By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 6: An Environment Planned for Your Security

We walked back along the slab, and he pointed to something I hadn’t noticed on my quick walk to the loading area.

“Here,” he said, turning toward a strip of shade cast by one of the buildings, “is the pillory.”

That’s what it was, all right—a pillory, looking just like they do in pictures: a wooden upright and a wooden crosspiece, fitted with three round holes, one for your head and two for your hands.  You put them in, the top of the crosspiece is lowered onto them, and now you’re locked in the holes.  You have to stand there, maybe forever.

“Amazing!” I said.  “And after the first one, two more!”

“Yes, we have three pillories.  In the beginning, slappies have a great need for punishment.  And any serious problem usually arises out of a combination among them.  One of them gets an idea; then the others get it.  So before any trouble starts, we punish the troublemakers.”

“That sounds fair.”

“Of course.  And our pillories allow punishment to be carried out in full view of them all.  One, two, or three fastened into the devices—the rest get the point.”

“I wonder how it would feel for them to . . . .”

“To be locked up in one of these things?  Would you like to try it, Mr. Lansing?”

That was a surprise!  But of course, I had to.  You can’t refuse an offer like that.  The Major put me in front of a pillory and told me what to do.  Then the big timber came down, the Major closed the padlock with a small but definite click, and I was locked inside.

What a sensation!  Immediately I wanted to get out—get out NOW.  But not before I’d gone through some fantasies.  What would I look like, standing in the pillory, observed by a crowd of slappies?  Courageous rebel?  Pathetic slave?  Interesting either way.  Also interesting to have the Major’s job and get to watch the contortions of the wretch’s face and the wriggling of the wretch’s butt as he clumsily tried to adapt himself to his new situation.  So . . . .  No need to worry about losing your sex drive–just vacation on St. Bevons.

“How long would I have to spend in this thing?” I asked.  More squeaked than asked, since my neck was locked in, and my head was bent towards the ground.  I couldn’t see where the Major was standing.  I couldn’t see anything except the dirt.  “Major?” I repeated.  “If I was a slappie, how long would I have to stand in the pillory?”

“Until you understood,” the voice replied, “that you are a slappie, and nothing more than a slappie.  Sometimes that takes them an hour.  Sometimes a day.  On occasion, the exhibition continues, early to late, day after day.  The result is always the same—a reliable servant.  Not reliable in the sense that it can be trusted to perform its tasks without supervision, but reliable in the sense that it is, and will remain, in its own head, a servant.”

“I . . . I’m not sure I understand.”  The pillory was starting to get to me. Of course it couldn’t be right for everyone . , , ,

“I am sorry, Mr. Lansing.  I was indulging a philosophic impulse.  To be used as a servant and to BE a servant may be too different things, as in the case of a person who in normal life is employed as, let us say, a businessman, and a person who actually is, and has the consciousness of, a businessman.  As I am sure you will have had occasion to consider.”

“Yes,” I said.  “I understand it now.”  My hands were chafing in those wooden holes.  My neck was hurting from the attempts of my head to turn and follow the conversation.  I didn’t care if I understood what he said; I just wanted this to be over.

“I read that prisons in your own country—you must pardon me the comparison, Mr. Lansing—are filled with what are termed ‘recidivists.’  We have no such here, for two reasons.  First, all participants in our Program are committed to a lifetime of service.  They cannot return to the Program, because they can never leave the Program.  Second, and much more important, they know what they are.  They are servants, and they will always be servants.  That is the effect of discipline.”

“Impressive!”  Let me out of here.

“In the case of this particular mode of discipline, eventually the slappie finds itself willing to promise anything. And perform anything.  I’m sure you can understand that feeling.”

“I do.  But perhaps . . . .  Could I be released now?”  It was stupid, but I was starting to panic.

“I am very sorry!  I had forgotten!”

He opened the padlock and lifted the fucking LOG off my neck.  So that was the ultimate method of control—to be locked in by your fucking HEAD.  And with both hands locked in, there was nothing you could do to pry your head out.  Totally helpless, whether you meant “head” in the literal or the figurative sense.  I wondered what I would have been like after ten more minutes in there.  Not to mention ten hours!

“That thing could cause some real damage,” I said, straightening my shoulders and rubbing my neck. “What it does to your back . . . to your legs . . . ”

“Yes of course,” he said.  “A primary, though not the sole, reason for its effectiveness.  In olden days, pillories were the means of attracting a crowd that would abuse and sometimes kill the unfortunates who were sentenced to stand in them.  In our modern civilized society such outrages are not permitted.  But we have found that the humiliation of the pillory is more powerful than its pains.  One would think that a slappie suffering punishment would not be humiliated by the gaze of other slappies, but this is not the case.  It is good preparation for the more routine humiliations of slappie life.”

At the moment, I couldn’t think of anything worse than standing in the pillory.

“I’d like to find out more about that.”  I was still rubbing my neck and trying to twist my back into something like normal shape.

“It is said that they suffer least who accept their sorry fate.  Some appear not to suffer at all–physically, at any rate.  But allow me to show you more about the way our slappies live.  To your right, looking along the slab, you see the eating hall, and the laundry, then two of our storage structures, and lastly the motor pool . . . . ”  He paused so I could admire the vista.  “But here on the left is something that may be more interesting to you.  Please step this way, sir.”

He pointed toward a wooden building–long and narrow, with a few windows close to the top on the long side, and a short blank side facing the slab.   It looked like another storage building.  “So far you’ve seen the outside,” he said.  “Now you will see a bit of the inside.”  He led me to a little black door midway on the long side—a door that was black because it was covered with bars.

The last time I saw someone open a set of bars was during a friend’s tour of his dungeon.  I’d wondered whether the sub enduring role play on the other side of the bars was worth all the money the host had spent on keeping him there for five or six hours.  Back then I tried to imagine that I was in a real place of discipline and confinement—but I wasn’t.  I was just an over-age dom making a social call on another over-age dom.

Major Timmons opened the door on a different kind of facility.  When I stepped inside, the day turned to dusk.  That’s what happens when all the windows are suited up with bars.  I was in a long, hot room under a high, peaked roof.  To the right of the door, rows of bunks ran back through the building, separated by a narrow aisle—15, 20, who knows how many rows of bunks there were, vanishing into the dusk?  The bunks were double, one on top of the other, like you see in a war movie where the guys in the submarine are all bunking together like that.  There must have been 100 bunks in that room.  At night, the place would be filled with bodies.

“This is the barracks,” the Major said.  “We call it the barn.  And this is the barn boss.”

From someplace in the rear, a huge black man in a slappie suit had approached.  “Churchill,” the Major said, “greet our guest.”

“Good morning sir,” a big voice said.

“Show him around, Churchill,” the Major said.  “Start with what you do.”

“Sir yes sir.  Sir as barn boss it is my duty to boss thee new slap boys when they comin in here sir.  Sir it is my privlidge to show you how things in thee barn go for them sir.”

I hadn’t heard much of the local dialect before, at least not this version.  The islanders that I’d encountered might drop the “y” off of “very” and make one “r” into three or four.  The waiters at the hotel spoke better English than King George probably did.  But now I was hearing the real “islan’ talk” that Roger had discussed: “Of course, it is regarded as picturesque—mainly by tourists, as it seems.  But the truth is that the poorer you are, the more island you talk.”  I guess I wasn’t surprised that this slappie would talk like that. The Labour Training Station was a long way from the King George Hotel.

“Sir in this parta thee room here you can see thee bunks where thee slappies sleep.  Sir all thee bunks are number’ sir.  Which is cuz, when they comin to thee barn, thee slappies got no names sir.  Thee names get given when they get sold sir.  Sorry sir, I mean when they get lease out sir.  Right now, they all jus numbers sir but even they numbers ain’t on they browns yet sir.  But I can tell em apart sir, cuz I’m thee boss in here sir, but they bunks are all number’ too.”

“I see.”

“Yes sir.  Now sir this place is ver’ easy an cheap to run sir.  Sir you woan even see nothin here that heats thee place.  No sir.  Even in winter sir, you got enough slappies, you got enough heat.  But we got thee place well ventilated sir.  If you look upstairs sir you see it.”

I looked “upstairs,” at the line of barred windows.  No glass, just bars.

“Sir you wonder what happen when thee rain come sir?  Sir we got shutters that we close.  Big heavy wood sir–drop right down when we want em sir.”

“But why the bars, Churchill?  No one could crawl up there and get out, could he?”

Churchill said nothing.  It was as if he were considering an absurd hypothesis and didn’t know how to answer politely.  The Major said, “I know this will be difficult, Mr. Lansing, but picture yourself as a brand new slappie, lying on your bunk and looking up at those windows.  Windows are good to look at; they are connected with the idea of the outside world, the so-called free world.  But from now on, freedom is a frustrating and dangerous illusion for you.  The bars over your bunk, like the uniform on your back, provide a sense of security.”

“That’s right sir,” Churchill said.  “Thee bars are tellin you what you are sir.”

“I see the point,” I said.  I was also beginning to see that with some slappies, it might be hard to tell a sadist from a masochist.

“If you be please to turn this way sir,” Churchill said, “you be seein some other things bout slappie life sir.  Thee place where you standin now sir, this little place where you come in, that’s what we call thee Scrum Room sir.  It’s where you can sit when nothin happnin for you sir–no work, no chow, no exercisin, jus some time to sit aroun.  Yes sir, that ain’t much time in thee day sir, jus couple hours at night sir.”

The “room” was the space where you found yourself after you entered the barn and before you turned right to go to the bunks.  There were some banged up wooden chairs and a table or so.  I saw yellowing copies of the “St. Bee Picture Post” and “Footie Today.”

“I suppose most of the slappies can’t read very well?”

“Sir yes sir, thee slappies can read.  Some of em have even went to college sir.  Lots of em sir.   Jus doan have much time for it now sir.  So over here to the left sir, this is what we call the Latrine sir.”

He glanced at the Major, like he was scared to continue.  “Go ahead, boss,” the Major said.  “Mr. Lansing wants to know.”

“Yes sir.  Sir we got all thee sanitary provision here.  Like you see . . . .”  He stepped into the room and I followed.  Fuck! this was more than I expected.  “Over there sir we got a good line a shit holes . . . .  Jus plant you feet on one side an thee other, an do you business sir.”  It was hard to believe, but there they were—ten holes in the floor, each with the image of a foot painted on the left and the right, to tell you where to squat.  “An like you see, we got ver’ clean sir, ver’ clean facility here.  Slaps keep it clean sir.  Course, if all you needa do is piss, we got a good long trough over here sir.  I seen up to 20 slaps hangin it out over that trough sir.”

Whenever you’ve got a lot of men using something, there’s gonna be a smell, even when they aren’t around, and it was pretty strong in there.  But the place was as clean as you could expect it to be.  And it was good to meet somebody with pride in his job.  I wondered whether this slappie’s former occupation had been dungeon master in some wealthy home.

“Then after you done you business, sir, you see this other trough.  That’s not for pissin, sir, that’s for washin up.”

“No showers, boss?” I said.  I guessed I could call him boss, if the Major did.

“Oh, thee slappies do that on thee slab sir.  After they work in thee field sir.  They real dirty then sir.  But we got somethin extra over here on this wall sir.”

He pointed at a row of objects hanging down, each from its own cord.

“Those are thee shavers sir.  Doan worry, they all fixed so thee blades gotta stay in em sir.  Roun here we all gotta have what they call thee slappie face—neat, clean, ready for orders sir.  So evry day, you gonna get it sir.”

“Sounds like there’s a lot going on in the latrine,” I said.  I knew no one would take my hint, and no one did.  So I went on.  “In the mornings, I mean.”

“Sir yes sir!  But that’s why they need a boss sir.  And I’m thee boss sir.”  He drew himself up, almost as pompous as the Major.

I was hoping they’d leave me free to wander around, test out the bunks, maybe take a piss in the trough.  But no such luck.  “That’s all, boss,” the Major said.  “This way, Mr. Lansing.  It’s tea time.  Please be my guest.”

It wasn’t exactly what I expected, or wanted, but I was beginning to realize that when you’re anywhere near the Program, you have to do what the Program wants.

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