The Coliseum
Page 3
KNIGHT: Come on, Hank…
TRIGGS: I said it’s a possibility.
KNIGHT: And what about the families? The mother who sees her kid as the boy who picked her buttercups and never forgot her birthday?
TRIGGS: I’d say, “Ma’am, we live in a democracy, and sometimes things happen in a democracy that we don’t agree with.” And I’d say it with an ear-to-ear smile.
KNIGHT: It could be seen as cruel and unusual punishment.
TRIGGS: There’ll be roadblocks. But the only reason I’ve made it this far is because I’ve kept my ear to the ground and my finger on the pulse of my constituents. People want this, old hoss; want it as bad as you and I. With our combined clout we could run with it. Step on a few toes and burn a few bridges, sure. But speaking as your friend, I’d willingly cross that line.
KNIGHT: You’re serious, aren’t you?
TRIGGS: [Silence]
KNIGHT: This could be political hara-kiri…let me think about it. There’ll be serious opposition.
TRIGGS: Sure will polarize the vote between you and Kelvin, huh?
KNIGHT: [Laughing] Yeah, that it’ll do.
TRIGGS: Just stew on it, old hoss.
KNIGHT: Okay. Take care, Hank.
The proposal should have been shot down in the Senate, or smothered in the House of Commons. But it wasn’t. Triggs and Knight pulled every political string and called in every long-held favor at their disposal and, riding a wave of popularity, did everything they could to ram the initiative down the government’s throat.
There were pro- and anti-prison rallies. The pro-prison contingent provided a soapbox for the family members of murdered, raped, or molested victims to speak with heartfelt emotion about the need for justice. The anti-prison faction trotted out family members of the prospective inmates who spoke with heartfelt emotion about humanity and clemency. Editorials in the press were wildly conflicting: Some heralded the prison as a hard-line necessity, others decried it as a sure sign of societal decay.
The vote carried on the slimmest of margins. Thirty-four ayes to thirty-three nays.
It was that slim margin that converted the Whitehorse Sportsplex into the first “Hands-off” prison in the free world. Although officially known as the Innuvik Penitentiary, the press conferred its more widely-known moniker:
The Coliseum.
On October 15th, 1993, the first twenty prisoners were unleashed.
— | — | —
II. NEW FISH
A white school bus with barred windows carries four prisoners down a freshly-plowed road. December, snow covering the land in a thick white blanket. The road runs alongside the swift-flowing Ross river, its surface studded with drifting chunks of ice.
The prisoners arrived at the Whitehorse airport via prison charter. Exiting the Douglas DC-9 under a graysteel sky, their eyes took in a Dali-esque landscape: The rocky ground was scabbed with patches of scrub brush where sickly ferns struggled for survival. Gaunt winter hares, white fur falling out in mangy clumps, desperately scrounged the landing strip for shoots that had survived the early frosts. The few trees within view were so dwarfish and wind-twisted that they did not resemble trees so much as a madman’s conception of trees.
They were loaded onto a bus that traced a direct path through Whitehorse. The town was a mishmash of old and new, modern and archaic: A Burger King stood side-by-side a general store selling moose meat and spring-load traps and whicker pelt-stretchers; modern-looking houses were erected kiddy-corner to tarpaper shacks; a wide expanse between two office buildings was furrowed with dogsled tracks. The road merged with the TransCanada highway and an hour later the black-domed roof of the Coliseum came into view.
“All eyes forward,” a slate-faced guard says. The prisoner’s eyes are perhaps the only body part they can move, all other extremities being strapped down. “Master Guard’s gonna debrief you piles of shit. Listen carefully. Anything you hear could help on the inside.”
The bus passes through a chainlink barrier topped with spiraling razor-wire. Each corner of the compound is occupied by a guard tower with .50 Gatling guns mounted on sandbagged tripods. A row of kennels runs along the fence, housing twenty mixed breed Husky-Neapolitan Mastiffs trained to attack with deadly force. Two guards stand next to an inclined runway. They are bundled in powder-blue parkas and padded kepi hats, smoking unfiltered cigarettes. One of them holds a burlap bag. The bus grinds to a halt and the prisoners are offloaded.
The Master Guard looks like he stepped from the pages of Soldier of Fortune: A hard, square jaw, a salt-and-pepper buzzcut, every movement tightly controlled and militaristic. He says, “Gimme the specs on these mutts.”
The accompanying guard hands him a clipboard:
PRISONER:
NAME: Cantrell, Jackson
HEIGHT: 6’4”
WEIGHT: 200
AGE: 39
CRIME: 1st Degree Murder, 487 counts
SENTENCE: Life, no possibility of parole
The Master Guard passes a gloved hand through Cantrell’s long blonde hair. “Oooh, the boys are going to looove you. Just like a girl.”
PRISONER:
NAME: Rose, Albert
HEIGHT: 5’10”
WEIGHT: 175
AGE: 45
CRIME: 2nd Degree Murder, 1 count
SENTENCE: Life, no possibility of parole
“Poor bastard.” The Master Guard shakes his head. “Life in the Coliseum for a second-degree rap. You killed the wrong guy, my friend.”
PRISONER:
NAME: Ruddock, Harlan
HEIGHT: 6’5”
WEIGHT: 318
AGE: 37
CRIME: 2nd Degree Murder, 2 counts
SENTENCE: Life, no possibility of parole
“Jesus. Harlan ‘Beast’ Ruddock. So you finally made it.” The Master Guard smiles. “I watched you during a stint at Gellsburg. Always figured you’d end up here.” He pats Harlan’s shoulder. Like patting a block of limestone. “You’re gonna make some waves, my friend. A fuckin’ tsunami.”
PRISONER:
NAME: Pierre Laframboise
HEIGHT: 5”7’
WEIGHT: 155
AGE: 21
CRIME: 1st Degree Murder, 3 counts
SENTENCE: Life, no possibility of parole
“Pierre Laframboise, the Butcher of Montreal.” A smirk from the Master Guard. “So young, so righteously fucked up. Bet you thought you were king shit when you were slicing and dicing junkie streetwalkers. Well out here you’re dog shit, boy. Give you five days, tops.”
“No way, pig,” Pierre says in heavily-accented English. He is whippet-thin, arms hanging low and marsupial, like an orangutan’s. “I ain’t scared of nobody, nothing.”
“I ain’t a-scar’d of no-butty, no-ting, peeg,” the Master Guard mimics. “We’ll see, Frenchie. Wait until you meet up with the Skineaters, the Baboon Boys. Then we’ll see who’s scared. I’ll be watching, Pierre—watching you twist in the wind.”
“No way…pig.”
The Master Guard smiles in the manner of someone who knows a secret but isn’t telling.
The Coliseum’s entry runway is enclosed within a chainlink dome. The Master Guard pushes a button and the dome’s gate rattles open. At the end of the runway is a tombstone-shaped door made of two-foot-thick steel.
“Okay, freaks,” the Master Guard says. “Let’s run down the specs on your new digs. The Innuvik Penitentiary is a three-tiered arena with basement and equipment wing. Currently we house seventy-five inmates, but that number tends to fluctuate. Last year there was an…incident…in which the population fell from sixty-seven to three in the span of forty-eight hours. There will not be any guard intervention; this is the last time you’ll see us.” A shrug. “It is also the last time you’ll see the sky, the last time you’ll taste clean air, the last time you’ll feel sunlight on your faces. As the kitty once said, tough titty.
“Want to tunnel out? Be my guest: a 50-foot-deep trench is sunk
around the perimeter, concrete-filled to a five-foot width. If you manage to dig below fifty feet, you’ll find bedrock. So go ahead and dig until your hands are bloody. You’ll never escape, but it helps pass the time.”
Jackson Cantrell falls to his knees, praying in a fervent whisper.
“Ain’t gonna do you no good in there, Cantrell,” the Master Guard says. “Manage to stay alive for a couple months, you’ll forget there ever was such a place as Heaven.”
“Never,” Cantrell says. “Never, heretic.”
The Master Guard favors Jackson with the same Cheshire-cat smile he gave Pierre. “If you’re looking at that roof, thinking about scuttling into the rafters and punching your way through, think again. The entire dome is electrified; not enough to kill but plenty enough to scramble your melon. But I’d like to see someone try.” He points to the guard towers, the kennels. “It’d give us a chance to try out those machine guns and get those dogs some exercise.” He nods at the other guard and says, “Empty the bag.”
The guard upends the burlap sack. An assortment of objects fall to the ground: Lead pipes and lengths of serrated wire, slivers of glass sharpened to crude points, rough two-by-twos studded with nails and wood screws.
“When this place was converted, the planners removed certain things—the Zamboni, the concession equipment, certain chemical agents—that you boys might get into trouble with. The rest they left intact. So here’s the deal, kiddies: Hope you watched Bob Villa, because if you want to live you’d better be a handyman. Everyone inside is packing. Everyone. You’re not packing, you’re—” He drags his thumb across his neck in a throat-slitting gesture. “My advice is to grab whatever you can find—a busted bit of railing, a wedge of metal, hell, a pocketful of rocks—and stay alert at all times. You’ll never sleep peacefully again, but if you’re armed at least you can wake up swinging.”
He unhooks a cylindrical gadget from his belt: Shiny metal, roughly the size of a Coke can. “Percussion grenade. Nothing that’ll kill a man, unless you jam it up his ass. We hid thirty when the prison opened, toys for our boys. Treat it like an Easter-egg hunt: Find ‘em, use ’em. So ends the lesson.”
The guards close in. Their weapons are cocked, their fingers tight on the triggers.
“Going to unchain you now,” the Master Guard says. Assault one of my men—chip one fucking fingernail—and I’m going to stuff this scattergun up your ass and trigger-fuck you until your guts spray the snow in a design Jackson Pollack would proudly sign his name to.”
One by one, the convicts are uncuffed.
“Stand very still; we drink a lot of coffee when it gets this cold. Makes us jittery.”
The prisoners are escorted into the covered runway. The gate closes. Moments later their eardrums are thrumming with the current of high-voltage electricity.
“The runway is now electrified. You touch it, you fry.” The Master Guard crosses his arms and shivers. “You freaks remember high school biology? Ever swab a doorknob with a Q-tip, smear it in a Petri dish, see what grows?” He shivered again. This time the cold had nothing to do with it. “Well, there are things growing behind that door unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Unlike anything you could possibly imagine.”
At ramp’s end, the steel door clatters open.
Albert Rose is crying.
“Be strong, my brother,” Jackson Cantrell whispers.
“You’d best not listen to that man, Rose,” the Master Guard’s face is bisected by chainlink mesh. “The last 500 folks who took his advice bought one-way tickets to the boneyard.”
Albert retreats to the guards. “Please,” he says, arms outstretched. “Don’t do this.”
“Can’t do nothing for you, Rose.”
“Please…not in there…please…God, just open the gate!”
“No can do.” The Master Guard’s voice is a dialtone, even as Albert’s fingertips stray near to electrified metal. “Gonna fry yourself, Rose.”
Then, suddenly, it is like a switch turns on—or, more aptly, off—in Albert’s head. His face freezes over like ice on a pond’s surface. Deep inside his mind something snaps with pencil-thin ease. He crosses his arms, and turns, and descends the runway.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil—”
“Shut up, preacher-man,” Pierre says.
Harlan moves down the side of the runway. His eyes dart left and right. He realizes the game—that’s what incarceration is to him; a grand game—will commence as soon as the prison doors close. He wants to be in a position to excel.
“Move it, freaks!” the Master guard shouts. His voice is gilt with a keen edge of paranoia. “Move it!”
Harlan disappears into the darkness, his massive body hugging the wall.
Jackson places his hand on Pierre’s shoulder. “I heard what you did to those women, Pierre. Lord God in Heaven will forgive you, but you must repent.”
The Frenchman shrugs his hand off viciously. “Gonna kill you, preacher-man.”
They enter the Coliseum.
“Oh, Pamela,” Albert says. “Oh, Pamela, Pamela, Pamela…”
He melts into the blackness.
“Lockdown! Now, now!”
The steel door rumbles. Pressurized seals engage.
“Back to your stations,” the Master Guard exhales heavily. “Let’s see how the new fish make out.”
««—»»
The first thing to strike is the smell. Two kinds of smells. There is a topmost scent of wet rot and stale sweat and mildew. But beneath lies a deeper and much more powerful smell: The battlefield stench of sickness and men dying slowly.
The arena is dark and warm with three seating levels: Gold seats, red seats and, forming the top level, blue seats. Each tier is alive with furtive movement: Dim shapes scuttle about in the darkened upper reaches. A song—“Hip to be Square” by Huey Lewis and The News—filters out of recessed speakers. This same song has played, on a near-neverending loop, since the prison opened. It was turned off only once, for five minutes: The length of the Coliseum’s one and only prison inspection. The inspection had been perfunctory, an external structural check-over to make sure security had not been compromised, and the inspectors would likely have cared less about the predictable prison soundtrack: The enforcement of humane conditions at the Coliseum rated about as low on the priority list as the Coliseum’s denizens rated the importance of mercy and decency—in other words, pretty fucking low.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
Like four bear-cubs venturing from the den for the first time, the convicts move out onto the arena floor. Most of the advertisements plastered around the perimeter—Sunoco Gasoline, Royal Bank, Canadian Tire, Wal-Mart—have been torn down and carted off to build ramshackle shelters. The remaining advert, for a popular chain of coffee shops, has been scratched with a jag of metal to read: Tim Horton Can Suk My Cock. The penalty box door hangs ajar and dark matter pools from the entryway: A communal shitter.
“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses…”
The arena floor was once covered with a smooth sheen of ice, but now chunks of cement have been carved away to give it the appearance of a pothole-pocked stretch of tarmac. The men pick their way carefully as their eyes adjust to the gloom. The sly sounds of movement surround them like mice in the walls. Harlan crosses to the far boards, pinning his broad back to them.
“As we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation…”
It’s hip to be square—da-da-da-nah-nah-nah—So hip to be square…
Pierre shoots a disgusted look at his companions and forges forward. His posture suggests a modern-day Columbus fording unknown territory. Jackson flattens his back against the boards opposite Harlan. Albert stands between them, a deer in headlights.
“For thine is the kingdom, for ever and ever, Amen.”
Ten figures materialize at rink’s edge, arranged phalan
x-style. Albino-white skin, bodies draped in filthy robes. Shoeless feet shuffling slowly, spines curved like fruit-laden branches.
“Jesus Christ,” Pierre says. “Who da ’ell are they?”
Another group blocks off the far side. These ones are taller and more muscular, arranging themselves in a loose semicircle. Their naked bodies are hairy, ape-like, fingers brushing the cement. Their leader, a squat fireplug of a man, lurches forward and hunkers on his haunches.
“They’re ours!” the albino-man shouts across the arena. “We saw them first. We have…” He searches his memory bank for the right word. “Dibs.”
The ape-man looses a feral howl that echoes across the arena. “How many times do I have to tell you, Jeremy—”
“My name is Gregor!” albino-man shrieks. “Gregor of the tribe Skineater—”
“No, you are Jeremy Hanson of Red Deer, Alberta,” ape-man says. “Jeremy Hanson who ate his parents.”
“Gregor! Greee–GOR!”
The ape-man smiles the smile of a natural predator. “Fine…Gregor. Who does your…tribe…want?”
“All of them.”
“Be reasonable.”
Gregor slicks his tongue across his teeth. Harlan notices they’ve been filed into sharp points, resembling a gallery of busted glass. “Do you question my will, Edward? Do you dare—”
Edward the ape-man snaps two gnarled fingers. His tribe advances. Each wields an iron bar studded with jags of scrap metal. “Don’t fuck with me, Gregor. You might gain some clout around here—if you weren’t always eating one another, that is. No more dick-swinging, now, or I’ll come over there and cut your face off.”
Gregor sneers, an awful sight. “Fine, let’s each take two. I want them,” pointing at Harlan and Jackson.