4-1-1: Where Are Our Children (A Serial Novel) Episode 1 of 9

by Gary Sapp

floor. Many of them stare up at him as hope for all their very survival dwindles. You were supposed to serve us; their gazes appear to say and burn hot as fire. You were supposed to protect us; their looks beg to say and run cold as ice.

  “Do what you must,” Quincy Morgan’s voice falters as he passes nearly out of audible range and at last Chris can no longer see him. “I am unafraid to die. That makes me the most dangerous man in the world.”

  That is where you are mistaken, Chris thought, removing his shirt and pants, flinging them angrily into the growing mound on the floor.

  He knew that Thomas Pepper, a noted journalist and blogger had christened another with that designation in his last book.

  The most dangerous man in the entire world is my brother, Xavier Prince.

  Xavier

  Xavier heard a platoon of correctional officers angling down the cold corridors, coming for him at last.

  They came for him while he inhaled the last of his Newport, and thumbed through the last chapter of a biography about his father, Isaac Prince, the founder of A House in Chains.

  By the sounds echoing down the hall, they came for him in force, so Xavier shelved his book in alphabetical order next to the dozens of others in his cell, exhaled the smoke in one long, blue stream and began undressing. He had an odd sense of déjà vu but couldn’t explain the sensation to himself. He was tugging at his boxers with only his chill bumps to warm him when he heard the master key twisting in the lock allowing his visitors inside.

  Xavier showed him his back and spread his arms against the nearest brick wall in preparation to be frisked, his tell tossed. In whatever manner this frisking or tossing was carried to completion was entirely up to the guards. Four inmates had died in recent months under suspicious circumstances here at Calhoun State Prison and Xavier Prince had no wish to add his name to that list.

  “Good morning,” Xavier said, his head locked in the forward position.

  No one returned his greeting, once again. Instead, he heard a woman’s voice with a throaty tone and carrying an enormous shadow instructs her cohorts to toss his cell and pat him down for weapons. He nearly broke his own protocol in an attempt to match the husky voice to a face; women were not uncommon at Calhoun, but to see woman with her sheer size would have been an unexpected treat before breakfast.

  One of the guards asked what the need in patting him down was. He was standing in his birthday suit for Christ sake. Xavier kept his eyes trained forward throughout the entire process, but his curiosity made this unusually difficult. The woman stranger asked for his permission to do the deed herself and when he nodded his approval, she did began to feel around his crotch, while one of the other guards went through his belongings scattered around the cell.

  “Turn around, Prince.” She commanded after she stepped back to an adequate distance. “My name if Officer Rose Dixon. The new warden, Donald Bright, is expecting to see you in his office in his office immediately.

  Rose Dixon:

  She was at least 6’4” tall. She was thick of neck, triceps and calves and despite a pleasant enough face and a dirty blonde ponytail, Xavier guessed she was often mistaken for a man.

  She was a magnificent specimen; he stood there stamped to this spot as naked as the day he was born and couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

  “Warden Bright?” He’d asked after a moment of composing himself.

  Officer Dixon shifted her weight in impatience. “In the past 36 hours, Warden Bright received his orders from the State of Georgia, to govern this prison and all the populace that reside inside its walls.” She said in a deep voice. “Warden Fain has been reassigned.” She cut her brown eyes at him. “Reading your file, I’m sure you’re already familiar with the change in power.”

  Reassigned or have you gotten yourself fired, Farris, Xavier wondered. She was correct in the assumption that he was privy to the information that she’d shared with him. Yet, The State of Georgia moved Warden Fain out of Calhoun faster than even I thought possible. Good. They’d probably spared themselves thousands of dollars in covering the brute’s funeral sources if he stayed at Calhoun much longer.

  Officer Dixon’s dark tone grew sardonic. “If you don’t have any more questions, Inmate Prince, you should get your clothes on. I don’t like to keep the warden waiting.”

  “Then let’s go.” Xavier said.

  An entourage of eight more guards had been waiting outside the cell and received the four people who stepped into the cold, dark, corridor. Xavier matched their pace…until he halted his progress and squatted to speak to an old jailbird who was camped on the floor of his cell. The old man was rumored to be 90 years old and had been in The Georgia Correctional System for over 70 years now. He was blind and nearly deaf and grunted and squealed more than he talked these days. Xavier gave the man a wide smile, “When I return from my visit with the new warden, I want you to tell me another story of your escapades when you ransacked Valdosta when you were a teenager.”

  The old man leaned closer, not hearing Xavier, the younger man repeated himself and the old man let out a laugh that would lift the spirits in a graveyard. He said something to Xavier unfathomable, grunted, and laughed again.

  Xavier Prince rose to his feet, waved his hand at the old timer and fell in step with his escorts.

  Xavier Prince never could say goodbye.

  Warden Donald Bright:

  He was a well-built man who had high cheek bones, straight teeth, and blonde hair that screamed to strangers that he could have been a successful salesman or second tier Hollywood actor if he had wanted, instead of being a simple prison warden.

  He was completing some forms, writing with his left hand when Xavier, Rose Dixon, and two of the guards entered his office, the final guard closing the door behind him without being told. Xavier took a familiar spot in front of the warden’s desk. The office was rectangle shaped, with cracks lacing the walls and floors. There were boxes scattered everywhere. Warden Bright hadn’t had the chance to unpack his belongings yet.

  Xavier waited.

  After ten minutes, Warden Bright tossed his pen aside, dismissed the remaining two guards with a Louisianan accent, while Rose Dixon took a few giants paces forward and secured herself at the warden’s right side. Another minute passed…and finally the younger man acknowledged Xavier’s presence.

  “Somehow, I expected you to be taller.” Warden Donald Bright said. “Sit down, Prince.” Warden Bright waved the back of his right hand towards where Rose Dixon was standing. “I’m sure Rose—I mean Officer Dixon—introduced herself to you already. We must follow those mandated protocols mustn’t we, Rose?”

  “Yes, sir,” The large woman actually smiled.

  “We’ve served The Georgia State Correctional System together for what…Rose, nearly ten years now haven’t we?”

  “Actually 12, sir,” Xavier acknowledged a color in her otherwise pale face and a gleam in Rose’s dull brown eyes that hadn’t existed when she extracted him from his cell. This was more than a working relationship…in her mind at the least.

  “My, my, my,” Warden Bright flashed a million dollar smile at her. She melted. “How time flies when you are having fun.”

  Xavier needed a cigarette. He crossed his legs and sat back in his chair instead. “You have your own private shield, Warden, how convenient?”

  Warden Bright didn’t waste further time denying the obvious. “Rose here has helped me out of some tight spots.”

  Rose face shifted back to its normal mode as she folds her arms, eyeing Xavier Prince the entire time. Alright, I get it, you are prepared to defend him against in threat I may pose. If he weren’t scheduled to be released over the next day or two he might…just might…find this new relationship between the three of them interesting. “Why am I here, Warden?” Xavier asked into the room’s silence.

  “You are direct, Prince. I can appreciate that, so I won’t delay the inevitable any longer: My predecessor’s formal inquiry concluded that the death by b
eheading of inmate Michael Davenport and three prison guards could not have been carried out alone by the other two inmates who also perished that day.” He said, looking from one page of the report to another. “You know, I don’t believe it either. At least one, if not two other men were on that floor when this all went down. And somehow the weapon used to cut Davenport’s head off has yet to be found.”

  Xavier and Julian Moore sprinted back to their cells while the two bigger men stayed behind and bought them time, dealing with the mass of humanity exiting the mess hall after lunch after Xavier failed to get Intel from Davenport. Xavier wasn’t a praying man, but had stopped by the chapel every day since to pay his respects to all of the men who lost their lives that afternoon.

  “How does any of this connect to me?”

  Warden Bright slid two black and white photos from his stash of papers over to the other side of desk where Xavier could reach them. Xavier felt his pulse quicken. So he reached, ever slowly for a toothpick from a bottle, stuck it in his mouth, since having a cigarette would be impossible right now and studied the photographs.

  Warden Bright was saying, “I find it…interesting…that both of the dead black inmates at the scene wore the mark on their necks, a mark terribly similar to the one tattooed on the side of your neck. Help me out here, Prince; the tattoo is of a chain for A House in Chains? Or am I off track