Gibbon's Decline and Fall

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “These pods are for the ones who are STOPPED?”

  “The manual calls it ‘penitential deactivation.’ The pods are a little bigger, because they’re still being fed. They shit. That’s what the smell is. The sprays go on twice a day to wash ’em down.”

  She noticed it for the first time, a slightly feculent stench under the resinous cover-up. “Can they see us?” Carolyn whispered, feeling goose bumps popping out on her arms, switching briefcase from hand to hand to rub them vigorously. The place was horrid; nightmarish, but hideously personal; intimately awful. “The ones who’re STOPPED, can they see us?”

  “The ones facing us can. They can see, hear, taste—or could if anybody fed them anything except through that tube. They just sit there, STOPPED. Nobody’s got the antidote but the Department of Prisons, and they don’t come up with the dose till the sentence is up.”

  “How in hell did anyone ever come up with something like this!” she snarled, knowing full well how.

  He took it as genuine curiosity. “It was accidental. Some guy out in California was makin’ designer drugs, you know, and he made a mistake, put a atom in the wrong place or something. Some people took the drug, and they turned off. Like Parkinson’s disease, only worse. Some doctor used L-dopa on ’em, they woke up. Only trouble, the cure didn’t last. They all ended up turned off again. So when some government scientists found the cure in ninety-seven, the government took all the rights to the drug and the cure. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than keeping them in cells, and you don’t get no riots, no rapes, no guys gettin’ a shank in the ribs on their way to dinner.”

  “Why both? Both the tanks and this?”

  “Oh, this is short-term. Anything from thirty days up to a year. SLEEP? That don’t rehabilitate anybody, nobody claims it does, but STOP? Now, that might do some rehabilitation. I tell you the truth, it’d sure as hell rehabilitate me!”

  She turned away from him, fighting panic. “Josh, do they come out sane?”

  “I’ve only seen a few,” he admitted. “They seemed all right. Course, they were short-termers. Not more’n a year.”

  “So we don’t know about the long-termers.”

  “STOP’s only for short-termers. And the long-termers won’t be my worry. All the SLEEP ones for ten years or more, they get moved to that row over there against the wall.” He pointed to an area beside an open overhead door, with a forklift parked beyond it. “Whenever there’s a truckload, I haul ’em down to those tunnels near Carlsbad. The ones they dug for nuclear waste.”

  “The Waste Impoundment Pilot Program? WIPP?”

  “WIPP, yeah. Only they never got around to puttin’ waste in much of it. So we use ’em for people storage instead. Lotta space down there; might as well use it for something.”

  She shook her head, depressed.

  He said, “Hey. Don’t look so down. If they’re guilty, it’s better, honestly. The young ones, they don’t get raped. They don’t get beat on. And I don’t have to do any beating. It’s better for both of us.”

  “They don’t feel anything,” she cried, surprising herself. “Not anything!”

  He shrugged. “What would they feel? People who do stuff like that?” He ran his hand across the label she had read. Violence against children. “This guy was only happy when he was rapin’ some six-year-old baby he’d just strangled. You want him to go on feelin’ that? Maybe better he’s not feelin’.”

  She felt the walls closing in, felt a swirling, unfocused anger, stopped short, took a deep breath. “You’re right, Josh.”

  He let her out the door. “You know those old fairy stories about ogres, Carolyn? There’s lots of true stuff in old stories like that. Ogres are true. That’s one there, in that box. Looks like a nice kid, but it’s really an ogre. Born that way.”

  She almost stopped, stunned at his words, reaching for a mental association that wouldn’t come.

  He patted her clumsily on the shoulder. “You always wanted people better than they are. You always did. Always surprised you when they turned out bad.”

  He patted her once more, then wandered back into the room, humming under his breath. She mechanically turned the other direction, searching for the door marked G, finding it only a few steps farther on. She paused outside the door, almost leaning on it. Ogres. Like Jagger. And that room, with all the pods in it. When she’d entered the room, she’d had a weird sort of déjà vu, as though she’d seen it before, and she knew she hadn’t.

  She shook her head, bringing herself out of paralysis. The thought of Jagger did it, like a snake hypnotizing a bird. Maybe he counted on that. The freezing power of absolute dread and frustrated fury. She goaded herself, making herself move.

  Beyond the door was a mere closet, little or no improvement on the hallway, a plastic-covered cell of some indeterminate shade between cream and taupe, with a bolted-down table and light plastic chairs, unsuitable for use as ad hoc weapons and probably chosen for that reason. The only variation in texture came from outside the streaked window where a metal grill broke the slanting sun into rough diamonds across the table and floor.

  Carolyn put her briefcase on the table, took out a package of chewing gum, a legal pad, and a fiber-tipped pen. Her small purse went into the briefcase, which she locked and set on the table. The voice-activated microphone built into the case would record whatever went on. The pad and pen were for show. At one time she’d brought cigarettes, but this place, like all others, had become no-smoking territory. Now she offered gum. It was a way of making contact, of breaking through the inevitable suspicion. Not that it always helped. Sometimes nothing helped.

  The door opened and a stumbling figure was propelled into the room. Carolyn caught only a glimpse of the wardress’s thrusting arm and scowling face before the door swung shut once more. The girl stayed where she was, swaying, head hanging, arms protectively wrapped across her chest, hands clamped in her armpits.

  “Lolly Ashaler?” Carolyn asked.

  The girl snuffled but did not reply.

  Carolyn rose, went around the table, pulled out the other chair, and took hold of the girl’s upper arm. The skin quivered beneath her hand, like that of a whipped dog. Sheep got like that when they’d been chased by dogs, slashed at by teeth. They stood and quivered, waiting to die.

  Carolyn stopped gripping, patted instead, little pushes that guided the girl toward the chair and into it. She seemed not so much reluctant as inert. Patted at, she moved. Patted on, she sat, her dull eyes fixed on the tabletop.

  Carolyn sat opposite her and waited. The girl slumped, making no effort to meet her eyes, the slime-green jail-issue shirt rumpling shapelessly around her, the not-quite-matching trousers sagging around her ankles.

  “Lolly?”

  No response.

  “I’m here to help you, Lolly. I can’t do it unless you talk to me.”

  The words came all at once, a single spurt, like vomit. “ ’Fyou wanna he’p me, lemme the fuck alone.”

  Carolyn spidered one hand atop her head, fingering her scalp, fighting the urge to snarl, to curse, to get up and leave without another word. Her jaw had been set ever since she’d entered the building. Now she felt the familiar pain in her ears from the rope-hard muscles. She’d fought it every step getting here, her scalp tensing and pulling like rawhide drying. Now her head was a drumhead, throbbing with every word the girl spoke. Damn it, she had left all this! She had stopped dealing with all this! For the love of heaven, what was she doing here?

  She heard her own teeth grinding and stopped, appalled. Anger was a defense. There was nothing here in this room, at this moment, to defend against. There were ways to relax, ways to control panic and rage. It could be done. If one really wanted to do it.

  “Sorry,” she breathed, concentrating on the flow of air: one slow breath in, one slow breath out. Another one, in and out, and another yet while deciding what to say. “I’m sorry, Lolly. I can’t make them leave you alone. I can try to get you out of here if you talk
to me. Or I can go away. I’m only here because my daughter asked me to come.”

  The girl’s eyes flicked toward her. “She the one with the doctor?”

  “That’s right. She talked to you, and you told the guard you wanted to see me. That’s why I’m here.”

  Silence. Then: “Her. The redheaded one.”

  Carolyn breathed. “Yes. The redheaded one.”

  “She knows.”

  Carolyn let out the last of the breath and folded her hands on the legal pad, careful not to clench them. “What is it she knows, Lolly?”

  “She knows what I was tryinna say. That doctor don’t know shit. Din’ even let me talk!”

  “Tell me. Maybe I don’t know shit, either, but I’ll listen.”

  Carolyn waited, watching. The girl shook her head, so strongly that her lips flapped with the motion, a comic look, chimpanzee lips. Her nose was a mere lump, reddened at the end. Ms. Potato Head, Carolyn thought. Nothing strong, nothing angular, not the nose, not the jaw, not the brow. A wholly forgettable face surrounded by an uncombed mess of pale-brown hair. The girl’s skin was her best feature, pale, thick, and flawless, though unnaturally yellow. It could be genetic, but perhaps she had jaundice. Perhaps she had hepatitis. Carolyn took up the pen, wrote “jaundice?,” looked up once more. The girl’s eyes were fixed on the pen, suddenly narrowed. It bothered her to have things written about her.

  “Tell me,” Carolyn urged again, putting the pen down.

  The girl’s head came up. She looked through Carolyn, speaking to the wall. “I dowanit wrote down.”

  “All right. I won’t write it down.”

  “The Fourtha July.”

  “What about it?”

  “When they did it. To me. It was the Fourtha July, and they all had firecrackers and they was puttin’ ’em in cans and throwin’ ’em in windows and stuff. And I wen’ out and said, hey don’t throw that stuff in here.”

  “They were doing it? They who?”

  “Those boys. And one of ’em says come on, Lolly, we got some beer.”

  “They knew your name?”

  “Sure. They live there, where I live. I know ’em.”

  “Can you tell me their names?”

  “Henry B., he’s sort of my cousin. And the one he calls Crank. And Crank’s brother.”

  “Three boys?”

  “No.” She frowned in the effort at recollection. “More than that. Sommathem Messicans was there. Geel-bert, he was there. And Hay-soos. All those Messicans, they live down the block.”

  “Mexicans?”

  “Don’ speak English yet, you know.”

  “How old are these boys?”

  “Geelbert, he’s ony a kid. Haysoos, he’s maybe nineteen or twenny, I guess. Him an Henry B. Crank’s as old as me.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen. Las’ month.”

  “So you were fourteen when you went with the boys. Where did you go?”

  “I said where we goin’, and they said they got beer hid. An I said you sure hid it far enough, and they said it was hid inna alley. So we got to kinda the alley place, behind some stores. And first they said they had beer, and then they said they din’ have no beer, they had this firecracker they was gonna put up me and light it on fire so it’d go off, and Haysoos says sure they do, they all got firecrackers like that.”

  A long silence. Carolyn breathed and breathed, searching the face opposite her own. Nothing. Only a leak of tears, a slow seep, unconsidered, perhaps unfelt.

  “What happened?”

  “Henry B., he got me on that old mattress and they was all over me, and they was shoving things in me, and Hay-soos, he was yellin’, and one of ’em put his hand over my face, and I couldn’ breathe.…”

  Carolyn reached for the pen, remembered, put it back down, stared out through dirty glass and metal grill toward the sky, lost in sun-dazzle, not looking at the girl. She couldn’t look at the girl.

  “They raped you? All of them?”

  “I dunno. Maybe. I couldn’ hardly breathe, and ever’thin’ went kind of red, and Hay-soos kep’ yellin’.”

  Carolyn tapped the pad thoughtfully, a slow thrum of fingers. Silence was the usual concomitant of rape. Silence, secrecy, the knife at the throat, the threat, don’t yell or I’ll kill you. Perhaps gang rapes were different, particularly if the participants were not afraid of discovery. “What was he yelling?”

  “He was goin’, ‘Lookit me, I’m doin’ it.’ Or maybe that was Crank. I dunno.”

  “So he was raping you?”

  “I dunno which one. Maybe it was all of ’em. But one of ’em was yellin’.”

  “Then what?”

  “I dunno what! Ever’ thing was red an’ black an’ it hurt. They wen’ away, an’ it got dark. An’ I was there, an’ it was dark, and there was this thing hurtin’ me, an’ I pulled it out.”

  “What was it?”

  “A bottle. Some old wino’s empy bottle, all bloody. Blood all over my—” She stopped, searching for a word nicer than the word she’d been about to use.

  “On your body,” Carolyn said firmly. “Between your legs.”

  A sniffle of agreement. “I felt around for my panties, and I found ’em, but they was ripped all up, so I threw ’em away. An’ I went home.”

  “Did you tell anyone what happened?”

  “Tell who? My mom wasn’t there. An’ her boyfriend, he wasn’t there. An’ I went over to my grandma’s house, but she was gone to the hospital. An’ when I got back, Henry B., he was there, and he went like mean, and he said if I told, he’d kill me, or Hay-soos, he’d kill me, and he put his face right in my face an’ his hands on my neck.…”

  “So. You decided not to tell anyone.”

  “Henry B., he goes mean like a snake. He kills folks. He does drive-bys, you know, for kicks. He says he gonna kill me, he prob’ly will. He says forget it, so I do. It didn’ hurt too long. But I didn’ get my period, you know, an’ I thought it was because I was bleedin’ so much when they did it.…”

  “When did you find out you were pregnant?”

  “I started to get all, you know, throwin’ up all the time. There’s a woman lives downstairs, she said I was pregnant.”

  “You didn’t know until she told you? What about your mother? Didn’t she know something was wrong?”

  “Yeah, well. She don’ notice much.”

  “So you didn’t know, and your mother didn’t know, but the woman who lives downstairs told you you were pregnant.”

  “And then I stopped throwin’ up, so I thought maybe it was all okay, an’ I forgot about it. But then I got the pains, an’ all this water came out, an’ I took the paper towels to wipe me, an’ I went back there, to the alley where they did it to me.”

  Carolyn looked at the girl, puzzled. Why there?

  “The mattress was there. Nobody was there, an’ it was a place I could lie down an’ I didn’ wan’ anybody hearin’ me yell. Because if they heard me, maybe they’d take me, an’ maybe I’d say something, an’ then Henry B., he’d find out. An’ the pain just came and came and came, an’ after a while the stuff came out of me. An’ then more stuff came out. An’ I just wrapped it all in the paper an’ put it in the Dumpster. An’ I put a wad of the paper in my pants, because I just kept bleedin’ and bleedin’, after all that time not …”

  Carolyn raised her eyes. “Did you know it was a baby, Lolly?”

  “It was all bloody mess. A blobby thing. Not like a real baby.”

  “What do you mean, not like a real baby?”

  “Not … you know. Like a baby. Pampers an’ little shoes. All that.”

  Carolyn took another breath. Slowly. “You didn’t expect a baby just born to have Pampers on, did you?”

  “I’m not stupid,” she snarled. “But they’d be there, wouldn’ they? If somebody has a real baby, they have the stuff, don’ they? You can’t have a real baby without the stuff for it. How’s it gonna grow up without the stuff?”
<
br />   Carolyn found her hand atop her head again, stroking, massaging, amazed at the pertinency of this. If someone planned a baby, they had the stuff. “Who told you that, Lolly? Your mom?”

  A snort in reply.

  “Your grandmother, maybe?”

  “She died!” It was an accusation.

  “I’m sorry. Did she tell you that before she died?”

  No answer. A sullen silence, all the words used up, all the anger spent. Well, she had told what she had to tell. Later one would have to ask if she’d had sex before. Later one would have to ask if she knew about birth control. Later one would have to know why she really went with the boys, what had been in her mind. Loneliness, perhaps. Desire to be liked. Flattered to be asked. It didn’t matter right now.

  “Lolly, listen to me. This is important.”

  A sullen look.

  “Don’t talk to anyone about what happened. Don’t talk to the police about it, or the people here at the jail. Don’t talk to the lawyer the court appointed. Don’t talk to anyone except me about it. No matter what they say, you just tell them talk to Carolyn Crespin, she’s my lawyer. No matter what they promise you. Understand?”

  “You gonna get me out?”

  “I’ll do what I can. If you don’t talk to anyone but me.”

  Another sullen look, but no disagreement. Carolyn pushed the packet of gum across the table, opened the briefcase, restored her pad and pencils, flicking off the recorder in the process, took out her purse, and put the strap across her shoulder. “What will you say to them?”

  “Talk to my lawyer, Carolyn Crespin.”

  “That’s right. And don’t talk to any of the other women in here, either. They may be snitches. If someone else says he’s your lawyer, tell him no, he’s not. Ms. Crespin’s your lawyer. Don’t let them get a word out of you but that. I’ll see you soon.”

  The wardress was slouched against the wall outside, smoking a forbidden cigarette and regarding Carolyn with complacent contempt. “Report me,” the look said. “See what happens to your client then.”

  Carolyn took no notice. This wasn’t the place, and the woman was only doing her job as she saw it, which was first to survive and second not to get injured too much in the process. And there were good guards like Josh, people old enough to have outworn their ideals without compromising their ethics, ones who had reached a credible detente between using and withholding force. She’d met good cops and good district attorneys, though too many were like Jake Jagger, courting power far more passionately than they courted justice.