International Community
A story about getting a job as a security guard.
They had me fill out a questionnaire with eighty-seven questions on it in a conference room with twenty or thirty other guys that all looked exactly like me. Most of the questions were boring. Some were weirdly personal, and a few I didn’t understand at all. They wanted to know if I had ever given blood. Then I was interviewed by a sharp woman with an accent I couldn’t place. She asked me all the questions that had been on the questionnaire and I repeated all my answers. It made me feel brittle. They sent me home, and then called the next day and told me I had the job, if I still wanted it. I told them I did.
“This is where you’ll stand. All you have to do is stand here and not let anyone in without a badge.” The short man had driven me out to a place in the canyons and was explaining what my job would be. It looked like a construction site, although it was the middle of the day, and I hadn’t seen any workers. Just wooden pallets and cranes and huge piles of dirt. The bare scaffolding of a house sitting on a rise half an acre away. We were standing in front of a structure. It was a plain metal box, the size and shape of a shipping container but smooth, polished, solid-looking. I could see the outline of a door but I had no idea how it opened. “Your hours are 6PM to 6AM. You start tomorrow. Be here on time. You alternate days with another guy. Don’t try to make friends with him. In fact, the less you know about him, the better.” He handed me a bar of metal with a button and an LED embedded in it. “Use this to scan their badges. Never let someone in without scanning them. Do you understand?” I nodded. His gaze was suddenly more intense. “Listen,” he said. “You’re gonna be on your own tomorrow. It’s an easy job if you do what I told you, but if you fuck up, we’ll know, and there will be consequence. So don’t fuck up.” He paused. “Also, leave your cell phone at home.” I nodded again and we went back to his car and he drove me home. It seemed like he made a point of showing me he knew the way.
The sun was already almost down when I started my first shift. There was a halogen lamp fixed to the wall behind me that cast a pool of light I could stand in. Otherwise the site was dark. I watched the shadows deepen and the night came on. The canyon walls blocked out most of the sky. It got very quiet. After a while, I realized I could hear, just barely, a low thrumming sound coming from inside the structure. It sounded like an engine. Then a man came out of the darkness. I hadn’t heard him coming. He had a growth on his face, a protruding bulge on his chin, like a golf ball trapped beneath the skin. He didn’t say anything, just held out a laminated badge and looked at me. There was no writing on the badge, no ID photo, just a web of lines, like cracked glass. I held the metal bar over it and pressed the button. The LED lit up white. I guessed that meant it was OK and I gestured him past. The door opened on its own. He walked through and it shut again behind him. The door stayed shut for a long time. Then he came out again and I saw the growth on his face was a little bit bigger. Later an old woman in an evening dress came out of the darkness. She had a bruise under her eye. I can’t say anything more about her.
The next day I felt sick, like a hangover but worse. I lay in bed and shivered. I thought about the effort of breathing. I swallowed some cold noodles and went back to bed. The next day I was fine, for whatever reason. I was able to show up to work on time. Things continued like this. Sometimes I would get sick on my off days. Never when I had a shift. When I didn’t get sick, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I would go to the park and stare at the fountain. Water shot out of spouts in the center and fell down into a basin that smelled like chlorine. The basin was full of coins, and sometimes I would throw another one in. I knew you were supposed to make a wish, but I never did. I couldn’t think of anything I would want. At the bottom of the basin was a drain. This kept the water recirculating. If it were to get clogged, the fountain would overflow, and the water would go everywhere.
I knew I used to do more than this, used to have interests, but I couldn’t remember what they were. I still didn’t know what was behind the door. I never heard anything from inside except that low thrum. The people who came out of the darkness were usually well-dressed, I had noticed, and there was usually something wrong with their faces. A scar, a rash, a missing eye. Sometimes it was a fresh injury, not even scabbed over yet. Sometimes there was nothing wrong at all, that I could see. But it was always worse after they came out. Even when I couldn’t see it, I could always tell, somehow.
One night a man came out of the darkness and tried to walk past me without showing a badge. I stopped him. He got angry. He kept telling me, “I’m just going in there to check the footage. I just need to check the footage.” I still didn’t let him by. Eventually, he stopped shouting, gave up, and left. He walked away backwards, like a tape being reversed. He didn’t take his eyes off of me. He disappeared into the darkness. He looked angry, but beneath that, I thought he looked worried. I felt uncomfortable. I wondered if the man had really gone, or if he was still watching me. It was too dark to tell. He could have been anywhere. The thrumming sound behind me seemed louder than before. I turned around and saw the door had opened. I didn’t know what to do. I stood there and looked. I didn’t want to get any closer. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to. Through the doorway, I could see it was very dark inside. I could just barely make out a black curtain hanging over something. Then, I thought I saw the curtain move, just a little, like there was someone standing behind it. I ran away.
The short man or someone who sounded like him called me the next day. “You left your post,” he said. “You shouldn’t have done that. You fucked up. I told you not to fuck up. Now there will be consequences.” He hung up without giving me the chance to explain. Then I felt sick again, worse than I ever had before. I kept feeling sick after that. I still do. Most of the time I’m too sick to move, but once a week someone leaves medicine on my dresser. If I take it I feel better for long enough to leave my house and buy a few groceries. Without it, I think I would’ve starved by now. It seems like the world has forgotten me. I haven't paid my rent in months, but my landlord hasn't bothered me. Maybe whoever brings the medicine has been taking care of it.
I’ve been trying to remember what a horse looks like. I think I used to be around them all the time. I know I didn't always live in this city. I must have known how to ride them. I can remember feeling wind in my hair, and a horse's body underneath me. I can remember its muscles rippling, and the coarseness of its hair. I just can't remember what that body looks like. I can't hold the image in my head. Every time I think I have it, it slips away. And my face. I think I'm forgetting my face, too.