The End of Marking Time

by CJ West

  Charlotte nodded up and down, like I had to find my father to stop the little red light from glowing, but she couldn’t force me to do it. I said sure. What could it hurt?

  She gave me a clipboard with a paper, pointed to the X, and I signed it.

  “That brings me to one last thing,” she said. “Children.”

  “I don’t have any.”

  She looked at me funny and took a picture out of her folder.

  Melanie Michaud, that bitch. She’d talked to the cops while I was in a coma. How could she? Just like my mother—in it for the money.

  The picture Charlotte handed me wasn’t Melanie Michaud.

  I recognized her curly red hair instantly. I’d spent a week with Kathleen Fitzgerald before I’d hit the district attorney. Seeing her picture I felt like I should have gone back.

  Charlotte handed me a second picture. He was three years old, sliding down a red plastic slide in someone’s back yard. As I took the photo, I felt foolish for the glances I’d shot at her earlier. She’d known what she was about to reveal, maybe that’s why she kept her cool. Maybe she was just playing me and had no real attraction at all. Certainly, being a felon didn’t put me at the top of her list.

  “Jonathan,” Charlotte said. “Jonathan Fitzgerald. The DNA match was conclusive.” I’d been careful, but even without the DNA test, there was no doubting he had my square chin and stubby nose. I could almost see his mother’s green eyes, but the picture was too far away.

  The financial thing didn’t hit me right away. Sure, Charlotte was showing me the picture because she wanted me to help pay for little Jon’s care. I got that. After growing up with barely enough to eat, I had to help the little guy. It wasn’t a mix up. DNA tests don’t pick some random girl and it just happens she’s the last girl I slept with before I went up. No. It was my mistake not the computer’s.

  I thought about Kathleen. Was she different now that she was a mother? What would she expect from me?

  Charlotte passed me a card with Kathleen’s address and phone number in blue ink on the back. I had to see her and work things out. Once Kathleen and I agreed on how to take care of Jonathan, Charlotte would approve my release from the dreaded red light.

  How absurd? How hard did they think I’d work to turn off the little red light on that anklet? The folly was blocked by thoughts of Kathleen and Jon, what I’d find at their new address, and what they’d say when I came to see them.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I was overwhelmed. The physical therapy alone was a major strain. While I was learning to walk and talk and move, counselors streamed in, one after another, and told me things that completely upset my understanding of the world. I might have been able to digest the changes if they were spread out over a year, but they came so fast I could barely listen to everything the bureaucrats spouted off. I told them what they wanted to hear, even though I expected to be robbing houses as soon as I was out. I knew the government was going to great lengths to help me. It’s not like I didn’t appreciate it, but I couldn’t picture myself at a mindless job day after day. Sure, I would have been proud to have a legitimate job. Maybe I didn’t believe in myself. Maybe I didn’t believe anyone would hire me. Whatever my reasons, I dismissed the BS my counselors slung at me.

  The next guy to walk up to my bedside really didn’t fit with the rest. He wore a dark suit, white shirt, and shoes that shined from any angle. There wasn’t a single wrinkle in his outfit. He introduced himself as Morris Farnsworth, my financial counselor.

  I stopped him before he could say another word. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m your financial counselor.”

  “But you? Look at you in that fancy suit. You belong on Wall Street or something. Why are you here talking to a convict?”

  “Relearner,” he corrected.

  A frown crossed his lips. He straightened them quickly and I knew counseling convicts wasn’t his first career choice.

  “I worked for an investment bank before things changed.”

  I didn’t understand.

  He tapped my file. “Of course you don’t know about that, do you?” he asked. “A few years ago, when the supreme court mandated changes in the prison system, the government had a major budget problem. Not to mention a major labor problem.”

  “I can’t believe how many people have been parading in here.”

  “Right. Now multiply that by two million.” My mouth hung open while he continued. “It’s a big job to help the institutionalized recover what they’ve lost. The costs are astronomical and the labor effort is immense. The government solved both problems with a couple of wide swings. Unfortunately, one of them eliminated my job.”

  “And here you are. What were the swings?”

  “The first was a tax code overhaul. There are no loopholes anymore, no complications. You make money, you multiply it by the tax rate and you send it in. It’s incredibly simple.”

  “So lots of tax accountants were out of work?”

  “Not to mention ninety percent of the IRS.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Financial counseling for inmates. What else?”

  “So you were an accountant at the investment bank?”

  “No. I was downsized when the banking system was streamlined.”

  “Streamlined?”

  “Instead of backing the banks, the government took them over. There used to be thousands of banks, now there’s only one.”

  I sat there a minute thinking about all the banks that used to fight each other for customers. All the commercials I’d seen on television. All the ATMs along the sidewalk. All the free toasters they gave away. It made sense that one single bank would be much more efficient, but who could we trust to safeguard the money of every American family?

  “Frightening, isn’t it?”

  I wasn’t smart enough to know why I felt queasy, but when Morris told me he was there to help me create a budget, I knew he was much too bright for the task. He seemed as embarrassed about being there to help as I was for needing him. I didn’t ask him any more questions about what he did before he got this job.

  He cleared his throat, a signal it was time to get to work. “I couldn’t find a bank account for you. Could your account be under someone else’s name?”

  “Account?”

  “Savings account, checking account, investment account?”

  He was amazed when I told him I didn’t have one.

  “Where do you keep your money?”

  “A safe deposit box.”

  He looked really troubled. He leaned forward and whispered that I had a problem. It was weird. We were the only two people in the room, but he spoke so softly I could barely hear him. Who was he hiding from? I should have paid more attention. He said the safe deposit box might exist, but cash wasn’t accepted for anything. I was going to have to explain where the money came from to have any chance of exchanging it for credit.

  “What do you mean cash isn’t accepted?”

  “When the government emptied the prisons, they had to take stringent measures to fight crime. They track every credit you spend, what you spend it on, and who it goes to. Later on, if they suspect you of something, they know exactly who you’ve been dealing with.”

  “What about all that money I’ve saved?”

  “Have you ever held a job?”

  I admitted I hadn’t.

  “Had an inheritance?”

  “No.”

  “Where’d the money come from?”

  I couldn’t tell him I’d stolen it. If I did, he’d either turn me in or ask for a bribe to convert it into credit. There was over fifty thousand dollars cash in that box. Enough for me to live comfortably for a few years even if I couldn’t find a job. Now it was worthless. I also had lots of jewelry locked in there. If I could sell it, that would get me through, but what could I sell it for? Even more troubling was that the most marketable commodity in the world had ceased to exist. My job had just gotten a lot hard
er.

  “Forget it,” I said. “What else do we need to talk about?”

  “We’ve got to create a budget.”

  I stared back blankly. He asked me how I planned my spending and I told him honestly that when I needed money I went to work. People with jobs or government checks had a regular amount of money coming in and they didn’t have an easy way to get more. Living on that monthly check was the biggest problem in our house growing up. There was never enough to buy what we needed. Morris wanted to help me solve that problem for myself, even if I was convinced it didn’t apply.

  He pulled out a worksheet and prompted me through an estimate of what I spent on different things. I humored him, but the numbers didn’t mean anything. I was just going through the motions, trying to get rid of him so I could be one step closer to going home. Then he asked me what I expected to earn when I finished the program.

  “Fifty or sixty thousand,” I said.

  “Doing?”

  I shrugged.

  “Let’s say forty.”

  “Where do you get that?”

  “Everyone is guaranteed forty.” He must have seen the disbelief on my face. “When they overhauled the tax code, the banking system, and replaced the prison system with reeducation, they decided the best way to keep people out of trouble was to guarantee everyone a good living whether they worked or not.”

  “I’m going to get forty thousand for doing nothing?”

  “Minus support for your son, yes.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  All these people came in and told me what it was like in the new America, but for all I knew it was a scam. All I had seen since waking up was my room in the prison infirmary and the treatment room where Debbie slowly taught me to walk again. I couldn’t be sure how much time had passed since I was shot. After the stories they told me, I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like on the outside. Morris had just told me I’d get forty thousand dollars a year for doing nothing. I used to make more, but how could I complain about that much free money? Sure I had to watch all the DVDs Wendell Cummings and Dr. Blake prepared for me, but how hard could it be to watch that many movies? All I had to do was sit there.

  One morning a few days later, Debbie brought me to the kitchen and showed me how to make breakfast. I’d never cooked anything before, but with her help it was easy. After that things started moving fast. I’d been lying in bed for years next to the old guy on the respirator, but after breakfast, I never went back to that room. Debbie took me to an apartment inside the hospital that had a regular bed, a desk, and even a television.

  Four hours later I saw a shimmering head of red hair outside my new doorway. I stood up immediately and said hello. Charlotte came in, followed by two people I hadn’t met. David Jones wore a suit as well tailored as Morris Farnsworth’s, but David was a regular guy. He told me he was my employment counselor. He’d help me get a job when my training was finished, but he didn’t have any urgency about the undertaking. I didn’t need to either since the government would hand me forty K a year for sitting on the couch.

  The woman behind him was a sexier, brunette version of Charlotte. She was young and enchanting with an amazing figure. She met my eyes and smiled devilishly, like she knew what I was thinking when I saw her long legs. Her smile said she considered it a compliment. Joanne introduced herself as my relationship counselor.

  My mouth hung open. Wendell, Dr. Blake, Morris, Charlotte and now David and Joanne. Leaving prison was a major adjustment, but how could they afford to send all these people to help me? Were they trying to scare me straight? Or were they trying to make everyone earn their forty thousand?

  Joanne wasn’t pleased with my reaction. She was lowest on the totem pole of talking heads and assumed I didn’t want her help. “No one wants to believe they need help finding a date, but there’s a stigma associated with running afoul of our government’s conformance policies. We’re doing our best to help people see that’s not right, but in the meantime, I’m here to help you find someone to share your life with. Someone who makes you happy.” As hot as she was, she talked like she was reading from a policy manual. I tried to ignore it, but it wasn’t easy.

  “And I can’t do that on my own?” I would have been glad to hook up with Joanne or Charlotte, but neither was extending an invitation.

  “I’m an expert in relationship dynamics. I’ll help you reflect on what qualities will mesh best with your personality, what traits a partner should have to join you as a successful mate.”

  “Do I need an ok from you to get the little red light turned off?”

  “No.” She wasn’t happy about that.

  She was even less happy when she saw me mentally writing her off. She jabbed her card toward me and told me she’d call when I got settled. That was the first indication I was leaving the prison and my first hint that my counselors could find me whether I wanted them to or not. In the next minute, David handed me his card and filed out behind Joanne. Charlotte opened a folder when we were alone.

  “It’s time to find you a place to live.”

  “What’s wrong with my old place?”

  “I’ve contacted the Berniers. They’ve decided to stop renting the apartment over their garage. Don’t take it personally. Many people who used to rent rooms have stopped.”

  I’d never caused the Berniers any trouble. I’d helped Hank Bernier haul lumber for his deck and helped him take out the trash whenever I saw him making trips to the curb. I never brought anything to that apartment that could cause problems for him. And now he was throwing me out? And why was this woman contacting him for me? Did she really ask them about me moving back in? Or did she encourage them to throw me out? She seemed nice enough, but I wondered why Charlotte did what she did.

  My stuff was in storage. Moving would be easy, but I’d been in that apartment for three years. I lived alone over the garage, but it was the happiest home I’d ever known.

  Charlotte saw how frustrated I was and put her hand on mine. “Don’t take it personally, Michael. Lots of people rented rooms years ago to make extra money. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.”

  I was baffled. “Why not?”

  “Taxes,” she said. “The government takes eighty percent of what you earn over forty thousand. For people who already have a job, renting the room doesn’t really earn them enough to justify the hassle.”

  “Hassle?”

  I didn’t know much about taxes because I’d never filed, but I didn’t consider myself a hassle. She told me not to take it personally for the third time and then she started showing me government apartments from her folder. She had four available units. Every one was about the same size as my old apartment, but they were in square brick buildings that reminded me of the projects.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Two days later I moved into my apartment. The place had an eerie, foreign feeling and I was even more uncomfortable than I had been at home after my mother put the gun to my head. The apartment looked empty, but eventually I learned how every inch of my place could be watched by Wendell and his people. My subconscious was warning me of the danger, that’s why I was nervous, but I wasn’t smart enough to listen yet.

  The Berniers had thrown out my old furniture, so I had to buy a couch, a bed, and a television. I had some things in boxes, mostly clothes and a few amusements. I lugged them up the stairs, but the bulk of the moving was done by delivery people. I felt like a duke or something. Morris Farnsworth created an account for me and the government filled it with enough money to buy furniture and rent the apartment. All I did was collect my boxes from storage and unpack. Charlotte even drove me.

  I made myself a frozen pizza, opened a Coke, and turned on my new television. Nothing but static. The delivery guys plugged everything where it was supposed to go, but I hadn’t ordered cable because Charlotte wouldn’t let me. I’d stolen a signal for years by paying a guy to splice into the Berniers’ feed. I decided to see if I could do it myself, but the wall plate wa
s locked down. It took me twenty minutes to pick the lock without my tools. I got it open, but the conduit had been cemented to stop me from fishing another cable up. There was no telling how much concrete was down there, so I didn’t try breaking it up. The brick construction and the blocked conduit made getting service impossible unless I hung a cable out the window. Probably not a good idea on my first day.

  I was still kneeling behind my television when Wendell Cummings walked in. He didn’t knock. Didn’t say anything. Just came right in.

  “That won’t do you any good,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The way to your normal stations is through this case.” He held up a black case filled with DVDs. He set it down on the center of the couch without waiting for me to get up. Then he walked over to the front of the television, plugged a little box into one of the ports and inserted the first disc. The television immediately came to life.

  He motioned me to sit on the couch and pressed a few buttons on the remote control. “This is where I want you to sit whenever you are working on the program.”

  I didn’t argue. Sitting on the couch directly in front of the TV made perfect sense. It was the only seat in the room.

  “This first disc is easy,” he said.

  “It really is,” came a voice from the television. The voice was coming from a miniature figure that looked exactly like me. It was dressed in the same jeans and Red Sox T-shirt I had on. If it was possible, the voice was mine, too. I don’t know how he did it. He must have recorded my voice and image while I was in the infirmary, but I hadn’t see him with any equipment.

  A miniature Wendell Cummings appeared on screen, wearing the same boat shoes Wendell wore, but a different button-down shirt. “Since the real Wendell can’t be here with you all the time, I’ll be here, right in your television, to be your guide. Let’s get started. What do you think, Michael?”