By Joshua Ryan
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT ADULTS, FOR ADULTS ONLY
As I said before, I’d seen prison vans on the road. Maybe some of them were on their way to the Durant Unit. I didn’t know. I was never really interested. I remember that when I saw them I wanted to look inside, but I couldn’t see in past the bars. All I could see was some shadowy things that looked like ghosts. Ghosts of men. Former men. I’d never thought about it that way, but that’s the way it had looked. You see a lot more than you realize.
Now I was inside the van, and the people on the street were seeing me go by. Some of them stared, and some of them glanced and looked away, like they were ashamed that they’d looked in the first place. Women in tapered suits, with little purses. Young guys in bright neckties, just getting off work. A gang of teenagers with their caps turned around, jumping on and off their skateboards, waiting for the light to change. “Dude!” one of them yelled, pointing at the van. “There’s a jailbird in there!” They all craned their necks and tried to see through the bars. They were starting to jump off the curb to get a better look, but Andre gestured at them to stay where they were, and they obeyed the man in uniform. The light changed, and the van moved on. I wondered if those kids would remember me, if they ever found themselves inside a bus that was headed for prison.
I was happy when we left the streets and turned onto the freeway. There were no more people, just the landscape unrolling in horizontal strips, sliced by the bars on the windows. The exits went by, quicker and quicker. Commerce Street. College Avenue. Lawton Heights. Lawton Heights was my own exit. Had been my own exit. And there was my neighborhood, climbing the little hill, the same as always: stores, apartments, bars, the coffee house with the orange awning, the bank where I cashed my checks, a building with Christmas lights still hanging from the porch. . . . This morning, I had lived in that building. Now I was going to live in a prison.
Something white was dodging the bars. At first I thought I was crying. Then I realized it was snow flakes. Snow flakes hitting the window and melting. “Turn on the heater, man,” Steve said; and Andre switched it on. Peter’s forecast had been correct. It was gonna be cold tonight.
We passed the Executive Village exit, and the top of the Freer Building appeared over the trees. Maybe somebody in the office was looking out right now, watching the white van with the black lettering on the side that was busing Jason Rossetti out to the penitentiary. Of course, if anybody saw it, it wouldn’t mean anything. It would just be another white spot on the freeway. Even if they knew, would anybody care? There’d be some jokes in the elevator, and there’d be one more topic that shouldn’t be brought up at the next office party, and that would be all for Jason Rossetti. After a few weeks, he would cease to exist. I had to admit, I’d never been the kind of guy that people around the office cared much about. . . . The building swam away, out of reach.
Suburbs appeared and disappeared: Sutpen, Percival, Werther’s Grove . . . Then we were out in the country. It was surprising, how close the country came to the city. It wasn’t ten miles from my old neighborhood to the end of Werther’s Grove, and then it was just a few more miles to the Tower Road exit. That’s where we turned. At the top of the ramp, there was a sign: “Durant 3.” Everything was taking a lot less time than I’d thought. When you’re driving yourself, things seem to take a long time, because you’re always making decisions. When somebody else is in charge of you, it all just happens.
We went past fields and barns and a bunch of farm kids who laughed and yelled something in my direction. They’d seen that van before. Then we came to another sign: “DURANT: Pop. 400.” Durant was a feed store and a gas station and a tavern and an old brick bank and a line of wooden houses with cars and trailers parked in their yards, and a caution light where we turned left and went into the fields again. The sign at the corner said “Meridian Road.” Underneath it was a smaller sign: “SRLCF,” with an arrow pointing in the direction that we turned. My heart jumped. We were close.
I peered ahead through the steel mesh. The snowflakes were blowing; the sun was setting across the fields, dipping out of the clouds . . . and there, on the horizon, right in the sun’s path, was something huge and dark, something that looked like an enormous rock. I had a sick feeling inside me. That had to be the prison.
Then there was nothing but trees, a tunnel of trees, and we were traveling downhill inside of it. At the bottom was a steel gate in a razorwire fence. The sign on the gate said DURANT UNIT.
A man in a guard’s uniform walked up to the van and nodded. The gate swung open, the van moved forward; we crawled uphill inside another tunnel of trees. It was dark in there, dark and cold. I saw snow clinging to the fences and the trunks of trees. Then we broke into the open. The last rays of sunlight hit my eyes. I saw green fields, brilliant in the level light — and just beyond them, I saw the block of stone. It was closer, much closer, and bigger, much bigger. It reared up in front of us like a stupendous rock formation, like a gigantic boulder abandoned by the last ice age. That was where I was going. That was where I was going to live.
A wave of terror surged through me. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. So that was what they were talking about when they said “the Durant Unit” . . . that was the thing that I’d read about, the first time I looked for Jake on the web. I’d read about it, but I’d had no conception of how big it was. Jesus! The thing must be 70 or 80 feet high! It was a giant stone box, striped with tall, narrow windows, topped with towers and battlements and a tall, sloping roof . . . It was many times longer than it was high, and it had a big stone wall running out of it at either end, with towers and walkways and billows of razorwire attached to its top. . . . It was the biggest thing I’d ever seen. Suddenly the sun went out. We had passed into the shadow of the prison.
Ahead of us was a gate, a double iron gate under a heavy stone arch. In front of the gate was a cage of bars. We drove into the cage, and the bars clashed together behind us.
A man came out of a tower on the top of the wall. He was carrying a rifle.
“Whatcha got?” he yelled.
Andre leaned out of the cab and yelled, “One!”
“Awright. Comin in with one!”
The next sound I heard was the groan of iron, heavy iron that does not want to move. Somewhere a bolt was leaving its socket, inch by inch. Then, so slowly that you could relive your whole life while the thing was happening, one wing of the gate swung inward, taller than a house, thicker than a concrete block . . . and the van rolled through the archway, toylike next to the enormous hinges.
I looked from one window to the other. We were stopped at the edge of a huge, flat, empty space, a prairie of concrete surrounded by walls and towers. Snow was scudding across the pavement. Far away, against one wall, I could make out two or three stone buildings that must have been big but that looked like nothing compared to the one tremendous block of stone, rising like a cliff next to the entrance gate. There was a flight of steps leading up to it. Steve and Andre pulled me out of the van and started me shuffling up the steps.
The steps were high. I had just enough chain between my feet to let me lift them from one step to the other. I had my briefcase in my hands again, and with every step it clattered against my legs. I looked up. There were double doors at the top of the steps, and an arch, and above the arch there was stone, block after block, line after line, story after story . . . . That’s when I stumbled and almost fell, but Andre grabbed me and propelled me forward. At the thirteenth step, I reached the archway and the iron doors. Over them, there were letters carved in stone:
DURANT STATE PENITENTIARY
1896
LABOR SAFETY REFORM
The doors swung open. I was inside.
The room was old and tall, with a black-and-white tiled floor and heavy black woodwork, and lights in glass globes hanging from the ceiling. It was as big as a church, and it was almost empty. On the opposite wall there was another archway, filled with bars, and beyond the archway a corridor leading off into the distance until it was stopped, far, far away, by a second set of bars. On the left and the right sides of the room there were big steel doors, and next to each door was a heavy wooden desk, carved like a judge’s bench. There was nobody behind the desk on the left, but behind the desk on the right was a burly black man in a steel-gray shirt. Steve ordered me to march in his direction, and I shuffled slowly across the black and white tiles.
“What do we have here, gentlemen?” the black man said.
“Whuddup, Captain,” Andre replied. “You know what we got.”
“That’s right, I know. Well dressed young man, ain’t he?”
“He’s dressed for work, Cap.”
“Maybe not our kind of work.”
“No, maybe not. Maybe the GQ look ain’t quite right for him. Now, anyways.”
“Hey, Cap,” Steve said. “When do we get our money?”
“You in on this too, son?”
“You know I am. Share and share alike. Me, and Andre, and the C.O.’s on Gang 11, and the Captain, of course, same as always.”
“That’s right, son. But what you know bout always? You ain’t been in on one of these things before.”
“You’re right, Cap; it’s my first reward. So tell me, when do they pay?”
“End of January, should be.”
“That’s OK.”
“You damn right it’s OK. You know, when they first thought up that Turn Em In law, we didn’t get nothin. It’s just for civilians, they said. Now we get the money too, and it’s a lot more now. We get $30,000 for a little lifer like this.”
“You bet!” Andre said. “Makes sense, too. I heard a guy on TV last night, and he says, these rewards save so much on crime prevention and investigation. . . . “
”Sure they do. And even when it’s divided eight ways, it’s a nice chunk a change!”
The Captain glanced at me for a second, like I would naturally agree. It was the first time he’d looked at me.
“Eight?” Steve said. “Why eight?”
“C’mon, man!” the Captain said. “You know why. Captain, lieutenant, four field officers, two technical support, if that’s what you call it . . . .”
“That’s right, Cap. It was us that made the tape.”
“Yeah, and I’m lookin forward to seein that tape, too!”
“It’s not much,” Andre said. “Just a coupla faggots. Like the last pair.”
“Yeah, they just keep doin it, don’t they? That last cocksucker put the new roof on my garage. Only difference is, this time, the decoy needed NO persuasion.”
“That’s for sure!”
“No SIR!! Tellin you, when that boy came to me with his proposal, I never paid any attention to that boy before. Never. To me, he was just another convict. But I was glad he showed up, all right. Really glad. Right before Christmas, too. That’s when he came. I’ll tell ya, Christmas came early for us this year.”
The room was tilting and spinning. Decoy? Proposal? I remembered Christmas. Just before Christmas. That was when Jake changed. Actually . . . What was going on? What did he do?!
“That’s right, Cap!” Andre said.
“And lemme tell ya, that is one convict that DESERVED his reward, and GOT it. That boy had it all worked out. He knew he could get this faggot over the fence. First he lured him, then he stalked him, then at the last minute, he flushed him out. He bird-dogged that boy! Got a little dicey there at the end, but he got his man. And he is one happy convict now.”
I couldn’t believe it! If Jake was the bird dog, I was the bird. Jake had tricked me! Jake had betrayed me . . . for a reward!
“I reckon he’s happy enough,” Steve said.
“Oh yeah. I talked to the Major. Major knows how we do things in a joint like this. It ain’t against the law, but . . . Guess that’s what they mean by rehabilitation, eh boys?”
“Well, if you say so, Cap. I don’t like it much, but if you say so . . . But listen, some of us gotta little party scheduled, down at the Country Gentleman. You know, New Years Eve. So if you don’t mind, I guess we’ll be runnin along.”
“That’s OK, boys. We’ll let the rookies deal with the rest of it. I gotta get home by 6 o’clock, myself. You know the missus. She’s got some kinda plans.”
“Glad I’m not married.”
You better be glad. Might as well have your ass locked up in one a them cells every day of your fuckin life! I don’t recommend it. But that reminds me. We gotta get this boy fixed for the night. Just gimme his docs, there.”
Steve reached up to the desk and handed him a file of papers.
Jake . . . betrayed me . . . for a reward . . .
The Captain glanced at the file. Then he pushed it through an opening next to the door beside him. On the door, in black letters, was the word PROCESSING.
“All right, Rossetti,” he said. “We’re goin, but you get to stay. Next thing you hear will be the sound of a buzzer comin from that door on the right. You hear that buzzer, you march through that door. You hear?”
“Yes.”
The Captain scowled. “Hold on,” he said. “There’s somethin missin there, boy. Somethin that oughta come before and after. Around here, it’s Boss when you start to talk, and Boss when you stop talkin. That’s what you say, boy, whenever you open your mouth — IF you ever open your mouth. And you say it from now on. Try it again.”
Don’t let me cry, I thought. Please, don’t let me start crying. “Boss . . .” I stammered. “Boss . . . .Yes . . Boss.”
“Again.”
“Boss . . . Yes Boss.”
“Louder, boy.”
“Boss! Yes Boss!”
“Pretty good, boy. But just so’s you remember. . . . Steve, will you do the honors?”
“Sure thing, Cap.”
I felt Steve taking a step behind me. . . . then SWAT! Something hard and flat slammed into my butt. I lurched forward, but Andre held me up by one arm. SWAT! SWAT! SWAT! I was being spanked with a paddle! Now I had something to cry about. SWAT! SWAT! SWAT! The tears sprang out of my eyes. I tried to wipe them off, but I couldn’t. My hands were chained together, with the fucking briefcase still dangling off of them. All I could do was peer upward at the man behind the bench–a heavy, tall, black man with an impassive face, swimming heavily in and out of my tears. My butt was burning; the tears were coursing down my face. I didn’t think I could feel any worse shame than the shame I’d felt in the field that day. But now I knew that I could. There were much worse forms of shame.
“Say thank you, boy,” the Captain said.
“Th. . . I mean . . . “
”He needs a few more, Steve.”
“Glad to oblige.”
SWAT! SWAT! SWAT!
The tears leaped out again.
“Boss . . . Thank you, Boss!”
There was a part of me that was thinking, How can this be happening? You’re Jason Rossetti. You went to college. You’re an executive with Freer and Sons. You’re wearing nice clothes! And now these ignorant prison guards are calling you “boy” and making you thank them for spanking you! But the other part of me was thinking, Boss, please, Boss! Thank you, Boss! Don’t hit me again, Boss!
“That’s better, boy. Much better. Now git yo ass through that door when the buzzer sounds.”
“Boss! Yes Boss!”
I faced the door that said PROCESSING. The buzzer sounded. The door slid open. It must have been one of those “contemporary steel security doors” I’d read about, because it was as thick as your arm, yet it slid open as fast as the door on a rocket ship–slid open and banged into place at the end. I shuffled through the opening, and the door banged behind me.
To be continued …
Note: This story by Joshua Ryan appeared in the Cellblock Stories yahoo group, and it is posted here in the Metalbond Prison Library with the author’s permission. You can also see and read more from this author at the Prison Process Tumblr and Flickr pages, available here and here.
