A Deeper, Calmer Rift (Chapter 1 One)

Sixteen men and women lined up behind the oak desk. Some smiled, laughed and told jokes while others watched feet straighten next to one another in parallel designs. Timofey Kuznetsov stood at number thirteen, and he cursed his luck. ‘To be thirteen is such an unhappy thing to be. Ten,’ he smirked gently, ‘ten is a happy place.’

“If you do not have your Registration forms filled out entirely, we will send you to the back of the line.” A slight but flowing woman stood at the front desk. He glanced down quickly, lifting the packets of papers up and carefully reading the lines through again. A black smudge crossed his left shoe, but he didn’t know how to secretly wipe it away. Carefully he rubbed the shoe against the floor. The mark didn’t go away.

“Has anyone here been arrested or cited for anything within the past five years?” The woman at the desk waved a pen up and down the line. The man in front, smiling and tan, raised his hand. “What for?”

“Underage drinking,” his friend chuckled, a smaller boy with dark brown eyes and pale cheeks, thick and pointed.

“Come up here, please.” The woman stood behind the desk, looking down at papers. Timofey gladly stepped out of thirteen and into spot twelve. 'At least this is even.' The boy took a clipboard and walked towards the benches on the wall. Photos of trains hung all around the room, in black and white, sepia and gray-green shades.

“Was anyone in the country before 2016?” Timofey raised his hand, uneasy as the line turned to see him. “Come here, then.”

Taking one step to the left, he ventured forward. Sliding his shoe against the ground, he attempted to remove the black scuff.

“Where are you from, sir?”

“Russia.”

“When did you move here?”

“1963.” The woman scribbled into boxes, numbers and letters that didn’t mean anything out of context.

“Did you fill out forms 72-B instead of 72-A?”

“Yes, as always.”

“You’re independent?”

“Always,” he smiled, watching her eyes glance up just once. Coldly she turned back down to the paper. Timofey understood his place too well, separate and lonely.

“Do you understand your rights as a foreigner on our soil, sir?”

“I understand how little they are, ma’am, if that is what you’re asking.”

“You speak English.” She marked a large x somewhere on the paper, but he could not see. “You must be here for your check-in?”

“Yes, it has been 6 months since my last.”

It had been half of a year, to the day, when Timofey had last gone to a registration station to check himself into the country again. Although most people went a few days before their allowances expired, Timofey preferred the precision of going the very day.

“You said 1963? How old were you?”

“Just two.”

“Did you come with both parents?”

“Just my mother and her sister.” The woman nodded, scribbling down more angry circles and lines. While most of Timofey’s people had come to the country to avoid oppression and had left when oppression buried them again, Timofey stayed. After the Immigration Acts of 2016, each citizen not born on American soil was required to check in every 6 months. Timofey, although not fond, showed up at each half-year mark with his papers filled in legibly and with proof of employment. Whether the woman at the desk hated filling out the forms, or if she hated foreigners, Timofey could not tell. But for the past few years, he'd been one of a small group lucky to remain.

“Leave the rest of your documents on the desk, and you should get your response by tomorrow afternoon.” He left the packets, paper-clipped and stapled, on the corner and walked quietly from the station. The boy still sat on the bench, now nervously underlining and circling. ‘His allowance will be rejected.’Outside, the night had just begun to tickle the sky with a light purple hint.

His bike rested in the rack. Taking the helmet off of the seat, he began peddling down 7^th Street towards the small apartment building where he had rented for the past six years. Cars traveled quickly beside him, the force pushing against his shoulders like an angry, drunken fighter. He wondered if this would be the time the officers finally found something, or made something up. 'I don't care much about leaving anymore.'

“Timmy, boy,” Mark, the man from the apartment next door walked towards him. The sidewalk didn’t have enough width for both to pass, so Timofey stopped pedaling and rode his bike to the curb. By the uneven steps and reddened face, he promptly assumed Mark had been drinking. “How are the new shoes treatin’ you?”

“Tight. I wish I had been allowed to try them on.” Really, Timofey just couldn’t get rid of the scuff. He wondered if Mark could see it, and was really laughing at him.

“You goin’ inside?”

“Yes, just coming home.”

“What is it—you never leave?”

“Check-in,” Timofey smiled weakly. Mark sobered up three, cheap shots.

“Tough.”

“It’s simple if you aren’t a terrorist.”

“Man, you guys should really… fight that.” Mark stumbled into the wall, leaning heavily. His face had been slowly paling. “I’m fine.” He stood, as Timofey watched from the seat of his bike. “I’ve had a busy night, let me tell you!”

“How about we go inside and talk. It’s getting cold.”

“Cold? It’s September!”

“Please, you’re drunk.” Tying the bike inside of the fence, Timofey grabbed onto Marks shoulders. The drunk man smiled and let Timofey lead him into the brick building. A mother and child were standing directly inside, waiting at the door to the landlord’s apartment. Her knuckles would knock on the wooden door: twice lightly, three times lightly and then five times with the force of her muscles expended. Watching, Timofey made quick eye contact with the bothered child. His dark skin, a natural Arabian type, had paled in the walled and sheltered city.

“Oh, Miss, she’s not here today,” Mark stammered out of Timofey’s grasp, towards the small woman and child. “Mrs. Carlson went to a wedding for her nephew in Chicago.” Unsure if he should continue upstairs or wait to lead Mark the rest of the way home, Timofey stood silently near the doorway.

“But she left a note that she needed to speak with me about my room.” Crinkling a small pink note in her hand, the woman stared up at the men with dark eyes.

“It’s probably nothing big.” Taking a heavy hand, he plopped his palm against the woman’s back. She shuddered, forgetting herself for a moment. A weak smile flared across her lips. Timofey reached over for Mark with a gentle pull. The woman, easily frightened, glanced quickly at Timofey.

“Mark, you need to get upstairs. Remember, you have a story for me?”

“Right,” Mark smiled. Forgetting the woman instantaneously, he sauntered back to Timofey’s side. The woman gave a light nod, setting her hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Let’s go to my apartment,” he smiled, the red splotches in his cheeks growing still. “I have plenty of entertainment for the night. A celebration of a good check-in—how about it, Timmy?”

Timofey smiled and nodded, pushing Mark up the stairs while glancing down at the woman and child. ‘The boy is no more than seven’ Timofey frowned. Remembering the woman as he circled the square staircase, he thought of the light wrinkles beside her eyes. Although her hands looked soft and young, her face appeared to be at least forty. She had to be one of the foreign allowances with a child born on U.S. soil. She’d been caught by law, just as he felt trapped.

Thinking back to the boy on the bench, he realized that all sixteen people waiting in line that day, including himself, would probably be sent away.