Bastille

 

                                                                    
 

                                                                  BASTILLE

     The adrenaline pumping through Charlie as his chair danced on the platform was no match for the food, the booze and his utter physical and emotional exhaustion. It must have been evident. Samuel came up behind him, placed a hand under his elbow and helped him up. Mr. Angelopoulos put a finger to his hat when Charlie looked down to him before being led off to a room. He remembered seeing the bed turned down. He remembered taking off his shoes.

     The look on Julianne’s face turned from impatient to concerned. She pulled the covers up around Charlie’s neck and sighed. She placed two fingers on her lips and touched his. Then the sun shining through the window woke him. The rocking of the speeding train comforted him as reality reasserted itself. The previous day’s events flooded in and stunned him. He could hardly believe his luck. He wondered what Julianne would think. Then the smile that had crept across his face vanished. Panic knocked. His eyes scratched the room. He noticed a door ajar and took a deep breath. He pushed it aside and peed in a toilet. The train lurched and he grabbed a handle above his head. It felt strange. He looked closely and noticed a pattern of holes on it. It looked familiar. He reached back into his childhood and saw a showerhead. A showerhead! He hadn't had a shower in years. A whore's bath was it and often a luxury. He noticed a sliding door and beamed with joy. He stripped, turned a pair of knobs and entered into heaven.

     Thirty minutes later he was dressed and making his way down the corridor to the back parlor. As he passed the dining room, he saw Mr. Angelopoulos at the table peering at a screen. He looked up, smiled and motioned Charlie in. “Feeling better are we? I trust you slept well. It’s four in the afternoon. Sleeping on a train is the closest any of us will ever get to the womb again.” He waved a hand at the window. “And isn’t a beautiful day?” He moved his suitcase away from the chair next to him. “Have a seat. Breakfast has been delayed to brunch and brunch to a late lunch which is about to be served.”

     Charlie lowered himself into the chair. “Thank you again for your hospitality. Thank you for the shower. I am a new man. You are a guardian angel. For the life of me, I can’t imagine why you would be so generous to a complete stranger.”

     Mr. Angelopoulos nodded and looked back to the screen. “I have always been told that my strong suit is my intuition and my intuition told me that you were no ordinary stranger.” He turned the screen to Charlie. “Seattle will be difficult indeed, Mr. Herman. You have started a revolution.” The Homeland Security Seal flashed rhythmically on the screen over a screaming banner in red. ‘THE HOMELAND HAS BEEN ATTACKED!’ “That’s Saint Louis. See the arch? See the smoke? It started with random knifings of technocrats in Manhattan.”

     Another banner shouted from the screen. ‘TERRORISTS HAVE STRUCK A SAVAGE BLOW!’  A shot of ice ran up Charlie’s spine. “Oh my God! Is that Chicago?”

     Mr. Anglopuolios leaned toward the screen. “Baltimore, Los Angeles, Boston. The knifing idea caught fire. Even elites have been attacked and now the masses are setting fire to the cities.”

     The screen panning over the smoking skyline of Manhattan was suddenly replaced with the Homeland Security Seal then more flashing letters. ‘ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS! FOLLOW ALL ORDERS!’ “I have nothing to do with this.”, Charlie whispered. One word in scarlet pulsated in front of his eyes. ‘OBEY!’

     “Such modesty.”, smirked his host. “Martial law has been declared. Congratulations. Ah, here is breakfast. Thank you, Samuel. I hope you are as fond of eggs Benedict as I am, Mr. Herman.”

     And suddenly Charlie was looking in a mirror. His face stared out from the screen before rotating to a profile. He slumped in his chair and looked down at the gelatinous yellow sauce jiggling on the plate.

    “You slept right through Portland late this morning. The riots had not hit yet. They were just starting in Manhattan. TSA searched the train but not my car. We will arrive in Seattle soon. Homeland Security, the FBI, NSA, etc. will be waiting.”

   Charlie’s jaw dropped. “TSA didn’t search your car? That’s impossible!  If I wasn’t on the other cars, they had to have searched this one. Either that or they assumed I am on the private car. They could take us out any minute! My God, bug splat!”

     “Don’t be so dramatic.”, scoffed Mr. Angelopoulos. “They’ve identified you but only just now and they have their hands full at the moment. Eat.”

     Charlie cut into his breakfast and the taste pushed the fear and confusion out of his mind for a moment. “Oh my God. This is delicious!”

     “Calming down, I see. That’s better. We’ll eat. We’ll relax and we’ll figure out what to do with you.”

     Charlie put down his fork and looked out the window. “I haven’t been in touch with the resistance for over a year. I had no idea they had anything like this planned.”

     “Ah, but that’s the beauty of it, Mr. Herman. The resistance had nothing to do with this. It is spontaneous. A spontaneous eruption has occurred.”

     “More than we could ever have hoped for.”, Charlie sighed. Then he caught himself. He looked into his host’s eyes. “How do you know it was spontaneous? You seem absolutely delighted. What is a member of the elite doing sheltering a terrorist?”

     Mr. Angelopoulos’ eyes had been closed as he savored his breakfast. He opened them. “I am not a member of the elite.”

     “Well, what are you then? You’re not a plutocrat. You’re not a technocrat. You’re not a warrior.” Charlie looked at him more closely. “Unless you are a retired warrior. Are you a general? An admiral? Is that why they didn’t search your car? But only a servile would be happy about an uprising. Only a servile would help me and you are definitely not a servile.”

     Mr. Angelopoulos placed another bite into his mouth and slowly chewed. After a luxurious swallow, he smiled. “I am an entertainer.”

     The delicious food in front of Charlie distracted him. He relished it as he mulled over this last bit of information. He calmed down. He let the minutes pass and when he finally spoke, he spoke quietly, politely. “If you are a member of the game show news, I don’t recognize you. If you are an actor on the reality show entertainment feed, I don’t recognize you and it doesn’t make any difference anyway because all entertainers belong to the state. If I were to guess at anything, I’d guess you were a game show scientist but they all belong to the state as well.” He glanced down at the suitcase. "Or maybe you are a Religious Warrior fighting for Christ and State."

     They ate slowly, studiously, reverently, letting the time click by with the rhythm of the tracks. When Mr. Angelopoulos finished his meal, he sat in silence for a moment. “You are a very knowledgeable man for a servile, Mr. Herman. Tell me, have you lived the life of an ordinary servile, city work barracks, suburban recreation camps, government rallies on Saturdays, church on Sundays?”

     “Something like that.”, Charlie sighed.

     “But something clicked. Something snapped and you joined the resistance. You mentioned your daughter but the tone of your voice gave you away. She was killed, wasn’t she?”

     “You devil, you. You have opened an infected wound.”

      “You said you have not been in touch with the resistance for some time. Do you expect they will contact you? Your daughter is dead. Your wife is dead and now you are on the run. To where? With what? I assume if you left your phone behind, you’re smart enough to have left any credit cards as well. I assume you have some cash now that it's been reinstated. You managed to get it by TSA so I will assume there is not much of it. You are a very important man who has accomplished a very important task. You have much more to offer but you are in need of assistance. I can offer that to you but you have to trust me.”

     “Trust in God. Trust in technology. Trust in the corporation. Trust in the Homeland.”,

     “Yes. I see your point but we will arrive soon. Timing will be everything if you - if we are to escape. We have much to offer each other. We must trust each other.”

     Charlie mulled over the events of the last twenty-four hours. One thing kept coming back to him, Mr. Angelopoulos’ agony at the loss of everyone in his life, of everyone in the lives around him, of everyone in the lives around them. No entertainer could have faked that, no scientist, no servile, no one. He looked into his host’s smiling eyes. “You were a seed. I was a seed. Anyone with a brain was a seed and we have all been tapped, everyone once, some even twice. We have all lost our loved ones and most of us our lives but I have never met a victim of a third tap. I cannot imagine such loss. I trust you.”

     Mr. Angelopoulos’s face blackened. They sat silently as the car gently swayed back and forth. Slowly his color returned. “You have not been identified as John Q. Herman, not that I ever believed you and not that it matters in the least because you no longer have a name. Whatever temporary name you will have from now on will apply to your current circumstances and when your circumstances change, your name will change and with your name, your appearance and with your appearance, your identity. You are a new person living a new life. Your old life is nothing more than a dream. All your memories, all your loves, all that comforted you, all that sustained you, all of you that was isn't. You no longer belong to yourself, Mr. Herman. You belong to the revolution and if the revolution succeeds, you will belong to history. The most important thing for you to do is to stay alive. Whether willingly or not, you have become an inspiration. If you are lucky, and I pray you will be, you will have other opportunities to further the cause, maybe even offer the devil a few more gifts.” He offered a wicked smile. “I want to know how you skewered that mother fucker.”

     Charlie was taken aback. “We didn’t mean to.”

     “You didn’t mean to? ”

     “It was an accident.”

     “Ha! I love it! Tell him there’s been an accident and Mr. Hammond’s dead.”

     “What are you talking about?”

     “A character in an old movie after she emptied a revolver into her lover. How the hell could you accidentally skewer one of the nastiest bankers on Wall Street on the horn of an eleven foot tall, seven thousand pound bronze bull in a public square in Manhattan and get away with it?”

    Charlie’s head was beginning to spin. His trusted savior was warping into something entirely different. “My wife didn’t get away with it. We planned to chain him to the bull. We drugged him but he regained consciousness in the sidecar and knocked the motorcycle out of my wife’s control. They hit a fire hydrant and were thrown into the air.”

     Mr. Angelopoulos was rubbing his suitcase with his hand. “That’s not bad. That could work.”

     Charlie was beginning to get angry. The Seattle skyline twinkled in the fading light in the window behind his host. “It didn't work for my wife. What is all of this about? I thought we were going to make plans on how we would escape when we hit Seattle. Don’t you think we should start? The sun is going down. We’re almost there.”

     Now both hands were caressing the suitcase. “We are making plans!", he snapped. "Tell me how the bastard landed. There was no video of the body, just bits and pieces on the pavement.”

     Charlie’s anger was turning to fear. “Why do you need to know the details? A despicable man was handed to the devil. What else do you want?”

     “Yes! Yes! Handed to the devil! How did the horn penetrate? Through the neck, the chest, the stomach, the groin?”

     “Why do you want to know this shit?”

     He grabbed the suitcase handle with white knuckled fists. “Was there twitching? Were there convulsions? Did he scream or cough? Did he gurgle?”

     “Please stop!”

     “How much blood was there? Did the horn seal the wound? Did blood pump out into the air or just flow down the bronze on to the street?”

     “What the hell are you doing, planning some new hallucination for that god damned suitcase of yours?”

     “YES!” He yanked the suitcase on to his lap and threw his arms around it. It began to vibrate. “How much blood?”

     Charlie rose to his feet. His eyes locked on to the suitcase. “A great deal of blood!”

     “Did it spurt into the air?”

     “Yes!” Something began to rattle in the suitcase.

     “Were there contortions, seizures?”

     “Yes! It was horrible!” The suitcase moaned.

     “Did he scream? Did he groan?”

     “Why must you torture me like this?”

     “We will be arriving any minute! Answer me!”

     “It was a horrible sound! I never heard anything like it! It came from hell itself!”

     Charlie could feel waves of heat pulsing from the suitcase. It was shaking on Mr. Agelopoulos’ lap. It was shaking his body. A ferocious expression exploded on his face. “WHERE DID THE HORN PENETRATE THE BODY?”

     “Through his stomach and out the bottom of his back! His eyes were huge! His legs flailed in the air! His arms and hands pounded the bull in horrible spasms! Blood flew everywhere!”

     "Did he squeal?"

     "What?"

     "DID - HE - SQUEAL?"

     "YES!"

     An insane grin appeared on his host’s face. He could barely keep hold of the bouncing, shuddering suitcase jumping on his knees. They were pulling into the station. The platform was lined with heavily armed Homeland Warriors in full battle gear. Their eyes were glued to the private car. Their eyes bored through the window. They raised their weapons. And then Charlie heard it. The same horrific, guttural agonized death gasp that had rattled out of the banker. He jumped back in horror. The suitcase flew open with a deafening, ungodly squeal. A blast of liquid fire erupted and gushed into the room. He could see it burst out the windows just before he passed out.

     He came to on the platform. It was blanketed with Homeland Warriors. He pulled himself to his feet. The lights of the station were dim and flickering. He stared at the burning car.  Mr. Angelopoulos was behind him. “Not bad for a last minute job."

     "Did you kill all these people?", gasped Charlie.

     "Of course not! We're going to need them and others like them sooner than you think. The revolution cannot succeed until the warriors wake up with the rest of us. Now let’s wrap things up.” He lifted the suitcase up and on to an arm, steadied it with one hand then placed an arm over the top, flipped the lock with the other hand and opened it. The car vibrated and wavered in the flames and heat. Its pulsating image grew more violent. It began to sway like a snake as it lifted off the tracks and hung in the air for a moment before suddenly pouring itself into the suitcase.

     The horror of Charlie’s life had turned hallucinatory. He was no longer in control of his senses. A suitcase in a stranger’s hands had leveled a company of Homeland Warriors and swallowed an entire railroad car he had just traveled a thousand miles on. His life flashed before his eyes. The Sacramento River rolled past his childhood home. His mother wept at the table with a pile of bills spread out before her. When his father kissed him, the smell of liquor overpowered him. He smiled proudly on the first day of his first job for a political blog. He smiled shyly as he first glanced into his future wife’s eyes. He smiled with pride when he heard the first cries of their baby daughter. They waltzed to the elation of life. Then the darkness descended: the endless wars, the endless terrorist attacks, the Second Great Recession, the Second Great Depression, the Obeisance for the Safety of the Homeland Act and the New Order of the Homeland Proclamation, the Fulfillment Camps, the Inspiration Centers, the endless check points, the rationing, the calorie monitoring, and the first upheaval, the first occupation, the second occupation. The grinning faces of the oligarchs laughed on the game show news. The technocrats smiled proudly between segments of the reality show entertainment feed. He heard the whine of a drone and watched the building holding fifty members of the resistance disintegrate before his eyes. He saw Special Ops level their homes and dismember the bodies of their families. Julianne let out a cry of agony when the ashes of their daughter were brusquely handed to them by a Homeland warrior. Julianne’s head rolled across her shoulders like a dead kitten’s when he pulled the helmet from her lifeless body.

     The lid of the suitcase slamming shut brought him back. Mr. Angelopoulos offered him a beaming smile and set it at his feet. “You’re going to need a little help where you’re going so I’ll lend it to you.”

   Charlie stared at the suitcase before him then into his eyes. “I don't know who you are. I don't know what you are and I haven’t the faintest idea what the fuck this thing is or how in hell to use it.”

   Mr. Angelopoulos turned on his heals and began to saunter away. “You’ll figure it out.”  He raised a hand to Charlie and spread his fingers. “Next time you're running for your life, make sure there's a smile on your face.”

   "What are you,", Charlie called after him, "an angel or the devil?"

   "That's up to you."