It’s dark, and I’m cold shivering here in the darkness. I can see a thin strip of soft light under my cell door, and occasional shadows that drift past and block the light just for an instant. In that moment I panic, as if losing that tiny sliver of illumination, would drive me to madness and cause me to fall into a hole of insanity from which I might never emerge. The light was all I had that connected me to reality, and I fear that if that light ever disappears, so will I. I sit on the concrete floor, its dampness seeping into the bottom of my jeans, I hug my knees, rock back and forth, and focus on at that soft, thin sliver of light. The sounds of the foot-steps of the guards, and the moans and cussing of the other prisoners in this personal hell interrupt my thoughts. As far as I can tell, most of the other prisoners are locked up up in dark cells as well, and I sometimes hear someone praying in Spanish, and others sobbing, crying, swearing at the guards, or banging on their cell doors. I try to focus my mind, try not to go crazy. The painful boredom is relieved only by the gruel the guards call food that gets shoved through a flap in the bottom of the door twice daily. I’m in the dark, I don’t know what day or time it is, what day of the week it is, and who knows how long I’ve been here. There’s no toilet, just a hole in the corner covered by metal mesh, and the only water available dribbles from a spigot sticking out from a wall. I can’t tell day from night, there is no clock or calendar in my cell, but it seems like I’ve been here for an eternity.
The only thing I do know is that when they came for me, I was not prepared, I really didn’t have a clue, or maybe I just ignored the signs. I figured that the rumors were just that, rumors, and that people were just getting a little paranoid and worked-up over nothing. After-all, this was the 21st Century, not 1930’s Europe. It was too late that I realized that the rumors were true, and that the extraordinary was now the ordinary, that the unthinkable was now the thinkable, and that the disappeared were never coming back.
*****
“Help me!” The man cried, then he shouted in Spanish, “Ayudeme! Ayudeme!” He was banging on the window of the Easy Mart, only steps away from where I was cashiering. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and he started banging on the window. He looked right at me, and I could feel his panic.
“What the hell?” muttered Cheyenne as she looked over her shoulder. She was helping bag my customer’s groceries, carefully placing 12 cans of soup, a head of lettuce and a bag of potato chips into a paper bag. My customer was a middle-aged woman, neatly dressed in a business suit and sensible shoes. She ignored the scene outside, glued to her smartphone.
“I don’t know,” I replied, looking at the face of the frantic man, still banging on the window, as I continued to scan the cans of soup. “Maybe we should help him, or call the cops.” I figured someone should do something. But I figured it wasn’t my place, maybe the guy was crazy or something. As soon as I finished my sentence, about half a dozen military-looking goons in black helmets, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns swarmed around that poor soul, pushed him to the ground, and one guy pushed his head into the concrete sidewalk with his boot, while another hand-cuffed the man from behind. I stopped in mid soup-scanning, my mouth open.
“What are you waiting for?” asked to woman in the suit, finally looking up from her phone. “I’m in a hurry, I have a meeting.” I turned to look at her, she was dead-serious, and had that annoyed purse-your-lips look. Apparently she was oblivious to the tragic scene outside. Cheyenne wrinkled her brow, and also looked at the woman as if she was from outer-space. Glancing again out the window, Cheyenne and I saw the military team haul the screaming man away in a black van, and disappear around the corner of the dry cleaners, tires squealing.
Cheyenne and I looked at one another and continued scanning and bagging the suit’s groceries. The woman was back on her smartphone, and when the bill was ready, she inserted credit card into the machine, waited for her receipt, and then was out the door. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
It was ten-o-clock, and closing time. I counted the cash in the register, recorded it in the cash log, while Cheyenne, Rick and Amir cleaned up, shut down the computers and worked on the end-of-day check-list. We talked about the man who had been arrested by the military guys in black, and we still couldn’t believe what we saw. When I replayed the scene in my head, something caught in my throat. After finishing up, I left the security lights on, we all filed out, and I locked the front door. Rick lit a cigarette, gave me a hug and a smile, and Amir tried to get Cheyenne to go home with him (he did that every day they worked together), and as usual, she turned him down. We laughed on the way to the bus stop. “Can you believe Amir?” Cheyenne shook her head, “He’ll never take no for an answer.”
“But you have to give him an ‘A’ for effort,” I replied. “He sure is persistent.” We both laughed again and Cheyenne put her arm in mine. It was only a two-block walk to the bus stop. We were out after curfew, but we were careful to carry our work passes should the goons question us. These days, the State goons could just stop you for anything, and demand your papers.
As we sat on the bench, waiting for bus 12, Cheyenne sat up. “Oh, Simon, did you hear what happened to Jane from across the hall?” Cheyenne and I shared an apartment in Soho, and Jane lived on our floor. “She’s been arrested.”
“What the fuck!?” I replied, “When did this happen?” Jane was a great friend, and such a comic. Her birth name was Jake, but when she put on a sequin dress, with a low back and six-inch heels, she could put any Hollywood starlet to shame. Yes, Jane was a born a dude, but as she told me one night at one of her theater after-parties, “I am Marilyn Monroe trapped in a man’s body.” I hugged her when she said this, because I felt that I was Brad Pitt trapped in a woman’s body. I told her that, and she suggested we do a re-make of “Mister and Mrs. Smith.” I remember that moment, we sat laughing on her sofa, big glasses of wine in our hands, and then Cheyenne joined us. She kissed us both on the cheek and squeezed herself between us. She was the only straight woman at the party, or as the State would say, the “only normal” person at the party. As far as the State was concerned, the rest of us were all a bunch of freaks and queers, outsiders that were bent on “destroying the family and the morals of our nation.” Sure, we getting used to the goons questioning us at random times, even when we were grocery shopping or buying a subway ticket, we got used to looking behind us. We had heard the news of new laws, curfews and arrests. We figured it was just a phase, and that people would come to their senses soon. Boy, were we wrong.
The moment that I started to worry was when Jane disappeared. Cheyenne and I talked to the super, to the other renters in our apartment complex. No one seemed to know anything. We went to the goons, and you can imagine how that went. They didn’t know shit, and virtually ignored us. We texted our friends, Jane’s friends, nothing. It was as if she evaporated into thin air. Her apartment was even emptied of everything, not even a shred of clothing or a dish left behind.
This was just the start. Two weeks after Jane went missing, Jose disappeared. Jose was a welcome sight every morning on the way to work. He had a small van parked in front of our complex, and he made the best breakfast burritos on the planet, to die for. I looked forward to him being there on the corner every morning, but one morning he wasn’t there. Two weeks passed, no Jose. The Amir didn’t show up for work one day, and when our boss John tried to call Amir on his cell, he got “This number is no longer in service” message. John even went to Amir’s ground-floor apartment, looked in the window, and saw that the entire apartment was empty of furniture, nothing. What was happening?
“What the fuck!” said Cheyenne one morning. We were sipping latte’s in our small kitchen, it was Sunday, our day off, and sun was streaming in through the white linen window curtains. Cheyenne asked, “What is happening here? First Jane goes missing, then Jose, now Amir?” She scratched the back of her neck, her bed-hair hastily put up in a pony-tail. “And then that Mexican dude at work, there’s some shit going down.”
“I’m sure it’s just coincidence Cheyenne,” I assured her. “You’ve been watching too many crime scene episodes.” I tried to lighten up the mood.
Cheyenne grabbed my hand, and looked at me. I knew then that she was scared. “Simon, I know it sounds crazy, but I’m afraid that you might be in danger too.”
“What?” I scoffed, “Why would you think that?”
Cheyenne squeezed my hand. “Simon,” she said quietly, “You can’t ignore all of the press, the social media posts, the disappearances.”
“What disappearances?” I asked.
“God, Simon,” Cheyenne replied, “Sometimes you just piss me off. Don’t you pay attention? People are coming up missing left-and-right.”
“What people?” I asked. She was starting the scare me.
“People like you Simon,” Cheyenne was serious now. “People that don’t fit in with this new fucked up society: Immigrants, Muslims, lesbians, trans, you name it.”
I laughed, “C’mon Cheyenne, that sounds like crazy conspiracy theory stuff. Besides, it’s just a phase, it can’t last. The state just wants to keep us safe, that’s all. Besides, what can we do about it if it’s true?”
Cheyenne placed both hands on my cheeks. “We have to do something Simon, we just can’t sit here and ignore it. That man who was arrested in front of the store the other day, that’s not normal, that is not OK.”
“Maybe he was some criminal. He looked Mexican and was shouting in Spanish, maybe he was a drug-dealer.” I replied.
“OMG! Simon!” replied Cheyenne. “Who are you and what have you done with Simon?” She threw up her hands. “You sound like you work for the State. What is wrong with you?”
I laughed, “Cheyenne, I’m just messing with you.” She gave me a stern look. “I agree that was jacked-up, but like I said, what can we do about it? Everything is rigged, the state just lies to us all the time, I figure I just keep my head low and not make waves.”
Cheyenne pursed her lips again, “So you’re saying you’re not going to do anything, you’re just going to ignore what’s going on?”
“I didn’t say that, I just think that what’s the use? We’re all screwed by the state. Why get all worked up?” I shook my head. “I know that being trans is considered taboo these days, but if I start asking questions and making noise, I’ll loose my job. I can’t afford it, I need the money.”
Cheyenne grasped my hand, “Come with me to one of my meetings Simon, meet some people. You might change your mind. Bad things are happening, and we the people need to put a stop to it.”
I shook my head, “Cheyenne, I don’t think so. You know I hate politics, I just can’t get involved.”
Cheyenne shook her head, and put her hands flat on the kitchen table. “I love you like a brother Simon, but there’s a word for you. It’s called ‘apathetic.’”
“Better apathetic than pathetic!” I laughed.
Cheyenne punched me in the arm and rolled her eyes. “Sometimes Simon, you piss me off!”
So we went back to sipping our lattes, and sat in silence for a while. Then I started to think, maybe Cheyenne had a point.
****
“I’ll have a double-shot latte please,” I put my order in with the young barista, Salina, who typically wore rings in her nose and eye-brow piercings, not to mention sporting Japanese-styles tattoo sleeves on her arms. I noticed the same about the other employees. This was supposed to be the hippest coffee bar in the neighborhood, but something had changed.
“Hey Salina,” I asked. “What happened to your nose rings, they were so cool?”
Salina darted her eyes towards the manager, and whispered, “New management policy, no piercings and no tats.” She shook her head. “Crazy huh? If we get caught even flashing a tattoo, we get fired.”
She handed me my latte. “That’s messed up Salina, since when did management care? This is the center of Soho, the coolest coffee bar in the city. All of your customers have piercings and tattoos.”
Salina leaned over the counter and looked into my eyes. It gave me a chill. “Do you see any customers here with piercings and tattoos? Don’t you pay attention Simon? The State has outlawed any public display of tattoos and piercings.”
I laughed. “That’s crazy, no way. What does the State care?” I took a sip of my coffee-goodness.
“Simon,” replied Salina. “Look around, things are changing.” At that moment the manager shot a look at Salina, she waved me away, and asked the next customer for his order.
I walked over to an open table, and sat down in an oak chair. I looked around me. The cafe wasn’t as crowded as it usually was, and the people who were there, were quiet, subdued and kept to themselves. There were a group of older women, gathered around their lattes, casting glances at me, and speaking in hushed voices. The air suddenly started to feel heavy, and I couldn’t breathe, the walls were closing in on me, and I started to feel dizzy. I dropped my latte, the paper cup and the rest of it’s contents crashing to the floor, and pushed out through the glass doors onto the street. My breaths coming quickly, and sweat starting to form on my forehead. I stumbled past the crowds, trying to keep on my feet, forcing myself to take deep breaths. I walked for several blocks, and stopped in front of the Halal Grocery. It was owned by an Iranian family, the store had been there for years and it was very popular with the Soho crowd, and it was usually pretty busy. But not today. The windows were boarded up with plywood, and there were signs informing the public that the property now belonged to the State. I stood there, for what seemed minutes, not able to move. What was happening?
“Simon,” a familiar voice behind me. It was Cheyenne. I turned around, she was wearing a gray hoodie and baggy jeans. She gestured to me, took my arm and we continued to walk down the street.
I turned to my room mate, “Cheyenne, what’s happening? Did you see those signs?”
Cheyenne put her finger to her lips, and whispered, “Not so loud.”
“What do you mean not so loud?” I glanced at her clothes. “And can you tell me why you’re dressed like a rapper?” We continued to pass people on the street, and the traffic still moved at a frenetic pace. But the atmosphere had changed, I couldn’t quite figure it out. As we walked, I saw more store-fronts with signs, boarded up. The Uni Shop, a popular gift shop for those of us who don’t conform to what the State would call gender “norms,” was totally gutted, what was left of it lay in a heap of charred wood and crumbled dry wall. It looked like a bomb had hit it dead-center.
“Keep walking and don’t look,” said Cheyenne. “You’re in danger Simon, and I’m going to get you out of here.”
I whispered, looking straight ahead, my arm still in hers, but I started to grip it harder. “Why am I in danger Cheyenne, how about a little info?”
“Simon, give me your phone.”
“What?”
“Give me your phone,” replied Cheyenne.
I reached into my back jeans pocket, and handed her my cell phone. Then she promptly stopped, dropped it on the concrete, and stomped on it.
“What the hell! Cheyenne! That’s my phone!” I shouted, and people on the street stopped and stared at us.
“Keep walking Simon, your phone data belongs to the State, and they know that your trans.” Cheyenne’s voice shook a bit. We continued to walk. “Simon, the State has declared war on everyone who doesn’t fit in, everyone who doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid.” She stopped, and I could see tears forming in her eyes. “You’re in danger, and I know a group that can help.”
I look at Cheyenne, my mouth felt dry. “You’re scaring me girl, are you serious? This can’t be.”
“It is, Simon, and it’s real. I’m sorry, but if we had all just paid attention to what was happening, if we had all just stopped to listen, maybe we wouldn’t be at this point. Maybe we could have prevented the disappearances.” We continued to walk, past more shops that were boarded up, signs slapped on the plywood. The synagogue was boarded up, the and the Muslim Center just across the street from it boarded up. Cheyenne spoke, “We need to get your things from the apartment, and I’ll take you to Sidney.”
“Who’s Sidney?” I asked. “And what is this group? What about my job? And my phone, it has all of my contacts.” I was getting angry now, this was not happening. We finally reached the apartment, and Cheyenne told me to go around back and she’d pack my things and meet me at the bottom of the fire-escape in the back alley. I agreed, and stood in the fading sunlight next to the dumpster. I felt like a cigarette, but I’d quit several months earlier. What was happening? I have a job, friends, a family (of sorts), I had a phone, and now I’m supposed to leave. This was nuts. I decided I’d tell Cheyenne I wasn’t going anywhere. Things would be just like they always were, I’d go to work, hang out with my friends, go to concerts. If people were disappearing, it must be for a good reason. I refused to believe that the State had anything to do with it. This just couldn’t be happening.
Then I heard a scream. I looked up at the window of our second-floor apartment that looked out over the alley and the dumpster that I was hiding behind. It was Cheyenne, and it looked like someone in black was slamming her against the window. Without thinking, I ran to the back door, struggling with my keys, my heart pounding, and finally got the old door open. I sprinted up the back stairs, two steps at a time. I ran down the hall to our apartment, the door was open, and I ran inside. I stopped in my tracks, there were four uniformed figures in black, wearing helmets and masks, and carrying automatic weapons. One figure was wrestling with Cheyenne, she has a black eye and her lip was bleeding. She shouted at me,“No, Simon, get outta here! They’re here for you! Run!” Struggling again with her captor who had her in a head-lock.
“But Cheyenne,” I blurted, slowly backing up, “I..I just can’t leave you!” My heart was still pounding, and I could feel the adrenaline rush through my body. The goons in black surrounded me, and aimed there weapons right at my head. I stood my ground, thoughts running through my head, should I rush the guy who had Cheyenne? Should I try to grab a gun from one of the goons? Should I run? Then in that instant, which felt like minutes but was really only seconds, I decided that I wasn’t going to run anymore, I wasn’t going to put my head in the sand and ignore what was happening around me. I decided to make a stand.
“Don’t move,” shouted one of the goons, “or you’re dead freak. Just relax, come with us and we’ll let your friend go.”
“Fuck you asshole!” I shouted back and threw myself at the goon on my right. I hit him pretty hard and we both crashed against the wall, knocking down an old photo of myself as a child, dressed in a pink dress for Easter. I knocked the automatic weapon from his hands and grabbed it. I really didn’t know what I was doing at that moment, I had no idea how to fire it, but I pointed it anyway at the goon who had Cheyenne.
“Let her go!” I shouted, “Or I’ll kill you and everyone of your goon-friends!” I tried to hold the weapon as steady as I could, but I was shaking like crazy inside. The goons all stood still, and looked at one another. Cheyenne was still struggling with the guy who held her, he wasn’t letting go, but she was trying her best to break free. I held the gun steady, my finger on the trigger, and then everything went black.
***
So here I sit on a stinking concrete floor in the darkness. My hands and feet, actually my entire body, cold and stiff. I kept staring at the fingers of light reaching under my cellar door, reaching out to me, my only connection to life, my only hope. How long have I been here? I wonder. It’s hard to scratch lines into the concrete walls like they did in the movies when it’s pitch-black, when you can’t even see your hands in front of your face. The dark, the moans and screams of the other inmates, and the cold, the cold, I’m afraid I’m going mad, insane. Tears start to form again. What happened to Cheyenne? My wonderful Cheyenne, my best friend and confidant, my only family. Was she here too? Al I could do was think why?
I must have dozed off, lying in the fetal position on the floor, when I heard gun-shots. I sat up immediately, and strained to listen. I heard the staccato echo of bullets and automatic weapons being fired, then shouts, and the shouts and screams of the other inmates. The sounds were getting closer, guns shots, and what sounded like explosions, people calling and shouting, the inmates banging on the inside of their cells. The sounds got so loud that I thought the whole place was being blown up. I leaned up against my cell door, my ear up against it. I heard more gunshots, and what sounded like a body slamming against the other side of my door. I stepped back, heard a loud mechanical beep, and then my door flung wide open. The light was blinding, and I covered my eyes and shuffled towards the back of my cell. I tried to look, blinking, but it had been so long since I had seen daylight, that I just couldn’t open my eyes, it was too painful, like daggers being shoved into my eye-balls.
“It’s OK,” I heard a feminine voice say, it sounded somehow maternal. “Give me your hand and come with me.” I still covered my eyes, and backed away.
“Who are you?” I croaked, my throat dry with the smoke and dust that flowed into my cell. “How do I know you’re not here to kill me.” Then I thought, well, if I had a choice between being locked in my dark cell forever, living in my own piss, and a quick death by gun shot, I’d take the second choice.
“Simon,” the voice paused, “My name is Sydney, I’m a friend” I felt her place her hand on my forearm. “We’re freeing everyone in this hell-hole and getting you all out. But we have to move now, you need to come with me.” I recognized the name, before I disappeared, Cheyenne had said that someone named Sydney was going to help me. I finally agreed and let Sydney lead me like a blind person out of my cell, and down a hall filled with smoke, people running and shouting, it was pandemonium. “We don’t have much time,” said Sydney, “before the State sends reinforcements. We need to hurry.” I coughed, and nodded my head, still shielding my eyes from the overhead lights. We started to run, I felt others bump against me, and as my eyes gradually adjusted to the light, I was able to make out shadows and figures all running in the same direction, many inmates, blinded like me, struggling to fine their way out. As Sydney rushed me past the wreckage of blown doors, and chain-link fencing, we emerged past a door-way and into the sunlight. We rushed through what looked like a compound, littered with concrete rubble, twisted steel and the bodies of goons in black, smoke billowed from all around, and I could still hear gunshots and explosions. “We’re going to get you on a chopper,” shouted Sidney above the cacophony. “You’ll be joining the others. The pilot will take you to a safe place where the State can never find you.” I nodded, we started to run and soon were at the chopper, which looked like a big green school bus.
“Sydney,” I shouted above the din of the chopper engines, “My friend Cheyenne, do you know my friend Cheyenne? Is she alright?”
Sydney gave me a hug, “She also disappeared, but we will find her.” With that Sydney helped me up into the chopper, and I joined about 20 other inmates, all huddled together. We all must have been a tragic sight to our rescuers, skinny, dirty, stinky and raggedy. I sat down next to a young black woman, she was shivering, and her face smeared with tears and dirt. I tried to smile, I put my arm around her, trying to console her and let her know that we had been rescued, that we were going to be safe. And as the chopper took off, it’s engines loud, the sound of the blades roaring, I couldn’t help but think of Cheyenne. I hoped Sydney was right, I hope that we can find her, I didn’t want her to become another of the disappeared, another one lost. But then I looked around me, at my fellow prisoners and outcasts, and realized we were all the disappeared. And at that moment, I realized that I could no longer avoid the tide that had come, I came to an epiphany that things would never be the same, they had changed forever and that I had to pay Cheyenne back in some way. I wasn’t going to turn the other way, I was in it, and I was going to fight for the disappeared.
