The Other Side Part II

City of the Damned

“City of the dead

At the end of another list highway

Signs misleading to nowhere

City of the damned

Lost children with dirty faces today

No one really seems to care.”

I sing along with Green Day as I pull off the main road, with the crunching of the gravel under the tires providing some background music. Bruce and I had been driving for hours, and now, we need to get some gas for the car. Plus, the car has been making a concerning ticking sound for the past hour or so, so I want to have that checked out. This car has been a tank for me; it’s a 2015 forest green Suburban. I learned how to drive on it and it’s been my car ever since. Various dents, scratches and scrapes decorate its body, telling the tale of its life. I’m hopeful that this car can get Bruce and I to California; it has done so much for me and I need it now more than ever. I pump some gasoline into its engine, refilling it with new blood for the next leg of the journey. I walk back to Bruce’s side of the car. I see him looking at a printed picture of him, his wife Faith, and their son Dexter. Bruce, like me, has always been more of a traditionalist. In many ways, we’ve tried to resist the technological takeover of the world. Bruce likes printed out pictures. I prefer paper magazines and books. It’s just another way that we can hold on to the way things used to be.

I struggle to find the right words to say. I don’t want to say any cliches but I want to make him feel better. I can see that he immensely misses Faith and Dexter.

“That’s a nice picture,” I say, with a smile.

“Thanks. It’s my favorite one,” Bruce replies.

Bruce has never sugarcoated it with me, so I do the same for him.

“Bruce, I know this is hard. It’s a lot harder for you than it is for me,” I say.

“It is what it is. We just have to keep fighting the good fight,” Bruce says.

“We’re doing the right thing. This is what is best for all of us. For you, for me, for Rose and for Dexter. We’re leaving this ‘world’ behind for another one. For a better one,” I say.

“I know. I just worry about them, making this trip alone. It’s not safe. What if something happens? Will of this be for nothing, then?” Bruce says.

“We can’t think like that. You have to trust Faith, you have to trust that it’ll all work out. I’m no Candide; obviously, this is far from the best of all possible worlds. But we have to keep going, doing the best we can,” I say.

“We can only control what we do. As crappy as that sounds, it’s true. Everything that happens to Faith and Dexter until we meet them in California is out of our control,” I tell him.

“Thank you. I realize that. It’s just hard to accept that. I’m supposed to be there for them and protect them. Right now, I can’t do that,” Bruce replies.

“What we’re doing, leaving everything behind, is the best way that you can protect them. It’s not safe for them here. You’re giving them a better world. Plus, for what it’s worth, they’ll probably be a lot safer than us. What’s more suspicious travelling as a pair: a mom and her son or two unrelated men that belong to two of the professions that Maxwell hates the most. I’m a journalist and you’re a schoolteacher,” I say.

“Maxwell doesn’t hate schoolteachers. He just hates the kind that I am; the kind that won’t feed his propaganda to kids, the kind that wants to make these kids better people rather just mold them into more cogs for Maxwell’s machine. But, yeah...he hates you,” Bruce says with a warm smile.

“I’m a journalist that wants to tell the truth in Maxwell’s America. That’s the equivalent of walking around with a ‘please kill me’ sign taped to your back. I’ve seen journalists across the country ‘disappear.’ [We all know what that means.] I’ve worked with people who are there one day and gone the next, never to be seen again. I guess you could say that their jobs have been...terminated,” I say and I struggle to keep a straight face.

The mock disappointment on Bruce’s face makes us both laugh despite the circumstances.

“I’m serious. I’ve had friends and coworkers vanish. I’ve been doing some research and you can see stories like that all across the country. (If you look hard enough, and if you dig past the ‘alternative facts.’) It’s time that someone told the world the real truth and exposed Maxwell for what he is. I can’t do it alone but I know that there will be other journalists like me in California.

Maybe that’s my biggest motivation in going there. My life hasn’t truly meant anything so far. I’m just one of the millions of people stuck living here. I can finally make something of myself. I’m not here to save the world. I’m just here to do what I can to make it a better place.

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