Mockingbird

by Walter Tevis

  There was a strong, briny, clean smell along the edge of the water, and the waves, gently rolling in along the wet sands, made a sound like I had never heard before. I stood there in the sun watching, and smelling the smell, and listening to the water-sound, until Belasco’s voice called me back. “Time to go, Bentley. They’ll have him fixed before long.”

  We all climbed silently up the stairs and went back to our positions in the field and waited.

  After a while the robots came back. They did not notice that we had made no progress in their absence. Stupid robots.

  I bent to work, in time to music.

  When I got to the seaward end of the row, I looked down at the beach. Our fire was still burning.

  I realize that I have just written “our fire.” How strange, that I should think of it as belonging to all of us—to us as a group!

  As we were going back to the fields from the beach I walked beside the white-haired old man. I wanted, for a moment, to say something kind to him, to thank him for making my own sadness more bearable, or, even, to put my arm around his frail-looking old shoulders. But I did none of these. I do not know how to do such things. I wish I knew how; I sincerely wish it. But I do not.

  DAY NINETY-NINE

  Alone in my cell at night I think a great deal. I think sometimes of the things I have read in books, or about my boyhood, or about my three blues as a professor in Ohio. Sometimes I think about that time when I first learned to read, over two yellows ago, when I found the box with the film and the flash cards and the little books with pictures. The words on the box said: “Beginning Readers’ Kit. They were the first printed words I had ever seen, and of course I could not read them. Whatever gave me the patience to persist until I learned to read words from a book?

  If I had not learned to read in Ohio and then come to New York to try to become a professor of reading, I would not be in prison now. And I would not have met Mary Lou. I would not be filled with this sadness.

  I think of her more than I think of any other thing. I see her, trying not to look frightened, as Spofforth took her out the door of my room at the library. That was the last time I saw her. I do not know where Spofforth took her, or what has become of her. She is probably in a prison for women, but I’m not certain of that.

  I tried to get Spofforth to tell me what would become of her, while we were riding in the thought bus to my hearing; but he would not answer me.

  I have tried to draw a picture of her face on my sheets of drawing paper, using colored crayons. But it is no good; I was never able to draw.

  Yellows and blues ago there was a boy in my dormitory who could draw beautifully. One time he put some of his drawings on my desk in a classroom and I looked at them with awe. There were pictures of birds and of cows and of people and trees and of the robot who monitored the hall outside the classroom. They were remarkable pictures, with clear lines and with amazing accuracy.

  I did not know what to do with the pictures. Taking or giving private things to others was a terrible thing to do and could cause high punishment. So I left them on my desk and the next day they were gone. And a few days after that the boy who drew them was also gone. I do not know what became of him. Nobody spoke of him.

  Will it be the same with Mary Lou? Is it all over, and will there be no mention of her in the world again?

  Tonight I have taken four sopors. I do not want to remember so much.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED FOUR

  After supper this evening Belasco came to my cell! And he had a small gray-and-white animal under his arm.

  I was sitting in my chair, thinking about Mary Lou and remembering the sound of her voice when she read aloud, when suddenly I saw my door come open. And there Belasco stood, grinning at me, with that animal under his arm.

  “How. . . ?” I said.

  He held a finger to his lips and then said softly, “None of the doors are locked tonight, Bentley. You might call it another malfunction.” He pushed the door shut and then set the animal on the floor. It sat and looked at me with a kind of bored curiosity; then it began scratching its ear with a hind foot. It was something like a dog, but smaller.

  “The doors are locked at night by a computer; but sometimes the computer forgets to lock them.”

  “Oh,” I said, still watching the little animal. Then I said, “What is it?”

  “What is what?” Belasco said.

  “The animal.”

  He stared at me with great surprise. “You don’t know what a cat is, Bentley?”

  “I never saw one before.”

  He shook his head. Then he reached down and stroked the animal a few times. “This is a cat. It’s a pet.”

  “A pet?” I said.

  Belasco shook his head, grinning. “Boy! You don’t know anything they don’t \each in school, do you? A pet is an amimal you keep for yourself. It’s a Mend.”

  Of course, I thought. Like Roberto and Consuela and their dog Biff, in the book I had learned to read from. Biff was the pet of Roberto and Consuela. And the book had said, “Roberto is Consuela’s friend,” and that was what a friend was. Somebody you were with more than a person should be with anyone else. Apparently an animal could be a friend, too.

  I wanted to bend down and touch the cat, but I was afraid to. “Does it have a name?”

  “No,” Belasco said. He walked over and sat on the edge of my bed, still speaking only barely above a whisper. “No. I just call it ‘cat.’” He pulled a joint out of his shirt pocket and put it in his mouth. His blue prison jacket sleeves were rolled up and I could see that he had some kind of decorations that looked as if they were printed in blue ink on each of his forearms, just above the bracelets on his wrists. On his right arm was a heart and on his left the outline of a naked woman.

  He lit the joint. “You can give the cat a name if you want to, Bentley.”

  “You mean I can just decide what to call it?”

  “That’s right.” He passed me the joint and I took it quite casually—considering that I knew sharing was illegal—and drew a puff from it and passed it back.

  Then, when I let the smoke out, I said, “All right. The cat’s name will be Biff.”

  Belasco smiled. “Fine. The beast has been needing a name. Now it’s got one.” He looked down at the cat, who was walking slowly around, exploring the room. “Right, Biff?”

  Bentley and Belasco and their cat Biff, I thought.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED FIVE

  The prison buildings are, I believe, the most ancient structures I have ever seen. There are five of them, built of large green-painted blocks of stone, with dirty windows with rusted bars on them. I have only been in two of the five buildings—the dormitory with the barred cells where I sleep, and the shoe factory building where I work in the mornings. I do not know what is in the other three buildings. One of them, which sits a bit apart from the others, seems to be even older than the rest, and its windows have been boarded up, like the summer house in Angel on a String, with Gloria Swanson. I have walked over to this building during the after-lunch exercise period and looked at it more closely. Its stones are covered with a smooth, wet moss, and its big metal doors are always locked.

  Around all of the buildings is a very high double fence of thick wire mesh, once painted red but now faded to pink. There is a gateway in the fence through which we pass to work in the fields. There are four moron robot guards at this gateway at all times. As we pass through on our way to work they check the metal bands that are permanently fastened to our wrists before we are let through.

  I was given a five-minute orientation lecture by the warden—a large, beefy Make Six—when I first was issued my uniforms. Among other things he explained that if a prisoner left without having his wristbands deactivated by the guards the bands would become like white-hot wires and would burn his hands off at the wrists if he did not return to within the gates immediately.

  The bands are narrow and tight; they are made of an extremely hard, dull, silvery metal. I
do not know how they were put on. They were around my wrists when I awoke in prison.

  I think it is near to wintertime, because the air outside is cold. But the field around the plants is heated somehow, and the sun continues to shine. The ground is warm beneath my feet as I fertilize the obscene plants, and yet the air is cold on my body. And the stupid music never stops, never malfunctions, and the robots stare and stare. It is like a dream.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN

  It has been eleven days since I have written anything about my life. I would have lost count of the days if I had not thought to make a crayon mark on the wall every evening after supper. The marks are under the huge TV screen that fills up most of the back wall of my cell, and which my chair, bolted to the floor, permanently faces. I can see the marks now when I raise my head from the paper on the drawing board in my lap; they look like a design of neat gray stripes on the wall, under the TV.

  I am losing interest in writing. I feel, sometimes, that if I do not get my books back or see any more silent films I will forget how to read and will not want to write.

  Belasco has not been back since the first night. I suppose it is because the computer has not forgotten to lock the doors after supper. After I make the mark on the wall I always check the door and it is always locked.

  I do not think of Mary Lou all of the time, as I once did. I do not think of very much at all. I take my sopors and smoke my dope and watch erotic fantasies and death fantasies in life-sized three dimensions on the TV and go to sleep early.

  The same shows are repeated every eight or nine days on the TV, or I can watch Self-improvement and Rehabilitation shows from a file of thirty recorded BB’s that are issued to each prisoner at his orientation. But I do not play the BB’s. I watch whatever is on. I am not interested in watching television shows; I only watch television.

  This is enough writing. I am tired of it.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN

  There was a storm this afternoon, while we were at work out in the field. For a long time the robot guards seemed confused by the wind and the heavy rain and they did not call to us when we found ourselves standing at the edge of the cliff with rain blowing on our bodies, staring at the sky and ocean. The sky would go quickly from gray to black and back to gray again. Lightning kept flashing in it almost constantly. And below us the ocean pounded and roared. Its waves would inundate the beach and slap heavily at the base of the cliff and then recede for only a moment before they would be back—dark, almost black, foaming, loud.

  All of us watched, and no one tried to speak. The noise, of thunder and of the ocean, was deafening.

  And then, as it began to quiet down a bit, we all turned and began to head back toward the dormitory. And as I was walking through the Protein 4 field and the rain, gentler now, was still hitting my face and my drenched clothing, I realized that I was cold and shivering and suddenly these words came into my mind:

  O Western wind, when wilt thou blow,

  That the small rain down can rain?

  Christ! That my love were in my arms

  And I in my bed again!

  And I fell down on my knees in the field and wept, dumbly, for Mary Lou and for the life that I had, for a time, lived, when my mind and my imagination were, so briefly, alive.

  There were no guards near. Belasco came back for me. He helped me up silently and, with his arm around me, helped me back into the dormitory. We did not speak to each other until I was at the open door of my cell. Then he took his arm away from me and looked me in the face. His eyes were grave, and reassuring. “Hell, Bentley,” he said, “I think I know how you feel.” Then he slapped me gently on the shoulder and turned and walked to his cell.

  I stood leaning against the cold steel bars and watched the other prisoners, their hair wet and their clothing drenched, walk back to their cells. I wanted to put my arm around each of them. Whether I knew their names or not, they were, all of them, my friends.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE

  I got into the boarded-up building today.

  It was simple. I was out in the gravel yard between buildings during the exercise period after lunch. I saw two robot guards walk up the steps to the building, unlock the door, and go inside. After a few moments they came out, each carrying a box of the kind our toilet paper comes in. They carried their boxes over toward the dormitory building. The door stayed open. I went in.

  Inside, the floors were of Permoplastic. The walls were of some other material, filthy and crumbling, and there was very little light since the windows were boarded up. I walked quickly through dark hallways, opening doors.

  Some of the rooms were empty; others had things like soap and paper towels and toilet paper and food trays, stacked up on shelves. I took a stack of paper towels, for this journal. And then I saw a dim and faded sign over a pair of double doors at the end of a hall. It was the only other sign with writing I had ever seen except for the ones in the basement of the library in New York.

  I could not make out the words at first; they were faded and covered with dirt. And the hallway was dark. But when I got up close and looked carefully I made them out: EAST WING LIBRARY.

  I almost jumped at the word “Library.” I just stood there, staring at the sign, and felt my heart pounding.

  And then I tried the doors and found that they were locked. I pulled and pushed and tried to twist the knobs, but I could not make anything budge. It was horrible.

  I became overwhelmed with anger and beat my fists against the door. But it did not move and I only hurt myself.

  I slipped out of the building after I heard the guards return and go into one of the storage rooms.

  I must get inside that library! I must have books again. If I cannot read and learn and have things that are worth thinking about, I would rather immolate myself than go on living.

  Synthetic gasoline is used in the harvesting machines. I know that I could get some and burn myself.

  I will stop writing now and watch TV.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO

  For eleven days I have been despondent. In the afternoons I have not bothered to go to look at the ocean when I get to the end of my row, and I have not tried to write in the evenings. My mind is as blank as I can make it while I work—I concentrate only on the thick, rancid smell of the Protein 4 plants.

  The guards say nothing, but I still hate them. It is all I really feel. Their thick, slow bodies and their slack faces are like the synthetic, rubbery plants I feed. They are—the phrase is from Intolerance—an abomination in my sight.

  If I take four or five sopors it is not unpleasant to watch TV. My TV wall is a good one, and it always works.

  My body no longer hurts. It is strong now, and my muscles are firm and hard. I am suntanned, and my eyes are clear. There are tough calluses on my hands and on the soles of my feet, and I work well and have not been beaten again. But the sadness in my heart has come back. It has come to me slowly, a day at a time, and I am more despairing than during my first days in prison. Ev-erything seems hopeless.

  Days pass, sometimes, without my thinking of Mary Lou. Hopeless.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE

  I have seen where the synthetic gasoline is kept. It is in the computer shed at the edge of the field.

  All prisoners have electronic cigarette lighters, for smoking marijuana.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX

  Last night Belasco came to my cell again, and at first I did not want to see him. When I found the door to my cell was unlocked I became nervous. I did not want to leave, and I did not want anyone coming in.

  But he walked in anyway and said, “Good to see you, Bentley.”

  I just looked at the floor at my feet. My TV was off, and I had been sitting like that for hours, on the edge of my bed.

  He was silent for a while and I heard him seat himself in my chair, but I still did not look up. I did not feel that I could even raise my head.

  Finally he spoke again, softly. “I s
een you in the fields the last few days, Bentley. You been looking like a robot.” His voice was sympathetic, soothing.

  I made myself speak. “I suppose so,” I said.

  We were quiet again. Then he said, “I know how it is, Bentley. You get to thinking about dying. Like they do in the cities, with gas and a lighter. Or here we got the ocean. I seen guys go out all the way. Hell, I used to think about it myself: just swim as far as I can and not look back. . .”

  I looked up at him. “You felt like that?” I was astonished. “You seem so strong.”

  He laughed wryly and I looked up toward his face. “Shit,” he said, “I’m like everybody else. This kind of living ain’t much better than being dead.” He laughed again, shaking his head from side to side. “And it ain’t much better on the outside, to tell the truth. No real work to do, except the same kind of crap you do in here. At the Worker Dormitories they told us, ‘Labor fulfills.’ Horseshit.” He took a joint from his pocket and lit it. “I was stealing credit cards the first blue after I graduated. Been in prison half my life. Wanted to die the first two or three stretches, but I didn’t. Nowadays I got my cats, and I sneak around a little . . .” Then he interrupted himself. “Hey!” he said. “You want to have Biff?”

  I stared at him. “For my own. . . pet?”

  “Sure. Why not? I got four more. Pain in the ass to find food for sometimes, though. But I can teach you how.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’d like that. I’d like to have a cat.”