The End of Marking Time

by CJ West

  I ran all the way around front and up the stairs to my apartment. I shut the door and wedged a chair under the knob so no one could get in without me knowing.

  On the couch I tried to separate the charade from reality. I knew I was being watched. My every movement was being tracked and there was nothing I could do about that. But why? If they wanted to ship me to the cat baggers, why hadn’t they? I didn’t even know who’s decision that was. The judge they kept bringing me to? Wendell? Or was it someone else entirely? I couldn’t be sure if I was swimming circles around a fishbowl waiting to be flushed, or if Wendell was really watching me, even counting on my help.

  I wanted to believe Wendell needed me. I collapsed on my bed, thinking about the battle between Wendell and Nathan Farnsworth. There was only so much money coming from the government and they both wanted it. Nathan was stealing it even if they didn’t call it that. I felt good about helping Wendell, but I still couldn’t sleep. Instead I spent hours picturing every face I’d seen since coming here. Everyone I’d spoken with. With every recollection I wondered if our meeting was an accident or if it was staged to teach me something.

  Sleep finally did come. I only know that because I woke to pounding on the door. I could barely open my eyes and shuffle to the door. Pulling the chair away made a ruckus, and when I opened the door Charlotte stood there with a puzzled look on her face. After losing the camera the night before I saw beyond her gorgeous face and wondered if she was here to occupy me so something could happen while I was gone. She never told me where we were going and I got the feeling her unannounced visits had more to do with Wendell’s agenda than helping me. Living through it like I was, I couldn’t connect the dots and figure out where she was steering me, but at least for the first time, I was looking ahead and trying to catch up to the other actors in this play. If I couldn’t see the puppet master, at least I was looking for the strings.

  Charlotte waited while I showered and dressed. She was standing when I left the room and when I returned. I assumed her choice to stand was more a revulsion for my furniture than something stealthy she was trying to do while I was in the shower. My furniture was new enough, but I think she felt everything about me was dirty. Whenever I was around she got antsy. I felt stupid for ever being attracted to her.

  I looked out the window while she drove, not at the scenery, I just wanted to be turned as far away from her as possible. I wondered where she was taking me, but I wondered more what was happening back in my apartment.

  We arrived at a small house similar to Nick and Kathleen’s. It was on a side street of connecting chain-link fences, tiny green lawns, and curtains pulled open enough to see what the neighbors were doing.

  Charlotte led the way to the door and I followed like an obedient puppy, turning my head to everything that caught my attention. When the door opened, I couldn’t believe who I saw.

  “Who’s that, Dad?” a little voice asked from behind him.

  Double barely filled the doorway. He’d lost sixty pounds.

  He flashed a knowing look to Charlotte. He expected us. What was she trying to do by bringing me here? Was Double supposed to be my role model? It was early for that. I was a long way from finishing my studies. I’d been carrying that book everywhere, and I’d read most of it, but it would be years before I was done with my work. The dating counselor hadn’t even called yet. The life Double was leading here was way out of reach.

  The door thumped closed and I saw Tannia breeze in from the back of the house. I was drawn away from the elegant lines of her face and the contrast between her slim figure and Double’s bulk by a little hand tugging at the seam of my jeans.

  “I’m Manny,” the little boy said.

  I bent lower and introduced myself. His smile was unstoppable. Embarrassed, I righted myself and scanned the adult faces in the room. Double, Tannia, Charlotte, they all watched me greet Manny. Self-consciousness gripped me and my limbs felt stiff as I imagined this too was some test designed to measure my ability to have children of my own.

  No words were spoken, but Charlotte and Tannia slipped away into the kitchen. Double didn’t turn to watch them go. He was focused on me. The surprise was coming as he stepped forward. I wanted him to just blurt it out, to tell me what Charlotte was pressing him to say, maybe even paying him to say, but he looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

  He motioned me to sit. I took the corner of the couch and he faced me from a faux leather recliner from someone’s garage sale. He told me what a great thing he had with Tannia and little Manny. I couldn’t help but smile thinking about the boy’s little white sneakers and the innocent way he looked up to me, like I was just as important as anyone. Charlotte didn’t look at me that way. Neither did Tannia and pretty soon Double wouldn’t either.

  He showed me his ankle and rubbed the base of his skull where the tracking device had been implanted and later removed. He told me how hard it was for little Manny and that if he were still a relearner how much harder it would be. I saw it coming then, but I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t even try. He told me I should give Jonathan up. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t see the lesson in giving up my responsibilities or my rights. The more Charlotte pushed me, the more I wanted to hold onto little Jonathan with all I had.

  I told Double to stay out of it. He’d done his job and I wasn’t going to hear it anymore. He looked frightened. For himself or me I couldn’t be sure. I believed he’d been threatened. Maybe he was one of Wendell’s graduates. Maybe Wendell still owned him. Double didn’t know what to say after that. We both knew my ankle bracelet recorded everything. I did have one question I needed answered.

  “What happened to Crusher?”

  “Same as us,” he said pointing to my ankle. “Same as everyone.”

  There was a long silence then, like I was laid out on the couch for viewing and Double didn’t know what to say now that I was dead. So much of what I wanted to say to him would cause one of us trouble. I kept my mouth shut and waited. I knew Charlotte would get tired of waiting and come to take me home.

  Double offered me a drink. I asked for a Coke and he went to get it. When he came back I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There beside him, was my mother in a cotton dress that draped from her shoulders, bulged at her watermelon breasts, and spread even wider at a midsection that started at her thighs and defied any attempt to be stuffed into pants. She looked at me mockingly as if I was a big disappointment. The kid she’d threatened to kill at thirteen years old. The kid who had to run to the streets at fifteen because he was afraid to die at home. She looked at me as if I had failed to live up to her standard of apathetic underachievement.

  She tilted side to side as she came over. The enormous weight on each trunk had to be balanced just so or she risked a catastrophic fall. She eyed the recliner where Double had been sitting, but her hips wouldn’t fit between the armrests. She thumped on past the coffee table and settled onto the other half of the couch with a bounce that jostled me.

  Emotions rampaged around in my head like little children set free in the midst of finger paints, amusement rides, and a truckload of candy. Ideas popped to life and like children without supervision, they whirled around with intense energy, but couldn’t decide where to strike out first. Dangerous ideas yearned to be set free. I imagined screaming at her, pummeling her, choking her, shoving that same gun in her face and watching her turn pale with fear.

  What held me back? Was it Wendell’s lessons? Was it my fear of what Charlotte would do or that I’d be sent to the cat baggers if I fell out of line? Or was it because she was my mother and she still held some power over me, some control infused into my cells at birth? I didn’t understand why, but I sat quietly while the angry thoughts rampaged.

  She told me how much she missed me, but there wasn’t an inkling of sadness in her eyes. She told me how long she’d looked for me, but I hadn’t gone far. I’d never been more than ten miles from home for the last ten years. If she’d looked ha
rd enough she would have found me. Truth was she kept on collecting like I was still at home and never went out of her way to bring me back. She didn’t want the hassle. She wanted whatever she could get and that’s why she was here in front of me now. Charlotte had offered her something. She looked me right in the eye without a hint of guilt for what she’d done.

  She told me I should give the boy up. She hadn’t even bothered to learn Jonathan’s name. I wanted nothing more than to see she didn’t get what Charlotte promised her.

  “I’m going to take parenting advice from you? Charlotte should know whatever advice you give, I’m going to do the opposite.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Charlotte dropped me home at lunchtime, but I couldn’t eat. The confrontation with my mother had been due for a long time. I was proud of myself for not screaming at her, but the little I’d said wasn’t satisfying at all. She had driven me here. She’d pushed me out when I was too young to survive without turning to crime. She didn’t apologize. She didn’t even look guilty. Some family counselor Charlotte was. She never mentioned the gun. All she wanted was for me to sign those papers and give my son to a stranger.

  For a long while I thought I was missing the lesson in all of this. I couldn’t tell if I was succeeding by refusing to give up my son. Was taking responsibility keeping me safe from the cat baggers? Or would I be viewed more positively if I put the boy’s interests first and gave him a father without a criminal past? I wanted to see him grow up. Right or wrong, I wanted to know him, to stay connected to him.

  I picked up Tom Sawyer but saw only a jumble of disconnected words.

  I kept wondering about Nathan Farnsworth and how he could be so sure the people he chose wouldn’t get into trouble again. They looked different over there. There were no tattoos. Shorter hair. Neater clothes. Did those things really matter? Did choosing to be clean-cut really make a difference in life? I hoped not.

  His relearners were wealthier. They were softer, but there was another thing Nathan used to pick the relearners he wanted. It was about history. He’d take someone if they were in for the first time. Otherwise he wouldn’t be in business at all. But once they non-conformed, Nathan didn’t want them anymore. He didn’t want guys who’d been in and out of the system over and over. He wouldn’t save them in court like Wendell would. Nathan Farnsworth didn’t care about helping people. He’d set up his program to make money. His success came from selection.

  It bothered me that Nathan didn’t want me. I wondered if he was right. If I was hopeless. Was I destined to keep making the same mistakes over and over until they put me in the grave? Was I that broken? I wanted to change. I wondered if guys like Joel wanted to change as much as I did. Had we gotten such a bad start that we were beyond repair? Wendell was giving me his best. He paid for my apartment and all these people to track, watch, and in their own strange way, try to help me.

  I stared at the southern boy on the cover of my book. Would Jonathan grow up to be like Tom? Would he take things from other people? That was my life. It was never really a choice for me. Maybe it was, but I’d made it too long ago to remember. No one had stood up and told me I was headed down the wrong path. They’d wrestled me and arrested me, but no one ever got through to me.

  That was a job for parents. They had the first shot. The first chance to teach the right way to do things, to treat people. What could I offer Jonathan? Could I teach him what I didn’t seem to know even now? Probably not. I still had to have something valuable to give him. I had enjoyed our time in the sand more than I thought possible. I still wanted to go back even with Nick guarding my every move. I wasn’t fantasizing about getting back together with Kathleen anymore. That was impossible. But giving up on my son was giving up on myself.

  I tried to read the book again and to listen to what Wendell was telling me. I was like Tom, a boy without guidance who learned to take what he needed. Was he telling me something about Jonathan? If there was something I needed to do, it wasn’t clear. Nothing with Wendell was clear. I paced. I stood rigid at the window with my hands on the sill.

  I was waiting for them to come for me, to finally realize I’d been in the control room and needed to be punished. But no one came that afternoon. Charlotte didn’t mention it. In fact, she’d said little at all. Dealing with me was distasteful for her. She wanted me to sign those papers so she could hand me off to Joanne. Thinking about Charlotte and my mother only made me angrier. I paced more. Finally I detoured to the kitchen for a change of scenery or maybe just a longer track. Then I saw it.

  There on the kitchen table was a pen camera exactly like the one Wendell had given me. I rushed it to the television and played the contents, but there was nothing recorded inside. The original was gone. I didn’t know if that interview had been erased or if someone had collected the camera and brought it to Wendell. What a hopelessly optimistic thought. When I really thought about it I knew Nathan Farnsworth had the camera. Somehow he could watch me in my apartment even though I wasn’t in his program. I didn’t know how he did it, but I knew it was him.

  The blank camera was a new start, another chance. I’d be smarter this time. I’d get the evidence to Wendell even if I had to stand at his gate and scream for him to come out and get it. I was angry then, angrier than I’d been in a long time. I rededicated myself to proving Farnsworth wrong. I was going to come out of this. My success would reward Wendell for believing in me. It was small thanks, but it was all I could give. He needed all of his students to make it from now on, or he’d lose his business. I was risking my life, but from that moment on, I was taking control.

  I’d spent so much time reading and pacing, it was too late for what I wanted to do next. So I sat down with my book and scoured for any clue Wendell meant for me.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  I’d never read so long in my life. All the ideas hit me like a sleeping pill and replaced my cat bagger nightmares with dreams of a backwoods southern boy. I slept soundly and woke energized. I felt accomplished for all I’d read and optimistic about my mission to relearner court. When I arrived and read the posted hours, I realized I could have come the night before, but that didn’t bring me down. Non-conforming relearners streamed in ahead of me. A week earlier I would have felt bad for them, but that morning they were my opportunity to graduate back into the real world.

  The visitor entrance was around back of the building by the parking lot. I guess they didn’t expect relearners to be curious about this place when they weren’t on trial, even though our apartments were clustered nearby. Honestly, I was only there because fighting crime was my way out.

  The guard looked surprised to see me come in with an ankle bracelet but no escort. I placed my key, my book, and the pen camera in a plastic dish and it rode a conveyor through an X-ray machine. When the dish came out the other side, the guard kept my pen camera and waved me through the metal detector.

  “Can’t take this in there,” he said. “I’ll hold it for you.”

  I collected the book and the Budweiser key ring I’d swiped at a carnival. Most people carried car keys, house keys, post office box keys. They were a symbol of trust and power. My single apartment key identified my miniscule station in the world. I was glad when I turned the corner and found clusters of people talking. Counselors talked with troubled relearners heading in or out of hearings. Prosecutors and police officers whispered case details and prepared cases they were certain to win.

  I followed the hall, uncertain where I was going, angling toward each little group I passed. Conversations stopped. Eyes glared. I moved on past the front entrance, around the hearing rooms until the hall dead ended. I hadn’t really thought this through. I was looking for wrongdoing in a building with the word justice hanging above the front entrance. This would take more than a quick walk through the building.

  Back at the front, I chose a bench that allowed a long view of the lobby where I could see relearners entering, meeting their counselors, and heading off to hearings.
I picked up my book and opened it, but I focused my eyes well beyond the words to the knots of conversation spread in front of me. Several times I watched the police bring in a new offender, take off his cuffs, and hand him over to a counselor. It was odd to think relearners didn’t need handcuffs, but they could never truly escape, not with tracking devices sewn into their heads. I wondered how many of them turned violent after losing their cases inside. These were the worst of the worst offenders, but things were different now. To law abiding citizens this system seemed like the proverbial slap on the wrist, but we knew different. Any relearner who lost control here earned a short drive to a locked room he could only leave by jumping.

  That’s why the relearners behaved. They were afraid.

  I didn’t have to ask myself if I was afraid, but when my fear began driving everything I did. I was afraid to go to prison the first time, before I was shot, before everything changed, but that was a different sort of fear. I wasn’t afraid for my life, but the cuts and bruises I’d collect, not to mention the emotional scars from years of abuse. My new fears built slowly. I wasn’t truly scared until the night in the car with Dr. Blake. I understood then how fragile my life was and how horrible it could be to wake up with my fingers sewn together or my eyes glued shut.

  Wendell and Farnsworth had created the ideal system. On the outside it seemed almost childish in its kid-glove approach to reforming criminals—that’s what we were, criminals not relearners. Those inside understood how insidious their captors could be. The two faces of the system protected it from righteous dogooders. They would never discover the truth. At least not in time to save me. Back in the old system I would have been short to the gate because I’d served most of my time while I was asleep. Instead of counting the days until I was free, I was stalking criminals, hoping to trap someone infinitely more powerful than me just to save my skin.