The End of Marking Time (26 page)

No one answered the door. Nothing moved inside no matter how loud I pounded. I swiveled around, looking for anyone who’d seen me knocking. I knew what was going to happen next. It was automatic. I didn’t even think about it. I should have. I needed help, but I needed to know what was behind that door even more.

The butter knife slid from my pocket and was between the door and the jamb instinctively. The lock worked open in seconds. It was too easy. I should have known it was a test, but I was only thinking about busting Nathan Farnsworth and getting out of this program. I knew when no one responded to my pounding that Wendell wasn’t inside. If someone was there, they would have at least come and shooed me away.

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

I called, “Hello,” as if the door had accidentally been left open and I’d stepped inside to make sure everyone was ok. Of course it wasn’t true. Coming in here with my ankle bracelet on was dangerous. Someone somewhere would know what I was doing was wrong. I’d tell them I was looking for Wendell. It had worked for me in court last time, but that ploy wouldn’t work twice. I knew bullshit and excuses didn’t play in the criminal justice system anymore, but I couldn’t admit it to myself.

The lights came on when I stepped forward. It wasn’t a new trick. I’d seen motion sensitive lights before. The work area was tiled with monitors set into a wall in columns of three, six across. The countertop housed banks of pushbuttons that corresponded to the monitors, but they weren’t labeled to show what they did. There were three keyboards on the desktop, too, but I ignored them to focus on the single chair and the myriad buttons. Someone sat at this desk and rolled back and forth on the tiled floor, watching what happened on the monitors.

I sat on the swivel chair and thought for a moment as if I worked there. I reached up and pushed a button trimmed with red at its base. Nothing happened. I pushed the button to its right and the monitor on the top row came to life. It showed an empty apartment much like mine, but it wasn’t mine because this one had a solid brown couch. Mine had a faint pattern to it. I tried the button beneath and to the left and the camera moved left. Then I started pressing all sorts of buttons. The camera moved right, up, down, then zoomed in. Then the picture changed altogether and I realized I was looking at the same living room but from a different angle. If the layout was exactly like mine, this camera was hidden somewhere in the window trim. I played with buttons all over. I saw guys sleeping. I saw one guy get mad at whatever he’d made on the stove and sling a pot against the wall. Sticky white goo sloshed all over his rug. I enjoyed myself until I realized that someone could come in and catch me any second. By then I understood how the buttons were arranged. I clicked off the three monitors I had been watching and stood up.

Even alone in the room I felt like I’d been caught. I didn’t remember really wanting to get in here. Yes, I was curious about what went on here and finding Wendell was a good reason to come down, but I felt like I’d been tricked into sneaking inside. I didn’t believe they could manipulate my thoughts and make me do things against my will. But at that moment part of me wanted to run out the door and back to my room. I knew I was being watched. I knew it was a trap, that there was a more sophisticated room built to watch this one. Part of me was too curious to turn for the door and go. I’d come this far. The damage was done.

The walls were blank, cement block painted a light creamy yellow. The ceiling was stark white plaster, swirled, but in patterns too fine to hide a camera. If there was a camera watching me, it was hidden in the panels that housed the monitors. There were two many crevices for me to check. It didn’t matter. Just stepping inside this room was damning enough. I hadn’t meant any trouble. Anyone watching the video would know that, but intentions didn’t seem to matter to the judges. My fate was predetermined, I was only acting out Wendell’s script.

I explored the far end of the room, expecting to find a way to get behind the monitors to see the tangle of wires that connected everything together. What I found was a hallway, this hallway I’m standing in now, hidden by the angle of the rear wall and the monitors. The long hall ended in cement blocks. There were two doors, one on either side. On my left was a large glass window. I stepped up, but stopped short of a dark line in the floor. It was a plate glass wall, like the one Wendell had used to trap me in his home office.

There was another thick black line beyond the window. Common sense was telling me I was walking into one of those animal-friendly traps, only I was the animal. I told myself I was alone, that no one was standing ready to spring the trap. Still, I expected it to close on me as soon as I crossed that first black line. It didn’t. I cupped my hands against the window, but couldn’t see anything beyond.

I shifted along tentatively, mindful that any step could send the plate glass partitions jutting up to the ceiling to lock me in. The door was ten feet away and I couldn’t resist it. I hopped over the black line. As I did I imagined it flashing upward to cut me in half from below, like a dull, upside down guillotine.

I stepped safely to the door, opened it, and did a double take.

Inside were two rows of chairs facing the window. I leaned far enough inside to see that anyone inside could clearly see the hall even though from the outside I could see nothing of the room.

There were six chairs in the front row, seven in the back. Twelve jurors and one alternate. I dodged back into the hall. The two partitions would force anyone caught between them to stay in view of the window.

You know that of course because I’m trapped between the partitions now. The doors beyond the partitions are for you, so you can come and go without worry about what I might do once you’ve judged me. And of course the glass walls keep me right in front of you where you can see me, but I can’t see how you are reacting to my story.

That first time I stood here I realized the program that had me trapped was merely an accessory. What you decide is all important.

I rushed out the door to the broken down car and felt the bald tire for the pen-shaped camera. My fingers found only the crown of rough tread. I got down on my knees and stuck my head underneath the bumper, thinking the camera had fallen behind the tire. The streetlights didn’t reach back there, so I leaned in and swept the rough pavement. It wasn’t there. Flat on my stomach, I felt the axle, the shocks, and even inside the rim. Someone had taken the camera and disappeared in the fifteen minutes I’d been inside the control room. I came away with greasy hands, a dirty shirt, and no record of my conversation with the Wiffle ball pitcher.

I ran all the way around front and up the stairs to my apartment. I shut the door and wedged a chair under the knob so no one could get in without me knowing.

On the couch I tried to separate the charade from reality. I knew I was being watched. My every movement was being tracked and there was nothing I could do about that. But why? If they wanted to ship me to the cat baggers, why hadn’t they? I didn’t even know who’s decision that was. The judge they kept bringing me to? Wendell? Or was it someone else entirely? I couldn’t be sure if I was swimming circles around a fishbowl waiting to be flushed, or if Wendell was really watching me, even counting on my help.

I wanted to believe Wendell needed me. I collapsed on my bed, thinking about the battle between Wendell and Nathan Farnsworth. There was only so much money coming from the government and they both wanted it. Nathan was stealing it even if they didn’t call it that. I felt good about helping Wendell, but I still couldn’t sleep. Instead I spent hours picturing every face I’d seen since coming here. Everyone I’d spoken with. With every recollection I wondered if our meeting was an accident or if it was staged to teach me something.

Sleep finally did come. I only know that because I woke to pounding on the door. I could barely open my eyes and shuffle to the door. Pulling the chair away made a ruckus, and when I opened the door Charlotte stood there with a puzzled look on her face. After losing the camera the night before I saw beyond her gorgeous face and wondered if she was here to occupy me so something could happen while I was gone. She never told me where we were going and I got the feeling her unannounced visits had more to do with Wendell’s agenda than helping me. Living through it like I was, I couldn’t connect the dots and figure out where she was steering me, but at least for the first time, I was looking ahead and trying to catch up to the other actors in this play. If I couldn’t see the puppet master, at least I was looking for the strings.

Charlotte waited while I showered and dressed. She was standing when I left the room and when I returned. I assumed her choice to stand was more a revulsion for my furniture than something stealthy she was trying to do while I was in the shower. My furniture was new enough, but I think she felt everything about me was dirty. Whenever I was around she got antsy. I felt stupid for ever being attracted to her.

I looked out the window while she drove, not at the scenery, I just wanted to be turned as far away from her as possible. I wondered where she was taking me, but I wondered more what was happening back in my apartment.

We arrived at a small house similar to Nick and Kathleen’s. It was on a side street of connecting chain-link fences, tiny green lawns, and curtains pulled open enough to see what the neighbors were doing.

Charlotte led the way to the door and I followed like an obedient puppy, turning my head to everything that caught my attention. When the door opened, I couldn’t believe who I saw.

“Who’s that, Dad?” a little voice asked from behind him.

Double barely filled the doorway. He’d lost sixty pounds.

He flashed a knowing look to Charlotte. He expected us. What was she trying to do by bringing me here? Was Double supposed to be my role model? It was early for that. I was a long way from finishing my studies. I’d been carrying that book everywhere, and I’d read most of it, but it would be years before I was done with my work. The dating counselor hadn’t even called yet. The life Double was leading here was way out of reach.

The door thumped closed and I saw Tannia breeze in from the back of the house. I was drawn away from the elegant lines of her face and the contrast between her slim figure and Double’s bulk by a little hand tugging at the seam of my jeans.

“I’m Manny,” the little boy said.

I bent lower and introduced myself. His smile was unstoppable. Embarrassed, I righted myself and scanned the adult faces in the room. Double, Tannia, Charlotte, they all watched me greet Manny. Self-consciousness gripped me and my limbs felt stiff as I imagined this too was some test designed to measure my ability to have children of my own.

No words were spoken, but Charlotte and Tannia slipped away into the kitchen. Double didn’t turn to watch them go. He was focused on me. The surprise was coming as he stepped forward. I wanted him to just blurt it out, to tell me what Charlotte was pressing him to say, maybe even paying him to say, but he looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

He motioned me to sit. I took the corner of the couch and he faced me from a faux leather recliner from someone’s garage sale. He told me what a great thing he had with Tannia and little Manny. I couldn’t help but smile thinking about the boy’s little white sneakers and the innocent way he looked up to me, like I was just as important as anyone. Charlotte didn’t look at me that way. Neither did Tannia and pretty soon Double wouldn’t either.

He showed me his ankle and rubbed the base of his skull where the tracking device had been implanted and later removed. He told me how hard it was for little Manny and that if he were still a relearner how much harder it would be. I saw it coming then, but I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t even try. He told me I should give Jonathan up. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t see the lesson in giving up my responsibilities or my rights. The more Charlotte pushed me, the more I wanted to hold onto little Jonathan with all I had.

I told Double to stay out of it. He’d done his job and I wasn’t going to hear it anymore. He looked frightened. For himself or me I couldn’t be sure. I believed he’d been threatened. Maybe he was one of Wendell’s graduates. Maybe Wendell still owned him. Double didn’t know what to say after that. We both knew my ankle bracelet recorded everything. I did have one question I needed answered.

“What happened to Crusher?”

“Same as us,” he said pointing to my ankle. “Same as everyone.”

There was a long silence then, like I was laid out on the couch for viewing and Double didn’t know what to say now that I was dead. So much of what I wanted to say to him would cause one of us trouble. I kept my mouth shut and waited. I knew Charlotte would get tired of waiting and come to take me home.

Double offered me a drink. I asked for a Coke and he went to get it. When he came back I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There beside him, was my mother in a cotton dress that draped from her shoulders, bulged at her watermelon breasts, and spread even wider at a midsection that started at her thighs and defied any attempt to be stuffed into pants. She looked at me mockingly as if I was a big disappointment. The kid she’d threatened to kill at thirteen years old. The kid who had to run to the streets at fifteen because he was afraid to die at home. She looked at me as if I had failed to live up to her standard of apathetic underachievement.