By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 2:  We’ll Take a Cup of Kindness

We met at La Bête Bleue, which was a couple miles from my house.  He lived in Paris, but he didn’t mind traveling.  And after all, he was my guest; I’d be paying.  I was sure he knew that Bête Bleue wasn’t in the price range of a prison employee.

I got there early and had started on my cocktail when he arrived.  The sound of his ass hitting the booth made it clear that he was heavier than I’d remembered him.  More pounds, but apparently they’d all gone to muscle.  Unlike my extra pounds.  Bête Bleue is dark, but I still had to do my best, keeping my spare tire out of sight . . . .

The big smile—that was new.  Not his bashful college smile—something more interesting.  When you’re in business—when you’re successful in business, anyway—you’re alert to smiles that have had to be learned.  So good for him, he learned it.  And I can’t deny it was attractive.

“You’re looking prosperous,” he said, pulling off his jacket—black leather, but only street wear.  Not coplike at all.  “I hear you’re the number one realtor in Springport.”

“Number one, two, and three,” I said, “and there isn’t any four.”  When somebody handed me a line like his, I always wondered what he was trying to get out of me.  Right then, however, I was devoting more attention to the way his dark green polo rippled across the big hill of muscle he carried on his chest.

“But hey,” I said, “you’re a colonel!  Why aren’t you wearing your uniform?”

“Didn’t want to embarrass you, Colin.  What we wear—it isn’t that impressive.  Just some dark blue pants and a light blue shirt.  With a badge, of course.  But the shirts don’t tuck in.  Allows for quick action—that’s the point.  But some people think we look like delivery men!  I didn’t want the waiters to tell me I needed to go around to the back door.”

That’s another thing they teach you in Public Speaking, I thought—that aw, shucks modesty.

“Fuck em,” I said.  “I’ll bet you look good.”

“Depends on your point of view.  If you were a convict, I guess you’d be impressed.”

False modesty or not, I was impressed.  I was hard already.  Too bad he wasn’t delivering anything tonight—or was he?  Once a sub, always a sub.

The waiter came, and there was a long discussion about cocktails between him and Gordy, who obviously didn’t grasp the concept of mixed drinks.  Predictably, he defaulted to scotch on the rocks.  I ordered another daiquiri.

When you haven’t seen somebody for 14 years, there’s always a lot of small talk before you get to the life stories.  We talked about the menu (yes, I told him, snails were good), road repairs in the neighborhood (intrusive and costly—why pay people to work at night?), and random college memories.  We’d just gotten to the prof in good ol’ Psych 101 when the entrees arrived.  The waiter mixed up our orders—Gordy had the coq au vin (“the chicken, please”); I had the entrecôte de porc—and I had to bawl the guy out.

“It’s sort of dark in here,” Gordy said.  “Hard to tell what’s on the plate.”

“Then he shouldn’t be waiting on tables,” I said.  “But let’s get the wine steward over here.  Can’t get into this food without a good Beaujolais.”

“I don’t know,” he said, in a way that indicated he’d probably never heard that term.  “Maybe one glass.  I’ve got a long way to drive.”  I noticed that he hadn’t finished his drink.

I called the wine steward, and the appropriate bottle was brought.

“Like I was saying,” he resumed.  “Professor Gilles—I actually learned a lot of psych from that guy.  Taught me a lot about dominance and submission, for instance.”

Huh!  What did you say?  Clearly a hint about what might be coming, later that night?  This was a “dominant” that I’d love to see in submission–again!

“Really?” I said.  “I didn’t learn anything.  He was one of the most awkward people I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s right–he was one awkward guy.  But in those days, I gotta admit, nobody was more awkward and mixed up than I was.  That was before I found myself.”

What did he say?  Where had I heard that before?  Oh yes, the day before.  I’d been talking to my brother about how little there was for me to do in the office, now that he’d taken over so much of the work.  “It’s almost as if I didn’t have a job,” I said.  “I mean that as a compliment.”

“I hope I’m not causing any midlife crises,” he joked.  “I hope you don’t need to ‘find yourself’.”

“I know who I am,” I assured him.  “I don’t need to go looking.”  But now Gordy was using that psychobabble, and he appeared to be serious.

“Where did you think you were, Gordy?” I said.  It was hard to keep the condescension out of my voice.  But after all, he was talking like a kid.

“I prefer Gordon,” he replied.

“Uh, OK.  Sorry, Gordon.”  Yeah, thanks for telling me, asshole.  People who change their names like that drive me crazy.

“But you’re right,” he continued.  “It is an unusual idea, thinking that you’re someplace else.  But a lot of people don’t understand where they are.  I see that with convicts.  At first, anyway.  They don’t get the idea that, yeah, they’re in prison.  Or what that would mean.  They think that they’re . . . .   They think that they’ve accidentally turned off the highway.  Wound up in the exit lane, through no fault of their own.  Must be a problem with the weather, or the signage.  And now they’re in Paris.”

“Not sure I understand.  But tell me about yourself.  What happened with you?”

“Easy to tell.  I was aimless and bored.  I didn’t know what I wanted.  I dropped out and joined the Army.  It seemed like something to do.”

“You’re right about that.  Definitely something to do.”

“I liked being in,” he said, steering around my irony, or maybe driving right through.  “And what I really liked was being an MP.   You know, keeping order.  When you’re an MP, you need to be more orderly than everybody else.  You need to know all the rules and obey them.  Otherwise, you’re not an MP.  That was a new thing for me.  As you know!  But I liked it.  So when I got out and came back to the state, the first thing I did was look for a job in corrections.  Got one, and my Army experience did me a lot of good.  I was a sergeant in the Army, but pretty soon the DOC made me a lieutenant.  Then captain, major.  Then this great project came along, and I knew it was the right thing for me.”

“The chicken—how do you like it?” I asked.

“It’s good.  I like it.”

“By ‘project,’ I guess you’re talking about the prison?”

“Right.  Great opportunity.”

“You’re Chief of Security, right?  But there’s a warden or something, isn’t there?”

“That’s right.  Bill Wilson.  Former state senator.  I like him.  He takes care of the political end, and I operate the program.  That’s what I like to do.”

“Must have been hard to plan it all out.”

“Actually, it wasn’t that hard . . . .  I investigated programs that seemed effective.  Mainly in Asia.  That’s where most of it came from.  Their plans for discipline and population management are highly developed.”

“I know what you said in your talk.  But just between us—how’s it working out?”  All right, I was bored with the Paris State Penitentiary.  Especially when there were more intimate things to discuss.  But that’s what he cared about.

“Fine.  Really fine.  Here’s something that will interest you.  Since you’re in real estate and so on.”

And so on!  That’s how he thought about other people’s jobs.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a little notepad.  That’s the kind of person he was—the kind that carries little pieces of paper around.  Fine.  Just draw me a sketch of two guys in bed . . . .

“Here’s the property,” he said, drawing a black rectangle on the white square.  “Of course we’re in Paris because the land was basically worthless.  But anyway.  Down here, this is Commerce Street.  Running into it, you’ve got Fourth, Fifth . . . up to Eighth.”  Verticals appeared, like bars on a window.  “Four blocks, streets going north.  All this land, back to the railroad.  Warehouses, most of them empty.  Factories, totally empty.  The city had ended up with all that stuff.  But I’m sure you know that.  What we did, we closed Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh.  Then we walled off the whole area, and we went to work.  Kept most of the warehouses.  Those things—the way they were built, it would take you forever, just to tear em down!  Of course they’re big, and we needed a lot of space, and like I say, they were built to last.  Twenty, twenty-five-inch walls.  Great for a prison, eh?  If you can get em up to code.  Which we did.  The ones over here, the ones along Fourth, we converted most of those into cell houses.  Tore down a couple.  Kept one over here, on the corner of Fifth, made it our administration building.  Nice looking place, once we got it painted and repaired and the right furniture in.  This big zone over here—we tore out the factories, which gave us a huge open space inside the walls.”

“Grass and trees, I suppose.”

He looked surprised.  “No, we don’t need any of that.  We took down the factories and left the concrete floors.  We needed a concrete prison yard—what we call a Parade Ground.  A few patch-ups, and we got one.  Great space—cheap and easy!  The factories in the back, those are factories again.  Prison labor.  Just what we needed.  We did some upgrades, of course.  We’re puttin a lot more convicts in there than they ever put employees.  But over here, that’s where we had to build new.  Chow hall, for instance.”

“Chow hall?”

“Sorry!  I mean the mess hall.  Dining hall.  Prison version of La Bête Bleue—weird food, but you’re expected to eat it.”

“You’re funny.”

“Try to be!”  So he did have a remnant of the old floppy-haired guy I’d fucked.

“Anyway, we got the whole place for nothing, and after that . . . . I’ll admit it; I was surprised.  Those old warehouse buildings . . . .  Our designer—we got this young guy from Asia, great guy, knew everything about those modern prisons over there—he showed us how easy it would be to do the conversion.  He said it came down to just two things, two fundamental values: one, transparency; two, security.  They work together.  First, you design the place so the guards have maximum visibility.  They can see everything, all the time.  I’m not talking about cams.  I’m talking about engineering.  I’m talking about architecture.  Then second, you design your site, and your program, of course, so the convicts go where you want them to go, and no place else—so they have what you want them to have, and nothing else.  That’s security.  For example, our convicts can’t have anything that’s made out of metal.  Nothing.  No metal at all.  Too easy to make a weapon.  What they get is plastic.  Period.  You see, everything is planned.  To give you another example, the way we built the place . . . . ”

His arm, brown and shapely, was drawing more lines . . . .  I remembered that arm.  I remembered the thrill I had when I pinned it down and entered his ass . . . .  I could do it again.  Tonight.  Why not?  Sometime, he’d have to stop talking . . . .

“But you know,” he was saying, “everybody on these state projects always goes into these big cost over-runs.  Not us!  We saved money, and the state has been very considerate ever since.”

“No problems?”

“Of course!  Every day!  I mentioned a big one in that talk I gave.  Also, you know, quite a few complaints about ‘foreigners.’  Like I said, the models were worked out in Asia.  And we got a lot of our staff from there.”

“You don’t say?”  This was getting dull again.  No, it had been dull for a long time.

“That’s right.  So naturally we were accused of discriminating and all this other stuff.  ‘Foreign methods.’  ‘Brainwashing.’  You try to do your job, which is correcting criminals, and that’s what you’re accused of doing.  Total bullshit.  It’s the Department of CORRECTIONS, after all.  That’s what we oughta be doing.”

“How do you like the wine?”

“It’s good.  It’s very nice.”

“I’ll pour you some more.”

“Thanks, but I’ve still got a full glass.  But we haven’t talked about you.  What have you been doing?  Lately, I mean?”

“Planning a trip to Europe.  Long vacation.  I just wish I knew the language.  Knowing enough French to order in a restaurant isn’t quite the same as . . . .”

“I know what you mean,” he interrupted.  “I’m so happy, when I go to Asia, my partner is there to translate.”

“Your partner?”

I said it as cheerfully as I could.  But fuck!  This was a shock!  Why was I even talking to this guy, if I wasn’t gonna fuck him?  And he didn’t introduce his “partner” by accident.  He’d angled to bring him in.

“Patrick Yee,” he said, smiling like somebody who’s just caught the biggest fish in the pond.  “He’s a professor at the community college.  He’s fluent–although I’m told he has a pretty strong American accent!”

The little domestic story.  The little ironic way of bragging about his partner by confiding a tiny flaw.  They were all so pleased with themselves, these little gay partners.  If you weren’t like them, there was something wrong with you.

“I’m sure he could talk to you about all the French stuff,” he added.  “He says he’s gonna educate me more about food and styles and all those things.”

The waiter had brought us the dessert menu, and was now hovering around us.

“I guess I’ll have the mousse,” Gordy said.

“A Paris-Brest.  I feel I should have something with ‘Paris’ in it.  And bring me a Courvoisier.”

“Cup of coffee for me.”

The waiter departed.  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough for right now?” Gordy asked me.

“Call it brainwashing,” I said.  “I’m washing my brain.  But that reminds me.  In your talk you said you wanted to take wild men and tame them.  Domesticate them.  I think that’s what you said.”

“Yes, it’s a way of explaining . . . .  You know, in these talks, you have to . . . . ”

“So you think you’ve got the way to do it?  Tame them?  Domesticate them?”

He gave me a look like, OK, where is this going?

“Sure.  It isn’t a mystery.”

Really, this guy was smug.  A little too smug.  Just a lot too smug.  Just a lot too dominant.

“Do you think you can do that to anyone?”

“Probably.  I guess so.  Why not?”  His mousse had arrived, and he was looking it over.

“Can’t think of a reason.  I guess they’re happier that way.  When they’re reformed.  Domesticated.”

“To be honest with you,” he said, making a wary stab with his spoon, “it doesn’t matter if they’re happy or not.  Prisoners are bound to be unhappy.  If they were happy, I’d think that something had gone wrong.  Just being honest.  Any other questions?”

He’d put the ball back in my court again.  At the moment, I couldn’t think of any questions to ask.  Not about the subject.  Which, apparently, was still prisons.  The cognac was having its effect on me.  That and the bottle of wine and the two cocktails.  Or was it three?  But the bottom line was . . . who did he think he was, anyway?  What right did he have to be so confident about this stuff?  Not to mention the boyfriend.  He should not have brought up the boyfriend.  That wasn’t fair.  You bring up a boyfriend, you’ve automatically won the game.  Maybe!

“I just want to ask you,” I said, talking slow to avoid any slurring, “as a . . . prison guard, how do you get away with having a partner?  A male partner I mean?  I mean, how do you get away with . . . being gay?”  I almost said, “being so arrogant.”

“Huh?” he said, like he didn’t understand the question.  But that would be an act.  “Oh, I see.  Well, we do prohibit sex in the penitentiary.  Among the criminals.  Obvious reasons.  But there’s nothing wrong with US having sex.  We aren’t criminals.  And in this state, the DOC isn’t hostile to gays at all.  In fact, Patrick and I have a nice apartment, right in the prison.  But look, Colin, maybe I should drive you home.  You’ve had a lot to drink tonight.”

Right.  If you say so.  A happy little apartment, “right in the prison.”  But again, who did he think he was?  It was none of his business how much I drank.  It was the same attitude he took to his stupid convicts.

“I’ll be all right,” I said.  “I assure you.  But I’ve got another question.  Last question of the night.  If I got sent to that prison of yours, do you think you could tame me?  Do you think you could domesticate me?”

“Sure,” he said, looking up from his dessert.  “If you turned up in prison, you’d be just another convict.  You’d be ‘tamed’ very rapidly.”

He said it with no emotion.  It was a statement of fact.  It was his judgment of me.  It was also, of course, an insult.

He completed his mousse and was glancing around the room—which by then contained no one but us and some waiters who were obviously thinking of home.  “Maybe we should ask for the check,” he said.

“No,” I said, trying to seem gracious, and succeeding, I believe.  “You’re my guest.”

“Thanks,” he said.  “Much appreciated.”

We waited in silence for the check to arrive.  Finally he found something to say.

“Actually,” he said, “given your profile—mid-30s, professional, you’ve never been in jail, have you?”

“Certainly not.”

“And proximity—it costs something to ship convicts to distant locations—if you were sentenced to prison you’d have an excellent chance of being sent to Paris for that long vacation you have in mind.”

“Very funny.  Thanks for letting me know.”

The check came, and I signed it.  Then I got up, rather unsteadily, and had some trouble reaching the other side of the table.  You know how difficult those deep, cushy booths can be.  When we arrived at the parking lot, I found my car somewhat hard to locate.

“Seriously,” he said.  “I’ll drive you home.”

Oh hell!  More of that!

“Sorry,” I said, zipping up my jacket.  The temperature had dropped quickly after dark; there were flecks of snow in the air, and the smell of freezing rain.  “You won’t get me in that prison of yours.  I’m not gonna be tamed.  I’m not gonna be domesticated.  But I’m goin home, all right.  See you later.”

“I’ll see you,” he said, giving me a little wave with one of those huge arms of his.

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