Kill the dove!

by Francis Kroncke

  Chapter 12: Segregation

  The keyhole is large. It’s the biggest keyhole Jared has ever seen outside of one in a museum. The key is the size of a large screwdriver. It looks like an antique gourmet wine bottle opener, one of those corkscrew poppers fashioned like a large skeleton key. And here is the Corridor Captain taking this toy key, separating it from a ring crowded with all sizes and shapes, and actually opening a door. Dwarves in Toyland.

  This guard is called Corridor Captain. “Wait here for the Corridor Captain.” That’s what the Admissions Officer, Mr. Erickson, ordered. So he waits. Waits dressed in loose-fitting khakis and glossy black shoes. Waits in his deodorized and disinfected body, having been sprayed for lice and bugs and whatever. Officer Erickson has purified him with an insect spray can. Pump, swish. Even around the balls and the asshole. Pump, pump, swwwiiishh! Up the arms to the pits and into his hair. “Hold your breath.” Swish and swish. Baptismal aspersion for the new order of the ages, “Novus Ordo Seclorum.”

  Jared had wondered if he’d be hassled about his hair. His scraggly dark beard and neck-tickling black tresses, a witness to the time between capture and caging and to his desire to once again look like a radical—these he submitted to a friendly barber several days before the day of surrender. He kept a moustache and broad-based sideburns—still looks good in a radical chic way. He was told that the lip hair and sides would pass prison muster. Still, he anticipated getting some flak, just some shit for disciplinary reasons. “You think that’s short?” They’d show him “short.” But no flak came.

  What is more curious, if he’d had time to think about the rapid process, the mechanical answers and motions that he’s just undergone, is the total lack of hassle. His admission, purification, registration and allocation have been routine—by the book, as with any bureaucracy. No drama, no hazing, no screaming, shouting or beating. No Greek chorus at the Gate to Hades raising his conversation from the mundane to the sublime. He waits here—no place to go, no place to hide!—like standing in line at the Greyhound Bus depot, waiting for an ever late departure.

  Most curious, it is monastically quiet in the Admissions area. Jared is the single aspirant. The guard is lean on comments, more of a steely-eye than a talker. All in all, Jared is ready-to-go, as he supposes they see him. One new commitment, ready to be released to the population. These words float in his consciousness as he scans up and down the empty corridor. It’s empty because it’s chow time, a timing he doesn’t know but will soon. And this emptiness annoys him. Where is everybody? he wonders.

  The windows before him don’t frame a view of too many people either. Furtively, a figure or two dashes at distant sight. Inmates, Jared surmises because of the khaki blur. Where is this population? How these guys play with words! Me, a new “commitment.” Damn, I’m not committed to them.

  “You,” an authoritative command snaps at Jared’s consciousness. “You there. What’s your name and number?”

  Jared pivots towards the figure appearing at his right, a six-foot-five tower of military hewn flesh. Clean hands, clean face, cleanly shaved, cleanly pressed trousers and shirt, cleanly polished shoes, cleanly groomed hair. All clean.

  Eye to eye, Jared reflexively starts to greet him, “Hi!” and takes a step towards the Captain as if to shake his hand but something powerful holds him back; he freezes. No, no, it can’t be! The pains from the night of capture burst out all over his body. Corridor Captain Quinn? Is this what you did after serving with the paratroopers in Nam?

  Quinn: The name, the spectral face pops up again, and once again Jared’s consciousness pushes it, stuffs it back, deep down, way back into horrific memory. Are you going to burn us?

  Shut up, kid!

  What did you do . . .

  Me . . . Dad? No one believes me!

  But now it’s worse even than Quinn’s terror, for it’s a fright and a torment suffered only by those humans deemed disposable, worthless, expendable—society’s social excrement. “You’re nothing but dogshit in here, boy!” For the first time ever Jared is beyond being powerless. “ . . . number?” He simply doesn’t exist. He’s been processed. Institutionalized. Digitized. Tagged. He’s nobody, invisible to all and to everyone he’s ever known. He’s being stored, stowed away, placed inside the alchemical vessel of social correction: Inside.

  Again: “You there—what’s your name and number?”

  His lips part but nothing comes out. His arms can’t move, remain locked around a bedding bundle against his lower chest. He’s at a loss for a long moment and an embarrassed blush flits across his face. But this too is sucked back. What stumbles out is, “Jennings . . . err, 88 . . . 67 . . . err . . . 147.”

  Unfazed by the faltering answer, the Corridor Captain motions Jared towards the large keyhole behind where he’s standing. Holding up his cluttered key chain, the Captain isolates the giant key and with two hands in a practiced motion turns the lock.

  Jared steps into a single-bed cell unit. There’s only one other door on this floor, so this isn’t a cell block. Isolation? he wonders. Whatever, after the sweaty, cramped and odiferous cell block in County, Jared is delighted to see that his stool comes with a lid. He holds on to his bedding bundle, turns towards the guard, and says nothing by mouth or face.

  “Supper will be up in ’bout five minutes. Make the room.”

  Then Corridor Captain Clean leaves. Quinn drops the match on the paper stuffed between his legs, up his armpits and throws on more sticks. Threatens, “Stop moving or I’ll break your arm!”

  Alone, unmoving, Jared eyes every corner, wall and facet of the unit. He is immobile, a sculpture lost from a museum. So this is solitary? The hole? Why he’s in solitary baffles him. More of this Protective Custody crap? Like a statue he doesn’t flinch or even squint when the food grate opens with a rattling squeak.

  “There’s books here, if you read.”

  He doesn’t answer. The grate closes on a ten-by-twelve-foot pastel blue cell: one sink with safety-glass mirror, one iron-frame bed, one barred window situated slightly above average hairline, covered with a length of steel screen, also pastel blue. The ceiling holds a recessed, wire-mesh-sealed bank of fluorescent lights—the on/off switch is outside the cell. The mesh is a matching pastel blue. What the—?

  He demands to know as if addressing a bellman, “Is this the fucking Holiday Inn?” No one answers. Jared remains at anchor, stuck there, bedding bundle sagging in his arms, scanning nervously, inspecting every detail, checking out the room like a wary traveler in a foreign land.

  As the Institution intends, his is a fast check-in into depression. Ten minutes Inside and already he’s sinking into despondency. Pastel blue depression—a solitary color. Pastel blue and warm, inoffensive fluorescent lighting.

  Mockingly, from the sole window a beam of sunlight cheerily gambols into this cell, delighting in the play of color, wrapped in a chuckle of sky, a bit of Minnesota’s chilled washed heavens.

  Rage boils and bubbles from deep memory. Powerlessness—absolute, utter powerlessness. Quinn’s terror. Prisoner again—no way out.

  “Jesus Christ, why are they fucking with me?” He tosses his bundle on the unmade bed. Its summer-camp bedsprings creak and squeal. Motionless again, he remains fixed to the spot.

  Black, not blue—Jared wants black. Isolation. The Hole. It should be dark as sin. He needs a touchstone. Blue’s all wrong. Blue is for babies, christenings and celebration. Blue is for wedding garters and silly escapades. Blue is for the helpless. The weak. The powerless. All he gets is wimpy blue, pastel blue. Right now he desperately needs something hard, harsh, painful, even punishing, to uncap the pressurized expectations he has brought with him.

  It’s all wrong!

  This is not what he expected. It’s unlike everything he was told. This is some demonic trick, fucking with both space and time. This is the Inside cruelty that he fails to recognize. It’s everything he thought prison was not; as such, it’s what prison is. r />
  Everything looks normal. Kids playing in an empty lot. Everything looks tidy and smart. Quinn stuffs the kindling neatly all around Jared’s body. Everything looks just like everything always looks. Quinn is a good boy, he just has a bit of a temper. Everything is pastel blue. Crack! Broken arm.

  Fucking pastel blue! He whispers. Mutters. Spits it out. Yells from the bottom of his gut, “Fucking pastel blue!” But it’s more than just angry words—it’s a phrase of savage rage. He can’t bring Quinn into this place. Big enough to deal with him now, he’s still powerless to do anything about it. His fury over his impotence has to go somewhere else. Deep inside he knows he must turn his rage to protect himself, not harm himself. Not in here.

  He booms, “God! I’m gonna be managed to death—just like they manage the fucking war!” He twists and funnels his rage at the war. “Vietnam isn’t real. The bigwigs in D.C. don’t want it to be real. They just want an exercise in Game Theory. No passion, no heart, so no need for tears. Just numbers and numbers and numbers.”

  He splats fury onto the walls: “Numbers! 8867147—I’m a number!”

  Powerlessness oozes from his every pore and he rages wildly, rages systematically. As if driven by ritual obligation, he turns and faces each wall: North, South, East, West. Ceremonially, a minute here, a minute there, he kicks and kicks and kicks against each blue wall until his legs hurt. Wobbly, lurching, he opens his fly and starts to ritually pee. Zips out his cock and pisses a stream here, a spray there, as if marking out his territory, setting warnings to intruders.

  A little nuts. Okay, man, I’m a little nuts. Spent, he flops down on the bare mattress. Suffocates his face with the naked pillow. He needs not to be here, needs darkness, not pastel, just for a few quick seconds.

  Act II begins: The Meal. The grate slides open, rattling a bit. The edge of a steel cafeteria tray gleams at him, flashing a toothy smile in the day’s soft light. Jared gets up and pulls it in quickly. It’s a reflex. At County the guards would toy with guys. “C’mon, c’mon, I can’t wait forever!” There were nights he went to bed hungry. Damn, he’s hungry, right now. But, tray in hand, he can’t move. He’s immobilized, standing there once again on Pause. He’s stunned, confounded by what he sees. He’s staring at a huge red T-bone steak surrounded by a wreath of potatoes, corn, bread and butter, broccoli, jelly, a couple pieces of carrots and celery. Christ almighty! Jared doesn’t know what to make of it.

  “Want coffee, milk or Kool-aid?” coos the guard.

  Something in Jared snaps. “Fuck you, motherfucker!” accentuated with a digital gesture.

  Right after the grate slams shut, he takes the tray and smashes it against the back wall. Picks it back up, turns and slashes at each wall with its steel edge. That done, he grabs a spoon and begins randomly but with intensity banging on the tray. Blonk! Bing! Thwack! Thwack! Nothing harmonious, but slowly increasing in energy as he hums louder and the clanging gets louder. Then suddenly he jerks to a full stop. Drops the tray on the floor. Clunk! Then starts to strip and tear his clothes. Fumbles at buttons, rips, whips off shirt and pants, BVDs and socks, he’s birthday naked. Once again he freezes, static in time and space, almost a Grecian alabaster.

  Jared does not want to accept anything, wants to resist everything. So he rejects the bed, chooses to lay on the floor, tasting its coldness, its harshness. He wants his body to feel deep pain, searches for whatever sensory punishment is possible. He grinds his shoulder into the concrete floor, tosses and moans. “Three hundred days of indulgence are yours, My son, for suffering these most sacred pains. Suffer with the Crucified One! Save yourself from the pains of hell.”

  Jared strikes blood, bruises bone and in this tomb he challenges all the minions of Divine Savagery to take him on. Attack him, fight him on territory he knows. He is desperate to escape Pastel Blue. Scarred, scratched, bruised, knuckles swollen from ramrodding the walls. Spit and piss and globs of slop all around, Jared rolls and smears it all over his body. So adorned, so marked and tattooed, he finally approaches exhaustion.

  Heart pounding, no breath left, he hugs the floor, wishing it could defy gravity and push up against him, crushing him to death. This wish unfilled, he hurls himself up, assumes the starting stance from his long-ago basketball training camps and begins furiously doing knee-to-chest pumps. Faster, faster! Now jumping jacks. Faster, faster! Push-ups. Harder! Harder! The spectators cheer; the cheerleaders are agape. Everyone’s deliriously yelling, “Faster! Harder! Harder! Faster!”

  These frenzied words of chant, of incantation last unmarked minutes until he implodes into a heap of parts in the middle of Millston, FCI’s Segregation Unit.

  From the Visitor’s Guide:

  “Our Segregation unit is considered to be among the most progressive examples of the Philosophy of Rehabilitation. Here at Millston we are not interested in causing pain. We deplore those old methods made so famous by Hollywood and Mr. Cagney. Here at Millston we pride ourselves on our Warden’s Philosophy of Normalcy. It is, in brief, our goal to situate the resident within an environment—a humane ecological niche, as we call it—where he has nothing to reject, dislike, rail against or revolt. We make it nice for him. As nice as home is. Or, at least, should be.”

  From outside the cell, the shift guard nudges the slide and peeks in. He has a front-row seat to Jared’s antics. He knows this guy is a “CO,” as all Resisters are labeled in simple bureaucratese. He doesn’t know that CO stands for Conscientious Objector. He just knows that COs often end up in Segregation as this guy has, simply as a control measure. “Protective Custody. As much to help you adjust as to assist us in adjusting you.” The Warden wants to gauge the impact of Jared’s presence on the population, especially the other twenty-odd war resisters. Not that, to him, Jared is a special case. Just as a precaution. The President made it known down the chain that it’s time to turn the screws on these peacenik types. The Warden has long felt that he is over quota on screwballs. He doesn’t need this wacked-out radical preacher to become a catalyst for a riot.

  What he watches Jared do, the guard knows, will be valued by the Warden. “These guys really have problems.” That’s what he’ll tell his wife. “Dear, I can’t tell you some of the things they do. There was a new one in today and he went bonkers in Seg. I think we’d better remember him—and his unfortunate mom and dad—in our prayers, tonight.”

  When the Corridor Captain gets the report, he decides to let Jared sleep in his own slop and craziness. Without complaint, Jared snores on the floor, bed unmade, only gobs of rejected dinner slumber upon it.