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Down in the Dirt v048

Autumn Camp

Pat Dixon

    To the best of my knowledge, none of the guards has ever been personally cruel, at least to my wife or to me. Given Jessica’s delicate beauty and easy availability to them, each month I have been thankful to be told that none of them has yet raped her--if indeed she is telling me the truth, which I am certain she does to the best of her ability. I admit that sometimes she gets quite confused now and cannot remember details of her life, or what has occurred just moments earlier, or even how to perform certain simple tasks like buttoning up her sweater.
    For most of today the air has been crisp and dry. Frost was on the yellowish stubble this morning, and some of the men slipped, falling to their knees, while making the trek up the long shaded approach to Wives’ Camp. During our trek today, two of the men said they think that we are about forty miles from Denver, and I chuckled and asked them, “What is your evidence?” They looked as if I had slapped them, and one began to weep. I think they do not even know what evidence is.
    Judging from the position of the sun, it was about 9:30 or 10:00 a.m., local time, when I finally found Jessica. This time, it took me almost two hours. Today there seemed to be twice as many women here as men, and yet at noon some of the men were still wandering around, seeking their wives without success. I asked Jessica about the changes, and she smiled and shook her head without answering me.
    An older woman, rather heavy-set, overheard my question and said angrily that the wagons which had brought her and about a hundred others last night had been partly refilled with outward-bound women who had been in a corral near the gate. I told her to speak more softly, because my wife got upset when people shouted. One of the horse guards looked at the new woman, pointed with his index finger, and shook his head. Jessica tightened her grip on my arm so that it almost hurt, and I patted her hair and held her against my shoulder for a short time.
    For perhaps half an hour, the older woman wandered aimlessly, looking at dozens of other couples who were talking alone, like Jessica and me, and at the numerous small groups of unattached women. I saw that she had troubled my wife and tried to soothe Jessica by filling her in on what I had done and heard during the past thirty days. I wish we were allowed writing materials at the Visitors’ Camp where I have been staying so that I could keep a diary of some sort or even make a list of things to remember. I told her about the guess that this camp is near Denver but omitted mentioning how I had made one of the men cry, for that would have troubled her, and I now felt ashamed of myself for doing that.
    I noticed that the older woman was slowly circling us, getting gradually a little closer each time. I put my arm around Jessica and began walking towards the Testing Tent, which was perhaps a quarter of a mile away. The woman, keeping roughly twenty feet between herself and us, walked slowly in the same direction, making a big show of rubbing her neck as if it were stiff or aching.
    “Sir,” she said, “just a word or two--please.” Her voice was low, and her face was averted from us, but no one else was half as near as we were.
    Without looking towards her, I said, “What is it?” Exasperation was in my tone.
    “You and the other men walked here today. How far did you come? Where from?”
    “’Bout seven miles,” I replied, “We trekked about five miles north and then turned east. Our camp is perhaps a thousand feet lower than yours is.”
    “Ah! And about two hundred thirty of you came in today--.”
    “Two fifteen,” I corrected. “Last month there were three hundred and twelve of us, and two months ago it was--oh, about fifty more. Some leave the camp during the month, and some new men appear, but the numbers seem to be dropping--although one cannot generalize well about any pattern from such a small sample as eighteen months. That’s how long I’ve been at the Visitors’ Camp.”
    I coughed and hugged Jessica against my side as one of the horse guards rode past us. The older woman bent over and picked several short yellow stalks of grass and put one of them into her mouth to chew on.
    When the guard was about seventy feet away, she spoke again: “How long has your wife been here? About the same?”
    I laughed at her ignorance.
    “Where have you been, lady?” I said. “It took me almost two years to locate the camp that first held my wife and another six months to find out where she’d been transferred. Then it took me almost a year to get placed into the Visitors’ Camp that’s nearest this one. These matters are very complex, you know.”
    Her face stared at mine. Again I felt as if I had slapped a person without intending to do so. She stopped walking and sat down on the now dry stubble. A short distance from us was the Testing Tent, with tall reddish stone cliffs rising behind it, bright and almost shadowless in the sun. The sky above and to the north was cloudless, although I could see a low, gray thunderstorm on the horizon to the south. At short intervals, tiny threads of lightning struck the ground or lit up small portions of the dark storm. It was too far away to hear any of the thunder today. I noticed a sudden picking up of the constant breeze and wondered whether we would also have a storm shortly. Almost every day a brief storm passes over us--some days there are two or three--some days, even four. I clutched Jessica’s hand and tried to speed her up a little. I didn’t want her to be rained on if it could be prevented.
    Outside the Testing Tent, people had formed a short line. Soon I noticed that several scores of people were behind us, perhaps similarly minded to find shelter. Or perhaps they merely wanted to get this month’s testing over with.
    We waited in line outside the until almost noon, and at last the line began to enter the tent. A young man just ahead of me suddenly shouted, “Hey!” and pointed up at the large streamer above us, running most of the length of the tent’s interior, and said, “My wife’s a Jew, and I’m an atheist. What the hell’s that about?”
    I glanced up at the now familiar streamer--“JESUS IN THE ONLY KING YOU NEED!”
    As I expected, there was a loud cracking sound, followed by an anguished scream. The young man held his cheek and mouth, trying to ease his pain. The guard to the right of the doorway, as I could see with my peripheral vision, was calmly coiling up his dark brown bullwhip, which I estimated to be eighteen or nineteen feet long. He pointed its thick handle towards the young man and his wife and said in a loud but unemotional voice, “Both of you--fall out and stand together with that group near the barrels there.”
    A few people looked towards the barrels, but I gave my wife’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and urged her forward without even a quick glance at them.
    The Testing Tent is huge--about twenty yards wide and over a hundred yards long. Seven rows of tables run the length of it, although only two rows of them were in use today. The Testers’ uniforms are white, of course, and they wear white hardhats with “U.S.T.S.” printed on them in large dark red letters. This month the test involved doing something with waxed paper, I observed.
    With the number I had been handed--516--I led my Jessica towards the far end of the tent, almost to the very end. At Test Table 516, I helped her be seated in a folding wooden chair. Lying flat on the table in front of Jessica was a single page of instructions, printed all in dark, bold capital letters. She stared at them without moving--without even seeming to realize she needed to absorb them and perform the task they directed.
    The Tester behind our table pressed a stopwatch as soon as Jessica had been seated. I began to feel anxious again. In the early months it had seemed to me that my wife had been able to perform all of the testing tasks perfectly and with reasonable speed. In recent months, she had slowed down considerably and often seemed as if she failed to understand what was being asked of her.
    Five months ago I had tried to prompt my wife with some hints, but the Tester had stuck me repeatedly with her cattle prod, and then I was not permitted to visit my wife for the next two months. Even a man as old as myself is not likely to forget the price of attempting to coach another.
    To me, this month’s task seemed a simple one, but I did not know what was going through my wife’s mind as she looked at the instructions today. It may be that she has some deficit in her comprehension--or it may be she is engaged in a silent protest--or a silent surrender.
    Today there were three wheat crackers set out on the table before her. The largest was square, approximately one and a half inches per side. The smallest was also square, about one inch by one inch in size. A triangular cracker with equal sides, each about an inch and a quarter long, completed the group. A sheet of standard waxed paper, approximately a foot long, was to the right of the crackers, and a small pair of blunt tipped scissors, such as children used to be given in elementary school, was to the left.
    The instructions told her to do three things:
    1. CUT THREE SQUARES OF PROPER SIZES FROM THE LARGE SHEET OF WAXED PAPER.
    2. WRAP EACH CRACKER PROPERLY IN ONE PIECE OF WAXED PAPER.
    3. STACK THESE CRACKERS PROPERLY ON THE TABLE BEFORE YOU.
    For months I have been certain that these tests will prove that my beloved wife is indeed a U.S. citizen. Today, for the first time, I could feel tears beginning to well up in my eyes as I watched her sit there motionless, minute after minute. Out of the corners of my eyes I could see some wives similarly sitting motionless, while others were busy cutting or folding or stacking. My fingernails dug deeply into my palms, and I bit both of my lips to keep them shut.
    Finally, after almost ten minutes, Jessica picked up the sheet of waxed paper and carefully folded it in half. Next she made a hole through both halves of the waxed paper by forcing one of the blunt ends of the scissors through. Then she began to cut a round hole approximately an inch in diameter in both halves. I glanced up at the Tester and thought I saw a flicker of a smile on her face. Jessica is doing this all wrong, I thought, beginning to panic. I opened my mouth, aching to shout a warning word to her, but I found I dared not risk it.
    Slowly and deliberately, Jessica began making longer cuts in the waxed paper, beginning at the center of the folded edge and running diagonally towards one pair of overlapping open edges. Before quite reaching the sides, she sharply reversed direction and headed back towards the folded edge, but again she changed direction before reaching that edge. With a series of short straight cuts, she made a kind of loop around the holes she had made, as if each were an eye encircled by a narrow solid strip. Finally, on an angle, she cut back and through the folded edge, thus separating the waxed paper into two main pieces:

*

    I could see what shape Jessica had made even before she opened the smaller piece and flattened it on the table top. I raised my hand to pat her shoulder but suddenly saw the disapproving eyes of the Tester were on me. I put my hands behind my back.
    The Tester took the small blunted scissors off the table and put them into a large wooden box. Then, on the sheet of scoring paper which had the same number on it as that which was now tattooed across my wife’s forearm, she made a neat check mark in the square marked “FAILURE.” Finally, in one of those few instances of pleasure I have seen a Tester experience, she hit the large scissor-shaped cutout with her fist and said in a soft, firm voice, “Rock breaks scissors.” Then she tore the sharp points off the ends of Jessica’s cutout, crumpled it in her hand, and dropped it back onto the table top.
    Mutely, my Jessica reached towards it, perhaps wishing to take it with her, but I took her other hand and guided her out the far end of the Testing Tent. It was just beginning to pour, and I was thankful that my tears would be unseen by her and the horse guards--and any of the other “campers,” as they call us.
    I hope that I shall be able to find Jessica again next month, which I think will be November.



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