Hunger, thirst, pain and degradation took their toll. By sunset Theo hung like a dead thing, insensible to anything around him. The evening was similar to the night before, except he was nearly raped by a drunkenly aggressive youth who was finally dragged away by a buddy who hissed, “You want people thinkin’ you’re a fag?” and managed to lead him off down the street.
Deep in the night voices stirred his consciousness. It was the kids again. They were sitting against the building where he couldn’t see them. He listened wearily for a few minutes then decided they weren’t talking about or to him, so he let his head drop. Nightmare shreds of thoughts slid around in his mind, eluding his concentration. But he still heard them.
“But why do we have to leave the basement?” Sissy implored.
“Because we gotta keep moving,” Surgeon answered. “The VO cops will find us. We’ll find another place. It’ll be even better,” he told her.
“You don’t want the VO’s to getcha,” Curt said teasing.” They’ll send you to the orphanage.”
“The work house,” Winnie’s cynical voice corrected.
“Yeah, they’ll sew your lips together,” Curt said, pushing it.
“But then I couldn’t eat!” Sissy objected.
“Not those lips.” Curt’s shocking venom took Theo’s breath away.
“Curt!” Surge barked. “Cut it out.”
“It’s true. They don’t want ‘em to breed more poor people so they sew ‘em up.”
“That’s crap. They might tie their tubes. It’s standard surgery,” he added, half to himself. Theo’s curiosity was piqued. That had sounded . . . almost like . . . someone rubbing a favorite stone. He wondered how Surgeon had got his name.
They were quiet then, and Theo faded.
Even when the crisp, bright workday broke with the bustle of commerce all around, he didn’t come to. When a fender-bender crashed at the corner right behind him and the tail-gating car’s headlight exploded shooting slivers of glass at him, he didn’t stir. There was a brief confusion of pedestrians at the scene, then they sorted themselves out and moved on. If anyone noticed the Debtor bleeding from a dozen needles of glass in his back, no one commented or did anything about it.
* * *
So he was not a prime specimen when Jennifer Skoada spotted him as she drove her produce truck from the Old Market toward the 13th Street on-ramp. The bizarre sight made her quickly find a parking slot and walk back for a second look.
She stood in front of the pillory reading the Court’s notice and chewing at a thumbnail. She circled the prisoner, eyeing him appraisingly but half-attentively. Finally she stood in front of him again, murmuring to herself.
“A thousand bucks? I could do that. What would the projected value come to . . . it might work.” She checked her watch. The Courthouse would still be open. She leaned forward and lifted his head with a gentle pull under the chin. “You alive, pal?” His eyes opened and rolled back. “Well, hang in there, I may be getting you out of this.”
Feeling reckless, she pushed the judge’s clerk a little bit about Theo’s projected value. “But he was a store owner, too, wasn’t he?”
“Not really. Manager, say.”
“But either way, he can do books and ordering and inventory, make change, deal with the public. That’s worth more than just farm labor.”
The clerk cocked a sour eye at her, but added a few percentage points to the total anyway. Under his breath he muttered, “You’re lucky you’re pretty,” but he wouldn’t repeat it when Jennifer challenged him, having heard him perfectly.
“So what’s the total?” she asked anxiously.
“Six hundred sixty-five thousand, eight hundred eight dollars. That’s at $5.82 an hour, 2080 hours per year, 55 years to age 80. Of course, you own him till he dies, unless you sell him, and of course there’s nothing to keep you down to 2080 hours of work a year. But that’s just the formula we have to use.”
Jennifer wanted to squeal and jump up and down. Added to the $400,000 her truck farm and house were worth, that put her safely over the million dollar mark. She signed the prelim commitment form and wrote down the court date. “The day after tomorrow,” she sang in her head, “I’m free! I’m free!”
“Make sure they clean him up and put some clothes on him,” she told the clerk.
“Standard issue,” was his bored reply.
* * *
Standard issue was walking him through the gang shower with all the other miscreants and giving him a pair of cast-off surgical pants with the drawstring waist, and a pair of paper prison booties. Nothing else. In the courtroom two days later Theo stood manacled hand and foot, the too-large scrubs hanging low on his hips, and he listened dully to what the Judge was telling him.
“. . . the sentence of public pillory having been carried out, the statutes dictate the next step in this process is either transport to the nearest Federal penitentiary or the sale of the offender if anyone wants to buy him. In your case, Theodore Dahl, there is a purchaser who has come forward. Miss—ah—Skoada. Is she here?”
Jennifer stepped up to the Judge’s bench. “That’s me, Your Honor.”
“Your preliminary commitment form says you have agreed to pay Mr. Fred Slitter’s asking price of $1,000. Do you have it with you?”
“Yes.” She handed him the envelope and as the Judge thumbed through the stack of twenties, she glanced at Theo, inert by her side. He was staring at a nonexistent place near the floor.
There were deep purple trenches under his eyes. Heavy bruises recorded the punishment his shoulder joints had taken in the pillory, and a smattering of smaller scratches and bruises were mementos of Surgery’s half-pint brigade. The glass nicks in his back were scabbed.
“It’s all here,” the Judge intoned, and Fred stepped smartly up to the bench to receive the money. “Mr. Slitter, you and your attorney may start signing papers. Miss Skoada, I have a short list of things I am required to tell Mr. Dahl in your presence.”
He turned to Theo. “Under the Debt Adjustment Act of 2005 and by the authority of the District Court of Omaha, I hereby remove all rights of citizenship of the United States of America from your person until such time as you are able to repay the debt you owe in the amount of $126,015 in the form of unpaid rent on the agricultural land, home and outbuildings, back to the year 1975, and $129,881 owed to various agricultural implement, chemical and seed vendors listed herein.” The Judge was reading from a writ.
“The transaction effected here today places your person under the ownership of Miss Jennifer Skoada until these debts are paid or she chooses to sell you to another party. Do you follow this so far?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In effect, Mr. Dahl, legally you do not exist. You have no rights. Not to vote, not to legal representation, not to own property, not to live where you please, none. The U.S. Constitution no longer applies to you. From today onward Miss Skoada decides what you will do, when and where and how you will do it. You must be very sure you understand this, Mr. Dahl, for the penalty for behaving otherwise will be quite severe. I believe that last night in your cell the officer demonstrated the capabilities of the tethering device implanted in your neck?”
Theo’s “Mm-hm” was barely audible. Jennifer stared at him in alarm. They’d already used that thing on him?
“Your Honor,” she said, “This demonstration, you called it—had he done something wrong?”
“No, Miss Skoada. It’s policy for the corrections officers to demonstrate it once to the prisoner, for the benefit of the person who will purchase him. That way, in most cases, further use of the device is unnecessary. Ah—here’s the officer now with your control unit. You see it’s quite convenient, you strap it on like a watch, or you can put it in a pocket. Until Mr. Dahl has completely proven his trustworthiness and docility I advise wearing it on your wrist. You have already told the officer the effective range you need on the unit?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I own 40 acres, a perfect
square, and 1867 feet is the diagonal length of it. I can be in the barn and have him working in the far corner field with no problem . . .”
“That would be enough for him to roam around on neighboring property.”
“I thought that was what the ‘Admonishments’ button was for,” she said. “He wouldn’t do it twice, and now that you’ve already given him a taste of it I don’t expect him to do it once.”
“Very well. Mr. Slitter, are the papers in order?”
Jennifer signed her portion of the papers and the judge stamped them, said “Good day to you,” nodding to Slitter and Jennifer and swept away to his chambers.
Slitter and his attorney sauntered out. Fred sent Theo one last contemptuous sneer. Jennifer watched him, then turned to her new property.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and she led him out of the courtroom and out of the building. Once on the sidewalk she let him catch up and walk alongside. Passers-by stared, until they saw the bandage on his neck and the paper booties, then they hurried past. In the shadows of the buildings the breeze was cold. Barely clothed, Theo’s skin was all gooseflesh.
“We have to get you some clothes,” she told him.
She left the truck running with the heater on while she went into the Wheeler’s store to buy his clothes. Theo just sat, numb. She came out with an oversized bag, stuffed and lumpy.
She gave it to him. You can get dressed in here,” she said, pulling out of the parking lot. “We’re up high enough, nobody can see.” She guided the truck through heavy traffic, making for the Interstate west.
Theo pulled underwear and socks out of the sack. He kicked off the jail booties and put on the socks, then peeled off the scrubs. Jennifer shot a glance over, saw he was naked, yanked her gaze back to the road. He looked so defeated, resigned, that pity crushed any nervous embarrassment she might have felt.
He got the blue jeans and flannel shirt and sneakers on and sat back as though he needed a rest.
“What’s the matter? You look worse now than when I first saw you.”
He didn’t answer. She looked again and it struck her that he’d lost some weight in the past couple of days, too. “Have they fed you?”
He shook his head.
“For Christ’s sake! What kind of bastards are they—”
“Taxpayers don’t like coddling criminals,” he said, matter-of-factly.
She swung into a MacDonald’s just outside of Omaha and ordered at the drive-through. She parked off in a corner and handed him two sandwiches, large fries and malt. The familiar smells filled the cab of the truck. He unwrapped a hamburger.
She bit hungrily into hers but stopped chewing mid-bite when she realized he was crying, silently, tears running down his face.
“Hey, what’s the matter? Oh, sorry, I guess that’s the year’s dumbest question. Look, don’t worry, okay? You’re gonna be all right with me. I need you for my farm, I’m not going to abuse you. You’ll like it, my farm. I’ve got a room all fixed up for you. It’s real nice out there. Please—try not to feel so bad, okay?”
He’d turned to face the window when she’d started talking. Now he faced her. “You got something you want me to call you? Like Miss Skoada, or Mistress or something?” Without a trace of humor, and that made her acutely uncomfortable.
“No! No—nothing like that. Just call me Jennifer, of course. Geez, ‘Mistress,’ why would I want that?”
He looked at her carefully and realized that she was very young, and plenty naive. “Excuse me for asking, but are you sure you know what you’ve gotten into, buying me?”
“Why?” Suddenly apprehensive. “What are you going to try?”
“Nothing. It’s just that—you do realize, I have to ask you stuff like what to call you? What job to do next, and how to do it, and how soon? When to go to bed, when to get up? What to eat, when to eat, how much to eat? How I should act with your friends and customers? I’m not just an employee, you know. You’ve got my life in that gizmo on your wrist. Do you know what that little yellow button does? Did they show you films of what it does? No? Too bad. And the red one with the little cap over it—that one will blow off my head. I don’t want to piss you off, Jennifer, not ever.”
The half-swallowed bite of burger felt like a wad of newspaper in her throat. She hadn’t thought of any of those things. She wriggled uncomfortably in her seat.
“Look,” she began, and made herself meet his eyes. “I didn’t do this because I want to be mean to somebody. I’m twenty-four years old. I turn twenty-five in December. Both my folks are dead. You know what that means. At 25, if I don’t have a million dollars in assets, I either have to get married to anyone who’ll have me, or they take everything I own and send me to one of their religious service orders.
“My farm’s worth about four hundred Kay. The only guy who wants to marry me, I don’t even want to think about. You’ll meet him, you’ll see. When I saw you downtown, and what Slitter was asking for you, it gave me another possibility. With the Clerk of Court’s projected valuation on your services, I got a good $65,000 over the million dollar mark. I was desperate. All I could think of was that by buying you, I could be free.”
Those last words hung heavily in the truck’s cab. She wished she hadn’t said them, but Theo didn’t react in any way.
“I’m sorry,” she said, mauling her sandwich in embarrassment. “That was really insensitive.”
He shook his head. “You don’t owe me any apologies. You don’t owe me anything. It’s the other way around, isn’t it. You saved me from a lifetime of busting rocks by day and servicing horny cons by night.”
She blanched. “Oh, God.”
Suddenly, ridiculously, he felt sorry for her. “Well, what is it I’ll be doing? What kind of farm you got?”
She smiled. “Right now it’s pumpkins.” She glanced at him shyly and was delighted to see him smile for the first time.
“Really? Pumpkins?”
“Yeah. I do strawberries in the spring, then herbs and carrots and things during the summer, then sweet corn, and now pumpkins. I really need help right now. The next three or four weeks are big ones for me. I use the Halloween profits to make the quarterly taxes on the place. We’ve got a Come’N’Pick weekend coming and I have to get the displays built and clean up the field so it looks neat, and find a store or something that’ll take what we don’t sell then. I’ve also got a hog to slaughter and package for my own freezer. And my kitchen garden’s winding down, there’s a ton of work to do there—it’s a lot of outdoor work, long days. I can’t do it on my own.”
He munched and watched her talking. She was pretty, and fine-boned, though her slim hands were rough and callused. Her eyes took on happy lights as she talked about her farm. She struck him as a peculiar mixture of tough and vulnerable.
“Sounds like we ought to get a move-on, then,” he said, and dug into his second burger. “Thanks for lunch,” he added.
She flushed. “Don’t thank me for feeding you.”
“Why not? It’s been a long, long time between meals. I’m grateful.”
She said fiercely, “Godammit, you’re still a human being.” But she saw his eyes graze the control unit on her wrist and she felt a yawning gulf between them that couldn’t be crossed.
* * *
“Come in, I’ll show you your room.” The house was old, two-story white clapboard. The porch boards sagged comfortably and the screen door into the kitchen screeched just the way a screen door should. Theo started feeling better.
“It was my mom’s sewing room,” she said. “That’s why all the flowers.”
Theo dropped the sack of clothes on the candlewick bedspread and looked around. The window was dressed with bright yellow-and-green flowered café curtains and the crocheted rug was a sunflower. There was an oak dresser, an oak rocker and a walnut night stand with a bookshelf on the bottom. The closet was tiny.
“The bathroom’s next door . . .”
Theo smiled at her. “Th
is is really nice. I figured, when they said ‘farm,’ I’d be sleeping in the barn.”
Jennifer gritted her teeth and pointedly ignored that.
“There are boots in the sack. We might as well get to work.”
* * *
She gave him a machete and wheel barrow, set him to cutting down the drying corn stalks standing in rows among the pumpkins, and wheeling them to a big compost pit dug behind the barn. He was surrounded by orange globes of all sizes, ripening in the afternoon sun. The infinite blue sky was cloudless and the cool breeze sweet. The physical work felt good, even in his sore shoulders.
She did carpentry up on the big driveway in front of the house. He looked up there once in awhile to see how she was doing. She was putting together a market stand, obviously a break-down that she stored in sections between sales events.
By nightfall the stand was completed and she’d hung a wide muslin banner across the front that said “Skoada’s Halloween Come’N’Pick.” She called to Theo to come in and eat.
He trudged up to the house, sweaty, worn-out, and coated with dust and little seeds. He’d taken off the flannel shirt and tied the arms around his waist, and the new white T-shirt was soaked with sweat, streaked with dirt. She grinned at him.
“I’ll forage for food; you get cleaned up. How far’d you get?”
“Only about a third done.”
“That’s good, for an afternoon. You’re a lot faster than the hired guy I had. And he was stealing me blind.”
When he emerged clean and clothed in more new clothes, he found the kitchen table set with cold roast, hunks of cheese, fruit and homemade bread sliced for sandwiches.
“Wow.”
“Sit. Eat. You can have two and seven-sixteenths sandwiches.” Her eyes gleamed, daring and nervously hoping he saw the intended joke.
He smiled in spite of himself. “Yes, ma’am. I’m hungry, that’s for sure. It’s been a few years since I worked on Dad’s place. You don’t earn much of an appetite pushing books.”
The Strangers of Kindness Page 2