The Living Will Envy The Dead (7 page)

“We’re overcrowded, understaffed, and we can’t reach anyone,” Richard said, when he’d finished his glass.  I picked up the bottle and put it out of reach.  “I was starting to worry that we were all alone in the world when you arrived.”

I shuddered.  The layman – and yes, I included Richard in that statement – has a hugely exaggerated view of nuclear war.  It would be quite possible for someone to convince themselves that the country no longer existed and that they were the last man alive, or the last town alive, or a military unit without a country.  Why not?  They had all been the subject of hundreds of post-nuclear war films and novels. 

But Richard had brought up something I
had
forgotten.  The Stonewall wasn't just for the real scum of the Earth any longer, but for other prisoners as well.  It had been intended to hold a thousand prisoners at most – and that requires a massive building – but local courts had been sending them even more offenders, most of whom didn’t deserve to share quarters with murderers and rapists.  There were boys who were blamed for petty theft, white collar criminals who’d stolen from their companies, even innocent kids who’d been framed by local police departments…and, through political pressure, had been given the hammer.  No politician likes to be thought of as soft on crime and…well, the Stonewall has a terrifying reputation.  I had known about it, vaguely, before the war, but now…

Now Richard and his staff were sitting on a volcano.  A prison is a pent-up hive of fury, hatred and worse, with prisoners who were beyond any reason.  They had already been jailed for the rest of their lives, or sentenced to death when the endless process was finally concluded, and had little to lose.  Passions rocketed through the prison, with groups of prisoners turning on each other in racial or religious fury, and the wardens were caught in the middle.  They were called Correctional Officers, these days, but I always through of them as guards.  I’d been a Marine, and that had sent me into some of the most hellish places on Earth, but a prison could be worse.  The prisoners had nothing to lose.

“I see,” I said, finally.  The conclusion I’d come to earlier was bubbling up in my head.  “How many people do you have here?”

“Seventy guards, five nurses and ten other staff,” Richard said.  I bit down a curse.  They were undermanned, all right.  The State preferred to pay overtime than hire more guards, with the net result that most of the guards were badly overworked and worn out.  It was worse for the nurses.  They often quit after a year or two and went into the private sector, where money was better and they didn’t have to worry about being knifed or raped by one of their patients.  “Two of the guards took a jeep and drove off to find their families.  I couldn’t stop them, but…”

I nodded in understanding.  Society was breaking down, remember?

He looked up at me.  “Sheriff, Ed, what are we going to do?”

Now, I have a habit of solving problems if they are put in front of me, even if the solutions are not to everyone’s taste.  I learned that in Boot Camp and then had it hammered into me during deployment.  In the civilian sector, you can afford to wait until you get it perfect, but in the military you often have to do the best you can and hope it’s good enough.  Indeed, perfect is always the enemy of good enough.  I had a solution to the problem – and to my problem – if I dared to use it.  The decision was easier than I had expected.  It helped that there was little choice.  The last thing we needed, as I had said, was a prison break.

I ran my hand through my hair and looked up at the chart on Richard’s wall.  It showed, in precise pencilled-detail, just how the prison was organised.  It took me a moment to sort out the colour coding, but once I understood I saw how it all fitted together.  Some of the very worst – the paedophiles and a handful of terrorists – had been segregated for their own protection.  Prisoners like to think that they still have rank and status…and traitors, child molesters and terrorists were right at the bottom.  They tended not to survive being in the general population…well, not for very long. 

“All right,” I said, finally.  “Listen carefully.”

I explained, briefly, what I knew about the war.  “It seems likely,” I concluded, “that the federal and state governments no longer exist in any form we would care to recognise.  We cannot depend on the police or the army or even parts of the National Guard any longer.  I know they’ll do what they can, but they’re going to be completely overwhelmed.  We’re on our own.”

I watched his face slump.  Most of the guards were young unmarried men…and the handful who were married had homes near the prison.  A pair of them, I remembered now, had had family in Ingalls.  I’d have to chew them both out for leaving their posts, but after that I would have to forgive them, probably.  It didn’t look as if it had been disastrous.  Richard, however, no longer had a place to call home.  Norfolk had definitely been hit.  If he hadn’t been divorced from his wife…

“Now, we’re going to have to take action fast,” I continued.  Time wasn't entirely on our side.  “What have you done with the prisoners?”

“They’re in lockdown,” Richard said.  He looked more composed now that I’d presented him with a problem he could solve.  “They’re meant to be exercising at this time, but I daren’t take more than a handful out of the cells without more guards.  The ones on meds are going to be needing them soon, Sheriff, and we’re going to run out pretty quickly.”

I scowled.  Some of the prisoners would be on meds, of course.  I had forgotten.  Most of them would have AIDS, or something else equally nasty, while others would have all kinds of drugs intended to keep them calm and tranquil.  I had never liked the concept of medicating a young boy who had been diagnosed with ADD, but it did seem to help some of the prisoners.  Deprived of their medications, they would rapidly swing back towards their more normal behaviour, losing what little control they had.  We could keep medicating them for a few weeks, depending on how many drugs there were stored in the prison – something else I’d have to check – but sooner or later we would run out…and then it would be Katy bar the door.  There was nothing we could do for them.

“Brent, go back outside and bring in the Posse,” I ordered, finally.  “I want them to become familiar with the prison.  Get a pair of the guards to give them a tour of everywhere, but listen to them and don’t let the prisoners get to you.  Richard, I want you to give me a private tour, just now.”

Brent didn’t question me.  In hindsight, that was a little odd.  “Of course,” Richard said.  “What should I tell the guards?”

“They know about the war,” I said, grimly.  It hadn’t been high on my list of concerns, but it should have been.  I hadn’t delegated this task to anyone, even to Mac.  I didn’t want to take the coward’s way out.  “Tell them that we will be happy to accept any of them in Ingalls if they want to stay.”

Richard gave me a brief tour of the prison.  I’d toured it before, back when I’d become Sheriff, but it hadn’t been so overcrowded then.  The prison cells looked strong enough to hold lions, but some of the prisoners looked stronger, almost as if they were monstrous caricatures of human beings.  It was always a surprise to know just how strong prisoners could become, trapped in a world where strength was everything, although I wasn't particularly scared.  I had done very well in unarmed combat, under a Drill Sergeant who had been a fearsome bastard, three times as intimidating as the worst of the prisoners.

Others looked more fearful.  They did their best to hide it, but they were terrified of the other prisoners, or even of the guards.  I didn’t blame them.  Some of them looked young enough to be my sons, while others looked surprisingly innocent, almost baby-faced.  I distrusted those prisoners on sight.  They were too good to be true.  Richard escorted me around, keeping me well away from the bars, pointing out some of the worst offenders.

“That’s Lono,” he said, pointing to a man who looked large enough to pick up and carry an entire Abrams tank.  “He got into a bar fight and killed pretty much everyone else in the bar and they had to taser him to stop him.  Drugged up, of course.  He’s been sentenced to life here.”

His finger met a meek-looking man, almost a real-life Clark Kent.  “David Apple,” Richard identified him.  “He found a small girl in his garden one day and had his way with her.  It must have started something, because he kidnapped three other girls over the next few weeks and tortured them to death slowly and painfully.  He’s under sentence of death, but he’s currently launching his third appeal.  His first night here was almost his last.  A pair of convicts got to him and started to rape him when we broke it up.  They came damn close to killing him.”

I didn’t hear any regret in his voice.  “And that’s the type of people we have here,” Richard concluded.  “What are you going to do with them?”

“What I have to do,” I said.  My plans had congealed nicely into something workable.  All I had to do was get started.  “I assume that you have complete records here?”

“Of course,” Richard said, confidently.  “You do know that they’re meant to be sealed…”  He broke off at my snort.  Prisoner records might have been meant to be confidential, but it hardly mattered any longer.  There was no longer any Law and Order, but us.  “What do you want to know about them?”

“I want to sort them out,” I said, as Brent approached.  “Any problems?”

“One of the prisoners tried to grab Stacy’s ass,” Brent said.  I scowled.  I shouldn’t have allowed Stacy anywhere near the prison, but I wasn't in the mood for an argument over sexual equality.  “She broke his arm with her rifle butt.”

“Good for her,” I said, relaxing slightly.  The last time anyone had taken liberties with Stacy, during an unarmed combat competition, she’d thrown them clear across the mat.  She really was as good as she claimed to be, which made a change from some of the other feminists I’d met in my career.  “I have a job for you.”

I think we need to change that old saying, “I don't need a building to fall on me.”  Because two did and we still don't get it. I think we all stick our head in the sand as a deep human impulse.

-Bill Maher

My plan was straightforward, but ruthless.

“Richard,” I said, “I want you to sort the prisoners out into three categories.  The ones who need medications to survive, the ones who are truly nasty and beyond redemption and everyone else.  I trust your judgement in sorting them out, but make sure that all the real fucks go into the second category.”

Richard nodded and headed off to his office.  He’d made a brief announcement to his staff, explaining that they were all part of Ingalls now, and few had dissented.  The handful who had dissented turned out to have families in other towns and cities and wanted to go back there.  I agreed at once when they demanded the right to return after we’d dealt with the prisoners.

I found myself studying the guards with interest.  I had spent time guarding prisoners myself in Iraq and I had quickly learned to isolate the dangerous ones from the sheep who had been herded into battle at gunpoint.  It wasn't that difficult.  The sheep sat around, grateful beyond words that they hadn’t been shot out of hand, while the dangerous ones sought to cause trouble.  The new Iraqi Government had had a very simple way of dealing with such bastards.  They took them to special camps outside the cities and shot them, burying them far from their homes and families.  It was a lesson I had taken to heart.

And I was sure that I could trust the guards and their instincts more than I could trust what any bleeding heart social worker had written.  The average prisoner is no master-brain, but many of them, including David Apple, are damn good at working the system.  They seek to convince good-hearted people that they have reformed, that they’re no longer a threat to society, that they have ‘rights’ that we should honour…and far too many of them fall for it.  I understand the impulse to do good, or to believe the best of people, but sometimes they take it too far.  Where does the blame lie, I ask you, if the convicted murderer is released to murder again?

And rights?  A person is born with rights, but as far as I am concerned, they’re rights that can be forfeited.  Who says that the ‘rights’ of a murderer are more important than those of his victims?  What ‘right’ does a rape victim have to be raped?  She’s the
victim
.  Why should she be punished by watching her tormentor go free?  It might be nice to see the world through rose-tinted lenses, but it was not a delusion that I was prepared to embrace.  The vast majority of the prisoners deserved to spend the rest of their lives behind bars, if not a final appointment with the executioner.

The guards, I suspected, privately agreed.  They saw the prisoners all the time, watching them carefully, always knowing that one misstep could prove fatal.  Their testimony should have meant more than the psychologists hired by the defence lawyers who – of course – testified that the defendant was mentally unbalanced, as opposed to outright evil.  The guards were mainly male, as I had expected, but a handful of them were female, one of which had a nasty scar across her face.  The turnover of female guards was high, or so I’d been told; they seemed to be challenged more than their male counterparts.  The prison was not a place for the politically correct.