Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner

32

ON WEDNESDAY, THE FIFTH OF JANuary, Fred Stoon came for me in my cell just after eleven in the morning and escorted me once again to Warden Gadmore’s office. The warden was genial, and declared himself pleased at my development. “You’ve done very well, Kiint,” he said. Pronouncing my name right had become an absolute habit with him.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I want you to know I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

“You’re an interesting case,” he said. “I’ll be frank about that. You’re getting along with Andy Butler?”

“He’s a great man, sir,” I said.

“In the spring, if you want,” he told me, “I’ll transfer you out of the gym, make you Andy’s assistant in the garden out here.”

My stomach closed up like a day-blooming flower, but I knew better than to sound anything but delighted. “Thanks a lot, sir,” I said. “I’m sure that would be wonderful.”

“It’s almost like being outside the prison,” he said, turning to smile fondly at the garden, which was now, as the saying goes, covered with a mantle of white. A mantle of pale gray, actually, since the prison incinerator had not as yet been upgraded to match pollution-emission standards.

“I’m sure it’s-nice, sir,” I said. Damn that hesitation; I could only hope he hadn’t noticed it.

Apparently he hadn’t. Turning back to me, still with the genial smile on his face, he said, “But that’s for the spring. If you continue as well as you’re doing now, and I’m sure you will.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“For now, you’re back on your regular assignment at the gym.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“That’s all. Kiint,” he said. “Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and turned for the door.

Behind me, the warden said, gently, “And there won’t be any more of those notes, will there?”

ling. Turning back, I said, “Warden, honest, that isn’t me.”

“But there won’t be any more,” he suggested.

Sincerely, but with terror, I said, “I hope not, sir.”

“We both hope not, Kiint,” he said, and his smile-if this isn’t an absurd statement-had teeth in it.

“Yes, sir,” I said, and left. And walking back across the yard toward the gym, I chewed over these two new worries that I could add to the growing pile of them on my forehead. A promotion from the gym to the garden would just about finish me, wouldn't it? If I wasn’t finished first by the appearance of another of those goddammed ‘help’ messages. If they weren’t my doing, and they weren’t, then I couldn’t control their appearance or non-appearance. I had no way of knowing if or when another of the damn things would strike.

Biter bit. The practical joker is placed in a position where he can learn the trepidation and apprehension of the victim. Goody.

Ho, in one of the poems of his prison diary, says, “So life, you see, is never a very smooth business, And now the present bristles with difficulties.”

But it’s impossible to fret over difficulties forever, particularly when things are, at least for the moment, going right. I had completely forgotten my cares and woes by the time, four hours later, I entered Marian’s apartment, Marian’s bed and Marian, in that order; I wasn’t worried at all.

“I thought you might forget me,” Marian said, smirking.

“Ha ha,” I said.