There is no other way to say this: my sister has the face of a kidnapper. She even owns a house with the ideal cellar for hostages.
   
In her attempts to bring forth a nature that matches her affect, she has altogether failed. She contrived escapades: tailing vehicles and observing strangers. It unraveled before it really began.
   
To recover from not being a kidnapper, she joined a biker gang. It turned out that most of them didn't believe in gravity, however, and she didn't have the sensibilities for that type of operation.
   
So she took to training her dog. He can do just about anything now. And this sates her, at least somewhat.
   
I'm nesting in a couch corner while she's designating shelf space for her groceries.
   
A man materializes in the corridor between us.
   
"You were there," he says, gesturing toward my sister, "in the ball pit."
   
She disregards his claims by continuing to unload her bags on the counter.
   
"Don't you feel beholden to me?" he asks, unconcerned with his intrusion.
   
I encrust myself on the cushions, completely immobile. If only she hadn't trained the dog to unlock doors, I manage to think.
   
He walks closer to her and nudges a box on the counter.
   
"We're not here to talk about your radicalized cereals; we made a deal," he says, pointing out the window.
   
We look out to find a van with an oversized loudspeaker atop its roof parked crookedly along the curb.
   
"We've never met and I don't know what you're talking about, but you expect me to drop everything and get in that van with you, don't you?" she asks.
   
He nods.
   
"Let's," she says.

*

The van squad is composed of who we now call Ira, my sister, and me. Sometimes her recently retired neighbor tags along too.
   
I agreed to be in the van squad.
   
Yeah, I agreed to be in the van squad.
   
I'm not saying I'm too good for it. But I have to get out of a situation and this is a decent place to lay low, if you can believe it. Ira squires us through traffic like nobody's business.
   
We are a squad today, but who knows, one day we might be a regime.
   
Honestly, I'm not too good for much. I eat a single chip in multiple bites. I vigorously rub my hands together at all the wrong moments.
   
We primarily chug down residential streets, wailing our grievances into the loudspeaker as we go. That's our main mission, according to Ira.
   
As if the van weren't enough, we're also supplied with walkie-talkies.
   
We scatter truth and double-A batteries left and right.

*

"Hey, look, an actual mall rat."

This is what happens when your freedom of speech shatters every noise ordinance in the tri-county area. We commandeer the abandoned shopping mall, constructed in some decade or other, as our hideout.

"Are you wearing your bulletproof vest?" Ira asks my sister.

She doesn't respond.

He turns to her neighbor, who happens to be with us.

"Start digging outside. Gather a core sample. We may need to take things underground."

Ira hands the man a shovel and a test tube. He makes the face we all do when Ira starts stipulating.

The reasons why we're here stop being clear to us when Ira plans to create the second most famous groundhog in the world. He seems to be getting off track, losing focus.

"Let the groundhog do the talking," he chants.

Meanwhile, our loudspeaker lamentations enter the dreams of the citizenry, seep into their moods, their imaginings. We are tampering with the collective unconscious. We are grafting in our own notions and rooting down a false peace.




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