They Haven't Taken My Phone Yet

 

They wore dark pine green overall uniforms with a sort of pale blue plastic device fused onto the lapels. It seemed to make some reference to global something or other. One of them was built like Zorro’s Sgt. Garcia and the other one looked like Lewis' Marshwiggle, but the same spirit seemed to animate them both. Pure bullocky hatred and a sort of snively officiousness. 

Yes, I fought them. They made no allowance for gender either. I fought them as dirty as I could, like a woman fights for her life. But it’s hard to tear out eyeballs and kick crotches when some ape has your elbows pinned behind you. I’m a big girl, but not that big.

When they finally subdued me, I was missing a couple teeth, some hair, had a broken left hand, various scratches and bruises and my right eye would be turning black soon. Would Jessie recognize me? I was not sure. He had never seen me after a fight for my freedom, and neither had I.

I had been driving home from shopping when the pulsing blue light atop an official looking vehicle alerted me. I wasn’t sure who they were, but I pulled over anyhow. I couldn’t have run from them in any case. I was driving an old Honda, and you know, they’ll find you somehow anyhow.

I had not been speeding. I broke no traffic laws. I got into no road rage altercations with anyone. I ran over no dogs or cats. My car was not smoking, and all my lights and signals worked correctly.

This happened just before twilight on a two-lane highway ten miles out of our neighborhood. There were no streetlights nor any houses or people nearby to hear me screaming as I fought them. There were only the two rows of darkening fir trees mixed with some alders and undergrowth. There was no witness to this arrest.

I was cuffed and a sort of belt put around my ankles and then they tossed me into the backseat of their suv type vehicle. Neither Garcia nor Wiggles spoke to me. I was pleased to see some bloody scratches here and there on their faces and hands. Neither one of them was good looking at all, but I had not improved either of them. I know I sound somewhat jocular, but I was more frightened than I had ever been before, because I didn’t know who they were or why they had grabbed me like they did. I was the kind of frightened that feels cold and remote. My insides were upset too. I was also very worried about what Jessie would think about me not coming home. He was a sort of decisive man, and I really had no idea what he would do about it.

We had no children. So, I didn’t have that worry.

OK, the truth of the matter is that like so many, I was a talker. I talked online. I talked about everything. No subject was off the list. I told the truth as I saw it. I talked in person. I interviewed anybody who would put up with me. I left little handwritten signs on benches and in bus stops and on the outside of stores. Like that. I buttonholed people in the coffee shop and asked them what they thought. I was known to preach some. I appealed to God Almighty in my dissertations and pleadings. Maybe that had something to do with it?

Maybe I was a dangerous character. Me. One 37-year-old white American female. In a sad way it was encouraging. But also, very scary.

They drove into town, and through town, heading further south. They headed to a section of rather anonymous looking industrial buildings. This did not look like regular cop infrastructure. I imagined a photo of the scene. My solemn, bruised white face peering out of the backseat window of the car as night came down and we came to a stop by one of the buildings.

Did I mention that I still had my phone in my jacket pocket? Well, I did have it. I fingered it with my unbroken right hand. It was still there and had not fallen out in the scuffle and they had not searched me and taken it either. I wondered if that was an oversight, just incompetence or if it had been for some reason. This phone was nothing special. I just bought it at the Apple store like anyone else.

Oh! My name is Beth Norris. Now you know.

There was a garage door in one of the gray buildings. Garcia, who was driving, pulled a remote out of the console and pointed it at the door which began to roll up. He squinted at me in a nasty sort of way in the rear-view mirror and grunted. Wiggles giggled a hollow dry inhuman sound, and into the building we rolled. It was dark in there, but there was a lit doorway at the far end of the room.

Wiggles opened my door and pulled my feet to where he could get at them and removed the belt. I didn’t think it was a good time to start kicking so I didn’t.

“Get out Beth,” he said. Now there was a data point. They knew who I was.

“Walk to the door.” I did. My arms were still behind me in the cuffs, so I wasn’t very dangerous right then.

We entered an industrial looking hall. There was a huge old metal desk there with a woman sitting behind it fooling with her phone who looked like that Flo chick who sells Progressive insurance on tv.

She looked at Garcia and said, “put her in 6.” She barely looked up long enough to register that I was there at all. I was not interesting to her! Garcia removed my cuffs. I was of course, sore and stiff. But I didn’t take a swing at him.

No. 6 was a plain gray room with a bench in it. The floor was concrete. There was a window in the door which faced an outside door which also had a window in it. I could see that it was well and truly dark outside.

My mind went to Jessie and what he must be doing. Pacing the front room, I thought, and wondering what to do. We only had the one car. He couldn’t go looking for me.

It bothered me that I still had my phone. I couldn’t figure that out. The first thing law enforcement does at an incarceration is impound your pocket litter and your phone. I sat on the bench in the fluorescent light and thought about it. Maybe it was a trap of some sort. Maybe they thought I was dumb enough to start calling people. Maybe they thought I would lead them to all my friends and family?

It was cold in this room. I was trying to understand who these people were and what they wanted with me. Also, I hurt all over. My mouth was really sore where the teeth had been broken off. I was starting to feel all the bruises and learned about some new ones that I had not noticed before.

I was thirsty and hungry and needed to pee. I was very angry.

I took my phone out of the pocket of my jacket and laid it on the bench down at the end and just looked at it. It looked inert and harmless. Its screen was as dark as a sort of rectangular pool of black water.

As I looked, I saw something happening on the side of the phone where your thumb would normally go. A sharp little protrusion about half an inch long came out of a tiny hole that I had never paid any attention to before. As I watched, a tiny drop of liquid swelled at the point of the tiny needle. I am not kidding. The world changed right there before my eyes.

I realized a number of things all at once. First, these devices were not only what I had thought they were. Second, they expected that I would be frantically calling someone and thirdly, that needle was meant for my thumb or whatever part of my body it came into contact with. I realized that I was now officially dead.

It is funny how well your mind can pull together some facts when you are really in a bad situation. Well. I was brought here to disappear. That was obvious.

I tucked my broken left hand loosely in my jacket pocket for support. I stood up feeling all the bruises and walked to the door and looked out the window. I saw no one. I tried the doorknob.

They were so sure of my demise that they didn’t even lock the door. Silently, I opened the door and stood listening. Nothing. Not a sound.

I stepped across the six feet of polished concrete floor to the outside door and tried the handle on that door. Now I believe in miracles, and I know when the Almighty goes before me. That door was also unsecured.

I stepped out into a mild dry fall evening, shut the door behind myself, and walked away.

Dead and free.