Naming the Boundaries

They sat side by side on the yellow vinyl chairs, in the waiting room of the Change facility. The slick seat made Jonathan slip, the seat of his pants sliding along the surface with a high slurping sound. He was agitated, and the old man could see it, agitated and frantically impatient, his face sweaty and his eyes continually darting to the extremes of the room.

The waiting room was pale and antiseptic, with white walls and those speckled white tiles that look like overgrown porcelain ashtrays, spattered with flecks of dark colors and smudges of shoe scuffs. The counter sat at the far end of the room, beyond the large potted plants-tropical, those leaves that look like a golem’s hands-and a line wended its slow way to the bored-looking man with the clipboard and the computer, the man taking names.

Jonathan fidgeted. His shoes slid along the tile, squeaking. He dug in his pocket for something, almost pulled it out, then stopped, flicking his gaze about like a fearful lizard, breathing close and heavy. He caressed whatever was in the pocket, then let it go, trying for nonchalance. The old man, hands firmly on his cane, legs wide and face calmly looking at Jonathan in that old folks’ way, suddenly extended one foot and touched Jonathan’s shoe.

Jonathan did not do anything. Some hours before, he had held up a convenience store in suburban Maryland. The gun that was in his pocket had gone off, quite accidentally, and there had been a splash of red on the cigarettes behind the counter. Jonathan was extremely nervous and had never killed before. Jonathan had never robbed a convenience store before. It had been just one of those things that had happened because it had to happen; a sort of social inevitability shrouded the event: young black man with no father needs money for a drug fix-only there was no drug habit-and to obtain the cash, resorts to illegal violence. If only he’d gotten above 700 on his SAT’s, he could have gotten a football scholarship or something, right?. All those black kids are good at sports. Maybe he could dance or sing, too. But no, Jonathan had lived out the expectations of his culture, and had let a bullet demolish a blonde face that was saving up money for U. Maryland.

The old man still sat, with his shoe incongruously next to Jonathan’s sneaker. In his fevered way, Jonathan probably thought about who the old man could possibly be there to see off: some daughter choosing to take the Change, some wife whose bones were too brittle to handle the gravity of the dry world. Not that the Chesapeake Bay was any safer, mind you. The old man listened to polka or Mahler or maybe even Jelly Roll, the youth subconsciously knew, even if Mahler and Morton were names he could not have placed if he’d been asked.

The old man spoke. “Hello,” he said, and no more. Jonathan immediately whirled about, trying to face away from the wrinkled face.

“My, isn’t that rude,” the old man said. His face was one of those that seems to have no expression at all on it, a blank made only less appealing by its age. “Aren’t you going to even say hello back?”

“No,” Jonathan said. “I don’t wanna talk to you.”

“A shame. I would have been pleased to make your acquaintance.”

There seemed to be genuine regret in the voice, and Jonathan allowed himself a peek at the old man. He was dressed in a stylish suit of dark gray, with black socks and shoes. He was almost bald. But Jonathan turned around again. A few hours before he had shot and killed a blonde clerk in a convenience store.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you look preoccupied.”

Jonathan looked back at the old man. The aged face was so open that he turned back around, staring down into his hands, still feeling that itch to pull the trigger, that desire to make himself something other than what he had been told to be.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I am.”

The old man sighed. “Hard not to be, I suppose.”

Jonathan didn’t reply. There was a scuffling noise at the head of the line and they both looked up. It happened often, that people had last-minute thoughts about the Change. Here a woman was making a break for it, her flower-print dress flapping futilely against the bodies of those who were restraining her, keeping her from fleeing her future. Change workers would no doubt sedate her, and then when she awoke it would be done, and she would have to sink or swim, adapting & surviving. If she did not, the world would still be a better place. She must have been a conscriptee, was the thought in both their minds, or else they would not be dragging her to the back room now, would not be slapping her across the face. There were two children watching her from a distance, seated with the stony little face only bewildered childhood can have. Their mommy (if she was their mommy) was going where they could not, and that was as it should be, since the Change came. That was as it was.

“So, are you here to take the Change?” the old man asked, his eyes once more on Jonathan. He began to tap his cane.

Jonathan did not know. He said so.

“But you’re in line for the Change, aren’t you? You have a number stamped across your hand.” They stamped all hands at the entrance, and called numbers in order to the line. In batches of ten they did them, in batches like cookies fresh baked and served up for snacks.

“I guess I am,” Jonathan said, realizing how deep he’d come.

“Not a conscript?”

“No,” Jonathan said.

“You must have had a pretty lousy life up here, then,” the old man said.

A few hours before Jonathan had killed a high school girl who was probably named Nicole or Brandy or Heather.

“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “Pretty lousy.”

“I know the feeling,” the old man said. “When my wife died, I felt like there was a hole inside me, right here,” and he thumped his chest with a dull thudding sound. “Life was lousy then,” he said, ” and I thought it would never get better again. But then I found that my life had changed, and that I had come to like the new way I lived. It was annoying, to enjoy life after my wife was dead, because I felt guilty about it, but I think I have made my peace now.”

Jonathan fidgeted some more. The gun in his pocket still felt warm against his side, even though it had cooled very quickly. He had never thought that a gun would do that, cool so quickly after being fired. He had thought it would burn to the touch after being fired, would hurt like hell, and that it would take a good half hour before it cooled enough to be handled again. It would be a good reason not to shoot several people named Nicole or Brandy or Heather, if the gun stayed hot and burned your hands. A hardened killer would be a man that had tough hands, hands capable of hewing stone with an adze, hands capable of pulling in nets from the blustery sea. But the gun had cooled, and it was only Jonathan who kept it warm, Jonathan who thought it still felt warm, like a telltale heart glowing though his jacket. He cursed reading Poe under the pillow with a flashlight ten years before, and fidgeted some more.

“That’s good,” he said, “you made peace. That’s cool.”

“It was hard,” the old man said tranquilly. “It took time. But I came to understand better what I was and who I could be.”

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” Jonathan said bitterly.

The old man looked at him kindly. “I wouldn’t expect you to, at your age.”

This got Jonathan mad. “My age? What the hell does my age have to do with anything, old man? I’ve got every right to act as I want, I’ve been on my own since I was fourteen, I’ve got every right…” The convenience store had closed at one in the morning, and Jonathan had hid between the aisles, coming out once the door was locked, when Nicole had begun to sweep. She had soft floppy hair, the kind that had hairspray embedded in all the crannies, hair so soft yet sharp and edgy. And when Brandy had seen him, she had dropped the broom, and she hadn’t screamed. Heather hadn’t screamed till she saw the gun pointed at her, which was hard to see against his dark sweater and his dark skin. “I got every right,” he said, more firmly, shaken by the shade of the woman’s hair in line, in line ahead of them both. A number stamped on the back of her hand, like a carnival a few tens higher than his.

The old man laughed quietly. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to offend.” The he coughed, politely aside, a cough that sounded like a rattle. “Excuse me,” he said.

“S’okay,” Jonathan said, feeling sorry for the old man and his cough. “Just that I’ve always been treated like less than I am, y’know?”

The old man pondered for a minute. The line was edging forward like a ceremonial sacrifice, and they could hear the dull murmur of names recited and repeated for the clerk’s benefit as he typed them into the computer.

“It’s odd,” the old man began, “how we always seem to have assumptions about people. I said I would have been pleased to make your acquaintance, because I’ve never really had contact with someone so much younger than I am, or with someone black. I figured, my chances are running out, and I had better take any chance offered me to meet new people.”

“Well, nice to meet you too, old man,” Jonathan said, trying to sound insolent and important.

“Thank you,” the old man said.

A loudspeaker voice announced the completion of batch #21, and there was a compulsive checking of hands all over the building, as people stared at the purple number son the backs of the hands, even if they weren’t people come for the Change, even if they weren’t conscriptees. Everyone was stamped at the door. Jonathan’s number was 315: ten more batches to go. The old man’s number was 223.

“My daughter,” the old man said. “Shall we go look?”

The two of them stood, the old man uneasily and unbalanced. Jonathan helped him stand straight, and together they walked past the line, which parted for them, to the great windows facing the water.

“They say you can see the others welcoming them,” the old man said. He pressed his face to the glass like a child at a pet store, and his breath fogged a small circle of vagueness onto the window. “I hope that’s true,” he said.

Jonathan could not see anything but the small oscillation of the waves, with little white flickers of foam and dark patches of cloud shadow. The beach was not visible from their high vantage point, and they stared out on the empty surface of the sea. Boats were not allowed anywhere near the Change facilities.

“I never got along well with her,” the old man said. “She was too rebellious for me, too willing to see the opposite side of any issue. After she realized how I had changed since her mother had died, she stopped talking to me. I am just glad she told me she was doing this. She didn’t want to, of course. She was a conscriptee. She had no choice. But she’s the kind to go through with it out of some sense of responsibility.”

Jonathan had nothing to say to that, and the old man turned his face towards him, so that the cheek rested on the glass, palms flat against the cold window. All the wrinkles on one side went away when he did that.

“I used to think that her sense of responsibility was silly,” the old man said. “Now I’m not so sure.”

I had every right, Jonathan thought. The gun went off by accident., and there was nothing I could do. She could have been named Nicole, or Brandy, or Heather, or…

He stopped, struck by an awful thought. “What was-sorry, is your daughter’s name?”

“Sarah Anne,” the old man said, his face turned to the sea again. Jonathan sighed in relief, his momentary fear of an overt parallel defused. The gun was weighing down his jacket, and he felt he had to sit down. They walked back to the vinyl bench.

The line was just about gone. Most of the people in batch #22 were conscriptees, and they had been escorted in. Many were seeing someone off, and didn’t join the line out of some irrational fear that once they queued up, they would never again have a chance to back out.

“You know, I wish I had done this more often,” the old man remarked, once they were comfortably settled in again. The sweat had dried on Jonathan’s forehead, and his skin felt tight and nervous.

“Done what?” Jonathan asked, trying to hold his jacket pocket up surreptitiously, trying to conceal the weight.

“Talk with a stranger,” the old man said. “It’s funny, but people I guess always tend to think the worst of strangers. We assume that we know all about each other, that we can tell what people are like from their faces.”

“The guys used to say they could tell what girls had done it by the way they walked.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” the old man said. “For instance, take you. I imagine that you are some bright lad who is here because he has broken up with his girlfriend. You have decided that you can’t face the world, and taking the Change will be some grand gesture to satisfy your male pride.”

Jonathan had figured that the cops wouldn’t look here first, even though they had his face from the cameras mounted in the corners of the ocnvenience store. Jonathan was trying to change his life and make himself into something no one could boss around. He shook his head slightly. “You got it wrong, old man,” he said.

“Well,” the old man said. “It must be hard to hear, put that way, but I still feel fairly certain I am right. And I would feel this way even if I knew better, because it is in human nature. Tell me, was there a girl involved?”

Her name might have been Brandy, or Nicole, or Heather. “Yeah, a girl.”

“And it wasn’t working out, right? Maybe she was white?”

“Yeah.”

“You know, you don’t have to do this. You know that you can’t be the… same,” the old man put it delicately.

“Yeah,” Jonathan said, troubled. All the queers were taking the Change, it was said. All the queers.

“And forgive me, but you don’t seem the type,” the old man said. “Although God knows I have no right to say that, I have no right at all. I of all people should not claim to know the type. But whatever my impressions may lack for truth, they’re still what I’ve got. And you, my boy, don’t seem the type.”

“I’m… I’m not, really,” Jonathan said. “I’m not a fag.”

“No, no, no, no, you misunderstand me. I mean, you don’t seem the type to duck out of things like this.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing? Ducking out?” Jonathan knew he was, but he had to make answer. The gun was still warm through the jacket.

“You have a full life ahead of you.”

“I might have less than you think,” Jonathan said. He began to think about the way in which the blood had drenched the cigarettes. That was not a full life at all. It horrified him, to think of all that the blonde head had known and faced, all the memories that were coagulated on the floor by the broom, ready to be swept away with the morning. Past that counter, how much of him would be swept away with the injection and the Change? He began to feel a deep rooted fear.

“I had a second chance, when my wife died,” the old man said. I made my life new again, and I discovered things about myself that I never knew I could do. I never realized just who and what I was until my wife died. And I felt the most enormous sense of loss, when I realized that I was too old to do all the things I wanted to do.”

“Well, you should try being young and still not being able to do shit,” Jonathan said. The crackle of the louspeaker heralded an announcement, but it was silenced before anyone spoke. Perhaps someone had leaned on the button by accident. Had just put a little too much pressure on the wrong place, and had set into motion a chain of events that had luckily been aborted before things went too far.

“I wonder now if I felt that way and didn’t know it,” the old man said simply. “Maybe I never knew that I missed chances. Now I do.”

“Like your daughter?”

“Yes, like Sarah Anne, and other things.” The old man’s face brightened. “But then I met a wonderful person who helped me deal with life again, and things are clear now.”

“That’s cool,” Jonathan said.

“I learned that I needed to start looking forward, and accept that was was done was done. So I made mistakes. It wasn’t the end of the world, and I suspect this won’t be either. Will you excuse me?”

The old man got up and walked away from the yellow vinyl bench. There was more energy in his step now. Jonathan turned away from him as soon as he left. The gun was slipping out of his pocket. When he turned, it fell out, just a foot or so, into the deep-rimmed pot of the plant next to him. It handlike leaves seemed to be reaching out to hold him. He could see the gun at the bottom, nestled in the soil, glints of bar-shaped fluorescent lights reflected in the curved steel. Jonathan sat there, taking in the green, afraid to life the gun out. He felt as if every eye was on him, and an irraitonal desire to pick the gun up burned wildly in him, a desire to wave it frantically about and challenge expectations.

The old man came back, in a purple bathrobe of deep terrycloth. He was smiling. The cane was gone. Jonathan turned around quickly to face him, leaving the gun in the plant pot, and was surprised to see the change in attire.

“What happened to your clothes?”

“They took them when I gave them my name,” the old man said.

“I thought you were here to see your daughter off…?” Jonathan was still digesting the implications of the bathrobe. The old man was taking the Change. He was going to throw himself into the sea of changes and emerge different.

“I was, but I was here for more than that. She was a conscriptee, and I volunteered. This way I can spend some more time with her, I think. Who knows? It’s been a long time since I had no idea what was coming next.”

“Wow,” Jonathan said, at a loss for words.

“They’ve already given me the first injection, but they let me out to say goodbye. My friend isn’t here,” and his face grew still, “so will you see me off?”

Jonathan could only nod assent. They stood, and as they walked to the counter, Jonathan could feel the presence of the gun cool behind him, as with every step he put distance of attribution between them. As they were at the counter, and the attendant there checked something off on his clipboard, there came a shout from the doors.

“David!” Jonathan whirled about, reaching for his pocket, ready to brandish the air. He stopped, shocked at his eagerness. A man was struggling with the men at the door, who were vainly trying to stamp his hand. “David! Wait!”

The old man stopped before going behind the the counter, and waited for the man to catch up to them.

“Howard,” he said. Howard was young, thirty perhaps, features strong. His hands were hard and looked like they could mold clay, or chop wood. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“Of course I came, David. Are you sure you want to do this?” Howard’s face was anguished, torn. “Are you sure you want to?”

“Yes,” the old man said gently. “I’m sorry, Howard, but it’s what you taught me. I have to follow my self, and it’s out there somewhere.”

Howard’s face creased with tears, and the old man gathered him into his arms. “It’s alright, Howard. It’s okay. I’ll be alright.” He took Howard’s face between his gnarled hands, and stared him in the eye. “I will be alright and you will be alright.” He kissed Howard full on the lips, and Howard’s hands dropped to the old man’s buttocks, and they held the kiss while people stared at them like love was from the Devil.

Jonathan watched them, as they separated, and the young Howard walked out of the facility without looking back, and as the old man turned and went behind the counter. Once there he looked back, and Jonathan looked at him without any expression on his face.

“Go home, boy,” the old man said. “This place is for those who need second chances.” And Jonathan wanted to scream with all his heart, I need a second chance, I need to make my self over again, I need to take back that bullet and become someone who is different from what I am told to be. He would have screamed it if he had had the words, but he didn’t know how to say it at all. He was wondering how long he could duck out of things. He was thinking about a broom that needed picked up and handled.

The old man went into a doorway, and as he did the loudspeaker announced batch #22. Jonathan walked to the windows, to stare down at the immense ocean, knowing he wouldn’t be able to see anything. The sun was setting; it had been many hours since he had killed a girl while robbing a convenience store. It had been an accident, he knew, but as the sky darkened he could see his reflection in the mirror-like plate glass, and it seemed to him he could see the guilt etched into every pore of his face.

There was a deep low rumble beneath him. The doors were opening. He knew he would not see anything but himself, and he leaned hard against the window, almost wishing he could push it out and shatter it. His hands felt soft and pregnant with possibility.

The gun still sat at the root of the plant. Jonathan walked past it, rubbing his hands, trying to erase the stain that marked him, purple numbers that encoded him and set his pattern. He had decided, he knew, and wondered what surrender there was in surrendering, if it wasn’t expected. As he walked out the doors, unchallenged by the men with the ink pad, the gun seemed to call to him with a red hot cry, but he left it behind.

Outside, he could feel the brine in every breath. Somewhere below him, under the heavy walls straining against the sea, the old man was breathing in his own unknowable world. Somewhere below, a mermaid was born.