Man Hunt (12 page)

Leb was kind enough to defer another pair of men who came by to ask Obe to tell his story. "Let the man attend to his poor feet," he said. "What if he's got to run again later today? Even with sneakers he can't run if his feet are useless. Sorry, boys, the story booth is closed."                   

Then Leb shot a quick look at Obe with a glint in his eye. "Come back tomorrow and maybe he'll sell you his story for a bite of bread." The men went away promptly without comment, and this time Obe's smile was genuine.

Obe and Leb fell into a comfortable silence that lasted for some minutes. Obe's stomach was beginning to growl. The extra food he had been provided with at his transferal had spoiled him, and now he wanted more than his fair share. He hoped the blue food bags weren't too much worse than those in green sector.

Obe's eyes eventually found the spot of blood on his left thigh, and he knew something about the incident with the green was still on his mind. Finally, he pushed it out of his mouth, and it felt as tasteless and intrusive as a wad of cotton.

"The guy I watched die," he said, "the Green this morning…" he trailed off as Leb listened with some patience. "He had my old jumpsuit," Obe finally managed. "The one I was wearing just a week ago. It said OTTER right there on the tag. It just… blew my mind, you know?"

Leb took a long time to respond. At first he only let out a muffled grunt and nod, but finally he spoke as bluntly as Obe. "I hate that. I've seen mine twice. Two different men. I was the PORCUPINE as a green."

"I know the PORCUPINE. I think his name is Clube."

"Not the same guys I saw. They were both dead. The second was maybe two months ago."

"Yeah. I guess it's not him then. Clube is still alive." He paused. "Or he was a week ago." Neither of them needed to elaborate.

"I suppose." Leb paused for a moment before continuing with his own story. "The days of the PORCUPINE are over for me. I'm the COYOTE now. You'll have to put the OTTER behind you and become
your
new name. It's difficult moving to blue sector. We all assume it will be even worse moving to black."

Obe looked down at the nametag on his new, blue jumpsuit. 'GOPHER', it read. It was an animal he wasn't proud of. It felt like a demotion from OTTER. Otters were fun, playful. They were always shown on television swimming around like children at the pool. Gophers, on the other hand, were fat and always covered in dirt. Despite how much he knew the women were winning another small battle, he had really been looking forward to a larger, quicker, more powerful sounding animal. Leb had a good jumpsuit.

"Hey, hot shot." The voice came from above Obe. Another man in blue approached. He wore a scowl on his face. "Let's have a look at those purdy green sneakers. Were they really worth it, you idiot? You know, I don't exactly appreciate you bringing your uninvited guests over for dinner like that."

"Leave him alone, Jain," Leb said. "He's had a hard day. And I wouldn't be calling anyone an idiot if I were you. When was the last time you had the courage to approach a dead body?"

"A hard day? And what were the
rest
of us doing? Lounging on the beaches of San Juan?" A nearby man chuckled. Jain saw he had gained the audience he was looking for, and he continued. "I'll have you know I took
this
here piece of bread from a dead Green just two days ago. Took it right out of his jumpsuit and was gone long
before
any cars came around to clean him up." Now more men were beginning to take interest. Jain was standing proud and talking loud.

"Then why isn't it flat?" Obe asked, and instantly his heart skipped a beat. What was he doing? His own voice was lower. People needed to quiet their mumbling gossip to hear him, which they did. And for some reason it stirred him to speak again, against his better judgment. "Are you trying to tell me a car ran over a man's chest
three
times
and failed to hit that piece of bread? I find that very strange."

"Are you accusing me of lying you little rat bastard?" Jain lashed back. "I'll smash your freaky-eyed face in if you think I'm going to let you talk like that to me!"

Obe stared at the man, his earlier disquietude changing quickly to anger at the phrase 'freaky-eyed.' He had always been sensitive about his strange eyes, his two different-colored eyes. As a child he'd been made fun of relentlessly, one day even being driven to tears in the boys' locker room after Phys. Ed. Class. That memory the women had allowed him to keep, of course. 

Even as a young adult he'd had to deal with the double-takes and nervous looks. Why such a trait seemed to disarm and discomfort people, he wasn't exactly sure. But it always did. Doov, Rein, Leb, and all the others had been nice enough not to say anything. Jain was obviously a different caliber of man.

Jain sneered wordlessly and a flash of silver something flew in and out of Obe's mind. He must have flinched a little as well because Jain repeated the action. The silver flash repeated as well, and Obe suddenly understood he had stepped into not just a new jumpsuit, but a whole new society. In this section of their little patch of Hell on Earth, there would have to be men like Jain, men who fed off the sufferings of others. Fitting in would require more adaptation than he had been anticipating. Obe didn't hear his own mumblings of linings and silver clouds.

"What's that?" Jain asked. "What are you saying, freak? Hey! Check this out! The new guy is talkin' to himself again!" Obe stopped the litany in an instant and felt the hot flush of embarrassment cover his face.

"That's right," Jain went on, even louder now. "I saw you when ole Sta came by this morning. Mumblin' to y'self just the same." Other men nearby were smiling, enjoying the show. "Sumbitch wouldn't even give the crazy old bastard a chunk a' bread. How's
that
for greedy?"

"Careful, JACKAL." Leb stood to gain Jain's attention and Obe quickly stood beside him. "You don't know if Obe even
had
any food." Suddenly Jain's audience grew to a full crowd of onlookers as Leb went on. "And as for talking to himself, well… people all have their behaviors, don't they?" Obe tried not to smile. He couldn't believe how good it felt to have an ally. And even as he understood this, he understood something else. There was a preexisting feud between these two. Its presence was obvious from the instant Leb took to his feet. The crowd knew it too. Obe could feel them all watching like passersby at an auto accident. It might only be another fender-bender, but sometimes it turned out to be a real whopper of a crash. Who could resist looking at all the swirling lights, broken glass, mangled metal, and maybe even a dark pool of glistening blood? Obe backed off a touch, glad to be out of the limelight for a second.

"Hell," Leb continued, "
some
people, I hear, hide behind bushes or up in trees and watch the rest of us take our jumpsuits off when they jerk off."

The crowd exploded with laughter and moans of mock hurt. Jain instantly turned a deep red from the neck up and spasmodically clenched his fists. His mouth was a fierce white line cutting into his dark head like a wide scar.

"Fuck you, Lebenezer!" Jain said. He tried again but couldn't manage to articulate his fury. "You!… you!–"

"Yes?" Leb asked. He feigned an exaggerated innocence and Obe could feel the crowd holding their laughter in check, not wanting to miss a single word.

"You mother fu–"

A shotgun blasted from the roof above them. Every man in the alley jumped and turned. Some ran for the shadows of the dumpster or took flight from the alley entirely. Obe looked for a downed man. So did everyone else. But it quickly became apparent that no one had actually been shot.

Of those who had stayed put, all of them– even Jain with his quickly dissipating rage– soon looked upwards towards the roof. A sea of eyes stared and listened. All that could be heard was the echoing explosion slowly fading away into eerie silence. A moment later it was replaced with a smaller explosion, this time a chorus of cackling laughter from above. The women, it seemed, had just been having fun at the men's expense.

As the commotion died down and men slowly came out of the shadows, a group of three men, Doov among them, quickly formed a huddle near the back corner of the alley.

Jain looked hard at Leb before mumbling something about luck and bullshit and turning to push his way through the crowd. Somehow, an inevitable fight had been avoided. Obe wondered if the women had been listening. He wondered how often they interfered like this.

Not like that,
he thought.
I've never even
heard
a gunshot before. No, something strange just happened.
The corner of the alley, he saw, was a bevy of hand motions. Doov and company were clearly having trouble agreeing on what the gunshot meant.

Obe sat down and resumed his foot surgery. Leb again sat down next to him. "Don't worry about Jain," he said. "He's an ass. He just did that to establish his rank over you, but it's pathetic really. Everybody here knows he's a bully. He has no
real
respect. Being mean is the only way he knows how to gain power. He'll do something just like it a few days from now to some other new guy."

Rein was approaching now, and Leb looked upward to the roof and quickly added some more. "Obe, listen. You're doing fine for now, but trust me, you haven't seen anything yet. You'll need to get tough, and fast. You'll learn our ways soon enough, but until then, just don't take things personally."

"Everything O.K. over here?" Rein asked.

"Fine," Leb answered for them both.

"Good," Rein said. He was happy to be pacified with the oversimplification. He craned his neck upward and continued, more seriously. "You ready for Hell, Obe?" Obe followed Rein's gaze and saw a huge, wooden crate three floors up resting on the edge of the roof.

Obe tried not to feel nervous, but when he spoke his voice warbled anyway. "Why-y is the food up
there
?"

Rein only snickered and continued looking at the crate.

"We don't get groceries the same way here," Leb offered quietly. "It's a bit more... rugged." Then he leaned back against his wall and didn't speak again. To Obe, it seemed like Leb had managed to blend into the shadows and become all but invisible.

Rein, meanwhile, tugged at Obe's sleeves. "Here, I'll help you out, newbie. You'll have a better chance from this angle." Obe stood, nodded goodbye to Leb, and quietly followed Rein. He was too busy letting the many elements of this new place sink in to resist. He thought of his brother, that one strong memory that had been his best motivation for survival. He thought of again having the simple freedom to enjoy the sounds of nature or watch a sunset without the fear of a revving engine. Then, more to confirm his fear than expecting good news, he asked Rein a question.

"Do you guys ever take time out of the day for simple pleasures? Like… looking for pictures in the clouds maybe?"

Now Rein looked to him, shocked. "You fuckin' kiddin' me? Holy shit, boy, you go around here thinkin' like that and you'll be dead in a week. How the hell did you ever get this far?"

Obe didn't respond. He had his answer.

Rein looked back to the crate and pushed his slick, sable hair out of his eyes. "Clouds," he mumbled to himself.

Obe looked across the alley to Leb, hoping for a moment's eye contact to suggest Rein might be wrong or that Leb himself would understand what Obe was getting at.

But Leb was gone. He had vanished as quickly and soundlessly as a bird's shadow.

Obe looked down to the empty ground before him and gently shook his head. If Rein didn't understand, it was doubtful any of the others would. Cloud watching wasn't a naïve waste of time or an immature, desperate grasping of the past. It was an escape from the hell he lived in and the only form of relaxation he had at his disposal.

He focused on the dry, gray pebble his eyes had been staring at. The little thing seemed so lonely on the vast plain of macadam below his moaning feet. Though he'd thought it countless times before, he hadn't ever truly believed the blue sector would be so different from green, and he didn't welcome change now. He had already gone through the difficulties of learning how to survive. Now he would need to coexist as well.

Adapt or die,
he reminded himself. It was the island's golden rule, and he intended not to forget it.

Every man on the island had fallen victim to the beautiful eyes and willing bodies of one woman or another, and once their training had begun in full they were taught that barely more than a third made it to the blue milestone. He looked up and surveyed the forty-odd men in blue jumpsuits surrounding him in the alley. Supposedly, only a
quarter
of these men would make it to the black sector. And, of course, of those lucky octet or so, perhaps
two
would actually go home one day. Obe exhaled his breath slowly, concentrating again on the pebble. Two out of almost two hundred. He still had a very long way to go.

Soon he heard stirrings of the men in the alley. Many of this "Family of Blue" had gathered loosely at one wall. There, above them and blocking Obe's view of the only small cloud in the sky, hung the huge wooden crate.

In green sector the women stood with their double-barreled shotguns in their meaty hands. Here they were hidden on the rooftops. And whereas in green sector a line would form in front of the green garage door on the right side of their grocery alley, here men had fanned out and now stood in small clusters throughout the alley.

He recalled that line of men in green. It always extended far out into the street because green sector housed closer to a hundred men, and only when all were silent would the women climb down from their perch, open the door wide, and begin handing out the tiny satchels of food.

Sometimes the men would stand there for a half-hour or more with every stomach rumbling until the women finally began passing out groceries. It was terrible to be in the back of the line, wondering if the man in front of you would be given the last bag.

The newbies, the ones who still hadn't gotten used to the drastic decrease in sustenance, would complain sometimes. This would only extend their wait. No pity was shown by either men or women. There would always be a chorus of gurgling stomachs from the first five or ten men, the ones who had missed out the previous grocery day and hadn't eaten anything but dew drops and grass for a few days.

Here, however, there were no lines. No organization. With less than half the number of men, it seemed like there would be plenty of satchels to go around, but Obe knew better. A few would always have to suffer. The women were like that. It was all part of their education.

The men had been milling around, but now that the crate had arrived most were standing in place and gathering. The clusters were breaking down, slowly forming one large mob of hungry men. Obe could feel yet another bout of panic working to take over his heartbeat. He wondered what, exactly, was going to happen here. Would the women just dump the crate upon the mass below and let them duke it out? Was that the latest torture they had created? Hadn't what happened in the fortress been enough?

All of the men suddenly felt oddly distant. Separated. "Try to get yours early," a voice said to Obe's side. It was Leb, and Obe was glad to see him again.

"What is all this?" Obe asked. But Leb only cleared the mass of blonde hair from his eyes and pointed to the roof. Obe looked again and suddenly understood everything. Extending out from the roof, held by a strong female hand, was a fishing rod with a giant blunted hook hanging from a line. Dangling from that hook was a single satchel of food. The women meant to encourage the very fistfights that were prohibited in green sector. They would do it one bag of food at a time and probably love every second of it.

Suddenly, Obe realized he was surrounded by enemies.