Goodhouse Read online

  Our bus stopped at the main gate, taking its place in the line of buses waiting to be cleared. At my old school in La Pine, Oregon, the campus had been rural and isolated, not well protected. But since the attack, Goodhouses nationwide had been increasing and standardizing their security. Now, instead of simply having guardhouses and fences, there were concrete barriers at every entrance, iris and facial scans for all staff members, embedded microchips for every student.

  We pulled to the front of the line, and several guards scanned the bus, checking their handhelds to verify the passenger list. One guard stepped forward with a round mirror on the end of a long pole. He dipped it under the bus and walked along each side. A moment later another guard deactivated the electromagnetic barrier and waved us through the gate. Almost immediately, we entered open landscape. The summer droughts hadn’t yet begun. There were still green patches and lots of jackrabbits moving away from the road, their splayed ears visible above the grass.

  In a year I would graduate, and if I kept my status high, I might qualify for a job, a marriage license, an apartment—I might slip into civilian life, with its private spaces and things, so many things. I was waiting for my real life to start, and a student’s status level at graduation controlled all his options and freedoms. I’d heard rumors of graduates who lived off the grid, who lived in the drought country, in the Midwestern towns that had been deserted in the middle of the twenty-first century. But the whole point of graduating was to begin something—not to hide, not to remain on the margins. Sometimes this seemed unfair, as if Goodhouse were a game that ended. But I’d had it explained to me like this—you achieved control or you did not. Without a deadline, students would never truly feel the sum of their choices.

  I knew we were close to a town when we started passing billboards. One claimed, Vacationland is for the whole family! It featured children holding balloons and ice cream cones. Beyond this billboard was a tent city, a large one. I’d seen smaller ones in Oregon, but this city stretched to the horizon, and I smelled the unpleasant reek of raw sewage. Some of the tents had walls and plastic windows, but most were just open-sided tarps tied to poles. A few men leaned against the fence, staring at the road. They all had beards, which were forbidden at school and which I’d rarely seen.

  The bus downshifted as it pushed uphill, and the engine revved. Citizens who had been hunched over cookstoves now stood and watched our ascent. A pack of children surged toward the fence, shouting something. One woman who’d been draping wet laundry over the top of a tent turned to stare at us. I had the impression of disruption, a feeling of drawing unwanted attention.

  I glanced at Owen, who just shrugged and picked at the dried yellow paint on his cuticles. Today he was interviewing for a scholarship to the San Francisco College of Art, meeting at the house of an alumnus, someone important—a man who’d endowed a building or two. Owen had been up late last night, unable to sleep, laboring over a commission for a proctor—a canvas of an icy mountain range. He charged a lot of credits for his work, and nobody knew how much money he’d saved. It was a special privilege to have art supplies in our room, and he’d forbidden me to touch them.

  And then we were driving through a downtown, not Ione, but some other gold rush–style town with boxy wooden buildings, all painted different colors. Only a few civilians were out on the street, most of them women. One wore a skirt that ended above the knee, and all the boys stared. The ones on the opposite side of the bus stood up to get a better view.

  “Sit down,” a proctor shouted. “Everyone in his seat.” Proctors stalked the aisles, and I noticed, for the first time, that they had real guns strapped to their sides. At school they wore Lewiston Volts—standard-issue tasers—bright red, the color of caution, of warning. Last week a boy had bitten off a part of his tongue when a proctor had used one to subdue him outside the cafeteria. Today, however, the sight of their guns frightened me more. I grabbed Owen’s hand and palmed, “Why?”

  He didn’t understand, and I didn’t know the sign for “weapon.”

  “Is that normal?” I whispered. “With the pistols?”

  “No talking,” a proctor said. He pointed his handheld in my direction and scanned the chip in my belly. Then he checked the screen embedded in his device. I knew my picture would show up there to confirm that it was me. I glanced at Owen. He was furious. At the end of the day we shared each other’s demerits, and Owen palmed a short that meant fuck off. I shut my mouth. I couldn’t lose control like that. I couldn’t lose control at all.

  * * *

  We drove to an upscale gated community called Meadowlands. There were no meadows in sight. Presumably, the development had obliterated its namesake. The bus stopped beside a gatehouse. Two guards stepped forward. Both were overweight and appeared to be stuffed into their brown coats and pants. One took our information into a little booth, and the other collected iris scans from the proctors. This guard was the first civilian I’d seen wearing a suit and tie. We had not been dressed to fit in, after all.

  “This is a nice area,” the guard said. “We won’t tolerate any trouble.”

  “No, sir,” we chorused.

  They waved us through—no mirrors, no dogs—and on the other side was a real neighborhood, a park with a little stone path and two iron benches. Each home seemed gigantic to me, imposing, set on a slight rise at the end of a driveway, surrounded by a yard—a lake of synthetic lawn.

  A proctor at the head of the bus called roommates forward and assigned them to various addresses. The bus traveled deeper into the neighborhood, stopping and starting. The seats around me emptied. Owen was dropped off at an enormous estate. I watched him ascend a long, sloping driveway lined with trees. I was taken to a street where the houses were smaller and closer together. “James Goodhouse,” a proctor called. “Address 3715.” He pointed to a residence with a red front door. A little flagpole jutted from the front of the house. On it was a banner with the picture of a leggy bird carrying a sack in its beak. When I didn’t immediately rise, the proctor said, “Don’t make me drag you out.”

  I walked down the aisle, and then I stood on the sidewalk listening to the bus retreat and turn a corner. It had been months since I’d been alone. At Ione, I was contained by the new security protocols, but at my old school I’d been good at sneaking out of the dormitory. I’d spent hours lying on the banks of the Deschutes, listening to the owls hunt, watching searchlights cross the school commons—beautiful beams of light, luminous tunnels, like gods come to earth.

  I stepped up to the red door. There was a glass panel at the top and my reflection stared back at me. My skin was a light brown and my eyes were a bright, vivid green—a color that was evident even in the muted quality of the glass. I had grown enormously in the last year. By the time I’d transferred to Ione, I’d hit six feet, and I was grateful. It had bought me a little respect. Now I worked to make my face expressionless. I straightened the collar of my shirt, and then there was no point in putting it off any longer. I knocked and waited.

  A teenage girl answered the door. “Yes?” she asked. Her long brown hair was braided into a glossy rope that draped over one shoulder. She was very thin, and a scar rose from the neckline of her sundress like a red, puffed worm. I lowered my gaze. I wasn’t sure if I should speak to her. But there was no one else.

  “My name is James, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am,” she repeated, then smiled as if I’d said something funny. “No one’s ever called me that before. Are you saying my dress is too matronly?” She made a show of looking herself over.

  “What? No, ma’am,” I stammered. “I would never comment on your clothing.”

  “But you just did,” she said.

  I backed away. This was all going wrong.

  “I’m kidding,” she said. “It’s a joke. Can’t you tell?”

  I didn’t know what to do, so I stuck to the script. “My name is James Goodhouse,” I said. “I’m here for a Community Day. I’m eager to be a respectful gues
t in your home. Please let me know if I should remove my shoes.”

  The girl’s smile faltered. Something about my speech sobered her, though I couldn’t imagine what, and this heightened my impression of being out of control.

  “Aunt Muriel,” the girl turned and hollered. “That boy is here.”

  “Not till Sunday.” A woman stepped forward and opened the door wider. She was plump, and her flower-print dress was extremely colorful and slightly blurry, as if it were moving. Her short bangs had been swept to one side and artificially stiffened like the bill of a hat. “You’re a day early,” she said. “Did they change the date?” She looked into the yard as if checking for additional visitors.

  “It’s just me,” I said.

  “For heaven’s sake,” said the aunt. “Why can’t anything work out?”

  They led me down a hallway. The girl with the braid followed close behind.

  “You’re totally going to ruin Cousin Rachel’s baby shower,” she said. She spoke in a low voice, just loud enough for me to hear. I hurried to put some space between us, but she kept up. “Hey,” she said. “My name’s Bethany.”

  * * *

  There was no Goodhouse equivalent for girls. The same markers in women were not predictive of future criminal behavior the way they were in boys and men. And as I entered the house, as I walked into its inner recesses, I felt very aware that I had never, as far as I knew, stood this close to a girl my own age.

  Bethany followed me into the living room. A dozen women clustered on couches and chairs. They stared at me, gaping openly, eyes moving from my stiff formal collar to my tie to the shiny gold buttons on my jacket. A pregnant woman was ensconced in a chair with bunches of blue balloons tied to its back. Colorful streamers cut across the white ceiling. The room was oddly familiar. I was sure I’d been in a room like this as a small child. I was sweating through my shirt. The tie seemed to tighten of its own accord. I was supposed to give the speech, and I struggled to keep my eyes open and my voice level. I realized I could skip the part about the shoes. Everyone was wearing them.

  “My name is James Goodhouse and I am honored to be a guest in your home. I am happy to be of any assistance. Please do not hesitate to ask. I’m grateful for the opportunity to give back to the people of this community.” I made myself look at them. The speech, which had seemed just another bland necessity at school, felt surprisingly humiliating to recite.

  “Our tax dollars at work,” one woman said. “Wars, roads, and manners.”

  “Very pretty,” said the aunt. “Now, I think I do have a few small tasks that need doing.” She led me into the kitchen.

  It looked very different from the ones I’d labored in. There were no cameras, no molded plastic workstations. This kitchen was decorated like a living area. A large painting of a cityscape at night hung above an upholstered bench. Food like I had never seen dotted a polished stone countertop—a cake frosted to look like a basket of flowers; fresh fruit sliced and arranged in arcs of color, like a sunset.

  Everything seemed preposterously small. Goodhouse staples came in fifty-gallon drums, but here was a jug of milk I could lift with one hand, a mixer the size of a toy, a sink so shallow as to appear useless. And where was the sand tray? At school we scoured our dishes with sand first, but these people didn’t seem to have a tray. It wasn’t until I saw a stack of plates and a line of mugs that I felt a little calmer. These, at least, were the same size, and it steadied me. I was going to be okay. These people are like us, I thought. It’s just a different scale.

  “James?” the aunt said, testing out the name as if she was unsure it would work. I realized I’d been standing there with my mouth open.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Please excuse me. Your home is very interesting.” I winced. This might sound critical. “Very beautiful,” I corrected. But maybe that was worse. She might worry that I would touch or take something.

  The woman frowned. “Please follow me,” she said. The hem of her dress swayed as she led me through the kitchen door, down a few stairs, and into a large, fenced backyard. It abutted a row of other yards of similar proportions. A maple had been recently felled and the trunk cut into sections like vertebrae in a spinal column. The branches and leaves were missing.

  “I’d like you to split logs,” the aunt said. “You do that, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good.” She went into the shed and returned carrying an ax. There was a moment of hesitation before she surrendered it. Weapon, I thought, and quickly corrected myself. Tool. At school we learned our thoughts were powerful. If it was in a mind, it was in a body, and soon it would be in the world for everyone to see.

  “Split into eighths,” she said. “You know how many that is? Eight pieces?”

  I was confused. Did she think I wasn’t a native speaker? I did have a slight accent, a touch of rural Oregon. “The whole pile?” I asked.

  “Whatever you can do.” She hurried into the house, locked the door, and spoke through the open kitchen window. “Stack them next to the shed.”

  I glanced at the other yards. They were all deserted, but manicured. A red plastic car, only large enough to hold a child, lay on its side, the roof bleached pink by the sun. Ornamental sage grew in clumps along the fence, and I crushed a leaf between my fingers, rubbing its scent on my hands. The maple was newly cut. The wood still had a golden hue and there was no sign of disease, no apparent reason for its removal. I knelt beside the tree and counted back seventeen rings from its outer edge. My finger stopped on a narrow ring. There had been a drought the summer I was born.

  I took a section of trunk and made this my chopping base. I rolled it near the shed, then removed the hated jacket and necktie. I stretched my back, reached over my head. Holding the ax in two hands, I imagined this was my house, my yard, my tree. It took several strokes to warm up and find a rhythm. But once I did, I felt relief to be outside, doing something I was good at. I knew when to relax into the swing, when to tense and when to exhale. I knew to go slow, to pace myself. It was like one of the tasks at school where work had no ending, only an endless middle.

  I continued for a while, humming under my breath, and then, since nobody seemed to object, I sang a little louder. As I worked, shade ebbed across the yard. I lost track of time, and my mind was finally quiet, my body working, a melody surrounding and protecting me. I knew mostly religious hymns. At my old school I’d sung in the choir, and I missed the music.

  I heard the kitchen door open and I went silent. Bethany was walking down the stairs carrying two cups of dark liquid. “Thought you’d be thirsty,” she said. Her feet were bare and her toenails were painted an astonishing candy-pink color. I quickly dropped the ax, not wanting to frighten her. “They’re drinking Bloody Marys and playing bingo,” she said. “Totally moronic. Rachel’s lost like two babies, and I bet this one will flush, too. They all go at five months. Aunt says it’s God’s will and that some children are too pure to be born, but I know it’s farm runoff in the water. That’s why I drink root beer and nothing else.” She seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. Her brown hair had red highlights that had been invisible indoors. “Here.” She handed me a cup and I was surprised to feel real glass. Weapon, I thought.

  “I don’t really want kids,” she said. “But I do believe in adoption. It’s the right thing and a lot of people think it’s wrong to adopt out of the country and I definitely agree, since it’s racist if you don’t want an American baby just because it’s too brown or on drugs or whatever. Your voice is beautiful, by the way,” she said. “I was listening to you just now.”

  “I thought I was alone,” I said.

  “I had my window open”—she shrugged—“so technically, you were.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It had been months since I’d sung in front of anyone, and now the thought of an audience made me surprisingly nervous. I took a sip of the root beer and almost gagged. It didn’t taste like food.

  “Let’s stand in the sh
ade,” Bethany said. She grabbed my arm and tugged me toward the shed, then rubbed the spot where she’d gripped me as if trying to erase the contact. Her touch was electric and startling. It made my whole arm tingle. “I read all the literature your school sent,” she said. “We’re supposed to evaluate your cleanliness, which struck me as bizarre. Wouldn’t the school know how clean you were? You’re hardly likely to get dirty coming over here. I felt like they were all fake questions.” I was so preoccupied with her lightly freckled shoulders and the thick, angry-looking scar on her chest that I didn’t immediately realize she’d gone silent.

  “Excuse me?” I asked. I pretended to take a sip of the soda, but kept my lips tightly closed. I didn’t know where to look or what to say, so I stared at a small jeweled barrette that twinkled above her ear. The crystals were a bright, clear blue.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.

  “You probably shouldn’t,” I said.

  “I hacked Auntie’s calendar,” she said. “I shifted the dates for Community Day so she wouldn’t know you were coming.”

  “Why?” I said. I glanced at the other yards to make sure we were still alone.

  “They were going to send me to church while you were here,” she said. “Make me help out with the charity suppers, only I’m not allowed to do anything strenuous, so I just fold napkins or sneak into the priest’s office and read his letters. He’s in love with his neighbor’s wife, coveting her and all that. I read it.” She stared right at me, the sort of unflinching look I associated with birds. “Everybody treats me like a glass trinket,” she said. “I get so bored. What are you really thinking?”

  I shook my head as if I didn’t understand. I was only ever thinking about the right thing to say—the thing that would show me in the best light. This wasn’t the same as having thoughts.