The Farm
Below is a short excerpt from Ecks' new novel (as yet untitled). Its intended purpose is to go some way to explaining why the protagonist might be being pursued by the authorities.
One night, a few years ago, my next door neighbour Garro disappeared. When I left my apartment for work in the morning his door was hanging open and there was no sign of him. He wasn’t there when I got home in the evening either, and the door to his apartment was still open. It remained that way for four weeks, until one day he came back. His skin was pale, his eyes were sunk deep in grey sockets and his body hung limp from his head like washing hung out to dry. I asked him what had happened, where he had been, but he refused to say a word. He just hid in his apartment for weeks. When he eventually came out, weak as a gas and almost transparent, I asked him again, and he ushered me into my apartment and closed the door. Then he put some music on, turned all the taps on, sat me down on the sofa and whispered in my ear.
“So no-one can hear,” he said.
Then he told me what had happened to him.
He said they’d come for him in the small, crawling hours of morning, long before the sun came up. They’d borrowed a master key from the building supervisor, so he didn’t even hear them enter his apartment; the first he knew about it was being woken by a truncheon being jabbed into his stomach. There were six of them, dressed head to toe in black except for a little white ‘police’ patch sewn on the left arm, and they handcuffed him and dragged him out of his apartment by his feet, without even telling him what he was being arrested for. Then they put a bag over his head, bundled him into the back of some kind of vehicle, and started to drive. He asked them where they were going, but they just punched him and told him to be quiet.
“I knowed where we was going, though,” he whispered, “Don’t need no university schooling to work out anyone them lot arrest in the black boroughs’ll end up at the Farm.”
We all knew the stories, and we all knew someone who had disappeared, or gone away for a while and come back…different. The Farm was a semi-mythical place, said to be a remote old cattle ranch that had been converted into a government interrogation centre that skulked just beneath the view of the law. The President set it up years ago, just after he came into power. At first he used it to imprison his political opponents as he set about dismantling the pre-revolutionary apparatus of government, but when the last of those had been buried in the salt flats he handed the running of the camp over to the secret police, who turned their attention to the minorities – the blacks and the indians, mainly – torturing and killing them as they saw fit.
Garro said that when they eventually arrived at the Farm he was shoved and kicked into a tiny cell, and only then did they finally remove his hood. The guards spat on him and told him he was going to die, then left him alone in there for hours, though he didn’t know how long exactly as there was no clock and no window. They returned with food and water but made him beg before they gave it to him, and when it touched his tongue the water was brackish and the food rotten. When he had finished they whipped his legs with a length of rubber hose pierced with needles. They did this every day. Some days they urinated on his food. Some days they threatened to cut off his lips or his eyelids.
After a week, the routine changed. The whippings stopped, and after his food he was taken to a white-tiled, sterile-looking room where he was strapped to a bed. A man came in and asked him questions about his family, his friends and his neighbours, asking whether they were involved in any criminal or anti-government activity. When he said no, they simply told him he was lying and electrocuted him in the mouth or rubbed chillis onto his eyes, nose and genitals or pulled his toenails out with pliers or put his feet into boxes full of wasps.
He said that eventually they must have realised that he didn’t know anything, and that the coin they flipped must have come up heads as they decided not to kill him. He was hooded again, bundled into the back of another vehicle and driven away somewhere. On the way they told him that if he ever spoke of his experiences to another living soul, they’d come for him. After a few hours of driving they pulled over, unhooded him and dropped him by the side of the road.
“Last thing they said to me before they dumped me in the ditch,” he said, “Was I was lucky I done nothing wrong.”
One night, a few years ago, my next door neighbour Garro disappeared. When I left my apartment for work in the morning his door was hanging open and there was no sign of him. He wasn’t there when I got home in the evening either, and the door to his apartment was still open. It remained that way for four weeks, until one day he came back. His skin was pale, his eyes were sunk deep in grey sockets and his body hung limp from his head like washing hung out to dry. I asked him what had happened, where he had been, but he refused to say a word. He just hid in his apartment for weeks. When he eventually came out, weak as a gas and almost transparent, I asked him again, and he ushered me into my apartment and closed the door. Then he put some music on, turned all the taps on, sat me down on the sofa and whispered in my ear.
“So no-one can hear,” he said.
Then he told me what had happened to him.
He said they’d come for him in the small, crawling hours of morning, long before the sun came up. They’d borrowed a master key from the building supervisor, so he didn’t even hear them enter his apartment; the first he knew about it was being woken by a truncheon being jabbed into his stomach. There were six of them, dressed head to toe in black except for a little white ‘police’ patch sewn on the left arm, and they handcuffed him and dragged him out of his apartment by his feet, without even telling him what he was being arrested for. Then they put a bag over his head, bundled him into the back of some kind of vehicle, and started to drive. He asked them where they were going, but they just punched him and told him to be quiet.
“I knowed where we was going, though,” he whispered, “Don’t need no university schooling to work out anyone them lot arrest in the black boroughs’ll end up at the Farm.”
We all knew the stories, and we all knew someone who had disappeared, or gone away for a while and come back…different. The Farm was a semi-mythical place, said to be a remote old cattle ranch that had been converted into a government interrogation centre that skulked just beneath the view of the law. The President set it up years ago, just after he came into power. At first he used it to imprison his political opponents as he set about dismantling the pre-revolutionary apparatus of government, but when the last of those had been buried in the salt flats he handed the running of the camp over to the secret police, who turned their attention to the minorities – the blacks and the indians, mainly – torturing and killing them as they saw fit.
Garro said that when they eventually arrived at the Farm he was shoved and kicked into a tiny cell, and only then did they finally remove his hood. The guards spat on him and told him he was going to die, then left him alone in there for hours, though he didn’t know how long exactly as there was no clock and no window. They returned with food and water but made him beg before they gave it to him, and when it touched his tongue the water was brackish and the food rotten. When he had finished they whipped his legs with a length of rubber hose pierced with needles. They did this every day. Some days they urinated on his food. Some days they threatened to cut off his lips or his eyelids.
After a week, the routine changed. The whippings stopped, and after his food he was taken to a white-tiled, sterile-looking room where he was strapped to a bed. A man came in and asked him questions about his family, his friends and his neighbours, asking whether they were involved in any criminal or anti-government activity. When he said no, they simply told him he was lying and electrocuted him in the mouth or rubbed chillis onto his eyes, nose and genitals or pulled his toenails out with pliers or put his feet into boxes full of wasps.
He said that eventually they must have realised that he didn’t know anything, and that the coin they flipped must have come up heads as they decided not to kill him. He was hooded again, bundled into the back of another vehicle and driven away somewhere. On the way they told him that if he ever spoke of his experiences to another living soul, they’d come for him. After a few hours of driving they pulled over, unhooded him and dropped him by the side of the road.
“Last thing they said to me before they dumped me in the ditch,” he said, “Was I was lucky I done nothing wrong.”
posted by Ecks Ridgehead at
12/22/2005 07:52:00 am
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