It must’ve been around three in the morning when the fly flew in through my window. I would have been asleep by then but the red eye I drank was an express to the morning and I had less work to do than I had expected. The light was out and I was crossarmed in my bed with my eyes closed for what felt like the third or fourth hour but I could hear it drift through the open window. It was loud and erratic, drifting from one ear to the left, becoming louder then softer then louder, only to stop for a few sweet seconds before starting again.
I tried meditating, clearing everything from my mind. I tried counting sheep, tried counting backwards from one million but the singular sound of buzzing forced it all out the opposite ear and multiplied it within my focus. Behind my closed eyes was a beehive.
Now, anyone who has overinflated a balloon knows that the loudest moment is not, in fact, the pop, but the blowing. You blow and you blow and you begin to feel lightheaded and you can feel the blood rushing in your head and you keep blowing and any sound is drowned out by the task and its demands until…pop! It’s not a sudden loudness but a sudden quiet: a release of pressure. And the buzzing in your face from hyperventilating takes a while to fade as you relax.
That is not what happened at all. The fly went silent at some point but I didn’t notice that it had. I was too frustrated with the echoing in my head to recognize the actual fly had not made a sound in a while. I was pulled from my stupor by a sound just left of rain, almost exactly how I imagine a net full of live fish to sound when liberated onto a boat deck—an incessant slapping of something soft on something hard.
I gave up. I opened my eyes and sat up in bed to close my window so that I did not get rain on my bed, but I saw no rain. I left my window opened and stuck out my hand, then my head to check. Nothing. The noise sounded more particular now and I could tell it was coming from the main road. I could see figures shifting in the darkness like the surface of a river but the streetlamps had been put out and the moon and stars were obscured by clouds.
I grabbed my jacket and a light, hurried down to the lobby, walked past the desk clerk who didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss, waved “hi” to him, and stepped out into the cool evening air.
As soon as I opened the door, I understood what the sound was: thousands of bare feet slapping against the paving stones. As my eyes adjusted to the dim, I began to make out heads covered in sackcloth shifting, filling the street, not setting foot onto the sidewalk, where I stood. Each man bore nothing but a mask and a knotted rope in a hand and every few paces, they would pass the rope from one hand to the other and swing it over their back, making a similar slapping sound. It was a low and continuous din so quiet and perpetual I might have called it serene.
I selected one from the parade to approach, so curious that I had entirely forgotten my intention to sleep. I cleared my throat and immediately, the hollows of a hundred hoods turned to me, like wild animals detecting something alien.
“Excuse me, sir?” I began towards one particularly burly and hairy-chested man.
I may have imagined the quick glance he gave me because he barely moved or reacted to my introduction save a sudden lash against his back as he passed on by me. It seemed a well-practiced parade. Each man seemed disciplined and familiar with the unspoken rules to which I was not privy. I had to imagine it had happened before but I would have heard it. I am a light sleeper and I tend to leave my window open at night, being that I enjoy the fresh air and live on the fifth floor.
My eyes continued to adjust and I looked upstream, then downstream, so to speak. The current ran past me from my left to my right and then around the bend from where a warm, orange light seemed to emanate.
I looked back to the door to my building, and then to the men who walked like Loyola on the Ignatian Camino. My sleep was already forfeit. I began to follow the river downstream along the bank, walking on the sidewalk. I picked out one figure to stick with; maybe I would get a better picture of the significance of this ritual by paying attention to just one participant at a time. I was shocked by how at peace I felt.
As we approached the turn in the river (and consequently, the light), more details of the marchers came into view and I averted my eyes upwards out of courtesy but my eyes lingered on my flagellant’s back. It shouldn’t have surprised me that there was blood and bruised skin but I had begun to associate the sound with that of a babbling brook. This march had little in common with a babbling brook.
I kept looking at my walking companion, now maybe five feet to my left. The sack over his head was a light brown color and had in big red block print the faded logo of a flour company. I sped up to try and look through the holes clumsily cut into the face of the mask. One offered only a peak at his eyebrow and pale, sweating forehead. The other showed a single brown eye staring straight ahead. He didn’t seem even to notice me. I just watched his eye for a while, enamored by it. Sure, he was naked but this was the first truly identifiable bit of him. He did not blink at all. He stared straight ahead at nothing, at the sackcloth covering the head of the man in front of him. I wondered why he even cut holes for his eyes at all.
I heard a sound in the distance, distinct above the white noise of the crowd. It was a voice, shouting and calling with the cadence of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, though the words were still indistinguishable. Maybe another few paces and the smell of garbage burning drowned out that of iron, which I only recognized once it had disappeared. I looked around, then ahead. I couldn’t see all that far because the crowd had widened ahead of me and I couldn’t see over all of the heads. I was itching to get up to the front, to see what was happening but I stayed with my walking partner.
The echoes of the voice grew in intensity, in volume as we got closer to the crowd. Where the river ran into a lake, we stopped. I was surrounded by sackcloth men. Then there was a sudden hush as the speaker stopped. I thought in that moment that something must be happening and, forgetting my walking companion, pushed and shoved my way past indifferent bodies towards the front of the crowd. At last I got close enough to see the spectacle: a stage with a massive screen depicting space moving slowly; three shabby crosses, tied to which were three men, naked except for their flourbag masks; a man in a dark suit with his hands clasped together and his head bowed. The stagelights were the only illumination for blocks but they were blinding. I stood there digesting the scene for a number of minutes. Time totally disappeared. For a moment, it seemed as though the suited man had a canvas mask as well but when he eventually raised his head and stepped up to the edge of the stage, it became clear to me that that was just the color and texture of his skin, which looked smooth and leathery at once. He opened his mouth to speak:
“Amen. Raise your heads, children of God, for the world now welcomes us! With open arms. It is a world that once scorned us! Mistreated us! Cast us aside! You who are unmarred by sin are made desirable by your purity. You who are called upon by God to do his bidding have been rewarded by your faith. The cleansing weight of knots on the back has absolved you alone of sin! The rest of the world shall be punished for their sin but you! You, my children will be offered a paradise!
“Speak the tongue of your fathers with impunity! Worship the one and only God without shame! Take the life and land promised to you since time immemorial without persecution or judgment! Far too long, the children of God have been beaten down, but we have made ourselves strong. Hold high your heads and take up the ropes which once bound you in service to your own women, your own master, and tie them to your birthright! Tonight is the night we place ourselves above the filth and with pride, present the choice to adopt the ways of our fathers, or else leave our fathers’ land! Go forth in the name of God. Amen.” He turned away and walked backstage and out of sight, returning with a machete and began disemboweling the man on the cross all the way to the left and I stood on my tiptoes to watch with morbid fascination.
The man in front of me turned around, pointing his face directly at me, obscuring my view. I tried to look around him but the crowd seemed to grow denser, which made it impossible to see the stage from where I stood. I stepped back. Everyone I could see had the hollow eyes of their hoods pointed at me. I was well and truly surrounded, and for the first time that evening, I was acknowledged. The one in front of me punched me in the gut and I doubled over, only to have a rope wrapped around my neck from behind, hoisting me from my feet and into the air. I tried to cry out but another punch to the gut made my cry a wheeze. I felt a thud on my back, and then another. A rain of knots fell over me and a foot swept my legs out from under me, planting my face into the gravel. A sudden pain to my head and I was out.
It was not a restful sleep that I awoke from that morning. Or afternoon. The sun had been up and I was laid up on the dividing line between two opposing lanes of traffic. The bustle of the city, usually a comfort, was an unwelcome volume. It all smelled like smog and exhaust and human refuse. People walked along the sidewalks in crowds, all pushing to get somewhere urgently. I crawled to my feet, only to notice that I had been stripped entirely of my clothes, and when I felt at my throat the hempen leash was still there. I began scrambling down the middle of the road towards my home.
I must have run for ten minutes straight before arriving at the lobby. I hopped in through the glass doors, covering my privates. The desk clerk didn’t seem to recognize me in such a disheveled state and shouted, “Hey! You! Get out of here, no loitering!”
I replied, “No, no, I went out last night and was attacked! You saw me leaving.”
“I’mma have to see some proof, sir.”
“OK, well, if I can just get to my apartment and put on some clothes...”
“Alright, well, which apartment are you?”
“Number 512.”
“I’ll walk you up there just to see if you can get in, then I’ll leave you alone.”
“OK, thank you so much, sir.”
The desk clerk gave me his jacket to cover myself with and then let me lead the way to my apartment. I walked up five flights of stairs, then turned left, walked five doors down, then turned left again, only to see my apartment door removed completely from its hinges. Moving men carried my belongings out into the hall and towards a freight elevator maybe ten more doors down. My dresser blocked the path forward so I made the most of it and snatched some clothes for myself before the clerk could turn the corner. I managed to get my underpants on before he accosted me and placed all of the clothes back in a drawer. He dared not steal my underpants back from me.
I addressed the movers carrying my mattress, “Excuse me—excuse me! Yes, thank you. What’s going on here? Where are you taking my stuff? Who are you?”
“Your loan’s defaulted. We’re repossessing your belongings.”
“I only have one loan and it is in good standing! My debt is well-managed!”
“I don’t know what to say, man. You’ll have to take it up with the guy who bought your debt.”
I sighed. “I don’t think that’s even how that works!”
The mover handed me a business card.
I turned back to the clerk and apologized. He looked about as confused as I felt. I left the building having gained little more than a blazer and a pair of my own underpants. I had already decided that I was not going to see who had purchased my debt, but instead I would march down to the police station and get my problems sorted out with the help of the law.
The station was around a mile away but it would be a much easier journey with even the scraps I’d acquired than before. I made it perhaps a block before I heard screaming from around the corner in the direction I was already headed. Christ, what a day.
A small crowd, maybe a dozen or so people, came running out around the corner and into the street. A body, naked, save a sackcloth mask, flew out from around the corner and tackled a straggler to the ground, holding her there. Another sackcloth man appeared and I tore my eyes away and ran down an alley towards the police station. I heard sounds like gunshots from behind me.
I sprinted the rest of the way, past more anarchy, doing my best to ignore it. More of the naked men. I saw a cop leap out of his car and tase one, then turn his gun on his victim. One spotted me and pointed his gun at me.
“No sudden moves, now.” His hands were trembling.
“Hold on, sir, I’m actually heading to the police station right now of my own accord already. I’m trying to file a report.”
“You’re butt-ass naked, like all these barbarians.”
“I’m underdressed, sure, but I’ve got my butt covered. Please just let me file a report, my apartment has been stolen.”
“Wh—now you’re just talking nonsense.”
“No, no, I swear, these naked men beat and stripped me last night and by the time I got back to my apartment, people were already taking all of my belongings and I’d like to report the crime.”
“Alright, then, I suppose you’re good to pass. Just talk to the guy at the desk.”
I walked past him cautiously and sprinted the remainder of the way to the station. I stepped through the door and a secretary looked up at me. He looked like an exotic bird the way his glasses sat on his face.
I greeted him. “Hello, sir! I’m here to report a crime. All of my belongings have been stolen and I’ve been told it’s by this man.” I handed him the business card.
“Hold on now, sir. There is a crisis in the city at the moment so our regular operations have been placed on hold.”
“You sure seemed awfully busy when I walked in,” I remarked rather snarkily.
“Well—”
“Why don’t you just help me figure this out.” My desperation lent me an assertiveness I did not know I had.
“Sir, I don’t know that I can even really do anything for—”
“Call the guy. Tell him the police want my shit back. I don’t need cops or anything right now but I do need a place to sleep and clothes and I don’t care how much bitching you have to do. How am I supposed to even go to work in such a state?” I didn’t like the character I was putting on. It felt a little much, but then again, I was desperate.
“OK. I’ll call the number.”
I watched the guy dial the number and anxiously tried to listen in on the other end of the line but the chaos outside made it difficult. I got the impression he made it up the ladder rather quickly because he was talking to a ‘Mr. Pearsons’ and doing very little talking for what felt like ten minutes straight before hanging up the phone and saying to me,“OK. You’re going to go to Rock Tower and head up to the fiftieth floor. You are going to Mr. Pearsons’ office and speak to his secretary. He said he is busy at the moment but will be able to see you about an hour after you arrive. You’ll have to bring some certification of identity so that he can verify what possessions of his used to be yours, and if he likes you, you might get your belongings back.”
I was flabbergasted. “I’m not doing any of that,” I said, then reached over the desk and dragged the little bird man over it and out the door with me. “Listen here: you will walk me to this Pearsons guy’s office and you will do it with the utmost urgency. I’m so tired and I cannot deal with one more thing on my plate, got it?”
“Got it.”
I felt bad. I felt fake. I would not be played by Liam Neeson in my biography but here I was, delivering lines like Bryan Mills. I marched birdboy down to Rock Tower as if at gunpoint, only realizing then that he was entirely unarmed. I guess I wouldn’t have been able even to get this far were that not the case. I also noticed just how bad my body felt. My head was woozy and I was covered in bruises that throbbed when I wasn’t angry.
We arrived in the lobby after wading through crowds for a few blocks. Security at the front door saw his uniform and just let him by. I wasn’t stopped either. We marched right into the elevator and took it up to the fiftieth floor where there was a waiting room the size of a gymnasium with two huge frosted glass doors at the end guarded on either side by a bedesked secretary. I walked past the desk and through the doors, ignoring shouts and warnings.
Kenneth Pearson’s gunshot missed me entirely and hit birdboy in the shoulder, punching through the door on the way there. He cried out and sat back down in the waiting room.
Behind him was a floor-to-ceiling wraparound window overlooking the streets of the city, in utter chaos. The office was wide and empty save a shiny, gilt desk and two folding chairs opposite him. He wore a navy suit and a red tie. His face looked like a chewed wad of gum or smooth leather. “What.”
“I’m here for my things, sir.”
“Oh yes, your things!” He laid his gun down on his desk, “I’m afraid it’s not enough to cover your debt. We’ll be needing something else from you.”
“With all due respect sir, what debt are you talking about? I have no outstanding debt.”
“What of the double-mortgaged property upstate?”
“I don’t have a double-mortgaged property anywhere, let alone upstate!”
“Well, not anymore, no, I’ve reclaimed it.”
“I never had a property upstate,” I clarified, frustrated.
“No, no, you inherited it, I think.”
I had no relatives, even, who owned property upstate. I don’t think I’ve ever even been upstate. My instinct was that this was categorically false.
“Along with some debt I own. See, it’s all here,” He pulled a stack of what looked like a thousand pieces of paper out from a drawer and dumped the pile over the front of his desk towards me, “Anyhow, I’m owed more from you and if you have no more, I’ll have you make more to give me.”
I was, at this point, entirely lost. He beckoned birdboy in through the broken door and whispered in his ear for a second before dismissing the both of us. I walked out first. I had in that moment half a mind to tackle him through the window behind him but I was certain I’d have more taken from me than I already lost and so I turned away before I did anything foolish. Besides, he had a gun.
I turned to birdboy, “What now?”
“Now we take you to jail.”
“What?”
“Dunno. It’s just orders.”
I began to spin around to hit him only to feel the barrel of a gun poke into my side. I got the message. We took the elevator all the way back down and walked back to the station, where birdboy collapsed to the floor, bleeding out of his shoulder.
I poked him with my toe and he didn’t move. I thought about grabbing the gun and running for a second or two but then I sat down on the floor and clapped my hands over my face and thought, what the fuck, man.
I sat there for a while with my eyes closed and my hands over my eyes. I heard commotion enter the room and then I was pushed sideways and onto the ground as cuffs ratcheted shut around my wrists. I kept my eyes closed. I was pushed so much. My head was pushed down as I was pushed into the car. I was yanked out of the car and then shoved down a path into a building where I was asked questions and stripped and thrown into a room, where I heard yet more unfamiliar voices speaking to me and pushing me against the wall and onto the floor when I didn’t respond. I sat there in the room with the men until they got bored and fell silent, woke up, pestered and punched me, then fell asleep once more and when I had finally gotten to zero from a million, I opened my eyes to disgusting fluorescent lights, an aluminum toilet, and four men on four bunks. It was an eternity and it was mere moments. I waited, then, with open eyes for a few days and time passed just the same. I did not eat. I did not feel hungry. I could not sleep.
One night, I heard footsteps I did not recognize at a time there shouldn’t have been any and I saw a woman who moved like an owl flit past my cell. A few minutes later, every cell clicked open and some buzzing alarm went off. I stayed exactly where I was. I imagined it would be chaos in the hallway soon and did not want to be crushed by a stampede.
My guess was right. At first it was only a few, cautiously creeping out of their cells and down the hallway but the escapees became less cautious rapidly. Two of my roommates awoke at the same time and loudly shoved through the door. The other two were awoken by the commotion and began pushing their way out. Soon the whole hall was shoving and wrestling through to an exit. I just sat and waited. Maybe I’d get rewarded for my obedience. Maybe I’d prove that I did everything right and somebody would appear out of nowhere and congratulate me with some huge sum that would be more than worth all the trouble I went through.
No such thing happened. The owl woman walked back through the hallway, however. She spotted me still in the cell, stepped in, and said, “Leave here or you will starve. You all must change your hearts and you must change your mind. It is not your fault and yet you will bear the burden. You are a mule and so were your fathers before you; made more by the hands of men than those of God. In this world, there is nothing but that which is carried by a beast of burden.”
Then, she kicked me hard and ran.
I eventually stood up and slowly found my way outside, passing nobody. The jail was entirely empty and every door was open. It wasn’t hard to find the exit, given the path of wreckage the stampede took, and when I stepped outside I was blinded for a second. When my eyes adjusted, I saw only men with no clothes save sackcloth masks with knotted ropes in the hand, walking, bustling, speaking to one another, pausing every few seconds to beat the knots against their backs.
back to top
I tried meditating, clearing everything from my mind. I tried counting sheep, tried counting backwards from one million but the singular sound of buzzing forced it all out the opposite ear and multiplied it within my focus. Behind my closed eyes was a beehive.
Now, anyone who has overinflated a balloon knows that the loudest moment is not, in fact, the pop, but the blowing. You blow and you blow and you begin to feel lightheaded and you can feel the blood rushing in your head and you keep blowing and any sound is drowned out by the task and its demands until…pop! It’s not a sudden loudness but a sudden quiet: a release of pressure. And the buzzing in your face from hyperventilating takes a while to fade as you relax.
That is not what happened at all. The fly went silent at some point but I didn’t notice that it had. I was too frustrated with the echoing in my head to recognize the actual fly had not made a sound in a while. I was pulled from my stupor by a sound just left of rain, almost exactly how I imagine a net full of live fish to sound when liberated onto a boat deck—an incessant slapping of something soft on something hard.
I gave up. I opened my eyes and sat up in bed to close my window so that I did not get rain on my bed, but I saw no rain. I left my window opened and stuck out my hand, then my head to check. Nothing. The noise sounded more particular now and I could tell it was coming from the main road. I could see figures shifting in the darkness like the surface of a river but the streetlamps had been put out and the moon and stars were obscured by clouds.
I grabbed my jacket and a light, hurried down to the lobby, walked past the desk clerk who didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss, waved “hi” to him, and stepped out into the cool evening air.
As soon as I opened the door, I understood what the sound was: thousands of bare feet slapping against the paving stones. As my eyes adjusted to the dim, I began to make out heads covered in sackcloth shifting, filling the street, not setting foot onto the sidewalk, where I stood. Each man bore nothing but a mask and a knotted rope in a hand and every few paces, they would pass the rope from one hand to the other and swing it over their back, making a similar slapping sound. It was a low and continuous din so quiet and perpetual I might have called it serene.
I selected one from the parade to approach, so curious that I had entirely forgotten my intention to sleep. I cleared my throat and immediately, the hollows of a hundred hoods turned to me, like wild animals detecting something alien.
“Excuse me, sir?” I began towards one particularly burly and hairy-chested man.
I may have imagined the quick glance he gave me because he barely moved or reacted to my introduction save a sudden lash against his back as he passed on by me. It seemed a well-practiced parade. Each man seemed disciplined and familiar with the unspoken rules to which I was not privy. I had to imagine it had happened before but I would have heard it. I am a light sleeper and I tend to leave my window open at night, being that I enjoy the fresh air and live on the fifth floor.
My eyes continued to adjust and I looked upstream, then downstream, so to speak. The current ran past me from my left to my right and then around the bend from where a warm, orange light seemed to emanate.
I looked back to the door to my building, and then to the men who walked like Loyola on the Ignatian Camino. My sleep was already forfeit. I began to follow the river downstream along the bank, walking on the sidewalk. I picked out one figure to stick with; maybe I would get a better picture of the significance of this ritual by paying attention to just one participant at a time. I was shocked by how at peace I felt.
As we approached the turn in the river (and consequently, the light), more details of the marchers came into view and I averted my eyes upwards out of courtesy but my eyes lingered on my flagellant’s back. It shouldn’t have surprised me that there was blood and bruised skin but I had begun to associate the sound with that of a babbling brook. This march had little in common with a babbling brook.
I kept looking at my walking companion, now maybe five feet to my left. The sack over his head was a light brown color and had in big red block print the faded logo of a flour company. I sped up to try and look through the holes clumsily cut into the face of the mask. One offered only a peak at his eyebrow and pale, sweating forehead. The other showed a single brown eye staring straight ahead. He didn’t seem even to notice me. I just watched his eye for a while, enamored by it. Sure, he was naked but this was the first truly identifiable bit of him. He did not blink at all. He stared straight ahead at nothing, at the sackcloth covering the head of the man in front of him. I wondered why he even cut holes for his eyes at all.
I heard a sound in the distance, distinct above the white noise of the crowd. It was a voice, shouting and calling with the cadence of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, though the words were still indistinguishable. Maybe another few paces and the smell of garbage burning drowned out that of iron, which I only recognized once it had disappeared. I looked around, then ahead. I couldn’t see all that far because the crowd had widened ahead of me and I couldn’t see over all of the heads. I was itching to get up to the front, to see what was happening but I stayed with my walking partner.
The echoes of the voice grew in intensity, in volume as we got closer to the crowd. Where the river ran into a lake, we stopped. I was surrounded by sackcloth men. Then there was a sudden hush as the speaker stopped. I thought in that moment that something must be happening and, forgetting my walking companion, pushed and shoved my way past indifferent bodies towards the front of the crowd. At last I got close enough to see the spectacle: a stage with a massive screen depicting space moving slowly; three shabby crosses, tied to which were three men, naked except for their flourbag masks; a man in a dark suit with his hands clasped together and his head bowed. The stagelights were the only illumination for blocks but they were blinding. I stood there digesting the scene for a number of minutes. Time totally disappeared. For a moment, it seemed as though the suited man had a canvas mask as well but when he eventually raised his head and stepped up to the edge of the stage, it became clear to me that that was just the color and texture of his skin, which looked smooth and leathery at once. He opened his mouth to speak:
“Amen. Raise your heads, children of God, for the world now welcomes us! With open arms. It is a world that once scorned us! Mistreated us! Cast us aside! You who are unmarred by sin are made desirable by your purity. You who are called upon by God to do his bidding have been rewarded by your faith. The cleansing weight of knots on the back has absolved you alone of sin! The rest of the world shall be punished for their sin but you! You, my children will be offered a paradise!
“Speak the tongue of your fathers with impunity! Worship the one and only God without shame! Take the life and land promised to you since time immemorial without persecution or judgment! Far too long, the children of God have been beaten down, but we have made ourselves strong. Hold high your heads and take up the ropes which once bound you in service to your own women, your own master, and tie them to your birthright! Tonight is the night we place ourselves above the filth and with pride, present the choice to adopt the ways of our fathers, or else leave our fathers’ land! Go forth in the name of God. Amen.” He turned away and walked backstage and out of sight, returning with a machete and began disemboweling the man on the cross all the way to the left and I stood on my tiptoes to watch with morbid fascination.
The man in front of me turned around, pointing his face directly at me, obscuring my view. I tried to look around him but the crowd seemed to grow denser, which made it impossible to see the stage from where I stood. I stepped back. Everyone I could see had the hollow eyes of their hoods pointed at me. I was well and truly surrounded, and for the first time that evening, I was acknowledged. The one in front of me punched me in the gut and I doubled over, only to have a rope wrapped around my neck from behind, hoisting me from my feet and into the air. I tried to cry out but another punch to the gut made my cry a wheeze. I felt a thud on my back, and then another. A rain of knots fell over me and a foot swept my legs out from under me, planting my face into the gravel. A sudden pain to my head and I was out.
It was not a restful sleep that I awoke from that morning. Or afternoon. The sun had been up and I was laid up on the dividing line between two opposing lanes of traffic. The bustle of the city, usually a comfort, was an unwelcome volume. It all smelled like smog and exhaust and human refuse. People walked along the sidewalks in crowds, all pushing to get somewhere urgently. I crawled to my feet, only to notice that I had been stripped entirely of my clothes, and when I felt at my throat the hempen leash was still there. I began scrambling down the middle of the road towards my home.
I must have run for ten minutes straight before arriving at the lobby. I hopped in through the glass doors, covering my privates. The desk clerk didn’t seem to recognize me in such a disheveled state and shouted, “Hey! You! Get out of here, no loitering!”
I replied, “No, no, I went out last night and was attacked! You saw me leaving.”
“I’mma have to see some proof, sir.”
“OK, well, if I can just get to my apartment and put on some clothes...”
“Alright, well, which apartment are you?”
“Number 512.”
“I’ll walk you up there just to see if you can get in, then I’ll leave you alone.”
“OK, thank you so much, sir.”
The desk clerk gave me his jacket to cover myself with and then let me lead the way to my apartment. I walked up five flights of stairs, then turned left, walked five doors down, then turned left again, only to see my apartment door removed completely from its hinges. Moving men carried my belongings out into the hall and towards a freight elevator maybe ten more doors down. My dresser blocked the path forward so I made the most of it and snatched some clothes for myself before the clerk could turn the corner. I managed to get my underpants on before he accosted me and placed all of the clothes back in a drawer. He dared not steal my underpants back from me.
I addressed the movers carrying my mattress, “Excuse me—excuse me! Yes, thank you. What’s going on here? Where are you taking my stuff? Who are you?”
“Your loan’s defaulted. We’re repossessing your belongings.”
“I only have one loan and it is in good standing! My debt is well-managed!”
“I don’t know what to say, man. You’ll have to take it up with the guy who bought your debt.”
I sighed. “I don’t think that’s even how that works!”
The mover handed me a business card.
I turned back to the clerk and apologized. He looked about as confused as I felt. I left the building having gained little more than a blazer and a pair of my own underpants. I had already decided that I was not going to see who had purchased my debt, but instead I would march down to the police station and get my problems sorted out with the help of the law.
The station was around a mile away but it would be a much easier journey with even the scraps I’d acquired than before. I made it perhaps a block before I heard screaming from around the corner in the direction I was already headed. Christ, what a day.
A small crowd, maybe a dozen or so people, came running out around the corner and into the street. A body, naked, save a sackcloth mask, flew out from around the corner and tackled a straggler to the ground, holding her there. Another sackcloth man appeared and I tore my eyes away and ran down an alley towards the police station. I heard sounds like gunshots from behind me.
I sprinted the rest of the way, past more anarchy, doing my best to ignore it. More of the naked men. I saw a cop leap out of his car and tase one, then turn his gun on his victim. One spotted me and pointed his gun at me.
“No sudden moves, now.” His hands were trembling.
“Hold on, sir, I’m actually heading to the police station right now of my own accord already. I’m trying to file a report.”
“You’re butt-ass naked, like all these barbarians.”
“I’m underdressed, sure, but I’ve got my butt covered. Please just let me file a report, my apartment has been stolen.”
“Wh—now you’re just talking nonsense.”
“No, no, I swear, these naked men beat and stripped me last night and by the time I got back to my apartment, people were already taking all of my belongings and I’d like to report the crime.”
“Alright, then, I suppose you’re good to pass. Just talk to the guy at the desk.”
I walked past him cautiously and sprinted the remainder of the way to the station. I stepped through the door and a secretary looked up at me. He looked like an exotic bird the way his glasses sat on his face.
I greeted him. “Hello, sir! I’m here to report a crime. All of my belongings have been stolen and I’ve been told it’s by this man.” I handed him the business card.
“Hold on now, sir. There is a crisis in the city at the moment so our regular operations have been placed on hold.”
“You sure seemed awfully busy when I walked in,” I remarked rather snarkily.
“Well—”
“Why don’t you just help me figure this out.” My desperation lent me an assertiveness I did not know I had.
“Sir, I don’t know that I can even really do anything for—”
“Call the guy. Tell him the police want my shit back. I don’t need cops or anything right now but I do need a place to sleep and clothes and I don’t care how much bitching you have to do. How am I supposed to even go to work in such a state?” I didn’t like the character I was putting on. It felt a little much, but then again, I was desperate.
“OK. I’ll call the number.”
I watched the guy dial the number and anxiously tried to listen in on the other end of the line but the chaos outside made it difficult. I got the impression he made it up the ladder rather quickly because he was talking to a ‘Mr. Pearsons’ and doing very little talking for what felt like ten minutes straight before hanging up the phone and saying to me,“OK. You’re going to go to Rock Tower and head up to the fiftieth floor. You are going to Mr. Pearsons’ office and speak to his secretary. He said he is busy at the moment but will be able to see you about an hour after you arrive. You’ll have to bring some certification of identity so that he can verify what possessions of his used to be yours, and if he likes you, you might get your belongings back.”
I was flabbergasted. “I’m not doing any of that,” I said, then reached over the desk and dragged the little bird man over it and out the door with me. “Listen here: you will walk me to this Pearsons guy’s office and you will do it with the utmost urgency. I’m so tired and I cannot deal with one more thing on my plate, got it?”
“Got it.”
I felt bad. I felt fake. I would not be played by Liam Neeson in my biography but here I was, delivering lines like Bryan Mills. I marched birdboy down to Rock Tower as if at gunpoint, only realizing then that he was entirely unarmed. I guess I wouldn’t have been able even to get this far were that not the case. I also noticed just how bad my body felt. My head was woozy and I was covered in bruises that throbbed when I wasn’t angry.
We arrived in the lobby after wading through crowds for a few blocks. Security at the front door saw his uniform and just let him by. I wasn’t stopped either. We marched right into the elevator and took it up to the fiftieth floor where there was a waiting room the size of a gymnasium with two huge frosted glass doors at the end guarded on either side by a bedesked secretary. I walked past the desk and through the doors, ignoring shouts and warnings.
Kenneth Pearson’s gunshot missed me entirely and hit birdboy in the shoulder, punching through the door on the way there. He cried out and sat back down in the waiting room.
Behind him was a floor-to-ceiling wraparound window overlooking the streets of the city, in utter chaos. The office was wide and empty save a shiny, gilt desk and two folding chairs opposite him. He wore a navy suit and a red tie. His face looked like a chewed wad of gum or smooth leather. “What.”
“I’m here for my things, sir.”
“Oh yes, your things!” He laid his gun down on his desk, “I’m afraid it’s not enough to cover your debt. We’ll be needing something else from you.”
“With all due respect sir, what debt are you talking about? I have no outstanding debt.”
“What of the double-mortgaged property upstate?”
“I don’t have a double-mortgaged property anywhere, let alone upstate!”
“Well, not anymore, no, I’ve reclaimed it.”
“I never had a property upstate,” I clarified, frustrated.
“No, no, you inherited it, I think.”
I had no relatives, even, who owned property upstate. I don’t think I’ve ever even been upstate. My instinct was that this was categorically false.
“Along with some debt I own. See, it’s all here,” He pulled a stack of what looked like a thousand pieces of paper out from a drawer and dumped the pile over the front of his desk towards me, “Anyhow, I’m owed more from you and if you have no more, I’ll have you make more to give me.”
I was, at this point, entirely lost. He beckoned birdboy in through the broken door and whispered in his ear for a second before dismissing the both of us. I walked out first. I had in that moment half a mind to tackle him through the window behind him but I was certain I’d have more taken from me than I already lost and so I turned away before I did anything foolish. Besides, he had a gun.
I turned to birdboy, “What now?”
“Now we take you to jail.”
“What?”
“Dunno. It’s just orders.”
I began to spin around to hit him only to feel the barrel of a gun poke into my side. I got the message. We took the elevator all the way back down and walked back to the station, where birdboy collapsed to the floor, bleeding out of his shoulder.
I poked him with my toe and he didn’t move. I thought about grabbing the gun and running for a second or two but then I sat down on the floor and clapped my hands over my face and thought, what the fuck, man.
I sat there for a while with my eyes closed and my hands over my eyes. I heard commotion enter the room and then I was pushed sideways and onto the ground as cuffs ratcheted shut around my wrists. I kept my eyes closed. I was pushed so much. My head was pushed down as I was pushed into the car. I was yanked out of the car and then shoved down a path into a building where I was asked questions and stripped and thrown into a room, where I heard yet more unfamiliar voices speaking to me and pushing me against the wall and onto the floor when I didn’t respond. I sat there in the room with the men until they got bored and fell silent, woke up, pestered and punched me, then fell asleep once more and when I had finally gotten to zero from a million, I opened my eyes to disgusting fluorescent lights, an aluminum toilet, and four men on four bunks. It was an eternity and it was mere moments. I waited, then, with open eyes for a few days and time passed just the same. I did not eat. I did not feel hungry. I could not sleep.
One night, I heard footsteps I did not recognize at a time there shouldn’t have been any and I saw a woman who moved like an owl flit past my cell. A few minutes later, every cell clicked open and some buzzing alarm went off. I stayed exactly where I was. I imagined it would be chaos in the hallway soon and did not want to be crushed by a stampede.
My guess was right. At first it was only a few, cautiously creeping out of their cells and down the hallway but the escapees became less cautious rapidly. Two of my roommates awoke at the same time and loudly shoved through the door. The other two were awoken by the commotion and began pushing their way out. Soon the whole hall was shoving and wrestling through to an exit. I just sat and waited. Maybe I’d get rewarded for my obedience. Maybe I’d prove that I did everything right and somebody would appear out of nowhere and congratulate me with some huge sum that would be more than worth all the trouble I went through.
No such thing happened. The owl woman walked back through the hallway, however. She spotted me still in the cell, stepped in, and said, “Leave here or you will starve. You all must change your hearts and you must change your mind. It is not your fault and yet you will bear the burden. You are a mule and so were your fathers before you; made more by the hands of men than those of God. In this world, there is nothing but that which is carried by a beast of burden.”
Then, she kicked me hard and ran.
I eventually stood up and slowly found my way outside, passing nobody. The jail was entirely empty and every door was open. It wasn’t hard to find the exit, given the path of wreckage the stampede took, and when I stepped outside I was blinded for a second. When my eyes adjusted, I saw only men with no clothes save sackcloth masks with knotted ropes in the hand, walking, bustling, speaking to one another, pausing every few seconds to beat the knots against their backs.
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