Short Story #2 - "Conviction"
Here's another one I've had cooking in my head for a while. Enjoy!
In lj time (space), this one is a bit longer, so see for the story.
Conviction
I grip the metal handle and pull the door open. The blast of cold air hits me, and I blink a few times. I’ve gotten so used to the summer heat outside, the coolness is a relief. Absentmindedly, I walk through the other set of doors and into the lobby. I’m working the numbers in my head, making sure I remember how much money I’m supposed to be transferring from which account. Damn bills never end. All of a sudden, I realize the bank lobby isn’t hopping with people as I’d expected it to be. I look around. There aren’t any tellers at the windows, and the lights are dimmer than usual. What the…?
In a blur of motion, something flies at me and knocks me to the ground.
Next thing I know, I wake up on the green marble floor of the lobby, my ears are ringing, and my vision is a little fuzzy. What the HELL happened? I look around me for clues and catch my breath when I see two bodies lying facedown across the lobby from me. They’re in uniform, so I’m guessing they are (or were) security guards. My head is pounding. I reach up to feel the knot on my forehead… and realize I have a gun in my hand. How did THAT get there?!?
I drop the gun to the floor and hear it hit the stone sharply, heavy and dangerous. I feel my head again with my bare hand. It comes away with blood.
“Freeze!”
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The trial is a whirlwind of venom. No one in that courtroom, including, and maybe especially, my state-appointed attorney, believes I’m innocent. It doesn’t help matters that I can’t remember anything. All that matters is that two people were shot to death, and when the police arrived, I was the one with the gun. It turns out that the video surveillance of the building had been turned off, and there were no witnesses left alive. Apparently, the emergency security switch had been flipped and police had answered the call… too late.
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Months later, I can barely remember any of the actual facts myself. I remember the thing that knocked me down was not the same color as the security guards’ uniforms, but everyone has a hard time believing that when I can’t remember any other details. The fact that two murders occurred and that I seem otherwise “normal” means I’m to serve my time in prison, rather than a mental ward.
My cell is smaller than any bedroom I’ve ever lived or stayed in. I’m sharing it with “another” murderer. He says his name is “Jack,” but every other person in here seems to be named that. I’m lost. I’m scared. But I can’t show it. Weakness in here costs you. I don’t want to make that payment. So, I internalize it.
I am so afraid. I’ve never been tough. I’ve never been in any real fights, not even with my kid brother. The wrestling on the living room carpet that we did years ago is nothing compared with the evil I see in some of these men’s eyes. They want to cause pain just for the sake of it. They enjoy it.
I drive myself crazy trying to analyze what happened and figure out why the hell this has happened to me. I’m a good person. I pay my taxes. I do my job. Why did this happen to me? Why can’t our system figure out that I did nothing wrong? Why won’t they listen to me? Why won’t they believe me?
The worst part is the feeling of helplessness. They want you to feel helpless. It doesn’t matter whether you’re innocent or guilty - if you’re in here, you’re a prisoner. Rights are talked about as if they matter out there, but in here, you just try to survive. Nobody cares that you didn’t do what the system accused you of - if you’re in here, you’re guilty. Too many of these men claim to be innocent and aren’t, so they don’t take someone like me seriously.
There’s no such thing as the high road in here. If someone is beaten in front of you, you ignore it. You don’t get involved. You don’t get close. It’s better if you don’t cheer, but some do. And, you definitely don’t get the attention of the one doing the beating. There’s no such thing as pity or remorse or friendship. Every man for himself. I don’t let myself care about what’s happening to other people, fair or not. I can’t let myself care. I’m dead if I do.
So, I ignore everything except how to stay out of the thick of things. But, every day I fear for my life. Every day, I wonder if the bald man with the bushy mustache will find something I’ve said offensive. Every day, I pray the fat man who wheezes when he walks doesn’t notice me. And, I literally pray every night. I don’t know if it does any good.
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I wake up from nightmares where the building is on fire and I can’t get out. Some nights, I stretch all of my limbs as far as they will go to reassure myself that they can stretch out. I try to be thankful that I haven’t been imprisoned in some war camp where I can’t stand upright. But it’s hard to be thankful for anything in here.
I stare at the bars and struggle with claustrophobia. I’m trapped! I will never be free of this tiny space. The walls seem closer than before, and I can’t breathe. I can’t see the world. How do I know it still exists?
It’s so hard to maintain control when one of these bouts hits me. Escape! I need to escape! I need to get out of this box and back into the real world. There’s been a horrible misunderstanding. Help me! Please! Get me out of here! I’m no murderer!
But I know it will never happen. They think I’m guilty.
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There are 176 blocks lining our walls, with two of them split in half close to the ceiling on the outside wall for a tiny window, and two toward the floor for the toilet and one slightly to the right of that for a sink. The bunks are small enough that they don’t really block the counting much. The door has 13 bars, if you count the two on the sides, with the handle on the right. I’ve been counting these blocks and these bars for years now. There is no end in sight. I’m to be in this cell until I die. The system is going to pursue appeals until my chances run out, but I don’t think it’ll do any good.
So I sit. And walk outside when I’m given the chance. And quietly eat my food. I don’t start fights, but I don’t let myself look weak. Fights are punished, but weakness is punished worse.
I’ve gotten used to the fear. When it hits me, I tell myself that I can live through anything. If I get pounded a few times, it’ll hurt and I’ll hate it, but I’ll probably live. Don’t complain and don’t cry. Those are the only rules.
The claustrophobia is harder. When I start feeling the panic, I escape in my mind. I hardly remember my old world outside, but I try to think of places I’ve been that were wide open. Baseball games are my favorite memories to use in these moments. Sitting in the second tier about halfway between home and first base, the smell of newly-mown grass and cheap beer, the taste of a chili dog. I try to remember the taste of beer. Of mustard. On a particularly windy day on the field, I can remember feeling the air in my hair and cooling me through my t-shirt. It seems in my mind that there was always wind. I miss wind. I miss being able to see the horizon. I haven’t seen the sun set in a really long time. I try to remember the colors. My world now doesn’t have much color. Even the food is a mushy gray or brown. I usually don’t recognize the slop I’m eating, and I don’t try to identify it.
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My hair has grown, and I no longer try to control my beard. The appeals courts are done. I’ve started to understand the rhythm of this prison that is now my home. I don’t like it, but I understand it. There are inmates whose eyes you never meet, and those who don’t meet anybody’s. You want to avoid the latter just as much as the former. Don’t be friends with anyone weak. That’s just as bad as being weak. There are men in here who don’t speak and some who speak way too much. They’ll learn. I keep my mouth shut.
Prison doesn’t lend itself to intellectual pastimes, so I’ve been making myself do math problems in my head and trying to remember verses from poems or lines from movies. I don’t want to be dehumanized. I don’t want to become an animal like so many in here have. Surely I’m worth more than that?
Lights out brings crying and screaming… and snoring. I’ve given up on sleeping. I lie still and try to imagine the rest of the night sky that I can see a tiny peek of through our pathetic window. I remember things like the moon and stars, but haven’t seen them in a long time. The angle of our window only gives us glimpses of lightness and darkness of the outside world.
I’ve created mazes along the lines of grout on the wall, trying to make the paths impassable. I’ve inspected every cut and chip in those blocks, tried to imagine what might have caused them. I’m sure I don’t want to know.
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I didn’t have anyone when I was outside so it shouldn’t surprise me that I never get any visitors. I’ve been forgotten by the world. I try not to let that bother me, but it does. I’ve given up any hope of any life but this one. I will live to be an old man in this tiny rectangle. My cellmate’s quite a bit older than me, so I may have a change there, but I don’t care. I’ll deal with it, if it happens.
That’s my attitude about most things now. Whatever comes, I’ll deal with it. I’m not sure why I’m determined to live. I’m just going to be here. Living won’t change the mind of the courts. The courts were done with me long ago. They don’t care. Nobody does. Sometimes I do.
I think all the time about the purpose of prison. If anything, the inmates become more violent, rather than less. The least amount of money possible is spent to keep us alive, and lots is spent to keep us in here. Why? Is it just to keep us from doing what they thought we did again? Maybe for some that actually does some good, but I’m guessing it’s just a time issue. The courts and the system are just preventing them from doing whatever they do for the amount of months or years that they’re in here. Does that really do any good? Put a murderer in a tiny room that he hates, put him with other aggressive people that may or may not have committed the crimes to get them there, then let them get stronger, and meaner, and more desperate. That really doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. I know how dangerous some of these men are.
I know a lot of the impetus for the severity of my sentence was because the men killed were law enforcement men. They weren’t technically police, but might as well have been. There was no pity in that courtroom for a cop-killer.
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I haven’t kept track of time very well. Movies have men in prison counting the days or years, but I honestly don’t care. Why measure something that has no meaning? What would I hope to gain from doing that? Instead, I try to keep my mind occupied. I’m probably smarter now than when I was outside. I’ve learned patience and a sort of meditative way of existing. I let myself think about things for a long time. Thinking is the only thing that keeps me sane. I have no other purpose.
I’ve argued with myself over whether taking away my interaction with the world makes my existence irrelevant. Why do I exist? I’m not making anyone happy. I’m not preventing anyone pain or improving anyone’s livelihood, definitely not mine. I’m not raising any children or building anything or maintaining anything, except my life. I can’t decide if all of that means my life is worthless now. It’s worth something to me, or I wouldn’t work so hard to accept where I am so that I will continue living. But why? What am I getting out of it? I try not to go down that road too often. Knowing I’m worthless and thinking about it on purpose are two different things. I don’t want to think about suicide. Besides the fact that it hardly ever works in here, part of me hangs on.
So, I think. I think about stories and lessons I can remember from the Bible, even while arguing with myself over whether there is a God. I think about math a lot, since it’s the one thing I can work out without any reference materials. I think I’m better now at complicated arithmetic than I ever was outside. Surely that has some value?
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They tell me I’ve been in here for 32 years. It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like one and it feels like a 100. They also tell me that since all legal avenues have run out for me, they are going to terminate my life. I’m to be executed. For nothing. There is the value of a life. An unplugged surveillance camera has cost me my life.
I have two months to prepare myself. I don’t have any secret hopes of the governor calling to cancel my execution. I don’t have anything really. Maybe that makes it easier? I have nothing to lose. I’ve explored everything I can while closed in my cell. Maybe it’s time for me to move on. There’s certainly nobody else that’s going to care. I only sort of do.
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Tomorrow is the day. They’ve put me in a separate cell to wait. I don’t even get to say goodbye to the hovel I’ve been living in for over a quarter of a century. They shaved me and gave me a new set of clothes. I suppose they think that’s adding a bit of dignity to an undignified moment. Do they think I don’t know that I’m going to lose control of all of my bodily functions?
My new room has even simpler features than my other one. No moving parts, no chains holding the bed in place, not even any bolts. The bed is a welded thing with sheets attached, supposedly so I won’t use them to hang myself. If I haven’t killed myself up to this point, why do they think I would do it now?
I ignore the idiocy around me and try to stay calm. I’ve lied to myself that this wasn’t a big deal. I am scared. A part of me that has never left doesn’t want to die. Surely there’s some reason for me to live? Surely someone out there needs me for something? But no. And, I have to accept that now. No hope. There is a tomorrow, but there won’t be again.
I don’t sleep. I just breathe, counting the blocks. There are only 144 here. And no window. I miss the sun.
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Today is the day. I must’ve nodded off at some point because I find myself waking up to sounds outside my cell’s hallway. I know they’re coming for me for the last time. Two guards enter after a third opens the door. A fourth waits outside the cell to lead me to the “injection room,” as some of the inmates call it. I only sort of know what to expect.
Apparently, the victims’ families have chosen not to observe, as there’s no one in the room or the viewing area but a few people in white coats next to a hospital bed and two more guards. Since when did I become dangerous enough to warrant six guards?
I find myself noticing little things, trying not to think of the one big thing. The doctors are already latex-gloved, and I notice one has a raised area at the base of his left ring finger. How does someone go home the night of a day like this and deal with a family? I don’t think I could ever kill anybody for a living. Which is ironic, considering what I’m being executed for.
There are tons of cables and hoses flowing over machinery next to the hospital bed, some connected to the bed, some running to another area of the room.
I see the needles on the sterile table. That is what is going to kill me. Not a heart attack at an old age. Not a drunk driver. The liquid in those needles will end my life. My heartbeat speeds up a little, and I can hear it loud in my head. I’m panicking, and I don’t want to panic. They’re going to KILL me! Why the hell are they going to KILL me? I didn’t do it! But, there’s no use saying any of that out loud now. I try to prevent myself from tearing up, but I can’t stop it. My hands are behind my back, so I can’t wipe them away. That makes me angry. I let the anger go. It won’t do me any good. Not now. They didn’t listen before. They won’t now.
The guards have had to push me towards the bed. I really don’t want to get up there. I don’t want to die. But I’m going to. The realization that I have no choice finally takes over, and I force myself to relax. The only thing I can control is my attitude going into it. I breathe in deeply as they’re strapping me in. I try to concentrate on the baseball field. The green and brown and white. Ow! I feel the pinch of the IV needle going in. Shit.
Green. And, brown, and white. The pitcher going through his ritual motions before he throws the ball, scratching his nose, wiping his upper lip, turning the ball over a few times in his palm.
“Any last words?” I look at the doctor and mutely shake my head. Nothing to say.
Concentrate! Green. And, brown, and white. The taste of a chili dog. With mustard.
Then, it’s as if a metal pipe has been driven into my vein. Pressure, hard and deep and agonizing. And, then… nothing.
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I suddenly look down at the glass door where my hand is on the metal handle and see the open hours of the bank listed in gold etching. Shit. They’re closed today. Damn. I let go of the handle and walk away