The Stringers, page 26
Tom silenced me with a raised hand and a fit of laughter. “Kid, you’ve got to be friggin’ kidding me! You’ve read way too much for your own good! You ain’t no professor. I didn’t pay to hear a lecture.”
“But I haven’t even mentioned the American Citizens Rights Act,” I said.
“You don’t have to. I know it. I was lucky to have gotten the hell out of Dodge before they forced everyone to buy one of those shitty Prizms and get an IGP so that everything they do on the Net gets recorded.”
“Did you know that the bill included an exclusive, perpetual, no-bid contract with Prizm Tech to create the devices?” I asked. “And this included voter ballots, so they know how you voted in every election?”
“Something like that. Doesn’t surprise me much. I’m glad you figured out how shitty things are around here. From what I’ve heard you were quite the specimen when you first got picked up. You didn’t think too highly of us.”
I chose my words diplomatically. “I don’t know about that. All I know is that I’ve been lied to. And I’m angry.”
“Good,” Tom said. “Be angry. But just remember when to talk and when to keep your words down to minimum and when to just keep your trap shut altogether. I can’t speak for the rest of newspaper, but you don’t want to go around giving this intellectual lecture or you’ll drive them nuts. Not a good impression to set.”
“Speaking of which, when I am going to have a life again, at least outside of this room?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?” I asked.
“Again with the friggin’ questions! I might tell you to get back to your books, but then again I don’t know. I should confiscate them. I didn’t know what they’d do to you!”
“I’m glad you did. I’m starting to see things differently,” I said.
“Oh, God,” Tom muttered as he put his hand to his face. “This is just what we need. Another twenty-something heathen who’s seen the light and repented of his evil ways. Now he thinks he knows the ways of the world. I once was blind but now I see, right?”
I pulled the typewriter over to me and turned it on its side, inspecting the underbelly where several of the keys had a tendency to get jammed.
“Could you send me some anti-rust spray?” I asked. “Two keys get stuck when I press them and I think a bit of lubricant will fix it.”
“I can. Glad to see you take an interest in its condition.”
“I’m going to be using it, aren’t I?”
“No. One like it, but this is a spare. I use it as a backup or when I need to write a story myself.”
“Wait…you don’t write stories?”
Tom dropped his fedora off his head and pushed his palm against his forehead. He then put his fedora back on, straightened the brim, and then placed one of his large hands on the edge of the table.
“Just try to remember what I said, okay?” he said. “You’ve got a good handle for that typewriter and you’re handwriting’s decent. Not spectacular or nothing, but passable. McCullen’s going to whine, but not much I can do. If he gave me a couple weeks more to train you I’d be more…I don’t know what to say…easy about this. When we’re done, I’m taking you to the newspaper building and you’ll start from there.”
He looked at me bemusedly when he noticed how nonchalant I was about the news. I no longer regarded it as a place of confinement, but one of illumination. There, in that small, unheated room, guided by no one other than my own yearning for the truth, I had accumulated more knowledge than my entire life prior in furnished classrooms and state-of-the-art buildings. And still it was a pittance compared to the information awaiting me further within the piles of books. But the time had come for me to leave.
***
Later that day Tom came in and spoke briefly, telling me that someone was going to come and see me and take care of the tattoo on my neck, which I had forgotten about until now. I was not to say anything specific to the man or give him any information, and if he asked any suspicious questions or persisted when I declined to answer I was to tell Tom.
“Why?” I asked.
Tom frowned, his expression wordlessly reminding me not to ask so many questions. I shrugged and told him I would do so.
An hour later Tom returned with a short Asian man with a blindfold over his head. He carried a large case in his hand that resembled a toolbox. Tom brought him into the middle of the room near the table, covered the window with a cloth, and then removed the blindfold. The man rubbed his eyes before he looked at me. He was frail and had thin arms and his legs trembled slightly as he stood still. A long thin line that looked like a scar ran across his face, but when I studied it further I realized it was a tattoo meant to resemble a scar.
The man pointed at me, looking at Tom. “This him?”
“Who else is in here?”
The man glared at Tom coldly as he sat at the table and placed his toolbox on top of it. He opened it up and began taking out tools as Tom waved to me and departed. Preoccupied, the man spoke to me in a soft but peremptory voice.
“Come. Sit.”
I obeyed. I kept staring at his tattoo, curious as to the reason for why he had gotten it. On the table, he had a thin cloth with his tools on top of it. He rubbed his eyes again, scratching his chin. Without an explanation or instructions, he drew near me and grabbed my chin. Tilting my head back, he examined the tattoo with lowered eyebrows.
“Hmm…another one of these, eh?” he asked.
I didn’t know what was acceptable for me to say back, so I didn’t answer. He waited for one anyways and when he didn’t receive one he grinned and chuckled.
“You look scared,” he said. “Yes?”
“Scared of what?”
“I don’t know. Whatever scares you. Is what I am about to do scare you?”
“Not really.”
“Ah. Do you want something before I start?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He stared at me like I had made a dumb comment. “I am about to remove the ink in your skin. Very painful. Most men I know don’t take anything for it to blunt the pain. They also don’t scream like little girl. They are real men. Do you want something to make it not hurt?”
My reply came immediately.
“Yes. Please.”
The man’s solidified frown broke into a smile as he muttered humorously, taking out a syringe filled it with liquid from a bottle in the toolbox. He flicked it several times with his fingernail and then without any forewarning grabbed my neck and shoved the tip into my skin. I instinctively jerked away, but he gripped my shoulder with clamp-like fingers to prevent me from moving. I breathed rapidly as I felt the substance pour into my bloodstream, numbing the area on my skin where the tattoo was located.
“All done,” the man said. He tossed the syringe in his toolbox and brought out a device that looked like a drill. He turned it on, and it gave off a revving sound as he aimed it at my skin. I tried to move my head away but his extraordinary grip held me in place.
“The more you move, the harder this is for me,” he said. “We both want this over quickly.”
“All right.”
Like a dentist drilling into my teeth, the man pressed the device into my skin and rattled around. I tried not to look down, afraid I would panic and jump out of my seat. I wanted it to be over as soon as possible, as he did, but not knowing his name or anything else, it was difficult for me to trust him to the point where I could relax and let him finish his task.
He obviously was not a part of the newspaper, hence the blindfold. But he had to be trustworthy to some degree, or Tom wouldn’t have hired him to do this. The newspaper had invested too much in me already to have me killed by a tattoo artist.
I looked over at the man. Though he was concentrated on his work, he seemed to be studying me out of the corner of his eye. I looked away, only to look back at him when he laughed.
“You funny,” he said.
“How so?” I asked curiously.
“You are young. Very young.”
“Compared to what?” I asked.
“Compared to others I work on who have this tattoo. How long you have it?”
“Can’t say. A few weeks.”
“You also funny for other reason,” the man said. “You are young and look really afraid of something, but you aren’t. You don’t think you have nothing to prove to anybody.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The painkiller. I offer it to everybody. All of them refuse it. They say they men, don’t need it. I lied, though. They all scream, because that pain is too great. But they felt like they had to prove something. You don’t.”
“I don’t like to feel pain if I don’t have to,” I said. “If I can avoid it, I will.”
“Smart man,” he said. “Very smart. Don’t let others tell you what to do.”
I pointed at his tattoo. “Why did you get one like that?”
The man stopped the device in his hand and set it down on the table. He then ran his finger across the first half of the tattoo on the right side of his face, where it was thinner and whiter.
“You see this?” he said. “This part real scar. I got it when fifteen. The other half is fake. I got tattoo because it make me look funny to be only on one side. Now, I look better.”
“How did you get the scar?”
“My family live in International District for three generations. My father own carpet business. One day there is fight in a bar down the block. Someone called the cops. They came and broke up fight, but one of them ran over to our business when my father was locking up. I was outside waiting for him. The man who got in fight ran over to me and then hid in the alleyway. The cops come up to me and think I was the guy they wanted. I waved at them and called them over to help them, but when they come over one of them hits me and I fell against the ground and cut my face with broken bottle.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Terrible? No. Terrible is when my father came outside and told them to leave me alone. They handcuffed him and arrested him with me. We stayed whole night in jail. It cost all our money to post bail. Father couldn’t afford to close business.”
He kept the device pressed against my skin for another half hour or so. When he was done he turned it off, rubbed his thumb against my skin, and then pulled a mirror from his toolbox and handed it to me.
“You like it?” he asked.
I checked my neck with the mirror. The tattoo was gone and the area where it had been was now looked like a rash.
“No worry,” he said. “The redness go away quick. The ink is what you worry about.”
“It seems to all be gone.”
“Good.”
He took the mirror and the device and put them away. I kept rubbing my neck, still numb from whatever he had given me. The redness bothered me, but only in the same way it would bother a slave who had just had the manacles and suffered from bruises and soreness. It was a small price to pay for the freedom that had been gained.
The man closed the toolbox, snapping the dual locks shut. He then secured it with a key hanging around his neck. I thanked him for his work and he smiled.
“You seem like good kid,” he said. “Others not so nice. I hope you do all right. No idea what it is. But others didn’t seem like they would make it. Lot of them acted like they wanted to die. Not you.”
I gazed at him as I massaged my wrist with my fingertips. All I could think to say was “Thank you” and leave it at there. There was no harm in that.
The man knocked on the door and then turned around as the door opened and Tom stepped in. He brought out the blindfold and wrapped it around the man’s face before he led him out of the room and through the corridor. It was safe to assume he would be taken through several rooms to ensure he didn’t have a clear sense of direction as to what type of building he was in before Tom took him out back, where they’d have a car waiting to drive him someplace else miles away and then drop him off there.
Tom came back with a bundle of clothes in his arms and set them down on my bed and then looked at me tentatively. I could tell something pestered him. He had a five o’ clock shadow, and I knew it wasn’t five o’ clock yet. His tie was loose, but it hadn’t been loosened. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had a slight twitch as he tapped his foot against the ground.
“Something wrong?” I asked. “Did I say something to that man I shouldn’t have?”
Tom gaped at me, clearly distracted with something on his mind. He snapped his head up as he answered in a delayed manner.
“What? Oh, no…no, that was fine. He did a good job on your neck. He’s a good guy. We use him when we have to. I’ll bet he knows who we are, but he knows his business and keeps his nose where it belongs, and I appreciate it. Anyways, those are your clothes for tomorrow. You’ll hate them probably, but you don’t have a choice. McCullen likes his boys to dress in their Sunday best for him. He thinks it makes people more productive when they dress proper. I tried to get something that’d fit you, so if it don’t just let me know and I’ll see what I can do. Chances are, however, I won’t be able to do a whole lot for a few days.”
“Okay.”
Tom was motionless, save for the tapping of his foot that was like raindrops dripping from a tree onto a rooftop. With his hands shoved down his pant pockets, he eventually took one hand out and slipped it into his coat as he approached me.
“You’re going to need this, kid,” he said as took his hand out of his coat and held out a revolver lying inside a dark leather holster. “I just didn’t want to be the one to give it to you. It didn’t seem right. But it ain’t going to be nobody else, so it might as well be me.”
I stared at the deadly weapon, which had an ominous aura around it as Tom pulled it out of the holster and held it out. Its blued barrel glistened underneath the light fixture like a sapphire.
“Smith and Wesson,” he said. “Just came out of the printer. Two-and-a-half-inch barrel. Uses .38 special ammo. Not the most powerful, but I got some nice hollow-tipped rounds for it, so it’ll do the job.”
I hesitated before touching it. Guns were foreign to me. I had had zero experience with firearms before. Father hadn’t owned any guns, and private ownership was frowned upon, though still legal. Few people owned them except to hunt or those who felt the police department wasn’t reliable in an emergency. With little crime in Bellevue, however, most people saw little use for a gun other than opening themselves up to a lawsuit, as the self-defense laws had tightened drastically.
“Go on,” Tom said. “Take it.”
Gingerly, I let it fall into my palm. My fingers naturally wrapped around the grip and my index finger curled around the trigger, though Tom told me to keep it off unless I was prepared to shoot, which I wasn’t, and it wasn’t clear if I ever would be ready. I held it at an angle as I looked at the front and rear sights and then at the short but well-polished barrel. It felt light in my hand and yet I knew that within it was the terrifying capacity to kill or maim a human.
“Just watch out,” Tom laughed. “It kicks like a mule when you shoot it. And it makes a lot of noise.”
Noise. I recalled the night of my rescue from the ISA. The guards lying on the wet road with guns pointed at their chests. The men, Tom’s colleagues, pulling the triggers and killing them as the thunderous sound pierced the air. A part of me still hadn’t moved beyond that moment.
I noticed a small notch on the side of the revolver. I flicked it and the cylinder fell down to the side, revealing the six filled chambers with rounds neatly placed inside. I spun the cylinder around and then shoved it back into place as I handed it back to Tom. He cocked his head to the side as he rebuffed my offer with a flat palm held up at it.
“What’s eating you, kid?”
“I can’t take this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a journalist, not a killer.”
“One, you ain’t no journalist no more. Two, you may not be a killer, but what the hell does that have to do with it? Having a gun doesn’t make you a killer any more than holding a wrench makes you a mechanic.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“Yeah, you and me both, kid. Only the creepos kill and like it. But that’s part of the business. Everyone’s packing heat. No exceptions.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m not like that.”
Tom approached me slowly, paused, and then placed both hands on my shoulders, sizing me up with the emotion in his eyes of a father addressing his son.
“I hate putting the gun in your hand, kid,” he said. “It shouldn’t be me. I don’t like it any more than you do. But it’s life. I have to take care of you, because believe you me, nobody else here will. McCullen will only do it out of his love for the money he gets out of it. But if you end up dead it won’t be worth a tear to him or nobody else. Just me.”
“What am I to you?”
Tom chewed the inside of his mouth, restraining his tongue. His fatherly gaze turned cold, his voice harsh.
“Life’s a battle, and there ain’t no winners or losers,” he said. “Just survivors. I think you’re a survivor, kid, and I want to make sure you stay that way. So keep the friggin’ gun and stop being a pain in the ass about it.”
“But how will I need it?”
“Are you shitting me? Use some of that creativity of yours and imagine what it might be used for!”
I held the revolver down at my side, studying it somberly. Tom let go of my shoulders and offered me the holster for it. I accepted it and slipped the revolver back inside and placed it on the small nightstand near my cot. Tom warned me it had no safety so it would fire if the trigger was pulled, accidental or not.
I sighed and shook my head, discomforted by its presence in the room. I didn’t possess a strong aversion to firearms, like many others did. I had no qualm with someone else owning or carrying a gun. But I did not like the idea of having one myself, or the prospect of having to use it against someone, good or bad. The dilemma lay not in how to use it; I knew I could easily learn how to fire it accurately and adeptly, given the time and place to practice. I feared not knowing when I had no other option but to use it. With such indecision, it seemed better to not have it and thus not be confronted with such a choice than to have it and make the wrong choice. I did not know anyone who had shot someone accidentally when they could have done something else and was forced to carry the regret around with them like deadweight the remainder of their life, but it wasn’t hard to imagine what sort of burden it created. I had few things I had done in my life so far that caused me to shudder with regret. Taking a life, justified or not, was not one I wished to add.
