Thomas Prescott Superpack (103 page)
Read Thomas Prescott Superpack Online
Authors: Nick Pirog
Tags: #Fiction, #Retail, #Suspense, #Thrillers
As people walked past our group, you could see they knew. Knew we were Arrivals. Fresh meat. Two young kids, with hats backward, skateboarded past us and yelled, “Zombies.”
Punks.
I felt a squeeze on my hand. Berlin jutted her chin upwards. She was staring at a streetlamp ten feet to our right. Halfway up the pole of the lamp was a wire elliptical cage. Within the cage, jutting outwards from the lamp like petals of a flower, were six compact cameras. Three hundred and sixty degrees of constant monitoring. On closer inspection, I noticed these “flowers” were everywhere. On every street lamp, every stoplight, every entrance to every building. I noticed even the bus had a cage on the front, the back, and one directly on the side.
Hello,
Big Brother.
I knew there was surveillance similar to this in London and other cities overseas, but it was
unsettling to see it firsthand. To know every movement I made was being recorded. To know I was being watched.
Dr. Raleigh stepped off the bus and said, “Sorry about that. Follow me.”
He made his way to the revolving door and said, “You have to go one at a time.” He ushered the first person over, one of the white guys, and said, “Slide your card there, then step through.”
The white guy asked, “Do you have to do this every time you go in a building.”
“Sure do.”
The man swiped his card, a light overhead blinked blue, and he stepped into the carousel. This was repeated seven more times until the only people left where Dr. Raleigh, Berlin, and myself.
I decided now was as good a time as ever and turned to Dr. Raleigh. I said, “So, I was curious if instead of going to live with her uncle, if Berlin could stay with me?”
Berlin’s eyes opened wide. She stared at Dr. Raleigh. Silently pleading with him.
He shook his head. “I can’t allow that. It’s against the rules.”
Berlin’s eyes fell to the ground.
Dr. Raleigh said, “If she doesn’t want to stay with her uncle she can go live in foster care, but we like that to be a last resort.”
Berlin released my hand and said, “Thanks anyways.” She swiped her card and entered the building.
Dr. Raleigh nodded at me and said, "You're up."
⠔
We rode the elevator to the top of the skyscraper and found our way to the observation deck. We were on the top floor of the tallest building in downtown Denver and there was a panoramic view of the entire state. The beautiful mountains to the west, plains to the
far east, the rapid movement of the city below. And I understood why we were here, why Dr. Raleigh had taken us to this spot. The ten of us standing near the guardrails, peering out on the expansive city below, at its epicenter, were now an integral part of a functioning society.
We had been integrated.
⠔
Our second stop was a restaurant called The Cow. It was filled with round green tables, beer signs, and TVs set on a baseball game. As we filed in, a couple people stopped and stared, but for the most part, no one paid us special attention. It was refreshing.
We pushed a couple tables together and I ended up next to Berlin—who now refused to say a word to me—and the black guy who couldn’t swim. His name was Darrel.
While we waited for the burgers—all ten of us ordered the Bacon Cow Burger—I got acquainted with Darrel Fadden.
He opened with, “This is a trip.”
“I know. It’s crazy.”
“You going to live in the Adjustment House in Denver?”
I hadn’t thought about it yet. “I suppose.”
“I’m thinking about going back to St. Louis.”
“You can do that?”
“Yep. You can move into any of the Adjustment Houses in the U.S. All my family is from St. Louis. I got a couple cousins who died a couple years back. Might try to get in touch with them. Where you from?”
I spent the next ten minutes telling my new pal Darrel about how I’d grown up in Florida, was raised by six different nannies, then moved to Colorado on my eighteenth birthday. Berlin was to my right, she was playing her video game—I guess she still hadn’t stolen enough cars and killed enough hookers—but I could tell she was listening. Darrel nodded, but I didn’t think he could relate much to the lap of luxury I’d been brought up in. Darrel had been born in the St. Louis projects. He’d been a gangbanger for most of his adolescent years, then he got shot (he showed me the scar on his clavicle), and decided enough is enough. Fast-forward five years and he is a cop patrolling the same streets he used to bang on.
I shook my head. “You became a cop?”
“What, a brother can’t be a cop?”
“No. No.”
“Just messing with you. Yeah, I worked the beat in St. Louis for six years, then I moved to Denver, worked Denver PD for two years, then became a detective a couple years back.”
“You ever shoot anybody?”
Darrel and I both looked at Berlin.
"Oh, so you can talk?"
She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, and I knew I'd been forgiven.
Darrel hesitated, then reluctantly said, “Yeah, I shot somebody. A gangbanger a couple years back.”
Berlin asked, “Did he die?”
Darrel nodded.
“What if he’s here?”
“What if who’s where?”
“What if the guy you killed is here?”
“I didn’t think of that.” He started laughing and said, “I hope he doesn’t have a very good memory.”
While the three of us were laughing, the burgers came. They were delicious.
⠔
Next we headed to the aforementioned Allmart for some shopping. Then we ended the day at the movies.
Leaning back in the big comfortable maroon chair, a big tub of over-buttered, over-salted popcorn sitting between my thighs, a 60 oz.
Koke
in my cupholder, a smiling seven-year-old girl to my right, watching my friend Heath Ledger battle invisible demons, I felt my first feeling—although fleeting—that maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.
⠔
But back to the present.
There was another round of knocking and I pushed myself off the bed.
I pulled the door open.
It was Berlin.
She was wearing yellow spandex pants and a red hoody. My red hoody. She'd gotten cold on the bus coming back from the movies and I’d given it to her. She’d yet to take it off. She had a large pink backpack on.
I said, “Hey.”
“I wanted to come and say good-bye.” She sniffed, her big greens eyes red and puffy.
A lump formed in my throat and I barely managed, “I didn’t think you were leaving until tomorrow.”
“Nope. Tonight.”
“You going to your uncles?”
“Yeah. I’m not going to live in some foster home. Plus, he’s not as bad as I made him out to be.”
I couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or saying this just for my benefit. My guess was the latter.
She threw a crooked smile and asked, “Can I keep your sweatshirt?”
“Sure.”
“Will you take me to the movies sometime?”
“I’d love to.”
She held out her hand. In it was a slip of paper. “This is my uncle’s address and phone number.”
I took it, folded it up, and put it in my pocket.
Berlin took a step forward, wrapped her arms around me, and buried her face in my stomach.
I scratched the top of her head and tried to keep the water in my eyes. We stayed like that for a good ten seconds. Finally, she unclenched herself from me.
She smiled and said, “Later loser.”
Then she ran down the hall, her large pink backpack swaying back and forth behind her.
⠔
Twenty minutes later, Beth came by for the book. I’d skimmed through the final thirty pages and found out how it ended. It was okay.
No
Jurassic Park
or anything. I handed the book to her and told her to pass it on to someone else after she finished.
As I was drifting off to sleep, my last night in the Two Adjustment Facility, there was a knock at the door. My first instinct was that it was Berlin. Maybe she’d come back. Maybe they decided to let her stay until morning. I jumped off the bed and pulled the door open. It was Dr. Raleigh.
He said, “I found this on the floor.”
It was my ID card. I grinned sheepishly and took it. I said, “Don’t tell JeAnn.”
“Don’t worry.”
He turned to leave and I said, “Can I ask a question?”
“That depends."
I shook the card and said, “Has it always been like this?”
“Like what?”
“With the cards and the surveillance and the Big Brother feel.”
“It has been for as long as I could remember.” He said this louder than needed. Then after sweeping his head from left to right, he leaned forward and in a touch above a whisper, said, “The cards and the cameras are just the surface measures. There are many things you can’t see. And you never will. You only see what they want you to see.”
Dr. Raleigh winked at me, then turned and continued down the hall.
This was my first glimmer there was much more to Dr. Raleigh than met the eye. And there was a lot more to
Two then people were telling.
Moving On
JeAnn was wearing what I could only describe as a Snuggie. A big red blanket with arm sleeves. I hoped she was wearing something underneath the blanket, but I couldn’t be sure. There was a good chance the only thing separating me from eight folds of fat was a thin layer of super soft luxurious fleece.
She asked, “How do you like living at the Adjustment House?”
I’d been living at the Adjustment House for going on a week now. I had my own one bedroom apartment. The place had brown shag carpet, light blue walls, and came fully furnished with all the necessities, couch, chairs, table, TV, anything and everything one would expect. There was a large meeting room and you were encouraged—by encouraged, I mean
mandated
—to attend three meetings a week. So far, this week, I’d attended a meeting titled, “The Road to Gainful Employment,” and another one titled, “Two Safety.” Both had been over three hours long and both times I had contemplated jabbing my pen into my neck. And I would have, if I hadn’t been accompanied by my new pal Darrel, who had decided to stay in Denver after all.
I said, “
It’s okay.”
“There are restrictions, but you’ll find that they will help you in the long run.”
One of the restrictions she was referring to was the eleven-thirty curfew. Two days earlier, after a dinner of pork chops, corn on the cob, a beet salad, and peach cobbler at the House cafeteria, Darrel and I had checked out a basketball and walked to a lighted park six blocks away. We played a little one-on-one, drank a couple beers Darrel had somehow acquired, and more or less chatted the night away. We didn’t realize how late it’d gotten until a Jeep drove up to the curb and over the intercom told us we were breaking curfew and to report to the Two Adjustment House immediately.
“Nothing I can’t manage.”
“Have you made any friends?”
There were over two hundred people living in the Adjustment House, including the nine newest Arrivals, all from my orientation class. I had made a couple acquaintances, three guys who had all
arrived
together eleven weeks earlier. They had a week left, then they would be released, “into the wild,” as they referred to it. I’d sit with them if I saw them at the cafeteria, but I didn’t want to forge a bond with anyone who was about to leave. More or less, Darrel and I kept to ourselves. I think this was because we were both introverts. Both loners in our own right.
Instead of going into this, I answered, “A couple.”
“Any girls?” She raised her eyebrows.
“A couple.”
This was a lie. I had yet to speak a word to anyone of the opposite sex. I felt like I was back in high school. But, more than that, I just didn’t care. The prospect of sex was the last thing on my mind. That being said, there was one woman I’d caught sneaking glances at me. A pretty blonde. I’d heard a couple of the other guys talking about her. They all thought she was a knockout. I wasn’t convinced.
JeAnn leaned forward and I could tell social hour was over. “You’re probably wondering why I called you here.”
When I’d gotten back to my room last night—after losing three successive games of Dominoes to Darrel—there was a note taped to my door. It was from JeAnn. She wanted to meet with me in the morning if possible.
She didn’t wait for my reply. “I’ve been busy since we last met.” She rummaged around under her desk, then extracted a packet. She handed it to me.
I looked at it for a moment. Flipped through it superficially.
She said, “It’s tomorrow.”
I looked back down at the packet. I’d held a similar packet in my hands just hours before my death, making sure I had the date, time, and location correct. On the cover of the packet were the words, “Colorado Bar Exam. Fall Session.”
I looked up from the packet. I thought back on the hundreds of hours I’d spent studying over the course of the past three months, the late nights, the boxes of pizza, the Red Bulls, and now it wouldn’t have been for nothing. Except. I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d learned. Everything was gone. The data on the hard drive wiped clean.
I shook my head and said, “There’s no way I can take the bar tomorrow.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll do fine.”
That’s what I’d thought the last time I took it and I’d gotten a measly 100 points out of 400. “I’m not taking it.”
“You have to.”
“Have to what?”
“You have to take the test.”
“Why? I’ll just take it in the spring.”
“I signed you up already.”
“So, unsign me up.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Simplify it for me.”
“I have a friend on the board, I called in a favor. If you don’t take the test tomorrow, you will have to enroll in law school here.”
I leaned back. “What if I take the test and fail it?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to go back to law school.”
“Why?”
“That was my friend's only stipulation. You pass, you get to be a lawyer here. You fail, you go back to school.”
“What if I’d already passed the Bar and I was a practicing lawyer?”
“Did you pass the Bar? Were you a practicing lawyer?”
No and no. I didn’t have to tell her this. She knew.
She said, “But if you
had
passed the bar and if you
had
been a practicing lawyer, you would have been forced to take a six-month refresher course, then you would have had to take the Bar. If you failed it once, you could appeal to take it again. If you failed a second time, you would have to go to school here.”
“They make it hard to be a lawyer.”
“And there’s still too damn many of ya.”
I sat there in silence for a good minute. Finally I said, “So, I can’t lose anything by taking the test. If by some miracle I pass it, then that’s great. And if I fail, which I’m positive I will, I’m no worse off than I would have been if I hadn’t taken it at all.”
JeAnn, who had been waiting patiently for me to draw this conclusion, beamed. “Exactly.”
For a moment, I felt encouraged. That is, until the two-ton anvil landed on my head. I knew nothing about this place. I’d been here two weeks. Everything was different. Including the laws.
I said, “How exactly do you propose I'm going to pass the Bar when I know nothing about the laws that govern this place.”
“I thought you might ask that.” She leaned down and after a couple moments of strenuous breathing, and one instance where I thought her Snuggie was attacking her, she reemerged with a textbook and a thick study-guide . She slid them across the table and said, “I
propose
you start studying.”
I read the title of the textbook,
Two Law Review
.
I slid back in the chair and let loose an epic groan. One that sounded like the top of a coffin being wrenched open after a century underground. I groaned because I never wanted to study another minute. I groaned because there was a textbook—weighing roughly the same as one of JeAnn’s floppy arms—patiently waiting to give me a migraine.
JeAnn said, “Did I mention I had a present for you?”
I was still pouting but managed, “You did not.”
“Well I do.”
She disappeared under her desk a second time and I had the feeling the odds of her ever resurfacing where grim. But she proved me wrong, popping up like one of those gophers you hit with the bat at Chucky Cheese. Except, for the analogy to work, I suppose the holes would have to be six feet in diameter, the bat would have to be a wrecking ball, and the Chucky Cheese would have to be a Snuggie Factory.
JeAnn was holding a box in her hands. It wasn’t big, but then again, it wasn’t small. She handed it to me and said, “This should cheer you up.”
The side of the box read, “SONYY Helium3.”
It was a laptop.
JeAnn said, “My friend said you needed a laptop to take the Bar, so I went out and got you one. The guy at the store said it was the lightest and fastest one out right now.”
I’d never had enough money for a laptop, using the computers at school if I needed one, and I had to check out a loaner laptop the first time I took the Bar. I looked down at the box for a long five seconds. The box in my lap was the first present anyone had given me in more than ten years. I looked up, took a deep breath, and said two words that did not come easily to me, “Thank you.”
JeAnn smiled. “You’re welcome.”
And for the first time since I died, I began to cry.
⠔
After I’d stopped weeping—it wasn’t that bad; seven tears, two big sniffs—I’d gone for a bite to eat at the cafeteria, then met Darrel for our daily best-of-three Domino extravaganza. As my single greatest quality is procrastination, I would gladly have played best of forty-one, but Darrel had an interview lined up with the Denver Police Department and left me to play Domino solitaire, aka, building a castle out of Dominoes.
After three castles, I peered up at the clock. It was 3:34 p.m. Less than sixteen hours until I had to sign in for the Bar. Should probably get studying.
Should.
There was a meeting that started at three-thirty and since I still hadn't attended my third mandated meeting, I decided to see what it was about. The meeting was in conference room B. The printed sheet taped to the outside of the door read, “Traffic Safety. The Do’s and Don’ts of Driving.”
Red light.
I did a U-turn and made my way back to my quaint little bungalow. The textbook and study guide were exactly where I’d left them four hours earlier. Next to the books was the shiny box that held my brand new laptop. JeAnn made me promise her I wouldn’t take the laptop out until tomorrow morning. She said it would distract me from studying. I told her I would need to install a bunch of stuff, but she said the guy at Circuit City—apparently, dead businesses come to
Two as well—installed everything and it was ready to go. All I had to do was turn it on. Which was exactly what I wanted to do. But a promise is a promise. Even if it is to a carpet muncher in a red Snuggie.
I did some push-ups. Some sit-ups. Then I went for a quick jog. I took a shower. Finally, I picked up the study guide and walked it over to the round wooden table filling the compact area that would be deemed the condo’s dining room.
I flipped it open to a random page and began reading:
The defendant was arrested on February 1 and released one month later on March 1 after being charged with a felony. On December 1 of the same year as his arrest, he filed a motion to discharge since no trial or other action had occurred to that point. The court held a hearing 3 days after the motion was filed. Defendant should be
(A) discharged because more than 175 days passed between arrest and the filing
of
the motion to discharge.
(B)
discharged because more than 175 days passed between his release from jail and the filing of the motion to discharge.
(C)
brought to trial within 90 days of the filing of the motion to discharge.
(D)
brought to trial within 10 days of the hearing on the motion to discharge.
(E) Maddy doesn’t really care.
It was (E).
Three minutes later, my new laptop was powered up and I was logging onto the internet.
⠔
The internet was basically the same. Except for one small detail. Google was now Goggle. Same font. Same everything. The same search box. Same colorful lettering. But now instead of Googling something, you Goggled it.
First off, I Goggled myself,
Madison Young
.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Five hits. Five million. Maybe a link to YouTube where the video of my appearance—
Man with Boner
—had gone viral.
No hits.
For some reason, the next thing I Goggled was
.
Strange I know.
There were a couple thousand hits. I clicked on a link that took me to the “Urban dictionary.” The definition for Google was, “A popular search engine from the past.”
I was quickly learning
the past
meant your life before this one.
Next I Goggled,
YouTube
.
Again, there were several thousand hits. But there was no, “YouTube.”
I Goggled,
Internet Video Database.