Nate Danger (provenate) wrote in remains_freenet, @ 2016-02-03 15:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2019 [01] january, # interview, # username: duende, # username: slapinthefarce |
Interview
About a week ago, Nate received a private message from Solomon Reed about conducting an interview. A request that Nate was glad to oblige. Leaders of the shelters were something he’d been gunning for, hoping for. Not that he wasn’t as interested in all people, but he felt that their was a different perspective to be had when it came to the variety of people that had taken up a notable and visible role, one of responsibility and stress.
At first he’d feared that Mr. Reed would prefer to do the interview at the UMCB itself and after the jailbreak of Ms. Adelaide Hawkins and his subsequent move to the Dog Park, he was sure he was no longer welcome in a Capitol sponsored shelter. It was surprising then, when Solomon requested they meet at some kind of new age and holistic studio space.
[As was the ceremony, Nate was the first to arrive and set up. He tried to do so as inconspicuously as possible but there is no doubt that the focus of the interview will be center of all the equipment. A glance at his watch and he looks up at the door when he spots someone coming through the door. Although he’s expecting Solomon there will always be a remnant caution that lingers and should linger far after he comforts and uncertainty of meeting strangers. There’s an explanation about the set-up. He goes over that Solomon doesn’t have to look at the camera, that he can look at Nate as if they are caught in a conversation - albeit one sided. There’s an old folding chair that had been dragged over to the space the interview will take place. When Solomon seems settled and comfortable the camera is turned on.] [As was the ceremony, Nate was the first to arrive and set up. He tried to do so as inconspicuously as possible but there is no doubt that the focus of the interview will be center of all the equipment. A glance at his watch and he looks up at the door when he spots someone coming through the door. Although he’s expecting Solomon there will always be a remnant caution that lingers and should linger far after he comforts and uncertainty of meeting strangers. There’s an explanation about the set-up. He goes over that Solomon doesn’t have to look at the camera, that he can look at Nate as if they are caught in a conversation - albeit one sided. There’s an old folding chair that had been dragged over to the space the interview will take place. When Solomon seems settled and comfortable the camera is turned on.] Off Camera: Can you state your name please? [The camera is focused on Solomon’s face. His long legs are crossed, ankle to knee, long fingers laced around the bent knee. He appears at ease.] Sol. [He realizes he should maybe be more formal than that, smiles and corrects himself.] Solomon Reed. [Nate looks around the area, the place that Sol has chosen. He’ll get more footage of it later but right now, he wants to know more about it.] You wanted to meet here. Why? Is there a significance? [Solomon’s hazel eyes make a tour of the room to see what Nate sees, an airy, sunlit expanse of wood floor and openness, with a small shelf at one end set up as a Buddhist altar. He nods.] This is where I spent my quarantine, and where I come to clear my head. I live at the hospital, of course but that’s- well, it’s just part. Oh! [He reaches under his chair, takes up a small rucksack with a dozen mementos in it, and hands them off camera to Nate, smiles a self-deprecating smile.] I brought visuals. The hospital has always been part of my life but I thought doing this there might be limiting. I’m a leader, sure, but I’m… also just a guy. Excellent![ Nate takes the bag and sets it on his lap. If Sol brought these specifically to the interview there must be some significance. Later he’ll edit the contents into the interview but for now, he opens the sack and goes for the first item. His fingers tickle the edge of a business card. He pulls it out and holds it up for Sol to see] What’s this? Oh! [Sol’s gaze moves from Nate’s face to the card, singular in focus] That’s the oddities shop that I worked at in New Orleans, just before the infection. The owner, Gretchen, was the most interesting person to talk to… She used to say that the veil was thin between me and ‘the beyond’, and she was always trying to ground my soul inside my body. [Said as if it is a concept that intrigues him, though he doesn’t appear afraid that his soul may depart soon. He smiles, eyes crinkling at the edges.] It’s funny the things you pick up. I went to visit my sister in the tunnels with a dime under my tongue like she taught me. From oddities shop to Leader of the medical center.[Nate’s eyes crinkle at the corners. It’s interesting to him the ways in which people’s lived unfold, the stories within each one.] I haven’t heard this with the dime? Can you explain? [Solomon hums, a “...where to start…” sound, as he steeples his long fingers. His enthusiasm for the subject is apparent as he leans forward, elbows on knees.] So, there’s a voodoo belief that says if you stick a dime under your tongue, it’ll turn black if someone has worked on you. Gretchen had… her own thoughts. Her brain is like a human oddities shop, really. To her it was like an anchor, a talisman? To keep a spirit in place. [Nate also hums, when the explanation is given and he’s trying to digest his thoughts and form a new question] And you do this here? When you visit your sister in the tunnels. Do you think there are people working on you down there? [He hates to call them ghouls. After-all, he’s met some of those that live down there. Nate only sees them as human caught in something they need help getting out of.] Are you worried about your sister? Can you tell me about her? Are you close? [Sol shakes his head] No, not like that. Like I said, Gretchen had her own beliefs, and it wasn’t so much about keeping work off you as it was about giving weight to a soul that didn’t seem as tethered in as others. Those things have power so long as you believe they do, you know? Sometimes the tunnels make me feel a bit… outside of myself, so, a dime. See? [Then Sol’s focus shifts, obvious on his expressive face, and his eyes go up toward the right, like he’s seeing his sister in his mind’s eye.] We’re close. We’re not even a year apart in age so we grew up close. We’ve had our own lives, but if she needs me, I’m there. If I need her, she’s there. Do I worry… You know, that’s not really how I live my life. I know that she’s smart, I know that she’s tough. [His smile warms while he thinks.] She’s blunt as a sledgehammer but she can cut right through to the point of a thing and sometimes I think that’s hard, because she sees so much. She’s a musician, really, really talented, and really… You know, receptive. She feels things pretty deep. She’s got her demons just like anybody. [Then Sol takes a breath, laces his long hands together.] She came from Colorado when this all started, because I asked her to. The hospital had a strong infrastructure in place, and nobody knew what was going to happen. I wanted her close, of course. And so she came, and she lived in the hospital for a while. But she never felt like she fit there. Maybe we both need a dime, you know? I was never a 9-5, picket fence guy and neither was she, but I ended up there because I used to be a patient, and I always stayed in touch… the hospital was always like another touchstone, for me. But my sister didn’t really feel that way. [His eyes darken, anger touching them for the first time. He seems like a totally different person, something other than light for once.] The Hellhounds talk a big game, ‘you shouldn’t have to live under the thumb of the Capitol, people should be free if they want to be free!’ But that’s all my sister was trying to be, all anyone in the tunnels wanted when they made the choice not to live in a shelter. The tunnels didn’t start out as a Prax den. There was community down there until the Dog King decided he didn’t like competition. ‘You can be free, but only if you do it our way’ sort of thing. The Ghouls didn’t find the Prax, the Prax was systematically pushed on them. Sure, they had free will to say no, but so did the people who brought the poison to them. [Nate nods. He agrees with this. He’s sure that whatever good will toward man Rodeo’s preaching these days wasn’t always that way. The structure of Austin is as gray as any place. The political structure full of ego and egads. Sol’s reaction tells him that his sister must have got involved with whatever the Hellhounds were pushing. There definitely isn’t a surplus of love for the MC. It makes Nate wonder if Rodeo is more dictator than democrat ] Do you have the same policy as the Capitol about Prax and Prax use? It isn’t allowed under any circumstances? One and done. Why such extreme measures for a drug that, as I understand, came from the Government itself. Do you believe that? [Sol continues to look serious, though the thunderous look of him fades. He is an open book, and doesn’t appear to mind discussing sensitive topics.] As I understand it, the Prax was developed in the process of seeking a cure for the virus. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, why it wasn’t destroyed or why it was shipped here when it isn’t a cure or what it was intended for. I can’t speculate because I don’t know. But I do know who stole it, and who spread it. Who used it as a weapon against the people in the tunnels. Listen, I don’t have a problem with groups who want to live outside the Capitol. I’m not here to herd people and I’m not here to dictate to them. But I don’t trust a man who poisons lives as a means to destroy the competition. [Solomon shifts, then, crosses one leg with his bony ankle on the opposite knee. He resembles some kind of knobbly-kneed bird, and the tone changes again.] As for our policy on Prax in the hospital? We don’t allow active users to live in the shelter, if their use comes to our attention. We do take, and always have taken, people seeking detox. In order for a rehabilitated person to live in UMCB or the Capitol, we require that they attend some kind of counselling for six months, or as long as the practitioner decides. We’re trying to help, to give people the best chance. None of this is arbitrary or malicious, you know? [Solomon rubs his hands together, looking sincere while he puts his words together just how he wants them. This next bit seems to be a point he wants to express just right.] The stipulation that’s the hardest to take, I think, is that we can only allow that in-hospital detox process twice to any one person. And it’s a difficult one for me, because I know the nature of addiction, and I’ll be the first one to tell you that no one deserves to be given up on. But at the end of the world… what do you do? Every bag of saline used to hydrate a detoxing addict who can’t keep down water is one less bag of saline we have for a runner with blood loss or dehydration, for a grandmother with the flu or a child with cancer. Every pill used to control the withdrawal symptoms is one less we have. So, those are the decisions we’re faced with, because Prax is an epidemic within an epidemic, and we only have so many resources. [Nate focuses out some, to frame Sol- knobby knees and all.] You said that the hospital, the UMCB, has always been a part of your life. How so? How are you the leader of that shelter? Ah, okay. That one goes way back. [He hooks his hands around his knee, thinks back how to begin.] So, when I was a kid, was diagnosed with an occipital lobe astrocytoma. [He shifts, turns his back to the camera briefly to indicate a thin strip along the back of his head where his dark hair doesn’t grow, an old scar.] We’re from Colorado Springs, but the specialists at UMCB kept me alive. It was close. So, once I got to go home, I always kept in touch. I travelled… a lot, and I would write letters, send postcards and pictures, and the nurses made up a board on the paediatric oncology wing where they put all that stuff, I guess to kind of encourage the kids, ‘hey, he was where you are, and now look where he is’. I came back to visit whenever I was in the States and I did a lot of fund-raising work and stuff like that. They were like family to me, and I remembered how I always liked visitors and everything when I was a patient. So, eventually, they gave me a... I mean, it was a pretty honorary position, but they put me on the Board of Trustees. When things started to get crazy with the virus I tried to go to Colorado Springs but never made it that far and I told my sister to meet me here… At first the board was running things from Seton Medical, alongside the Capitol who we already had a relationship with, and I was just one of many helping to run things. I knew the system, I knew the people, the building… I was the only one on the Board living at UMCB instead of Seton, which was less crowded. [Then he looks grim, briefly, brows drawing together at the memory.] Then Seton fell, and... well I was left. There was a kind of collective town hall discussion and I was picked, so. Here I am. How many of the Shelter's residents were patients, now? If so, do you still care for them? How many of the population have arrived since the infection spread? Ah, numbers. [Sol smiles.] Numbers are my least favorite part of leadering, but it’s a big thing. We have close to three thousand people living at UMCB. It’s… actually somewhat evenly split between people who were staff, people who were patients, and people who came later. The vast majority of people who were patients at the time things went bad aren’t patients anymore, they’ve taken jobs either getting supplies, or cooking, or teaching, or on the active wards. There’s a small handful who were patients who still need care, but most of our patients are new. [Nate knows what he means. Numbers and statistics can be such a drag but they help make the big picture complete. They are essential for planning. Especially in a setting like this.] Off Camera: Is there a cap on how many you will willingly bring in? [Sol immediately shakes his head, instinctive, but then takes a moment to consider.] You know… We’re definitely not near that point, now. Our people are still having luck scavenging in the city, and with Capitol support… we’re doing well enough that that hasn’t been a thought. To be honest with you, though? At the beginning, new survivors coming into the city were common, and we were making room all the time. That… really isn’t the case anymore. I don’t know what it’s like out there, or who is left, but there aren’t a whole heck of a lot of them coming here. [That’s a grim thought. One that Nate has to avert his eyes to grasp in his own silent way. He still has people out there so that the population is continuing to diminish is hard] It’s just a small town with a lot of large buildings. [Nate says, hoping for levity but maybe missing.] You said you travelled a lot. Where to? [There is empathy in Sol’s eyes while Nate reacts off camera, and a muted smile that touches them but not his mouth at the joke. There can still be humor even within the grim. And then he sparks up, when travel is the topic.] Well, when my sister and I graduated high school, we backpacked in Europe. Started in Barcelona and she was with me all the way to Lauterbrunnen… She went home to start school, and I… kept going. Santorini, Berlin, Budapest, London, Florence… I got to Amsterdam and met a woman… took a job with her and went to Cuba to study the Taino. I did a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, spent some time in Richmond as an Abe Lincoln re-enactor, a couple seasons on a crab boat in Alaska… and of course New Orleans. [His smile lights again, wry, and he shrugs.] I’m chronically intrigued. [Nate is delighted that Sol has been to many of the places he has. Just the fact that Nate has jumped the pond means he’s traveled much further than most American’s he’s met. It’s a fine thing when you find someone who travels as much as you do. To find someone that has the unique perspective on the world that only travelling to near and far places gives one. He wants to have a conversation about this but has to stop himself. He needs to conduct an interview first] What was the hardest trip you’ve ever taken. You can interpret how you want - perilous, emotional...maybe a mixture of both. [The question makes Solomon stop to consider, tipping his dark head back while he does. He doesn’t come to much of a decisive conclusion, there are too many shades here, but he tries to answer anyway.] The Trail, in the beginning was hard physically, but in the good way. Like growing pains until walking for a full day felt like breathing. And the crabbing… Life on the Lor.E was really really stark and brutal and dangerous and those people are such raw people and when I do something like that, I try to become it so that was… really intense. But I really loved that world. Then there was this time I came home, to be with my sister while she got on her feet. I was… just bar-tending, boxing at the club and doing Yoga, and being with her, and it felt like this weird soul hibernation intensely together thing and that was so different for me and really peaceful? But also hard, in it’s way. [He appears dissatisfied with his answers, and then finally shakes his head.] I can’t really say any of it was the hardest. Most of the time I feel like the hardest thing, the worst thing is behind me. I said my goodbyes when I was eight years old, you know? It was over, I was going to die. So any time I get to stretch my legs or stretch my soul, that’s… I mean, it’s just good. ‘Hard’ is just part of it. [Nate reaches into the bag again, takes out the Peso. He holds it up, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.] What’s the significance of this one? [The Peso makes Solomon laugh, rueful and amused. There’s no sign of hesitation before he tells this morally gray story. Again, he is an open book.] Ah, that’s from my Cuba days. The anthropologist I worked with, Isabela, had a… volatile long-distance relationship with her husband. An open relationship. That Peso was about the only thing I managed to take with me when he came back and ran me out of Cuba. I didn’t know it at the time, but I think the explosion was part of the fun for them. [Nate laughs. He has stories like that too so he understands immediately being the catalyst in another couples dirty dealings.] Did the Taino have anything to say about that? What lessons did you learn from them? What discoveries did you make? [Sol shakes his head, mouth quirking in a small wry not-smile.] The Taino don’t have much to say about anything, there aren’t any of them left. Isabela is - was?- an anthropologist, and we spent our time searching for bits of their culture that remained. There are people left with Taino blood, but they mixed with the Spanish and Africans who came after. Taino culture is hidden, bits of it scattered all over. [Sol considers again, lifts his hand.] Columbus landed there and wrote about them and there’s this quote… Something about how they’d give you everything they have, even exchanging goods for bits of broken crockery… how they have no guns… and he concludes by saying “They should make good servants.” I guess I learned there’s such a thing as being too open? [Then he grins, shrugs.] But I was young. Mostly I learned Isabela. And hallucinogenic cohoba ceremonies. [Nate’s shoulders hunch up. He’s about to say something about hallucinations and ghosts but this isn’t his interview and so he keeps quiet on that and gets on with the next question] You left then and where did you go next? Did you ever have a plan or did you just let the wind take you? [Sol watches Nate with canny eyes, and before he answers the next question he points, grinning and recognizing in what Nate doesn’t say another area they could go on about together back and forth, in a more traditional conversation.] I’m gonna ask you about that one later. [He promises, and then considers the question.] I guess I never planned ahead. When I died - when I almost died, I let go of expectations. I was just a kid, but still it’s in there from day one, what you’re going to do, what everyone does, that traditional pattern of a life. And then when you’re not going to get that, and you’re right on the edge of being taken out of the game, you let go. I wasn’t going to have a career, I wasn’t going to marry someone and be a father and buy a house and pay a mortgage, and everything restructures in your mind. And then you don’t die, but you’ve already shifted all that weight around. I guess I liked the weightlessness of taking things as they come. [Then he smiles again, recognizing the tangent he just went on. He shrugs.] After Cuba I came here, to the hospital. And then I ended up on the Appalachian Trail, where I met enough friends to keep me in adventures for the rest of my life, honestly. Richmond, Salt Lake, Alaska, New Orleans from there. When it felt like time to go, I went. [Nate likes a tangent. He prefers when the person he is interviewing goes off, at least when it pertains to the question he asked and it does and so he doesn’t have any chiding to do. He’s perfectly happy with Sol as a narrator.] Do you think there will be a time when it will again, be time to go? Have you thought about it as time drifts and the problems stack up? [Sol looks as if he knew the question would come, and he isn’t particularly certain what the answer is until it is coming out of his mouth.] I’ve thought of going. I’ve thought of seeing what’s beyond here. But it was never because of the problems, you know? Things end, or you’re needed somewhere else, but I feel like there’s more to do here and I’m not afraid of complications. There’s too much up in the air to just go now. [Then he shrugs, rubs his long hands together thoughtfully.] And I’d never leave my sister, again. We always came and went from each other, but this isn’t that kind of world, anymore. There are never any guarantees.[That world or this world, the rules haven’t really changed. Just the players. The board. Nate isn’t even sure he appreciates that analogy. Life isn’t really anyone can master.] What do you think there is to do here? What would you like to implement? [Sol takes a breath, clears his throat, like the idea of implementing makes him uncomfortable.] I’d like to think the structure of things is in place, even if… some things might need fixing. I know it’s not perfect, but I also know most people need that structure. [He shifts, shrugs.] Listen, I mean I know I’ve been given this little bit of power, but I also recognize I’m a little bit of a figurehead. All I can do, and what I try and do every day, is just listen to what my people need, and communicate that to the people in power who might listen to me because I have this title. Maybe some day the role will change, and it’ll have to be more than that, I don’t know. I like to think they’ve let me keep this job because I can see a lot of sides of a thing, I don’t want much for myself, and I give a crap, you know? I’d like to keep on being the kind of leader that people aren’t afraid to approach. You have a concern, bring it to me. Maybe I’m a little bit small-town, but… like you said. Austin’s a small town now with a lot of big buildings. [Nate fidgets. He’s been doing interviews for a long time and he still doesn’t like to make anyone uncomfortable but if that was all he did, then he wouldn’t get anywhere.] Is there anything else? [His experience also knows when an interview has run its course. His hand holds up on front of the power button on his camera.] [Sol shrugs his shoulders, smiling some around the eyes.] There’s always something else, but that’s the gist. [A pause, before Sol shifts, looking ready to rise.] This is good work you’re doing, you know. |