by Lauren Salem
I felt like my mom had abandoned me. I always thought that when she was released from jail, she’d be my mom again, and we’d live together. She probably was released already, and now I was coming to the realization that I would never get to see her again.
The red curtain opened, and Kenneth returned to the stage.
“Welcome back! The results of your votes are in, and you have chosen…” Kenneth unfolded a sheet of paper and paused for a second. “Johnny!” Kenneth clapped, and the audience started to clap with him. “Good choice, everyone. It was a tight race.”
The guards untied me from my chair and pushed me into the electric chair. As they strapped me in, my heart pounded, my palms became sweaty, and the sound of the roaring crowd died down to the beating of my heart. I stared down at the floor trying to breathe, but it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. Why did they pick me? I was so afraid that my body began to twitch and shiver inside its restraints. Everything from my ankles up to my chest was strapped down to the chair. The guard took a wet sponge out of a bucket and placed it on my head before he lowered the head piece.
Kenneth tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked up. “Any last words?”
I gazed at the folded piece of paper that Kenneth held in his hand. The print was backward and upside down, but I could still see that it didn’t read my name. There were too many letters.
Once Kenneth caught me gazing at the paper, he folded it up more and placed it in his pocket. “This is your chance. Speak or forever hold your peace.”
I looked at Veronica, Laura, Vincent, and Collins, who were still tied to their chairs. They all tried not to look sad for me, but I knew they were. “I will always remember you guys as part of my family, and I hope we will be reunited one day. I’m sorry for leading you in the wrong direction, and I hope you can forgive me. Don’t let them encourage you to fight against each other. I guess this is goodbye, but not forever…just for now.”
The guard turned on the voltage, and the electricity pulsed through my body. Black night, white lightning, black night, white lightning…black night.
Chapter 23: Collins
RIP my best friend, Johnny.
Johnny was my first friend at Sonoran Correctional High School. Even though he murdered someone, he didn’t seem like the murdering type. When we first met, I was surprised about how friendly and inviting he was. On my first day of school, everyone ignored me and spread rumors about what bad thing I could have done to make it into this place. I heard all sorts of crazy things, but most people thought I was admitted for stealing bling. In class, the boys would hide their pencils and place their book bags on the other side of the desk when I sat down next to them. Many of them constantly checked their pockets to see if they still had their lunch money. No one wanted to sit with me at lunch because they thought I’d steal their food, which was the only thing I had ever stolen in my life. I just got really tired of all the rumors and negativity, so I skipped lunch to shoot hoops alone in the gym. At the time, I didn’t realize that Johnny followed me into the gym and had been watching me shoot and cry for twenty minutes…Just to clear things up…I wasn’t crying because some stupid kids were picking on me; I was crying because I missed my grandma and felt bad about what I did!
“You want to play one-on-one?” Johnny asked. Those were the first words he said to me when we met.
“Are you any good?” I asked as I shot a three-pointer. The ball swished through the net like butter. I’ve always wanted to play ball with someone. At home, I watched basketball all the time on TV and shot hoops by myself in the driveway, but I never got the chance to play against another player. When I looked out my bedroom window, which was on the second floor, I saw the boys from my school play basketball at the rundown court on the corner of our street. I wanted to play with them so bad that sometimes I contemplated tying a sheet around my bedpost and sneaking out the window at night. I couldn’t use the front door because I’d pass the living room on the way there, and Grandma usually fell asleep in the living room with the TV on Soapnet all night. Unless it was for school, she never let me leave her side. I enjoyed spending time with her, but sometimes it was frustrating; so bouncing the ball around and shooting hoops helped me relieve my frustration.
“I’m better at football, but I think I’m all right,” Johnny replied. “What about you? Are you any good?”
I was embarrassed to tell Johnny that I had never actually played basketball before. I wanted to look cool in front of him because he seemed like a potential friend. “Yeah, I think so,” I said as I dribbled the ball toward the net. Johnny jumped in to block me and steal the ball, but I ran past him and took a quick shot to the backboard and scored my first point. “Two-nothing, Collins.”
Thirty minutes later, the score was sixteen to six, and I was winning.
“You’re really good at basketball,” Johnny said. “Have you tried out for the basketball team yet?”
“No, I didn’t know there was a basketball team here.”
“It’s been in the works for six months. I heard the state is now allowing Sonoran Correctional students to compete against public high schools in basketball. The coach is trying to scramble up a team to start playing next year.”
“Did you try out?”
“No,” he laughed. “I don’t think I’m good enough for basketball. I’m Johnny, by the way, and you’re Collins, right?”
“Yep.”
Johnny remained encouraging and supportive throughout my basketball training. It was sad to see a friend go like that. He was the first person I competed against in a basketball game. Johnny and I clicked instantly because he had a cool, calm, and collected personality. I was often anxious and worried about things, and Johnny always stood by my side to help me figure things out. I felt like he was the person who always knew what to do, and that’s how I will remember him. He was an honorable leader and survivor who stayed in touch with his primal instincts and was blind to the superficial things that ruined the rest of us. I could have never asked for a better best friend.
* * *
After Johnny died, that episode of Chair Trials ended, and the audience left the building. The guards untied the remaining four contestants from their chairs and threw us back in the cages. Tomorrow, Kenneth would force us to compete against each other in the Chair Trials games. With all the drama that happened today, it was difficult to get any shuteye around here. The women were loud and distracting to those who wanted to mourn more quietly. Laura wouldn’t stop crying, and Veronica whispered prayers all night.
On top of that, the cells were pitch dark, and I could hear rats nearby…I hoped they weren’t in my cell. I was afraid of rats…If they touched me, I would shriek like a girl, and I didn’t want anyone to hear me do that. If it happened, I would just blame it on one of the girls and say they did it. The concrete floor was uncomfortable, and no one bothered to give anyone in the cages a sleeping bag or even a pillow. I tried lying down on the floor, but every position felt uncomfortable and when I was uncomfortable, I couldn’t sleep. That was it…I would just have to fall asleep sitting up! When I backed up and leaned against the brick wall, I felt the bricks move behind me, so I stopped leaning on it and felt around. My body left an indention on the wall…how bizarre. As I pushed on one of the bricks, I could hear it grinding against the others until it fell down a steep drop and hit something that sounded like metal. A dull light beamed through the brick hole. Holy shit! There was something down there. If I was lucky, it was a way out.
“What was that banging sound?” Vincent asked.
“Push on your brick wall,” I said.
“Why?”
“I just want to see what happens.”
“Nothing happened. Collins, what’s going on over there?”
I ignored Vincent and kept pushing in the bricks. The more bricks I pushed, the brighter my cage got, and the banging sound attracted more attention from the neighbors. Luckily, there weren’t any guards around to hear it. When th
e hole in the wall was large enough, I peeked inside and found a tunnel that traveled beneath my cell. I couldn’t see the source of the light, but I could see there was a drop.
“Collins, what are you doing?” Laura asked.
I think her cell was close enough to kind of see what was going on. “There’s a hole in my wall and a tunnel that leads somewhere. I’m going to see what it is.”
“You can’t leave us here!”
“I never said I was leaving you. For all I know, it could lead to nowhere.”
“And what if it leads to somewhere? You’ll be free, and the rest of us will still be locked in these cages!”
“Try your wall. Yours might do it, too.”
“It doesn’t. You can’t leave us…It isn’t fair!”
What was her problem? Was she jealous that I accidently found a tunnel that led to who knows where?
“Laura, stop it,” Veronica said. “Don’t be selfish.”
“Me…selfish??? He’s the one being selfish! He’s going to leave us all to die!”
“If you were in the same situation, Laura, I bet you’d leave us all and not even think about it!” I said as I scooted down to the edge of the concrete. “Bye, guys.”
“Bye,” Vincent said.
“Send help if you can,” Veronica requested.
“No!” Laura screamed as she rattled the bars on her cell door.
I thought I’d better get out of here before Laura’s screaming attracted unwanted attention. I pushed myself off the edge, fell down the drop, and slid down the metal slide. At the end of the tunnel, there was a small metal room lit by a candle, which appeared to have nothing in it until I spotted a lined yellow piece of paper folded up on the floor.
From past experience, I tended to avoid the lined yellow papers…They usually meant something bad, but in this case, maybe not. Could the yellow paper lead me to something worse than me dying via Chair Trials? This could be all part of the game, but what if it wasn’t? I picked up the paper, unfolded it, and a large, black metal paper clip fell on the floor. Oh great, what was I supposed to do with a paper clip? It wasn’t even the kind I could use to pick a lock. It was one of those sturdy paper clips used to hold manuscripts or really long book reports together. There was a note on the yellow paper that read “clip this to the waist of your pants.” Why? Why should I do that for you, you stinkin’ yellow piece of paper? All you’ve done was cause me trouble! Stop freaking out…It was just a paper clip; what could it possibly do?
As I held the paper clip in my hand, I looked across the room and saw that the tunnel continued on the other side. All right, here it goes…I clipped the paper clip to the elastic of my basketball shorts and closed my eyes as I waited for the magical transformation. A few seconds later, I opened my eyes and looked around. Nothing happened.
I continued to the other side of the tunnel, which got smaller as I reached the end. At the end, the tunnel was the size of a crawlspace, and it led to a square red door. I opened the door and crawled out into a dark closet. I felt fabric hanging over me. It must be clothes hanging above. Where was I?
After I crawled out from under the clothes, I saw a light shine from beneath the door. I stood up, opened the closet door slightly, and peeked outside. I didn’t see anyone around, so I walked out into the hallway, which was lit brightly with florescent lights. The closet was filled with lab coats hanging in front of the crawl space on the back wall. The other walls had shelves piled with lab supplies, like glass beakers, test tubes, eyedroppers, goggles, and microscopes. A few seconds later, a man in a white lab coat approached me.
“Johnson, have you finally inventoried the supply closet like I asked you to do six weeks ago?” the man asked.
Johnson—who the heck is Johnson? “I was just getting started,” I replied. A few feet away, I saw the sign for a restroom. “Excuse me,” I said as I left the conversation. I went into the restroom and locked the door. “Ahhhhhhh!” I screamed when I saw myself in the mirror. I was a white man! My hair was red and curly, and my skin was so pale, it had freckles. How did I get a beer belly so fast? A few minutes ago, my abs were as flat as washboards. I turned away from the mirror and looked down at my hand, which was black. I looked into the mirror again, and my skin was white. I didn’t look like myself at all in the mirror, but when I looked at myself without the mirror, I was normal.
Did that guy think I was someone else? When he saw me, was I black or white? I must have looked like someone he recognized because he wasn’t alarmed when he saw me. It was a magic mirror! No…it was a magic paper clip.
Standing in front of the mirror, I took the paper clip off my shorts and watched as I transformed back into me. It was quick, and it happened in the blink of an eye. Kind of like a now you see it…now you don’t sort of thing. Not extremely impressive but shocking nevertheless. I put the paper clip back on, and one blink later, I was a white man named Johnson. Why would the person harassing me with yellow papers give me this? Someone knocked on my door.
“Johnson, you need to be done with the inventory by tonight,” the man said through the door. “The truck is leaving tomorrow, and if you don’t make it, we won’t get new supplies for six months! I left my requests on your desk. Make sure you get everything I asked for while you’re out shopping.”
“OK,” I said, smiling. Thank you, yellow paper…You have been very kind. I didn’t understand why the yellow paper wanted me to get out of Walnut Cherryville. Why couldn’t the person come out and talk to me instead of sending me yellow papers?
“How many supply closets have you inventoried so far?” the man asked.
“This is the first one,” I replied.
“You have a long way to go, Johnson; get to work! What are you doing in there? Laying an egg?”
“I’m coming; don’t get your panties all in a bunch!”
“Excuse me? Who do you think you’re talking to? If you don’t start respecting authority, then I will file a complaint with the government, and you’ll be replaced within a week!”
“I’m sorry, sir, won’t happen again,” I said as I walked out of the bathroom. Once the man walked away, I started to wander around to find out where I was. I opened every door and searched for clues. After searching through several laboratories and supply closets, I found Johnson’s office.
It was a hole-in-the-wall office stuffed with a desk and a large filing cabinet. As I walked into the office, I heard something crinkle under my feet…a trail of fresh Sno Ball wrappers. The trash can was literally right next to the door, yet somehow there were more Sno Ball wrappers around the can than in it. I picked up a wrapper from the top of the pile and smelled the inside. The coconut still smelled fresh…This must have been Johnson’s last meal.
By the way, where was Johnson? If I was him, did that mean there were two of us? Johnson’s desk was cluttered with papers and folders around the computer. The mug of coffee on his desk was still steaming. I picked up the mug with both hands and took a sip: hazelnut brew with three creams and four sugars. This man had a sweet tooth. I put the coffee down next to a nameplate that read “Albert Johnson, laboratory assistant” before I sat down in his computer chair. The words Walnut Cherryville Scientific Laboratories rolled across the screen in shiny gold letters. I shook the mouse, and the screensaver went away. Which part of Walnut Cherryville was this? Kenneth never showed us this part on the tour. Several documents were open on the computer…all science crap I didn’t understand. I flipped through the task bar until I found a ComCon instant chat.
Hotlips37: I’m so excited to finally hook up with you. You sound sexy. When do you get off work?
Redknight2: I’m always working, but I can sneak out for a little while to meet you.
Hotlips37: I want to do it in the sand…under the stars.
Redknight2: However you want it, just let me know where and when.
Hotlips37: Two o’clock in the morning by the glass house.
Redknight2: You got it! See you then.
/> Sorry lady, but you were going to be sadly disappointed. The time was 11:32, so it was likely that Johnson hadn’t left the building yet. I heard the doorknob turn, and a shiver went up my spine. What if it was Johnson? Quick, hide! I ducked down under the desk right before someone walked through the door. It sounded like whoever it was just got something out of the filing cabinet and left the office.
That was close. Johnson was supposed to leave on a truck to get supplies tomorrow, but how was I going to sneak in without him noticing? I sat back up on the computer chair, searched around the clutter on his desk, and found an appointment book. The book said that the truck was leaving at eight tomorrow morning. I erased the appointment and rewrote it in for next week at the same time and day. There…Now we wouldn’t run into each other. I left his office and returned to the supply closet. I used some of the lab coats to make a bed for myself on the floor and the others to cover my appearance. Now, I could fall asleep.
Chapter 24: Laura
At sunrise, the guards entered the Chair Trials holding-cell hallway and noticed that Collins had disappeared. “Cock-a-doodle-do,” a guard shouted as he banged a crowbar against the bars on Collins’s door.
I was sound asleep, lying on my stomach in a puddle of my own tears. During the night I used my arms to support my head, and by morning they became numb with pins and needles. My eyelashes were encrusted together, my hair was caked to the left side of my head, and my ribs felt bruised from sleeping on the hard surface. I was hoping that yesterday was all a dream and that none of it really happened, but I quickly realized that it did. When I opened my eyes, I saw the guards examining the giant hole in the brick wall. The beautiful Michael Kors dress that I wore was ruined with wet dirt stains from the concrete. I was still trapped in a cage, and somehow Collins managed to break free…bastard!
“How did this happen,” one guard said to the other. “This isn’t possible.”