The interviewer was trying to be friendly yet controversial but came across simply as blunt. “Do you find it troubling some critics have pointed to Bio-Justice and—”
Conlan quickly interjected. “Please, don’t use—”
“Sorry. Do you find it troubling that some are calling Premium Sentencing inhumane?”
Conlan looked irritated by the question. “Are these the same people who walk down the corridors of our federal and state prisons, by our maximum security cells, week after week, year after year, as a caged man rots before our eyes?”
“Then you do see it as a moral issue—”
“As a scientist, my purpose is to contribute to the expansion of scientific knowledge. I’m not about to debate whether mankind will take that knowledge and do itself harm. That is irrelevant to me. Let others find the wisdom to use it for the good of humanity.”
The interviewer curled his index finger and pressed it to his pursed lips. “Well, isn’t the point of expanding scientific knowledge, to serve mankind? I mean, if we had the scientific means to graft a monkey’s head onto a pig’s body, why would we do it? Doesn’t science owe it to mankind to pursue the knowledge that contributes to a more humane society?”
“Isn’t it the quality and not the quantity that we aspire to in our lives?” Conlan ventured. “Why do we insist that putting a man in a box for forty years is a good thing? Is it because then we don’t have to see what we’re doing to another human being? Stash him in a dark place out of sight where he doesn’t interfere with our four star bistros and our Sunday night bowling leagues?”
“Hmm. Well, let’s go back for a moment and lay the foundation for our viewers. How does the Bio-Justice procedure work?”
“In layman’s terms, the subject—in this case, the criminal—is introduced to compounds which act as an accelerator of cell development. The subject is then exposed to a high spectrum light and depending on the intensity and duration the subject is exposed to that light, we can excise precisely, like a surgeon, the number of years from the subject.”
The reporter leaned in. “Do you fear that some of these individuals will go through Premium Sentencing and not be able to cope? I mean, there must be a terrible psychological burden these “processees” are faced with.”
“That is not what our reports are concluding. Our figures show an encouraging percentage of processees making tremendous progress back into society. You know, the program isn’t just the transformative part which receives all the headlines. Part of the program involves orientation, psychological support, time adjustment therapies. We’re not just dropping these people off at bus stops to fend for themselves.”
The interviewer seemed tickled by Conlan’s moxie. “Well, I must say the latest CBS poll shows seventy-four percent of the country views Premium Sentencing favorably. Although I must add, they prefer the name ‘Bio-Justice’.”
Conlan smiled. “To each his own,” he said.
Paris scratched under his chin as he spoke back to the TV screen. “I just got one word for Dr. Conlan—genocide.”
The program then followed a convicted kidnapper named Dale Grimes who lost twenty-five years to Bio-Justice with the interviewer surprised at just how well adjusted the man was.
Paris looked over at Danny and shook his head. “Wow. Where did they dig up that motherfucker? Now that’s what you call a shill. I’m sure glad they’re offering up this propaganda for the consumption of the American public. And I’m sure it’s going down just fine.”
“Yeah,” Danny said, looking at the clock on his night stand. “Listen, it’s getting late. I’ll walk you to the subway.”
“Say, Danny,” Paris said awkwardly, “I was wondering whether I could stay here tonight. There’s nothing waiting up for me back in Queens.”
“Sure,” Danny said. “I’ll take the couch. You take my bed.”
“You’re too fucking nice,” Paris said, shaking his head, “but I’ll take it. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in days.”
It was a bitter cold December in New York. No snow, just freezing, punishing cold. Danny picked up a cheap overcoat at the thrift store, the same one he got his TV from. You never knew what kind of cooties the previous owner had so Danny had the coat dry cleaned, tearing off the plastic cover after receiving it back, and wore it home.
Paris had left Danny’s apartment with a newly realized scheme to pick up some money without acquiring new employment. Danny didn’t pry as the explanation was bound to lead to a conversation where he would be handing Paris some hard-earned bucks to tide him over.
Dr. Kelty left him another voice message requesting additional blood tests. This bastard was either moonlighting with the Red Cross blood bank or he was some kind of unquenchable vampire who would be haunting him for the rest of his life. He erased the message.
Danny hadn’t seen Maggie around for a few weeks so he was actually pleased when he heard her calling out to him a block from their building.
“Danny!”
He turned and saw Maggie wrestling with a small four and a half foot Christmas tree, trying to carry it down the street without dragging it. Danny jogged back to where she was and lifted the tree so it cleared the ground by a foot and a half. The branches wagged beneath his nose and he caught a whiff of fresh spruce pine.
“Are you OK?” Maggie asked.
He nodded, trying to make the task appear as effortless as possible. After all the debilitating assaults on his youth and body, it felt good to be called upon to perform a physical task as if it were a masculine duty. As Maggie opened the front door to the building, Danny carried the tree up the flights of stairs and finally, rested it on the carpet before her front door. When she opened the door, Maggie waved him inside and Danny grabbed the tree around its trunk and barreled into her living room.
After setting the tree down by the window where Maggie had requested it, Danny looked around the living room for it was the first time he had been inside her home. The apartment was spacious, much more so than Danny’s. Maggie had a one bedroom apartment with a dining room. What struck Danny most about the living room was its neatness, the precise way things were set and placed. No strewn clothes or old magazines about, dust was absent from all surfaces and the place looked recently painted and bright. Maggie’s furniture was old but well kept, vintage pieces you didn’t see around much anymore. Her television was an older model flat screen, a make someone younger would have replaced long ago. There was a vase with three pink Gerber daisies on the dining room table and a single white orchid in a bud vase atop an old oak sideboard. A real feminine touch, Danny thought.
“What do you think?” Maggie asked. “I want the people on the street to see my tree. In case they’re feeling a little down, they could look up and smile. That would make me happy.”
“You’re funny,” Danny said.
“You think so?” she asked, as if he had just given her a breezy compliment.
“You have a very nice place. I have a studio and it looks like a dump. I guess it’s all about the spirit that dwells within.”
“I just have a lot of time on my hands. Oh, I have a Christmas present for you,” she said.
Danny looked surprised, even a bit alarmed. “What?”
“Oh. It’s not like keys to a Ferrari,” Maggie said. “Just something I thought you might like.” She handed him a small wrapped box with a silver bow. “And no, I don’t expect you to get me anything. It really didn’t cost very much. But you were sweet the other day in the coffee shop.”
Danny shrugged and accepted the gift. His face, Maggie could see, had flushed slightly.
“I expect you to come by when I have my tree completely dressed,” she said.
“Maggie—you’re a nice lady.” And then Danny said something that confounded and intrigued Maggie to no end. “I hope Sonya turns out to be as nice as you are,” he said, “when she gets to be your age.”
Backing up to the front door, gift in hand, Danny waved to Maggie as he
left her standing next to the tree by the window.
CHAPTER 15
The next day, Paris left a message and Danny called him back. Before heading into work that evening, Danny agreed to accompany Paris to visit Art Finley who lived in Rego Park in Queens, a few stops away on the N line from Paris’ neighborhood. Over the phone, Danny and Paris had recalled some of the other men they met at the halfway house and Art’s name came up.
“Yeah,” Paris said. “I was in Rego Park and I saw him at the food market with his wife. I didn’t recognize him for shit but I guess Art has one of those photographic memories. He was pretty nice but his wife didn’t look all that happy to see me. Anyway, he gave me his address when his wife was at the meat counter and told me to look him up.”
Outside the N station, Danny felt the numbing of his hands from the bitter chill in the air. His breaths were frosted puffs. Paris, on the other hand, didn’t even button up his jacket.
Danny looked hesitant. “I don’t know. Should we drop in like this?”
“Please,” Paris muttered. “Anyway, I’m hungry and it’s almost lunchtime.”
The street in Queens Art Finley lived on was lined with row houses, split two story numbers with shared front and back yards, side by side entrances and the aesthetic appearance of two shoe boxes stuck together.
Art popped open the front door to his home and looked genuinely pleased to see Danny and Paris. “Hey, you dumb bastards, you found me! Come in before you let all the heat out.”
After wiping their shoes on the doormat, Danny and Paris entered, following Art as he walked through the small house. He introduced them to his wife Susan, a portly, pale-skinned woman with straight flaxen hair down her back, who was in the kitchen scrubbing down the porcelain sink.
Danny and Paris followed Art down some creaky steps into a basement room. It was a cozy sanctuary right out of Man-Cave Monthly with New York Giants jerseys on the wall, a large flat screen TV and a mini-fridge well stocked with Heinekens and Miller Lite.
Danny and Paris sat on an over-stuffed couch angled towards a brown leather recliner where Art lowered himself after retrieving beer for his guests and himself.
“So how’s your grandchild?” Art asked, leaning forward to slap Danny on his shoulder. “Just kidding. How’s fatherhood?”
“I love it. I didn’t realize how important he is to me.”
“And the wife?”
Paris could see Danny shift in discomfort and interjected, “Hey, enough with the interrogation.”
Danny held up his hand. “It’s OK,” he said to Paris. “We’re not married yet,” he explained to Art. “It’s a little complicated right now.”
Art sipped his Miller Lite and nodded. “I get it. Look it’s a little bit of a shock for the wives and the girlfriends…” His head nodded towards upstairs. “This one. I told you and the guys that if I sneezed, she would be there with a Kleenex to dab up the snot?”
“I remember,” Danny said.
“It used to be an adoring kind of thing, like she was the luckiest woman in the world to snag me. Anything she did for me was like an offering at the altar.” Art sighed heavily. “Now she sees me come back like this, things are different.”
Paris reacted curiously to the remarks and you could tell it was less about Art and more about himself. “She doesn’t want to do things for you?”
“Oh, she does everything for me. But now it’s a control thing, holding it over me, like how many women would have stuck with her man through this aging shit. Making me feel like she’s some kind of saint for doing it.”
“Well, you’ve got to give her credit—” Danny started to say.
“I don’t have to give her shit,” Art snapped. “Don’t you see, I’ve fallen off the pedestal—she doesn’t need me…I need her. And secretly, she hates me for it. And as I get older and weaker, she’ll get stronger until she chokes me with her fucking servitude.”
Danny shifted and leaned forward. “Art, I think you’re just upset…about everything.”
The basement door creaked open and Susan stood at the top of the steps watching the three for a lingering moment before interrupting. “Art, are your guests staying for lunch? I’ve got some sliced ham and egg salad for sandwiches. And Art, if you don’t like the crusts, just tell me and I’ll cut them off for you. Remember your indigestion. I’ll bring a bottle of the antacids just in case. And a little lemon tea.” She addressed Danny and Paris so as not to be rudely non-inclusive. “Ever since he came back, he’s stiff, so I have to bring everything over to him.”
And then Susan left and closed the door, leaving Art to raise an arched eyebrow in Danny’s direction. “Take it back.”
“OK,” Danny said, a small sympathetic smile bubbling forth.
Art took a napkin and wiped the moisture around the corners of his mouth. “Before they changed me, I was thirty-six years old. I used to listen to my old relatives—my Aunt Marie, my Uncle Lenny, the parents of my friends—and goddamn it if the only thing they could muster up for conversation was about their stiff joints and their bad bowel movements, comparing this doctor with that drug with this treatment. I told myself, if I ever got that old, I’d put a fucking gun to my head and make brain chowder.”
The intensity of his own words startled Art a little. “Now I have the body of a sixty-two year old man. I’m telling you, I would have been better off taking it up the ass every day.” He shook his head. “Listen. Time is the only fucking thing we get out of life.”
Paris balled up his fist. “Why don’t you leave her, man?”
Art looked at Paris unashamed. “Because I’m scared. I don’t have the confidence anymore. Where I fit in this whole fucking world has changed on me…and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Danny sat in his apartment, over his cup of instant coffee, thinking about what Art had said. Adoration had turned to contempt. The powerless had switched places and they treated their lovers with the same cruelty with which they had been treated. Was that the resistance coming from Sonya? Did Art just show Danny his own future? Now he was anxious to know. In a few more days he would be paid again and he would have enough saved to present to Sonya. He wished he hadn’t accompanied Paris to Queens for now he was allowed to see the template for disaster.
A soft, conscientious rap met his front door and Danny spied a small envelope being slid into his apartment. He slowly walked over and bent down to pick up the envelope. He turned it over and opened it. The envelope contained an invitation card with the short message:
You are invited to the unveiling of Maggie Linden’s Christmas tree at seven o’clock tonight, 16th of December. Dinner and drinks will be served.
Danny smiled as he returned the card to its envelope. Maggie was the only one who didn’t leave him feeling troubled. He felt grateful and looked forward to seven o’clock.
Maggie looked at the tree, the lights strung over its boughs sparkling red, green, yellow and blue. The glass ornaments were from her married days. Her husband James had picked out some of the nicest ones—he always had an eye for what would look good in the grand design. Maggie on the other hand would see an amazing ornament and rush to hang it on the tree, only to find it beautiful in its own self-contained way, as if it should require its own pedestal, away from the others sparkling together in harmony on the lush green branches. She missed James a lot, especially when there was no one to fill that void in her life that began the day James held his head in his trembling hand, fell to the ground in front of her, and never recovered. That was six years ago. James was only fifty-three and surprisingly fit when he died.
Maggie hated the word “widow” because it conjured images of a woman retreating to some cave where the townspeople would roll a heavy stone across its opening to keep her sealed away from human contact forever. But ironically, that is exactly what had happened. She had the curse of the widow slathered all over her. Men kept away; maybe they thought dates with her would consist of her weeping uncontrollably over
her loss and her desperate loneliness a burden they would have to carry if they came near. So Maggie got used to being alone. She grew to like it sometimes. Feeling independent and unrestricted had moments of exhilaration, but she also shivered with dread when she thought of a life without touch or intimacy or exclusive company. Sometimes, she felt she would go mad from being alone too much but most of the time she chided herself from aggrandizing her petty miseries. She had her part-time work at the medical center, helping patients fill out their forms. James’ pension had made it possible for her not to work full time. There were social clubs Maggie would attend sporadically—cooking, pottery, creative writing—but they were mostly attended by bored housewives or older single women who were even more depressed than she was.
And then, of course, there was her illness—that was a cruel one-two punch from God if there ever was one. She had survived it but didn’t know what she would do if a third punch came calling. Danny could be a third punch; so why did she feel so happy to be reckless? As she once wrote in her journal for the creative writing club, “Why are the best things in life always the things that can so easily destroy us?”
Danny was late. He knocked on Maggie’s door at seven-eighteen. Maggie opened the door and Danny came in. The tree shimmered by the window, all its lights aglow, the ornaments refracting light to create rainbows off one another. Danny smelled the heavy scent of pine as he entered and the room reminded him of some family setting that he never knew but only visited in his dreams. Maggie had a potted poinsettia on the sideboard next to a different orchid.
“Why, thank you for coming,” Maggie said, delivering the words like a reading from a holiday play.
“The tree looks beautiful, Maggie,” Danny said.
Maggie loved to hear Danny say her name. To hear her name meant that she existed to him. She led him into the dining room and asked him to have a seat. Soon, she brought out a roasted chicken with fingerling potatoes and blanched asparagus stalks. There were hot rolls and little dishes of black olives and cranberry sauce.
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