THE TOP TEN STORIES FICTION WRITING CHALLENGE
The American Way: Unequal Treatment and Justicia
“Well, I might not go to church every Sunday, but I’m a damn good Christian, I’d say”
“You strike me as an obedient kind of man, Tom. A good American and a Christian in name, if not in spirit. The kind of man who goes far in our country. A manager, you said? I’m sure you’ll do well for our purposes,” Jürgen’s eyes flashed with contempt, as he picked up a shiny little rainbow knife from a dusty child’s school desk in the corner of the large room they’d just entered. The desk sat below an intricate stained glass window depicting a blond man surrounded by flames.
“Well, I might not go to church every Sunday, but I’m a damn good Christian, I’d say,” Tom stammered. He sensed it was important to play up his religious connections now. His captors seemed to value this.
“Oh yeah? A good Christian, you say? Do you remember Justicia, Tom?” Lucía’s eyes seemed to pierce deep into his soul. Had they met somewhere before? He had the sense that she knew him.
Frantically, he searched his memory, but couldn’t think of anyone he’d ever known by that name. “I’ve never known Justicia. You must have the wrong man,” Tom’s voice shook a little.
“Mira, ese que sigue todas las reglas y leyes dice que nunca ha conocido a Justicia.* There’s nothing more American than that now, is there? We have the right man. God makes no mistakes, verdad?” Lucía’s eyes seemed to glow from the light of the eternal fire in the window. “Think real hard, Tom. Think about when you were the slum lord of the cheapest apartment building in town. The one infested with roaches you’d never bothered to take care of. The one that was later condemned because you wouldn’t repair anything.”
“I wasn’t a slum lord. I didn’t even own the place. I was just a manager. I was just doing my job! But how did you know all of this? It was many years ago.”
“You were just doing your job, huh? Just following all the rules? Do you remember the rule about dogs? The one that caused you to evict Justicia?”
“I’ve never evicted anyone named Justicia, I swear! I only ever evicted one person. A man named Jua-,” Tom’s head hit the stone ground. The bandage did little to soften the blow.
“¡Que mal educado que eres, Tom! Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s rude to deadname somebody? Well, nobody deadnames my sister. Think real hard, Tom. Why did you evict Justicia? She paid her rent on time. You’d accepted her money for the month only two days before,” Lucía cracked her knuckles daintily.
Tom groaned in response.
“We don’t have all day. I’ll refresh your memory. You evicted Justicia because she had a dog. You allowed cockroaches, but no dogs. Remember why she had a dog? Do I need to hit you again to jog your memory?”
Tom struggled onto all fours, “It was the policy. I was just doing my job,” he whispered.
“Were you doing your job when one apartment after another was robbed without any repercussions? Were you doing your job when la vieja Dulce was murdered in broad daylight on a Tuesday because the police never bothered to respond to the 7 neighbors who called to report her screaming? Were you doing your job when Justicia asked you what she needed to do to stay safe, if she couldn’t keep a dog to protect her?”
“I was just doing my job,” he sobbed. “I had to evict her! It was the rules. She wouldn’t follow the damn rules. I warned her again and again. She left me with no choice! You have to understand!”
“Do you know what happened to Justicia? Did you know she could only afford that apartment because the restaurant where she worked considered minimum wage to be more of a guideline than a rule for paying dishwashers? Did you know no other place would hire someone like her back then? Where do you think she lived after you evicted her?”
Tom began to hyperventilate. Had he killed Justicia by following the rules? Had he killed a woman? Was this why he had found himself in this church?
An angelic woman in a flowing dress covered in sparkling pink, blue, and white crystals walked through a pair of tall wooden doors, “Hi Tom! It’s so good to see you again, my dear! Welcome to our church! My goodness, are you injured? You poor little thing! Have a seat. All that we have is this little children’s desk, but it will have to do. Jürgen, he’s bleeding through the bandage over his head. He’ll need another one. We want him at his best for listening, today.”
“Justicia?” Tom was stunned. Was this a dream? This couldn’t be the person he’d evicted all those years ago. She looked like a movie star.
“Did you think I had died, Tom? That would have been a reasonable guess. Ladies like me don’t really have homeless shelters to go to in this town, do we? Especially back then, when no one would acknowledge that I was a real woman and all of the homeless shelters were gendered. And it’s not exactly safe for a lady to live on the streets, now is it? You knew that. I’m resourceful though. I managed to work in that restaurant while living in a library. I’d hide when it came time to close. I think the librarian knew, but she wasn’t a good American by your standards. She didn’t follow the rules. She knew Justicia and took care of her.” Justicia’s eyes were soft. She didn’t appear angry. She was simply stating her truths.
Tom felt a new wave of shame. This librarian had been a much better person than him.
“I bet you thought you were the hero of this story, Tom. I bet you thought you were surrounded by villains. That’s what your American movies have taught you to think about yourself. That’s what they’ve taught you to think about us,” Justicia’s eyes were filled with something like pity for Tom as she spoke, “But there are no villains and there are no heroes. There are only humans who make one decision after another, until there are no decisions left to make. I wonder what choices you will make today.”
Lucía touched Tom’s temple gently with a cloth. The white and blue fabric had a bright red stain on it, when she removed it, “You are part of our mission now. I think you understand. I can see it in your eyes. You’re a sinner, but your guilt is of no use here, Tom. It’s only your choices going forward that matter. ‘Power is made perfect in weakness.’ You are weak. That is what you were taught to be. Your weakness is the source of your power over people. Your refusal to question rules is the source of your weakness. Now that you understand, we need enforcers of Justicia to clean the filth, to erase the rules and replace them with humanity and kindness. Will you make this wrong of yours right? Will you join us?”
*Translation: “Look at this one, who follows all of the rules and laws, yet says that he’s never met Justice.”
This was in response to the fiction writing prompt assigned to me by Timothy J. Sabo here:
To read the story in order, start here with Timothy J. Sabo’s response to his own prompt:
And then read this first response by JF Danskin:
The next chapter will be written by either PJ Jackelman, Sherry McGuinn, Geoffrey Gevalt, Helen Hensell, Sudarsan Karki-SuperSudar, Annie Trevaskis, or Uwem Daniels.
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