The One Percent
by L. B. Zinger
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
Suddenly the door slammed open, and two large figures blotted out the light from outside as they staggered in. Alfie and — could it be Andrew? — pushed and shoved each other in a mock fight toward us and we braced the table as they slammed into it.
“Hi there, peanuts,” said Andrew. They reeked of beer, so they weren’t fake-drunk; they were really drunk. “I’m baaaack!” He collapsed into a chair.
“Yeah, why are you back?” Connie asked. Amia and I squeaked, “How was it?”
“Well, it sucked, and now I’m here.”
We looked at each other, stunned. Alfie broke the silence, laughing a little. “He’s back for the summer and then he’s going to work for the Auxiliary Defense Force.”
The ADF was where most of our parents worked. It hired ex-pat adults to do international security and analysis — spying — for the highest bidder. Kids were left home with relatives, and parents went to wherever there was trouble. The money was supposedly good, but Grandma and I never had any extra, and I only saw my parents once a year, if then.
Naneeda’s location halfway between Jakarta and Perth exposed us to multiple languages: Malay, Dutch, Portuguese and English. As a result, we were adept at learning new languages, and were valuable tools for ADF, which provided training, travel and adventure. It wasn’t my idea of a good career: stress, never getting home and the risk of death at a young age in someone else’s war. I shuddered.
Andrew looked different. He was taller, sported a scruffy beard, but there were new lines on his face and a scar on his upper arm. Fight? Accident? I didn’t want to ask. His light brown hair had dulled and thinned, and his green eyes were reddened as if he had been crying. His posture, sagging shoulders and stooping, suggested defeat.
I broke the silence. “Maybe we should go sit on the dock like old times.” I pointedly looked at the 6th-graders, now watching us instead of their game. Amia and Connie picked up their backpacks and joined me. Alfie grabbed Andrew, pulling him to his feet and turning him to the door.
Andrew saw the shrink-wrapped book in my bag and poked it. “A new version of the same old crap,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”
* * *
We walked in silence to the old jetty that protruded into a sheltered bay. A few community kayaks and canoes were tied up there. This was ours; the commercial dock for ferries and water taxis was a mile farther south. In the distance we could see the concertina wire fence and the security gate at the end of the base, beyond which the shoreline curved and the real island began. A dirt road covered the ten miles to town, which was much faster to reach by boat.
Faces to the setting sun, we dangled bare feet in the water, and looked out toward fields of sugar cane and the dark cover of the mangrove forest that looped around the cove. A gentle breeze blew our hair in tangles, and I felt the calm that usually came from being here with my friends. I lay back to catch more sun and noticed that Andrew was pacing. He wasn’t buzzed anymore, he was angry.
“You guys just took your exam, but don’t get your hopes up. America isn’t what you think. You’ve been told that being here was a horrible mistake by a bad president, and if you do good, you’ll be welcomed back in the U.S.”
He snorted. “That’s total bull that they’ve been feeding our families since they were stuck on this crap island. You can score high on the exam, write a brilliant essay, pass the stupid interview, and when you get back to the U.S. of A., you’re still a charity case. You won’t be accepted by the other students or the professors. It’s like apartheid.”
Alfie nodded. Connie and Amia shifted restlessly. This couldn’t be right, could it?
“What do you mean? We are American citizens. They made a deal with our families. Why wouldn’t we be accepted? What was the problem?” I asked. “The academics or the people?”
Andrew stood in front of me, hands on hips, shaking his head. “No, the classes weren’t hard, but the professors penalized the scholarship students for even the smallest errors. The only time we got decent grades was when we were identified by random numbers on computer-generated tests. Then your grade was your real grade.”
“Didn’t you have any friends? Like girls or anything?” Connie interjected. Amia wore a strange expression on her face. She’s heard this before, I thought.
He gave a harsh laugh. “There weren’t any girls for us. It was all guys, and we couldn’t mix with anyone on campus. We lived in off-campus apartments with other scholarship students, and even the local shopkeepers didn’t want our business. They hated us.
“All of us wore I.D. bracelets identifying us as American ex-pats or foreign students. We weren’t allowed to use the gym or the Student Center, or even travel. I wanted to go to Yosemite on break. I got a permit for three days and spent 6 hours on a bus each way to get there, then had to camp in a restricted campsite. They expected us to be grateful for this great opportunity, but we were not welcome.”
“Sounds awful,” Connie muttered. He grinned down at her.
“At least your emails cheered me up a lot.” He gave her a gentle punch in the shoulder. She smiled up at him.
“You sure you won’t go back?” Amia was drawing on the jetty with a piece of seagrass.
“Nope.” He stretched and patted his stomach. “I got the message. I’ll join ADF in September and, after my physical, they’ll train and assign me. Maybe I’ll get sent back to the U.S. to guard one of the idiots I met there.” He muttered the last sentence under his breath.
“Did you ever imagine that it would be like that before you went?” asked Connie.
Andrew shook his head. “I scored so high on all the stuff you needed to get into one of those premier schools that I expected red carpet treatment and party time. I never dreamed that there would be armed guards patrolling the streets with dogs looking for anyone breaking curfew. I had never seen anything like it before.”
“I gotta go.” I stood up. Between Andrew and Father Paul, I had heard more about America in a few hours than I had ever heard from Grandma. My dream of becoming a doctor was slipping away.
I grabbed my sandals and walked alongside the pavement in the marsh grasses, scattering sand as I shuffled along, head bent, thinking. A Jeep flew past, carrying pale-skinned American soldiers with rifles. They hooted and hollered, but I didn’t respond. All us girls learned early on that relationships with those guys were temporary at best and humiliating at worst.
Usually, it’s good to be the first one home: I can have a few minutes alone in the cool of the anemic air conditioning in the FEMA trailer before Grandma gets back from work. Not today; I was on edge and needed to ask her some questions.
The trailer was hot and stale when I entered. I put my backpack down and opened all the windows to let the breeze in. The note on the refrigerator told me what to make for dinner. Soup again. Maybe I’ll make some cornbread. We got tons of cornmeal and powdered milk and eggs from the USDA, better to use it up before it got bugs.
My hands busy, I started to think of our lives as American ex-pats. We lived in a FEMA trailer, courtesy of a government agency. We ate USDA surplus food, like people in the Great Depression of the 1930s. What were we? Supposedly we were full-fledged American citizens, but it certainly looked like we were at best second-class. My heart clenched and, unbidden, I began to weep. This couldn’t have been what my family expected thirty years ago, could it? There must be a back-story. Plus — and this made me cry harder — I had been stupid never to ask any questions. Was my family being punished, or just unlucky?
I cranked up my music to drown out my thoughts and kept stirring. There were a few carrots to add to the stock, some wilted celery, a little lemongrass and some local spices. It tasted okay. The cornbread was refusing to rise, and I realized that I had left out the baking powder again. Flatbread would have to do.
There was an old filing cabinet stuck under the pantry shelves. I thought of this as I stirred and, once everything was simmering, I went to the pantry and pulled out the bottom drawer. School records were in front with my mother’s first, then my brother’s and mine, along with photos and artwork. At the very rear, taped to the back of the drawer was an old manila folder. I pried it out and opened it.
I expected to find birth certificates and passports, and they were there. There was also a fat envelope from Homeland Security. My hands shaking, I took out the papers and read through them. First was an Order of Expulsion on Anna Colfax, my mother, based on 1.25% Nigerian blood on DNA analysis. The legal blah-de-blah also spelled out conditions for the return of her descendants, again based on DNA analysis. It cited the absence of a father on the birth certificate as evidence that her mother was promiscuous.
Next was an Order of Expulsion on my grandma, Sylvia Colfax, describing her as a domestic terrorist with crimes against the U.S. government and the third page was signed by Grandma, relinquishing her right to return to the U.S. in order to drop all terrorism charges.
Grandma pushed through the door and started closing all the windows. I slipped the file back into the drawer and closed it before she got to the kitchen. She looked beaten today, a hard day at the call center? I shot her a questioning look.
She shook me off. “Dinah, you look upset. What’s going on?”
“We took our exam today, got a new History book, and Andrew came home from California and isn’t going back. “
“Oh?”
“Plus, I heard a bunch of stuff about us and Naneeda that doesn’t make sense. Like why we are here and all.” I wasn’t sure how to start the conversation we needed to have.
She headed to the cabinet where she kept her whiskey, pulled down an ancient glass and poured herself a good measure. “How so?” Her hand was shaking a bit. She avoided looking at me.
“It’s time for the whole story, Grandma.”
She clinked ice into the glass, still dodging my questions. “How much longer till dinner’s ready?”
“Five minutes. And Father Paul told me some horror story about detention camps and genetic stuff I didn’t understand.”
She took a big gulp, slapping the glass down on the kitchen table. “I’ll tell you all about it after we eat. Let’s sit outside where it’s cooler.”
I nodded and got bowls and plates together while she headed outside. A moment later the smell of cigarette smoke drifted into the trailer. At least she hadn’t poured a second glass of whiskey... yet.
She sat in her usual camp chair and stared into the sunset, avoiding my eyes, cigarette smoke wafting from the ashtray and the ice slowly melting to water. I sat in my chair and waited. She finally began.
“By the time I realized I was pregnant, it was too late for the morning-after pill, and abortions were illegal. My parents were livid. They called me a whore and told me to give your mother up for adoption, but I couldn’t, once I saw her. I forgot about college and took a hairdresser course to get a job and get out.
“Once I got my license, we moved out. We shared an apartment on the second floor of the salon with Yolanda and her daughter. We took turns watching the kids and working. I made some money and started believing life would be okay.”
I waited. This was stuff I had heard before.
“The TV was on constantly, all bad news. There were daily protests against the cops and military, immigrants and terrorists. There were shootings all the time. We lived near the Jersey Shore so whatever happened in Camden or Philadelphia was close.
“One night there was a fire-bombing at Fort Dix. That was the next town over. The military started rounding up ‘troublemakers’ and putting them in buses to go to internment camps. These were all Black and Hispanic people, some of whom were my friends.”
She had tears in her eyes. I fought the urge to let her stop: I needed to know. This was my family’s story.
Copyright © 2022 by L. B. Zinger
