Justice

　

　

　

The dreams were part of the program. As it turned out, everything was part of the program.

The congressman had been driven to a dinner with several important donors. All went well: pledges were made. "You can count on me," the congressman said. Things became confused. The congressman had to go to the toilet but couldn’t find the rest-room. It was embarrassing and inconvenient. A speaker droned on and on about undesirable criminal elements in certain parts of the city. The constituents were angry. The congressman looked for the toilet in an alleyway and, then, on the public street. The limousine was nowhere to be seen and he had an important vote to attend in the early afternoon. It’s hard to vote intelligently when you have to find a toilet.

Someone kicked his bare feet and the former congressman opened his eyes. He was lying on the desert and it was hard as concrete and very cold. An almost weightless mylar sheet covered him. There was another kick and a thump to his back when he sat up.

The foreman had a red face with a smashed nose and his hands were missing fingers. He shouted in the former congressman’s face and used his mutilated hand to punch him in the ear. The congressman stood up slowly, rolling onto his old knees and, then, rising slowly. His blood frothed in his ears and he was dizzy and almost lost his balance.

The sky was already hot and empty. The heat came down from above and lit the desert pavement on fire and, then, that hardpan reflected the heat back up into the vast blue sky. A range of bare mountains cut into ribs where flashfloods had scored the rock and gravel cut off the horizon. A vast number of people were huddled under mesquite, trembling and murmuring among themselves. Gradually, the ex-congressmen formed lines, slumped figures hunched under the pitiless light that poured down from above.

The former congressman tried to relieve himself behind a saguaro cactus, but a supervisor saw him there and came toward him waving a truncheon like cheerleader’s baton. The congressman covered his face, waiting for the man to strike him, but there was no blow. He thought it odd that the saguaro did not cast a shadow. He wet his pants and, then, went to stand in a line, expecting that food would be served in the tent at the end of the queue.

The sun was now erupting with full fury over the administrators and policy-makers and the former congressmen. Some of them were overcome by heat and fell to the side, twitching on the hard-baked desert floor. The former congressman was very thirsty and hungry as well. At the end of the line, a foreman handed him an eight-pound long-handled sledge hammer. There was no food and no water and the white canvas tent seemed to act as a magnifier to the heat.

"We can’t work without food and water," the ex-congressman said.

"You will be able to work just fine," the foreman said. The foreman was missing an eye and so sunburnt that his skin was blistered. He kept feeling between his buttocks, working to rearrange what was there.

Carrying the sledgehammer, the former congressman walked toward the job-site. One of the supervisors put him in a sort of yoke and had him work with three other politicians to pull a sledge loaded with a dozen concrete blocks. The construction work was above, on a low, sun-blasted hogback. The ex-congressman was barefoot and his feet left bloody prints on the slippery gravel comprising the hillside. Other people were bleeding as well and the paths up the slope were black and slick with gore.

They say that you build a wall by using a foundation pit twice as wide as the height of the structure you intend to build. If that rule was true, this wall would be more than 40 feet high, a sloping pyramidal structure one-course across at the top, but sixty-feet wide at the base. Huge heaps of hearting pebbles were piled around the pit. Some congressmen were sorting the heart stones. Their backs were bare and lacerated. There was no top to the ridge: when the former congressman reached the crest, the land gave way under him, opening to the excavation where they were building the foundations for the wall. It would be a mighty edifice, impossible to scale, as bulky as the pyramids or the Great Wall of China. The sledge with the dozen concrete blocks, toppled forward. The former congressman leaped aside but one of the senators was unable to elude the heavy pallet as it skidded down the steep gravel slope. The sledge cut across the senator’s lower leg and crushed it. He shrieked. It didn’t matter: many others were screaming as well. A foreman with warts all over his forehead approached. He had a long metal rod with a big hook on the end. The foreman put his hook in the senator’s lip and, then, pulled him away from the foundation pit, dragging him up the hill to a place where a number of disabled congressmen and -women were stacked. Some of them clawed at the desert pavement with what remained of their hands.

A couple lobbyists that the former congressman recognized dragged huge bales of re-rod down toward the courses of masonry embedded in the concrete. Concrete mixers churned and lime fumes burnt the congressman’s eyes and nose and made the back of his throat feel raw. The former congressman bear-hugged one of the concrete blocks and staggered forward with it. He fell and split open his knee. But he didn’t drop the block – that was very fortunate for him – and he was able to wrestle it into place in the wall. The lobbyist held the re-rod and the former congressman tried to pound the spikes into the concrete blocks swinging his eight-pound hammer. His aim was bad and he missed, smashing the lobbyist’s thumb and pointer finger into pulp. "I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry," the former congressman said. But, of course, he wasn’t sorry at all. The lobbyist cried out and put his smashed fingers under his armpit. This angered one of the foremen, a red, filthy looking fellow, who picked up a piece of sharp re-rod and stabbed it through the lobbyist’s thigh. The lobbyist fell down and another foreman, patting down something between his buttocks, used a hook on a steel pole to skewer the man’s lip and drag him up out of the hole.

They worked in this way until the sun knocked them down. Then, the foremen came and tried to encourage them to work some more by lighting small charcoal fires on their bellies and backs. This caused the politicians to sit up and crawl toward the place where they were building the wall, course upon course, a very great and majestic structure.

The former congressman wriggled on his belly to the edge of the pit. He saw a senator that he knew.

"I never thought such a place existed," the former congressman said.

"Nor did I," the senator replied.

"I guess it’s some form of justice," the former congressman said.

"I suppose," the senator answered, recognizing this dialogue was part of the program and would reoccur forever. But, then, everything was part of the program.

A foreman came up behind them, not bothering to conceal in his baggy trousers, the long, red and forked tail that came from his coccyx. The foreman had a pole with a big sharp hook on its end.

The ex-congressman dreamed that he had just ordered a fine wine with several of his donors. After sipping the wine, he felt that he needed to use a restroom. But the toilet was out of order. The congressman wondered if he could make use of a potted plant sitting in a big vase in the corner of the restaurant. Then, he felt a thump on the side of his body and opened his eyes and saw the mylar sheet covering him already glowing with pitiless sunlight.