Chapter 7

June 5

My job search had not gone well. That's one of the nice things about a job search. Since it's a task with a clearly defined objective, you always know where you stand. Where I stood was pretty much where I'd stood a week earlier, only without any lingering shreds of hope or optimism. 
 It's not like I was shooting too high; even the most menial, degrading positions had been denied me, raising the question of whether it is more demeaning to have a demeaning job or to not have a demeaning job.  
 I had noted a few patterns along the way, possible explanations as to why I'd lost out to fellow applicants who, try as they might, couldn't quite stay awake while waiting their turn for an interview. Some potential employers apparently thought I was overqualified and certain to leave at my first opportunity, which, of course, I would have. Others with low-paying jobs to fill simply decided to reject the college grad, since it made them feel better about their own lousy lives. 
 "You think you're something special just because you went to college?" asked Manny of Manny's Self-Storage, rather pointedly. 
 "No," I had answered. 
 "Well, you're not," Manny retorted. Manny, I gathered, had not bothered to listen to my response. "And you'd better learn that," he added with a nod. 
I assured Manny I had learned that many times in the past week. But I did not get the job guarding self-storage units, and Manny felt a little better about his lousy life. Me, I felt a little worse. I'd wanted that job. It was one of the few available in Bridgeton that didn't require the use or cleaning of a fry-a-lator. 
 The alternative, of course, was to omit any mention of my college degree on job application forms. But that would just lead to other questions I couldn't answer, including but not limited to 'What the hell have you been doing for the past four years?' 
 Out of curiosity, I began surreptitiously reading the job applications of my competition for these unpleasant positions. The very large man sitting across the table from me in the waiting room of the Squeaky Bubble Car Wash, I learned, was 32, a high school drop out, and coming off a stretch of five years in the state prison. I can't say exactly why this man had been incarcerated, as I stopped reading at that point in fear that it might have been for killing a man who'd peaked at his job application. I didn't get the Squeaky Bubble job. The ex-con did. Perhaps this was a smart move on the part of the company. For all I know the ex-con is still there doing a great job for the Squeaky Bubble organization. Or perhaps he tried to lift the stereo from the first car he vacuumed. Staffing never has been an exact science.
 With each passing day, my employment sights dropped lower. If no new help wanted ads appeared in the local paper by the end of the week, I decided, I would turn to the employers of last resort: those companies that never stopped hiring. In Bridgeton these included one supermarket, one 24-hour corner market, and three fast-food restaurants--two featuring burgers, one tacos. The local pizza joints needed only delivery boys, so unless I could jog fifteen miles in an hour or less or your pizza's free, I was out of luck there. As for the other five choices…
 
"It's hot," Dana noted, not without cause. It was by any reasonable measure extremely hot. Oppressively hot. Sufficatingly hot. Hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk hot, except that the sidewalks in Spanish Guyana were mostly dirt, and the chickens didn't feel much like laying eggs anyhow, since they were so worn out from it being too damn hot all the time. It was that kind of hot. Welcome to summer in the most humid place this side of Hell, Dana thought--and winter as well, since we're not that far from the equator. And this was just the airport. The jungle was unlikely to be significantly more comfortable, or such was Dana's understanding. 
 Truth was, Dana had never been in a tropical rainforest, exactly, although she had of course marched in many protests in their honor. But Dana was not naive. When she'd signed up to spend a year in this particular rainforest, she had realized that her new home might be uncomfortable, and had prepared for it as best she could. She'd even gone so far as to spend much of the previous weekend attempting to acclimatize. It hadn't really helped. This was a different kind of hot than the sort found at Rockaway Beach.
 The average American doesn't know very much about Spanish Guyana, and what little they do know tends to be enough to convince them there's no need to find out any more. Few could even pick Spanish Guyana out on a map, particularly if required to tell it apart from its fellow Guyanas, i.e. Guyana proper and French Guyana. While American geography teachers must shoulder some of the blame for this sorry situation, most of the fault lies with the members of the Guyanian trifecta themselves, since each of the nations is of the approximate size and significance of Idaho, a state that's most notable citizen is a man who went on to become governor of Idaho. Adding to the general level of confusion, French Guyana insists on spelling its surname G-u-i-a-n-a, which is exactly the sort of thing that makes everyone hate the French. 
 The piece of land destined to become Spanish Guyana first came to the attention of Europe when the English declared it their colony back in the seventeenth century, thinking it might be a nice place to go on holiday. But it wasn't long before the English traded the colony to the Dutch in exchange for Manhattan and an island to be named later, thereby earning the Dutch the distinction of being the group to get the worst deal for Manhattan, just nosing out those Native Americans who swapped it for a few beads. The Dutch simply wanted out of New York, which anyone who's lived there for a few years will understand. English Guyana must have sounded pretty good at the time, what with its warm weather and scenic beaches. It's the same thinking that leads so many of today's New Yorkers to retire to Florida. 
 The Dutch realized that they'd been had when they dropped by to visit their new South American neighbors and discovered that everyone else was putting in a penal colony which, unlike a swimming pool, can seriously detract from regional property values. So the Dutch gave the colony to the Spainish, who were running low on attic space, and Spanish Guyana was born. The colony remained under Spanish control for roughly 200 years until in 1976 it was granted its independence when no one from Spain bothered to renew the lease, thereby forfeiting their security deposit.
 Life in Spanish Guyana never seemed to change much regardless of who was in charge. Under any flag, the only export to speak of was aluminum, and most of that came from cans the nation found along the side of its roads. The population remained uneducated, malnourished, and chronically sweaty. 
 Why couldn't people starve in Aruba, Dana wondered secretly, in her worst moments. Or France. Or California. Well, not L.A. so much, but maybe Santa Cruz or Big Sur. All the worst disasters seemed to happen in really uncomfortable places, she complained often, although never out loud. 
 "Damn." Dana swatted her arm. Yet another bug bite. Everyone in this country is starving, but the bugs appeared exceptionally well fed. Hell, some of them looked big enough to eat. For a moment, Dana thought she'd stumbled upon a solution, then just as quickly filed the notion away as the wanderings of a heat-addled mind. Imagine a vegetarian such as herself considering such a thing. 
 Barely an hour in the county, and already Dana had run through a measurable portion of her sun block and bug repellant. Still, things could be worse, she noted. She'd almost invested $120 in a hair stylist's appointment prior to departure in an effort to make a good first impression, money that clearly would have been wasted, given the humidity. 
 Dana had been instructed to wait at the airport for the local representative of One Planet, the organization that had sponsored her trip. She had not specifically been told how long to wait, but she wasn't one to worry over nothing, and in many places on the globe, a wait of an hour or two is considered nothing. In others, it's an insult that could lead to generations of bloodshed. Local customs are funny that way. So Dana waited at the airport, and waited, and waited, passing her time mostly by sweating and fending off mosquito advances. She waited in the main terminal, which was of course the only terminal. On occasion she waited outside. It hardly mattered where she waited. Inside or out, it was too damn hot, and she saw no one who looked like an environmentalist. 
 Finally a man who looked nothing at all like an environmentalist approached her. "Ms. Davis?"
 "Yes," Dana replied.
 "Alphonso Berenjena, Spanish Guyana Department of State. Would you come with me please?"
 "What? Is there a problem?"
 "No problem, but please come with me."
Berenjena led Dana through an unmarked airport door and down a narrow cinderblock hall that gave her the unmistakable impression that this wasn't somewhere that one really wanted to be. He showed her into a small, windowless room with a table, two chairs and a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. He then took her luggage--a large backpack--and, apologizing politely for any inconvenience, locked her in. 
 It is perhaps natural to feel a degree of concern in such situations, but Dana was not the sort to panic unless absolutely necessary. Taking the chairs and table into account, it seemed likely that she was here to be questioned, not imprisoned. And anyway, Spanish Guyana was hardly a lawless country. It had plenty of laws, some of which were even enforced. So Dana wasn't panicked. Not even slightly. "Oh God, let me out, let me out--I'll do whatever you say," Dana screamed, pounding on the door. But not in a panicked way.
 
Dean Kerns had hung a campus map on his office wall. On it, he marked with red pushpins the buildings that now housed special interest groups. With green pushpins he marked those still available for college use. With yellow and blue pushpins he formed a colorful border around the map, since his box of pushpins had contained four colors and he hadn't been able to think of anything else to mark with the remaining two. A third of the dorms were red. Half the lecture halls. The majority of the departmental offices. On the upside, Kerns had managed to keep the administration building, the dining hall, and the campus heating plant in the green. Whatever else happened, he intended to have a roof over his head, food in his stomach, and heat in the winter. All else was uncertain. Where would he house students with the impending dorm shortage? Would there be enough classrooms? What would the faculty do to him for giving away their offices? And just what did these students plan to do in their balkanized student centers anyway? Kerns studied his map--much more red than green. The war was already lost. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? 
 Kerns was glad when a knock on his office door interrupted his misery. While it was true that every knock on his door for the past month had brought with it additional, previously unforeseen, miseries, at least new bad news tends to distract one from past errors, he thought. "Come in."
 "Dean Kerns?" asked the notably short student who entered. "I'm Paul Wilson. I'm here to get a student center for my minority group."
Kerns looked the man over. He wasn't a racial minority as far as Kerns could tell. His wardrobe gave away nothing regarding religious affiliation and ethnicity. He didn't appear handicapped. "Your minority group?" he asked finally.
 "I'm starting a campus organization of short men."
 "Short men?"
 "That's right."
 "I don't think short men qualify as a minority."
 "We're less than half the population, aren't we?"
Particularly if measured by volume, Kerns thought, but stuck with the non-committal "Well, I suppose…"
 "Then we're a minority."
 "I meant you're not a minority that's discriminated against."
 "I thought you might say that, so I brought the evidence." Wilson slid a manila folder across Kerns' desk. "Those are copies of four different studies concluding that a man's future financial success in the United States is directly correlated to his height. Tall men get jobs, raises, and promotions disproportionate with their abilities."
Kerns tried unsuccessfully to cut Wilson off.
 "I've also included a study showing that Americans consistently vote for the taller political candidate," Wilson continued. "Mike Dukakis, Ross Perot, they never had a prayer. Think Robert Reich has a chance at elected office? Anyway, you gave the women their own building, and women not only are measurably less victimized by discrimination, they're not really a minority at all."
Again Kerns tried to jump in, but having started speaking on this painful subject, Wilson wasn't yet ready to stop.
 "In fact, I can assure you from personal experience that women themselves are guilty of discriminating against short men in matters of personal relationships. Many of them seem to show considerable and irrational disdain for members of my minority group." 
Wilson finally paused and looked at Kerns hopefully. Uncertain that it finally was his turn to speak, Kerns held back until the silence became uncomfortable.
 "So I have to give you a student center because you can't get a date?" he asked finally.
 "In part, yes."
 "Can you excuse me a moment?" Kerns left Wilson in his office and went next door to explain the problem to Smith. "He does make some convincing points," Kerns allowed.
 "How short is he?" Smith asked.
 "He's pretty short."
 "But exactly how short?"
 "What difference does that make?"
 "All the difference in the world. If he's a midget, I mean officially--actually make that a little person, I think that's what they like to be called at the moment--then he's got us. If not, we can treat him however we like and no one will care."
 "Well, I have no idea. When does short stop being short and start being a midget?" asked Kerns.
 "I don't know either. But for God's sake, don't say midget, I'm told they hate that. Say little person."
 "And if he's not really a little person?"
 "Then we can call him whatever we want--we can probably even call him a midget, so long as he isn't one." Smith turned to his computer and pounded away at the keyboard for a few moments. "Damn, it's not here. We don't have student height on file. Listen, I'm going to run down to the health services center to see if they know Wilson's height. It must be on his medical forms or something. You use my computer to look up the medical limit for midget."
 "Smith, is it even legal to look through students' medical files for this sort of thing?"
 "Good point. Maybe we should injure him first so we have a reason to check his medical records."
 "No, no. There must be a better way."
 "Hmmm…Okay, I think I've got it," said Smith. "You stall him for ten minutes and then bring him in here. I'll do the rest."
 Stalling people was not Kerns' best thing. Those who stalled very well, he had noted, were generally able to ask questions that people wanted to answer, so that the one being stalled did most of the talking and never figured out that he or she was being stalled at all. But Kerns could never think of the right questions, and often ended up rambling on about topics like what he'd had for breakfast or the problem he was having with his feet, matters that in the grand sweep of history had never been of much interest to anyone. When Kerns had exhausted even these conversational options, he usually just found some mindless task to perform so that at least he could appear busy. 
 That was more or less how it went on this occasion. After a brief conversation about waffles and toenail fungus, Kerns picked up the manila folder and did his best to study Wilson's documents, all the while feeling the short man's eyes boring into him. It occurred to Kerns to offer Wilson a cup of coffee--but wasn't coffee supposed to stunt your growth? Probably safer to avoid that minefield. After it seemed that an hour had passed, Kerns checked his watch and saw he'd managed five minutes. He figured he'd better say something. 
 "So, eh, ah," Kerns said, then returned to the files. He'd have to think of something to say first, then say it, he decided. Finally, when it seemed as though a second hour had passed, even if the clock insisted it was only eight minutes, Kerns looked up and suggested they consult with his assistant. 
 Kerns led Wilson to Smith's office, and noticed immediately that no chairs remained in the room. Only eight minutes before, Smith had had two in front of his desk, for guests, and the customary one behind, for sitting and working. Now Smith was doing his best to look comfortable while standing behind his desk, typing on his computer. Kerns reviewed the situation for Smith, who of course already knew all about it. And Wilson made his case again, complete with statistics and passion, and looking shorter than ever standing next to the lanky Dean. When everyone was done speaking, Smith nodded, clicked his pencil against his chin, and began pacing in that funny little shuffling walk of his. First Smith paced back and forth behind his desk, then around the front, and finally right towards Wilson, who was left with no choice but to back against a wall to allow Smith to pass. When he did, Smith stopped dead, turned towards Wilson with an accusatory expression and said simply "Get out. You get nothing."
 "What? Why not?" Wilson protested, rattled. "Study after study shows that future earnings, success with relationships, general respect, and everything else worth having in life are all highly correlated with a man's height. How is this different from any other minority group?"
 "Because that's the way it is, short stuff, now get out of here before we call the police and tell them a five-year old is lost."
 "What the hell…"
 "Hey, little man, you must be at least this tall to ride the office," Smith continued, holding his hand at chest height. "Now scram, junior."
Wilson, reddening and near tears, scuttled off.
 "That was fun," Smith said to Kerns. "Not too many people left you can talk to like that without fear of either legal problems or getting the crap beaten out of you. Thank god for thin white males 4'10" through 5'6" and ages 18-49.
 "That was your solution?" gasped Kerns.
 "My solution was finding out whether he was officially little or just apparently little. Turns out he was the latter."
 "You're saying he isn't really short?"
 "Oh, he's short all right, just not short enough--look." Smith pointed the wall, and Kerns noticed a pencil line at roughly chest height. "I looked it up, and you've got to be shorter than 4'10" to be an actual little person. That kid was 5-foot flat, easy--a little person to be sure, but not a little person, if you follow."
 "I see."
 "I was afraid he might confuse the issue by wearing lifts in his shoes, but I guess he thought that would hurt his chances of getting the short-men student center, because in point of fact he was wearing a surprisingly low-soled loafer."
 "Good work…I guess," Kerns allowed. He hadn't been looking forward to the bill for lowering all the urinals in the short-man's dream dorm. Still, he wasn't certain who had the moral high ground on this one. Kerns turned as he reached Smith's office door. "Does it bother you at all that we treated that guy completely differently than we would have if he was two inches shorter?" Kerns asked.
 "Nope."
 "Why not?"
 "Because those are the rules."
 "Oh," Kerns said and went back to his office. Smith went looking for an eraser that wouldn't hurt his paint where he'd drawn the 4'10" line.

The wait probably wasn't as long as it seemed. Probably not long at all. Probably just a few minutes, Dana reflected. It would have been easier to say for sure if a guard hadn't dropped by to confiscate her watch. She'd managed to contain herself after the initial outburst, which had gone unheard, or at least unnoted. When the men finally arrived, Dana was sitting quietly, trying to remember anything useful she might have learned from Midnight Express. 
 There were two of them, the young bureaucrat who had ushered her into the room, and another man, obviously his superior, since he took the room's only remaining chair. Both looked, to Dana, a bit nervous. She thought this slightly odd, since they were the ones who could enter and leave the building at will.
 "Do you speak Spanish?" the seated man asked, in Spanish.
 "Si," Dana replied. 
 "Good," he continued in Spanish. "My name is Jesus Colombes, I'm the Director of Internal Security for this district. I'm afraid there's a problem with your travel permit."
 "There's a problem with my paper route?" Dana asked, alarmed.
The men exchanged a glance. "Perhaps we should continue in English," Colombes said, continuing in halting English. My assistant, Alphonso, will translate when necessary. The Director nodded for his associate to take over.
"The Director is sorry to inform you that travel to your intended destination will not be possible," Alphonso said, in English. 
 "But, this was arranged months ago through my organization, One Planet," Dana said. "What's wrong?"
Alphonso glanced at the Director, who merely nodded once again. "The Director is sorry to say that there are some mistakes on your travel application forms that were not spotted earlier."
 "What mistakes? Where?" Dana asked. She was mad now. Mad, but not panicked. People are not generally jailed in South American prisons for perceived travel application mistakes, just hassled and, in keeping with local custom, asked for a bribe.
 "A number of very important mistakes I'm afraid," said Alphonso. "Here, for example, where it says you're heading to Comrade Fidel Estrallia Province. This is a very big mistake, since there is no Comrade Fidel Estrallia Province."
 "There is too. It's in the southeast."
 "No, no. In the southeast is Comrade Miguel Fridas Province. It honors one of our nation's greatest heroes. Why would there be a Comrade Fidel Estrallia Province when there has never been a Comrade Fidel Estrallia?" Alphonso laughed. The Director laughed. Dana decided not to laugh, even though it probably would have been the polite thing to do.
 "What do you mean, there's never been a Comrade Fidel Estrallia? He was the hero of your revolution against the Spanish oppressors."
 "No," said the Director, in English. "No Fidel Estrallia. Fridas was hero of revolution." There was no laughing now. The Director looked quite serious.
 "Well, we can change that on my form, can't we?" Dana asked.
 "If it were the only problem, perhaps," said Alphonso. "But sadly there is more. You write that the purpose of your visit is to work with the indigenous people of the region, but I'm afraid there are no indigenous people in that region. None at all."
 "But my organization has had people working with the people of that region for years," Dana protested. "How can you say there aren't any."
 "I'm afraid you're mistaken again," said Alphonso. "Your organization has not had anyone here in a long, long time. They all left long, long ago."
 "But one of them was supposed to meet me at the airport. I spoke with him yesterday."
 "I'm afraid you are mistaken, you didn't speak with anyone yesterday," said Alphonso. The Director nodded resolutely. 
Dana looked at Alphonso, then at the Director. Both seemed anxious to be done with the conversation. "I don't want to pry," Dana pressed. "But has there been a war since yesterday?"
 "A war?" the director boomed in English. 
 "No, no war," said Alphonso.
 "No, no war," the Director repeated.
 "A disturbance then?"
 "No, no disturbance," said Alphonso.
 "No, no disturbance," said the Director.
 "A counter-revolutionary influence that had to be stamped out for the good of the nation, perhaps?"
 "No, no counter-revolutionary influence that had to be stamped out for the good of the nation," said Alphonso.
 "Well, maybe a small counter-revolutionary influence that had to be stamped out for the good of the nation," the Director conceded, managing the whole thing in English. 
 "But it is over now," said Alphonso.
 "Long over," said the Director.
 "Yes, our government remains sound," said Alphonso.
 "Very sound," said the Director.
 "The problem has been contained in the southeast," said Alphonso.
 "There is no problem," said the Director.
 "There is no a problem, and it has been contained in the southeast," Alphonso clarified. "But you still have to get on the next plane out. Because of the errors on your form."
 "But…"
 "I'm afraid this point cannot be debated. The Director and I must escort you out of the country on the next flight."
 "You're putting me on a plane out?"
 "We're escorting you out."
 "You're leaving the country?"
 "No, no," said Alphonso. "We are not leaving. We are escorting you on the flight. Nothing more. We are definitely not fleeing."
 "Not fleeing," the Director emphasized, nodding his head. "Just escorting you on the flight. Along with our families."
 "I see," Dana said.
 "Now we need to ask you for a bribe."