Citizen Second Class- Apocalypse Next by Robert Chazz Chute

Author:Robert Chazz Chute [Chute, Robert Chazz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781927607671
Publisher: Ex Parte Press
Published: 2019-12-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

I awoke back in Campbellford in my own bed. Judging by the angle of the sunlight slanting through the window, it was mid-afternoon. Disoriented, I sat up and looked around my small bedroom. Sissy and I had bunk beds when we were little but the top bunk got too hot so we scrounged twin beds, side-by-side.

Several pictures hung along the wall. Mostly there were photos of Sissy and me as babies. I was always the baby and so I was babied. She became a little jealous of that. At seven and five, she looked possessive of me, as if she were my protector. At twelve and ten, we are both sitting on a couch with a couple of feet between us. I’m smiling but, by the look on her face, Sissy was a little sick of me. In our early teens, we fought. I can’t say when that stopped but by the time she left to join the Air Force, we were the best of friends.

Our only sticking point was that she didn’t want me to call her Sissy anymore. “The whole world can know you as Susan Beatriz,” I said. “Only I can call you Sissy.”

“Once I get to Air Force School at Wright-Patterson, I can become a different person, reinvent myself.”

“Why the change?”

“I’m not a kid anymore, Kismet. I’ll be a full citizen soon and I want to be taken seriously,” she said. “How do you suppose I’m going to get to be a flight surgeon if anyone calls me Sissy? Susan is my name. I’m not ashamed of it.”

“You know what I think? I think you’re trying to pass.”

“Pass?”

I gestured toward her face and mine with circles. “You know what I mean. No matter where you go, you’ll be a Susan. Don’t forget where you came from. You really think going from Sissy to Susan will make much of a difference? It’s not the name that will hold you back. It’s the people in charge calling us Latinxiles — ”

“You’re just echoing Daddy.”

“Is he wrong? He should be a lieutenant by now. He’ll be a corporal forever. Anyone with a Spanish name taps out at corporal while every white boy from Texas is fast-tracked to eat in the officer’s mess.”

“If I come back on leave with a doctor on my arm, you better call me Susan then or I’ll knuckle up and blast you right in the nose.”

I agreed. The memory made me smile but something was wrong. The bunk beds were gone. So were the twin beds. Now there was only the narrow cot from the Rossi’s attic. My gaze came to rest on the empty spot where my sister’s bed used to be. I looked down at my body. I wore a filmy white gown that looked like my mother’s wedding dress. I’d never worn anything so fancy.

Something was wrong. Sissy wanted to be a flight surgeon but that was not what was decided for her. The powers that be assessed her aptitude and chose another life for her.

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