Artfical Attrition

In Portland, Oregon, Danica Potter shouted into her phone, "You find him!" and slammed the handset back onto its cradle. She was furious. The rage and frustration she felt about her husband's situation had reached the boiling point. On her way out of the study, she stopped, wheeled around, and walked back to the phone. Without shame, she seized it with both hands and hurled it across the room, smashing a reading lamp and the glass frame that protected their wedding portrait. "You bastards!" she shouted. As the shards of glass fell to the floor, she dropped to her knees, cupped her hands to her face, and began to sob. This was too much.

A strawberry blonde with average features, Danica Potter was five feet six, with fair skin, blue eyes, and charming freckles on her face and forearms. Her weight had never been a problem - until now. Three years ago, she had a classy, elegant walk. But now, she was a clumsy ball of rage.

Lloyd, her husband of twenty-five years, had always been proud of his wife. During the many social functions they attended in their business circle, Lloyd was always affectionate and flirtatious with her, and Dani loved it. A bright, conversational and energetic woman, she had turned many a head in her prime. Now, 'prime', was nothing more than a remote piece of her past. Since Lloyd's imprisonment, she had aged ten years, developed jowls, and lost her zest for life. Her eyes were puffy and her skin had turned as pale as century old newspapers....

....Dani picked herself up off the floor of her study and, in a stupor, trudged over to the liquor cabinet. She poured herself half a water-goblet of Chivas Regal - no ice - and used it to swallow a 10-milligram tablet of Valium. "Awwh!" Her face writhed grotesquely - in a way that made her look like one of those carved dragons that serve as sentries in front of Chinese temples.

The doorbell rang.

Quickly, she dabbed her lips with the sleeves of her dress and put on a normal face. In a frenzy, she located her purse and scoured it for a lipstick-sized container of Binaca breath spray, psst, psst, psst. "Straighten up, gal," she said to herself.

She had consumed less than a third of what she had poured. Masking the Chivas did not concern her, but the Valium would have to run its course.

"Just a minute," she shouted, returning the Binaca to her purse and concealing the goblet inside the liquor cabinet.

Like a motorist about to be sobriety-tested by a highway patrolman, she tried to jettison the effects of the Chivas as she moved toward the door. Peering through a translucent section of stained glass next to the door, she was relieved to see the silhouette of her dear friend, Betty Galbraith, who had supported her - physically and emotionally - at the courthouse.

She disengaged the deadbolt and opened the door.

Betty's eyes widened when she saw the pain in Dani's eyes. She asked, "Are you okay?" Then without hesitation, she stepped forward and said, "Oh, honey," and embraced her childhood friend.

"I don't know what to do anymore."

"Does Lloyd know about this?" Dani knew Betty was referring to the alcohol.

"Uh huh." The listless acknowledgement was nearly imperceptible.

Betty kept abreast of Lloyd's situation and Dani's condition through regular visits and phone calls. She had followed the trial and had been active in soliciting character references on Lloyd's behalf to present to the judge. Excellent as they were, they had affected the judge about as much as a drop of water would affect the Sahara desert. He never even acknowledged them.

Betty Galbraith was dynamic - a mover and shaker - and extremely competent at anything she took on. A petite five feet three inches with olive skin and cropped brown hair a shade darker than her skin and eyes, she had been known to wear a size two dress and do it justice. She was middle-aged, and never at a loss for a date, if that was her pleasure. Despite the fact that she always wore her wedding ring, men trailed her like puppies.

Betty's husband, Martin, had been killed in a freak accident seven years earlier, crossing their street in pursuit of their Rottweiler, Xanthippie. Tips, now seven and one half, was her main companion. With Martin gone and her typical work-week lasting forty hours, she had a lot of time to spend with Tips, and she made the most of it by training her baby . She also went to the cemetery regularly, to talk to her first and only husband.

Without her love and support, Dani would have succumbed to the urge to end-it-all long ago. Betty was Dani's support group, counselor, and mentor.

Now, as the two women stood in the entry area, sunlight filtered through the windows of the study and bounced bright, mirror-like bursts of light off the glass shards strewn about the floor. Betty relaxed her embrace, pushed back, started for the study and said, "Oh Dani, are you really okay?"

Though Dani's depression had manifested itself in many ways, it had never before been so physical. This was very unusual.

"I lost it, Betty," Dani said, sounding robotic. She still faced the direction of the entrance door, and stood as still as a storeroom mannequin staring into space with vacant, pupilless eyes.

"Come over here," Betty stopped short of the study. She sat on the living room sofa and patted the cushion next to her with her hand. "Tell me what happened."

Dani closed the foyer door, then mechanically turned and lumbered toward the sofa like a zombie. She plopped onto it like a rag doll being dropped, and said, "I don't know what to do, Betty."

The Chivas warmed her stomach and loosened her lips, but the Valium had yet to kick in. She welcomed the numbness she knew it would bring, because her rage was still at the surface, pressing and precarious. She checked it, and began talking in a voice that was surprisingly strong and affirmative. "Those bastards! Under what damn legal system do they operate? What gives them the right to do as they please, when they please?" After a brief pause, she hit a crescendo. "Aren't there checks and damn balances? They have to be accountable the same way the judge held Lloyd accountable. Someone has to pay!"

Betty saw a side of her friend that alarmed her. She had never known Dani to use profanity.

Reaching over to give Dani a reassuring hug, she said, "Hold on for just a minute, honey, you have to calm down. You're beginning to sound like they've committed murder."

"They have, as far as I'm concerned. Even if they haven't killed Lloyd, they've certainly killed the family spirit." That much was true.

"Let's back up," Betty said. "Tell me what's going on."

"I've been on the phone all day. I called D.C. again. I called Dublin, California. I called Leavenworth. The administrator at Leavenworth was the only one who would give me any answer at all, and it was inconclusive. He said Lloyd might have been transported to Oklahoma nine days ago. Nine fucking days ago, Betty!"

Betty flinched, then grimaced. She said meekly, "Isn't that good news?"

"It would be if I could reach him, or he could call me, to confirm it." She calmed down a bit.

"Why hasn't he called you?"

"The administrator said..." Dani began sarcastically, imitating officials who enjoy flaunting power and spreading bad news as if they were handing out Halloween candy, "...that it's standard procedure to terminate phone service one week prior to transfer, and that since Lloyd's transit time in Oklahoma would be so short, he wouldn't be allowed to apply for a new telephone PIN number."

"But that's still good news - the short transfer time. Besides, you've gone for long periods without communication before. There's something more, isn't there? This isn't the reason you're so upset, is it?"

"No!" Dani exclaimed, and turned to stare Betty directly in the eyes. "The reason I'm a basket case is because I called the administrator running the transfer station in Oklahoma."

"And?"

"Oh, Lloyd arrived alright. But he wasn't forwarded to Sheridan."

"Well...where did they send him?" she asked dubiously.

"That's the problem. He went nowhere."

"I need you to be more explicit, honey. I'm not following you."

Dani said snidely, "He wasn't rerouted, according to their transfer accounting, and...he's not in the transient block."

"Not...as in, escape?"

"Lord no, Betty. He's a camper, for criminy sakes. He's only interested in serving his time and getting the hell out. An attempt at escape would just make things worse. Besides, the arriving transients go directly into isolated cells and are locked down twenty-four hours a day. Food is delivered. Escape is impossible."

"What are you saying?"

"I don't know, Betty. According to them, he...vanished. And they seem to be enjoying my torment. They refuse to investigate or even give me direct answers."

Dani's eyes were shaded with the kind of evil you would expect to see in the look of a serial killer. "Have you ever felt like killing someone?"

"Oh, Dani, stop this. There must be a reasonable explanation. If he wasn't transferred and he's not in the transient block, they've probably assigned him a cell elsewhere in the prison. It's a simple mistake. Lloyd is okay. He's probably lying in a bunk thinking about you."

"Things are not okay, Betty. You call those pigheads and you'll experience first hand what I'm up against. Prison officials are pure bastards! They're evil, unresponsive, heartless and evasive. And, they enjoy it. You can hear it in their voices. They're deliberately stonewalling me. They're hiding something - something very big."

Dani had become an expert in a field that she had no desire to understand or confront. At this moment, she was obsessed with two things. One was her gut feeling that something was terribly wrong with her husband. The second was the horrible knowledge that anything was possible for the BOPA. She had not wanted to face it, and now her husband was in it.

Betty, who was highly educated, well read, and a very moral person, had once believed in the legal system. But that changed when Lloyd was indicted and subsequently convicted, and what little faith she had left was now rapidly disappearing.

She worked as a statistician at the downtown offices of Liberty Exclusive, a mega-sized corporate underwriter of casualty insurance. Her position required her to collect, analyze, interpret, and present to Liberty's Board of Directors, massive amounts of numerical data about casualties, lawsuits, claims, and injuries in the Western Region. Her input had a direct influence on claims and insurance mil-rates.

Although the mathematical aspect of her position was extensive, challenging, and sometimes exhausting, she delighted in gathering the information it required. She spent the bulk of her office time reading and compiling articles from noteworthy and influential cosmopolitan newspapers in cities such as Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Salt Lake, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

Therefore, she was intimately familiar with the column, COUNTERBLOW, published in the San Franciscan .

"There are alternatives," Betty said, pursing her lips and nodding. "What you need is COUNTERBLOW."

Although the power behind the word was not conveyed, the idea of launching a counterblow against her nemesis lifted Dani's spirits.

"I just don't understand, Betty. When a company like Federal Express can simply read the bar code on a shipping label and tell you exactly - and within seconds - the precise location of a package, there can be no excuse for the federal prison system to misplace human bodies. It's just unacceptable. People need to hear about this."

As Dani spoke, her voice trailed off until she sounded like a heavy cannabis smoker on downers. The Valium had taken effect.

"You're right! It's not acceptable, and the public will hear about it. Lloyd deserves better. And so do you." Betty reached for Dani and said, "Come on, honey, let's get on your computer. I know of a man who might be willing to help us."