2 July 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 2

Please Don't Put That Thing on My Head—I Work for the Government

by M. E. PARKER

Since the day Albert Montague announced his plan to construct a truth extraction machine from nothing more than a nine-volt battery, a coil of copper wire, a blood pressure cuff, and his laptop computer, Violet followed him everywhere he went, except the bathroom and the doctor's office where he had his feet scraped two weeks ago. She monitored his comings and goings, taking careful notes on the people he spoke to and when. She even knew that he ate grits with peach crescents over a half-pint of cottage cheese on Tuesday and skipped breakfast Wednesday to have his cholesterol checked by the Pharmacaide testing van parked between Coleman's and the snow cone stand.

How else could she understand a man whose goal was to extract truth, a man who wanted to undress a liar, open all the windows and rummage through the underwear drawers ferreting out tidbits of a story from under the mattress and behind the dresser? She envisioned a man with bushy sideburns, Albert in a tweed suit, armed with a truth extractor spelunking in her closet, mining for truth with a pick axe in the shape of lady justice. He'd throw chunks of thought-ore onto a conveyor belt that would deliver it into his machine, magically deriving pure truth from the muck. But she couldn't imagine what a "truth extractor" would even look like or why it would require a nine-volt battery. Violet needed to observe Albert Montague and find this device, learn how it worked, the entire process, even the psychology involved, if she had any hope of preparing a defense for its mechanisms, because the prey that observes the hunter unseen is rarely slaughtered.

He had made progress recently. She could feel it. Albert Montague was getting close. He labored in his garage with aluminum foil pressed on the windows, sometimes until three in the morning, or all night like he did last Saturday. He parked his car in the driveway, keeping the garage door closed, only cracking it open to sweep it out.

The regulars in Sweetly's Doughnuts, mostly Deputy Potter and his middle-aged sidekick, Dodge (named after the car), laughed at Albert, at his idea, his ambition, and his innovation, mostly because they had none of those things themselves, only a sheriff's badge and a used car dealership between the two of them.

"But it will revolutionize law enforcement," Albert insisted.

"We already got something like that. It's called a lie detector." Deputy Potter shot Albert with his thumb and forefinger and gave him a wink. "Why don't you make something useful like projectile restraints? Something you can shoot at a perp that wraps 'em up tight."

"I swear, this town has more kooks per square block than a New York nut farm," Dodge said, between sips of coffee.

"It's that lake water downstream from the plant. I only drink bottled water, myself," Percy, a hunched-over man of at least seventy-five, said as he slid into a chair with a plate full of donuts in his hand.

"Well, I'm not talking about a lie detector, gentlemen," Albert said with a pop. Even though he had given up tea and never once mentioned the game of cricket that Violet could recall, Albert couldn't escape his British roots. His novelty accent, insisting on using words like bloody, ghastly, and fellows, made him an easy target for the Dodges of the world who thought anyone who talked and dressed like Albert was a dandy, just asking for trouble. But Violet believed in Albert. That's why she started following him, why she had to keep a close watch. He was dangerous.

"A modern lie detector, you should know this Potter," he said, shooting Potter back with a double thumb and forefinger gun, " is nothing more than a gadget that compares a physical response to tough questions with what's normal for the subject." Albert blew across the top of his coffee. "My device, on the other hand, will reach right down into the throat and rip the truth from the very bowels of its subject." He gestured with both hands as though he were turning a sausage inside out, skin turned in, meat spilling out onto the floor.

Dodge winced. "And how are you going to manage that?"

"Look, I know it can be hard when you lose your job. You're trying to stay relevant," Potter said behind a growing smile. "That's psychologist talk for get out and look for a new job instead of tinkering with this junk."

"You'll see soon enough."

Violet eased back behind an imitation palm tree, wedging open a slit in the branches with her fingers. Just the mention of a lie detector made her squirm, almost like she had worms crawling in and out of holes in her chest, but this extractor thing, ripping truth from bowels, that was another matter entirely. She had studied polygraphs, fretting for years over how to fool one in case she was ever confronted by one. According to Sloan, the assistant librarian at the city library, lie detectors were nothing but junk science. He had given her a book, The Polygraph: Lies You Tell, The Lies You're Told, and she had studied it, even practiced the countermeasures. Lie detectors were fallible. She was pretty sure she could beat one of those if it ever came to that.

—

"Please state your name."

"Violet Constence Whipple. My grandmother's name was Constence. That's Constence with an 'e', not an 'a.'" She took a deep breath and rubbed her hands across her pants, streaking them with sweat.

"That's fine, Violet. I just need to ask you a few basic questions for a baseline."

"Great grandma Vines couldn't spell very well. I think she spent too much time in the sun, working a farm, you know?"

The examiner, a heavy-set man who had introduced himself, but for whom Violet couldn't seem to place with a name, had as his most distinguishing feature a tuft of sparse hair plugs on either side of a narrow widow's peak. He spoke like an Arthur, or a Milt maybe. His name was more common, though, like Fred, but that wasn't it. She had to have a name. That's how she classified her thoughts about people, with names; faces wouldn't do. Violet stared at the hair plugs, individual blades of hair spaced too far apart, almost like rows of corn growing in a wheat field. That would be enough for now. The rest of his appearance, especially his mouth, wasn't distinct enough for a name because Johnny Hairplugs had a chubby face with nothing more than a narrow gash for a mouth that only slightly parted when he spoke. "Are you fifty-five years of age?" His voice was soothing, almost friendly, as long as she didn't look at him.

"Yes," Violet proclaimed with a grin. She pressed her toe on a tack hidden inside her shoe, though she couldn't remember whether she was supposed to use her countermeasures on the control questions or the real ones, whether she should tighten her anus or change her breathing to alter her blood pressure and heart rate now, or wait until later. Mixing them up could be disastrous.

Johnny Hairplugs studied the graph and made a mark on his paper.

"At least, that's what my driver's license says—born in 1951." She showed him her license. "I'm actually fifty-six. That's a mistake," she said, biting down on the edge of her tongue, another countermeasure. Why couldn't she keep her mouth shut? It wasn't that difficult, 'yes' or 'no.' The words just spilled out like verbal dysentery. Truth was relative anyway. There was the whole truth, then there were partial truths, bit by bit, that make up the picture, but even a lie is composed of truthful pieces, sometimes placed in the wrong order. Why dredge up the details?

"Is your address—"

"962 Cottonwood Park," she said, staring at Johnny Hairplugs's shoes. She rubbed her eyes. Her head pounded. What if he asked her a surprise question, if he inquired about her activities on October 22, 1962, whether she was huddled in front of her television set like the rest of the world watching President Kennedy's address, the one where he revealed the presence of Russian missiles in Cuba? She didn't even have a television set in 1962, she was lucky to have a stove, but he wouldn't know that. What if he asked her why she was in the alley that day, in the rain?

He glanced at a notebook. "You need to let me finish the questions, Violet. Let's try this again. Is your current address 1465 Meadowlark?"

"Oh, yes. 1465 Meadowlark. That's my address. I've thought about moving, but my yard—I've put far too much work into that yard," she said, adjusting a half-fallen bun of hair back to the middle of her head.

—

In place of a manicured carpet of weed-free, blue fescue, a crop of dandelions and crabgrass had popped up in Albert Montague's garden. People were starting to talk. Not because their yards didn't have cars on blocks and halfway-toppled swing sets blocking the driveway, but for the simple fact that Albert's yard had been "perfect for as long as anyone could remember." It had even survived the drought a few years back under water restrictions and close to sixty days in a row of searing heat.

By Violet's estimation, Albert's yard only flirted with perfection, though, and had the misfortune of being right across the street from hers, which had also survived the drought and boasted over forty-two different kinds of flowers.

Violet watched the same car pass by her house for the third time in ten minutes. The fourth time, it crept up to the curb and idled for several minutes. She put down her garden hose. A stream of water trickled through a plastic vase in the middle of the sidewalk as she placed her hands on her hips, glaring at the car.

"Hi there," a slender man in a suit said with a wave. He stepped over the minefield of white plastic flowerpots that littered Violet's yard. They were stuffed with flowers—azaleas, zinnias, daisies, pansies, all plastic, all watered regularly.

The man showed her his identification, a card behind a billfold window with an insignia and a picture of a younger version of the man standing in front of her. "My name is Tommy Higginbotham. Special Agent with the IRS."

After a moment, Violet made eye contact. "What's that?"

"Well, a special agent is like an investigator—"

"I know what a secret agent is, Mr. Higginbotham. I'm asking about that other thing—the INS. I don't have any Guatemalan maids or sweatshops if that's what you're here about." She said looking back at her house with a smile. "I'll bet you work for that shyster lawyer, Mackey?"

"No, ma'am. I work for the government—the IRS. You know, taxes," he said with a shrug.

"The government? Which one?"

"Which one?"

"County, city, state? You're not one of those Russians are you?"

He stuffed his wallet back into his jacket pocket and pointed across the street. "I'm looking for the man that lives over there across the street—Mr. Montague. Do you know him?"

"You mean Albert Emory Montague III?"

"Yes. Is he a friend of yours?"

"Good Lord, no," Violet chuckled. "He's English."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

—

"Have you seen your neighbor, Albert Montague, in the last three weeks?"

Violet hesitated. "No."

Johnny Hairplugs pushed his glasses up his nose and marked the graph paper.

"I mean, he works from home, you know? What I'm tryin' to say is that nobody sees much of Albert. Just at Sweetly's." She couldn't shut her mouth. She wouldn't shut it. Extra words kept flying out, information she should have kept. Why didn't she just go ahead and tell him that in 1962 while Andy Warhol was painting his soup cans, she was in the alley behind Cottonwood Court Apartments behind the dumpster? That she had an imprint of curly burned hairs in the shape of an iron on the back of her head. That she was deathly afraid but not of Russian missiles or Communism like everyone else.

"Do you distrust the government?"

"No." Her head jerked toward Johnny Hairplugs. "Wait. Can I change my answer?"

"Yes."

"Which government?"