3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1)

by Nick Pirog

  As a prospective lawyer, I found this tidbit almost too much to digest. The entire world working together. Could that work? Was I in favor of this? Or was this overboard? Big Brother and all that. I needed a couple hours to swish this around my brain cavity. Anyhow, this was a great lead in to my next question. I thought about the teenager. Damon. “What if you murdered someone in your past life and then you come here, do you get a clean slate?”

  “You couldn’t see it, but when you were forced through those grueling question and answer sessions, you were being monitored by the most advanced lie detection software known to man.”

  I’d read enough spy novels and seen enough thrillers to know lie detection technology was incredible these days, constant blood pressure readings, pupil dilation measurements, sweat readings, stuff that measured the pitch of your voice.

  “But I wasn’t asked whether I committed any crimes.”

  “After the initial Q & A, the computer tells us the likelihood you have committed a violent crime in your past. You were given a two out of seven. We don’t pursue it unless the computer gives us a four or higher.” She paused for a moment, then said, “We are not interested if you got a minor in possession ticket when you were fifteen or if you got caught with ecstasy in your pocket in college.“

  I sat back in my chair. How did they know?

  Before I could gather my thoughts, JeAnn smiled and said, “Now ask me the questions you think were too stupid to ask.”

  I filed the fact they knew of my two indiscretions without my ever recounting them, crumpled up the paper I was holding and asked, “Is Michael Jackson here?”

  JeAnn laughed. “Do you know that every Arrival for the past two months has asked me that question? No, I am sad to say the King of Pop is not here.”

  Damn.

  “How about Billy Mays?”

  “I don’t know who that is?”

  “OxyClean, OrangeGlo, Mighty Mendit, Quick Chop, Grip Wrench, Samurai Shark.” Yes, I owned all the following products. Or had. What can I say; I think it was his beard.

  Again she shook her head.

  No Michael. No Billy. WTF?

  I only had one question left, a question I had been dying to ask someone. “Tell me about Heath Ledger.”

  She smiled. “Heath came to us in January of last year. It was a big story. He appeared in Manhattan. My sister went to college with his Adjustment Counselor in New York and I got the inside scoop on him before his integration.”

  “Integration?”

  “His integration into society. What you will be doing starting tomorrow.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyhow, his first movie came out last Friday, The Flyaway. I loved it.”

  For some reason this hit home with me. It sounds stupid, but I felt like I knew someone here. I knew Heath. Kind of sad.

  I asked, “You said, he appeared.”

  “Right. He appeared.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “How do you think you got here?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You appeared.”

  I guess I hadn’t thought about this yet.

  JeAnn said, “I’m surprised you haven’t asked yet. Usually it’s the first question people ask.”

  “What?”

  “They ask to see a video of their appearance.”

  ⠔

  JeAnn fiddled on her computer for a brief moment, then turned the laptop to face me. “Ready?”

  I wasn’t, but I nodded nonetheless.

  The screen came alive. It showed a stoop in front of a small two-story house. There was a date and time in the top right corner. It read, “09/10/2009, 17:03:36.”

  5:03 p.m. on September 10th, 2009.

  Right about now, I’d have just finished watching a rerun of Top Chef and would be stripping off my clothes.

  I looked at JeAnn. She was staring at me intently. I looked back at the screen. Twenty seconds went by. A man walked into the screen. He was dressed warmly, for it had been chilly that day, high around 45, and he was pulling a wagon with a small girl. The girl looked tired and was clutching a stuffed toy. The clock moved past 5:05.

  I’d accidentally flushed the toilet and about now I would be testing the water with my hand, patiently waiting for it to cool down.

  Nothing happened on screen.

  At 5:06:23 a mail carrier came into view. He walked up to the door, stuffed some mail through the slot, then exited as fast as he came.

  I would have just been getting settled in the shower. Washing my hair. Eyes closed. The water reeling off my back. My mind would drift to that study session. Joni had been wearing these short black shorts that had been rolled once at the waist, pulled tight against her tanned, toned, thighs. She had a small, red DU shirt on. Her face was a bit flushed and I knew she’d just put in a good hour on the elliptical. She took off her backpack and set it next to her chair, squatting to unzip the bag and retrieve her notebook. Her tiny red shirt lifted up her back and her little black shorts squished down a bit, revealing she wasn’t wearing any underwear. I tried not to stare at the perfectly outlined crevice that lead to possibly the most fantastic couple of square inches on the planet, but I was only human. I have this perfect picture in my mind, a snapshot burned into my cerebellum.

  I rinse the shampoo out of my hair and grab the conditioner. I put a healthy amount in my hand. Too much actually and I shake some off my hand and onto the shower floor. I don’t apply the conditioner to my hair.

  I watch the screen. If something is going to happen, it is going to happen any second.

  The clock moves past 5:08.

  It didn’t take long. My whole body tensed. I stagger forward a step. The shower floor is silky with the spilled conditioner and my left foot shoots forward. My right follows and I am falling.

  I move as close to the screen as possible, my head hovering just over the space bar.

  The clock inches towards 5:09.

  5:08:56.

  5:08:57.

  5:08:58.

  5:08:59.

  5:09:00.

  5:09:01.

  5:09:02.

  And then it happens. There I am. I just appear.

  I am lying on my side on the cold asphalt. I am still wet, glistening, the water slowly coloring the ground a charcoal black. Blood runs from the cut on my right temple, running down my left shoulder, streaking down my back, coloring my body a rusted red.

  Forty seconds pass, then three people enter the screen. They kneel beside me and slowly roll me over onto my back.

  They gasp.

  I gasp.

  Not me in the video.

  Me watching the video.

  My penis—in the video—is hard as a rock. There has never been a penis harder than my penis.

  A minute passes. The crowd grows. The screen is full of bodies. At least twenty of them. All staring at the naked kid on the sidewalk with a rock hard boner. I can see them laughing, jostling one another.

  And then three uniformed men show up. They wear blue uniforms with Two Arrival Unit inscribed in bright yellow. They part the crowd. One sees me and starts laughing. He hits one of the other guys on the shoulder. I could almost read his lips, “Holy shit. Look at this guy’s dick. Stiff as a board.”

  They cover me in a blanket, put me on a stretcher, and carry me away.

  The people slowly disappear from the screen and the clip ends.

  JeAnn looks at me and says, “Don’t feel bad. You weren’t the first. And you won’t be the last.”

  Chapter 4.

  Integration

  There was a knock at the door.

  I set the book down on my lap. I was sitting on the twin bed, propped up against the wall. I stared at the lime green door and pondered whose knuckles were responsible for the knock. Were they the olive skinned, slightly feminine knuckles of Dr. Raleigh? Possibly. Were they the fleshy and fat knuckles of Dr. JeAnn Tury? Doubtful. Fat knuckles make thuds, not knocks. Were they the darkly browned knuckl
es of my new friend Darrel. Perhaps. Or were they Beth’s knuckles. Maybe Beth wanted to see if I were finished reading the book yet.

  I picked the book up.

  As well as being a movie buff, I was an avid reader. Yesterday when we’d taken our “Integration” bus trip, we had stopped at an Allmart—comparable to a Target—and we were given an hour to shop. While I’d been picking up my special face soap, energy bars, and other necessities, I had walked past the book section, where there was a cardboard display of Michael Crichton’s new novel, The Tube.

  Back on the bus, when everyone was comparing purchases, Beth had noticed the book and asked if she could borrow it when I was done. I told her I would be finished by this time tomorrow. That had been around six.

  I glanced at the alarm clock on the desk just to my right. It was ten after six. This led me to believe Beth was behind the green door. But, I suppose I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself here. I’m going to back up to yesterday.

  ⠔

  My appointment with JeAnn was at 8:45 a.m. I took a seat across from her. The last time I had been seated across from her, less than twenty-four hours earlier, I’d watched myself appear from thin air with the boner of the century.

  Good times.

  Today, JeAnn was wearing what could only be called a muumuu. A purple muumuu. She looked like Barney if Barney was a fat, lesbian, wearing a purple muumuu. JeAnn was all business today. She passed a document to me and said, “Congratulations, you are officially a resident of Two.”

  I peered at the piece of paper. At the top was my legal name, Madison Young. Underneath was a date and time. The date and time I appeared.

  I asked, “Is this, like, my birth certificate?”

  “Arrival Certificate. It says so right there.”

  And it did. Right at the top.

  “And here is your TIC. Two Identification Card.” She handed me a card. It was white plastic. It looked like a license. There was a picture of me in the right corner. My dark hair draped across my forehead. My hazel eyes were slightly downcast, three or four days worth of stubble shaded the bottom half of my face. I wasn’t sure when the picture had been taken. I didn’t recall anyone taking a picture of me.

  JeAnn said, “That card is your lifeline. It is your ID, it will unlock your apartment door, it’s your bank card, your everything.”

  I shook my head and said, “Bank card? But I don’t have any money.”

  “Sure you do.” She passed over a piece of paper. The header read, “Two National Bank.” It was a bank statement. At the bottom it showed a balance of ten thousand dollars.

  I raised my eyebrows. I’d never had more than five hundred dollars in a bank account my entire life. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything. Everybody starts with ten grand. But it will go fast.”

  I nodded.

  She turned the computer towards me and said, “Swipe your card there, then answer seven of the possible fifteen security questions, then put in a password.”

  I did as she instructed. When I was finished, I leaned back.

  She said, “You have to swipe your card to get into any public place, so if you lose that you’re up shit creek.”

  I’d gone through eight ID’s in college and had been on my fifth license in three years when I’d kicked the bucket. “Don’t lose ID card. Got it.”

  I don’t think she appreciated my sarcasm. She gave me a dirty look, handed me a folder, and said, “Put everything in there, then go put it in your room.”

  I wanted to say, “Yes, mom.” But I didn’t feel like getting beat up by a purple lesbian. However, I did put all the paperwork in the folder, thanked her, and walked out the door.

  I made it halfway to my room when I stopped and padded my front pockets. I turned around. Standing in her doorway, looking like the grape cluster from the Fruit of the Loom commercials, was JeAnn. She was holding up my ID card. She did not look happy.

  ⠔

  An hour later, I was reunited with my “orientation” class.

  JeAnn had instructed me to report to the front of the building at ten, where a bus would be waiting for me. Where the bus would go was anybody’s guess. I signed out with a guard then was directed down a hall to a large door where I would swipe my TIC card—which I had successfully held onto for going on one hour—then wait on the front steps for the bus to arrive.

  After swiping my card, I pushed through the heavy metal door and into the crisp fall air. To my surprise, my orientation class was waiting for me.

  As I studied the quasi-familiar faces—the homogeneous trait of abject fear had lessened—I noticed three people were missing, the two old men and the little girl. I wondered if the old men were transferred to a different facility, or if their wheelchairs were a logistical problem for the trip, or if they had simply killed each other in another freak accident. As for the little girl, Berlin, I guessed she was shipped off to live with her uncle. It was odd, but I’d been looking forward to seeing her.

  The ten of us were standing on the steps of the large gray brick building we’d called home for close to a week. I couldn’t speak for the other nine individuals, but this was the first time I’d been outside. The weather was overcast and the temperature felt to be in the low seventies. Normal for an early September morning in Denver.

  There was neatly cropped grass surrounding the building, leading to a large parking lot. The lot was a third full. The cars didn’t hover, nor did they have machine guns attached to the hoods. The cars looked like—well—cars. Beyond the parking lot was a high chain-link fence with a gate and a guard booth. The fence didn’t have barbed wire, but it still gave the illusion you did not enter or exit the property unless someone wanted you to. In the far distance, the skyscrapers of downtown were visible. The buildings were different and the large blue lettering of the QWEST building was missing, but it looked more or less the same.

  And if I had to guess, I’d say that was exactly where we were headed.

  Eight of us were standing on the steps leading into the building. It was amazing how different everyone looked outside and without their coolmint scrubs. The four soccer moms were huddled together; each clad in jeans and a different colored blouse. There appeared to be camaraderie there. This was also the case for the two white men. Again, each wore blue jeans. One man had on a gray flannel, the other a blue-collared shirt. They were talking animatedly. I overheard tidbits of the conversation, “. . . the Rockies would have taken the NL wildcard . . . I still can’t believe they let Jay Cutler go . . . did you see the construction on 1-70 west . . . Dish Network? You got any HD? . . .

  Boys will be boys.

  Then there were the Asian woman, the black man, and the black woman. I wasn’t sure if they were huddled together out of familiarity or simply out of default because the other people—all white—had grouped together. They were off to my left. The black guy who couldn’t swim was telling a story. It wasn’t about Michael Phelps.

  That left the two loners. The emo-teenager, Damon, and myself. Damon was sitting in the grass near a marble sign that read, “Two Adjustment Facility.” He was sitting Indian style with his head down, his long black hair cascading down onto his knees. He was dressed in tight jeans and a black shirt.

  Oh, to be young. And fucked in the head.

  I stood there, hands in the front pocket of my red hooded sweatshirt, and tried not to listen to the three conversations going on around me.

  Where was that bus?

  As if on cue, the screeching sound of brakes filled the air. Ten heads whipped around and glared at the large Greyhound-ish looking bus that had pulled through the gates. The bus pulled up to the steps, came to a stop, the doors coughing open.

  Dr. Raleigh hopped down the steps, a huge smile on his face, and said, “Sorry, I’m late.” He waved over his shoulder and said, “Hop on.”

  The ten of us filed into the bus. Dr. Raleigh gave a warm welcome to each individual, offering his knuckles to Damon just in front
of me. He looked at Dr. Raleigh as if to say, “You buffoon,” and for a moment I thought the kid was going to slug him. To take Dr. Raleigh’s mind of the young punk who’d left him hanging, I inquired, “Where are we going?”

  His smile returned and he chimed, “A bunch of different places.”

  I nodded, then found a seat at the back of the bus. I nestled up to the far window and gazed at the tall buildings. I found my heart was pounding. I was nervous, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. The people, the places, everything would be the same. Wouldn’t it? And everyone there would have been in my shoes at one time or another. Everyone had been an Arrival at some point. Right?

  The doors closed, the bus began to move, then stopped. The doors coughed open once more. I peered down the aisle.

  Dr. Raleigh barked, “I wondered where you were.”

  A head appeared. A little girl’s head. Berlin.

  She was wearing white overalls with an orange undershirt. Her hair was up in a ponytail with a green scrunchy. She had a bunch of necklaces and bracelets on. She looked like she was sponsored by Claire’s Boutique. She moved past Dr. Raleigh, “jingled” down the aisle, then took the seat right next to me.

  She patted me on the leg and said, “Sorry, I’m late.”

  ⠔

  We pulled through the gate and took a left on a side street. Over the bus’s intercom, Dr. Raleigh said, “Coming up on your right is the Adjustment House that most of you will be moving into tomorrow.”

  I leaned forward and peered out the opposite window. After a hundred yards, the beginnings of a large complex of small blue condos came into view. The condos were uniform and resembled any number of developments I’d seen in my past life. There were no fences, no gates, and the young woman closing her door appeared to come and go as she pleased.

  Dr. Raleigh said, “There are currently two hundred and thirteen residents at the Denver Adjustment House. It is just a stone’s throw from the Adjustment Facility and you are encouraged to stop by and see me anytime.”