Chapter 12: A Federal Case

“C’mon, guy—what really happened?” “You saw it, how’d he trip” “You know how he did it—tell us!” rang out all around me.

I put my arms in the air. “Listen up!” I shouted. “What I said when I came in. I can only say what I saw myself. There’s a whole bunch of accident reports in the office, if you ask nice maybe they’ll let you read them. Is there a school paper? Maybe they can do a story, ok?”

I squeezed out of the room and found Denise waiting in the hall.

“My god! Let you out of my sight for a minute and all hell breaks loose! What happened to you? Why were you gone so long? I was getting really worried and then heard a siren...”

“Shhhh. It’s ok, tell you later, your ears only, ok?”

She nodded and we walked to Calculus. She told me what I missed in first period and would give me her notes and the assignment. I joked with her that I must be setting a school record for the most class excuse passes in the first week and was treated to that delightful giggle again. I could get hooked on it.

“So you can teach me about that meditation stuff, Kevin? Will that help me feel the energy you mentioned? That’s so exciting!”

“Yeah, I can try. I’m no master at this but I can show you how I learned it. Say, you know, maybe it can help you with your problem too—you know, that assault thing. I heard that calming the mind sometimes can go a long way in helping physical issues, but I do know that it helps me get calm and focused.”

The class was starting so we sat. After class we went to lunch and met up with our little group again. Most were pretty excited to tell us of their recruiting progress. We had a few kids who could do a website and others who could write well and could do blog articles on current Program topics. It looked like there was a fairly good interest in the guardian corps idea and some of the kids on the football team (gotta wrap my mind around the American concept of football) were interested; one of them was on the Program last spring.

Of course they were dying to know about the Abover incident. They were all totally convinced that I had set up the whole thing somehow and wanted to know how I had done it. Perceptive kids; they had seen me in action and figured I had some tricks they hadn’t seen yet. How right they were. I didn’t want to lie or even prevaricate so I changed the subject quickly.

“Oh, you know that the cops came to see me last night? About what happened in Fletcher’s office yesterday? Well, Abover tried to get me arrested for assault.”

Expressions of shock and chagrin appeared around the table. I went on to explain the distinction between assault and battery and gave them examples; then I went on to tell them that should anyone ask, that they could truthfully say that I didn’t assault anyone in the room—and they should leave out any comment about my takedown of Abover as that was an irrelevant detail.

I noticed that Jane was very quiet; she had her hands on her face like she was trying to keep from crying.

“Jane, are you ok? Anything wrong?” I asked.

She looked up and I could see tears in her eyes.

“A little scared is all. I was thinking how I felt in the office and about having to get naked and all of the awful, terrible stories about what they do to you and...” she trailed off, sobbing now.

Barbara leaned over and put her arm around her shoulder. “That’s why we’re here, honey, we’re going to try to stop all that crap from happening anymore. I’m really worried too, but if all those kids came through it last year, I guess we could too, don’t you think?”

“Uh huh,” she said uncertainly.

Suddenly a question popped into my head. “Hey guys, this is crazy. All this open-season sex that’s almost forced on you ... Aren’t you girls afraid of getting pregnant? or a STD? How do you make the guys put on rubbers?”

Sarah grinned. “Maybe you really did grow up on Mars, Kevin. I thought everyone in the whole world knew about the magic shot that keeps away the babies and the bugs.”

“What do you mean? I lived a protected life, hardly ever saw girls socially and the only birth control I know is the pill and rubber. What’s the shot?”

“It was approved, what? five years ago, maybe. It made the Program possible, actually,” she said. “When it came out, people began thinking about how good open sexuality would be for everyone. The liberals thought it would cut down on crimes like rape and molestation and if kids could be indoctrinated into losing their sexual or bodily modesty, they’d grow up as well-adjusted adults. That’s what they taught us in our Civics class. It’s kind of what happened when the birth-control pill came out. There was a sexual revolution then but it got cut short by disease problems like AIDS and herpes. The Shot prevents pregnancy and all STDs and it’s effective within 24 hours of getting it and it lasts about 90 days. The only problem is that maybe 10% of women are allergic and can’t take it.”

I couldn’t help but think that this was both a good and a bad development. Good for society—cure disease, but bad for society’s morals—making sexuality public. I was brought up to believe that sex was a private matter between loving adults. Well, the world marches on.

Lunch period continued with smalltalk about classes, teachers, activities—you know, the stuff that interests high school kids—I think it was the first time since I arrived that I experienced some normality.

Fifth period came, it was the Health/Psych class that alternated days with gym, but Miss Williams popped in just before class started and asked me about the track team again. I told her I was considering it.

At the start of the sixth period, the paging system came to life. “Will Mr Kevin Coris please report to the office. Kevin Coris. Thank you.”

Oh MAN! Can’t they just leave me alone? What now? I looked at Denise who wore a very unhappy expression, shrugged at her, and excused myself to the teacher.

At the office, Mrs Maples told me that Dr Fletcher wanted me in his office, ok. Besides Fletcher, there were two men and a woman.

Fletcher said, “Ok, let’s use my conference room.”

It was next door; a small room with a table and eight chairs. When we were seated, one of the men began speaking.

“I’m Mr Merotta and this is Mrs Joury; we’re from the district Program office, and this is Mr James from the U.S. Attorney’s office.”