So. Yet another SID at Madre Teresa, the super slum-clearance
project to end all slum-clearance projects that the government built in
2096 and that now, only three years later, has itself turned into the Island's
worst slum. They say it is Clive Claustrophobia among the poor, and I believe
it. The rest of us are already living Sammy Sardine.
With the siren yowling, you can whip past in the special
reserved lane on the elevado, skirting the vehicles poking along in the
penance lanes, which is one of the reasons I like to pilot. I love our FreezVan
with its sleek Chevyota lines and the SPCA logo on its sides -- a white
candle flame inside a sky-blue halo. The red letters encircling the upper
half of the halo read: CUERPO ANTISUICIDA DE AMÉRICA; and the script
around the lower half says the same in English.
In the end, of course, you always have to downramp to ground
level and inch your way through the blessèd mob. Crowds from the
overly congested, mostly inoperative slidewalks spill out into the street,
slowing us to a crawl.
Cristo, what a zoo.
Vandalized parks and rusting playgrounds. Graffitied buildings,
walls, slidewalks, pavements.
Skin-and-bones beggars clamor for a handout: "¡Por
favor, por favor, por favor!" Potbellied stickchildren totter about
on spindly legs, their faces bony and hollow-eyed. Mommies with pregnant-again
bellies lug babies in back slings, ignoring the kiddies' shrieks of hunger.
Gaunt teeners lounge on each street corner, unemployed and looking for trouble.
Wizened geezers play dominoes in the shade of rundown gazebos. Plump street
preachers work the pockets of the skeletal faithful.
Everywhere, people, people, people.
Despite the van's air filters, the stench of weeks-old
garbage seeps into the cockpit from mountains of uncollected trash bags.
Even the welcome sign looks like folks have thrown turds at it.
BIENVENIDO AL CASERÍO MADRE TERESA
WELCOME TO THE MOTHER TERESA HOUSING
PROJECTS
Skyhigh after skyhigh, the so-called vertical villages
run row upon row in every direction as far as the eye can see. They would
look like a field of giant grave markers, except that they are painted in
shades of banana, avocado, orange, guava, and plum. They must have looked
bright and cheerful when they were new, but now they are cracked and peeling.
So thick are the crowds in the street that I can barely
keep the van moving forward. Fabiola says, "We're running late, rookie.
Add dispersal overtones."
I add a piercing sonic to the siren's yodel. Folks grab
their ears and wince in pain, but it is still exasperating how slowly they
move aside. The more aggressive ones start pounding the vehicle's sides.
The situation is scary, but I swallow and try to sound
like an old hand. "They sure don't like it, ah?"
"Anger is a sin," Fabiola observes dryly.
"Yeah," I say, grateful for the opening, "but
it's hell to be hungry and Harvey Hopeless. There are so many of us and
so blessèd little to go around." Fabiola says nothing. I figure
this may be my chance to gain a little more respect, so I plunge ahead.
"Still, you can forgive, but you can't justify sin, ah?"
Fabiola remains silent, but then I did not really expect
her to answer. I take a deep breath. "Look at my mother," I say.
"She was born in a caserío like this one, but she found a way
out. Which proves faith will see you through. I mean, God tends to the needs
of even the lilies of the field, ah?"
"You got it, rookie," Fabiola says in the same
dry tone. "The Lord helps those."
We pull up in front of one of Madre Teresa's zillion identical
skyhighs. The paint on this one is peeling worse than on its neighbors.
I imagine that shade of raspberry trimmed in white looked cheerful and inviting
when the residents first moved in.
The SID's apartment is small and crowded but clean. Two
tiny bedrooms housing a family of sixteen, cheap plasteen baskets full of
fresh wash on the dinette table. You know it is a big family just from how
many different sizes of socks stick out of the washbaskets. They smell of
cheap Washed in the Blood of the Lamb Biodegradable Laundry Detergent. Breakfast
dishes still wet from rinsing sit by the kitchen window, drying in the breeze
that flutters the curtains. A puff of wind blows the bathroom door ajar,
exposing a chipped bathtub. The foot of a cocoaskinned woman hangs over
the edge of the pink tub.
Though she has opened her veins from wrists to elbows --
this Self-inflicted meant business -- the soulkiller is still warm. I dress
the cuts, while Fabiola flips on her throat mike and starts her report.
Fabiola is cool and professional. The me I want to be.
"Preliminary data. Carmen Colón. Female. Mulatto.
Estimated age: thirty-six. Self-inflicted death, type 2. Loading for delivery
to Centro San Francisco de Asís."
The block priest and I confer in the hall. Father Tomás
is a big-bellied cleric with an air of perpetual disapproval. "She
waited until her husband left for his job at El Vertedero, packed the kids
off to school, then sliced her wrists and bled to death in the tub,"
he mutters. He sounds Danny Disgusted, and I cannot say I blame him.
"Nancy Neat," I say.
"Fourteen children."
That explains his anger. Even if it is only a small
family, what kind of woman leaves her kiddies in the lurch like this?
"Don't worry, Father," I tell him. "We'll
bring their mami back."
Fabiola and I heft the skeletal body onto the air litter,
and I whisk it out the door. Carmen Colón is light as a baby. Her
papery skin looks ashen from loss of blood. Her mouth lolls open, and a
string of spittle dribbles down her jaw. If SIDs only knew how ugly they
look dead.
We are steering the meat through the crowd outside, Father
Tomás bringing up the rear, when things turn ugly.
"Why don't you leave her dead, Bibletwister?"
an angry voice hisses. "What kind of life is this to bring her back
to?"
I cannot spot the speaker, but I know Double Jesus propaganda
when I hear it. I get a little tense. Okay, maybe more than a little. But
Fabiola and I follow standing orders, and ignore the heretic and the other
mutterings and imprecations that follow. I guess maybe Father Tomás
has other orders, because he gets furious and confronts the crowd.
"Who said that?" he shouts. "Who is the
blasphemer?"
Like a hippo surrounded by storks, the fat priest bellies
up to one stick-thin onlooker after another, glaring righteous accusation
into each bony face. Their sunken eyes stare back, and always the voices
come from behind him. While the crowd is distracted with the priest, Fabiola
and I hurriedly load the air litter and its grisly cargo into the back of
the van. We pull the hatch shut behind us and begin clipping sensors to
the body from the cryopac overhead.
"Did you hear that?" I whisper to Fabiola. She
remains silent. "That is New Christer talk," I say. "You
can tell we're well into the Final Days!"
Fabiola does not look at me, focuses only on her work,
the consummate professional under fire. "Let's just zip it and freeze
this soulkiller, okay, rookie?" she says.
Cristo, I admire her!
Outside the van, Father Tomás has worked himself
up into a lather. "God knows who you are, blasphemer!" he shrieks.
"The One, True God sees all!"
"Ready here," Fabiola says. She glances up at
me, expressionless. "How are you coming, Lorca?"
"Hookup complete, Muñoz." I hope I sound
as cool and professional as she does.
"Check. Freeze her."
"Freezing SID."
I thumb the control pad in the van's side panel. A white
haze envelops the body, and a deep hum fills the van. Eighteen seconds later,
Carmen Colón is a corpsicle encased in white frost.
Ricky Routine, just like in training.
Outside, Father Tomás has not given up. "Beware,
blasphemer!" he yells, loud enough for us to hear him through the van's
thick insulation. "God will punish you!"
Fabiola mutters, "Amen," in that dry voice she
likes to put on, and looks at me like she knows something I do not. |