The United States of Air: a Satire that Mocks the War on Terror (28 page)

“A hamburger, fries and a coke,” I said. “I know. They’re desperate, huh? Pity I can’t turn myself in.”

From the hallway came the sounds of boots limping along the hall. Green tensed.

“It’s a trap,” he hissed. “They’re coming for you!”

“Sure it’s not your doctor?”

“I heard the guards talking. There are Thin Berets everywhere.”

The bootsteps got louder. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Super Frolick is here to save the day.” I put my fists on my hips. “When I’m finished, we’ll get you some food. How does that sound?”

“It’s too late,” he said. “Promise me something, Frolick.”

The bootsteps halted outside the door.

“Anything, Harry.”

“Forget about the Prophet. Go to Canafooda. Be with your family. It isn’t worth it.”

I thought of Chantal whoring herself for a sandwich. How could I ever look her in the eyes again? I set my jaw in grim defiance. “I’m sorry, Harry. I can’t promise you that. That lying sack of poo destroyed my life. Destroyed this country. He deserves to die.”

The door inched slowly open. A platoon of heavily armed Thin Berets stood in the hallway.

I grinned. “Excuse me for a moment, will you?” This was going to be fun.

For the next three and a half minutes, I was a superhero. I moved so fast they couldn’t keep me in their sights. The poor commandos were so thin, so weak from lack of food, I simply took their weapons from them one by one and knocked them to the floor, where they lay on their backs like helpless cockroaches, burdened by fifty pounds of gear.

I winked at Harry. “More coming, I’m sure. Better get moving.” But Harry said nothing. “Harry? You alright?” Still nothing. I stepped over a dozen flailing limbs and made my way to his bedside. His eyes were open, but unmoving. I put my hand over his mouth. No breath.

Special Agent Harry Green of the ATFF, my partner, was dead.

More bootsteps limped down the hall. There was no time to mourn. Wiping away tears, I strode down the hallway to the service elevator, brushing Thin Berets aside with a flick of my wrists. I pushed the down button and waited.

Come on. What was taking so long?

The doors finally opened. Twenty fat men wearing camouflage and floppy berets the size of Mexican sombreros slouched out of the elevator. I tried my karate moves, but my lethal attacks just bounced off their substantial padding. They laughed. Not a man among them weighed less than five hundred pounds.

“Who
are
you people?” I asked, in growing horror.

“We’re a new Top Secret unit,” their leader said. He doffed his cap and bowed, or tried to. “We’re super-special forces. They call us the Fat Berets.”

“But—but how?” I spluttered. “You didn’t get that big just from eating air.”

“Who says we didn’t?” said another. And they all laughed. “Now come along quietly or we’ll be forced to sit on you.”

Twenty-Seven

My trial lasted fifteen minutes. If you can call it a trial. Judge Meyer-Weiner presided. Pretended not to know me, the bastard. Agent Erpent testified against me. Explained how I had “sabotaged” his investigation. Cap put in a thirty-second appearance. Was I, in his professional, expert opinion, a dangerous food terrist? Yes, I was.

“Guilty! Indefinite detention, Fat Camp.”

“What do you mean, indefinite?” I protested. “That’s against the Amendment!”

“For as long as the Prophet and the National Thinness Council deem you a threat to our national security. Next case!”

Meyer-Weiner didn’t even look at me. He must have talked to save his fat hide. Hell, for all I knew he was on Fatso’s payroll. Him and Erpent both. Not that it mattered. He had won and I had lost.

They put me in chains and covered my head with a hood. I stood in line with other prisoners. We boarded a bus. Hours passed. The warmth of the weak sun faded. Then we were there.

“Welcome to the final stage of human evolution,” our guard said with a laugh, and whipped off our hoods.

It was the same Fat Camp I attended three years ago. But it looked different now. They had replaced the crude wooden sign over the gate with a marble archway. Same words, though: “Enter Slaves. Depart Free Men.”

The camp was surrounded by countryside, dead and brown as far as the eye could see. No one lived out here anymore. It was the perfect location for a Fat Camp, I had to admit. Even if I managed to escape, which seemed unlikely, where would I go? The only passing traffic were military patrols.

The bus crunched up the gravel drive. On either side of the road, backhoes dug great pits in the earth. Bulldozers pushed piles of firewood into the freshly excavated holes.

Firewood? I squinted through the dirty pane. Firewood doesn’t have feet. Thousands of them, naked wet toes in the freezing drizzle. And heads and arms and torsos. The bodies fell into the pit. The bulldozer retreated to bury a second stack.

What was going on? This wasn’t the Fat Camp I remembered, of campfire singalongs, hushed eager enthusiasm for the Prophet’s latest broadcast, and Mexican night on Thursdays. Things had changed.

We came to a razor-wire checkpoint—also new. A machine gun guarded the gate, facing inward toward the camp. What an idiot the camp commandant was, I thought. How on earth could they protect us from marauding cannibals if the machine gun was pointed in the wrong direction?

Another surprise waited for me inside the gates. Hundreds of walking skeletons stared up at us as we drove into camp. Shreds of clothing hung from their limbs, exposing wrinkled flabs of skin, hallmark of the formerly obese. Men. Women. Children. All old before their time, giant heads atop their twiglike bodies. The children sat in the mud, listlessly eating dirt.

Then I saw them. Both of them. There, in the middle of the crowd. Chantal! Nathan! But what were they doing here? I thought they’d gone to Canafooda. This was terrible. They looked so skinny. What was I going to do? It was my fault they were here. I lunged at the window, pulling at my restraints, and called out their names. She looked up. She spat and turned her back on me.

Probably had a bad taste in her mouth. Or maybe she mistook me for someone else. With the glare on the dirty glass, it must be difficult for them to see me inside the bus.

Soldiers armed with rifles—the kind that use real bullets, and fixed with bayonets—herded us off the bus and into the barracks, the very same I’d slept in three years ago. Only now there were more bunk beds, stacked seven high and so crowded together I could barely slip between them.

The other prisoners avoided me. Strange. Then I realized: I knew everyone in that room. A former high school PE teacher, an old girlfriend, the guy who works at the gas station I always use. Even my old elementary school best friend. What was his name again?

There was no time to solve this puzzle. Three women in brightly colored leotards and leg warmers cartwheeled into the room.

“U-S-A! U-S-A!” they shouted. “We’re number one! Whoo!”

“Who are you?” asked the old man in the bunk above mine. He used to cut my hair when I was twelve.

“We’re your slimming consultants!” said a girl in fuchsia tights and an orange Lycra top. She high-kicked.

“Let’s shed those ugly unwanted pounds!” said a second girl, and did a back flip.

“Remember, we’re here to help!” the third one said, and they formed an impromptu human pyramid.

“Now come on, gang!” the first one said, leaping from the backs of her sisters. “Let’s get over to the gym and get you started! We’ve got some exciting activities for you here at Fat Camp 34792! Let’s show some pride in that number! 34792! Whoo!”

Three tumbling blurs of spandex led us from the barracks across the yard to a great glass dome. That was new too. Soldiers scanned our social security bar codes and we passed inside.

The dome was full of treadmills and stairmasters and weight machines. Thousands of them. And every one occupied by a struggling skeleton. Around the outside edge of the dome lay exercise areas covered with mats. People I knew danced and bobbed and waved their arms in the air to aerobics music.

Our slimming consultants led us to an unoccupied exercise area. The three ladies clapped and did the splits in unison. A bored-looking soldier with a bayoneted rifle lounged against the wall, munching on a candy bar.

“All right, gang!” shouted one of the girls, this one in aquamarine and puce. “Let’s show those guys over at Camp 56924 we’ve got more spirit than they do!”

She pushed a button on a boombox and a thumping rhythm shook the floor. They gyrated through a rapid series of aerobics steps. We did our best to keep up, but our shuffling was not what they considered “spirit.” It had been three days since my Thanksgiving feast, and my super powers were waning. The others were in much worse shape. The old man next to me, my bunkmate and former barber, tripped on a tricky move and fell to the ground. He lay there panting.

Two of the perky slimming consultants danced over and pulled on his arms. “Get up, get up!” they cried. “We’ve got to help you burn that fat!”

“What fat?” he wheezed. “I’m as skinny as it gets.”

“Don’t be silly,” said a consultant. “You’re an ugly fat old monster like everyone else here. The journey to eating air begins with losing weight.”

“You can’t eat air,” the man snapped. “What are you? Crazy? Or just stupid?”

The two consultants sighed. The music stopped. They motioned to the soldier, who finished his candy bar and sauntered over. Together they looked down at the old man.

“I’m here to defend your freedom,” the soldier said, and unslung his rifle. “Do you want to be a slave?”

“What good is freedom if you’re hungry?” the old man retorted.

The soldier stabbed the man through the heart with his bayonet. The old man’s body arched. The soldier twisted the blade. The old man fell back. Blood pooled on the mat.

Two of the slimming consultants high-kicked. “Live Free or Die!” they whooped. The third consultant, dressed all in red, stood to one side, her arms crossed.

The music resumed. “Let’s put some bounce in it this time!” one shouted, climbing an invisible ladder. “Shed those unwanted and unsightly pounds!”

We resumed our dancing, this time with bounce.

Three hours later, they let us outside for our evening “air meal.” Hundreds of people milled around. I knew them all. I approached my old sixth-grade teacher, but he edged away from me. I tried to talk to my postwoman but she limped toward the exercise dome as soon as she saw me coming. I wanted to ask them if they’d seen Chantal and Nathan, but no one wanted to speak to me. I was surrounded by a bubble of air as I walked through the crowd.

“Not the most popular rat in the sewer, are you?” said a voice behind me.

It was Mr. Burgher VIII. He wore a bandage around his neck.

“Rat Boy!” I exclaimed. “At last a friendly face. What are you doing here? And what happened to your neck?”

“Because of you, I’ve just had an esophageal bypass.”

“A what?”

“You know,” he said. “Like a gastric bypass, only they clamp your esophagus shut so you can’t swallow.”

“But why would they do that?” I asked. “I’m surprised they even caught you in the first place. Didn’t the arresting officer appreciate your cockroach mousse?”

He lowered his voice. “Skinny Service. They’re doing a purge. Anyone who’s ever known one Jason Frolick, formerly of the ATFF.”

I gasped. “But why?”

Rat Boy shook his head. “You really have to ask?”

“If I don’t ask, how am I ever going to know?”

“Because of that stupid murder you insisted on investigating,” he hissed. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone? As if we don’t all know who the murderer was.”

“You mean the Proph—”

“Ssh!” He clamped a hand over my mouth. “See that building over there?”

It was white with a red crossed knife and fork painted on one side. I nodded.

“That’s the hospital. You think esophageal bypass is bad? I hear they’re working on even worse experiments.”

A new trio of leg-warmer-clad slimming consultants pranced outside. “Come on, gang!” they shouted. “It isn’t time for bed yet! Let’s shake some booty and burn some calories! Whoo!”

Six hours of aerobics later, they somersaulted us back to the barracks. I could barely stay on my feet.

“Just a short day today,” gushed a blonde in lavender and peach Lycra. “Tomorrow we’ll get you started on a real workout! Go the Power of Air!”

We had half an hour to curfew and lights out. I hurried outside. I had to find my family.

I found them standing in line next to a dump truck. I wrapped my arms around them both and kissed them. “Thank goodness you’re all right.”

Chantal’s face was a rippling mass of hatred. I drew back. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“What do you
think
is wrong?” she said, and hefted Nathan in her arms. His head flopped against her shoulder.

I put my hand to his forehead. He was cold to the touch. “Is he sick?” I asked. I took off my jacket and covered him.

“He isn’t sick, you moron!” she said. “He’s dead! Our son is dead because of you!”

Dead! I put two fingers to his throat. No pulse. I lifted his eyelids. Nothing. “But how did this happen?” I asked. “I thought you’d gone to Canafooda.”

“We did,” she sobbed. “But Fat Berets crossed the border and kidnapped us.”

“They can’t do that!” I exclaimed.

“They told the Canafoodians we were wanted food terrists.” She pushed tears around on her face. “And now I’m standing in line to bury our son, whose body is about to be dumped into an unmarked mass grave.”

I hung my head. “This is all my fault.”

“Yes,” she said. “It is. And my only consolation is that we’ll both be joining him soon.”

The line advanced. We straggled forward.

I studied the razor-wire fence. Guard towers spaced at hundred-yard intervals. Soldiers patrolled the outer perimeter.

“What if there were a way out of here? A way to escape?”

“There is no escape,” she said. “Don’t you get it? They will hunt you down wherever you go in the world, and shove their air-eating bullshit down your throat. And besides,” she sneered, “isn’t this what you always wanted? ‘Happiness is Eating Air’?”