The End of Marking Time

by CJ West

  I didn’t know quite what to say. He gave a nod to my ankle bracelet and said, “Can we help you?” He’d checked both of my hands and it felt like he was eying my clothes, looking for a gun or a bomb. I guess they didn’t have many relearners walk in and try to prove themselves by selling someone else out. In my neighborhood we were taught to hate cops in the kindergarten schoolyard. Snitching would get you beaten to death if you picked the wrong guy, but I wasn’t in the neighborhood anymore and the guys I’d filmed were as harmless as criminals come.

  “I’ve got something for you.”

  “For me?” the officer asked, poking hard against his sternum.

  “All of you.” That wasn’t quite right. Guns and uniforms made me nervous. Cops had been chasing me since I was ten. They probably knew I’d be trouble even sooner.

  I held out the camera and he instantly knew what it was. He looked at the counter and back at me. The official procedure was probably to wait my turn and talk to someone behind the counter and then wait for someone to come out and help me, but the officer held up the camera to the man behind the desk and pointed to himself, as if to say he’d take care of me. He led me to the corner of the room, through a narrow doorway, and down a long hall deep into the station.

  The cops all looked the same in uniform. Faces shaved. Everything else covered except their hands. Most of them were fit. This guy I was following seemed like he was ten years older than me. He walked easily and I bet he’d be tough in a fight. He led me into a small room with a table and left me there. I’d been in rooms like this before. Nothing on the walls. Three heavy wooden chairs. No windows. My heart started thumping and I tried to keep calm by reminding myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  In a minute he returned with a television on a rolling cart. I saw the camera on top of the cart and at that moment I felt like an undercover news reporter. I’d lived in some rough places. Maybe that was a job I could do when Wendell was finished with me.

  He took the camera, pressed a few buttons and some random bits of conversation played on the screen. I must have mistakenly pressed the record button a few times. We quickly moved on to the three drunk men walking down the dark sidewalk. The officer focused, realizing without me saying anything that this was what I wanted him to see. He measured their wobbling strides, and I felt like he was trying to judge whether the court would find them guilty of being drunk in public.

  All three faces appeared on camera at one point or another. I wasn’t sure I’d captured them, but each had turned to see what I was doing and their faces were clear enough for the officer to identify. Everything was fine until they stepped over to the entryway and started peeing. Then the officer pushed back.

  “Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at me squarely and asked in carefully measured tones, “What do you want me to do with this?”

  Wasn’t that obvious? These men had broken the law. I caught them and there was no way to refute what they’d done. Why was he balking? This was a case he couldn’t lose. When I was caught without my ankle bracelet, I was rushed to court and tried in minutes. When I broke into Wendell’s house, I was arrested over his protests. Why were these men any different?

  I didn’t know what to say. Was I a loser for catching these guys breaking the law? Did this cop really want me to take my evidence and go away? He wasn’t upset by what the tape showed. When I sat down I had visions of being rewarded for helping the police. How foolish.

  “I want you to do your job,” I said.

  “You realize these men will be charged as sex offenders?” He paused to give me chance to relent. “We’ll need you to come to court and testify.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s life, but I desperately wanted to help Wendell, and more than anything I wanted to get rid of this ankle bracelet and be free.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Officer Roland Benson identified one of the suspects by showing the video around the precinct. Once word got out that the video was funny, the cops all came to see it. One of them had to know the other guys in the video, but no one would admit it. Strange that sixty cops would protect these guys, but that didn’t matter. Once Roland had one name, he called him on the phone. I heard Roland lie about an accident the men might have witnessed somewhere near the arena. That lie quickly netted him the names and telephone numbers of the other two men. Soon after, I assured Benson that I would testify and he sent me home.

  The taxi dropped me off at midnight. The new pen camera on the kitchen table didn’t surprise me. At that point I would have been surprised not to find one. As I microwaved some chicken nuggets I imagined Wendell sneaking in and out. He was a busy guy, too busy to bother with me every day. He must have been sending someone. The control room downstairs had been empty the day I’d gone inside, so I wondered if the people delivering the cameras came from somewhere else. Were they watching me that very moment? Were they proud of my video?

  It was a long day and a half wait for the arraignment of the urinating renegades. I wondered if they deserved to be hauled in. They’d broken the law and had been caught just like me. They didn’t deserve special treatment, but I felt queasy about testifying. Everyone in the courtroom would know I was a snitch. It looked bad even to me, ruining these people to help myself, but there was no turning back.

  The next morning I stopped for coffee and a donut, then hopped a cab for the address Roland gave me. When I stepped out in front of the courthouse, I was stunned by the massive columns that rose up to support the roof. The wide granite steps covered enough ground for a small yard in front of the building. I’d been here before, but the contrast to the modest brick relearner courthouse was unreal. What did that say about the people who were tried here? And there? The date 1902 was chiseled into a corner stone. The law had been applied here for over a century before the relearner laws were written. I felt unworthy climbing the steps to testify.

  The security guard took my pen camera and held it aside.

  The lobby rose two floors above. My steps echoed off the granite walls. Unlike relearner court, there seemed to be nothing happening here. Office doors were open. Clerks stood around counters inside the offices, but no one was in the lobby or the long hall that led to the back of the building. Fifteen minutes passed before the next person arrived, a slick man with hair that clung to his head as if it had been glued in place. His suit was probably expensive, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

  He got right up close to me on the bench. “I don’t know what you think you’re pulling here, but you’re not going to get away with it.”

  I couldn’t remember the faces from the video very well, but I was pretty sure this guy was older than the guys on the street that night. I pegged him for a defense attorney. “Are you threatening me?”

  “You’re not going to get away with this. I’ll get my guys off.”

  If I didn’t feel so guilty about pressing charges for urinating in public, I would have tried to incriminate the lawyer, too. It might have helped Wendell, but my heart wasn’t in it, so I pointed to my ankle bracelet and told him he was being recorded. He looked at me like I was insane, then stormed off. Apparently he only represented first timers in criminal court. If he’d been to relearner court, he would have heard the recordings play. Maybe he was mad because he was losing business to the new system. Clients must have become hard to find after relearner court was established and there weren’t many billable hours in a fifteen-minute trial.

  The three guys I’d recorded came in together and scowled at me from a safe distance. A few other people came and went and finally Officer Benson came to me on the bench and led me back to the courtroom. We walked through the double doors to find the crowd I’d been expecting to see, though there were a lot fewer than had been in attendance when I’d come here for my trial on the credit card case.

  The attorneys had their own reserved area behind the litigants. When they were waiting to argue a case, they sat on the bench tha
t divided the room. A high railing kept them safely away from the clients and spectators. I joined the sparse group of spectators and looked on as the prosecution and defense argued before the judge.

  There was a jury box in this courtroom, something that was absent from relearner court. Something else that was odd, there was no video presented as we watched an argument continue on for thirty minutes. My entire trials hadn’t lasted that long. My eyes explored the room as the discussion came to a close. Three court officers stood by. Pretty standard, one on each side and one up front close to the judge.

  The parties exited and the judge called, “People versus Branson, Henderson, and Rodrigues.” Four men popped up. The three men I’d seen two days earlier climbed down from the gallery and made their way to the defense table. Their lawyer was waiting for them when they arrived. Officer Benson moved behind the prosecutor’s table and eyed me before he sat down.

  I imagined myself on the stand explaining why I recorded these men peeing on the sidewalk. It seemed foolish. I was embarrassed and my emotions blocked out the action. I heard the judge say, “...plea agreement. Counselors please approach.”

  The prosecutor and the defense attorney, who had threatened me earlier, approached the judge. The prosecutor handed a paper to the judge and he read it carefully while the counselors waited. When he was finished, the three talked back and forth in voices too soft for me to hear. The men at the defense table strained their ears, but couldn’t hear either.

  The bailiff was sent on an errand and soon returned with a television on wheels much like the one Benson had used back at the station. The television was turned toward the judge and he watched it for about three minutes without saying anything. Then he shooed the counselors back to their respective tables and explained that the video wasn’t shown to the rest of us because it was graphic in nature.

  “This clearly shows the defendants,” the judge said. “We’re pleading this?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” the prosecutor answered.

  “We’ve got a pretty strong case, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “These men are no threat, Your Honor. A guilty verdict would label them sex offenders and the people don’t find that appropriate. I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again after this plea.”

  The defense attorney never said a thing.

  “I’ll go along,” the judge said. “One hundred dollars each for disturbing the peace.”

  The defendants sighed in relief.

  They wouldn’t be assigned to reeducation, which meant I couldn’t follow them to Nathan Farnsworth. I was crushed. It had taken me days to find these guys and now I had to start all over again. I thought I heard my name, but I wasn’t sure. I shrugged it off, but Officer Benson waved at me to stand up.

  “Michael O’Connor, are you in my courtroom?” the judge barked.

  I stood up. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “I don’t know what fantasy you’re fulfilling here, but don’t waste my time with trivia like this again. Understood?”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Wasn’t the law the law? How could a judge just throw it aside like that?

  The three men stood and hugged behind the defense table. Hands slapped backs. Palms clapped together for powerful handshakes. The men chattered on their way out of the courtroom, but there would be screams of jubilation on the courthouse steps. Their lawyer shook his head dismissively at me as he left, as if what I’d done was repulsive. Did he know what reeducation was like? If he didn’t know my ankle bracelet could record his voice, I’d bet he didn’t know about the cat baggers. Maybe he hadn’t lost a case since the laws changed. Or maybe he abandoned his clients once they were committed to a program.

  The next hearing began and I listened for a full ten minutes to be sure the men were gone before I skulked through the double doors. A few young guys scowled as I slinked past their knees, but an older woman patted my arm and smiled. The recognition gave me a boost, but I still wanted to take a cab home and shut myself in my apartment for a few days. Something kept me there in the courthouse. Maybe I was afraid to see those guys outside. Whatever the reason, I saw the empty bench, went back there, and opened my book. I read about the deserted island and the pack of increasingly wild boys fighting for dominance.

  The story was so engrossing I didn’t notice Officer Benson standing in front of me. He waved over the top of my book and I lowered it to my lap. Before he said anything, he offered my pen camera. I took it, surprised that I’d be allowed to have it in the courthouse.

  “I should have warned you it could go like that,” he said.

  Benson had never wanted to prosecute this case, but I’d given him no choice. He’d tried to warn me that night at the station, but those men had broken the law and I’d caught them doing it. Ok, so they didn’t rob the district attorney’s house and steal his Mercedes. They still deserved to be punished. Did they know the judge? Is that why they got off? They didn’t act like big shots. Honestly, I didn’t think they knew the judge was going to approve their deal. They were scared when they came in and they didn’t even know how vicious the cat baggers could be. Was it right for me to send them to reeducation to get myself out?

  Benson saw my struggle and sat down next to me. “We can’t get in the middle of everything,” he said, meaning the cops. “That’s not what we’re here for.”

  They sure got involved when I took that credit card.

  “Our job is to keep society running smoothly. Those men didn’t really hurt anyone. It doesn’t make sense to punish them. Do you get that? I understand what you are going through is pretty tough, but those guys that just left here aren’t dangerous.”

  I wanted to stand up and scream that I’d never hurt anyone. Sure I’d taken things from people, hundreds of people, but so what? They lived in huge houses and drove fancy cars. They replaced the stuff I took and life went on like nothing ever happened.

  “I don’t know what you did and you don’t need to tell me, but right or wrong, someone decided that the good citizens of this state would be better off if you weren’t around. That’s what we made prisons for.” He hesitated on the word as if the idea of reeducation sickened him and he wanted to spit. “Prisons were made to keep honest people safe. I don’t know about this new age crap. We were a lot safer when dangerous people got locked up and didn’t come out for a very long time.”

  I pushed away. Benson was getting angry and I hadn’t done anything to him. He thought I was the problem. The judge probably did, too. They wanted me behind bars and they wouldn’t accept me until the bracelet came off. They’d only accept me then because they couldn’t tell me from anyone else.

  “So what?” I asked. “You wish I was still locked up?”

  “I don’t know what you did,” he said. “But my job would be a lot easier if the people I caught stayed caught. Emptying the prisons turned this city into a war zone. It took us years to get control.”

  I never learned what happened after the bus accident. The release of all those prisoners must have been mayhem, but that wasn’t my fault. I was doing my best and this guy didn’t want to give me a chance.

  “I never hurt anyone,” I said.

  “But you must have done something.”

  I told him I’d taken a credit card and some cash and that the guy I’d taken it from could easily afford it.

  Before I could move, Benson swiped Lord of the Flies from my hands. I could feel my face turning red. My first impulse was to jump him and get it back. I wanted to slug him right there, but cameras covered every inch of a building like this. A video of me hitting a police officer would send me to the cat baggers and it might put Wendell out of business.

  “Funny,” I said and I put my hand out.

  “You have other books, don’t you?”

  I did, but I needed that one. I’d spent hours reading it and without finishing it I couldn’t answer Wendell’s questions. I stood up. “I believe that’s mine,” I said loud enough for anyone around us to hear
.

  No one moved in our direction.

  “I’m not hurting you,” he said.

  “You made your point.”

  “Not yet.”

  I couldn’t believe what happened next. He pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket, hung the pages of the paperback wide open, and lit them on fire. The flames whooshed to life and I couldn’t help myself. I jumped at him and grabbed the book. The flames were climbing eight inches off the pages when I slammed it closed.

  Benson dropped the lighter on the floor and yelled, “You can’t start a fire in here!”

  Four uniformed men ran in my direction. They tackled me as I stomped out the flames. I scrambled for the book and was rewarded with a fist to my left cheekbone. My head snapped sideways, bounced off the marble, and I flattened on the floor. Smoke rose up from my book. The flames were out, but the book was ruined. The men on top of me compressed my chest so hard I could barely breathe. They didn’t relax until I stopped struggling. Then they cuffed me with my face pressed against the floor.

  When they finally let me up, Benson was gone.

  “I didn’t light it. It was that cop. Officer Benson is his name.”

  “Right.” A pudgy man in uniform hauled me to my feet. He and his three partners led me out of the lobby to a back room of the courthouse. They sat me down and one of them saw the camera in my pocket. In spite of the commotion, it seemed to be in good working order.

  “How’d you get that in here?”

  “It was evidence. Officer Benson gave it to me there on the bench.”

  “Sure,” the pudgy man said.

  “Are there security cameras in this building?”

  Pudgy nodded.

  “Go play back what happened. Then you can let me go and I won’t sue.”

  All four men laughed. In the old days convicts made a living suing the state for mistreatment. This would have been worth fifty grand at least. Why they laughed it off I didn’t know, but at least they sent someone out to check the video. Sure enough, when he came back, he unlocked my cuffs and apologized for the mistake.