UnSouled

Page 12

At thirty-eight, the rez sentry is the oldest of three on duty today at the east gate, and so, by his seniority, he’s the only one allowed to carry a weapon. However, his pistol is nowhere near as elegant and meaningful as the weapons of old, in those times when they were called Indians rather than ChanceFolk . . . or “SlotMongers,” that hideous slur put upon them by the very people who made casino gaming the only way tribes could earn back their self-reliance, self-respect, and the fortunes leeched from them over the centuries. Although the casinos are long gone, the names remain. “ChanceFolk” is their badge of honor. “SlotMongers” is their scar.
It’s late afternoon now. The line at the nonresident entry gate just across Grand Gorge Bridge is at least thirty cars deep. This is a good day. On bad days the line backs up to the other side of the bridge. About half of the cars in the line will be turned away. No one gets on the rez who doesn’t either live there or have legitimate business.
“We just want to take some pictures and buy some ChanceFolk crafts,” people would say. “Don’t you want to sell your goods?” As if their survival were dependent upon hawking trinkets to tourists.
“You can make a U-turn to your left,” he would politely tell them. “Híísi’ honobe!” He would feel for the disappointed children in the backseat, but after all, it’s their parents’ fault for being ignorant of the Arápache and their ways.
Not every tribe has taken such an isolationist approach, of course, but then, not many tribes have been as successful as the Arápache when it came to creating a thriving, self-sustaining, and admittedly affluent community. Theirs is a “Hi-Rez,” both admired and resented by certain other “Low-Rez” tribes who squandered those old casino earnings rather than investing in their own future.
As for the gates, they didn’t go up until after the Unwind Accord. Like other tribes, the Arápache refused to accept the legality of unwinding—just as they had refused to be a part of the Heartland War. “Swiss Cheese Natives,” detractors of the time had called them, for the ChanceFolk lands were holes of neutrality in the midst of a battling nation.
So the rest of the country, and much of the world, took to recycling the kids it didn’t want or need, and the Arápache Nation, along with all the rest of the American Tribal Congress, proclaimed, if not their independence, then their recalcitrance. They would not follow the law of the land as it stood, and if pressed, the entire Tribal Congress would secede from the union, truly making Swiss cheese of the United States. With one costly civil war just ending, Washington was wise to just let it be.
Of course, court battles have been raging for years as to whether or not the Arápache Nation has the right to demand passports to enter their territory, but the tribe has become very adept at doing the legal dance. The sentry doubts the issue will ever be resolved. At least not in his lifetime.
He processes car after car beneath an overcast sky that threatens rain but holds its water like an obstinate child. Some people get through; others get turned away.
And then he gets a car of AWOLs.
He can spot AWOLs the second they pull up. Their desperation wafts out at him like a musk. Although no tribe supports unwinding, the Arápache is one of the few that gives sanctuary to AWOL Unwinds, to the constant consternation of the Juvenile Authority. It’s not something they advertise or openly admit, but word gets around, so dealing with AWOLs is just another part of his day.
“Can I help you?” he asks the teenage driver.
“My friend is injured,” he says. “He needs medical attention.”
The sentry looks in the backseat, where a kid in poor shape rests his head in the lap of a girl in her early twenties who looks a little bit off. The kid in back doesn’t appear to be faking it.
“Best if you turn around,” the sentry tells him. “There’s a hospital in Cañon City—it’s much closer than the reservation’s medical lodge. I’ll give you directions if you like.”
“We can’t,” says the driver. “We need sanctuary. Asylum. Do you understand?”
So he was right after all. They’re AWOLs. The sentry scans the line of cars waiting to get through the bottleneck. One of the other guards looks at him to see what he’ll do. Their policy is very clear, and he must set an example for his coworkers. Being a rez sentry is not noble.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“See?” says the girl in the back. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
But the kid driving won’t be deterred. “I thought you take in AWOLs.”
“AWOLs must be sponsored before we can let them in.”
The kid can’t hold in his frustration. “Sponsored? Are you serious? How would AWOL Unwinds get sponsored?”
The sentry sighs. Does he really have to spell it out? “You have to have a sponsor to enter officially,” he says. “But if you can find your way in unofficially, chances are you’ll find someone to sponsor you.” Only now does the sentry notice something familiar about his face, but he can’t place where he’s seen him before.
“We don’t have time for that! Do you think he’s going to climb a fence?” The driver indicates the semiconscious kid in the back, who, come to think of it, also looks familiar. Considering that kid’s sorry state, the sentry considers stepping forward to sponsor them himself, but he knows it will cost him his job. He’s paid to keep people out, not find ways to let them in. Compassion is not part of his job description.
“I’m sorry, but—”
And then the injured kid speaks up, as if out of a dream. “Friend of Elina Tashi’ne,” he mumbles.
That surprises the sentry. “The medicine woman?” There are many thousands on the rez, but there are those whose reputation is well known. The Tashi’ne family is very highly regarded—and everyone knows about the terrible tragedy they endured. Cars in line begin to honk, but he ignores them. This has gotten interesting.
The kid driving looks back at his delirious friend, as if this is a surprise to him as well.
“Call her,” the injured kid says; then his eyes flutter closed.
“You heard him!” says the driver. “Call her!”
The sentry calls the medical lodge and is quickly transferred to Dr. Elina. “Sorry to bother you,” he tells her, “but there are some kids here at the east gate, and one of them claims to know you.” He turns to the kid in the back, but he’s gone unconscious, so he asks the driver, “What’s his name?”
The driver hesitates, then finally says, “Lev Garrity. But she probably knows him as Lev Calder.”
The sentry does a double take. All at once he recognizes Lev, and the driver, too. He’s that kid they call the Akron AWOL. Connor something-or-other. The one who’s supposed to be dead. As for Lev, he was infamous on the rez before he became “the clapper who wouldn’t clap.” You can’t speak the name of poor Wil Tashi’ne without also thinking of Lev Calder and his involvement in that tragedy. And his friends here probably don’t even know. He imagines Lev wouldn’t talk much about what happened that awful day.
The sentry tries to hide his shock, but he doesn’t do a good job of it. Connor registers mild disgust. “Just tell her, okay?”
“Brace yourself,” he says into the phone. “It’s Lev Calder. And he’s injured.”
A long pause. The honking cars continue to build into a dissonant chorus. Finally Dr. Elina says, “Send him in.”
He hangs up the phone and turns to Connor. “Congratulations,” he says, feeling just the slightest bit noble. “You’ve got yourselves a sponsor.”
Part Two
* * *
Fine Young Specimens
GLOBAL ORGAN HARVESTING A BOOMING BLACK MARKET BUSINESS; A KIDNEY HARVESTED EVERY HOUR
By J. D. Heyes
NaturalNews / Sunday, June 3, 2012
In this age of instant, mass communication, it’s hard to cover up virtually anything, and yet there’s one story that has yet to be told on a wide scale—how organ trafficking has ballooned into a global business and that the practice is so widespread, one organ is sold every hour.
That’s according to the World Health Organization, which said recently in a report that there are new fears the illegal organ trade may once again be rising . . . .
Kidneys are in high demand
The World Health Organization says wealthy patients in developed nations are paying tens of thousands of dollars for a kidney to India-, China-, and Pakistan-based gangs, who harvest them from desperate people for as little as a few hundred dollars.
Eastern Europe, the U.N.–based health organization says, is becoming fertile ground for black-market organs; recently the Salvation Army said it rescued a woman who had been brought to the United Kingdom to have her organs harvested.
The illicit kidney trade makes up 75 percent of the black-market organ trade . . . experts say that is likely due to the diseases of affluence such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems.
And, since there is such disparity between wealthy and poor countries, there isn’t much chance the illicit trade will end anytime soon.
The full article can be found at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/036052_organ_harvesting_kidneys_black_market.html
The Rheinschilds
It’s begun. The newly established Juvenile Authority, as its first official act, has announced its first unwinding facility. Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, in Chicago, the largest facility for juvenile incarceration in the country, is to be retrofitted with three operating rooms and a thirty-three member surgical staff.
Janson Rheinschild reads the article in his research office, nestled in a building named for him and his wife on the campus of Maryland’s Johns Hopkins University. The article about the unwinding center is small and buried so deep in the newsfeed, no one who’s not looking for it will find it.
Unwinding creeps in on the hushed feet of angels.
There is no call from Proactive Citizenry to gloat. They have dismissed him and Sonia as irrelevant. He looks to the gold medallion across the room sitting in a clear glass display case. What does a Nobel Prize in science mean when your lifesaving work has been transformed into an excuse to end life?
“But life doesn’t end,” the smiling proponents of unwinding all insist. “It just transforms. We like to call it ‘living in a divided state.’”
As he prepares to leave his office, on sudden impulse he punches the display case and the glass shatters. Then he stands there feeling stupid for what he’s done. The medallion lies amid the shards, knocked off its base. He rescues it, shoving it into his jacket pocket.
• • •
As he pulls up his driveway, he sees that the pickup is gone. Sonia is at it again. Garage sales and flea markets, which means it must be Saturday. Janson has lost track of the days. Sonia drowns her disillusionment by hunting for knickknacks and old furniture that they don’t need. She hasn’t been to her own research offices for weeks. It’s as if she’s given up on medical science completely and has retired at forty-one.