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I once read a book

Bill Tope

And I thought that was the end of it, but it turned
out that the book was on the government’s list of
banned books. This caused great alarm among those
in power—my teachers and the police.

It was further surmised that perhaps I had retained
some forbidden knowledge from this book, and that simply
would not do.

I was interviewed—no, that’s not right; I was interrogated—
by federal and state rectors who evaluated my retention
of any information which was untoward and at odds with
the national doctrine.

First, of course, they asked me where I had gotten this
blasphemous volume. I shrugged. At school? they
suggested. I told them no, but they scoured every inch of
my middle school—the library, the classrooms, even the
cafeteria—turning up nothing.

One of my friends perhaps? they queried. I don’t think so,
I said. Regardless, they made me sit at a desk and
write down the name of everyone I’d ever known. It was
exhausting. They checked every name and at length found
one troublemaker who possessed the very novel I did. They
displayed with her the same kind of dedicated fervor
that they had with me. I never saw her again.

During interrogation I cried and promised them I’d stop reading
books, but told me said as how I’d made my bed, I’d have to....
They said that I’d disgraced my father, who was in charge of the
Regional Book Burning Celebration that was held every year.
Nothing I said made a difference.

My father, who like I said, was an officer with the Book Police,
had been beyond suspicion but at last they had to question him
and my family. Although he denied everything, they found the
book, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” in the bookcase in
his den. Thinking that, because of my father’s reputation, they
would never look there, I had hidden it away on a back shelf.
He was mortified.

My father lost his position; in fact my mother lost her job as well.
We’re poor now and when we applied for food stamps, we were
told we needed to work in order to receive nutritional assistance.
But since no one would hire my parents, we were denied benefits.

We had to move from our comfortable home too, and now we
scramble from one homeless shelter to the next. We’re allowed
inside only after 4 p.m. in order to give my parents an opportunity
to search for work. On the streets we’re known as drifters. The
food there is pretty grim.

I was expelled from the 8th grade for the remainder of the term
and when Mom took me back to register in the fall, they told her I
would need “re-educating first,” as I would be a bad influence on
the other children, who had not been exposed to the likes of that
Satanist, Mark Twain. Mom hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll send
me to re-education camp but I kind of hope she does.They get
three meals a day at Camp Falwell, and I’m awful hungry.

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