The End of Marking Time (6 page)

She picked up my arm and stretched it up high. I wasn’t cuffed to the bed. I just couldn’t move. She was exercising my muscles to keep them in shape. Was there hope I could move them again?

I hummed loudly under my mask. The nurse jumped back off the bed with her hands shielding her face. My arm dropped with a thump. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t even slow it down, but I felt my palm hit the blanket.

“Doctor Pearson!”

The doctor didn’t come.

She leaned closer again. This time she was intently focused on my face. I shifted my eyes back and forth until it made me dizzy. I turned my head just a little bit toward her and I saw her smile in amazement.

“I’ll be right back,” she said and then she ran off.

It took a long time for Dr. Pearson to get to my bedside. When he arrived, everyone was a floating head to me because I couldn’t see anything unless it was right in front of my face. He had thin gray hair and he looked heavy by the folds of skin hanging down from his neck and jaw line. By the way he grumbled, I could tell he was skeptical about my awakening.

He flashed a light in my eyes and it felt like he stabbed me deep inside my head. I blinked them shut.

“That’s a good sign,” he said, with more energy in his movements.

He didn’t say anything, but I felt him tapping the fingertips on my left hand. He saw me trying to look that way to see what he was doing.

“Can you feel that?”

I blinked.

He moved to my toes and pretty soon he learned that I had feeling in all my extremities. I just couldn’t move them. He read my chart for a few minutes and then said, “You really hit the jackpot, didn’t you?”

I had no idea what he meant. I grunted.

He shifted my arm and sat on the edge of the bed. “This is going to be hard for you to understand,” he said. “You were hit by a stray bullet four years ago on your way to MCI Cedar Junction. The trauma caused your brain to swell and you’ve been in this bed ever since.”

Four years? That’s why I couldn’t move. I hadn’t used my arms and legs in four years.

“The medical community gives up on most people after two years. You were lucky enough to be in the Massachusetts prison system. They get sued so much they didn’t dare pull the plug.”

I had no idea what he meant, but I tried to follow along.

“There are only two people left in the whole system. You,” he pointed to the man in the bed next to mine, “and your friend over there.”

What? I blinked. He couldn’t really know how confused I was, but he seemed to understand how odd his last statement sounded.

“The whole system was shut down just after you came to us. The Supreme Court decided that long-term incarceration was cruel and unusual punishment and that rehabilitation efforts by the states and even the federal prison system were entirely ineffective.

“So, in a way you didn’t hit the lottery. If you hadn’t been shot, you would have been released with everyone else three years ago. It was madness when it happened. I don’t know what the heck they were thinking, but we seem to be getting a handle on it now.”

I’d spent four years in bed when I could have been back in my apartment. I’d escaped countless torments inside prison, but I’d lost four years of my life in the process.

“We’re going to start you on therapy, Michael. It’s going to take some time and a lot of hard work on your part, but we’ll have you walking again. When you leave this bed will be up to you.”

If I knew how hard recovery was going to be, I might have just given up, but I was excited. I’d be released as soon as I was able to go home on my own. Unfortunately, I was still in that bed months later.

They asked me if there was anyone I could call, but I couldn’t dial a phone. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even give them a name and number.

When you can’t make a muscle, it’s impossible to exercise on your own.

Every morning for the next two weeks, Debbie, my nurse, wheeled in a machine with a bunch of wires sticking out of it. She attached the wires to my skin, and when she turned it on I started to twitch all over. The machine shocked my muscles into working. I have no idea how many hours I sat with my muscles jiggling. It seemed like forever, but then one morning when she was done I could make a fist. Pretty soon I was lifting my hands, then my arms, and eventually my legs.

I spent two more months exercising before I felt a little coordination coming back. That was the day Double strolled into my room. When I saw him coming I realized how helpless I was. I couldn’t run away. I couldn’t even get out of bed on my own. Had the cops busted him and Crusher with the Mercedes? As Double came closer I realized Crusher wasn’t with him. Double looked chill as ever. He wasn’t there to hit me. He looked thinner than before, like he’d lost thirty or forty pounds.

“What’s up?” I said, proud to have most of my voice back.

“Hey, Tin Man, I thought you were toast.”

I raised my hands, a feat for me, but it didn’t impress Double.

“You getting out soon?” he asked.

“A few weeks they tell me.”

Double got all serious and came right up to the edge of the bed. “Things is different.”

“Yeah, my doctor said some crap about no more prison. Is he for real?”

“Legit man. Things are whacked. You won’t believe it.”

“Tell me.”

“Cops and robbers, man, it’s over.”

“What?”

“Some judge decided we can’t go to prison no more.”

“We?”

“Nobody.”

“So what happens when you get busted?”

Double pulled up his pant leg and showed me the tracking device on his ankle. It was loose enough so he could slip it off.

I shrugged and he could tell I wasn’t getting it.

“It’s all high tech now. If there’s a heist and you’re anywhere near it, cops’ll know.” I asked him why he couldn’t just take it off. “Guys have tried. They’ve got it connected to your heartbeat or something. You take it off and they know. You’ve got to keep it on.”

“What happens if you get caught?”

Double struggled for an explanation. I knew I wasn’t asking the right guy, but he’d been through the new system and come out ok.

“You go to court, but it’s no BS like it used to be. You go in and thirty minutes later your trial is over and you get your sentence.”

“How can they do that?”

“Mostly because there’s no more juries.”

“They can’t do that.”

“You don’t want a jury, man.”

“Why not?”

Double thought some more. A lot had happened in four years and he couldn’t possibly sum it up in a two-sentence explanation, but he tried.

“They let everybody out three years ago, right?”

I nodded.

“The people went freaking nuts.”

“People?”

“Imagine going to rob some guy’s house. You get inside, but you don’t know you’ve tripped some fancy alarm. You’re going along, looking for some cash or whatever, and bang, you get a bullet in the back of the head.”

I looked at him sideways. I was more careful than that.

“Dude, brothers are getting shot every day. People aren’t afraid of going to jail anymore. You break into some guy’s house, he’s not scared of you and he’s not calling the cops. He’s not afraid of some ankle bracelet any more than you are, so he lights you up.”

“Don’t they get arrested?”

“Sometimes. But the cops side with whoever owns the property. And even if they do get busted, they get the same as us—reeducation.”

“Reeducation?”

“It’s probation on steroids. They’re serious. You’ve got meeting after meeting with these guys who teach you how to live right.”

Double almost convinced me to go legit, but I didn’t know the first thing about getting a job. I couldn’t flip burgers all day or stand guard over some warehouse all night. Double was convinced there was no other choice, but I was smarter than him. At least I thought I was. There was no real punishment for crime anymore. Why couldn’t he see that? As long as I avoided angry homeowners, I could go right back to work. I didn’t know it yet, but I had a lot to learn about the changes Double hadn’t mentioned.

Before he left, he showed me pictures of his wife and kid. They had a place not far from my old apartment in West Roxbury. He told me I should move back into the neighborhood and we could play some ball on weekends. He told me I was going to like the way things were.

“Couldn’t miss,” he said.

I had my doubts.

Wendell Cummings was the next person through my door that day. He’s leaning against the glass behind me now, waiting for me to finish my story. I know you recognize him because he brought you here. He seems patient now. He started off that way when we first met, but his patience didn’t last.

The first thing he did that day in the infirmary was fasten a tracking anklet and tell me never to take it off. If it ever came off, even for a minute, I couldn’t go more than five feet from it. It could withstand intense heat. It could be submerged underwater to any depth. “Never, never, never take it off,” he said.

The nerd was completely serious. He had straight gray hair that hung down in his face. The dress shirt and worn boat shoes made him look like a guy who chose to work in a library where he could keep learning even if they couldn’t pay him much. He was book smart for sure, but there was a major problem with his plan to track my movements— the anklet was so big I could almost kick it off. I wondered if he was that much of an idiot? He must have known what I was thinking because he said, “This is serious, Michael. I’ve taken charge of you. You keep that anklet on and you keep out of trouble. Your trouble is my trouble and I’m not having any of it, understand?”

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help thinking how idiotic government people were. I’m no imposing figure, especially after lying in bed for four years, but Wendell was barely my size and he was fifty years old. On top of that he looked goofy and uncoordinated. I had been threatened by some scary dudes and let me tell you, Wendell Cummings wasn’t one. He threatened to track me with an ankle bracelet I could slip off anytime I wanted and if I got in trouble, there was absolutely no chance of me going to prison. At that point I couldn’t believe anyone chose to go straight. It made no sense whatsoever, but I had a lot to learn.

I don’t think Wendell trusted me. I shouldn’t have trusted him when he opened the box he brought with him and gave me a can of peaches and a Coke. I hadn’t had either since I’d been locked up and it looked like a feast. Canned peaches and a Coke weren’t expensive, but when you really want something for a long time, it’s fantastic when you finally get a hold of it. I’d wanted peaches in a can since I was six years old. To me it was a big deal.

The peaches were still in the open can with heavy syrup and a fork the way I liked them. The Coke was poured into a glass, something I didn’t normally waste time on. As I speared the first peach slice, the snack warned me. It whispered that Wendell Cummings knew me too well, but I didn’t listen.

He said again, “I put together your program, Michael.”

He acted like some kind of god for creating this program. I had no idea what he was talking about, or why he thought it was so important, but to Wendell it was a very big deal.

“Your trouble is my trouble. Remember that, Michael. We’re going to do everything we can to help you. Whatever happens, you cannot be arrested again. Do you understand?”

I nodded, eating my peaches.

He pulled out a black cloth case that held stacks of DVDs. “Each of these runs about six hours, Michael. When you get home, you will find a box attached to your television. You’ll insert one of these DVDs and play it each day. You must be in front of the television with your anklet on the entire time the DVD is playing. If you need to leave the room for any reason, you must stop the DVD and restart when you return to the room.”

He must have seen my smirk. Everyone he told this to must have had the same reaction.

“Michael, if you don’t watch the entire DVD, you get no credit, understand?”

“Credit for what?” I asked before slurping some syrup.

“The program, Michael. The program. You cannot move ahead until you complete each DVD successfully.”

“What if I want to watch something else?”

“You can’t.”

“What do you mean I can’t? I can’t watch television in my own home? You’re out of your mind.”

“Things are different, Michael,” he said coolly. “We take rehabilitation very seriously. You must complete the program before you can go to work, before you can restart your relationships with your friends, and yes, before you can watch television.”

I didn’t bother arguing. Wendell Cummings was out of his mind.

He showed me the numbering system on the DVDs. There were fifty-two of them. Once I had watched each one all the way through, I’d receive directions that told me what to do next. I could only watch one each day, and if I didn’t complete the DVD in one day I needed to start again from the beginning the next day. There was an instructional video, blah, blah, blah. At this point I was really losing focus. He stressed how important the videos were and that somehow they would help me to make big changes in my life, but my eyelids drooped and I couldn’t stop them.