Chapter 18: Chapter Seventeen - "Inspection of Identification"

When the front window is fully closed, my mother turns to me:

Maybe we all do everything we do to simply stay alive? As they have to here, on my mother's side, maybe we do too on my side, even though our care is half-off, while there's is full price. They don't get any discounts here, even when they only make two percent of what we do per dollar on our side.

"We'll need to be off as soon as we see them off," my mother says, looking at the cars carrying Moritz and my grandmother.

Since it is a movable-cafeteria that we're traveling in, my mother and I, along with the boy, we take time to refuel ourselves. We take some food, a lot of water, more food, a lot more water; who knows how long we'll be without either again, so we take and keep as much as we can, before reaching the entrance to the other side of the Wall.

In the other car, a youth girl looks at me. And for some reason, something comes over me. There was a look that the hard-jaw-lined boy gave me that made me think twice. But on the contrary, this girl, before me, has made my thinking stop.

This girl shone bright. She was a walking lightbulb. A walking light of hope. Maybe the one my uncle so desperately asked for in his store. Her smile was thin, not too wide but not too short—just right. Her hair curled down under her Party-given cap. And her eyes glowed in the moving-shadows of darkness. She has been the only shining light I've seen since leaving Moritz.

"What are you looking at?" asks my mother, not seeing the youth girl like I was.

"Nothing," I reply, giving her my full attention again.

*******************************************

The cars kept going, and soon, we were leaving the hospital way behind. So way behind.

First the vans speed up, revving up until they all passed us. Then they got left-off.

Then the two trucks before us speed up too, to pass us. And when they do—when they pass us—they stay in front of us the whole time, creating a shield-like barrier before us, the way you would see whenever a president is rolling by any street, in any city, for any country, in any continent.

Are we that important right now?

Part of me wishes that I would have at least looked back with a goodbye for Oso and Congo. So much time spent with them, I think—well, not really that much time personally with them, but you know what I mean; and it all came to nothing; it was all for nothing; it all only came to end like this, so suddenly; but then again, I guess that's how all life ends: like that...that fast...leaving in a split second, at any moment...with no time to think about suddenly, or what can happen suddenly, because death doesn't care about suddenly; it doesn't care about your plans.

Up front, conversation took place and mumbled all the way to the backseats through vibrations—whenever these vibrations were at reach, up to us, we held our own conversation: my mother, myself, and the hard-jawed boy.

It's glass to cover the front, but the glass doesn't' cover everything.

"We'll see that mum has a good resting place, and that Moritz reaches his family, and then we'll have to see where we leave you," my mum says.

"But I'm not going anywhere apart from you again," I say. "I'm coming back here to help you," I say.

"Help me do what?"

"Whatever it is that you do."

"You don't want any part of this, Ludy, That's why mum took you away from me."

"Yeah—and that was when I couldn't make up my own mind."

"We could use the help...," said the boy, "and you know....—your bloo-"

"She has none of that," my mum interrupted before the boy could finish. "Ludy—do you think grandma would have wanted that?"

"What do you know about what she would have wanted? You've been gone since I can remember."

My mother turns away from me with disappointed eyes, like they've failed at something; you know that look I'm talking about: the one a person makes when she or he is trying to think of a way to get out of whatever debacle or problem they've gotten themselves into.

"I'm sorry about that," my mother begins.

Sorry about what? Leaving me?" I laugh.

"Yeah," she says.

"A little too late for that, don't you think?" I ask.

"Maybe—but is it too late for forgiveness?" she then asks.

And maybe it isn't:

"Why did you do it?" I ask.

My mother turns back at me—like she's finally found the answer.

Don't take it, I tell myself.

***********

"Have you not seen how people live on this side?"

I look at my mother; like I've just found what to say:

"It can't all be that bad; it can't all be what I've seen, no?" I ask.

The boy laughs.

"What do you think it's like?" my mother asks.

"I don't know. Maybe those that are free live like we do on our side?"

Then my mother laughs again:

"How they live on your side?" she repeats, asking me with my own words. "How exactly do you think the other side is?"

Is there something I should now about my hometown?

"We're all controlled, Ludy. It's just that our people are more controlled than yours," my mother then says. "I stayed on this side, and grandma took you away from me, because they took grandpa before you were born. Then Luviel didn't know what to do. So I had to be the man of the house."

"Yeah—I know a bit about being the man of the house," I say, looking down at all the different shades of red on me; all the different personalities and lives and memories on me; all the things that have never been on me on the other side; there, these shades say I've done enough to attest for my mother, to live with her again, to fight with her again.

Her eyes drop—my mothers.

"I'm sorry," she repeats, twiddling at her fingers and keeping her eyes on them—on her cut, bloody hands; we both had dried memories on us, on our dry hands; we both had different shades; we both had enough shade to feel shaded; but I'm sure my mother knows how to handle these type of situations, this type of shade, better than I can...better than I'm used to.

"I still don't know why they took grandpa and why you couldn't just care more about the only daughter you had," I argue. Because why the hell couldn't she?

"About that..." my mother adds, beginning the entrance to her excuse, which I had not heard yet, after all these years.

"About what?" I snap in frustration.

Tinted windows can distract you from what is happening outside. It can shade the world for you in the color you want it to, rather than the color it actually is, allowing us to form a different misconception of the color of the world, which in return, makes us forget that there is one color for the world, and we all need to oblige by it. And since all the vehicles driven by the Party of the West come with tint, our vision is getting a bit blurred.

"They took grandpa because he was starting the first civil police in our country. He had had enough—we all had."

Because of the Gulf near our Deltas—the one's we live near—when it does rain, it comes like a pressured hose, and from all directions, not just from above. The rain doesn't come much, but today, it decided to come.

It began to rain on the Party's parade. Luckily.

"If what we believe they'll do to you is correct, then they might want to keep you in a holding cell—the ones they created for us, to hold our people...until they can find the inheritance, at least."

What?

"What inheritance?" I say, surprised.

My mother dropped her head. There was a look of dissatisfaction that creeped over both the boy and my mother—like she had something to tell me.

"Listen," she started, again, twiddling her fingers. "There is money left under your name. That's why they wanted you."

"Who?"

"The Catz. But they couldn't find it without me."

"Even though without you, your mum can't get to it," the boy let's slip out.

********

I can tell he let it slip out without my mother wanting him to because of the eyes that grew on my mother when he said those words, and how he then had to shut-up about it.

"Oh—right...I mean...nothing," then said the boy, only because of my mother, of course.

"No...no, that's not what he means. Look—it is about time you know."

"Oh, you think," I say.

"They left it under your name but only I know where it's at," then said my mother.

"Oh, okay. Thanks. That fixes this whole life I've spent missing you. Money, will fix it, I guess."

"No—I'm sorry. I just wanted to get you and I needed you and I thought, if there's anything I can give you, it's this."

"You do realize that I could have died so many times, right?"

"Ludy—I promise."

"You promise, what?"

"That'll it'll be worth it."

"How will it all be worth it? Losing grandma? Losing Moritz? Almost dying. Losing my fucking sanity? How is it all worth it?"

"Because you'll never have to worry about money again...but, when you put it that way..."

"Yeah," I say, turning my head towards the window, wanting to look at anything but my mother.

"And why can't you get it without me?" I then ask. Because really? Why can't she?

My mother drops her head again.

"Because the lock is your blood." she replies—she replies more of in a whisper, like the words are hard to spit out of her mouth, like she doesn't want to admit it, like she's ashamed of all and hopefully what I've had—and will probably have to—go through.

"What do you mean?"

"Grandpa was a builder, an engineer," my mother said, trying to educate me on the ancestors she abandoned me with. "And when mom," she then said about my grandmother who was now gone because of me (and her), "decided to take you across the Wall, grandpa decided to build a safe that could stay here that only you could open. So he created a lock that only opens with your blood."

My head asks me other questions though: who are these people; what family do I come from?

Shaken, and still confused, and poling at my head in search for answers that obviously wouldn't be found with simple poking, my mouth intrudes:

"Okay...who the fuck are you people? Since I fucked up at Uncle Benny's, it's like one surprise after another," I say. "What is happening?"

"Well—I'm not a boy," says the beautiful boy, confirming what I had just asked.

Who the fuck are these people?

***********

The beautiful girl turns to my mother--their eye-contact is impeccable—and she says:

"How does she know so little?"

Although, the better question(s) would be: how does this woman know more than me; how does my mother give more secrets to a stranger rather than her own daughter?

It is still funny to me, and confusing, at how this woman makes me feel, how this beautiful girl, woman, whatever she is, makes me think...how she makes me want to react towards her.

"And I still don't know who you are to each other?" I ask the girl whom I mistook for a boy, looking at both her and my mother.

Up front, you could still hear the ramblings of the old, famished sergeant talking over the radio or computer screen in the car to other Party people, discussing what would be done—maybe—with us, but that might be before because all I hear now is directions to wherever the hell we're going. The Wall is approaching.

As I think that, so does the Alexa-for-the-vehicle:

"Approaching the bridge; please make yourself look-able; please clean up and prepare for identification," the robotic, lady-like voice said.

Although, we didn't need her too, because the up-front widow shortly began to roll down...before I could get any answers to my question towards the beautiful girl.

The sergeant coughed before addressing us:

"Alright, you all have identification?"

"Yes," replied my mother and the girl.

"No," I replied. Because I didn't have any. I had left it at my uncle's. And, I had left my uncle's with nothing but the gun I was forced to use.

"I have yours," my mother replied.

"What?" I say, confused.

"Yeah—I have your ID."

"How?"

What the fuck? If she has my ID, and if she has my ID for herself, why did she never cross to see me?

"So you have had an ID this whole time—for yourself and myself—yet you've never thought about visiting?" I hit at my mother, will all the anger I can muster—with all the anger that's been mustered-up for years of living without a birth mother.

"Okay, thank you, you all have ID's, I don't need to know any more. Continue with your Maury show," the sergeant says in an annoyed voice, rolling up his front window to mute us once again, leaving himself in the front seat silence I have yet to experience since crossing over.

The sense of desultory, in all of us—my mother myself, the beautiful woman, and Moritz and my grandmother when they were still with us—has not gone away for a second, since leaving my uncle's store; it's the only feeling I've felt...besides pan—pain for the deaths I think I've caused.

"It's not as easy as it sounds," replies my mother, beginning to bite the nail on her thumb like some nervous kid who's just begun an interrogation about a prank gone wrong.

Or maybe I'm just stuck in a gris-gris scenario?

**************

"Wall approaching. Wall four-hundred feet away. Wall approaching," mindlessly (literally) proclaimed the Alexa voice, the imitation of the real-deal currently happening on the seats around it.

"Please use slang upon approaching," then said the sergeant. "Start with a yo, dude!"

"It's always the same with these people," laughed off the girl.

"Hey! I heard you!" shouted the sergeant, rolling down his window, just a 'tad.

Ignoring him, I went back at my mother:

"So when was I supposed to find out about all this?"

The widow behind me began to roll back up.

"Wall near," then said the Alexa voice, again.

The window behind me came back down, just enough to whisper out:

"Get ready."

Proceeding the Alexa warning, giant strobe lights—about as white as the light you'd probably see at death—lit up into the air. And while they are not that close yet, their effect are still damming and blinding—even at this length.

Being that I never really get close to the Wall—the first city of residents on the other side of the wall isn't as close to it (it's about ten miles)—I have never noticed the lights that blaze upon vehicles approaching.

I know this because our conversation stops and we all direct our attention at the giant lights in our faces. It is, after all, hard to have a conversation when you can't see how you're talking to—or when you can't see at all, in general.

"Appreciate the product," said the sergeant, his window still down a bit, addressing us while looking at the Wall and the lights, appreciating them and giving them the love we were not giving them.

The cars beside us and in-front of us speed up, leaving a trail before us—a trail of dust; the same trail my mother brought when she first came to my death.

And while we head for the Wall, the others head for the giant, big white lights.

You can begin to see the lights of the city from where we are. You can see how the river drives the show: one side with an empty, black delta, desert...and the other part beside it full of light, like Times Square with an ocean beside it.

The sergeant's colors showed in the light of the car as he flicked the lights up-front to see us clearly.

The skyscrapers on the other side began to climb, quickly, over the Wall and into the clouds, the more the tires below us move forward, the thick, rough, rubble making us tremble every now and then, every here and there. With a giant wall, it took a while—it mostly took you getting closer to the Wall—for the buildings from my side to show themselves—not that long, really—but once they did, it was breathtaking, admirable, shakable, sharable, mentionable, damnation-able, irritable, showable, highlight-able, perceivable—it was monstrostle-ble to see riches next to death; of course, I hadn't learn until now; I don't believe anybody knows; Moritz didn't know—he only crossed because of me, and now, I have to tell his parents that he's dead because of me.

I must mucker-up, I think, as I see the Wall begin to shadow the vehicle, us included, demonstrating the giant power of the bodies holding power on the other side, sitting and waiting for us, ready to sign our deaths, maybe—the shadow's darkness, blackness, covering us in whole the more we traveled, the more the sergeant pressed on the gas, our limo went forward—the other cars were already at check-point windows, conversing with officers; probably telling them that they got the candy, that they got what they wanted, what they were looking for, as usual, as always; fuck.