The Purge

Many futures can be extrapolated from current trends, but which include both safety and freedom? Dangerous dictatorships had been toppled like dominoes by swift and efficient civil wars aided by existing democracies, and had thereby ended wars between nations. As usual though in times of peace, local crime and domestic terrorism had become the reining fear. And when a solution to calm these fears was found, every country fell for it except one—the United States of America. But it wobbled.

In January of 2021 the President had proposed legislation that would include the U.S. in the system which was a refined extension of that used by gated neighborhoods. Its urban wireless and fiber optics infrastructure had been in place for decades. Civil Data Banks had been set up to coordinate business and public transactions, and with the addition of personal profile data on all registered citizens, problems that led to violent criminal acts or violent police intervention could be handled civilly. Opposition to the new law had been initiated by the Governor of New Mexico who had declared the law unconstitutional. For the past three months it has been under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.

The governor of New Mexico and his advisor, a National Guard Colonel, watched their state’s landscape pass beneath the helicopter on a video screen in the luxurious cabin. The Colonel pointed to the screen, “And those are isolated earth-ship and adobe homes. Local law enforcement will handle them individually.”

Then a low mountain, perhaps three-hundred feet above the flat, sagebrush covered mesa beyond it, came into view. The Colonel continued, “It’s called Two Peaks because those two jagged remnants are all that’s left of its ancient volcanic cone. The community beneath it, called the Mesa, is our concern.”

Though he’d been briefed, the Governor asked the Colonel anyway, “And what’s the concern?”

“According to the latest demographics survey most of the residents are apolitical and harmless, but they all will be vulnerable when the law takes effect,” he said. “It will become a haven for criminals and other exiles, sir. That’s why we’ll need to evacuate the women and children, and take the men to the National Guard Armory for processing and possible relocation in town.”

“To separate the wheat from the chaff,” the governor said.

“Yes sir,” the colonel said. “And like the illegal camps in the National Forests, these havens will be collection points for those unregistered with the civil data bank.”

As the helicopter approached the Taos County Courthouse downtown the governor said, “I don’t like any of this, you know.”

“I know sir.”

The County Courthouse Complex stood three stories high like an adobe-walled fortress under siege by a modern occupying force; not the typical liberal or conservative picnic demonstration, but a combination of both liberal and conservative, poor and middle-class, college kids and older farmers—a very loud voice, but merely a minority.

Lars had watched the helicopter land as his friend Dready did a perfect parallel parking maneuver across the street from the crowded courthouse front lawn right behind a pearly-white Cadillac SUV. Lars noticed the New Mexico license plate. He knew the G stood for government vehicle.

The crowd cheered and banged their drums louder at the chopper’s landing. Sounding somewhat apologetic, Dready said, “This will have to do Lars. I’ll put fifteen minutes in the meter.”

“Don’t worry Dready. It’s only a half a block to the café on the corner.”

“Just hurry. I don’t like all this noise,” Dready said. He sounded weary. Lars felt it too. They had spent a long afternoon on this town run. Any minute spent in town was a minute spent missing the tranquility at home on the Mesa.

About half-way to the corner Lars stopped to see what a man approaching with a clipboard wanted. He was a big guy wearing overalls and a plaid shirt. Some grey in his beard meant he was probably in his forty’s.   

Lars recognized the feeling in his gut that meant get out of town now, but he dismissed it as his usual urban anxiety. The man stood tall in front of him. Not that Lars was small; he stood about five-eight at about a hundred and fifty pounds. The man grinned and said, “Care to join the opposition, buddy?”

“No thanks man,” Lars said. “I’m just an apolitical Mesa Rat here to pick up my lady and take her home.”

“Oh hell, can’t you see the only choice we got here is political.” His southern drawl became obvious.

“There is another choice you know,” Lars said.

“What the hell you talking about, civil war and bloodshed?” His face turned red with either passion or high blood pressure. Lars felt his own apolitical statement rising in his throat. He knew this would be about as useless as an oral bowel movement, but he indulged the man anyway.

“What about self reliance? Isn’t that a plank in your libertarian platform?” Lars glanced across the street at two police officers who watched them.

The man said, “Hell yeah it is. We’re all out here standing up for freedom, taking responsibility the civilized way.”

There was no holding back now. Lars said, “You’re a pathetic minority. There’s no political solution. Once the law is passed it’ll take decades to reform it. In the meantime, the law will reform you. That’s not acceptable to me. I prefer a more peaceful solution: leave the objectionable law behind and find a remote place to raise your children in peace according to the laws of nature.”

“Ya’ll just gonna run to the woods and live like animals.”

“We call it strategic retreat,” Lars said with a grin. The man was catching on, he thought.

The man’s empty hand closed into a fist.

“You’re a damned coward,” he said as his fist landed hard on Lars’ left jaw. “Damned useless cowards,” he added as he lumbered back to the crowd across the street. Lars held his swelling jaw like a toothache and noticed the police officers laugh and turn toward the crowd. Then someone stepped up to the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, the governor of the State of New Mexico.”

The crowd cheered and banged their drums louder as Lars approached the door of the café Oz.  The door swept shut behind him as Lars scanned the café’s interior. He picked up a napkin from an empty table and dabbed a trickle of blood from his lip as he casually walked over to Solo’s table.

He recognized Andy sitting beside her. They’d been living together when Lars met Solo. Lars had been available when she finally let go of Andy, who’d moved into town to expand his auto shop. All she wanted was to remain on the Mesa, even if it meant losing Andy.

 As Lars approached her table she looked up, blushed, and slipped her hand from Andy’s wrist. That hand joined the other to fondle and fold a sheet of paper in half on the table. Lars noticed the blush and felt his stomach tense. She didn’t blush easily.

She said, “Andy’s getting married.” She blushed again and looked down at her hands.

Lars glanced at Andy who said, “And I’ve invited you and Solo to my engagement party tonight.”

Lars reached across the table to shake Andy’s hand and noticed the paper in Solo’s hands had an official looking embossed seal. He said, “Congratulations, looks like all that mechanic work you did on the Mesa has paid off for you.”

Andy thanked Lars for the compliment and began to talk about his business when Lars interrupted him. “What’s up with that paper that Solo looks like she’s about to eat?”

She flipped it over so he could see. “Andy’s giving me the title to his lot on the Mesa…”

Andy interrupted, “I feel like she deserves it Lars. She was there to give me moral support when I was struggling, and I’m grateful.”

Lars picked up the deed, scanned it without interest, and dropped it back on the table. He said, “It won’t do us any good Andy, we’re leaving you know.” Then he turned to Solo and said, “We’ve got a lot of packing to do tomorrow.”

“I’ll be back by midnight Lars,” she said.

On his way out the door he thought about the deed. Bright sunlight, exhaust fumes, and noise from the demonstration hit him like a sudden allergy. The useless deed was not what bothered him, he realized. It was that blush, so out of her character that had puzzled him. He felt a surge of loneliness, as if everyone he loved and cared about were far away and out of his reach. He longed to be home fixing dinner for his favorite little girl, Solo’s ten-year-old daughter Ami—his family.

The governor was still speaking when Lars heard shouting and screaming from the far corner of the lawn ahead of him past the truck. Police were running toward the disturbance when he opened the door and got in. “What’s up Dready?”

“I think somebody started a brawl, but that’s good for us. While the cops are busy we can cut a u-turn and get the hell out of here.” Dready said.

Backup lights on the SUV lit, and then it backed up to Dready’s front bumper and smoothly pulled into the street. Dready pulled out easily into his u-turn while Lars turned to watch the SUV. He heard three rapid thuds and saw a black pipe slide back into the SUV as it drove away. The Secret Service pounced on the governor’s body. Then Lars saw the SUV go straight into the gated community, East Taos Estates.

Dready stopped at the red light and turned right. Lars said, “Did you see that? Those guys in the Cadillac just shot the governor.”

“Really? All I heard was a few thumps, like they’d run over something.”

“I did too, but I also saw the gun barrel.”

The Mesa turn-off was only a half mile past the gorge bridge, about twenty minutes from town. Dready turned left, rattled over the cattle guard, and onto the seven mile stretch of dirt road that branched into a grid of rutted roads scattered with shacks of every conceivable shape and size.

Lars stared out the window thinking about the other people who lived out here. The attraction was a sort of freedom that you can’t feel in a town. It was a freedom that hung in the air like a wispy smoke, an illusion, a precarious freedom by default. He’d met people here who seemed to live in a state of living purgatory; the older wait to die, and the younger wait for redemption. But ten of the people living here were not fooled by such a flimsy liberty. For them, the Mesa was merely a staging ground for their dream of freedom, to live in the wilderness beyond the interest of the industrial world. An elder couple had collected a clan of four fertile couples, including Lars and Solo, intent upon living that dream.            

Dready pulled up to Lars’ house after a quick stop for Ami. It was the only yurt he’d ever seen with a front porch. Lars and Ami got out and waved goodbye to Dready as he drove away. The summer breeze spread the sweet, pungent scent of pollinating sage brush across the Mesa and into his face. He stood exhausted and relished the scent, feeling his urban anxiety slip away in the breeze. Ami tugged his hand impatiently.

She said, “Lars, can I make the fire tonight? I’ve been practicing all day and I think I can do it now.”

The last thing Lars wanted to do was discourage her from such a practical skill so he said, “Sure babe, I’ll get us some firewood.”

She ran inside and soon he heard the radio playing ancient rock and roll on the Public Access station.

He split a couple rounds of cottonwood into quarters and stopped at the doorway to savor the moment. Ami sat at the fire pit, steadily working the bow drill and singing an old Joni Mitchell song.

He sat down across from her at the fire pit to split finer pieces with his hunting knife for kindling.

And without looking up, focusing on her technique she said, “Is Mama gonna have a baby?”

The knife hit a small knot and glanced off the stick he was splitting and onto his hand. He grunted and wiped the blood from a gashed knuckle onto his jeans. He said, “Why do you ask? Do you know something I don’t?”

Concentrating hard now, holding the bow level and applying a little more pressure now that a slender stream of smoke appeared, she remained silent for another dozen or so strokes. And then she pressed too hard sending the spindle hurling, but a tiny red coal glowed in the gap of the fireboard. She squealed, “Look, I did it! I made a baby fire.”

Her excitement was contagious. “Quick, blow the little coal into a flame, and quickly set the flaming nest of tender under the kindling just like your mama showed you.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “This is so cool.”

The kindling caught immediately and he said, “So what’s this about your mom having a baby?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that I lost her in Mal Wart the other day, and I found her in the baby clothes, daydreaming. I had to grab her hand to get her to see me.”

After dinner Ami went to her room. Lars sat out on the porch to digest his dinner and smoke a bowl of some homegrown organic tobacco. The radio played Cortez the Killer. He caught the end of the song. “Long song, Cortez the Killer by Neil Young—no stinking short versions on my show,” the DJ said. “You know how I hate lip-flapping, but we have important news from N.P.R. here, if I can hit the right buttons.”

Dead air, a few weird beeps, and then “…President will announce the long awaited Supreme Court decision. In the meantime, what do you have for us from New Mexico Shawn?”

“Well Sandra, it’s good news. The governor is in stable condition after emergency surgery to remove the bullet from his left shoulder, just above his lung. The surgeon said he’d be up and walking in about twenty-four hours.”

“Ok Shawn that is good news, but the president is approaching the podium now.”

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Tonight the Supreme Court has completed its interpretation of the Senate bill, backed by both houses of Congress, and signed by me that will include the United States, the only country without a civil gating system, in the global effort to prevent the rampant crime and domestic terrorism that is plaguing our cities and small towns.

“As you know, in February two Governors challenged the constitutionality of the bill, and the Supreme Court has reached its decision tonight. In a unanimous agreement by all members of the court the bill was ruled constitutional and will become the law of the land at six a.m. on the Fourth of July. According the latest public opinion polls the majority of you, the law-abiding citizens of America will have cause to celebrate a new era of liberty. And furthermore…”

Lars turned off the radio.

He spent a few minutes musing over the whole thing. Then he called Dready. “Hello, Dready?”

“Hold on,” He heard giggling in the background. “Luna, please, I’m talking to Lars. That’s why it shriveled up—you still there Lars?”

“Yeah, sorry about the timing, but the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of the gates.”

There was a moment of silence. And then Dready said, “My mojo’s rising. I’ll call you back Lars.”

“No, I’ll see you tomorrow. My phone’s down to only a buck fifty. Bye.”

He set the phone down on the bed. 

Ami came in with a piece of paper in her hand, looking cute in her pink and paisley shirt. She said with a precocious smile, “Want to hear a story I just finished?”

“Sure honey,” he said.

“I call it Magic Mushroom.”

I was only eight when Mama took me on a moonlight hike across the mesa. I wondered what happened to my daddy, but Mama never wanted to talk about it. The moon showed us a red dome on the ground. Mama said, “It’s a magic mushroom called Amanita Muscaria. Your great, great grandpa named it.”

I asked the Mushroom, “Do you know what happened to my daddy?”

Mama answered, “Sam Muscaria left us while you were still in my belly—he just disappeared.”

She wrote the truth, Lars thought. Solo didn’t like to talk about it and told him the same thing: he just disappeared.

Then Ami hopped in his lap and asked him a question. “What would you do if you were the only person on the whole planet?”

“That’s easy,” Lars said. “The first thing I’d do is make sure I have what I need to survive.”

“But what about other people? Why would you want to live?” Ami said.

“Now that’s a tough one, Ami,” he said.

Before he met Solo and Ami he’d camped alone between girlfriends. He would sometimes wonder: what’s the point of living alone. But lovers were easy then. He was confident that he could find another one on the road somewhere. In the wilderness though, how would he feel, and what would he do? He came to the only conclusion he could imagine.

 “If I was the only one on the planet I couldn’t believe it. I’d have to spend the rest of my life searching for someone. That would be my reason to live.”

Ami was quiet for a moment, then looked up at Lars with her mama’s deep green eyes and said, “That’s like what Mama said. She said if she could keep a little hope burning like a little fire, she could be happy and want to live anyway.”

“I’ve got a question for you,” he said. “Why did you ask me such a tough question?”

“I dreamed everybody got caught in a giant spider web, but I got loose. But the spiders ate everybody but me. I was scared and there was only me,” she said.

Ami had gone to bed when Lars heard Andy’s diesel Volvo pull up and idle outside the open door of the yurt. He noticed the time, 10:30. Then he heard Solo’s giggling and her voice mixed with the clacking engine. “Congratulations again Andy,” she said. There was a long silent moment before he heard the car door click shut. Lars stood at the doorway and watched her trip over a rut and stumble onto the porch while Andy drove away.

“Woo-hoo!” she said falling into Lars’ arms. “I had two glasses of Andy’s home-brewed ale, and now I remember why I don’t drink—damned splitting headache.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He’d just mustered the courage to ask her, “Honey, I think we need to have a talk.” But she apparently wasn’t listening.

She said, “I’m not sorry. It was worth it to see Andy so happy. It just proves that men can survive after a relationship with me.”

“She anyone I know?”

“Don’t think so. She’s some woman from town, named Trish—owns the Full Moon Gallery.”

“You’re right. I’ve never heard of her,” he said.

“Oh shit,” she said. I forgot to get a phone card and a box of tampons.”

“I don’t really care who he… tampons?” he said.

“Yeah and a phone card. What did you want to talk about?”

He said, “Oh nothing, just anxiety I guess.”

She kissed him deep and long and melted in his arms. He recognized the taste of Andy’s home-brew and wished he had one.

Town Run

Dready was a better mechanic than he might admit. His old 2010 Toy ran better now and got better gas mileage than it did new, as long as it had gas. The past ten miles flew by—over the gorge bridge, through a sea of sagebrush, past the airport, and over the crest of the last hill before the intersection. Dready instinctively let off the accelerator when an orange and black plume of fire and smoke, an orb the size of a hot-air balloon, rose above the gas station just ahead at the intersection.

Before the cops could block the road, half a dozen cars whizzed through black smoke past the station. Dready followed until one stopped in front of him. He swerved onto the shoulder, skidded sideways, and recovered onto the pavement. Ahead a solid line of traffic gradually returned to the speed limit—forty-five.

Dready made a brief stop at the auto parts store to buy a new fuel pump for the green bus. Then back in slower traffic, they approached the center of town. At the red light they pulled in behind a line of traffic turning right into the Safety Market Foods parking lot. The lot was packed, police were directing traffic, and a crowd of fifty to a hundred people circled the county buildings across the main street. This was a large turn-out for a small town demonstration, and noisy too. They had the building surrounded chanting, “Gated—Gated—Gated, how does it feel.”

The car behind honked its horn and Dready pulled into the lot. He took the time to maneuver his way through the chaotic lot to the far left side of the store where delivery trucks parked. He knew that they could leave easier by the neighborhood streets to Blueberry Hill Road.

Glass shattered across the street, they heard the muffled explosion, and saw the smoke that billowed through the broken window of the three-story abandoned building, and at least four teenagers ran down the street into the neighborhood behind the store. Lars and Dready hurried around the corner to the front where they stopped at the end of a long line waiting their turn to go in. Police let two more in and then the store manager, a little bald-headed guy, whispered something to the cops. They announced on their loudspeakers that the store was now closed, so everyone must leave.

That started a stampede. People rushed the front doors, glass shattered, gunfire rang out. Lars and Dready turned to leave, but Dready went down to the pavement holding the right side of his head. He was dazed but managed to stand. “Must have been a rubber bullet,” Lars guessed aloud. They stumbled like drunks to the truck where Lars stuffed Dready into the passenger seat and buckled him in. He drove out of the lot and into the neighborhood. Sirens blared all around. A police car came toward them and passed on its way to the store.

Blueberry Hill was blocked at the highway so Lars had to turn around and go back to the dirt road that would take them around the airport. It was a slow, bumpy, and tedious drive—especially when you’re in a hurry.

Lars parked the truck as close to the porch as he could without crushing Ami’s little flower bed. He carefully slipped out from under Dready’s sleeping head in his lap and went inside to see why no one came to the door. The yurt was vacant. His pack he’d loaded stood against the wall where he’d left it. The futon was covered with Solo’s wilderness gear, except for her hunting knife. Beside her bow he saw a note.

“Waiting at Andy’s old bus. Love, Solo.”

He passed a crowd of people sitting around the outdoor fire pit Andy had built for parties, and he parked by the door of the bus. Solo left Ami at the fire and came running to greet him.

“Help me get him inside. Then you can tell me what the hell is going on here,” he said. He shook his wounded friend, “Wake up Dready.”

 “Yeah, what?”

“Come inside and lay down on the couch. Can you get up and walk?”

“Uh yeah, I think so.” He slid his legs out the passenger door where Lars and Solo walked him into the bus. He fell asleep instantly on the couch.

Lars said, “Why, Solo?”

       “I’m scared.”

“I am too, but I’ll be damned if it will stop me from leaving.” Lars said.

“You don’t understand. I’m scared of Child Protection Service taking Ami away again.” She said. “If it wasn’t for Andy’s help, I might have not gotten her back.”

“That may be true. But you know when we leave here C.P.S. won’t find us.” Lars said.

She paced now, beginning to lose her cool.

“Dammit Lars, you’re right.” She was visibly shaken and sobbing. “I’m just a liar—even to myself.”

She sobbed silently now and Lars said, “I’m listening.”

“Ok, I’m afraid of,” and she paused to let Lars hold her. “What I’m really afraid of is being pregnant and giving birth out in the forest by a midwife so far from a hospital. I just can’t take that fear into the wilderness, and I can’t let go of it.”

“Dready told me about Ami’s father, Sam. He said you left Sam in the hospital with a head wound from your car wreck. He lost the memory of that entire summer, so he might not remember you now.”

“I know, I know Lars—please.”

“The difference is I’ll remember you and Ami when I’m alone in the wilderness.”

He let her go and fumbled with a coffee filter. His hands were shaking as he spooned coffee into the filter absently mindedly. Then he sat down on the love seat across from the stove. She sat on the other end facing him. An airplane circled above, propellers churning wind, vibrating the bus. Ami ran to Solo.

“Mama they’re coming. I’m scared.” She buried her head in her mama’s lap, and Solo brushed her hair with her hand. The water boiled.

Lars got up to pour it into the filter. He stood waiting for it to drip, and then he sat back down to sip it.

He pondered his internal struggle with his own fear. The plane began a zigzag pattern coming closer.

“Solo, we’re trained to handle fear in the forest. Can’t we use that now?” He said, groping for a solution.

Solo sat up letting Ami slide to the floor where she sat listening.

“What do you mean?” Solo said.

Lars stood up and set his cup on the stove counter. The rational side of their situation had become clear to him. “If we sit here paralyzed by fear we’ll only be victims of our fear. Remember the mountain lion we dealt with?” He picked up his coffee and paced with it while he outlined what will happen if they stay. His words had an effect. Ami had hopped into her lap while Solo stroked her hair again.

“So here we sit, trying to deal with ourselves alone, you sitting there and me babbling on.” He spilt the hot coffee on his hand. “God damn it!” He flung the cup against the wall where it shattered. “The purpose of the clan is its members. They can help—it’s what will sustain us—each other.”

She looked at him and almost smiled.

He said, “If you needed water and couldn’t walk to the creek, I’d drag you there.”

She stood up to him and fell into his arms. “You’d drag me?”

They kissed hard and long until they heard a diesel engine clacking.

“You want me to go tell him you’re leaving with me?” he said.

“No, I need to. It’s my last thread of integrity.”

She went out to the car. Lars knelt down beside Dready who lay unconscious now. He said, “Ami, get your stuff ready.”

Ami bent down to him and kissed his cheek. She said, “I love you Lars.”

Helicopters.

Lars went to the door and looked out. It was not Andy’s Volvo. Helicopters were landing everywhere he looked. One landed a block away. Men got out and two went to the house on that block, and the others walked toward the next house. Two walked up the road toward Andy’s place. An olive-drab bus followed, loading handcuffed men while a white bus followed loading women and children. Solo came back to the bus.

“He’s still sitting there, Solo. Didn’t you tell him, whoever he is?”

“I couldn’t tell him. He’s Jon, the father of my baby Lars. Ami needs a real father too. I’m sorry.”

“You mean a real father, not some white-trash exile like me, right?” Lars said.

She let that be the last word. There were no words left to say. She grabbed Ami by the arm and dragged her kicking and screaming to the yellow Mercedes. They drove off opposite the approaching troops into a light sprinkle of rain.

Lars said to Dready’s face, “Come on buddy. We’ve got a two-mile hike in the rain. You’ve got to help me.” Dready didn’t move—still unconscious.

So Lars did his best to carry him and drag him when his strength waned, up the side of Two Peaks and around the contour toward the forest-green bus parked somewhere in the trees on the other side. He hoped it was still there. Then he remembered the fuel pump. He dug around in Dready’s pockets and pulled out the three-inch long metal cylinder. They couldn’t leave without it.

Halfway up the side of the small mountain he set Dready down so he could rest a moment. He could see through the drizzle the only car leaving. The yellow Mercedes, like a sad taxi approached a white school bus painted with blue letters: Amnesty International. He heard beeps and then felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and read the text from Ami.

Mama said it’s like there was a war, we didn’t know it, and we lost.

He looked back down at the road in the distance and saw two soldiers had stopped the car. One had Jon, and the other had Solo dragging her into the bus. A woman in a white dress dragged Ami in behind them. Lars tossed the phone down the rocky slope. Then he sat and sobbed. He prayed, “Please, next time, a woman without hidden fears?” It was hope, just a sliver, but enough to get him moving again. Then he heard a nearby voice say, “Dready, is that you?”

Lars answered the young man who stood with a sword hanging at his side, “Yeah, Lars and Dready. Who are you?”

“Dready’s friend, Mojo.”

They both carried Dready by his underarms, Luna joined them and they made their way to the bus, stopping only once to see a large white helicopter coming toward the mountain from town.

The governor watched the monitor silently. The Mesa below them passed quickly. But he did have time to see the row of white buses leaving, and the row of olive green buses following them. And as the helicopter flew over Two Peaks, he saw a dark, forest-green school bus pull out onto the highway and turn west away from town. The helicopter banked sharply south toward the capital, Santa Fe. The governor switched the monitor off.

The colonel said, “When the mop-up is finished we’ll have all the exiles, sir.”

“Impossible,” the governor said.

“Sir?”

“As long as children can dream there will be those who seek freedom.”

“Yes Sir.”

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