the bright light. He puts the cap back on and smiles. "You"re the first car we"ve seen since morning." He holds out his hand. "Pa.s.sports please."
Mom hands them off.
He nods. "Connors. Yeah. Hang on."
He goes back into the building and says something to his colleagues who nod and get busy on their RIGs.
"I"ve never seen such happy police officers in my life," I say. "You think they"re drugged with something better than our guys get?"
Dallas shrugs. "They"re not very intimidating."
They"re all smiling inside, like there"s nowhere they"d rather be in the world than stuck in isolation on this decaying bridge in the dead of night. One of the guards waves at us through the window while he talks on a RIG.
"They knew our name," Mom says. "Why would they know our name?"
The redhead returns, smiles, says, "You"ve got some friends coming. They"ve been waiting all week, hoping you"d get here for Christmas." He checks his watch and smiles. "You"re cutting it close." He points past the spotlights to some vast unknown. "They"re not allowed any nearer, but you"ll see them in a minute if all goes well."
Mom nods.
"Karenna Connors?" he asks. "Where were you born?"
Dallas fidgets in the pa.s.senger seat while Mom answers a long list of questions. I hope he memorized Dad"s vital statistics or we"re screwed.
"Last place of employment?" the guard asks.
"New Middletown Manor Heights," Mom says.
The man"s face creases like a foul smell hit his nostrils, and he pulls away from the window.
"It"s a geriatric center," Mom explains.
"I know what it is." He stares at her with a whole new face, one that makes it easy to see he"s a cop. "Are you a doctor there? A janitor? What?"
"I"m a nurse."
"A nurse." He looks at her so coldly I have to suppose that his mother was killed by a nurse in his infancy. "What about you?" he asks Dallas. "What do you do for a living?"
"I was a doctor." Dallas coughs, lowers his voice, explains, "I"ve been unemployed for three years but before that I was a doctor."
"And where did you work?"
"New Middletown Manor Heights."
"You were a doctor at that place?"
"Yes."
The guard nods, turns to the building, waves his colleagues out, turns back to us. "You know what we call the places you call geriatric centers? We call them totalitarian medical facilities. You know what we call what goes on there? Unethical experiments on helpless populations. And you know what we call the doctors and nurses who work there? We call you monsters."
Mom"s mouth hangs open in disbelief.
"We"re going to search your vehicle now." He says it like there"s no doubt they"ll find contraband because they are never letting us into their country. "Get out. Get your children out."
So once again we"re standing on the side of a lonely road afraid of being shot. The redhead keeps his eye on us, his hand on his holster, while the other two open the trunk. He likes to talk, this guy. He talks at Mom and Dallas, glances at me and Ally every now and then and shakes his head like it"s always the kids who suffer. He feels inside our pockets, drops our coats on the road, pats down our shivering bodies, tells us how it is.
"You think you"re all closed up down there, watching everybody. You never stop to think that maybe somebody"s watching you. We know what goes on in your cities and your hospitals. n.o.body"s buying your story about self-protection and how you"re leading the way for the rest of the world." And on and on he preaches from his moral high ground while his buddies throw the contents of our bags onto the dirty bridge.
"That"s why we"re leaving," Mom says. "We don"t like what"s going on at home."
The redhead laughs at her. "Took you a while."
Dallas stands tall and clears his throat. "I quit my job because of it, years ago." He looks indignant and ashamed at the same time, a disgusted doctor, man against society. "And now we"re leaving the country, risking everything we have, risking our children"s futures because we don"t want to be part of it anymore."
The guard looks him up and down, sees a middle-aged rich b.a.s.t.a.r.d on the run.
"We don"t allow any companies, public or private, to test or prescribe medications on their employees or students or clients or soldiers or prisoners or anybody else without permission. Do you understand? This is not the world you"re used to, doctor. This is not the world that you belong in."
At the car, the taller guard whistles. He"s holding open the blue pillowcase that was stuffed in Mom"s suitcase. He pulls out a handful of coins, gold chains and pearls dangling from his fist. The redhead whistles too. All three of them look at us like we"re filth, like we peeled these jewels from helpless old invalids before we experimented on them.
The tall guard puts the pillowcase to one side, closes Mom"s suitcase and sets it down with the others.
"Put that back in!" I shout.
"Max," Mom whispers.
I look at hera"she"s scared, cold, confused and guilty. I shake my head, turn back to the guard beside the car. "You can"t have that. My friend gave that to me to help us get away. I won"t let you take it."
He laughs. "All right, kid. You can stop me." He and his short buddy haul my tent in front of the car and start unrolling it.
"Put it back!" I shout.
The redhead chuckles, steps in front of me, his hand on his holster.
"You can"t take our stuff," I tell him.
"Max, stop," Mom says.
"No." I step forward. The guard steps forward. We"re one foot apart, staring in each other"s eyes. He smiles like he can"t wait.
"You talk about my parents like you know who they are," I say. "But here you three are in your own little world with no cameras watching you, and you think you can do whatever you want to us. I bet you look forward to people like us trying to cross, don"t you? You can take our stuff if you want to, call us names, lecture us, make us stand here in the cold while my little sister"s teeth chatter."
He takes a step back, c.o.c.ks his head, lets me finish.
"What do you know about our lives? Who are you to judge us?" I shout. "What is the difference between what you"re doing right now and what people in power have done where we"re coming from? What exactly is the difference? I want to know."
He says nothing. He"s not smiling now, just looking at me, biting his tongue.
"You"re no different than any other adult I ever met in my life."
He nods, raises his eyebrows, nods some more. "They sure didn"t drug you, did they?" He laughs out loud, one harsh snort, and nods some more until my adrenaline drains and I"m shaking with nerves and cold.
"Pick your coats up," he says.
"Gavin!" the taller guard shouts from in front of the car.
"You"re never going to believe this!"
They"ve set my tent up in the road, the whole thing, poles up, flaps down. I don"t know how they did it so fast. They must be regular campers.
The spotlights blaze down on it. It"s gray and ugly on the damp cold road. WITHSTAND glares black and fierce across the wrinkled canvas walls, and all my people live safe inside it in the dark. All I can think is, Man, that is some magnificent work of art, some flash of brilliance pa.s.sed through me when I made that.
The front flaps open and the short guard peeks out, holding a flashlight, smiling. "This is it," he tells the redhead. "I think this is actually it."
Mom helps Ally b.u.t.ton her coat. She sniffs back her tears. "I don"t know what to do," she says. She looks at Dallas. "I"m so sorry. I don"t know where to go."
He shrugs. "There must be other places. Places where the id cards aren"t used yet."
"We can go back to Freaktown," I say. "I bet they"d let us live there. They must need nurses. We can work, too, me and Dallas. We could teach languages and math, whatever they need. We could start a football team and make a life there. For a while anyway. We could do something real, something to change what"s happening at home."
Dallas looks at me like I"m crazy. Mom smiles sadly. Ally says, "Dallas disappeared."
"I"m not going back to New Middletown," I tell them. "There is a world out here that is nothing like anything I"ve ever seen, and I want to be in it."
Mom sighs. She"d go along with anything, she"s so tired.
I look to Dallas. He shrugs. "I just want to go to school, Max. I don"t care where. I want to be an engineer. I want to build things. That"s what I"m good at."
"You"re a doctor," Ally says. "You save people"s lives."
Dallas looks down at her and pats her head. "Poor kid. You"re going to be so messed up by the time this is over."
"Where should we go?" I ask him.
"Anywhere. Anywhere but home."
The redhead swaggers over to our huddle. "Where"d you get that tent?" he asks.
I hate this guy. I hate his smile, I hate his freckles, I hate his voice, I hate the way he holds his hips. "It"s my tent. You can"t have it."
"It"s your tent?"