“Tough questions,” I say, and they are. Big questions. So big that I’m scared to think too much about them or I’ll slide right into clinical depression.
“I know,” he says, “but what do you think you’d write for it? If you had to.”
I push the possibility around in my head, get nothing but a blank, and say, “I’ll have to think about it.”
He looks disappointed by that, but we move on to movies. Of the last three they screened for inmates here, one was good and all of them were censored.
Then we talk TV, skipping right to the episode of 60 Minutes that aired a couple weeks ago, the one about the guy getting killed in an Arizona death chamber who took two hours to die, gasping all the way. On the programme, a pro-death penalty federal judge called the DP “barbaric”, and advocated a guillotine instead, or a bullet – because both are cheaper, quicker, and result in less suffering.
“Didn’t that judge say something like –” his eyes go internal as he tries to remember – “the death penalty already is barbaric, and if we can’t accept the cruelty of it, we shouldn’t be doing it?”
“Something like that,” I say.
He’s nodding, opening his mouth to say something more, but the fatter CO is standing outside our cage and motioning for my client to put his hands through the little lowered door in the plexiglass, so he does. The cuffs go on then, the door comes open and I’m told to step out and away behind a yellow line.
This kind of goodbye – where one person goes to be locked up and the other gets to go free – it’s always awkward.
“See you in two weeks,” I say.
“You take care driving back,” he says before being led through the largest metal door of all.
When he’s gone and cleared of having any contraband, I get to go too.
The wind is up when I’m walking out. Even though the sun is higher, there’s no heat, and fast breezes come in cold off the bay, meeting me with swiping gusts.
My head is full, and reality is a little too heavy right now.
So I walk.
I think about the current system, concerned more with budgets and overtime than humanity, as my client’s big questions whirl around inside me. With each step, I wonder how a prison could be better in a story – what it would look like, and be like, and accomplish – and all I can wonder about then is how to make more people like my client; how to make prisoners more human, to make personal growth standard, not just an anomaly.
I shiver. It’d have to be windy, and cold, and maybe on an island, this prison. Maybe it’s on a watery moon somewhere, out in space. And there’s a single island on that moon. On the island is the prison, a futuristic Alcatraz that can’t be escaped because it’s the only landmass in an endless salty sea.
Just so nobody misses the utopian point, I’d name it Redemption.
My steps are faster now, my new shoes still chewing my heels, but I can’t stop. I see two guards walking in with blank looks, their belts on their shoulders. One nods at me. The other stares straight ahead.
And something clicks.
Add some robot warrior monks to the story, I think, as guardians. It has to be monks, people with some legitimate spiritual training, not just high-school educations and four months at cadet academy like nearly all the COs have. These monks would train the inmates, not in combat, but in self-control, self-awareness, anger management and a craft. This wouldn’t allow prisoners to stagnate, but would trigger personal growth by prioritizing purpose and putting them to work. Proceeds from this (whether a daily wage or profits from the sale of the products they make) would go to victims’ families, not the state. Training focus would be placed on problem-solving and coping skills, awareness of personal responsibility and interconnectedness with other humans. Empathy rituals would be performed weekly, where the prisoners would have to actively imagine themselves in their victims’ places (including the family), and how it felt to be wronged.
What type of job it’d be, though – that’s a story problem I haven’t worked out yet.
Above me, a gull cuts inland. I follow its flight past a hill outside the walls of the prison compound, to a house crowned with slick black solar panels, catching sun.
Fuel cells then, I think. Something solar punk.
I’m not sure if that’s a thing, but if it isn’t, it is now.
The robot monks teach their prisoners to create solar fuel cells (or maybe batteries?) that the main society needs to power its underground cities and will pay greatly for. The proceeds are catalogued and the inmates get to send them directly to victims’ families via a special tubing system. These inmates will not be free until they have paid off what income an impartial court deems the amount their victims might have earned in the remaining balance of the lives taken from them.
If they pay it off, each prisoner is capable of earning a train ticket back to the underground capital. In this way, they can be free again.
All because of Redemption.
I have to stop there, because I’ve been walking too fast and my right heel has blistered. A burning feeling works its way up my calf as I fight a pen and a torn planner page out of my briefcase. The paper flutters in the wind and I write awkwardly against my hand, shivering as I try to recapture the broad strokes of the premise – all the while thinking, What a fantasy world that would be.
“I travelled to San Quentin Prison to sit down with a man sentenced to death before writing this story. It was only his third visit in over twenty years without a partition separating him from his visitor. Death sentences in the United States overwhelmingly affect the poor, and this was no different. I wrote this story because I cannot understand the state bureaucracy of ‘humane’ killing and its astronomical costs. I wrote it because, when I locked eyes with a man condemned, I was forced to ask myself if a better system was possible, and how it might function.” Ryan Gattis
SLUDGE
Sarah Crossan
The fishing boat dipped to the right, then to the left, slowly and gently. Rax and his father bit into their sandwiches and glugged milk from their flasks. Light glinted off the tight ripples in the river. The sun made them sweat.
Rax pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and sighed. He imagined himself lying in the shade of the iroko trees, Sula next to him, one smooth, strong arm sticking to his. He imagined her lips and her hips, her braided hair and long eyelashes. He imagined the lacy hem of her dress, the one with the yellow flowers printed on it.
Rax’s father stood up and tugged at a rope. “No sleeping, Rax. Help me with the nets. Come on now. Up, up. You can lie on your back when you’re dead.”
Rax yawned, got to his knees and dragged in another rope until a small, rusting cage appeared from the water, in it a cluster of nipping crabs. “Papa, when should a man get married?” he asked.
His father cleared his throat. “For pity’s sake, Rax, can’t you focus on fishing for five minutes? It’s always Sula on your mind. Sula, Sula, Sula. She is too young and so are you. Wait until you have more hair on your chest and smarter ideas in your head. Married?” His father laughed, then suddenly stopped and wiped his brow.
“I can’t wait too long,” Rax grumbled. “Sula will meet someone else. All the boys want her, and she’s impatient.” Rax hated admitting this about Sula – that her feelings for him could wither away so easily – but a part of him believed it was true. And perversely it was something he liked about her; she wasn’t going to waste her life waiting for fate to build her future – she lived as if the future was today and she owned it.
His father dropped a cage into the bottom of the boat. It clanged and a crab scuttled out, making a futile dash for freedom. “Sula is so full of herself. As is her father. What about Keila? She’s a lovely girl. If you find a way to make Keila love you, you’ll be a happy man. And I will be a happy father-in-law. You have to think about other people when you marry, Rax. This is what manhood means.”
Rax rolled his eyes and picked up one of the crabs.
It eyed him, ready to duel. He didn’t want Keila; he wanted Sula. He growled at the crab like a hungry dog and made as if to bite it. Then he threw it back into the water. “I pardon you,” he said grandly, and reached for another slimy rope.
Rax and Sula lay by the riverbank, their legs dangling in the water. Sula tickled Rax’s earlobe between her thumb and forefinger. Rax didn’t pull away. Instead he turned on his side to gaze at her, wishing she would lean closer. He liked the way she smelled on summer afternoons – like dry grass. “My father says I should marry Keila,” Rax said suddenly.
Sula laughed, her mouth wide, showing off all her teeth. “You should. She’s very clever and I hear she plans to become a doctor, so when you’re old and can’t reach the bathroom in time, she won’t even flinch wiping up after you.”
“That’s disgusting!” Rax kicked out and splashed them both with water.
“As is the idea of marrying Keila. Why don’t your parents like me?” Sula said with another laugh.
Rax rolled on top of her and she gave a playful scream. He kissed her lips and she didn’t resist. After a few seconds she pushed him away.
“You should marry Keila. She’d cook all the meals and keep the bathroom clean,” Sula continued. But she didn’t laugh this time. She looked away and kept her mouth straight.
Rax sat up and felt for a stone with his fingers. He rubbed it idly against his shirt, but it still felt wet. He looked down at it.
Sula sat up too. She took the stone from Rax’s hand and threw it into the water. “I’m going to start a rumour about Keila so that your family won’t think she’s the moon and stars. What should I tell people? Let’s think of something.” Sula’s voice was serious. She took Rax’s hand and rested her head on his shoulder.
He breathed her in, but something other than Sula came to his nose. With his free hand he felt for another stone and looked down at it. It was covered in black slime. Rax sniffed the stone. “Burning,” he said.
“Burn her? How?” Sula asked. Her voice didn’t betray any shock or resistance.
“No. Burning. Smell it.” Rax put the stone under Sula’s nose.
“Petrol,” she said. “Maybe a motorbike was here.” She looked for track marks in the clay but saw nothing. Then she stood up. “I have to go home. Papa will be waiting. He will be pacing and fuming if I’m not home before sunset.”
“Please stay a few minutes more,” Rax begged. He stood up behind her and put his arms around her shoulders like a blanket. “I miss you,” he said.
“That doesn’t make sense. I’m here. We’re together.”
“I know. But I do. Even when I’m with you, I miss you.” He paused. “Don’t you miss me? Tell me you do.”
“You need to write poetry.” Sula grinned and bit his hand softly. “You’re too sensitive. I need a boyfriend who wouldn’t be afraid to wrestle a bear.”
“When would I ever need to wrestle a bear?” Rax asked.
“Use that big imagination of yours, Mr Poet.” She turned and kissed the tip of his nose. “I’m going.” And she was gone, dashing across the hard, dry earth, a silhouette against the orange sky.
“I miss you,” Rax said again aloud. He sniffed the oily stone. “Who the hell owns a motorbike?”
Rax’s mother was stirring a pot. Fish sizzled in a pan. His little sister, Mishla, was sitting at the table, a notebook in front of her, a stubby pencil in her hand. “Your hair has grass in it,” Mishla said, looking up.
Rax’s father came into the kitchen, wiping his hands on a threadbare towel. “Sula’s father will beat you with a stick if any trouble comes to his daughter’s door,” he grumbled.
Rax’s mother looked up from her cooking. “What does that mean? What have you been doing?”
“Nothing.” Rax sighed and slumped in a chair next to Mishla. “Sula and I were skimming stones and reciting poetry. We don’t do anything. Actually, that’s not true. Sometimes she beats me up. She’d make a first-class boxer.”
Mishla giggled and made kissing sounds with her lips. “Oh, Sula. I love you.” Rax thumped her in the arm and she swallowed down a squeal.
“I don’t want to hear any more about that girl from either of you. Get the table ready for dinner,” their mother snapped.
Mishla tidied away her notebook and Rax retrieved four bowls and four small plates from the shelf over the sink. The family sat, and Rax’s father ladled creamy soup peppered with herbs into the bowls. His mother slid blackened fish onto the plates. The salty smell filled the whole kitchen and they ate quickly.
Rax’s father smiled. “You make the best meals, my prize,” he said to his wife. He finished his portion of fish and reached across the table to help himself to more.
“Some day soon I will stop cooking and watch you all starve,” Rax’s mother said. She laughed.
“As long as you keep coming to bed at night, I think I’ll survive,” his father said and winked.
Mishla groaned. Rax shook his head. He didn’t know whether his parents said these things in front of him and his sister to annoy them or from genuine feeling. But they had been doing it for as long as he could remember.
“Can I go out and see Gloria and Maglee now?” Mishla asked, pushing away her empty plate and bowl. “I’ve finished my homework.”
“Yes, you go out and have fun. I suppose I should do all the cleaning as well as the cooking.” Rax’s mother sighed. “I’m just a servant in this house, after all.”
“I’ll do it,” Rax offered. “Mishla can go. As long as she really is meeting up with Gloria and Maglee and not Roddy.” He made his own kissing sounds. Mishla kicked him under the table and Rax laughed. His father and mother did not.
Rax and his father walked along the dusty road. The village was far behind them, the riverbank and a full day’s work lay only a little way ahead. The morning was cool and Rax was thinking about Sula again. He wondered whether there was a boy at school who liked her. He guessed so. He guessed a hundred boys liked her and wanted her and had probably tried to tease her away from him. But he didn’t feel jealous. It made him smile to know that she spent her evenings with him when she could have been with anyone, when she could have been with any of those clever boys who wore glasses and polished shoes and had stayed in school so they could leave the village to become bankers and lawyers and businessmen.
He was still thinking about Sula, not looking where he was going, when his father stopped suddenly and Rax slammed into his back.
Rax stepped out from behind his father’s large frame. He could see fishermen standing on the riverbank ahead, waving their arms violently. They seemed to be shouting at one another. Rax ran towards the river and the men and found Sebi, a boy his own age with skinny limbs.
“Why aren’t you out in your boat?” Rax asked him.
Sebi shook his head and pointed to the water. Rax blinked. Was he imagining things, or…? No. His eyes were not deceiving him. The water was silvery black. It didn’t move at all and seemed less like a river and more like a pool of still, thick tar. And worse were the fish: hundreds maybe thousands of fish lay on the surface of the tar, motionless and open-mouthed as if they were sleeping. “All dead,” Sebi said, as though Rax couldn’t figure that bit out for himself.
Rax thought about the devil, how he didn’t believe in him, or even in God, and wondered whether this was a punishment for that – whether this was a way for supernatural forces to make their presence known. He’d heard about plagues from his mother – locusts and flies. Was this what was happening? He couldn’t think of anything else that would bring about such a scene.
Rax’s father had reached the riverbank and was standing a little upstream from him, looking at the black gloss on the surface of the water and talking to the other men. They shook their heads. Some began to shout again. His father rubbed his eyes and kicked the bow of his rowboat. Rax rushed over and stood next to his father.
“What is it?” he asked. “Is it a plague? Can a person have done it?”
A shout came from far off. Rax and his father turned to see someone running along the road towards the river. “It’s Naro,” Rax said. “Naro!” he shouted. “Naro, have you seen the river?”
Naro, a man in his early twenties with lines on his face like those of a man in his forties, skidded to a stop beside the group. He leant forward with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He coughed and Rax banged him on the back.
“Oil,” Naro panted.
The group tightened around him. “What did he say?” someone asked.
“Oil,” Naro repeated, standing up and resting his hands on his hips now. “From the Findori region.”
Sula’s father, Dineedi, stepped forward, his head in the air. He was a man who regarded himself as an authority on most things. “Findori is over one hundred miles away. That can’t be it.”
“My auntie heard it on the radio,” Naro continued. “A pipe burst in Findori and the river brought it down to us and even the villages south of here. It’s everywhere, that black stuff. And it’s oil all right.”
“When will they fix the pipe?” Rax asked, knowing Naro couldn’t really answer this question, knowing it was a stupid thing to say.
Naro shrugged. “They say no one wants to take responsibility. They say…” He paused and lowered his voice. “They say it’s hopeless. All the fish are dead. Half the crops up there are gone too.”
Dineedi stepped between Naro and the group. He sniffed and scuffed the clay with his sandals. His toenails were hard and yellow. His feet were calloused and the skin wrinkled and dry. “They’ll come and clean it, whoever owns the pipes for the oil. They’ll have to!” Dineedi exclaimed. “It’s the law.”
“Is it?” Rax asked.
Dineedi frowned. “Of course it is. What if I came and shat in your garden? I’d have to clean it up, wouldn’t I?”
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