Crosshairs Page 4

  In the photo, three Brown men sat at the edge of a ditch with their hands interlaced behind their heads, their eyes fixed forward. They were naked, and their clothes were piled beside them. About ten feet from them, in the lower right quadrant of the photo, was their future: a tangle of lifeless legs and arms. How many? It was unclear. What was clear was the outline of a Boot in the upper left quadrant of the photo, aiming a rifle at the head of the first of the three men.

  Liv took the photo from Dr. McKay’s hands and looked closely at the men’s eyes, searching for the solace that their souls had already left their bodies, like a sheep that goes still and blank in the face before the kill. But the closer she looked, the more the pixels obscured their legacy cut too short. She stopped herself from bending the edges of the photo with her hands, now shaking and wet with perspiration.

  Dr. McKay placed another photo in front of the one Liv was holding. The image was of a large room in a warehouse with a concrete floor. Around the perimeter of the room was a chain-link fence. People were lying on mats, blanketed by foil sheets. “This one has better image quality, and here’s why.” He pointed at one Boot in the photo, gesturing towards the people, as if waking them up.

  “So, we’ve got one Boot who guards them. We’ve got their surveillance camera right here.” Dr. McKay pointed to a device affixed to the fencing in the right-hand corner of the photo. “But this workhouse, my friend, is a converted All-mart store. And our guy managed to give us a live feed from the All-mart’s surveillance system.”

  Dr. McKay positioned the photograph in front of him like a show and tell, pointing at the blanketed figures. “So we know these are not just people. These are children. And we can confirm they have been separated from their parents. Between the execution images and these jailed children, we’re not talking workhouses, Liv.”

  “They’re concentration camps.”

  “Exactly.”

  Liv took a deep breath and leaned back, looking at the ceiling tiles, searching for order in their lines and cracks. She shifted her bum and the paper crunched over the examination table.

  “The bad news is, we don’t have a lot of time. Others are being rounded up quickly, and we certainly aren’t able to hide everyone, even though we’re all going to try. There are only so many allies willing to shelter people, inside and outside the city. Good news is, because the Renovation is unfolding so quickly, each compound has its security flaws, which means—”

  “We may be able to get some people out?” said Liv.

  “More than that. There’s a plan, especially given the number of Boots we’re recruiting to the Resistance from the inside.” Dr. McKay removed his latex gloves and threw them into the trash bin under his desk.

  “Which means we’re moving ahead with an uprising,” Liv said to the ceiling tiles. “When? The way things are going, we need to move quickly.”

  “I know, Liv. It’s a lot. Know that Erin sends her love and the baby is doing okay.”

  Liv sat up, quickly. “She sent you pictures?”

  “Sorry, bud. But she wanted me to tell you the baby isn’t a baby anymore. He’s officially a toddler.”

  Dr. McKay wheeled his chair to his workstation and pushed the photos through a paper shredder. Liv dressed herself to the sound of the machine’s blades transforming the horrific images into slivers of indiscernible smudges. For many Others, these would be the last photos taken of them.

  Liv touched Dr. McKay’s shoulder one last time before exiting the clinic, pretending she had seen nothing.

  The return of flooding in the preceding summer had led to water contamination at shorelines across the country, which led to endless lineups of people begging for food, water and shelter. The relentless currents made river rocks of everyone. Wading hip-deep through the rainbow streaks of gasoline, people found shelter on rooftops and bridges, no longer mighty. Arms poked out of office buildings, waving at passing helicopters, pleading for rescue.

  “I have been standing here since seven this morning,” said an Indigenous woman on a news segment. A large warehouse stood at the top of a rolling hill, the surrounding trees wavering in the wind and rain. A front-facing carrier held her sleeping baby, while another young child burrowed his face into her side. The woman firmly held the stem of the microphone alongside the uneasy reporter. “Our Tyendinaga Mohawk territory is just east of Belleville, Ontario, and I was told this depot in Peterborough, 125 kilometres northwest of us, was the closest place I could get water and food for my two children.”

  The news reporter nodded, feigning concern, while trying to pry the mother’s hands off her beloved microphone. “The rule is, according to that warehouse sign over there, a maximum of one five-gallon water container and one box of dried goods per family. But I’ve been watching these white families backing up their big SUVs to the warehouse, practically mowing all of us down, and carrying out boxes and boxes of goods to their trunks! Who is allowing this to happen? What gives those people the right to take more than any of us?!”

  On the Confederation Bridge, hordes of people fled the northeast province of Prince Edward Island for the higher elevation of neighbouring New Brunswick. Motor vehicles braved the bridge’s twelve-kilometre span over tumultuous waves. The piers were stunted by rising sea levels. But members of the island’s Muslim community were forced to go by foot.

  “Everyone on our street was forced to leave their cars behind. They couldn’t move through the water,” said a teenage Muslim girl to a news camera as she shouldered the weight of her grandmother. High winds and the numbness of her lips obscured the audio, then finally, “The people who could drive to New Brunswick took extra people. But they turned us away. So, we just have to walk.”

  “What made the motorists turn you away?” the reporter asked, struggling to keep the windsock on the microphone. He turned the device back to the girl, the sleeve of his trench coat catching the gusts like a khaki-coloured kite.

  At the sound of this question, the girl and her grandmother were already moving on. Still, the microphone managed to catch the girl’s voice: “Look at everyone on foot, sir. What do we all have in common?” The camera zoomed out on a line of Brown folks bracing themselves against the tempest of water and air, salwar kameezes and hijabs damp against their bodies.

  In southern Ontario, the concrete jungle of Toronto was transformed into a shallow bayou. Park benches sat in water like rafts in muck. Beneath the surface of floating detritus, curbstones and fire hydrants grew fluffy with green algae. Metal posts wavered in the tide with submerged bicycles still chained to their stems.

  Some citizens continued to commute to work, as if denying within themselves the truth of the environmental crisis, as if putting on their pantsuits and packing their lunches would somehow make the city run again. Business as usual. But when the flooded subways had to halt operations, and when people began posting live videos on social media of being stranded in the streets atop recycling bins, holding on for dear life to a lamppost, the calamity finally became palpable.

  One live video was of a Black man with his toddler daughter. He held up his phone to show his child sitting in her white, plastic baby bathtub, like a makeshift boat in the rising water, waving at the camera. He turned the camera towards his face and explained: “This is the way my girl and I are making our way through the city. Right now, we’re trying to find any dry land where we can sleep tonight because our basement apartment is swamped.” He kept the camera on himself as he waded through the hip-deep water, holding the edge of the floating bathtub, his daughter cross-legged and wearing a small rain jacket. “We ask that if you have a home that’s elevated, that has any dry land, please, please, please, let people in. Help people. Feed them. Let them stay there for as long as possible. Share supplies. We all have to help each other. I don’t even know who can see this video. But please share this.”

  The video went viral. People did share the video, not to answer his plea for help but as a warning of things to come.


  Lower-income areas of the city sat in the stench of overflowing sewage, leaving their occupants to flee north towards elevated areas like Forest Hill, Sunnybrook and the Bridle Path. These affluent communities, spared from the floods, closed access to outsiders begging for shelter. Members of the media requesting interviews with households that refused to assist the displaced were briskly turned away. People around the world watched footage of the once-quiet streets of the rich being swarmed with land refugees, their Brown and Black faces trying to push through newly erected barriers, their tight fists wrapped around the fencing, their voices begging for justice.

  Candlelight vigils were held.

  “This is day seven,” said a Latina woman on her live video. “Me and my kids live in a high-rise on the twelfth floor. No electricity. No elevator. Water flooded the ground floor and below. We hoped these people in their big houses would have opened their doors to us by now, but we’ll have to settle for dry ground to sleep on. We’re just gonna take this day by day.”

  The Others sang throughout the night, hoping to turn the tide. Instead, the police were called and they were forced to disperse.

  A reporter shot a walk-and-talk segment, with her videographer steadily shuffling backwards to follow her movements along a muddy city street. “According to the Toronto Police Service, early this morning, two men have been charged with aggravated assault against a police officer,” she said before gesturing to a series of broken windows. “And instances of looting at grocery stores continue to be rampant. The special task force, the Boots, has joined first responders by handing out much-needed supplies and rebuilding our devastated city.” She timed the end of her phrase with her arrival at a Boot who was handing out blankets to a lineup of citizens. “The police chief urges those displaced to honour the laws and allow city services to respond.”

  By the fall, the floods subsided; the Others returned to mildewed, rotting homes and high-rises with dysfunctional elevators. The privileged were finally left alone. The city tried to operate as a soggy version of itself, but the exhaustion from the crisis soon turned to rage.

  Over the course of three days, climate activists donned cheap yellow rain boots and began marching in a large circle at Toronto City Hall, spanning all of Nathan Phillips Square. News outlets captured drone footage of hundreds of Others stomping around the expansive urban plaza in the demonstration’s signature yellow boots.

  “Toronto the Good, I see you for who you are!” a climate activist said over a megaphone. “If there was any sign of racism, if there was any sign of religious, gender and class bias in this city, the flood showed it ALL!” The crowd responded with “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

  The yellow boots appeared in Ottawa, the nation’s capital. This time clustered in front of the Parliament building. “Shame! Shame! Shame!” From Vancouver on the west coast to Halifax in the east, the Others in their yellow boots shut down transit stations, blocked roadways and staged sit-ins. “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

  To offset media coverage of climate activists calling for governmental accountability, Prime Minister Marshall Pollack launched a two-pronged campaign. One side of his jowly mouth urged Canadians to band together in the face of environmental disaster, while the other spoke about issues of national security in the presence of groups he classified as extremists, bogus refugee claimants, illegal immigrants and sexual deviants.

  “It is the nature of these instigators that they target us when we are the most vulnerable, when this nation is treading water, while claiming to stand for equality. This is not the time for people to ‘Other’ themselves by declaring the importance of their so-called identity. This is a national emergency! We cannot waste our valuable time and energy on protecting Others. Covering women as if they are in ancient times is a choice that True Canadians have a right to dispute. Jumping the line into our beautiful nation instead of going through the proper protocol is a choice that True Canadians have a right to dispute. Presenting yourself in a way that is deceitful to those around you is a choice that True Canadians have a right to dispute. These Others think they can distract us by demanding their rights. We are not fooled by their rhetoric. We know better than to believe that the needs of Others override the needs of True Canadians,” Pollack said at a press conference celebrating the erection of a new landmark in Ottawa. “Today is a celebration of all that this country holds dear: teamwork, positive thinking and a vision for the future. Through our work, our nation prospers. Through our unity, we end conflict. Through my leadership, we find peace. Through order, we find tranquility.” He gestured dramatically behind him and two stagehands pulled ropes to reveal a statue. The cast iron sculpture was of a dinghy, with waves licking its underbelly. Inside the boat were hopeful passengers: a father, a son, a mother holding a baby. All of them were frozen with their arms reaching up and smiling at an angel in mid-air. The cameras clicked. The audience applauded.

  In Toronto, once the colder months hit, the white “True Canadians,” from laid-off pencil-pushers to small-business owners whose shops had been vandalized by the hungry, considered their options. Instead of lining up for limited supplies, they joined the Boots, who offered free room and board.

  “Through our work, our nation prospers. Through our unity, we end conflict,” they recited before demanding IDs from citizens on the street, their eyes scanning all points of suspicion: clothing, skin colour, mobility, gender expression. “Through our leader, we find peace. Through order, we find tranquility,” they recited before dividing up supplies found in the homes of Others. It was easy to believe the creed when they were fed and warm.

  White folks whose attachment to their upper-class comfort outweighed their desire to speak out against injustice watched the Renovation unfold and did nothing. They were the ones who chose to draw their curtains and turn up the volume on their televisions while Others were patted down outside their windows.

  White folks whose sensitivity to injustice outweighed their attachment to their own comfort covertly joined the Resistance. They were the ones who considered how to leverage their access to supplies and information.

  Those who straddled the line between being Others and being wealthy tried their best to steer away from conflict but soon realized that they were not immune to the demoralizing effects of a Boots checkpoint. Whether they drove a Lexus or rode a bicycle, Others were stopped and questioned. Whether they carried an Hermès purse or a plastic bag, Others’ belongings were searched and often confiscated. With what little dignity they had left, they quietly coordinated passage out of the country.

  By December, the Renovation was in full swing, and the international community, dealing with environmental crises of their own, from hailstorms to droughts, watched and did nothing. In the months that followed, Liv spent her days leading Others into hiding and her evenings toasting Charles’s success.

  Tonight, things were different. He wanted to meet at her house on Homewood Street. Liv was touching up her makeup in the washroom, her stomach clenched as she thought of me in her basement. Under the harsh vanity light she delicately placed concealer on the bruise near her cheekbone using staccato dabs with her ring finger.

  “Gary told me it’s probably best to put my house up for sale in the fall,” she called out to Charles in the bedroom. “That gives me enough time to focus on the wedding, then stage the house and do some minor renovations. It may mean we’ll have two homes for a bit. But he says it’s worth the return on investment.” There was a long pause.

  Finally he said, “Hey, where were you this afternoon? It took you forever to text me back.”

  Liv gulped before answering calmly. “Wedding planning. Oh, and another appointment with my gynecologist. You know . . . woman problems.”

  “Ugh. Say no more.”

  She didn’t want him to question her whereabouts any longer. It had been a busy day of relocating Others, disseminating information.

  “Hey, you wanna see something?” Charles persisted.

  “See what?” Liv w
iped away the smears of mascara from under her eyes. She tried to remain casual, but the knot in her stomach continued to coil at the sound of his voice.

  “When you’re done in there, we can go for a walk.”

  “Sure!” Liv said, relieved to leave the house where I was hiding. “Are you treating me to dessert?”

  He did not answer. They headed outside into the darkness of the night. Carlton Street was unusually quiet. Liv wished she had put on a pair of pants and boots instead of a skirt and sandals. It was the first night in a while without rain, and it was colder than one would expect in Toronto in May, so she folded her arms around her shivering torso, following Charles to god knows where. They walked north on Church Street, where the Others all used to party and march. Now many of the buildings were abandoned and mildewed at the base. The rainbow-coloured crosswalk had since been replaced with an ad for chewing gum: a blonde model breathing out mint leaves and snowflakes. “Icy fresh, minty cool!” the ad read.

  They passed the spiderweb of a broken window. Liv peeked inside at what was once Glad Day Bookshop, which she remembered from the few times she had visited the LGBTQ2S store. The place had been ransacked. Books lay burned and torn along the floor. The bar and some tables remained. A pigeon walked aimlessly back and forth over a toppled bookshelf, which was covered in bird poop and fuzzy grey down.

  “Liv. Come on.” Charles beckoned her to hurry. Liv stepped away, first seeing her own refracted reflection, then refocusing on the spray-painted words “DIE FAGGOTS!” on the broken glass.

  They continued past what had been the 519 community centre to the park at its rear. The strings of rainbow lights had been removed, leaving the joists that once held them to resemble four barren crosses. The AIDS Memorial plaques were also dislodged, leaving a border of plain concrete slabs like unmarked graves. In the middle of this darkened void of erased history, a towering beech tree stood, daring to grow in an island of patio stones. They stopped.