Out (26 page)

I do what he
says, walk over to the cubicle, take off my clothes and fold them neatly as if
I’m home. Breathe, breathe, breathe. He walks away. What’s he doing?
Concentrate on something…a small piece of blue tape on the floor. I watch that
piece of tape, stare at it, as I step, naked, toward the stall.

 
Over the huge cement shower area hangs three
over-sized Frisbee-shaped shower heads. Looks like the gas chamber things in
the Holocaust. I wonder if they’ll just gas me? I start shaking.

The idea of the
gas chamber locks my feet…I can’t go forward. “Step inside,” the guard’s voice
commands. Where did he go? Did he take shelter, so the gas doesn’t get him? I
try, but I can’t make my feet move, and I just keep shaking more and more.
Sighing like I’ve really put him out, the guard comes from the control area,
shoves the butt of his gun into the small of my back. I stumble into the shower
stall, and the guard, who has gone into a little control cubicle, presses a
button; ice-cold water pounds down on me. I gasp involuntarily, and the water
stops. The second shower head spews a nasty-smelling chemical all over my head
and body; it burns my eyes. “Scrub,” the guard yells from his cubicle. So I
scrub.

After several
seconds, the ice water comes back, thoroughly drenching me and washing away the
soap. He turns off the water; my teeth chatter with the cold. He throws me a
scratchy towel, and I use it to dry off and warm up. No gas. No gas. Breathe.
No gas, just cold water. He comes out from the cubicle with gun pointed, and
nudges me toward another door labeled Dispensary.

A young blond
woman behind a desk taps at a computer; she’s surrounded by shelf after shelf
of orange jumpsuits and other stuff. “Size?” she asks without looking up.

“Twenty-eight
in the waist, and I’m six-foot—” She’s already up before I’ve answered. “Six foot
three, inseam is—”
 
The rifle catches me
in the small of the back again, causing me to stumble forward and drop my towel
so I’m standing there naked and cold. “Can I pick it up?” I ask, gesturing
toward the towel. He doesn’t answer.

The girl comes
back and puts a folded orange jumpsuit on the counter, along with a pair of
black plastic flip flops. “Put it on,” the guard instructs. The girl goes back
to her computer.

I pull the
thing on, put the shoes on my feet. “These are too small,” I object, but that
gets me a punch in the kidneys.

“Move,” the
guard hisses, nudging me with the barrel of the big black gun. The next door
reads Processing. It’s big, like a hospital emergency room, with about ten beds
partitioned off with those flimsy hospital curtains. The place seems empty, but
my escort walks me down to Bed Seven, and points with his gun. “Sit there. Wait
for the Processor. Don’t do anything else.”

I pull myself
up onto the vinyl bed and wait.
 
My head
pounds, and the room spins. I curl up on the plastic bed, knees to chest.

A sharp pinch
in my arm wakes me. I try to turn over, but something is holding my legs down. “Don’t
move,” a calm voice says. “It hurts more if you move.”

I can’t see who
it is since the person, a man I think, is behind me. Another spike of pain
radiates throughout my arm, into the joints, spreading like poison. Is that
what it is? Poison?  ”What are you doing?” I ask desperately.

“Just making
you safe for the others.” The pain subsides to a dull ache. A tan, bald man
with a surgical mask hovers over me.

I don’t say
anything. The bald man stares at me with bright blue eyes, crinkled at the
edges as if he’s amused by me.

“Do you want to
ask a question?” He has some sort of accent. I can’t place it.

I swallow, try
to clear the blood and snot out of my throat. “Can I have some water?” I rasp.

“Of course.” I
struggle against the foot straps to sit upright. He reaches for a plastic
hospital pitcher, pours water into a cup, and hands it to me. I drink it down.

“So. Chris
Bryant. What would you like to tell me?”

I stare at him,
unsure how to answer. What do I want to tell him? What does that mean?

He pulls the
surgical mask away from his face, revealing broad lips bisected by a
long-healed scar, a large nose, gray stubble. “There. Less frightening, eh?” He
pours more water into the cup and I greedily chug it. “Just a few questions and
then we’ll get you settled.”

He grabs a
clipboard off the side table, and flips a few forms over, then reads something,
squinting. “Hmm. Your parents were notified, came to get you, it says here.
What happened?”

I wet my lips. “I
wouldn’t sign a paper.”

“Ah.” He nods
knowingly. “You didn’t want to admit to being a Perpendicular, eh?”

“They wanted me
to say that I was brainwashed, that I didn’t know what I was doing.” I drain
the cup. “I didn’t want to sign it.”

“Even though it
means a long stay here? And shots like those every day?” He chuckles. “I’ve
seen people like you before. You’d have been much better off going with your
parents to a nice, cozy hospital in your home town, where people could bring
you cookies and you could just slip into nothing.” He checks a box on the

form with a
black pen.

“What was the
injection?” I involuntarily rub my arm where the needle drilled in. It’s still
sore.

“Something to
help you forget about your deviant desires,” he says, chuckling. “Not to worry.
Very few side effects. It makes life so much easier when you just don’t feel
anything, really. Many of our clients respond very well to it, and actually
welcome it.”

“What do you
mean? What does it do, exactly?”

“Chemical
castration,” he says, as if he’s reading a grocery list. No big deal. “It will
take away your desire for…you know…girls. And boys, too. It’s an equal
opportunity suppressant.”

“Why would you
do that?” I just finally felt desire, finally learned what it is and what it
means, and now they’re taking it away? No. I throw the cup of water against the
wall, reach like Frankenstein’s monster for the big man, struggle against the
straps, but can’t get myself free.

The bald man
watches me, grinning. “No use struggling.” That doesn’t stop me from tugging
even harder against the restraints.

He sighs, and
takes out a long, black stick. “Can’t have you breaking our equipment,” he says
reasonably before he jabs the point into my stomach, sending an electrical wave
of pain through my chest. Again, again, again, until—

I hear someone
crying, begging…it’s me.

At first, I
keep my eyes closed. Darkness is preferable. With my mind, I try to feel where
I am…pain radiates from my arm, my mouth, my nose, my back, pretty much
anywhere pain can exist. Move, a little...stabbing jolt through my neck. Frown,
and I get a zap of electricity across my forehead. Breathing seems safe. I
breathe. Again. In. Out.

Everything is a
blur when I finally do open my eyes. Fuzzy outlines of right angles on a gray
ceiling lead into gray walls, gray corners. White fluorescent light buzzes
above from a broken fixture. I flex my fingers, just a tiny motion: feels like
tile. I move my hand to my leg…coarse fabric, must be the orange jumpsuit.

I’m going to
sit up. This is a monumental task. I know it will hurt. I bunch muscles, pull,
and feel like I’m going to vomit. I’ve never hurt this bad in my whole life.
But I make it to a sitting position, scoot so I’m sitting with my back against
the cold metal wall.

It’s a cell. A
cot with a thin mattress and a thinner blanket, a steel toilet. A sink. No
windows. I’m on the other side of one of those doors I saw coming in. Panic
starts to rise like a tide in my gut. What if nobody knows I’m here? What if I
never get out?

The shot. I rub
my arm where the bald doctor injected me with his “chemical castration.” I
don’t want to think about that right now. Trying to pull myself up onto the
mattress is a herculean effort, but after a couple of false starts, I make it.
I just stare at the ceiling, waiting.

Dozing off,
images of Carmen dance and bend in my mind. I think of the times we were
together, not enough times, but enough that I have something to remember. Oh! I
touch my wrist, hoping for —My bracelet! Gone. The last thing I had that she’d
touched. Gone.

I won’t become
hopeless. Matt didn’t become hopeless…the vision of his blown-away face
replaces Carmen’s lovely smile in my mind’s eye. That’s what I have to look
forward to. No. I won’t let them have my thoughts too. I can keep those, at
least.

The metal door
clangs and squeaks as someone opens it. A red light mounted above the door
flashes soundlessly. The lady from before, Dr.
Castleman
,
enters, flanked by two armed guards.

“Mr. Bryant,”
she says cheerfully, as if she’s just dropped in for a friendly visit. She nods
to the guards, who stand, rifles at rest, on either side of the door. She
hovers over me, peering down over a clipboard. “How are we feeling today?”

I turn my head,
don’t answer.

“Hmm. That’s a
poor way to respond.” I feel her weight as she perches on the edge of my bed.
She whispers, “I know you don’t feel like talking, but it will be so much
easier if you do. I promise.”

“Talk about
what?” I don’t look at her.

She sighs. “Well,
there’s a whole list. What happened to Mr. McFarland, first of all.”

“I told you
what happened. I don’t know where he went.” I stare, dull-eyed, at the steel
sink. “How long will I be here?”

“I’ll make you
a deal,” she says. “You answer one question, I answer one question.”

Hmm. At least I
might get some information out of her. I sit up, wincing at the pain, but try
not to let her see. “Okay.”

“Great!” She
taps a pen on the clipboard. “Alright, then. Where is Mr. McFarland?”

“I can’t answer
you, because I don’t know.” I sigh as if frustrated. “I want to tell you. I
just don’t know. He walked out to get the bags, and—”

“Fine.” She
breathes through her nose, her nostrils flaring as if she’s trying to keep
herself from ripping my head off. “Let’s try something else. Your girlfriend…do
you know that she’s here? In the facility?”

I can’t help
it—this gets my attention. I look at her. “Where is she?”

“As I said,
answer a question, I’ll let you ask one. My next question: who is in charge of
the insurgency in Ohio?”

I realize that
I’m not even sure who it is. Magnus? Ben? Mary? My sister? They were pretty
good about keeping me in the dark about the overall organization. But I figure
the best thing to do is to totally lie about everything, and try to make her
think I’m really telling the truth. “All I know is I met with a man
named...Felix.”

She scribbles
on her clipboard furiously, and inside I smile. I pray to God there’s no
innocent guy named Felix running around Ohio doing perverted stuff. “Felix.
Last name?”

“Don’t know.
They didn’t use last names.” I lick my lips. “Could I have some water?”

She motions to
the guard, who grabs the plastic cup on the sink, fills it with tap water, and
hands it to her. I gulp the water down, and although it tastes slightly of
rust, it helps. “Next. Did anyone else in your family participate in insurgent
activities?”

“No.”

 
She studies my face, and I’m not sure I’ve
convinced her. She shakes her head as if I’ve been a bad little boy. “Your
turn.”

My turn? Like
we’re playing a game? I’m afraid to ask anything. I just sit there.

The woman
studies me. “You think we’re the bad guys, don’t you?”

Again, I’m
silent.

Impatiently,
she taps her pen against the clipboard, crosses one leg over the other. “You
would probably never understand this, but we’re here to help people like you.”

 
In my mind, great comments spring up. I bite
them all back.

She waits for
my reaction, but getting nothing, she continues, frustrated. “Fine. Let’s
continue. What ties does your girlfriend have to the insurgency in California?”

“None.”

“What were you
planning to do after McFarland was dead?”

“I didn’t plan
anything. I didn’t know anything was going to happen. Is he dead?” I try to
sound shocked, surprised.

Dr.
Castleman
sighs heavily. “If you’re not going to cooperate,
I’ll just leave you alone.”

I don’t know
when I’ll see another person. I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, I have
to ask, even though I know it makes me weaker: “Where’s Carmen?”

She smiles like
a kindly grandmother. This bothers me more than if she looked like the predator
that she is. “Your girlfriend?”

I nod, looking
at the floor.

“We have her
too. It’s best you forget about her.” She touches my chin with a fuchsia fingernail
and raises my face so I’m eye-level with her. I smell her perfume, floral,
innocent. “This is a place of hope, Chris. We’re not here to punish you. We’re
here to change your life, to give you back to God. If you’ll help me, we can
give Carmen the same chance.”

I bite the
inside of my lip so hard, I taste blood.

No window, so
no day or night. They leave the lights on all the time. I guess it’s a way to
make me crazy. I think it’s working.

I try to find
ways to pass the time. I count the tiles in the floor. I pick up the mattress
and look underneath. Stains. Put it back. I pace the floor, counting my
footsteps. Fifteen one way,
ten
the other. I realize
I’ve never been bored before. Not like this. Not in the way that you could lose
your mind.

And today, the
voice started. It came from some speaker I can’t find, but it’s piped into my
cell, nonstop. At first I try to pretend it’s the radio, but it keeps repeating
the same things over and over and over, then playing this kind of trance-like
music. I can’t find anything to stuff in my ears.