Hazards of Time Travel. Joyce Carol Oates
consciousness but is the pointed, purposeful, focused aspect of consciousness. Just to have your eyes open is to be conscious only minimally; to pay attention is something further. In my schoolgirl life I was conscious, but I was not paying attention. Focused on tasks like homework, exams, friends to sit with in cafeteria and hang out with in gym class, I did not pick up more than a fraction of what hovered in the air about me, the warnings of teachers that were non-verbal, glances that should have alerted me to—something …
I would realize, in my later life, that virtually all of my life beforehand had been minimally conscious. I had questioned virtually nothing, I had scarcely tried to decipher the precise nature of what my parents were actually trying to communicate to me, apart from their words. For my dear parents were accursed with attentiveness. I had taken them for granted—I had taken my own bubble-life for granted …
So it happened, Adriane Strohl was named valedictorian of her graduating class. Good news! Congratulations!
Now I assume that no one else who might’ve been qualified wanted this “honor”—just as no one else wanted a Patriot Democracy Scholarship. Except there’d been some controversy, the school administration was said to favor another student for the honor of giving the valedictory address, not Adriane Strohl but a boy with a 4.2 average and also a varsity letter in football and a Good Democratic Citizenship Award, whose parents were allegedly of a higher caste than mine, and whose father was not MI but EE (a special distinction granted to Exiled persons who had served their terms of Exile and had been what was called 110 percent rehabilitated—Exile Elite).
I’d known about the controversy vaguely, as a school rumor. The EE father’s son had not such high grades as I did, but it was believed that he would give a smoother and more entertaining valedictory address, since his course of study was TV Public Relations and not the mainstream curriculum. And maybe administrators were concerned that Adriane Strohl would not be entertaining but would say “unacceptable” things in her speech?
Somehow without realizing, over a period of years, I’d acquired a reputation among my teachers and classmates for saying “surprising” things—“unexpected” things—that other students would not have said. Impulsively I’d raised my hands and asked questions. I was not doubtful exactly—just curious, and wanting to know. For instance was a “science fact” always and inevitably a fact? Did water always boil at 212 degrees F., or did it depend upon how pure the water was? And were boy-students always smarter than girl students, judging from actual tests and grades in our school?
Some of the teachers (male) made jokes about me, so that the class laughed at my silly queries; other (female) teachers were annoyed, or maybe frightened. My voice was usually quiet and courteous but I might’ve come across as willful.
Sometimes the quizzical look in my face disconcerted my teachers, who took care always to compose their expressions when they stood in front of a classroom. There were approved ways of showing interest, surprise, (mild) disapproval, severity. (Our classrooms, like all public spaces and many private spaces, were “monitored for quality assurance” but adults were more keenly aware of surveillance than teenagers.)
Each class had its spies. We didn’t know who they were, of course—it was said that if you thought you knew, you were surely mistaken, since the DCVSB (Democratic Citizens Volunteer Surveillance Bureau) chose spies so carefully, it was analogous to the camouflage wings of a certain species of moth that blends in seamlessly with the bark of a certain tree. As Dad said, Your teachers can’t help it. They can’t deviate from the curriculum. The ideal is lockstep—each teacher in each classroom performing like a robot and never deviating from script under penalty of—you know what.
Was this true? For years in our class—the Class of NAS-23—there’d been vague talk of a teacher—how long ago, we didn’t know—maybe when we were in middle school?—who’d “deviated” from the script one day, began talking wildly, and laughing, and shaking his/her fist at the “eye” (in fact, there were probably numerous “eyes” in any classroom, and all invisible), and was arrested, and overnight Deleted—so a new teacher was hired to take his/her place; and soon no one remembered the teacher-who’d-been-Deleted. And after a while we couldn’t even remember clearly that one of our teachers had been Deleted. (Or had there been more than one? Were certain classrooms in our school haunted?) In our brains where the memory of———should have been, there was just a blank.
Definitely, I was not aggressive in class. I don’t think so. But compared with my mostly meek classmates, some of whom sat small in their desks like partially folded-up papier-mâché dolls, it is possible that Adriane Strohl stood out—in an unfortunate way.
In Patriot Democracy History, for instance, I’d questioned “facts” of history, sometimes. I’d asked questions about the subject no one ever questioned—the Great Terrorist Attacks of 9/11/01. But not in an arrogant way, really—just out of curiosity! I certainly didn’t want to get any of my teachers in trouble with the EOB (Education Oversight Bureau) which could result in them being demoted or fired or—“vaporized.”
I’d thought that, well—people liked me, mostly. I was the spiky-haired girl with the big glistening dark-brown eyes and a voice with a little catch in it and a habit of asking questions. Like a really young child with too much energy in kindergarten, you hope will run in circles and tire herself out. With a kind of naïve obliviousness I earned good grades so it was assumed that, despite my father being of MI caste, I would qualify for a federally mandated State Democracy University.
(That is, I was eligible for admission to one of the massive state universities. At these, a thousand students might attend a lecture, and many courses were online.)
Restricted universities were far smaller, prestigious and inaccessible to all but a fraction of the population; though not listed online or in any public directory, these universities were housed on “traditional” campuses in Cambridge, New Haven, Princeton, etc., in restricted districts. Not only did we not know precisely where these centers of learning were, but we also had not ever met anyone with degrees from them.
When in class I raised my hand to answer a teacher’s question I often did notice classmates glancing at me—my friends, even—sort of uneasy, apprehensive—What will Adriane say now? What is wrong with Adriane?
There was nothing wrong with me! I was sure.
In fact, I was secretly proud of myself. Maybe just a little vain. Wanting to think I am Eric Strohl’s daughter.
The words were brisk, impersonal: “Strohl, Adriane. Hands behind your back.”
It happened so fast. At graduation rehearsal.
So fast! I was too surprised—too scared—to think of resisting.
Except I guess that I did—try to “resist”—in childish desperation tried to duck and cringe away from the officers’ rough hands on me—wrenching my arms behind my back with such force, I had to bite my lips to keep from screaming.
What was happening? I could not believe it—I was being arrested.
Yet even in my shock thinking I will not scream. I will not beg for mercy.
My wrists were handcuffed behind my back. Within seconds I was a captive of the Homeland Security.
I’d only just given my valedictorian’s speech and had stepped away from the podium, to come down from the auditorium stage, when there came our principal Mr. Mackay with a peculiar expression on his face—muted anger, righteousness, but fear also—to point at me, as if the arresting officers needed him to point me out at close range.
“That is she—‘Adriane Strohl.’ That is the treasonous girl you seek.”
Mr. Mackay’s words were strangely stilted. He seemed very angry