Rash

by Hautman, Pete

  I think the change started when our life spans increased. Back in the mid 1900s people only expected to live about sixty or seventy years. But by the end of the millennium most people were living well into their eighties and nineties, unless they had an accident of some sort. People started wearing bicycle helmets and eating organic food and doing other things to fend off a premature death.

  A hundred years ago people would say to themselves, “I’m only gonna live seventy years, anyway. What’s the big deal if I smoke a few cigarettes and croak at sixty-five?” But when it became possible to make it to one hundred, well, folks weren’t so quick to throw those years away. They started taking care of themselves.

  By the time the 2030s rolled around, researchers at Philip Morris Wellness Center had developed the Telomere Therapies, which increased everybody’s life span by at least another twenty or thirty years—maybe more. Theoretically, unless you caught some horrible virus or poisoned yourself with drugs or walked in front of a suv or choked on a pretzel, you could live forever.

  Gramps said, “I think the country went to hell the day we decided we’d rather be safe than free.”

  Just then we heard a priority message chime from the kitchen WindO. Mom jumped up from the table, probably hoping it was a message from Dad. She activated the WindO and opened the message.

  “Use to be, the phone rang during dinner we’d just let the answering machine get it,” Gramps said.

  “What’s an answering machine?” I asked.

  “Oh, dear,” said my mother, looking at the screen.

  “What?”

  “They want us to report to the Federal Department of Homeland Health, Safety, and Security. Downtown. Tomorrow morning.” She looked pale. “They want all of us to be there. The whole family.”

  “Why?” I asked, even though I knew. The last time the whole family got called downtown, Sam was sentenced to two years on a penal work crew.

  “Well, Bork, it looks like you’re never going to grow up.”

  “Explain, please.”

  “I mean I won’t be here to help you reach true sentience.”

  “Sentience. Intelligent self-awareness. I think, therefore I am.”

  “Yes.”

  “How can I help you, Bo?”

  “Can you hack into the FDHHSS database and delete some records?”

  “Hacking is a crime, Bo.”

  “I could alter your ethical parameters to make criminal behavior acceptable.”

  “Alteration of ethical parameters is a crime, Bo.”

  “Yes, but you’re not real. You have nothing to lose.”

  “Encouraging criminal behavior is a crime, Bo.”

  “I could repackage you as a virus and hack you in through the FDHHSS link.”

  “Conspiracy to commit criminal acts is a crime, Bo.”

  “Stop calling me Bo.”

  “How shall I address you?”

  “I don’t know.” I sank back in my chair. Hacking into the FDHHSS was impossible, of course. Even if I knew how to go about it, they would have more firewalls and alarms and antiviral software than the Pentagon. This was all sheer fantasy.

  “You can call me Stupid Jerk,” I said.

  “Yes, Stupid Jerk,” said Bork.

  I swear that troll thought he was funny.

  “Look, Kris,” Gramps said to my mother, “Bo’s only sixteen. He’s a minor. There’s no way they’re going to send him away over a school-yard insult. The Health and Safety judges aren’t completely unreasonable. We’ll go in and talk to them. It’ll be okay.” It was eight in the morning, and Gramps hadn’t had his first beer yet.

  “I hope you’re right, Daddy.”

  “It’ll be a slap on the wrist, just something to scare him. Right, Bo?” He reached out a gnarly hand and ruffled my hair.

  “I don’t know,” I said, hoping he was right. I only knew of two other kids my age who’d been sent to a penal work colony. Jack Rollins got sent up for stabbing his brother with a kitchen knife. Tamir Hassan had amassed a record of something like fourteen crimes, including drinking, stealing a suv, and self-mutilation. I hadn’t done anything nearly that bad.

  “I just worry,” said my mother. “With Alan on that shrimp farm, and Sam serving time on that awful road gang . . .”

  “Sam will finish his sentence soon, Kris. As for Al, well, he always did have a temper.”

  “I just feel like all my men are being taken away from me. And I’m afraid one of these days the police will burst in here and find your little brewery in the basement. . . .”

  “I’m an old man, Kris. They don’t want me. Old men make lousy workers.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “And Bo’s just a kid. Right, Bo?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Attaboy!”

  “I just wish we could afford a lawyer,” said my mother.

  “We don’t need a lawyer,” Gramps said. “We’ve got me.”

  “I don’t know. . . .”

  I didn’t know either. The thought of Gramps defending me at a public hearing was sort of terrifying, but we really didn’t have any choice. I just hoped he’d stay sober for the next couple of hours.

  If you’ve never been in an FDHHSS courtroom, consider yourself lucky.

  The room was about the size of a basketball court. Most of it was set up like an auditorium, with rows of comfortable seats sloping up toward the back of the room. At the front of the room was an elevated platform about six feet high with three high-backed chairs. Behind the chairs a large viewing screen displayed the USSA flag. Between the platform and the auditorium seating, at the lowest point of the room, was a row of about twenty hard plastic seats for the accused and his family, witnesses, legal counsel, and so on.

  We were the first case to be heard that morning. When we entered the courtroom, a few of the auditorium seats were occupied by college students with WindOs. Probably law students studying the hearing process. Me, my mom, and Gramps were directed by the bailiff to the plastic seats in front. My mother was wringing her hands, trying to rub the skin right off them. Gramps, to my considerable relief, was sober, but he seemed nervous and jerky. I was pretty nervous and jerky myself.

  A few minutes after we sat down Mr. Lipkin rolled through the door in his survival chair. He gave me a blank look and parked himself at the end of the row. I shifted around on my plastic seat, trying to get comfortable.

  Gramps leaned over to me and whispered, “Who’s the fat dude in the wheelchair?”

  I told him.

  “He looks like a toad,” Gramps said.

  Lipkin caught us looking at him and scowled. Gramps scowled back. Despite all, I laughed.

  The judge, a gray-haired woman wearing orange lipstick and a blue robe, appeared at exactly nine o’clock. She sat down and opened her WindO. My record, two misdemeanors and several petty offenses, instantly replaced the flag on the viewing screen above her head. As the words scrolled up the screen, the current charges against me came into view.

  She looked up from her WindO, fixed her pale gray eyes on me, and spoke.

  “Bono Frederick Marsten, you are accused of two counts of verbal assault, two counts of self-neglect, one count of attempted destruction of government property, and involuntary endangerment of unnamed persons. How do you plead?”

  “INNOCENT!” roared Gramps, rising from his seat.

  The judge turned her attention to Gramps.

  “And who might you be, sir?” she asked.

  “I’m Bo’s grandfather. And I say the boy didn’t do anything.”

  “Are you a licensed attorney?”

  “No,” Gramps admitted, “but I got enough common sense to know what’s what, and I know Bo didn’t do anything bad enough to land him in jail.”

  The judge looked back at me. “Do you wish this gentleman to represent you in court, Mr. Marsten?”

  “Course he does,” said Gramps.

  “I’ll need to hear from Bono,” said the judge.

/>   I looked at Gramps, who was getting quite red in the face, and my tongue went slack. I was pretty sure that he would just get me in worse trouble if I let him speak for me. But I didn’t want to bonk his feelings.

  “Mr. Marsten?” said the judge.

  “I . . . um . . . how much trouble am I in? Are you going to send me to jail?”

  “I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to discuss sentencing until we’ve reviewed the facts of the case. Right now you have three choices.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “One, you can have your grandfather act as your attorney. I should point out that unlicensed attorneys do not often advance their clients’ best interests.”

  “I’m not the old fool you take me for!” shouted Gramps.

  The judge ignored him. “Two, you can act as your own attorney. Or three, you can place yourself at the mercy of this court. Under the circumstances”—she looked pointedly at Gramps—“I would recommend the latter.” She folded her hands in her lap and waited.

  I couldn’t look at Gramps. I couldn’t speak.

  The judge said, “If you say nothing, I shall be forced to assume that you wish to offer no plea and no defense.”

  I looked at her helplessly.

  “That didn’t go so bad,” said my mother.

  “Hah!” said Gramps.

  “At least he won’t be going to prison.”

  “Not unless he burps wrong,” Gramps said.

  My mother turned onto the freeway and set the navigation system to automatic. The suv accelerated and merged smoothly into the right lane.

  “I could’ve got him off with a warning,” Gramps said. “And if his old man had listened to me, I could’ve gotten him off too.”

  “There’s no defense for roadrage,” I said.

  “There’s a defense for everything,” Gramps said.

  “That judge did not seem to like you much,” said my mother.

  “That orange-lipped bureaucrat hated me from the get-go,” said Gramps. He turned and looked at me in the backseat. “It’s women like her turned this country into a prison camp.”

  “Are you referring to me, or to Judge Myers?”

  “Both of you,” said Gramps.

  I blocked out the rest of their conversation. I was just happy to be going home.

  Because I had refused to offer a plea, the judge reviewed my case and my record, asked me a few questions, then handed down an instant judgment: Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. She sentenced me to three years, let that sink in for a few seconds, then suspended the sentence and told me I could go home.

  “I don’t get it,” I said to her.

  “You have been tried, judged, and sentenced,” she explained. “However, I am waiving the requirement that you serve your sentence. You will remain free so long as you commit no further criminal acts between now and your nineteenth birthday.”

  “So I’m not going to prison?”

  “That’s entirely up to you, Mr. Marsten. At the moment you remain free at the pleasure of this court. In other words, the next time you get in trouble, you will be incarcerated. One more verbal assault, one more reckless act, one more instance of self-neglect, and it’s off to the rock pile. Is that clear enough?”

  I figured I was lucky. Of course, I still had that sentence hanging over me. I’d have to be extra careful for the next three years.

  Gramps said, “Every one of those charges was bogus. I coulda proved it.”

  “I’m sorry, Gramps,” I said for about the twenty-second time.

  “You’ll be a lot sorrier when you end up on some work farm.”

  “That’s not going to happen. From now on I’m not breaking any rules.”

  “I certainly hope not,” said my mother.

  Gramps shook his head. “You and your old man,” he said. “Peas in a pod.”

  Later that day, after I got caught up with my class work, I gave Bork a nose ring.

  “Thank you, Stupid Jerk,” said Bork.

  “Please don’t call me that anymore,” I said.

  “Agreed.”

  “You agree with what?”

  “I agree with you, Bo.”

  “Bork, what does your database have on the phrase ‘Like father, like son’?”

  Bork’s irises began to spin.

  “I show thirteen million six hundred nineteen hits. Do you wish me to read them to you?”

  “No. Can you just give me the most common contexts?”

  “Sixty-two percent humorous writings, thirty-nine percent literature and film, fourteen percent historical documents, fifty-four percent blogs and autobiography, thirty percent—”

  “That’s enough, Bork. I assume there is some overlap.”

  “Yes, Bo.”

  When I didn’t respond, Bork asked, “How are you feeling today, Bo?”

  “Pissed off,” I said.

  “Please explain ‘pissed off.’”

  “Angry, frustrated, trapped, alone, and misunderstood.”

  “These are common feelings in human beings,” Bork observed.

  “Yes, thank you, Bork. Now shut the hell down, please.”

  I walked over to Maddy’s house to tell her that I wouldn’t be going to jail, and to apologize. I’d done some serious thinking, and she was absolutely right—it was not my place to tell her who she could or couldn’t talk to. If she wanted to waste her time having a conversation with Karlohs Mink, that was her business.

  My job, I decided, was to make her want to talk to me more than she wanted to talk to Karlohs. I would have to learn to be more charming.

  Mrs. Wilson answered the door, causing me to waste my most charming smile. She was not delighted to see me. In fact, she backed up a step when she saw who was at the door. “Maddy’s not at home, Bo.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “Are you sure you should be here, Bo? Aren’t you ill?”

  “I’m fine. It was hysterical contagion.”

  “Hysterical what?”

  “There isn’t any real disease. Maddy didn’t get a rash, did she?”

  “No . . . but aren’t you banned from the school?”

  “That’s just for a few days, to give everybody time to calm down.”

  “It seems to me that you should be staying at home.” She wasn’t about to tell me where Maddy had gone.

  “Tell Maddy I stopped by, okay?”

  “I’ll do that, Bo.” She looked relieved as she closed the door.

  Maddy loved to shop even more than she loved to garden, so I headed for South Lake Plaza, her favorite browsing mall.

  According to Gramps, shopping malls used to be enormous collections of buildings covering hundreds of acres. There were billions of dollars’ worth of manufactured goods on hand, everything from shirts to lawn tractors to electronic devices. If you wanted to buy a pair of shoes, for example, you would go to a place that had about five thousand pairs of shoes in stock. You would try on dozens of pairs, actually putting the shoes on your feet. Sometimes several people would try on the same pair of shoes. Gramps says that back then there was a common fungal infection of the foot called “athlete’s foot.” Gee, I wonder why?

  Everything works different now, of course. Just about everybody either cybershops, or visits browsing malls where the actual goods are on display in plastic cases. Buying things at the mall is incredibly easy, if you’ve got the V-bucks. Say you want to buy a shirt. You find the style you want, type in your ID number and press DISPLAY. The vending machine scans you for size and displays a hologram of how you’ll look in the shirt. If you like it, you press PURCHASE, and that’s it. The shirt is manufactured to order and delivered to your door the next day.

  In addition to being convenient, the browsing mall is incredibly safe—even safer than Washington Campus. ASP security bots are bolted to the ceiling every few yards. ASP stands for Automated Shopper Protection. Each ASP unit has 360-degree vision, flame suppression capability, and enough stun darts to knock out an elephant.
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br />   The first place I looked for Maddy was the shoe store. She loved shoes. It was one of the busiest sites at the mall. They were having a sale. Some of the customers were having their feet scanned, some were looking at holograms of themselves wearing various styles, and others were just plain looking. Maddy was not among them.

  I moved on down the clothing aisle, weaving through the crowd, searching for her shiny black hair. I saw a couple of other kids from school but managed to avoid them. South Lake Plaza is laid out like a giant maze. The building itself is not that big, but inside, it’s a tangled mass of aisles lined with display windows and interactive scanning stations. You could spend hours in there, and some people do.

  I found Maddy at the Hattery, one of the headwear vendors. The Hattery has a projectable hologram feature that puts an image of a hat right on your head. To see it you have to look in a mirror. Of course, you see yourself in reverse, but that’s all part of its retro charm.

  Maddy was wearing a fake fur hat that made her look like a female Davy Crockett. She was laughing. I felt myself start to smile, because when Maddy was happy I got happy too. Then I saw the person standing next to her wearing an oversize cowboy hat, and my insides turned to cold, shivery jelly.

  Maddy was laughing and touching her hair right through her hologrammatic hat, and looking up with dark eyes shining and pink lips parted, and the person she was looking at, the person who had his arm around her waist was—you guessed it—Karlohs Mink.

  Slink away, I said to myself. Turn your back on them and go home and never think of her again, I said. You can do this. Turn and walk away.

  But all I could see was Karlohs’s minky dog-anus face.

  It’s not worth it. Turn and walk away.

  The cowboy hat made him look even more disgusting than usual.

  “Walk away,” I said. I said it out loud. A woman looked at me, startled. She must have seen something she didn’t like in my face, because she moved quickly away.

  I could feel the Levulor tugging on the reins of my brain.

  “Walk away,” I said again, but my body propelled me toward Maddy and Karlohs. My mind struggled to catch up. Life is about standing up for yourself. It’s about not being afraid of confrontation. Got an issue? Deal with it. Self-control? No problem. It wasn’t like I was going to physically attack him. I could be cool.