A Savage Generation

by David Tallerman

  It doesn’t mean anything, he thinks.

  He can’t persuade himself. If nothing else, the headaches mean he isn’t coping, not as he’s used to believing he can cope. They started around when Plan John’s regime began in earnest, when Doyle had gone from being a guard, at least nominally, to whatever this tenuous new existence is. So at the very least they mean that this is how his brain chooses to deal with stress, the sort of stress that there’s no way out from under.

  Perhaps all it means is you’re falling apart.

  Yet Doyle has spent a lot of time observing Funland, maybe more than anyone apart from Plan John himself. There are others who comprehend its individual components far better than he does: Foster understands the cons more than Doyle can or wants to, and Plan John has his files, his secret histories, all the information he’s stolen and extorted to build his little commune. In those terms, most of the men here aren’t much to Doyle beside names.

  But as an organism, an entity, on that level he understands Funland. And today, something is off.

  He knows it, but knowing isn’t enough. Doyle isn’t about to give in to a hunch, or to a headache either. All the same, those two ingredients together make rational analysis difficult. If he stares at a spot, the headache kicks like a horse. If he tries to think rather than feel, his intuition plays havoc with his nerves.

  For some reason, also, Doyle’s mind keeps going back to Rachel. Seeing his ex-wife again all those weeks ago has shaken him, stirring recollections that haven’t quite settled. On a gut level, watching her drive away, leaving their son behind, had made real their separation in a manner that nothing before ever had.

  Unsought, memories float up. Often during the months of bile and recrimination that ushered in their divorce, she had accused him of being aloof, withdrawn. What was the phrase she’d used? Emotionally autistic. Then it had seemed to him that she had enough emotion for the both of them. Now? Here he is, keeping to his tower – of ugly white concrete rather than ivory, but perhaps the spirit is the same – and observing, always observing, always keeping inside his head.

  Could that be why it aches so violently? Is the reason his skull feels like it’s splintering, sending shards through the pulp of his brain, that he knows the only way he’ll find the answers he seeks is to get involved? To stop pretending he’s still a prison guard on the walls of White Cliff State Penitentiary. To step down, once and for all, into Funland.

  Maybe, somewhere along the line, he has already made that decision. Maybe, without realizing it, Doyle has accepted that he might have to get his hands dirty.

  * * *

  After Carlita, it’s probably his Uncle Tito that Kyle feels most sorry for.

  Tito Contreras seems so lost. It’s there in the way he talks, the way he moves, as if he’s found himself in the wrong place and nothing he does will put him back on track. While he’s never said as much, Kyle has a feeling that Tito blames himself for what happened to Nando. In fact, when he speaks of his nephew, it’s generally Nando as a child, Nando as a teenager, not the adult who died a horrifying death a few dozen feet from where they now stand.

  But then, no one mentions that Nando. So little time has passed, and yet he’s virtually ceased to exist. Kyle can barely remember what he looked like.

  Of course, Tito isn’t really Kyle’s uncle. But that’s how he refers to himself, and the prospect of family, even illusory family, is not something Kyle would willingly turn down. It would be too much to say they’ve grown close; that lost quality of Tito’s makes any real familiarity impossible. Nevertheless, Kyle is glad that they’re both working the farm. Tito’s presence makes him feel safer, though rationally he appreciates that Contreras – the oldest of the guards by a decade at least, and looking older for his deep wrinkles and shockingly white hair – is in no position to protect him, or even himself.

  That truth strikes Kyle forcibly when he sees his dad appear around the distant corner of the cellblock: the corner near the Big House, the direction no one ever comes from. Kyle knows, without knowing how, that something is wrong. What he recognizes can’t be in Ben’s face, because that’s only a blur at such a distance. Maybe it’s some subtly off-kilter property of his movement.

  “Hi, Dad,” Kyle says uncertainly, as Ben threads a course among discarded tools, beds of ragged crops, and piled rocks emptied from the bitter black earth.

  “Kyle,” Ben acknowledges, not looking at him. To Tito he says, “Contreras, you mind coming with me?”

  “Yes, I mind.” Tito doesn’t sound scared, exactly. “I have work to do.”

  “Don’t make this difficult,” Ben says. “Plan John wants to talk to you. Don’t make it into a thing.”

  “Howard has no reason to talk to me.”

  Ben’s face contorts. “Fuck, Contreras! That’s not your call. Are you coming or not?”

  On sudden impulse, Kyle steps forward, inserting himself between the two men. “Dad,” he says, “what’s going on?”

  The glare Ben throws Kyle’s way roots him to the spot; it’s so filled with resentment and rage. “Nothing.”

  It’s not nothing, Kyle thinks – desires urgently to say. He’s frightened of his dad, more so than Tito himself seems to be. That unnerves him all the more because he’s rarely been frightened of his father. His dad hasn’t hit him often, or lost his temper often, or got mean drunk often. This new persona is unprecedented and so much worse for that.

  “All right,” Tito says, “I’ll come.”

  Kyle is struck by a sickening revelation: Tito is going along for his sake. Tito is trying to protect Kyle from his dad. Kyle’s stomach clenches at the thought, and he wants to argue with both of them, to tell his father to leave Tito alone and to tell Tito that his father won’t hurt him, that whatever he’s doing, this isn’t the person he is.

  It’s too late. Ben has already reached the upper edge of the farm, and Tito Contreras is trailing behind him, something defeated in how he drags his feet. And neither of them would have listened to Kyle in any case.

  * * *

  When he hears voices approaching from the direction of the farm, Austin’s first reaction is to hide. This entire corner is waste ground, littered with the debris of White Cliff’s last round of redesign: broken scabs of concrete, fences of rebar probing through the desiccated earth. No one goes by this way. Now they are, and they will notice his ladder, they’ll come up and turf him out of this place he’s called his own. How could he have been so stupid? Nowhere is safe; nowhere can be his.

  He has it wrong. He sees that quickly. It’s easier to think clearly on the rooftop, as if the air is different up there, not laced with those terrors and suspicions that hang close to the ground, which everybody but him seems to thrive on without ever perceiving.

  The men approaching aren’t talking about him. They have no idea he’s here. They’ll walk past the ladder and never notice it, because that’s what everyone except Austin has done. They’ll never consider that there’s another world, so nearby, just waiting to be claimed.

  There are two speakers, and with effort Austin can identify them both. There aren’t many people in Funland he knows by name. No one has exactly introduced themselves, and what Austin has learned he’s learned like this, by overhearing. But he’s familiar with the name Ben Silensky. He’s always spoken of with contempt, and usually with outright hatred. Silensky crashed his way into Funland, literally, and his punishment has been a coveted position at Plan John’s side.

  The other man, Austin knows him as well. The Mexican, the guard with the white hair. He stands out. He’s related to the man who died in that same accident, whose name Austin can’t remember or has never heard.

  It’s the first man, Silensky, the one who works for Plan John, who’s in control. Austin can discern that from their voices, even before he makes out words. He presses close to the parapet, forehead against the flaking bric
k. He distinguishes the moment they round the end of the cellblock from how the sound changes and the words become abruptly clear.

  “Look,” Silensky snaps, “be careful what you say.”

  “About what?” the guard asks. “Why don’t you just tell me what this is?”

  They’re passing right beneath the ladder. As sure as he’d initially been that they’d look up and spot it, Austin is now utterly convinced that they won’t. He could stand, watch them walk by, and they would never see him.

  “Because if you don’t know anything—” The end of Silensky’s reply is sliced away by the corner of the Big House.

  “Is this about—” the guard says, and there’s a name Austin can’t catch. Carlos? Alberto? No, Carlita. The name of the woman who came on the night of the storm, the one Austin’s father is hiding.

  “No, of course not,” Silensky says, “and don’t you—”

  But they’re practically whispering, moving up the flank of the Big House, and however hard he strains, Austin can’t catch the last words. Moments later, there’s the opening and closing of a door, then only silence, weighty and unnatural.

  Regardless, Austin has heard enough. Not to make sense of, for Austin knows so little of Funland’s inner workings that he can’t imagine any subject they’d discussed having much importance to him. But it’s enough to teach him a lesson: that there’s power in having a place nobody’s aware of. There’s power in secrets; power, even, in hiding, if hiding means he sees and hears things he’s not intended to. And power is a currency. Maybe it can buy him what he needs.

  If he told Plan John about the woman, Carlita, would Plan John help him? No, Austin is too afraid. And what would his dad do, what would Plan John do to his dad? There must be more to find out, though. This doesn’t need to end here. If he tried, really tried, what else might he learn?

  But not from a rooftop. Austin’s eyes hang on the ductwork, the silvery conduits, the latticed grilles, the barely visible indents of screw heads, so easy to remove.

  Inside the Big House – that would be a different story.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ben attempts to read Plan John’s face and fails. His expressions are all in code; they don’t mean the same as other people’s do. Currently he’s smiling. Ben has learned that Plan John’s smiles are dangerous. When he’s genuinely happy, he laughs, a roaring, reverberating blare. When he smiles, that can mean anything.

  There are just the three of them in the room: Plan John, Ben, and Contreras. Ben has rarely been in here without one of the cons present; it isn’t in Plan John’s way of doing things to entrust his life to one bodyguard. Does this suggest that Plan John trusts him? Perhaps he merely distrusts Ben less. Of everybody in Funland, he’s had the least opportunity to fall under Foster’s disruptive influence. To Plan John, who knows nothing of Carlita, it must seem like he has the least motive too.

  An advantage of sorts, Ben thinks. But not much of one in the end. Because his secrets aren’t a strength, they’re a thousand needling weaknesses, and right now he feels each of them keenly.

  “You took your time,” Plan John says. There’s no apparent judgment in the observation, only curiosity. “I hope you didn’t give our young friend any trouble, Mr. Contreras?”

  Contreras appears to consider. Is his nerve slipping? Maybe he’s finally realized what Ben understood intuitively: that bravery has no value in this room. If Plan John wants you hurt, then you get hurt. “No,” Contreras insists. “No trouble.”

  “Well,” says Plan John, “I’ve managed to keep myself amused. I’ve been having a thumb through your file. Not exactly a distinguished career, but points due, I suppose, for tenacity. What qualities keep a man like you in such a job?”

  “You’ve got my file?” Contreras asks. For the first time, he sounds really nervous.

  “Of course. I have everyone’s file. Is this not my prison?”

  It’s clear in Contreras’s countenance that he would dearly love to argue that claim. What did bring him here, Ben wonders; what’s kept him here? Tito Contreras is not a young or a healthy man. They would surely have had to retire him out soon. There are easier ways to make a living than prison guard, even in the relatively safe environment that White Cliff had been.

  “I guess,” Contreras says, “I just don’t get on so well with change.”

  “Indeed,” Plan John agrees. “Tenacity, like I said. Your perseverance must have been particularly tested in these last few weeks.”

  “I suppose it hasn’t been easy for anyone.”

  “So true. And everyone reacts to adversity differently. Some choose to push against it. Some, like yourself, sit quietly and hope it will go away. Which reminds me.” Plan John slaps a palm to his forehead in exaggerated recollection. “Mr. Silensky, shouldn’t you show our guest to a seat?”

  Plan John’s expressions are a code, but he has others. This is one of them. They have half a dozen of these phrases, which Ben has been made to memorize.

  Ben grabs Contreras by one sleeve and his collar and, relying on surprise to supplement his strength, flings him hard to the ground. Contreras lets out a pained gasp.

  “Stay down,” Ben says. “It’ll go easier.”

  Plan John gets to his feet. He is huge, not only fat-big but tall, well in excess of six feet. “I’d like to think that Funland is something special,” he says. “Outside our walls, the world is falling apart…what’s even left. In here, there’s order. We have food and water. The lights stay on. All of that is me, my doing.”

  Plan John moves free of his desk. There’s barely room for him to pass. He steps around its edge, props himself upon one corner. Ben is sure he hears the lacquered wood complain.

  “We have a good thing here. But there are those who can’t appreciate it. I understand that; it takes all kinds. In fact, I designed Funland that way. A little adversity is beneficial. Nevertheless, I can’t allow dissent to get out of check. So your role, Mr. Contreras, is to tell me who they are and what they are doing.”

  Contreras is endeavoring to hoist himself up against the wall, but stops when Ben takes a pace toward him. “I don’t…I’m sorry, I don’t…who who is? I don’t know what you mean.”

  Plan John picks up the cardboard folder he’d been holding when they came in, gives it one more glance, and returns it to the desk. “I also have your medical records. Your file says you suffer from arthritis in the joints of your hands.”

  Contreras manages to nod despite his posture. “Yes. But I can still work.”

  “Put your left hand out,” Plan John tells him.

  “I…what? I don’t know….”

  “Your left hand. Flat on the floor.”

  “I’m sorry, I just, I don’t….”

  With a sigh, Plan John beckons Ben. No need for subterfuge this time, his implication is clear. Ben kneels beside Contreras, pins his left arm under one knee, and holds the wrist out flat, splaying Contreras’s fingers on the greasy carpet. Contreras hardly resists, and his flesh, where Ben grips it, feels like moist putty.

  “Now,” says Plan John. “What’s happening in my prison that I should be cognizant of? A vague question, I admit, but a straightforward one. Tell me whatever comes to mind. You needn’t worry about boring me.”

  “The f-fact is,” Contreras stutters, “if there was something, if there was, I wouldn’t be told because I’m nobody, and I’m not…they don’t talk to me. They don’t tell me what’s going on. Why would they? So how would I know?”

  Plan John places the flat of his heel on the arch of Contreras’s hand, directly upon the knuckles.

  “Oh god, I don’t…ah….”

  His contribution no longer needed, Ben lets go and steps aside. “Contreras,” he warns.

  “I’m nobody!”

  “Everyone sees things,” Plan John observes. “Everyone hears things. Sometimes th
ey don’t even realize they’ve done so. That is, by the way, a mere portion of my weight. About, oh, a quarter, I’d say.”

  “Please….”

  “Your file also notes that you’re Catholic. I have at least two traits in common with your god, Mr. Contreras: your fate lies wholly in my grasp, and I help only those who help themselves.” Plan John wriggles his heel, and Contreras gasps, and then sobs. “Concentrate. Calm down. Tell me something I want to hear.”

  Don’t say it, Ben thinks. Don’t say anything. Keep your damned mouth shut. Even Foster’s little rebellion seems too dangerous a topic. There are so many threads, and in Funland’s close confines, who can judge which ones might lead back to Ben himself? He is behind Plan John now, out of his view, and so he tries to catch Contreras’s gaze, to mouth a warning. But Contreras’s entire attention is focused on his own hand.

  “Carlita,” he whispers, through clenched teeth. “Is that it? What you want? I don’t know….”

  With no conscious impetus, Ben’s eyes jolt to Plan John. Ben feels as though his heart has stopped beating, or perhaps he’s caught in the moment between beats, a moment that refuses to end. He can’t see Plan John’s face, but there’s some new property in his posture, an incredible alertness.

  “Repeat what you just said,” Plan John directs. “Speak clearly.”

  Ben’s absent heartbeat comes then, a sorry, ineffectual flutter.

  “Nothing.” Contreras’s enunciation is marginally more audible. “No, nothing. I’m sorry.”

  Plan John raises his foot and dashes it hard upon Contreras’s fingers. Contreras screams.