Louis Collins: A Post-American Odyssey

Near dusk, they were moved from the main shelter hall to the entrance level. The outer doors stood open, and smoke drifted in from the street. A mounted loudspeaker crackled.

“Comrades. The People’s Army has repelled the toll regime’s attack. Enemy drones have withdrawn. The toll dogs lost two tanks and six trucks. Our forces remain in control. The enemy has failed. The people stand victorious.”

Some workers raised their fists and cheered. Others stood quietly in their work lines.

Gladice said, “I wish I had a rifle to test their victory speech.”

Angelique watched the guards stationed at the outer doors. “Careful.”

A soldier nearby heard but did not turn. He was watching two men carry a wounded worker through the entrance on a stretcher.

The loudspeaker continued.

“All labor groups will report for emergency support assignments. Repeat, all labor groups report for emergency assignments.”

An officer stood on a raised concrete step and shouted names from a clipboard. People formed lines by work unit and classification. Some carried children or tools. A few stood still until someone pushed them into the correct line.

Maeve pushed through the crowd, her hair half loose.

“Vehicle yard crew,” she called. “With me.”

The officer checked Louis’s card, then the cards worn by the others.

“These detainees are not vehicle yard.”

“Emergency labor reallocation,” Maeve said without looking at him. “My call.”

The officer checked his clipboard, then looked through the open doors at the smoke outside.

“Field kitchen support,” he said. “Outdoor station three. All of them.”

Maeve turned to the group. “You heard him. Come on.”

They followed her out of the crowd and down a street lined with damaged brick buildings. Workers were already covering broken windows with boards. A crew of teenagers in red armbands shoveled rubble into a wheelbarrow. Two soldiers carried an anti-aircraft ammunition box between them.

“Is the whole city like this?” Cherish asked quietly.

“Just the part that was hit,” Maeve said without turning. “Keep up.”

The field kitchen occupied the cracked basketball court behind an old gas station. Three huge stockpots stood beneath a canvas awning. Two workers stirred the pots with long metal paddles. Folding tables held sacks of potatoes, onions, and cabbage, along with cans of beans.

A fat woman in an apron pointed at the group as soon as they arrived.

“New crew. You.” She pointed at Savannah. “Cut those potatoes. You and you.” She indicated Willa and Angelique. “Peel the onions. Fast as you can. You.” She pointed at Gladice. “Carry wood to the stove. And you.” She turned to Donya. “Help at the serving table.” She finished with Louis and Cherish. “Both of you, fetch water from the main pump.” She pointed toward two plastic buckets. “Use those.”

The woman moved away before anyone could answer. Louis took one bucket, and Cherish took the other.

“Stay close,” Louis said.

“I know.”

They crossed the court to a square water tank behind the gas station. A hand pump had been fixed to one side. Cherish placed her bucket beneath the spout, and Louis worked the handle. Air came through first, then clear water.

She watched the bucket fill. “Do you think they will let us go after this?”

“I don’t know.” He kept pumping. “They need labor now.”

“What if they never let us go?”

He stopped and turned to her. She kept looking at the bucket.

“Then we will fight,” he said. “We will find a way. I promise.”

She looked up at him. “How?”

“We have each other.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “That is enough.”

She did not answer, but she stood a little straighter. They filled the buckets and carried them back. Cherish stopped twice to adjust her grip. The kitchen woman emptied both buckets into one of the stockpots. The water barely raised the level.

“Go again.”

They made three more trips. By the fourth, Louis’s shoulders burned. Cherish was breathing hard and shifting the bucket between her hands, but she kept walking. Before they started back from the tank, Louis took her bucket. She protested once, then let him carry both.

Savannah chopped potatoes with a dull kitchen knife while Angelique and Willa peeled onions beside her. Gladice carried wood to the drum stove. Donya worked at the serving table, arranging bowls and pieces of bread.

They worked until the stew was ready. When the stew was ready, workers lined up with metal bowls. Louis and the others ate near the edge of the court. The stew was thin but hot.

Louis barely noticed the stew. Cherish sat beside him with both hands around her bowl. Across from them, Gladice watched the street while Willa and Angelique ate in silence. Maeve joined them after checking the kitchen and sat on the ground with her bowl on one knee.

“Good food?” she asked the group.

“Better than nothing,” Gladice said.

Maeve took a bite. “That’s the highest praise you will get from a spoiled bourgeois.”

Gladice snorted. Savannah hid a smile behind her spoon.

Cherish looked at Maeve. “Thank you for helping us today.”

Maeve chewed and swallowed. “I didn’t do it for you.”

“But you did it,” Cherish said. “It still matters.”

Maeve looked at her. “You think gratitude matters here?”

“I think it matters everywhere.” Cherish set her empty bowl aside. “And I think you are not as angry as you act.”

Maeve looked at her for a moment, then laughed. “You think you know me?”

“No.” Cherish shook her head. “But I know what it is to be afraid.”

Maeve stopped laughing and looked down between her boots. “Don’t mistake me for one of you.”

“We are not all the same,” Angelique said. “But we are all here.”

Maeve glanced up. “For now.”

Savannah put her bowl down. “Why did you really help us? In the bombing.”

Maeve did not answer at once.

“Because,” she said at last, “I was angry at the Toll regime. They bombed us. And you were in it. And...” She trailed off, then looked at Louis. “And because you acted like you cared.”

Louis looked back at her. “I do care.”

She shook her head. “You care about your people. Not about mine.”

“Maybe.” He glanced at the others, then back at her. “But you care about yours. That’s something we have in common.”

“You’re still a capitalist.”

“Sometimes we are more than one thing,” Willa said quietly.

Maeve looked at her. “Maybe. But not here.”

“Then we will be more than one thing somewhere else,” Angelique said.

Maeve looked down at her bowl. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Then we’ll make it work,” Savannah said.

Maeve gave a short, humorless laugh. “You are a dreamer.”

“No.” Savannah looked at her. “I’m a survivor. And I ain’t losing no more.”

Louis waited, but Maeve did not answer. He leaned forward.

“Maeve.”

She looked at him. “What.”

“Thank you,” he said. “For saving everyone.” He paused. “We won’t forget it.”

She looked toward the damaged buildings beyond the lot. “You better not.”

“Will you get in trouble for helping us?” Angelique asked.

“Probably.” Maeve shrugged. “But I followed protocol for emergency labor reallocation.”

Gladice snorted. “Sure you did.”

“Shut up,” Maeve said. “Or I’ll put you back in the laundry.”

“I’m shaking.” Gladice mimed trembling.

Maeve’s lip curled. “Somebody ought to fuck you until you’re nice.”

Gladice grinned. “You offering? I never say no to a good angry fuck. Especially from a redhead.”

Maeve stared. Her ears went red. “You are a whore.”

“No, I’m not. I never asked for money. I just like it.”

“That’s even worse.”

Gladice leaned forward. “What’s wrong with liking it? You ever tried it?”

Maeve looked away. “Shut up.”

“I’m serious. You look like you could use a good lay.” Gladice laughed. “It might help with that anger.”

Louis put a hand on her arm. “Gladie.”

“Fine.” Gladice leaned back. “But she asked for it.”

“No I didn’t,” Maeve said.

“Yeah you did.” Gladice winked. “You’re just too shy to admit it.”

“Enough,” Angelique said. “This is not helping.”

“You’re no fun.” Gladice crossed her legs. “Lighten up, Angel. We survived the day.”

“We survived because we worked together.” Angelique looked at Maeve. “And because she helped.”

Gladice rolled her eyes. “Fine. We’re one big happy family.”

Maeve looked at Angelique. “Your friend is a pain in the ass.”

“Tell me about it,” Angelique said.

“Hey!” Gladice protested.

“You are,” Angelique said. “But you are our pain in the ass.”

“Now that’s true,” Savannah said. The others laughed.

Maeve looked surprised, then a small smile appeared on her face. She quickly hid it.

“Don’t get comfortable,” she said. “You’ll be back to work at dawn.”

“Great,” Gladice muttered. “Can’t wait to scrub pots for the glorious revolution.”

“You’ll be happy to have a pot to scrub,” Maeve said.

Louis said, “Can I ask you something?”

Maeve looked at him. “What.”

“Why do you hate us so much?”

“Because you are the enemy.”

“But I don’t see you as my enemy.” He looked at the others. “They don’t either.”

Maeve looked away. “It doesn’t matter what you see.”

“It does to me.” He leaned forward. “I want to understand.”

She stared at the cracked concrete. “Because...” She hesitated, then looked at him. “Because you had a choice. We didn’t. You were born rich. You had a future. We were born in the dirt. We fight for every scrap. You think we are angry. You think we are cruel. You don’t understand. This is survival.”

“Maybe I don’t,” Louis said. “But I’m learning. Some of us were kidnapped. Some of us had to leave our families behind. We were hunted. We saw things we can’t forget. We understand what it’s like to lose everything.”

“Did you ever go hungry?” Maeve asked. “For real? Not missing one meal. For days. Weeks. Until your stomach eats itself. Did you ever watch your mother die because there was no medicine? Did you ever have to fight over a crust of bread?”

“No,” Louis said quietly. “I haven’t.”

“Then you don’t know anything.” Maeve turned away. “You can’t imagine what it was like. What it is still like.”

“We saw things in Dixie,” Savannah said. “Bad things.”

“Dixie is a nightmare.” Maeve’s voice was harsh. “But West Virginia is a grave. And you are standing on it.”

Before anyone could reply, the loudspeaker clicked and gave way to static. A man in a red jacket entered the lot from the street. Four soldiers with rifles followed him. The kitchen workers lowered their voices. A guard beside the stove straightened. Maeve stopped with her cup halfway to her mouth.

The man crossed the lot without hurrying. Workers moved aside as he passed. He had close-cut dark hair and a narrow face. His red jacket was cleaner than anyone else’s clothing in the lot, and he carried a black notebook under one arm. He went straight to Maeve.

“Comrade Fyres.”

Maeve set her cup on a crate beside the barrel stove. “Comrade Chairman.”

He looked first at Louis, then at the rest of the group.

“You are arrested for deviation from assigned labor,” he said to Maeve. “And for unauthorized use of detainees in an unclassified area.”

Maeve did not move. “I followed emergency protocols. The detainees were under my supervision.”

“You are assigned to supervise Louis Collins. Not the others. You left your assigned group during combat. That is a violation.”

“I made a judgment call.”

“Save it to the committee.” The chairman gestured.

Two soldiers stepped forward. One of them took Maeve by the arm. She did not resist. They led her along the street toward the schoolhouse, and the other two soldiers followed. Louis watched until she disappeared behind workers carrying boards.

“Who is he?” Savannah asked.

The fat kitchen woman stood behind them with a ladle in one hand. “That’s the chairman of the Emergency Commission. That girl is in deep shit now.”

Louis turned to her. “What will they do?”

“If she is lucky? Reeducation and a labor downgrade. If not, she goes to the coal pits.” The woman shook her head. “Fyres should have known better for a bunch of D-Class.”

She left without another word. Donya lowered her bowl. Savannah set hers down and kept watching the street where the soldiers had taken Maeve. The kitchen woman shouted for the empty bowls. They returned them, washed them in cold water, carried the unused wood under the awning, folded two tables, and covered the stockpots for the night. They worked until dark. Floodlights came on along the main street and shone through the smoke.

When they finished, the guards lined them up and counted them. A guard read their names from a list.

“Collins. Bourbon. Simington. Locke. Al Madani. Nowak. Ellington. With me.”

Gladice wiped her hands on her jumpsuit. “Where now?”

The guard did not answer. They were marched away from the field kitchen, past the shelter entrance and a schoolhouse wing with half its upper wall missing. Across the yard, Louis saw that the building where they had been held the night before had been reduced to rubble.

Their new room was on the ground floor of an old administrative building behind the school. It appeared to have been a records room. Metal shelves had been pushed against one wall. The windows were boarded from the outside, with wire mesh behind the boards. A single bulb hung from the ceiling. Seven thin mattresses had been laid on the floor. A bucket stood in one corner beside a water jug and two tin cups.

Two guards stood outside the door. One looked in while the other checked the list.

“All of you inside.”

They went in one by one. Louis entered last. The guard shut the door, and Louis heard the lock turn. He glanced at the others. At least they were together again.