“How was poker?”
“Are we just going to pretend you didn’t try to kill me just now?”
“Yup. How was poker?”
“For fuck’s sake- it was fine, Chuck! Poker was great. How was the head-shrinker? Did you try to choke her too?”
“Sarah, and she’s a social worker, and no, because she wasn’t sneaking up on me while I was asleep.”
“Sneaking up… motherfucker we share a cell, there’s literally no way I can sneak up on you!”
Fred was a wiry guy, naturally rail thin, and with his light complexion Chuck always thought he looked like a movie villain. His roommate was one of those men who looked like a skinhead without having to try, which was somewhat ironic as Fred’s girlfriend of five years was Jewish.
You learned a lot sharing a cell with a guy, even if you didn’t want to.
Fred was in for a two-year bid on a failed robbery. He’d tried to knock over a convenience store, and as to be expected he’d fucked up the job royally. Fred probably would have been given a longer sentence if he’d used a weapon, but all he’d had in the pocket of his jacket was his extended index finger.
Some people are just born losers, Chuck thinks.
“What time is it?” Chuck asks.
“It’s like five something.”
“Good. Didn’t miss dinner.”
“I’m sure you’ve worked up quite an appetite trying to murder me, you fucking psycho.”
“Yeah, yeah, quit your bitching. Next time I might just finish the job, get myself some peace and quiet for a change.”
…
Chuck takes out the ramen noodle seasoning packet from his pocket and sprinkles the yellow powder on top of the meat. What kind of meat is lumped on his tray he isn’t sure.
The cafeteria is busy, usual dinner rush around five, and the typical groups are seated in the typical areas: white power gangs to the right, MS-13 and the other Latin gangs in the middle, black gangs on the left. Chuck’s so used to the sight he doesn’t even think twice about it.
“You ever heard of a guy named Henry Scatherty?” he asks.
“Who?”
“Henry Scatherty,” Chuck repeats.
“Never heard of him,” Fred says.
Jacob Bretz sits down in the thick of the Aryan Brotherhood table. Pound for pound he’s only a little smaller than Chuck, but it’s obvious from the definition of his muscles he got that way from busting his ass in the yard. Chuck lifts weights, works out a lot, does a lot of push-ups. But he doesn’t have the dogged intensity of some of the other men around him. To those men working out becomes an addiction, and they were easy to spot, their veins popping out of their skin like fault lines on a map.
“Maybe I’ll look it up at the library,” Chuck says.
“Sure,” Fred says, and it’s obvious he isn’t paying attention.
Jacob looks at him from across the room and scowls.
…
The doctor looks at the guard who’s entered the room. The doctor is about to speak, when the guard makes a zipping motion with his fingers across his lips. The guard hands the doctor a sheet of paper.
After quickly reading the document, the doctor places the paper into an unmarked folder. The guard nods to the doctor, and the doctor nods in turn; the doctor walks over to a shelf containing medical supplies and prescription bottles.
Careful to obscure the view of the camera, the doctor empties out an orange prescription bottle of pills into an empty bottle, which he then places off to the side. The doctor then withdraws a small plastic baggy from the back of the shelf, and empties the contents into the now empty bottle before him. Round white pills slide inside the cylinder of plastic, and once full the doctor screws the white cap back into place, sealing everything neat and tidy.
Confident he’s done this out of view of the camera, the doctor smiles to himself, and makes his way back to his desk.
The name on the new bottle is Chuck McDougal.
Chapter Two
April 19
There’s a flickering of images around them, certain people. I'm not sure what The Lord is trying to tell me. I am so desperate for his voice.
My dreams have grown strange, whether prophetic or just the product of stress from living in this cage, I can't say.
I’m worried I'll never be able to see Billy again. He’s an innocent in all this. God must know that. His mother and I split up a year ago.
Megan and I were doomed from the start. She was always wild, like those horses you hear about in stories, the kind only a single brave soul can connect with. But that’s just in stories. In real life I don’t know if anyone can connect with the wild ones. Looking back, maybe the reason we hit it off was because we’re similar, in a way. I always thought of myself as being a normal enough guy. A calm man. Model of civility.
I very rarely got into fights, a lot because of my size, but more because I really don’t want to hurt anybody. At least, I didn’t think I did... but, then, maybe deep down there’s a part of me that’s always wanted to be violent. A part that was frustrated I was born so strong and yet had to keep what you gave me in check. I accept this now. I accept all the hateful violent feelings inside of me. But you must know this already, God.
I used the computer in the library to do an Internet search on Henry Scatherty. It’s pretty neat, on the outside I couldn’t afford a personal computer. Heck, before I got arrested, when Megan I were still together we were basically underwater. We both had to fight just to keep ourselves out of debt, and even then that didn’t work. I heard someone say that a lot of marriages end because of financial issues. Given how things turned out, I’d agree with that.
Anyway, the librarian showed me how to use the computer, but I didn’t get many results on the search. Some guy who lives in Germany, I think he was a dentist or something. The site was in German, so I’m not really sure, but dude looked like some sort of doctor.
The only result that seemed to fit was a newspaper article from the Farmington Tribune, about a man who built a house in the middle of Raft Pines, in Ostium. The article was from 1910 if I remember right, so it was old. Back then the woods probably weren’t conservation land. I didn’t feel like doing much other research, but I read the article.
The weird thing, the reason the paper wrote a story, was that no one else lived in those woods. The closest family were miles off, in every direction. The article talked about the local legends, and how people thought Scatherty was either crazy or stupid to live out there alone.
I grew up hearing the rumors. Chesterville has a part of Raft Pines along its border. Whispering Pines that’s what my friends used to call those woods. We’d dare each other to go in at night, just bored teenagers, out in isolated stretches, smoking pot or having a few beers. None of us ever got very far. We’d go in for five minutes, then rush out. It was like our version of shutting the lights off and saying Bloody Mary three times in the mirror. One of those dumb dares.
I tried it once. Heard something in the bushes. Was probably just a squirrel or a raccoon or something. But there’s all sorts of shit, sorry God, stuff (should I stop swearing God? I think I will to be on the safe side) people say about Whispering Pines. I won’t bore you with it, because you know everything, so you obviously already know all about what people say. How the Wampanoag tribes cursed the land after the settlers treated them like crap (sorry, crud). All the weird claims people have made over the years about seeing UFOs or little orbs of light, or Bigfoot, or ghosts. Most of them were probably just nuts or on acid, but there’s also all the Satanic stuff they found in there, like the altar they found with all the dead animals on it. And that hooker they found murdered in there. That’s real, that was a big thing in the paper for quite a while. You know all that, so I’m not even sure why I’m writing this.
I’m trying Lord. I promise I’ll be your Sword on Earth, but I need you to be clearer with your intentions.
Thank you so much though. For my life. For my beautifu
l child. I will do as you command, I just need more guidance.
Your humble servant,
Chuck McDougal
…
Fred spots Chuck while he lifts on the bench, the big man’s breath huffing out in the warm April air. This past week his cellmate has hit the weights like a man possessed. If Chuck keeps it up, he’ll be one of the largest men inside.
Fred makes sure to keep his head on a swivel, scans the yard to see if anyone looks like they’re going to make a move. Jacob is in his usual spot alongside the rest of the Aryan Brotherhood, off to their right on a metal bench. All the other gangs are in their usual spots.
Chuck’s started getting weird. Every night Fred is ever more weary when he drifts off to sleep. His cellmate’s been looking at him with a strange intensity, scrutinizing him so thoroughly Fred’s really beginning to wonder if Chuck’s eyes are going.
“Not clear enough,” Chuck says.
The big man grunts as he thrusts the barbell up, then slowly lowers it back down to his chest. Fred’s lost track of how much weight Chuck’s racked, but at a guess it’s in the five hundred pound range. How Chuck isn’t outright screaming in pain lifting so much weight he honestly doesn’t know.
“What’s that?” Fred asks.
Chuck doesn’t respond, or attempt to clarify his statement. This hasn’t been the first time Fred’s caught Chuck talking to himself. Fred keeps thinking maybe, if things get worse, he might tell that social worker Chuck sees.
His cellmate always struck Fred as like one of those elephants kept in captivity that finally snaps; a certain deadness to Chuck’s eyes, which on occasion burns away to reveal a bright fervor. Fred’s asked one of Jacob’s crew, Gary, to get him a shiv. He’d be in deep shit if they caught him with contraband, but it helps Fred sleep knowing he has the sharpened metal spoon.
Prison is weird. Utter monotony, just the most boring place once you got used to it, but when it wasn't soul crushingly tedious it was terrifying; his cellmate’s sanity or lack thereof being a case in point. And Fred guesses in that way it has its similarities with regular civilian life.
He'd worked at a gas station, the graveyard shift mostly, and he’d grown accustomed to the daily grind: counting the registers, taking out the trash, mopping the tile floors, restocking the shelves with snack foods. Often he’d refill the coolers when the trucks came with soda and frozen pizza and the like in the early morning. But the tedium got to him, made him desperate. This desperation led him down a path to ruin.
Fred had no idea when the idea to rob the convenience store first took hold. Yet, once the seed was planted it grew quickly into a carnivorous plant intent on devouring him whole. The itch consumed him, every minute he was at work, every hour he lounged on his couch, numbly drinking away his leisure time in front of the TV.
The bright fluorescent lights consumed his mind’s eye, as did the twenty-something college girl who worked the night shift. Fred had seen her over and over on his trips to get orange juice, or a bag of chips, and knew her disposition; knew she’d comply with any type of robbery. She’d no doubt sat through the same store policy meetings he had, heard management explain if the store was robbed to give the thief whatever they wanted from the register. The company reiterated employee safety was most important, much more important than any money in the register.
Things had, of course, not gone as planned. Understatement of the god damn century.
The bell in the yard goes off. Chuck racks the weight bar with one last grunt of exertion. A chill runs up Fred’s spine.
…
The doctor stands behind the guard. They watch a series of monitors linked to security cameras throughout the prison.
The doctor points to a camera monitoring the yard, and the guard nods to show he understands.
“Has he shown any erratic behavior anywhere else?” the doctor asks.
“Nothing that I’ve noticed yet,” the guard says.
“Keep me posted of anything noteworthy.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard says.
The doctor lightly pats the guard on the shoulder, then exits the room.
The guard rubs at an itchy spot on his shoulder, underneath a fresh white bandage, under his uniform. He smiles, remembering the new upside-down cross tattooed on his flesh.
…
In a way Sarah has her own routines, just like the inmates she’s now surrounded by. Terrence is close, but he can’t keep Jamal from shouting how he’s going to penetrate her “so hard her guts fall out.”
Terrence shouts over to Jamal that he’ll put him in solitary if he ever says anything like that again, and the large black man’s face morphs into an expression of mock resignation tinged with smug satisfaction.
There’s always the whispered comments and the half-heard entreaties of what the inmate in question will do to her, usually something sexual, and though Sarah is used to it, it’s only slightly less disgusting and intimidating after a year on the job.
The bars on many of the cells are rusty, hinges a stark orange against the institutional white. There are spots on the wall with visible water damage.
At this point in the year of our lord Ano Domini 1995, she’s heard of many correctional facilities using metal doors instead of bars, but Sarah knows for a fact Farmington Correctional is wildly underfunded. Visual reminders, like the faded and chipped paint on the railing leading up to the second floor of cells, or the old tables in the common area with scratches on their surfaces remind her how desperately institutions need tax payer dollars. There are broken bulbs in the overhead lights, and a few flicker, creating a strobe effect when it’s dark and no sun can filter through the small windows facing the yard.
The forest lays in wait past the boundary of the property, snaking barbed wire slithering across the top of the gates. The pine trees have an ominous quality so close to the prison. It’s as if the trees are watching, waiting for the chance to strike. While Sarah is, of course, cautious once inside, she feels an incomprehensible fear upon exiting to the parking lot. Surrounded by the conservation land she feels a deep fear she can’t articulate or explain. She grew up in the suburbs of central Massachusetts, not too far off. She’s lived around the forest most of her adult life. There is no rational explanation for her terror, the tugging at her to just get in her car, get in the car and go as soon as she can. The fear is expected inside, but it never made sense once she was free of the confines of the institution.
“I’m sorry he yelled that at you,” Terrence says.
“Oh, don’t even worry about it. I’ve got thicker skin than you might think.”
“You feeling any better? I know you said you were feeling like you might have a cold last Friday, when I called.”
“Oh. Yeah, I’m feeling a lot better.”
Sarah doesn’t have the heart to admit to Terrence the night he’d called she’d been loaded off Pinot Noir and called her ex-boyfriend. One thing led to another, and before she knew it she’d invited him to her apartment to fool around. Sarah regretted it as soon as they were finished and told him to go, or more accurately drunkenly screamed at him to “get the fuck out.”
David had been a toxic human being, still was, but she’d stayed because the sex had always been amazing. Of course, David had cheated on her; she’d found out one night while running errands. He’d been eating dinner at a restaurant close by with a woman a few years younger than her.
Not only did it break her heart, but she remembered wondering how stupid you had to be to take your secret conquest out to a meal right down the street from your current girlfriend.
So she’d lied when Terrence called, and said she’d been sick, and in a way she supposed she’d been telling the truth.
“I’m free Saturday if you want to give it another try.”
“I’d like that” Terrence says.
Terrence nods to the guard watching this week’s group, Dan. Dan nods back, and itches his shoulder.
“Bugs are brutal this time o
f year, huh?” Sarah says.
“What? Oh, the itching. No, just got a tattoo.”
…
“You’re awful quiet this session,” Sarah says.
Chuck just nods, ever talkative.
Sarah’s always been intuitive, the ability to read people being most of her attraction to the job. The majority of social workers, psychologists or psychiatrists Sarah met were born with this gift, this emotional intelligence. Yet, her adeptness at reading clients seemed to go beyond the typical reading of faces and body language, to a place deeper. If given hours she could no more elucidate than explain, this quality of not just seeing a person, but seeing into the very heart of them.
Much of what she did was relatively simple deduction. A woman looking forlorn in December might have lost a loved one around Christmas or New Year’s. A man unable to maintain a steady relationship might have unresolved conflicts with his parents. An inmate upset about leaving was, more often than not, afraid they wouldn’t be able to make it in the outside world.
But there was no explaining how, for example, she’d known her client Robert Brinks had lung cancer before he did. And again, you could say simple deduction… except that though Robert was a smoker and coughed during sessions, he hadn’t had an x-ray or any word from his doctor before Sarah broke the news.
Or take Jane Tunman, and how Sarah had known she’d lost a child two years before. When Sarah had said this information aloud Jane had grown wide-eyed, then become enraged, demanding how Sarah knew. Mrs. Tunman had practically walked out of their session.
In this moment Sarah knows there’s a problem with Chuck’s medication. The new doctor for the facility is to blame, and again simple deduction into his strange behavior gives Sarah a substantial hint, but there’s no way she can say for certain.
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