“We will now stand for the National Anthem.”
Tag stood up with and saluted with everyone else.
“I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, one Nation, Invincible, with Freedom and Justice for all.”
Tag always wondered about the Freedom part. Had it meant something different back then?
“Many have fallen. None are forgotten. On the Day of Victory we will be relieved, until then, we are always ready.”
“Always Ready!” came the deafening response.
They all sat down again, the wave of patriotism dissipating. The bookkeeper Nichols made his weekly report. It was the normal tally of Births, Marriages, and deaths. Tag struggled to stay awake. The Growers were up, the Sowers were down, the bobbing figures made him seasick.
There wasn't much left in the day, the sky was cobalt blue and the perimeter lights had turned on. In his boredom Tag’s mind raced with ways of getting even with Barton. He had made him look like a fool in front of the others. Now he could never go train with them (not counting the fact he was too afraid to anyway)
Nichols was still droning when the Chief cut him off to make his own announcement.
Everyone paid attention. The Chief only spoke for two reasons, to raise you up or to destroy you. Either way you would be changed forever.
“You have displayed great courage. You will be rewarded.”
For a few wild seconds before the name was read out, every man believed it was him.
“Inmate Crawford, step forward.”
He started crying when his name was called. The tattooing chair had been set up and Doc Philpott prepared the ink while the men watched and cheered. It amazed Tag the way a simple concoction of piss and ash could transform a man.
As the Doc was drawing the outline of what would be the prisoner’s first stripe, Crawford didn’t wince or show any pain. That was traditional. Everything was about strength.
As Tag watched Philpott wipe away the fresh blood, his mind drifted back to five years ago, to a time when it was his blood on display…
~
He was 16 years old. He and Barton were in the final heats of a contest to see who would join the Defense. They actually got along pretty well back then. Until they were pitted against each other in the final round. It was to be a shank fight.
The shank was a small metal knife, about 2-3 inches in length with a crude handle of melted plastic. Every prisoner, male and female, knew how to use a shank with deadly precision, knowing what arteries to punch and veins to slice, since they were ten years old. It was as much tradition as apple pie had been in the old America.
The rules of combat were simple. Strikes to the face and below the belt (to the balls say) were out of bounds. Everything else was kosher. First person to tap out or leave the ring lost. It was customary to let yourself get stabbed a couple of times before leaving, to save face. But young men are known to be proud and stupid and more than a few had died, misjudging their own capacity for blood loss.
Tag was a good fighter, quick and hard to catch, but they said he lacked the killer instinct. He didn’t seem to want to actually hurt anyone. Barton was strong and aggressive but slow and predictable. There was no clear favorite.
They stepped into the ring (just a circle drawn in the dust.) Barton started trash talking immediately, Tag's dead Mom was mentioned. Tag kept his cool and stared him down.
As the match began Tag kept to the edges, moving quickly to stay out of Barton's reach. Barton would try to make it a close fight where his strength would count the most.
Barton scored the first hit, an ugly slash to Tag's forearm. Something strange happened. Tag saw the cut but the pain didn't really bother him. Somehow he felt certain he would win.
Drawing first blood gave Barton confidence and he moved in with a flurry of strikes to Tag's torso. Tag put up his arms to defend himself and was rewarded with another long scar, making an X with the one put there previously. He managed to get in a jab to Barton's side but it didn't faze him.
Tag was slowing down and losing ground. Barton scored two more strikes in quick succession, opening up gashes on his chest. Tag started to feel woozy and put his hand to his chest to stop the flow of blood. Worse his own knife slipped from his blood-slicked hand and he lost it in the sand.
Barton was strutting around the ring like a peacock. He obviously expected Tag to leave the ring but he just stood there, swaying slightly. The onlookers expected Tag to quit, wanted him to for his own sake, but he wouldn't do it. Although his body was cut to ribbons, mentally he was unbreakable. In that moment he realized why and it saddened him: He wasn't afraid to die because he didn’t want to live.
The crowd lost their taste for it after that. Tag's shirt was dripping with blood. Worse, he was laughing and making weird jokes: "Look, I'm a newspaper. Red all over!" Barton was terrified of this bloody, grinning man who stalked him around the ring. He stabbed him again but without any real confidence, as now he was afraid he’d actually kill him.
Tag tackled him to the ground and got on top of him. He smeared his bloody hands over Barton’s face. It was over, Barton couldn’t take it anymore. He gave up, screaming, "Get him off me, he's crazy!"
Tag spent the next week in the infirmary, where his heart stopped beating twice. He and Barton were both losers. One was a coward, the other a Psycho. Tag got his first strike for "behavior unbecoming an Inmate". They marked him while he slept.
Strikes were like Stripes but with the opposite effect. The first one you got was a tiny x on your left hand near the base of the thumb and forefinger. The next was a larger one covering the whole of the back of the right hand. The stigma for that one was pretty high but nothing compared to the last one.
The Third Strike was a small X on your forehead, a little above the area between your eyes. After that no one wanted anything to do with you. You could forget about a wife or even friends. Most X-heads took the "easy" way out and left the Prison through suicide. Tag looked at the mark on his hand. He didn't like what it meant or the road it had put him on.
Barton was telling anyone who would listen that he cheated, that is wasn't fair to fight a crazy person. Was he crazy? He supposed so. It was like all the hate inside him had poured out along with his blood. The whole experience gave him a strange feeling of power. Lying in his infirmary bed that feeling slowly left him and he felt sad and alone.
~
Back in the present Tag rubbed his tiny x tattoo, it was hurting as if he had just received it. Onstage the ceremony was over and the newly inked man rose triumphantly from his chair. Tag wanted to be him, and he hated himself for wanting it. He cheered the loudest.
8.
Tag got to the canteen and got in line behind Paul. When he didn't turn around he tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. No reaction, he just kept staring ahead. Starting to get afraid he tapped him again, still no reaction.
Anger rose up in him when he realized he was being deliberately ignored. When his turn came for food the server accidentally called on him before Paul.
"I think you forgot about him," he said.
The server apologized and served Paul. It would be the most natural thing in the world for Paul to thank him, but instead he didn't even look his way. Tag felt his anger grow into a desire for violence. It was only the thought of a second strike that stopped him.
Sitting down by himself, feeling pathetic, he pieced together an explanation. Paul must have gotten in real trouble for neglecting his duties the day before. He must have figured the only way to keep safe was to stay away from Tag. It was understandable, but it didn't stop Tag's insides burning from the pain of being ignored.
A rage-fuelled fantasy ran through his mind. In it he spun Paul around, screamed at him "How dare you ignore me?" and smashed his face into the food bar. He looked over at Paul. He had a definite look of guilt. That cooled him down a bit. What a great start to the day, he thought bitterly. But there was more where that came from.
~
Tag went back to his cell. His mind was full of resentments, towards Paul, towards Barton, towards everyone. To calm himself he took out the small wallet-sized picture that he kept hidden within the pages of The Shrinking Man.
It was so covered with white creases that it was hard to make out the smiling woman with the straight black hair and light brown skin.
Tag knew frustratingly little about his Mother. All he had was the picture and what little his Dad had told him. Her name was Maria, she was wild, and came from a place outside the prison without any rules.
Her and Dad had been an unlikely couple but it was hoped the by the book librarian would be a good influence on her. When asked how she died Thomas would only say that she had been careless, and had died in a fire.
He didn’t remember her, but he dreamed about sometimes. There was this one he always had…
9.
Tag sat in the Visitor’s Room waiting for Sophie to arrive. His hands had been shaking when he opened her letter that Morning. He looked at the glass separating the male and female sides. It was different when he and Sophie met, they were both 11 and still lived in the Family Wing…
Family Wing, a place of the endless happy days of youth. Such things they had; Cats! (There was a ginger tom that Tag could remember falling asleep on his chest, he wondered if it was still alive) Chequers! (Tag pestered his Dad to play, even though he knew he didn’t like it) Working toilets! (Imagine, your poop just floating away of its own accord!) There had even been pudding.
Sophie and him had been the same age, they had been pals, then a bit more than pals (one day he noticed she smelled nicer than the boys). She loved reading and he used to smuggle books out of the library so they could read together. He could still remember how it felt, reading a book and feeling the warmth of her shoulder next to his…
The door to the Visitor Room opened, snapping him back to the present. Each time it did his breath caught in his throat, thinking it was her. Everything was so heightened when he went to see her. He could make out every grain of wood on the desk in front of him.
She walked in and a searchlight only he could see lit up her blue scrubs, almond face and lustrous red hair. She smiled at him and very worry he ever had melted.
Sophie’s Grandmother had been a poisoner and had killed four husbands for the insurance money before she was finally caught. She got the chair.
As Sophie got near the window, Tag tried to clear his throat and somehow managed to choke himself.
Sophie sat down, resting the phone between her ear and the crook of her shoulder.
"Try to stay alive, please," she said with real concern.
He got his breath back and picked up the receiver.
"Yes, sorry."
He thought about saying something like "you take my breath away" but couldn't bring himself to say it (even though it was true). She was beautiful but more than that she was lovely. He had to fight to make words and not just sit staring at her. The first time he met her he thought her eyes were too big. Now he could see they were perfectly too big.
"So, how's Chris?"
When anyone else used his real name he felt like he was in trouble but when she used it he felt more real somehow.
"Fine, and you?"
"Good, nice to see you finally!"
He winced.
He had this terrible habit of getting really stressed before he met Sophie and then canceling. If he felt even a little bit tired he would develop this fear that he wouldn't be able to talk to her and he would bail. Then he would regret it.
"I know, I know."
"It wasn't much fun, sitting here with only my reflection to talk to."
He felt a little angry that she was calling him on his shit. He swallowed it and apologized.
"Sorry, Soph..."
It was hard to say. He could make jokes about anything but when it came to saying something sincere he developed a speech impediment.
"...I do want to see you."
She backed down. She loved him really.
"I know." she said, so what have you been doing for the last month, how is Brian?"
He thought about all the run-ins he'd had with authority that week; The Chief, Barton, but he didn't want to freak her out with all his problems.
"It's going well, Brian's a smart kid."
"And you're a clever man."
He squirmed as he did whenever he got a compliment. Then masterfully deflected it.
"The only reason I got the job is I'm one of the few Cons who can read."
"Come on, Chris, there's more to it than that."
Tag knew he was lucky he had that job. Sophie wouldn't take him seriously without it. As it was he knew the other girls made fun of her for going out with a weird guy who wasn't part of any Detail.
Sophie was a Sewer, her job was to sew uniforms to give to Kawalski so he could give them to the other soldiers who may have damaged theirs in battle.
Sophie had told him a lot about how they worked, they had at one time used old guard and prisoner uniforms, bleached or dyed to give the right effect. Now, in the fiftieth year of the War, they were reduced to using old drapes, even flags, whatever they could get their hands on as a source of cloth, until eventually they had something that looked more like Joseph’s technicolor dreamcoat.
She started to tell him a story about one girl in particular who gave her a hard time. He tried his best to listen but like a lot of her stories he found it hard to follow who was who in the whole drama.
"And Veronica knew that I'd been working on that uniform and she said she just took it to work on the seams but they were already perfect..."
"Uhuh, uhuh".
"I'm boring you aren't I?"
"No not at all," he said and they both smiled.
That's another thing Tag liked about Sophie. She was a woman, but it was like she could step back and laugh at being a woman too. Because she had opened up about her thing he felt he could talk about what had happened with Barton.
"Fuck Barton," she said and he laughed.
"Effort not far away now," she said.
"No, not far."
Sophie took her hand and gripped her right wrist, a symbol for love in the prison. When a couple got married they were handcuffed together. Tag returned the gesture. Getting married, he wanted it too but it didn't really seem possible. Still when he looked into her eyes...
"Soon," he said.
The buzzer went off all too soon indicating that it was time to go. The Trustys arrived and started clearing them all out, they were further from the door so had a precious extra few seconds. Sophie leaned forward, put her lips to the glass and closed her eyes. He did the same. After the kiss he thought he could taste her, but it must have been in his mind.
“Goodbye sweet man,” she said.
“Goodbye, Sophie."
He watched as she was led away by a female Trusty. Into a world of women where he could never follow.
10.
Tag felt on top of the world, as he always did after seeing Sophie. He walked to the Chief’s office, feeling good about the day ahead.
The Chief was there but Brian was nowhere to be seen. He wondered if the lesson had been cancelled.
“Sit down,” the Chief said.
He had done something wrong, he could feel it in his bones. The Chief was polishing an old badge with a cloth and he kept on working as he spoke.
“I heard an interesting report,” he said, “from one of Brian’s teachers. He was acting out a scene and getting all the other kids riled up. Some crap about fighting aliens.”
He had images of himself as Winston in room 101, the rat being lowered into the cage.
“Oh really?”
“Yes. Where do you think he got an idea like that? It certainly isn’t in any of the books I gave him.”
“I’m not sure, Sir,” Tag said, trying to keep the quiver out of his voice.
“Because when I asked him, he told me you read it to him. Why
would he say that?”
“Oh, that’s right I did tell him a story, Sir, but it was one I made up.”
The Chief didn’t say anything but his eyes burned into Tag like two grey lasers.
“Well, not made up, exactly. More like remembered and made up the rest. I have a good imagination.”
The Chief put down the cloth.
“You’d be wise not to treat me like a fool, Chris.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Your tutelage of Brian will cease until further notice, is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That will be all.”
He took his eyes off Tag and went back to his polishing. Tag looked towards Brian’s room and then at the badge. It gleamed under the bright lights.
~
Tag paced the corridors, unable to comprehend what was taking place. Yesterday his life had been in order, now he was royally fucked.
He found his way back to his cell, hoping lying down and mulling it over would help. He rolled from side to side on his cot, unable to get comfortable. Something felt wrong with the mattress.
He got off and checked underneath. His books were gone. There was a note where the books had been "Reading is a Crime. See you after Assembly. Barton." A terrible truth came into view.
He would get his second strike and be punished at that night's Assembly. Tag lay crumpled on the floor next to his bed. He searched for options on the ceiling, on the walls. There were none.
~
11.
At the Assembly that night Tag sat in a special area near the stage. He was the only man to be punished that night so he sat by himself, his guilt writ large. He could see why the Chief left the punishments till last. It gave the condemned time to imagine their punishment. He couldn't remember if he had told anyone that he was afraid of fire. He hoped not.
The Chief held his record up for the crowd. There were two black Xs next to his name.
"Christopher Anderson, you have been found guilty. You have the right to be punished. It is right that you should feel guilt for what you have done and fear for what will be done to you."
The Earth is My Prison Page 3