Part 11 (1/2)

Then, when I let the smoke out, I said, ”All right. The cat's name will be Biff.”

Belasco smiled. ”Fine. The beast has been needing a name. Now it's got one.” He looked down at the cat, who was walking slowly around, exploring the room. ”Right, Biff?”

Bentley and Belasco and their cat Biff, I thought.

DAY ONE HUNDRED FIVE.

The prison buildings are, I believe, the most ancient structures I have ever seen. There are five of them, built of large green-painted blocks of stone, with dirty windows with rusted bars on them. I have only been in two of the five buildings-the dormitory with the barred cells where I sleep, and the shoe factory building where I work in the mornings. I do not know what is in the other three buildings. One of them, which sits a bit apart from the others, seems to be even older than the rest, and its windows have been boarded up, like the summer house in Angel on a String, with Gloria Swanson. I have walked over to this building during the after-lunch exercise period and looked at it more closely. Its stones are covered with a smooth, wet moss, and its big metal doors are always locked.

Around all of the buildings is a very high double fence of thick wire mesh, once painted red but now faded to pink. There is a gateway in the fence through which we pa.s.s to work in the fields. There are four moron robot guards at this gateway at all times. As we pa.s.s through on our way to work they check the metal bands that are permanently fastened to our wrists before we are let through.

I was given a five-minute orientation lecture by the warden-a large, beefy Make Six-when I first was issued my uniforms. Among other things he explained that if a prisoner left without having his wristbands deactivated by the guards the bands would become like white-hot wires and would burn his hands off at the wrists if he did not return to within the gates immediately.

The bands are narrow and tight; they are made of an extremely hard, dull, silvery metal. I do not know how they were put on. They were around my wrists when I awoke in prison.

I think it is near to wintertime, because the air outside is cold. But the field around the plants is heated somehow, and the sun continues to s.h.i.+ne. The ground is warm beneath my feet as I fertilize the obscene plants, and yet the air is cold on my body. And the stupid music never stops, never malfunctions, and the robots stare and stare. It is like a dream.

DAY ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN.

It has been eleven days since I have written anything about my life. I would have lost count of the days if I had not thought to make a crayon mark on the wall every evening after supper. The marks are under the huge TV screen that fills up most of the back wall of my cell, and which my chair, bolted to the floor, permanently faces. I can see the marks now when I raise my head from the paper on the drawing board in my lap; they look like a design of neat gray stripes on the wall, under the TV.

I am losing interest in writing. I feel, sometimes, that if I do not get my books back or see any more silent films I will forget how to read and will not want to write.

Belasco has not been back since the first night. I suppose it is because the computer has not forgotten to lock the doors after supper. After I make the mark on the wall I always check the door and it is always locked.

I do not think of Mary Lou all of the time, as I once did. I do not think of very much at all. I take my sopors and smoke my dope and watch erotic fantasies and death fantasies in life-sized three dimensions on the TV and go to sleep early.

The same shows are repeated every eight or nine days on the TV, or I can watch Self-improvement and Rehabilitation shows from a file of thirty recorded BB's that are issued to each prisoner at his orientation. But I do not play the BB's. I watch whatever is on. I am not interested in watching television shows; I only watch television.

This is enough writing. I am tired of it.

DAY ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN.

There was a storm this afternoon, while we were at work out in the field. For a long time the robot guards seemed confused by the wind and the heavy rain and they did not call to us when we found ourselves standing at the edge of the cliff with rain blowing on our bodies, staring at the sky and ocean. The sky would go quickly from gray to black and back to gray again. Lightning kept flas.h.i.+ng in it almost constantly. And below us the ocean pounded and roared. Its waves would inundate the beach and slap heavily at the base of the cliff and then recede for only a moment before they would be back-dark, almost black, foaming, loud.

All of us watched, and no one tried to speak. The noise, of thunder and of the ocean, was deafening.

And then, as it began to quiet down a bit, we all turned and began to head back toward the dormitory. And as I was walking through the Protein 4 field and the rain, gentler now, was still hitting my face and my drenched clothing, I realized that I was cold and s.h.i.+vering and suddenly these words came into my mind: O Western wind, when wilt thou blow, That the small rain down can rain?

Christ! That my love were in my arms And I in my bed again!

And I fell down on my knees in the field and wept, dumbly, for Mary Lou and for the life that I had, for a time, lived, when my mind and my imagination were, so briefly, alive.

There were no guards near. Belasco came back for me. He helped me up silently and, with his arm around me, helped me back into the dormitory. We did not speak to each other until I was at the open door of my cell. Then he took his arm away from me and looked me in the face. His eyes were grave, and rea.s.suring. ”h.e.l.l, Bentley,” he said, ”I think I know how you feel.” Then he slapped me gently on the shoulder and turned and walked to his cell.

I stood leaning against the cold steel bars and watched the other prisoners, their hair wet and their clothing drenched, walk back to their cells. I wanted to put my arm around each of them. Whether I knew their names or not, they were, all of them, my friends.

DAY ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE.

I got into the boarded-up building today.

It was simple. I was out in the gravel yard between buildings during the exercise period after lunch. I saw two robot guards walk up the steps to the building, unlock the door, and go inside. After a few moments they came out, each carrying a box of the kind our toilet paper comes in. They carried their boxes over toward the dormitory building. The door stayed open. I went in.

Inside, the floors were of Permoplastic. The walls were of some other material, filthy and crumbling, and there was very little light since the windows were boarded up. I walked quickly through dark hallways, opening doors.

Some of the rooms were empty; others had things like soap and paper towels and toilet paper and food trays, stacked up on shelves. I took a stack of paper towels, for this journal. And then I saw a dim and faded sign over a pair of double doors at the end of a hall. It was the only other sign with writing I had ever seen except for the ones in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the library in New York.

I could not make out the words at first; they were faded and covered with dirt. And the hallway was dark. But when I got up close and looked carefully I made them out: EAST WING LIBRARY.

I almost jumped at the word ”Library.” I just stood there, staring at the sign, and felt my heart pounding.

And then I tried the doors and found that they were locked. I pulled and pushed and tried to twist the k.n.o.bs, but I could not make anything budge. It was horrible.

I became overwhelmed with anger and beat my fists against the door. But it did not move and I only hurt myself.

I slipped out of the building after I heard the guards return and go into one of the storage rooms.

I must get inside that library! I must have books again. If I cannot read and learn and have things that are worth thinking about, I would rather immolate myself than go on living.

Synthetic gasoline is used in the harvesting machines. I know that I could get some and burn myself.

I will stop writing now and watch TV.

DAY ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO.

For eleven days I have been despondent. In the afternoons I have not bothered to go to look at the ocean when I get to the end of my row, and I have not tried to write in the evenings. My mind is as blank as I can make it while I work-I concentrate only on the thick, rancid smell of the Protein 4 plants.

The guards say nothing, but I still hate them. It is all I really feel. Their thick, slow bodies and their slack faces are like the synthetic, rubbery plants I feed. They are-the phrase is from Intolerance-an abomination in my sight.

If I take four or five sopors it is not unpleasant to watch TV. My TV wall is a good one, and it always works.

My body no longer hurts. It is strong now, and my muscles are firm and hard. I am suntanned, and my eyes are clear. There are tough calluses on my hands and on the soles of my feet, and I work well and have not been beaten again. But the sadness in my heart has come back. It has come to me slowly, a day at a time, and I am more despairing than during my first days in prison. Ev-erything seems hopeless.

Days pa.s.s, sometimes, without my thinking of Mary Lou. Hopeless.

DAY ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE.

I have seen where the synthetic gasoline is kept. It is in the computer shed at the edge of the field.

All prisoners have electronic cigarette lighters, for smoking marijuana.

DAY ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX.

Last night Belasco came to my cell again, and at first I did not want to see him. When I found the door to my cell was unlocked I became nervous. I did not want to leave, and I did not want anyone coming in.

But he walked in anyway and said, ”Good to see you, Bentley.”

I just looked at the floor at my feet. My TV was off, and I had been sitting like that for hours, on the edge of my bed.

He was silent for a while and I heard him seat himself in my chair, but I still did not look up. I did not feel that I could even raise my head.