Chapter 175

“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.”
—Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

31 OCTOBER 2021

I’m barely keeping up in my classes. And none of my teachers are particularly happy with me except Mr. Richards. Even he grumbles a little about his class having been interrupted. But our class has grabbed hold of the draft and is all over it. Friday’s discussion went straight past the bell and continued for nearly an hour after school was out. At issue was a single phrase that some felt was unconstitutional. It might be. There had to be a judge on this commission, didn’t there?

The phrase read, ‘Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, each United States citizen shall complete two years of National Service or its equivalent.’ The main argument was not having a definition of what was equivalent to two years of National Service. It was easy to assume that military service was equivalent to civilian service. Okay. I suspected, however, that the words were misplaced. Military service was widely recognized to be the same as National Service. There was no reason to believe it needed to be called out. My money was on the idea that it would be two years or equivalent of National Service. The commission was trying to get across the idea that some kinds of service had a higher time equivalent than others.

I’d been fascinated by the idea of ‘no fines’ for traffic violations when I got plopped down in this world. People had different amounts of money and in V1’s world it wasn’t uncommon for those who could afford the fine to ignore the law. But time is an absolute. Everyone has the same twenty-four hours in a day. Traffic violations weren’t the only thing assessed time-based penalties. The most popular were municipal infractions. Littering, disorderly conduct (including drunkenness), setting off fireworks after 10:00 p.m., blocking a public throughway, and not picking up after a pet were examples of violations paid with community service. On the other hand, certain criminal offenses were paid with jail time plus restitution. If you shoplifted from a store, for example, you had to pay for the goods you stole, return the goods you stole, or do prison work until the goods you stole were paid for. A ten-dollar watch might only take a day to work off. A $2,000 necklace might take all year.

It wasn’t a perfect system. There were things that simply lay outside the purview of time-for-crime payment. But I had to admit that the city streets of this world were much cleaner than the streets of V1’s world.

So, what would be considered a time-equivalent for two years of National Service? Of course, there were different pay scales for different kinds of jobs. Doctors still made more than assembly line workers. But what doctors paid for in the way of education, assembly line workers made up for through sheer hard labor. And as far as I was concerned, if a person put in a year bent over in the hot sun pulling weeds, that was equivalent to two years with your ass parked on an office chair doing accounting. This definitely needed more clarity.

But that also led me to think about some people I hadn’t talked to in a long time. I didn’t know where Celia was doing her service, but I figured that at nine in the evening she would be finished with work and not yet in bed. I called her number Wednesday night.

“Jacob? Whatever inspired you to call me? I’m too far away from you to ask you for relief,” she said.

“Well, one of the reasons I’m calling is to find out where you are and how you’re doing,” I said. “I assume you are at your permanent duty station now.”

“Oh, hell yeah. Permanent could mean I die here.”

“Celia? Are you serious? What are you doing?”

“I manipulated my way into agricultural service and got assigned out here in California with Leslie. She’s in bad shape, Jacob. I had to be with her.”

“That brings up so many questions I don’t know where to start. First, tell me about Leslie and why she’s in bad shape. Was she injured?”

“In spirit, Jacob. You know our pod. Cheer-up. Three cheerleaders with a brother and sister who would fuck them all. Being split away from the pod, Leslie lost her cheer. She’s depressed and has been for months. And now she’s mad at me for volunteering to work beside her. The best friend she’d made out here committed suicide just before I got here. Leslie was on the brink.”

“Suicide? Over the job?”

“It’s depressing, Jacob. There are people out here who would have ended up in a job like this one way or another whether there was National Service or not. You can spot them in school if you look. They have no ambition and lack the intelligence or drive to make anything of their lives. They’d end up flipping burgers at McDonald’s, stacking panties at Walmart, or digging ditches on a prison gang. For them, this life is all they ever looked forward to anyway. But for those who were assigned out here regardless of their aptitude tests, intelligence, or ambition, it crushed the life out of their souls. There’s more drug and alcohol abuse in our camp than in any occupation in the service. As a result, no one has any money. It’s all spent on trying to escape the drudgery. Between the depression and the drugs, suicide seems like an easy out.”

“Celia, you’re killing me. You volunteered to go out there? How did you do that?”

“I slept my way into the good graces of my basic trainer. He showed me a mockup of the NSAT. It wasn’t really the equivalent of the real test, which is all computerized, but he showed me how the computer was rigged to identify the lowest and slowest to put in the fields. Let me tell you, when the question pops up on your test, ‘Would you rather a) eat shit or b) pick beans,’ choose ‘eat shit’.”

“But even that wouldn’t get you assigned where Leslie is. How did you manage that?”

“Slept with my NSO trainer who referred me to the bed of the recruitment officer who referred me to the bed of the placement officer. Then I slept with the field manager to get placed in the same bunkroom with Leslie.”

“That’s totally corrupt!”

“Yeah. Fortunately, one of the things being in a pod taught us was that sleeping with someone wasn’t a violation of our relationship with each other. I could spread my legs for anyone if it got me to Leslie.”

“We’re coming to California to do shows for the service at Christmas. I hope you’ll bring Leslie. We’d all like to see you again.”

“Don’t expect me to ask for relief. I’ve got Leslie now and we’re reuniting.”

“I just want to bring you some hope,” I said.

“You do, Jacob. It probably isn’t legal, but we have a Patreon membership for Marvel and Hopkins. When you announce a show, we plug a computer into the television and usually have fifty to a hundred watching. I know we should each be paying our five dollars, but then they’d have to choose between you and another joint. That live hour-long show you did in DC gave us all a lot of hope. You only released the one piece on YouTube, but we recorded the whole hour broadcast. We’ve watched it a dozen times.”

“Watch it as often as you want. Celia, I’ll get you other recordings. We’ll even make some special ones for the workers in California. I’ll find other entertainers who’ll do the same thing. We’re working to get you out of there.”

“Thank you, Jacob. You’re the best.”

I was angry. Too angry to face any of my pod mates. Most were downstairs as we’d gathered for our Wednesday night study session. I was just so furious I couldn’t risk even talking to them. I locked my bedroom door. I don’t think I’d ever done that. I didn’t want to risk hurting anyone I loved.

Hurting the people who ran the National Service was something else.

Just being locked alone in a room wasn’t helping me. I was lecturing everyone I could imagine and preparing to blast the commission. I needed to get out. I needed to run.

I dressed in sweats. Halloween in northern Indiana isn’t always freezing cold, but there was a good wind blowing across the fields tonight. I pulled on a stocking cap, my headlamp, and a reflective vest. It was dark out and even on little-traveled country roads—maybe even especially on little-traveled country roads—being visible was important. I unlocked the door and headed downstairs.

“Do you need company?” Emily said as I passed through the kitchen. I noticed only she and Sophie were up in the dimly lit breakfast area where they were playing cards.

“No. I need to run. I might be a couple of hours. Don’t worry.” I pushed out the back door and started jogging around the house to the drive. I was going to really give the fucking commission a piece of my mind next week. But if I went in there feeling the way I did now, they’d just kick me out. I needed to get things clear. I reached for my watch to set a pace and realized I didn’t have it. Lacie just ran in the state finals this weekend. She’d won the women’s division and came in fourth overall. What a great competitor.

I turned left at the road and made sure I was running against traffic—if there was any. Then I just lengthened my stride and ran.

I stumbled into the house, cold, tired, sweating, and exhausted. I had no idea how long I’d been gone or how far I ran. I was too tired now to think about the National Service mess. I just needed a shower and some food. And water. I was chugging down my second glass of water when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned into my sister’s embrace.

“A protein drink will be faster than making food,” she said. “Drink this, baby.”

I took the drink from her and swallowed. I could almost feel the nutrients flowing back into my body. I hadn’t realized I was shaking.

“How about toast and peanut butter?” I asked. “I need some carbs, too.”

Em fixed toast, spread it with peanut butter, and held up the jar of dill pickles. I nodded. She put a slice of pickle on each piece of toast. I didn’t really need the pickle for its food value but it moistened the sandwich and made it easier to swallow. I sighed as I finally felt my body chemistry stabilize.

“Ready for a shower?” Em asked.

“Yeah. You didn’t need to wait up for me, Em. I just had a need to run.”

“I had a need to be sure you got home safely. If you hadn’t gotten back in half an hour, I was alerting the pod and heading out on a search party.”

“I told you I’d be a couple of hours,” I chided.

“You were gone for three and a half hours, J. How far did you run?”

“I don’t know. Don’t have my watch right now. I loaned it to Lacie. I just ran and couldn’t stop. Eventually, I had to look at a road sign and decipher what part of the county I was in. Then I ran back.” Em led me to the shower upstairs and stepped in with me. I just sagged against her as the water beat down on my back. I was too tired to resist her tender washing of me. When she shut off the water, I was nearly asleep. She dried me and led me to bed.