by Jack Finney
A string of men passed the cell door, some naked except for shoes, some wearing shorts, each carrying a towel. This was also the bath hour for a part of the cell block; once a week, I knew, each man in the block had five minutes under one of the open showers in one corner of the main floor; and once a week, clean clothes.
Hours later I awakened suddenly, the cell dark. Only at the front by the bars was there a weak illumination from the ceiling lights of the cell block far overhead, A sound, close at hand and startling, had awakened me; I lay confused, unable to recall what it had been.
Then I heard it again and sat up, astounded, pulling the now silent earphones off. A cat had meowed, and now it meowed again. I turned to stare at the cell door, and there it was, incredibly, a big tortoise-shell cat, in the dim light of the walkway, sitting on its haunches staring in at the cell.
"Psst!" The sibilant sound came from the bunk overhead, then Al's bare legs swung into view, sliding down off his bunk. "Here, kitty!" Al said, dropping to the floor, and then stooping at the waist, he stepped slowly forward to the door, one hand extended. The cat's neck stretched forward, nose working as it sniffed, then its hind legs rose, and it jumped through the bars into the cell, teeth opening daintily to accept the fragment of food from Al's hand. Watching, I saw Al's wooden face break into a genuine and gentle smile of pleasure; and I watched him reach up to his bunk for another scrap of whatever food he had carried in from the mess hall. Again he fed the cat, then he squatted beside it, stroking the cat's fur, scratching its skull behind the ears. For a moment the cat accepted this, moving its head pleasurably, then it stepped forward out from under Al's caressing, and its pink mouth opened in a meow for more food. Again Al stroked the cat, but the animal apparently knowing that there was no more to eat here, turned, hopped out between the bars, and trotted down the walkway; then I heard it again, several cells away, meowing at another barred door. Al put his palms on the upper bunk, heaved with his arms, and his legs disappeared from before my face, and I heard him sigh as he settled down above me.
I put the earphones on the side of the bunk against the wall, then lay for a few minutes, feeling sleep come over me again. Turning my head, I glanced at the front of the cell and its silhouetted bars and settled down in my bunk, warm and comfortable.
Then, almost asleep, I felt a surge of astonishment move through my mind. Here I was, it suddenly occurred to me — Ben Jarvis, of 175 Loming Court, Mill Valley, California, lying in a bunk of cell 1042, East cell block, San Quentin Prison — and no questions asked. I was provided with a bed, had been given my supper, and would be fed again at breakfast. I might even — the knowledge astonished me — stay here for the entire remaining years of Arnie's sentence; and unless someone decided to check my fingerprints which was unlikely, no one here need ever know the difference. And then, for the first time since Arnie's conviction, I truly understood how utterly anonymous and depersonalized a man became when he entered this place. No one even needed to know him. I was nothing now, I understood, but a pair of blue-denim pants and blue shirt among four thousand others, with a card in one pocket bearing a number and name to distinguish me on the occasions when that was necessary. It actually didn't matter who I was; an Arnold Jarvis, it was recorded somewhere, had been brought here to be held until the prison was told to release him. And as long as a man regularly occupied the places Arnold Jarvis was supposed to be in — San Quentin would be satisfied. Around me now, if I listened for it, I could hear the breathing and occasional murmurs of hundreds of other men sleeping or lying here, like me, in identical white jerseys and shorts, in identical beds in hundreds of identical cells. And joined to this cell block and to each other, end to end, to form an almost complete square, were three more virtually identical cell blocks filled with thousands more almost anonymous men.
It wasn't quite true; I knew that from Arnie. The handful of men who ran this great prison earnestly tried to be more than simple custodians. This was a prison of classrooms; grown men had learned to read and write here: men completed grammar and high-school educations; others learned trades, and even professions. They played music, they saw movies, read books, they worked, and they played; they were given help in the task of trying to retain their humanity from one side of their imprisonment to the other. The warden of this prison and the men around him at this particular moment in the prison's history, Arnie claimed, did their imaginative and resourceful best for the men California required them to confine. But among four thousand men that best was spread thin. However many hours of each day the Warden, the psychiatrists, the chaplains, might work in this incredibly crowded prison, there was very little they could do for men as individuals. The walls and bars of the cell in which I lay were painted in rather pleasantly contrasting shades of tan and brown; it was as pleasant as the Warden of San Quentin could make it; it was the best he could do for the men who lived in it. But nevertheless it was a cell measuring five-five by seven feet, and seven feet high; and two men had to live in it; two men confined together, their only home, in a space no larger than many closets. These were four thousand half anonymous men, almost stripped of identity, almost indistinguishable to the men and the state and the people who had confined them; and the proof of that, I knew, was the simple fact that I was here.
The thought flared up in my mind like a rocket, and burst; there was nothing to stop Arnie from escaping tonight — leaving me here where I was! The industrial-area walls unguarded, he could climb over as I had, with the hook and rope I had brought him, and — I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists, driving the obscene thought from my mind. I had no right, even in imagination, to accuse Arnie like this, no reason to even think it — it was indecent! But it was night; I was locked in a cell of an enormous prison among hundreds of sleeping inmates; and my mind couldn't stop its own treachery. Arnie would never have a better chance; and he'd be escaping not prison but the gas chamber; a man might justify himself that way! I, at least, would be left only to prison, not death. Suppose, at this moment, Arnie were long since over the wall and on a bus, a train, a plane — I'd brought a hundred and fifty dollars in with me for Arnie, in my pack; he'd asked me to. Why did he want it? Maybe all along his real plan had been — By an act of will I made myself stop. He was doing no such thing; the thought would never even enter his mind; I said this to myself and believed it.
But I lay there, understanding how utterly dependent I was on Arnie now, and almost hating him for it. He had my life in his hands through no fault of my own, through his fault instead; and I didn't care for the feeling. I hated the situation I was in — raising an arm over my head, I could feel the bars that locked me in here — and I almost hated the brother who could bring about a situation that could cause me to think the thoughts I had about him. I was no longer worried; I didn't believe the momentary nightmare I'd had; but I didn't like myself for what I'd thought, and I told myself that Arnie deserved better than this from me. I told myself that; then I said silently, Damn him, damn him to hell, lying there on the cot, in San Quentin Prison.
11
Standing in the little aisle inside the pile of stacked crates next to the furniture factory, I stood waiting, a cigarette cupped in my palm, wondering how Ben was getting along. He'd be doing okay, I thought; no reason he shouldn't. Then I smiled a little; I didn't think he'd get much sleep. A great cell block at night — dark, strange, and quiet, but never silent, with hundreds of men breathing, muttering, and occasionally crying out — is a weird place, unlike any other. On his first night, no one sleeps much, and more than one grown man has cried into his pillow. This would be an experience for Ben, probably the greatest experience and adventure of his life. He wouldn't be liking it, I thought. But hell, he'd have one night of it; I'd had hundreds.
I raised my watch and looked at it in the glow from my cigarette end. It was just before midnight, but I waited a little longer; I wanted the place fully quieted down before I moved. I could picture San Quentin right now; the great Yard, lighted b
y electric bulbs, silent and empty; the classrooms, offices, most of the other buildings, and the athletic fields all deserted. The Yard office, just outside the Yard gates, would be lighted, two or three screws sitting around doing nothing much: the best thing they do. The control room would be lighted, the inmate clerk the only guy working; maybe the lieutenant of this watch was shooting the bull with his sergeant. The third watch was nearly over, and they'd be hoping, as always, that nothing would happen beyond ordinary routine during the rest of their watch to prevent their going home. For once I hoped so, too.
In the blocks, the screws would be lounging around in their huts, talking, reading, killing time; for the next few hours this was the quiet time at Quentin; all classes, band practice, movies, and everything else over now, the men all in, locked up and accounted for, with the next count more than two hours off. Up on the walls in their towers, the wall bulls would be sitting looking out over the prison, smoking sometimes, walking out occasionally, rifles under their arms, to patrol the walls.
But not here. All around me the industrial area was silent, the south wall gate long since locked, the factories and shops emptied of men, and all accounted for in their blocks except for the single fire guard in each building here, dozing, reading a magazine, or listening to some disc jockey. So now the walls were unmanned. They were not only supposed to be, but they were; standing just inside the stacked crates, I'd watched the north wall for a steady half hour, and no one was up there. Twenty minutes ago, the big third-watch sergeant had been through here with his flashlight. I didn't think anyone would be back again tonight.
It was after twelve now, the first watch should be on duty, and it was time to move. I stepped out from the crates. In my hand as I walked along beside the west side of the furniture factory past the crates, was a yard-long miniature spade — a surplus Army trenching tool Ben had carried in in his canvas pack, which was still in the crate.
I began digging in the narrow rectangle of bare ground between the north end of the furniture factory and the great wall which paralleled it a dozen feet farther north, the wall Ben had climbed over. I worked in the corner formed by the north and east walls of the industrial area, directly below the underside of the floor of the corner wall tower. The tower was wider by some feet than the narrow wall it sat on and projected out over me by a yard or more.
I worked quietly, taking care never to strike the concrete wall beside me with the metal edge of my spade; but I didn't worry about the soft crunch of the shovel as it bit into the dry sandy soil; I could see anyone who could possibly approach me before they could hear me. I stood with my back in the corner formed by the north and east walls, and I could see down the entire length of the narrow space between the north wall and the backs of the four factory buildings, a distance of maybe a quarter mile and well lighted by the wall lights. And I could see, as I dug, the entire length of the other narrow space between the east wall and the side of the furniture factory. I couldn't be approached from any other way. Anyone approaching would see me, too, but I didn't believe anyone would come prowling around back here; there was no reason to; there was nothing to check back here. But if anyone did, there was nothing I could do about it; meanwhile I had a lot to do, and I got on with it.
The digging itself was easy enough, and I worked steadily and methodically; but the long narrow hole grew slowly. For, though the spade was new and sharp and the soil easy to push into, I had to carry each spadeful away from the trench, at ever-increasing distances, and scatter it wide.
I worked for well over two hours, never stopping, at a steady even rate; my hands, calloused from the heavy wood and the tools I handled each day in the furniture factory, accepted the work easily. Just before two in the morning I glanced at my wrist watch and stopped; I had dug a neat rectangle more than six feet long, slightly over a yard wide, and about two feet deep. Quietly, then, keeping to the walls of the factory, I returned to my crates, taking my spade along. For fifteen minutes or so now, the prison would stir into life a little, and this was a good time to rest. Crouched among the crates, I lighted a cigarette, and sat smoking it. For the next little while, till I knew the two-o'clock count was finished and all clear, I was staying where I was. If tonight of all nights, a man were found missing at count, I'd know it soon. The prison would rouse into sudden life, the industrial and every other area alive with prowling guards, and I didn't want to be found standing in it, a shovel in my hands. The other man might be found first, and I'd still have a chance.
I waited fifteen more minutes, and then, the prison still quiet, the green light still on, I walked back to my trench. Stepping up the pace of the work a little, I was finished by three o'clock and the trench was over three feet deep. Most of this final foot-deep layer of earth I didn't scatter, but left piled along the back edge of the trench. Now I put down my spade and walked around the factory to a side window I'd left unlocked myself late this afternoon. It was a steel-framed window with hinges on the sides which I'd oiled yesterday. I pushed it open a foot, waited, then pushed it open a little more, and stood listening. There wasn't a sound, and I heaved myself up, hands on the window ledge, and looked in. There were a few overhead lights burning, but mostly the place was dark. Way up in front, the office lights were on, and now I heaved up a little more and sat on the window ledge.
Some three or four minutes later, the inmate on fire watch moved his head in the chair he was sitting in, and I spotted him. I took off my shoes and dropped them to the ground; then I climbed into the factory. I was careful not to actually bump into anything, but outside of that I didn't worry about his hearing me in my stocking feet; it's a big factory, and he was a long way off.
I walked a dozen yards through the silent building to a stack of eight-foot plywood sheets, upended and leaning against a wall. Now I was very careful about noise; I lifted aside the topmost sheet of wood, and set it down against the wall, very slowly, till I felt the end touch the floor. Under that top sheet I'd left a smaller sheet of plywood. Yesterday, working quite openly, I'd sawed it to size with a hand saw — several inches over four feet long, a few inches more than a yard wide. Then I'd sawed another two-foot board the same width, and bored a half-dollar sized hole in its center. Now I carried these to a side door, then went back and replaced the top sheet of plywood. Back at the door, I opened it with absolute silence, lifted my two boards outside, then carefully closed the door behind me. I got my shoes, put them on again, then carried the boards to my trench.
There, the two boards butted together end to end, I forced them into the slightly smaller dimensions of the trench, walking around their edges, jouncing my weight on them. When they covered the trench, forced below ground level for a few inches, I walked back to the crates, pulled out the canvas pack, and carried it to the trench. From the pack I took a length of pipe Ben had brought in and looked at it. He'd done a good job; fastened over one end of the pipe, and held on with tightly-wrapped wire, was a circle of fine screening painted a dull brown. I forced the other end of the pipe into the half-dollar sized hole I'd bored in the short length of plywood, and left it there. Then I pulled the dirt stacked along the back edge of the trench onto the boards with my shovel, heaping it up a little. I trampled the dirt flat, level with and matching the ground around it — also packed hard by the feet that trampled it every day. Now I forced the rest of the pipe length down into its hole till the circlet of screening seemed to lie on the ground. Crumbling a little clot of earth with my fingers, I let it sift down onto the screening until it was covered; and now there was absolutely no visible hint of the six feet by three, yard-deep space I'd made under the ground before me.
Kneeling at one end of it, I forced my fingers down into the earth, found the board edge, and lifted. It was heavy under its layer of earth, but I lifted the front edge some inches, watching the dirt on its top. A few loose nuggets of earth rolled off but most of it, tramped solid, stayed; and when I dropped the board it fell into place again, and the earth over my trench seemed
undisturbed. I lifted it once more then, wedged it open with the little spade, and shoved the canvas bundle far into the trench and to one side. Then, holding the board open, I kicked the shovel in after it and let the board drop into place once again. Dusting my hands, I stood staring down at the barren ground before me; it looked just about as it had before I'd begun digging. I glanced at my watch. It was three forty-six in the morning; I was finished now and didn't hang around. I walked back to the stack of crates, crawled into mine, and lay down, very tired, and quite certain I could sleep.
12
I woke up in Arnie's bunk at dawn the next morning, Thursday, stiff and tired from dreaming, but knowing I was beyond further sleep; a sound had awakened me. It began, pulling me out of sleep, as a few isolated squeaks. Then immediately the sound increased in volume to a great rusty squeal, the sound filling the cell block. It was an enormous iron wheel, I thought puzzledly, turning without grease on an axle. Then, outside the cell door in the air beyond the walkway, I heard the momentary whir of wings, and my astonished mind labeled the great sound. It was the unceasing chirping of hundreds of sparrows; so many that the sounds blended into one vast rusty squeal — and even as I listened, the darkness of the cell block had diluted, and I lay watching the silhouettes of the cell bars strengthening, their definition sharpening. They rounded and took form, and I could see the walkway outside again, and now the cell block was filled with the first colorless white light of day. The vast chirping continued, and across the block I could see one of the great tall windows, opened at the top for ventilation, and the brown bodies of the birds flashing through the bars into the white daylight beyond.