Bio-Justice

by Scott Takemoto

  The routines were simple for a man in solitary: wake up at six, breakfast at seven, one hour in the yard at nine, lunch at noon, dinner at five, lights out at ten. And what you did in between those locked-in immoveable constants determined your mental and spiritual health going forward in the endless succession of days.

  Danny kept his body fit early on—a daily regimen of eighty sit-ups, eighty push-ups, eighty squats and eighty pull-ups upon waking and then repeated before bedtime. He requested weights but was denied. He compensated by running in the small yard, confined by a ten foot high chain link fence, during his early morning hour outside. Thirty jogged laps and then a furious, contained sprint for two more. The shock of rapid heaves of air in his lungs as he pushed his body to the limit felt like an accomplishment, the profuse perspiration a sacrament of control and order.

  He tried for a week of afternoons keeping a simple journal but he could not sustain it. Danny was not one who took pleasure putting down written words to paper. All of his life—even as a kid talking his mother out of hitting him, he had used his elastic gift of vocal persuasion. Later on, sexy, easily impressed girls would leave his company gushing to their girlfriends about how charming he was. Ultimately, Danny did ask for small apportionments of paper which he used to draw wordless comic strips about the characters from his old neighborhood but the narratives rambled on without direction and always ended up with his heroes either bloody or dead.

  At night, the shadows grew deeper around the corners of his cell. It felt like he was inhabiting an invariant world of blacks and grays. Danny had once lived for the night. Called himself a vampire. Reveled in going to bed as the sun was starting to rise. Now the night haunted him for he could see in stark terms the restrictive domain of where he lived as an eternal nocturnal state, an immutable tomb in which he would be interred, maybe until the day he died.

  Danny sat up in his bunk looking at a photograph of Sonya taped against the opposite wall. In the picture taken a year before she got pregnant, Sonya smiled sweetly, like an angel.

  He remembered the first time he saw Sonya. She was just one of a chaotic cluster of laughing girls. The other girls were dressed more provocatively—ass-cut jeans, tits hanging out, too many buttons unfastened—but Sonya, covered to the neck with a simple blouse over a plain skirt was sexier than all of them, the flowing silk of her dark brown mane, her hearty laugh, the way her body tugged at the seams of her constraining garments. Her eyes had locked onto him and then released him, leaving him feeling empty without that connection. He had known then and there that he had to have her.

  His mind raced with visions of Sonya—making love, caressing her from behind outside on some starry night and even laughing with her and the baby in some dreamy park on a mattress of cool, downy grass, and trees with lushly leafed branches overhead, a sanctuary where no one else was around to disturb them.

  “Lights out!” yelled the patrolling guard.

  In the dark, Danny could not see the photograph any longer—the cell was like a container of perpetual night and lights out brought on the blackness of oblivion—but his mind kept going back to that park again and again. He and Sonya and the baby, laughing together. He would visit them every night in the dark until the day he was finally released.

  General Harold Dawson had hoped for a full moon. Here in his secluded mountain cabin, this rustic refuge, Dawson had found many moments of peace during the twenty-five years since he purchased the cabin from a disgruntled fishing hobbyist who found the lakes nearby insufficiently populated with enough sport to keep his weekends fulfilling. The dark tree tops bent gently with the breeze as they nearly touched the clouds on this star filled night. His spotted hands trembled and he walked slowly to his liquor cabinet and poured himself a Scotch.

  Dawson loved this cabin. Even with the presence of some modern conveniences—the flat screen television, his laptop computer—the cabin seemed to echo the lazy afternoon daydreams of his youth, after reading the riverboat stories of Mark Twain and the simple heroic biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. The heavily grained, paneled wood of the cabin had always kept him rooted with the American past, with its rich, noble, simple beginnings. His wife had long since grown tired of making the “inconvenient” trek into the woods when all of her joys remained in the city, and Dawson found himself spending more and more time here alone.

  It was only fitting that he should be here now.

  Dr. Pinyak had been cold, emotionless, when he passed down the prognosis. Alzheimer’s, early stages.

  In six months, he would forget things—where he placed his car keys, whether or not he had called his son in the morning, a scheduled meeting at the Pentagon. After that, his experiences in battle—as a heroic young foot soldier wounded during the Tet Offensive to his steady leadership of an armored command in Operation Desert Storm—would fade, like all of his memories, into vapor. Within a year he wouldn’t recognize his wife, or even remember who he was or what he had descended into—some drooling, heavy-breathing, deteriorating being staring out blankly at the incomprehensible world he depended on to keep him from starving.

  Dawson swallowed another glass of Scotch and then picked up the felt-lined box on the antique maple table nearby. He carried the box to his favorite chair and slowly settled into it, feeling the cushions give pleasingly under his weight. Dawson looked over at the roaring fireplace and watched the flames lick and crackle behind the netted screen. Above the fireplace, the mantel held his proud display: the Congressional Medal of Honor, his Purple Heart and his two Silver Stars. Dawson turned his attention back to the box on his lap. Slowly, he opened the lid and in one unbroken movement, lifted the pre-loaded, polished ceremonial pistol from its form-fitted case, raised it to his right temple and fired.

  The General’s body slumped to his left, a fan of blood sprayed across the chair fabric, the pistol tumbling from his hand to the varnished wooden floor. On a side table nearby was a silver framed photograph of Dawson in his fully decorated uniform shaking hands with President George W. Bush. There was an inscription by the President: “To General Harold Dawson—a great American”.

  Thirty-six hours later, a unit of three uniformed soldiers broke through the cabin door. After seeing Dawson’s body engulfed by the black, caked blood, the soldiers lowered their ready weapons and covered their noses and mouths with their sleeves. The stench was overwhelming.

  The unit leader fished out a phone from his pocket and waited for the line to pick up.

  “Yes?”

  “Sir, General Dawson is gone…Bullet to the head…”

  On the other end, the voice trembled. It took several seconds before words came. “I’ll tell his wife,” the voice said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know, General Dawson and I were in the same hospital, both recovering from wounds we got in Nam. I took one in the gut and he had a shattered collar bone.” Another moment of silence. “If he could have just held on—”

  The unit leader watched the other two soldiers prepare the body bag for Dawson. He nodded silently, wanting to end the call.

  “We’re so damned close,” the voice said quietly before hanging up.

  November, with snow on the ground. Danny had taken his run, and had another half hour outside before he had to go back in. One hour a day to stretch his legs, get a little sunlight, some fresh air. For a guy doing solitary like him, it became as anticipated and essential to his well-being as anything in his stripped down life.

  When it got cold in the season, Danny cut back on the hard laps. Instead, he did some stretching exercises and casually jogged the circumference of the small area to which he had access. Keeping fit was a divine duty. It was the only thing you had control over.

  Most mornings, even after having breakfast, Danny still felt hungry. He often thought of the bacon and cheese omelette, hash browns and wheat toast with strawberry preserves, washed down with strong hot coffee that he used to get every Sunday at Bongo’s Coffee Shop on Fla
tbush near The Diamond Bar. And then he would laugh, comparing the thick, flavorless gruel masquerading as oatmeal and the cold, gray scrambled eggs that greeted him every morning after his wake-up call.

  Danny watched his frosty breaths puffing out before him. Through the rusted chain link, he witnessed a black BMW sedan pass the prison gates beneath the guard tower before proceeding towards the fortified administration building. The sedan finally came to a stop near the building’s entrance and its brake lights flashed once before turning off.

  “Nice car,” Danny said to the guard watching him, fully aware his captor would say nothing in response.

  Danny continued to observe with interest as the driver of the black sedan popped out and opened the rear door with unseemly subservience. A tall, elegantly dressed man with a gray tweed overcoat emerged. By then, Warden Rice had trotted out, flanked by two guards, and greeted the man enthusiastically. The two stood facing each other for a moment. Danny could see icy shocks of conversation pass between them before Rice led the tall man through a security gate and into the main administration building. There was something unsettling about how much Warden Rice was grinning at the tall man, as if he were busting a gut trying to make a good impression.

  The car was still in the yard when the guard brayed sharply that it was time for Danny to return to his cell.

  Mossbacher hadn’t made contact with Danny for five weeks. Danny had made his public defender promise to build his case for an appeal but that request had been unenthusiastically received. “Danny, I told you. These things take time. Just sit tight and let me take care of it.” And questions about Sonya, about her lack of contact or correspondence, were met with a weak smile, a shrug, and a change of subject. Over the long stretch of days and compounded by his growing sense of isolation and loneliness, Danny began to fancy images in his head of finally seeing Mossbacher in the prison’s visitors hall: as Mossbacher tried to bullshit him about doing all that he could for him, Danny would get to express his appreciation by reaching over the table and throttling his useless lawyer before the guards caught on.

  But Mossbacher wasn’t the problem, Danny finally concluded. He was just some poor schmuck going through the motions because he knew the system like the back of his hand. And guys like Danny were just grist going through the machinery with their outcomes foretold like settled tea leaves, following the thousands that had come before him. Mossbacher was just too polite to tell him so.

  Danny heard footsteps headed toward his cell and he felt some anticipatory feeling rising within him. He had finished his supper an hour ago—bland, boiled chicken, metallic tasting green beans and revitalized dehydrated mashed potatoes—and nothing else had been scheduled for him until the following week. He sat up in his bunk and listened as the footsteps stopped at his door.

  “Fierro. Mail.”

  An envelope that had been sliced open and then resealed was slid under the windowed iron slab that served as his door.

  Danny picked up the envelope and saw it was from Sonya. A rush of crazy energy blasted through his body, tingling his nerves like overloaded circuits. He felt a sense of joy coming back to his lonely heart, which had gotten brittle over the weeks and months with self-cannibalizing rage. Tearing open the envelope, he pulled out the one page handwritten letter and walked over to the light bulb overlooking the table so he could read all of Sonya’s words clearly, like guys he knew who would wipe their glasses before watching a favorite television show.

  The smile on Danny’s face disappeared almost instantly as he read Sonya’s confession:

  Dear Danny,

  I’m going to make this a short letter because what I have to say is better left brief. I have searched my heart and I cannot see us continuing our relationship any longer. All the hopes I had of our life together are gone forever. I must continue my life without you and raise my baby. It was a boy but I won’t go into any more detail because I know it will only cause you pain. I just want you to know that we will be fine and for you not to worry. Goodbye. Sometimes the Lord tests us. Be strong.

  Love, Sonya

  Danny lowered the letter and for a moment his face was still. Then it erupted into an uncontrollable series of contortions, his facial muscles jerking to and fro, his eyes filling up and spilling over. His breathing came fast and hard and his eyes stared blankly. All of his improbable dreams and fantasies were crushed out in an instant, leaving him barely able to hold himself up.

  And then he started to wail. Like a wounded animal who was caught in the teeth of a steel trap and kept getting pelted with sharp stones by glaring, faceless men, Danny’s howling started low, like a siren from far away, and then it rose in intensity until it became unbearable to hear. He was drowning in pain and anguish and all the flailing and screaming wouldn’t save him from his doom as he fell further and further into the pitch darkness of despair.

  Some of the other inmates on the floor could be heard screaming for Danny to shut his fucking hole. Moments later came the heavy footsteps echoing off the concrete walls of the outside corridor, the clanking and squealing of the opening door, and two grunting guards with unforgiving batons raining down their blows on Danny’s head and body. His combative hands were rendered useless against the windmilling crack of the batons which crushed flesh and bone until Danny was on the ground, still screaming even though the blood flowing down his throat was choking him.

  Finally, Danny was subdued and the howling stopped. The guards shook their heads as the man crushed under their feet sobbed, making a pathetic, mournful sound that was even worse than a death rattle.

  CHAPTER 3

  Senator Harley Jakes stood before his fellow senators at the podium and he waited until the cacophony of the debate had finally died down, allowing him his moment to speak. Glancing, beyond the C-SPAN cameras and the political journalists, into the gallery, he could see Bill smiling at him from his seat. Jakes looked out at his colleagues from both sides of the aisle and drew upon his beautifully honed instrument to make an impassioned plea.

  “Senator Lampley, Senator Holm, my fellow Senators, when all is said and done, we are after all, simply representatives of the people. Our votes—if we are truly to do the noble work our constituents have elected us to do—are to express their concerns, their passions and their frustrations. And through us, their voices are heard.

  “Crime is America’s cancer. If we do not treat it properly, if we cannot cut out its deadly hold on the physical and emotional well-being of this country, it will keep growing until it consumes us all in its lethal grip. Today, our federal and state prison systems are overrun with convicted criminals, many violent and merciless in the dispatch of their crimes. We have no more cells to contain these dangerous predators. As a result, states are reducing sentences and releasing criminals so they can hit the streets and victimize American families again. Why? Because there is no more money. It costs an average of over a million dollars per prisoner to keep them incarcerated through the end of their sentences. State budgets are collapsing under the weight of this expense, with the Federal government strained to the limit in meeting its own obligations. The people are angry. I’ll just say it—they’re furious. And they have a perfect right to be. While we talk about building more prisons without having the money to pay for them, someone in America is getting robbed, someone is getting raped, someone is getting murdered. If we are honest with ourselves, the simple fact is this: the system is broken.

  “My fellow Senators, for far too long the problem has seemed too large, too insurmountable, but I am happy to stand here today and tell you there is now a solution, through technology and science, that will alleviate this problem—forever. That solution is Premium Sentencing.

  “No longer will prisoners languish for twenty, thirty, forty years or more on the taxpayers’ dole. Science has made it possible for a convicted criminal to serve his sentence instantly. Take a thirty year old criminal convicted of armed robbery. Instead of serving twenty years behind bars, he goes throu
gh the Premium Sentencing program and then he is released, after his sentence has been collected through a process of chronological time removal. Over the course of a few weeks, that budget-busting criminal, having paid his debt to society, time completely served, is ready to start his life anew, with none of the mental, emotional and sometimes physical torture that comes with prolonged incarceration. And now, at fifty years of age, and with the sobering consequence of Premium Sentencing in the back of his mind, this felon will never pick up a weapon to use against a law-abiding citizen again.

  “There will be some weak-hearted folks who cannot wrap their heads around any new ideas that challenge established thinking. They will label Premium Sentencing some form of cruel and unusual punishment. I maintain it is the exact opposite. It is swift justice that is commensurate with the crime. A person who considers breaking the law will now truly understand what the consequences will be for his actions instead of trying to decipher the confounding morass, with its endless parade of appeals and parole hearings, which is the current incarceration system we have today.

  “Premium Sentencing deals immediately with our overburdened prisons. It is the ultimate deterrent for anyone contemplating committing a serious crime. It frees up billions of dollars that can go instead to schools, hospitals, infrastructure, veterans benefits, Social Security…My friends, everyone wins here. You are a witness to a rare moment in history when seismic change is within our grasp. We just have to have the wisdom and the courage to seize it.”

  Senator Harley Jakes paused and took a sip of water from the podium, enjoying the roaring cheers that erupted—including a two minute standing ovation—that to his ears seemed to go on forever.