Void Moon

3

THE offices of the California Department of Corrections, Parole and Community Services Division, in Van Nuys were crowded into a one-story building of gray, precast concrete that stood in the shadow of the Municipal Court building. The nondescript design features of its exterior seemed in step with its purpose: the quiet reintegration of convicts into society.

The interior of the building took its cue from the crowd control philosophy employed at popular amusement parks – although those who waited here weren't always anxious to reach the end of their wait. A maze of roped-off cattle rows folded the long lines of ex-cons back and forth in the waiting rooms and hallways. There were lines of cons waiting to check in, lines waiting for urine tests, lines waiting to see parole agents, lines in all quadrants of the building.

To Cassie Black the parole office was more depressing than prison had been. When she was at High Desert, she was in stasis, like a character in those sci-fi movies where the journey back to earth is so long that the travelers are put into a hibernation-type sleep. That was how Cassie saw it. She was breathing but not living, waiting and surviving on hope that the end of her time would come sooner rather than later. That hope for the future and the warmth of her constant dream of freedom got her past all the depression. But the parole office was that future. It was the harsh reality of getting out. And it was squalid and crowded and inhuman. It smelled of desperation and lost hope, of no future. Most of those surrounding her wouldn't make it. One by one they would go back. It was a fact of the life they had chosen. Few went straight, few made it out alive. And for Cassie, who promised herself she would be one of the few, the monthly immersion into this world always left her profoundly depressed.

By ten o'clock on Tuesday morning she had already been through the check-in line and was nearing the front of the pee line. In her hand she held the plastic cup she would have to squat over and fill while an office trainee, dubbed the wizard because of the nature of her monitoring duty, watched to make sure it was her own urine going into the container.

While she waited Cassie didn't look at anybody and didn't talk to anybody. When the line moved and she was jostled she just moved with the flow. She thought about her time in High Desert, about how she could just shut herself down when she needed to and go on autopilot, ride that spaceship back to earth. It was the only way to get through that place. And this one, too.

Cassie squeezed into the cubicle that her parole agent, Thelma Kibble, called an office. She was breathing easy now. She was near the end. Kibble was the last stop on the journey.

"There she is…," Kibble said. "Howzit going there, Cassie Black?"

"Fine, Thelma. How about you?"

Kibble was an obese black woman whose age Cassie had never tried to guess. There was always a pleasant expression on her wide face and Cassie truly liked her despite the circumstances of their relationship. Kibble wasn't easy but she was fair. Cassie knew she was lucky that her transfer from Nevada had been assigned to Kibble.

"Can't complain," Kibble said. "Can't complain at all."

Cassie sat in the chair next to the desk, which was stacked on all sides with case files, some of them two inches thick. On the left side of the desk was a vertical file labeled RTC which always drew Cassie's attention. She knew RTC meant return to custody and the files located there belonged to the losers, the ones going back. It seemed the vertical file was always full and seeing it was as much a deterrent to Cassie as anything else about the parole process.

Kibble had Cassie's file open in front of her and was filling in the monthly report. This was their ritual; a brief face-to-face visit and Kibble would go down the checklist of questions.

"What's up with the hair?" Kibble asked without looking up from the paperwork.

"Just felt like a change. I wanted it short."

"Change? What are you, so bored you gotta make changes all'a sudden?"

"No, I just…"

She finished by hiking her shoulders, hoping the moment would pass. She should have realized that using the word change would raise a flag with a parole agent.

Kibble turned her wrist slightly and checked her watch. It was time to go on.

"Your pee going to be a problem?"

"Nope."

"Good. Anything you want to talk about?"

"No, not really."

"How's the job going?"

"It's a job. It's going the way jobs go, I guess."

Kibble raised her eyebrows and Cassie wished she had just stuck to a one-word answer. Now she had raised another flag.

"You drive them fancy damn cars all the time," Kibble said. "Most people that come in here are washin' cars like that. And they ain't complaining."

"I'm not complaining."

"Then what?"

"Then nothing. Yes, I drive fancy cars. But I don't own them. I sell them. There's a difference."

Kibble looked up from the file and studied Cassie for a moment. All around them the cacophony of voices from the rows of cubicles filled the air.

"A'right, what's troubling you, girl? I don't have time for bullshit. I got my hard cases and my soft cases and I'll be damned if I'm gonna have to move you to HC. I don't have time for that."

She slapped one of the stacks of thick files to make her point.

"You won't want that, neither," she said.

Cassie knew HC meant High Control. She was on minimum supervision now. A move to HC would mean increased visits to the parole office, daily phone checks and more home visits from Kibble. Parole would simply become an extension of her cell and she knew she couldn't handle that. She quickly held her hands up in a calming gesture.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Nothing's wrong, okay? I'm just having… I'm just going through one of those times, you know?"

"No, I don't know. What times you talkin' about? Tell me."

"I can't. I don't know the words. I feel like… it's like every day is like the one before. There is no future because it's all the same."

"Look, what did I tell you when you first came in here? I told you it would get like this. Repetition breeds routine. Routine's boring but it keeps you from thinking and it keeps you out of trouble. You want to stay out of trouble, don't you, girl?"

"Yes, Thelma. But it's like I got out of lockdown but sometimes I feel like I'm still in lockdown. It's not…"

"Not what?"

"I don't know. It's not fair."

There was a sudden outburst from one of the other cubicles as a convict started protesting loudly. Kibble stood up to look over the partitions of the cubicle. Cassie didn't move. She didn't care. She knew what it was, somebody being taken down and put in a holding cell pending revocation of parole. There were one or two takedowns every time she came in. Nobody ever went back peaceably. Cassie had long ago stopped watching the scenes. She couldn't worry about anyone else in this place but herself.

After a few moments Kibble sat back down and turned her attention back to Cassie, who was hoping that the interruption would make the parole agent forget what they had been talking about.

There was no such luck.

"You see that?" Kibble asked.

"I heard it. That was enough."

"I hope so. Because any little mess-up and that could be you. You understand that, don't you?"

"Perfectly, Thelma. I know what happens."

"Good, because this isn't about being fair, to use your word. Fair's got nothing to do with it. You're down by law, honey, and you're under thumb. You're scaring me, girl, and you should be scaring yourself. You're only ten months into a two-year tail. This is not good when I hear you getting antsy after just ten months."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Shit, there's people in this room with four-and five- and six-year tails. Some even longer."

Cassie nodded.

"I know, I know. I'm lucky. It's just that I can't stop myself from thinking about things, you know?"

"No, I don't know."

Kibble folded her massive arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair. Cassie wondered if the chair could take the weight but it held strong. Kibble looked at her sternly. Cassie knew she had made a mistake trying to open up to her. She was in effect inviting Kibble into her life more than she was already into it. But she decided that since she had already strayed across the line, she might as well go all the way now.

"Thelma, can I just ask you something?"

"That's what I'm here for."

"Do you know… are there any, like international treaties or agreements for parole transfers?"

Kibble closed her eyes.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Like if I wanted to live in London or Paris or something?"

Kibble opened her eyes, shook her head and looked astonished. She shifted forward and the chair came down heavily.

"Do I look like a travel agent to you? You are a convict, girl. You understand that? You don't just decide you don't like it here and say, 'Oh, I think I'll try Paris now.' Are you listening to yourself talking crazy here? We aren't running no Club Med here."

"Okay, I was just – "

"You got the one transfer from Nevada, which you were lucky to get, thanks to your friend at the dealership. But that's it. You are stuck here, girl. For at least the next fourteen months and maybe even further, the way you're acting now."

"All right. I just thought I'd – "

"End of story."

"Okay. End of story."

Kibble leaned over the desk to write something in Cassie's file.

"I don't know about you," she said as she wrote. "You know what I oughta do is I oughta thirty-fifty-six you for a couple days, see if that clears your mind of these silly ass ideas. But – "

"You don't have to do that, Thelma. I – "

"-we're full up right now."

A 3056 was a parole hold – an order putting a parolee in custody pending a hearing to revoke parole. The PA could then drop the revoke charge at the time of the hearing and the parolee would be set free. Meantime, the revisit to lockdown for a few days would serve as a warning to straighten up. It was the harshest threat Kibble had at her disposal and just the mention of it properly scared Cassie.

"I mean it, Thelma, I'm fine. I'm okay. I was just venting some steam, okay? Please don't do that to me."

She hoped she had put the proper sound of pleading into her voice.

Kibble shook her head.

"All I know is that you were on my A list, girl. Now I don't know. I think I'm gonna at least have to come around and check up on you one of these days. See what's what with you. I'm telling you, Cassie Black, you better watch yourself with me. I am not fat old Thelma who can't get off her chair. I am not someone to fuck with. You think so, you check with these folks."

She raked the end of her pen along the edges of the RTC files to her left. It made a loud ripping sound.

"They'll tell you I am not someone to be fucked with or fucked over."

Cassie could only nod. She studied the huge woman across from her for a long moment. She needed some way to defuse this, to get the smile back on Kibble's face or at the very least the deep furrow out of her brow.

"You come around, Thelma, and I have a feeling I'll see you before you see me."

Kibble looked sharply at her. But Cassie saw the tension slowly change in her face. It had been a gamble but Kibble took the comment in good humor. She even started to chuckle and it made her huge shoulders and then the desk shake.

"We'll see about that," Kibble said. "You'd be surprised by me."