The Subprimes (28 page)

The stricken rig lay on its side, the superstructure above the pilot station having sheared off after the fall so that it lay a few yards from the exoskeleton. The whole mess resembled a building toppled on its side, the vast metal struts and girders still standing, but much of the infrastructure had collapsed on impact, so that the drill and extractor and pumps and tanks were all in a busted, tangled pile visible through the gaps between girders. Several electrical fires were still burning, black smoke pluming upward, and the risk of more explosions kept everyone from going too close to the wreckage.

The techs and cops stood at a distance, awaiting the fire and rescue crew who would have been on-site had the state not stopped funding these services. The Pepper Sisters themselves had long ago lobbied into law the gutting of shale-oil drill-site safety standards, so that HG Extraction did not have a fire and rescue crew anywhere in the area. But running through everyone's mind was the question of whether or not anyone was still
alive in the pilot station.

The search for bodies around the rig quickly yielded grisly results. The bodies were all intact, the fall hadn't been from such a great height that they disintegrated, but it was a bloody sight of broken bones twisted at grotesque angles. The techs stood about, unsure of what to do. At first the cops reverted to a kind of crowd control to keep people back, but finally one woman's shrieks became so pronounced that they let her run forward to the body of a small boy. She kneeled down and tore at her hair, shouting, “Why? Why? Why?”

The boy had landed on his head, his autumn-brown hair now soaked red.

Bailey squeezed her eyes and looked around for Jeb, who was stumbling toward them. Neither Bailey nor Jeb fully grasped what had happened—nobody did. The impossibility of their boy being here, amidst the wreckage of this drilling rig, was so incongruous that both kept checking their surroundings and their boy's face in the vain hope that somehow this was not real.

Pastor Roger saw the woman bending over her dead son framed by the fallen Joshua Extractor. In the climactic battle of makers versus takers, a humiliating reversal had occurred, making what should have been a simple nighttime operation into a national spectacle. The optics were horrible. Pastor Roger looked up at a news drone, its camera shooting down at him from a few hundred feet above, giving the world a glimpse of his panicked face.

“What do we do?” asked a security guard in the employ of Pepper Industries.

Pastor Roger shrugged. “Pray.”

THE TECHS WHO WERE GATHERED
around the wreckage experienced a collective loss of nerve. Some were retreating, slipping
back to their SUVs and retiring from the operation. At any rate, it looked like the eviction was off for today, but others surveyed the smoking mess and wondered out loud if anyone was still in there.

But through the crowd came a figure in white, already familiar to everyone, and she did not hesitate to climb over a horizontal girder and slip around a collapsed interior stairwell in an effort to reach the pilot station. Sargam was determined to search for survivors, if there were any, and she was willing to venture into the flaming hulk. The men, standing around, looked down at their feet, unwilling to follow her. Only one came forward, Richie, who somewhat reluctantly climbed over the scaffold and girder to enter into the smoking, stinking ruin.

IT'S NOT COURAGE THAT COMPELS
me but shame at my own failings as a man. Shame that no one will follow Sargam into the wreckage to do what obviously must be done. We have to search for survivors. We can't stand around. After I climb in, I'm followed by a few citizens who are waving their hands in front of their faces to fend off the smoke. It is hot from the early-morning sun and the inferno of fuel and electrical fires. We have to skirt vast, smoldering cable nests and even a downed elevator cab, the drill bit and extractor pipes all lying shattered in the sand, the black, tarry lubricant pooling atop waffle-gridded steel.

Sargam takes the lead, climbing, slipping over and under the obstructions. At one point I burn my hand on a piece of rebar that must have secured some cabling and has now turned hot from a fire. This is a miniature hell, I think, a dirty, smoky, toxic industrial waste, and what am I doing here? I've never been a brave man. I've spent my life avoiding these sorts of risks, yet here I am, on a dangerous rescue mission.

I watch Sargam slide under a thick weave of I-beam, shattered carbon and fiberglass, a greenish liquid ominously dribbling down next to her. Without her saying anything we know we have to follow. One after another, we slide under, headfirst, and in the dark we snake our way along hot and oily surfaces, having faith that Sargam has seen a patch of light up ahead.

What else in this crashed Leviathan may still be shifting? My elbow bleeds and my burned hand stings. I continue to climb until I see a triangular opening and can extricate myself from the wreckage. We are in a sort of clearing in the ruins, a hissing chemical fire is burning a few feet to the right of us, and ahead, there is black smoke and a fountain of sparks emanating from what looks like some sort of twisted and blackened junction box.

There is the pilot station, four Plexiglas windows still in place but capillaried with thousands of shatter strands. The boxy structure is propped at an angle because it rests atop a buckled steel platform like an airport control tower dropped on its side.

There are no bodies here. I want to announce this to everyone. We can leave now.

“This doesn't seem very safe to me,” I say instead.

She points to a corner of the cracked Plexiglas where I see pooled blood.

Sargam swings herself onto the steel railings of the platform so that she is standing parallel to the grid-patterned floor, her muscular arms reaching up to the door frame to pull herself into the pilot station. She climbs up and over onto a control panel and is gone from our sight, reappearing a few moments later.

“Richie, stay there,” she says, and requests a few other men to climb up. “I've found someone.”

Two of our colleagues come over and stand on the railings with their feet spread.

“You need more help,” I say, preparing to climb up.

“It's a boy,” Sargam says.

I know before I know who is going to come down through that door, yet am shocked when Ronin appears, his face bloodied, his upper lip partially torn, his arms limp. Sargam holds him up by the elbows and the two men take his thighs and slide him down as gracefully as they can, considering the situation.

“Is he . . . ?” I say, unable to complete the question.

I take him in my arms and settle him gently to the ground. My boy is rag-doll limp. Please, please, be breathing, I think. Please. I remove my shirt and slide it under his head as the men gather around.

Why did I ever take him away from his mother, from Los Angeles? And what the hell was he doing up there, anyway? I should have been with him every minute. I should have treasured every minute. I should have quit everything and everyone so I could play one more game of checkers with Ronin, sat with him just one more time and lied to him that everything would be all right.

I lift his head up and hold my hand in front of his mouth, hoping for breath, but there is no air. The unimaginable has happened and I start sobbing. I'm on my knees, and looking down at Ronin, and I'm thinking, There has to be a next thing before I let go, even if it is only to arrange for his proper departure. It is so selfish, these first mournings. Rather than think of my daughter and how to tell her, or my ex-wife, who may be watching this live, I'm thinking of myself. I can't get up. I reach out and place my hand on his cheek, pressing slightly, as if checking again to make sure this is really him.

A hand is on my shoulder, and I turn and see Sargam, her head backlit by the burning wreckage. “We don't have much time,” she is saying.

I shake my head. What am I supposed to do? Leave my son?

SHE KNEELS DOWN. SHE LAYS
one hand on Ronin's forehead, just below his high crown, places her other hand over his mouth, then on his neck, then in through his torn T-shirt and against his chest. She closes her eyes. Is she attempting to comfort him? But that doesn't make sense. He is beyond pain.

Sargam takes my hand and holds it under Ronin's nose. In the heat, I cannot detect any warmth of breath and I start to pull away.

She looks at me with an urgent widening of her eyes.
Stay.

I hold my hand there and soon I imagine I can feel something, a faint, soft breath against my fingers. This can't be.

She takes my hand and holds it against his chest, and there it is, a heartbeat.

I'm frightened by what seems to be happening here. My son was dead, I'm sure of that, and yet here is some sort of life.

Perhaps he is in some vegetative state, revived but brain dead.

Then his eyes flick open, and I can hear the men around me murmuring, as surprised as I am by what we are all bearing witness to.

“Ronin?” I whisper.

He inhales sharply, as if smelling something and trying to figure out by that where he is. His eyes dart from me to Sargam and take in the wreckage around him. “Where am I?”

I am afraid to think this is a miracle.

WE CARRY MY BOY OUT.
Both his legs are badly injured, probably broken, and I wonder why if she can raise the dead, or so it seems, she can't fix his legs as well. I mean, it seems a bit stingy, but then I can't presume to understand what is actually going on here. What I do know is that I have been given a huge gift, a second chance to be a better father. There is a cheer from the
crowd as we emerge with Ronin, and he even manages a thumbs-up. Gemma rushes forward with Jinx, Ginny, and Franny, and as we celebrate our reunion. I lose track of Sargam.

THE FOOTAGE OF HER GOING
from body to body, seven in all, and bringing each one back to life—even Tom—was broadcast repeatedly and discussed with furious passion. Some newscasters insisted it had to be some sort of progressive trick, some sleight of hand performed by a woman who, let's face it, has never been properly vetted. “Do we know who she is? Where she's from? There should be an investigation of some kind. Homeland Security should be brought in to determine exactly what is going on here.”

But even among those most rabidly opposed to what Sargam stood for, there was a murmuring doubt that what had happened out there in the desert was real, that what we had witnessed was some sort of collective mystical experience, a visitation by a person who actually had magical powers.

Sargam became the single most compelling figure in the world, the shot of her standing with her arms raised before the army of techs and cops iconic. Her mantra of “People helping people” appeared everywhere. She became too globally renowned for anyone to even dream of removing her from Valence.

For Sargam, who retreated back into Valence in the immediate aftermath, and retired into her modest ranch house with Darren and avoided the media glare, what had happened was as confusing to her as it was to those billions who would see it. She was physically exhausted by the acts, and as she rested in the dark of her living room, regaining her strength and going over in her mind what had transpired, she tried to understand what she very quickly concluded was not possible to understand.

She was a practical woman, and she resisted the obvious conclusion, that she was somehow magical, or, even stranger, divine. How egotistical to even contemplate that possibility. When she discussed it with Darren, who became a little bit distant since the day of the battle, he did not dare venture a guess as to what this all meant. But he was grateful that the community was, for the time being, going to survive. And there were now tens of millions around the country who believed in people helping people, no matter what their credit rating. It seemed there was hope for subprimes everywhere.

I DON'T BELIEVE IN MISSIONS,
or God, or at least I never did before. I have not lived a virtuous life, nor a selfless life, and never gave much thought to concepts like virtue or sacrifice. Yet here I am, living in a community that grows every day larger and more powerful because it is centered around a great woman who may just be the Second Coming. Or she may just be a very talented masseuse. But I know what I saw her do to my son, and I know I owe her my loyalty.

I firmly believe she has broken the fever spell of greed that has blackened our world for too long.

I spend afternoons with Sargam, taking down her thoughts and observations, a project that has morphed into my writing her biography. I type as she talks, and then I go over what I have, organize it into paragraphs and scenes, and eventually turn anecdotes into allegories. This will be a hell of a book.

I walk back up to our house on Temecula, where I will meet Gemma after she is done with her day of teaching. Jinx, Ginny, and Franny are terrific students, inseparable it turns out, so much so that they've become known as “the triplets.” Ronin has been very quiet since his near-death experience, as if he is taking
stock of the world, and occasionally he will say that he misses Pacific Palisades, our old life, the way things were. Other times he says he just misses his mom.

I know my children will soon be taken from me, I know that this blessed idyll will soon come to an end, that there are great battles, both personal and global to come, and I try to stay in the moment. Sometimes I succeed.

There—I see Gemma and the girls approaching, the three kids skipping up the broken pavement, intent on leaping over cracks, their faces lit by the late-afternoon sun. Gemma is also sunstruck, her brown hair swinging freely over her lightly freckled forehead. She holds her hair up with one hand as she walks, her other holding Ginny's. Then she sees me, smiles, and starts skipping.

KARL TARO GREENFELD
IS THE
author of six previous books: the much-acclaimed novel
Triburbia
, the memoir
Boy Alone
,
NowTrends
,
China Syndrome
,
Standard Deviations
, and
Speed Tribes
. His writing has appeared in
Harper's Magazine
, the
Atlantic
, the
Paris Review
,
Playboy
,
GQ
,
Best American Short Stories 2009
and
2013
, and
The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012
. Born in Kobe, Japan, he has lived in Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. He currently lives in California with his wife, Silka, and their daughters, Esmee and Lola.

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.