Hazards of Time Travel Read online

  Dedication

  For Stig Björkman,

  and for

  Charlie Gross

  Epigraph

  A self is simply a device for representing a functionally unified system of responses.

  B. F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part I: Valedictorian

  The Instructions

  Deletion

  The Warrant

  “Good News!”

  The Arrest

  “Disciplinary Measure”

  Exile: Zone 9

  Part II: Zone 9: The Happy Place

  Typewriter

  The Lost One

  Coed

  Lost Friends

  He, Him

  Wolfman

  Lonely

  Possibly

  Dean’s List

  The Spell

  Orphan

  Suddenly

  The Denial

  The Wall

  The Museum of Natural History

  Shelter

  The Sacrifice

  Adoration

  The Searchers

  The Test

  The Exam

  The Failing Grade

  Wolfman My Love: Selected Memories

  Sane

  The Lonely Girl I

  The Lonely Girl II

  April

  “Terminated”

  Elopement

  The Bat

  Part III: Wainscotia Falls

  Saved

  The Miracle

  Grief

  Visitors

  “Uncle”

  Heron Creek Farm

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Joyce Carol Oates

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  They would not have come for me, naïvely I drew their attention to me. Willingly I dared what I should not have dared.

  Of my own free will misjudging. Or rather, not judging—not thinking. In vanity and stupidity and now I am lost.

  Sometimes on my knees in a posture of prayer I am able to break through the “censor barrier”—to remember . . .

  But my brain hurts so! It is a terrible effort like struggling against the gravity of Jupiter.

  My Exile-status forbids me to speak to anyone here of my sentence or of my life before Exile and so I am doubly lonely.

  Though rarely alone in this strange place I am very lonely and am not sure that I can persevere.

  My sentence is “only” four years. It might have been “life.”

  Or, it might have been Deletion.

  On my knees each night straining to remember, to recall my old, lost self, I try to be grateful, my sentence was not Deletion.

  And I try to be grateful, no one in my family was arrested as a collaborator/facilitator of Treason, with me.

  I

  Valedictorian

  The Instructions

  In the Restricted Zone, the Exiled Individual (EI) is allowed a ten-mile radius of movement the epicenter of which is the official residence of the EI. This residence can be changed only by appeal to the Homeland Security Exile Disciplinary Bureau (HSEDB).

  The EI is forbidden to question, challenge, or disobey in any way any local Restricted Zone authority. The EI is forbidden to identify himself/herself except as established by HSEDB. The EI is forbidden to provide “future knowledge” in the Restricted Zone and to search for or in any way seek out “relatives.”

  The EI will be issued a new and non-negotiable name and an appropriate “birth certificate.”

  The EI is forbidden to enter into any “intimate” or “confidential” relationship with any other individual. The EI is forbidden to procreate.

  The EI will be identified as “adopted” by “adoptive parents” who are “deceased.” The EI will be identified as having no other family. This information will be the EI’s official record in his/her Restricted Zone.

  The EI will be monitored at any and all times during his/her exile. It is understood that HSEDB can revoke the term of Exile and Sentencing at any time.

  Violations of any of these instructions will insure that the EI will be immediately Deleted.

  Deletion

  DI—“Deleted Individual.”

  If you are Deleted, you cease to exist. You are “vaporized.”

  And if you are Deleted, all memories of you are Deleted also.

  Your personal property/estate becomes the possession of the NAS (North American States).

  Your family, even your children, if you have children, will be forbidden to speak of you or in any way remember you, once you cease to exist.

  Because it is taboo, Deletion is not spoken of. Yet, it is understood that Deletion, the cruelest of punishments, is always imminent.

  To be Deleted is not equivalent to being Executed.

  Execution is a public-lesson matter: Execution is not a state secret.

  A certain percentage of executions under the auspices of the Federal Execution Education Program (FEEP) are broadcast via TV to the populace, for purposes of moral education.

  (In a prison execution chamber made to resemble a hospital surgery, the CI [Condemned Individual] is strapped to a gurney by prison guards; then, in the clinical-white uniforms of “medics,” prison staffers administer the lethal dose of poison into the CI’s veins as tens of millions of home TV viewers watch.)

  (Except us. Though Dad was already of MI [Marked Individual] status, and his Caste Rank [CR] vulnerable, neither Dad nor Mom allowed our TV to be turned on at Execution Hours which were often several times a week. My older brother Roderick objected to this “censorship” when he was still in school on the grounds that, if his teachers discussed the educational aspect of an execution in class, he would not be able to participate and would stand out as “suspicious”—but this plea did not persuade our parents to turn on the TV at these times.)

  Deletion is a different status altogether, for while Execution is intended to be openly discussed, even to allude to Deletion is a federal offense punishable as Treason-Speech.

  My father Eric Strohl had been MI since a time before I was born. As a young resident M.D. in the Pennsboro Medical Center he’d been under observation as a scientifically-minded individual, for such individuals were assumed to be “thinking for themselves”—not a reputation anyone would have wished to have. In addition, Dad was charged with associating with a targeted SI—(Subversive Individual)—who was later arrested and tried for Treason; Dad hadn’t done more than sympathetically listen to this man address a small gathering in a public park when he and the others were caught in a Homeland Security “sweep”—and Dad’s life was changed forever.

  He was demoted from his residency in the medical center. Though he had an M.D., with special training in pediatric oncology, he could find work only as a lowly-paid medical attendant in the center, where there had to be maintained a bias against him, that he might never be allowed to “practice” medicine again. Yet, Dad never (publicly) complained—he was lucky, he often (publicly) said, not to be imprisoned, and to be alive.

  From time to time MIs were obliged to restate the terms of their crimes and punishments, and to (publicly) express gratitude for their exoneration and current employment. On such occasions Dad took a deep breath and, as he said, bartered his soul another time.

  Poor Dad! He was so good-natured in our household, I don’t think I realized how terrible he must have felt. How broken.

  Within the family it was understood that we didn’t discuss Dad’s status per se, but we seemed to be allowed—that is, we were not expressly forbi
dden—to allude to his MI status in the way you might allude to a chronic condition in a family member like multiple sclerosis, or Tourette’s, or a predilection for freak accidents. Being MI was something shameful, embarrassing, potentially dangerous—but since MI was a (relatively) minor criminal category compared with more serious criminal categories, it wasn’t a treasonable offense to acknowledge it. But Dad took risks, even so.

  For one of the memories that comes to me, strangely clear and self-contained, like a disturbing dream suddenly recalled in daylight, was how one day when no one was home except us Dad took me upstairs to an attic room that had been shut up for as long as I could remember, with a padlock; and in that room Dad retrieved from beneath a loose floorboard, beneath a worn carpet, a packet of photographs of a man who looked teasingly familiar to me, but whom I could not recall—“This is your uncle Tobias, who was Deleted when you were two years old.”

  At this time I was ten years old. My two-year-old self was lost and irretrievable. In a quavering voice Dad explained that his “beloved, reckless” younger brother Tobias had lived with us while going to medical school and that he’d drawn the attention of the F.B.E./F.B.I. (Federal Bureau of Examiners, Federal Bureau of Inquisitors) after helping organize a May Day free-speech demonstration. At the age of twenty-three “your uncle Toby” had been arrested in this very house, taken away, allegedly tried—and Deleted.

  That is, “vaporized.”

  What is that, Daddy?—“vaporized.” Though I knew the answer would be sad I had to ask.

  “Just—gone, sweetie. Like a flame when it’s been blown out.”

  I was too young to register the depth of loss in my father’s eyes.

  For Dad had often that look of loss in his face. Exhausted from his hospital job, and his skin ashy, and a limp in his right leg from some accident after which a bone had not mended correctly. Yet, Dad had a way of smiling that made everything seem all right.

  Just us, kids! We’re hanging in here.

  Except right now Dad wasn’t smiling. Turned a little from me so (maybe) I wouldn’t notice him wiping tears from his eyes.

  “We aren’t supposed to ‘recall’ Tobias. Certainly not provide information to a child. Or look at pictures! I could be arrested if—anyone heard.”

  By anyone Dad meant the Government. Though you would not say that word—“Government.” You would not say the words “State”—“Federal Leaders.” It was forbidden to say such words and so, as Dad did, you spoke in a vague way, with a furtive look—if anyone heard.

  Or, you might say They.

  You could think of anyone, or they, as a glowering sky. A low-ceiling sky of those large dirigible clouds rumored to be surveillance devices, sculpted shapes like great ships, often bruised colored and iridescent from pollution, moving unpredictably but always there.

  Downstairs, in the vicinity of our electronic devices, Dad would never speak so openly. Of course you would never trust your computer no matter how friendly and throaty-seductive its voice, or your cell phone or dicta-stylus, but also thermostats, dishwashers, microwaves, car keys and (self-driving) cars.

  “But I miss Toby. All the time. Seeing medical students his age . . . I miss how he’d be a wonderful uncle to you, and to Rod.”

  It was confusing to me. I’d forgotten what Dad had said—Vaporized? Deleted?

  But I knew not to ask Dad more questions right now, and make him sadder.

  Exciting to see photographs of my lost “Uncle Toby” who looked like a younger version of my father. Uncle Toby had had a frowning-squinting kind of smile, like Dad. And his nose was long and thin like Dad’s with a tiny bump in the bone. And his eyes!—dark brown with a glisten, like my own.

  “Uncle Toby looks like he’d be fun.”

  Was this a stupid thing to say? Right away I regretted it but Dad only just smiled sadly.

  “Yes. Toby was fun.”

  He’d tried to warn his brother about being involved in any sort of free speech or May Day demonstrations, Dad said. Even during what had appeared to be a season of (relative) relaxation on the part of the Homeland Security Public Dissemination Bureau; during such seasons, the Government eased up on public-security enforcement, yet, as Dad believed, continued to monitor and file away information about dissenters and potential SIs (Subversive Individuals), for future use. Nothing is ever forgotten—Dad warned.

  At such times rumors would be circulated of a “thaw”—a “new era”—for always, as Dad said, people are eager to believe good news, and to forget bad news; people wish to be “optimists” and not “pessimists”; but “thaws” are factored into cycles and soon come to an end leaving incautious persons, especially the young and naïve, vulnerable to exposure and arrest and—what comes after arrest.

  After Uncle Toby’s disappearance (as it was called) law enforcement officers had raided the house and appropriated his medical textbooks, lab notebooks, personal computer and electronic devices, etc., and all pictures of him either digital or hard copy that they could find; but Dad had managed to hide away a few items, at great risk to his own safety.

  Saying, “I’m not proud of myself, honey. But I knew it would be wisest to ‘repudiate’ my brother—formally. By that time he’d been Deleted, so there was no point in defending him, or protecting him. I guess I was pretty convincing—and your mother, too—swearing how we didn’t realize we were harboring an SI—a ‘traitor’—so they let us off with just a fine.”

  Dad drew his sleeve across his face. Wiping his face.

  “A devastating fine, actually. But we had to be grateful the house wasn’t razed, which sometimes happens when there’s treason involved.”

  “Does Mom know?”

  “‘Know’—what?”

  “About Uncle Toby’s things here.”

  “No.”

  Dad explained: “Mom ‘knows’ that my brother was Deleted. She never speaks of him of course. She might have ‘known’ that I’d kept back a few personal items of Toby’s at the time but she’s certainly forgotten by now, as she has probably forgotten what Toby looked like. If you work hard enough to not think of something, and wall off your mind against it, and others around you are doing the same, you can ‘forget’—to a degree.”

  Brashly I was thinking Not me! I will not forget.

  Touching one of my lost uncle’s sweaters, soft dark-wool riddled with moth holes. And there was a yellowed-white T-shirt with a stretched neck. And a biology lab notebook with half the pages empty. And a wristwatch with a stretch band and a blank dead face forever halted at 2:20 P.M. that Daddy tried to revive without success.

  “Now you must promise, Adriane, never to speak of your lost uncle to anyone.”

  I nodded yes, Daddy.

  “Not to Mommy, and not to Roddy. You must not speak of ‘Uncle Toby.’ You must not—even to me.”

  Seeing the perplexed look in my face Dad kissed me wetly on the nose.

  Gathering up the outlawed things and returning them beneath the floorboards and the worn carpet.

  “Our secret, Adriane. Promise?”

  “Yes, Daddy. Promise!”

  SO YES, I knew what Deletion was. I know what Deletion is.

  I am not likely to emulate my uncle Toby. I am no longer interested in being “different”—in drawing attention to myself.

  As I have sworn numerous times I determined to serve out my Exile without violating the Instructions. I am determined to be returned to my family one day.

  I am determined not to be “vaporized”—and forgotten.

  Wondering if beneath the floorboards in the attic there’s a pathetic little cache of things of mine, gnarled toothbrush, kitten socks, math homework with red grade 91, my parents hastily managed to hide away.

  The Warrant

  Hereby, entered on this 19th day June NAS-23 in the 16th Federal District, Eastern-Atlantic States, a warrant for the arrest, detention, reassignment and sentencing of STROHL, ADRIANE S., 17, daughter of ERIC and MADELEINE STROHL, 3911 N. 17th
St., Pennsboro, N.J., on seven counts of Treason-Speech and Questioning of Authority in violation of Federal Statutes 2 and 7. Signed by order of Chief Justice H. R. Sedgwick, 16th Federal District.

  “Good News!”

  Or so at first it seemed.

  I’d been named valedictorian of my class at Pennsboro High School. And I’d been the only one at our school, of five students nominated, to be awarded a federally funded Patriot Democracy Scholarship.

  My mother came running to hug me, and congratulate me. And my father, though more warily.

  “That’s our girl! We are so proud of you.”

  The principal of our high school had telephoned my parents with the good news. It was rare for a phone to ring in our house, for most messages came electronically and there was no choice about receiving them.

  And my brother, Roderick, came to greet me with a strange expression on his face. He’d heard of Patriot Democracy Scholarships, Roddy said, but had never known anyone who’d gotten one. While he’d been at Pennsboro High he was sure that no one had ever been named a Patriot Scholar.

  “Well. Congratulations, Addie.”

  “Thanks! I guess.”

  Roddy, who’d graduated from Pennsboro High three years before, and was now working as a barely paid intern in the Pennsboro branch of the NAS Media Dissemination Bureau (MDB), was grudgingly admiring. I thought—He’s jealous. He can’t go to a real university.

  I never knew if I felt sorry for my hulking-tall brother who’d cultivated a wispy little sand-colored beard and mustache, and always wore the same dull-brown clothes, that were a sort of uniform for lower-division workers at MDB, or if—actually—I was afraid of him. Inside Roddy’s smile there was a secret little smirk just for me.

  When we were younger Roddy had often tormented me—“teasing” it was called (by Roddy). Both our parents worked ten-hour shifts and Roddy and I were home alone together much of the time. As Roddy was the older, it had been Roddy’s task to take care of your little sister. What a joke! But a cruel joke, that doesn’t make me smile.