The End of Marking Time

by CJ West

  “Like?”

  “My mother? My father?”

  “They’re not as important as Jonathan. You needed to see him.”

  “And what about my father?” I didn’t know why I was so upset about him. I hadn’t thought about him since I left school. He was just the guy who got my mother pregnant. She was easy when she was ready for another kid. There was no connection. Seven men, seven kids. We didn’t know who they were, though if the younger kids had asked, I could have given them some ideas. Maybe Jonathan awakened something in me, but I think I was just angry and wanted an excuse to vent.

  “We haven’t found him yet,” she said.

  “You found Jonathan pretty fast.”

  She went through a long explanation as she drove. Children of single mothers were all tested. Finding the mother was academic. Finding the father depended upon his DNA being collected after an arrest or when he applied to work in a sensitive government office. Not everyone was on file. Most law abiding citizens weren’t. That was one advantage Nick’s holier-than-thou lifestyle gave him over me.

  “Are we done then?” I wasn’t looking forward to the answer.

  She said when I decided what to do about the papers, she’d be finished with my case and she’d turn me over to Joanne. Did I need a woman to help me find a woman? I’d never had trouble before, but I’d spent a few hours with Charlotte and she wasn’t the least bit interested. Maybe the world had changed. Maybe the riots soured people to relearners so much that I’d need help to overcome the prejudice.

  I couldn’t decide what to do about Jonathan then. Even if I could have, I wouldn’t have told her. I needed a reason to see her again. I needed hope. Even now that I’ve made my decision, I’m not sure I did the right thing. But I want you to know I did what I did because I had no other choice.

  We drove on for several blocks without saying anything.

  I asked if she wanted to go out for lunch.

  She said she had an appointment.

  When she stopped in front of my building I didn’t want to get out. “Does this really work? What you’re doing to me?”

  She understood my meaning, but skirted the question. “I’m here to help you. I’m not doing anything to you. I’m helping you deal with things that need to be taken care of.”

  I remembered what they said about the ankle bracelets. Somewhere this conversation was being recorded. I had to assume that anytime we were together someone was listening, if not to weed out subversive counselors, at least to measure their performance. Maybe that’s why she kept her distance.

  “I meant the whole thing. Wendell, the black box, you, the others.”

  “Most times. Wendell’s a smart guy.”

  “What happens when things go bad?”

  “Wendell doesn’t give up on people. He’s one of the good ones.”

  “He is, isn’t he? But what happens when he gives up?”

  She pointed to the door without saying anything.

  “The others are different aren’t they?”

  She folded her hands on top of the steering wheel.

  “Do some people really go crazy?”

  Charlotte wouldn’t admit those other programs existed. She looked straight ahead through the windshield. No matter how many times I asked, she said nothing. Finally, she took her phone from her purse and pointed to the red button on the side.

  “It’s time for you to go. Don’t make me call for help.”

  I imagined if she pressed that button, special police would be on us in minutes. Anyone listening to our conversation would be worried that I wasn’t getting out of the car. She didn’t want to cause trouble for me or for Wendell, but I couldn’t tell if she was really scared because she hid her emotions behind a plastic smile. Other relearners could have turned violent. I didn’t want to cause myself any more trouble. I got out of the car and she sped away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It was a long lonely climb up to my apartment. I dropped the folder on the coffee table and stared at the black box in front of my television. It was lunchtime and I was hungry, but I wanted to finish the day’s lesson so I could go wander around the neighborhood without worrying about falling behind. I grabbed a Devil Dog from the freezer, cracked a can of Coke, and sat down on the couch.

  The folder kept drawing me away. I turned on the television and put the disc in, but before I snapped on the wrist strap and started the simulation, I opened the folder and studied the five typed pages Kathleen had given me.

  I didn’t own a dictionary or a computer to look up the words I didn’t recognize, but I’d never been so intent on something written down before. I think that’s what got me through all the gibberish. I’d never hired a lawyer. They’d always been given to me when I’d broken some law or another. That wasn’t the case here. If I wanted to fight to keep my relationship, more accurately, to start a relationship with Jonathan, I’d have to hire my own lawyer. I decided to worry about that later and plodded through all five pages, guessing at the words I didn’t understand. A few things were clear even to me. If I signed this agreement, Jonathan would live with Nick and Kathleen and I wouldn’t be allowed to visit without permission. After seeing the anger in Nick’s eyes, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t let me near Jonathan if he didn’t have to. There was only one benefit for me. The deductions from my bank account would stop.

  I couldn’t sign the papers, but I didn’t tear them up either.

  I took the folder to the kitchen table so I wouldn’t keep looking at it. I’d never wanted a child or a family, but my hour in the sandbox had drastically changed my thinking. I understood why Nick wanted to protect Jonathan from me. Having me for a father wouldn’t help the boy any, but I wasn’t ready to give up my claim. It seemed Charlotte had taught me the most memorable lesson of all.

  I connected the strap around my wrist and started the program.

  A new scene showed on the screen. It was a young boy’s bedroom, my bedroom. I don’t say it was my bedroom because it was a seven-year-old version of me on the screen. The walls and the furniture matched the room I’d slept in, right down to the three other boys sharing the room. The graphics were good enough to show where we had pictures on the walls. It seemed Wendell could only spend so much time on each relearner because the images themselves were different. Even so, I was impressed.

  By that time I was comfortable navigating the virtual world, though I hadn’t put my own clothes on before. It turned out to be as easy as opening the bureau and picking a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a blue T-shirt.

  Across the apartment and into the kitchen I met my mother. She was as large as I remember, dumping cereal into bowls with a snarl on her face. Maybe I imagined the snarl, but I remembered what the guys said about acting like a saint. I sat in my place, ate my cereal, and carried my bowl to the sink when I was done. My mother told me to have a good day at school and out the door I went.

  A trail of green dots appeared on the sidewalk and I followed them. I assumed that green was good and that the line would lead me to school. I stopped half a block from home, remembering my previous failures. Should I have brushed my teeth? My mother didn’t say anything about it, but I went back upstairs and brushed them to be sure.

  Thinking myself Saint Michael, I continued after the green dots.

  About a block later I spotted a little girl sitting on the curb, sobbing with her head on her knees. After my time in the sandbox I knew it was wrong to keep walking so I stopped and typed a question, Can I help?

  She pointed to a tree overhead. Something round was caught high in the branches, a balloon or a Frisbee maybe. The graphics weren’t clear enough to tell. It may not have been the point of the exercise, but I couldn’t ignore this little girl’s problem without expecting a shock.

  It took a few minutes to figure out how to make my virtual self jump. In the process I found all sorts of useful things on the help menu, like opening doors and checking my pockets. Jumping though did no good. The Frisbee, I coul
d see clearly that it was a Frisbee when I jumped, was too high. I tried climbing the tree, but it was too flimsy to hold me. When I got my leg up, the first branch snapped and I fell to the ground.

  An old man came rumbling down the driveway and yelling at us to get away from his tree. My first impulse was to run and ditch the girl, but Saint Michael wouldn’t do that. I held my ground and typed, I’m sorry.

  The man was still upset, but he didn’t say anything. He just looked at me and frowned. The three of us held there for a moment. I couldn’t climb the tree and I couldn’t jump up to get the Frisbee. The man was too old and too heavy for seven-year-old me to lift, so I pointed to the Frisbee and then the man. He led me to the garage and together we carried a ladder back to the tree. He climbed up and brought down the Frisbee.

  The girl smiled and ran off, but there were no fireworks.

  Saint Michael hadn’t achieved his goal.

  The green dots were long faded from the screen. I thought I should try to find the school, but something told me that wasn’t the point. The old man stood by his ladder and I kept circling him. I wasn’t sure what to do, but it seemed as long as I stayed close to him, he’d stay by the tree. Finally I had an idea. I typed, Sorry about your tree. Can I do anything?

  Together we carried the ladder back and returned with a saw. He cut the branch off cleanly, thanked me, and went home. Fireworks lit the screen. It was the first lesson I completed without punishment. Elapsed time: forty minutes. Average time: twenty minutes. Record time: two minutes. Whatever. I was still proud.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The ding that announced my arrival at the burger joint didn’t surprise me. It bothered me a whole lot less than the people in line at the registers. They held their breath waiting for the contrasting notes that signaled I was at least wearing my ankle bracelet and unlikely to attack unprovoked. The place was a few blocks further from the complex than I usually ventured. That’s why the customers were so uptight. That’s why I paused by the scanner until the tones signaled I was ok.

  The burger and onion rings smelled like Heaven on my plate. I filled my Coke. Beyond the ketchup and napkins, I saw Joel staring down at an empty tray. I walked over and slid in across from him.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  He said he was, but I didn’t believe him. There was a lot Joel could teach me, but he wasn’t in the mood for conversation. My first day as a relearner I discovered how fast the cops could find me. If they wanted Joel, they would have picked him up already, so whatever was bugging him had to be personal. I didn’t want to lose one of my only relearner friends by going Dr. Phil, so I ate my burger and kept to myself until he felt like talking.

  When I threw my trash away he still hadn’t said anything.

  “Want to go for a walk or something? I’m done for the day.”

  He asked me how many lessons I’d done and I told him one.

  “You know you can do more than one a day, right?”

  “Serious?” I assumed I had to finish one each day. I never considered starting a second one.

  “Dumbass. You want to be in here forever?”

  I felt like an idiot for all the time I’d wasted sitting on the floor bouncing an old tennis ball against the bricks. The television wouldn’t work until I finished the program. I didn’t think to try and speed things up and I didn’t know what else to do to pass the time.

  Joel led me outside, up one block, and down Broadway. I thought he was taking me to scope chicks so I tuned into the women parking their cars and dodging in and out of shops along the street. Every storefront had clean windows and glitzy displays. Vacant signs and broken windows dominated the street near our apartment complex. The only things around our place were the donut shop and a couple of other restaurants that catered to relearners. On Broadway we passed three stores that sold women’s dresses, a hair stylist, a shoe store, and a jewelry store. This street was a haven for the ladies.

  Several attractive women crossed our path. I checked for diamonds and got a few smiles, but Joel paid no attention. He was a huge guy and three women gave him a long looking over, but he just kept on walking like they weren’t there. Even after a few of them said, “Hmmm” and “Oh Baby” he just kept on going.

  “What’s up with you?” I asked after he ignored an awesome pair of legs.

  “Nothing,” he said and pointed to a sleek brick building at the corner.

  It wasn’t a bunch of stores because there were no signs out front. The grass was cut in perfect stripes, so I thought it was an office building, one we might hit for laptops or something. Joel didn’t say anything as we walked past and around back. The guys wore jeans just like we did, but they were different. I didn’t see a single tattoo. Every guy wore short hair. None of them had that get-out-of-my-way swagger Joel flaunted.

  I was trying to stiffen myself against going in with Joel to hit this place when we rounded the back side and walked onto the grass. Ten guys played Wiffle ball on the lawn and Joel walked over like he owned the place. The guys in striped shirts didn’t seem to care. I followed him to a picnic table and noticed they had real bases set out and a net they used for a backstop. The lines were chalked. This was serious Wiffle ball.

  Joel introduced me to Stephan, a white guy about my size. I was still trying to figure out what this place was when Joel said, “This is how the other half lives.”

  “You shitting me?”

  There were guys all over, hanging out on the grass. The yard was ten times the size of ours and it wasn’t enclosed by brick walls. Uniformed referees ran the game. Compared to this place, my apartment was like being back at the house of correction.

  “How’d you get in here?”

  Stephan misunderstood. He told me some guy grabbed his girlfriend outside a bar and he’d punched him out. A cop was standing there and hauled him in. I didn’t really care what he’d done, I wanted to know how I could get out of my place and into this one.

  He said it was the first time he’d ever been in trouble. That fit. All the guys playing ball looked harmless. The tension I’d seen in prison, in the courthouse hallways, and even around the apartment buildings I’d lived in, that tension didn’t exist here. These were just regular guys at big boy summer camp. No one was going to get stabbed serving his time here, and they’d all stay out of trouble when they went back to their regular lives.

  “Do you guys have to do the black box?”

  “You’re in Wendell’s, huh?”

  When I nodded, Stephan got closer. “The programs are all different. When I first came here, they showed us what you go through and they showed us bits of two other programs.” He pointed at me then. “Don’t tell anybody,” he whispered. “The programs are supposed to be some big secret. The guys who run them are real competitive. No one is supposed to know what the other guys are doing.”

  “But they showed you?”

  “Yeah. Man, losing my job was enough to keep me out of trouble, but when I saw how you guys live, I was sure I wouldn’t be slugging someone else. When I saw the guy jump out the sixth floor window, I was definitely sure.”

  Joel and Stephan shared a look.

  “We didn’t see that program,” Stephan said, meaning one run the cat baggers. “I think even the people who run this thing are afraid to try and get inside.”

  I asked him how he’d seen someone jump.

  Joel broke in. “It’s the end of the line. That’s all you need to know.”

  It wasn’t luck that got Stephan into this club. He was a first timer. Our records got Joel and I stuck into Wendell’s classroom. That was the first time I was truly afraid of the new laws. In the old days we never believed we’d be sentenced to die, but then I knew if I kept screwing up I’d be sent to a place where lethal injection would be considered humane.

  “You don’t use the black box?” I asked to lighten the subject.

  “We do, but ours plays video games. Some really good ones.”

  Stephan took us
inside and showed us his room, the health club, and the restaurant on the first floor. The place was more like a resort than prison. It even had a bar. We couldn’t drink outside our own apartments, but the bartender there assured us it was ok. Joel and I had a few beers. Stephan drank Coke and I noticed several other guys doing the same. I was so thankful for what I’d learned, I pressed my thumb to the scanner for the first two rounds. When we got to the third round, the bartender informed me I was out of credit.

  Stephan paid.

  Joel looked at me like I was the biggest fool he’d ever seen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “It’s Tuesday, brother,” Joel said. “What are you going to do?”

  I didn’t know why it being Tuesday meant anything. I shrugged and followed Joel down the street away from Stephan and his cushy digs.

  “You get eight hundred and seven dollars every Friday just like everyone else. What’d you do with it?”

  “I needed stuff,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “Regular stuff. I went out to eat, and I needed a new television and some stuff in the kitchen, you know, regular stuff.”

  “What happened to your furniture allowance?”

  “I spent it.”

  “Are you really that stupid?”

  “I never did this electronic crap before. If I have money in my pocket I know when I’m short. These numbers in a machine somewhere and pressing my thumb? How am I supposed to know when I need money?”

  “How did you spend eight hundred bucks in five days?”

  “I made a lot more than that in the old days, and I if I ran out I could always get more.”

  “You’re hopeless, man.”

  I thought about Morris Farnsworth. Maybe he could get me some of next week’s pay a few days early. I’d be more careful then. When I suggested it to Joel, he stopped me there on the sidewalk.

  “Don’t do it, man.”

  “Why not?”