by Vassar Smith
The next thing I knew, my father had sat down on a bench, placed me face down across his lap, and was spanking the daylights out of me. At first I was just shocked and appalled beyond words. Then I began yelling in indignation. Then I was simply howling and crying in pain.
Even though corporal punishment of children was once more condoned by society, it was still considered to be in poor taste for a parent to exercise this option in public—if the child was a primo. If the boy or girl was a retro, then merited punishment could be meted out anywhere, any time. In fact, several weeks before, on another Sunday in this same park and at this same bench, I had seen a little blond boy, phenotypically no more than seven years old, getting a spanking from his mother. The poor kid was not only being punished in public—he got the spanking on his bare bottom! At least I was spared that mortifying indignity! But the pain and embarrassment were still devastating.
The physical pain soon went away, but the social effect was catastrophic. Everyone who witnessed my punishment in the park or heard about it later, recognized immediately that I was a retro. They wouldn’t forget. The word got around. Many of the doors that the Farrells had hoped to open for me would now remain closed.
Chapter 16
Even had that incident not occurred, I could not have remained under the radar much longer. Politicians, capitalizing on the fears of “concerned citizens and parents,” had recently passed additional restrictive laws “for the protection of children and families.” Although the laws themselves did not require retros to dress in a specific way to distinguish them from the primos, one law did empower the network of social workers monitoring the retros to do so. The result was a cumbersome printout of rules and regulations that were as subject to change as the styles themselves or the caprices of the bureaucrats.
Both from the pictures that I’ve seen and from the memories that did stay with me, I noted with approval the prevailing styles in clothing and haircuts in the decades before I first got retrogressed. The sleeves, skirts, and shorts, also the haircuts changed occasionally, but did not go to extremes. Then, during most of my first retrogression the haircuts, both for men and for women, were decidedly too short, sleeves on the long-sleeved shirts and blouses were three times wider than they should have been, and sleeveless shirts almost like vests became fashionable for warm-weather wear. Trousers (both long pants and shorts) were as baggy as Turkish pantaloons ages ago. Shortly before my second retrogression, styles more like those I recalled (and preferred) came back into fashion: nothing too long or too short.
Then some wizard felt that it was time to go to extremes again. Both men’s and women’s shorts became several inches shorter, and among the children’s warm-weather clothing the manufacturers introduced and promoted scants. This item for children’s spring-and-summer wear usually captured the appeal of the parents far more than of the children themselves. Within three months of their debut, scants had become the paradigm of modern marketing disasters. Small boys might wear them a time or two before their parents’ approving comments were outweighed by the derisive remarks of older boys around them. Accordingly, as boys resisted wearing scants, parents ceased buying them.
However, shrewd consultants for the manufacturer and the stores that had already made purchasing commitments, saved their clients from a financial debacle by a novel concept: If the primos could not be persuaded to wear scants, why not make the retros do so? Unfortunately, the CEO had just enough connections and clout, that he got this done. Retros of the phenotypical ages between 6-12 (inclusive) were now made readily recognizable: the girls by shorter skirts, the boys by their wearing scants year round.
Chapter 17
Once it became known in the building that I was a retro, many parents in the neighborhood would neither allow me into their homes nor let their children associate with me. Worse still, some kids acted as though they themselves no longer cared to have anything to do with me. Tommy, who lived next door, never said anything rude or mean to me, but every time I came by or called, he told me that he was busy doing something, or that he was about to go somewhere, and, sorry, he couldn’t work me into those plans. I got the message.
But this was becoming a more “mixed” neighborhood. Even our building was not as “upscale” as the Farrells liked to think. The residents were not only of many different ethnic backgrounds but also of all socioeconomic classes except the fabulously wealthy and the hopelessly indigent. Though my being a retro rendered me beyond the pale for some, to a few it hardly seemed to matter.
A boy named Bobby Donaldson—heavyset and coarse-looking even at eight years old—started hanging out with me. He had dull, blue eyes and a thatch of straight, unruly blond hair. All his clothes were faded, and many had rips and holes in them. He lived with his divorced mother, who often seemed sad and preoccupied. She was rumored to be an alcoholic. I’m sure the Farrells let him come over because they felt sorry for him—and sorry about the difficulties posed for me by the more restrictive new regulations for retros. In my second retrogression Bobby was the first primo to discuss the subject with me.
“I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed one afternoon in my room. It was the second time that we had been together by ourselves. “I’m eight, and you’re, like, six. And I’m bigger and taller and stronger than you. But you used to be a grownup. What was it like?”
“A lot different from being a kid.”
“It must have been cool!”
“Not always.”
“What do you mean? It must have been great to have your own place and your own money, and nobody telling you what to do. You can do what you want when you want!”
“Well, Bobby, it may seem that way, but the fact is, you always have someone telling you what to do or not do—the government, the cops, your boss, your landlord... Then your wife or girlfriend tries to boss you around as well. As for the money that they have, well, most adults have to work many more hours each week, month, and year than we have to go to school. After a while you start wondering whether anyone as an adult has as much freedom as he had as a kid.”
“But, Michael, as a kid you get bossed around by everyone: your parents, your teachers, even older kids! When is anyone ever again as free as babies? They don’t have to take orders from anyone!”
“No,” I disagreed. “You’re not free when you need someone else to do everything for you—everything except pee and poop. Then they need someone to change their diapers.”
“Yuck! You’re right about that. But tell me this: After being an adult, don’t you get bored being a kid again?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes horribly so. But, being in a kid’s body, I don’t think as often about all the ‘adult’ stuff that grownups are supposed to enjoy.”
“Like what?”
“Mostly alcohol, gambling, sex... When you’re a little kid, someone takes care of you all the time and pays all the bills—rent, groceries, medical expenses, all that stuff. You’ve got your Mom to cook breakfast and dinner for you, don’t you?”
Bobby looked sad. After a few seconds he said, “I’ve got my Mom, and she buys food for us. But she’s tired when she gets home at night, and she doesn’t feel so good most mornings, either. I have to fix most of the food myself.”
“You cook your own meals?”
“Yeah. A bowl of cereal in the morning, a sandwich for lunch, two bowls of soup with cheese toast at night. Milk, apples, ice cream, cookies... It’s always the same stuff. You’re lucky. Your folks get different kinds of food for you. And they eat meals with you.”
“That’s right. We do eat dinner together almost every night. Mom and Dad take turns getting me up and ready for school.”
“And when it’s not a school day?”
“I get up and have breakfast with Mom or Dad or both of them anyway. We just get up later on Saturdays and Sundays.”
“You’re lucky! I wish my Mom wasn’t tired at night and sick in the morning.”
I just nodded sympathetically. I was afraid
that anything I said would either sound insincere or be misunderstood. After all, he was bigger and taller and stronger. And he was only eight years old.
Chapter 18
Like many, I’ve often wondered why—ever since the scientists carried out the first successful retrogression—they haven’t been able to apply the same technology to rejuvenate people, i.e. to make people young again without turning them into children or toddlers. If they can transform someone back to what he was at one tenth of his chronological age, then why can’t they retrogress someone to only half his chronological age? What seventy-year-old wouldn’t embrace the chance to be 35 again? Or even 21? But to be seven again? Why couldn’t the Procedure be refined to produce the Fountain of Youth instead of our severest legal penalty?
So far as I can determine, it’s one of those goals which scientists are still seeking, but finding elusive rather than finding—like time travel, “cold” fusion, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It’s not that the scientists haven’t tried every imaginable variable in the theoretical and practical considerations, but in all such cases the results have been unsatisfactory. Any deviation from the standard applied Procedure has proven unsuccessful, in some cases fatal. The public’s initial rapture over the development of retrogression faded to lukewarm approval of its application as a means both to punish and ultimately (or so they hoped) to rehabilitate convicted felons and benefit qualified applicants seeking children for foster care or adoption.
People love the idea of recovering their youth, but they don’t care much for the prospect of repeating their childhood. I do know of some notable exceptions, however. There was an actress who had been phenomenal as a child star, but once she had become an adolescent, she could barely get even supporting roles, then could hardly even get cameo roles once she was an adult. Her earnings from her years of glory had been extraordinarily well invested. So, whatever her problems, money wasn’t one of them. No, her agony was that of ego and professional pride.
One day this actress mysteriously disappeared. Not long after this had ceased to be news, a little girl, claiming to be the great actress’ niece, showed up in Hollywood, got an audition, and was given the star role in a remake of one of her aunt’s most popular and critically acclaimed holofilms. The resemblance between this new child actress and the former superstar was simply uncanny: voice, laugh, facial expressions, mannerisms, everything, not just her looks.
Still, the new production flopped. Tastes had changed. The little girl who had enthralled audiences decades ago now drew a lukewarm response at best. Stung by the public’s rebuff, the new child actress “retired” to her “aunt’s” estate and disappeared into obscurity.
Lo and behold! Twenty years later another little “relative” with the same last name managed to obtain the starring roles in some new movies as well as in remakes of several classics. Indeed tastes had changed again, this time in her favor. Though the second remake of the great child actress’ most popular holofilm was still deemed inferior to the original, at least this time it did achieve commercial success and moderate critical acclaim.
Obviously this actress had somehow managed either to buy her own retrogressor or to procure the use of one illegally. We could speculate on the details forever, but the particulars remain unknown. Still, this case does prove one thing: Celebrities evidently believe that laws and regulations may restrict others, but don’t apply to the rich and famous.
Chapter 19
After I’d lived with the Farrells for two years, they allowed me a greater measure of freedom and unsupervised activity. Ever since I had been exposed as a retro by the incident at the playground and by the new dress-code regulations, I had had fairly little association with other kids outside of school. There was Bobby, of course, but he was so dull! There were a few families—friends of the Farrells—who had kids. They and I got together at birthday parties, family dinner parties, and so forth. But even though we enjoyed ourselves, I felt that it was always an arranged and superficial association. We ate together, played together, had fun at the time, then did not see or contact one another until our parents arranged another get-together. Ordinarily, other than Bobby and a few kids even younger and duller, I didn’t have anyone to visit or play with in the building or neighborhood. My neighbor Tommy’s distant civility pained me, but that was better than the mocking stares and chilling silence that I got from most primo kids.
School was a bit better. The Farrells sent me to a private day-school with a strong emphasis on moral behavior and social skills as well as academic excellence. The school’s philosophy owed much to the teachings of Maria Montessori, also to the dictum of William James, namely that the three most important things of all are: first, to be kind; second, to be kind; and, third, to be kind. So, though I occasionally got some curious questions or good-natured teasing from my classmates, I managed to escape the hell that more and more retros were finding themselves in, both at public and at private schools.
Even second-time retros are required to attend and complete primary and middle school. While perhaps not totally absurd, this does strike me as rather bizarre. The memory erased by the first Retrogression Procedure is mostly that of personal experience, not factual information or practical application. A retro may, for example, initially be unable to write with a pencil or to ride a bicycle. It isn’t that he’s forgotten how to do these things. It’s that his body has gone back to an age before it had mastered these activities. Hence, it must be trained to do them again.
It seems unnecessary to compel even a first-time retro to repeat primary and secondary school, especially a bright person who did well in school and put what he learned to good use. For the dim bulbs there’s a measure of justice in telling them: “Since you obviously didn’t get it right the first time, do it over!” But a third time? That’s not just a nightmare, but a repeating nightmare, especially for the more intelligent retros. I often found that I knew subjects better than my classroom teachers themselves did, especially history, math, grammar, and literature. This caused some friction years ago, in my first retrogression.
Fortunately, at my new school the watchword was cooperation. Here I soon became like an unpaid teaching assistant, appreciated both by the teachers and by the other students. The Farrells were ecstatic when, just before the start of the second school year for me there, the administration offered to keep me enrolled as a student—without tuition or any other fees. Given my phenotypical age and retro status, the headmaster and directors could not legally hire me or pay me outright. Instead, they bestowed upon me a rare “full scholarship.”
Chapter 20
That was also the year I first observed with my own eyes how suddenly the system’s use of retrogression can make others disappear—and reappear.
A new family moved into the condo across the hall. Their name was Marshall. They had an adopted son my age—a blue-eyed, platinum-blond boy as outrageously handsome, well-groomed, and well-mannered as Bobby was crude, unkempt, and unsightly. I saw the family briefly when they came to the building with the manager and their realtor. The parents looked about fifteen years older than the Farrells. From the adults’ age I would have assumed that the boy, if a son and not a grandson, was adopted. At the sight of his outfit I knew at once that he was a retro.
We weren’t at home when they moved in. The next morning, when I walked out to catch the public transport, I saw the blond boy waiting on the bench at the stop. The school term was over. I was going to my dentist for the annual checkup. (Yeah, losing one’s deciduous teeth and growing new, permanent teeth is another big treat from being retrogressed!) Suddenly, at the sight of that blond boy on the bench a stunning possibility occurred to me.
About a year before my own arrest and (second) Retrogression Procedure, my best friend had been arrested and tried on charges that were as suspicious as they were scandalous. I had followed his trial closely. I believe that he was convicted only because the prosecutor—Assistant District Attorney
Jane McCrary—was ruthless, the defense counsel inept, and the jury dumber than dirt. Tim had been a highly respected investment broker/counselor until he had been caught up in a securities scandal that burned some close friends of the Governor. Tim’s fault was simply not investigating more thoroughly the information from a source that heretofore had always been both honest and reliable. Then suddenly it wasn’t. Long story short, the court convicted Tim and had him retrogressed. I had not had many close friends, and I had certainly missed him. The thing is, a photo in his living room had shown him as an eight-year-old with his natural parents at the seashore. The boy seated on the bench was a dead ringer for the boy in that photograph I had seen so many times. I had to find out...
“Tim Wyler?” I asked, getting his attention immediately.
“Everyone knows me now as Timmy Marshall. Have we met?”
“Only about a thousand times. I’m Michael Tadlock.”
“Michael!” he exclaimed, jumping up and hugging me in joy. “So, you got retroed, too.”
“Yes, about three years ago.”
“That makes us both ‘eight’ now, doesn’t it? And you used to be ten years older but looked fifteen years younger than me.”
At that moment the train arrived, and we got aboard. We were going to not only the same stop but even to the same building. His appointment was with his case worker, the equivalent of a probation officer for retros. The lower half of the building was occupied by branch offices of State agencies. The upper ten floors were leased to professional and small corporate concerns, most of them in some kind of law or medicine. Tim and I both had transportation credits in our identification wristbands, but no other purchasing power. We had little time before our appointments, but made plans to meet afterward and ride home together.
