The End of Marking Time (15 page)

She pointed to a tree overhead. Something round was caught high in the branches, a balloon or a Frisbee maybe. The graphics weren’t clear enough to tell. It may not have been the point of the exercise, but I couldn’t ignore this little girl’s problem without expecting a shock.

It took a few minutes to figure out how to make my virtual self jump. In the process I found all sorts of useful things on the help menu, like opening doors and checking my pockets. Jumping though did no good. The Frisbee, I could see clearly that it was a Frisbee when I jumped, was too high. I tried climbing the tree, but it was too flimsy to hold me. When I got my leg up, the first branch snapped and I fell to the ground.

An old man came rumbling down the driveway and yelling at us to get away from his tree. My first impulse was to run and ditch the girl, but Saint Michael wouldn’t do that. I held my ground and typed, I’m sorry.

The man was still upset, but he didn’t say anything. He just looked at me and frowned. The three of us held there for a moment. I couldn’t climb the tree and I couldn’t jump up to get the Frisbee. The man was too old and too heavy for seven-year-old me to lift, so I pointed to the Frisbee and then the man. He led me to the garage and together we carried a ladder back to the tree. He climbed up and brought down the Frisbee.

The girl smiled and ran off, but there were no fireworks.

Saint Michael hadn’t achieved his goal.

The green dots were long faded from the screen. I thought I should try to find the school, but something told me that wasn’t the point. The old man stood by his ladder and I kept circling him. I wasn’t sure what to do, but it seemed as long as I stayed close to him, he’d stay by the tree. Finally I had an idea. I typed, Sorry about your tree. Can I do anything?

Together we carried the ladder back and returned with a saw. He cut the branch off cleanly, thanked me, and went home. Fireworks lit the screen. It was the first lesson I completed without punishment. Elapsed time: forty minutes. Average time: twenty minutes. Record time: two minutes. Whatever. I was still proud.

The ding that announced my arrival at the burger joint didn’t surprise me. It bothered me a whole lot less than the people in line at the registers. They held their breath waiting for the contrasting notes that signaled I was at least wearing my ankle bracelet and unlikely to attack unprovoked. The place was a few blocks further from the complex than I usually ventured. That’s why the customers were so uptight. That’s why I paused by the scanner until the tones signaled I was ok.

The burger and onion rings smelled like Heaven on my plate. I filled my Coke. Beyond the ketchup and napkins, I saw Joel staring down at an empty tray. I walked over and slid in across from him.

“You all right?” I asked.

He said he was, but I didn’t believe him. There was a lot Joel could teach me, but he wasn’t in the mood for conversation. My first day as a relearner I discovered how fast the cops could find me. If they wanted Joel, they would have picked him up already, so whatever was bugging him had to be personal. I didn’t want to lose one of my only relearner friends by going Dr. Phil, so I ate my burger and kept to myself until he felt like talking.

When I threw my trash away he still hadn’t said anything.

“Want to go for a walk or something? I’m done for the day.”

He asked me how many lessons I’d done and I told him one.

“You know you can do more than one a day, right?”

“Serious?” I assumed I had to finish one each day. I never considered starting a second one.

“Dumbass. You want to be in here forever?”

I felt like an idiot for all the time I’d wasted sitting on the floor bouncing an old tennis ball against the bricks. The television wouldn’t work until I finished the program. I didn’t think to try and speed things up and I didn’t know what else to do to pass the time.

Joel led me outside, up one block, and down Broadway. I thought he was taking me to scope chicks so I tuned into the women parking their cars and dodging in and out of shops along the street. Every storefront had clean windows and glitzy displays. Vacant signs and broken windows dominated the street near our apartment complex. The only things around our place were the donut shop and a couple of other restaurants that catered to relearners. On Broadway we passed three stores that sold women’s dresses, a hair stylist, a shoe store, and a jewelry store. This street was a haven for the ladies.

Several attractive women crossed our path. I checked for diamonds and got a few smiles, but Joel paid no attention. He was a huge guy and three women gave him a long looking over, but he just kept on walking like they weren’t there. Even after a few of them said, “Hmmm” and “Oh Baby” he just kept on going.

“What’s up with you?” I asked after he ignored an awesome pair of legs.

“Nothing,” he said and pointed to a sleek brick building at the corner.

It wasn’t a bunch of stores because there were no signs out front. The grass was cut in perfect stripes, so I thought it was an office building, one we might hit for laptops or something. Joel didn’t say anything as we walked past and around back. The guys wore jeans just like we did, but they were different. I didn’t see a single tattoo. Every guy wore short hair. None of them had that get-out-of-my-way swagger Joel flaunted.

I was trying to stiffen myself against going in with Joel to hit this place when we rounded the back side and walked onto the grass. Ten guys played Wiffle ball on the lawn and Joel walked over like he owned the place. The guys in striped shirts didn’t seem to care. I followed him to a picnic table and noticed they had real bases set out and a net they used for a backstop. The lines were chalked. This was serious Wiffle ball.

Joel introduced me to Stephan, a white guy about my size. I was still trying to figure out what this place was when Joel said, “This is how the other half lives.”

“You shitting me?”

There were guys all over, hanging out on the grass. The yard was ten times the size of ours and it wasn’t enclosed by brick walls. Uniformed referees ran the game. Compared to this place, my apartment was like being back at the house of correction.

“How’d you get in here?”

Stephan misunderstood. He told me some guy grabbed his girlfriend outside a bar and he’d punched him out. A cop was standing there and hauled him in. I didn’t really care what he’d done, I wanted to know how I could get out of my place and into this one.

He said it was the first time he’d ever been in trouble. That fit. All the guys playing ball looked harmless. The tension I’d seen in prison, in the courthouse hallways, and even around the apartment buildings I’d lived in, that tension didn’t exist here. These were just regular guys at big boy summer camp. No one was going to get stabbed serving his time here, and they’d all stay out of trouble when they went back to their regular lives.

“Do you guys have to do the black box?”

“You’re in Wendell’s, huh?”

When I nodded, Stephan got closer. “The programs are all different. When I first came here, they showed us what you go through and they showed us bits of two other programs.” He pointed at me then. “Don’t tell anybody,” he whispered. “The programs are supposed to be some big secret. The guys who run them are real competitive. No one is supposed to know what the other guys are doing.”

“But they showed you?”

“Yeah. Man, losing my job was enough to keep me out of trouble, but when I saw how you guys live, I was sure I wouldn’t be slugging someone else. When I saw the guy jump out the sixth floor window, I was definitely sure.”

Joel and Stephan shared a look.

“We didn’t see that program,” Stephan said, meaning one run the cat baggers. “I think even the people who run this thing are afraid to try and get inside.”

I asked him how he’d seen someone jump.

Joel broke in. “It’s the end of the line. That’s all you need to know.”

It wasn’t luck that got Stephan into this club. He was a first timer. Our records got Joel and I stuck into Wendell’s classroom. That was the first time I was truly afraid of the new laws. In the old days we never believed we’d be sentenced to die, but then I knew if I kept screwing up I’d be sent to a place where lethal injection would be considered humane.

“You don’t use the black box?” I asked to lighten the subject.

“We do, but ours plays video games. Some really good ones.”

Stephan took us inside and showed us his room, the health club, and the restaurant on the first floor. The place was more like a resort than prison. It even had a bar. We couldn’t drink outside our own apartments, but the bartender there assured us it was ok. Joel and I had a few beers. Stephan drank Coke and I noticed several other guys doing the same. I was so thankful for what I’d learned, I pressed my thumb to the scanner for the first two rounds. When we got to the third round, the bartender informed me I was out of credit.

Stephan paid.

Joel looked at me like I was the biggest fool he’d ever seen.

“It’s Tuesday, brother,” Joel said. “What are you going to do?”

I didn’t know why it being Tuesday meant anything. I shrugged and followed Joel down the street away from Stephan and his cushy digs.

“You get eight hundred and seven dollars every Friday just like everyone else. What’d you do with it?”

“I needed stuff,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Regular stuff. I went out to eat, and I needed a new television and some stuff in the kitchen, you know, regular stuff.”

“What happened to your furniture allowance?”

“I spent it.”

“Are you really that stupid?”

“I never did this electronic crap before. If I have money in my pocket I know when I’m short. These numbers in a machine somewhere and pressing my thumb? How am I supposed to know when I need money?”

“How did you spend eight hundred bucks in five days?”

“I made a lot more than that in the old days, and I if I ran out I could always get more.”

“You’re hopeless, man.”

I thought about Morris Farnsworth. Maybe he could get me some of next week’s pay a few days early. I’d be more careful then. When I suggested it to Joel, he stopped me there on the sidewalk.

“Don’t do it, man.”

“Why not?”

“There are four things they worry about. Four pressures you have to handle: sex, money, drugs, and education. Once you get past the kindergarten stuff you’re working on, you’ll see what’s important. They test you until you can handle all four. Then you can get out.”

“They can’t do all that with the box.” My voice cracked.

“Your education comes out of the box. Your money is tracked by computer. Everything you spend, they know. Sex, your dating counselor will keep a close eye on that. You find a girl you’re ready to settle down with, you’re close.”

“And drugs? They can’t possibly watch me every second.”

“Don’t have to. You use the toilet in your apartment?”

“Come on. That’s bull.”

“For real. Busted a friend of mine three times ‘till he figured it out.”

“Can you lend me a few bucks until Friday?”

Joel was agitated by the question. “What do you need before then?”

I admitted I didn’t have any food in the house besides Devil Dogs and a few cans of Coke. He couldn’t believe it, but I was used to eating out. I’d never cooked anything until Debbie showed me how to make eggs. Joel called me a fool. He said buying my own food and cooking it cost less than half as much as eating out. What was I doing all day anyway?

He was angrier than he should have been and I asked him why.

“I’m saving every cent,” he said. “Got a girl who wants to marry me, but her mother says I’ll never amount to nothing. Says I’ll never be able to get her nice things. If I don’t do something soon, she’s going to quit me.”

“My man, have I got a deal for you,” I said.

I took the lead. Joel was puzzled. I didn’t tell him where we were going, but he kept following down the sidewalk. When we got to the revolving door outside the bank he grabbed my arm.

“You’re not going to rob it? You know there’s no money in there?”

“I’m not that stupid.”

With my ankle bracelet on, the security staff inside the bank was decidedly more cooperative, but when I got to the vault area, the attendant still waited for the call from Morris Farnsworth.

“What are you doing, Mr. O’Connor?”

“Just getting some personal items. Is that ok with you?”

He gave his permission. I took Joel’s advice and skipped the questions about getting my pay early. Morris didn’t ask why Joel was with me at the vault and I assumed he didn’t know we were together. That was a huge mistake.

They showed us to a viewing area and I opened the box and started pulling out things to show him. It was a big box, packed with cash and the high-end jewelry I’d clipped. I’d been hitting the ritzier suburbs of the city, so most of what I had was higher class than anything Joel could afford. I felt like I owed him for his help. That and I really needed him to feed me for the next two days.