Fic: Self Made Man (White Collar; Neal)
monanotlisa petitioned, and so I wrote. It's inspired as much by Deastar's Jack of Diamonds as by Jacques Audiard's Un prophete. Assumes everything up to the finale.
Neal, Kate, Peter. PG-13. What he does, it's a calling.
Was sagt dein Gewissen? - 'Du sollst der werden, der du bist.'
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Self Made Man
I
In '02, Neal Caffrey spends eight days in a Georgian penitentiary, consequent of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Among the petty cigarette thieves and professional murderers, he learns the value of preserving his anonymity, of being silent and nondescript. Before, prison was always just a possibility, not worth dwelling over. So for Neal - the whimsically jutting out nail in every bed of flattened planks - this is his first taste of the cage. The hammer that swings too hard, too fast, and too unpredictably for even him to give the slip to. If surviving means keeping his head down, like the six other human beings he is sharing this closet-sized space with, then that is what Neal will do.
Riots are common here; once he gets past the language barrier, it takes little enough to start one. Neal counts himself lucky to escape the chaos with only a few bruises, a loose tooth and what he suspects is a broken rib.
Under yet another alias, Neal checks into a suite at the Tbilisi Marriott. He rings Kate, who is by now frantic with worry, but does not join her for another three weeks. During that time, he visits the churches and the museums, takes walks in Freedom Square, wins thirty-five grand at a basketball game. On separate days, two rich widows and a teenage heiress propose to him in the hotel bar, and all the time Neal waits:
For the bruises to fade and vanish; for sleep, untroubled by the stink of faeces, and cigarettes stubbed out over sweat-coated flesh; for the tests to come back and tell him that he's fine, he's safe. He's not irreparably changed by this. A month later, even the nightmares will be gone.
II
No real criminal gets reformed in prison.
It's a calling: what they do. Once you get used to working outside the lines, making your own rules, you accept the risks. Might as well tell the painter not to paint, the Olympian to hang up his running shoes. Maybe you tread a little more carefully, look more often over your shoulder, but you find a way.
Take Neal for example. Neal knows hundreds of ex-cons, is friends with more than a few of them, and has worked with many more. He knows it's only a matter of time.
Not for the reason Peter thinks. Not because it's easy, a blast, a quick score. Sometimes it is - other times, it's hard, grueling, eye-straining work. It's ink and chemicals under your nails, days spent at the library, and learning to weave around the men with guns. Grace is vital; it separates him from the thugs.
If Neal knew how to compromise - to accept the world as it was described, to take the hand that he was dealt, as opposed to how he felt it should be - then he wouldn't be who he is. And there would be no need for men like Peter.
III
Back East, when he was a kid, it was his mother's piano, sitting dusty and untouched in the corner of the living room covered by a sheet, its lace corners turning yellow like tobacco-stained teeth. With Kate, it was the wine bottle. Symbol of concrete luxuries, the life they thought they wanted, but could never be satisfied with.
Neal has learned his lesson.
When it's time to disappear, to throw off his ball and chain, he'll leave June's guest room much more lavish than he found it, a cosy nest of books and trinkets and paintings that weren't there before. Clues up to the eyeballs, none of them saying anything useful.
He could take Byron's hat, and make June happy. Or write a note that will make Peter laugh:
Keep doing what you do best. Or something like that.
But he won't.
THE END
13 March 2010
What does your conscience say? - 'You should become the one you are.'
- Nietzsche in The Gay Science, after Pindar's second "Pythian Ode"
For details about conditions in Georgian prisons, I used information from this report from Human Rights Watch.