Fifty-seven was my least favorite number. I grew up hating it. When I went to prison, the warden put me in cell fifty-seven just to tease me—to hate me, even though the rest of my inmates were almost in the same boat as I.
“Ya hurry up with that suit, ya defuntory. ‘Fore we shove ya down and lightcha up.”
My new friends didn’t like me because I wore orange. I was one of the lucky ones—they didn’t have to improvise with me. I wore orange before they ran out.
They should have made the straps even. I tightened my left, but then the right became too loose because in order to make the left even with the right, the left had to be tighter than the right. The straps were uneven—the left was cut off a few inches earlier than the right, and frayed but tied in a knot to keep the old vinyl from slipping out.
“I’m ready,” I said. Why did someone cut the left strap short? I realized I would just have to deal with the short strap causing the heavy backpack to dig into my left side. It’ll keep things interesting, I said to myself.
“Abdul,” the lead man, Jonny, said. “Ya go first, check if there isny land-mines,” he said. Jonny’s high-pitched, fast-talking voice always had a funny accent. From his pure-bred roots, he claimed.
“Hey, newbie, ya ready yet?”
“Yes, I’m ready,” I repeated.
“Good, wouldn’t wantcha ta miss yer first job.”
He smiled and adjusted the flamethrower in his bony hands.
“I worked hard to get out and have this position,” I said. “I don’t intend to miss anything.”
“Good. The judge is too fah away to protectcha. Yer in mah hands now.” I stepped out of the tank as he stretched his hand out and waved it over the forest. “This is mah backyard,” he said. “And somebody gone and planted flowers in the corner mah backyard. Kicker, Benedict!” he called. Kicker came first, then Benedict. “Everyun!” Jonny called to the crowd of three plus me. “We’ve a newbie today.” He pointed to me as if my presence were previously unknown. “I know we’re preety tight in here,” he said, “but I needcha to give the prison defunctory a chance. His parents was defunct, not him. We’re all adjunct here, and I’m hopin’ he’s gonna work out good fer us. Otherwise,” he tilted his head, “yer gonna burn. Jus’ like Mommy and Daddy,” he said with a smile.
I hate the number fifty-seven. Even before prison—as a child, my nanny always told me about the fifty-seven. I hated my nanny.
Jonny looked into the dense forest. “Tank’s too big to git through theh,” he said. “We’re gonna be walkin. Abdul!” Jonny spun and slugged Abdul in the jaw. “Gitcher damn helmet on and get out theh and lead the way. Ain’t nobody from mah squad blowin his legs off today, not on mah watch.”
Abdul shot Jonny a glare and spat blood onto the dirt. His pale white skin bruised easily.
“That’s not my name,” Adbul said.
Jonny shook his head. “Don’t mattah.” He pointed into the forest.
Abdul silently stared straight at Jonny as he lowered the helmet onto his head and turned, mechanically aligning his flame-thrower with his right arm and marching into the forest.
I didn’t like using Abdul as a minesweeper, but I still followed in his footsteps, behind Jonny and Ben. Kicker brought up the rear, maybe to ensure that I didn’t run, since he was twice my size (though I wasn’t a small man). But I wouldn’t run. Not now, not ever, because that would be wrong.
The trees felt alive as they brushed my silver heat-suit, with sopping wet leaves slapping and sliding across my clear helmet visor. Rain dribbled down and accumulated in the crevice where my visor meets the rest of my helmet, and I had to wipe it away every now and again to keep my visor from fogging.
At some point we had to turn on our headlamps, which only made the damp forest seem even more eerie. I wasn’t entirely sure how we were going to burn wet flowers, but the other men paid no mind to the rain, or to the rapidly coming night, so neither did I.
“He was drafted when he was fourteen,” Kicker said to me. “‘Upstanding Jonny’, they called him.”
“Why?” I asked. He was far enough ahead to be out of earshot, since we were bringing up the rear.
“Six of the men in his barracks went defunct,” Kicker told me. “They wanted him to come too.”
“And he stayed?”
“He kept a gun under his pillow. Against the General’s regulation, of course, but that didn’t matter once he became a hero. But by then he was too bent-up over shooting his buddies that they stuck him here. And Benedict—Ol’ Ben used to be one of the rebels. Gave us information,” he said. “That’s the only reason Jonny let you in. It worked for Ben.”
“I was never defunct,” I insisted. “My parents were a part of the fifty-seven—”
“Don’t matter,” Kicker interrupted. “Defunctory passes down. You were a threat. Still are, even.”
“Then why are you telling me all this?”
He grunted. “If you like me, you’ll be less likely to go back to the defunct. And I don’t like it when Jonny has to dice one of our own.” He motioned for me with a thick arm to walk faster, and I knew underneath his heat-suit he was a rumbling mass of muscle. I picked up the pace and followed squarely behind Ben.
“Almost there, boys,” Jonny called over his shoulder.
My new squad usually dug the graves, but Jonny said this was the fourth burn they’ve done—things were different now. I hated the number fifty-seven.
Soon we broke through the dense forest into a meadow encompassed by a ring of trees, as if the peg of God’s crutch had landed there and made a little crater in the forest—
The clearing was like a crater, and Abdul lead the way into the shin-deep flowers. The beautiful purple lilies grew so plentiful I couldn’t even see the soft earth beneath my feet, and the forest grew right up to the graceful flowers, forming a near-perfect circle of glimmering blossoms.
Suddenly Jonny was next to me. “Lighterup like this,” he said as he flipped a silver switch on his flame-thrower. A burst of hot blue fire leapt out of the shining rocket-like nozzle. “And watch yer ass,” he said jokingly. “Kicker might rape ya. He’s a devilish little bastard—so say the women back home. And Abdul—damn near stole my gun once, the little pickpocket.”
I’ve never done anything wrong. I would never kill anyone, I knew that much for certain. And I knew I would never violate a woman either, or steal anything from anyone, and I was no traitor. I was born defunct, but I converted as soon as I realized the hypocrisy in my lineage—
Jonny romped off into the flowers. I noticed I was alone: Kicker stood at the edge of the circle to my right; Jonny was across and to the left; Abdul was across and to the right; and Ben was at the edge and to the left. There were five of us—we made a pentangle or a shining star, leading the wise men to the manger. Or a cross with an extra limb for me. Or maybe we were the man himself, but spread-eagle on a rock, like Prometheus, losing his liver.
I looked over to see Kicker, doing his thing with the flowers. They would shoot up every so often as he would swing his body to take their beauty away swiftly and without a sound. I saw Jonny, pretending the flowers were his bunkmates and he had a gun. I saw Benedict, and he was merely standing on the outskirts of the flowers, looking at them with disdain. Abdul was quick—I don’t think Jonny was looking—and he shoved the lily blossoms into his silver flame-suit.
I didn’t do any of that.
There had been fifty-seven of the rebels (including my parents), and they won the battle. Fifty-seven defunct fired their rifles against a camp of unsuspecting adjunct soldiers, and the adjunct were massacred. This clearing was their campsite, and their graveyard.
“Fer some odd reason,” Jonny began, “the rebels plant these flowers o’er the graves of our fallen soldiers. They taunt us with tulips,” he said, chuckling at his own alliteration, even though the flowers were lilies, not tulips. Suddenly he darkened a shade. “Their rebellion can’t be allowed.” He looked straight at me. “Ya ready, Clark?”
I nodded.
Upstanding Jonny flipped the switch, and flame shot out of his gun like a jet-stream. Kicker fired his up, and Abdul and Ben, and then I did as well.
We began to walk forward, and the water on the purple lilies reflected my flames to look like blood. We burnt the lilies to the ground, and we left the dirt charred. We didn’t need their grace.
We’re all spiders, I thought, even though I knew I’d never done anything wrong.
Image Source: "Flickriver: Dato' Professor Dr. Jamaludin Mohaiadin's photos tagged with flowerpicturesnolimits." Flickriver: Dato' Professor Dr. Jamaludin Mohaiadin's photos tagged with flowerpicturesnolimits. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.flickriver.com/photos/jamaludin/tags/flowerpicturesnolimits/>
Like what you read? Share it with your Facebook friends or Twitter followers, and be sure to leave your opinion in the comments!
No comments:
Post a Comment