Holiday Inn

“There wasn’t much more to do. All the dark skinned folks just sat around talking about how shit life was for them. But life was shit for us too. We didn’t have any work, we didn’t have any money. All the benefits were gone. So fuck them. That’s when I joined the domestic militia. I know it’s kind of mean but I couldn’t stand being talked to like I didn’t matter anymore. Like I didn’t care about folks. My kin was sick and starving and I’m getting yelled at by some Mezzican kid about how I didn’t know shit. My kin was sick and starving, and you’re gonna tell me I said ‘she’ wrong or I don’t care enough about some Trannie. We wuz hungry and I just said, ‘Fuck it.’ I’m picking up a gun and getting that government check. I don’t care if you say you’re American. You’re friggin obnoxious… Well, that was twenty-something years ago or so. Now I’m a sergeant. But that was how I got started. That’s what got me into California after the border wars. And thank God. It’s been over twenty years we’ve occupied the New California Territory and ain’t been a peep from those dark skinned sons of bitches since. My baby daughter was starving… and you’re gonna git in my face cuz I called you a girl when you say you ain’t binary. Get a job, feed your family… well anyway, we’re here now. That nonsense has sure quieted down,” John finished.

Peter had heard this before, but he was a young man so he could stand hearing it again. Peter was a sturdy Japanese man in his early 20s. He had a lean face and deep thoughtful eyes. His hair was black and shorn in a military style. His face was unwrinkled and his mouth was flat and steady like someone always in thought, pensive… but steady. For the lean times in which he lived he was well built and strong, just the kind of guy the new militias wanted in their corp. For safety and health reasons after the plagues of the early 21st century, California shut its borders to interstate travel. The state had managed to avoid some of the disasters of other states by taking early comprehensive measures against certain illnesses. Such distancing was a part of those efforts, an extreme part, but also state-wide vaccinations and health care as well.

Eventually, the government sent in troops to break the California border guard because of the growing resentment from the states that California’s economy had improved far better than others’; that people had greater freedom of movement there. Because of California’s opposition to the conservative U.S. Federal Government of the time, the federal government chose to break the California travel ban with their own forces. John was Peter’s commanding officer in the American Army’s new militias, which still remained stationed in California. John was a weathered white man who had let a couple days stubble grow on his face even against Army orders. He didn’t care. Out here at this remote post towards the California-Nevada border protocol was secondary to keeping the post adequately manned. He wasn’t fat but he was clearly a well fed man; thick around the middle with broad shoulders. He wasn’t too tall, a couple inches shorter than Peter. He had a fully shaved head but you could see the stubble there too, which slightly outlined his male pattern baldness.

As John described it to Peter, the battles were swift given the size of the American Army and quickly the Californian guard was pushed back (Californian historians report that they were slaughtered) and sent running back towards the coast, away from the Nevada and Arizona borders. Ultimately, the Federal Army was hard to stop. They were hungry and angry. The economic disparity between the rest of the states and California was overwhelming. In a state that was long known for its progressive social politics, the undercurrent of resentment was palpable in the attacking Federal forces. So at a certain point, containing those nationwide resentments became unmanageable. The influx of immigrants from the Mexico and further south, California’s well-employed eschewing binary gender roles, and changing racial norms; with Californians able to travel freely across the country for expensive vacations in impoverished towns devastated by sickness and the national government’s ensuing, unsuccessful trickle-down economic policies had led a vast majority of those outside of California furious, bristling at those same Californian’s unwillingness to abide by previously accepted norms in America with their embrace changing Judeo-Christian lifestyles or customs.

Reflecting on John’s commentary, Peter appreciated the old-timer’s take on a violent moment in modern American history. Another part of him, though, hated that he had to listen to it. In that respect, it was like a car accident to him. He couldn’t really turn away from the hideousness. There wasn’t much else to do out where they were anyway, working together late night on the graveyard shift in the middle of their desert patrol. Patrol was a misnomer because they were figuratively staked to the old Holiday Inn in town like tent pegs. They went nowhere, they moved very little, holding the dilapidated building in place with their occasional maintenance. After the population had dissipated, this became the outpost that the new guards of the American Army patrolled close to the New California Territory’s border with Nevada.

The dust blew across the front entryway to the hotel where the rotating door was. Outside one could see the old highway sign was faded but the word “Barstow” was still legible. The population number had faded along with the green background. It didn’t matter, no one lived there now. The city was cleansed some years earlier of a population. This outpost was only to manage the roads coming in from Nevada sandwiched between the two state parks — a desert and Death Valley. Only the occasional migrant would pass through. But that was why they were there — to stop, catalog and ultimately collect anyone unnaturalized to the territory. As for the sign: 2,175 feet above sea level — that was also still visible. The men sat at the table in the lobby of the fortified Holiday Inn. Like some old western movie, tumbleweeds blew past in the dirty wind. They went back to playing their card game, which they often did to pass the time.

“It’s quiet out there, isn’t it?” Peter sat looking at his hand.

“It’s supposed to be quiet. There’s just us. If there’s any sound then that’s not a good thing.” John put his cards on the table, “Gin. Count ’em, Kid.”

“I just can’t ever seem to get this right. You win a lot more than me.” He picked up the cards and started to shuffle. “We’re playing again, right?”

“Our shift just started. Like you said, it’s quiet. We got nothing else to do.” A coyote howled in the distance and Peter and John briefly locked eyes. “Coyote… definitely means whatever folks could be around are at least settled in for the night — real windy anyway, so I especially doubt anyone’s trying to cross through tonight. But we’ve got the lights on and the sensors set — so we’ll catch anyone that thinks they might be able to make a pass near here.”

Peter started dealing, “While you’re on the subject, can you tell me more? I mean, I know what I read. I know what I’ve been told. But tell me about the original fights. Like when the American militias finally crossed the border to take over California… how many folks did you kill?”

“Wasn’t so much about killing ’em. It was more about,” John pulled his cards in close to inspect the sequences, “… more about fear. Just making sure that people knew this wasn’t their land any more, that we were taking California back. There was so much talk about independence. Not just in California but for people… people, kids, talking about all kinds of crazy stuff. Not being boys or girls. Not being black or white — imagine that?!… white people not wanting to be white, just some unreal shit. And they’re insisting on talking about it all the time.” He layed a card down face up, a seven of spades, then he picked up another off the pile. “There was just this whole feelin’ of superiority based on people thinking they was special. Finally, we got in here and made sure we had the labels. The census properly sorted folks in to the right category. There was Americans. Californians. From there we broke it down into Asians and Blacks. Then there was just Mezzicans. We didn’t give a shit. Some of them had been Americans. Their dads and grandads were Americans. But in the end it didn’t matter none. Once we got the order to occupy we moved in and started splitting everybody up.

“I guess a big tipping point was, well, basically, when the money became worthless to most of us. California had money. New Yorkers always have their money. But after the plagues of the 21st century when the warming let bugs and rats spread new shit everywhere, the best our government could do was to just kind of hand out more money. They started printing more of it for all of us. But in the end that didn’t work at all. People were spending money left and right but California was the only place really getting to keep it, to keep their money… and it was our money. I guess other big cities did too. Like I said, New York did… Seattle, Boston, just a few of the bigger cities. Not down South though. Houston, Washington DC, Atlanta, Charlotte — no. But California — San Francisco and LA — they had real jobs, they made the things people wanted, internet and TV, ya know?… Or if you wanted actual shit? That was grown in California… or it came from China and anything that came from China had to come through California. So no matter how much money the government figured it could just give the rest of Americans, it all ended up in California. They got most of the pie. I didn’t know what the fuck economic policy was until I had lots of cash and couldn’t even afford gas. Basically, we were starving and inflation was through the roof. And in the end California seemed to be letting Mezzicans come in and get rich off of doing their dirty work. A bunch of trannies and gays and Mezzicans getting rich while the government had us buying bags of rice on the black market for the same price as my damn mortgage — the stores were empty for Christ’s sake… and then, kind of suddenly, there wasn’t even rice. There just… there just wasn’t even food!

“Things we’re hard. Back on the farm we were starved out. Some people called it The Starve. There wasn’t enough to eat anywhere. Like I said, my baby daughter was starving. I had… I had…” He held his breath as if he wasn’t just holding back tears but something more revolting. “I had a son. He was my first born. He wasn’t born right. He had some mental problems, real slow, he needed lots of attention. When things got bad we could barely care for him anymore. There just wasn’t enough. We weren’t alone. We heard the families further out in the county had done some crazy shit. Well, my wife had the baby, so sweet and precious. And the boy, Michael, he was taking so much time: to worry about; always having to watch him. I had no food and I couldn’t seem to buy any. There wasn’t any help anywhere, not the church, not the government, nothin’. There’s just a moment when you lose all feeling, when you ain’t got nothing left: no food, no animals, no help, no God even, like a coyote caught in a trap, eatin’ its arm off or whatever. And you know you might have to do something drastic,” Peter stared at John trying to anticipate what might be coming.

“I shut down the night Michael died… . Winter came earlier than it ever had, climate change or whatever they kept saying. Whatever it was, it was cold and bare and there was nothin’ to save us. We were just completely starved out, crazy from the hunger, no one had anything. Neighbors were starving, people looking at each other shifty like, on edge. The hunger and cold had us shaking every moment, every day — the baby was starving!

“One day I was out trying to get the truck going again. The tractor had stopped working and the car was useless since gas cost too much; we didn’t really have anywhere to go. So I’m out with the four-by-four and I got it all jacked up and I’m hammering out the axle that got bent messing around in the field. I’m banging on it making all this racket and I don’t hear Michael moving around — always had to keep an eye on him. I guess being so hungry and frustrated by everything I just wasn’t paying attention. Before my wife left she said I wasn’t paying attention on purpose. I don’t know… but all of sudden the truck slams down off the jack and the joint or the boot of whatever just slams down on Michael’s face. I guess he was just curious and got to playing with it. Fuck me. And it just killed him. It crushed his head right then and there.”

He held that moment chuckling to himself, his wide body moving in laughter, his belly undulating some against the table, and his hollow cheeks showing dimples as he smiled faintly. But his white brow furrowed as his mind and world paralyzed on the story he was retelling, “I was too shocked, too hungry to yell. I reset the jack slowly since he was obviously dead. He wasn’t moving, he was so skinny anyway — frail. I just hefted him over my shoulder and took him out to the shed where I would take the other animals. Course, there weren’t any. The land was barren and over hunted anyway from everyone else who was starving. I took him out and cut my own boy’s throat to let the rest of the blood out — it seemed damn near normal to me. Like I said, I went and told my wife and she cried… but she cried like a burden had been lifted. I told her I had him out in the hunting shed bleeding out and like I said too, she tried to tell me I did it on purpose. But we both knew we couldn’t afford to just bury him. That was The Starve though… the beginning of the end… for me I suppose. Eating him got us through the next couple months, got the baby fed and through the winter. In the spring, my wife took the baby to her sisters once I decided to sign up and come out here. We never talked to each other the same after that. Didn’t make love a single time again after that. When she left we didn’t even say goodbye. We got her all packed up and found a way to get the car filled up with gas. Then I went out to check some traps I set. When I got back, her and the baby were gone. I haven’t seen them since.” Peter felt his stomach turn. He looked on John with a cold pity, like a man who was asking to die. Peter moved through an ambivalence toward John of sympathy for a man starving and loathing of someone who could eat his own child.

John saw in Peter’s eyes the twisted emotions he was fomenting, “I’s much younger then and I’m sure I’ll have to pay for what I did at some point. Once we started breaking people up and taking kids from parents, the real nasty stuff, your heart just kind of got cold. At least I know mine did. The Starve had already left it pretty cold. There was killing and hurting,” he said, pausing for a second after making sure to clearly pronounce both verbs, “…things that help you pave over your heart. I’ve been here for so long the worst that I’ve done is just part of me, part of Barstow; the Holiday Inn.”

“Yeah, my dad told me it was a real tense time. We had been in California for almost two centuries, seven generations of Japane…” Peter stopped himself. He knew he only could identify that specifically when he was with his family, “We’d been Asians here in California for a long time. But that didn’t mean much. Like you said, Mezzicans everywhere trying to be something they weren’t — making money good Americans could have been making.”

Peter always struggled to manage his language here at the station. He was of course one of “them” — part of the American Army. He was a guardsman making sure the area in New California was protected. But he wasn’t white. He wasn’t older. So he grew up in a time where the fighting wasn’t something he had sought out. His generation had just grown up with it. So he “knew his place” as his grandfather used to tell him. He was safe where he was but he knew he had to listen way more than he ever spoke. Speaking too much was to ask for trouble, trouble that would certainly be unpleasant. He didn’t like talking in this fashion but survival was a personal issue. Every person had to manage on their own these days — fighting in this new guard and keeping his head down had been Peter’s way.

“Exactly,” John responded. “So we came in on orders from the President…” There was a rustling outside and both men leapt to the window. They looked through the crack in the window as the dust blew outside, but there was nothing there that they could see: no shadows, no silhouettes, just a smattering of dust… “We… yeah, we were told that there was ‘problem’ out in California. And like I said we enlisted. Couldn’t wait to come out and crack some of these uppity California skulls.

“Now, at the time, we didn’t really understand exactly what was going on. But we had a good enough idea and we sure as hell didn’t like California. News articles were saying Californians had built a whole armada up at the Nevada border like they wanted a civil war… Who knows if they did? But maaaan, they were rich compared to the rest of us. So to hear they were trying to stop being Americans — that’s what the President’s news service kept telling us — not be American, wanting a whole different way of talking?… of being?!?!, just trying to be so different… And that they were ready to fight over it?!? That’s the reports we were getting from the news, that’s what the President was saying all the time. That didn’t sit well with… us… you know, with us good folks from the other states… didn’t really sit well with anyone: us, Washington, the President and congress.”

“All that stuff just keeps filling you with hate. I’ve been filled with hate for a long time — been hungry and wanting. My family was hungry and wanting… my boy. My son. We had nothing else to eat. Life and death desperation… that makes you feel things you probably shouldn’t. I haven’t told anyone any of this in a long time… ‘bout my kid, my wife… any of it… I even raped a woman once. I was just so filled with the nothingness… with emptiness… I guess when you feel nothing at all, that space only gets filled up with hate.”

Peter cringed. He looked up at John, aghast. “Well, you asked, Kid… A family of Mezzicans had just come up from migrating. They said they was from Hahn-doorus. That didn’t matter to me and something just turned inside me when they tried to explain they weren’t from Mezzico. ‘I don’t give two shits where you’re from.’ And I just went ahead with orders. Just doing as I was told or trained or whatever…

“This family couldn’t understand much of what I said. I just kept pushing them around, ‘You Mezzicans need to get over here and get over there.’ and they just kept saying, ‘Hahn-doorus… Hahn-door-us!’ Well, two of them were very old. We had strict quarantine regs then too on account of the plagues from the early part of the century. So the first thing I did was smack that dad around to get him to shut up and stop saying ‘Hahndooras, Hahndooras,’ and then I shoved him and the woman into one of them lockups we used to have just down the street here. We had those temporary holding cells. You’ve seen those empty lots at the end of Main Street where there’s just nothing now. That’s where they were.” Peter nodded as he kept up with all of this, the horror of the past can turn stomachs in the present. Peter just couldn’t understand what he was hearing. He couldn’t grasp all this disgusting terror. He felt a violent twitch inside himself as if he wanted to stop the story then, by taking that rifle and shooting John. He wanted to put John out of his misery, and maybe in so doing he might help put the world out of some of its misery. He wrestled with an anger to which he was unfamiliar. As the rage quickened and turned inside him, he tried to push it down further, just trying to hear John tell him about The Starve, the distress, and the desperation. Peter tried not to judge even as he felt his own well of compassion run dry.

“So the mom starts bawling — won’t stop howling,” John went on, “And I get my gun out and pistol whip the little boy that’s with ’em. Then the father tries to lurch through the bars. But it’s the girl — the girl!… bitch jumps right on my gun hand and bites my wrist. I drop the gun and then she bites my palm.” He turned his right hand over to expose the pock marks to Peter. “Right there, them indentations of her fucking teeth… thought I might have rabies or some shit, she bit me like a dog, a damn rabid dog. I was pissed. Wasn’t nobody else around and I just was standing there bleeding. I pick up my gun, butt end raised and I smack the girl on the back of the head. Then I pick that little boy up and give him one more lick and he’s knocked out, blood coming out of the side of his head. The screaming is so loud now. The man is screaming, the mom is howling. And that Mezzican girl, she has on one of the homemade dresses, dirty as all hell.”

Peter’s stomach finished turning fully over at this since he already knows the ending. He’d heard stories from his captains in boot camp — terrible, just terrible things. “If this girl gets out alive it would be a miracle,” he thinks to himself.

Peter held his breath as John went on, “I rip that dirty rag right off of her. She’s got scars everywhere. Whipmarks on her back and a bullet hole scar in her side. A Caesarian scar and cuts all up and down her legs from where she’s been hiking through brush or cactus or some shit. But my hand is fucking bleeding. I can’t hear a thing over her parents screaming. I fucking smack her on the back of her head, then I turn her over and drop my pants: ’imma show you a thing or two!’ I shout. Just start spanking her and smacking the back of her head. And then I just do it. Just get in there while she’s screaming and that boy is lying on the floor bleeding. Her two Mezzican parents howlin’ from that cage. Been so long and I’m so pissed and pumped up it doesn’t take more than 30 seconds. But 30 seconds she’s gonna remember forever, I think. Just finish it up and throw her down on the floor next to that kid. No cameras to worry about or nothing cuz it was such a makeshift operation back then, even for almost being the 22nd century and all, cameras being everywhere and stuff. Anyway, I just throw that dress back on her all torn off and walk out. I go get the sergeant and tell him we got four Mezzicans that need clean-up, filthy and dirty. Might be infected, contaminated, whatever.” John held his breath in that moment. He took a long deep inhale as if he was pulling the last drags from a cigarette. “That’s the kind of hate that sticks with you out here. That’s stuck with me. Just angry that they think people give a shit that only they’re starving. We were starving too! No fucking respect. None!

“Thing I won’t forget though is a musical watch. When I threw her dress back on her, a pocket watch fell out of some pocket caught in the fold of something. Maybe some heirloom or something — like the only thing she had brought with her from Hahndooras. And when it fell it opened and started playing music… a real slow music. Something maybe classical, just a couple notes. So I stepped on it. Cracked the face but not too hard. I didn’t wanna break it, just bust the face up a little bit. Then I kicked it into the cell towards her daddy or whoever. Then… then I walked out with that slow music playing. Something to remember me by now that they were in my country.” John was tense, moved by recounting the story as the hate dripped from the sides of his mouth.

Peter hadn’t seen John be quite so vicious and frigid as this before. He tried to process all this. He was short of breath for a moment but he knew better than to show it. He just gripped his rifle strap for a couple of seconds while looking back at the cards on the table. These horrors were the things Peter had heard growing up, things that had happened to his own family even about a hundred of so years back. He’d even heard of some pretty awful stuff the century before when his family had been interned in camps for being Japanese during the second World War. Even though Peter had asked to hear all of this, he was still awestruck at the horror.

Peter had been down to the internment and holding areas before. There was nothing there now but the foundations. Just shortened poles dug into the concrete spheres where the frames had been. The tents and tarps had been wrapped around those poles in order to make the jails transportable and somewhat flexible in size because of the vast number of Californians they were detaining or imprisoning. They were the same type of cages used in the early years of the 21st century to keep those immigrants detained. Peter had walked down there sometimes during breaks or when he was off duty just to clear his head. He had been stationed here in Barstow for almost six months now. That Holiday Inn, dingy, run down, filled with unnecessary military gear and sparse troops, could be oppressive. It certainly represented what he felt he was supposed to be there defending; a big bully of a country using its might to control and oppress. He often reflected on this being the antithesis of the American Dream. Where the country was founded to stand for a “pursuit of happiness”, this America he was protecting was bent on guarding its powers through oppressive control.

The few history books he grew up with taught him the greatness of American might. Although they didn’t explain it as granularly as John just had, the books championed the times when, at the fraying of the great American Union, when California felt their interests were better served by secession, the U.S. Federal Government had unleashed its armies domestically onto its own state. In areas where unemployment was low, wages were high, education pervasive — and for all ages — an almost envious Washington D.C., trying to assuage angry, impoverished, out-of-work Americans from the plains and Southern states, launched an offensive to reclaim power in those states. They sent those armies to take over government functions: hospitals, public universities, schools, transit systems — an almost complete socialist, authoritarian and totalitarian takeover like the USSR had managed in the middle to late 20th Century. With this socialist approach to oppressive governance, rather than improve the lives of its citizens, the U.S. government functioned to the contrary of it’s supposedly steadfast allegiance to capitalism. Millions of jobs were lost, millions of children were left without school, millions of homes were seized via eminent domain, and the nationalization of industries was normalized — and naturally, education and infrastructure budgets trimmed in an effort to fortalize these government efforts. All this was done under the pretense of protecting people, either from serial pandemics, anti-American interests or encroaching climate changes.

Peter realized how much anger was still left in John, so much residual pain — even regret. No one had ever tried to help John. In fact, the government in which John had put his faith had instead brought the rest of the world down to his level. Peter understood that no one had ever really tried to lift John up and improve his life. But even with that sympathy, Peter thought of his own family; similarly forced down rather than lifted up. It angered him as well when he would think about these things. In the end, Peter did his best just to move past all those feelings; through them.

Peter continued the gin-rummy game as the wind whipped outside. More dust kicked up across the windows and the air howled past the hotel doors. He continued sorting his cards but there wasn’t much to work with. A couple of pairs, some similar suits but he had some work to do in order to win this hand. John was also rearranging his cards when another noise startled them back to the window.

They saw something at the window this time. It looked like a couple trees wavering off in the distance but that couldn’t be. The land was so empty it definitely wasn’t trees. The two sauntered to the window leaving their cards on the table mid-hand. Both of them picked up their assault rifles leaning against the beat up table. Their US fatigues were worn, unwashed. Clearly they had no other pairs. They just washed those on occasion when they had the chance. But they hadn’t done that in a little while. They walked across to the room in those dusty Army-issue fatigues, belts hanging from their midsections loosely like old cowboys. When the long distance motion detecting lights came on, they knew for sure that those weren’t trees outside. Whatever was out there was large enough to trigger the advanced sensors that were sensitive only to human-sized objects or larger that could move out in the distance. At the same time they heard the beep from the old radar monitor they kept on the ground floor to track any of those objects large enough to register: people, automobiles, or horses. They realized they weren’t alone anymore tonight. They looked out the window. Then they looked back at their card game. They knew that was over. They waited as the slender objects moved closer and closer to them. They held still and watched, engrossed in the encroaching figures for a moment.

“Is that a girl?” Peter finally said several minutes later. “We haven’t seen a girl around here in forever. What the hell is she…”

“That looks like a goddamned priest with her or some shit. Some Mezzican padre like from those old movies and shit,” John interrupted.

“Ha, I took a class in old spaghetti westerns back in college. I was a business major but you could take the ‘Spaghetti Western’ class and watch a bunch of movies and the point was to talk about how you could recreate a whole fictitious world in a totally different place but for a fraction of the cost.”

“You got to take a class like that in college?”

“For my major even,” Pete responded.

“Don’t know what good that shit did you. You’re still out here with me.”

The dust particles visible floated inside and outside the lobby. The mangy room was stale with the smell of soldiers. The few other men stationed at the hotel were in their rooms asleep. A whistling could be heard through the cracks in the revolving doors that were locked shut. Outside, the dust flew across the window pane and the two strangers were staggering slowly up to the door through the old street, their silhouettes framed by the other abandoned buildings nearby. Peter and John clutched their guns tighter.

“I know. I know. I can’t shoot ’em first,” John said, “They gotta do something to deserve it. But I can’t imagine what they think they’re gonna get from us here.”

“Maybe they just need some help,” Peter responded.

“Help or not, that’s not why we’re here. We gotta keep this place free from people. That’s our job. If they’re American, we get them transportation and we send them on their way. If they’re Mezzican, we put ’em in the tank in the back and the Control and Supply truck can take ’em to Detainment after it drops off our food rations next week.”

“We’ll let’s hear them out.”

“I’ll hear ’em out alright. But in looking at them, I ain’t too optimistic. Real brown looking — both them. That man is old. And that girl, dunno, she’s real young. Real skinny, real pretty, but real young. Something ain’t right with this.”

They stared at the two approaching the rotating lobby doors. There was a sliding glass opening so they could talk or pass across any necessary documents. Having taken inventory of them as they approached, it was seemingly clear that they were not armed. The old man looked the part of a Catholic priest, robed in brown with a rosary and cross which hung from his neck. The girl wore a dress. She had hiking boots and a coat as well. The ensemble was strange but seemingly comforting for the type of weather and conditions they must have been walking through.

“Sir, we are American.” They said as John pulled the glass open to ask them what they wanted.

“You don’t look American.”

“Sir, we are not, Mexican, as you might say,” the Priest quickly answered with a bit of an accent. “We were driving to help some poor families some miles from here, west of Barstow of course, when a dust storm picked up and our vehicle stalled or overheated or something. We called in for some assistance but we were told that we could wait for a roadside patrol to come in several days or that we could walk here.”

“You ain’t Mezzican but you were going to help a bunch of Mezzic…” John started to reply but the man interrupted.

“Sir, we were going to help some impoverished families. I am a humble servant of the Lord. As I said, I am not ‘Mezzican’.” At that he removed two ID cards from a small brown satchel that hung at his side. He pushed them through the slim opening for John or Peter to inspect: Juan Venganza, nationalized, American for 19 years. Angel Venganza, born, American, 18 years old.

“They look like they’re with ‘us’,” Peter whispered in the back of John’s ear as they inspected the documents. “I think we at least got to let them in.”

“They don’t look American.”

“John, be honest, you don’t think I look American. And my family’s been here at least 8 generations.”

“Well, that’s different. You’re a good one — you’re with us.”

“John, protocol says if they present valid American ID you have to let them in.”

“I…,” frustrated, John unlocked the revolving door so they could come through. As the latch snapped out, the two strangers pushed through the creaking door which hadn’t been used to greet visitors in some time. “If you two ain’t telling the truth, if those are fake or something, we’re gonna immediately put you out back and then get you transported to a detainment center. I don’t have any patience for people like you.”
“Sir, I can assure you our status is accurate,” the Priest said as the girl nodded in agreement.

“Well, don’t do anything stupid.” he said tapping at the trigger on his rifle.

They stepped in through the door, “My Son, why are you so angry at us? I am but a humble servant of the Lord in need of some help. Do you have any water? We are very thirsty.”

“I’ll go get you some, Father,” Peter said.

“Hold on a second — let’s make sure to inspect them!” John said.

Peter kept heading towards the bottled water they kept under the card table, “John, I gotta give it to them. It’s the law. If we let anyone in and they are in need or water, we have to at least give it to them.”

“Alright, hurry up then so we can check ’em out.”

“John, that is your name?” The Father asked and John sneered as he nodded his head slowly up and down, “Very biblical, my son. I’m not sure why you are so suspect of us or angry at two humble servants of the Lord. Your name is a name of forgiveness and rebirth.”

“Whatever. You been out walking around in this desert. And that don’t make any sense. There ain’t nothing out there but dust and Mezzicans. But you’re right. What do I care? Pete get that water over here.” Peter came back and handed them the water. He took the documents as John continued addressing them, “Alright, ‘Padre’ I need you to turn up against that wall. I gotta search you.” He pushed the priest up against the wall. He lifted up the gown to pat down the legs. The legs were slim and marked with scars. “You got some real chicken legs there, Father. They don’t look like they’re much for walkin’.”

“They carry me where I need to go, Son.”

John took the small bag and handed it over to Peter. “Don’t call me, Son,” John snapped, “The Lord barely got any place in these parts.” Once he had done that he shoved the priest toward a chair, “Pete, you keep an eye on him. And the bag them IDs were in,” John nodding to what he had just handed Peter. “Inspect it and see if there’s any gun in there or anything. I’m gonna take a look at this little doll over here.” He sneered and walked towards the younger woman. “You ARE young… real pretty too.”

“Sir, I’m just here to keep him company. You don’t want to give me any trouble.”

“I don’t want to give YOU any trouble?” He thrust her up against the wall. She was sturdy but light and she moved forcedly from the inertia of his push. “I don’t think I’m gonna be the one worrying about any trouble.” He started to pat her legs down… “Smooooooth…. Feels like you might have just shaved these legs for me, Sweetie.” He moved his hand gently up her calf. His hand came down around her shoulder and on to her breast. “And damn if you ain’t even seem to have hit puberty yet… ain’t no titties to speak of. But that’s alright by me.” His words slithered around her ears.

“Sir, I am unarmed.” She trembled ever so slightly as his hands moved toward her midsection. But even John noticed she was far less afraid than he thought she should be.

He leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Well, I got a pistol right here and I ain’t afraid to use it.” He pulled her arm down towards the cold barrel of his rifle but he didn’t stop there. He kept moving her hand until it rested right on his genitalia. “Now that’s a gun I’d be worried about — you know what that can do to you, dontcha?” The girl was silent, motionless, and seemingly even more unafraid. This only irritated John further. The hand that was still on her legs inched further into her thighs, “Gotta make sure, you ain’t got a gun there either.”

“I don’t think you’ll find what you’re looking for,” she said coldly, tensing up as his hand almost reached her groin.

Then Peter pulled something out of the Priest’s bag. “What’s this Father?” John craned his neck worried about what Peter might have found.

“Just my watch,” said the Priest.

“Well it’s real old,” Peter said with a bit of admiration, “Though it doesn’t look like it gets used much.”

“It’s been used enough, my Son,” the Priest replied. Peter then flipped the time piece open; an old watch attached to a dirty but golden watch chain. Peter saw the face cracked and the watch stopped, “Father, this thing doesn’t even work. The time’s not righ…,” suddenly a few musical notes flickered into the dusty hotel lobby, ominous, yet frail and simple notes. John froze and stared at the watch and then the priest. He recognized the sounds immediately, they were the watch from the night he raped and captured that Honduran family. The notes sang hauntingly like an ancient chorus: unfamiliar, borken, lethargic. The memory came rushing back to a time of potency; anger. This was the watch from the night he raped that girl. There was no doubt.

“Show me the face of that watch, Peter!” He shouted over the few yards to where Peter and priest were. Peter turned towards John showing the face of the watch to him, the time frozen and the crack through the middle right where John had stomped on it so many years ago. John refocused on searching the girl starting again where his hand had last stopped at the top of her inner thigh. He reached up into her crotch to finish the search and there he felt a small bulge. Two small lumps and a flaccid penis were in his hand. He knew the feeling instantly. “You’re a goddamned Trannie. You’re one of them. You fucking disgusting piece of shi…” and suddenly he howled in agony. Where Angel Venganza had been forced to put his hand on John’s testicles, Angel’s fingers tightened hard, very hard. They squeezed like a vice and John fell to the floor as Angel fell with him, gripping tightly; looking him in the eye as a tear of pain fell from the side of John’s left eye.

Peter thought of John’s cannibalized son and how that seemed to represent everything wrong with this America, the America he had been raised in. He felt as if John had told him these things almost as a final confession, as a man who wanted desperately to shed his mortal coil. Peter began to believe that the world would be done a favor, that John would be done a favor, if he were to take the gun right there and put an end to John at that very moment.

Peter tried to hoist his gun but the Priest put his hand on the barrel and motioned for him to stay still. Peter froze. The Priest said aloud to John, “I am the girl from all those years ago, John.” Then the Priest lifted the robes and showed the Ceasarean scar John had seen before when he had disrobed her. John squealed, “You fuggin Mezzican Trannies. You ain’t got no place on God’s ear…” Angel’s hand tightened even further and John fell silent from his agony.

“I am the woman whose parents you caged, whose virtue you raped. I had been raped so many times before by the gangs in Honduras. But when we came here to America, to seek a better life, it was my virtue you took that day, the virtue of my family. Men have ripped at my vagina my entire life, but you took my heart and soul. When I was finally released after years in the camps, I had given myself to the Lord. I am no Trannie,” she emphasized through her accent. “When I was released, I was neither male nor female. I was only a hardened servant of God. And God spoke to me and said that this, this one indignity I could avenge, this one alone. Service to all others, my life meant nothing but that. But this I could avenge.”

Peter waited no longer. In the midst of all this commotion and coincidence, John himself seemed to almost beg for death. For one of the few times in his life, Peter felt autonomous, as if he could control the situation, like his decision could positively impact the world. Peter slowly lifted the rifle with the Father’s hand on it and pointed it directly at John. “Don’t move, John. I’m not sure what’s gonna happen but I’ve got this aimed square at your trembling forehead and you should just hold real still.” Peter held that rifle firm thinking that one tap on the trigger might make it right for that raped woman and the son sacrificed so many years ago in the tempest of American starvation.

“You see,” the priest continued, “The child that has their grip on your genitals is your child. That is the product of your rape and hate. I became pregnant from your violation. And part of the reason I was allowed to survive was to carry this child to term, a naturally born citizen of America. We named them Angel. Angel is their own person. Sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, sometimes both and sometimes neither. But we don’t care. They are our American child. The two of us were turned over to the church and released from the camps, me and this baby. But now, after all these years, we are back. Angel is trained in martial arts — a mixed martial art fighter and a capable, capable force against anyone… and Angel has waited their whole life to meet you.

“You are hateful scum. Only moments ago you were ready to rape a harmless girl. Now, your very own child, your American child, has your balls in their hand.” John made one last effort to try and free himself from the grip but Angel clenched so hard it was if the grip might pull the scrotum from John’s body. Then Angel took their palm outwardly and thrust it into John’s nose, breaking it. Then Angel balled up their fist and slapped John against his ear several times until he yelped and bled down the side of his neck.

Peter spoke, “John, I have heard you say some disgusting things but I know you are heartless. I have known it for sometime…” His eyes followed John’s to the one last slavo John might have, an alarm button by the door, the bell that might alert the few other sleeping troops to the disturbance downstairs. Peter anticipated this, “Don’t reach for the alarm John or I’ll shoot you.”

“I was overcome with anger and hunger and jealousy,” John seemed to be making a final, selfish plea right to the face of his own child, not his lost daughter or murdered son, but the one child he now knew he had left, the one child born entirely of his hate, the one that would not hear his soulless plea for even one moment. Angel hit him several times on the other ear until blood fell from both sides of his head, still unrelenting with a clenched fist at John’s midsection. The pain was clearly excruciating. Then, again, John’s eyes turned to the alarm on the wall. It was his last hope. John pushed a final gasp from his lips and tried to stretch his arm to the door. Instantly, Peter realized the danger. He hesitated no longer. Justice yelled at him to pull the trigger. The poisoned world had killed anything in John that was of value and Peter felt he was only doing what God wanted. The Priest, realizing Peter was newly and certainly allied, took his hand from the barrel of the rifle and relinquished it’s full fury to Peter. As Peter felt the rifle come completely under his control he took final aim and shot John in the square of the back that he had just turned to him. He fell to the floor. Angel reached down and twisted John’s neck, breaking it from the spine and killing him.

“I have now chosen my side,” Peter quickly said to the priest. “They will have heard the gunshot and the other troops will come down in just a minute to check on us. There is the fortress’s truck in the back. That is our only quick escape.”

“I do not need to escape,” The Priest said.

“Well, there is Angel. And I have chosen my side now. I am not ready to die.”

“Boy, give me your gun then. Take my child and leave, if you think you can.” Peter handed over the rifle and took the angry, tough and tense teenager by the hand. Alertly they ran towards the back lot behind the lobby, which was through the old hotel kitchen. As they left the hotel through the back the din subsided, soothed over by the familiar howl of wind outside. The notes from the watch played quietly and then faded while as the door closed behind them, the footsteps from the descending soldiers having almost reached the lobby before they heard nothing else from behind the door.

As Peter took his keys and opened the Army truck a loud yelling could be heard again from inside by the soldiers. Loud demands for the priest to cease and to drop weapons. But no response came. The truck backed out with two dark skinned youths, the hood turning to point straight towards the empty Nevada desert. Peter looked and saw the tank full. Then he looked at Angel, the two of them suddenly in awkward trust of each other despite having met only some minutes before. In the distance a muffled gunfire came through the kitchen door. And then, just as quickly, the gunfire faded and could be heard no more over the engine, out of earshot of the hotel, the dust billowing behind their vehicle as the two escaped east into the empty and uninhabited American desert in the darkness before them.