Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner

28

THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN solitude and solitary. I had solitude in my one-man cell in the regular cell-block, and I was happy for it. But now I was solitary in a different one-man cell, and it didn’t make me happy at all. I had nothing to read, nothing to look at but the concrete block walls, nothing to do but sit on the hard metal bunk and think about the errors of my past life. Particularly my recent past life. Particularly on that goddam roof.

What would they do to me now? Warden Gadmore had said, in our initial meeting, that he was going out of his way to give me privileges rarely extended to a newcomer.

Would those privileges be taken away, now that I had yelled at the man on the roof of his own administration building? Would I no longer have a job at the gym? Had my stupidity, my big mouth, taken the gym and the tunnel and Marian and all the rest of it away forever?

I was kept in solitary over the weekend, and when I was taken out on Monday it was only long enough for a meeting with the prison psychiatrist, Dr. Jules O. Steiner, a seedily-dressed man with five o’clock shadow and shoulders covered with dandruff. He didn’t seem particularly competent or intelligent or sympathetic, but he was the only contact I had with the world of authority, so I opened up to him completely about my name and the practical jokes, the connection between the two, and their regrettable conclusion in my outburst on the roof. He listened, asked a few questions, made a few notes, gave very little reaction, and at the end of the hour I was taken back to solitary for two more days.

On Wednesday afternoon I was again taken out-I was like a pie being constantly pulled out of the oven by a nervous cook-this time by Stoon, who once more marched me to the administration building. But not to the roof; we went directly to the warden’s office, where I found Warden Gadmore himself in his usual place behind his desk, reading a dossier on me that had grown noticeably thicker since the first time I’d seen it.

“Warden,” I said, before he said anything at all. “I want to apologize for my-”

“That’s all right, Kiint,” he said. He pronounced it right! "Without irony, without malice, without prompting, he pronounced it right. With the umlaut. And when he looked up at me I saw that he was sympathetic once again. “I’ve just been reading Doctor Steiner’s report,” he said. “I think I understand you better now, Kiint.” Twice!

“Yes, sir,” I said. Did I dare to hope?

He lowered his head, showed me his pancake, studied the report. “I see here,” he said, “you still deny you had anything to do with that business on the roof/’

“The message? That’s right, sir, I didn’t do that.”

“I also have a report,” he said, tapping another sheet of paper, “that says you were locked in the gymnasium all that night.”

“Yes, sir,” I said eagerly. Stoon was an awful presence behind me, but I surged forward anyway. “I was in there all night long,” I said.

“At least we can’t prove otherwise.” Bunk bunk; he was thinking again, drumming his fingertips on my dossier. “I notice,” he said, “you do admit several other antisocial actions since arriving here.”

“I’ve stopped all those now, sir,” I said. “It-it took a while to quit. But I’m through with it now.”

“Yes. Hmmm.” Bunk bunk.

Was I off? Was I scot free? I found I was leaning toward the warden so precipitously I was about to fall forward onto his desk. No no; that would never do. I leaned back, shifted my feet, waited.

Bunk bunk.

He sighed. He did his squinting act up at me, reading my face. “I wish I knew,” he said, “why you persist in denying this one thing.”

“Because I really didn’t do it, sir,” I said. “I really didn’t do it. I’d tell you if I did.”

“It may be,” he said, “against all the evidence, it just may be that you are telling the truth.”

Hope, a wide-winged bird, soared up within me, over the mountain peaks of doubt and despair.

“But-”

The bird faltered. A few feathers fluttered away earthward. Is that anti-aircraft fire up ahead?

“-I’m still not entirely convinced,” the warden said. “There’s also the matter of your outburst the other morning.”

“Sir, I am truly-”

“Yes, I’m sure you are. And I do have more understanding on that score, now that you’ve had your little chat with Doctor Steiner.”

“Yes, sir.”

“However, it did happen.” Bunk bunk. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Kiint.”

I hardly noticed the proper pronunciation. I was leaning forward again. “Sir?”

“I see you don’t have a cellmate,” he said. “I’m going to put a man in there with you that I hope will be a good example to you. His name is Butler, and-”

I said, “Andy Butler, sir?” I gestured toward the garden outside his window, now sleeping beneath its white blanket of snow. “The gardener?”

“That’s right,” he said. “You know him?”

“My former cellmate,” I said, “Peter Corse, introduced me.”

“Fine,” he said. “Andy Butler has been in this institution a good long time. He knows the ins and outs of life around here better than just about any other man in the place. You listen to him, watch him, emulate him, and you’ll be a lot better off, Kiint, believe me.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Thank you, sir.” A cellmate, that wasn’t so bad. Andy Butler, he was a nice old guy, he wouldn’t be any trouble at all.

“In order,” the warden went on, and I knew at once that the bird of hope had flown too soon, that a new cellmate wasn’t the worst news of the day after all, “for you to begin right away to get the advantage of Butler’s companionship, I’ve decided to take you off privileges for the next two weeks. That means you won’t be working in the gymnasium, nor will you have the unlimited yard privileges that accompany a work assignment.”

Two weeks. Christmas and New Year’s. (It was only later that it occurred to me even this cloud had a silver lining: the two weeks would take me safely past the rescheduled bank robbery.) Two weeks away from Marian, away from the entire outside world.

All right, so what? Two weeks wasn’t forever. I could survive. “Yes, sir,” I said. Then, struck by an awful thought, I said, “Sir, when the two weeks are up, will I be going back to the gym?”

“We’ll decide that at the time,” he said.

The bird dropped down dead, and when it landed in the pit of my stomach it was heavy and cold. “Yes, sir,” I said.

“All right, Kiint,” the warden said. “That’s all.” He started to toss the dossier in his out-basket.

“Sir!” I said, feeling sudden urgency.

He paused, the dossier in his hand, and looked at me with faint irritation. “Yes?”

“Sir, I-” I tried to organize the words to get this point across. “There’s some people in this prison,” I said, “that I pulled tricks on, when I first came here, that if they found out it was me, sir, I don’t know what they’d do.”

“You should have thought of that at the time,” he said. No sympathy on this point at all.

“I was still under the compulsion then, sir,” I said. “I’m not any more, I’m cured, as you’ll definitely see. But if those other convicts, sir, if they find out about me, about what I did, there’s some of them that might even go so far as to kill me.”

I’d caught his attention. He put the dossier down, not in the out-basket. “Hmmmm,” he said.

I said, “Sir, if we could not mention what I’m being punished for, I mean the message on the roof, I promise you won’t regret it.”

He squinted at me. “What are you suggesting?”

“The reason for the punishment, sir,” I said. “If we just made it insubordination, without the other thing, that I anyway didn’t even do, but if we could leave it out, and ...” I ran down, my argument exhausted.

“I see.” He thought about it, so deeply that he didn’t even go bunk-bunk. Then, decisively, he nodded. “It’s a valid request,” he said. “If you’ve stopped the practical jokes.”

“Oh, I have, sir!”

“Then we won’t mention any of that,” he said. “At least for the next two weeks.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Uh-”

“Yes? What else?”

I wasn’t sure how much he knew about the trusty subculture. I said, “Sir, that would also mean the trusties, any prisoners working in your office, or-”

“I understood that, Kiint,” he said, and gave me a surprisingly flinty smile. “I really do know what goes on in my prison,” he said.

Well, yes and no, I thought. “Thank you, sir,” I said.