I once shared a cell with a con from Detroit named Marty Ballantine. He had a blazing shock of red hair and was tall and looked more like an ex-basketball player than the head of accounting until his firm realized he was skimming. He had a young girlfriend on the side, an expensive marriage and mortgage, and combined with greed, he got caught. Big surprise. I couldn’t really picture him in a blue suit and red tie, slaving away at debits and credits. But his orange jumpsuit went well with his red hair.
It made him look perpetually on fire.
“Tell me more about your force field, Davis,” he said.
“What’s there to tell?”
“I can’t see it, for starters.”
“That’s why they call it invisible, Marty.”
This was not an unusual conversation to have in prison, where fantasy and reality are loose concepts. The lines blur awfully easy. They overlap.
But it helps kill time.
“Well, for starters — is it on now, the force field?”
I glanced at him, mulling which way to go with that. I decided to play along. Kill time.
“Not right now, no.”
“Dormant, is it?”
“It’s not a volcano.”
“I’ve never seen one,” he said, looking up at the ceiling from his bunk.
“A volcano?”
“A force field.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m the only one around here who’s got one.”
“And why’s that?”
“It just is. Accept it.”
“Like God,” he said after a moment.
That wasn’t unusual in prison, either — a sudden leap from force fields to God.
“How’s it like God?”
We were doing a great job of killing time.
“Well, God just is – right?”
“I don’t know. I’m not an expert on that.”
“Just force fields.”
“That’s right.”
We could have gone on killing time like this for a good long while. It wasn’t unpleasant.
“Where’d you get your force field?” he said.
I mulled it a few seconds, reminding myself not to overthink a conversation that didn’t require thinking.
“Well, you know — it just showed up one day.”
“Lucky you.”
“I reckon you could say that.”
“God made your force field,” he said.
The first pothole loomed in our road to killing time.
“I can’t say, Marty. I don’t know about stuff like that.”
“But if God made everything, then he made your force field. Right?”
“Maybe. But why is God always a man? Can’t God be a woman?”
He sat up and looked over at me.
“I never thought about it like that.”
“Well, maybe you should.”
“But why, then, would a God need a gender?”
“That’s a good question. That’s a toughie.”
“I think we’re on to something here, Davis.”
It was killing time at its finest.
“Maybe we are.”
“But you know, this changes everything.”
“What does it change, Marty?”
“Our whole way of looking at everything – reality.”
“Because God might be a woman but doesn’t really need a gender — that’s what you’re saying?”
We were no longer killing time, and I regretted that.
“Because this changes the whole fundamental scheme of how we see the world. Don’t you see that, Davis?”
I did not. I was just killing time, and we took a wrong turn.
“I’m not sure what it changes. We’re still here, aren’t we? In this cell.”
He grinned broadly.
“But now, we’re enlightened.”
“If you say so.”
“God says so.”
“Which God — man or woman?”
He looked confused for a moment and slowly sank back into his bunk and stared at the ceiling.
After a while, he said, “Is your force field still off?”
“It is. Saves power.”
“If you turn it on, will I see anything?”
“It’s invisible, Marty – remember?”
We were back on the road to killing time.
A month later, Marty got the news that his wife divorced him, sold their big house in Grosse Pointe, and ran off to Alcapulco with her pilates instructor. One day, on his way to the showers, he asked if he could borrow my force field. It was the first time he ever asked that, and I was hesitant, but finally agreed. The idea of a force field seemed to perk him up a bit.
They found Marty dead in the shower. He’d cut his wrists with a shard of glass. Not even a force field could save him. I got a new roomie, a baldy named Ed Schultz, who specialized in Ponzi schemes. My force field went missing for a few days but sure enough turned up and settled back in around me.
“So, you’re the guy who believes he’s got a force field,” Ed said. “What fucking good does that do?”
“It kills time, Ed. It kills time.”
Image: HelenOnline, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Jail cell with two bunks and an image of Jesus on the wall from Wikicommons share alike.
literally stories 
Hi Michael,
For me, I love the idea of inane conversation kills time whereas anything that you need to think on, doesn’t.
It should be the other way around but when you are in the Clink, whatever gets you through is what you think on.
This is quite a unique idea that I haven’t come across before so fair play to you!!
All the very best.
Hugh
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Michael
I liked this because so much of life (no matter where it is spent) involves waiting and pointless repetition. Placing a buffer between yourself and brutal reality is a good way to go.
Leila
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Very nice idea and I loved the (mostly) dialogue format – very well judged and quite poignant. A good mid-week read!
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I really like the dialogue in this one – how it flitters between philosophical and whimsical, much like conversations killing time do. I also like the sense when Ed Schulz comes in, another financial crime convict, and the conversation starts again and I can’t help suspecting Ed will ask to borrow the force field to similar results.
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I love the pop philosophy of this, and it was funny when both characters suddenly abandoned it. Good read, thank you.
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“There’s always time for great conversation.” (CCR) “Around the Bend.” I think the band would like this story. I did.
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Loved the dialogue in this, and loved the asides even more. And although there’s not much said about their cell, I can picture them leaning back with figurative stocks of grass between their teeth.
I love the contradiction of relaxing with intension; with developing a conversational gem with guard rails. I know I’d fail to guide the conversation back from dangerous – or at least more stressful – topics with the mastered ease of Davis.
A thoroughly enjoyable and, given the subject, strangely thought-provoking read. Well done.
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Original and quirky. Poor Marty. Force fields can’t protect us from ourselves. Time is a funny thing. We kill it but ultimately wish we had more of it.
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Michael
I always respect great lines delivered in the 1st paragraph. You delivered. But it didn’t stop. I always wondered what cellmates talked about. Probably not force fields. Very Impressive!
The dialogue trail, just killing time, was cool. The end perfect. As good as it gets. — Gerry
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Interesting concept….A force field might be a good thing to have in prison, but it didn’t seem to work well in Marty’s case. Maybe because he borrowed it. On the other hand, it did kill his time. I like the dialogue style here and the description of Marty and the prison conversation, very true to life, I worked in a facility where there were many conversations of this nature.
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