Farmington Correctional

by Sean M Thompson

  Except, she knows for certain, as confident in her assessment as she is that her car keys are in his purse, next to her wallet, nestled beside on old box of Tic-Tacs.

  “Has Doctor Udell switched your medication?”

  The big man simply stares at her, the veins in his neck thick. His new passion for working out he’s admitted to her, though she’s not sure what’s prompted Chuck since last week. She’s tried to ascertain if there was a trigger; if another inmate has threatened Chuck, or if a guard menaced him.

  When pressed, Chuck has replied that his newfound resolve for fitness is spurred on by nothing more than simple boredom.

  It didn’t take a professional to know he was full of crap.

  In the field of mental health you picked your battles. Often the key was in sifting through the lies, discovering the need for their existence in the first place. Finding out the truth of a person meant navigating through myriad half-truths, the white lies, and the enormous ones, sifting out the honesty like gold through the grit.

  Uncharacteristically, this week Chuck hasn’t mentioned his son, Billy, or if he’s had any new dreams. Frankly speaking with him today has been like talking to a brick wall made of muscle.

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

  Again Chuck shakes his head no; his lips are sealed as the song goes. Yet there’s a dreamy quality to his face. Sarah would guess lack of sleep, but there’s also a manic quality to his movements.

  Maybe he’s abusing drugs. Some cocktail of barbiturates and uppers, meth, who knows?

  Escaping into addiction is far from unheard of. A lot of inmates she’d counseled had sought solace in the chemical. Even still the intuitive part of her says this is not the case.

  “Chuck what’s going on? Just tell me.”

  The big man merely smiles.

  “I’m fine. Just a little tired,” he says.

  Sarah makes a note in her journal when Chuck leaves the session, walking beside the assigned guard.

  Talk to Doctor Udell.

  …

  In the library Chuck sits at a computer, researching Whispering Pines. He tries to find any reason he would have heard the name Henry Scatherty before. An inmate next to him, Jesus, looks over at his computer screen.

  “You finding out about these woods?”

  “Trying to,” Chuck says, though he doesn’t feel like talking.

  Jesus is a member of MS-13, a group Chuck knows not to fuck with. If there was any doubt, the big MS-13 tattooed onto Jesus’ forearm alleviates it. Chuck overheard this guy Steve say he’d heard of members of MS-13 lighting rivals on fire. This was, according to Steve, after they’d hacked off their victim’s head with a machete. Rumor or not, Chuck doesn’t feel like being lit on fire.

  “These woods are fucked, dude. I heard my cousin say some of his crew went in to dump some puta who owed them money. He said he heard all this whispering and shit, and he swears he heard people running around, but they never saw anything. My cousin also laces his blunts with angel dust, so who the fuck knows.”

  “Right,” Chuck says, unsure how best to respond.

  On the way out of the library Jacob and some others from the Aryan Brotherhood approach him. Chuck doesn’t like the excited buzz in their body language. Excitement in prison is rarely good.

  “Saw you talking to that fucking Mexican. You some kind of race traitor?”

  “Fuck off,” Chuck says.

  “No, I want you to answer me, Chuck. In case you hadn’t noticed, you are a white man. And it’s assholes like you, associating with the lesser races that are dragging down the rest of us. So answer me, are you a fucking race traitor?”

  “Eat a dick,” Chuck says.

  Jacob throws the first punch, his fist connecting with the bridge of Chuck’s nose. On impact he knows it’s broken; feels the bones crack as his vision goes cloudy, then red. The rest is a blur of pain as they kick and stomp him. He’s unsure how long they assault him before he disappears into the blessed dark.

  …

  Sarah stops by the Doctor’s office before she heads out for the day. Inside stands a man in a lab coat she’s unfamiliar with.

  “Where’s Doctor Udell?”

  “He was transferred. I’m filling in in the meantime.”

  “Well who are you?”

  “I’m Oswald.”

  Who the hell…

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Look, I’m busy going through patient files, trying to play catch-up. What is this about?”

  “Did you recently switch Chuck McDougal’s medication, or put him on a new prescription?”

  A strange smirk on this new doctor’s face, an inside joke she’s not privy to.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  She doesn’t believe him, but she has no proof to the contrary. And she’s running late. She’d told her mom earlier in the day she’d stop by for dinner. Still, she makes a mental note to delve deeper when she has the time.

  “I’d like to talk to you more next week,” Sarah says.

  “See you then,” the doctor says. He gives a sweeping hand gesture to indicate she should leave.

  Smug son of a bitch, I hope an inmate knocks you out.

  As she departs, she stops one last time and looks back at the doctor. The smile on his face is barely perceptible.

  Chapter Three

  April 26

  I appreciate that you’re message is clearer now. Sending a man literally named “Jesus” to speak of the woods. I’m starting to understand now, Lord. Showing me my adversary, it’s clear what I must do.

  Brent broke my nose, the rest of them left bruises. The wounds hurt, my nose hurts, but the pain feels like benediction. If this is the price to serve, I can withstand this and much more.

  The images you send me, the signs so obvious. Thank you so much for these gifts.

  I will serve you.

  I will be your Sword on Earth.

  Soon it shall begin.

  Your humble servant,

  Chuck McDougal

  …

  “Hey, what's crackin’ Chuck?” Jeff asks.

  Jeff smiles like an idiot, and has a lazy eye. He also says the same joke to Chuck every time they eat together. Chuck promises himself he'll sock Jeff in his good eye one day.

  But Jeff has a halo over his head. So, he can’t kill Jeff. No, not yet.

  This would be against the rules.

  “Not much. Just eating this…meatloaf?”

  Jacob over at the Aryan Brotherhood table nods at him. Chuck tries to keep his face stony, to not betray a slightest hint of emotion. A face devoid of expression is a valuable tool in prison. It can be the difference between a quiet evening, and a trip to the medical ward. He knows all too well what Jacob and his cronies are capable of.

  Chuck doesn’t remember when Jeff started hanging around him. It wasn’t like he was looking for a friend, for the most part he was content to be by his lonesome. Fred talked to him when he was around, sometimes at night, and Chuck had been content with this minimal amount of human interaction with his cellmate.

  Jeff insists on talking to him whenever he sees him, despite his very obvious signs of annoyance. Chuck thinks Jeff probably has Asperger's or whatever it’s called.

  Jeff’s in FC for vehicular homicide. Ol’ lazy eye got loaded one night and crashed his Jeep into the mini van of a single father on his way home from Soccer practice with his son. The kid lived, but the father wasn’t so lucky.

  It was strange God didn’t want Chuck to kill Jeff. The Lord truly worked in mysterious ways.

  “You hear about Jamal?” Jeff asks.

  The tone in Jeff’s voice makes Chuck turn in his seat to better take in the words. Which ultimately doesn’t make any sense; it doesn’t make it any easier to hear while staring at him.

  Some stuff is hard wired, Chuck thinks.

  “No. What happened?”

  Chuck figures Jeff is going to tell him how a member of the
Aryan Brotherhood shanked the large black man, or vice versa, and then he'll hear how Jamal was in solitary. He’d get all the grisly details about the guy Jamal snuffed out. The typical stuff.

  “He’s missing,” Jeff says.

  “The hell do you mean Jamal’s missing? You mean he escaped?”

  “If he did, no one knows how.”

  One of the chosen, a voice says flatly in his head.

  Perhaps, Chuck thinks.

  “You… you all right Chuck? Your eyes were fluttering a little bit.”

  “Never mind that.”

  “I mean, yeah, what the fuck ever. But man, how the fuck you think Jamal got out?”

  A valid question, one which Chuck could care less about. He’s preoccupied with the man approaching their table. Preoccupied with how the man looks.

  “Who is that?” Chuck asks.

  “I think his name is Mike. Kidnapped a kid, from what I heard.”

  He is next a voice says in his head, the same from before.

  It is God’s Will, Chuck thinks in response.

  An X is drawn in blood across each of Mike’s eyes.

  …

  Chuck mumbles to himself, and Sarah asks him to speak louder.

  “Not for you,” the big man replies, a little nasal due to his recently broken nose. She’d asked him about this earlier, but he just said there was a “disagreement.”

  If he’d seemed odd last week, this week he seems positively insane, and that’s not a word she likes to use.

  She’s never seen him so muscular, as if he’s spent all of his waking time doing push ups and lifting weights. With the added effect of the wrap on his broken nose, she’s never been so unnerved by him. Sarah hates how fearful she is of this man, who she knows desperately needs her help. She’s helpless though, can’t control her emotions.

  Chuck won’t give her anything. No matter how she tries to get into his thoughts, to see how he’s feeling, he evades. There’s no denying the mania that lies under the surface of him, like some enormous ocean predator just beneath the waves. But without his asking for help, without him telling her how he’s feeling, she can’t do anything except check back in with the doctor, or tell one of the guards she thinks he’s having a psychotic break.

  The inherent problem is for all her talks with Chuck, for all the statements and evidence they had on his case, they still know next to nothing about the man. He’d never had a prior record, and he’d never seen a mental health professional. For all intents and purposes Chuck had been completely stable, save for a marriage that ended in divorce, and divorce was so common it was the new norm.

  After a prolonged silence, Chuck finally says, “I had another dream.”

  “Yes? Why don’t you tell me about it.”

  Sarah’s relieved he’s at least going to tell her something. His expression stays unreadable as he begins.

  “There’s this howling noise coming from between the trees. I follow the sound, I have to. As I get closer, all these voices start whispering. There are too many to make out what any one voice says.”

  Sarah jots this description down in her notes.

  “I move forward, and there’s a clearing. The howling is deafening there. The grass of the field sags downward. It takes me a bit to realize it’s ‘cause there’s this enormous pit, and it’s not a field at all, all the trees have fallen into this hole.”

  His face looks distant, like he’s under hypnosis.

  “I walk forward, slowly, and I notice there’s this strong pull coming from the hole. I have to grab onto a pine tree, the pit is going to suck me in. The whispers start backwards, and there’s still too many to make out a single voice. The howling is so loud I think my eardrums are going to burst. I look at the sky and the clouds are drifting slowly down, like some kind of tornado forming, being pulled into the pit. And then I realize the reason I can hear the whispers is because they’re in my head. They’ve been in my head the whole time.”

  Silence. Sarah is unsure what to say.

  “What do you think it means?”

  …

  “I need to know what medication you have Chuck McDougal on,” Sarah says.

  “The same as before. I haven’t changed anything,” Doctor Oswald replies.

  “I don’t believe you,” she says, stepping forward, eyes locked with the doctor. He doesn’t show a hint of apprehension.

  The doctor looks over her shoulder.

  “Stanley, please escort Miss Tenent off the premises.”

  The guard places a hand on the top of her back.

  “You don’t have to touch me, I’m going.” Sarah glares at the pale guard, who smiles, all teeth, like a jackal.

  She huffs out of the medical ward, and vows to contact the warden the following week.

  …

  Chuck lies awake on the top bunk, staring at the ceiling. The longer he stares, the more the shapes in the concrete look like screaming faces. He hears somebody a few cells down shouting, but can’t catch the words.

  “They built this in a bad spot,” the little girl says.

  He flinches, shocked by her.

  “Who are you?”

  “Amy,” the little girl says.

  “Are you an angel?”

  “No.”

  The girl looks to be around ten. And getting over his initial fear, Chuck’s now terrified for her safety. There were bastards in Farmington Correctional that would hurt her, do terrible things to her Chuck didn’t want to think about.

  “I don’t know how you got here, but we need to get you out.”

  “Silly, I’m not the one who needs to go,” she says.

  The little girl walks through the bars of the cell. Onto the old concrete, into the thick shadows.

  “Wait, why are you here?”

  Chuck speaks to empty space. The little girl is gone.

  …

  He feels the needle puncture the skin of his neck before he can react. A black cloth hood goes over his head that muffles his attempt at a scream. He hears Dr. Osmond say “take him to solitary” before he falls into darkness.

  Chapter Four

  April 27

  Chuck wakes to a knock at the metal door. He hears the slats pulled aside. He sees a face, that of a guard whose name he forgets. The guard bares a smile full of fangs, opens the door, and enters.

  The horns in his head sprout through the flesh like the accelerated growth of two tiny oaks.

  “Got you some lunch, sleepy head,” the guard hisses. A bifurcated tongue laps at his lips.

  “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.”

  “What is that Old Testament?”

  “His vengeance will be done.”

  “Enjoy your day. Freak.”

  The door slams like the shutting out of civilization itself. The vibrations set the walls to shaking, vibrating, concrete jelly, shimmying even after the sound and its echo have died. And he reflects that Jesus felt this way on the cross, so alone, yet God had his plan for his son, as he has for Chuck. This place, this prison was the desert he must walk through; this room, this terrible lightless room, save for the crack under the door where sunlight lightly glowed, it was his trial.

  “I talked with your boy,” the little girl says. She is behind him. He cannot see her.

  “Amy?”

  “Yes.”

  There is a quality to her skin, the state just before decay sets. Her muscles are rigid with rigor mortis.

  “You’re dead,” Chuck says, confirming it to himself.

  “I spoke with Billy,” the little girl says. “He misses his daddy.”

  “I miss him, too.”

  “You’ll see him again, after your work is done.”

  The floor around the girl ripples, moves in a light breeze, a pond of concrete. Amy stands above the liquid concrete. The way the floor undulates, he knows if he were to step closer he would sink.

  "You are his vessel," Amy says.


  Her tiny body, Amy’s little smiling face beneath flopping pigtails, all of her sinks into the concrete; the illusion of water so complete splashes of grey spatter out.

  Left with nothing but the faint sounds of inmates in the yard, which he knows will soon fade with the coming of night. It's only been by his estimation six or seven hours, but already Chuck feels the loss of his regular surroundings. His cell, his roommate, the corridors and rooms of the prison, without these he is a blind man.

  The walls are so similar, plain grey concrete, stone all around him. There's a sense of being ancient, like his ancestors, living in caves. He does not have the benefit of the open plains, the ability to hunt and gather for mile immemorial. But he has the ultimate love. Chuck recognizes this isolation is a test from God, and the creator only tested the righteous, to prove their worth.

  As the hours pass, the room changes. The angles warp, the walls bending outward like stretched rubber, a gigantic balloon slowly filling with air. Soon, even the visions cease, and he’s left with just the empty room, a simple mattress on the ground his only way to sleep. There’s a bucket in the corner, the room having no toilet. He’s been pissing in this pea green plastic bucket, though he can’t quite remember when.

  Time slows and blends, minutes becoming hours. With the arrival of the dark things grow even more sluggish. No one returns to bring him dinner.

  The rest of his night is spent in darkness, whole and complete. Chuck knows they must have shut off the light in the corridor so he’d be trapped in this hideous blackness.

  This is the test, but the fear in him is nothing compared to his fear of the Almighty. “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry. Let me show you I am your humble servant, your Sword on Earth.”

  The whispers begin in the black, like the swaying of wind through the branches of pines.

  …

  When he wakes, faint light comes in from under the doorframe. Morning he thinks. The first day of the trial.

  To pass the time he does push-ups, sit ups, squats, jumping jacks. The hours fall away, blend into a soup; his muscles tight, brain ablaze with the promise of the task ahead. A death of the spirit, a rebirth he knows will occur after this trial, this ordeal. No prophet, yet he understands what’s to come, and he shall not be the Lord’s vengeance in his current form, but a new one, whole and entire.