The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020

by John Joseph Adams

  “Going to let you in on a secret, friend. At the library, you can use a computer for free.”

  * * *

  Lindsay, his reintroduction supervisor, is waiting for him at the house when he gets off work the next afternoon. She’s wearing the same outfit as before, a scarlet tie, a navy suit. She’s sitting on the hood of her car next to a box of donuts.

  “Time to check in,” Lindsay says through a bite of cruller.

  Biscuit stands on the couch, peering out of the house, paws propped against the window.

  “Have a seat,” Lindsay says brightly.

  Wash takes a fritter.

  “How are you getting along with your family, Washington?”

  Wash thinks.

  “Fine,” Wash says.

  Lindsay leans in with a conspiratorial look. “Oh, come on, give me the gossip.”

  Wash chews, swallows, and frowns.

  “Why’d you have to give me life? You couldn’t just give me twenty years or something? Why’d you have to take everything?” Wash says.

  “The length of your sentence was determined by the judge.”

  “Just doesn’t seem fair.”

  Lindsay nods, smiling sympathetically, and then abruptly stops.

  “Well, what you did was pretty bad, Washington.”

  “But my whole life?”

  “Do you know anything about the history of prisons in this country?” Lindsay reaches for a napkin, licks some glaze from her fingers, and wipes her hands. “Prisons here were originally intended to be a house of corrections. The theory was that when put into isolation criminals might be taught how to be functional citizens. In practice, however, the system proved to be ineffective at reforming offenders. The rate of recidivism was staggering. Honestly, upon release, most felons were arrested on new charges within the year. And over time the conditions in the prisons became awful. I mean, imagine what your situation would have been, being sentenced to life. You would have spent the next half a century locked in a cage like an animal, sleeping on an uncomfortable cot, wearing an ill-fitting jumpsuit, making license plates all day for far less than minimum wage, cleaning yourself with commercial soaps whose lists of ingredients included a variety of carcinogens, eating mashed potatoes made from a powder and meatloaf barely fit for human consumption, getting raped occasionally by other prisoners. Instead, you get to be here, with your family. Pretty cool, right? Like, super cool? You have to admit. And the wipe isn’t simply a punishment. Yes, the possibility of getting wiped is meant to deter people from committing crimes. Totally. But wipes are also highly effective at preventing criminals from becoming repeat offenders. Although there is some biological basis for things like rage and greed and so forth, those types of issues tend to be the psychological by-products of memories. And a life sentence is especially effective. Given a clean slate, felons often are much calmer, are much happier than before, are burdened with no misconceptions that crimes like embezzlement or poaching might be somehow justified, and of course possess no grudges against institutions like the government or law enforcement or former employers.” Lindsay glances over, then turns back toward the road. “For example.”

  “So I’m supposed to feel grateful?”

  Wash didn’t mean to speak with that much force.

  “Do you even know how much a wipe like yours costs?” Lindsay says, her eyes growing wide. “A fortune. Honestly, most people around here would need a payment plan for a simple vanity wipe. You know, you do something embarrassing at a party, you overhear somebody saying something mean about you that rings a bit too true, so you just have the memory erased. And then there are survivors of truly traumatic incidents, who often have to save up for years after the incident if insurance won’t cover the cost of having it wiped. And alcoholics and crackheads and the like have no choice but to shell out, as a selective memory wipe is the only possible cure for addiction. Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are generally treated with wipes as well, although those wipes, as was the case with yours, are covered by taxpayers.” Lindsay leans back on the hood of the car, propped up on her elbows, and squints into the sun. “It’s a better deal for taxpayers anyway. Wiping your memory may have been costly, but was still nowhere near as expensive as paying to feed and shelter you for half a century would have been. That’s the problem with prisons. They’re overpriced, they underperform.”

  Wash scowls at the driveway.

  “How are you feeling, Washington?”

  “Frustrated.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “I don’t even know what I did to get wiped.”

  Lindsay smiles. “The less you know about who you were before, the greater your chances of making a successful transition to your new life.” Beneath her cheery tone there’s a hint of uncertainty. “I would particularly recommend in your case that you avoid asking people about the details of your arrest.”

  * * *

  Wash has to drive by the local library, a squat brick building with a flag hanging from a pole, whenever he drops off the kids at practice, and he tries to avoid wondering whether whatever he did to get arrested made the news. He notices that other parents stick around during practice, so occasionally he stays, watching Sophie stretching out at the track between intervals, knee braces on, or Jaden dribbling balls through a course of cones, shin guards crooked. Wash likes his kids. He doesn’t mind being their parent, but he wants to be their friend, too. To be trusted. To be liked. The desire is so powerful that sometimes the thick fingers of his hands curl tight around the links of the fence out of a sense of longing as he watches the kids practice. Becoming friends with the dog was simple. Biscuit sniffed him and licked him and that was that. He’s the same person he’s always been as far as the dog is concerned. The kids are distant, though. He doesn’t know how to jump-start the relationships.

  On other days he drives home during practice. The wallpaper in the kitchen is dingy, there are gouges in the walls of the hallway, the ceiling fan in the living room is broken, there are cracks in the light fixture in the laundry room, but not until the constant drip from the sink in the bathroom has turned to a steady leak does he actually stop, think, and realize that the house must be in such shabby condition because of how long he was gone, in detention during the trial, when his wife would have been living on a single income. That faucet is leaking because of him.

  He knows how to fix a leak. Leaving the light in the bathroom on, he fetches the toolbox from the basement. He’s emptying the cupboard under the sink, stacking toiletries on the linoleum, preparing to shut off the water, when his wife passes the doorway.

  “What exactly are you doing?” Mia says.

  “I’m gonna fix some stuff,” Wash says.

  She stares at him.

  “Oh,” she says finally, and then carries on down the hallway, followed by the dog.

  By the time the corn in the field across the road has been harvested and the trees in the woods beyond the field are nearly bare, he’s got the gutters hanging straight and the shingles patched up again. He takes a day off from the diner to tear out the stained carpeting in the hallway, wearing a dust mask over his face with the cuffs of his flannel rolled. Afterward he’s rummaging around the shelf under the workbench in the basement, looking for a pry bar to rip up the staples in the floor, when he notices a quiver of arrows.

  Wash tugs the mask down to his neck and touches the arrows. Carbon shafts. Turkey fletching. He glances over at the safe.

  Did he have a bow once?

  Was the bow sold with the guns?

  Turning back to the shelf under the workbench he sees that there’s an unmarked case clasped shut next to the quiver.

  Wash pops the lid.

  Though he doesn’t recognize the bow itself, he recognizes that it’s a bow, even in pieces. A takedown. A recurve. And before he even has a chance to wonder whether he knows how to assemble a bow, he’s got the case up on the workbench and he’s putting the bow together, moving on impulse. Bolts the
limbs to the riser, strings the bow, and then heads up the stairs with the quiver. Drags a roll of carpet out the back door and props the carpet against a fence post to use as a target. Backs up toward the house. Tosses the quiver into the grass. Nocks an arrow. Raises the bow. Draws the string back toward the center of his chin until the string is pressing into the tip of his nose. Holds. Breathes.

  Leaves are falling.

  He lets go.

  The arrow hits the carpet with a thump.

  The sense of release that washes over him is incredible.

  Wash is already exhausted from tearing the carpet out of the hallway, but he stands out in the backyard firing arrow after arrow until the muscles in his arms are burning and his flannel is damp with sweat, and arrow after arrow buries deep into the carpet. Fixing leaks, hanging gutters, patching shingles, he can do stuff like that, but the work is a struggle, a long and frustrating series of bent nails and fumbled wrenches. But this is different. Something he’s good at. He can’t remember ever feeling like this before. The pride, the satisfaction, of having and using a talent. Biscuit watches from the door, panting happily, tail wagging, as if sensing his euphoria.

  Wash is scrubbing dishes after supper that night while Mia clips coupons from a brochure at the table.

  “I want to go hunting,” Wash announces.

  “With the bow?” Mia says.

  Wash thinks.

  “Do you hunt?” Wash says.

  “No,” Mia snorts.

  She sets down the scissors, folds her arms on the table, and furrows her eyebrows together, looking up at him with an inscrutable expression.

  “Why don’t you ask your children?” Mia says.

  Jaden and Sophie are in the living room.

  Jaden responds to the invitation by jumping on the ottoman, pretending to fire arrows at the lamp.

  Even Sophie, busy working on a poster for a fundraiser to save stray cats from getting euthanized, wants to come along.

  “You’re okay with killing animals?”

  “I only care about cute animals.”

  “Deer aren’t cute?”

  “Deer are snobs.”

  Last weekend of bow season. Hiking off-trail on public land. The dawn is cloudy. Frost crusts the mud. Wash leads the way through a stretch of cedars, touching the rubs in the bark of the trunks, explaining to the kids about glands without knowing where he learned that’s why deer make the rubs. Finds a clearing. Sets up behind a fallen log at the edge of the trees, Jaden to this side with a thermos of cocoa, Sophie to that side with a thermos of coffee, whispering insults back and forth to each other. Waits. Snow begins falling. The breeze dies. The kids go quiet as a deer slips into the clearing. A buck with a crown of antlers. A fourteen-pointer. The trophy of a lifetime. The arrow hits the buck so hard that the buck gets knocked to the ground, but just as fast it staggers back up, and then it bounds off into the woods, vanishing. With Jaden and Sophie close behind, he hurries over to where the deer fell. Blood on the snow. Tracks in the mud. Wash and the kids follow the trail through the pines, past a ditch full of brambles, down a slope thick with birches, until the trail disappears just shy of a creek. By then the sun has broken through the clouds. And no matter where he searches from there, the buck can’t be found.

  He’s just about given up looking when he notices some trampled underbrush.

  Beyond, on a bed of ferns, the buck lies dead.

  Jaden and Sophie dance around the kill, doing fist-pumps and cheering, and that feeling before, shooting arrows into the carpet in the backyard, is nothing compared to the feeling now.

  * * *

  Driveway.

  Weekend.

  Icicles hanging from the flag on the mailbox.

  Jaden, in pajamas, boots, and a parka, is sucking on a lozenge, occasionally pushing the lozenge out with his tongue, just far enough for the lozenge to peek through his lips, then slurping the lozenge back into his mouth, while helping him shovel snow.

  Wash chips at some ice.

  Jaden starts to wheeze.

  Wash glances over.

  “What’s wrong?” Wash says.

  Jaden shakes his head, reaches for his throat, and falls to his knees.

  Both shovels hit the ground. Wash grabs him by the shoulders and thumps his back. Jaden still can’t breathe. Wash spins him and forces his mouth open in a panic. Sticks a finger in. Feels teeth, a tongue, saliva, a uvula. Finds the lozenge. Claws the lozenge. Scoops the lozenge out with a flick.

  The lozenge lands in the snow.

  Jaden coughs, sways, blinks some, then looks at the lozenge.

  “That was awesome,” Jaden grins.

  * * *

  Backyard.

  Weekend.

  Buds sprouting on the stems of the tree beyond the fence, where a crow is perched on a branch, not cawing, not preening, silent and still.

  Sophie, in leggings, slippers, and a hoodie, is helping him to clean rugs.

  Wash holds a rug up over the grass.

  Sophie beats the rug with a broom.

  Dust flies into the air. Coils of hair. Clumps of soil. Eventually nothing. Sophie drapes the rug over the fence, being careful to make sure that the tassels aren’t touching the ground, as he reaches for the next rug. Just then the crow falls out of the tree.

  The crow hits the ground with a thud.

  Wash looks at the crow in shock.

  The crow lies there. Doesn’t move. Twitches. Struggles up again. Hops around. Then flaps back into the tree.

  “Was it asleep?” Wash squints.

  Sophie stares at the crow, and then bursts out laughing.

  “Nobody’s gonna believe us,” Sophie says.

  * * *

  Ballpark.

  Minor league.

  Chaperones on a field trip for the school.

  His wife comes back from a vendor with some concessions.

  She hands him a frankfurter.

  Wash inspects the toppings with suspicion. Rancid sauerkraut. Gummy mustard. What might be cheese.

  The meat looks greasy.

  “You used to love those,” Mia frowns.

  She trades him a pretzel.

  “Guess that was the nostalgia you were tasting,” Mia says.

  * * *

  Basement.

  Jaden is hunched in the safe.

  Sophie is crouched under the workbench.

  Biscuit is leashed to a pipe on the boiler.

  Tornado sirens howl in the distance. “This is taking forever,” Sophie says.

  “I want to play a game,” Jaden whines.

  “We should have brought down some cards,” Sophie says.

  “There’s nothing worse than just sitting,” Jaden grumbles.

  Wash presses his hands into the floor to stand.

  “Don’t you dare,” Mia says.

  Wash freezes.

  “I’ll be fast,” Wash says.

  And then, after glancing back at his wife at the foot of the stairs, goes up.

  Noon, but with the lights off the house is dim, like today dusk came early. Wash hurries down the hallway toward the living room. There’s a pressure in the air. In the living room he pinches his jeans to tug the legs up, then crouches over the basket of games, digging for a deck of cards.

  Rising back up, tucking the cards into the pocket of his flannel, he glances over toward the doorway.

  He can see the door lying in the yard next to a can of paint, where he had been painting the door when the sirens had begun to wail. The windows in the door reflect the clouds above. Through the glass is flattened grass.

  The screen door, still attached to the door frame, is rattling.

  Wash crosses the living room.

  He stands at the door.

  He touches the screen.

  Sky a mix of gold and green.

  Leaves tearing across the yard in a rush of wind.

  He can feel his heart beat.

  The screen door opens with a creak.

  Wash steps
out onto the porch. His jeans snap against his legs. His flannel whips against his chest. Beyond the corn across the road, past the woods beyond the field, a tornado twists in the sky.

  * * *

  The anniversary will be their twentieth, but their first he can remember. Having to plan some type of date makes him nervous. He would just take his wife out to eat somewhere fancy, which he knows is the standard move, but aside from the diner the other restaurants in town are all chains: a burger joint, a burrito joint, a pizza place that doesn’t even have tables or chairs. Besides, he feels like this anniversary should be special, something memorable, above and beyond a candlelight dinner. Wash agonizes for weeks, at a loss what to do, worrying that he won’t think of anything in time, and then while leaving work after an especially brutal shift the week before the anniversary, he notices a brochure tacked to the corkboard by the door. Wash reaches up, fingers pruny from washing dishes, and plucks the brochure down from the corkboard. The brochure advertises cabin rentals in the state park at El Dorado Reservoir.

  His wife looks shocked when he tells her what the plan is, but moments later she’s jotting down a list of supplies to buy and gear to pack, which seems like a form of approval.

  Sophie gets left in charge of watching Jaden, with cash for emergencies and a fridge full of food, and he and his wife clear out of town. Mia paints her nails teal over the course of the drive, her frizzy hair trembling in the breeze through the windows. Wash stresses, convinced that the cabin won’t be as nice as the pictures in the brochure, afraid that his wife might secretly consider the plan too outdoorsy, but the cabin turns out to be just as perfect as promised, and his wife is beaming before the duffels have even hit the floor. He’s never seen her like this. At home, she never drinks alcohol, she never plays music, she’s stern and practical and tireless, emptying hampers and folding laundry and cleaning the fridge and washing the dog and checking the kids did their homework and helping the kids with their homework and scheduling appointments and reading mail and paying bills and organizing the junk drawer and lugging bags of garbage out to the bin without ever stopping to rest, as if the home, not just the house but the family and the lives contained within, would completely fall apart if she allowed herself to relax for even a moment. But at the cabin she’s different, already loosening up, sipping from a can of beer, cranking up the country on the radio, dancing in place at the stove as she cooks up a feast of steak and mushrooms and roasted potatoes crusted with rosemary, giving him a glimpse of who she might have been when he met her twenty years ago, a twenty-year-old girl with a sense of humor and a lopsided smile and few if any responsibilities. He’s liked his wife for as long as he can remember, but watching her dance around at the stove makes him feel something new, something powerful, tender, warm. He can tell that the feeling is strong, but even though he knows how strong the feeling is, and though he can’t imagine how a feeling could possibly be any stronger, he’s not sure whether or not there’s still another feeling that’s even stronger out there. He can’t remember being in love. Has no spectrum to place the feeling on. Doesn’t know what the limit for emotions is. Does he like her, or really like her, or really really like her, or really really really like her?