Nonentity (14 page)

Numerous prisoners stood in a line that I joined after entering the courtroom. They sported shaved heads, tattered clothes, and frazzled despair.

At a podium in the center of the vast room was a young woman with gashes all over. Her right eye was swollen shut. She might have been attractive – with her hair and no bruises. She turned toward a fat-headed male judge who sat about a dozen feet in front of her, behind a massive bench of inflated prestige.

The woman said, “Your Honor, I pled ‘innocent’ to the charges against me. They declared me ‘guilty’ anyway. Nobody listens. I’ve had no access to a lawyer. How can I get a fair trial? This whole goddamn thing is a setup. I just …”

“Watch your language, Ms. Sanders,” said the judge, his square jaw jutting out as he peered humorlessly through thick spectacles. “The mountain of evidence against you is staggering. It convincingly attests to many activities on your part that threaten the State. You are an anti-war agitator, therefore a terrorist and enemy of the people. These facts are beyond dispute. To permit you legal representation under such circumstances would insult this court and overcrowd its docket. There is no defense for you. I sentence you to death.”

“But Your Honor, I am not a terrorist. I am not an enemy of the people. Don’t do this. Don’t turn me into another needless victim.”

The judge motioned to a couple nearby guards. “Take her away.”

Two guards, one of whom had bashed me with his club during my processing, grabbed the woman and hauled her toward the exit.

“You psychos!” she screamed, trying to break free from the guards’ clutches. “This is why so many oppose you. Do you plan to kill all of them? How can …”

Her tirade expired when the two guards dropped her to the floor and one of them zapped her with a Taser device. The woman’s body writhed for a few seconds as she passed out. I fantasized about retaliating against her aggressors but kept still.

The judge frowned. “This behavior is unacceptable in a court of law. We are not here to engage in emotionally charged antics. Any further outbursts will bring severe penalties. Zero tolerance is this court’s policy.”

A cavalcade of prisoners approached the podium, one by one, receiving sentences of evaporation. The judge’s cruelty agitated me. Why did I have to lack speech? I craved the opportunity to engage in emotionally charged antics of my own.

My turn for a judicial flogging arrived. I walked to the podium and grinned obnoxiously at the judge.

He said, “Mr. Flemming, your cheer ill suits your unenviable position. You must be ignorant or insane. Either way, I demand you wipe that smirk off your face.”

I stuck my tongue out and flapped my arms, improvising a dance of derision. My irreverence generated an incredulous hush from the onlookers.

“Somebody – please adjust this would-be comedian’s attitude,” said the judge.

The guard from my processing came toward me with his club. He drilled me in the back of the head. His weapon was a feather, causing no ache. I grasped the guard’s neck and kissed him on the cheek. “You sick fuck!” he said. He belted me in the gut. I merely bent forward. He clubbed me across the kneecaps, shoulder, and nose. Blood gushed forth without discomfort. I puffed my chest out and gazed glowingly at the judge.

The judge banged his gavel. “Enough! This lunatic is too far gone for physical reprimands. Mr. Flemming: You previously pled ‘guilty’ to all charges against you. I will not waste time reiterating those charges. You apparently lack remorse for your heinous deeds. You deserve the harshest penalty at the State’s disposal. I sentence you to death.”

The guard responsible for my cell came and led me from the room. I waved as I departed. The guard returned me to my cage with an extra shove.

He said, “I don’t know what the hell happened down there, but you better knock it off. We can do things to you that make evaporation seem like a picnic.”

I clapped my hands and stomped my feet. He left with an exasperated huff. Satisfaction filled my air. A small but exhilarating victory.

****

Amid nightmares of decay and death, I opened my eyes. The shadows of my cell concealed a figure lounging several feet across from me.

“Any idea where I might get a beer in this damned place?” said a male voice from the dark. I recognized the voice but not its source.

In the center of the cell streamed a rectangular shard of light from the lobby. My visitor stood and stepped into the revelatory stream. He was Lawrence Alister, as disheveled as the time he and I had conversed in the tavern. His black hair remained long and greasy. The splotches on his face had worsened. His credibility had nevertheless increased due to his accurate prediction of Manchester’s disappearance from the Grand Premier race.

“You probably heard that I was dead,” Lawrence said with a laugh, “but a drunk has more lives than a cat. I wouldn’t let something as measly as death interfere with a good bender.”

He came to me, grabbing my right hand and shaking it. I gaped at him.

He said, “Considering how our previous discussion went, I suppose I should be glad that you can’t talk. Think of me as a delivery man. Here.”

Taking a crumpled sheet from his right pants pocket, he unfolded it and dropped it into my lap. The sheet contained a poem, “Dreams and Nightmares,” from Randolph Doppelganger’s
Extracurricular Explorations
:

All the dreams and nightmares

You’ve suffered and enjoyed

All of them evaporate

As they’re swallowed by the void.

You had seen a man you know

Who would cast a spell of blue

Now you’ll take the device he’s worn

And discover that it is you.

This man you thought you knew

You only knew so well

It was just the nature of the guise

With which he cast his spell.

Past and present are now as one

And the future is with you everywhere

Time is now dead and gone

Or so says the small man of white hair.

“There is also this.” Lawrence pulled out a tiny hourglass from his left pants pocket. He put the object in my right hand. He returned to the cell’s shadows.

The hourglass had a green circle on its lower half, contrasting the blue circle on the hourglass of Lukas Lambert’s office door.

Lawrence said, “The poem is something you’ve seen before. It regards a story that occurs in another book, the one that you will not write.

“The other item relates to both now and the hereafter. Imagine that all of time exists within that hourglass. The hourglass shatters, freeing time from its limitations. Liberated time surrenders all definitions and flows abundantly into the void. Your future is an escape from time into the void. There the concept of ‘future’ is meaningless. You have no future.

“Jack wins in the end. Jack wins in the end. Jack wins in the end. Jack wins …”

“Flemming,” said the guard assigned to my cell, “you must come to the interrogation room immediately.”

The guard opened the cell door. He seemed oblivious to Lawrence, who kept repeating, “Jack wins in the end.” The robotic chant unnerved me as I went into the lobby. Leaving the scene, I glanced back; Lawrence was gone. Yet his voice spoke five words ad nauseam:

“Jack wins in the end….”

****

For about an hour I was alone in bleakness. My metal chair was uncomfortable. I kept getting up and pacing. Five other identical chairs were spread around an oak table that filled most of the interrogation room. The white walls had blood stains. There were no windows.

My recent exchange with Lawrence Alister prevented me from napping. I ran a hand over the miniature hourglass in my pocket to authenticate my second sighting of the dead man. Most perplexing was his incessant phrase: “Jack wins in the end.” It reminded me of Randolph Doppelganger, as did “Dreams and Nightmares.” Had the eccentric author used Lawrence to communicate with me?

A door to my far right opened. A short guard entered and went to a corner in the back. He was pudgy and had a vacant face. Testing him, I walked over to where he stood and offered him a hand to shake. He did not react. I returned to my seat at the table.

The door opened again. In came Victoria Mason, more shocking than Lawrence Alister. I had not seen Victoria since our confrontation in the alley, the day I obtained the confidential info on my father from Rev Coomer. I should have figured she would return. She carried an aluminum briefcase. Her sharp gray business suit accentuated her curves and world-class legs. Her glasses were a new feature for me, adding a cerebral touch to her blond-haired beauty.

Victoria stopped and eyed me knowingly. “I can still arouse you, can’t I, Sebastian?”

She paused, inviting a response. Even with a voice I would have been speechless.

She laughed. “You’ve mastered the cold shoulder. You were never much of a communicator. From what I hear, you haven’t said a damn thing since you got here. Come on, Sebastian. Open up to me. How do you feel about seeing me now?”

I looked away at the guard in the corner. He stood motionless.

Victoria sat down next to me. She opened her briefcase on the table. “Perhaps you can tell me something about these pictures I have.” She pulled several photos out of her case. She showed me them one by one. “Can you identify this one?” she said. “How about him? How about her?” Some I recognized, some I didn’t. I indicated nothing.

“I know you’re familiar with this one,” she said, pointing at a snapshot of Lorna, “the dream girl you never fucked. After we got through with her, you wouldn’t have found her very attractive. You definitely wouldn’t have appreciated what she believed about you. She claimed that you had informed on her. We assured her otherwise, but she was adamant. You were one of her dearest friends. Any idea how she could have been so mistaken?”

Victoria’s sneer tempted me to punch her in the mouth. I rolled my eyes instead.

She flashed me a photo of Cranston Gage. “What of this man – another good friend, right? He was such a good friend that he told us where to locate you. He foolishly thought he could save his own skin by ratting you out. Despicable, huh?”

Not in a million years would Cranston have told these assholes anything about anyone. He did not even know my whereabouts while he was in custody. Victoria was better as a desperate tramp/stalker than an interrogator.

“Despite your unresponsiveness, you fascinate me. I heard about what happened at your sentencing. I have to see this alleged pain tolerance of yours for myself.”

She took out a knife with a sharpened blade about eight inches long. She made a few phantom slices at my face before nicking me in the cheek. I smiled at her. She rolled up my right sleeve and cut a thin line all the way around my arm, about four inches below my shoulder. Blood ran down my limb. I kept smiling.

“Unbelievable. Maybe you’re just holding it in.”

I wrapped my wounded arm around her. I grabbed her right breast with my free hand and squeezed like hell. She dropped her knife, shrieking. She could not break my grasp.

“Guard! Get your ass over here and stop this.”

He came and hit me over the head with a club. He threw a punch that somehow missed, slamming hard against the table. Victoria broke loose. She took off a shoe and jabbed its heel into my left eye repeatedly, producing more painless blood. The guard inexplicably shoved her away from me. She kicked him in the balls, crashing him to the floor. It was slapstick.

She hovered over the fallen guard. “You fucking galoot. You must be the stupidest, most inept guard I’ve come across. I’ll have your ass on a pitchfork.”

She turned toward me. “And you. I, uh, I never, uh – I don’t even know what to say. This session is over.”

My cell guard soon arrived to retrieve me. He asked Victoria, “What the hell happened to him?”

“He got what he deserved. He refused to answer my questions and lashed out at me. He was out of control. And that useless mongoloid of a guard in there lashed out at me as well. I’m tired of dealing with some of the idiots employed at this facility. I will write a thorough report of this incident, recommending tighter restraints on the prisoner. That guard is finished.”

I reflexively grabbed her again, hugging her tenderly. It was my way of showing that no amount of abuse could destroy my humanity. She was strangely receptive to it.

The guard put a hand on my shoulder. “Enough, Flemming. You’re lucky I don’t knock you out for this.”

Victoria shook her head. “It’s okay. He means no harm.”

I released her.

Heading back to my cell, I pondered her insufficient hatred for me. It also dawned on me that my time in jail had become the most bizarre period of my life.

****

About three days lapsed. Beyond infrequent meal service, no one interacted with me.

Evaporation loomed. When would it happen? What were they waiting for? Death was the only damage they could deal me. So I believed.

An unfamiliar guard entered my cell. He was tall and stern. I spotted a “PR” branding on the right side of his face; had he served time? Without speaking, the guard took out a large syringe and bent down toward me. He rolled up my left sleeve and plunged the needle into my shoulder. I felt nothing. As he removed the syringe, I swiped it and chucked it against a wall. It shattered into countless shards. Unfazed, the guard left my cell without incident. His lack of reaction was disappointing. I needed some new tricks.