Read Online Snakeskin Road by James Braziel - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: James Braziel
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It took me an entire day just to get to the front and talk with someone and sign my name in their book, tell them why I’m here, why they should let me go. The guardsmen have set up fans to cool us, but mainly to keep the smell down from the sick and dead. I’m okay, Mama. I just wish I could find a way to send this letter
.
And the storm that hit Talladega also hit Birmingham. The sky hasn’t cleared. I don’t think it’s going to change—that’s what everyone’s afraid of, what the guardsmen keep saying. No one knows what the government will do with us. I don’t think the government knows. They refer to us as people of concern, POCs for short. I wonder what is meant by concern—their concern for us or their concern we’ll do something to them. They feed us, shut us in, and while we wait to see if the sky reverses itself, people are slowly dying. The sky won’t let anyone free. I know that’s what happened when I was born, what you lived through. I love you, Mama. I wish I could send this letter
.
It was afternoon, and more people had fallen, marked by purple spots the size of quarters where dehydrated blood had come to the skin’s surface. The Red Crosses took the ones breathing to the hospital and later culled through, tossing the dead into harvesting machines that rotated the bodies in sheets of plastic, spit them out for the Crosses andguards to turn with poles, turn the cocoons toward wheel loaders engulfing and lifting the dead into gravel trucks and driven away.
“Like mummies, these POCs. Wrapped so tight, they can’t stink,” a guardsman said, leaning on his pole. “Spooky.” He twitched his fingers at the train of plastic bodies, then jumped back against his partner.
“Stop fooling,” the other guard said, and shoved him out of the way.
“All right, all right. You don’t have to hit so hard. I mean, shit.” He brushed at his vest, tugged his collar down, dust swirling the air.
The other guard shook his head. “Could you help me? Because I don’t know about you, but I want a break.” Together, they stabbed their poles like long river oars on top of a cocoon, pinning the feet and head until the wheel loader had troughed six bodies, taking theirs last.
They walked down six more bodies. “This is spooky shit.”
“Shut up.”
They leaned on the poles and waited for the loader to return.
For two days, Jennifer had hidden under the oak, then at night moved to the entrance of the consulate and food drop where the guardsmen were stationed. At night they cut the whirring fans off and set up a barricade. But as soon as the noises in the park swelled with high-pitched cries and gunshots, the fans were turned back on, and people who could make it to the front, bleeding, injured, did.
One man walked to the barricade, his hand against the side of his throat, his body pressed to that side of himself like the flat bottom of an iron. The crowd had parted around him like a sea, everyone afraid his bad luck might rub off.
“She’s cutting me,” he said, and turned halfway, pointing into the crowd, one face, then another—but which one?
A guardsman stepped up to the thick cables and rails. “You can’t come in here. This is a sanctuary until tomorrow.” He had a yellow patch on his sleeve and vest and stood like the patrollers at the Birmingham gate—would not lean forward, would not give.
“If it’s a sanctuary, let me in.”
“Tomorrow.”
“But I’m dying,” the man argued, and that’s when Jennifer noticed the black diarrhea seeping, wherever he turned, a glistening down his clothes. And he didn’t say “I’m dying” loud. He didn’t have the energy to say anything more.
The guardsman turned, went back to talking, left the man standing, one hand on his throat, one holding the thick high cable, until he wilted into sleep. Occasionally a guard looked over at the body lumped on the sidewalk or into the crowd, but it wasn’t until the shift change that
.
It took me an entire day just to get to the front and talk with someone and sign my name in their book, tell them why I’m here, why they should let me go. The guardsmen have set up fans to cool us, but mainly to keep the smell down from the sick and dead. I’m okay, Mama. I just wish I could find a way to send this letter
.
And the storm that hit Talladega also hit Birmingham. The sky hasn’t cleared. I don’t think it’s going to change—that’s what everyone’s afraid of, what the guardsmen keep saying. No one knows what the government will do with us. I don’t think the government knows. They refer to us as people of concern, POCs for short. I wonder what is meant by concern—their concern for us or their concern we’ll do something to them. They feed us, shut us in, and while we wait to see if the sky reverses itself, people are slowly dying. The sky won’t let anyone free. I know that’s what happened when I was born, what you lived through. I love you, Mama. I wish I could send this letter
.
It was afternoon, and more people had fallen, marked by purple spots the size of quarters where dehydrated blood had come to the skin’s surface. The Red Crosses took the ones breathing to the hospital and later culled through, tossing the dead into harvesting machines that rotated the bodies in sheets of plastic, spit them out for the Crosses andguards to turn with poles, turn the cocoons toward wheel loaders engulfing and lifting the dead into gravel trucks and driven away.
“Like mummies, these POCs. Wrapped so tight, they can’t stink,” a guardsman said, leaning on his pole. “Spooky.” He twitched his fingers at the train of plastic bodies, then jumped back against his partner.
“Stop fooling,” the other guard said, and shoved him out of the way.
“All right, all right. You don’t have to hit so hard. I mean, shit.” He brushed at his vest, tugged his collar down, dust swirling the air.
The other guard shook his head. “Could you help me? Because I don’t know about you, but I want a break.” Together, they stabbed their poles like long river oars on top of a cocoon, pinning the feet and head until the wheel loader had troughed six bodies, taking theirs last.
They walked down six more bodies. “This is spooky shit.”
“Shut up.”
They leaned on the poles and waited for the loader to return.
For two days, Jennifer had hidden under the oak, then at night moved to the entrance of the consulate and food drop where the guardsmen were stationed. At night they cut the whirring fans off and set up a barricade. But as soon as the noises in the park swelled with high-pitched cries and gunshots, the fans were turned back on, and people who could make it to the front, bleeding, injured, did.
One man walked to the barricade, his hand against the side of his throat, his body pressed to that side of himself like the flat bottom of an iron. The crowd had parted around him like a sea, everyone afraid his bad luck might rub off.
“She’s cutting me,” he said, and turned halfway, pointing into the crowd, one face, then another—but which one?
A guardsman stepped up to the thick cables and rails. “You can’t come in here. This is a sanctuary until tomorrow.” He had a yellow patch on his sleeve and vest and stood like the patrollers at the Birmingham gate—would not lean forward, would not give.
“If it’s a sanctuary, let me in.”
“Tomorrow.”
“But I’m dying,” the man argued, and that’s when Jennifer noticed the black diarrhea seeping, wherever he turned, a glistening down his clothes. And he didn’t say “I’m dying” loud. He didn’t have the energy to say anything more.
The guardsman turned, went back to talking, left the man standing, one hand on his throat, one holding the thick high cable, until he wilted into sleep. Occasionally a guard looked over at the body lumped on the sidewalk or into the crowd, but it wasn’t until the shift change that
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