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 light blue 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 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 was 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’d stopped at an All-mart 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 6:00 p.m.

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 light blue 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 Ellis 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.

JeAnn said, “That card is your lifeline. It is your ID. It will start your car when you get one, unlock your apartment door. It’s your bank card, your everything.”

I shook my head and said, “Bank card? But I don’t have any money.”

“Sure you do.” She passed over a piece of paper. The header read “Two National Bank.” It was a bank statement. At the bottom, it showed a balance of $10,000.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. Everybody starts with ten grand. But it will go fast.”

I nodded.

She turned the computer toward me and said, “Swipe your card there, then answer seven of the possible fifteen security questions, then put in a password.”

I did as she instructed. When I was finished, I leaned back.

She said, “You have to swipe your card to get into any public place, so if you lose that, you’re up shit creek.”

I’d gone through eight IDs in college and had been on my fifth license in three years when I’d kicked the bucket. “Don’t lose ID card. Got it.”

I don’t think she appreciated my sarcasm. She gave me a dirty look, handed me a folder, and said, “Put everything in there, then go put it in your room.”

I made it halfway to my room when I stopped and padded my front pockets. I turned around. Standing in her doorway, looking like the grape cluster from the Fruit of the Loom commercials, was JeAnn. She was holding up my ID card. She did not look happy.

 

⥯

 

An hour later, I was reunited with my orientation class.

JeAnn had instructed me to report to the front of the building at 10:00 a.m., where a bus would be waiting for me. Where the bus would go was anybody’s guess. I signed out with a guard then was directed down a hall to a large door where I would swipe my TIC—which I had successfully held on to for going on one hour—then wait on the front steps for the bus to arrive.

After swiping my card, I pushed through the heavy metal door and into the crisp fall air. To my surprise, my orientation class was waiting for me.

As I studied the quasi-familiar faces—the homogeneous trait of abject fear had lessened—I noticed three people were missing: the two old men and the little girl. I wondered if the old men were transferred to a different facility, or if their wheelchairs were a logistical problem for the trip, or if they had simply killed each other in another freak accident. As for the little girl, Berlin, I guessed she was shipped off to live with her uncle. It was odd, but I’d been looking forward to seeing her.

The ten of us were standing on the steps of the large gray brick building we’d called home for close to a week. I couldn’t speak for the other nine individuals, but this was the first time I’d been outside. The weather was overcast, and the temperature felt to be in the low seventies. Normal for a September morning in Denver.

There was neatly cropped grass surrounding the building, leading to a large parking lot. The lot was a third full. The cars didn’t hover, nor did they have machine guns attached to the hoods. The cars looked like—well—cars. Beyond the parking lot was a high chain link fence with a gate and a guard booth. The fence didn’t have barbed wire, but it still gave the illusion you did not enter or exit the property unless someone wanted you to. In the far distance, the skyscrapers of downtown were visible. The buildings were different, and the large blue lettering of the QWEST building was missing, but it looked more or less the same.

And if I had to guess, I’d say that was exactly where we were headed.

It was amazing how different everyone looked outside and without their coolmint scrubs. The four soccer moms were huddled together, each clad in jeans and a different colored blouse. There appeared to be camaraderie there. This was also the case for the two white men. Again, each wore blue jeans. One man had on a gray flannel, the other a blue-collared shirt. They were talking animatedly. I overheard tidbits of the conversation, “…. The Rockies would have taken the NL wildcard…I still can’t believe they let Jay Cutler go…Did you see the construction on 1-70 west?…Dish Network? You got any HD?….

Boys will be boys.

Then there were the Asian woman, the black man, and the black woman. I wasn’t sure if they were huddled together out of familiarity or simply out of default because the other people—all white—had grouped together. They were off to my left. The black guy who couldn’t swim was telling a story. It wasn’t about Michael Phelps.

That left the two loners. The emo teenager, Damon, and myself. Damon was sitting in the grass near a marble sign that read “Two Adjustment Facility.” He was sitting Indian-style with his head down, his long black hair cascading down onto his knees. He was dressed in tight jeans and a black shirt.

Oh, to be young. And fucked in the head.

I stood there, hands in the front pocket of my red hooded sweatshirt, and tried not to listen to the three conversations going on around me.

Where was that bus?

As if on cue, the screeching sound of brakes filled the air. Ten heads whipped around and glared at the large Greyhound-ish looking bus pulling through the gates. The bus pulled up to the steps, came to a stop, the doors coughing open.

Dr. Raleigh hopped down the steps, a huge smile on his face, and said, “Sorry I’m late.” He waved over his shoulder and said, “Hop on.”

The ten of us filed into the bus. Dr. Raleigh gave a warm welcome to each individual, offering his knuckles to Damon just in front of me. Damon looked at him as if to say, “You buffoon,” and for a moment I thought the kid was going to slug him. To take Dr. Raleigh’s mind of the young punk who’d left him hanging, I inquired, “Where are we going?”

His smile returned and he chimed, “A bunch of different places.”

I nodded, then found a seat at the back of the bus. I nestled up to the far window and gazed at the tall buildings. I found my heart was pounding. I was nervous, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. The people, the places, everything would be the same. Wouldn’t it? And everyone there would have been in my shoes at one time or another. Everyone had been an Arrival at some point. Right?

The doors closed, the bus began to move, then stopped. The doors coughed open once more. I peered down the aisle.

Dr. Raleigh barked, “I wondered where you were.”

A head appeared. A little girl’s head. Berlin.

She was wearing white overalls with an orange undershirt. Her hair was up in a ponytail with a green scrunchy. She had a bunch of necklaces and bracelets on. She looked like she was sponsored by Claire’s Boutique. She moved past Dr. Raleigh, “jingled” down the aisle, then took the seat right next to me.

She patted me on the leg and said, “Sorry I’m late.”

 

⥯

 

We pulled through the gate and took a left on a side street. Over the bus’s intercom, Dr. Raleigh said, “Coming up on your right is the Adjustment House that most of you will be moving into tomorrow.”

I leaned forward and peered out the opposite window. After a hundred yards, the beginnings of a large complex of small blue condos came into view. The condos were uniform and resembled any number of developments I’d seen in my past life. There were no fences, no gates, and the young woman closing her door appeared to come and go as she pleased.

Dr. Raleigh said, “There are currently two hundred and thirteen residents at the Denver Adjustment House. It’s just a stone’s throw from the Adjustment Facility and you’re encouraged to stop by and see me anytime.”

I could feel Berlin’s gaze burning a hole in my shoulder. I moved my gaze from the window, down to her freckled nose. She stared up at me. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. I could tell she would give anything to be moving into one of those tiny blue homes come tomorrow. Give anything to never see her uncle again.

I palmed her head with my hand, something I always found myself doing to little kids, and said, “I’ll talk to Dr. Raleigh, see if you can move in with me.”

She stretched her face out as long as it could possibly stretch and said, “I can live with you?”

I nodded.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

She smiled and said, “Kay.”

Dr. Raleigh’s voice came over the intercom, “You’ll notice the speed limits here are much lower than you remember. The number one reason people come to Two is because of a car accident, so road and car safety are extremely important here.”

I didn’t give much thought to what he was saying. I was a tad preoccupied with the fact I had just promised this little girl she could come live with me. What was I thinking? What if I couldn’t fulfill my promise? I didn’t know the rules of this place. I had little hope they would let a seven-year-old girl move in with a stranger—not to mention a male stranger—one she’d known less than week. And even scarier, what if they said it was okay? Now, I wouldn’t say I was the most selfish person in the world, but I’d been looking out for numero uno since I was teenager. Narcissism came with the territory. How was I expected to take care of another person when I could barely take care of myself? Would I have to cook for her? Would I have to take her to school every day? Read her a story at night? What if she got sick?

These thoughts kept going through my head, and I didn’t even notice we’d stopped moving.

Dr. Raleigh said, “First stop. Off the bus, everybody.”

I shook my head and looked out the window. We were parked in the fire lane in front of a skyscraper. I craned my neck, gazing upward as far as the confines of the window would allow.

“Come on.”

I turned around. Berlin was standing in the aisle with her hand held out. I took it.

We exited the bus and joined the group huddled in a small circle. While we waited for Dr. Raleigh—he was speaking on his cell phone—I surveyed my surroundings. Across the street from the skyscraper was a small café called Espresso’s—over the course of the day, I would see twelve more Espresso’s, they were the Starbucks of Two—a dry cleaners, two banks, and another skyscraper. People filled the sidewalks, coming and going.

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 upward. 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 outward 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 TIC, 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 between Berlin—who now refused to say a word to me—and the black guy who couldn’t swim. His name was Darrel. I hadn’t planned on drinking, but everyone else was having a drink, and when Darrel ordered a beer, I followed suit. Berlin ordered a Shirley Temple.

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 US. 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 was enough. Fast-forward five years and he was 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 All-mart for some more 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 100-ounce Koke in my cup holder, 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 green 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 uncle’s?”

“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 at 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 can 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 that there was much more to Dr. Raleigh than met the eye. And there was a lot more to Two than people were telling.