The End of Marking Time (30 page)

I couldn’t thank him enough.

The game lasted another hour. The night grew darker, the traffic lighter. I hadn’t intended to stay that long, but I couldn’t leave that bench after the hot dog vendor told me how to get what I came for. We sat together for a while. I asked him what it was like working the cart and he told me he’d always done it. He liked seeing the same fans at each game. He liked working for himself and he made a good living with the cart.

What would I do if I made it out? Would I end up behind the counter of some store? Would they trust me with the merchandise? Probably not. It was too early to know. David Jones, my employment counselor, hadn’t even called me yet. He probably didn’t want to waste his time with relearners who weren’t going to make it. I was annoyed he hadn’t spent two minutes to give me some hope. If I could follow the hot dog man’s advice and get the video I needed, I’d call David Jones and give myself something to shoot for.

Doors clanked open. Heels clicked. Voices shouted.

The home team had won and the crowd jostled and cheered, rousing everyone for blocks. The hot dog man stepped up to attention and even though the first wave of fans rushed right by him, he soon had a line of hungry customers ready for a late snack. I shifted the camera to my palm even though I didn’t expect to catch anything so easily. The line was well behaved and I realized that even if I had seen something, I wouldn’t be able to catch the person in the act. To do that I would have to be recording the whole time. I didn’t have, or at least I didn’t believe the tiny camera had, that much capacity. So I sat and watched, waiting for the rush to slow.

When the crowd leaving the arena slowed to a trickle, I got up from the bench with my eyes locked on a group of older men in suits. The hot dog vendor waved me back to my seat with a flick of his wrist. I obeyed. I tried not to stare at him while I waited and wondered what he had in mind. Is this how he got himself out of Wendell’s program? His success was enough for me to follow his every command, but my excitement dimmed as he kept me waiting another fifteen minutes. Maybe lots of relearners ended up here and this was his way of taunting us.

I was sure no one was left in the arena when I saw the fingers motion me to my feet. They came slowly, which accounted for the delay. They stumbled up the sidewalk, blathering and laughing. They came even and turned away from us. I followed with a wide smile of thanks to the hot dog man.

The pen was deep in the book, marking my page and recording the wobbly men as they stumbled along. I kept the camera running and aimed as well as I could with the book by my side. This moment was what I’d spent days looking for. The three drunk men were younger than the group I had intended to follow. I trusted the hot dog man’s advice enough to use every bit of camera time so I didn’t miss anything they did. Their ties and dress pants suggested they were here on business, but weren’t senior enough to require suits to mingle. It was hard walking slow enough to stay behind, but they were so wasted they didn’t notice me following them.

They stopped at an opening in a long brick building. I caught up to them quickly and had nowhere to turn. The three faced the building, where an office entrance allowed them to step into the shadows. Zippers lowered. Liquid splashed on concrete.

One man said, “I was dying.”

“Oh, that feels better.”

One of the men asked me to step up and block them in case anyone came along. I stepped closer, my arms crossed, the book carefully aimed from the crook of my elbow. Urine sprayed the sidewalk, pooled, and ran down. The men adjusted their stances to keep their shoes out of the streams that ran across the sidewalk for the storm drain. I kept the book aimed squarely at their midsections and the splashing urine now hitting the sidewalk and door equally. The people who worked inside were in for a nasty surprise in the morning. Maybe this was a regular occurrence.

Was this what the hot dog vendor had meant for me to capture? I didn’t know the law. If I was going to catch criminals, knowing the law would have been helpful. I’d seen people arrested for being drunk in public. These guys certainly were. Was this public nudity or something like that? I didn’t know if either offense would get someone sent into the programs, but I hoped it would.

The men finished and walked up the block. I thought about following them, but I was pretty sure this was the scene I was supposed to capture. I wondered if I’d caught anything I shouldn’t have. If I’d filmed a penis, would that be viewed as pornography? Would I get myself locked up for turning in this video?

I turned and ran back to the corner, but the cart was gone.

I listened for wheels rolling in the distance. One minute was all I needed from him. In one minute he could tell me what I needed to have on that tape and what might get me in trouble, but he was gone. Like the guy in the donut shop he’d been very helpful and then he’d vanished. I wished there was a way to know when someone had graduated from reeducation. The ankle bracelets were helpful, but the people who could really help me blended in with everyone else.

The brick building stood alone with a wide drive on each side and six cruisers parked out front. The white sign with bold blue lettering told me I was in the right place. The camera hadn’t left my hand since I stopped recording. The three clean-cut guys I filmed were the kind of relearners Nathan Farnsworth would surely gobble up. One of them could have priors and end up with Wendell, but I was betting that once the judge saw this recording, they’d all be carted off to Farnsworth’s. A twinge of doubt flickered in my mind and kept me from climbing the stairs and going in. Was I missing something? Could I be incriminating myself?

I’d thought it over backward and forward a dozen times. If I went home to check the video I was just giving Farnsworth an opportunity to steal it. I shouldn’t have hesitated so long to grab onto that handle and walk in. When I did the reaction was swift and surprising. The detector inside the door beeped and every visible officer lowered a hand to a holster. There were probably men in other rooms grabbing shotguns. I remembered the motto to protect and to serve from a cop show on television. Unfortunately, I was the one people needed protection from.

I froze with the pen camera clutched in my right hand and the book in my left. They didn’t draw down and shoot me, and when I didn’t come rushing in the mood in the lobby relaxed. Two suspects sat cuffed to heavy chairs at my left. Both were clean-cut kids in their twenties, not who I expected to see. Two officers leaned against a high counter in front of me. I eased up to the nearest officer, careful to keep my hands in sight.

I didn’t know quite what to say. He gave a nod to my ankle bracelet and said, “Can we help you?” He’d checked both of my hands and it felt like he was eying my clothes, looking for a gun or a bomb. I guess they didn’t have many relearners walk in and try to prove themselves by selling someone else out. In my neighborhood we were taught to hate cops in the kindergarten schoolyard. Snitching would get you beaten to death if you picked the wrong guy, but I wasn’t in the neighborhood anymore and the guys I’d filmed were as harmless as criminals come.

“I’ve got something for you.”

“For me?” the officer asked, poking hard against his sternum.

“All of you.” That wasn’t quite right. Guns and uniforms made me nervous. Cops had been chasing me since I was ten. They probably knew I’d be trouble even sooner.

I held out the camera and he instantly knew what it was. He looked at the counter and back at me. The official procedure was probably to wait my turn and talk to someone behind the counter and then wait for someone to come out and help me, but the officer held up the camera to the man behind the desk and pointed to himself, as if to say he’d take care of me. He led me to the corner of the room, through a narrow doorway, and down a long hall deep into the station.

The cops all looked the same in uniform. Faces shaved. Everything else covered except their hands. Most of them were fit. This guy I was following seemed like he was ten years older than me. He walked easily and I bet he’d be tough in a fight. He led me into a small room with a table and left me there. I’d been in rooms like this before. Nothing on the walls. Three heavy wooden chairs. No windows. My heart started thumping and I tried to keep calm by reminding myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong.

In a minute he returned with a television on a rolling cart. I saw the camera on top of the cart and at that moment I felt like an undercover news reporter. I’d lived in some rough places. Maybe that was a job I could do when Wendell was finished with me.

He took the camera, pressed a few buttons and some random bits of conversation played on the screen. I must have mistakenly pressed the record button a few times. We quickly moved on to the three drunk men walking down the dark sidewalk. The officer focused, realizing without me saying anything that this was what I wanted him to see. He measured their wobbling strides, and I felt like he was trying to judge whether the court would find them guilty of being drunk in public.

All three faces appeared on camera at one point or another. I wasn’t sure I’d captured them, but each had turned to see what I was doing and their faces were clear enough for the officer to identify. Everything was fine until they stepped over to the entryway and started peeing. Then the officer pushed back.

“Is that it?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me squarely and asked in carefully measured tones, “What do you want me to do with this?”

Wasn’t that obvious? These men had broken the law. I caught them and there was no way to refute what they’d done. Why was he balking? This was a case he couldn’t lose. When I was caught without my ankle bracelet, I was rushed to court and tried in minutes. When I broke into Wendell’s house, I was arrested over his protests. Why were these men any different?

I didn’t know what to say. Was I a loser for catching these guys breaking the law? Did this cop really want me to take my evidence and go away? He wasn’t upset by what the tape showed. When I sat down I had visions of being rewarded for helping the police. How foolish.

“I want you to do your job,” I said.

“You realize these men will be charged as sex offenders?” He paused to give me chance to relent. “We’ll need you to come to court and testify.”

I nodded. I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s life, but I desperately wanted to help Wendell, and more than anything I wanted to get rid of this ankle bracelet and be free.

Officer Roland Benson identified one of the suspects by showing the video around the precinct. Once word got out that the video was funny, the cops all came to see it. One of them had to know the other guys in the video, but no one would admit it. Strange that sixty cops would protect these guys, but that didn’t matter. Once Roland had one name, he called him on the phone. I heard Roland lie about an accident the men might have witnessed somewhere near the arena. That lie quickly netted him the names and telephone numbers of the other two men. Soon after, I assured Benson that I would testify and he sent me home.

The taxi dropped me off at midnight. The new pen camera on the kitchen table didn’t surprise me. At that point I would have been surprised not to find one. As I microwaved some chicken nuggets I imagined Wendell sneaking in and out. He was a busy guy, too busy to bother with me every day. He must have been sending someone. The control room downstairs had been empty the day I’d gone inside, so I wondered if the people delivering the cameras came from somewhere else. Were they watching me that very moment? Were they proud of my video?

It was a long day and a half wait for the arraignment of the urinating renegades. I wondered if they deserved to be hauled in. They’d broken the law and had been caught just like me. They didn’t deserve special treatment, but I felt queasy about testifying. Everyone in the courtroom would know I was a snitch. It looked bad even to me, ruining these people to help myself, but there was no turning back.

The next morning I stopped for coffee and a donut, then hopped a cab for the address Roland gave me. When I stepped out in front of the courthouse, I was stunned by the massive columns that rose up to support the roof. The wide granite steps covered enough ground for a small yard in front of the building. I’d been here before, but the contrast to the modest brick relearner courthouse was unreal. What did that say about the people who were tried here? And there? The date 1902 was chiseled into a corner stone. The law had been applied here for over a century before the relearner laws were written. I felt unworthy climbing the steps to testify.

The security guard took my pen camera and held it aside.

The lobby rose two floors above. My steps echoed off the granite walls. Unlike relearner court, there seemed to be nothing happening here. Office doors were open. Clerks stood around counters inside the offices, but no one was in the lobby or the long hall that led to the back of the building. Fifteen minutes passed before the next person arrived, a slick man with hair that clung to his head as if it had been glued in place. His suit was probably expensive, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

He got right up close to me on the bench. “I don’t know what you think you’re pulling here, but you’re not going to get away with it.”