The End of Marking Time

by CJ West

  I asked Deone and Tyrone who else they knew around our courtyard. The group looked rough. Maybe it looked rougher to me because there were only six or seven white guys. Back in prison where racial gangs dominated, the six of us would have been dead. There was no threat of serious violence here. No one got stabbed because everyone was afraid of the cat baggers. But everyone in that yard had an edge. They were survivors like me. Tattoos and funky hairstyles were everywhere. We were nothing like those homogenized campers who lived with Stephan.

  Tyrone and Deone knew bunches of inmates from the old days, guys who’d done serious time. Some of them stayed out here in the courtyard because they felt jittery being on the street. They liked the walls. Others had been in and out five and six times each.

  I didn’t believe many of them would make it on the outside. Wendell would give them his best shot, but in the end, most of them were going to be locked in a room like Joel’s. It was inevitable. Sitting there watching the guys around the yard I got angry. Wendell was trying to help me. He’d saved me from the cat baggers twice already. He was getting screwed by the system, mostly because he was trying to do the right thing. He thought he was getting a fair shot at whoever came along, but it was obvious that someone was tilting the odds. Whoever ran Stephan’s program was making easy money while Wendell was killing himself to help people and getting nowhere.

  I should never have gotten involved, but I couldn’t help myself.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The only person I knew in the whole complex was Stephan. I didn’t have his phone number, so I walked over and waited on a bench that faced the Wiffle ball diamond. From there I watched the sidewalk headed east and anyone coming out to join the game. If I had known Stephan’s last name I would have asked around, but I didn’t want to raise suspicion and be sent away, so I acted like I was waiting for him to join me.

  The first thing I noticed was that the men in this building only walked to get from place to place. Where I came from, guys added all these extra movements, like animals showing off to attract a mate. Arms flapped, heads bobbed, knees and hips flew. It was a lot of work to walk in the hood, that’s how we kept in shape to run from the cops. Personally, I walked with minimal motion, not to separate myself from the gang bangers, but to keep from knocking things over when I moved through a dark house.

  I couldn’t help watching these guys shuttle back and forth. It was like their big jobs and fancy educations weighed them down so much they didn’t have the energy to show off. There was no tension when two guys passed. They nodded to each other and they moved on. If a guy didn’t nod back, it was no big deal; the other guy didn’t give him a second look.

  There was a whole lot of normal walking around that place. They wore collared shirts to play Wiffle ball. They kept their hair short, not as short as mine, but my shaved head was a bit extreme. I didn’t see a tattoo or a guy with his hair dyed or spiked up into a Mohawk. Normalcy wasn’t evidence of anything, but I knew when I finally talked to Stephan, I’d have something real to bring to Wendell. Something that would get me away from Blake.

  That wasn’t my goal in going there. Once I realized what I was doing might earn me a new counselor, I was excited about the idea. Still, deep down I wanted to help Wendell. That was what got me started on this journey, and that was what saw me through until I came to stand before you.

  So I sat on the bench another two hours. In that time I saw Dr. Blake make a giddy rush through the double doors. He wasn’t wearing his jogging suit, but I guess he didn’t need it if he was going into a guy’s apartment. I wondered if he could really be collecting a favor here. These guys didn’t feel the pressure like we did, and he must have been worried about being caught on camera when he pulled down his pants. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he watched the tapes. He could have been hitting up the one guy in this building who was on the edge of being shipped to the cat baggers. Balding and pudgy with a job none of his peers respected, Blake might count himself lucky to get what he could, cameras or no cameras.

  I thought about following Blake inside and recording him in the act, but I couldn’t risk angering him again. If he caught me I might look back fondly on the shocks from the wrist strap. I couldn’t risk the conflict, especially since he might be innocently doing his job.

  Another half hour passed and Morris Farnsworth walked from a shiny black sedan to the back corner of the building. He entered through a rust colored door that blended with the brick exterior. Morris looked like a lot of other guys from a distance, but I hadn’t seen anyone else wearing a suit and a bow tie. I was surprised that two of Wendell’s counselors were working here in this program, too. I thought the business was a whole lot more competitive than that.

  When Stephan finally showed up I had a dozen questions rolling through my mind, but I tried to keep it low key. Blake shouldn’t have told me about the cat baggers, but since he did, I wondered how much Blake and Morris Farnsworth shared with the guys over here.

  Stephan headed for the Wiffle ball game in shorts and a golf shirt. I jumped up and met him on his way. When I told him I was a lefty, he offered to show me a few pitches so I could join his team. I’d only played catch on the sidewalk and in the park two blocks from the projects, never anything organized. I didn’t tell him and he didn’t ask.

  When the game I had been watching ended, Stephan went out to the pitcher’s mound to look for an opponent. He got one and after we loosened up, our five-man team faced off against another. These guys might not have been aggressive when they walked, but they were maniacs on the field. They laid out and dove for the ball, sliding on their chests after making a catch. The other team identified me as the weak link and pretty soon balls started coming my way. When I got up to bat, the first pitch blew my mind. This guy with a flattened nose threw the ball an inch off the grass, then it climbed up into the air and hit the metal plate hung behind the batter for a strike zone. The next two pitches made impossible curves from places I couldn’t hit them to the outer edges of that plate. I knew I had no chance to help my team.

  The rest of my Wiffle ball career was strikeout after strikeout and balls whizzing over my head into the outfield, but while we were batting I learned some interesting things about the guys on my team and even the spectators.

  When you asked these guys what they did, they had a legit profession. They were bankers and lawyers and insurance men. They worked in offices or computer rooms in tall buildings. They frowned when you asked them what they were in for. They weren’t proud of the DUI charge or the punch they’d thrown at their boss at a party. I counted fourteen guys on the field after the game. Not one of them had ever been to prison and they all had a job to go back to. These guys weren’t coming back. This was a bump in the road for them. Someone was making a killing by letting them play ball instead of punishing them for their crimes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  When the game was over and I was done talking to the guys around home plate, I knew the place was a sham. I was working my buns off to finish ridiculously difficult lessons and these guys just played ball. I wanted to scream about how easy they had it. You might be thinking I was angry because I made our team lose. You’re right, I didn’t help our team, but losing that game didn’t matter to me. The other guys were intense about Wiffle ball and maybe that’s why they were so good. For me, the game was a way inside, nothing more.

  Afterward I asked Stephan if there was more to the reeducation program than athletics and he offered to show me what he was doing upstairs. On our way to his apartment he pointed out the security room like it was common knowledge. It was the same room I’d seen Morris Farnsworth go into.

  When I went back home later, I checked the layout of my building and found our security room in the back corner of the first floor away from prying eyes on the street. I knew my apartment was being watched but I had not known from where. Because our exercise area was enclosed and because we had no reason to walk around behind the building, I’d bet most relea
rners who lived in my complex had no idea the security room was tucked back there. The building was designed to discourage us from ever finding this room.

  We took the elevator up. Another convenience unavailable at my place.

  Stephan’s apartment wasn’t as grand as I expected. His furniture looked a lot like mine. He told me he’d bought it from the guy who was there before him. He had the same black box, but without the wrist strap and gray pads that had been delivered to me.

  When he showed me what he was working on, I laughed. He had a week left in the program and three discs remaining. His discs were what I had originally expected. They were kids’ movies.

  We watched several minutes of some boys picking on another kid because his shirt was different than the others. The whole idea seemed childish to me, but Stephan’s eyes never left the screen.

  “You like this crap?”

  He paused the player. “No. But I’ve got to answer the questions at the end. I pay attention so I only have to watch the thing once.”

  He restarted the movie and instantly refocused on the screen. I asked him what he did for work and he begrudgingly told me he made computers talk to each other or something like that. The whole tech world was foreign to me. I watched a few minutes, more curious about how feeble the questions at the end would be than anything.

  Stephan was really into the movie.

  I checked the characters for one that looked like him, but none of them did. I guessed they hadn’t stolen that trick from Wendell.

  Stephan blinked twice. I’d noticed it before, but for some reason I perked up. I asked him to back up the movie. We watched it again and he blinked in the same spot.

  Three more times we replayed this bit about one kid hitting another. Every time Stephan blinked.

  I asked him if he had a Coke. He said they were in the fridge, but I nodded to the kitchen where we had a better chance of talking unobserved.

  He followed and handed me the soda with a curious look.

  I spilled a handful of sugar, spread it over the table and scratched, That movies f’d, in the granules.

  He just shrugged.

  I carved, You keep blinking at the same part, with my finger.

  He carved, Tap when I blink.

  That wasn’t necessary. Once I’d told him, he realized how much he was blinking at the violent images on the screen. He tried slowing them down, but the player had only very basic functionality. He thought for a minute, disappeared to his room, and reappeared with a camera.

  We made a good show of watching the next ten minutes of the movie.

  “I’ve got to get back,” I said for the benefit of our audience downstairs.

  He let me keep the Coke and walked me out into the hall. There he played back the images from his camera. The movie showed in super-slow motion, and what we saw explained why Stephan was so riveted to the action and why he was troubled by the violence.

  Twice a nearly naked woman appeared for a single frame or two.

  Then, when the boy in the movie was punched, Stephan himself appeared in a single frame, getting stabbed by a much larger man.

  The men in this complex were learning more than they knew. I couldn’t believe this was happening in America. Professional men were brainwashed to stay out of trouble. Teachers were extorting sex from relearners. Men were being tortured to the brink of their sanity. I knew then that if anyone could help me tell the world about this, Wendell could. Stephan gave me the camera and I promised to come back after I’d shown the movie to Wendell.

  He thanked me absently when I left. I knew he was wondering about the other lessons he’d watched. What else had they implanted in his mind while he thought he was watching a harmless story about a bunch of children?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  As I rode the elevator down I realized that using children’s movies was an ingenious way to get the men to let their guard down. The Wiffle ball culture reinforced their ease, the naked women held their attention, and the violent images drilled the lesson straight into their subconscious. The other thing that struck me as I walked into my apartment was how slick the programs were. The government handed complete control of the relearners to Wendell and his peers. Competition between them polished the primary programs, but the lack of supervision allowed rampant abuses. Maybe the abuse wasn’t a mistake. Maybe that was the only way the government could control us now that the prisons were empty.

  Wendell wouldn’t torture anyone or stoop to using subliminal images. I knew he’d be outraged when he saw what was on the camera, but I didn’t know how to find him. With Blake and Farnsworth working for both programs, I wasn’t sure if I could trust any of my counselors. I certainly wasn’t telling Blake anything. After our disgusting encounter in his car, he had it in for me. That made sneaking home with the camera especially tough.

  I went straight for the kitchen, opened a box of microwave popcorn, and slipped the camera from my pocket to the bottom of the box. Once I rearranged the packets on top and pushed the box to the back of the counter I felt better. I even microwaved a bag to complete the rouse even though I wasn’t hungry. With the bowl on the coffee table, I arranged the business cards my counselors had given me. They were my only real contact with the outside world. I pushed Blake and Farnsworth to the left, knowing I couldn’t trust them. If Wendell had given me a card, I would have found a payphone and called him, but I guess he was too important to be bogged down by every relearner. Too bad. If he had trusted me with his number, it would have made both our lives easier.

  When the knock came, I had my finger on Charlotte’s card, tapping it like she was the only one I could trust. When I opened the door, there she was in a skirt and heels, like I’d summoned her by touching her card. She took a seat on the couch and when she crossed her legs, her skirt rose well up her thigh. I reminded myself that I was a relearner—her client. I was sweaty from the Wiffle ball game and the hike to Stephan’s. As much as she smiled at me across the upholstered divide, she wasn’t interested. She was the pretty face on the reeducation machine.

  I offered her popcorn and a drink. When she refused, I picked up the bowl myself. I couldn’t help thinking about getting together with her. Even sweaty and dirty as I was, I wanted to believe she was interested. That’s why she had this job. Every relearner wanted Charlotte. The legs and the hair were bait to get me to do what they wanted. We were being filmed. Nothing would happen. I tried to get control of myself by imagining she looked like my mother, but my eyes refused to be tricked.

  She noticed the grass stains on my pants and asked what I’d been doing.

  I told her about the game, still wondering why she showed up when she did. We hadn’t spoken since the encounter with Nick and Kathleen a week ago. Maybe she’d given me a week to think about things and put this date on her calendar, but more likely she was here to help out her colleague.

  She fished for information about Blake. She asked how I was doing with the program and I told her everything was going fine. She asked where I was and I said I was working on math.

  “Are you having trouble?”

  “Everything’s fine. It’s just like being back in school. That’s all.”

  She pointed to the gray pads on the floor. “That’s not a good sign. You sure you’re not having trouble? I could call Dr. Blake for you.”

  I had yet to be tormented by the gray pads, so I didn’t know what unpleasantness they held for me. Clearly this was a step up from the wrist-strap shocks, but at least they weren’t plugged in. I hadn’t thought about them much. I knew Blake wanted to punish me for refusing to service him. I almost asked Charlotte what they were for, but I didn’t want to give her an excuse to send Blake to my place.

  “What brings you by?” I asked to change the subject.

  “Nick and Kathleen have been calling me. They are very anxious to move ahead with the adoption.”

  “Of my son.” I said it more forcefully than I’d expected. Was something really being taken away fro
m me? If Charlotte hadn’t told me about the DNA test, I never would have known Jonathan was mine. Would I have been just like my father and the other men my mother knew? I didn’t want to be, but here was Nick, offering, no insisting, to take on my responsibility. The pregnancy didn’t change anything between Kathleen and me. She was married to him. Did I want to be the third leg of this parenting trio?

  “They’ll make him a good home,” Charlotte said, as if I couldn’t.

  I knew it was true. I didn’t even know why I was protesting, but I felt like something was being stolen from me and I wanted to fight.

  “You won’t have child support deducted from your pay anymore.”

  The more she pressed the more determined I became.

  “Nick has a good job. It’ll be very difficult for Jonathan growing up the son of a relearner. After the adoption he won’t have to know. He’ll never be teased on the playground.”

  Any thoughts I had about sleeping with Charlotte vanished. She thought my son would be better off if he didn’t know I existed. She looked at me sincerely, but I was below her. She came here and she seemed unafraid, but to her I was an animal in obedience school. If I needed proof all I had to do was look down at my ankle. I told her I’d think about the papers.

  She left in a hurry.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  That was the first time I felt out of balance with the world. Would I always be repulsive to Charlotte? I would have worked hard to impress her. I was already doing my best to finish Wendell’s program without getting into trouble, but that wasn’t enough. She would always see me as a relearner. Would everyone on the outside see me that way? Could I ever buy my own small place and settle down? Would my neighbors hate me? Would they protest outside my door? Could I get a job? Or would employers refuse to hire me because I couldn’t be trusted?