Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World

Three weeks after the second harvest a Free Day was granted.

The Free Day, Bits learned, was a random holiday that happened anywhere from seven to twenty times a year. On that fortuitous day there were movies and reading lamps with books and censored magazines; there was a music center for loud Jacker tunes and bedrooms set aside for health-cleared and consenting couples or triples or quads to have nonviolent sex together without black marks or inhibitor injections. Prisoners were free to move about, though only after reserving the time, down the many avenues of colored lights in blackness or up on the plantation grounds. There were basketball games and Ping-Pong and porno shows in 3D vid chambers that played all day long.

One of the most exciting events was the gladiatorial arena — the Circus, as Roger called it — where men fought nearly to the death. Regardless of all the control exerted by the snake packs and the monitoring systems, convicts still developed grudges that taxed their bio-limits and the more expensive drugs dispensed by the snakes. This problem was alleviated by these grudges being settled on Free Day.

The period lasted for twenty-four hours and was followed by a rest period of twenty-four hours more. Bits was first made aware of the holiday when he awoke to a flashing strobe of red light that woke all of his cell mates.

“Free Day,” Jerry said, leaping up from his mat. He was still limping a bit from the scorpion’s sting but the snake pack had saved him.

Soon all the men were up and talking. It wasn’t long before they were voicing their preferences to the void and were off following varied colored lights to their desires.

In less than five minutes everyone was gone except Bits and the white man Stiles.

“You gonna choose or what?” Stiles asked angrily.

“What’s your problem, white boy?” Bits retorted.

“I do what I do without a nig peanut gallery if you don’t mind.”

“Why don’t they put you with the white boys if you’re so unhappy with us, Stiles?”

“Nuthin’ I’d like better,” Stiles said. “But they don’t want all of any in one pot. You got cells up to six white men but there’s still a nig or spic in the cream. That way they got a backup spy if somethin’ goes down.”

“And you’re mad at me?” Bits said with as much sarcasm as he could.

Stiles gave Bits a hard stare and then said, “I could never trust you people. You were born to stab us in the back. It’s you who took our good white world and made it into a mess. Raped our women, stole our jobs.”

Bits paused a moment as if he were digesting the white man’s words. But he wasn’t thinking about what Stiles had said. Bits was a worldwide revolutionary. He defined himself as a class warrior, and though he suffered the pain of racism he did not exclude other races from his side. He knew that over 80 percent of American-backed prisons were non-white. He knew that crime by blacks against whites was negligible compared to the crimes committed by universities and corporations. But he also knew that he could never convince Stiles of their common cause.

“You and me, Stiles,” he said slowly. “It’s you’n me.”

“You wanna fight me in the Circus?”

Bits pointed at Stiles and then at himself, then curled both of his hands into fists at his waist level. He knew that there were computers recording and deciphering every word and gesture, that the computers were linked with vid monitors. At the first sign of rebellion Roger would be warned and either he or Stiles would be transferred.

“Fuck you,” Stiles said, which was his privilege on a Free Day.

“I want to go to a library if you have one,” Bits announced to the powers that be.