Winkie

by Clifford Chase

  (Rubs his eyes.) This discussion is going nowhere.

  That is what I have been trying to tell you.

  You make me sick.

  I came to America to get away from people like you—but maybe I made a mistake!

  Oh, you made a mistake, all right.

  (Her voice breaking.) I said I want to see a lawyer.

  Miss Fouad, as I’m sure it has already been explained to you, you are an immigrant, and you have not yet been charged with a crime, therefore—

  I am an American citizen!

  That’s right, hide behind the very freedoms you seek to destroy.

  Standing squarely in the doorway of Winkie’s cell, the plump jailer read aloud a list of the facility’s rules, beginning with, “I will respect myself, my fellow inmates, and, most of all, my jailers. …” Her headful of short, thin, purplish curls bobbed from side to side with the effort. Winkie looked at each of the four white walls as if there might be some escape, then at the jailer’s badge, which said Deputy Wing. “And the Most Important Rule of All,” she concluded, her small eyes a-twinkle with improvisation. “I’ll be watchin’ you!”

  Deputy Finch, a large man whose shaved scalp formed a shadow cap on his round head, snickered in a sinister way. “We watch traitors and terrorists speshly,” he added, kicking Winkie’s feet out from under him so that he fell against the concrete slab of a bed. “Little fuck.”

  So this is how it’s going to be, thought the bear, not without fear. He calculated that Deputy Finch was six times taller and thirty to forty times heavier than he was. Slowly he climbed up onto the unpadded platform, testing its hardness with his paws.

  Wing said, “You might try to hang yourself or somethin’,” apparently to account for the missing mattress, though she explained no further. As if conducting an English lesson she began pointing and naming everything in the cell. “Sink. Faucet. Bed. Other bed. Door. Food slot. Stool. Floor drain. Other stool. Counter. Terlet. Terlet paper.”

  Abruptly and without another word she and Finch exited, and the heavy cell door clicked shut. Winkie was about to allow himself at least a small sigh of relief, but then he saw the two of them standing in the door’s wire-crossed window, smirking and waving at him. This went on for quite a while, and just when it seemed they had tired of the activity, an inmate also appeared in the window, and the door opened.

  “Hey!” called the inmate, a skinny woman with gray-red hair and gentle-seeming granny glasses. Thus far she was the only prisoner Winkie had seen who was white. “Housewarming present!”

  A heavy book whizzed past the bear’s face.

  Through the ensuing laughter Deputy Finch yelled something about “your kind” and the door clicked shut again. They watched the bear awhile longer, but soon Winkie could hear an authoritative voice calling from somewhere, and the window quickly cleared to the plain white of the hallway. In the sudden silence, Winkie went and picked up the book: the Koran.

  “Oh, I inquired after Miss um, Miss, um um—Fouad,” said Unwin a few days later, as he pulled papers out of an overstuffed briefcase.

  Winkie brightened, just a little.

  “I don’t know, I think I might’ve made things worse.”

  Winkie was downcast.

  “Well, not worse.”

  Winkie brightened.

  “Well, maybe worse. I don’t know …” Unwin pulled a large roll of silver duct tape from his briefcase and looked questioningly at it. “Huh—I’m surprised they didn’t catch this when I came in. I mean, it must be contraband, nearly everything is.” He held it out to Winkie. “Do you want it?”

  The bear shook his head, furious.

  “Yeah, I guess there’s no reason you would.” He blushed. “Um, anyway, anyway, anyway …”

  Winkie stared at him.

  “Oh, yes, Miss Fouad—Miss Fouad—um, so I think I may have made things worse. The assistant prosecutor said, ‘You’re awfully interested in this witness,’ and I said, ‘Uh, I’m not that interested,’ and she said, ‘Then why did you ask about her?’ so I said, ‘No special reason,’ and she said. …” The story went on for many more sentences, as Unwin sifted absentmindedly through his papers. “… So finally I said, ‘Um, so where is Miss Fouad now?’ and she said, ‘Well, actually we were just about to release her, but now I think we won’t, I think we’ll need to question her further,’ and so on like that, with this little smile on her face—everyone says she and the chief prosecutor are having, um, you know—so um, anyway, I tried saying, ‘Um, that would certainly be very unfair to Miss Fouad,’ and she said, ‘That’s not my concern,’ so I stormed out.” He pulled a second role of tape from his briefcase, shrugged, and resumed sorting through his papers. “But now that I think of it, um, they must not have ever intended to release her. Yes, they must have just been taunting me. That must be it, because they like to do that …”

  Winkie thought he might burst into tears of frustration and rage when suddenly Unwin looked up from his briefcase and his small blue darting eyes actually stood still for a moment. “I just hope I didn’t make things any worse for your friend,” he said simply.

  Now the bear couldn’t decide whether to forgive him or throttle him.

  “Um, um, um, um,” continued Unwin. “Anyway, anyway … So, anyway … So, so, so …”

  In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful …

  As Winkie tried to read, Deputy Wing and her granny trusty stood in the cell window, their hands clasped in mock prayer.

  “Towel head,” sang the trusty, whose name was Randi.

  This had been going on since he arrived. Whenever he picked up his book, it seemed, there they were in the window again, jeering, one or both of them, or some other guard and some other prisoner. Winkie turned away in disdain, but as usual Randi began tapping on the thick glass with her thickly painted fingernails, crooning, “Towel head,” again and again.

  The bear sighed. “So, my head is made of cloth,” he thought. “So what?”

  He flipped a few pages ahead and tried to concentrate. During their many interrogations the chief detective had often quoted the Koran, seeming to think the bear already knew all about it and had, moreover, misinterpreted it to justify his supposed crimes. Winkie had no interest in replying to such arguments, but he was curious about the book itself—the only reading material he was allowed, yet he was taunted every time he opened it. Unfortunately it was also a difficult book, and Winkie never seemed to get very far before bewilderment made his eyes droop.

  Do you think you will enter the garden of bliss without the trials of those who have passed before you?

  “Well, yes,” muttered the bear, somewhat affronted. “Why shouldn’t I?” Besides, he thought, what if you’ve already entered the garden of bliss—and lost it? Could you, through more trials, return to it? If so, why so many trials? Exasperated, Winkie flipped the pages again.

  … and whenever God decrees anything, God says to it, “Be!” and it is.

  Winkie shut his eyes and opened them again—the words seemed to cut through him. For if this really was true—if God had decreed his existence—then why? And why give a bear his freedom only to take it away? Wouldn’t it have been better to have no hope at all?

  “Aka-maka ha-moogh!” called Randi, in “Arabic.” Deputy Wing barked laughter.

  Winkie curled up into a ball around the book, so that his tormentors wouldn’t see him crying.

  With a satisfying rustle of his robe, the judge swept from his private chambers into the courtroom. “All rise!” The ceremony of his arrival—it was the one moment of the day the judge actually enjoyed. In the wonderful silence he climbed the three steps to his august seat—

  “Your Honor, uh, Your Honor, let me assure you—” said Unwin.

  “Assure me of what?” said the judge, thoroughly jangled. “Counselor, I have not yet even spoken.” With showy annoyance he seated himself.

  “Oh, of course, Judge, I apologize. It was—it was the expression on y
our face—I misinterpreted it as a statement—”

  The prosecutor and his favorite assistant stifled laughter and the judge banged his gavel several times. “Counselor,” he said to Unwin. “I will now speak. Then you will speak based on what I have said. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, of course, Judge, yes, oh yes, naturally—”

  The judge banged the gavel again. “Now, where were we?” Crossly he began rubbing his eyes, not to think but so as not to see the tall, thin, disheveled Unwin, who stood before him so miserably as if naked before God. It made the judge himself feel naked before God. Picturing how he must appear to everyone gathered in the courtroom—his face pink and fat and irritable above the black of his robe—he shuddered with sudden and unaccountable embarrassment.

  “Suppression of evidence?” prompted the prosecutor, with a felicitous smile.

  “Oh, yes,” said the judge.

  “Your Honor, Your Honor, Your Honor, Your Honor!” said Unwin. “May I …?”

  The judge tried not to look at him. “May you what?”

  “Speak. I’d like to speak.”

  The judge decided he had never before seen anyone or anything as detestable as Charles Unwin the Fourth, Esquire. The pale man undulated there in his baggy gray suit, blushing. With greater keenness than usual, the judge felt sure that his whole life was a hideous fraud and he could no longer go on with it. He—just—couldn’t—go—on! His black robe became unbearably heavy and warm. He began to prickle all over. What if I just tore it off and underneath I was wearing women’s underwear, and then I ran out of the room screaming, “Fuck me!”? he thought, to soothe himself. It didn’t soothe him, but it enabled him at least to motion with one hand for Unwin to proceed.

  Still the defense attorney stood there frowning and not speaking, staring at the floor as if in suspended animation.

  “Mr. Unwin?” boomed the judge. He hoped that by talking very loudly he could give himself a sense of purpose. It wasn’t working.

  “What?” said Unwin, a moment or two later, as if startled.

  “You had something to say to this court?”

  “Oh, I didn’t know I could yet.”

  The judge looked at the ceiling full of white rectangles and lights. “I just said you could.”

  “Oh, oh, oh, I didn’t hear you. Strange. Strange …” His eyes moving this way and that, Unwin looked as though he might never overcome his bafflement.

  “I gestured,” said the judge, hating himself for speaking to this hapless man on his own terms.

  Relief spread like balm across Unwin’s blotchy face. “Ah, that explains it,” he muttered. “So. So. So. So …”

  The judge wondered if he could get through the entire trial without looking at the defense attorney ever again.

  Bedtime was called lights-out, but the fluorescent doughnut above Winkie’s concrete bed shone all night long. The dingy light was somehow blue, green, and orange all at once, and it flickered hundreds of times a second like the wings of a moth. Next to it was the small surveillance camera, a single dead eye.

  What time was it? The hours passed strangely in jail and most strangely at night. Somewhere way down the cell block a young woman began to scream, Randi yelled, “Stupid bitch!” and the screaming died down.

  Winkie’s numbered baby suit reeked of industrial detergent and made his mangy fur itch. It didn’t bother him so much during the day, but at night, which was as bright as day, the insistent tickle, first here, then there, quickly grew intolerable and he began to claw at himself. What little fur he had left on his belly was wearing away, and even in his sleep he knew he should stop but couldn’t. He scratched and scratched. It provided a weird kind of relief; when he was scratching he seemed to think nothing at all. Before bed he tried to reason with himself that if Wing or Finch found fur on the floor of his cell, he’d be punished, but to no avail. Every night he scratched himself raw.

  Once early on he tried simply removing the clothes and indeed lay there with relief for several minutes, enjoying the air on his nakedness—but soon enough one of the night guards banged on the window and told the disgusting whore to put her fucking T-shirt back on now, before he (the guard) threw up all over the video monitor.

  Winkie turned on his side and lay still, in a brief lull of scratching, staring at the harsh white wall. Cabin, hospital, jail: His life had entered into a series of nowheres, and what if that never ended? The thought made the lines and unforgiving planes of his cell seem that much more harsh, as if he were trying to bite down on the concrete blocks, the metal toilet bowl, the sink and counter molded of some extremely hard, speckled beige material. Idly he clicked his claws against it, knowing he’d leave no mark.

  The screaming again, then “Stupid bitch!” and echoing silence.

  In the corners of the cell the jail’s noxious floor cleaner had dried in small grayish white pools. Sometimes the bear tried shutting his eyes and pretending he was in the forest by a lively stream, but that meant remembering his cub, which meant grief. He felt the first tickle and did not resist but began to claw his belly again, first slowly, then more rapidly, desperately. For weeks now he had been kept in isolation and wasn’t even allowed to attend his own preliminary hearings, not that they interested him. He was given just fifteen minutes of outdoor recreation each day, in a concrete yard, by himself, and usually the privilege was revoked anyway, for infractions such as frowning at Wing. There was no further news of Françoise. The bear lapsed into worried vacancy. He scratched.

  “Yes, oh yes, of course, oh yes, naturally,” the judge muttered, dreaming fitfully. “… the expression on your face …” His large head went from side to side and his eyes raced beneath his eyelids. “Let me assure you … Let me … Let me … Your Honor, let me assure you …”

  The chief buried his head under his pillow, sniffing its dankness. “There’s got to be some way to make them break!” he muttered.

  By now Misses Winkie and Fouad had each been interviewed dozens of times, but despite every threat and enticement, the little mastermind still refused to answer a word, and the lesbian continued with her maddening deceptions. “They were very well trained,” mused the chief. The pair’s network of evil continued to grow in his mind, to involve all manner of crimes, each carefully conceived and executed to undermine the nation in some special way. Their plot was most clear to him in the middle of the night. “Yes. It all connects. I see it now!” he said aloud, as if he were understanding for the first time. Indeed, the conspiracy was so huge and so complex that he had to persuade himself of it again and again, and each time he was astounded. He stared ahead into the darkness, picturing the little criminal and her Egyptian accomplice breaking every conceivable law of civilized society. “They thought we couldn’t imagine it,” he mused. “And in a way, that was the fucking genius of it. But we can imagine it.” He kicked off the covers. “Whatever they can imagine, we can imagine twenty times worse!”

  The chief rolled over and pounded his pillow. Its dust filled his nostrils. Crimes unsolved for years were finally beginning to make sense to him. He started planning which ethnic groups to round up, how many, what ages; which newscasters and high-level officials to alert; which agents he could trust to investigate those aspects of the conspiracy he’d only just now realized … “Yes, yes, no, hell no, yes,” he murmured, going down his mental checklist.

  But at times such as this the little terrorist’s weird face would seem to appear out of the darkness, sadly gazing up at him, spot-lit and hunted, whipped by helicopter wind—yet somehow hopeful.

  Forcibly the chief turned his mind back to the investigation. “‘The attorney general has given me carte blanche,’” he practiced telling a frightened Miss Winkie. “Carte blanche, damn it. CARTE BLANCHE!”

  “Miss Winkie, as your lawyer, I must, I really must insist, I really must,” said Unwin one morning. Again he was trying to elicit the bear’s own recollections from the months and days leading up to the arrest.

  Wi
nkie only shrugged.

  “Miss Winkie, I cannot, I simply cannot help you, Miss Winkie, unless—” He blew his nose into a flowered Kleenex. “As your attorney, as your sole advocate, it is my duty, indeed my solemn duty, to ask you such questions, Miss Winkie, painful as they may be…”

  The bear stared at the floor. He knew he was acting like a child, but he couldn’t seem to help it, no more than he could help scratching himself each night.

  “All right, all right, um, let’s maybe try going back to, um, the beginning,” Unwin said, sighing. “Where, that is to say, in what city, were you born?”

  The sheer ignorance of this question riled the bear, and he shook his head vigorously. He wasn’t born, he was made. Why should he have to explain that?

  “No, you won’t tell me where you were born?” Unwin asked.

  The bear rolled his eyes and threw up his arms, but then Unwin, evidently out of sheer frustration, happened upon the right answer. “Well, and I suppose you mean you weren’t born at all?”

  Winkie looked at the man with surprise, then nodded.

  “Um, but what do you mean?”

  Winkie rolled his eyes again. He wasn’t sure what angered him more—having to answer these ridiculous questions or having been brought into existence in the first place. He started to make fierce snipping and stitching motions, then indicated himself with a sort of “voilà” gesture.

  “Scissors … Sewing … You were sewn together?” Unwin put his pen down. Looking more closely at the bear, apparently for the first time, his small blue eyes widened and he drew back his chin in surprise. “Oh, well, of course, of course, I knew that.” He fiddled with the pen. “I, um, well then, well then—where were you made?” The bear didn’t answer. “I suppose in a workshop or factory?”

  Winkie nodded just once and Unwin wrote it down.

  “OK. And can you tell me where the workshop was?”

  Winkie couldn’t help but call the place to mind, yet despite its vividness the image didn’t offer anything like what Unwin seemed to want. The bear shrugged. Anyway, what did it matter where it was?