Failing Upward

by

Elton Gahr 

The screen flicked to show an image

Mitch was in his car. He pushed the trash in his back seat down so he could see out the back window and then began to back up without looking. As he did, he spun the wheel and the front bumper of his car drug across the side of the bright red sports car leaving a long clear mark. Mitch tilted his head so he could see deep gash along the side of the car, then sped away.

He then cut in front of a car with three young children almost forcing the woman driving off the road while he was slowing down in front of that same car to make his turn the judge tapped the button on the remote and the screen turned a dull gray.

“Can you explain that?” the judge asked, trying, and failing to keep the contempt out of his voice.

“I didn’t know anyone was watching, besides anyone who can anyone who can afford a car like that can afford to fix it,” Mitch said, leaning back on the legs of the wooden chair until he glanced at his lawyer and remembered that the judge had told him three times not to lean back in the wooden chairs so he sat up straight fast enough that everyone in the courtroom could hear the chair hit the floor.

“We could go on,” the prosecution said, “But it hardly seems necessary. Over the last five years Mitch has been fired from four jobs, two for stealing from the till, gotten into seven fist fights, one with a seventy-two-year-old woman and done over three-hundred-thousand dollars in property damage. I have never recommended this before, but I believe it is obvious to everyone the defendant is incapable of moderating his behavior under the current conditions so the only option is to change his environment and see if that moderates his behavior.”

“Unless the defendant has something to say in his own defense, I think we can agree to that,” the judge said.

Mitch stood up and said, “I think this entire process is unfair. How was I supposed to know that someone was watching everything I did?”

The sigh from the defense attorney next to Mitch suggested he had said something wrong, and the judge said, “You’re supposed to do the right thing when people aren’t watching.”

“Well then, someone should have warned me of that,” Mitch said.

The judge didn’t even bother to respond; he banged his gavel and four men came out from the back. The two larger men took Mitch by each arm and one of the smaller men said, “This will not hurt. It’s just going to make you forget this trial happened.”

###

The hard bunk beneath Mitch woke him and looked around the tent for a few seconds as a bugle made the pounding of his head much worse. Someday he would kill that man, but he rolled off the bunk.

As he stood he checked his shirt looking down to see if there were any stains left or the wrinkled fabric from the night before, he then sniffed at his armpit and decided it was good enough for six o’clock in the morning. If they wanted him to be more presentable, they needed to stop waking him up so early.

He didn’t bother to pull on his shoes as he stepped out of the tent, but he grabbed his rifle that was leaning against the canvas of the tent. From there he found a spot as far away from the commanding officer as possible and tried his best to ignore the world.

That didn’t last long as Major Pilloc walked directly towards him. Why did he feel the need to go through this every day? Mitch had made it clear he didn’t care if he screamed at him, except that the noise aggravated his hangover.

Major Pilloc stood four inches taller than Mitch and he was staring at his feet. It took a few seconds for Mitch to remember he hadn’t bothered to put on shoes today. As his face began to turn red Mitch silently wondered if this was the day the vein in the Major’s forehead would finally explode.

Sadly, it wasn’t and after taking a few seconds to calm himself enough that he could speak his commanding officer said, “Private, are you aware that the lives of the other men in this camp are, in part dependent on your actions. What do you think would happen if the enemy attacked while you were wandering around the camp without shoes on?”

“I probably wouldn’t be able to run away as fast,” Mitch said. He had never pretended to be brave or to have any interest in fighting.

The man closed his eyes for a few seconds and then said, “Perhaps you’ll learn more if you spend some time in the front. Or at least you won’t be my problem anymore.”

Mitch had been fairly certain he was on the front. He saw planes fly over every day and just a few days ago someone had attacked the front gate of the camp.

“Sir, that seems unfair to the other people at the front,” Mitch said.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about them. Their only orders in relation to you will be to shoot you if you try to run away,” Major Pilloc said.

###

“Back so soon,” the judge said, as Mitch walked into the room. He was only now beginning to remember having been here before.

“Just shut up and let me do my job this time,” his public defender said.

“Our intent was to give him four years of simulated combat experience in hopes the obligations soldiers feel towards each other and the discipline learned in the army would moderate his behavior. It did not,” the prosecutor said. This time it was a woman with short blond hair and a stern look.

“So why is he back so soon?” the judge asked.

“We made an error in the program. The enemies' weapons were incapable of harming him, but we didn’t realize we needed to do the same to those on his side. They shot him in the back while trying to run away for the third time.”

Mitch’s defender stood up and said, “Your honor. I would like to have this entire simulation stricken from the record. Courage is not one of the essential traits of citizenship and while showing it may have given us valuable information, the lack of it does not matter.”

The woman with the short blond hair stood and said, “We concede that point and agree that the trauma of combat memories would not aid in the defendant's growth into someone who can become a citizen. But we ask the defense to not waste any more of the court’s time and admit that Mitch Walker did nothing to improve his standing in the eyes of the court and wave the citizenship review.”

“We agree,” Mitch’s lawyer said, putting his hand on Mitch’s shoulder so he couldn’t stand up as he spoke.

“Are there any suggestions how to proceed?” the judge asked.

“I have an idea. We have until now put my client into situations where he is expected to follow orders, and we have established his inability to do so. I think we should put him into a position of authority. Perhaps by learning to wield authority he will learn to respect it.”

“We can try, so long as no one has any objections,” the judge said.

###

Mitch locked the door to his office. Couldn’t people see he didn’t want to be bothered. What was the point of being in charge if people were constantly asking you what to do?

As he sat down the phone began to beep. He ignored it for almost two minutes until he decided his secretary Kate would not give up this time and he picked up the phone, “What do you want?”

“Your two o’clock interview has finally arrived. Would you like me to send her in?” Kate asked. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was a quarter until three. He then walked over to the window and glanced out to see a tall, shapely blond woman.

He walked back over to the phone picked it up and said, “Tell her she has the job. Perhaps we’ll finally get someone here who understand the concept of fashionably late and will quit complaining about having to wait for me.”

He could almost hear Kate rolling her eyes. Well, if she wanted to be in charge, she should have applied to be the manager instead of the secretary. Mitch wouldn’t have given her this much trouble if she had been in charge but some people just didn’t understand the importance of good leadership.

Perhaps she would understand better if she had to deal with things on her own for a while he thought and he unlocked the door. His secretary was talking to the woman he had just hired. He heard her say something about the importance of being on time and he interrupted and said, “I’ll discuss it with her. But for now I think we should celebrate her new job. How much money do we have in petty cash?”

“Sir, I have to remind you that petty cash is for official office use only,” Kate said.

“How is celebrating a new employee not an office expense?” Mitch asked and held his hand out to his secretary until she put the full thousand dollars into it.

###

“Was he shot again?” the judge asked as Mitch sat down.

“Believe it or not he went out of business in six months even though he started with an exceptionally profitable business and we made it impossible to lose any customers,” the lawyer said. He didn’t know if her name was Kate here, but he recognized her as his secretary especially the look of irritation in her eyes.

How is that even possible?” the judge asked.

“First, he only showed up about twice a week. Then there were the sexual harassment lawsuits,” Kate said.

Mitch stood up and said, “Those weren’t my fault. I was really quite drunk, all three times.”

Kate said, “Your honor, as much as I hate it. I think it is time that the court admits that it has failed. I do not believe that there is anything short of a complete memory wipe that will convince the court that we should release him from his birthing pod. I believe that any attempt to do so would lead to the chaos that the chambers protect us from.”

“While I cannot disagree, I am unwilling to sentence someone who has not even been officially born yet to what amounts to capital punishment,” the judge said.

“I don’t want that on my conscience either. But while we have not yet determined a way to turn Mitch into a viable member of our society, we have determined what makes him happy. I believe the best choice both for him and society is for him to remain in the birthing chamber. We can build him a world where he will be comfortable and we can study him to learn how to avoid similar problems.”

“I think that may be acceptable, but making it an official order of the court would expand the power of this court in ways that could create a bad precedent. It would be better for everyone if the defendant would agree to this with no court order.”

Mitch sat there for a minute and then stood and asked, “Could I be president?”