Out (29 page)

Dreaming on
duty is frowned upon. I find this out when I spray too far left and gold paint
spatters the floor. Shock stick in the kidney—like having a hot knife shoved
into your back. Collapsing against the conveyer, I nearly go down the line to
the boxes, but Abraham, two men down, grabs me and puts me upright. He doesn’t
get shocked, I notice.

The buzzer
sounds. Machinery turns off and all the men stop what they’re doing. We line
up. We follow.

In bed, I still
smell of paint and chemicals, but I’m so tired it doesn’t matter. Guards patrol
the paths between beds, and the buzzer sounds again. “Commence reading,” the
voice commands.

I reach for my
bible, turn over onto my stomach again, extract the first note from my mouth,
and try to unfold it with as few movements as possible. I place it into the
gospel of St.
Aelred
and pretend to be pious.

 
This is a scrap of real letterhead paper.
Toilet paper would’ve dissolved in my mouth. The ink is running a little, but I
can still read what it says. Volunteer kitchen detail. That’s it? Shit.
Volunteer kitchen detail. I tear the letter apart tiny bit after tiny bit,
eating the bits as I pretend to sneeze or cough or rub my eyes or turn a page.
Volunteer kitchen detail. Great.

I flip to my
back after I’ve eaten all the scraps; every muscle aches and throbs, especially
where the guard zapped me in the back. Therapy. Tomorrow. It’s the only place
where I guess we get to talk, so maybe I can get some answers then.

Lights never
go out. Constant noise and banging, marching, occasional screams or yells,
sometimes gunshots. It’s a nightmare world of half-sleep, no dreams, no
possibilities of dreams. This is how they break you.

I sleep. I know
I do because the fucking buzzer wakes me up. Head pounding, I sit up and every
part of my body radiates agony. I might just lie down and let them shoot me.

“Shift two,
breakfast,” a guard barks at us. The guys around me scramble to get up. Usually
shift one goes first, I guess.

Somebody
further down the rows of beds yells out. “What about us?”

An electrical
zap vibrates the air, and the man’s scream peels sleepiness away.

Shift two lines
up, ready for breakfast. Same drill as yesterday: walk into the big room, sit
on the benches, wait for food. This time it’s oatmeal, gray and congealed.

As the carts
roll by, Abraham coughs, then says, “Kitchen.” I have no idea what he wants me
to do. I can’t even look into his eyes to see if I can read his mind, because
I’ll get zapped. So I just eat this nasty oatmeal in silence. At least it’s
food.

We line up,
drop off our bowls, get herded to another hallway. I wonder what we do about
shitting. Nobody has mentioned it, and I haven’t had to go. I wonder if that
comes with some kind of physical punishment too. I’ll ask in therapy.

 
I feel something when I see the door of
Orientation 5. Something like…joy. After spending hours not being able to talk,
I’ll finally be able to put two words together if I want to.

Dr. Ashburn is
in his gray chair again, blond wisps draped over his forehead as he peers into
his handheld. He looks up as we enter. “Be seated,” he says curtly. Everybody
finds a spot on the grass mats. Abraham does not sit next to me.

Ashburn sits in
his chair and just stares. It’s uncomfortable. Finally he says, “Shift one went
without breakfast today, yes?”

No one answers.
Everyone stares at the floor, even Abraham. I do too.

“What happened
to Shift One?” He turns to Paul, the guy who was so eager to talk yesterday. “Paul?”

Paul blinks
rapidly, no longer such a chatterbox. “I don’t know, doctor.”

“Really?” He
perches on the edge of that chair like an eagle waiting to snap its prey in
half. “Noah?”

Noah trembles
visibly, but says nothing.

“Abraham?”

I want
desperately to stare at him, to see what he’s going to do, but I don’t. I just
keep thinking Kitchen Duty.

Abraham shifts
his weight, tucks one foot under his body as if getting comfortable. “I can
tell you, Dr. Ashburn.” It’s the longest sentence I’ve heard him say.

“Excellent.”
Ashburn taps on his handheld with a stylus. “Go on.”

“Someone in
Shift One was caught passing notes.”

 
Involuntary gasps, moans, and intakes of
breath punctuate his comment. Ashburn tilts his head curiously to one side. “Passing
notes?” He’s amused. Bastard. “Tell me more.”

Abraham purses
his lips, and now all the men are looking surreptitiously at him. “Someone in
Shift One planted a note in a bible, that’s what I heard. Somebody else
snitched.”

“We don’t use
that word.” Ashburn crosses his arms and leans back. “Someone helped correct
the actions of the wrongdoer.”

“That’s what I
said.” Abraham’s dark eyes crinkle at the corners. “Exactly what I said, Doctor
Ashburn.”

Ashburn lets it
go. “Let’s move on. Work status. Paul?”

The Hispanic
with the scar twitches nervously. “I did 40 plates today. I was crating.”

“Forty?”
Ashburn checks his device. “That’s below quota, isn’t it?”

Paul swallows
hard. “I know. But they burnt my finger, so I couldn’t go as fast.” He holds up
a festering index finger that looks like it’s ready to fall off.

Ashburn
grimaces. “Yes, that looks bad. I’ll refer you to the infirmary.” He taps with
the stylus. I’m beginning to see that the stylus and pad are the gateway to all
things good and bad.

“Noah.”

The shark-man
stares with his round, soulless eyes. “They put me on shipping.”

Ashburn nods. “Go
on. Is that good?”

“Of course.”
Noah twitches. “Whatever God wills is good.”

“Great answers,
Noah.” Ashburn tap-tap-taps again. The shark doesn’t smile.

“Sebastian? How
was your first day?” He turns to me.

 
“Okay.” How are you supposed to respond when
someone asks how you enjoyed slave labor?

 
“What did you do?” He waits expectantly. I
feel Abraham’s eyes on me. I notice he sat in a place where he could watch me
without seeming to watch me.

“I uh…I painted
statues. With a hose.”

Ashburn frowns.
“You were on the assembly line, then?”

“Yes.” I’m not
sure how I’m supposed to answer.

“I’ll speak
with you after the meeting, Sebastian,” Dr. Ashburn says sternly, as if I’ve
done something wrong.

The rest of the
meeting goes in much the same way, except that all I can concentrate on is what
I’ve done wrong. Why is he mad at me? What did I do?

Everyone
answers about work, then we get to the next part of the meeting. “It’s time for
reorientation visual training,” he announces. I can feel desperation. The other
men do not like this, whatever it is.

Paul raises his
hand. “Doctor?”

Ashburn
chuckles, as if a dog or a child was asking a question. “Yes, Paul?”

“May I go to
the infirmary now?”

Ashburn stays
perfectly still. The only sign that he’s livid is that the blood drains from
around his mouth. He walks calmly to the door, opens it, motions for a guard to
step inside. “Shoot him,” he says.

The guard does.
Right above the eye.

Paul is dragged
out feet first, a thin trail of blood marking his path.

Ashburn waits
until the guards have left, and then he resumes his speech as if nothing had
happened. “Right. On to the visual reorientation.”

They just shot
that man. He was there, and now he’s not there. All that’s left is a thin red
line. I keep staring at it.

Abraham grabs
my arm sharply, yanks me up from the floor. I’m still staring at the red line. He
shoves me roughly in front of him, so I have to march behind Charles. No one
looks back.
 

“Sebastian, a
word.” Dr. Ashburn pulls me out of the line as the men file through an open
door into an attached room. I stare expectantly at the man, not knowing what I
should do or if I should do anything. “You said you were on the assembly line.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, Dr.
Ashburn,” he corrects me as if I’m three years old.

“Yes, Dr.
Ashburn.” I want to peek into the next room to see what horrors lie there, but
I keep my eyes fixed on the doctor.

“Well,
generally, when we get a new guest, he starts in the kitchen. I’m not sure why
the guard put you into the assembly. Creating tokens of devotion is a serious
and weighty task.”

Again, I don’t
know what to say. I just nod.

“I will see to
it that you are reassigned to kitchen duty. Do you have a problem with that?”
After Paul just got shot in the head over a sore finger? No. I have no problem
with that. I shake my head.

“Great.”
Ashburn grabs my elbow gently as if we’re a couple of old friends taking a
walk. “I wanted to talk to you alone also, because there are a few things that
might seem confusing to a new guest. I’m here to answer any questions you might
have.”

Shit. I’m
afraid to ask any questions. I don’t want my forehead perforated. I stare at
him like a dumb animal.

“Come, come,
you must have some questions.” Ashburn frowns at me, as if he distrusts my
silence.

“I did…”

“Yes?” He gets
his handheld ready to record whatever I say.

“What do we do
when we have to…uh..defecate?”

He arches his
eyebrows. “You personal counselor didn’t explain that?”

“No.”

He sighs
heavily, as if this is a huge burden on him. He taps angrily on his device. “Luke,
was it?”

“Yes, doctor.”

He nods. Now
I’ve gotten Luke in trouble. I should just shut up.

“Sit,
Sebastian.” He gestures toward a straight metal chair. I sit and he pulls his
swivel chair up to me. “To answer your question: defecation is handled twice
weekly at the evacuation center. We use colon cleansing to assure that all of
our guests have nutritional and digestive health. So, no need for you to
concern yourself with that.” He crosses his arms. “A few more things to note.
Our goal is rehabilitation, not incarceration. We want to help you renew your
ties to God, and to reorient you so you can fit into society productively. We
have many methods by which to accomplish this, but if you have a cooperative
attitude, things move much more quickly.” He leans toward me confidentially. “We
work on a…well, a point system here. If you give information about another
guest’s misbehavior, you earn points. If you help us identify waste or
perversity, or flaws in the guard system, you earn points. Points can be
accumulated and traded for niceties at the end of each week. If your tips
result in an arrest, you earn even more.” He beams at me, a snake eyeing a
mouse. “It’s for everyone’s good. Our goal, remember, is redemption.”

“Redemption,” I
murmur, as if I agree. I don’t.

“Now, let’s go
on into the visual reorientation. I think you’ll find it quite interesting.” He
gestures for me to go first into the dark room.

The other men
are already strapped into chairs with metal clamps. Ashburn puts me in a chair
next to Abraham. Restraints pop out of the chair and snap down over my wrists
and ankles. “Ready,” Ashburn calls to someone.

Something whirs
behind my head, and some tight-fitting halo-thing settles onto my skull. I
can’t help it—I tug against the restraints like a chained animal. Abraham
whispers, “Just sit still.”

Another smaller
whirring noise, and something is dangling in front of my eyes—no, not in front.
It...it’s grabbing my eyelids. Something is grabbing my fucking eyelids! I
scream— I can’t help it.

Something
pricks my cheek—a guard with a syringe. I feel my face go numb.

“It really works
best if you don’t fight it,” Ashburn says from behind me. “Enjoy.”

A movie screen
lights up. I have to watch it. I try to blink, but I can’t. I can’t even move
my face at all, not my lips, nose, eyebrows, eyes. Images of men and women
flash on the screen. Kissing, holding, fondling each other…and I think of
Carmen…and then shocks like a hundred hot knives jolt me against the
restraints. A smell of burnt meat—I can’t see them, but the other men, too,
they’re being tortured. More images, women, men, sex, jolts, jolts, burning, I
think I’m crying, but I don’t feel the tears on my cheek.

I don’t know
how long this goes on—my jumpsuit is wet. The screen goes blank. The restraints
pop off and retract. The clamps release my eyelids and I blink gratefully, wiping
moisture from my still-numb cheeks. Ashburn is back.

“You all did
very well. The guards will escort you back to Delta for a brief rest period,
then it’s to work.” He smiles at me in particular. “See, Sebastian? Not as bad
as you thought, eh?”

I try to
stand, but my legs give out, and I slump to the floor, hit my head on the metal
edge of the chair, and then—nothing.

In my dream, a
snake is biting my leg, over and over again, with electric fangs. “Stop!” I
yell—a guard with a shock stick grins and gives me one more blast in the thigh.

“Work time,
sweetheart,” he grumbles. “Let’s go.” The other men are already out of their
bunks, dazed. Abraham’s dark face, though, is calm, almost serene. We march on
again, same as yesterday, except this time the guards separate me, Abraham, and
Noah, whose shark-eyes are deader than they were yesterday. Bit by bit, bit by
bit…they steal souls. That’s how they do it. They only take a grain at a time,
but it’s enough. Eventually, I guess, you have nothing left.

I won’t let
that happen. But even as I think that, I know that I’ve already lost something,
a small piece of myself. What will happen after more days, more weeks? I won’t
think about it.

“Kitchen duty,”
a guard announces, opening a door and shuttling the three of us into a steaming
stainless-steel cooking area. Guess the reformers don’t like to do their own
dishes. Other men in orange jumpsuits scrub with big industrial sprayers, stack
dishes, and mop the floor. A tall, bald man comes forward. “This is Jon, head of
the kitchen detail. He’ll tell you what to do.”