True Allegiance

It stirred something in her. The same feeling that had once forced her to get up at 3:00 a.m. on her ranch. The same feeling that had forced her to build from the dust up, and had forced her to hire criminals to bomb a government installation. A feeling of helplessness in the face of something larger. All she could do, she finally figured, was to chip away at that feeling, bit by bit.

“Maybe I’m a damn idiot, too. But I’ll talk to them all. We’ll head out at nightfall.”

Detroit, Michigan

They arrived in the evening, a chain of cars and motorcycles taking refuge in the abandoned Michigan Central Station, the old rail depot for the city. Aiden guided them through the dark—the electric lights in this part of the city went out long ago, and the city didn’t normally send workers to fix them, fearing crime—and the caravan pulled into the empty grass field in front of the building. It stood above them, glorious and decayed, an image from a science fiction film, backlit against the waning twilight. Soledad shook her head. So much promise. All of it wasted.

They made shelter in the building itself, a Beaux-Arts masterpiece tagged and chipped by years of vagrants and hoodlums. A few elderly homeless drunks still lay around the place; Aiden left them where they were. Together, the group of thirty climbed up the stairs to the tower, an unused set of floors crumbling from disuse. At least, Soledad thought, nobody would bother them here.

Aiden whispered information about the building as they climbed, his voice resonating in the ill-lit halls. For years, the city had tried to rehabilitate the building; it had been bought, rebought, bought again. They’d considered bonds, taxpayer subsidies, anything to get the building restored. Nobody had bothered. Detroit was a disaster area; investing money in the city would be a massive waste.

Aiden had grown up in Detroit, he said. He knew the city well. His grandfather worked for General Motors, had a union job that was supposed to keep him employed all his life. Then foreign cars began flooding the American market, and the auto union contracts meant that American car companies couldn’t compete. Jobs started fleeing. As they did, the government of the city decided to raise taxes dramatically on the people who still held jobs, on the companies that still decided to stay in town. They left, too. Mayor after mayor took office promising to bring business back, then pandered by crushing businesses that remained. The tax base disappeared.

The place became a wasteland. White families moved out into the suburbs. Black families couldn’t afford to follow. The city self-segregated.

Aiden thought he was the only white kid left in the city. Then he met Ricky O’Sullivan. The two became fast friends, joined at the hip. Their parents went to church together; they fought back bullies together. Ricky was the straight arrow, Aiden the budding juvenile delinquent eager and ready to do anything to make friends. They grew distant as Aiden hooked up with new friends, missed school.

One day, Aiden’s mother saw Ricky in church, asked him if he’d seen Aiden. Ricky lied to cover for him; Aiden, he said, was probably at the library. Then, hands gripped into fists, still wearing his Sunday suit, he went looking for Aiden. He found him in a rundown tract house, surrounded by a couple of dropouts, high on weed and drunk off his ass.

“Aiden,” Ricky said, “your mom’s looking for you. She missed you at church.”

One of the losers laughed. “Yeah, mama’s boy, your mama’s looking for you.”

“Shut up,” Aiden slurred to him. “Yeah? Well, tell her I’m out here.”

“I’m not going to do that. I said I’d come and get you.”

Aiden laughed, a high-pitched whine that eventually tapered off into a snort. “Well, you tried, Boy Scout. Now get back home to your mama.”

Ricky grabbed him by the scruff of his T-shirt. “Get your ass home, Aiden.”

“Or what?” Aiden sneered.

“Or this.” Ricky punched him in the face. Aiden went down like a load of bricks, laying on his back in the dirt. “You’re a loser, Aiden, and if you’re not careful, you’ll end up like these ones.” Aiden started to push himself to his feet, his lower lip bleeding onto his chin. Ricky hit him again, clipping him right on the point of the chin. Aiden wobbled, fell.

Ricky picked him up, took him home, cleaned him up, and got him home to his mother. That was the last time Aiden got high.

After high school, they went their separate ways. Aiden joined up with federal law enforcement; Ricky went to school, then joined the police academy. They chatted on Facebook from time to time, but their friendship fell into acquaintance, and finally into complete disuse.

Until now.

Aiden went silent. The small fire in the center of the tiled conference room reflected light off the mildewed walls.

Soledad turned to Ezekiel. He stepped forward, warming his hands on the fire. Then he made a circle with his hands.