Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Residential Preserve

It's late at night and I'm walking down a residential street in a crisp white naval officer's uniform. I'm walking behind a woman dressed the same way (in slacks, not a skirt). She's about average height, with thick, dark hair that is cut short. The residential area we are walking through is a preserve, like a nature preserve, but it's all residential. We're not exactly sneaking, but we shouldn't be there, and we'll be arrested if the police catch us.

We cross a bridge over Emmet Street where the walking bridge to Ruffner Hall is, but it's an automotive bridge, not a walking bridge. We come to a large, single story building on our left (which is not Ruffner Hall). We go around the left side of the building. There's a wide ledge running along side the building, with a railing of square pipes in a rectangular pattern. As we go along the ledge the ground drops away and we can see that the building is several stories tall. The woman I am with has gotten ahead of me. I can see in the windows of the building and we are walking past a college class room. The woman goes into the class room through a door at the end of the ledge, and gets a note from the teacher. She comes back out as I get to the end of the ledge and we start to climb down the building. The ledges and the railing make it really easy.

We go down about four or five stories and then go into a room full of naval uniform hats. We each get a hat matching our uniform, and the woman start to fill out a form authorizing us to take the hats and go into the building. There is a tall black man who is approving the forms while others wait behind us. He is questioning the woman about mistakes on the form. She is blustering her way through it good-naturedly, saying things like "You think so?" and "Is that right?" Finally he okays the form and leaves. After he does, another woman who was waiting says she noticed another place where we filled out the form wrong. I think about passing it off with a joke about Al-Queda, but then figure that mentioning Al-Queda will make her security conscious and she'll report us.

I put on my black army jacket and we walk out into the hall. Then we go out a door and we're in the back yard at Tandem, walking toward that new building with the auditorium. I start to get nervous, thinking that someone will notice the discrepancy between my army jacket and my naval uniform. That's when I realize I don't have a back story prepped in case we are questioned. I think about passing myself off as on detached duty under Major Rolf Huntsman out of Fort Bragg, hoping they don't notice that I pulled the name Huntsman out of recent political news (the name Rolf comes from a Chess writer). But then I realize that I don't know if Fort Bragg is even an Army base, much less active. Then the alarm goes off and I wake up.

1 comment:

  1. Hey..
    I have a question for you.
    How can I contact you?
    Tal Alvas
    talalvas@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete