The Merchants of Zion (26 page)

He scanned my ID with a tablet. “Where you folks headed?”

“New York.”

“You're not related to this young lady?”

“I am, sort of. She's my step-sister, so they were her grandparents, not mine...” I trailed off.

“Young miss, is this man telling the truth?”

“Yes sir,” she replied, beaming.

“And you're both American citizens?”

“We are,” I said, gulping.

“Have a nice trip home. Sorry to inconvenience you.” He moved on to the seats behind us. “Could I see you folks's IDs, please?”

And that was that. No harm, and if the authorities would leave a little girl alone for not having her ID maybe they weren't batshit insane. In fact, they'd shown the utmost courtesy to the train's passengers except for the guy they'd knocked unconscious, but he'd fought back, after all. Skinhead approached the woman sitting next to us. Perhaps he was all right, a normal man with a wife and two kids; a man with bills that must be paid. His mother could be in a nursing home, and when the Panic wiped out all of her savings she'd turned to him for help.

“Identification, please.” She handed them over. “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?”

“Yes,” she answered, though it sounded more like “yay-ees.” The man scanned her ID and there was a flurry of Spanish between them. He punched something into the tablet and stood there for a moment, waiting. The woman's face remained calm, but she moved one hand slowly towards her side.

The gadget beeped. “Ma'am,” he said, and she snatched what looked like an orange and black gun from her purse. A brown cloud of aerosol shot into the agent's face. The woman dropped it and raced towards the car door. The border agent clawed at his face and stomped around. His foot landed on the gun and the cartridge atop the barrel exploded with a soft bang. A fine mist filled the air and my eyes began to sting.

I put the train's flimsy complimentary blanket around Elly, trying to cover her eyes and nose. The other passengers hacked and coughed and the second Minuteman chased after the fleeing woman. An elderly man fell into the aisle, on his knees, gagging, and the woman tripped over him and tumbled to the ground. Someone screamed “terrorist” and the entire car was in a panic, with people bowling over one another to reach the exit.

My nostrils burned, and I could feel the acrid droplets coating my throat. However, neither Elly nor I were going to die from this, accusations of terrorism notwithstanding. Good luck inside of bad. I grabbed her hand and led her toward the exit, doing my best to keep clear of the first border agent, who was leaning against our seat and rubbing his face with his sleeves.

People crammed into the aisle, and pedestrian traffic jams formed at either end of the car. Through blurred, teary eyes I could see five squirming bodies pushing through the narrow doors ahead. My plan had been to duck into the bathroom, but these lemmings were blocking the way. I pushed Elly into an empty seat, not wanting her to be trampled.

After thirty seconds that felt like thirty minutes, enough people had escaped for the herd to have thinned to a mix of the meek and the weak-willed. I held Elly's head to my chest, still covered in the blanket. I kept my eyes closed, but it didn't help; my entire face was on fire. I stumbled zombie-like out of the car, Elly in tow, stepping on a person or two in the process.

Outside, a third border agent was rushing from person to person, handing out bottles of water. When I received mine I ripped off my t-shirt, turned it inside out, and soaked it. I washed off Elly's face and when she said she was fine I began wiping mine. Elly took the shirt from me and poured more water onto it. “Sit down,” she said. She dabbed my face with a motherly gentleness and poured the water remaining in the bottle over my eyes.

“Open your eyes,” she said, and I did. The water had washed away some of the pain, and I could keep them open, even if that meant blinking through tears. I motioned for the second bottle.

The first swallow made me cough, as did the second, and I spit up water on the station's concrete platform. The third mouthful went down, and I gave the bottle back to Elly. She was in much better condition than I was—well enough to tell me my faced looked all blotchy.

An ambulance pulled up to the train platform, sirens blaring. Two EMTs hopped out, wearing gas masks and carrying a stretcher. They went into the car and removed those still within. Skinhead exited the train first, walking with the support of one of the EMTs. His colleagues rushed over to him with wet cloths. The extracted passengers were all too injured to walk, and the technicians laid them in a row on the platform as they carried them out one by one. They brought out the pepper spraying terrorist last, and plunked her on the ground, hard. She lay still. A sour, metallic taste flooded my mouth, the taste of anxiety replacing the capsaicin, and if I hadn't been sitting down I probably would have fainted.

The EMTs checked each person they'd dragged from the train. They ripped the shirt off of elderly man who'd fallen out of his seat. One of the EMTs drew an “X” his chest with a black marker. The other rushed to the ambulance and came back lugging a defibrillator. They worked on him for a moment, without success, then moved on to the other passengers.

I heard more sirens in the distance.

When Skinhead had recovered well enough to stand unsupported he marched towards the woman, who sprang up and took off down the platform. He reached for his belt, unclipped his gun, and pulled it out. “Close your eyes, Ells Bells” I said, and covered them. He wiped his face and aimed, legs planted far apart and holding the gun with both hands. He looked like he was at a shooting range. I closed my eyes. There were five shots. People screamed. When I opened my eyes he was walking over to the body. She lay sprawled out in front of him, a spray of red and grey fanning out in the direction she'd been running. He prodded her with one foot, flipping her face up. Then he spat on her, and I could see the thick phlegm ooze down her cheek. No one lifted a finger to stop him.

* * *

The EMTs covered the bodies of the woman and the elderly man. The Minutemen emptied the train car. They handed out black garbage bags and everyone emptied the contents of their luggage into them, leaving behind purses, bags, and suitcases coated in pepper spray. I threw away my backpack, but we kept Elly's—she wouldn't give up her bumblebee backpack for anything. We waited on the platform for several hours, then loaded into a new train. Elly slept for the rest of the ride home.

* * *

The train pulled into Penn Station at two pm. Mr. Felkins was waiting for us outside. I'd called Helen when Elly and I hit New York City, deciding to wait until I met her in person to tell her about our run-in with the law. I hadn't expected Robert to be the one to meet us, and his appearance threw me for a loop; would it be better to stay quiet until I saw Helen, to delay the story until I had a more favorable audience? No, what had happened was too major and to not mention it to Robert would be irresponsible. Besides, Elly might tell him after I left, which would make the situation far worse.

Elly gave him a hug around the waist when she saw him, and he got down on his knees to give her a kiss. For me there was a grunt of recognition and a quick question if everything had gone well.

“Actually, there's something I need to tell you. It's going to take a minute.”

He scowled, and suggested we first get a cup of coffee, a donut, a bagel, whatever. We stood in line at one of the street vendors and he ordered a coffee and bagel with cream cheese for himself and a chocolate chip croissant for Elly. He didn't ask if I wanted anything.

Just a small coffee for me, thank you, and we found a wide set of stairs at the end of the plaza. I explained what had happened, and asked Elly if she'd like to add anything. She was cleverer than I, and remembered to mention how I'd covered her face first, and also that I'd made her look away when the agent pulled out his gun. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten to tell him about that—he must've thought I'd stood by passively while she was traumatized.

He said nothing for a moment, then: “Cliff, you seem to have a problem with authority. I've never, in my life, had a problem with the police, but it seems every other week you're drawing Elly into some revolutionary set-piece. I love my daughter more than anything in the world, and I don't know what I would do if she came to harm because of your incompetence.”

“What are you talking about? The same thing would've happened if you were there instead of me.”

“That's your side of the story. Just get out of here. I'll talk to Helen and we'll decide on an appropriate course of action.”

Obviously nothing I had to say would make a difference, so I got up to leave. “Bye Ells Bells,” I said, then “Good-bye Mr. Felkins. Please let me know when you've made your decision.” I wanted to beg him not to fire me, but wanted even less to offer him the satisfaction my groveling would entail.

“Bye Cliff,” Elly said. I set off in a random direction, then called Ruth. The phone rang twice and went to voice mail. I texted her, asking her to call me back, and headed home.

* * *

The living room was packed with a medley of liquor boxes, all taped up and marked by labels like “books,” “clothes,” and “research files.” James must have had most of his belongings in storage and figured he could fully move into my house during my absence, as I wasn't around to tell him no.

The kitchen was the cleanest I'd seen it since he moved in; there were no dirty pots on the stove or half-empty styrofoam containers of Chinese food left rotting on the table, and his easel was tucked into a corner, its broad, white paper facing the wall.

Dimitri was bent down in front of the cupboards. He didn't notice me, and was packing away his pots and pans with the same focus he applied to everything else. His long, curly black hair had been chopped off, replaced with a crew cut. The haircut exposed a tattoo on the back of his neck I'd never seen.

“I didn't know you had a tattoo,” I said, stepping into the kitchen.

“Huh?” he said, turning around and facing me. He'd shaved his beard and replaced his thick-framed black glasses with a svelte pair made of thin silver wire.

“Christ, did you kill Dimitri and botch the impostor job? Or are you an evil twin?”

He laughed, and pressed one hand against the nape of his neck. “I got it while you were gone. It's Russian. It means: It would be painful to depart and leave no faint footprint of glory.”

“You come up with that yourself?”

“No, it's Pushkin.”

“Is he that painter?”

“He's a poet.”

“I'll have to read him some time.”

Dimitri went back to packing his kitchenware, methodically wrapping every piece in paper towel and placing it in an empty liquor box. That I might be wondering what he was doing never occurred to him, or he was avoiding the issue.

“Are you going to ask me about Chicago?”

“I'm kind of busy.”

“I see. I saw Edward.”

“How is he?”

“Good. I think he's lonely out there. He doesn't have any friends.”

“That doesn't sound like Edward.”

“I know, right? Maya breaking up with him really messed with his head.”

“I bet it did.” He shut the cabinet door and opened the one beside it that had our silverware. “Did you tell him you two dated?”

“No. I didn't see the point.”

“Do you think he knows?” He taped up a narrow box for small bottles of cheap vodka.

“I dunno. It's not like we dated until after they'd been broken up a while.” There was no way he could've known. If Maya or someone else had told him, he would've confronted me. Maybe kicked my ass. I know if our situations had been reversed, and I'd known, there would've been no other choice. But Edward was a nice guy, much nicer than me. Not the kind of guy who dates his friends' ex-girlfriends. It hadn't struck me as possible to hide away knowledge like that—to just grin and bear it.

“Don't you think that box is too big for your silverware? Some of it's mine, remember. Anyways, what're you doing? Did James piss you off enough to make you leave?”

“No, I have a new job. Don't worry, I'll send enough money to pay rent for the next two months. To finish out the year, you know.”

He was moving out west. If I needed to contact him, he'd still check his old mailing address, but he couldn't give me his new one. He was getting a new phone number and couldn't share it with me either, sorry. It was all very hush hush, and he'd been instructed to tell as few people as possible. He apologized for not letting me know, but I could only think about how jealous I was of him for being paid to do what he loved. People still found ways to move their lives forward even while the world went to shit around them. Everyone except for me. And James, thank God.

I hovered around Dimitri while he finished packing. He hadn't talked to James since I left, and hadn't heard him crashing around the bathroom in three days. I told him about my crazy experience on the train, and he offered up some begrudging words of consolation.

“Don't you think it's reprehensible... the power our government has?” I asked.

“Not really. It's too big to be seen as a moral entity. It's the preferences of thousands, maybe millions, of individuals duking it out for their slice of the pie. How it turns out is, more than anything, random. I can't affect it, so I don't worry about it. My research makes me happy, and a person can't do more than look out for themselves. Besides, you're better off than ninety-nine point nine percent of humans in the history of the world—it's not like you have to worry about an army riding into New York and burning it to the ground. You've got to keep things in perspective.”

“I guess. But because it could be worse doesn't mean I can't wish it were better.”

“Then wish as hard as you can.”

I didn't have anything to say to that, and changed the subject to my getting fired. He pointed out that I hadn't been officially terminated yet, and he thought Mr. Felkins would cool off, or Helen would talk him down. Besides, I had two months rent upfront, which would tide me over while I looked for a new racket. I told him he was the most unsympathetic person I knew. But I had to admit—he did have things in perspective.