From the Chrysalis: a novel

by Karen E. Black

  Joe pressed on. “Well, do you have any idea why they’re rioting, sir? What do they want? Steaks? Air conditioning? Colour television? More time off for good behaviour?”

  “I thought they already had air conditioning at the taxpayer’s expense,” somebody quipped.

  “Who the fuck knows? All I know is we saw this one coming, only we couldn’t tell when.”

  “But why, sir?”

  “I told you I don’t know!” Savage exploded, sticking his face in Joe’s. “But listen. Yous fellas want somebody to blame? Take a look at yerselves, all you do-gooders, you civil rights people, you bleeding hearts. That’s who I blame! What the hell do you guys know about rehabilitation? We’re the ones trained to handle them, and we’ll rehabilitate them too, but excuse me if we gotta bust a few heads first.”

  A snicker rippled through the crowd, and Liza flushed. She knew she shouldn’t speak her mind, but she couldn’t help herself. This … this bellyacher was blaming everyone but himself for the debacle behind those locked doors. And alleging Dace had taken hostages? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He was reformed. At least he sure as hell sounded reformed in all his letters. Not to mention he was just weeks away from parole. Did this stupid jackass really think her cousin was a fool?

  “So” she spat back at Savage. “If you know so much about rehabilitation, why are they rioting inside? You look after the prisoners everyday, not the do-gooders!”

  The guard whirled in her direction, his small coal eyes blasting her already hot face. “Who the hell are you, Missy? I seen you somewheres before. You got a lover boy inside this here Joint and he ain’t never gonna get out! Don’t you come down here telling me how to do my job!”

  Liza stumbled backward on the grassy knoll, despising herself for retreating, but far too cowed to hold her ground. Shrinking in the guard’s shadow, her arms tightened across her chest. Her eyes appealed to Joe, but he was preoccupied in copying every word of her exchange with Savage to be any assistance. The guard tugged at the tie constricting his throat before turning his head slightly aside. A clump of spittle landed near her feet.

  “Go home, all of yous! Get the fuck out of here!” he bellowed over his shoulder, before lumbering off.

  Liza rarely spoke in public, but she knew she might feel embarrassed later. Right now all she felt was drained.

  Joe came and stood by her. “My God, you’re so pale. Heh, heh. A whiter shade of pale. Are you a friend of one of those inmates?” Joe chose that moment to start interrogating her. “What is it? Do you have a relationship with a convicted criminal?”

  In response to her silence, he continued. “What do you think is going to happen to him? What will you do if he’s killed?”

  “I’ll die,” she said under her breath.

  “What’s that, honey?”

  Liza opened her mouth then closed it. She had to get control of herself and fast. She’d be useless to Dace if she fell apart now. Lowering her head, she clenched her fists and shut her eyes. She had no intention of crying, and no intention of speaking to this … this insensate clod, either. But she didn’t have the strength to resist when he took her by the arm and led her to a coffee shop across the street.

  In her daydream she broke past the angry guard, running fast enough to almost gut herself on the barricade. “Let me talk to them!” she pleaded. “D’Arcy Devereux will listen to me.”

  If only they’d let her negotiate with the rebels inside. Or perhaps with the men who wanted to regain control of them. Hardly noticing him there, she accepted a cup of hot coffee from Joe’s cold fingers, although she later picked up the bill. Her mind raced. She’d rescue Dace. All she had to do was get Inside, where she belonged.

  Chapter 15

  Last Chance

  Troops Surround Prison.

  A citizens’ group, which is comprised of several lawyers and newspaper men, continued to hear the grievances of 600 rebellious inmates at Maitland Penitentiary and to barter for the release of six guards taken hostage. The prisoners picked calm and articulate convicts to act as their spokesmen.“Keep the Army out and get us more food. Then we’ll be as good as gold,” promised one. He insisted the prisoners’ decision to riot was prompted by the proposed move to the new Supermax. He also charged that 20 inmates had committed suicide this past year, a figure disputed by prison officials.

  *[ Maitland Spectator, Sept. 5, 1971, p.1.]

  Maitland Penitentiary, September 5, 1971:

  “Fold,” Dace said, tossing down his hand. The other card players shifted in their chairs, watching him. He didn’t give a fuck that he was making them nervous. He hated everybody that morning: the authorities, his cell mates and Sandy McAllister in particular.

  Kicking his chair aside, he went out into the corridor. They were on the fourth tier in Cell Block B, right outside his cell. He felt like a zoo animal, waiting for his meat. So far all they’d done was organize some teams. No point in letting Sandy McAllister have all the fun. The deed was done and a man could go crazy just waiting. Dace had gotten stuck heading the inmate security force. Then a negotiating team had been chosen to convey their demands—their concerns, Rick said—to the outside world.

  Dace heard Rick whistling as he came back down the hall. He had been at a meeting with some government officials in an enemy building since ten.

  The card players waited until he got a little closer. Then, “So what now?” one of them asked.“Mr. Hot-Off-the-Press?”

  “The Star was there. So was the Globe and Mail!” Rick replied, pounding his own chest.

  “Give it a rest,” somebody muttered. “You’re starting to sound more like a groupie than a man with revolution on his mind.”

  “Yeah,” a couple of other men said. “This is a mother fucking revolution, man!”

  Oh, yeah, Dace thought. “Or a bunch of rebels without a cause,” he said.

  Rick looked at him blankly. “We got a cause,” he said. “Or causes. Where the hell have you been? There were fifteen suicides last year alone in this place. Now they want to move us to a new Supermax.”

  “Yeah, so?” Dace said. “I don’t see them changing their minds after this.”

  “But they might!” Rick practically danced around him. “If we make them. If we get the hostages. We need some leverage, like. Something to trade. I dunno.”

  Dace stared at Rick. What the hell was the matter with him? Had he lost his mind? “Go get ‘em, tiger,” he said.

  “I can’t do it by myself,” Rick said. “I …”

  “For Christ’s sake, let me think!” Dace interrupted. He headed over to the guard rail for another look around.

  The place looked quiet enough. The deadlocks were off all the entrances to the cell blocks, except the segregated area in D Block where fourteen baby killers and a bunch of rat finks lived. Sandy’s men had found the keys to unlock most of the individual cells and had busted into the rest, but they had left the men in Segregation alone.

  There hadn’t been a peep out of them so far. Well, naturally. Guys like that had probably learned to play dead in the cradle. Some of the short timers were quiet too, he noted, sleeping off the effects of alcohol and amphetamines or worse.

  Rick was still waiting, his anxiety rolling off him in waves.

  “What a fuck-up,” Dace muttered under his breath. Christ. What was Sandy hollering about now? He’d been busy all night. First he’d organized the younger, more energetic inmates into work gangs, barricading exits with metal cots and anything else they could find. Then they’d busted through some of the bricks connecting their cells, creating a dormitory where they could hang out.

  Their latest project was the penitentiary gong. One of Sandy’s cat burglars was scaling the wall in the Dome right now. Dace didn’t pay much attention until there was a loud crash. Everybody stampeded to the Dome, so he went too. When they arrived, nobody said anything for a moment. It looked like the bell’s cables had been cut with just a couple of swipes, but maybe they had been rotten to begin w
ith. Dace glanced at the perpetrator. He stood by the carnage wearing a huge grin, knife between his teeth. Somebody volunteered that they had hugged the wall like they were on a centrifuge ride when it came down, then everybody cheered.

  “Good work, Peter Pan,” Dace said, watching him hide four or five good sized pieces of the bell under some trash. “I thought that baby was cast iron.”

  When Dace got back upstairs, Rick was already there. “Shouldn’t you be in a meeting?” he tried to say, but Rick was busy talking.

  The smell of wood smoke hung in the air. Wooden furniture, smashed for container fires, had burned all night. Books had met the same fate, almost causing George the library con to have a seizure. Dace had taken him to the Infirmary, off at the end of the building in a conflict-free zone. As far as the librarian was concerned, nothing worse could happen. Dace hoped he was right, but there were a lot of variables. What if the diddlers or—

  Oh, Christ. How likely was that? The army was coming through. That sneaky, scuttling noise on the roof—it had to be them. Or it could be one of Sandy’s men, plotting an alternate escape route, but he doubted it. That’s it, he decided, going up to Rick and pulling him aside.

  “Enough about the press,” he said, his lips barely moving. “They write stuff. They don’t make it happen. We could, though. Why the hell should Sandy’s boys have all the fun?”

  Rick’s eyes bulged. “You mean you want to take over?”

  Dace cocked his head at the ceiling, hearing a sound. “The hostages?” he asked. “Do I look crazy?” What do you think that sound is? he mouthed. “Besides, there’s no percentage in taking over, even though we could do a much better job than that asshole Sandy.”

  “Jesus, your little sister Rosie could do a better job.”

  “We need to make a list of demands. You can’t keep going empty-handed to the press. It’s pointless.”

  “I’ve haven’t been doing that!” Rick protested.

  “Let me then,” a teenager named Steve, volunteered. Another boxer, he was the youngest recruit on Dace’s police team.

  People laughed when Rick glared at Steve, but he ignored them. “Forget it, chump, I’ll talk to the press,” he snapped. “There’s no telling what a fish like you might say. Some of us want to get out of here alive. Right, Dace?”

  Everybody groaned. They wanted to hear about the press meetings, though. Those were their only hope of a resolution, their last chance.

  “Jesus Christ. When are they sending in some food? I’m starving!” Steve ventured.

  “Hey, Ricky-man. Tell them we want total amnesty!”

  “Flights to Brazil!”

  “I’d settle for roast beef on Sunday night.”

  “More recreational time.”

  “I want to fuck my old lady.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. What d’you call it? Get some conjugating visits.”

  “That’s conjugal, you dork!”

  “Who you calling—”

  “Ah, relax, man!”

  “And tell them we don’t want no physical reprisals.”

  Dace listened for several minutes, then he grabbed the last speaker by the throat. It happened to be Steve. “Fuck!” he spat into the terrified boy’s face. “What a bunch of dreamers! Let’s get real here. You know the guards are gonna beat the crap out of us the first chance they get. That’s if they don’t shoot everybody in the face. Or in the nuts. That’s more their style. Give everybody amnesty!” he mimicked, allowing Steve to slump, unharmed, to the floor. “What the hell are you telling them, Rick? These fucking demands for better food and more play time are stupid. What the hell is this, fifth grade?”

  “Easy, big guy, easy,” Rick replied, patting Dace’s shoulder. “You have a point. We want to get across how we’ve been systematically brutalized by both the employees of Maitland Penitentiary and the penal system in general.”

  “Yeah, like John Q. Public will care!” Dace interrupted with a derisive snort. “How about modernizing the prison educational system? Or being paid a minimum wage instead of doing slave labour? And why isn’t somebody taking notes?”

  Rick shoved something at him.“Go to it. Here’s a pencil and paper,” he said.

  “Fucking fancy talk,” somebody else muttered, shooting a nervous glance at Dace, but several other men nodded.

  Dace snapped the pencil in half, trying to calm down. We’re pulling in way too many directions, he thought as he jotted down their concerns.

  Jesus, everybody had their own agenda, even if it were just to get high. Look at Rick. Every time he got back from one of his goddamn press meetings, he was all fired up with his own frigging self-importance. In prison he was the same person he’d always been: a bit of a show-off. Never mind that Dace had always admired his style, his outgoing personality, his joie de vivre. In another life Rick would have made a fine politician, a character actor or even a circus clown, but he was nothing here.

  The men in B Block ran out of demands at just about the same time Dace’s pencil broke for good. If he hadn’t been used to writing a lot, he would have had a cramp in his hand. Shooting his foot out, he tripped Rick to his knees, bringing him closer. Rick looked a little shaky but pulled a cigarette from out of his pants and offered Dace a smoke.

  “Shit, it’s quiet,” Dace said quietly as he lit up, although quiet was relative. From what he could tell, a bunch of stupid drunks were arguing in the Dome. “What a difference it makes now that we don’t have to listen to that dumb ass bell anymore.”

  “Maybe we should get some shut eye,” Rick said. “I don’t know about the rest of the population, but we didn’t sleep a wink here last night.”

  Dace nodded. He hadn’t either. Something told him that they were in for a long siege, but he couldn’t sleep. Not now. Maybe Rick … No. Rick was even more hyper and distracted than ever. Dace’s heart sank. What the fuck had Rick gotten into now?

  Dace didn’t want to say anything. What people did was their own business. But he couldn’t help himself. The guy had a responsibility and he was blowing it. “Looks like you visited Sandy on your way to meeting the press. I thought you couldn’t stand that guy. What did you take?”

  “Speed,” Rick said. “I got a lot on my mind. I need you—”

  “You wanted the job!”

  “What the hell else was I supposed to do?” Rick gave a helpless shrug.

  The shrug set Dace off. “You couldn’t pay me to talk to the army, the government or the goddamn press,” he shouted. “Goddammit. Nobody has the balls to take charge of this mess!”

  On a roll now, he detailed the absurdity of all their demands and the remote chance any of them would ever be met. Pausing for breath, he almost lost his train of thought. He had already lost Rick, who was just standing there, tapping his right shoe. Jesus Christ. What was he doing, anyway? He hated talking. He had to think.

  They needed a plan. Even if it were just to get more food and water. Fresh water was at a premium and the kitchen was outside the rioters’ area of control. The rioters could have guaranteed access to the kitchen if any of this had been planned! Although there was almost no fresh meat and produce in the Joint at any given time, there were gallon cans of pork and beans, peas, corn, peaches, spaghetti and an assortment of Campbell’s soups on open shelving in the huge larder. Those staples of prison fare he had scorned the other day now seemed like the number one thing on his wish list.

  Stupid, Dace thought, but just because the biggest bingo in Canadian history was underway, it didn’t mean anybody gave a fuck if the insurgents got fed. He wasn’t sure about the offence’s strategy, but starving people into submission was one option. He doubted they’d do that, though. That would mean they’d risk the hostages, too. All six of them. Jesus. Why the hell had they taken so many goddamn hostages?

  Rick held out his arm. “What?” Dace asked, but he already knew what his friend wanted. Familiarity. Something to which they both returned when they needed reassurance.

  Shit,
Dace thought with distaste. The man reeked of sweat and nicotine. But Dace sat on the floor and prepared to arm wrestle him anyway. When they clapped their hands together, part of him was repelled, but Dace also ached for what for what his friend had so recently enjoyed: more cigarettes and maybe a little something stronger. Ice, speed. Once or twice Dace had cranked up, when a dirty guard had snuck some dope into the Joint, mixed with the white detergent in the laundry truck. That’d be a nice escape right now.

  Rick lay almost flat on his back after the first round, his fighting arm bent an awkward angle. He wanted to have another go and at this point it was easier to wrestle than look him in the face. After the second round Dace felt a little better, but Rick re-launched his appeal, like it was the loser’s prerogative.

  “What’s the point of talking to the man?” Dace asked when Rick ran out of breath. “All I want is to get out of here and that’s not going to happen.”

  “I’m not asking you to negotiate, man,” Rick insisted.

  “No, because you think I’m too fucking hot-headed.”

  Rick’s words raced out. “I’ve been planning this bingo for ages and I’m on the goddamn Inmate Committee.”

  “Jesus. You and McAllister?” Dace asked.

  “Yeah, well, I know he’s crazy, but he couldn’t have done it without me. One of my buddies in the kitchen made a working model of the key to the gun cage. Oh man. You weren’t there when they busted in, but it felt like we’d all died and gone to heaven.”

  “Who made the key?”

  Rick shook his head. “No names, Dace,” he said almost sadly. “You know the code. I didn’t expect this to come off. It was just good luck that the new guard was so careless in rec hall the other day. We didn’t even need our key. Where was I? Oh, yeah. So Dace, all I’m asking for is a little help.”

  “Fuck. You sound like the goddamn Beatles. Who the hell’s been watching your back?”

  “You have! But now you gotta watch the hostages when I’m gone,” Rick continued, running his finger through his thinning hair. Once his mother’s pride and joy, most of Rick’s ginger hair had fallen out the first time he’d been arrested in Maitland. He swore it was the prison food, but Dace knew better. Rick worked in the prison kitchen and cooked most of his own food anyway.