The final entry in the “Shotgun Room” trilogy. For mature readers.
“An aging philanthropist experiences first-hand the justice system of a near-apocalyptic future.”
In forty years Roy had been driving, he never had a parking ticket. He had never been convicted of a crime in his lifetime, and his police record was spotless. But in the world of today, that didn’t matter. The socially-constructed walls of political government didn’t work anymore, and people had begun to stray, even if Roy remained a saint: never deviating, never surrendering. He had persevered during the initial food shortages that plagued the middle-classes, and managed to clear the hump when most thought things could only get better. And then global warming hit. His house was paid-off and nested on an embankment that was high enough for the rising ocean levels to wipe out the communities below but not enough to take him with them. They didn’t even get so high as the support beams, but Roy felt no pride in his investment. And when the tide warning was issued, he was no slouch to doing his part: he opened his doors and let in the waterfront refugees. It was the least he could do: he hadn’t been to a Lions meeting since they disbanded in his area. It was too hard to get around anymore anyway, what with his sciatica and his athlete’s foot and, well, he didn’t really feel like talking about it. He just appreciated the company, feeding the displaced families with the canned goods he had accumulated in his basement from years of stocking-up. Sure, when the initial wave was over, he never received a medal, or a commendation from the Mayor, or a pat-on-the-back from any of the bureaucrats who seemed to permeate the halls of the directorate these days, but Roy had been doing his civic duty his whole life and he wasn’t ready to start asking for charity now. He was one of the good ones. The government had no time for the bad ones anymore.
Another scheme, hatched by shadowy men in well-tailored suits at high altitudes – in buildings covered ground-to-ceiling in mirrors – making the decisions, and terra firma; infiltrated, quietly filling in the cracks that started to show in the world; enacting the decisions. This was their new motion, to “revitalize the economy after the recent setbacks.” A way to guarantee a crime-free city. No more police – the police were not pleased: just a small, special task force, supported by the armed militia who dotted busy corners in the metropolitan areas. Masked & gloved and armed, it reminds Roy of the Judge Dredd comics he used to read as a boy. He still has a few boxes from his youth and he wonders if any back-issues he kept would be in there. Today, Roy was mandated by the state to attend one of these new, guaranteed “crime-free” things. An exhibition. He knew about it from the papers, but he didn’t know it was mandatory to attend until he received an actual, real, typed letter – hand-typed or machine-typed, he didn’t know – in a red envelope demanding that he keep his “reserved appointment time for spectatorship” or face prosecution. Roy was around when they still had the death penalty, and if it wasn’t for the letter it sure didn’t interest him to see some public spectacle of torture, like from ancient history, long before TV. He didn’t even like horror movies. He doesn’t think he would make it in the Old World. Roy’s reserved seat was for the 2 PM slot. A man was sentenced for eating all three of his children during the food crisis. It is 2:15 and Roy is already outside the courthouse, flushed red from what he has seen. The embarrassment he feels for that man, regardless of his crime. The shame of it all. The pity of being able to do nothing but watch. This was what they were doing to criminals, now? He can remember when there was such a thing as a trial. A gloved hand grabs him roughly by the shoulder: it is one of the stormtroopers, standing guard over the entrance to what was previously the courthouse, now specifically housing just this one branch of the new justice system; the only one they think we need anymore. “Your screening isn’t over, Sir. I must ask that you return to the theatre.” I just need some air. “That’s fine, Sir. But please come back in, now. You still have 15-minutes in your slot.” He doesn’t think he can last another minute, let alone fifteen. At the bottom of the steep stairway that connects street-level to the courthouse entrance, a woman is seen walking her pitbull. She stops to talk to a man, and the dog licks the man’s hand. The dog is adorable, well-trained, and doesn’t seem a threat. “Oh, he’s friendly.” The man smiles. STOP! Three of the dozen-or-so guards clustered in the area rush down the steps, and one of them aims his gun at the pitbull’s head and fires without a second thought. The carcass travels ten-feet backward onto the road and a car swerves to miss it, colliding into oncoming traffic. The sound of someone passed out on their horn pierces the air. “Sir, please, you really must come inside now. We’ll handle things out here.” Roy sees the guards reprimanding the dog’s owner as she is overcome with grief, and printing a ticket for the damages on the little portable registrar all stormtroopers carried standard-issue – same as their assault rifles – and hands it to them. The one at the door puts his hand on Roy’s face and pushes him the rest of the way inside.
*
He has lived a good life, he thinks, as he sits on the bus for the two-hour commute home from the city. He looks around at all the faces: the bus is crowded today, and if it wasn’t for his looking older he might never have been offered a seat, and would have had to contend with riding leg-to-leg in the standing-room only with all the other people wearing medical masks. He thanked the young girl who offered it but couldn’t help noticing that she seemed irritated that she had in the first place. She is still standing next to him and her former seat, looking down at both with longing and contempt. At least, that’s just what Roy assumed. He was getting pretty good at reading people. Why offer something if you can’t from the kindness of your heart? That isn’t the only thing he notices: a group of sooty-faced twenty-something construction workers are listening to loud music in the back row, hooting and hollering with their masks off, and anyone brave enough to say something or even look back in frustration are loudly cussed out. Roy thinks he can see the glimmer of a pocket knife tucked into a belt that one of them threateningly unveils to an older gentleman sitting two seats ahead from him. Older than him, and he didn’t think he was that old. Why wasn’t the driver doing anything about it? But the drivers never did anything except drive the bus. Useless. Then why not somebody else? It can’t be him: he is too far to the front and would have to shout or push his way to the back to make his stink, and the last thing he wants is to bring everyone else on the bus down with him. Everyone is just trying to get home, trying to breathe in the heat, trying to stay alive. The streets in the city were crowded with degenerates like those at the back of the bus, and all the government could do was to make a sick joke out of it. Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe, one day, he’ll blink, and he’ll be twelve again. He’ll be home when it happened.
He closes his eyes. His mother made him invite school bullies back to the house for dinner so they could “see the real him. They can’t tease you if they really know you.” It never worked, but that was how he was raised, and so it was how he lived his life. Almost twenty-years-ago, when a Filipino co-worker was fighting with him about speaking English on the shop floor and gave him the silent treatment, Roy surprised him and his five-member family with dinner at a steakhouse, so he could even the playing field. When his boss – who was chronically-selfish – retired with a big bonus he could attribute to Roy’s hard work, without so much as a “thank you,” Roy thanked him with some drinks at the bar, opening his boss up about all sorts of personal problems. And suddenly his boss’ behavior didn’t seem so selfish. Hell, even when his ex-wife left him, Roy insisted on paying for the two of them to go on a cruise they had been talking about taking together, just so they could debrief. It didn’t save the marriage, but it was a Hell of a vacation. The most relaxed he had been since a child, before the arrest, responsibility-free, on the deck, reclined with a blue drink, inhaling the ocean air. He concentrates on that feeling now, but can’t get there: the bus is too noisy. He supposes that his reward then, was understanding people better, and being more empathetic. Less selfish. He was never materially-thanked by these people and sometimes his noble work wasn’t even acknowledged but he had to look at the bright side. But wait, none of his philanthropy changed the fact that he was there every time he did something for someone, like it was never for nothing. Like he expected something in-return. But he did: he expected understanding. He wanted to be on the same level as everyone else. He didn’t like being made to feel more important, or less important, than anyone else: we were all human, and there were better ways of connecting than pushing-and-pulling others in to power.
The bus is almost empty when Roy reaches his stop and gets off. He walks two steps when an empty beer can hops along the ground beside him and lands at his feet. “Hey, old man!” Roy looks behind him. It’s the four men from the bus. He tries to ignore them but they throw another can, this time hitting him in the back of the head, and spraying fluid down his neck. “We saw you looking at us! Do you have a problem?” I live just around the bend, why don’t you come over for a drink? It’s a hot one today. “No man, we aren’t thirsty.” They get closer, right up to his face. One of them belches on him. Roy can feel the hot spittle and smell whatever it is on the man’s breath. I don’t know what you want me to do. They laugh at him and push him down to the ground, beating him up on the side of the road while cars pass slowly so their drivers and their passengers can watch the attack. But no one stops. The men take Roy’s wallet before spitting on him and wandering back to the bus stop. “Hey, shouldn’t we see where this guy lives? I mean, he did invite us over after all!” Please don’t. No more. “Nah, man. Leave the old fucker there to rot.” After some time – time that didn’t fully register to Roy, other than it had gotten significantly darker – Roy got up and limped the remaining five-minutes home.
*
After licking his wounds, he watches the sunset on his patio like he always tries to do every day when he’s not busy, until he hears a rustling sound amidst the lush green brush that still lines the shallow parts of the cliffside. Roy has seen wild animals up here before, and is curious whether it could be a squirrel, or a raccoon, or maybe the mountain lion one of his immediate neighbours told him about. He checks his pockets for his phone. Nope, not on him. He has to find it for the camera, just in case it’s worth it. He goes into the kitchen and finds it on the counter-top. When he turns around, he can see the eyes and hair of someone peeking through the glass shielding at the base of his patio deck. Hey! Who’s there? He’s spooked her. She is running off around the side of the house to the front. Roy goes out the front door and waits for her in the driveway. Hey, stop! She pulls out a knife. “I don’t want anything from you! Leave me alone!” The girl is obviously a runaway, Roy assumes, her clothes dirty and torn to rags, and her hair an ungainly, oily, bleached clump on her head. I’m not going to hurt you. “Stay back! Stay back!” Were you looking for food? I can make you some food. Are you hungry? “I told you, stay the fuck back! I don’t want anything from you!” Okay, okay. Roy backs up one step. Do you have a name? My name is Roy. “I don’t give a shit what your name is!” She’s flustered, dehydrated. Roy looks closer and sees the chapped lips and peeling skin on her nose. He has seen this before. “How do I get back to the road?” Just down my driveway, over that way. Hey listen, before you go, do you want some water? Do you have a water bottle I can fill for you? “Don’t touch me.” I’m not going to touch you. Can I take your bottle inside and fill it for you? “You’ll probably just drug it, follow me, fucking men make me sick!” I’m not going to drug you. I want to help you. If you don’t want my help that’s okay. I told you how to get back to the road. The girl stumbles down the driveway, keeping her eyes and her knife firmly fixed on Roy until about halfway down, then she turns around and starts running. He didn’t need to put any added pressure on her: he knows he had done all he could, and that maybe – experience-dictating – she will come back, if she really needs the help.
9 PM. The sun is fully set, but the full moon is bright and conveniently faces Roy’s patio, nearly lighting the whole main floor of the house in the process. He locks his door and turns off the outside lights and is just headed upstairs to bed when the familiar rustling comes from outside his patio door again. There she is, crouched down, watching him through the layers of translucent walls put up between him and her. If he can’t get to her now, then she might break in later. He approaches the door slowly. She does not back away. He opens the door. Do you want to come in? “Maybe.” I told you, it’s up to you. You haven’t done anything yet so I guess I trust you. Do you trust me? “I don’t know.” It’s cold out tonight. I was just going to boil some water for tea. Do you want a cup? She nods. Well come around the side to the front again. I’ll open the door. He does. The moon does her physical features favours that the sun and a knife couldn’t do justice. But as Roy steps out of the way to let her in, and can smell the sickness on her clothes and see the bruises on her arms, he can’t see her as comely; as arresting as a younger man might, as a younger man may see to take advantage of, in more ways than one. No, she feels like a long-lost daughter or niece, coming home, needing to recharge after a bad spell. He had often thought about taking in a few youth, turning his house into a rehab of-sorts. But he never got around to getting a permit and the furthest he got in school was an F in Beginners Counselling. All that damned paperwork was his undoing. This. This is what it’s all about, helping someone in need. The essentials.
Make yourself at home. Watch out for the step. There is a one-step drop from the kitchen into the living area. He turns on the kitchen light, which is dim and unobtrusive. Do you have a tea preference? I have rooibos, green tea, peppermint… “I don’t care.” Peppermint, then. It helps me sleep. Not that I’m trying to get you to go to sleep or anything, oh God, just forget I said anything. “It’s okay. Most guys wanna try something on me, they just do it, they don’t let me look around their place first.” Roy’s furniture was hand-me-downs through-and-through and, despite how attractive a little remodelling and modern decor could make the place to a younger buyer, Roy was one of the last few original owners left in the area, period, and he liked things his way. The way they were. She stares at the couch. That right there is a great couch. Try it. She does. She gets comfortable, fast. Told you. It was my mother’s. She doesn’t answer. Roy stops talking and she doesn’t offer conversation, as he watches her from the open kitchen while he steeps the tea. She doesn’t get up once. Roy didn’t think she would. I like this brand. It’s very flavorful. Be careful, it’s hot. She sips it and stares out the window. It’s a Hell of a view.
Look, I don’t need to know anything about your situation, okay? I help people. That’s the kind of guy I am. So if you want a place to stay tonight, I can set you up on the couch, and I’ll go sleep upstairs in my room. I won’t bug you. “You’re really kind. You don’t have to do this.” I know I don’t, but I do. It’s a fault, really. Roy laughs, but she doesn’t. What’s your name? “Amanda.” Amanda, can I call anyone for you? “No. You can’t call anyone.” Okay, no problem. I’m just going to sit here and finish my tea, and then I’ll get you a comforter and a pillow, okay? “Okay.” You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. She doesn’t. Roy turns his armchair from her to face the window too.
*
He can feel the mattress shift and is shaken awake. 2 AM, according to the digital clock. He rolls over. Amanda is there, naked, her dangling b-cups silhouetted by the moonlight. Roy has to force himself to blink. This had never happened before. And she was pretty and it felt like fantasy, her skin whitewashed of all blemishes, and there, in all her unadulterated beauty, from whence she came. Those boyish feelings wash over him again. How old was he? Did it matter? She is crawling along the bed to him. She kisses him. Her breath tastes like vomit. She climbs on top of him over the sheets while she forces a French kiss that Roy struggles to deny. He can feel himself getting harder, harder than he had been in years; harder than back in High School, and fooling around with Heather in the back seat of his parents’ blue Impala. A time long before the world now. An innocent time. She is grinding.
Enough, enough of this! He pushes her off of him and climbs out of bed, holding the sheet to the naked body he slept in every night. What do you think you’re doing? “I’m trying to fuck you.” I told you I didn’t want anything from you. “But I have to pay you back somehow, don’t I? For being so nice to me?” She comes on to him again, but he grabs her wrists, gently. You don’t have to pay me back at all. I told you. This is who I am. “I don’t believe it. You don’t want to fool around?” No. “Then what do you want from me?” Nothing. Just to help you, that’s all. “That’s never all.” She shakes herself loose, and Roy walks to his dresser and puts on some sweatpants before turning on the light in the room. The harsh brightness revealed all there was about Amanda that he couldn’t see before. Roy tries to stop himself from reacting, but a self-consciousness falls over her as she looks at him, looking at her. A judgment. Frustration. “Did you think you could keep me here or something? Old guy like you, probably haven’t had sex in forever.” Now, Amanda, that’s enough. “No, that’s probably exactly what you had in mind for me, isn’t it? Keep me here? Drug me? Make me fall in love with you? And then what? Rob me? Pass me around?” You’ve got me all wrong, Amanda. I’m not that kind of guy at all. “All you guys are the same.” She storms out of the room and back downstairs. Roy sits on the bed, sweaty, planning his next move. Before he can think of one, he can hear her voice from downstairs: “Police? I need to report a sexual assault.” He flies down to the kitchen, where Amanda is using his cell phone to call 911. “This is his phone, you need to track this phone. I don’t know what he’s going to do to me.” What are you doing? “I’m calling the cops.” Why? I didn’t do anything? Ma’am? Ma’am? Are you still there? “Yes, I’m still here.” Give me the phone. “No!” Amanda, give me the God damned phone! He reaches for it. She steps back, over the step. She trips. Before Roy can grab her, she smashes the back of her head against the antique red oak coffee table in the living room. There is blood everywhere. It is seeping through the carpet.
*
It is 3 AM and Roy has arrived at the courthouse. His cries fall on deaf ears. You don’t understand what happened! She was troubled, she came to me! I’ve never had anyone trip over that step before! Never! I always tell everybody about it! I told her, I swear! Damnit, won’t anybody believe me? No one did. I don’t want to go there, please! Don’t make me go through with it! I’m sure there has to be someone who saw her! Mine isn’t the only house she could have gone to, you know! Why aren’t you canvassing? Isn’t that what you should be doing instead of sending an innocent man to his doom? He sounds like Jimmy Stewart, begging, as his arms link into those of his military escort, out the back of the van and up the stairs, past the stationed guards, through the front entrance and the big set of doors that civilians were specifically barred from entering. Before he goes through the doors, he can see at the end of the main hall the salivating crowd watching him, waiting in-line for their time slot, separated by stanchions like a movie premiere. The courthouse was a 24-hour show. Through the door is a room. He is stripped, and his possessions are put in a little plastic tote. They use a high-pressure hose to wash him off with cold water, and then they lead him into another room: one reinforced by a big steel door. In this cylindrical room with walls covered in shiny, easy-to-clean material, he is strapped to a chair and left, while the guards shut the large door behind them with a thud that echoes loudly and stings Roy’s eardrums. He is terrified. A loud buzz. A skylight opens up, and there, hanging darkly-lit under the bright overhead fluorescents, is a circle of penises. Dicks belonging to men who stood above the room – the “special task force”, comprised of decommissioned cops who had their old wage grandfathered-in – protected from falling by a metal rail around them. Roy is exasperated. Another buzz. A wall opens to reveal the crowd. They are fanatical, at this early hour. Roy is near tears in his shock. A voice. “Leroy Gregory Willis, you are found guilty on one count of attempted sexual assault and one count of first-degree murder. As per the New Criminal Code here passed by the Federal Courts, the sentence for any crime of any nature of to be bukkake’d on for a consecutive period of 30-minutes. This sentence will be carried out immediately.” Another buzz, and then a sudden, violent cavalcade of noises from above, sexual, undulated. The men are jerking off. Roy shakes himself back-and-forth in the chair to no avail, as it is bolted to the floor. Where is he going to go? There are no knobs on the doors. What would happen when it was over? Would he be let free? So many questions. A rush. An exclamation. A single drop lands on Roy’s leg while the remaining streak shoots against the wall. Breathless. Let me out! I told you! It was all a big mistake! I was trying to help her!
It starts like rain on his head, against his face, making the pitter-patter against the metal walls like in his youth, laying in bed at night with his eyes closed, listening to the rain on his bedroom ceiling, imagining it was the police, landing from a helicopter, coming to take him away, waiting to break through the window at any minute. It poured. The exhausted punishers are swapped out until they’re ready to go again, with more than a dozen unseen men around the corner in-queue, naked, erect, waiting for their moment to do their own civic duty. Roy can’t scream, lest the semen get into his mouth. It doesn’t stop. The smell. The degradation. He can barely make out the crowd under what little light he allows into his tightly-shut eyes, but he can see some of them masturbating. If he wasn’t sick before, the sight of that makes him sick now. He vomits into his mouth. He tries to keep it in but there is too much, he throws-up all over himself, tiring himself. Finally, he stops trying altogether. He keeps his eyes shut. On it goes. And on. And on. He is getting heavy. He thinks of his mother. How one night, Roy’s stepfather broke the front door down trying to get in. He was drunk. And his mother was on a stretcher, barely-alive when the paramedics wheeled her out, and Roy watched from the sidewalk. He wasn’t there, he was just getting dropped off after a sleepover. The stepfather had already left. They questioned his mother all they could but she wouldn’t give him up. She loved him too much.
And then, a loud buzz. Silence falls. The drops stopped, and the door to the viewing room closes. The big steel door opens. He is unbuckled by a team in hazmat suits and dragged back to where is is hosed-off again. He is given his little plastic tote and a towel. He is free to leave. The bus stop was two blocks away, but Roy couldn’t even take one step. “Did you hear what I said to you? I told you to leave!” A guard pushes him roughly from the rear and Roy falls head-first down the courthouse steps, stumbling over himself, a bloody mess when he finally hits the bottom. Roy doesn’t want to open his eyes. He doesn’t want to close them. Everything reminds him of the ordeal. He is a changed man. Sirens. And then….
//jf 1.27.2021
theory of a daskeman 