by CJ West
The man in the bloodied golf shirt snapped me from my self-pity. I’d seen him during a Wiffle ball game. His huge biceps and pecs made it hard for him to catch up with a fastball, but he was a master at hitting balls that darted and weaved toward the plate. When he walked through the lobby, he had a white bandage plastering his ear down to the side of his face. His shirt was torn open in three or four places and the white fabric was covered in blood. It looked like he’d been stabbed, but he walked steadily. It was someone else’s blood. That’s why he was surrounded by cops.
I got up and hurried to the corner so I could see where they took him.
As I got closer I saw that his jeans had been muddied and then rinsed. They stopped at the double doors. I thought they were going to take the cuffs off before bringing him inside, but they didn’t. I’d never seen that before. He must have gone nuts and beaten someone to death. This guy was in serious trouble and I was positive Nathan Farnsworth would do his best to dump him off on Wendell.
I tried to be casual as I came down the hall, but there was no mistaking where I was headed. I paused outside the double doors, hoping to hear what I could from outside. The court officer stationed there pulled a door open and held it for me. I balked and he looked at me strangely for a second. I wasn’t dressed like an attorney and he couldn’t have missed the ankle bracelet. Everyone checked when they met someone new. Still, he held the door and waited. I moved inside and eased into the audience.
In the old system the majority of trials were public and the gallery had at least a few interested parties watching. Three wide rows of seats waited for an audience, but there wasn’t a single soul in the wooden chairs, nor had there been when I’d been brought here for judgment. Up front the prosecutor and three officers were ready to present. The accused, a man I’d known, but could not recall his name, pointed at me and then urgently to the door. A second later Nathan Farnsworth came in through the door to the judge’s chambers. His eyes locked on me and he faltered like he wanted to turn back the way he’d just come. He didn’t. He started to his seat and the judge followed a few seconds behind.
The accused turned and faced me menacingly, like he wanted to jump up from his chair and attack me. Even cuffed he could pound me before the cops pulled him off. Behind him the judge said, “Motion denied,” and banged his gavel.
The defendant scowled like it was my fault. Had he been promised the same deal as the Wiffle ball pitcher? Was Nathan bribing the judge to get his record erased so he could be admitted into Wendell’s program? The judge and Nathan Farnsworth both looked flustered. The accused wanted to rip me apart.
The trial, like all relearner trials, didn’t last long. There was a scuffle in a bar the night before and it was captured on tape. The man at the defense table had been insulted by a few guys playing pool and eventually he snapped. He grabbed a man, pool cue and all, and pummeled him bloody. Another three guys joined in to help their friend, but they were no match for the hulk at the defense table. They armed themselves with chairs and beer bottles. Still, they took the worst of it.
When the fight was over, the chase was on. I’d seen the computer tracking before, but by his reaction, the defendant didn’t know they could trace his every move. Nathan Farnsworth’s relearners didn’t get a chance to see this room too many times. This would be the big guy’s only chance to see how well the police could follow him.
He was pronounced guilty and Nathan Farnsworth did something I didn’t expect. He walked forward and accepted his failure. Scanning his thumb cost him dearly. The defendant would pay an even higher price.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The handcuffs came off right there in the courtroom. When they did, the hulking defendant turned in my direction and I got ready to run. He stopped short when Farnsworth stuck an angry finger in his face and growled something under his breath. Even the judge and the cops turned to hear. The threat was little more than a whisper, but everyone understood the message. One more mistake and Farnsworth would throw him out. The men who came to claim him wouldn’t be kind. Had the big guy been for a drive in the woods to hear the screams? It didn’t matter how big he was. He wouldn’t stand up to the drugs and cats and scalpels. He’d wind up facedown on the asphalt like everyone else.
His demeanor changed immediately. His shoulders drooped. His eyes dipped for the floor and he shuffled out. I was convinced he was picturing the atrocities Blake had told me about. The images came back to me when I was caught in Wendell’s house and hauled here. Anytime could be the last time in this room. The big guy was lucky. He had to be scolding himself for being sent here again. I hoped he wasn’t blaming me for his trouble with the judge.
I fingered the pages of my book, let them fan over and over again while Nathan Farnsworth walked the big guy out. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do then. I went and collected my pen camera from the security guard and walked the sidewalks, aimlessly I thought. Several blocks later I ended up facing the yard behind Stephan’s apartment. I took up the bench overlooking the field and watched the teams organize for the next game.
The big guy was right there in the outfield. He’d changed into shorts and a T-shirt, but there was no denying the bulging muscles on his huge frame. The white bandage on his ear dispelled any doubt. I would have been cowering in my room that soon after court. I thought it was strange for him to play, but I was glad. The game gave me time to check his mood. I wanted to ask why he’d gotten so mad. I was sure he’d been offered the same deal as the pitcher who’d moved to my complex, but I wanted to hear it. I wanted to know the judge was the guy I should be following. Before any of that, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t going to end up in a fist fight with a giant if I approached him.
I pretended to read my book and a few times I actually read three or four pages before looking back to the game. The big guy wasn’t quick enough to run down liners, but he could get under a drifting fly ball well enough. He stared me down a few times to say he knew I was watching, but when his team was at bat, he stayed around home plate instead of chasing me off. I took it as a good sign, a little hope that I might trick him into telling me what I wanted to know without needing to see a dentist afterward.
I got my chance when the game was over. He wandered away casually, arcing over to where I was on the bench. I clicked on the recorder and aimed it in front of me even though he wasn’t quite there yet.
“Quit following me,” he said. “Or we’re going to have a problem.”
“I don’t need any trouble and you don’t either.”
His eyes narrowed on me and his shoulders clenched, but my words were enough to hold him back. “What do you want?”
I asked him why he was so mad in the courtroom. I told him I was just trying to figure things out. That I didn’t want trouble.
He told me that I’d screwed things up. He told me they had worked out a deal with the judge. For a second I thought he was going to tell me what he’d been offered. Then I’d have exactly what I needed to implicate Farnsworth, to put him out of business and make Wendell king of reeducation. I must have twitched with the camera because he spotted it and ripped it from my hands. In one violent jerk, my camera snapped in half. Tiny components dropped to the ground like tobacco from a broken cigarette. My second camera and my second opportunity to help myself lay in pieces.
“Don’t let me see you again,” he barked. Then he turned and stomped off across the grass behind the control room. He headed between the ball field and the building, turning for a back entrance I’d seen dozens of players use.
How stupid of me not to hide the camera. I looked back and forth from the pieces to the man who’d just admitted everything I needed to prove. I cursed myself as I watched the broad back rush away. Then the big guy straightened abruptly. No one was around him. To me it looked like a heart attack. Wendell’s lessons must have kicked in because I dropped my book and ran across the yard in spite of what he might do when I got there. Two more tremors shook his massive body and he collapsed.<
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I was panting when I reached him. I started shaking when I saw the blood. I wheeled around and screamed, “Someone call nine-one-one!”
Four splotches painted his T-shirt red. His eyes were closed and he lay still on the grass. I reached for his wrist to check his pulse, but two strong hands pulled me back. “He’s dead,” I yelled as I was dragged away.
I didn’t resist. I’d learned that at least. I let myself be pulled away from the body, and while my eyes searched everywhere to make sense of what had happened a second floor window pulled closed. I pointed for the police officer wrestling me back, but he didn’t even look in that direction. He patted me down for a weapon instead. Another officer retrieved my book and the pieces of my camera. They didn’t bother to ask what I’d been doing. They took my name and made me wait while one of them went back to his car. Later I learned they had played the audio from my conversation with the big guy.
After forty minutes discussing my fate, they decided they didn’t have a case they could win, so they let me go. As far as I know they never looked for the guy at the window.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
My legs shook as I topped the stairs and opened my apartment door. I stepped hesitantly over the threshold and listened for movement before I went deeper inside. Who did I think was in there? Wendell? Farnsworth? Either of them could have had a key. Even without one it was easy to get into someone else’s home. I’d made a profession of it. What would they do if I surprised them inside? I always hid when that happened, but they had nothing to fear from the law. They could slash me open and walk away. I trembled with the thought after what I’d just witnessed.
I checked the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. There was no place to hide in the living room. I was as alone as I could be in a room fitted with microphones and cameras. I still didn’t know who was watching me or when. That was worse than knowing people came and went when I was gone. I could clear the apartment, but I could never relax there.
I kept seeing the big guy quiver and fall to the ground. He’d only been out of court two hours before he died. He blamed me for ruining his shady deal with Farnsworth and the judge. The big guy was my chance to learn about that deal, and Farnsworth had made sure he couldn’t talk. Farnsworth also ensured that the big guy wouldn’t non-conform again. He didn’t care about relearners. All he cared about was his rating. His technology and power made him nearly impossible to catch. That’s why Wendell was so generous. He probably couldn’t catch Farnsworth either.
I settled on the couch and opened Tom Sawyer. I saw the Wiffle ball pitcher’s face in the pages and realized I hadn’t seen him in person since I recorded him across my kitchen table. Could Farnsworth get to him here? Of course he could. Fighting Farnsworth was futile, but it was my only way out. I tried to use the book to forget what I was up against, but I’d already read it three times. I tossed it aside and turned on the black box.
My fear of the black box wasn’t gone, but without Blake threatening me and without the wrist strap and the gray pads, it was easier to concentrate. I was still five years away from finishing even with Wendell’s help. Turning on that box meant I believed I could finish. I believed I could outsmart Farnsworth and learn what most American teenagers learn. I had hope after all I’d been through. I hope you’ll understand that and believe in me, too.
Wendell had told me to read the book twice. I’d read it three times and then skipped around here and there to interesting parts. Unlike the impossible division problems Blake assigned, I knew the answers to these questions on sight. I had the book beside me on the couch, but I never even glanced at it. I didn’t need to. The thing that slowed me down most was typing my answers. I’d never used a computer for more than checking the weather or mapping an address. Typing word after word took longer than it should, but as I was typing I noticed something I hadn’t expected. I could spell. Not perfectly but a lot better. I remembered seeing the words in the book and they came out the same way on the screen. When the test was graded, I passed something I didn’t realize I was even being tested for. I received an eighty-seven on comprehension and an eighty-four on spelling.
Fireworks lit up the screen and this time I felt a rise in my chest. I wasn’t sure if an eighty-seven was an A- or a B+. Either one was an achievement to be proud of. I was more hopeful at that moment than when I’d just finished recording my conversation with the Wiffle ball pitcher. I could learn what I needed to learn. It just took patience.
I placed Tom Sawyer on the floor next to the television. I visualized a stack of completed books and projects there. Maybe I’d even buy a bookshelf to arrange them where I could see what I’d done. Maybe I’d even want to reread that book someday just for fun. I picked Lord of the Flies from the pile of books Wendell left, opened the cover, and started reading. I was surprised by how little I needed the dictionary even on the first time through. I understood what was happening. Reading wasn’t labor anymore. I was excited about the second time I would read this book. If Wendell had told me when I woke up in the prison hospital that I’d be excited to read a book for the second time, I wouldn’t have believed him.
I read for hours, word by word, and as the story progressed, I was amazed at how savage the boys were. I was proud to be following the story so easily. Right away I saw why Wendell had picked this book for me. It probably had special meaning for all relearners, but I felt like he’d singled me out for this. Order among the boys was broken down by fear, superstition, and disobedience. When Simon was killed I stopped reading and looked around the room, expecting to see sand and ocean on one side and jungle on the other.
Fear had driven me onto the streets. I’d become a thief, afraid to go home and afraid to find help. What if I had stayed at home and worked as hard in school as I was working now? Would my mother have killed me? Probably not. It took Charlotte’s meddling to teach me that she just didn’t understand how to raise children. She was a teenager when I started getting into trouble. She was only my age when I started stealing from convenience stores. Could I raise Jonathan any better? She surely hadn’t taught me how.
I wondered what Wendell was trying to tell me with this book. Was he suggesting I needed to be brave? Did he think I’d be reading this book when I felt my struggle against Farnsworth was hopeless? Was he trying to tell me to use my head and keep my cool?
I paced around the apartment for a while, thinking about the boys and how much trouble their fear caused. I had to be cool and rational, to look at Farnsworth as a man with weaknesses just like me. I realized where I could compete with him on almost equal footing. He controlled the relearners, but that wasn’t where his clients came from.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The new pen camera sat right in the middle of the kitchen table. I grabbed it and headed for the door. I didn’t think about where it came from or when it had appeared. I was always being watched and things showed up when I needed them, but I accepted the meddling in my life a little too easily. My subconscious wanted to know if Wendell saw the big guy break my camera. It was a question I should have been asking, but I was feeling good about bringing down Nathan Farnsworth and I wanted to get going.
My eyes burned from reading so long, but I detoured over to the coffee table and picked up Lord of the Flies. I told myself I’d use the book as camouflage while I was busy, but I knew I’d spend time reading. As if to convince myself I wouldn’t read for very long, I left the dictionary on the coffee table, but as soon as the driver pulled away to take me to the mall, I opened the book and picked up where I’d left off. The jostling made me carsick and I stopped. It wasn’t a long ride.
The cab cruised through the expansive parking lot past two dozen rows of empty spaces. I worried that most people would be home getting ready for dinner, but as we got closer, I realized that housewives weren’t likely criminals. There were plenty of cars clustered around the building. The people I was looking for would prefer tired salespeople and empty aisles. When we stopped at the curb I felt good about
finding what I came for.
The exterior was imposing. Concrete walls rose straight up three floors. Tinted glass trimmed the entrances and roof, providing natural light inside. As I scanned my thumb to pay for my ride, I wondered how much a project like this cost and who decided to build a shopping center as big as my neighborhood. I humbly carried my book through the towering, forty-foot entrance and headed past a series of stores, all boasting something unique. Most offered ladies clothes, jewelry, or electronics.
I touched the pen camera in my breast pocket to reassure myself I was ready. I felt like a hunter prowling through the unshackled masses. The people I passed didn’t check my ankle when they saw me. I was glad to be away from Nathan, Wendell, and anything to do with reeducation. I hoped I’d gone far enough to accomplish my mission. What would I steal here if I needed extra credits? What could I sell? The answer came inside a roomful of bright lights and clear glass.
I watched from a bench outside the store until three men started browsing the cases. Then I closed my book and headed in. I pretended to compare the ladies’ rings in the first display case while I was evaluating the three men in the store. None had an ankle bracelet. One wore a tie and was a bit older. I assumed he could afford what he was looking for so I focused on the other two. I didn’t notice the sensors by the door when I came in. There was no tone to indicate a relearner had entered and I felt comfortable looking at the case while I watched the younger men move around the displays. I should have known a jewelry store would be prepared to ward of relearners, but I was too focused on my mission.
Footsteps stopped behind me. A throat cleared. When I turned around, a large man with a blue uniform, but no gun, confronted me from two feet away. The smaller man beside him asked, “Can we help you find something in particular?”
