Lake Michigan, Scene 11
The authoritative bodies play a game with the prisoners
It’s called “You’re Dead!”
When they play this game they speak in a voice appropriate for children or animals
Here is a body they imported from Guadalajara
Look how good it is at not moving
Here is a body they imported from Guatemala
Look how good it is at not moving
Here is a body they imported from Vietnam
Look how good it is at not moving
Here is a body they imported from the Avondale neighborhood on the northwest side of
Chicago
Look how good it is at not moving
Here is a body they imported from Humboldt Park
Here is a body from Englewood from La Villita from Back of the Yards Auburn Gresham Garfield Park
Pretend you are like pieces of candy shout the police officers to the bodies they force to play dead
Pretend you are like pieces of fruit
Pretend you are yellow and orange and red and purple
Pretend you are grape and cherry and lemon and watermelon
Don’t move motherfuckers say the authoritative bodies as if they were talking to the cutest of babies or kittens
Don’t move or we will bite your candy ass heads off
You are dead now and you don’t have hands say the authoritative bodies to the prisoners
You are dead now and this beach is your mass grave
And we will toss you into tonight’s bonfire and you will be twigs
And you will burn for us
And you will nourish the flames
So don’t move
Because if you move then we will have to acknowledge that you are rats
You are mating rats
You are copulating little rats say the authoritative bodies in their sweet cute baby voices
Silence
The police officers and their superiors do not speak
They walk through the maze of dead-playing bodies
They prod the dead-playing bodies with long sticks
They prod the dead-playing bodies with their leather boots
When the dead-playing bodies are prodded they are not to move they are to continue to play dead
Because if they move then the authoritative bodies will have to acknowledge the difference between the dead and the living
Because if they move the authoritative bodies will be commanded to toss them into the lake
Because if they move the authoritative bodies will be commanded to unzip their pants and piss
on the prisoners while singing “God Bless the Child” in the sweetest of voices
Is this enough?
Have you had enough of this game?
The police officers break the silence with these questions but they are less than rhetorical
They are scripted
The police officers wait for a response that does not come
They try to suppress their breath on the beach
The prisoners also have instructions
Imagine the snow is melting in the fatty substance in the cavities of your bones
Imagine there is an endless thread of melted wax being sewn through your cheek
Imagine your body is a dreadful roll of flesh that can be balled up and tossed like a piece of
dried nasal mucus behind the endless bed that is this beach
The prisoners play “You’re Dead!” on the beach for several hours
The police officers are instructed to play music
Here is Chet Baker singing “Everything Happens to Me”
Here are the police officers singing along with the music
“I make a date for golf and you can bet your life it rains
I try to throw a party and the guy upstairs complains
I guess I’ll go through life just catching colds and missing trains
Everything Happens to Me”
The prisoners listen to the trumpet solo as they are kicked and spat on and spoken to in the cutest of voices
The prisoners play “You’re Dead!” for several hours
They do not know when the game will end
They do not know if they will ever be able to move
Everything happens to me
