Saint of Whales - Chapter XI

The atmosphere of Mz. X and Fleetwood’s Calgary felt similar to the one Saint remembered. As they rolled through the neighbourhood of Westbrook, it was hard not to feel eyeballs following them along the road, staring at the sacks and bundles and packages loaded in the back of the wagon. Tension and anxiety hung over everything and everyone, even in between the pockets of space between neighbourhoods. They rolled past boarded up and burnt out stores, empty restaurants and jammed saloons, and packs of people drinking at the side of the road with nowhere better to be. The stink of open-air markets and cook sites carried on a strong breeze along with the sound of vendors hawking their goods, each one trying to bark louder than the other. Filth lined the sides of the road, while men and women alike hooted and hollered at Mz. X, Fleetwood, and Saint, offering comfort and relief from a long ride for whatever they might have in their wallets. 

In a lot of ways, Saint still recognized the city. Maybe there weren’t the sixty-floor buildings or towers or apartments or highway flyover—instead, eight smoking towers stood tall in the centre of the city and rose high above every other building—but he recognized the mood and the attitude. Where his city still wore the facade of wellness, the economic downturn and recession had it on the brink, teetering just one bad break from falling to the hardest of times. What struck Saint the most about the Calgary he was coming to accept in which he found himself was the overt poverty with which he was confronted. His Calgary did its best to hide it, to paper it over, tried to haul any undesirables away from visibility. In this Calgary, however, feces and filth lined the sides of the road while children with swollen, hungry bellies chased after the wagon, begging for scraps.

“This ain’t like where you’re from, huh?” Fleetwood asked Saint, as they passed the limits of Westbrook and onto Bow Trail that would connect them in to Beltline. The neighbourhoods would connect eventually, just like Saint had seen all of them do in his city, but that wasn’t the case just yet here. 

“I… I’m from Calgary,” Saint answered. Seeing the city, being in the city, resonated weirdly with him, like he were looking through a funhouse mirror. There had to be a time to tell Mz. X about his moccasins, about how he ended up where he ended up. Whether or not he could trust the gunslinger or the wagon driver, he had no idea. He didn’t know whether or not he could trust his own eyes. He’d hoped sleeping would have brought him back to the dull, uncomfortable life he’d known. In some ways, he would have given anything to go back to dealing with Karlo Bunjac, with running at a gym he didn’t like and eating at overpriced restaurants for which he couldn’t care less. His head hurt so badly trying to reconcile what he saw in front of him and what he’d seen only a week before. He had to have hit his head. He had to be in the ICU with severe brain trauma, with nurses and doctors wondering what was going on with his brain patterns. When he woke—if he woke—he would be the subject of intense study and scrutiny, and he’d be someone, someone more than just boring old Saint Kinfail who pushed paper at an insurance company, ran because he didn’t like any other exercise, and who drank too much alcohol and smoked too much pot because he didn’t know what else to do. He was single, no prospects for a partner, no kids, and, likely, no prospect of ever having kids. Maybe in another Calgary things would be better for him. Maybe he was somewhere he could start over, could be someone, could find his voice and live proudly and loudly. 

“You ain’t from Cal-gary,” Fleetwood said, cracking the reins. “The way you’s looking at all these poorfolk and the city and the smoke stacks over yonder, there ain’t no way you from Cal-gary. Anyone I know who grew up with this don’t look like they’s eyeballs liable to jump out their head.”

“I mean, I’m from Calgary, just not…” Saint paused and frowned, trying to get his head around it. “I’m just not from this Calgary.” 

Mz. X, while away from both men, waved a hand in the air to them. “He says he’s from 2016. Says he’s from the future.” 

The comments brought a laugh out of the wagon driver. “You hit your head, Saint? You rattle your brains so good you’re talking nonsense now?” 

“Well, yeah, I did hit m—”

“How much longer until we’re in Beltline?” Mz. X interrupted, talking right over Saint, who withdrew  and shrunk down to lay on the sacks again. 

“Oh I don’t know. Not very long. It ain’t but a short distance between the two parts of town,” Fleetwood answered. On the trip in from Bragg Creek, he’d gotten over a bit of the hero worship he felt when he first learned the identities of the people riding with him and his shell of the folksy, down-home wagon driver had reappeared. “Where again were you looking to go?” 

“I got a friend who owned a pub in Beltline. Been a long time since I been there though. It used to be called Wreck Town,” Mz. X said. 

Saint sat up straight in the back and held onto the side of the wagon. “Wreck Town? Do you mean Broken City? I’ve been there. We have that same place in my Calgary.”

The gunslinger turned around and eyeballed Saint. “Let’s keep that to yourself for right now, huh? You gotta be careful about who’s listening in this Calgary. Maybe it’s different wherever you’re dreaming you’re from, but here? Here you watch your mouth in case the imperials hear you and decide to come take you away in the night.” 

“I’m telling you I’m fr—”

This time it was Fleetwood who turned slightly to speak. “What my boss here is telling you is you need to cool it on that talk right now. Maybe when we get somewhere quiet we can ta—”

“Hey hey hey, pull this wagon over right now,” Mz. X ordered and Fleetwood immediately started easing over to the side of the road and coming to a stop. “I’m not your boss. We’re going somewhere,” they said, pointing at themself and Saint. “You’re not coming with us. You’ve got to head to Brooks, remember? You got the missus and nine other mouths to feed.” 

“Right right, what… what uh, what I meant was when you get somewhere quiet then you can talk about it,” Fleetwood said, trying to backpedal and smile his way through it. 

“Do you know how to get 5th Street southwest? It was at—”

“10th Avenue!” Saint shouted. 

Mz. X turned around and jabbed a finger into Saint’s right cheek. “Shut your fucking mouth before you get eyes on us,” they barked. “The more you talk, the more you sound like you ain’t from here and that’s no good for any of us. Keep your mouth shut and play dumb. Do not say a goddamn word until I tell you.” They turned back to Fleetwood. “I think it was 5th and 10th  southwest. Can you get us there from here?” 

The wagon driver nodded. “Yeah, it ain’t hard to get to. Basically just a straight line from here. But we gotta cross over from 14th Street and there’s been a checkpoint there for a while now. I got my paperwork which’ll get me through. I’m sure you got some paperwork, but our friend back there—” he jabbed his thumb towards Saint, “—I doubt he’s got any paperwork of his own.” 

A long, slow sigh slipped out of Mz. X. The wagon driver was painfully correct. Mz. X had a few pieces of identification they could use to try and slip through, but they were long shots at best. Most of the documents they’d bought were out-of-date and wouldn’t hold up to much, if any amount of even halfway serious scrutiny, and that might prove worse than not having any documentation at all. The last thing they needed was the imperials sitting them down while they dug through their databases for anything outstanding that matched their description. Lack of documentation was suspicious, but phoney documentation was even more suspicious. 

“How much money you got?” The gunslinger asked. 

“Uhhh... huh?”

“Uhhh huh-huh-how much money do you got on you?” Mz. X fired back. They had little patience in general, and being so close to their contact in the city, they had even less patience than usual. Once they got to the pub and to the safe house in the basement, they would have a chance to sit and catch their breath, what they’d hoped to do with Old Man Oh. Of course, it was always possible their contact in the city had turned coat, too, and if that was the case then there wouldn’t be any running the way there had been out in Bragg Creek. Getting caught in Calgary was just about the worst place to get caught.

“I asked y—”

“Maybe you should back off for a second,” Saint growl from the back, drawing Mz. X’s harsh stare in return. He took a deep breath as the gaze settled on him, trying to ready himself for a lambasting.

Instead, the gunslinger only stared, lips pursed and lower jaw sliding side to side in thought. Hearing Saint bark up from the back of the wagon was an attention-getter and served to bring focus to the moment. In a way, he was right in that maybe it was best to back off for a moment. Mz. X generally lived alone, worked alone, and travelled alone. Having to account for two others and trying to keep everyone in one piece wasn’t something they’d done in a good many years. The gunslinger turned away from Saint and spit over the side of the wagon before turning back to face the two men.

“You’re right. When you’re right, you’re right,” they said, nodding to Saint. “Getting across the checkpoint ain’t gonna be no cakewalk. If they got any of them scanners like Old Man Oh had, them ones that scan your face and all that, then we might be in a spot of trouble.”

“What if they got JENEEs?” Fleetwood asked, the colour in his face dropping with each word.

The question got a low, long whistle in response, along with a headshake from the gunslinger. “Fleetwood, if they got JENEEs then our shit is fucked.” 

Another grunt of frustration came from the back and Saint gritted his teeth and smacked the sacks of grain. “What the fuck is a JENEE?” He blurted. His guts boiled and bubbled with the stress and strain of the last few days finally started to reach the surface. “Everything is so fucked and I keep hearing about a JENEE, a JENEE, a JENEE. What the fuck is a goddamn JENN—”

This time, it was Mz. X’s turn to quiet someone on the wagon, and one of their hands snapped out over Saint’s mouth, while an index finger jammed into his cheek again, something he was becoming decidedly sick of. 

“You need to keep quiet. If they got JENEEs at the checkpoint, you’ll have a mind of what they are right away. All you need to know is they will fuck. our. shit,” the gunslinger barked while drawing out the last three words. They dropped their hands away from Saint’s face and chewed on the inside of their cheeks for a moment before spitting over the side again. “What we gotta hope for is they just got regular old men sheriffs and police working the checkpoint. If it’s the imperial guards, maybe some of them is still just regular old men, but some of them got cybernetics in ‘em and there ain’t no tellin’ what all that stuff might do,” they said, clearly thinking out loud. “Even the cyborg, sometimes, is still more a human than a robot and that’s what we got to hope for. I got a few hundred dollars to try and run a bribe with, but the more cash we show the more they questions that might have for us.” 

“Is there any way around the checkpoint?” Saint offered.

Fleetwood scrunched his face up and leaned back. “Are you sure you’re from Cal-gary?”

Mz. X waved the comment away. “Don’t worry about it,” they said, before looking at Saint. “We might be able to get around it, but then we gotta follow the wall until there’s a hole in or another checkpoint. It ain’t good business to be found hounding around the wall neither.” 

“The wall?”

“Wherever y’all is from, you ain’t from here. If we get to where we’re going, I promise you’ll get up to speed,” the gunslinger said. “But until then, you need to stop acting like some hayseed bumpkin.” Mz. X leaned in again, all shells and facades dropping away. “Crossing over this checkpoint ain’t no walk in the sun. It don’t go right, all of us is lucky if we just get tossed in the lockup. Me? If they figure out who I am?” They stopped and snorted. “Shoot, they find out who I am and that might even just be all she wrote for me right on the spot. Fleetwood here’ll probably get tossed in a labour camp for a few years or until he drop dead. That’s all dependin’ on who’s decidin’ on which book to throw at him. As for you?” Mz. X paused again, sucking at their teeth. “Shoot, you might be lucky with the labour camp. If they think there’s something different about you, that might be all she wrote in a different way.” 

The weight of the gunslinger’s words didn't seem to settle in immediately for Saint. Prior to arriving in Calgary—this Calgary—he felt like maybe he could compartmentalize it all somehow. Maybe it was all just a head injury. He only saw one person, then two people, and maybe that was still a way of his brain sorting through damaged wiring. As they came up on the city, it began to dawn upon him more and more that maybe what he was seeing wasn’t just the result of trauma to the brain. As the wagon rolled in through what Saint remembered to have been well-off suburbs like Aspen, he instead saw slums and shacks and poverty and squalor with the down-on-their-luck and the destitute eking out existences beneath the backdrop of smokestacks looming over the city in place of what he remembered being office towers and condominiums. Whatever world he might have lived in only a few days ago, it was not where he lived at the moment. 

“My play would be to keep your mouth shut regardless of what gets said,” Mz. X said to Saint before turning back to Fleetwood. “I say we just head straight to the checkpoint and play our cards. Ain’t gonna be no shooting our way out, and there ain’t no running away neither. We tell ‘em exactly what you told us: we’re all on our way out to Brooks to set up shop and get our name known. You got the connect on the goods, I’m some hired muscle, and Saint works your books. He’s dumb and lame, but he’s your brother-in-law so that’s why you got him with you. How’s that all sound?” 

“Sounds fine, except neither of you got paperwork,” Fleetwood answered, his mouth setting in frustration. 

Mz. X gave a wave and reached into their vest and took out a worn pocketbook, looking like a passport to Saint. “I got paperwork, just might not work on its own,” the gunslinger said, setting the pocketbook down. “Toss up my satchel,” they said to Saint without turning around. He frowned at the order, but passed up the satchel just the same, handling it carefully with the guns inside. His stomach jumped when Mz. X grabbed the bag roughly and dropped it between them and Fleetwood. They flipped open the top of the satchel, revealing most notably a revolver and two sawed-off shotguns. The gunslinger took the guns out and set them down, quickly rifling through the bag and taking out a wad of money before putting the guns back in and passing the satchel back. 

The bills were mostly green and blue, and Saint either couldn’t make out or didn’t recognize the faces, though he recognized the numbers. Most of the bills looked like fifties and twenties, though a handful on the outside looked like hundreds. Mz. X flipped past the hundreds and fifties and twenties, even the ten dollar bills, and counted out ten fives before rolling the wad of bills back up and handing them back to Saint who looked at the money with wide eyes. Judging by the amount of money he held and the amount Mz. X counted out, he figured the fifty dollars to be a good sum of cash, which meant the amount in his hands was a great sum. In an effort to keep his mind whole, he shook his head and tucked the money into Mz. X’s satchel.

Looking to both Fleetwood and Saint, Mz. X flipped the pocketbook open and tucked the fifty dollars into the book and closed it up. 

“Here’s the play: Fleetwood, you’re doing the talking. We’re going to go up to the checkpoint and they’re going to ask you what business we got going through the checkpoint. You tell ‘em we’re on our way out to Brooks and you hand them your paperwork. They’ll ask you who we are and you tell ‘em. Before you give ‘em my paperwork—if they even ask for it—you tell ‘em I’m the only muscle you could find who’d work for the money you could pay. If the guard’s open to the take, he’ll ask you how much you can afford to pay and you hand ‘em my paperwork with the money in it.”

The wagon driver nodded at Mz. X’s directions and thumbed at Saint. “What about if they ask for his?” 

Mz. X wrinkled their nose and held the pocketbook out to him. “You tell ‘em he’s crippled and retarded and don’t got paperwork because he’s soft in the head. Real good with numbers, but couldn’t get no paperwork ‘cause he’s only playin’ with half a deck,” they said. The gunslinger clenched their jaw and frowned. “I don’t like talkin’ that way, but that’s how they talk and we need to play their game their way right now. You got it?” 

Fleetwood nodded and took the paperwork and tucked it into his breast pocket. 

“Alright, let’s get movin’ on this then. Ain’t no more time to sit around with our thumbs up our asses,” Mz. X said. 

Two quick, sharp snaps of the reins had the wagon moving again.

The gunslinger turned around and looked at Saint. “You need to trust me and keep your damn mouth shut no matter what. All of three of us get fucked if you make a peep.” Their words landed heavily, and his chest tightened. The thought of real consequence stirred deep anxiety resting far down in his guts. A bead of sweat tickled the palm of his right hand as it ran through the folds of skin. He worked his tongue in his mouth, desperately trying to generate some saliva to combat the dryness spreading along his tongue and across his cheeks and gums. 

Saint jumped as Mz. X touched his left forearm and deepened their stare. “You can do this. Stay as calm as you can and me and Fleetwood’ll get us through.” They gave Saint’s arm one more squeeze and turned back around, the armour and attitude washing back over the gunslinger. 

It wasn’t long before the checkpoint and the wall started to come into view, winding south from the Elbow River, cutting through the landscape of the city like the husk of a snake. From their initial vantage, maybe two kilometres away or so if Saint had to offer a guess, the wall didn’t seem too high, but the distance closed quickly and the reality of the wall began settling in. At fifteen feet high, concrete, topped with razor wire and spotlights, with a guard tower on each side of the gates, the wall cast a sickly pallor across both sides. A pack of dogs and armed guards at the checkpoint about five hundred metres away from the gate didn’t smooth any feelings of impending doom. 

Before Saint had a chance to think about it, it seemed, the wagon rolled to a stop behind another wagon and behind a pair of riders on horseback. Saint stared straight ahead, trying to understand what he was seeing without looking like he was staring. Two men in western-style blue uniforms—both wearing cowboy hats, each clearly wearing body armour and each carrying shotguns with glowing coils running around each barrel—waved the two riders to approach them. One of the guards held a hand out and waved for documentation to be handed over.

The moment struck Saint between the eyes. He recognized the scene and atmosphere. They were at a border crossing. He’d never travelled widely, but had been across the border into the USA a few times. His experience had been to only answer what was asked, be honest enough but never too honest, and hope for the best. He’d never had a great deal of experience with police either, but he knew enough not to trust them. Everyone talked about how there were good cops in the ranks, how it was only a few bad ones who spoiled everything, and while that might have been true and the so-called good cops might exist out there, those same so-called good cops also operated in a system whose foundation was one of racism, suppression, and violence and Saint wondered how a tree, rotten to the core, could ever yield good fruit. 

Ahead of them, the pair on horseback handed their paperwork to the guards who looked it over, and fired back a few questions. The riders answered, the guards looked at the paperwork again, handed it back, and waved them to make their way through the checkpoint. Saint watched the horses trot the five hundred metres towards the gate between two guard towers. Following the riders was difficult, with his eyes being pulled to the razor wire running along the ground and clearly demarcating a pathway towards the gate. The area outside the pathway was indicated to be laden with mines. Saint’s eyes panned up to the towers and widened at the mounted machine guns glowing in the distance. His breath started to come in short, shallow bursts, while his heart hammered against his ribcage and the rushing of blood in his ears threatened to deafen him. He needed to keep it together. Mz. X hadn’t been lying to him, hadn’t been trying to scare him. They’d been trying to impress upon him the immediacy of what lay ahead. Saint didn’t doubt if the guards would open fire if they smelled a rat. 

Two light snaps of the reins drew Saint’s attention to the wagon rolling ahead again before coming to another stop, while the wagon ahead of them moved forward to the guards. A gauzy sensation settled over Saint’s vision, and cotton filled his ears. He could almost hear the conversation as he watched the wagon driver hand over a pair of documents. Where were they coming from, where were they headed, what business did they have in the inner city, had they been outside Calgary, how did they vote in the last election, what were their thoughts on the wall, did they support or oppose the action in Bankview and Marda Loop, what were their thoughts on Sir John A. MacDonald’s transhumanist platform and his plan to cybernerneticize those residing in imperial Canada. The questions themselves were jarring and Saint couldn’t tell whether he was filling in the blanks or making up the interactions entirely. He felt like he was sitting beside himself, observing everything occurring at a distance. 

“Go on through,” one of the guards ordered, waving the other wagon through and signalling for Fleetwood to approach. Saint’s eyes washed to the left, following the guards as they approached. He couldn’t see their faces behind the goggles and balaclavas they wore. He couldn’t reconcile that he was in Calgary. 

“What’s your business coming into the inner city?” The guard on the right asked, their voice distorted by a box attached at the throat. 

“Good day, sirs. We’re on our way through Cal-gary to that new town, Brooks,” Fleetwood answered. His voice sounded calm and even, though it carried the tension of knowing any answer could be the wrong answer. 

“You’re coming through where?” The guard on the left barked, their voice masked the same as the other’s.  

Fleetwood cleared his throat and smiled apologetically. “Uh, s-sorry. That’s just the bumpkin in me,” he said. “We’re going through Cal-gree.”

“That’s better,” the guard on the left said, adjusting their shotgun. “What’s your business in Brooks?” 

“Well, it’s a new town and I’m hoping to get set up there bringing supplies and get some steady work. I got a missus back home and nine ki—“

The guard on the left held a hand up, and Fleetwood stopped speaking. “Who are these two with you?”

“Oh, well this is my hired gun on my right. I got me a rifle but I ain’t much of a shot and it’s just me on the w—”

“None of your young’uns’ll ride with you? What kind of father are you?” The guard on the right barked while their head lowered and raised in clear evaluation of Mz. X.

Fleetwood cleared his throat and scratched at his neck. Saint watched the guards’ stances set, their hips angling slightly and their grips tightening on their shotguns. 

“I ain’t much of a father, to be honest with you. My missus needs the kids to keep the house and the farm running. We ain’t got much, just a little plot of land, but my wife ain’t able to raise all the young’uns and work the farm, too.” 

“So, you’re deadbeat poorfolk is what you’re saying?” The guard on the right said, elbowing the other guard. Both started laughing.

“I—”

The laughing stopped and Fleetwood’s mouth snapped shut. 

“Who’s that in the back of the wagon?” The left guard asked. 

Fleetwood sighed and shrugged. “That’s…” he shook his head and ran his tongue behind his bottom lip. “That’s my idiot brother-in-law,” he said, twirling a finger beside his temple.

The other guard stepped more closely to Saint and eyeballed him before looking back to Fleetwood. “Is he a cripple, too?” 

“Yessir. Farming accident as a boy,” Fleetwood answered. 

Saint could hear the guard’s grunt of disgust as they stepped back. 

“Why is he with you if he’s crippled and retarded?” The left guard asked. 

Fleetwood nodded a few times. “He’s real good with numbers a—”

“You can’t count? You don’t got your letters neither?”

The wagon driver gave his hands a little wave as he shifted in his seat. Beside him, Mz. X looked straight ahead, not moving an inch, barely even seeming to breathe. Saint tried his best to do nothing, but also to try and not look like he was trying his best to do nothing.

“I got enough numbers to count and I got enough letters to read, but I ain’t never gonna get took for a man who knows enough to run a business good enough to keep up with the missus and the kids. My brother-in-law—even if he is soft upstairs—makes sure I ain’t getting ripped off none by anyone buying from me. Between the family and the taxes there—”

“You’ve got a problem with the taxes? How did you vote in the last election?” 

The wagon creaked lightly as Mz. X adjusted in their seat. 

“I ain’t got no problem with the taxes. None whatsoever. I just gotta make sure I got enough to pay them and pay them on time. Early even,” Fleetwood said, his voice starting to quicken. “Last time ‘round I voted Royal Imperial. I don’t trust them… them types who’s always running opposite. I don’t trust ‘em at all.”

The answer came easily because Fleetwood had voted for the Royal Imperial Party of Canada in the last election, though the barrel held to his back in the voting booth had more to do with that than anything else. Technically, other parties existed and other parties could run in elections, though member of those parties were regarded as dissidents and assaulted and imprisoned on a regular basis. Open discussion of any politics but those of Sir John A. MacDonald often ended in a number of disastrous ways. 

“Hand over your paperwork,” the guard on the right ordered. 

“Yessir, yessir,” Fleetwood answered and handed over his own documents, followed by Mz. X’s after the gunslinger passed them over. 

The guard on the right took the two pieces of documentation and started flipping through Fleetwood’s.

“Where are his?” The guard on the left asked. 

Fleetwood tapped one of his temples. “Because he’s—”

“Crippled and retarded,” one of the guards inserted.

“Err, yes, yes. Because of that he ain’t eligible for citizenship and such, so he don’t got any. The doc refused to give him any paperwork when he was born. Said it wouldn’t do him no good.”

The guard nodded and look to the other guard who’d closed Fleetwood’s documents and opened up Mz. X’s. Saint, Fleetwood, and the gunslinger all tightened up a little. The moment of truth was upon them. Smoothly, the guard took the bills from the paperwork and tucked them into a pants pocket and handed the documents back. “Get going and don’t doddle,” the guard barked, circling with a finger for them to go. 

“Thank you, thank you. Will do. You two have a good day now,” Fleetwood answered, flicking the reins lightly and started the wagon moving again. He sat bolt upright and stared straight ahead, plainly wearing strain on his face. As drawn as the muscles in his jaw looked, his eyes threatened to pop from their sockets, with a wan tone fighting to take root deeper than the surface of his skin. Beside him, Mz. X could feel the energy, could see tension in his hands and arms from the way he held the reins. Until the wall was out of sight, nothing was over. Their being waved through with only being insulted and subjected to invasive questioning might have been a ruse. One wrong move on the wagon, one twist or turn or bend the wrong way, one flick of the reins too many, one lean-in too far and a siren could sound and the guard towers would open fire. From a general sense, some comfort could be held in the previous two parties to pass through the checkpoint appeared to have made it to the gate and through without any issue. Quiet was good, but too much quiet was bad. Too much quiet made people jumpy, especially imperial security forces armed to the teeth and surrounded by propaganda and rhetoric. 

In the back of the wagon, Saint’s sense of terror ran far deeper, sinking deep into his marrow. He adjusted himself on the sacks of grain, trying to make the movements as minimal as possible. The gate and gatehouses approached quickly, with the former starting to open up, and the latter humming with more armed security forces. To the left and right, the wall loomed. Fifteen feet tall, two feet thick with razor wire looping across the top. The talk of imperial soldiers, imperial forces, imperial government had seemed such an abstract concept to Saint, something he understood but couldn’t understand. An inner-city checkpoint surrounded by machine guns, landmines, and armed guards in Calgary seemed impossible. And yet, it wasn’t impossible, apparently. 

The guards at the gatehouse paid no mind to the wagon as it rolled through. Some of them leaned against crates, helmets off, drinking coffee and eating donuts. Saint tried not to eyeball any of them, tried not to blink too much, tried not to breathe too heavily, lest one of them take exception. The wagon rolled through the raised gate, and the sight of a somewhat familiar landscape settled into view for Saint. He recognized the straightaway of 11th Avenue, and if they were at 14th Street, it would’t be long until they got to Wreck Town. His heart began drumming  and the terror he felt in his bones began vibrating at the prospect of the slightest sense of safety. Each inhale shortened, each exhale came more shallowly. Sweat dripped down his forehead. 

“How you doin’ back there?” Mz. X asked without turning around. 

Saint licked his lips and tried croak out a word, but couldn’t. Instead, he felt urine blazing a trail down his right leg. He pressed his eyes shut in fear and shame. 

“You just hang tight. You’re doing good. You just keep hanging tight.”

The words weren’t a great deal of comfort, but they were enough for Saint to hold onto while he tried to focus on the sound of road crunching under the wagon wheels. If he closed his eyes and shut out everything around him, at least he wouldn’t see pain and death coming his way. If he wrapped himself in a state of unknowing—even a state defined by fear and anxiety and disquiet—he would be able to shield himself from the torment of reality. In many ways, he preferred hurting himself, punishing himself into submission to try and bring even a moment of stillness. 

“Pull up in here. I’ll run in and grab us a drink,” Mz. X said, pointing to a saloon on the north side of the road.

“Make it two and you got a deal,” Fleetwood answered, steering the wagon to the left and slowing to a stop.

Mz. X nodded and jumped down from the wagon. “Two beers coming up,” they said and walked up the steps and into the saloon. Saint opened his eyes and shifted around in the wagon, avoiding looking at his pants and the sacks underneath him. He recognized the building as where his local stood when he’d lived in the area, when he lived in his Calgary. Looking away, he forced his eyes closed and tried to take long, deep breaths. He wasn’t in his Calgary anymore. Maybe his Calgary didn’t exist anymore.

“Yeah yeah yeah, fuck yourself, too,” Mz. X shouted as they walked out of the swinging saloon doors and down to the wagon, three bottles of beer in each hand. Before climbing into the wagon, they looked at the saloon and sucked their teeth then spit on the steps. “Let’s get the fuck outta here. We can pull over up at the park up there and take a load off for a minute,” they said. 

Fleetwood nodded and set about backing up the wagon and getting it headed down to the park, just two blocks away. In the seat beside him, the gunslinger fumed. The muscles strained in their cheeks and jaws as they clearly gritted their teeth. Seeing Mz. X so visibly upset shook Fleetwood. Just like Saint, he held onto the gunslinger’s stoicism as a compass point for getting through the checkpoint. Without their being stone cold, the wagon might have been pulled over and everyone thrown into the lockup. As they approached the park, Fleetwood pulled the wagon over to a hitching post at the right side of the road. The park wouldn’t be confused as empty, but there was enough space for the three of them to find somewhere nearby to sit and be able to speak candidly.

Without a word, Mz. X jumped down from the wagon and walked to a spot of grass in the park. They set the beers down before plunking down beside them, stretching their legs out, grabbing a bottle and leaning back to rest on their elbows. In smooth fashion, they flipped a bottle opener out from inside their vest and opened the bottle, drinking long from it before setting it down on the grass. Fleetwood got out of the wagon and hitched up the horses before joining Mz. X. He held a hand out and Mz. X opened a beer for him and he slugged it back, seeming to almost finish the bottle in one go. Saint slowly climbed out the back of the wagon, holding his hands in front of his crotch as he shuffled towards them. If he could have kept his eyes closed while walking, he would have. He dropped down beside Mz. X, moving and shifting to try and hide his shame. 

The gunslinger winced and shook their head, letting out a low sigh. 

“I’m sorry,” Saint whispered. 

“You don’t got nothin’ to be sorry about,” Mz. X said. “Them guards back there… them guards is nothing but animals and if they had wanted to make us pay more than we could ever pay, they could have done that.” They tipped their bottle back, finishing the beer in a second go and quickly opened a second bottle. “You ain’t never dealt with nothin’ like that before, huh?” 

Fleetwood sipped at his beer and watched the exchange. 

The gunslinger’s words touched Saint’s ears and the urine staining his pants and legs immediately felt less shameful. The guards could have pocketed the bribe money and then hung them all up to dry for trying to pass a bribe. “They called me retarded and crippled,” he said. 

“I know. I heard,” Mz. X said, looking at Fleetwood for a moment, who shrugged and sipped at his own beer. “I heard what they called you,” they said. 

“The doctor… Fleetwood said a doctor wouldn’t give me paperwork. They don’t even think I’m a person,” Saint said, the thoughts finally processing in his head. He drank deeply from the bottle of beer. “That’s not right. That’s not fair. I can do an—“

Mz. X cleared their throat and Saint looked over at them, focusing his eyes. “To be clear,” the gunslinger said, “I know you ain’t ever seen that before and whatnot and I know on account of your hand there you probably heard a bit of noise before. Am I right on that?” 

Saint nodded lightly, looking down at the grass. “People used to—”

“I don’t care what they used to call you.”

The words hit Saint like a hammer. He dropped his bottle to the grass before picking it up and trying to say something, but managed only to stammer and gape like a fish out of water. 

“There ain’t no shame in pissing yourself. What them imperials do is worse than damn near anything. How they treat people ain’t right, but we ain’t got time to sit here and listen to you feel whatever type of way. Them imperials make everyone’s living hard, that’s for sure, but you’se lucky you only got a lame hand. You think about that there,” Mz. X said, drinking on their beer again. The gunslinger took a more measured sip of their beer and looked at Fleetwood. “You got an extra pair of pants or something in that wagon there for Saint?” 

Fleetwood finished his beer and dropped the bottle onto the grass before pushing himself up to a stand. “Yeah, I got a fresh pair of pants I can give the man,” he said, waving at Saint to follow him to the back of the wagon. Saint—shaken by Mz. X’s brief display of sympathy followed by their harsh confirmation of reality—tripped as he tried to stand, though he managed to push himself up and follow Fleetwood to the wagon. Tears ran down his face. Shame and humiliation gurgled in his guts.

A strong hand on his shoulder brought Saint close to Fleetwood, and the other man’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him in for a moment before pushing him back and holding him at arm’s length. “Listen, my boy,” the wagon driver said, locking eyes with Saint. “That gunslinger there is right in that you don’t ever got to be worry about being afraid or being scared. Even the strongest man’s made water in his pants with a gun pointed at him and anyone who said they ain’t done that is lying to you.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “And that gunslinger’s also right in that you just got a little taste of how them animals treat people. You don’t wanna see how they treat people they don’t like even more than how much they don’t like you. It’s a damn shame, to be sure, and you’re gonna feel that for a good minute, but now you gotta ask yourself what are you gonna do about it.”

The wagon driver squeezed Saint’s shoulders and turned away, rooting through a storage unit on the side of the wagon. He pulled out a pair of denim, a good few sizes bigger than what Saint would have worn and handed them over. Fleetwood set his hands on his hips and whistled a low tune as he rummaged around some more in the storage unit and came back up with a length of rope. 

“These are gonna be way too big on you but this rope’ll keep ‘em up for now until we find something better,” Fleetwood said while shoving the pants and rope at Saint. “Now, drop trow and come back and drink a beer with us. We got a lot more to figure out here.” The wagon driver clapped Saint on the shoulder and turned around, walking back to the spot on the grass and dropping down beside the gunslinger. 

While tears no longer ran down his face, Saint could feel their trails blazing over his cheeks and down to the top of his upper lip. He could cry all day about the guards harassing him, but he knew both Mz. X and Fleetwood were absolutely right about the situation. When the guards looked at him, they immediately despised him. Despite the issues by way of paperwork, or lack thereof, it would have caused, he could have hidden his hand and he could have used his voice and he might have been viewed as human and as someone holding value and holding space in the world. He didn’t doubt for a second that if he weren’t a pink-skinned white man, those guards would have treated him very differently. The immediacy of privilege being thrust in face started the tears running down his face again. If he’d looked any different, everything might have gone differently. Sickness rumbled in his stomach. Indeed, as Fleetwood said, the question wasn’t how he felt about everything, but what would he do about it. 

A heavy sigh rumbled out of his chest and Saint turned his head from side to side, looking for prying eyes. In some ways, he felt invisible, out of time and out of step with everything around him. He barely believed his eyes when he looked around, still hoping for something he could grab hold of that might signal everything to be a dream. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he kicked off his moccasins and stripped off the piss-soaked pants and threw them to the side before slipping into the clean pair of jeans Fleetwood gave him. The pants were at least five or six sizes too big, but his choices were wearing a pair of wet jeans that hadn’t fit him properly in the first place, or a pair of dry jeans that didn’t fit him either. The simplicity comforted Saint as he slid the length of rope through the belt loops of the pants, tying it off the front and winding the extra length around itself. He slipped his feet back into his moccasins and a charge ran along the soles of his feet and up his back. Saint sighed again. He turned around and walked back to the grass and sat down across from Fleetwood and Mz. X and waved for a beer, which the gunslinger promptly opened and swung out to him. 

Saint took the bottle and slugged it back. The alcohol hitting his tongue set off a cascade of sensation throughout his body, and he closed his eyes to savour the feelings. His chest and arms prickled with gooseflesh as he rolled the cheap, bitter swill around his mouth. He swallowed the mouthful, and groaned as he leaned his head back. It didn’t matter how good or how bad the beer was. What mattered was the simple pleasure of it, the one similarity between everything he’d known and what he was coming to understand. 

A burst of laughter brought Saint’s head snapping back up and he opened his eyes, seeing Mz. X snorting and shaking their head, while Fleetwood guffawed and smacked his leg. Mz. X started mimicking Saint, leaning their head back and groaning and moaning, actions the wagon driver picked up on quickly. Saint’s cheeks started to burn and tears welled in his eyes, cresting up and over his eyelids before he could try and blink them away. The other two across from him kept laughing, and started laughing even harder as they saw him to start to cry and he dropped his head down. He started sputtering and snivelling. The laughter was short-lived and Saint heard both Mz. X and Fleetwood shuffle over his way, one hand of each settling on a respective shoulder of his. 

“Hey, we was just kiddin’ around here,” Mz. X said, squeezing his shoulder. The touch didn’t feel like the most natural thing in the world, but Mz. X wouldn’t have considered themself to be the most caring or comforting person in the world either. However, they could recognize someone who’d never felt the strong arm of imperial Canada press up on him. “You just sounded like you was creaming yourself with that beer,” the gunslinger explained. 

The comment sent a sob through Saint’s body and he dropped his bottle to the ground, and covered his eyes with his left palm while his right hand pressed into the left, as thought the extra pressure could hide him from the world around him. All he wanted was to cry to the point of exhaustion. He wanted to go to sleep and he wanted to stay asleep. 

“Come on, Saint. Clean them tears up. They ain’t gonna help,” Fleetwood said, rubbing back and forth across the other man’s left shoulder. “We ain’t laughing at you. You just done something funny. Probably more you did what we was both feeling is what we was laughing about.” 

Mz. X mimicked the groaning sound again and Saint felt a laugh ripple up from his guts. The tears slowed and he felt another laugh come up and the corners of his mouth started turning upwards. He laughed again, and the tears flowed once more, though these tears didn’t hold the weight of sadness and loneliness. Rather, the saltwater running across his cheeks felt cleansing and rejuvenating, filling in the trails burned into his skin only moments before. 

“Hey hey, there we go. That’s what I’m talking about,” Fleetwood said, clapping Saint on the back some more and shuffling back to his original spot and sipping at his beer. Mz. X, too, squeezed Saint’s shoulder before leaning to speak softly. 

“That shit back there is real, Saint. It ain’t wrong to be upset or hurt,” they said. “There’s a reason I do what I do and it ain’t ‘cause I like robbin’.” Pulling back, the gunslinger slid back to their spot and lifted up their second beer, drinking it back quickly. “How’s your beer over there, Fleetwood?” They received a shrug in response, and Mz. X looked at Saint. “You finish that up quick and we can get back on our way. I don't reckon it’s too fine a idea to be out in the open like this right now.” 

“I reckon you’re right on that one, boss,” Fleetwood answered and pushed himself to his feet, tossing his empty bottle to the side and walking to unhitch the wagon. The comment brought a glare from the gunslinger, though they clearly decided it wasn’t the time or place to continue that discussion.

Saint sniffled a few times and wiped at his eyes with his wrists. Everything was moving so quickly. He just needed some time to catch his breath, but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Pushing himself to his feet, he made his way to the back to the wagon and climbed up and in, settling onto the sacks of grain while Ms. X and Fleetwood seated themselves on the bench. 

A few snaps of the reins and the horses started moving. Saint watched the park and the buildings pass by. He stared at the stalls of an open-air market on the north side of the road where he was used to seeing a grocery store. Lazily, his eyes tracked to the right as the wagon continued to roll and he watched people on horses ride by, other wagons moving in and out of traffic, people on foot, and bicycles weaving in and out between whomever. On the south side, he saw another market, albeit one carrying a different banner from the previous market. 

“Are there grocery companies that run the markets?” He asked no one in particular. 

Mz. X snorted and shook their head. “Hell no,” they said, pausing to spit out the side of the wagon. “Those are some same-shit different-pile types of things. The imperials run all the markets and just make it look like anyone’s got any choice in it all.” They sucked their teeth again and elbowed Fleetwood. “Get ready to pull over up here. This is where we’re stopping.” The gunslinger turned around to Saint and jabbed with their chin. “Get me my satchel. I ain’t walking in with only one peashooter on me.” 

Robotically, Saint grabbed the gunslinger’s satchel and handed it forward, watching Mz. X casually take their shotguns and holster them at their waist and slide the other revolver into their shoulder holster. Exactly how he or Fleetwood were supposed to protect themselves if things went sideways, he didn’t know. Mz. X had told him to just trust them and everything would sort itself out, and it appeared he might be left with that same approach. 

“Right here. Right here,” Mz. X ordered, motioning to the saloon, Wreck Town, on the right with their thumb and Fleetwood pulled the wagon over. Once the horses and wagon had mostly stopped, the gunslinger hopped off the wagon and adjusted their gun belt and duster. They looked back and jerked their head towards the saloon. Saint scrambled out the back of the wagon and onto the sidewalk. He watched Mz. X walk towards the steps leading up to the saloon, and his eyes settled on the dark-skinned bouncer standing the swinging doors. Saint glanced to his left, across the street at a bald man walking down the sidewalk while also looking back across the road. It was hard to get a good look of him, but something seemed familiar. All of the man’s proportions seemed perfect, maybe not ideal in terms of appearance or in terms of beauty, but perfectly proportioned. Saint blinked, trying to place the man, like he’d seen him before or knew him from somewhere. A quick smack on the arm brought his attention back to the task at hand. He stole one more glance to the left, trying to get a better look at the man, but had no luck. Fleetwood grabbed him by the arm and held him to a stop while Mz. X stepped up the steps to the bouncer. 

“I’m here for Southpaw,” the gunslinger said. 

The bouncer—easily topping six feet in height, probably closer to six-and-a-half—arched an eyebrow. “You’re here for Southpaw, huh? Is that what you said?”

“Good to know your goddamn ears work,” Mz. X fired back. "Yeah, I’m here for Southpaw. You want me to spell it out for you, too?”

The last comment brought a scowl to the bouncer’s face and he dropped his arms from his chest and went about adjusting his leather vest and straightening out some folds in his jeans. “You listen to me. I don’t know how the fuck you are, and I—”

“So there’s your first issue. You don’t know shit, shit-for-brains, so go get Southpaw before I decide to just let myself in. You got it?” Mz. X barked, flipping their jacket open to more clearly show the sawed-offs at their waist. 

Saint watched the bouncer’s eyes flick from the gunslinger to he and Fleetwood, and then surveyed the sidewalk, street and area in general. He clenched his jaw, as his eyes kept snapping from point to point to point to point. Clearly, he was debating on how much trouble the three people in front of him were worth. The daylight hours certainly influenced him and he grunted, shaking his head and folding his arms again. “You all stay right here. Don’t move a muscle and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Make it quick, sweetheart,” Mz. X said, making kissy face at the bouncer while he pushed his way through the swinging doors. 

Saint turned his eyes back across the street, looking for the man he’d seen. Something about him stuck in Saint’s mind the way a kernel of popcorn could stick between a pair of teeth. He knew it was impossible to recognize someone wherever he was. He knew he might be able to recognize something about someone, maybe a trait or a personality or an archetype, but to actually recognize a person or a face seemed possible. On the other hand, however, Saint was forced to admit if it was possible for him to be standing where he was standing, anything else must have been possible too. 

The saloon doors had barely stopped swinging when the bouncer pushed his way through and jabbed a thumb in the air behind him. “You three go in and head to the bar and Dutch’ll talk to you more.” 

Mz. X blew a kiss at the bouncer and walked up the steps, throwing their left shoulder into him as they walked by. Fleetwood and Saint followed Mz. X, though they avoided contact with the bouncer, with Saint, in particular, doing his best to keep his eyes on the ground. Inside the doors of Wreck Town, a set of stairs leading up was immediately on the left, with seating and a bar straight ahead. Mz. X was nearly halfway to the bar and Fleetwood and Saint relatively hurried to get close to the gunslinger. While the saloon was mostly empty, neither man wanted be on their own. Maybe Fleetwood might have been able to handle himself if someone wanted some trouble, but Saint wouldn’t have been able to. 

Behind the bar, stood a small-ish woman with a shaved head. She looked to have relatively light skin, though it was hard to get a real sense of colouring due to tattoos running over and across almost all her exposed skin with throat, neck, face and head being no exceptions. Saint took one or two looks to try and get a sense of her and the sense he picked up was while the bartender might not have been the biggest person in the room, she was one of the last people with whom one would want to start any trouble. 

“You Dutch?” Mz. X asked. 

“I am. If you’re looking for Southpaw, you ought to learn some manners there, partner,” the bartender replied.

“I don’t need no goddamn manners to meet that swine. You go on and get Southpaw right now,” the gunslinger barked, hands settling on the shotguns at their waist. 

A flurry of activity sounded behind Mz. X, Saint, and Fleetwood and bouncers and security poured into the room. Neither of the men had much of a chance to put up a fight—not that there appeared to be much point in doing so—though the gunslinger drew a sawed-off. A bouncer grabbed Mz. X’s arm and swung it upwards, the shotgun discharging through the ceiling. A quick punch to the breadbasket bent the gunslinger over and their shotgun tumbled from their grip. A pair of bouncers pulled them up, holding both arms behind their back, while one of them grabbed Mz. X by the hair to hold their head straight forward. 

The door the kitchen swung open and a woman rolled out in a wheelchair. Most of her body was covered in some type of clothing or fabric, with her neck and throat and face being exposed and showing terrible burns. A colourful wrap was tied around her head and drew some attention away from the scarring. 

“Well, look at what the cat dragged in,” the woman said. 

“Good to see you too, Southie,” Mz. X replied.

“I didn’t say it was good to you.”

Southpaw gave a wave and two men and a woman came out of the kitchen, carrying black burlap bags. They walked behind Saint and Mz. X and Fleetwood and dropped the bags over their head. Another wave of the hand and a blackjack flashed in the air, cracking into Mz. X’s skull and dropping them like a ton of bricks. Time stood still as Saint heard the gunslinger hit the deck. He heard another whoosh and thud as he heard Fleetwood’s body go limp and drop to the floor. Saint took a deep breath and didn’t have time to exhale it before his world imploded to blackness. 

TO BE CONTINUED!