I am outside the war room with Maya, my hands going from pocket to pocket, frantically looking for my pills. She touches my arm to stop me, "Here." She reaches into her purse and pulls out a bottle of the ubiquitous pill.
After chewing up three and taking a few deep breathes, Maya opens the door. Inside are thirty or so men stuffed into a gray, concrete brick room, with a large folding meeting table and chairs set up in the middle. Every single one is staring at me. Looks ranging from openly hostile to amused as hell to meet someone they grew up with and 'loved' in the false celebrity ways. All four walls are covered in old fashioned chalk boards, with extensive designs, few I understand, though the guist is obvious -- from the prison to Chicago.
The first to speak is Adam, the Panther's leader, "The big Celeb makes his entrance, looking very short." He is standing up and looks twice as tall and wide as I am. "We don't need anyone playing general."
"If it includes understanding any of this," I wave around the room at the maps, "Then no... I'm a journalist."
Next up is the head of Sons of Odin. Maya's quick briefing on the way over was fighting with what I think of as 'horror memories' for my attention and I can't remember anyone's name, though this is one of the things I am known for. "You are a lot smaller in person." He is huge, long braided beard and dread locks.
"The camera adds a foot."
A few smile.
"You did well coming back at Koch. We need a face for this. Not a general. Just a reporter. If they sent you with some spy notions... we have obviously been planning this for awhile."
Maya has gone and taken an empty chair near the back of the room. I notice the East/West/North/South separation of the gangs is in place.
"Sanctuary 6 offered them pardons for helping gather the supplies to get refugees to Chicago."
"We are not going to let some piss ant Celeb come in and dazzle us with your... stardom, whatever Koch uses. Actually, neuro-science and synaptic growth, but no reason to go there now..." The leader of the Diablos sounds like an absent minded professor. He looks like death itself, huge and muscled he is leaning on the table on his left elbow looking down into the table.. His face covered in tattoos; one his left cheek is a vivid, red and black Santa Muerte, depicted as a skeleton with a Scythe. "You are being deployed. Nothing more."
Thank God. I almost say this aloud.
"You really stink." One of the Son's tells me in an amused voice and a few others laugh and make comments, gestures toward holding their noises.
Theo speaks finally, the leader of the Mongrels, a group of everyone who didn't fit in and wanted part of the Native American Sweat lodges -- which they invited the other gangs to join, setting them up to be the peacemakers. "So, using no AI, my name is Theo. Who am I named after?" His voice is amused.
I think for a minute and there is only one that.... "Theo, Van Gogh's brother."
He laughs and reaches up to shake my hand and then notices how dirty it is. I do too. We fist bump.
"You probably thought my name was He Who Eats Bear But?"
They all start laughing at this. When they are done, Maya asks in a voice that trembles ever so slightly of fear, "So, we done here."
I watch the faces of the men go from animated to blank, like conmen do when you bust them and they go from being your best friend to a fight to the death enemy. They all look at each other, a few hand signals are given I don't understand.
Then they are done. They go back to talking as if nothing had happened. Adam stands up and says to me, "Time to hit the showers."
Maya winks at me from the back of the room, mouths, 'See you later.'
Adam leads me down the hall queit, listening to the prison, the voices of children break through and he laughs, "Wow, don't hear that here. Nice. Well, here we are. You're dressing room."
The showers are in a one large open room. Toilets and drains in front, and in back shower heads, tiles and drains. Adam makes a series of hand motion to someone who has been tailing us who I hadn't noticed. "He's going to get you some prison threads, so you fit in-- smell wise. “Clean up, Celeb. We'll have the make-up and hair people ready when you are done. ”
"I'll have champagne an my masseuses' ready, too please,"
"Just part of the accommodations, sir."
The warm water feels like ambrosia flowing over my body. Hot water is a rarity. The prison is one of the last vestiges of a working government; boilers still had parts, and despite the draughts killing the forests around us, water still flowed though a near by river. I thank God for this moment as I feel the luxurious water and look down at the drain and watch the stench and dirt flow away.
Behind me, Adam’s voice echoes down the hallway.
“Juan — remember out there, we’re ‘the’s.' 'The' murderer... 'the' killer... In here, we’re our actions. We might hate each other, but we follow the rules. And you? You’re the one who makes the world see us. You have got to pen mightier than the sword. Most of them wanted to kill you, but I told them, unless you can get us some recruits, we lose. Don't try to use Celeb shit on us."
I step out of the shower, water dripping from my hair, dry off a bit, throw the clothes on and they cling to my damp skin. Adam waits in the hallway, leaning in a shadow against the wall stroking the small beard on his chin, looking off into the distance as he talks. He pushes off the wall and starts walking. I struggle to follow.
I nod, still rubbing water from my eyes. We come to a locked door that Adam opens with a key off a ring on his waist, goes inside and comes back with two plastic bags, gives them to me. "Put that shit in here." My clothes do stink. We walk away from the smell and a cleanliness that feels like Godliness settles in over us, whatever the hell that means?
We turn a corner that is tight, the hallways going from open to tight hallways. Everywhere are the signs of incarceration. Small windows in the Solitary Confinement wing remind me of the stories of the insane being sent into such cells only to get worse, losing themselves in their own world's, never quite to return.
A Mongrel steps aside quickly, eyes down, as we pass. A Panther nods at Adam as he passes, looks at me and says, "You were always my favorite, but Ruby... man, when we got to carry her in... sorry. Sleep well, man." He nods to Adam and something passes between them I miss. He then stations himself near by, under an open gangway of steps, just leans back against the wall silent and still.
We reach the end of the hallway. Adam stops and faces me fully.
“Juan,” he says, “you need to understand why they need you.”
I wait.
“Out there,” he says, “we’re ‘the’s. The killer. The thief. The monster. The convict.”
He gestures around the prison. “In here? We’re men. No labels unless we choose them.”
“But the world won’t follow us,” Adam says. “They won’t trust us. They won’t listen to us.”
He looks me dead in the eyes. “They’ll listen to you.”
He laughs, "Sure you are.”
“Not a general, though,” he says. “You’re a symbol. I am a mother-fucking General, little man,”
"Like I don't know that." We laugh, me hesitantly.
Adam turns away, starts walking again. “One more thing.”
I follow.
“I was a lieutenant,” he says. “I reported a rape. Nothing was done. The woman was broken, but expected to drug up for combat. She did.".
His voice goes flat. “These fuckers get drunk again, taunt me. Tell me they were going to do it again.”
He stops walking.
"We were at the officers bar and I just pulled out my pistol and started firing. Someone stopped it by putting two bullets in my side,” he says. “And now? Back in the army.”
I breathe out slowly. “And I’m the Celeb.” He is trying to impress me. Not be a 'the' after his speech. A man with so much respect, gets around a celeb who has been in their room for years, and they... I would cry if I still did that.
Adam nods once. “The only one who can make the world see us.”
"This is your room. You get the guards rest area. We'll be keep watch of things."
He turns and walks away, leaving me standing in the hallway, hair still dripping water, heart pounding, mind flips through images from throughout the day with the occasional horrors from the past breaking in. So. I am the only Celeb left outside of 6 still alive. They kept saying I was the last one without saying that meant Latoya, Cecelia, Kathy, Pauly and others died or perhaps worse, signed on with Koch and suddenly converted to their conservative religion in public, and perversions in private...
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