2084: Slavery Resurgent

A ne’er-do-well is a rogue, vagrant or vagabond without means of support; a good-for-nothing louse.

- Wikipedia

Some years ago, Franklin bought a wooded, three acre plot of undeveloped land in upstate Michigan. Because it was almost as cold as Siberia in the winter, had swarms of mosquitoes in the summer that resembled flocks of birds, had absolutely no cellphone reception or utilities, and could only be accessed by a narrow dirt road that vanished beneath the snow for much of the year, he purchased it at auction on the steps of the County Courthouse for the cost of paying the unpaid property taxes of the previous owner. Franklin had intended to build a log cabin on the plot, but he was a city boy, definitely not the lumberjack type, so he kept putting it off.

Then, Franklin received a text message from his younger half-brother,Tom, telling Franklin that Tom had been released from the Chippewa Correctional Facility in upstate Michigan where he had served five years for having been the getaway driver in a convenience store robbery. Tom had inherited a trailer from his recently deceased mother and was living in a trailer park in Kincheloe, Michigan, but had been evicted for threatening the manager with an aluminum baseball bat. Tom wanted to know if he could come to Los Angeles and room with Franklin. Also, he requested Franklin to wire him $250 for an airline ticket.

Tom was a ne’er-do-well who had graduated from the juvenile justice system and gone on to prison. Franklin didn’t want Tom to stay with him. He offered to let Tom be the caretaker on his three acres in upstate Michigan where Tom would stay free of charge. When Tom accepted, Franklin wired him $200 to have his trailer transported onto Franklin’s property. Franklin hoped that he would never hear from Tom again, but it was not to be.

Contacting Tom again brought back memories, most of which were unpleasant. There was Tom when he was four years old using a magnifying glass in the blazing sun to fry red ants on a sidewalk. And when Tom turned six, he caught houseflies and pulled their wings off. By the time he was eight years old, Tom was caught by his mother torturing kittens and was sentenced by her to a month with no television or internet. But it had little or no effect on Tom. At twelve years old, Tom was introduced to the juvenile justice system after he hit a girl with a pole and broke her left arm in two places because she refused to reveal a secret to him. For that, he spent two months in Juvenile Hall. Tom’s bad boy behavior grew worse, increasing in magnitude with each passing year. Tom’s father once referred to him as a bad seed. Franklin worried that Tom would someday fall victim to the government’s automaton program, but Franklin put it out of his mind and did not lose any sleep over it. Experience had taught Franklin that the less he thought about his half-brother, the better.