By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 11: Come On In—We’re Open

The place didn’t look like much.  It looked sorta like a motel and sorta like a grade school—one story, flat roof, glass doors, dorky lookin sign . . . .  But there were lots of plants around, so you couldn’t see everything.  I guess I was too nervous to be disappointed, but I’d expected something more impressive.  I looked at my phone.  I was 20 minutes early.

So what now?  Would I get in trouble if I was early?  Disobeying orders!  OK, I’d wait.  I’d spend my last few minutes just hanging out, thinking.

I looked around.  There was a bus stop on the corner, and a bench with nobody on it.  I sat down there and looked back at the SLP building across the street.  I could see some more of it now.   Behind the office building or whatever, there was a long concrete wall, with razor wire on top.  I hadn’t seen much razor wire in my life, just in bad neighborhoods I guess.  It was used to keep people out of places.  Like junk yards.  Or the back of some storage place.  But the stuff I was looking at–that was obviously to keep people in.  People like me!  Once I went through those doors, I’d be inside the razor wire.

Fuck!  You had to be pretty tough, if they needed to use razor wire to manage you.  That was exciting, but . . . .  I looked down at my clothes.  For some reason I was wearing the kind of things I wore to work in the hospital—teal shirt, tan pants, nice pair of loafers.  Why did I do that?  I must be trying to impress somebody.  Who?  OK, I wanted to impress the guys inside that building.  I wanted to tell them, here’s a nice young man.  Here’s a young man who’s got it together.  Here’s a young man you should go easy on.  Then why was I there?  The whole point was, they were the ones that were gonna tell ME what to do.

So I guessed they’d have to do a lot to change me.  This could get pretty serious . . . .  Well, of course I knew that.  It’s what I wanted.  But was it what I REALLY wanted?  Now that I was taking such a serious look at myself–was I sitting on this bench because I was early to report, or because I didn’t want to report?  Because this incredible excitement I was feeling was actually this incredible fear?

And actually, it probably wasn’t too late to go back to the airport.  I wasn’t wearing a collar—yet!  So they probably couldn’t track me.  I could just go back to my parents and tell them that letter was my jokey way of explaining my trip to St. Bevons.  Don’t you just love St. Bevons?  It would work, too.  What could they say?

Do you ever have a moment when you’re deciding something, and it could go either way?  It’s the moment when everything goes blank.

But it can’t stay that way—something has to happen.  What happened to me was, I looked at my watch again.  And it was two minutes to noon.  So I’d better hurry.  I got off the bench and I started back to the SLP building, and before I got there, I was hard as a rock.

I’d never been into drama, but when I walked up to the door and a slappie jumped out and held it open for me, I was like, fuck, the irony!  He doesn’t get it that by the end of the day I’m gonna be sportin the same styles and maybe doin that same little jump–but now he’s gotta obey me because I have, like, 30 seconds left of my life as a freeman.  So fuck!  Did I say I was hard?

Inside, there wasn’t much to see, except for a lobby with some chairs and a man in a tie and a dress shirt sitting at a desk.  OK, now I knew where to go.  I walked up to the desk, and he looked at me like a guy in a store that says, “How may I help you, sir?”  And actually, that’s what he said.  So I said, “I’m Joel Barlow, and I have an Order to Report.”  I said it fast, because I’d just looked at my phone and it said it was now a minute after 12:00.

His face sort of changed and he said, “Driver’s license.”  So I reached in my wallet and pulled it out and handed it to him, and he did something on his computer and looked at the screen and looked at the license.  But he didn’t give it back.

“Empty your pockets,” he said.

Huh?  Take the stuff out and do what with it?  I didn’t understand, so I just looked back at him.

“I said empty your pockets.  Put all your stuff on the desk.”

Oh, OK.  So there went my cell phone and my wallet and my keys—wow! dorm room, mail box, gym locker (college), exercise room (country club), bike lock, parents’ house front door, back door, garage, dad’s car, mom’s car, lots and lots of keys.  I also had a pen with me, not sure why, and 65 cents in change.  All on the desk.

Then he opened a drawer and took something out of it, and it was a pair of handcuffs!  “Turn around,” he said, getting up from the desk.  “Hands behind your back.”  And he handcuffed my arms that way.

So fuck!  When I felt that steel go onto my wrists, that was SO amazing!  Can’t describe it.  I had arrived and I was being secured.

“All right, Barlow, stand over there.  Back to the wall.”

There was a wall about 10 feet away, and I stood there, next to the potted palm, with my handcuffs on.  I could see all my stuff on the desk, and I could see the slappie standing next to the door.  I didn’t notice before, because my mind was on other things, but he was a pretty hot dude.  Tall, really blond, not dirty blond like me . . . .  Nice lookin browns.  He was looking back at me and the guy at the desk and my stuff on the desk.

I wondered what he was thinking.  “So here’s another dude becomin a slap.”  Right.  That was obvious.  Then what?  “Serves the sucker right”?  “Don’t like his clothes”?  “Poor son of a bitch”?

But what I was thinking: “Pretty soon I’m gonna look like you, dude!”

So it was strange having to stand there with my hands cuffed behind me.  It was like, shit, I am totally exposed!  I hope nobody just walks in and sees me.  I’m gonna be so embarrassed!

As soon as I thought that, a guy did walk in, and the slappie opened the door for him, and he asked the guy at the desk, “I’m here to see Sergeant Montrose, which office is he in,” and the guy at the desk told him, and he walked past me and paid no more attention to me than if I had been the potted palm.  So I didn’t need to worry about being embarrassed.  I just had to worry about my hardon, cuz when you’re cuffed like that you can’t use your hands to cover it up.  But now that I was a slappie—I guess ALMOST a slappie!—I didn’t need to worry about being shy or embarrassed or any of that shit anymore.

But it was really strange seeing my possessions just lying around.  I wondered how many times I’d looked in my wallet to make sure I had my driver’s license and my credit cards and my debit card, and how many times it was like this huge earthquake if I left my phone someplace and wondered where it was and had to go back to look for it, and I was so relieved when I found it again . . . .   And now all those things were just lyin there, dead, and I’d never have to worry about them again!  So that was a lesson, and it made me feel really happy and, like, warm all over.

The only thing that started bothering me was, it isn’t that easy to just stand up straight with your back to a wall, especially if your hands are cuffed.  I don’t know how long I was standing like that, but it was a long time.  You can’t really worry about it, though, because the SLP ain’t gonna forget about you!  They have to move you someplace!

And of course, that’s what happened.  A door banged open and two big guys dressed in those intense blue uniforms like Sergeant Henshaw marched over to me and each one grabbed an arm and they hustled me out of the lobby, and the last thing I saw was the guy at the desk sweeping my stuff into a big envelope and sticking it into a drawer.  So long, Joel Barlow, 1328 Apple Way.

To be continued …