The Four Stages Of Cruelty

It was no bother, I told him, though I was surprised and confused by the call.

"I wanted to see if you were all right," he said.

"What do you mean?" For a moment I didn"t understand.

"Aren"t you the one who found Jon Crowley?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I"m very sorry," he said. "It must have been awful."

It was, and I realized then that I felt morally stained by the experience, that I feared it might never wash off.

"Thank you," I said.

"I wonder what happened," he said.

I didn"t answer. I didn"t want to go there with a weak sister. If I ever mused on the reasons, it would be with a fellow CO, and only then with caution and the worst possibilities left unspoken.

"Have you looked at the book I lent you, the one that Jon was inspired by?"

He meant The Four Stages of Cruelty, the drawings by Hogarth.

"To be honest," I said, "it wasn"t my cup of tea."

Lying on the couch, with the phone up against my ear, I pulled the book over to my lap and turned the heavy pages again, though I had no stomach for it. Hogarth had drawn four distinct panels, and the rest of the book was commentary. At first glance the images seemed ordinary, street scenes of London in a vaguely Victorian era, but on closer inspection everything normal turned to murder. Boys who seemed to be playing with animals were actually torturing them. Men with maces and sticks beat horses. A child was crushed under a wagon wheel while four powder-wigged judges watched. A woman in an alley lay in an awkward pose, and then you noticed that her angled head was almost severed from her body, the slit throat gaping wide, and that she had been bound before death, her wrists notched by deep cuts. In a large room inside a brick-laden dome, a host of learned men in scholarly hats crowded around a slab on which the corpse of a hanged man was undergoing autopsy, the rope still around his neck. A dog chewed on the tossed-aside heart, and bones were being boiled in a cauldron. It was b.e.s.t.i.a.l cruelty, a mosaic of casual perversion, and I wanted none of it.

Brother Mike didn"t seem to sense the vibe of my dismay.

"Hogarth followed the pa.s.sage of a young man from his violent upbringing along his murderous path to his final end, hanged and gutted. He wanted to show that violence is contagious and has social origins, and that it follows a progression of cruelty. It"s a crude theory, but have you ever doubted that upbringing and social environment contribute to the lives the men in Ditmarsh have led? Sometimes, learning about the juvenile records and the foster homes and the alcoholic fathers and prost.i.tute mothers, I allow myself to wonder if we have the right people locked up."

"Was that what Crowley was trying to do? Make some kind of point about life in Ditmarsh?" I did not truck with the sentiments Brother Mike was describing, but I wanted to know more.

"I"m not sure," he answered. "I"m not sure we can ever grasp the full complexity of what violence does and where it comes from. I have this feeling that to truly understand the motives and the causes and the circular nature of it all, we need to hold some contradictory theories in place at the same time, and believe them to be equally valid. I don"t think Hogarth ever gave enough credit to evil, for example. I don"t think any social reformer knows how to comfortably tackle the problem of evil."

He didn"t call it the mystery of evil, as I might have, but the problem, as though the existence of evil were a concrete issue with practical consequences, like a math question or a difficult repair job.

"And what is the problem of evil?" I asked, picking up the thread he"d placed before me, wondering what labyrinth I was being led into.

"Here, from my admittedly underschooled brain, are some of the essential questions: Is Satan responsible for evil? If so, why does the all-powerful G.o.d let Satan hold so much sway over the affairs of men? Is G.o.d responsible? Then what does that say about G.o.d as a loving being, or about man, created in G.o.d"s image? Are G.o.d and Satan both irrelevant superst.i.tions, and evil a material by-product of chemical, social, or psychological influences? Depending on your point of view, there are ramifications. What should we do with evil? Cut it out like a disease? Kill it like a monster? Put it away in a place where it cannot harm others? Hate the sin, forgive the sinner, and work on rehabilitation?"

"You"re talking about matters beyond my job description," I said.

"And mine, too," he said.

A pause in our conversation. I stretched back and wondered what to say.

"So what"s the answer?" I asked.

"Love," he replied, but the word was so curt, and the moment so awkward, I didn"t know whether I"d heard him right, and I was too embarra.s.sed to ask him to say it again.

I thanked him for calling, and we said our good-nights. Despite our differences, I was glad for the connection, the moment of human comfort.

I"d seen the faces of men who"d done what anyone would consider evil things, but their brains were usually so bewildered and pathetic, you wrote off their behavior as some sort of autism of violence. The spiritual counselors explained it with religion. The social counselors talked about case histories and abuse records. All of it was so much s.h.i.t to those of us actually working the blocks, negotiating the moods, trying to keep the lies straight. People think we"re thugs, a little thick and hard, none too smart or caring, but I honestly believe you need the disconnect-the brute confidence or the comfortable blitheness or even that little smirk of cruelty-to do the job well.

I fell asleep on the couch, my comfort spot when comfort won"t come, and didn"t wake up until the phone rang again. For a moment I expected Brother Mike, a continuance of our conversation, but the voice was different.

"So you"ve done it," the voice said, and then asked, "How does it feel?"

I knew the voice or thought I did.

"How does what feel? Who is this?"

"Do they know what kind of a c.u.n.t you are?"

That"s when I understood the true nature of the call. I sat up and asked again who the h.e.l.l was calling. The voice on the other end breathed steadily, without fear, for a dozen seconds, then hung up.

I checked the call record and saw the number listed as unknown. I checked the street through a gap in the curtain and saw nothing but darkened cars and trees heavy with snow. I lay on the bed and tried to close my eyes, but I kept seeing Crowley. Would I ever get his hanging shadow out of my mind? I had some pills in the bathroom cabinet for bad nights, but I didn"t want to put myself under when there was a stalker out there, some drunk and bitter turnkey, some ex-inmate who"d finally made a house call. I tucked my prized armament of personal choice, a stainless steel .357 handgun, under a book on the night table because that"s what you do when you"re hearing footsteps on the stairs.

A few hours later, in the grimy light of morning, the phone rang a third time. I was eating raisin bran and staring at the counter TV, feeling unsteady and hungover from the lack of sleep. I checked the call display and saw the number of the local newspaper. They"d been ha.s.sling me to renew my subscription, but I hated having that waste of paper piling up unread, so I"d resisted their never-wavering siege for months. This time I was thankful to see a familiar irritation, and I almost answered. Then I stopped myself when I realized what was happening. Someone at the paper wanted to talk to me about Ditmarsh.

It had to be about Crowley. About finding him. The missing inmate. The one everyone thought had escaped. The one who showed up ugly dead inside the City. I did not want to talk to anyone in the media. I let the phone go to voice mail and checked the message fifty seconds later. Nothing.

I did the dishes and put in a load of laundry. I kept glancing at the local news station as I worked, and I stopped everything when a report came on about an inmate at Ditmarsh Penitentiary who"d gone missing during a recent disturbance and had since been found dead. The blood in my veins thickened as a reporter on scene described the events and then cued a recorded interview with the warden.

"If he"d escaped, as these erroneous rumors insist, we would have notified other law enforcement authorities, and I can a.s.sure you no such notification was made. Contrary to your misinformation, the inmate had been held in protective custody the entire time."

It shook me hard to hear the lie so blatantly spooled. Then came the kicker. While in protective custody, Crowley hanged himself, the warden said, and the matter would be investigated thoroughly, as was routine in all such cases, by the Pen Squad, an independent police unit inside Ditmarsh. "But I caution you," he said, the sternness of his voice utterly convincing, "this suicide was not an avoidable tragedy, but an act of violent defiance designed to inflame an already tense situation. Jonathan Crowley was that kind of inmate. This is difficult for the general public to understand. But that man went to his grave spitting in the face of authority."

It"s not often you get to witness the truth s.h.i.t-kicked so thoroughly. My phone rang again, a number I didn"t recognize, so I picked up the receiver and thumbed end with enough firmness to choke a throat.

That"s when I first started feeling paranoid.

12.

My life never seemed particularly full when I was not working, but there were times when the thin cover of activities and interests got pulled back to reveal the great yawning emptiness. It was particularly depressing to go back to work when you had done nothing productive or fulfilling with a string of days off. Battered by the news report about Crowley, I felt incapable of rousing myself to any good purpose. I"d planned to go to yoga every morning once Christmas was over, but the willpower had strained out of me like water through a pressed tea bag. If it wasn"t for MacKay getting transferred out of intensive care to a regular room, nothing would have moved me.

I parked in the hospital lot and recognized Baumard"s decked-out truck. Other cars and trucks looked familiar, too. The boys were there in substantial numbers. When I got to the cardiac unit, Baumard was in the hall along with three other COs just off from the four-a.m.-to-noon shift. Their stamina amazed me. They worked, fought, complained, suffered, celebrated, ate, drank, and talked the job. I wanted to ask about the warden"s comments on the news, whether anyone had heard them, but the vibe zipping through me made that entire subject seem like fissionable material, too radioactive to touch. Instead, I asked how MacKay was doing.

Baumard shrugged. "He"s all right. All he has to do is cut out the drinking and smoking. In other words, he"s a walking coffin." I was too upset to share the humor. So I looked around the doorway and saw Ray MacKay in his hospital gown, oxygen mask on his face, big hands resting at his sides, as cautious and immobile as a whale beached on the bed. Alton, a younger CO, stood at the foot, talking more to the TV hanging on the wall than to MacKay himself. Alton noticed me peek around and used my arrival as an excuse to say his goodbyes, thumping the mattress twice with his fingertips in a vigorous expression of best wishes. He nodded as he went by, grateful and relieved for me to take his place.

I wanted to cry. But a corner of Ray"s mouth turned up when he saw me, the eyes brightening, and he gave a breathy "How you doing." Then he pulled the oxygen mask down to his chin. I was alarmed, but he said, "I put this on so I can watch TV in peace." His voice was stronger than I expected.

Same old b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Always smarter than he looked. I made a joke. "What"d you do, s.h.i.t a phone?" It felt flat to me, but MacKay grinned and held up a hand for me to stop.

What do you say to an old man in his hospital bed sucking air? I planned to ask the usual questions, why he was d.o.g.g.i.ng it, whether he liked Jell-O three times a day. Then I"d tell him how good he looked and other cliches of the strained and obligatory hospital visit. Instead, MacKay said he"d heard I"d found Crowley down there.

I nodded. I didn"t want to talk about it. I wanted him to let it go. "Did you hear what they"re saying?" I asked. "They"re saying he killed himself in protective custody."

But MacKay didn"t seem to hear me. "In the old days that was the spot." He nodded slowly between breaths. "Whenever we"d beat on a prisoner, it was a social gathering. A party with snacks. The right inmate, the right occasion, felt like the f.u.c.king Super Bowl."

I said nothing. He fiddled with the plastic bracelet on his thick left wrist, awkwardly, without much strength, pushing it away like an irritation.

"Inmates hated it down there. It terrified them. The aloneness was the worst. Drove them apes.h.i.t. You new jacks"-lifting his hand, the IV line lifting with it, to wag a finger slowly, mockingly-"don"t always get it. The need. It"s mutual, you know."

I tried to think of something to say, a way to squeeze the dread out. "I guess someone revived the tradition."

"Pretty sophisticated bunch, us jacks."

The words had gotten weaker. He felt for his mask. His hand fumbled so slowly I almost reached over to help. But he fitted the mask back on, and I watched its flimsy shape flex and steam up.

Who did it, Ray? I wanted to ask, and I didn"t want to know. Were you there? Instead, I gripped the rail of the bed and watched him. His eyes looked small and far away. I didn"t know what to do, whether to leave him or sit next to him. Then I remembered the book.

"Brought this for you." I pulled the paperback out of my purse. The copy of To Kill a Mockingbird I"d had since high school.

I placed it on the table beside the remote. A book so heavy with injustice and moral failure, it felt wrong pa.s.sing it to him now, as though I were making an accusation.

"Jesus, thanks," he muttered, heavy on the sarcasm.

Time to leave, I figured. I resisted tapping the bed like Alton and just told MacKay to get better soon. I expected to see a glint of tears, because that"s how I was feeling, but MacKay tilted his head in my direction and offered a lopsided turn of his mouth. It could have been a twist of despair, but I recognized it as a grin.

I"d hoped the others would be gone and I could walk down the hallway unnoticed, but they"d remained, and I was forced to stand with them, robotic. They talked about work with intense devotion. I listened to them parsing out the latest. They were laughing, in that morbid way we laughed at all the snafus and the sick things that happened, about the audacity of the warden"s press conference announcement about Crowley. I felt gravity settle a little in my shoes. At least they didn"t believe it. I had that going for me. But they did not hint at the other possibilities-the certainty, really, that some of us had done the awful deed. Then Stevens brought up "that f.u.c.king memo." I hadn"t heard about any memo, so I felt free to ask what they were talking about, and Alton filled me in. "Basically the warden telling the COs straight out, he doesn"t want to see so-called contradictory reports in the press anymore. Like the first thing we do when some s.h.i.t happens inside is call our favorite reporter."

"h.e.l.l," Ringer said, "I don"t even read the sports page anymore, it"s so full of f.u.c.king lies."

I looked to Baumard, and he said, "They"re plugging the leaks. It"s their standard CYA strategy for dealing with their own f.u.c.kups." And then those f.u.c.kups got listed in familiar abbreviated versions of longer complaints. But nothing about Crowley, no explanation of whether that had been a f.u.c.kup or a coordinated exercise.

"Kali?" A voice behind me said, and I turned to see an older woman addressing me hopefully.

The men opened their little group and allowed the woman to approach. Baumard called her Rachel Honey. Alton called her Mrs. MacKay. She introduced herself to me as Ray"s wife. I was only mildly surprised to realize that Ray had this pleasant-looking matron for a partner, a little gla.s.sy-eyed, tagged by forty years of marriage like a dead deer on a car roof. Rachel stated that she"d heard so much about me. Baumard announced it was time for him to sit with Ray. The other men dispersed to the vending machines and the restroom, leaving us gals alone.

"Do you smoke?" Rachel began. "I need a cigarette. Walk me out?"

I didn"t smoke, hadn"t even enjoyed it when I was in my twenties, but I very much wanted to leave the hospital. We said little to each other as we walked down the hallway, stood in the elevator, and then pa.s.sed the check-in desk. Outside the automatic doors, near a pack of green pajamawearing hospital workers, Rachel breathed through a Virginia Slim and scuffed at a spot on the sidewalk with her pink sneaker.

"Ray liked you," she said. The past tense hit us both.

"It sounds like he"s going to be okay," I suggested. I didn"t know s.h.i.t. I just wanted it so.

Rachel nodded. "I hope." She was thin in the neck, her skin waxy. Looking at her, I could smell my grandparents" living room, reeking of cigarettes, a stand-up ashtray between recliner chair and love seat facing the TV.

"That place is what"s killing him," she announced. "He just wants a second chance now. Funny how life-" And she stopped. I waited. Yeah, funny how life.

"Working at Ditmarsh has eaten him up," she continued. She shook her head and gazed at the parking lot. An ambulance arrived and did the loop. The cab doors opened and the paramedics got out. They were in no rush.

"Ray seemed all right most days," I offered. What was I trying to do, convince Rachel of something she would know better than anyone else in the world?

I had the sense my words did not penetrate.

"Ray never talked in any detail about the things he had to see and do," Rachel said, "but I knew when it was bad by the way he"d come home. You"re supposed to pretend the person you love doesn"t hate his own life, but I don"t care anymore. He was sick of it. He talked about you like a daughter, you know. He mentioned you lots, proud."

I let a moment go by. "I didn"t know that." And started to well up. A sap. A weeper at sad movies. I would have flipped down my URF visor if it happened to be handy.

"It wasn"t healthy," Rachel said again, and she gave me an uncomfortably direct stare, blue eyes drizzled with an acidic yellow.

Then it came.

"Ray wanted me to tell you that it wasn"t him."

I waited for more, feeling sick to my stomach, the ingestion of corrosive information.

"He didn"t put that inmate down there. But if it gets any hotter, he"s going to say he did, that it was an accident, something stupid that happened before he got sick, maybe because he was sick." She looked disgusted and gazed at the blue sky. "If it comes to that, they"ll suspend him. Then we wait until it all dies down and they let him retire and reinstate his pension. He wanted you to know. He had nothing to do with it."

"How can they do that?" I wanted to ask who"s they? The warden? The Keeper?

Instead of answering, Rachel drew on the last of her cigarette with a controlled anger, stubbed it out more times than necessary on the concrete edge of the ash bin, and pressed it into the sand that lay on top like a fake tropical island.

"We"ll probably move to Arizona if Ray"s up for it. I have a sister there."

She looked up at me again.

"Ray didn"t say this part, but I"m saying it now. You should find another life."

13.

The lockdown ended in the infirmary, though Josh heard that gen pop was still under the the screw. Josh"s limited freedom was a relief. Whenever he saw Roy in the hospital bed, he thought of his father. It made no rational sense. They were opposites in every way except age. Before everything changed, his father had been a composed and vigorous man who always wore a suit. He believed you could will yourself into success. He didn"t trust Josh"s interest in art, but even that seemed natural and normal, an indication of virtue rather than a parental failing.

Roy had none of his father"s solid qualities. He was lazy and sneaky and unhygienic, and the charm of it was that he knew you knew and still tried shamelessly to get his way. When he was tired, he seemed like a great physical bulk collapsed into despair. But when he was energized by a good mood, possessed by some random opinion or desire, he talked with wild gestures and enthusiasm, shooting for more sophistication than his background or brain could manage. None of it was like his father, but the hospital bed made Josh think that way just the same.

One lunch, Roy insisted that Josh feed him. "Guy fed me this morning," Roy said, his plump, naked arms folded royally on his chest. "Do it or I"ll tell the doctor you grabbed my crank while I was sleeping."

It was funny enough. Roy had a way of wearing you down and making you like him. He threw so much empty flattery Josh"s way that some of it couldn"t help but touch his pride.