You move to Seattle right after high school because you want to be in a place where the sun is not always so bright, and for a few years it is not so bad. You do temp work, entering direct deposit requests into a database at a bank. But sometimes after you have been working at the computer for several hours without looking away or doing anything else, the image will come back. You will see him bleeding against the rock. The open cavity, part of his skull clinging to a flap of skin, blood streaming out in the snow. Clumps of hair in the gore. You never saw these things. When he fell there was only a little pink in the snow. But it no longer matters. The images are more real than anything around you.
In the office, when the fear takes hold, you lean back in your chair and put your hands on your head so that it feels like it is not falling apart. You try to breathe and forget it. Before the anxiety builds too much. Usually the panic comes and goes in waves for a while and if it starts to slip out of control, you can sit in one of the bathroom stalls and collect yourself.
At the elevator door, one afternoon, a new temp beside you is chewing gum with her mouth open. She laughs for some reason.
Heading out early? she asks.
I took a short lunch break, you say. We’re allowed to do that on Fridays. But it comes out sounding like you are angry. In the corner of your eye, she flinches.
That’s what I meant, she says quietly.
The two of you have to stand in the small elevator together the whole way down. You feel like you are filling up all the space in the elevator with your weight and there is a sour smell like sweat or urine that you think may be coming from you. Sometimes you sweat while you are working. The doors open. You can only think of getting to the liquor store.
But a few hours later, beer in hand before the television, you are still thinking of the girl in the elevator. Probably the first time you’d talked in a week. You keep thinking of what you said. Again and again. Sometimes swearing to yourself and then hearing your voice when you say it and being embarrassed. Fuck you, you say. Fuck.
You finish the beer and then pause the movie and get another from the refrigerator. Spill a little when you pull back the tab and take a drink. Think of what someone would say if they saw you. Blinds closed so that no one can look in. Soon the shame is deadened. Even if someone in the movie had to go into surgery and started to bleed you would be alright. You would see him against the rock but it would have no power over you. Could simply turn the movie off and do the dishes.
Even if the panic grew, there would be no need to hide it. Do anything. Rub your face or clutch your knees or moan. Whatever you needed. No one watching.
Then another beer and back to the couch. Battles on another planet. Look at the lead actor. Is he younger than you. Has never suffered. You are young but when you look in the mirror now something in the skin of your face already. In your eyes. Almost ten years now since Gerry died on the mountain. Your friend. Ten years. You start to cry and then you pause the movie and open a bottle of vodka and sit down on the tiles of the kitchen floor with your back against the cabinet and drink. What has become of you. Look at you.
The next morning, the hangover is worse than usual. It wakes you early, lying on the carpet in the living room, and you cannot go back to sleep bec ause of the pain in your head. Panic too. Already there from the moment you open your eyes. Nowhere to look. Every corner, on every wall. The walls move like they are underwater. You close your eyes and he bleeds behind your eyes. There is no place to look. Your heart races. If you had a heart attack. Alone. You pull on clothes and leave the apartment. But the panic follows. Nowhere to look. Rubbing your head, walking down the street. Beneath the highway overpass, holding your head, trying to make the gestures seem normal but they are not. It is not like leaning back in a chair at the office. Every car watching you. What do they think.
You walk and walk. And then when you have walked to an industrial area where there are no cars on the streets and you are able to think about other things, the panic finally fades. Then you are so grateful. You are always so grateful when it leaves you. The sun continues to rise over the buildings. You sigh. You are so tired of the struggle.
At the grocery store, you buy some beer and a sausage and biscuit breakfast from the buffet. Then you continue back toward the apartment. There is a sign hanging in a glass display case outside one of the churches on the way.
WHY ARE THERE 2 MILLION IN US PRISONS TODAY?
JOIN PRISON OUTREACH
AN INTERFAITH COMMUNITY JUSTICE ORGANIZATION
But it is not the message that stops you. There is graffiti scrawled across the glass pane in front of it with a thick black marker. An angel with a halo stands behind Osama bin Laden and rapes him. Cartoon wings and everything. You stand and stare. Wonder what the maker of the graffiti was thinking. Where he was coming from.
Are you a supporter of prisoners’ rights?
Turn and see a short bearded man. A perfectly round stomach, like a bowling ball under his t-shirt. A clipboard in his arm. Smiles. You start to walk away and then stop. So grateful that the panic has gone.
Would you like to participate in the strawberry festival at the prison? he continues. It’s put on by the First Nations inmates. Guests are welcomed. We’re trying to get a group together. The man begins writing on his clipboard. You don’t have to decide now. If you’d like, I could put your name on the list. Then you could decide tomorrow before the van leaves. They let us do a special one-day notice. Are you interested?
For some reason, you put your real name on the list on his clipboard. You try to think of a fake name but nothing comes to mind so you give him your real name. There are only two other names on the clipboard. He shakes your hand and gives you a flyer.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a prison before, he says. The one we go to is a state prison. But there’s nothing to worry about. I just need to give a day’s notice. The van leaves from right here. Then he shakes your hand again. We’ll hope to see you there.
Back at your apartment, you spend the rest of the afternoon downloading pictures. Sit at the computer and drink beers and download things from a service you joined. On the radio, a strident voice. But you look into the science, it says, and I mean the scientific information and there is no question. High octane airplane fuel is not sufficient, insufficient, to cause a structural collapse in that grade of steel. There is no question.
Tell us more about the burn rate, the other one says. How much jet fuel would it take to melt one of those steel girders?
The strident man’s voice talks about the bombs that were planted in the twin towers and then about how the Pentagon was not struck by a plane. There was no plane, he says. Are you telling me one of the most photographed buildings in the United States, the center of the military-industrial complex, and eleven months later there is not a single picture? Give me a break.
Then a commercial for some medical study. You finish the beer and think about the morning. Walking under the overpass. Others have lived with worse. Maybe someday it will all burn out. Like the voices that schizophrenics hear. You decide to watch another movie.
A few hours later, the movie is over and the room is quiet again. You wonder what to do. You go to the kitchen and look through the cabinets. Reach for a bag of popcorn and then you stop. You think. Every choice you make. Every choice you make is like this. But somehow in the end what happens is not what you want. If only you could come at it all from a different angle somehow. If only you could start over.
Then the tape finishes rewinding and you turn toward the VCR. You try to remember what you were thinking about. Something very important. It is on the tip of your tongue. After a while, you put the popcorn in the microwave and set the timer.
That night the dream comes back. The worst one. A faceless body hanging in front of you on hooks. Cutting it open with a butcher knife and blood spills out but you continue to take him to pieces. Wake up sick. Fuck, you say. Fuck. Over and over. Pacing in the apartment. Something wrong with you. What if this is the way they begin. Those people who shoot up their offices. Or serial killers. Try not to think that you are slipping away. Then you know the time has come. Clean up. Get clear in your head. Stop drinking again. Time to build back up your health. Strength. No wonder you are like this. Not healthy so much time alone. Alone. You remember the potbellied man and you know what you have to do. You take the flyer out of the trash can and look at the clock.
A few hours later you are sitting in the back of his van, driving out of the city. An old woman sits in the passenger seat beside him. And then in the back two college kids.
You think about the weeks ahead. Know that you can stop drinking for long enough because you have done it before. When you have drunk yourself into this hole, the nerves so worn down and the fear so strong that it is easier to quit than to continue. And then back to health. And then can return later on. This is the one good thing about the panic. These ten years. Without it, you might have no reason not to drink yourself to death.
Have you ever been to a prison before? the potbellied man asks from the driver’s seat. Littered all across the floor of the van. Turns back quickly to look, smiling again. Has a lazy eye. Did not see it before.
No, I’ve never been in trouble, you say.
There is silence for a while. The college kids in the back seat start to laugh.
That’s not what I meant, the potbellied man says. We’re all volunteers. We go to the prison every week and run a reading program with the inmates. He invites you to come. No need to be a professor. A lot of these guys are lifers. They’re just looking for someone to talk to, some connection to the outside.
You nod. The man keeps his eyes on the road and sips from a large plastic coffee mug. Someone to treat them like a human being instead of a number, he says. I’ve been coming up here every week, about a year and a half.
It’s addictive, one of the boys says.
Then for some reason you start to think about the van. Very small. Unable to leave, no way to excuse yourself from the van. Under their eyes. What if you panicked inside the prison. Even worse. No way out. No way to leave. You recognize that it was a mistake to come. The panic starts to arc up and you feel yourself blushing. Try to think of excuse not to enter the prison. But in a moment of calm you tell yourself that what you are doing now is necessary. Like medicine. Being with people. Struggle through this day and others like it and then in a few weeks healthy enough. Thicken the fat around your nerves. Then drink again and burn it all away.
The towering front wall around the prison fills an entire block, but there is only a single row of parking spaces in the street. So the van does not stop. Wheels past the front entrance and an abandoned old gas station there. Stops by a side entrance, just a door in another endless concrete wall. Unreal. The panic rising as you step outside into the heat and light. Then recedes. Nothing. Stand for an hour or so by the door, in the shadow, waiting for a guard. A few brownskinned women wait with you, frowning and standing perfectly still. Wearing colorful blankets. Black hair. The potbellied man introduces himself and they talk for a while in quiet voices. When the door finally opens, the potbellied man smiles and the guard ignores him. You are embarrassed to be seen with these people. You follow them through the gate.
The guard takes his time checking your names and identifications on his list in the shitty waiting room, then asks you to read the regulations in the big red poster on his wall and sign a form and put anything metal or valuable in a nearby wall of lockers. Then he asks you all to follow him into another room, where he sweeps each of you with a metal-detecting wand. Stops at one of the black-haired women.
You’re wearing earrings.
She reaches up to her ears. Was it wrong?
Ma’am, did you read the regulations?
I can take them—
Did you read the regulations? he says, holding up one hand while she tries to talk. Ma’am? You signed your name that you read the regulations. Did you read them?
Her head moves. My son.
Ma’am? the guard says. The regulations say no jewelry. You entered a secure area with prohibited materials, and I’m going to have to escort you outside now.
She begins to cry. Others try to talk to the guard but he does not let her through. He takes her outside the waiting room and then comes back and closes the door. Does not look at you. Leads the rest of the group through old hallways and past tall concrete buildings with barred windows. Stopping at steel doors and waiting to be buzzed through. Then single file through the empty prisonyard. No one anywhere. A few shouts from the barred windows above the yard. Finally, the guard leads you into a small brick building full of old schoolrooms. Other visitors already there in the room at the end of the hall. Most of them Indians. Folding table covered with plastic plates, a plastic cooler, dishes in tinfoil. Like a picnic. Women, middle-aged and black-haired, dressed in more blankets and beads. The few white women dressed the same, rainbows of thick yarn, necklaces.
Welcome, brother, one of the white women says, approaching you with wide, strained eyes. Spots in her skin. Are you with the writing program?
I came in the van.
Then you must know Windfeather.
No, you say.
Well, she says. We’re glad to have you as our guest.
You wait a long time in the schoolroom and watch the potbellied man speak with the women. Then a guard stands by the door and the men file in, dressed in blue jumpsuits. Try not to stare at them. Once the guards have stepped back into the hall, the men greet their visitors and laugh and clap the potbellied man on the back. They call him Reverend and he smiles and introduces you to them, one by one. Each shakes your hand and looks in your eyes. Then the ceremony begins in a room across the hallway. A wide circle of orange plastic chairs with feather-ringed drums in the middle.
Brothers and sisters, one of the inmates says in a low voice. It pleases me to see you on this day. We are gathered to celebrate the festival of the strawberries. Every year, when the harvest season has come to an end, we give thanks to the earth for its bounty. This is our tradition. Many of us come from different tribes. You wonder what he means about the harvest since all of them are in prison. Maybe they took them on a field trip or something. You try to sit still in your cracked plastic chair while he welcomes all the tribes of the guests, ending with his own. Speaks slowly, never smiling. Studying the faces of everybody. Stares at you. And then sometimes he will say a few words in some Indian language.
After thanking a large, older woman who sits in a striped blanket outside the circle, he comes to you and the others from the van. I would like also to thank the Reverend, he says, suddenly smiling wide, for sharing in our celebration with his families and friends. Welcome, Reverend. Welcome, friends. The others repeat his welcome. It is our honor to welcome you here.
You think he is done then but he turns and gives thanks to the women for having brought the drums and other instruments and for having set them out. The thanks seem to go on forever. He thanks the women for the food they brought. For their grace and wisdom. He praises each of the tribes again. Then he thanks his teachers for their grace and wisdom. One of the white women whispers in your ear. Is this your first time here? she asks. Isn’t this wonderful? But you do not know what she means. It is pathetic to you. A classroom with old vinyl tiles and plastic chairs. Guards standing outside the windows, not even bothering to look inside.
It keeps going on. Another inmate stands up and thanks the first speaker. Talks about the first speaker’s strength. The white woman beside you whispers something again that you do not hear. I do not speak the tongue of my people, the second man says. But I am trying to learn. He takes out a piece of paper and starts to read. We thank the earth for the rain that gives life, he says. Then he says it in the other language. We thank the earth for the trees that offer us shade. Then again in the other language. We thank the earth for the corn… He goes on giving thanks for a long time. Like a chant. He thanks the earth for the fish and the streams. He thanks the earth for the beans. You wonder when the last time he saw a field was. We thank the earth for her strawberries. They are the gift of the season. They are the gift of the end of harvest. We thank the earth for her gifts.
The visitors all murmur thanks and praise. It is so pathetic that you do not know what to do. You worry that they will know what you are thinking. Then the large older woman in the striped blanket begins to speak. I thank our brother Windfeather, she says very slowly. She barely moves her lips. These words are much like the words that were spoken in the old times. She praises the convict’s speech but you have trouble paying attention because she talks so slowly. Then all the other women are standing and they start to walk silently around the room. Give you a styrofoam cup and fill the cup with a few spoonfuls of mashed strawberries. Like something for kindergarteners. The first speaker says that the women, as they pour the strawberry drink, will give an offering to the earth. You are supposed to respond with an acceptance of the offering. Glad it is in a prison because otherwise you would worry it was drugged. I accept the strawberries from the spirit of the earth, you say, just like the others. You are embarrassed.
Finally, after everyone drinks the fruit, the women pull their chairs back to the edge of the room, away from the men, and the drumming starts. You sit back in your chair outside of the drum circle with the other men who are not drumming and you are relieved, at first, that all of the attention is focused on the drummers. But now that there is nothing to do but watch the drumming you start to think again about what would happen if the panic came, here, in the prison. Without any words to distract you, all you can think about is the growing panic. No escape here if it got worse. If it got bad and you had to ask them to leave, you would have to go all the way back out through the maze of brick and concrete buildings and halls. There is no way out.
The inmates in the drum circle continue to pound a simple rhythm. No variation. Just a steady, endless beat. It is too bright in the room and the fluorescent lights flicker. If only there were somewhere to go. You think about excusing yourself to go to the bathroom. But what if you came back and the panic came again. Then you would have no excuse anymore. You hold yourself still and wait for it to get worse. Stare at the drummers. Try not to look like you are losing control. Some of them with small drums between their knees, others with large drums that rest on the floor. All of the drums covered with stretched hides and rings of feathers. As the beat goes on and on, you find it harder to keep yourself under control. You shift in your chair and begin to drift and then whenever you snap back, the panic has grown. Heart races. Drift. Snap back. You force yourself to stay calm, tensing your neck and jaw to keep yourself together. Face flushed. They can all see. Time to get up. Go to the restroom. But what then. You try to concentrate on the drummers. They sit with eyes closed, swinging the sticks and mallets and their hands against the drumheads. Not looking at you. The rhythms getting more complex. You lift your hands up and fold them behind your head. Try to make it look natural. Clench your jaw.
After a while, you snap back and realize that your mind was wandering again. One of the college boys is sitting in the drum circle now, and another drummer stands and begins to hand the small drum to the Reverend. But he refuses and points to you.
The man in the blue jumpsuit holds out the small drum to you. You try to refuse it. But he shakes his head. He holds it out and you take it. Then he leads you to sit in his chair in the circle and whispers in your ear as you rise. It’s easy. Bring your hand up to the same place each time. That’s the trick. Pats you on the back. All eyes on you now. All eyes. Flushed. They can tell there is something wrong.
Start to drum. Hard to stay in rhythm. You keep falling out of the beat. You try to stay in rhythm and fail and you know that you are trying too hard but you do not know how to stop. After a while, you just give up. Fuck it. Some of the men strike the heads at different times, on the off-beat, and the rhythm is complicated but the beat underneath it is always the same. You lift your hand again and again and try to beat as quietly as possible. Back to the same place. Back to the same place. Again and again. Start to drift.
As you snap back you feel the panic at the back of your skull ratcheting up again as it always does in these times like a knot in the tendons. Then the worst thing. You worry about seeing it here. His head split open against the rock. Nausea grips your stomach and you think about leaving the circle. You start to take quick breaths. Try not to think of it. You open your eyes wide and look around the room.
But when you look around, no one is watching. Most with their eyes closed. Nodding.
You look at them, and for the first time you start to understand.
You continue drumming. You continue to drum and your heart keeps racing from the adrenaline. But already you know that it will wind down. The sickness in your stomach is already starting to loosen its grip.
No more running away. It is still unclear. But you can feel it coming on.
There is no need to hold yourself on guard. Not about them. Not about the walls around you. The walls do not matter. You close your eyes and drum. There are no walls. In this moment there are no walls. And there is only this moment. You are free. You are free.
Nicolas Bourbaki lives on a houseboat in Southeast Alaska. Penitence is adapted from a section of If, a second-person novel in which the reader must make a choice at the end of each chapter. The reader’s choices shape the protagonist’s life and alter the form of the novel.
