by Kris Bertin
DJ, some said, must have done it to himself. For attention.
The warden was now forced to move Big Man to solitary, to give him demerits and charge him with assault, but within one week, he was back in his old cell. Upon his return, he was greeted with a carefully prepared meal by the Chuck Wagon, who had been given more special permission by the warden to use a dining cart, candles, and good silverware, and to cook a whole turkey with stuffing and all the fixings as a kind of formal apology to him.
***
Pat Ryerson’s Creative Writing Workshop has the following rules, as we all know:
Don’t write about Other Inmates
Don’t write about prison-based violence or drug abuse
Don’t write about Gang Life
Don’t glorify criminal behaviour
Use Your Imagination!
We can surmise which of these rules are his and which are the warden’s. To be clear, I understand why these rules are in place, and that they must absolutely exist. Because Dr. Ryerson is a very cool guy and a great writer who’s doing something really important by being here—and doing it without getting paid, I might add—I have no interest in doing anything to jeopardize the class for everyone. Despite this, you’ll probably have noticed I’ve broken most of the rules by this point. It’s not lost on me that we’re all in here for breaking rules in the first place, but maybe there is something to be gained by doing it this time.
Please, bear with me.
***
DJ, who was now more or less deaf, had also been rendered mute. Or at least silent. If he ever had a shell, however thin, it had been removed. Torn away from him. He had been diminished, rendered a lesser form, transformed by The Big Man.
No one heard him speak for months, though Bradley and I watched him, from across the hall, as he sat defeated and did nothing of note for a very long time. Soon he had a new roommate, a big French Canadian, who seemed to be enjoying the silence.
I felt very badly for him, and though I had nothing to do with it, I still felt as if I had somehow endorsed this outcome. I felt as though I had wished his pain into existence, and cast it across the hallway, onto his person.
I felt complicit.
It all ended when summer was leaving and the dry earth of the yard sucked heat out of our feet, right through our sneakers:
The Big Man’s head and hands were separated from his body in front of us.
Because it happened months and months after The Big Man had confronted the Chuck Wagon, because it happened so quickly and without any kind of struggle, and because it was largely unclear what transpired, even to the audience sitting shoulder to shoulder on the gymnasium floor, the event was mostly accepted as an accident.
A stage lift was used on Big Man, acting as a makeshift guillotine.
It was an ancient piece of equipment on loan from the Stratford Theatre, a device intended for ascent and descent only. This other purpose was unfathomable, unforeseeable except for whoever put a sticker on the machine which read STAND CLEAR. The lift did not cut, but instead crushed his body. It pinched him apart like fresh sausage as it descended, folded in on itself, and entombed his appendages in a steel accordion.
Guillotine-cum-mausoleum.
The prison-run inquest concluded, seven months later, that it was an accident, albeit one with the modifier “suspicious” nailed to its front end. It was Jakey, who, once upon his time had his head concussed by Big Man in the pruno confrontation, and two other Chuck Wagoners who were alleged to be the culprits. They were playing Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, their faces smeared with reddish paint to simulate either drunkenness or deformity. They either pushed Big Man into the hydraulics or else tried to stop him, as they later claimed, from falling forward as Ariel came down to stop the murder of Alonso.
It should also be noted, of course, that this production of The Tempest happened to fall exactly on Boss Cook’s birthday, and that Big Man was playing the role of Prospero, wearing robes and a false beard, wringing a staff with a crystal orb on top as if he might draw real magic from it. Tactically, it would’ve been a stroke of brilliance to attack this master combatant when he was otherwise occupied with the most difficult mental challenge he’d ever been tasked with: both remembering his lines, and trying to get his hushed, Super Dave–sounding voice to sound right with the help of a microphone headset. Symbolically, it would’ve been a grand gesture if Boss Cook’s sixtieth year on this earth were celebrated with the elimination of his greatest foe.
Many took these signs alone as the clearest indication of guilt. For a long time, people talked about the way Boss Cook had watched the execution without reaction, cross-legged and at peace, like a Buddha in denim. Others noted that he sang Frank Sinatra (“That’s Life”) instead of his usual Sam Cooke (“Chain Gang”) at karaoke the next evening.
I didn’t know what to believe.
In the months that followed, speculation never ended. It was inarguable that the play was the most exciting thing anyone had witnessed inside the prison, ever. It was gruesome and horrible, sure. But it was something to talk about. Not just inmates, either, but support staff, guards, doctors, and people from the outside: lawyers, visitors, service people, everyone. The talk wasn’t merely about guilt, but about widespread repercussions within the prison and out into the real world. People said some crime hierarchy had been altered by the act, and that big changes “in the underworld” had come of it. I didn’t know what to believe. Everyone had a theory, and they developed value, became a commodity, and were traded, just like everything else.
In the moment, however, despite it happening on stage in front of a hundred of us, it was largely missed. From the vantage point of the audience, it merely looked like Big Man had turned towards a stage lift, was momentarily surrounded by three men, then was suddenly lying on the floor. You’d have to get close to see that he was headless, handless, and rapidly expelling all the blood from his body.
Some of us knew something was happening. Others knew precisely what was going on. Some of us saw the end of a notorious bully. Some of us began jumping up and down. Some of us applauded. Some cried out in shock.
I screamed.
After the guards figured out what was going on and sounded the alarm, after all other prisoners were forced to the floor as the bell rung and men in riot gear rushed the stage, Caliban and his consorts went to war. They dove into the black carapaces and shields and batons and fought, which meant that the rest of us—clutching our heads on the floor—had to be evacuated. Those guards who had not put on special gear led all of us out emergency exits right onto the yard.
This was the culmination of the months of intrigue and speculation. Something that had truly never happened before, as far as I could tell. A totally new experience:
The auditorium led out onto the yard, which we were used to visiting, except, for the first time ever, it was nighttime. It didn’t matter that we were in the same space we visited every day, it was special. It was quiet, which it never was, and with the sky just starting to darken, and the bright fluorescent light from the flood lamps shining down, everything was a kind of pale grey. It felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, like when a wish and a memory come together in a dream. I felt filled up with something I didn’t have a name for. I felt like I might cry. The fact that one hundred or so men—men with low impulse control and mental health problems, shit-talkers and blabbermouths and chatterboxes—were all silent meant that they felt something similar.
Rows of us went up against the outer fence, clung to it, and stared out at the other facility. The women’s prison. Out there, under their floodlights, we could just barely see other people in orange, clutching their fence, staring back. This was when they got their free time, we realized, when we weren’t there to stare and obsess and call out to them.
No one was talking about the fucked-up thing that had just happened, or what it might mea
n for us. Not yet. Instead, everyone was watching, and staring. Stars were just starting to come out. It was beautiful.
We heard someone speak. An unfamiliar voice that broke the silence.
I looked over and, to my surprise, it was DJ.
His voice was softer, weirder, with a nasal honk to it. He sounded out of breath, like he was panicking. Like he was trying to get out something very important, but no longer knew how loud to be.
I expected him to say something about Big Man or what we just saw, but I don’t even know if he understood what had just happened, or if he would even be happy to learn about Big Man’s demise. No one knew what he thought about anything anymore, really. He hadn’t spoken in months.
Instead, he talked about what was before us:
The Skank Tank.
About how he thought it’s probably the same exact place over there as here, but reversed, like in a mirror. Like there’s a Lady Him and a Lady Me, a Lady Big Man, Lady Warden, a bunch of Lady Chuck Wagoners and a Lady Boss Cook. That if we could just get over there we could pair up with our counterparts.
He explained further:
“No more fighting, no more beefs, just lovemaking.” He inhaled, swallowed, and continued: “All halves made whole. And we could just fuck and make babies. And the babies wouldn’t be bad—they’d be good.”
He made a point of linking his hands together, locking his fingers, and pretending he couldn’t break them apart, like he was stuck that way.
No one spoke for a while and the night stayed quiet. All of us thought about it.
I could see what he meant. The only visible difference between us and them was small, especially at this distance. A ponytail or two. His sentiment was correct, I thought. It was the first time he’d said anything that made me feel something, the first time he’d said anything that sounded sincere, like it had come from a place of careful contemplation. Like he was saying something he actually meant.
Then someone shouted for DJ to shut his retarded ass up and then came an eruption. A swell of noise which was not as great as the cacophony from before, but which broke the quiet dignity of the moment. Everyone began to laugh and shout and jeer. When it started, I felt betrayed, and imagined DJ did too. I felt I had to go to him, to tell him that I understood him, that I agreed with him. That we really were missing something.
I went to him. I struggled between the other men and touched his arm. I tried telling him, in that sea of noise, that it was a beautiful thing to try to express. But he looked at me with fright on his face. I had forgotten, in that moment, that he couldn’t hear me. He shrank away from me, and when I shouted louder—to try and clarify what I meant over the sound of the laughing men and the guards screaming at us, pulling us off the fence—his face crumpled in and he put his hands up.
When I finally embraced him, he cried out, like I was going to take him and transform him into an even lesser creature than the one he had become. Something sexless, formless, without shape. Without a body or mind to even contemplate or understand its own agony.
We were forcibly separated by a corrections officer.
Eglinton-Sussex Detention Centre
MINISTRY OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES ONTARIO
711 Exeter Rd., Maddoc, ON, N7B 1L3
Conrad B. Cooke
Warden
Dec 2, 2010
TO: Patrick Ryerson (“Author”)
RE: Eric Codder, Inmate #98G8653
Mr. Ryerson,
I am writing on behalf of Mrs. Greta Johnson in response to your letter of support for Eric Codder. I understand that in your capacity as an instructor you have developed a friendship with Mr. Codder, and attempted to foster some development in him. For this reason, I thought it pertinent to write to you personally and address some of the issues I had with Mr. Codder’s short story “All Halves Made Whole,” as well as your assessment of it.
Let me begin by saying that I don’t know what Eric has told you about himself or his crime. In your attached story, Eric is referred to as an arsonist, and what worries me is that you might have been told a version of Eric’s story that does not reflect reality. Eric has told, on numerous occasions, a vague tale about boyhood tomfoolery that led to an accidental fire that got out of control. If you do know the whole story, I apologize for repeating it. It is only because so many are ignorant to the details of Eric’s actual crime that I thought it pertinent to explain it here:
Eric was convicted of luring one of his high school classmates, a neighbour, into his own house, which Eric then lit on fire by placing gasoline-soaked newspapers on the kitchen stove’s element. He locked the child in, and then got the boy’s brother to come help try to free him. He was soon locked in as well. He repeated this with the child’s grandparents. In the meantime, Eric parked his father’s van next to a bay window of the burning house to prevent escape. Then he went door-to-door, to all the neighbours, and pretended to call 911 at each of their houses, which prevented the arrival of authorities by a critical half-hour. He was 23 years old, though he frequently claims he was only 18 at the time.
I am sensitive to the fact that I cannot define anyone in my care by his crimes alone, and that Eric was a young man when he first committed his offense, but Eric has a long history of misbehaviour, both leading up to his incarceration and following it. I would hate to say that you have been misled by Eric, but a great many have been already. I do not want to get into the details of his later misdeeds, but trust me when I say that they have all involved coercion, careful manipulation, extortion, and predatory behaviour. It seems quite possible, based on your assessment of Eric, that you might be surprised by these facts.
I want to be very clear here. Eric Codder is not the character depicted in his story. He is not a man consumed by loneliness. He is a manipulator. This is not to say he is a petty “wheeler & dealer,” or someone who covets what others have. Eric collects and wields information as a weapon; Eric’s “insight” is what allows him to intimidate, control, and persuade others to do his bidding. You must understand:
****Eric is not a turtle!****
Nor is he lonely! Eric has a great many friends at Eglinton-Sussex, and receives no visitors at his own request. Eric’s mother, father, and brother have all written him, but Eric refuses to respond to their letters. It is HE who has disowned THEM.
Eric’s “All Halves Made Whole” is not a story. It is a carefully constructed piece of propaganda. That is, it represents a version of the events that culminated in the death of Jean Levesque which completely erases Eric’s role from them. Eric was NOT a passive observer of the so-called “blood feud” which resulted in the severe maiming of Darren Hardman and death of Jean Levesque. In fact, though no charges were laid against Eric Codder, it was the opinion of our internal investigation that the chief agitator in this years-long feud was none other than Eric himself. Eric was the only person with a personal relationship to each of the factions and, through careful orchestration, helped manoeuvre each of the parties into place. He encouraged Mr. Hardman’s performances while simultaneously fanning the flames of indignation in others, namely the members of the cafeteria staff.
I can understand why, in the absence of facts, you might find his story compelling. It is, from the outside, a seemingly exciting, dramatic story of a world alien to you. But the truth of it, I think, is much sadder. People are hurt, and are now gone from the world because of what happened. If I believed Eric capable of remorse, I might hazard a guess that at the end of his story, where he is confronted by a now mute and badgered Darren Hardman, it is his own personal guilt that saddens him so. I do not, however, believe Eric capable of remorse.
I should add that, among the numerous falsehoods in the story, this final image was the most galling. I spoke with the guards responsible for evacuating the auditorium on the evening of September 12, 2005. When Eric claimed to be having an existential crisis while observing Darren’s heart
broken visage, he was, in actuality, watching the resultant chaos and violence in the gymnasium, and was later found examining the body of Jean Levesque with grim curiosity.
As a final aside, I wish to address your removal from our creative writing program. This was not because I think you have been manipulated by Eric (though I do happen to think that you have been, and in more ways than one), nor because I think the program is a bad idea, nor because I think you are a poor teacher. I have made my recommendation to the programming officer to replace you because I do not think you are a good fit. There is no greater evidence of this than your letter in support of Mr. Codder.
In “All Halves Made Whole,” Eric says that some of the classroom rules are yours and some are mine, implying that the only rule which has nothing to do with incarceration (Use Your Imagination!) is yours.
As we both know, ALL of the rules are mine, but it was the 5th rule that represented my sincerest wish for the work produced in the classroom. In my endorsement of the creative writing program, I hoped that the stories produced by our inmates might be a vehicle for which to express hopes and dreams, to make a jewel out of words to marvel at. I hoped that the sharing of these vivid ideas and aspirations would be mutually inspiring, and that the men who built a new world to visit would return with something of value.