Christopher Brown - Tropic of Kansas

For Agustina and Hugo

Hidden in the tall weeds of an empty lot outside Winnipeg, Sig watched the family eat dinner in the backyard of their new house on the other side of the fence. They were grilling pork chops, and it smelled good.

Sig had no house, and no food. He was hungry, dirty, and tired. He had been running for so long he forgot where he was going. Sometimes he forgot where he was from.

The kids were younger than Sig, maybe eight and ten, a redheaded boy and his dark-haired older sister. The mom was blond and the dad was bald. The lawn was an unnaturally bright green, and the picnic table was painted red. The family looked safe and happy.

The yard was filled with toys.

Sig had hopped a train in western Ontario, after a summer roaming the Quetico. The lakes were good to him until the people hunters found him, and he had to abandon the canoe hed stolen and disappear into the woods. Now it had been a couple of days since he had a real meal, and surviving off the land was a different matter in the edges of a big city like Winnipeg. Easier and harder at the same time.

Sig watched the family for close to an hour, until they finished and went inside. The sun set, and the house glowed from the flickering white light of its electric hearth.

Sig jumped the fence and crouched behind the jungle gym, waiting to see if anyone noticed the sound of the chain link moving.

Quiet. He could hear the sounds of the family talking, and the strange voices from an interactive childrens show.

He moved to the picnic table and found the food he had seen the children drop. Part of a pork chop, and some french fries. He brushed off the dirt and ate them.

He lifted the lid on the fathers gas grill. There was some food left on there, toothree backup hot dogs. Sig ate those. They were still warm.

The sliding glass door opened. Sig ducked behind the grill. The father stepped out.

Sig watched the man scan his backyard, night blind from his house full of screens. If he could have seen Sig, he would have seen a skinny, unwashed thirteen-year-old staring back at him from under greasy, uncut bangs.

Hello? said the man.

A dog barked from another house nearby. Sig was glad this family did not have a dog.

The man went back inside. Sig stayed hidden. He watched and waited.

The parents carried the children upstairs. They left the television on.

Sig went to the glass door. He quietly slid it open. Listened, looked, smelled, and stepped in.

He crouched behind the sofa and scrambled to the kitchen.

There was a laundry closet there, with a hamper made of a cloth bag draped over a metal frame. Sig took the bag from the frame. It had some clothes in it. He raided the refrigerator and the pantry, filling the rest of the bag with food.

He ran out the back before the parents came back down. He forgot to close the door behind him.

Dont look back.

He threw the bag over the fence, climbed back over, and ran off toward the woods he had come from.

Later, he built a fire in a clearing at the bottom of a ravine. He cooked frozen ravioli, and hot dogs, and marshmallows. He ate graham crackers and Cheetos and a peanut butter cup. He drank Pepsi Cola and beer. He sorted through the familys clothes. He took a pair of the fathers blue jeans, rolled up the legs, and cinched the waist with the string from the laundry bag. He put on three of the mothers T-shirts at the same time, and a big sweatshirt. He made a nest with the rest of the clothes, using it for bedding inside a lean-to he made under a fallen tree wedged into the muddy grade of the ravine.

Buzzed on beer, sugar, and animal fat, Sig curled up in a pile of the familys dirty clothes and forgot about his worries for a while. Their scents were so strong and clean, he felt almost like he was living with them in their house.

The police came in the morning. They found the lean-to, but Sig had already headed farther north.

Looking at the bright blue sky from the backseat of the armored truck, which was more like a cell than a seat, Sig could almost believe it was a warm day. But the shackles around his ankles were still cold from the walk out to the vehicle, and when Sig put his head up against the bars to test for faults, he could feel the ice trying to get to him. And winter was just getting started.

What day is it? asked Sig.

Deportation day, said the big constable who had muscled him out of lockup thirty minutes earlier. When he talked the red maple leaf tattoo on the side of his thick neck moved, like a lazy bat.

Friday, said the Sergeant, who was driving. December 1. The day you get to go back where you came from.

The thought conjured different images in Sigs head than his jailers might have imagined.

Back to cuckoo country, laughed the constable. Lucky you. Say hi to the TV tyrant for me.

The Mounties had nicknames for Sig, like Animal and Dog Boy, but they never called him any of those to his face. They didnt know his real name. When they trapped him stealing tools and food from a trailer at the Loonhaunt Lake work camp a month earlier, he had no ID, no name he would give them, and they couldnt find him in their computers. They still tagged him, accurately, as another American illegal immigrant or smuggler, and processed him as a John Doe criminal repatriation. They did not know that he had been up here the better part of seven years, living in the edgelands.

The memory of that day he ran tried to get out, like a critter in a trap, but he kept it down there in its cage. And wished he had stayed farther north.

He pulled his wrists against the cuffs again, but he couldnt get any leverage the way they had him strapped in.

Then the truck braked hard, and the restraints hit back.

The constable laughed.

They opened the door, pulled him out of the cage, and uncuffed him there on the road. Beyond the barriers was the international bridge stretching over the Rainy River to the place he had escaped.

Walk on over there and youll be in the USA, kid, said the sergeant. Thank you for visiting Canada. Dont come back.

Sig stretched, feeling the blood move back into his hands and feet. He looked back at the Canadian border fortifications. A thirty-foot-high fence ran along the riverbank. Machine guns pointed down from the towers that loomed over the barren killing zone on the other side. He could see two figures watching him through gun scopes from the nearest tower, waiting for an opportunity to ensure he would never return.

Sig looked in the other direction. A military transport idled in the middle of the bridge on six fat tires, occupants hidden behind tinted windows and black armor. Behind them was an even higher fence shielding what passed for tall buildings in International Falls. The fence was decorated with big pictograms of death: by gunfire, explosives, and electricity. The wayfinding sign was closer to the bridge.

United States Borderzone

Minnesota State Line 3.4 Miles

Sig looked down at the churning river. No ice yet.

He shifted, trying to remember how far it was before the river dumped into the lake.

Step over the bridge, prisoner, said a machine voice. It looked like the transport was talking. Maybe it was. Hed heard stories. Red and white flashing lights went on across the top of the black windshield. You could see the gun barrels and camera eyes embedded in the grill.

Go on home to robotland, kid, said the sergeant. They watch from above too, you know.

Sig looked up at the sky. He heard a chopper but saw only low-flying geese, working their way south. He thought about the idea of home. It was one he had pretty much forgotten, or at least given up on. Now it just felt like the open door to a cage.