THIS IS JUST A TEST

At eight in the morning, the man with the five o’clock shadow points into the soundproof room. You cast a parting glance at your father, cross the threshold, perch on the edge of the designated seat. Shadow Man elbows the gray metal door shut — thunk — then towers over you and croaks, Relax! An old dog’s halitosis hits your face. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we, kid? Get you out of here as soon as possible, on to school before the day’s too far gone. And get my next customer in here. No time to lose on this case. He stretches an air-filled rubber tube across your burbling belly, in which acid is attacking corn flakes and OJ. Now another tube is hugging your scrawny chest. He leans close, tugs and tinkers. Checks the wires that lead to a briefcase-sized gadget on his gray metal desk. This’ll just translate what your breath wants to tell us, he says. Relax!

Next, Shadow Man asks if you write with your right hand. When you look up and nod, he takes the left. Rubs the index and ring fingertips, releases, removes his black horn-rims. Reclaims the two digits, floats them up toward his myopic watery eyes. Cleaner than some I’ve seen, he says. And it smells like you washed them at some point in the last few days. He straps stainless steel plates onto the tips. Checks more wires. We’ll see if you sweat there, he says. Pauses, chuckles. Perspiration and respiration! Put that in a poem when you’re back in English class!

Time to cuff you, Shadow Man says while putting his glasses back on. And when you fail to stifle a flinch, he adds: Relax! Not your wrists. Just your right arm. Like at the doctor’s office, but not quite so tight. Blood pressure and pulse — they don’t lie, do they? Now roll that sleeve up for me. And the squeeze you feel is one you’ll relive for the rest of your days, every time a nurse checks your vital signs. You will also remember the baggy flannel shirt you were wearing, its countless tiny red and white checks.

Shadow Man settles down behind the desk, clears the gravel in his throat, condenses an earlier spiel: You know why you’re here, of course. You’re not under arrest. You’re free to leave at any time, as long as you give me time to unhook everything first. And there’s nothing to fear if there’s nothing to hide. Right? Yes or no: Those are the only possible answers to my simple questions. I don’t want a story, the machine definitely doesn’t want a story. Do you have any questions for me, kid? No? Good.

He flips the switch. Mechanical pens start scrawling jagged lines on scrolling paper. You can hear the scritching, you cannot ever unhear it: mice in the walls of your mind.

Is your name B—?

Are you fifteen years old?

Is Abraham Lincoln the president of the United States?

Do you know anything about the disappearance of G—?

Do you know where she is?

So far, so good, you’re thinking. Breathing through your nose, replaying what your father kept saying on the ride downtown: We have to do everything we can to help.

And then Shadow Man says, Have you ever touched someone else’s genitals?

You will forget your answer.

You will remember the scene in the outer office: your father’s pale blue dress shirt soaked and reeking at the armpits, Shadow Man’s dark eyes flaring as he barks, Sir! Relax! I’m not saying he’s lying. I just don’t know if he’s telling the truth. So we need to run it again.

And after Round Two come similar claims, and after Round Three, in a vast roaring wordlessness, Dad is driving me to school on a sunny day in early spring, with the heater on full blast. And I can’t stop shivering. And no one will ever tell me if I passed the test.