Two Bit Hack: Part 31

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Redemption

"Life is complex. You don't have any person who is nice from the beginning until the end. You don't always have the notion of redemption. The bad people don't always pay." --Marjane Satrapi

It didn't end exactly the way I had hoped. The doctors kept me awake until they removed the microchip from my brain but instead of being released from the hospital after my recovery I was released to the custody of the  Federal Bureau of Investigation and dragged into court on charges of kidnapping and murder.

Of course, with all the media attention that holding a nurse hostage inside a major medical center brings and an operating room full of renown neurosurgeons talking on television about what they had removed from inside my brain the government was having a pretty hard time making it all just go quietly away.

They ended up dropping the murder charges, saying it was self defense even though everyone knew it wasn't but the hostage taking was a different story for which I pulled 2 years at the Alderson, West Virginia Federal Prison Camp. That's right, a luxury prison filled with nothing but white collar criminals. I've never felt so out of place in my life.

When I got out I went home and started trying to get my life back together but all I could think about was Asylumland and my friends there. Spring finally rolled 'round so I fired up my old XS 650 and motored north again to Dillwyn, Virginia.

I stopped on top of the same hill as before and looked down on the asylum. The gates were wide open as were the doors. The grounds appeared to be empty except for an old stray dog. I decided to ride on down and investigate.

Everything was still pretty much inside but it looked as if no one had been there for a very long time. I went through the place looking for anything I thought might burn, rubbing alcohol, cleaning products, you name it and dumped them all on the beds, couches and chairs. Then I lit a match, tossed it onto one of the beds, walked out to my bike and rode back to the top of the hill where I watched the entire place burn almost completely to the ground before the local volunteer fire department had time to get there.

The next afternoon I rode up in front of a biker bar not far from Damascus, Virginia. A bunch of young guys were standing out front trying to look tough just like I did when I was that age. "You call that a motorcycle?" one of the asked.

"No," I replied, "I call it a Yamaha."

"Real men ride Harleys," another said.

"I used to be a real man, used to own a hog," I grinned,"Now I'm just old and in need of a beer while I'm passing through."

"Let him be," another said pointing to my North Carolina license plate, "he's a tourist come to support our local economy."

"Well by all means," the first one said as he held the door open for me.

"Thanks," I smiled.

It was while eating a burger and washing it down with a beer that I noticed a young woman. She looked just like Irene had looked at 25 when I first met her all those years ago. She was with some big blond headed guy who was drunk on his ass and being a real jerk. I tried not to look her way but I couldn't take my eyes off of her. Eventually she looked at me and said, "Hey Old Man, why are you staring at me?"

"I was just wondering if your name is Irene," I said.

"How do you know my name?" she asked. Her friend didn't looked pleased that she was talking with me and not him.

I guess it was a pretty dumb thing to ask but the next question just kind of slipped out, "Do you still have that tattoo of a blue butterfly on the inside of your left thigh?"

"How in the hell do you know about that?" she asked turning red as a beet.

"You Bitch," her boyfriend shouted, "I paid for that tattoo. How in the hell does this old man know about it? Have you been fucking around on me?"

She grabbed her helmet off the table and smashed him in the face knocking him to the floor! "Thor, you sorry bastard, nobody talks to me like that! Besides, just because you paid for a tattoo doesn't mean you own me. I just got that tattoo last night. There's no way this old man could have known about it. Besides, I've been with you every minute since you dumb fuck!"

As the two of us rode away I shouted above the wind, "I told you I'd take you motorcycle riding someday."

"That's good," Irene shouted back, "I've been looking for a better class of snake anyway."

The End

 Two Bit Hack has brought to you in part by Wackemall Mining, Manufacturing & Farming... Proud sponsors of the Vegetable Stalker.

Two Bit Hack: Part 30

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Judgment Day

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.” --Paulo Coelho

"I'll tell you anything," Stoner said. "Just don't shoot me."

"Why have you been keeping us prisoner?" I asked.

"It's all a DARPA funded experiment," Stoner said. "They called it Project Pegasus."

"DARPA," I asked, "What's DARPA?"

"Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency," he answered.

"So you work for the government?"

"No," he explained, "I work for a private contractor so the government can claim plausible deniability."

"You mean like if I get away and blow the whistle on the whole thing," I said.

"You'll never get away," Stoner said. "As soon as you go to sleep they'll bring you right back."

"How do they do that?" I asked.

"The chip inside your brain. As soon as you go to sleep it starts transmitting and we take control sending you anywhere and to any time we want." Stoner explained.

"Like when you sent me back in time to kill Park Chung-hee?" I asked.

"We thought you might be starting to remember?" Stoner said. "You've been in the program since 1968, you were one of the first to volunteer."

"But I was only 12 years old," I argued, "my parents wouldn't have let me volunteer for something like this."

"Your parents thought you were just going away for the summer-- science camp," Stoner replied, still anxiously staring at the gun barrel, "Faking the bus crash and getting you in the hospital for the surgery was the easy part. The hard part was putting all those memories in your head like that story you wrote about your friend Veggie Head Stalker."

"So I'm a time traveler and hit man who has been held hostage for the last 40 years?"

"That about sums it up," Stoner agreed, "and you might as well give up 'cause sooner or  later you're going to sleep and you're going back."

"Don't sell me so short," I said, "There's no telling how long I can stay awake."

"But they're tracking me too," Stoner said, "They'll be here in no time."

"Thanks for warning me," I said. Then I shot Stoner in the thigh and grabbed his cell phone from his pocket as he rolled on the ground. "I bet they don't find you before you bleed to death."

Stoner cried out in pain and rolled across the ground clutching his thigh. The bullet was deep and the blood gushing. "You'll never get away," he cried.

I put Stoner's phone inside a plastic first aid case that I'd been carrying, taped the case up so it wouldn't leak and tossed it in the rain swollen river. "By the time they figure out you're not where that phone is you'll already be bled out." I gathered my things, turned back up stream and left him there to die.

"So Doc" I said standing in an operating room at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, "that's why I'm standing here holding this gun to the head of your nurse. You've got to get that thing you see on that X-ray out of my head and you've got to keep me wide awake until you've finished. Then maybe I can get back and see about saving my friends."

Continue To Part 31: Redemption

Two Bit Hack: Part 29

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Beware The Sandman

"The wood of suicides has changed since my last visit to Hell. I remember it as a tiny grove. Now it resembles a forest." -- Neil Gaiman

I'll never forget how Irene, Sara and Sabrina all sat down in the floor of that abandoned house and wailed. I'll never forget how much I wanted to sit down with them and do the same. Almost 45 people with which we'd lived for years disappearing into thin air was reason enough for anyone to cry and yet I stood there at the back door as the storm winds began to blow and rain came down in torrents without shedding the first tear, the anger building up inside of me. "Do you think we should go now?" Tom asked.

"In the dark? We'll never get across the river as fast as the water is rising," Joe said. "Unless you want to walk along the river looking for a bridge I recommend we wait here."

"You're right," Tom agreed. "Besides, they're probably watching all the bridges."

"How could they have taken them?" I asked.

"I don't know," Tom answered, "but if you'll think about it, every time they ever took you before it was while you were sleeping."

"You mean to tell me the minute we go to sleep they'll simply snatch us right back?" Joe asked.

"Seems that way to me," Tom said.

"But how will we ever get away?" Joe asked.

"I don't know," Tom said. "I guess we just run and hope we can find a place to hide where they can't track us like a cave or something."

"And hope we stay awake that long," Joe complained. "Some plan this turned out to be."

I guess it was because the rain and winds were so loud that we never heard them coming but it wasn't until I heard Irene scream that we realized Stoner and several other men were rushing in the front door firing stun guns at Tom and Joe the instant they came in. With no idea what else I could do I ran out the back door while they wrestled to restrain the girls.

I made my way to the river and turned to the right to follow the river downstream as quickly as my tired old legs would carry me. With visibility near zero and no established trail it was all I could do to walk most of the time and I fell often never sure if or how far behind Stoner and the others might be. But I didn't stop except to catch my breath until I saw the sun start to rise in the east and the skies beginning to clear in the west. Then I sat down to eat a chocolate bar and a very cold baked potato left over from dinner a couple of nights before.

It was while I was eating that I heard two men fighting their way through the brush behind me. Knowing I couldn't run I chose to stand my ground, picked up a rock and hid in the bushes. I waited until the first one was almost upon me then launched myself from the bushes, my body hitting the first man and knocking him backwards into the second man while I pounded the first man's skull with the rock.

Luckily for me the second man turned and ran. I grabbed a stun gun off the dead man's body and gave chase. When I finally got a look at the fleeing man I realized it was Stoner. For what is probably the only time in my life, I caught my second wind.

I chased him for almost a mile, maybe more, through the thick underbrush along the riverbank until finally he took a hard fall and twisted his ankle. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a 9 millimeter pistol but before he could get off a shot I hit him with a shot from the stun gun and took his pistol from his trembling hands. "Are you going to kill me?" Stoner asked.

"I don't know," I answered. "It depends on how good you are at answering questions."

Continue To Part 30: Judgment Day

Two Bit Hack: Part 28

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Journey

"Sleep - Those little slices of death, how I loathe them." --Edgar Allen Poe

I would be no reluctant messiah like in the novel by Richard Bach, I'd not be leading almost 50 people to their salivation and I knew it from the beginning. So did Joe and Tom but when Janice convened our congress together the vote was 100% in favor of escape from Asylumland so good, bad or indifferent, lead them we would. To were we didn't know.

It was the middle of the night, most of the guards were asleep at their posts like they were always known to be. Joe, Sara and the Loon Squad took the lead knocking out any guard or orderly they came in contact with and taking their stun guns, blackjacks and handcuffs as they went. Most of the other women followed while Tom and myself along with the other men watched our backs pouring out jugs of ammonia as we went. As we exited the final door we tossed buckets filled with bleach onto the ammonia soaked floors. The resulting ammonia-chloride gas would take down anyone Joe, Sara and the Loons had missed.

It took Joe all of a second to snap the neck of the guard at the gate who was too absorbed with his hand held device to ever notice Joe walking up behind him and a minute later almost 50 people had walked through the gates, across the road and into the woods to face a cold night in a place where none of us knew the way home. "We're free," Irene said clutching my arm.

"For now," I replied, "but you know come morning someone will be coming to hunt us down."

"I know," she said, "all we can do is try."

We walked all night and all through the next day staying away from roads, houses and open fields moving west towards the mountains. While we expected to hear dogs and trackers rushing us at any moment, for some strange reason they never came. "Do you think they might just let us go?" Janice asked.

"No way," Tom answered, "they're just counting on us turning up somewhere convenient."

"Maybe they know where we are all the time," Joe suggested.

"I wouldn't put it past them," Tom said, "they know how to control our minds."

"Why aren't they controlling our minds now?" Sara asked.

"Who says they aren't," Sabrina suggested, "Who says they aren't leading us somewhere right now?"

"That's just twisted," Irene said.

"Like everything they've been doing to us isn't," Sabrina complained.

Late that evening we came to an abandoned house not far from Gladstone, Virginia near the banks of the James River. Joe and Tom wanted to keep pushing on but most of us were simply too tired to continue on without some rest. We decided it would be best if several of us kept watch while the others packed the inside of the house and slept a few hours. Tom, Joe and I volunteered to keep the first watch and Sara, Irene and Sabrina offered to stay up and keep us company. Four hours later, Sara went inside to wake up the second watch and everyone we had left inside was gone, vanished into thin air. "They're gone!" Sara yelled. "They're all gone!"

Irene and I ran in the back door while Joe, Tom and Sabrina ran in the front door. "They didn't come out this way!" Joe shouted.

"They didn't come out the back either," I yelled.

"That can mean only one thing," Tom said,. "They're all back in Asylumland."

Continue To Part 29: Beware The Sandman

Two Bit Hack: Part 27

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Revelation

“The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.” --Wendell Berry

Tom had made quite the impression on us. And if you believed his story then it explained what was going on and why we were all living in Asylumland. Problem was, it didn't fit what we believed about ourselves. After all, time travel is pretty far fetched even to a bunch of people living in an insane asylum.

Still, he seemed to be right about my remembering. In the weeks and months that followed I started remembering more and more about who, where and how I'd killed in the past. I remembered starring through scopes on rifles, sticking knives in the backs of unsuspecting people walking down the street and pouring gasoline on people before lighting matches and walking away.

Sometimes the memories came to me in my sleep-- sometimes when I was wide awake. Usually I'd worked alone but sometimes I worked with others whose names I didn't know and faces I'd never seen before or sense. If what Tom was telling us was true, someone had figured out the perfect way to kill anyone, anywhere and anytime they wanted someone dead.

And as far as I could tell we were powerless to resist. Even Tom said that since he'd become aware of what was going on they still managed to control him. He spoke of watching the entire thing right down to pulling the trigger and not being able to resist.

I wasn't the only one with memories either. Janice was having the same nightmares again and again. We tried to pass it all off as the power of suggestion, a psychological trick Tom was playing on us, but that wouldn't explain the fact that I remembered killing Park Chung-hee before Tom had told us his explanation of what was going on. "There's one thing for certain," Janice said.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Tom or no Tom," Janice replied, "it's time we got serious about getting out of here."

"You're the president," I said. "Give the order and I'll make a run for it."

"Just make sure you take the rest of us with you?" Janice ordered.

"I'll get up with Joe and figure out a way to make it happen or die trying," I answered.

Continue To Part 28: Journey

Two Bit Hack: Part 26

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Enter The Dark

“‎W. H. Auden once suggested that to understand your own country you need to have lived in at least two others. One can say something similar for periods of time: to understand your own century you need to have come to terms with at least two others. The key to learning something about the past might be a ruin or an archive but the means whereby we may understand it is--and always will be--ourselves.” --Ian Mortimer

"So who did you kill?" Tom asked as he sat down at the table where the rest of us were having dinner. The others only stared.

"Who said I killed anyone?" I asked.

"That's what they usually send us to do when they take us out of here," Tom said, "and like me you're getting old enough to start remembering what they made you do."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Look around this table here," Tom said. "Part of the girls think they're here because their fathers didn't want them talking about how they raped them as little girls, some thought they were getting in the witness protection program, Joe there thinks he has secrets the military doesn't want anyone to know and I'd be just about willing to bet that Janice there thinks she was married to some rich bastard who found himself a younger woman and didn't want to give up half of everything he owned. Am I right?"

"What about me?" I asked, "Why am I here?"

"I figure you're thinking you're some kind of leftist, activist type who thinks he knows something about someone in government or big business."

"You say you figure but you don't know?" I asked.

"Right," Tom said, "I'm not a mind reader and I don't really know why any of you think you're in here but the people who run these places are a bunch of two bit hacks and can only come up with so many scripts for the characters."

"And you're saying we're the characters?" Joe asked.

"You got it, Jar Head," Tom laughed.

"Only there's one problem," Joe explained, "Billy thinks he killed Park Chung-hee but that happened a long time ago, not just a couple of days ago. I remember because we studied that in our special ops training."

"You remember it but that doesn't mean it happened the way they taught it," Tom said. "They pop us in and out anywhere and any time they want to."

"Are you saying we're time travelers?" Janice asked.

"That would be one way to describe it," Tom answered. "Of course, to them them we're nothing more than a bunch of machines to be kept on inventory in places like this until they need us for their next assassination, suicide bombing or deadly crash."

"That can't be," Sara said, "some of us have never been away from here."

"You might not be finished with your programming," Tom explained. "And some of the assignments will only keep you away a few hours, like when you have your private exams. Sometimes I've set in the jungle for a month waiting on some Colombian drug lord to come passing by, other times they popped me into some sleeping dignitary's hotel room and I pulled the trigger to the back of his head and was back out in seconds. In and out, same day, never knowing what happened until years later."

"So why do you know and the rest of us don't," Janice asked.

"Some of you do know," Tom answered. "Billy is starting to remember. They're really good at this time travel stuff but apparently the human brain is still giving them a fit. As we get older their ability to erase our memory starts to fail. Take me, I'm almost 60 years old and one of the oldest still around. I'm guessing Billy is almost as old as me."

"I think I'm 57," I said.

"And you're starting to remember," Tom said. "By the time you're my age it will all come back to you, every time you pulled the trigger, every bomb you set, every blood splattered wall, every face in a rifle scope, all of it will come back to haunt you just as if you'd known you were doing it all along. Just don't ever let them know you remember."

"What happens if you tell them you remember?" Sabrina asked.

"Yeah, what?" Irene asked.

"You go away for good," Tom answered.

"Like Georgia?" Irene asked.

"Who is Georgia?" Tom asked.

"She's a girl that used to live here," Sabrina answered. "She went away for a while and when she came back she told everyone she had been to New York with her boyfriend."

"Yeah," Irene added, "We all thought she was just making it all up."

"And they took her away?" Tom asked.

"Haven't seen her since," Sabrina said.

"And you never will," Tom said, "not if you live to be a thousand."

Continue to Part 27: Revelation

Two Bit Hack: Part 25

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Devil You Know

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.” --Oscar Wilde

Many times I had told the others that getting out would be easy then made some excuse as to why it wasn't a good idea at the time, why they'd simply find us and bring us back. The truth was: I was scared, scared that a failed attempt would lead to one or more of us being carried away in a straightjacket to one of those wings from which there was no return. Scared that perhaps getting out wasn't really all that easy after all. Scared that I wasn't the man everyone looked to me to be.

That's why, when Tom was placed among our midst I was such a skeptic. You see, all Tom talked about was getting out and how we were subjects of some sort of mind control experiments being warehoused in the asylum until the next experiment or the next time they needed us to do something for them that normal people wouldn't do.

Tom was about the same age as myself, seemed rational in most respects, claimed to have several advanced degrees in engineering and seemed to have the smarts to back it up but the fact that he showed up so soon after I'd had my experience with going back home seemed somehow uncanny.

Tom seemed to know that I knew that things weren't what they seemed to be but I avoided talking with him about it, preferring instead to change the subject every time he brought it up. "So how long you been here?" Tom asked.

"Who knows," I replied, "Years I guess."

"Yeah," he said, "They don't let you keep track of time in these places."

"Places?" I asked. "You talk like there's more than one."

"I've been in several," Tom said. "They're all over the country. In time you'll start remembering the others you've been in as well."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really," Tom said, "Just don't tell the shrinks you remember anything other than what happens right here."

"I'll remember that," I said as I walked away wanting to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible.

It was like I had been programmed to do it. There was no thoughts, no fears and no concerns, I just did it as if I were a machine designed and built to do exactly that and no more. Suddenly I found myself in the Korean Central Intelligence Agency safe-house inside the Blue House presidential compound in South Korea. I raised my weapon and fired killing six people including South Korean President Park Chung-hee. Then I awoke to find myself lying in my bed in Asylumland with Irene, Janice, Joe, Sabrina and Sara all in my room with me. "They told us you has a stroke," Irene said, "A TIA, they called it. They said you'll be alright soon."

"I didn't have a stroke," I answered.

"You didn't?" Irene asked. "Then what was wrong with you?"

"There was nothing wrong with me," I replied. "They used me to kill someone and I'm not supposed to remember but I do."

"But how?" she asked.

"That's what we've got to find out." I answered.

The others just looked on, shocked at what they had just heard, unsure if I was sane or not.

Continue To Part 26: Enter The Dark

Two Bit Hack: Part 24

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Mystery Folds

"A lot of the fun lies in trying to penetrate the mystery; and this is best done by saying over the lines to yourself again and again, till they pass through the stage of sounding like nonsense, and finally return to a full sense that had at first escaped notice." --Anthony Hecht

After my interview with Dr Stoner I knew I was on to something. There was no logical reason in the course of a normal psychiatric evaluation for him to ask me or anyone else if I ever thought I was somewhere I was not. I mean, not unless the patient had some sort of previous diagnosis that included thinking he or she was somewhere else and I'd never suffered from that and neither had the others I talked to.

It wasn't unusual for patients to leave from time to time only to come back in a few days or a few weeks. Sometimes they were discharged only to have a relapse. Other times they got sick or needed surgery. There were lots of legitimate reasons a patient might be removed from the asylum and later returned. That's why no one questioned the night I was hauled away on a stretcher. Only thing is: I don't remember being sick. But I do remember being home, riding my motorcycle to Asylumland and looking down from the hillside. And I still had $2000. I remembered that Asylumland was just outside of Dillwyn, Virginia and I was certain I wasn't supposed to know.  "Why do you think you remembered?" Irene asked.

"I don't know," I answered "I think they're doing something to our minds and for just a day or so it stopped working."

"But why?" she asked.

"Some kind of mind control," I replied, "an experiment perhaps. They take us out of here and make us do things then keep us warehoused here until they need us again."

"But what about your mother and the rest of your family?" Irene asked, "You said they acted like everything was normal, like you'd been there all along."

"That's the part that don't make sense." I said. "My family would never go along with something like this. It just doesn't fit."

"So do you think Stoner is in on it?"

"I know he is," I complained. "Remember the falsified patient records we found. He's as dirty as they come."

"So how do we get out of here?" she asked.

"The problem isn't getting out," I answered. "The problem is if they can still control our minds after we leave. If they can they'll just turn us around and bring us right back. Hell, we might already be programmed to do just that."

In the weeks that followed a young woman named, Georgia, who had recently been taken to the hospital for emergency surgery, returned telling everyone that she had spent the entire time watching shows on Broadway and going out with this amazing young man she had met in New York. A few days later they carried Georgia out again. This time she was sedated and wearing a straight jacket. But instead of wheeling her out the front door like they had done the first time they moved her into another wing where we never seen Georgia again.

Continue To Part 25: Devil You Know

Two Bit Hack: Part 23

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The Zahir

"They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.” ― Paulo Coelho

No one believed I had been home. That is, until I showed them the money. Being that no one in Asylumland had seen real currency in years, 2 Grand got their attention and held it firm. Of course, I kept it limited to Janice, Joe, Sara, Irene and Sabrina as I didn't again want to become a target by someone with ideas about what two thousand dollars might buy them in a place where that was all the money there was.

We spent days bouncing ideas off of one another as to what was actually going on and why they would have sent me home then brought me back. Bringing me back seemed obvious as they wouldn't want me to tell the world about Asylumland but why send me home in the first place? Why take that chance?

And why had my mother acted like I had been there all along, like I'd never lived in Asylumland all these years? I could have accepted the idea that I dreamed I'd gone home but if that was the case then where did the money come from? Did they give me the money? Were they controlling my dreams? And if so, why?

The day came 'round when it was time for my monthly visit with Dr Stoner. When they called me I walked into his office and sat down. "How are you feeling today?" Stoner asked.

"I'm fine," I answered. "You?"

"I'm doing quite well, thank you. So tell me, Billy, have you been sleeping well?"

"Like a rock," I replied.

"Still eating well?" he asked.

"Best as can be expected for hospital food," I grumbled.

"I know what you mean," he said, "I eat at least 2 meals a day here myself. Everyone treating you good?"

"Can't complain."

"Any nightmares or bad dreams lately?" Stoner asked.

"Nope," I answered, "Not in several years."

"Depression or thoughts of suicide?" he asked.

"Cabin fever is more like it," I complained, "stuck in here all the time."

"Yes," Stoner agreed, "that's normal for patients who have been in for a very long time. Do you ever think you're somewhere that you're not?"

"I wish I could think that," I laughed, "Have you got a drug that will do that?"

"Sorry," Stoner said, "I'm afraid we can't prescribe those kinds of drugs but don't you worry 'cause from the looks of your chart you won't be here too much longer before we send you home."

"That's good to hear," I said.

"Enjoy the rest of your day," Dr Stoner said, "See you next time."

"You too, Doc," I said as I walked out of the room.

Every time it was always the same, always the same questions, always the same answers, always the promise that I would be going home soon. This could have been my very first interview with Dr Stoner or any of the once a month interviews I'd done with him since I'd first came to Asylumland all those years ago, all the questions scripted and answered in the exact same way as...

And then it hit me. In every single interview over the course of all these many years Stoner always asked me, do you ever think you're somewhere that you're not?

Continue To Part 24: Mystery Folds

Two Bit Hack: Part 22

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Jamais vu

"Time has lost all meaning in that nightmare alley of the Western world known as the American mind. We wallow in nostalgia but manage to get it all wrong. True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories ..."  -Florence King

I woke up in the middle of an orgasm with Irene on top of me-- one of my favorite sex acts but an uncommon occurrence in Asylumland. "You're finally awake," she smiled, "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to sleep through the whole thing. I hope you don't mind, you've been gone so long and when I noticed you were hard I just couldn't help myself."

"How long have I been gone?" I asked as I pulled her down to kiss her lips.

"Weeks, maybe a month or more," Irene answered. "They said you were sick and took you away."

"I don't remember any of that," I replied.

"You don't?" she asked.

"All I remember is yesterday," I said. "At least I think it was yesterday."

"What did you do yesterday?" Irene asked.

"I rode my motorcycle to the top of the hill over there and looked down over Asylumland."

"But The Brain wrecked your motorcycle, remember?"

"Not that motorcycle," I explained, "My motorcycle, the one I keep at home in North Carolina. I was at home yesterday and I rode to Virginia and found Asylumland."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Where's my pants?" I asked.

"What do you need your pants for?" she asked, "it's the middle of the night, you can't go anywhere."

"Just give me my pants," I complained.

"Okay," Irene mumbled as she got out of the bed, walked across the room and returned with my pants. "Here, Grumpy."

As I suspected my wallet, keys and cell phone were all gone but hidden in the waistband, right where I had left it was the $2000 I had picked up from the bank the day before. "I knew it," I said as I pulled out the money, "We are in Virginia."

"But how did you get that?" Irene asked. "How did you get all that money?"

"I went to the bank yesterday or whatever day it was that they left me go free and took it out of my checking account," I answered. "Then I rode my bike a few hours to here and found out where we really are."

"But why?" Irene asked. "Why are they doing this to us? And why did they let you go then bring you back?"

"I don't know," I said. "The only things I'm certain of is that I'm not supposed to remember going home and we're not supposed to know where we are."

Continue To Part 23: The Zahir

Two Bit Hack: Part 21

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Home Again

"You need a village, if only for the pleasure of leaving it.  A village means that you are not alone, knowing that in the people, the trees, the earth, there is something that belongs to you, waiting for you when you are not there."  -Casare Pavese


I woke up sleeping in the recliner in my home office where I've slept for the last year and a half since I messed up a disc in my upper back, my memories of Asylumland as clear as if they were just yesterday. "Wait a minute," I mumbled to myself, "it was just yesterday, wasn't it?"

I couldn't remember leaving or how I got home.

I splashed some water on my face and walked into the kitchen to take my medications-- a ritual that has been with me since my stroke about ten years ago. My mother was cooking breakfast just as if everything was normal. Since Daddy died a few years ago my brothers and I have lived with my mother off and on so that she doesn't have to live alone in a bad neighborhood. I'm not a tough guy but I manage to look the part with my motorcycle, leathers and just enough scars to scare the neighborhood thugs into finding easier targets than my mom. "I like those new pipes you put on your motorcycle," Momma said, "I didn't even hear you come in last night."

"Good," I replied, "that's what I was hoping for." Funny, I didn't remember buying new pipes. Hell, I didn't remember riding home either. That's pretty bad considering I haven't had a drink in years.

While Momma was finishing up breakfast I went out back, fed the cat and the chickens, watered the garden and unlocked the shed to check on my old motorcycle. I felt around the engine and just as I suspected it was stone cold with the gas tank completely topped off. I put my key in the switch and there wasn't even enough power to bump the starter over. No one had ridden my motorcycle the night before and probably not for several days before. I hooked it up to my battery charger and went back inside for breakfast.

After I got my bike running I rode to the Greensboro Municipal Federal Credit Union where I've done my banking for 20 plus years. "Long time no see," the teller said, "What can I do for you?"

"How long has it been?" I asked.

"Well it hasn't really been all that long," the teller answered, "according to the computer I waited on you about a month ago."

"Seems longer," I said.

"Been on another book tour?" the teller asked.

"Yeah," I replied, "something like that. Have I had any royalty checks deposited lately?"

"A few," she replied, "but you're not rich yet."

"Somehow I didn't think so," I replied.

"No proposals from any Hollywood starlets?" the teller asked.

"You see my bank account," I laughed, "you know better."

I left with a couple thousand dollars in my pocket, made arrangements to have my brothers look after Momma and set out on the road, two wheels in the wind. I don't know how I knew which way to go but something inside my head kept telling me where to turn as if by instinct and the closer I got the surer I became that I was on the right track. A few hours later I found myself hiding in the woods on a hillside near the town of Dillwyn, Virginia staring through my binoculars at Asylumland.

Continue To Part 22: Jamais vu

Two Bit Hack: Part 20

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Killing Time

"What kind of place is Madagascar?" Sabrina asked. The three of us were in the back of the room watching Planet Of The Apes, an old movie we'd seen a hundred times before. There was an old VHS player and a box filled with old movies, all of them from the 1960s and before, that we were sometimes allowed to watch as a group, movie nights, they called it, but nothing we hadn't seen a hundred times.

"I don't really know," I answered.

"Is it a communist country?" Irene asked.

"I think it's a monarchy," I answered.

"A monarchy?" Sabrina asked, "with like kings and queens and stuff?"

"That or tribal chiefs," I replied.

"I'm not so sure I like it here," Irene said.

"Here, in Asylumland or here in Madagascar?" I questioned.

"Neither," both Sabrina and Irene replied almost in unison. I'd noticed the two of them had been doing that a lot of late.

"I've got an idea," I said. "that is, if you want to."

"What is it?" Irene asked.

"There's an old set of World Book Encyclopedias in the library, 1968, I think. Why don't you girls spend some of your spare time reading up on Madagascar and see what you can find out about it?

"That sounds like a good idea," Sabrina said.

"Gives us something to do," Irene agreed.

Something else I'd noticed of late was that Sabrina seemed to be paying a lot of attention to GI Joe. So far Irene hadn't seemed to notice and even Joe didn't seem to realize he had caught Sabrina's eye. I wasn't surprised as Irene had always been sort of my favorite and nobody wants to play second fiddle. Had it happened earlier I might have been concerned for Sabrina's welfare but the women that had been entrusted to Joe under the encomienda system seemed about as happy as anyone could be under the circumstances and now that the encomienda system was on its last legs there might be a chance for a few couples to have some at least somewhat normal relationships in Asylumland.

Of course there was still that thing between Irene and Sabrina that continued to complicate matters. Could Joe and I deal with the women in our lives having a thing with one another in which neither Joe nor I was a part of? After all, I didn't know about Joe but I wasn't going to be a part of any foursome that involved another man. Not for a night and certainly not for a life.

As promised, Joe went about gathering intelligence the best he could. He began by watching the key pads on the doors as guards and staff members came and went to see which keys they pressed. Eventually he watched from enough different angles to figure out the entire six digit combination.

Night after night, Joe and Sara scouted out the other rooms of the institution drawing a map as they went and always checking the combinations on every door they opened before shutting it behind them to make sure they'd not lock themselves behind some door the couldn't unlock.

Eventually they began to find doors with combinations that were different than the combinations to the doors that lead back to our rooms. On the map they marked each one of those doors with a red X so that in future trips they or whoever else might be following the map would know not to go there or if they did go there to block the door open so they could get back out later.

During their scouting trips they stocked us up on supplies for things we might need for our escape. Things like first aid supplies, canned foods and even the occasional screwdriver, wrench or pair of pliers found in someone's desk drawer might come in handy.

One night Sara managed to get her hands on patient files for most of Dr Stoner's patients, myself included, but in reading them we realized everything was fabricated. For starters, Stoner's records indicated weekly sessions with each and every one of us but never had any of us seen him more than once a month.

"Billy," Irene asked as we waited for Joe and Sara to return. "Sabrina and I are here because our sick, twisted families are rich as hell and don't want anyone to know the perverted things they did to us but why are you here?"

"Someone didn't want me to publish what I knew about a big corporation," I answered.

"And why is Janice here," Sabrina asked.

"Her husband wanted her gone."

"And Joe and Sara?" Irene asked.

"Joe knows secrets the government doesn't want us to know and Sara watched someone kill a cop." I answered.

"Looks like they would have wanted Sara to testify." Irene said.

"It was another cop that did the killing," I answered. "Sara thought she was going into the witness protection program and ended up here."

"Wow, talk about protection," the girls both laughed. It was uncanny the way they each knew what the other was about to say.

Continue To Part 21: Home Again

Two Bit Hack: Part 19

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Best Laid Plans

Sometimes, the best you can hope to do is to keep someone else from making a mistake they're bound to make no matter what, even worse than it has to be. As one who spent his entire life warning people they were about to screw up only to watch them screw up anyway I've come to the conclusion that sometimes it's best if you just stand to the side and try and catch them if they fall your direction. And if they fall in another direction? Well, I don't know about you but I've never been adept at being in two places at the same time. Besides, I wanted to go too, I just didn't want it to be my idea. I didn't want anyone to blame me if it didn't work out.

"Getting out of here has never been the real problem," I said. "The real problem is what do we do once we get out?"

"We run," Joe said.

"We go home," Irene exclaimed.

"Yeah, we go home," Sabrina added.

"It's not that simple," I said.

"It's not?" Sara asked.

"How so?" Janice asked.

"Ever notice," I answered, "that every single person living in this prison is white?"

"Yeah, so?" Janice asked.

I answered, "In the 1930s, when my parents were growing up in Ashe County, North Carolina, every single resident of the entire county was white except for the men incarcerated in the all black, African American state prison there. And if the locals saw a black man anywhere outside the prison walls it was assumed he was an escaped prisoner. They shot first and asked questions later. Getting out of here is as simple as creating a diversion and walking out the front gate. I could have done it already.  Surviving the escape is a whole 'nother story."

"But how do you know it's like that?" Sabrina asked.

"For sure," Joe answered, "we don't. But none of those visitors were white and none of them spoke English. I say you let me gather some more intel before you decide to do anything."

"We've already been here for years," Janice said. "We can wait a little longer."

"So what would we need to create a diversion?" Irene asked. "You know, just in case."

"If I were going to do it," Joe answered, "I'd start stocking up on bottles of window cleaner and bleach from off the carts used by the housekeeping staff."

"A weak solution of ammonia-chloride gas," I added, "That would create quite a stir."

"It would without a doubt bring everyone running if for no other reason than to get the staff out alive," Joe agreed.

What was I going to do? Make them stay? I'd already presented my worst case scenario and they were still willing to risk all just for a taste of freedom. Where we were, where we would go, how we might get there-- none of those things mattered, not to them, not yet anyway. All that was to be worked out, at least for now there was something they could aspire to and something they could be doing-- even if it was wrong.

Continue To Part 20: Killing Time

Two Bit Hack: Part 18

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The Visitors

The thing I missed most while living in Asylumland was probably the chance to just lay in bed on a Saturday or Sunday morning and sleep in late. Such things never happened in Asylumland as bright and early, seven days a week even before the roosters crowed the institution staff started rolling their noisy carts up and down the halls as they got ready for another day beginning with breakfast at 7:00 sharp every morning.

And you know what else I missed? Real coffee containing real caffeine. You see, caffeine can be a trigger for those of us who suffer from anxiety so rather than deal with it, Asylumland didn't bother to serve it at all. Believe you me, even after years of being caffeine free there were mornings I would have been tempted to trade Irene and Sabrina both for a pot of fresh hot coffee, cream and sugar.

Tempted, I said. That doesn't mean I would have actually done it. Then again, nobody ever offered.

The day finally came when visitors arrived in Asylumland. Two men and three women dressed in business attire and three nurses, one male and two female. While the five in business attire walked around inspecting the building and poking their noses in patients rooms, the nurses took blood pressure readings, pulse rates and other vital signs from each and every one of us, with every single word spoken in a language than none of us living in Asylumland could speak.

Everyone tried to talk with them. They laughed, smiled and even talked back to us but none of us understood a word they said. Then the regular hospital staff would tell us to be quiet and allow them to do their jobs. Even most of the staff was unable to communicate with them with only Dr Stoner and a couple more actually seen carrying on conversations with them.

The general consensus was that these visitors were speaking more than one language. While those in business attire appeared to mostly speak French, the nurses spoke what appeared to us to be something like Polynesian, at least according to GI Joe who said he'd been stationed on some island somewhere and heard people talking like that.

We searched through a few of the old books we had lying around and learned that one of the very few places where French and Austronesian peoples are commonplace is Madagascar, a giant island off the southeast coast of Africa. I had always thought of Madagascar as being entirely tropical but Joe insisted that the central highlands were temperate and even had occasional snowfalls from time to time.

"Could it really be that a bunch of Americans are running an asylum half way around the world in Madagascar?" Janice asked. "Would they go to that extreme to get us out of the picture? Why not just kill us and get it over with?"

"Because the need might arise for them to bring us back," Joe answered.

"But what about the college students that teach here?" Sara asked. "Surely they're not in on it too."

"I doubt they're in on it," I answered, "but that would explain why Jessica told me she had so few options in finding places to get her college credits."

"You're right," Janice said, "back home she could teach in hospitals and clinics all over any city in the country."

"So do you really think we're in Madagascar?" Sara asked.

"That's my best guess," Joe answered. "I know the stars haven't looked right since I got here but as to where we really are..."

"You're right," I interrupted, "as to where we really are, we could be on another planet and right now it wouldn't make any difference, we'd still be just as lost."

"That," Janice said, "would explain why we don't have holidays and they won't tell us the date. If Christmas and new Years were to roll 'round in the middle of summer that would be a dead giveaway we're no longer in the Northern Hemisphere.

"Wow," Sara exclaimed, "and I just thought it was so we wouldn't know how long we've been here."

Continue To Part 19: Best Laid Plans

Two Bit Hack: Part 17

Return To Part 1

Spinning The Web

You can learn a lot through observation. Take spiders for instance. Ever wonder why spiders don't get caught in their own webs? It's simple really. Not every part of the web is sticky and the spider knows where to walk. He also knows how to walk just in-case he makes a mistake with one of those eight feet so that no more than one foot at a time ends up stuck in the web. One foot he can easily pull free, eight feet, not so much. Pick up a spider and drop him on his web flat on his back and he'll be there until the chickens or some other bird comes 'round to munch. The chickens of Asylumland loved to raid spiders' webs and if by chance the spider was home they'd eat him too.

The doors at Asylumland were designed to keep people in, not out. In watching the guards, orderlies and other staff come and go, I noticed the sides of the doors facing away from where we inmates lived, were all equipped with no more than simple push bars and opened in towards us. No locks, no nobs, no keys, nothing to slow anyone down when going that one direction. This made things like pushing in carts filled with linen or meals 3 times a day as easy as bumping the cart against the door and rolling it on through. Or, in the case of an emergency, no one needed a key or a combination to respond.

On our side of the door was one of those old metal combination key pads and a handle that pushed down once the correct combination had been entered. My guess was that Frank had watched orderlies come and go long enough to learn the combination to where he was being kept, escaped one night and made his way through the asylum. But like the rest of us, Frank was unfamiliar with just how big the place really was and had no idea that not every wing shared the same combination as the others. So when he found his way into our wing he was trapped with no where else to go. At least, that was my best guess as to how Frank got there and why he wouldn't want to stay if given a better option.

Frank had everyone stirred up. He took anything he wanted and a handful of thugs were happy to back him up for the chance to share in Frank's discards.  The encomienda system was quickly breaking down as Frank and the others added to their groups of encomiendas at the expense of the others always taking what they considered to be the best assets. In the meantime I held my ground and hoped he thought I was planning my escape.

At the same time, something had rattled the institution management into fixing up the place. Cleaning and remodeling crews were brought in to work day and night. They moved our things, made us share rooms and pretty much kept us awake all the time with the noise from all the construction going on. Were it not for days spent in my lean-to I wouldn't have slept at all but with so many wanting to crash there, even that was limited.

Next up was new clothes for everyone. Most of the men had been wearing the same few tattered clothes for years so this was quite a shock. And previously, while everything the women had received had obviously come from thrift stores, these clothes were all brand new, never before worn. They even brought in a few people to help with alterations.

Of course everyone was excited but myself and a few others couldn't help but question their motives. "Do you really believe they're doing this for us?" I asked.

"What makes you think they aren't?" Sara asked, as Janice and Joe listened.

"Look at Irene and Sabrina over there," I said.



"What about them?" Janice asked.

"A few shiny new things and they've forgotten all the misery this institution has caused them all these years," I answered. "Notice how the food was all so much better than usual today?"

"Yeah," Joe replied, "best I've had in years. What's that all about?"

"I think we're about to get some visitors," I answered.

"Who?" Janice asked. "I mean it's not like family ever comes to see us."

"I don't know but my guess is they'll be State or Federal regulators," I answered, "and when they get here we need to talk with them."

We made a rope from vines and used it to pull back a tall sapling tree so that Frank could use it to catapult over the wall.  Then we rigged a latch from some sticks and waited for Frank to show up. Frank was to grab hold of the tree and when he tripped the latch he would be propelled over the wall never to be seen again. Well that was what we wanted it to look like to Frank. What actually happened was, he took one look at the catapult and started laughing his ass off. "Are you kidding?" he said almost rolling on the ground. "That thing could get somebody killed."

"I know," I smiled as I tripped the latch and sent the catapult springing into action with the previously unseen snare wrapped around Frank's legs, jerking him into the air and smashing his head against the concrete wall. I ran to the wall, picked up a stick and beat Frank repeatedly until I could beat him no more just in case the force of the snare smashing his head against the wall wasn't enough to kill him. Then I dropped to the ground out of breath.

 As I laid on the ground catching my breath, GI Joe climbed the tree and removed the homemade rope dropping Frank's dangling body to the ground. We buried Frank in a shallow grave in the woods and no one ever found his body, probably because no one ever came looking.

While many would suspect it was I who got rid of Frank, only Joe and I knew exactly how it had been done. Secrets like that would get me lots of breathing room when the thugs felt the need to push others around.

Continue To Part 18: The Visitors

Two Bit Hack: Part 16

Return To Part 1

First Kiss

Jessica seemed fascinated with my writing-- especially the fact that I had been published. She told me she'd actually looked up my previous book and ordered a copy online. She suggested that she could publish a book of my poetry and short stories using one of the many online publishing companies that allow authors to do so at no charge and put the proceeds in escrow for when I was finally released from the hospital. I explained that to publish any books in my name would make her a target of the same people who put me in Asylumland. I insisted she sign her own name to all the works I had given her and keep whatever she makes for herself and her little boy. After all, I had already outlived my son.

After class one day I managed to talk Jessica into taking a walk with me. We slowly made our way towards the wooded area where my lean-to was located before stopping in the field. "Is it true," she asked, "that you're some kind of guru with a secret place hidden in the woods?"

"There really are no secrets here in Asylumland," I replied. "Who told you?"

"Several of the girls seem to know about it," she smiled.

"Well that's several more than I've told about it," I complained. "Oh well, I guess it couldn't be helped."

"I hear you give really good back rubs," she smiled. "helps reduce stress."

"Have you been under a lot of stress of late?" I asked.

I know you're hoping for romance or some hot sex about now but it never happened. I told her how to get to the lean-to, met her there and gave her a massage. We caressed, kissed and held one another close but never went any farther. I've thought for all these many years I could have pushed a little harder and she would have caved but we both knew it wasn't meant to be. For her to have a relationship with a man slated to spend the rest of his life in an insane asylum would have been insane in itself. She knew it, I knew it and you know it.

A few weeks later she finished her classes, graduated and was never seen or heard from again. She was apparently very popular back at her college so when the other inmates started asking the next creative writing teacher about her we were able to learn that she and her son were doing well and that she had gotten a job as a school teacher. No word on if she had published any books.

Frank and I were going at it head to head. He wanted Irene and Sabrina and I wouldn't give them up. He offered a compromise, that I should give up one of the girls in exchange for another but I still refused. He threatened me, pushed me around. Hell, he beat the shit out of me. I tried playing a bad ass as a young man and wasn't very good at it. At my age I didn't stand a chance. Had GI Joe not broke up the fight Frank would have killed me or at the very least hospitalized me.

But I knew it was far from over. Sooner or later Frank would catch me when there was no one to lend me a hand. Then I wouldn't have my girls to dress my wounds and wait on me hand and foot during my recovery. Then it would be too late.

While Frank had made it seem as if he wanted to be in Asylumland I suspected different. My guess was that Frank simply saw us as fresh meat, new victims to plunder, and would quickly move on to greener pastures if given the chance. With Irene and Sabrina's help we set about a plan to help Frank escape. Of course, we didn't tell Frank we were planning his escape but we did manage to get word back to Frank that I was planning an escape for fear of my life. It was only a matter of time before Frank came hunting just like the predator I knew him to be.

In the meantime Frank went about terrorizing anyone who wouldn't let him have his way. His ability to throw his voice made for a very unnerving distraction to many in what was already unsettling confrontations. For some it was enough to push them right over the edge. Given Frank's predatory nature I questioned why he was allowed with the general population in the first place and not locked away in a room all by himself. All I could think of was that somehow, Frank had managed to slip out of one part of the asylum and into our part and had been able to go no farther.

Now I had to make sure Frank went no farther ever again.

Continue To Part 17: Spinning The Web

Two Bit Hack: Part 15

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Target On My Back

Sometimes the demons are right in front of you. Other times you know they're there but can't see them coming. Still other times they come from nowhere without any warning and take you down without any chance of putting up a fight. Sometimes, depending on the demon, the latter might be preferred. After all, knowing a demon is coming for you is never a good time.

No sooner had the toll painting ended when they brought Jessica back to teach creative writing. Turns out the class size was even larger than had been expected as she already had lots of fans who would have signed up before had they known Jessica was teaching the class. Thankfully for me, Irene and Sabrina weren't interested in creative writing and never saw the teacher student interactions we found quite hard to hide.

Rather than keep my work I always gave it to Jessica for safe keeping and as a means to write letters to her that no one else could see. Besides expressing my obvious emotions I told her of the secrets of Asylumland, the darkness, in hopes that she might somehow be able to shine some light on what was going on in there. I also encouraged her to help reduce the level of prostitution in Asylumland by bringing in things of value that were needed inside. She despised the thought of prostitution being used to supply the most basic of needs and helped out with our economic needs even going so far as to get friends and classmates at her university to donate. But the other... I think she thought those only the ramblings of an obviously insane old man in an insane asylum.

Among other things, the problem with the encomienda system was that the number of men and women living in Asylumland was not a constant. Each time someone new came or someone old left it brought about a power grab as women were viewed as property and a means of income be it as prostitutes or as some other source of tribute for the man to whom they were "entrusted." That wasn't the intent of the system but that's how it came to be.

As luck would have it we had hardly settled into our encomienda system when a new man was placed in our midst. You see, it's not as simple as say, dividing up marbles when another player is brought into the game. Besides the economic benefits of having multiple women paying tribute to one man there was also a matter of favorites. And while it's true that boys sometimes do have their favorite marbles the problems that come with taking away favorite marbles can't even compare to the taking of a favorite woman be it because the man loves her or because she is his #1 financial asset.

The new man, Frank, was a bit of a mystery. For starters, he seemed to like being in Asylumland from day one. It was as if he wanted to come. Now I don't know about you but to this day, other than Frank, I have never met anyone who wanted to live in an asylum-- any asylum-- especially Asylumland.

Then there was how he got there. Usually folks are escorted in or in cases like my own, carried in on a gurney only to awaken inside. Not Frank. We all woke up one morning to find him seated just outside the cafeteria waiting for breakfast as if he'd been there and had free reign of the place all night. Some even believed he had a key and let himself inside.

Frank had some interesting talents as well. Besides some card tricks and slight of hand, Frank was a very accomplished ventriloquist. Now ventriloquy, when part of a stage show involving a dummy with a hand in its back, can be pretty entertaining, ventriloquy, when used on a room full of already paranoid individuals can be quite unnerving. Especially being that Frank didn't come right out and tell us about his ability to throw his voice and happens to throw his voice while at the same time, throwing punches. That's how I would later come to learn of Frank's special talent.

Frank quickly made friends with the more thuggish of the male population while congress set about figuring a way to divide up property without stepping on too many toes. Already myself and others were seeing problems with the encomienda system the others had never thought of when it was dreamed up. As for Frank, he thought it was a great idea and couldn't wait to get a piece of the pie. Problem was, Frank seemed to think his piece of the pie should contain what he considered to be all the best pie filling. I tried not to get involved figuring since I hadn't created the problem there was no need for me to try and fix it. That is, until he set his eyes on Sabrina and Irene.

Yeah, I had sex with them both and I can't say as I ever really loved either one of them. But I felt responsible for both of them. They looked to me to keep them safe because up until then I always had. Before hooking up with me Irene had been abused by every predator in the place and had Sabrina not done the same they'd have chewed her up and spit her out as well. Problem for me was this Frank character was half my age and quite capable of tearing me from limb to limb. He knew it and I knew it.

And who knows, maybe in some twisted way that could only happen in a place like Asylumland, I was as close to love I could ever expect to know.

When the day came to divide up the spoils Frank made it very clear that he intended to have Sabrina and Irene and didn't give a damn what I or anyone else thought about it. Of course, congress recognized my status as the #2 man in government and refused to honor him his request. Frank settled for women from some of the other men's groups but made no secret that when given the opportunity he'd take what he wanted from me.

Right then and there I knew this would never end well and could feel my PTSD starting to rear its ugly head. Prozac was not going to be enough to keep bad things from happening to good people.

Continue To Part 16: First Kiss

Two Bit Hack: Part 14

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Leaders Emerge

Henry Miller wrote, "The real leader has no need to lead – he is content to point the way." Of course, Henry Miller never tried to lead the population of an insane asylum, an experience tantamount to herding catamounts. Wild cats, lynx, bobcats or cougars for those of you not familiar with my Southern Appalachian vernacular.

Sara, the young woman who sold the flower arrangements, was the gentlest and most patient of souls. While most of the citizens of Asylumland spent most of their time buzzing around like a bunch of idiots, Sara could remain perfectly quiet and still for hours. So much so that she was able to stand in the garden and feed sugar water to the hummingbirds right from the palm of her hand.

So when we learned Sara had managed to kick Larry up-side his head while standing flat footed on the ground we were more than a bit surprised. Though probably not as surprised as was Larry who laid on the ground a good half hour after Sara's second reverse round house kick to his head. You see, Sara didn't appreciate being groped without first inviting a man to grope her. Seems at least part of Sara's patience had been learned in some sort of martial arts training prior to her coming to live with the rest of us.

And so it was that Sara became the leader and covert martial arts instructor for the Loon Squad. When eyes were upon them they practiced their moves in slow motion insisting that what they were doing was yoga. They even managed to get a few of the staff members to train with them. But when the lights were out and no one could see what was really going on, Sara sped things up and turned those lady loons into lightening fast fighters who eventually would no longer need to resort to sex games to take down male prey.

At the same time the Loon Squad was being trained, our congress enacted a sort of encomienda legal system that put groups of women under the protection of a single man. It was a dreadful system that gave lots more power to the men but Janice and the others were afraid to speak out against it because the Loon Squad was not yet up to speed and the women, while very much in the majority, were afraid of the thugs and willing to accept certain losses for their personal safety.

The encomienda system was based on old Spanish Colonial rule of Native Americans. While it wasn't spelled out, it basically gave ownership as well as responsibility for a group of women to one man. As head of the federal reserve I was #2 on the list right behind GI Joe when it came to picking which women I would be responsible for. I decided to make it easy on myself and picked Irene, Sabrina, Janice, Sara and several women who I was sure were ugly lesbians. Well, I was sure they were ugly enough that I'd not be tempted to test the lesbian theory.

Why the ugly lesbians? Well for starters I wouldn't be expected to keep them happy and secondly I wouldn't have to fight with any of the other men over my choices or protect them from being raped. At least, that was my thinking. You see, with ownership came responsibility and there were punishments for allowing your property to be abused. Me? I'd just as soon not deal with it. Yeah, I know, political correctness and all that BS but the ugly lesbians were happier with me than they would have been with some of the other guys and the guys weren't complaining neither.

Of course, just as with the Spanish Conquistidors, Asylumland's encomienda system required that the subjects-- in this case, the women-- pay tribute to their protectors-- the men.  As to what and how much, that was up to each protector. With little of value and scant currency, slavery and sexual slavery became the most common form of tributes paid.

Rather than resort to slavery I decided to make a deal with the women under my protection. Irene and Sabrina provided me with all the sex I wanted. I presumed of their own free will. I wasn't interest in Janice or the ugly lesbians and Sara could kick my ass any time she wanted to so without an invitation I'd not go there. But if we didn't at least put on a show then the others would catch on and problems would arise. And so it was I went through life with what appeared to be the most obedient group of slave girls in all of Asylumland. While other men were constantly trying to enforce their rules or getting dragged before congress because they failed to do their jobs, I did nothing and did it well. That kept me at a bit of an economic disadvantage but that was life and who was I to complain?

Of course, the real leaders were still emerging and I wasn't one of them. While I spent most of my time shirking responsibility, Janice, Sara and Joe were quietly working to pull things together behind the scenes. Our congress was essentially useless just like most elected bodies but unlike Washington with its political parties and century of partisan gridlock, our congress was learning to simply point the way.

As I've explained before, one of the biggest problems Asylumland faced was that of a lack of resources and no real trading partners. Most of what was brought in from the outside was brought in by hospital staff and security guards in exchange for blow jobs. And most of what was brought in was crap, marijuana, alcohol, drugs, all things that were quickly consumed and then gone with no economic benefit what-so-ever. Of course, when I brought that to the attention of congress their reaction was that perhaps those imports should be seized and sold but I pointed out that Asylumland wasn't a real country and that a drug bust would, without a doubt wreck our little economy altogether. I explained that it might be better if congress issued a list of legal items for which blow jobs could be traded and then the person giving the blow job, presumably a woman, could sell the item inside.

The vote was unanimous. Yes, there was some objection to passing laws that essentially allowed prostitution to go on right under our noses but our entire economic system was already so deep in prostitution we couldn't get a handle on it. Besides, why pass laws that couldn't be enforced? Unlike the other congress, our congress was getting smarter if only slightly. Of course, it would be up to the men who owned these women to make sure the new economic laws were followed but seeing there was potential profit in it there was little doubt at least some would try.

Continue To Part 15: Target On My Back

Two Bit Hack: Part 13

Return To Part 1

Paying The Tolls

Everything being equal Anarchy would be the best form of government in which to put in place. Problem is: The history of the planet contains thousands if not millions of years of anarchy and what did we end up with? The bullshit we have today. If anarchy worked so damned good then why in the hell did every nation on Earth stop using anarchy? I'll tell you why: because everything isn't equal. All men were not born equal and all men do not live nor die equals. You don't have to like it. I certainly don't. But like me you do have to live with it.

A good police investigation would have quickly uncovered the fact that Rocco's suicide attempt was anything but. Then again, a good police investigation would have also uncovered the fact that Asylumland was one poor excuse for a mental health institution. Fact is, everyone assumed Rocco was a nutcase from the beginning so they just naturally assumed suicide. Never-mind the fact that suicide wasn't a part of his diagnosis, he lived in Asylumland and that's all they wanted to know.

The shiv on the other hand was cause for concern. If Rocco had a shiv then how many other people had shivs. They decided the police should search all the rooms for drugs, weapons and other contraband.

Janice, knowing this might happen, had already arranged a discrete search of her own the day before the attack took place. With part of the Loon Squad behind her she went through all the women's quarters making sure everything was clean. Then everything that was found was given to Irene and Sabrina for safe keeping. You would not believe some of the things I found stashed away in my lean-to.

When I got to the lean-to, Irene and Sabrina were smoking someone's pot. "Where did you get that?"

"It was in all this stuff," Sabrina coughed.

"You know you're not supposed to be keeping that stuff for yourself," I said.

"We just wanted a little bit," Irene said. "It's been years..."

I kissed Irene on the cheek, then Sabrina,"You two enjoy what you've got there and get back inside before dark. I'm going to make sure the rest of this gets saved for whoever it belongs to."

"Don't you want to stay and party with us?" Sabrina asked.

"I better not," I replied, "I've got to go meet Joe and Janice. Y'all party for me, okay."

"We will," Irene smiled.

I walked back scattering the pot along the trail. Oh, don't get me wrong, I wanted to stay and party with the girls. I even wanted to smoke the pot. But the possibility of a drug bust inside of Asylumland... It wasn't worth the risk.  And my meeting with Joe and Janice? That was a lie.

On my way back I ran into Jessica, the creative writing teacher. "Long time no see," I greeted her.

"Too long," she smiled.

"So why haven't you been around," I asked.

"They keep telling me that no one here is interested in creative writing classes," Jessica explained. "I need to teach more classes to get my credits and there's not that many places around here. But every time I come back I'm told no one is signed up."

"Well," I promised, "You come back one week from today and you'll have a whole list of people signed up. On that you have my word."

"Really," Jessica smiled, "so are you the president of Asylumland now and can just make people sign up for creative writing classes?"

"No, but I know the president and I happen to know she enjoys good books when she can get them."

"Really, they voted in a woman president?" Jessica asked.

"Smartest thing they could have done," I laughed.

Of course, the real reason there were no creative writing classes was because everyone was stuck in toll painting. My thinking was that by having a list of people signed up and waiting on creative writing classes we might be able to get the toll painting classes reduced. And if not then at least we'd have everything lined up for after Mr Lincoln's assassination.

We'd had to tolerate increased security and mandatory toll painting for weeks and weeks. Eventually the security slacked off as the penny pinching bean counters saw no incidents as a reason for reducing security. Every morning, 5 days a week, Mr Lincoln and Bob, the security guard, rolled in 2 big cases of items that needed to be painted along with paint and painting supplies. At the end of the class Mr Lincoln would put the newly finished items in the supply closet to dry and load the items from the day before into the 2 cases for him and Bob to roll back out.

"Is Bob in on it?" Janice asked.

"One way or the other," GI Joe answered.

"I agree," I said. "After all this time he'd have to have figured it out if he wasn't in on it from the beginning."

"Are your guys ready?" Janice asked.

"They're ready," Joe answered. "How 'bout your girls?"

"They'll get the job done," Janice replied.

"Good," I said. "I know where I need to be."

We waited for Mr Lincoln and Bob to roll in the cases and start unpacking things just as they prepared for class each and every morning. When Bob came back out of the classroom a group of young woman started flirting with him and lead him up the hall and around the corner out of earshot of anything that might be going on in the classroom. Then 5 men with rags tied over their faces walked into the classroom, grabbed Mr Lincoln and dragged him into the open storage room. "Remember," One of them ordered, "no blows to the face or head. We don't want nobody to see no blood when he walks out at the end of his shift."

They beat and kicked him in his stomach and groin until he was unconscious then packed up his cases and rolled all his things out of the room leaving him on the floor to recover. When he came to I was waiting outside the door. "What happened to you?" I asked. "You don't look like you feel too good."

You could see the fear in his eyes, his hands were trembling and while there were no marks one could see from the outside, I've little doubt his insides were all to pieces. Not to mention the bruises hidden under his shirt and jacket. "My stuff," he asked, "what happened to my stuff?"

"Oh, you mean the evidence," I smiled. "If you don't talk, we don't talk."

Bob, the security guard, left work that day without a single injury but like Mr Lincoln he never came back. And neither did the tolls.

Continue To Part 14: Leaders Emerge

Two Bit Hack: Part 12

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New Order

Some people want a new house, a new car, a phone, jewelry. to lose weight, win the lottery maybe... But if you lived in Asylumland you didn't want those things. If you lived in Asylumland the odds were good you just wanted to leave. For the weak the desire to leave was the greatest even if the means was the least.

One of the reasons we called our home Asylumland was because none of the residents knew its real name. Most everyone had asked staff members and security guards but as lax as they were about everything else, when it came to where we were or how we got there, nobody talked. If there was a single inmate who knew where we were or how he or she got there, he or she wasn't talking either. My story: shortly after I began submitting The Adventurers Of The Vegetable Stalker to publishers I went to bed one night and woke up in Asylumland. The others all said pretty much the same.

A new art teacher named Mr Lincoln started teaching us toll painting. Everyone was really excited at first but then at the end of the project, instead of letting us keep our little plaques, pots and statues, Mr Lincoln and the security guard, Bob, packed them all away and hauled them off. Mr Lincoln also insisted that all other work cease so that we could concentrate solely on toll painting and because he locked all the art supplies away in the supply closet when he was gone that meant production of Billy Bucks was at a standstill.

Shortly after that Bob announced that art classes were now mandatory whereas before only those persons who volunteered attended art therapy classes. It didn't take but a few weeks before Janice, GI Joe, myself and even confused little Irene began to suspect something was going on that shouldn't be happening inside the borders of Asylumland. "So is he selling this stuff?" Janice asked.

"Of course he is," Joe answered. "Notice how perfect he expects everything to be?"

"I have noticed that," Janice said. "He wants this stuff to look like the stuff you find in high dollar department stores like where I used to shop before my husband locked me away in here."

"So how much you think he's making?" Joe asked.

"Well," I answered, "I've no idea of his actual overhead but I can give you an idea of how much labor he's pocketing. Say there's 50 people in his classes times 4 hours a day at 8 bucks per hour and another 8 bucks per hour in benefits, taxes excreta. Times that 5 days a week that comes to $16 Thousand Dollars a week in real American Dollars, not Billy Bucks. Of course I could be off a bit doing the math in my head but he's still cleaning up big time."

"Holy shit!" Janice exclaimed.

"Ain't nothin' holy about it," Joe said, "That slaving bastard's got to be stopped."

"How do we know the institution isn't behind it?" Janice asked.

"We don't," I said, "but it still has to be stopped. Making slaves out of these people is wrong no matter who's behind it."

"Damn straight," Joe said, "I didn't fight overseas to come back to this shit. I'll kill those bastards myself."

Speaking of killing, while it had taken her a while to do it, Janice put together and coached a group of young women who decided to call themselves the Loon Squad. Other than Janice and the members of the squad, no one knew how many they numbered or exactly who they were. And while rumors of this new squad of female assassins floated about Asylumland, most of the men, including Rocco, took it all for a joke. After all, up until now Rocco and his thug buddies had continued their free reign with no one to keep them in check.

Angie remained a complete basket case. With no real rape counseling and only Janice to help her there wasn't much anyone could do. To make matters worse, Rocco taunted Angie every time he saw her and threatened to do her again. There was little doubt Angie was suicidal and because of that, Janice made sure she was watched 24/7. If only the institution could have been counted on to help.

More than a month had passed when one night several of the younger women, Floria among them, managed to get themselves invited into Rocco's room. Rocco was apparently already stoned for no sooner had they got inside when one of the girls volunteered to be tied up so Rocco and the rest of the girls could have their way with her. One by one they took their turns being tied up with Rocco no doubt having the time of his life. Eventually they convinced Rocco that to get the most out of the experience he should let them tie him up so they could have their way with him and of course the moron complied the first time out of the gate.

Flat on his back, mouth open, one of the girls dumped a bottle full of pills down his throat and they held his mouth shut forcing him to swallow them. Then, unable to scream out he watched in horror as one of the girls took a shiv and cut his dick and balls to ribbons!

After he passed out they cut up his chest, stomach and slashed his wrists placing the shiv in his own hand to make it look like suicide. Then they cleaned up all the evidence and went back to their rooms.

One of the other men woke everyone up early the next morning screaming and puking in the hall outside Rocco's room. He had gone to wake Rocco up and found him there still alive but barely. Rocco would live but his brain was completely fried, a vegetable-- the first casualty of the Loon Squad.

Law and order, however primitive, however crude, and however harsh, had finally been established in Asylumland. Angie and Floria stood smiling in the hallway, holding hands for the first time in more than a month, as paramedics carted Rocco out the door.

Continue To Part 13: Paying The Tolls