Best It Can Be

The eight of us gathered, lost souls one and all, at the recruiting station. We were waiting in a light rain. Every Sunday morning at 10:00 am our district had a drawing, but rumor said the number of groups to cover all the days, and even the hours of every day, were growing more and more.

This morning, Adam had come down with me. He tilted his head back like he does, his eyes a little too wide open, so I could tell he was scared. The last time we'd both gotten notice our numbers came up '1' and '2'. Can you believe it, our numbers '1' and '2', and then transferred to twins? Some call that fate, but I think it was just luck. We ended up fighting side by side in the Great War. An officer blew his whistle, and we climbed out of the trenches, the same look on Adam's face. The two of us screamed going over the top like warriors but the machine guns opened up something awful. So, as you can tell, he had reasons to be scared. If you're the low number, it's a chancy thing to go back.

No one spoke until George Simms said, "I've never been called. Don't deserve it." I didn't know what George had done, but it must have been bad. He lived mid-valley in a cave, a hermit, overlooking the river. People said they could hear him in the early hours crying in the dark hollows. You'd think everyone would want to go back, but many of us didn't think we deserved it. You have to remember, we were just eight from a district of three hundred, and I guessed there were thousands of districts. So the committee must have sent George notice for a reason. Maybe they thought enough was enough and even George deserved retribution. Of course, if I knew what he did, I might feel different.

Anyway, amongst the eight of us that day, George saying he'd never before gotten a notice started a discussion about who'd been called and who hadn't. Thelia Jones, who'd been in the district longer than anyone, said she'd been called six times. Imagine that, six?

"Six?" I said. "I bet you've got some stories to tell." I'd never known anyone called six times. I'd only been called once with Adam when we transferred as twins. Most people I knew had never been called.

"Yes," she said, her eyes focused straight at the empty platform. She wore a yellow slicker like they do on boats and the rain dripped down off the brim. I thought she was done, and she felt like keeping her lives to herself, but then she said, "Most were alright, glad I went, but the best was as a blind woman. Something about being blind helps you see." She shuddered in the wet mist and shifted her yellow coat closer to herself.

"I don't care to be blind, all the same," I said.

A burly man with a rough look and a black mustache slammed the door as he came out of the recruiting station. The building was no more than a shed really, and he came out and stood above us on a platform. Running his eyes over the group, I could tell he saw us as a bunch of cows or something. He then called out like a barker at a fairground. "You people," he growled. "You know the drill. Each of you comes up and draws a number. If there's a calling, the lowest number goes."

His eyes laid on me like I was supposed to draw first. I must have looked the weakest, is what I figured. But what's the harm, really? First or last, the numbers are the same. I could get a low number no matter what my order of drawing, so I stepped up and climbed the rickety stairs. Ever since I could remember, the district talked about building a better station, including the stairs. I guess it served a purpose and seeing as no one knew the how or wherefore, no one wanted to mess with it. What if you changed something, a new deck for the platform, a new station? Would that change how the transfers worked? The drawing box was a grimy black wooden thing and there again, they said it was the same one used in our district since the call-ups began.

I felt around in the box and ran my fingers over the greasy slips of paper. The burly man met my eyes as I did, like taunting me to chicken out. But I wasn't about to give him any satisfaction, so I squinched up my mouth and thrust my jaw at him as I pulled my lot. Holding it tight, I made a little protest with my fist clenched in front of his face. But he ignored me, so I stomped off the platform knowing you doesn’t check your number until everyone draws. Adam was next, and he climbed up the stairs to draw his, then the other six. Ralf Bellows, Ralphie we called him, complained some once he came back to the group. With a holier than thou expression, he said, "I heard they fix the numbers these days," as if he knew something we didn't and was lording it over us.

"What does that mean?" I asked. Ralphie needed to be held accountable for his high and mighty attitude, was my view.

The question set Ralphie back on his heels some and all he could do was mumble out, "You could end up living out of a garbage dump or worse, feeble minded. They hold back the best assignments, you know."

But I didn't know and what's more, didn't think it was true. "I don't see anybody turning down an assignment by my measure," I said. This was a lie though, because many of us didn't want to go. There's no greater fear than the unknown, I suppose.

Now Ralphie was really wound up; he wasn't mumbling and his thumbs grabbed his blue suspenders. "But some come back early, don't they, you moron? Life's so bad they end it," he said to me.

I didn't want to get into it. At least the come back early part. There's a risk to most about everything I was thinking. Did any of us deserve to be sent back? And if none of us deserve it, how can anyone say this one's bad, and another's not?

Melissa Wilcox chimed in, which didn't surprise me. She couldn't stand Ralphie since he wanted to form a group to choose who went back. A group of men he felt would know best. Woman are too emotional, he campaigned at the time. She pointed her finger at him from between her eyes, peering at him with her stern look, and said, "Watch it Ralphie, who you calling a moron. If I remember correctly, you came back early yourself one time, so don't be judging others."

"I didn't mean—"

"You didn't mean to offend anyone, AGAIN. So keep your mouth shut." Melissa had a sharp tongue.

I was the first to show my number, an '8', so I wasn't going today. Melissa had a '3', so she wasn't going either. Old man Johnson, in his red flannel shirt and straw hat, held up his hand, showing a '2' like he was saluting God. I'd always admired his style. When you can wear about anything you want, you see some strange getups, but not Johnson. Now with the '2', he might have to go if two slots opened up. That would mean twins like Adam and I had that one time, a rare thing, so I doubted it. 

I turned to Adam. He had a '1' on the paper he held in front of himself with both hands, staring at it like he couldn't believe it.

"You're a winner," the burly man said to Adam. "Lemme check the roster. Right back." He turned and went into the shabby office to see if Adam would be called.

I said to Adam, "You might not be needed at all." He looked like he might make a run for it. I saw a woman try that once, but they'd been ready for runners. You get called, you go, one way or the other. I thought for sure he was going to try it though, the way he was sneaking looks to make a break. Me, I never thought about running and wanted to get called. You can't even trade a slot for someone like Adam who maybe doesn't want to go.

Wouldn't you know it, the burly man came back, just like I expected, and said, "We need to get one ready today. The rest of you can go after leaving me your numbers."

"Dern," Adam said.

"What are you dernin' about?" I asked him.

"I could starve," he said. His legs gave out, and I steadied him as he slumped onto a bench by the recruiting platform. He began to lament. "My stomach could ache like there's a nail right through it. Maybe I'll be tortured to death, my fingernails pulled out. Hell, just some disease like cancer could be bad enough to come back early. But once you're in it, it's a tough thing to do, come back early; hang yourself, pull a trigger, or some other thing I don't want to think about."

I'd had enough with his foolishness. "Or you could end up a king, live on a beach with a sunset every day, meet the love you never had; or not die from, but discover the cure for cancer. Man, you've got the opportunity to live a new life!"

He turned his head aside and looked up at me. I'd known Adam was not much for sentimentality and I wasn't either, but where he was going we both knew he'd forget we'd ever known each other the instant he was transferred. They've got these things figured out, so how would it help if you remembered where you came from?

"I won't be me anymore," he said. "My parents and their parent's parents will seep into who I am. And what happens if I lose my memory later?"

"You know as well as I, when you get back here, your mind clears." I said. He had no reason to worry. We'd all remembered everything about our lives when we arrived, and everything about who we were here before. That's how it worked. How else could you learn from it?

"What if it's fixed who you get?" he said, his eyes tearing up.

"So what," I said. "You never know where you'll end up, what you can make of it, unless you go."

The burly man put his arm around Adam and headed him to the office. "We got a live one and you're going Adam. Life—it's all fun and games, until it turns on you!" !" His lower lip turned up in a sneer as he laughed.

They entered the recruiting office together and I swear I could hear a mother crying, the slap of a baby's bottom, the first breath. That was impossible, but I knew Adam had been re-born, a new life to live well or not well, bound to his own mortality once again. "Make this life you have a good one, Adam," I said out loud in a whisper. "Make it the best it can be, my friend.”