Nabbed Again

A while later I was awakened by what sounded like gas leaking sporadically from a broken pipe.  It took me a few seconds to realize it was whispering, and it came from the living room.  The door to the small bedroom I occupied was slightly ajar, and I crept silently to the crack and cautiously peered out.  Mindy and Dolly were each facing me, sitting behind a laptop computer whose monitor light bathed their faces in a ghoulish glow.  Their mouths were hanging open in shock, and I wondered briefly if they were viewing porn, perhaps marveling at a man with an equine endowment.

Soon they were whispering again, and I could just barely make out the words Mindy was mouthing.  "Two hundred thousand smackers is no chump change," she said.  "That's a hundred grand each."

"We gotta do what we gotta do," Dolly said.  "It's the right thing."

I was certain what they had to do involved me, so I turned slowly, and silently crossed back to the lone window at the rear of the room.  It had one of those crank locks midway down the center frame, and I quietly turned it to the open position.  It was going to be a tight fit, but I was pretty sure I could squeeze through.  I had just begun to slide the window to the left along its track when the door behind me flew open.  I turned to find Mindy pointing an old shotgun directly at my chest.

"Don't make me use this thing, Darlin'," she said.  "I don't want to, but I will."

To Dolly, who stood right beside her, I said, "I thought you wanted to help me."

"I did, hun, but this is too good a deal to pass up."

Mindy told her to go get rope from the utility room, and when Dolly came back with it she tied my hands behind my back, using the long excess end to secure my ankles with a crude knot.

Mindy gestured for Dolly to come take the shotgun so she could make a call, which she did from the land-line phone in the room.

"Sheriff Buford?" Mindy said.  "Oh, hi, Roy, this is Mindy Dawson.  I got a little present for you over to my place, which is going to make you a very famous man."

Mindy took the shotgun back from Dolly and continued to target me with it.

I said, "I'm toast if your trigger finger suddenly gets twitchy.  Could you point it at the floor?"

"Ain't taking no chances with you, Darlin'," she said, "not after you cleverly escaped from those marshalls.  By the way, you might like to know they ain't dead."

"I'm glad to hear it, but I didn't do anything to them.  They crashed that van all on their own."

"Tell it to the judge," Mindy said.

Dolly said, "I feel bad, hun--really I do--because I like you.  But look at it our way.  For a hundred grand we can write three more books each.  Then maybe we can get some of the recognition we deserve."

"You deserve recognition?"

"Damn right," Dolly said, defiantly.  "Everybody does."

Mindy said, "You're wasting your breath on him.  He doesn't even want to write a book."

Suddenly the small bedroom was pierced by a pulsating red beam, coming through the window, presumably, from the turret lights atop the sheriff's car.

Nemesis

Roy Buford was the kind of man I always instantly hate, a cocksure attitude made evident by the angular cock of his head, a perennial half-smile meant to signal malevolent intent.  He made sure the handcuffs were clamped painfully tight on my wrists, and after fastening them made a point of yanking them upwards behind my back, causing my shoulders to experience shooting pain.  Outside at the cruiser he slammed my body into the rear passenger door, told me to spread my legs, and then kicked at each of my feet, forcing them further apart, which resulted in a lightning-bolt spasm of pain in my groin ligaments.

"Any weapons, scum?" he said, reaching around to grab my penis and testicles in a bear-sized right paw, squeezing hard until my eyes watered and a groan escaped my lips.

When he spun me around I saw that the two women were there, both looking at each other with a worried expression.

Buford said to them, "You did the right thing here.  There should be no problem collecting that reward money.  Of course, to make sure you get it I could put in a good word.  Only cost you fifteen grand each.  That'd give me the thirty thousand I need to write my next book:  They Call Me Sheriff: The Roy Buford Story.  What do you say--sound like a good deal?"

I could see Dolly and Mindy knew they had no choice.  They both nodded almost imperceptibly.

When he forced me into the rear passenger seat of the cruiser he made certain I whacked the left side of my noggin against the door frame.  As soon as he went around the vehicle and crawled in behind the steering wheel, he said, "You know, you're the kind of puke that purely makes me sick.  You think you're better than everyone else, don't you?--that you don't have to play by the rules.  Everybody else is trying to do the right thing, to get by as best they can, but you want to live life free from the restrictions that govern all law-abiding citizens.  There's nothing I'd like better than to put a plug square in the middle of your forehead.  So please--PLEASE--try to make an escape."

I looked briefly at the evil pair of eyes staring at me in the rearview mirror then turned away.

The BookForce marshals were waiting for me at the Brewster County lock-up in Alpine, and I was immediately escorted to a cell, where I'd spend the night until appearing before the Lit Commission magistrate in the morning.

While I lay on the bunk, recalling the events of the past few days, it seemed like the life I'd been living in the Chisos Mountains was nothing more than a dim recollection of the distant past.



The magistrate was the same one I'd faced before, a sober judge whose thin, gaunt face bore an expression whose message was clear:  you've really stepped in shit this time.  After reviewing the laptop computer monitor in front of him for an indeterminably long time, he said, "You are to be remanded to the U.S. federal agententiary at Ciudad Juarez, Texas.  I hereby sentence you to two years of 'hard writing' in solitary confinement.  Your only human contact will be with a personal tutor assigned to insure compliance. You are now required to produce two books during your incarceration.  Any and all profits from said books will go directly to the State for a period of two years after your release from custody.  Additionally, you will pay a $10,000 fine to compensate for the amount missing from the $60,000 needed to cover the Federal Book Creation Fee for two volumes."

When he finished he looked up at me with watery blue eyes, each nearly obscured by an unruly forest of graying eyebrow hair.  "Any questions?" he said.

I just shook my head.

He said, "The best advice I can give to you, sir, is to do your time with dignity, write the books required of you, and try to turn your life around when you're discharged from the penal facility."

Afterward I was escorted by BookForce marshals out the rear door of the courtroom, ushered into the celled-off section of a white van, forced to sit on an uncomfortable bench seat where my head was covered with a black hood made of heavy wool.

Solitary Man

I awoke curled in the fetal position on my bunk, my vision still too blurry to fully take in my surroundings.  When they brought me into the reception area at the Paso del Norte Agententiary last night I was pretty groggy.  I asked one of the marshals if I could have a cup of coffee to keep me awake, and he willingly obliged.  There must have been a narcotic in my cup of joe, though, because I remember hardly being able to stand as they practically dragged me down a hallway toward a vacant cell, two burly law enforcement officers supporting me with a hand beneath each of my armpits.  Inside, they maneuvered me directly to the bunk, and I conked out before I could properly thank them for their help.

As my eyes cleared, the first thing I saw was the desk and chair--barely the skeletons of real furniture--and atop the desk a brand spanking new computer, a McBook Author Series 3.  Obviously they cared little about an inmate's physical comfort, but they spared no expense in providing for the mind, only the best writing machine ever invented.  When I sat upright I noticed the old-fashioned analog clock on the wall, nearly at eye level above the computer.  When I puzzled for a moment over the why of this kind of clock I had a sudden lucid moment of theoretical certainty:  they wanted you to see the agonizingly slow sweep of the second hand, to understand how excruciatingly slowly time would pass if you were determined to occupy it without writing.

The hatch at the base of the solid metal cell door bolted upright noisily, and a tray containing my meager breakfast slid a few feet across the antiseptically white tile floor.  The hatch door slammed shut.  I sat for a moment staring at the green fiberglass tray trying to decide if I was hungry enough to eat the steaming bowl of oatmeal, laced, it seemed, with prunes the size of obese raisins.  At least the coffee, half of which had sloshed out onto the tray surface, appealed to me.  But when I collected it and took a sip I nearly retched.  It wasn't coffee at all, but the concoction called JogJag, a brew distilled from recycled Post-It notes.  I downed it anyway, deciding I needed the synthetic caffeine.

While I was tilting the last splash into my mouth I spotted the small metal tube close to the left-hand corner of the far wall,  Walking over to examine it I saw that it was a kind of eyepiece, like those used on old-fashioned telescopes and microscopes.  Normally I use my right eye to look through such devices, but I had to use my left since the instrument was so close to the wall.  What I saw was beyond puzzling, a flickering video of people interacting at a great distance.  There appeared to be three individuals, but I couldn't make out if they were men or women.  One sat at a table, and the other two took turns approaching and moving away.  After I stood watching for several minutes I realized the video was on a continuous loop, and I was no closer to understanding what I was looking at than when I first started.

I was distracted from the peep show by the sound of the cell door opening. When I turned I couldn't believe my eyes.  Standing before me was a petite Asian girl dressed in one of those provocative high-school uniforms:  white blouse tucked into a short blue-plaid skirt, bone-white knee-high socks and brown saddle shoes.  It was the kind of outfit that forced the mercury to rise up the thermometer of every red-blooded American male.

She let me stare at her for a while--the thinnest hint of a smile on her ample mouth, thickly coated in glistening red lip gloss--before saying, "I Nanime--you tutor."

The absurdity of the situation robbed me of my ability to speak, and I could only continue staring while she unstrapped a tiny fanny pack from around her narrow waist.  She unzipped it, removed a pocket-sized zPhone, examined its screen and said, "You Rowe, Lee."

"The name is pronounced 'row,' as in 'row your boat,' not 'row' as in 'fight.'"

"You fighter?"

"No, a lover," I said, realizing immediately how ridiculous it sounded.

"You fight me, you lose."

"I wouldn't fight you," I said, "but a little wrestling might be in order."

Why was I saying these things?  It was almost as if the words were coming out of somebody else's mouth.

"Time for work," she said, walking over to switch the computer on.  As she did so she leaned forward just enough for me to glimpse the bottom elastic of polar-bear-white underwear beneath her short school-girl skirt.  When she turned to face me she was smiling openly.  "This how I get you started," she said.  "Come sit down and write."

"What shall I write about?"

"No matter," she said, "but must have plenty sex."

First Follower

The first thing Nanime showed me was how to set up a blog.  There were several rules about the type of blogs agententiary inmates were allowed to create:  they all had to be about writing, and they had to offer writing tips and suggestions about how to get published even if the blogger had no real writing or publishing experience.  I named my blog Inklingo, and I planned to make it as subversive as possible.  I recalled reading an old history book about writers in the ancient Soviet Union, and how, in order to criticize the State, they had to invent a way of talking about their government undetectable by agents of said government.  That was my intent, though I had no clue how to proceed.

So my first post was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion about how to write if you happened to choose to dictate words to your computer.  "Talk lovingly to your machine," I wrote, "so she responds in kind, and eventually she'll come to anticipate the things you're going to say.  With a little positive reinforcement you'll soon find you can convince her to do all your writing while you're lying around taking it easy."  No sooner had I posted those words, along with a few other inanities, that I found a comment at the bottom of my initial post.

It was from someone calling himself/herself "AgentOrange," and it read, "Cleverness and humor will only carry you so far, my good man, before you have to dig deep and discover what it's really all about.  You obviously have the talent, but do you have the work ethic to excavate real meaning?"

I sat and puzzled over that for ten minutes before giving up.  Nanime was already long departed, having spent a good two hours with me on my first day.  Several times while she was showing me how to use my computer--how to log on and off, how to set up the blog, how to create the document I'd be using for my main writing assignment--she had stood extra close beside me, her pillow-soft right thigh pressing against my hip, the faintest lilac aroma from her scent enveloping me.  The smell of her became so intoxicating that at one moment I suddenly turned to her and said, "What is that perfume?"

"Not allowed to wear perfume here," she said, a thin, taunting smile on her full ruby lips.

I knew she had dabbed a bit of the synthetic pheromone somewhere on her body simply to drive me insane.

After she left I went immediately into the john and made love to my hand, trying hard to picture her sitting atop me during the act.  It was the second time in years that blood had rushed into the old member (the first being with my waitress friend, Dolly, in Marfa), and when I finished abusing myself I experienced a sense of renewed potency.

I got up from the computer and crossed to the eyepiece at the far wall.  When I peered in it seemed the people in the video were a little nearer now, and I imagined that one of them was Nanime.  I stepped back, blinked my eyes, then leaned in for another look.  Surely my mind was playing tricks on me.  Now none of the people in the video loop resembled my new writing tutor.  Could it be that in such a short time I had become totally infatuated with her?  I remembered what she said when she had leaned over to switch the computer on, bending forward far enough so I could get a glimpse of her panties:  "This how I get you started."

She got me started all right, and now my intention not to cooperate with the authorities had gone by the wayside.  All I wanted to do was please Nanime.

Was this part of their sinister plan?  Was the mere hint of a chance to have slightly perverted sex with a teenager all it took for me to succumb to their desires?  Was this their brilliant psychologically-clever plot to break me?  After years of holing up in the mountains of the Big Bend to avoid having to acquiesce to the collective behavior of a society I had come to despise was this the extent of my willpower?

At dinnertime the hatch on my cell door clanged open and a green plastic tray slid into my space.  On it was a small bowl half-filled with broccoli florets and cauliflower, a huge bowl brimming with raw oysters, and two 16-ounce cans of Somale, North America's most powerful IPA, 12,6% ABV.

After I'd finished my meal and downed the second can of ale I felt hornier than ever.

Getting Serious

Nanime returned the next day at about the same time.  She had ditched the school-girl uniform and was wearing a black leather bra which revealed breasts more ample that I could have imagined on such a slender girl.  An alabaster expanse of trim stomach ended at the three-inch black belt that kept her black-leather miniskirt in place.  Naturally she was wearing black-leather boots that climbed within inches of her shapely knees.  She'd done something with her raven hair--moussed it, perhaps--and it was plastered to each side of her head, separated in the middle of her skull by a razor-sharp part.  She was carrying a briefcase (black leather, of course), and when she set it down and opened it, she removed a black leather whip.

I said, "I'm not into that sort of thing."

"Shut up.  No matter what you into."

She stood behind me holding the whip handle and part of the fall in her right hand.  I couldn't imagine how we were going to proceed until she said, "Open blog."

When I did so she said, "Oh, very good.  You have fifty follower."

I could not believe my eyes.  There, in the left margin of the home page, were the avatars of fifty followers.

She said, "Don't forget:  you blog each and every day."

"I won't forget."

"Time to start book project," she said.  "Open document."

After I did so, I said, "Do you intend to whip me into action?"

"Maybe you whip me."

When I turned to look at her the expression on her face was one of bemusement.  Was she really confused about the proprieties of sadomasochism?

"How old are you?" I said.

"What age matter?  I older than I look."

"You look like you're sixteen."

"Wrong," she said.  "You have name for book?"

Turning back to the computer monitor, I said, "At first I thought about calling it Freedom Fugitive."

"Freedom Fugitive?  That make no sense--somebody who run away from freedom."

"Well, not exactly, but that is the reason I've decided to change it--because of the ambiguity."

"What you call it now?"

"This is what I'm going to call it," I said, turning to the keyboard and typing UTOMEPIA all in caps.

"Uto MEP ia," she said.  "What that?"

"It's u TOME pia," I said, "the perfect world where everybody writes a perfectly publishable book."

"What kind of world that?"

"The kind of world the State wants, where everybody is perfectly happy toiling away inanely and paying big money to do so."

"The State no want that.  The State want thinly-veiled autobiographical information.  The State want to know where you are at all time.  The State want to make money off you work.  That what the State want."

When I turned to her there was no look of confusion on her face.  She understood exactly what she was saying.

"Now write opening chapter," she said, stepping back to flick the whip in such a way that the tip of the popper barely grazed my right earlobe.

"That won't work on me," I said.

"No?" she said, snapping the whip so that the frayed end of the popper stung my right shoulder full on.

"That will make me resist even more."

"Yeah?" she said.  "Maybe this make you cooperate."

She spun my office chair around and straddled my legs, the black-leather mini riding up six inches as she did.  Then, easing herself down into my lap, she began to gyrate in a sexually-suggestive manner.  Oddly, I could hear the faint chords of a disco song emanating from god-only-knew-where.  As soon as she had me stiff as an Olympic diving board she stopped.

When she addressed me again the expression on her face was one of pure malevolence.  "That what it take for you to write?"

"It's a start," I said.

Later, as she was leaving, she got halfway out the door before turning around.  "Oh, by the way," she said, "no humor in writing."

Falling in Line

By the end of the day I had one hundred seven followers on my blog, and I had signed up for all the social media sites required of me.  In fact, on one--PeoplesHistory--I had even begun communicating with other writers in the "General Chat" forum.  And--surprise, surprise--"AgentOrange" was one of them.  How he knew I was incarcerated I can't say, but the news caused quite a stir among the forum participants.

"Oh, man, you're in Paso del Norte?" Spudmuncher wrote.  "Doing time because you won't go along with the program, eh, bro?"

Somebody called "BettyBoobs" wrote, "I bet you one horny dude, SolitaryMan.  You right hand getting plenty exercise."

AgentOrange wrote, "Did you know you can get time off for good behavior?  Set a record writing those books, find an agent, get a publishing offer, and you're out of there before you know it."

I wanted to ask him (her?) how he knew so much about Paso del Norte, but I realized he had already logged off the site.  I knew this because under his avatar--a large canister painted in green-and-tan camouflage--a caption read "last online:  1 minute ago."

I logged off the site, too, and got back to work on my book.

Often, when taking a break from my work, I would stand, slowly stretch my muscles, then stroll over to take a look at the peep show.  This time, when I did, I was presented with a completely different experience.  What I was viewing seemed "live" rather than recorded.  I appeared to be looking lengthwise down an incredibly long expanse of table nearly disappearing into the distance.  Sitting behind the table, at stations separated by mere feet, were people dressed in white shirts and blouses.  The ones closest to me I could make out quite plainly:  a man with curly blonde hair, black glasses and a wispy goatee; a woman with a quarter-sized mole on her right cheek; an attractive young brunette whose robust bosom stretched the fabric of her blouse.  Each seemed to have some kind of monitor on the table in front of them.  Detail of the other people grew fuzzier as the line of workers(?) receded into the distance.

While I watched, other people approached the individuals seated behind the table.  Although I couldn't see it I assumed there was some kind of queue where people were lined up, awaiting their opportunity to advance to a newly-vacated station.  Once in front of an open station, the people standing would turn and move to the very next station, and so on until they had, presumably, stopped in front of each one.  In this regard the activity I was monitoring very much resembled the one I had witnessed in my very first viewing of the peep show.  But this event seemed highly organized, and it was not on video loop.  I watched until the vision in my left eye grew bleary.

After my dinner of North Atlantic Salmon with Oyster Stew, a salad of green-leaf lettuce with hot red chilies, avocado slices, pomegranate, and a dessert of vanilla pudding accompanied by a chunk of rich, dark chocolate all washed down with three Somales, I was ready to get back to writing--which I did, well into the night.  Unfortunately, by morning, I had written myself smack dab into a writer's block, raising a substantial egg on my literary forehead.



Somehow--almost as if anticipating my problem--Nanime showed up the next day wearing the outfit of an American football cheerleader, replete with pompoms.  After I explained my dilemma to her, she went into a routine, dancing around as if she were cheering a team from the sidelines, shaking her pompoms at me, all the while chanting a cheer:  "Give me Letter.  Give me Sentence.  Give me Paragraph.  What it spell?"

"LiSP?" I volunteered.

She performed several other routines, doing back flips, leaping high into the air, landing with legs akimbo and sliding down into a full split.  But it was useless.  Nothing seemed to work.  I was simply unable to advance beyond the point in the story where the main character confronts the dilemma which seems to afflict every serious author:  the dreaded writer's block.

Seeing the despair that must have been painted on my face, Nanime said, "Not to worry.  No more writing today.  Let story incubate.  When I come back tomorrow I have new solution--one that always work."



She showed up the next morning right after I had slid my breakfast tray back out the door hatch.  She looked like an Eskimo dressed for an Arctic expedition:  a heavy parka with a fur-lined hood, fur-lined hand gear that resembled sixteen-ounce boxing gloves, heavily-insulated balloon-type trousers tucked into fur-lined leather boots.

While I stood in shock, my mouth hanging open, she said, "Time to start work again using try-and-true technique I call 'Strip Chapter.'  Each successful chapter you write I remove one piece clothing."

"You've got to be kidding?"

"I never kid about such thing," she said.  "After all clothing come off, you get big surprise:  gift that keep on giving."

Birthday Suit

"You write next chapter now," she said.

And while I banged out words on the computer keyboard, words and sentences and paragraphs that seemed almost to have no relationship to one another, I monitored her in my peripheral vision.  She had gone to stand in front of the eyepiece for the peep show, and while she stood looking she slowly, almost imperceptibly, ground her pelvis back and forth, moaning softly all the time.

What at first seemed an incredible joke became a feverish writing activity for me.  Suddenly I was back on track, highly motivated to turn over that very next chapter to her, to begin the process of apparel removal.  Although I'd never written much in my life I felt as if I were setting some kind of speed record for generating text, and when, within a half hour, I had produced a modest chapter I eagerly sent it to her phone.  She read the chapter quickly, nodding her approval.

"Now you cooking with gas," she said, slipping off the enormous glove from her left hand.  "How many article of clothing I remove before I go?"

I got back to work immediately, churning out enough chapters to get her out of the right glove, the parka and both boots before our two hours were up.

Later, as she was leaving, I said, "I'll have you naked before you get out of here tomorrow."

"You talk cocky talk," she said.  "We see if you walk cocky walk."

I was writing when my dinner tray slid into the cell.  I was writing long after rigor mortis had afflicted the food.  I was writing way past the time I should have taken a third or fourth break to urinate.  I was writing when I should have rolled into my bunk for a necessary night's sleep.  I was writing when my breakfast tray slid into a rear-end collision with my dinner tray.  I was writing when Nanime reappeared the next day for our two-hour session.

When she addressed me--holding her phone out for me to see--she was smiling openly.  "You been busy beaver," she said.

I was confident I had written enough to get her stripped to the layer of clothing she was born in, so I sat back in my office chair, my hands clasped behind my head, eager to watch the unveiling.  I soon realized, though, as she peeled off a red turtleneck sweater to reveal a long-sleeve white blouse, that she was wearing extra clothing beneath the outer apparel, and I became uncertain if my chapter credits were sufficient to redeem the grand prize.

I began to perspire when I realized how close it would be.  I had watched her take off the long-sleeve blouse to reveal a type of crewneck undershirt, which she removed to reveal an A-shirt undershirt, the removal of which revealed a tube top which covered a strapless white brassiere.  When she took off the insulated thermal pants to expose a pair of denim jeans I thought, perhaps, I was one layer away from seeing her panties, but the jeans came off to reveal a pair of workout pants beneath which was a pair of frayed denim cutoffs.

When she stepped sexily out of the cutoffs, she giggled.  "You two chapter short," she said.

I turned to examine the analog clock above the computer.  There was half an hour left before our two hours were up.  I began to write like a maniac, trying hard to ignore her laughter and her words of discouragement:  "You never make it.  Time ticking away.  Only a few minute to go.  Time up."

Just before she mouthed this last I emailed the final two chapters, and the musical tone on her zPhone, The Laundry Bears' pageant to orgasms--I Live for Climax--informed her I had made it just under the wire.

I watched as she peeled off her bra and panties, standing unashamedly in her birthday suit, and I understood then that she was no girl, but a fully-developed young woman.

She said, "Shame we have no more time.  But wait.  Special offer for today only:  three-hour tutor session."  She laughed provocatively.

I was out of my clothing in record time, across the floor to envelop her petite magnificence, and we waltzed together in the nude to my bunk where we quickly deep-sixty-nined ourselves into a sexual fever.  Just as we uncoupled and repositioned for totally-gratifying consummation of this patently absurd erotic writing act, a piercing alarm went off in the cell.

It was deafening, akin to a flock of wounded geese all honking at the same time.  Within seconds the cell door flew open, and three guards wearing body armor and hooded helmets rushed inside.  One lifted Nanime as if she were made of balsa wood and carried her out.  The other guards, wielding chartreuse-colored nightsticks began beating me, whacking, as if they were chopping wood, at my thighs, delivering full-on blows to my buttocks and biceps until I curled into a fetal position on the floor and tried to wiggle my way under the bunk.  They departed as quickly as they had arrived, leaving me in a mangled heap.

They never hit me on the head, neck or shoulders, and none of my blood was let, but I was a bruised and battered pulp of incarcerated writer, suddenly convinced I would never make it out of the agententiary alive.