Breakout

by Paul Herron

  Sawyer half smiles. “Yeah, I know. I’m not that green.”

  “Apologies. So Gen Pop holds the guys doing the GED programs, as well as the inmates who work in the industry units.”

  “What do they make?”

  “License plates. Military armor. Fast-food uniforms. That lingerie your boyfriend likes so much? Probably made right here.”

  Sawyer bursts out laughing. “Fuck off.”

  “I’m serious. And most of them only get paid, like, fifty cents an hour. Private prisons, Sawyer. It’s legalized slave labor.”

  A couple of COs are walking past as Martinez says this. They give her a dirty look and carry on.

  “Nobody likes talking about it,” she says, nodding after them. “’Cause they all know it’s not right. Anyway, Gen Pop is four units, 1 to 4. They’re separate buildings linked right through the middle by corridors and sally ports with their own security pods. After those four, we get to the specialist units.”

  “Specialist?” Sawyer is already feeling lost.

  “First off is the Transitional Care Unit. The TCU. That’s where inmates who need nursing care are taken. Not just injured inmates; I’m talking post surgery, maybe end-of-life care.”

  “Right.”

  “Next in the stack is the Mental Health Unit. You do not want to work in MHU. Seriously. Get out of any duty rosters that put you in there. Because we have special kinds of crazies here. We’re supposed to have the best team of psych doctors in the country, so we get shipped the psychos from all over. If Hannibal Lecter were real, he’d be locked up here. I fucking hate that place.”

  They walk on in silence. Martinez seems lost in her thoughts.

  “And the last unit?” presses Sawyer.

  Martinez glances over in surprise, as if she forgot Sawyer was even there. “ACU. Administrative Control Unit. The inmates call it Super Seg—that’s Administrative Segregation to you and me. It’s where we keep the most violent offenders. The inmates who attack prisoners and staff, anyone who’s shown a direct physical threat to the life of others. They’re locked down in there twenty-three hours a day. They get one hour for exercise, and that’s it. ACU is designed so that staff don’t have to have any physical contact with the offenders at all. The cells are accessed through two sets of doors, so you have a sally port for each cell. Safest way to do it.”

  “What do they do in their cells for twenty-three hours?”

  “Most of them go crazy. End up in MHU. Some pace. Some punch the wall. Some read. I won’t lie, it’s no life. I’d rather die than be put in there.”

  “That… sounds like hell.”

  “See now, that’s the most sensible thing you’ve said since we met. This place is hell. Admin is like… purgatory. We’re the lost souls serving our time, doing penance or whatever till we’re judged. Then the deeper into the prison you go, the lower you descend through the different levels until you finally get to ACU.” Martinez throws Sawyer a serious look. “ACU is where Satan would have his throne.”

  They fall into an uneasy silence. Sawyer’s stomach is clenched with fear. She’s starting to wonder if she’s made a really big mistake. Sure, she needed to be here. She needed the job. There was no other way. But this… she’s not sure she can do this.

  She sees a door coming up on their left and stops to peer through the safety glass, looking into yet another faceless corridor. “Where are we now?”

  “Unit 4.”

  She looks at Martinez in surprise. “We’ve only passed four units?”

  “Haven’t even got out of Gen Pop yet. Come on.”

  Martinez starts walking again, not waiting to see if Sawyer is following.

  “I don’t get it. Why is this place so big?”

  “It’s what happens when you repurpose something instead of starting from scratch. It used to be an army base. The old prison? The Glasshouse? It was a military prison. Apparently, it’s British slang or something. Don’t ask me why the name stuck.”

  “Seems a weird place to even build an army base, though,” says Sawyer.

  “You’re lucky you’ve got me for orientation. If it was Sheriff Montoya, he’d be showing you a PowerPoint presentation right now. It’s his favorite subject. Back in the day, there were these plans to build something called the Cross-Florida Barge Canal. This was in 1935, right? Government wanted a canal network that would cut right through Florida from Jacksonville all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “Why?”

  “To move goods across Florida. The canals were supposed to be dug by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The plans were crazy expensive, though. Funding ran out. Nothing was finished.”

  “And this place?”

  “This was the base of operations for the Corps of Engineers. But when the money ran out, the army decided to make the most of what they’d already built and turned it into a military prison. That’s why the layout is so weird. It wasn’t intended to be a civilian prison. It’s been an army barracks, a building site, an army training ground, a storm-and-flood disaster management site—”

  “Wait.” Sawyer is getting confused. “A what?”

  “Yeah. The whole canal project was resurrected in 1964, but this time the army was told to build these huge storm tunnels underneath the Glasshouse. This site is close to the ocean. All the other dams and canals they were building would feed through here. The storm tunnels were supposed to handle the overflow if they flooded.”

  “Have they ever been used?”

  “Nah. Nixon canceled the whole project again in ’71. Some environmentalists were getting pissy about it. Bad publicity. He had other things to worry about, so he just scrapped the whole thing.”

  “And the flood system?”

  “They didn’t finish it. There are miles of tunnels about a hundred and fifty feet underneath us. Huge flood chambers. I’m talking thirty, forty feet high. Must have cost a fucking fortune.”

  “So what happened to this place in ’71?”

  “The army thought fuck it and ditched the whole plot. They sold everything to a private company owned by some guy called Ravenhill and it was turned into a civilian prison. They stopped using the Glasshouse in the late eighties. It was too old. No electronics or anything. It’s all manual. You know? Massive levers to open the cell doors, that kind of thing. So fucking claustrophobic. You’re actually lucky. It used to be an initiation for new COs to sleep a night in that place.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah.” Martinez shivers. “Feels like the walls are closing in on you. You hear all these noises…” She trails off, lost in her memories.

  Sawyer has been counting the doors as they walk. Number seven is coming up, and the staff corridor comes to an end about three hundred feet in front of them.

  Martinez stops walking. “End of the road,” she says. “That’s ACU to our left.” She points at the double doors straight ahead. “Through there is Northside. Staff and admin. Changing rooms, kitchen, that kind of thing.” She hands Sawyer two electronic keycards. “These are temps. This one will let you through the doors on either end of this corridor. The other one will let you out of the Northside staff room. My advice? Use it and leave now. Good luck. I’ll catch you when this hurricane has blown over.” She turns and starts retracing their steps.

  “Wait,” calls Sawyer, suddenly realizing what Martinez said. “What do you mean? You’re not staying?”

  “Fuck no. We’re being subbed by the National Guard later on today. The COs are leaving in shifts, starting now. Seriously, you should just get back in your car and go. Head north. This storm is going to get real bad before it gets any better.” She looks around. “Here’s hoping the place is still standing by the end of it. I need this job. Got bills to pay.”

  She starts walking again, leaving Sawyer standing alone in the wide corridor. She can hear a weird sound coming from the door into ACU. She steps hesitantly forward and listens.

  It’s the sound of inmates screaming.

  Three<
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  7:30 a.m.

  All the inmates called by Evans line up in the narrow corridor outside our block. The corridor is painted in that institutional yellow-green color that hospitals, mental institutions, and prisons all have in common. My theory is that someone in government got a bulk deal in the early eighties when everyone realized that the previous decade’s fad for decorating your house in mustard and avocado really wasn’t a good idea. Solution? Mix the colors and sell it off to government.

  The corridor ends at a heavy door. To the right is a wire-reinforced window looking into the security room. We wait up against the wall while Evans counts us off on his clipboard. A younger officer, a guy named Gonzalez, stands just ahead of us, a dirty sack sitting at his feet.

  Gonzalez is new, only been on the job about a year. He’s still pretty decent to the inmates. Seems like a good guy. But you can already see the effect the job is having on him. Obligatory overtime means the COs work fourteen-hour shifts, and the dark rings that live permanently beneath his eyes show he’s taking strain. It won’t be long before he becomes just like the others. Minimum effort put in. Just watching the clock until it’s time to go home.

  Evans finishes his head count and picks up the sack, tipping its contents onto the floor. Belly chains spill out, curling at his feet like iron snakes. Great. Nobody likes belly chains. They restrict arm movement so much you can’t even scratch your nose.

  Gonzalez and Evans head down the line attaching the chains. Evans does mine, cinching it so tight it digs into my waist. Rookie mistake on my part. You’re supposed to push out your stomach when they put on the chain. That way, when you relax again, it isn’t so tight that it actually cuts off your breathing.

  “You might want to loosen that a bit,” I say to Evans.

  “Might I now?”

  “Yeah. It’s a bit tight.”

  “Sure. My apologies.”

  He loosens the chain. I try to push my stomach out, but he jabs me hard in the side with his elbow. I wince and double up. He takes the opportunity to yank the chain even harder, locking it in place with a smile on his lips. He grabs the handcuffs attached to the chain and snaps them over my wrists, making sure they’re as tight as possible.

  “How’s that, sir? To your liking?”

  He chuckles and moves down the line, checking all the locks, tightening the cuffs that, in his opinion, Gonzalez left too loose. He then bangs on the metal door leading out of the corridor.

  “Open B.”

  “Opening B,” comes the muffled voice from the security room.

  The security room is positioned as the central hub, while A, B, and C blocks are the chunky spokes radiating outward. Inside are the computers that activate all the locks in the wing. The room is protected by bulletproof glass, a solid three-inch door. It contains a gun locker in case the inmates get out of hand. Shotguns, live rounds, rubber bullets, beanbag rounds, anything a CO might need to put down any trouble.

  There’s a loud buzz and the door clicks open. Evans leads us into the corridor on the other side. Same color paint, but the floor is covered with gray screed that has a red line painted on it two feet from the wall.

  “Stay in the line!” shouts Evans.

  “Nice to get out,” says Felix conversationally as everyone shuffles to the right side of the red line. “Break from the old routine. Just like a family vacation.”

  I look around the corridor. Fluorescent lights are recessed in the ceiling, their glow dimmed by thick safety glass. Exposed pipes, their top halves coated black with years of accumulated dust, snake along the walls just below the ceiling. There’s an old rust-colored bloodstain smeared on the wall.

  “Where the hell did you go on vacation?” I ask.

  Gonzalez stops at the door at the far end of the corridor. We stand there while the guards in a booth on the other side scope us out through the camera.

  “Come on!” shouts Gonzalez. “Cleaning crew for the Glasshouse.”

  The door buzzes and releases. Gonzalez yanks it open and we file through. Guards stare at us as we pass, their faces cold and impassive.

  “What you lookin’ at?” calls out someone from farther down the line.

  I glance over my shoulder. Nunes is giving the guards the finger as he passes the booth. “Yeah, fuck you, man. Come out here and look at me like that.”

  Felix, ever the unpredictable one, turns and grabs Nunes, shoving him up against the wall. “You want to shut the fuck up? You trying to get us sent back to our cells?”

  “N-no, man. I was just—”

  Felix pulls him away and slams him hard up against the wall again. “You was just nothing. Understand? Shut the fuck up before I shut you up.”

  Evans appears at Felix’s side. “Let him go.”

  If it had been any other prisoner, Evans would have laid into him with his baton. But because it’s Felix, he gives him a chance to back down on his own. Everyone knows Felix can be… impulsive.

  Felix lets go and gets back in line. Evans then takes his place, ramming his baton against Nunes’s larynx.

  “Now—wanna say that again?”

  Evans pushes harder. Nunes can’t speak. Hell, he can hardly breathe.

  “Can’t hear you, smart mouth. I said, you wanna say that again?”

  Nunes shakes his head. Evans glares at him a moment longer, then steps back. Nunes folds over, coughing and wheezing for breath.

  Evans yanks him up by his collar. “No delays!” he shouts. “Keep moving.”

  We move on, nobody talking now. We make our way through the rest of the wing, passing the staff rec room, offices, the prison cafeteria, the corridor to the staff gym, before finally stopping at a reinforced door that opens onto a thirty-yard-long upward-slanting corridor leading into the main administrative section of Ravenhill, called, in a dazzling display of creativity, Admin.

  Where we’re standing now, this is the offices and support network that deals with A Wing. A Wing is a newer addition to the prison complex, built in the nineties when the four Gen Pop units in Ravenhill became too full. Only problem is, the actual prison, as well as the Glasshouse itself, takes up all the level space at the top of the hill. So A Wing had to be built on a section of flattened land cut out of the hill itself, making it about thirty yards lower than the rest of the prison.

  Evans uses his keys to unlock the doors and we climb the uphill corridor. He unlocks another door at the top and we enter the reception area of Admin. Its age shows everywhere you look. The reception hall is a massive room with an ornate ceiling. The huge space looks like it belongs in a hotel instead of a prison. The walls are paneled in dark wood. Against the far wall is an antique wooden desk on which sit five computer monitors—only three of them are in use by the staff at this hour. To the right are two metal detectors leading into the waiting area and the front entrance of the prison. There are no civilians there yet. Visiting hours are in the afternoon.

  Evans leads us through reception, then into a corridor that skirts the front of the prison before turning left into another long passage and finally into Receiving and Release.

  R&R is where the inmates arrive for processing. Where we’re signed out once we’ve done our time. Some prisons have R&R open to the air. Just a straight road from the outside gate to a fenced-off area where the inmates disembark. But Ravenhill’s R&R is an actual depot. A roofed-over space with automatic steel doors controlled from inside.

  We exit the prison. A correctional bus is waiting for us. It’s a Blue Bird All American, about twenty years old. Not bad. The bus that brought me here was a converted school bus from the fifties. Windows sealed shut and no AC. This is luxury in comparison.

  The driver is already in his seat, his fingers locked tightly around the wheel. He looks nervous. We climb the steps and file through the metal gate that will be locked to keep us from messing with him. I take a window seat about two thirds from the front. Felix sits next to me, shifting around on the cracked leather to get comfortable.

&n
bsp; “I remember one time I was on a bus like this. It was going across the border. South, y’know…”?

  I stop listening, filtering out the chatter. I sometimes find it best to do that with Felix. It becomes white noise, like an electric fan. I’ve trained myself to pick up on repeated phrases like “You hearing me?” or “You listening?” and I nod and mumble yeah. Felix never really notices. Or if he does, he doesn’t care. Not that I have anything against Felix, you understand. He just talks a lot.

  Gonzalez makes his way down the aisle between the seats. “Hold on tight,” he says. “It’s rough out there.” He enters the guard cage at the rear of the bus. He and Evans both slam their gates shut and lock them, then take their seats and put on their seat belts.

  “Hey!” yells MacLeod. “How come you guys get belts?”

  “’Cause your life ain’t worth shit, MacLeod!” shouts Evans. “I tell you that every day. You never listen.”

  “You lucky you behind that cage, Evans. I’d beat the shit out of you if you wasn’t.”

  “And that’s you up on report, asshole. Threatening a CO with violence.”

  “Can you guys shut up back there?” shouts the driver. “We’re heading out.”

  The engine starts with a dull rumble, the seats vibrating. The driver speaks into a radio transmitter mounted on the dash. A loud buzz sounds and then the metal gates at the other end of the depot start to slide open.

  It feels like the doors to hell are opening up.

  The wind slams into the bus, rocking it on its wheels. Rain explodes into the depot, gushing as if a water tank has been ruptured. The inmates cry out in shock, gripping hold of the seats in front of them. Leaves and debris fly through the air, an old sheet of newspaper slapping against the windscreen.