Country felt his hope slipping away. Just another piece of meat, barely human, left to rot away in the bowels of a living nightmare. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been bathed in any light other than that from the grim bulb which grinned at him like the yellowed dentures of a chronic cigarette smoker. His cellmate cowered in the corner, hoping, praying Country’s mood would return to one not so foul. He knew what Country could do, seen it with his own eyes, watched his caged soul lash out at his captors with the fury of a wounded animal.
Now, as he had done ever since he could remember, Country lay on the bottom bunk. His gaze wandered towards the springs which trembled under the weight of the mattress above. Even in such an unusual place, he saw her face, smelled her perfume, heard the sound of the silence on the other end of the line each time he called to have her bail him out. Never had he felt so low, so abandoned, as though nothing really mattered anymore.
The fear, the anger, the despair welled up inside and overpowered him. Rising to his feet, he ran to the bars which held him in. Each hand took hold of an iron rod and pulled with all their might. If only he were Samson calling out to the Lord to wreak havoc on his enemies one last time. Or Hercules with the strength of a thousand wild boars. Or perhaps Magneto with a pair of really large pliers. Then, he could bust loose and free himself from this pit of no return. But he was none of them, and the iron bars didn’t budge, not a smidge.
His brown, curly locks pressed against the metal stakes. His lips snuck through the gaps and reached into the musty hall on the other side, tasting the dirt and squalor of freedom. Oh, how sweet it tasted. But instead of soothing him, it only made the desire in his heart, that innate longing for freedom which all men possess, grow stronger. From those very same lips poured a lament, a cry for deliverance, a soulsick wail of desperation born of a hope that never comes.
“Pipe down!” a voice called out from the cell next door. “You’ve only been here five minutes.”
“Meh,” Country said and headed back to the waiting area.
He found a seat in between a pair of guys with a skin tone that reeked of privilege. Wide-open eyes and sheep-like grins gave them the appearance of soon-to-be Flavor Aid drinkers in a jungle commune in Guyana. They sat with straight spines and their hands folded neatly in their laps. Wisps of smoke rose from their staticky hair.
“Watcha in for?” Country asked the one on his left.
“Nothing,” came the reply. “Certainly not thinking for ourselves.”
“Huh?” Country said.
“Oh, yes,” the other one chimed in. “I definitely did not question the wisdom of pursuing a socialist utopia knowing that all other attempts have ended in misery and the murders of tens of millions.”
“Neither did I snicker when his highness, the governor, our secular lord and savior, decreed a three-day period of mourning and veganism to appease Gaia, the goddess of all things tasteless.”
“Those words shall never drip from my tongue.”
“Those thoughts shall never enter my mind.”
“And if they ever were to do so again,” they chanted in unison, “we will fall down on our knees in self-flagellation and beg forgiveness from Walter Cronkite. Uh ommmm!”
“Although,” the first one began, “I’m still not sure about global warming ….”
A loud crackle lit up the room. The privilege-skinned body began to twitch in a lively display of behavior modification. A puddle of yellow collected by his thighs.
“Oooo kaaaaayyy,” Country said as he slowly distanced himself.
He didn’t even get the chance to settle his buns in a new chair before a guard called his name.
“Marvin Bivins. Is there a Marvin Bivins here?”
“That’s me,” Country said.
“Come with us.”
Three pairs of cynical eyes stared at him with a mixture of ennui and pity. Country headed towards the uniformed, muscular men whose lone objective in life probably involved inflicting pain.
“Hope you haven’t had much to drink recently,” one of them said when Country reached them.
“Or eat,” another one said.
“Here’s a diaper,” the third one said. “Just in case.”
“They’re not allowed to do that,” Country said, thoughts of taser nubs ‘tickling’ his nipples. “I have my rights, you know. I’m an innocent man.”
“You signed away your rights when you moved to California and turned them over to the governor’s office for safekeeping,” a guard answered. “When the time comes, they’ll let you know which inalienable rights they’ll restore to you. And as far as innocence goes, that’s not really important, now is it? By the time they’re through with you, you’ll be confessing to all sorts of crimes you didn’t commit.”
“How’s that legal?” Country asked. “Or moral for that matter?”
“Everything’s legal and moral if it’s for the greater good.”
Smoky privilege guys bobbed their heads in agreement.
“Can’t argue with that logic,” Country said.
The guards didn’t notice or appreciate the sarcasm. “Just go down the hall, second door on your left,” Mirthless Mike (Country’s hasty nickname) said.
Country headed down the windowless corridor. He flexed his glutes and willed his bladder to hold back the flood. The diaper dangled in his hand.
“Keep calm, Brock, I mean, Countr,” he said. “You’ve been in worse situations. Much worse. Remember the time they threw you in the cooler for a month with only a baseball and glove. Or when you rode your motorcycle until you found a place to jump over the barbed wire and make a great escape from the Nazis. You didn’t give in then, did you? The thought of a few tens of thousands of volts didn’t turn your innards to mush much like the tens of thousands of volts will actually do in a few minutes. Nor did you cry for mercy after falling into the garbage chute when Darth Vader and his stormtroopers shot their laser pistols at the princess … wait a minute.” His eyes narrowed as he searched his mind. “Was that real or did I just imagine it?” A few deep breaths. “It’s … it’s so hard to tell in here, what with the walls closing in.” Choking noises. “They’re suffocating me. And where are those voices coming from?” He looked all around the corridor. “Am I going insane? I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t and I won’t. I will never surrender the highlands nor my home to the redcoats, or my name isn’t William Wallace. Freeeeeedoooooommmmmm!”
In a cell close by, Mel Gibson got an idea.
Country stopped at the second door on his left. A puff of air escaped. He took a peek behind him to make sure no one had heard it. The knob twisted and he entered.
“Sure took your sweet time getting here,” the irritated, angelic voice said. Golden locks straddled blue eyes.
Country noticed the lack of torture devices in the room. Just a clerk at a desk which sat behind an iron grating, a small counter, one metal chair, a door with an exit sign, and her.
“This is the one you’re looking for?” the clerk said, her voice rusty from a two pack a day habit and, apparently, from inhaling the dust which flaked off the grating.
Cherie’s disgusted sigh said most of it. Her lips finished with a ‘yep’.
“Let’s see the charges,” the clerk said, flipping through her logbook. “Murder. Murder in the first. Murder with special circumstances. Uh huh. Uh huh.” Clicking on the handheld calculator. “Carry the one.” Clickity clack. “California calculator fee and bail out tax.” Clackity click. She lifted her head. “That’ll come to four hundred dollars.”
“Four hundred dollars?” Country asked. “That’s it?”
A cigarette filter dropped from the clerk’s lips. “Well, it’s not like you voted for Ronald Reagan.”
“Actually, if I was old enough ….”
Cherie cut him off. “Let’s go,” she told Country. “Have a nice day,” she sent the clerk’s way.
Country raised his face towards the sky and let the sunlight splash down on him. The warm smell of extra thick smog and burning forest delighted his senses, especially after so long in …
“Give it up already, would you?” Cherie said.
Oh, crap, Country thought. Can she read my mind too?
No, Cherie thought.
“What are you doing here?” Country asked. “Please don’t think I’m ungrateful. It’s just that I wouldn’t have expected you, or anyone else from the set really, to bail me out.”
Cherie arched her eyebrows. “As soon as the crew heard you had been arrested, they began taking up a collection to get you out. I got more than enough for your bail with plenty left over for a manicure.” She held her fingernails towards him. “Do you like it?”
“Uh … sure,” he said. “Well, it’s nice to know the crew has my back and that they see through these bogus charges.” He shook his head. “Imagine someone in these great United States being falsely accused of a crime in this day and age, especially a black man.”
“Actually, they’re all convinced you’re guilty, melanin notwithstanding.”
“Then why would they …?”
Cherie sighed like a teacher would after being asked to explain what a verb is for the seventeenth time that period. “We’ve got a scene to shoot. It’s just like you to cause a delay when I’ve got places to be, things to do. The new director’s already waiting for us.”
“But won’t they … I mean … I can imagine there’ll be some lingering hostility. Many of the crew members were friends with Paolo, and them thinking I killed him ….”
Cherie placed her tiny hand on his elbow. “Don’t sweat it. The majority thinks you did the world a favor, mainly because he once read a newspaper that ran an opinion piece which suggested men and women might have a few differences.”
“Oh, the horror,” Country said. “The humanity.”
Cherie ignored the flaming blimp as it plummeted to the ground and stuck her hand out. A cab rolled to a stop in front of them.
“Harbinger Studios,” she said to the driver.
Country and Cherie climbed in. A few seconds later, the cab’s brakes squealed.
“We’re here,” the cabbie said. “That’ll be twenty-four fifty.”
Country looked at the studio then a few feet down the block. “I never noticed that before. That might not be the safest place to put a jail.”
“Where do you think we get the extras from?” Cherie said as she pulled out a thirty. “Keep the change,” she told the cabbie and turned to Country. “Let’s stop off to meet the new director before we head to wardrobe. I figure I’m late already, thanks to you, so what’s a few more minutes?”
If Country was tiring of her attitude, he didn’t show it. She had come to bail him out after all, which is more than his supposed lifelong friend had done. Why hadn’t she answered his call or at least gone to the jail after she heard the message? Could she be in trouble? Did she really not care for him anymore? An orange hue lit up the horizon like a mid-morning sunset.
“It seems like the fires are getting worse,” he muttered more to himself than Cherie. He wiped a few drops of sweat off his brow.
“Hmm,” Cherie replied. Her brows remained as dry as a prune. Her feet marched at a surprisingly rapid pace. “Would you mind putting some pepper in your step? I have a hair appointment this evening, and I don’t want to be late because I’m stuck here doing lines.”
“So sorry for making you cab over forty feet so you could bail me out,” Country said.
Apparently, his tolerance for the diversity in her attitude had decreased down to nothing over the last few sentences. Cherie, as was her habit or perhaps her nature, ignored the snark and ploughed forward.
“Apology accepted,” she said. “Next time you murder someone, though, call a friend.”
Country’s lip snarled. “I didn’t murder anyone.” His voice dropped to barely a whisper. “And I did call a friend. But she didn’t come.”
“Oh.” Cherie glanced at Country out of the corner of her eye. His snarling lip trembled while the rest of his face remained frozen in repressed resentment. “I see.”
Her delicate fingers squeezed his hand. Country was too surprised by the gesture to pull away.
“She means a lot to you.” It came out as a statement not a question. “Any idea why she didn’t come?”
“We’ve been fighting lately. I’m not sure about what exactly. We’ve had our spats before, but this is different. Like we’re drifting apart. Like a wedge is being driven between us.”
“Sounds difficult. Have you thought about talking with her?”
Country looked at Cherie. Behind her, just off the studio lot, a group of fans collected along the fence calling out to their favorite celebrities. A pair of homeless men dressed in rags too light to keep them warm in the winter, too heavy to be comfortable in the summer, wandered towards the main gate. The actors walked past with their gazes held straight ahead. Frederick tossed an apple to one of the homeless men, who acknowledged the guard with a quick dip of his chin.
“Yeah, I’ve tried. She’s not feeling it,” he said.
“Give it another shot,” Cherie said. “You never know what’ll happen.” She let go of his hand. “Alright. Enough of that. What say I introduce you to the new director?”
“Sure,” Country said and followed her.
They hadn’t gone far before a horde of actors swarmed towards them.
“What’s happening, Elena?” Cherie asked. “Where are you all going? I thought we had a scene to film.”
“Pablo let us go early.”
“Why would he do that?”
“There’s an intersectionality conference in town. He’s giving us the afternoon off so we can attend.”
“I could’ve left you in jail another day,” Cherie told Country.
Country shot her a look.
“Say Brock,” Elena said to Country.
“It’s Marvin.”
“That’s not what it says in my script.”
Country’s lips got extra dry.
Elena continued. “Do you want to go with us? It’ll be my treat. It’s the least I can do seeing as how you killed Paolo so we could have the afternoon off.”
“I didn’t kill Paolo.”
“Whatever. Are you coming?”
“I’m not sure. What’s intersectionality?”
“Hmm.” Elena pondered for a moment. “It’s hard to explain. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like a big Venn diagram of victimhood.”
“I don’t follow,” Country said.
“Well, in this world, there are oppressors and victims. There’s only one category of oppressors – straight, white males of course – but there are many categories of victims. Each category has a point value associated with it. The more you are oppressed, the more points you get. The more points you get, the greater the weight your opinion holds. Everybody totals their points and wears that number pinned to their shirt. That way, with a casual glance, we can determine each person’s worth.”
“Just like Dr. King imagined,” Country said.
“Exactly. So, are you coming?”
“I’ll pass,” Country said.
“Suit yourself,” Elena said, patting Country on the chest. “Well, I better get a move on if I want to get a seat near the front. That’s where all the best gift boxes are.”
Elena hopped in a limo. The click, whirr, and flash of hundreds of cameras snapping pictures drowned out the roar of the ever-encroaching fire. The limo gunned the motor and aimed for the homeless men. Devin, the one with the apple, mistimed his evasive maneuver. The front tires rose.
“Get out of the way!” Elena yelled at the prone body. “Oppressor!”
The front end of the car fell. Then, the rear end rose and fell.
“Stupid white men,” Elena mumbled as she rolled up the window. Devin staggered to his feet but soon collapsed by the front gate.
“I can’t wait to leave Hollywood,” Country said. He looked down at the number Elena had slapped on his chest. Ripping it off, he found the nearest trash can, paused to give Devin first aid until the paramedics arrived, and headed home.