Read 3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1) Online

Authors: Nick Pirog

Tags: #'short story, #funny, #political thriller, #washington dc, #nick pirog, #thomas prescott, #kindle single, #henry bins'

3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1) (23 page)

BOOK: 3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1)
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JeAnn said, “That card is your lifeline. It
is your ID, it will 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 ten thousand
dollars.

I raised my eyebrows. I’d never had more
than five hundred dollars in a bank account my entire life. “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 towards 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 ID’s 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 wanted to say, “Yes, mom.” But I didn’t
feel like getting beat up by a purple lesbian. However, I did put
all the paperwork in the folder, thanked her, and walked out the
door.

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 ten, 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 card—which I had successfully held onto 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 an early
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.

Eight of us were standing on the steps
leading into the building. 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 that had pulled 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.  He looked at Dr.
Raleigh 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
is just a stone’s throw from the Adjustment Facility and you are
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 a 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 for the past fifteen
years. 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 everyday? 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 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 upwards. 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 outwards 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 card, 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.

BOOK: 3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1)
2.45Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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