The Occupation of Emerald City: The Worker by Ken Brosky Page B

home.
    “I’m going to try and get my job back,” I say, turning to
Joshua. “And I’m going to try and get you one, too. I’m checking my bank
account, too. We’re going to straighten this all out.”
    Joshua’s breathing slows. His face is red. He has crooked
teeth and the dark hair of his beard grows in soft swirls along his jaw,
disarming him. As if reading my thoughts, his face softens. He nods. “Okay. I’m
sorry. I didn’t … this isn’t me. I’m sorry.”
    I take my sweatshirt off the coat rack, my coat rack, and put it on. I grab one of the gas cans, our ticket
back into this new world. “Maybe there’s still a way we can all come out of this
okay.”
    “I hope you’re right,” I hear Joshua say as I shut the door.
In the hallway, the lights are out.
    I walk down the street to the gas station and wait behind a
line of seven cars, rubbing my arms to stave off the cold. When it’s my turn, I
fill up one of the gas containers. Almost three fluid gallons, enough for now.
I go inside and grab a short black rubber tube for sale next to the automotive
supplies. The young dark-skinned clerk—a Muslim—takes my credit
card with suspicion and the register tape immediately prints, meaning there’s
no Internet connection, meaning he has no way of being sure that my card is
legit. He trusts me by look alone; a rather hefty compliment, all things
considered.
    I hear a quiet cough and glance over the counter. A little
girl is sitting on a small plastic stool next to the glass cabinet holding
cartons of cigarettes, coloring in a little book.
    “No school today?” I ask her. It’s supposed to come out soft
and pleasant but instead I sound threatening. My throat is hoarse. She looks up
at me with big brown eyes. She has long, thin eyebrows and dark hair squeezed
into short pigtails. She’s wearing a long white dress, too big for her so it
flows over her feet.
    “No teachers at her school,” the man says. He clears his
throat. “Too dangerous, you know?”
    “I don’t.” That out-of-place feeling grips me again. When I
was young, I traveled to enough places to understand how drastically the role
of the Jew can change from society to society.   The Unity government always kept the
religions in check, but that’s gone now. I don’t know what this man thinks of
me.
    “Rain jacket,” he murmurs, not looking up at me. He’s
following my signature on the piece of paper. His beard is thick and black
except above his upper lip, where it’s thin and patchy. He has heavy bags below
his eyes that look thick and purple under the single functioning halogen bulb.
    “Pardon me?” I ask.
    He points to the packages of folded black raincoats sitting
in a large soda-shaped container with the Pepsi logo on it. There’s no soda
left. “Rain later,” he says quietly.
    “Really,” I say, grabbing one of the packages. The concept of
being drenched in cold water sounds a little too much like something reserved
for that place I just left. I don’t ever want to feel that level of discomfort
again. I want to always be warm, wrapped in dry, clean clothes with deodorant
under my arms.
    “I throw it in,” the man says. “Please buy gas here again.”
    “I will,” I say, touched by the gesture. “I promise. Thank
you.”
    “Please be safe,” the man says, still looking down.
    I walk back down the empty street to my car and siphon out as
much of the old gasoline as I can with the tube, letting it pour out onto the
street and hoping no Coalition vehicles happen upon the scene and mistake me
for someone bad . I can hear the rough
diesel engines of the armored Humvees somewhere in the distance, lurking behind
the buildings, skulking from intersection to intersection. I can hear
intermittent explosions from far, far away. Suddenly, a car passes at the next
intersection, speeding down the center of the street and passing me with the
windows down but no music coming from inside. The driver—in the brief
moment I see