Red Zone Son

Chapter 21

Later that evening, Solomon took the pillowcase off the pillow he’d been given and wrapped it around his ankle. As a makeshift compression bandage it was pretty lousy but it was better than nothing. He needed ice. A map would be nice, too. And new clothes. And that pistol, if he could get it. He needed to find a way to the safe house address Manal had given him, but after all her warnings about it being a trap, he didn’t want to go in unprepared.

And if Rithvik and Wilson and any others weren’t there? Well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

Solomon’s eyes burned with fatigue, but he couldn’t relax when he was basically relying on two blue zone citizens not to turn him in. He wished he had the dumbphone Wilson had given him but it was back in Cabin D4. So he got up and started looking around. There was a water boiler in the middle of the basement, some boxes along the walls, two bikes, some shelves with winter clothes stacked on top of each other. No toolbox. He limped to the bulkhead doors. His shoulders relaxed a little when he discovered he wasn’t trapped after all, that he could push a release lever to easily unlock the door. There was also a throw bolt which he slid shut so nobody could get in from the outside, even with a key. Next, he dragged himself to the stairs and started crawling up. He took it as easy as he could since he didn’t want to mess up his ankle any more than it already was. Also, he didn’t want anyone to hear him. There was nothing in him that wanted to be greeted at the top of the steps by panicked women with guns.

A few steps away from the top, Solomon knelt down to look through the light-filled crack at the bottom of the door. Voices. There was a keyhole, too. He put his ear to it but couldn’t make anything out, so he pressed his face against the door, and held his breath.

“I’m sure the red zone is as bad as they say,” someone was saying. Solomon thought it was the African woman, from the accent. “But we know for sure that those in charge here are evil. I promised myself I’d never do what was done to me, and I will keep that promise. I will never turn anyone in so they can end up in a camp.”

Solomon pulled back, his brows furrowing. It was so perfectly reassuring it almost sounded too good to be true. He moved cautiously, peering into the keyhole. The small hole restricted his view to a sliver of the room: a bit of a kitchen table and the profile of the African woman’s face. She sat next to the White woman, their hands intertwined on the tabletop. Then the African woman’s hand moved, gently cupping the White woman’s face. A moment later, they were kissing.

He jerked back abruptly. Spying to confirm his safety he was okay with, but he wasn’t a peeping tom. He was also surprised, even though he didn’t know why. This was the blue zone, after all. He’d seen some of this kind of thing at the amusement park, hadn’t he?

He didn’t want the two women to hear him so he stayed put until he was calm enough to creep back down the stairs to his blanket and pillow. His mind was still spinning though. It wasn’t just that they were lesbians. It was that they were blue zone lesbians who seemed to think it was at least possible that he was either from or trying to escape to the red zone, and yet they were still sheltering him. It didn’t make any sense. Hadn’t Manal told him that blue zoners thought all red zoners were bigots? Wouldn’t anyone non-heterosexual think so even more? Why are they helping me?

He thought over what he’d heard. The red zone is bad… but we know for sure the blue zone is evil… I will never do what was done to me… I will never turn anyone in so they can end up in a camp…

There was the sound of a door opening, the door at the top of the stairs. Solomon turned to see the African woman descending. She was carrying down a bucket with a garbage bag lining it. She brought it to the bottom step and put it on the cement floor. Then she placed toilet paper and a spray bottle next to it. “I put some essential oils into the bottle,” she told him. “It’ll take away the smell.”

After being in the militia for almost two years and having to be knee-to-knee with other guys in the barracks latrine while doing his business, Solomon at first didn’t even know what she was talking about. Then he got it, and he almost wanted to laugh. At the same time, he was strangely moved by her gesture. Essential oils in a spray bottle.

“Thank you,” he told her.

She nodded. She turned to go, but before she could disappear back up the stairs, the question that had been haunting Solomon ever since she’d lowered her pistol and invited him into her house burst out. “Why are you helping me?”

She looked at him over the stairway railing. Her face framed by her hijab was expressionless. Solomon was still seated on the blanket she’d given him, his leg with the pillowcase wrapped around his ankle extended out. “You need ice,” she said.

“Ice would be nice,” he replied.

A slight smile of amusement touched her lips. “I’ll get it for you.”

He waited under the unblinking glare of the single lightbulb above him for her to return. She was around Umma’s age, he thought, the age Umma was when she disappeared. When she did come back, it was with a reusable ice gel pack and a compression bandage. He didn’t think she was armed, but she stepped down off the stairs, picked up the makeshift toilet she’d made for him, and, carrying it with her, approached him, closer than she’d ever come to him since he’d first seen her. She put it down then knelt by his leg and unwrapped the pillowcase. With clearly practiced hands, she wrapped the compression bandage around his ankle, which immediately felt better. Then she placed the ice pack on it, and used the tail end of the bandage to bind it in place.

Solomon watched her tend to his injured ankle with a mixture of relief and fatigue washing over him. The pain, which had been gnawing at his senses, ebbed away as the ice pack numbed the throbbing ache. His weariness hit him at the same time; he couldn’t help but let out a tired sigh. She glanced up at him, her demeanor shifting. Her eyes softened. When she finished she didn’t go, but remained kneeling at the edge of the blanket.

“How old are you?” she asked him.

“Nineteen.”

She reacted to that. A mixture of emotions flickered across her face – surprise, concern, even a touch of something akin to motherly protectiveness. “You’re from the red zone?”

Solomon decided he didn’t want to lie. He wouldn’t be able to pull it off anyway. This past week he’d managed to avoid drawing attention to himself, but that was it. He’d never had to straight up lie to anyone’s face. “Yes,” he said.

“What’s it like?”

It was somewhat startling to realize that blue zone citizens knew as little about how red zoners lived as he’d known about them before he’d joined the militia. “It’s… it’s okay,” he replied. “It’s different. Different rules for what’s okay and what isn’t.” Then, because it was always on his mind whenever he compared the zones, he added, “I wish it were more like the old America.”

A small smile touched her lips again, her eyes glinting with laughter. It wasn’t mocking though. More like she found it amusing that he missed a time he likely had few memories of. She tilted her head slightly, her voice light as she asked her next question. “And what do you remember of the old America?”

“Not much,” he confessed. “But I figure anything’s better than what we have now, right?”

What Solomon was telling her was pretty close to sedition in the red zone, where the approved narrative was that liberals had made America unlivable before the Great Splintering. But if there was anyone 100% safe to tell his heretical thoughts to, it was a blue zone citizen. Then again, he remembered learning that they had their own rules about sedition here, too.

“Careful now,” she told him, as if reading his mind. Her tone was light, but from the steadiness of her gaze, he didn’t think she was joking. “We’re not allowed to say that kind of thing. I learned that the hard way.”

“What happened?” he asked.

In response, she pulled back a little. Her shoulders shifted imperceptibly, a guarded gesture. “I spent three years in the camps.” Her eyes flickered, momentarily distant. The corners of her mouth tightened. “And I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Solomon thought he knew what she was talking about. Manal had mentioned this, and he had learned some about it in boot camp. Blue zone citizens got in trouble for saying racist, sexist and phobic things. Before the Great Splintering they would just lose their jobs, afterwards it had gotten more intense. The woke were pretty communist in their thinking, and Solomon remembered one of the books he’d read while stationed at the border about Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code, how the communists had used it to arrest just about anybody for anything. You could make a political joke to friends at dinner and if someone reported you for it, bam, a ten-year sentence. Even if you heard a political joke, you could get arrested for not reporting the person who made it.

“You got sent to the camps because you said something politically unorthodox?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, it was more complicated than that. One of my neighbors at the time wanted my house, she’d been wanting it for years. So at the height of one of the purges, she reported me for writing an article where I argued that lesbian women had the right to not be attracted to trans women. That it wasn’t right to call us turfs if we don’t want to have sex with women who have penises.”

It took Solomon a moment to process what she was saying. Women who had penises? What did that even mean? And turfs? Was that some kind of blue zone slur?

“I thought I was standing up for the rights of women to love women,” she continued, and this time there was pain in her voice. “But when it’s purging time, it’s purging time, and if you get caught up in it, you get caught up in it.” She glanced at him. “Are there purges in the red zone too?”

Solomon had to think for a moment. He’d actually learned about this in school. “Usually they get started because some political leader is losing power, so he initiates a purity spiral to consolidate his hold on authority, right?” he asked. “It’s a way to get rid of his opponents.”

She scoffed lightly. There was no trace of a smile left on her lips. “Or maybe it’s not some distant leader. Maybe it’s someone you used to call a friend, running for a local council seat on a platform of ‘diversity and tolerance.’ Then, he starts stirring things up, making accusations about people he’s known his whole life. One minute, my next-door neighbor, old Mrs. Jenkins, is just the sweet lady who bakes for the whole block. But because she’s the mother of his rival, the next minute she’s being denounced for not flying the right flag. Suddenly, she’s a bigot and a danger to the community.”

Her voice was getting sharper. Solomon managed a nod.

“And it doesn’t stop there,” she continued. “The fruit stand guy at the crossroads who gave kids free fruit? The same guy who didn’t want anything to do with politics and who would say so – now he’s too ‘traditional.’ Next thing you know, the pest control company employees are being dragged out in cuffs because their boss once said something negative about my ‘old friend’s’ main supporter.”

She shook her head. “People start turning on each other after that. My neighbors, the same people who used to smile and wave at me, started pointing fingers, making sure they weren’t the next target. Everyone trying to prove they’re more ‘pure’ than the next person. You can lose your home, your family, everything over one accusation. Doesn’t even matter if it’s false.” Her tone flattened. “Nobody’s interested in evaluating opinions or assessing viewpoints calmly. In purging time, all they care about is purging.”

Solomon swallowed, remembering what he’d read about the purges in communist Russia, about how those who hadn’t been arrested kept living their lives like nothing was wrong – until it was their turn. “I haven’t noticed anything like that yet,” he said quietly, “but I bet it happens in the red zone too.”

“You’re still young,” she replied. “If you survive your next few decades, you’ll experience much more than you ever wanted to. Certainly I did. I got to go through losing my house, for one. I would be homeless if it weren’t for my partner.” She glanced at him. “She’s not happy about you being here. For me, she’d risk everything, but she’s less sure my principles are worth it.”

Partner. That was a blue zone term if he’d ever heard one. Hearing it, and hearing about how nervous the other woman was, made him feel as if he needed to get out of there. But he couldn’t yet. It was going to take at least a day or two before his ankle healed up enough for him to even walk normally again, let alone run if he needed to. So what should he do? Act as if he’d fled the red zone because he’d thought life would be better in the blue zone? Pretend he’d thought the red zone was too racist or whatever?

She’d been too kind to Solomon for him to want to trick her though. Well, he wasn’t going to tell her he was a red zone soldier or anything, but it didn’t feel fair that she was risking her freedom for his sake when he wasn’t sure she would if she knew the truth about who he was, particularly if she knew he was a phobe.

“It’s getting late,” she replied into his silence, getting to her feet. “I’ll turn off the lights now.”

Solomon nodded. He heard her walk up the stairs where he guessed the light switch was because then he was plunged into darkness. It was just him and the stillness and a dull ache in his ankle and his thoughts going back and forth between what he’d learned growing up in the red zone and what he was experiencing now.