To Kevin Barbieux

The Homeless Guy

thehomelessguy.blogspot.com
 The Migration

Lilly Varghn glanced wearily at the clock. It was 5:55 a.m., her shift

didn't start for another three hours but Ralph, impossibly young and naïve

had called.

The anxiety was evident in his voice.

Reluctantly, Lilly had gotten out of bed, careful not to disturb her

husband as she dressed and quickly headed into work. She made a mental

note as she entered the underground headquarters to have a discussion with

the new intern about proper protocol.

Lilly stifled a yawn. "Do we have a head count, yet?"

 Ralph glanced to his computer screen, but it was obvious he'd already

memorized the thermal responder’s results. "Almost 900 approximated thirty

minutes ago."

"Is that all?" Lilly laughed. "Have we heard anything from the

mayor?"

Ralph pressed his lips together as he shook his head.

Lilly was relieved. The mayor had kept out of this for the interim.

“Someone has to know, whether it’s the local media, newspaper, or hell,

even an idiot with an illegal cell phone, ready to cause a sensation.”

"They don't cover these things anymore, do they?" Ralph, ever

observant, warily watched Lilly’s dark eyes fastened on the bay of screens

plastered on the far wall. Local weather reports displayed national and

planet-wide radar reports with mostly bitterly cold temperatures.

Lilly shrugged. "We've not had this large of a migration in over a

year. It's hard to say. It's minus twenty out, no sun rise yet, so maybe we'll

luck out. It’s the mayor we should be worried about. I'm surprised he

hasn't..."

A light trill sounded in her earpiece and she took a quick inhale before

she answered. "Morning, Mayor. Yes, we're fully aware... almost 900. No.

It's not like last time. That was well over two thousand... 14 months ago,
sir." Lilly wiped a fine sheet of sweat from her forehead, the dark monitor

that sat on her desk showed a dusty reflection of her badly stooped frame

and the deep wrinkles that etched her tired face. "Really sir, I'd no idea, it's

so early."

She covered the mouthpiece before she hissed at Ralph, "Turn one of

those to channel seven, hurry!"

Ralph scrambled about his desk, lifted a small remote and

immediately the center screen along the wall filled with the face of an

exhausted male reporter as he desperately tried to keep his coat about him.

His nose and cheeks were a brilliant red that matched his hair being tossed

about in the fierce wind.

Lilly pulled the earpiece and wrapped it in her fist so as to shut out the

Mayor's tirade to better hear what the reporter was saying.

"Almost a thousand migrators have assembled just outside the city

limits while a second group, numbering well into the thousands, is

converging with this smaller group..."

"Thousands?" Ralph said as he glanced nervously over at Lilly.

The reporter stopped for a moment as someone off camera handed

him a torn scrap of paper. His brow furrowed with puzzlement. "According
to thermal readouts by an undisclosed source the migration numbers may

well be in the tens of thousands."

Ralph could hear all the way from his desk the single repeated

sentence that drilled through Lilly’s earpiece. "What are you going to do

Mrs. Varghn? What are you going to do?"

Lilly popped the earpiece back into place. "Don't worry, Mayor, we'll

handle it. We always do, don't we? This isn't the first time we've had a

migration of this size."

Seconds later Lilly threw the tiny earpiece onto her desk and

swallowed hard. "I don’t suppose you are old enough to remember the

Migration of 2012?"

"No, but I'm familiar from training," Ralph replied wanly." It was the

first migration. The country had never seen anything like it, though they

should have known something was bound to happen. Considering the

economy, or lack there of, anyway."

"Do you remember how many?"

Ralph glanced up to the news channel on the screen. Someone was

filming through a snow-dusted back window of what appeared to be a van.

"A hundred and fifteen thousand, wasn't it? Survivors of the first collapse

coming from the north?"

 Lilly nodded. "Very good, it's nice to know you paid attention during

your training. Now, do you recall what city was lost in our country's first

migration?"

"Miami?"

"No, not Miami, though they were hit two months later with massive

amounts of people, but the first city to take on the first migration of the

homeless was Nashville."

Ralph looked puzzled. "Nashville? I've never heard of it."

"Nashville was long before your time and is not something many want

to speak about, especially the history books." Her fingers swept over the

keyboard. A map of the city came up on the screen. There were several large

masses of pink that dotted the city limits. "Someone goofed the numbers,

there's more than tens of thousands, many more."

"Will the stadium hold them all?" Ralph relinquished his seat to stand

directly behind Lilly.

"Yes.”

They silently watched the screen as a pink blob that signified the

migrators was slowly engulfed by small blobs of green.

 Our guys, Lily mused and noted Ralph's cumbersome breaths behind

her. The young intern's eyes became dangerously red and watery. "Don't

worry, the city will be safe."

"There’s so many and it is so cold outside," he said.

“Freezing, actually, but the weather has paid us a huge favor.”

“A favor?” Ralph replied incredulously.

“Of course, think about how many have already perished from

exposure. The numbers could well have been double what it is now. Triple.

Any more and, well, we could have had a real problem.”

Ralph’s face paled and with an obvious urgency to have it off his

shoulders he gushed, "I-I'd some cousins in the last migration."

Lilly smiled weakly. "You’re not the first, kiddo, or the only one here

at the company to have family or friends out there. You can’t take it

personally, there's nothing you can do. It’s illegal to help the homeless and

the non-citizen."

He nodded. "Yeah, I mean, none of my family knew, until…

afterwards."

The screen showed the pink blobs as they converged, the green their

formidable ushers.

"I'm sorry, but at least you knew. Some are never identified."
 The slow moving pink blob elongated and became a thick line while

the green made a steady but thin stripe on either side and behind. Lilly ran a

fingernail along the length of the pink line as Ralph's cheeks burned scarlet

with embarrassment or was it anger? There were a million things Lilly

wanted to say to her young intern, like her own mother possibly out there,

part of a migration. But now was not the time as the footfalls of the

migrators stormed above their underground headquarters to the coliseum on

ground level.

Later, when an official headcount was taken the number would fall to

six figures and Lilly, much to her personal relief, would find that her mother

hadn’t been one of them.

"Where have they all been? How can so many go unnoticed?" Ralph

questioned.

Lilly's eyes grazed over the ceiling, the footsteps continued to move

steadily onward. “They were probably hidden in the surrounding woodlands,

sending out runners to other groups, debating and planning their

convergence. There have been so many attempts to take over D.C. by

migrators during my lifetime I've lost count.”

"Nashville wasn't their fault, you know," said Ralph.

"I thought you never heard of it?"

 Ralph looked away, cheeks flushed. "What else were people to do

when they lost their homes and couldn't grow food because of the weather?

They took only what they could carry and moved south. People as far away

as Alaska tried to move south as the sea levels rose, absolute chaos. I don't

know how my grandparents ever survived."

"I take it your grandparents weren't from D.C.?"

"No. My granddad was a senator out of Ohio, got a golden ticket, I

guess you could say."

Lilly nodded, it suddenly made sense on why Ralph felt particularly

hostile to the situation. "I take it your granddad was part of the committee

that bombed Nashville? My history is good, but not that great to remember

everyone who voted for it."

"I don't know which is harder to live with, a granddad that bombed his

own countrymen or that he helped create the law to make everyone but those

in the city limit illegals."

"This issue has been discussed for generations,” Lilly said. “What

happened at Nashville was a... learning experience. There's nothing you can

do about past mistakes, what you can do now is help me deal with the large

number of people currently over our heads."

 "It was my granddad's legacy that got me this job, you know? My

father demanded it, unless I wanted to end up like my cousins." Ralph

shuffled back to his desk, hands buried deep in his pockets with his eyes cast

heavenwards. “Do you have someone out there?”

Lilly's earpiece trilled, she answered it in relief. "Yes, Mayor. No, I've

not a confirmed number. Well, no, we've got to be able to close the doors

first and besides, I don't have my entire crew in the office yet. Well, I'm sure

they are... yes, Mayor."

As if on cue several people poured from the hall and into the room to

take their respective desks. Many yawned with coffee cups filled to the brim

in hand; monitors began to blink to life, and voices murmured into earpieces.

The office, once cast in shadow, was suddenly awash in brilliant light

from the lamps overhead.

Ralph took his seat, obviously sulky and depressed, his face inches

from his computer screen. A pop-up window on his monitor showed dark

shadows in the stadium. Without instruction he pushed a few buttons on the

remote still clutched in one hand and the screen on the far wall changed

from the young reporter to a view of the migration.

Several other screens soon followed, each one showed a different

angle inside the stadium.

 The migrators milled about the stadium field, filtered through the

aisles to take up seats, and climbed staircases to fill every nook and cranny.

Their voices echoed through the cavernous and only slightly illuminated

concrete structure. One could just make out a sea of heads as they glanced

upward to the tightly sealed dome.

A baby cried out, followed by the misplaced laughter of young

children.

When the stadium seemed ready to burst at the seams the large doors

were bolted closed.

By now, all the screens on the far wall showed the stadium and its

contents. The dim lights had been raised to allow one to witness the haggard

faces of young and old alike. All were bundled heavily in various length and

color coats. Many had blankets thrown about their heads and shoulders for

extra warmth. Their arms were laden with bags, sometimes boxes, or

backpacks, rucksacks, paperboy bags, a shopping cart here or there, filled

with their worldly possessions.

A handful of people had started to construct makeshift tents on the

field. While others laid out sleeping bags or mounds of blankets on stadium

seats so as to curl up and sleep.

 Yet others paced nervously about, some screamed, some cried, others

were silent, reserved.

Lilly spoke into her earpiece, "Do we have them all? Good. No, we’ll

catch the stragglers in the city later. Yes. Yes. That's fine. We're ready."

There was another series of what sounded to be doors closing. Ralph

visibly shrank into his chair with a heavy gasp.

Lilly sighed. "It's all right, Ralph. It's how it must be. We've not the

resources to keep everyone, you know that."

From the far wall each panel showed the lights in the stadium

suddenly go dark, there was a collective gasp, a few screams, more babies

crying and nervous chatter. Seconds passed and was soon filled with a faint

hissing noise on the outskirts of the stadium.

The migrators went silent.

Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to an hour before the lights

returned.

In the span of that first hour, Lilly watched as Ralph quietly slipped

out of the office. It was probably for the best. She would have him pack his

things at the end of his shift; write a recommendation. She would hate to see

him out of work, considering the alternative.

 At the end of her shift she would go home to greet her husband, Ed,

and have a light dinner. Perhaps they would go to the museum, or maybe

walk through the cold streets to the city park before curfew. At some point

Ed would turn to her and inevitably ask how her day had been and she would

paint a picture of typical boring paperwork and silly young interns.

After all, the media would later retract their story and report nothing

more than 80, maybe close to a hundred non-citizens had attempted to break

into the city but were immediately dispatched. There would be a few

protesters outside HQ who would demand the equal treatment for the

homeless and non-citizens but they wouldn’t be there long. The cold day

would soon force them inside or they would be arrested.

Lilly looked over the screens that showed heaps of motionless

shadows inside the stadium as she spoke into her earpiece, "Give it another

hour but make it clear there is to be no clean-up until nightfall, for obvious

reasons.”

Written 2007