The Impossible Fortress(72)
The first puzzle was a popular phrase consisting of six words. After several spins, the board looked like this:
I F???I??? L ???T N???_ A ???T I _ E
I guess I was grateful to have the TV, too. I was happy to just sit there and hang out like nothing had spoiled between us. For some strange reason my mind kept going back to Tyler Bell, the biggest screwup in Wetbridge and the father of a huge mistake. I knew Tyler was already en route to basic training, and a new life, and I guess the baby was better off without him. But I wondered if he would ever look back and have regrets.
I was still wondering when Zelinsky appeared in the doorway. “Time’s up,” he said. “Get out.” And there was something comforting about his arrival—like we were back in the store and Zelinsky was kicking me out again, just like the good old days.
“Thanks for coming this morning,” Mary said. “Your timing was terrible, but I was glad to see you.”
“Maybe we could hang out sometime,” I said. “The Regal has a new movie. Which Is Eastwick?”
“The Witches of Eastwick,” Mary corrected.
“Maybe we could meet there,” I said. “If you felt like hanging out again.”
Mary straightened up in bed, neatening the blankets. Her fingernails were painted with tiny ladybugs, little pops of red and black. “I don’t think so, Will.” She tried clearing her throat, but her voice was still thick. “I got a fresh start today. Things can finally go back to normal. I can pretend this whole awful year never happened.” She hesitated, then said, “If I could turn back time . . .”
“Yeah?” I asked.
Mary just nodded at the television screen, and I realized she had solved the puzzle.
3300 REM *** GAME OVER ***
3310 POKE 53281,0:POKE 53280,0
3320 PRINT "{CLR}{RED}"
3330 PRINT "{9 SPACES}THY GAME IS OVER."
3340 PRINT "{9 SPACES}YOU ARE TRAPPED"
3350 PRINT "{6 SPACES}IN THE FORTRESS"
3360 PRINT "{8 SPACES}FOR ALL OF ETERNITY."
3370 PRINT "{6 SPACES}YOUR SCORE IS ";SCORE
3380 PRINT "{6 SPACES}YOUR RANK IS ";RANK$
3390 RETURN
SCHOOL ENDED TWO WEEKS later and I started my Cosmex internship at six forty-five the following morning. The factory was hidden among a sea of warehouses off Route 287; I had to wake at five thirty and take two different buses to arrive on time. My boss was a short, squat Haitian man who never told me his name or asked for mine. He simply thumped his chest and said, “Boss Man.”
“Boss Man?” I repeated.
“Très bon!” he said.
The factory floor was the size of several gymnasiums, full of quietly humming machines that united to create a dull roar. Within minutes of my arrival, Boss Man had me outfitted with earplugs and a hairnet, and I was standing over a conveyor belt with a box of mascara brush caps. He flipped a switch, and the line groaned to life; a row of open mascara tubes surged toward me. Boss Man grabbed a brush cap, plunged it into the first open tube, and twisted it closed. “Push, twist, yes?” he said.
“Push, twist?”
“Push, twist, push, twist, push, twist,” he said, capping the subsequent tubes with a speed that was dazzling. He gestured for me to join in the work, but the tubes moved faster than my hands; I felt like I was chasing them.
“Push, twist, push, twist, push, twist,” Boss Man sang, like it was some kind of lullaby he’d learned growing up in Haiti. I hadn’t capped more than a dozen tubes when Boss Man abruptly stepped away. “First break ten thirty.”
“Hang on,” I called. “Can I just—”
“Push, twist!”
He was already gone and the tubes kept coming, hurtling down the line like the march of the wooden soldiers. My heart was racing; my palms were sweating. I needed all of my concentration just to keep up. Some twenty feet to my left, at the end of the conveyor belt, a trio of elderly women collected the finished tubes and placed them in slender cardboard sleeves. They regarded me with suspicion, just waiting for me to screw up.
Gradually my confidence increased. I learned to grab the brushes by the caps (not the bristles) so I could plunge them directly into the tubes. After a while I didn’t even have to think about the work anymore—my hands were doing it automatically—and my mind wandered. My perch on the mascara line faced a windowless cinder-block wall. Sometimes people walked behind me and I’d overhear snippets of conversation, but there was never enough time to turn and look. The tubes continued their march down the line, relentless. Eventually I was so bored I looked at my watch, and I realized it was only seven o’clock, that I’d been working on the assembly line for a mere fifteen minutes.
That’s when I saw my entire summer falling away from me—ten weeks of mind-numbing, soul-crushing, forty-hour shifts through Labor Day: push, twist, push, twist, push, twist.
There were twelve other interns, all boys. Half of them were mentally disabled; the other half looked like they wanted to kill me. The adult employees were Hispanics, Asians, and Indians with limited English skills; at lunch they divided into factions, like cliques in a high school or gangs in a prison. No one ever said hello or even smiled at me; I might as well have been invisible.