3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1) (22 page)

JeAnn said, “So, that’s my story. Now that
we have that out-of-the-way, why don’t you ask me all the questions
that have been burning inside you since you got here.”

I pulled a piece of paper from my back
pocket and unfolded it.

“
I see you came
prepared.”

“
Always.” Or most of the
time. Or sometimes. Or once.

I started at the top of the list. “How many
people here died and how many people were born here?”

JeAnn's eyes shot open and I asked,
“What?”

“
Nothing, it’s just not a
question I’m used to getting day one with a new Arrival.” She
paused. Looked at her computer. Hit a couple buttons. Took a deep
breath. “No one is born in Two, but Borns—" she caught herself.
 

“
Did you say
Borns? What’s a Born?"

She leaned forward and whispered, "Trust me,
you'll know. Now, listen, we shouldn't be talking about this."

I wanted to ask, "Why? What's the big deal?"
But instead, I said, "So women can’t get pregnant here?"

She nodded. "When a female dies, no matter
what age, all their eggs die with them."

"But the Borns—”

She put her hand up. “Next question, Mr.
Young."

I put an asterisk next
to
Borns
in my
mental file folder and asked, “Does Two have a high rate of
suicide?”

Again she raised her eyebrows. “Why do you
ask that?”

“
All these people have
died, they come to Two and they have a clean slate. I had a quarter
of a million dollars in school loans and I come here and I don't
owe a penny. I’m not saying I ever contemplated killing myself, but
you can see how after coming here, someone might get themselves in
trouble—financial or criminal—and decide to pull out a gun and blow
their brains out. Start fresh again. Go to Three.”

“
You are a bright kid. In
fact, we do have a high suicide rate. And for that very reason.
People get themselves in trouble and want a fresh start. But no one
knows where people go when they die here. That's the rub. As for
the gun part, there are no guns here.”

“
None?”

“
None.”

“
Even law
enforcement?”

“
Stun guns. Nothing that
shoots bullets.”

“
What about a black
market?”

“
Some. But law enforcement
cracks down hard on gun dealers. We have a three-strike
law.”

“
Colorado has a
three-strike law?”

“
No. The entire
world.”

She must have noticed the perplexed look on
my face and explained, “There are boundaries, different
governments, different states even, but the entire world works
together on issues of safety, environment, punishment, and
healthcare. You get one strike in Alabama, another in Germany, and
another in Ecuador, you go away for life.”

As a prospective lawyer, I found this tidbit
almost too much to digest. The entire world working together. Could
that work? Was I in favor of this? Or was this overboard?  Big
Brother and all that. I needed a couple hours to swish this around
my brain cavity. Anyhow, this was a great lead in to my next
question. I thought about the teenager. Damon. “What if you
murdered someone in your past life and then you come here, do you
get a clean slate?”

“
You couldn’t see it, but
when you were forced through those grueling question and answer
sessions, you were being monitored by the most advanced lie
detection software known to man.”

I’d read enough spy novels and seen enough
thrillers to know lie detection technology was incredible these
days, constant blood pressure readings, pupil dilation
measurements, sweat readings, stuff that measured the pitch of your
voice.

 “
But I wasn’t asked
whether I committed any crimes.”

“
After the initial Q &
A, the computer tells us the likelihood you have committed a
violent crime in your past. You were given a two out of seven. We
don’t pursue it unless the computer gives us a four or higher.” She
paused for a moment, then said, “We are not interested if you got a
minor in possession ticket when you were fifteen or if you got
caught with ecstasy in your pocket in college.“

I sat back in my
chair.
How did they know?

Before I could gather my thoughts, JeAnn
smiled and said, “Now ask me the questions you think were too
stupid to ask.”

I filed the fact they knew of my two
indiscretions without my ever recounting them, crumpled up the
paper I was holding and asked, “Is Michael Jackson here?”

JeAnn laughed. “Do you know that every
Arrival for the past two months has asked me that question? No, I
am sad to say the King of Pop is not here.”

Damn.

“
How about Billy
Mays?”

“
I don’t know who that
is?”

“
OxyClean, OrangeGlo,
Mighty Mendit, Quick Chop, Grip Wrench, Samurai Shark.” Yes, I
owned all the following products. Or had. What can I say; I think
it was his beard.

Again she shook her head.

No Michael. No Billy. WTF?

I only had one question left, a question I
had been dying to ask someone. “Tell me about Heath Ledger.”

She smiled. “Heath came to us in January of
last year. It was a big story. He appeared in Manhattan. My sister
went to college with his Adjustment Counselor in New York and I got
the inside scoop on him before his integration.”

“
Integration?”

“
His integration into
society. What you will be doing starting tomorrow.”

“
Oh.”

“
Anyhow, his first movie
came out last Friday,
The
Flyaway
. I loved it.”

For some reason this hit home with me. It
sounds stupid, but I felt like I knew someone here. I knew Heath.
Kind of sad.

I asked, “You said,
he
appeared
.”

“
Right. He
appeared.”

“
What does that
mean?”

“
How do you think you got
here?”

“
I have no
idea.”

“
You
appeared
.”

I guess I hadn’t thought about this yet.

JeAnn said, “I’m surprised you haven’t asked
yet. Usually it’s the first question people ask.”

“
What?”

“
They ask to see a video
of their appearance.”

⠔

JeAnn fiddled on her computer for a brief moment, then turned the
laptop to face me. “Ready?”

I wasn’t, but I nodded nonetheless.

The screen came alive. It showed a stoop in
front of a small two-story house. There was a date and time in the
top right corner. It read, “09/10/2009, 17:03:36.”

5:03 p.m. on September 10th, 2009.

Right about now, I’d have
just finished watching a rerun of
Top
Chef
and would be stripping off my
clothes.

I looked at JeAnn. She was staring at me
intently. I looked back at the screen. Twenty seconds went by. A
man walked into the screen. He was dressed warmly, for it had been
chilly that day, high around 45, and he was pulling a wagon with a
small girl. The girl looked tired and was clutching a stuffed toy.
The clock moved past 5:05.

I’d accidentally flushed the toilet and
about now I would be testing the water with my hand, patiently
waiting for it to cool down.

Nothing happened on screen.

At 5:06:23 a mail carrier came into view. He
walked up to the door, stuffed some mail through the slot, then
exited as fast as he came.

I would have just been getting settled in
the shower. Washing my hair. Eyes closed. The water reeling off my
back. My mind would drift to that study session. Joni had been
wearing these short black shorts that had been rolled once at the
waist, pulled tight against her tanned, toned, thighs. She had a
small, red DU shirt on. Her face was a bit flushed and I knew she’d
just put in a good hour on the elliptical. She took off her
backpack and set it next to her chair, squatting to unzip the bag
and retrieve her notebook. Her tiny red shirt lifted up her back
and her little black shorts squished down a bit, revealing she
wasn’t wearing any underwear. I tried not to stare at the perfectly
outlined crevice that lead to possibly the most fantastic couple of
square inches on the planet, but I was only human. I have this
perfect picture in my mind, a snapshot burned into my
cerebellum.

I rinse the shampoo out of my hair and grab
the conditioner. I put a healthy amount in my hand. Too much
actually and I shake some off my hand and onto the shower floor. I
don’t apply the conditioner to my hair.

I watch the screen. If something is going to
happen, it is going to happen any second.

The clock moves past 5:08.

It didn’t take long. My whole body tensed. I
stagger forward a step. The shower floor is silky with the spilled
conditioner and my left foot shoots forward. My right follows and I
am falling.

I move as close to the screen as possible,
my head hovering just over the space bar.

The clock inches towards 5:09.

5:08:56.

5:08:57.

5:08:58.

5:08:59.

5:09:00.

5:09:01.

5:09:02.

And then it happens. There I am. I just
appear.

I am lying on my side on the cold asphalt. I
am still wet, glistening, the water slowly coloring the ground a
charcoal black. Blood runs from the cut on my right temple, running
down my left shoulder, streaking down my back, coloring my body a
rusted red.

Forty seconds pass, then three people enter
the screen. They kneel beside me and slowly roll me over onto my
back.

They gasp.

I gasp.

Not me in the video.

Me watching the video.

My penis—in the video—is hard as a rock.
There has never been a penis harder than my penis.

A minute passes. The crowd grows. The screen
is full of bodies. At least twenty of them. All staring at the
naked kid on the sidewalk with a rock hard boner. I can see them
laughing, jostling one another.

And then three uniformed men show up. They
wear blue uniforms with Two Arrival Unit inscribed in bright
yellow. They part the crowd. One sees me and starts laughing. He
hits one of the other guys on the shoulder. I could almost read his
lips, “Holy shit. Look at this guy’s dick. Stiff as a board.”

They cover me in a blanket, put me on a
stretcher, and carry me away.

The people slowly disappear from the screen
and the clip ends.

JeAnn looks at me and says, “Don’t feel bad.
You weren’t the first. And you won’t be the last.”

Chapter 4.

Integration

There was a knock at the door.

I set the book down on my lap. I was sitting
on the twin bed, propped up against the wall. I stared at the lime
green door and pondered whose knuckles were responsible for the
knock. Were they the olive skinned, slightly feminine knuckles of
Dr. Raleigh? Possibly. Were they the fleshy and fat knuckles of Dr.
JeAnn Tury? Doubtful. Fat knuckles make thuds, not knocks. Were
they the darkly browned knuckles of my new friend Darrel.
 Perhaps.  Or were they Beth’s knuckles. Maybe Beth
wanted to see if I were finished reading the book yet.

I picked the book up.

As well as being a movie
buff, I was an avid reader. Yesterday when we’d taken our
“Integration” bus trip, we had stopped at an Allmart—comparable to
a Target—and we were given an hour to shop. While I’d been picking
up my special face soap, energy bars, and other necessities, I had
walked past the book section, where there was a cardboard display
of Michael Crichton’s new novel,
The
Tube
.

Back on the bus, when everyone was comparing
purchases, Beth had noticed the book and asked if she could borrow
it when I was done. I told her I would be finished by this time
tomorrow. That had been around six.

I glanced at the alarm clock on the desk
just to my right. It was ten after six. This led me to believe Beth
was behind the green door.  But, I suppose I’ve gotten a bit
ahead of myself here. I’m going to back up to yesterday.

⠔

My appointment with JeAnn was at 8:45 a.m. I took a seat across
from her. The last time I had been seated across from her, less
than twenty-four hours earlier, I’d watched myself appear from thin
air with the boner of the century.

Good times.

Today, JeAnn was wearing what could only be
called a muumuu. A purple muumuu. She looked like Barney if Barney
was a fat, lesbian, wearing a purple muumuu. JeAnn was all business
today. She passed a document to me and said, “Congratulations, you
are officially a resident of Two.”

I peered at the piece of paper. At the top
was my legal name, Madison Young. Underneath was a date and time.
The date and time I appeared.

I asked, “Is this, like, my birth
certificate?”

“
Arrival Certificate. It
says so right there.”

And it did. Right at the top.

“
And here is your TIC. Two
Identification Card.” She handed me a card. It was white plastic.
It looked like a license. There was a picture of me in the right
corner. My dark hair draped across my forehead.  My hazel eyes
were slightly downcast, three or four days worth of stubble shaded
the bottom half of my face. I wasn’t sure when the picture had been
taken. I didn’t recall anyone taking a picture of me.