Red Zone Son

Chapter 49

Once Solomon was back in the park, he told Wilson what had happened. Wilson seemed distracted, although he said he was fine, and yes, sure, they could park the car on the street until midnight, but that was past curfew, so he should be the one to drive. Solomon thought endlessly about how he might push for an accelerated review of his custody appeal. He thought equally as endlessly about how to convince Wilson to push off returning to the militia until Solomon had at least visited Adah. Wilson was uncharacteristically quiet, but Solomon’s thoughts were enough to fill the silence for him and more.

Finally it was almost midnight. A few minutes ago they’d both ducked down into their seats when a curfew patrol went through the road, which was good; it meant they had some time until the next one. Solomon was sitting in the back seat, waiting for the woman to come and rap on the window, when he saw a girl dressed in green wearing a backpack, running down the sidewalk to the car.

His heart stopped. Despite the curfew patrol only a few minutes past them, he opened the car door and saw her – it was Adah, racing toward him. He got out, opened the car door even wider, and when she was almost to him, he told her, “Go, go, get in, get in!” She dove into the open door and he followed her, and then Wilson took off, spinning around to go the opposite direction from the patrol.

Adah was laughing, as if she were having the time of her life. “Mrs. Stinson told me she couldn’t let me go to you but then she asked me if I could climb, and when I said yes, she told me she thought the second-floor balcony door would be unlocked at around midnight, and that she thought there might be a car with you in it parked right outside the nunnery. Then she told me she absolutely could not let me go to you unless the board approved your custody paperwork.”

Solomon was breathless with joy. He put his arm around Adah’s shoulders and drew her in for a hug. “Oh, Solo,” she was saying, and now there were tears in her eyes. “I thought you were dead. I got a letter that said you were killed in action. Oh, Solo, I was so sad, and I knew when Mrs. Bole saw the letter she would kick me out. The only reason she hadn’t earlier was because I kept telling her you were in the militia and that when you came back you would kill them and –”

“Mrs. Bole?” Solomon interrupted.

“Yes, the woman who took over our house, her name was Mrs. Bole.”

“She… they didn’t kick you out right away?”

Adah shook her head. “No, they wanted to, but I refused to leave, and they were nervous about you, so Mrs. Bole said I could stay if I cooked and cleaned for them. But I kept telling them they were going to hell for trying to steal my house, so she got tired of me and was glad when the letter came about you being dead.”

White hot fury descended on Solomon. He was going to have to find a better way to handle hearing about what had happened to Adah while he was gone because he didn’t think God wanted him to think of murder every time she shared a story with him. “They made you work for them?”

“It was because Mrs. Bole didn’t like that I ate the food in the house, she wanted me to pay for my own food, but I wouldn’t, so then she said I had to work if I was going to eat their food.”

“They… they were in the house with you at the same time?”

Adah nodded. “Almost the whole summer.”

“Did… did the man… did he…” Solomon stopped and looked at Wilson, who was pulling into a hotel parking lot. Wilson had arranged a room for them that evening, after Solomon had come out of the nunnery. He decided not to ask her now – he would ask later.

Thankfully, Adah didn’t seem to have heard his half-question. Her gaze instead followed his. When Wilson turned to greet her after parking, she seemed surprised, as if she recognized him.

“Oh!” she cried. “You’re the defector who defected back!”

Wilson stiffened as if she’d struck him. “What do you mean?” Solomon asked.

“When I got the letter saying you’d died,” Adah said, “I didn’t believe it. I went to the militia base and yelled at them about it, and the soldier at the visitors center left for a minute, so I went around to look at his display. I saw that he’d pulled up two profiles: one of them was yours, it said you were declared dead, and the other one was his,” she pointed at Wilson, “and it said he was a defector who’d gone back to the blue zone. Underneath it said that was the official reason some mission into the blue zone had failed, because he’d sabotaged it.”

Wilson didn’t say anything, he just opened the car door and left. That was how Solomon knew he was upset. That was how he knew Wilson believed her.

After being separated from Adah for so long, Solomon really didn’t want to leave her alone, but Wilson had also become his brother, so he touched Adah’s hand. “Stay in the car. I’ll be right back.”

Wilson was in the alley next to the hotel, facing away from Solomon. When he heard him, he turned, and for a moment he looked like the young man Solomon had first met in Schenley Park all those years ago. Fear and misery were etched into his face. “I guess they needed someone to blame for the mission going to pieces,” he choked. “And it was my fault. They could’ve just said I screwed up, though, they didn’t have to invent –”

Wilson stopped abruptly. Solomon could see his hands were balled up. He reached for him, put his arms around him, and at first, he thought Wilson was going to attack him because there was nobody else for him to attack, but after a moment of resistance, Wilson accepted the hug.

Solomon wanted to tell him so many things. He wanted to tell him not to put his hope into political institutions, that there was no permanent home for them here on Earth, and that that was okay. That one day Jesus would come back, and that after every barricade fell, they would one day live in freedom in the garden of the Lord, that they would walk behind plowshares and put away their swords, that every chain would be broken, and all men would finally have their reward…

But while theology comforted Solomon, he didn’t think it would comfort Wilson right now, so instead he told him, “I’m not leaving you.”

Wilson’s grip on Solomon tightened, and Solomon didn’t let go of him until Wilson released him.

And then, as they turned back to the car, it hit Solomon. The militia had declared him dead. It had written him off its rolls. He was no longer bound to them, and with Wilson declared a traitor, he had no reason to go back, no reason to inform them that he was actually alive. His sentence, which he had been dreading not even hours ago, was over.

He was free.

Solomon knew it made no sense for him to feel happy right then. He had no house, no job, and with the militia’s declaration, he might not even have a legal identity. Still he found himself almost wanting to weep. It was as if a massive weight had been lifted off his shoulders, a burden he had carried so long he’d forgotten how heavy it was. His heart was singing. I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts. I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; before the gods I will sing your praise!

And with that song, a different weight began to settle in. Something lighter, but deeper. Solomon couldn’t help but feel that God had given him this chance for a reason, and if he was right about that, he wanted to make the most of it. He didn’t want to just get his house back, although he did want to do that. No, as crazy as it sounded, what he wanted was to get his nation back. America is gone, Manal had told him. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if they could find a new way to be American?

He heard Dad’s voice again. We’ve always been divided. We’ve always fought about what it means to be American. Nowadays the liberals think it means to be blue, while the conservatives think it means to be red. But being American means being divided, and getting together despite that. Whoever your neighbor is, don’t try to change his mind. Just love him. The best American is the one who best loves his politically opposite neighbor.

The pieces of Solomon’s country lay splintered before him. He had nothing but the clothes on his back and Wilson and Adah beside him. He had no idea where to start. What did it mean to love the couple he wanted to kill for having stolen his house? What did it mean to love a re-education camp counselor? Was what he wanted even possible?

He didn’t know. But what he did know was that with God, all things were possible, and that was good enough for him to go for it. If the last few years of his life had taught him anything, if boot camp and the reeducation camp had given him anything at all, it was the conviction that he could, and should, act on his long-lingering sense that unity was worth fighting for.

“Come on,” he said out loud. “It’s late. Let’s find the door.”