The Empathy Device and Other Stories

By Jerry Goodwin

"The Empathy Device" -- A device that makes a criminal experience the emotions and sensations his victim felt.

"Black and White Photos"--If you had the opportunity to switch lives with another person, would you do so? What if that person had been murdered?

"Without Marilyn" --A story about a man learning about his deceased wife and revisiting the scene of some of their greatest happiness.

"The Messiah Project"--What would be the outcome of an alternative intelligence program guided by the great religious teachings of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the other great religions?

"The Incredible Jalapeno"--A mutant pepper becomes a crime fighter and vigilante.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jerry Goodwin
• Release date: Aug 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466142336

Jerry Goodwin

Jerry Goodwin lives in Fresno, California, in the center of the San Joaquin Valley. I am a fan of Hemingway, Steinbeck, Jack London, Ray Bradbury, and numerous other writers.

Book preview

The Empathy Device

And Other Stories

By Jerry Goodwin

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2010 by Jerry Goodwin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system — except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the web — without permission in writing from Jerry Goodwin

Cover image - by Mila Zinkova under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Cover graphics designed by Rita Toews

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Empathy Device

Ways of Falling

Without Marilyn

Hollow Men

Good Music

Bob and Holly

Small Comforts

Cat In a Window

The Country of New Snow

Comet Hunting

The Decision

Black and White Photos

Like Ralph Mooney

Homecoming

The Messiah Project

The Groundskeeper

Manuscript Pages

Game Day

International Orange

Trip to Hernandez

The Sky Painter

The Incredible Jalapeno

The Pat Smoke Story

The Beanball

The Psychology of Windmills

Santa Claus Came To Town

Scully’s Neon Sign

THE EMPATHY DEVICE

Jesus, the moving man said. These boxes weigh a ton. What have you got in here, Mister?

Books, Doctor Phillip Albert said. He stood aside to let the moving man squeeze the dolly loaded with boxes into the tiny room he used for an office. All around the room the bookcases were stuffed and more stacks of books took up almost all the floor space.

The moving man carefully lowered the cart and used the back of his hand to wipe his forehead.

Where do you want these? he gestured to the boxes with a nod of his head.

Over here’s fine, Albert said, clearing some room on an old scarred desk back near the window.

Books, the moving man muttered. I didn’t think anybody used books any more what with computers and all. You read all this stuff? He grunted with effort as he lifted boxes onto the desk.

Most of it, Albert said. Sometimes just portions of the books for something I’m researching.

Uh huh, the moving man said. Albert saw the sweat stains growing like little lakes under the armpits of the man’s brown uniform.

I guess you need to know how to deal with these creeps, the moving man said as he finished unloading the last box. My feeling, just vaporize all the creeps. Save the taxpayers money.

Albert smiled sheepishly. It’s not that simple, unfortunately.

He looked out the open window, feeling a slight breeze coming inside. There wasn’t much to see. Just a gray courtyard hammered by the sun and more plain white buildings across the courtyard.

I guess not, the moving man. But I think you eggheads have always made things too complicated. Me, I just kill the bastards, the moving man made a cutting motion with his hand across his throat.

Would you like some water? Or something? Albert said.

No, I got other jobs to finish, the moving man said. Maybe you guys should get a freight elevator put in, huh?

I’ll definitely suggest it, Albert said as the moving man clanked away noisily with the dolly.

Heat was building in the box-like room and Albert tugged at the window that seemed to be stuck and finally got it closed. He climbed around and over boxes to find the thermostat jammed up against one of the bookcases. He played with the thermostat a moment and finally felt cool air coming through the vents.

He shuffled boxes and stacked books the next few hours, not conscious of the time until the room began to get dark. He glanced at his watch and saw it was almost seven o’clock in the evening. Past time to go home, he thought. But home had not been a desirable place for him for a long time.

He heard someone coming up the stairs and looked around to see the prison warden, whose name was Pa Neeson. Neeson was a well-conditioned man in his late fifties and Albert had never seen the warden out of uniform. Even now, Neeson was impeccably dressed, his iron gray hair perfectly cut and held in place by gel. Albert became aware of the other man’s expensive cologne only as Neeson entered the room.

Thought I’d check on you, Neeson said, his bright blue eyes taking in the entire room in a single glance. You weren’t down for lunch or dinner and there’s no monitor in this room. We’ll have to get one put in.

No, Albert blurted. What I mean is, I’d like to have my privacy. Please don’t install cameras here.

Neeson raised his eyebrows in surprise. This is a maximum security prison, you know. Cameras are just a security precaution.

I understand, Albert said. But I don’t expect any inmates to be in this room. And I have an alarm on my belt. He gestured to the black box clipped to the belt under his white lab coat.

Well, Neeson flashed an obligatory smile. It’s not in your contract, of course. I thought you were here to research some penal technology. Why all the books when you can use a computer?

I’m researching capital punishment, Albert said. A lot of the old books aren’t in databases yet.

The answer seemed to satisfy Neeson, who nodded as though he understood. You may want to move some of the books to the office next door. It’s not being used. He started out the door and turned, Those new inmates, the ones in the abduction and murder case, are scheduled here tomorrow. When do you want to interview them?

It’ll take a few days to get set up, Albert said. I want to interview them as soon as possible, to get the sharpest memory imprints.

Very well, Neeson said. What is it you call this new machine?

An empathy device, Albert said. It’s intended to make the inmate feel what his victims experienced.

Interesting, Neeson said. I’m not sure in the long run it’s more humane than the death penalty. But that’s a matter for politicians to decide I suppose.

Albert heard the warden clomp down the stairs and then he turned on a small lamp on the desk. The warden didn’t describe the crimes of the new inmates completely, he thought. The men were being incarcerated for a kidnap, rape, and murder. They had murdered two women and burned the bodies in the trunk of an automobile. The other young woman had been kept alive another few hours and repeatedly raped by the two men before they shot her and dumped her body in the forest.

The case had affected Albert almost viscerally. He had always had an abhorrence for the crime of rape, for its total humiliation, dehumanization, and exploitation of another human being. Years before, his own daughter had been taken hostage and raped and murdered, something he hadn’t shared with the warden.

He had never recovered. He grieved for his daughter Amanda every day. All the time she was growing up Albert had felt a affinity for Amanda. It was as though they were joined at both the brain and the heart. Every slight she suffered, every hurt, was felt just as keenly by him. He had often considered suicide as a means of escape from the images of the night she died.

He tried everything to find reconciliation. He read philosophy, he read theology, he talked to professional grief counselors, and even talked to other relatives of crime victims. He kept coming back to one question: how was there ever any compensation for terrible crimes? How were perpetrators ever paid back for what they had done? Even the death penalty wasn’t compensation, he thought. You could kill an evil man just once, no matter how much pain or murder the man had inflicted.

Some of the theologians he had talked to had indicated that God’s will was involved, that somehow God would balance the books. But Albert had increasingly stopped believing in God. If God were just and powerful, he thought, crimes like that committed against his daughter would never happen. A just and caring God would intercede and prevent tragedies, not invoke some metaphysical concept of justice after the event.

The other conflict Albert faced was his opposition to capital punishment. He had been haunted by thoughts of innocent people put to death by the state. The whole ritual of death by writ and decree seemed obscene. Justice was always left in limbo.

His experience with Amanda and his ability to know her thoughts and emotions and all the terror she felt had prompted his interest in what he called empathy therapy. Empathy therapy was based on the idea that criminals would experience exactly what their victims had experienced. There would be no physical harm to the criminals, only the experience of living through the victim’s memories.

The flood of memories tired him now. He turned off the light of the desk lamp and welcomed the cool and comforting dark. He went down the stairs, taking comfort in the noise his steps made on the old metal staircase, and went outside. The night was almost perfectly still, a little cool, and the bright lights of the guard towers moved like unrelenting guard dogs across the prison grounds. He stopped a moment to look up at the stars, obscured by the bright lights of the prison yard, and looked at the darkened windows of the cell blocks. Some of the worst people were inside those walls, men whose only regret in life was that they had been caught. If his device worked the way he hoped, all that would change.

It was ironic, he thought, as he heard his footsteps echoing on the asphalt. Here he was among some of the world’s most vicious murderers and he was safer than on any city street. He got into his car, drove to the gate, went through the usual check by the guard, and drove outside.

The prison looked more imposing from the outside. From outside you could more clearly see the razor sharp concertina wire, the piercing searchlights, the deadly shadows of the guard towers. He had avoided prisons the past several years, sequestering himself in libraries and in laboratories and in forums of other criminologists. In some ways, he felt more free inside the prison than among his fellow academics.

The traffic was light and he felt totally alone on the country road. He had tried to condition himself not to think much about this road. It was this road where Amanda had been rear-ended by a bigger car. Then she was dragged out by the carjacker/robber and kidnapped. Nights like this brought back all the horror, all the terror, all the anger he couldn’t find a way to eradicate. It was a relief to see the bright lights of the city.

He drove past the convenience stores and the all-night gas stations and turned into the small residential neighborhood where he lived. There was a sign posted by the street sign announcing a neighborhood watch program. But he knew the sign was a bluff. He barely spoke to his neighbors and often didn’t know their names. The thieves and burglars realized now the sign was a bluff too. Several houses had been hit by burglars in recent months.

At least the city was putting in new street lights. Vapor lamps glowed every few feet, reminding him of the lights at the prison.

He turned into the cracked driveway of the small frame house where he lived and heard someone’s stereo from down the street. He checked the mailbox. Nothing much there: a catalog, a bill or two, and a campaign brochure from one of the city’s incessant law and order candidates. He smiled ironically to himself: politicians and crime and politicians and criminals had a symbiotic relationship.

He went on to the porch where his step activated a sensor that turned on all the lights. His front yard was instantly flooded with light. In his musings about crime and crime prevention he thought his all-light sensor was a practical answer. A professional wouldn’t be deterred by it, of course, but a professional would probably work another neighborhood.

When he went into the empty house he wished he had a pet. A cat or dog or even a bird would be a welcome companion. But he was gone so long and so often a pet wouldn’t get enough attention. Instead, he had created a virtual pet, a holographic dog that seemed almost real sometimes. And now the real man hugged and talked to the slobbering, licking unreal pet and liked the sensation.

Mealtimes were one of his most uncomfortable times. Amanda had been a wonderful cook and was constantly collecting cookbooks and clipping recipes from magazines. It had taken him at least two years to go through Amanda’s things and he had dug out a cookbook or two. Tonight he would try a stew he had been cooking in a slow cooker all day. The smell at least was pleasant. He told his phantom dog to lie down and dished out some of the stew.

I should have brought some of the books home, he thought. But maybe it was for the best to pretend that a solitary evening eating stew could be satisfying. The books would be there for him in the morning.

He couldn’t wait until dawn. He didn’t have to be at the office until nine o’clock. He found himself driving to the prison before seven a. m. The guard at the gate had learned his car and his face by now and waved him on in. The office almost looked cheerful with sunlight pouring through the open window. The morning was warm and from somewhere out in the country there was the scent of clover and newly-mown hay. He wondered if the maximum security prisoners could smell the morning in their cells. I hope not, he thought. It may be malicious, but I hope not.

As he moved some books from his desk and selected other books from his stacks, he thought: I must have the most macabre library in the world. His library was about capital punishment and the whole history of penology. Crime had always been a complex subject. Thought had ranged from swift and certain and deadly punishment to the idea of rehabilitation. The trend now was for life imprisonment and capital punishment was rarely used anymore.

Satisfied with the books on his desk, Albert found the file on the new inmates coming to the prison today. The files contained their entire case histories, photographs of the inmates, psychological profiles, newspaper clippings detailing their crimes, and other clippings about their trials and convictions.

The first file was for Roy Calhoun, considered the leader in the crime spree that landed both him and his partner, Dan Sussex, here. Calhoun had a history of being a bully and petty thief, whose crimes had consistently escalated into the more violent. He had been a sex offender at an early age, attacking a girl and attempting to rape her when he was only thirteen. Sussex had always been a follower, never the prime instigator in committing crimes. He too had been a sex offender at an early age, arrested for indecent exposure and voyeurism when he was fifteen.

The crime that had landed both Calhoun and Sussex here for the rest of their lives had been particularly vicious. They needed drug money and cruised a national park. The park, during the off season, attracted enough potential victims, but the crowds were sparse enough, to provide easy pickings for strong-arm robbery.

Three women had attracted the thieves’ attention. Ordinarily, a group of three would have been a deterrent. But the relative isolation made it easy to commandeer the rental car from the one adult woman and to entice the two teenage girls with her into the car.

Then they went off to an isolated area and Calhoun killed the adult woman and one of the girls. The other girl, the woman’s daughter, was forced to watch the murders. Then Calhoun and Sussex forced the survivor into their own car. They drove a few miles to another isolated area and pulled the girl from the car. In a forest glade they took turns raping the 15-year-old before Sussex, emulating Calhoun, shot the girl to death.

During the trial the defense had mostly centered on the influence of drugs in making Calhoun and Sussex commit murder. Their original intent, the defense admitted, was to commit robbery and let the women go. But the drugs made escalating violence a foregone conclusion. Their past history of sexual violence, which had supposedly been repressed, was brought again to the surface by the influence of the drugs.

There had been no doubt of their guilt. They had burned the car with the bodies of the adult woman and the first girl. But enough DNA evidence lingered to link both Calhoun and Sussex to the murders. The DNA evidence was even more plentiful with the third victim.

DNA was integral to the use of the empathy device. In his research Albert had discovered that every molecule of a person’s body had a memory of sorts, especially of a traumatic event. The memory remained even if the person died. By impressing the memory of the DNA molecules into his software program Albert could recreate the strongest memories of the deceased. The strongest memories were usually the last memories.

Then the software would recreate those memories for the person attached to the empathy device. While suffering no actual physical harm, the person attached to the device would experience the same physical sensations and the same terror of the victim. They would have to relive the crime they had committed, but this time from the victim’s perspective.

There had been considerable skepticism about the device from criminologists and psychologists. They suggested that at most the device merely triggered memories within the person attached to the machine, not actual memories of another person. But tests had finally established the device worked.

Then civil libertarians and defense attorneys joined the fray. They argued that a device that made a person experience pain and terror was unconstitutional, a violation of the cruel and unusual punishment provisions of the law. That had prompted Albert’s book collecting. He wanted to prove conclusively that punishment had never been sufficient—not even the death penalty—for the viciousness suffered by victims. He had one of the largest libraries in the world detailing crimes that were particularly inhumane. Included in his library was the account of his daughter’s murder.

Development of the empathy device was the culmination of his life’s work. He was nearing sixty-five years old and he would retire to make room for a fresher, underemployed, and younger criminal psychologist. It had been fifteen years since Amanda’s murder, and even longer since his wife divorced him. He was used to living alone, but work had been the antidote to loneliness. He had fantasized about what he would do in retirement, but he kept coming full circle back to loneliness. The empathy device was everything now.

He heard the noise of someone coming up the stairs outside his office and rose to meet Pa Neeson, the prison warden.

Morning, Neeson said, taking in the paradoxical nature of organized clutter in Albert’s office. We’ve gotten Calhoun and Sussex. They have their heads shaved, their new uniforms, their DNA on file, and they’re both meaner than rattlesnakes. I know you have some work to do on the device. But we have instructions to try it out on these two as soon as possible. What can you tell me?

I’m ready to interview them, Albert said. And I want to put their DNA profiles into the computer software. Their memories will be linked with the memories of their victims.

We have a lot of people watching us, Neeson scratched his chin thoughtfully. What do you think the device will accomplish, other than a little revenge maybe?

Revenge, Albert said out loud. Revenge has its place.

Seeing the warden’s skeptical expression, he went on, But revenge is only part of it. If the device works, we can learn about the psychology of men like Calhoun and Sussex, maybe find ways to prevent their kind. We can find out about the pain of cancer victims or victims of domestic abuse. The device has limitless possibilities.

Albert decided to interview the two convicts separately. There was an interview room outside the maximum security block where the prisoner could be shackled and the psychologists could set up their taping equipment. He would start with Calhoun.

Mr. Calhoun, Albert said. My name is Phillip Albert. I’m a criminal psychologist. I’d like to thank you for your cooperation in coming here today.

Calhoun’s only expression was a sneer. His shaved head gleamed in the bright fluorescent lights of the interview room and his complexion had already turned pasty and sallow from being confined indoors. He wasn’t a big man, about 150 pounds and five feet eight or so. He looked older than his 32 years, lines and blotches in his face, and he was noticeably uncomfortable in his wrist and ankle restraints.

Cooperation, he finally spat out. I get an extra hour a week in the exercise yard. That’s why I’m here.

Do you know what we’re going to do? Albert said.

I don’t know, Calhoun said. Stick a cattle prod up my ass maybe. That’s what you’d like to do, isn’t it?

That’s a novel idea, Albert said. Why is that the first thought to occur to you?

Listen, old man, the convict leaned over toward Albert. I don’t play games. I play it straight. I always get what I want, one way or another.

Albert heard the mechanical whir of the air conditioning and the recording equipment. Calhoun hadn’t been told, but probably suspected, that his heart rate, brain waves, and respiration were all being monitored and recorded.

Does getting what you want mean killing people?

Listen, shrink, people die every day. If I kill them, is that worse than dying of cancer, or maybe getting offed in a car wreck? I believe in evolution, man, survival of the fittest. You can’t protect yourself, then maybe you aren’t meant to survive.

How does rape fit into your theory?

Calhoun grinned in a way that made Albert sick. You’ve thought about it, haven’t you? What it would be like to stick it between a woman’s legs whether she wants it or not. It’s part of being a man. Get a woman alone and you can screw the daylights out of her whether she wants it or not.

Albert took a deep breath, seeing images of Amanda. Is that part of being a man or being a sadistic son of a bitch?

Calhoun shrugged, as though to say, who knows?

When you were raping a woman, or killing someone, did you ever think about what your victim was feeling? Albert continued.

Calhoun turned eyes that were devoid of emotion on Albert. It’s war. You don’t pity your enemy. Everybody out there is for me to get what I want, nothing more.

The guard came to lead Calhoun out. His chains clanked like something from a Charles Dickens story. Pa Neeson watched the guard take Calhoun out and came into the room.

You all right, Albert? It looked like Calhoun was getting into your head.

Guys like Calhoun got into my head a long time ago, Albert said. That’s why I’ve spent years on the device.

When do you want to see Sussex?

Albert suddenly felt weary. Tomorrow, he said. I’d like to go over some of the data we got on Calhoun.

Pa Neeson had assigned a female assistant to Albert named Joyce Parker. She was in her forties, blond and attractive, and reportedly asexual. She had more degrees in criminology than Albert could count. She was considered conservative in her views, favoring a return of capital punishment and fewer civil liberties. Despite that, Albert liked her immediately.

Dr. Albert, a pleasure, she offered him a business-like handshake. I’ve read almost all your work. I’m impressed, but frankly not convinced.

Psychology is an evolving science, Albert offered. My view is nothing ventured, nothing gained. If Darwin hadn’t been brave enough to publish his findings on natural selection, biological science would have been dead in the water.

Don’t ideas sometimes have negative consequences? she asked, somewhat coyly Albert thought.

Of course, he replied. "But ideas are like yin and yang. You don’t know good ideas sometimes unless there’s something to contrast them with."

Well, Joyce Parker smiled, we can continue this theoretical discussion some other time. I’ve been looking at some of the data from your talk with Calhoun.

Anything stand out for you?

Your discussion about rape, she said. He was getting turned on just talking about it. But you already sensed that.

Yes, Albert said.

I don’t want to delve into the painful parts of your life, Joyce Parker said. But I know about your daughter. I’ve read your research about sexual predators. Your ideas about incarceration aren’t far different from my own. I’ve thought about a device I called the eunuch device. It’s a permanent implant into a sexual offender. Sexual arousal results in death.

Is that any sexual arousal? Albert said. If a guy just gets his rocks off by himself, does he die for it?

That’s the flaw in my theory, she said. Although if it’s a proven sexual predator, I’m not sure it’s a flaw.

It’s been a long day, Albert said. Do you want to observe the session with Sussex tomorrow?

I’ll be waiting, she said.

Thoughts of Joyce Parker blocked his bad memories as he drove home. He knew it was silly—he was twenty years older than his colleague—but it had been a long time since he had felt attracted to, or attractive, to a woman. Joyce Parker was everything he would look for in a woman, except she was young enough to be his daughter.

He spent the next morning putting data from his session with Calhoun into the device’s software. He knew there had been major advances in artificial intelligence and he hoped future refinements of the device could use the enhanced A. I. He wondered if the evolving A. I. software would include feelings of conscience, of dreams, of hope, and redemption. He hoped so because intelligence should never be about intellect alone, he thought. Calhoun, the sneering, hating, totally selfish, was an example of intelligence without mercy.

He would interview Sussex in the same room where he had encountered Calhoun. In theory, Sussex hadn’t had contact with Calhoun, but Albert wasn’t naive enough to believe that. Even maximum security had its limits. Drugs and weapons still found their way into hands of the inmates. There were bribes to be made and deals to be done even in maximum security.

Except for the furrows in his face, Sussex could have been a little boy, Albert thought. He was almost wispy thin, a thin beard like peach fuzz coating his face. Unlike Calhoun, he didn’t project any aura of fearlessness, just a kid lost and locked in chains. Despite that, Albert knew Sussex was a