The Marriage Pact

by Michelle Richmond

  The elevator door closes. “You got a wife, Maurie? Kids?”

  Reluctantly, his eyes meet mine. A slight shake of the head.

  “No wife?” I repeat. “No kids?”

  Another subtle shake of the head. And I realize he’s not responding to my question. He’s warning me.

  The elevator takes us down five floors—ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. My empty stomach turns; my resolve weakens. I am forty feet below the desert floor, a hundred miles from anywhere. If there were an earthquake, if this place collapsed, I would be buried, forgotten forever.

  We leave the elevator. Maurie too seems to have lost some of his resolve, because he doesn’t bother to grab my arms. He walks and I follow. He punches a code into a keypad and we enter a room where another guard is standing—a woman, about forty-five, bleached-blond hair in an old-fashioned style. She doesn’t look like she’s a member of The Pact. Employment in the desert must be difficult to find. Maybe she’s a former prison employee, from before this place shut down.

  The door slams shut behind us. Maurie unlocks my handcuffs, and then the three of us just stand there. Maurie looks at the woman. “Go on,” he says.

  “No, you,” she says.

  I get the feeling this is the first time they have done this, whatever it is, and neither of them wants to take charge. Finally, the woman tells me, “I need you to take all of your clothes off.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everything?”

  She nods.

  I slowly remove my slippers, thinking. Maurie gave me that nod of warning in the elevator—not an unfriendly nod, I’m sure of it, more like a conspiratorial one. These two both seem jittery. Could I convince them to let me go—while it’s just the three of us? No Gordon. How much do they get paid? Could I offer them money?

  “Are you from Nevada?” I ask. I pretend to have difficulty with the top button on my jumpsuit, stalling for time.

  The woman glances at Maurie. “No. I’m originally from Utah,” she says. Maurie gives her a scolding look.

  “Hurry it up,” he says.

  I unbutton the jumpsuit and let it fall to the floor. The woman looks away. “Where are you from?” she asks, clearly uncomfortable with my state of undress.

  “California.” I stand here in the prison-issued boxers. “Would you be willing to help me?” I whisper.

  “Enough,” Maurie hisses. I know I’m crossing a line. I sense he could erupt into fury at any moment. Still, I’m running out of options. “I have money,” I say. “A lot,” I lie.

  I can hear the beep of numbers being punched into the keypad on the other side of the door. The blond woman shoots Maurie a glance. Shit, she’s as nervous as he is. The door swings open and a tall, stout woman enters. She looks like an old-time prison warden, the real deal, like she could gleefully crack my skull open with her fist. “Guards,” she says, her voice unexpectedly soft, studying her clipboard, “we need to pick it up.” She looks at me. “Buck naked. Right now.”

  I shrug off my underpants and cover my groin with my hands. What an awful feeling, to be naked among the clothed.

  The warden glances up from her clipboard. My nudity neither surprises nor interests her. “Take him to twenty-two hundred,” she tells Maurie and the blond woman. “Quick. Get him into the apparatus. Everyone’s waiting.”

  Shit. That can’t be good.

  The blonde, clearly terrified of the warden, pushes me forward. We walk down the hallway and enter another room. In the center is a table made entirely of plexiglass. An attractive woman stands beside the table. Although she too holds a clipboard, she wears a crisp white shirt and white linen pants, nice leather sandals—not the usual uniform. Her hair is a strawberry-blond bob. She must be special somehow. Maybe she’s one of the Friends.

  Her eyes roam over my body. “Get on the table,” she says.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No.” Her eyes are cold. “Maurie can show you an alternative, but I assure you it’s much worse.”

  I look over my shoulder at Maurie. Shit. Even he looks scared.

  “Look,” I say. “I don’t know what kind of medieval—”

  The woman’s hand comes up so fast, I don’t even have time to avoid it. She smashes the clipboard into my face. My gaze goes blurry. “On the table, please,” she says evenly. “You need to understand that there are many of us, one of you. You can give in to our requests, or you can resist, but either way it’s going to happen. Your level of resistance merely equals the level of your pain; the outcome is the same otherwise. It’s a simple equation: Resistance equals pain.”

  I shudder and climb onto the table, feeling profoundly vulnerable. There’s a foam neck rest at one end, and beside it a leather strap. There are other straps on the table too, wooden blocks at the bottom. The blond woman is looking at the ceiling. Maurie is watching the woman in white, apparently awaiting orders.

  The plexiglass is cold against my bare skin. My head aches, and I feel a trickle of blood on my face. Where yesterday I longed to be free of the straitjacket, now I long for anything to cover my nakedness and humiliation.

  The blond woman arranges my head on the foam, then tugs the leather strap across my throat and disappears from view. I feel my arms being strapped into place—Maurie. His grip is powerful, but he is surprisingly gentle. Then I feel the straps across my ankles. It must be the blonde. After strapping me in, she pats my foot. Such a maternal gesture. I fight back tears. Why are the two of them acting this way? What do they know? Is this the kindness before the slaughter?

  I’m staring up at the ceiling, immobile, chilled. All I can see are ugly fluorescent lights. The room is hushed. I feel like a frog strapped down in a high school biology class, waiting to be dissected.

  There are footsteps—it sounds as though a couple more people have entered the room. The woman in white is standing over me now. “Close it in,” she says.

  A large plate of plexiglass moves over me. My heart is beating so hard, I can hear it. I wonder if they can. I try to move, to resist, but it’s no use. The sheet of plexiglass looks heavy. “No!” I shout, panicked.

  “Calm down,” the woman in white says. “This won’t necessarily hurt. Remember the equation.”

  I close my eyes and tense up, waiting for them to drop it, crushing me. This could all be over soon. A horrific death. Is that what this is? An execution? Do they plan suffocation, or worse? Or is this more of the same—fear tactics, mental cruelty, empty threat?

  The plexiglass hovers six inches above me.

  “Please,” I plead, disgusted by the weakness in my voice.

  What would it say in the news? Man disappears while kayaking. Or maybe there would be no news. Maybe it would be a routine medical ailment. Man dies of liver failure. Aneurysm. There is no limit to what they could say, no one to contest their story. Except Alice. God, Alice. Please leave her alone.

  But they won’t leave her alone. They’ll marry her off. Who will they find for her? Someone whose spouse has met a similar fate?

  Neil, I think. What if this is all an elaborate ploy, devised by Neil, so that he can be rid of JoAnne, married to Alice? Bile rises in my throat. Then, the glass lowers.

  71

  I wait for the pressure of the glass, but it doesn’t come. I hear a drill, and I realize that they are fastening the piece just above me on all four corners. My frantic breathing fogs up everything, and soon I can’t see.

  The drilling stops, and it is quiet. One of the women counts, “One, two, three, four.” I feel myself being lifted. And then I am upright, suspended inside the plexiglass, arms by my sides, legs slightly spread, feet standing on the wooden blocks, head facing forward. In front of me, a blank white wall. I can sense the others behind me, but I can’t see them. I feel like an organism trapped between slides, waiting to go under the microscope.

  The floor shudders beneath me, and I realize that the plexiglass structure is on wheels. I squeeze my eyes shut and f
orce myself to breathe. When I open them, I see that I am being rolled down a narrow hallway. People walk past us, glancing at my naked body. Some pass to the front, others pass behind me. I am rolled into a freight elevator, the heavy doors close, and we rise. I’m not sure if the woman in white is still with us. Or the blond woman. It seems my handlers are standing behind me.

  “Maurie?” I say. “Where are we going? What’s happening?”

  “Maurie’s gone,” a voice replies. A male voice.

  I think of Alice’s face just before they pulled the blinders on. I think of her hand on my chest when I wore the straitjacket, how the release of that reassuring pressure was such a jolt. How, in the past few hours, my life has been turned on end. Everything has been taken away from me, piece by piece.

  I want to weep, but I have no tears. I want to scream, but I know now that my screams will change nothing.

  I hold my breath just long enough to clear the plexiglass in front of my eyes. As the elevator doors open, I realize that we are in a cavernous room. I remember this room from my first visit to Fernley: the cafeteria.

  I hear footsteps receding, and I am left here alone, staring straight ahead through the fogged plexiglass.

  I listen, but don’t hear anything. I try to move but can’t. After a few minutes, I can’t feel my legs, then I can’t feel my arms, then I close my eyes. I am nothing more than my detached thoughts. I have lost my will to fight.

  It occurs to me now, at last, that this was their plan: to strip me of my bravado, to strip me of all hope.

  Time passes. How much time? My thoughts drift to Alice, to Ocean Beach, to our wedding. To the image of her there in our garage with Eric, singing.

  I try to push away the thought. But I can’t. How silly of me, this jealousy at this moment. The truth is, when I’m gone, if I’m gone, she won’t be free to be with Eric, even if she wants to. She’ll still be at the mercy of The Pact and their random decisions. Probably for the rest of her life.

  I long for voices, or even just a sound. A scrap of music. What I’d give to see Gordon right now. Or Declan. Or even Vivian. Just another human being. Anyone. Is this the very definition of loneliness? It must be.

  At some point, I hear the elevator open. Relief floods through me. There are voices—two, maybe three—and the floor begins to vibrate. Something heavy is rolling toward me. I keep waiting for it to come into view, but it doesn’t. Then the voices fade down the hallway. The elevator dings again, more voices, and again something rolls down the hallway.

  An upright plexiglass contraption, just like the one I’m in.

  Inside it, there is a female figure. Brunette, medium build; like me, nude. The glass in front of her face is fogged, so I can’t make out her features. They wheel her into place diagonally across from me. Footsteps move away from us, voices fading. The elevator. More voices. Another plexiglass structure. I can’t see it, but I can hear it.

  There are three of us now. Sensing that we are alone, that all of our handlers are gone, I gather my courage and speak. “Are you both okay?” I ask quietly.

  I hear the woman’s sobs.

  And then, to my right, a man’s voice: “What do you think they’ll do to us?”

  “It’s your fault!” the woman cries. “I told you we’d get caught!”

  “Shh,” the man warns, and it dawns on me that she is talking to him. They know each other. “What’s your fault?” I whisper.

  A voice comes over the loudspeaker: “Will the inmates please refrain from discussing their crimes?”

  An older man in a white cook’s uniform passes between us. “Well, you three have sure gotten yourselves into a pickle,” he says, looking directly at me. Then he walks away.

  A minute later, the elevator dings. As another plexiglass cage slides past me, I see a naked woman, her back to me, her hair gnarled and greasy. I think it can only be one person. The guards spin the plexiglass around, and in an instant she is facing me, six feet away. The woman is pale and thin. She looks like she hasn’t seen the sun in weeks. Fog covers the area where her eyes are, so it is moments before the glass clears and she sees me. No, it is not JoAnne. What have they done with JoAnne?

  I hear the rumble of many footsteps. In an instant a long line of prisoners in red jumpsuits and employees in gray uniforms are streaming into the cafeteria. Then, all at once, I understand the point of this whole horrific exercise. The four of us are positioned in such a way that everyone has to walk between us to get to the food line. I try to make eye contact with the woman across from me, but her eyes are squeezed shut, tears trickling down her cheeks.

  The line stops. I hear the rattle of trays and silverware, workers barking orders. The line backs up as more prisoners pour in—how many? How can so many Friends have gotten on the wrong side of The Pact?

  Soon, the line is stationary in front of us. Most of the people are just looking down, avoiding eye contact, though others—first-timers?—seem fascinated, horrified. One man, twenty-something with black hair and perfect teeth, is even smiling. He seems cruelly amused. Others just seem bored, passing time, eating another lunch at Fernley. As if they’ve seen it all before.

  At first, I avoid everyone’s eyes. Out of shame, humiliation. But then it occurs to me that if this is the end, I want to force them to look at me. To see me. To know that tomorrow, this could be them. If I can end up here, any Friend can end up here.

  The crowd is about half men, half women. The red jumpsuits can’t hide the fact that nearly everyone is well groomed, probably well-off. Not your usual prison population. I wonder what crimes brought them here. As the crowd increases, the line doubles in on itself, and triples. It’s so crowded that some are pressed against my plexiglass prison, only the clear pane separating them from my nude body. The noise intensifies, and I am filled with rage and disappointment. I want them to do something. Anything. I want them to rise up against The Pact.

  How is it that we have all allowed this to happen to us?

  A woman with auburn hair, an elegant streak of gray at the temple, smiles at me. She glances around to see that no one is watching, then quickly she kisses the plexiglass where my mouth is. She says something, though I can’t hear her over the din. What? I mouth. She mouths the words back to me, slowly: Don’t give in.

  At least I think that’s what she says. Don’t give in.

  72

  Back in the holding cell, back in the red jumpsuit, back on the thin mattress. I try to fall asleep, but it’s too bright and too hot. There is nothing to do in here, nothing to read except The Manual. I refuse to touch it.

  My mind drifts. For some reason I think of one of my patients, Marcus, the one who asked me the purpose of life. He’s writing a paper about Larsen B, a sheet of ice the size of Rhode Island that sat on the edge of Antarctica. In 2004, after nearly twelve thousand years of strength and stability, Larsen B cracked, fragmented, and went hurtling into the ocean. Twelve thousand years, yet it only took three weeks to disintegrate. Scientists aren’t sure why, though they suspect that it was a monumental confluence of events—a changing water stream, a hotter sun, ozone depletion, and the usual summer cycle of twenty-four hours of light—that did Larsen B in. The warm water stream caused some tiny cracks, and then the hot sun melted the thin top layer. The droplets rolled down, slowly working their way into the cracks, which then expanded until the entire structure weakened. Finally, in a matter of minutes, a catastrophe that had seemed inconceivable for twelve thousand years suddenly became entirely imminent.

  Then I think of my new clients the Rosendins. Darlene and Rich have been married for twenty-three mostly happy years. Nice home, decent jobs, two kids, both in college. Everything was great until about six months ago, when Darlene did a couple of dumb things. In the grand scheme of life, her infractions weren’t huge, but in the weeks since then a domino effect began, anger and distrust, and the entire marriage has crumbled. I admit that it left me a little pessimistic about marriage. You hold things together every sec
ond of every day, then one time, just for an instant, one person loses concentration, lets go of the thread, and the whole thing unravels.

  73

  “Ready to talk?”

  I stand stiffly and follow Gordon and Maurie out of the cell, down the hallway, and into the interview room. This time, they don’t secure me to the table. Maybe they can tell I’m too exhausted to fight.

  Gordon sits there, staring at me across the table. Maurie takes up his position at the door. He won’t meet my eyes.

  “So,” Gordon says. “Can we find some common ground? Have you had some time to think?”

  I don’t answer. I’m not sure there’s anything I can say. When I was wheeled into the cafeteria, it felt as though I’d opened the door to a rabbit hole that led to hell. I was ready to make it all right—for JoAnne and for me, for Alice—but then when the stranger mouthed those words, it gave me the strength to stand my ground. Don’t give in.

  “This isn’t really about you,” Gordon tells me. “JoAnne is a tricky one. Would it interest you to know this isn’t her first Crime of Infidelity? Neil has asked me to get to the bottom of it.” This is the first time anyone at Fernley has referred to someone in authority by name; that can’t be good. Does it mean he’s planning to eliminate the witness?

  “Look, Jake, I understand you’re in a predicament here. You feel that you can’t help me solve the problem without incriminating yourself.” Gordon stands and moves to a mini-refrigerator in the corner. “Drink?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  He places a plastic bottle in front of me. Icelandic water again—blueberry and mint.

  “You seem to have serious resolve, Jake. So, I’ve been giving it some thought. We have two ways to go. Either I break your resolve—which is a lot of work for me and not much fun for you—or we find a way out of this whereby you can help me solve my problem, but we do it in a manner that allows you to walk away relatively unscathed.”