Long Tale Press

"I've gotta admit," the old man announced, his chin inclined, his clouded eyes staring through the church ceiling while standing in the midst of the crying and the comforted, the wounded and the irresolute, "I'm a little bit confused."

Rick Baum watched the old man. You think that you're confused, take a look around you, and it's not any benign confession, might as well ask Detroit why it's burning, why ask why though, why think about anything else but now. Looking over his shoulder nervously, Rick's uncontrolled fingers straightened his red tie for him while teenagers and assembled vagrants dressed in khaki uniforms buzzed among the refugees, handing out pamphlets, making promises. Any minute now a group of armed men in riot gear would blast through those church doors and douse the place in tear gas. He'd seen it happen before -- two hours ago, in fact.

"I wonder who bought the uniforms," Rick said to Jacob Stern, who should have been out having fun with his friends in the last summer of his innocence, the autumn to yield those first confusing days in college. "Take a look, Jacob," Rick continued, "these guys are organized. Uniforms cost money."

Without looking into the face of his former AP English teacher, his own countenance stained by the visages of horror that he'd seen in the war-torn city, Stern asked, "How long?"

"We'll see," Rick replied.

Stern would have been Valedictorian if he hadn't helped burn his high school to the ground. Stern had a yellow flier in his shaking hands. It's only a matter of time now.

Rick didn't see the face he needed to see. These others no longer surprised him, no longer horrified him. There were people in these pews who bled from being shot, people who were hungry because they needed to eat, and there were even more people who needed to bathe or needed a quiet corner to sob into.

"We need to be going," Rick said to Stern when he looked back at the doors again.

"I think I see him," Stern said.

"Where? How can you see him?" Rick growled and undid a third button from his white collared shirt, a shirt that had once been cleaned and pressed neatly every day by Lorraine before she took Hailey and went to Montreal, a shirt that had started to yellow around the cuffs and stain under the armpits.

"There," Stern said, "He's got a shaved head."

"What? Point him out to me."

Then Rick saw him. Oracle tell me the future, tell me where we might find salvation, find hope, find whatever the hell it is that we're looking for. Maybe you can tell me what I really want, why my wife left me, why she was right, why I am wrong, why I am helpless.

A short kid with patched stubble around his chin and a shaved head handed out yellow fliers, smiling at the matted-hair mothers, playing at revolutionary instead of imbibing in alcohol or drugs, instead of playing video games, instead of hanging out in Mt. Clemens with a fake I.D.

"Lester," Rick tried to no avail, and resorted to the last name, his hand cupped over his mouth, "FIELD!" In his sudden haste he pushed Stern aside and bumped his knee hard against the pew, then tripped over a large woman with stringy black hair, while his racing heart extended its rapid beat to his desperate, outstretched hand.

Lester turned slightly, and Rick saw: well, he doesn't have his eyebrows anymore. I wonder if I should chalk this one up as a failure, but suppose not. Suppose I can convince Field to come with us, try to find Mosiah, try to... what, what am I doing? Am I trying to save Detroit? Am I trying to save myself? Lester, look at me. Look, at.

But it was Rick's hungry hands that clasped upon those strong young shoulders cut out perfectly for the basketball team.

"Field!" Rick could feel the sweat on his forehead moistening his brow, the back of his soiled shirt sticking to him coolly, his breath stifled not by the life-swallowing heat of the overcrowded church full of screaming and demanding, but stifled by his own desperation. "Field!" Rick repeated. "What do you think you're doing? How'd you get that uniform?"

The fiery violence which had gleamed only moments ago in those young eyes burned to low embers, as if a powerfully cold wind had blown out his over-confidence. "Oh, Mr. Baum, things change and, uh, you know..." cower now; recognize me as the substitute for paternal authority from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon.

"No time!" Rick's head whiplashed to the doors again. "I'd heard that you were here, and I heard you might know where we can find Jonas, the Firestarter." And the Firestarter will tell me where the yellow-brick road is; tell me how to find Mosiah.

"Hey, take it easy! How'd you know I was here? Why're you looking for me?"

"I ran into one of your classmates at another church... listen, she told me that you were recruited... was it Jonas who recruited you? Tell me!"

"Chill out, Baum! You ain't my teacher no more! Only Mosiah can tell me what do!"

"Then you know where to find him?"

"I ain't got time. Come on, Mr. Baum. Are you a sympathizer or what? Take one of these... you want to join, you want to help us out?"

Only Mosiah can tell you. A sympathizer or what.

Rick held Lester by the arms. "You tell me where the Firestarter is. You tell me where I can find Mosiah!"

"You know where Mosiah is! He's at the Joe!"

Joe Louis Arena: former sports venue turned terrorist fortress. Mosiah was supposed to be there with over three hundred hostages, besieged by a concentrated force of SWAT, National Guard, and police. Yeah. If I want to see Mosiah all I have to do is ask.

"I need to get in there!" Rick said.

Lester ignored him and turned his head, handing out a flier to a passing mother holding a mewling baby, the flier in his hand shaking. He's nervous and scared, and where are his parents? Funny, I used to ask that question of almost all of my students before Mosiah showed up. Don't you wonder where your mother is don't your parents love you look into her eyes, look into her eyes now I will see you respond I wonder.

"Thank you for joining the revolution!" Lester smiled at the mother. "We're going to shelter you and protect you from the capitalist pigs who've exploited you and your family, who've taken your hard-earned tax dollars and have allowed American jobs to go oversees in an effort to eliminate the middle class..."

Rick grabbed Lester by the collar. "It's not safe here!"

Lester shook his head. "I remember how I always used to ask you to sign me out of class so I could piss."

"You were going to smoke weed in the bathroom!"

The kid sighed. "Look, Mr. Baum. I can't help you. I tried my best for you, I really did, but this place isn't for you."

"The Firestarter. He will take me to Mosiah. All I need for you to do is tell me where I can find him."

"He ain't going to take you anywhere. Besides, he doesn't know you. He'd laugh in your face."

"Field. This is serious."

"Mr. Baum, you want the Firestarter, you got to go through his chick. Her name's Jasmine Rose and she's at that strip-joint down in Greektown."

"Jasmine Rose. A stripper?"

"That's the Firestarter's girl, everyone knows that. It ain't exactly news. You done?"

"A stripper?!"

"Like I said, it's old news," Lester smiled at another passing woman, her face covered in dirt. "Are you hungry? We have food, running water..."

Rick grabbed Lester by the collar of his shirt once again. "You're coming with us. I won't leave you behind. I've got Stern... you're coming..."

Too many hands, too many voices, weak, cannot grab you, take you with me. Rick was seized by a group of khaki-uniform-clad teenagers, most of them with their heads shaved, carrying baseball bats and sledgehammers.

The spiraling ceiling betrayed the violence, as Rick peeled hands off of him, too late, too late no, it can't be, no. Got to find Stern. A burst of air rushed into the room, accompanied by the thunderous sound of inevitability.

The refugees, as one, clamored and screamed, their hands and their eyes awakening in a flutter of activity while a cloud of tear gas hissed and pushed through the church doors. Waves of pressure and pain pushed Rick away from where he thought, where he imagined, Jacob Stern might still be standing stock-still, perhaps asking himself whether or not he should open his arms wide and embrace those avatars of justice.

"Stern! No! Wait....! Stern!"

Muffled by hair and other screams, Rick tried to shout "Stern!" Jesus Christ can he hear me Stern or Jesus one of you listen at least one of you.

Pulled into a darkened alleyway, the fire-red evening consumed by the rising mist of tear gas, the hiss and jaw-grind of men wearing visors and body armor storming into the church. Lo, the flashing lights along the boulevard. Lo, the running, screaming, surging everywhere. Over a megaphone, someone announced that all sympathizers are under arrest.

"MOSIAH HAS BEEN APPREHENDED! COME PEACEFULLY AND YOU CAN RETURN HOME TO YOUR FAMILIES!"

Run now head down look for Stern can't see a damn thing the forest of running people the woods dodge the limbs watch the ankles. I am looking for one pair of eyes, one face.

Another derelict building stood nearby on the moist-with-tears-and-blood cement, waiting, as if to say that being derelict might be associated with sanctuary. Rick ran across. No time to look for Stern. He must be following me.

Stairs cracked beneath Rick's feet. He kept his head down while he climbed, the boarded windows suffocating the disease of outside, those flashing lights and prying eyes searching, scanning. Pushing through the refugees to arrest the sympathizers. They are not the primary concern. Refugees have a fighting chance. The difference between sympathizers and refugees is that refugees run away. Who said that? Think Stern made the observation.

In here, a voice whispers. "In here."

Rick went through an open doorway. The former teacher, former idealist, saw the people huddled against the wall but concentrated on the single window, a vertical slant of light cutting through the boards. I need to tear these boards away with my bare hands. Peering into the twilight, shapes indistinguishable, you must be out there. I haven't lost you. The last life from a fading sunset is turning blue, one day dying so that we might live to fight another.

"Stern," Rick like a savage licks his lips, like a savage breathes heavily, excitedly. I have not lost him, not now, not when we are so close to the end.

"Can't see nothing out there," a voice oozes from behind Rick.

Not replying, it would be a good idea to say something, a word or two, acknowledge, say thanks or hello. Is that a wet dog? My pants are soaked, and all I can think about is what I'm supposed to do, but we're all long past that now, I suppose. No need for introductions. We don't expect that we'll live through the night.

"I'd get back if I were you, get hit by a stray bullet. I seen that shit happen once. Mighta been justa week ago."

Blink back; hold tight all of my anger. You don't know what's at stake. You don't know what kind of future we face now.

"Jacob Stern is still out there," Rick announced, facing five people huddled tightly, looking up him with wide, alert eyes, stark white against their dark faces and the shadows. It means everything to me, nothing to you.

"You sympathizing?" a gruff, indistinguishable black man said, his lips pink, might have been homeless before, maybe suffered from delusions of Armageddon.

"What's it to you?" Rick challenged. "Are you going to shoot me?"

"I just might," the man said and rose to his height, casting a shadow in the glow of that single slant of light.

"It doesn't make any difference," a woman's voice, cold, non-feminine. She appeared from the shadows, her arms folded. "When morning comes, none of it will matter."

"You're right," Rick clenched his fists, tried to convince himself that it would be suicidal to run back outside, now. "But I have to get back out there. I have to see Mosiah before this ends."

You don't understand I have to see Mosiah.

As the scorched sky destroys day, bringing night.

You don't understand. I have to see Mosiah. When I was a kid, when I was a teenager, all I wanted to do was blow things up. I wish that I could draw a diagram for you, like a chart of how I grew up to be a man, but maybe that would be contradictory. Am I a man? In whose opinion...? Mine, I suppose. What makes me I don't know. I haven't yet decided. I could tell you what I felt when I was a teenager, with all of those standardized tests and expectations shoved down my throat. Maybe the moment I became a man was the moment I sat on the porch with Sarah and figured I would be a teacher. That's how I would make a difference.

"I promised you," Rick whispered while trying to look at the faces in the street below, as smoke colored black the sky. I promised you I would never let you down. Lorraine, Hailey, Stern. All the same promise.

"You want to find Mosiah," another voice said in the enclosed room, the dark, death-defying room, the room of last-minute stories and realizations before the final act might begin, a prelude, a preemptory strike.

I don't know that I want to find him. I have no desire to stand in his presence. Should I throttle him? Do I expect Mosiah to give me the cure for world hunger, or tell me that everything went wrong, that it wasn't supposed to be this way, to get this bad?

"Isn't Mosiah dead?" The gruff black man asked the group of still-breathing enigmas.

"Heard he died in the siege," one of them added.

The woman who stood stolidly with her arms crossed asked Rick, "What's your name?"

Rick discovered that he was the only Caucasian person in the room. Something that you always seem to feel when you know, their eyes all over you. Oh, well. Likely all people who'd been left behind before you couldn't leave them behind, all people who would be left behind anyway because you can cut Michigan's education budget to cut the State Deficit you gotta make it look good that you got re-elected, despite the fact that everyone thinks that you don't endorse outsourcing a good woman ha, people associate you with a different Axis. More jobs lost here than I might conceive, highest unemployment rate in the country, what have you done for my people cutting the education budget, cutting state grants. At least we have the lotto.

"Hello?" the woman snapped Rick from his reverie. "Your name?"

"Uh, Rick," he finally answered.

The woman extended her hand. "Ra. I got my husband Damon with me."

Damon waved his hand.

"Ra?" Rick had to ask. "Like the Egyptian sun god?"

The woman seemed as if she wanted to smile, but her face couldn't seem to make the shape. "Short for Rashida."

He could see her more clearly now, his eyes adjusting to the growing dark, keeping pace with the weakening light. She might have been nearing middle age -- from the serious clench of her jaw and the narrowed eyes of experience -- but she was fairly well-kempt, her natural-looking hair tied back behind her head, broadening her brow. Her hips were wide but her body was in otherwise good shape, and she spoke neatly-clipped words that identified her as a woman with some education.

"I left someone very important out there," Rick said.

"We all have," a voice said from the darkness. Ra seemed to be looking him over.

"Do any of you... have you heard of someone named Jasmine Rose? She's supposed to know Jonas the Firestarter..."

Everyone stared at him, as if he'd told them all that the people whom they loved dearly had all been taken by the revolution, no possibility, no optimism left to defeat that gnawing fear that was defined by reality. We can all join hands and sing songs decrying victimization.

Rick shrugged. "I had to ask."

"What do you need to see Mosiah for?" Rashida said.

Rick didn't answer, but instead tried again to look outside.

"Don't you think that we all want to find Mosiah? Don't you think that we all have a thing or two to say to him...?"

Ra's husband, Damon, gently grabbed her wrist. "Babe -- ''

"Everyone's lost something out there. There are a lot of people who have explaining to do. You're not the only one who wants Mosiah."

I don't know that I want him. Not like you do. I have my reasons. I must stand before him, and ask him to judge me. I want to climb to the top of the mountain and climb back down.

"I'm going back out there," Rick nodded, a predetermined conclusion defined by his nature.

Ra put a hand on Rick's shoulder, her eyes growing dark, her voice softening to the point of vulnerability. "We're looking for Mosiah, too."

"You can't come with me."

"Don't you want to know why?"

"Not really."

"No. I mean why we want him, too."

Don't have to tell me. I've written term papers on your human condition before. The death of your children either hypothetically or literally. Your son's in the Challengers revving an engine or your daughter's a Ghoul wearing black makeup and a band T-shirt. Little rebels, coming of age, aren't they cute. Aw. Even with automatic weapons in their hands.

"I have to leave," Rick walked out of the old, dry, dying, building.

Always knew I could get to places faster by myself.

Lying in bed, staring at cold shadows.

Lorraine's voice from the bathroom: "Rick, can you take Hailey to my mom's this weekend?"

Funny how after we got married I didn't see your hair down very much, anymore. I stopped reading Neruda to you in bed and then Hailey came along, and your hair never came down, face looked tighter your body was still, your hair blond the glasses on all the time tight black turtleneck sweater I have these papers to correct. Don't you know, or understand how important this is? The big test is only a month away.

"Jacob, can I see you after class?"

That paper, that damnable paper. Wasn't all of this a passing fad? Watch the clock, pretend like nothing's wrong. Nobody in this room can know. Jacob could be suspended. Anti-American? Anarchist? Not the Valedictorian. Not an overnight transformation.

"What class do you have after this?" Mr. Baum asked Jacob while the others filed out into the hallway, clutching their books.

"Chemistry," Jacob Stern replied dispassionately, his body rigid, as if he didn't know or understand the very thing that he'd done, as if wondering at his own powers.

"I wanted to talk to you about your paper, Jacob."

"Okay."

"Well, I was just curious. I read it, of course. I wanted to know how you felt about... this. Everything that you wrote here? I don't know what kind of grade to give you, because I don't know if this is even a legitimate paper. Maybe you and I should talk about rewriting it, hm?"

"I don't need to rewrite it. I might have forgotten to put a few periods in there. I finished that paper."

There it is. Bold, real. Larger than life itself.

"Jacob, we discussed the issue in class. I'm a little surprised here by your reaction. In our discussion, you said that Mosiah is a terrorist. You agreed that he's an urban terrorist, Jacob. Your paper seems contrary, however."

"It's how I feel," Jacob said.

Mr. Baum looked at the words, neatly double-spaced, word-processed, good little black words which had likely marched so easily over the pages:

Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming

Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming.

In conclusion, Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming Mosiah is coming.

"This isn't the format that we selected for this particular paper," Mr. Baum said, rubbed at his temples, and sighed. Here we go. "Jacob, I really want to know if something is on your mind."

"I had a dream," Jacob Stern said simply, flatly.

"A dream? You mean a nightmare?"

"No. A dream. Mosiah was there, and he explained everything to me. About life."

"When did you have the dream?"

"I don't know. Maybe a week ago."

Rick stood up from behind the desk. "I'm going to tell you something, Jacob. I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I haven't been lying to any of you guys, but I feel guilty."

"It's alright. You don't need to get in trouble, that's cool. Just let me rewrite the paper."

"Jacob: the Mosiah thing is worse than it looks. I know you're not stupid -- you've read reports on the web, and you've read the blogs. They've killed him before. They say he has access to nuclear weapons. They say he's a communist. They say he's the Anti-Christ. The rumors are more dangerous than the man, Jacob. Hysteria is rampant. You have to separate the truth from the fiction. None of us have that luxury right now, so we play it safe. We keep our mouths shut."

"He just wants things to be right. I don't know. I don't feel that any of the things that I'm learning are actually good for me."

"What do you mean?"

Jacob gave his casual teenage shrug, his face reddening with the outpouring, the confession. "Mosiah keeps talking about Rousseau, and he talks about all of these other philosophers. I feel like you and all the other teachers are shoving crap down my throat. Rousseau said that people can learn on their own, and learn what they want."

"That's not what Rousseau said, Stern."

"You know what I'm talking about. I'm just saying that I don't know. Mosiah just wants all of us to boycott school or write petitions to our congressmen. What is Mosiah doing wrong?"

"That's just it. What is he doing wrong?"

"Mr. Baum, can't you just write me a late pass?"

Rick sighed. This is what I have been afraid of, all along.

"I was thinking that things need to change," Jacob Stern said. "I mean, with education. I feel like everyone is supposed to fall in line. Maybe Mosiah is right. Maybe we need to listen to him better."

Rick shook his head while scribbling out the pass. "That's what I'm afraid of." And now I can lose my job, even though Jacob the whole reason why I signed up for this, pursued this, was because of the things which I believe in, the things that Mosiah preaches, turning the world upside down, getting exposure when everybody else gets drowned out by acknowledgement, not creating a stir, not making anyone uncomfortable. But the stakes are different, the methods are different. By ignoring it, it goes away. Not this time.

Please log in or sign up to review this excerpt.