Prisoner

Excerpt

Prisoner
GiGi DeGraham © 2023
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

Prisoner 793 lay on his cot in his cell, staring up at the rough joint that drew a harsh line across the concrete ceiling. His eyes traced the stone seam, and by now, he knew every bump and divot of the rugged line. Immeasurable minutes of his life had been spent with his eyes affixed on the thing while contemplating his time. Because of all he did not possess, other than a bundle of letters, this was something he had plenty of. Time there was measured in years still left to serve. Twelve down, and thirty-eight to go. Thirty-eight years to look forward to staring at that same ragged seam across the ceiling they hadn’t even taken the time to trowel smooth when they built this godforsaken prison.

His bed, this meager cot, with its navy-blue ticking, was a place he both hated and would defend to the death because it was his. Prisoner 793 had spent the better part of the last two years on this cot, and he would not let some new chester come in and try to take it. Hell, he wouldn’t let anyone take anything from him, and neither would his cellmate, who he internally called Big Bastard.

It was a place that 793 had earned, this thin bed on the top of the double bunk. Big Bastard had kept his bottom bunk with just a look, and he might have grunted once the first day a new, unwelcome prisoner was added to their cell. The new guy didn’t even consider it, tangling with the bigger man, so he’d looked above, to 793’s cot, to him, the lesser of the two evils in the room. Now, the new guy slept on the floor temporarily on a flat mat that kept him from freezing solid in the night. The surface was always cold, even cool-to-the-touch on nights in mid-August. They kept it cold in prison to keep men tamed.

During summer days, the floor just sweat, making everything smell worse than it already did. But this new man was there for something the warden liked to call “overcrowding,” and for the last three months, 793 had fought the same man. Clearly, the problem wasn’t going away. Not until the warden got the additional funding he’d been lobbying for to add yet another wing in this constant effort to house more men.

These floor mats had a crinkling, silver film that rustled every time one of the transfers shifted in their sleep or even took a breath. It had put Big Bastard in a foul mood for three straight months, and more than once, he’d huffed, gotten up, and kicked the shit out of the new prisoner who couldn’t be still or breathed in or out too loud. Big Bastard hated the guy. He either liked or simply tolerated 793, who hadn’t slept on a mat, not once. From the first day 793 had arrived at this medium-security prison, he’d handled business and secured his cot with his fists.

It was like anywhere. When you transferred into a new place, you started over. But before, at his first prison—a maximum-security federal penitentiary called Supermax, deep in the south of Louisiana—793 had fought and lost many times. With every loss, he’d slept on something less than desirable. It was there at Supermax that 793 began working out in his cell. When he’d earned privileges, he started lifting weights in the yard until he could fight with a properly placed fist, a fast elbow, and a debilitating knee. These were the skills required to win and keep the cot for himself. It had taken a few pretty good ass-whippings for him to figure out just how to fight—because fighting in prison was its own kind of animal.

This new inmate, Dean Harrold, had narrower eyes than most, hardened thin slits that seemed to always tell on him. Harrold had serious issues with authority and had killed his father during a domestic dispute. His father, who had worked high up in the government, had friends who hadn’t taken any mercy on his murderous son. Dean Harrold was a lifer with nothing left to lose. Harrold was a muscular guy, on the tall side, but he fought with his anger rather than any real skill. He was bigger than 793 but less than Big Bastard. Harrold was never satisfied with anything and constantly complained. He was entitled and mouthy, irritating, even to the guards. Dean Harrold was just a prick.

Big Bastard had already beat him with a shoe until Harrold understood he had to keep his trap shut. The beating had been insulting and demeaning, and Harrold simmered over it like a scorned woman as the shoe-shaped bruise darkened down his cheekbone. Big Bastard was currently in the hole for it, as Harrold had snitched, and the cell was quieter afterwards. Harrold continuously gave 793 the stink eye and made crude comments. This happened so often 793 would just get his eyes closed, and pop them back open as Harrold spouted off more of his hate. Harrold was pissed that 793 hadn’t tried to stop the beating.

“Useless mute,” Harrold had barked up at him.

Harrold was going to die in here; he was only a year older than 793, just twenty-eight, and would never be a free man again. He wasn’t lucky, but he hadn’t gotten the death penalty—the big bitch—so that was something. Still, 793 didn’t care for him.

But Harrold was here now, this last stop in life. He worked in janitorial services, and word was he might be moved out of their cell by the end of the week. Friday couldn’t come soon enough. Funny that he never attempted to sleep on Big Bastard’s cot while he was gone. He begrudgingly slept on the mat, most likely thinking 793 would rat. He wouldn’t have had to. Big Bastard would have known; he’d been there far too long for anyone to pull one over on him. Number 793 hoped Harrold would be gone by the time Big Bastard got back from the hole, and they could both get back to their somewhat normal peace and quiet.

It was what happened that next morning that started everything in motion, like the proverbial shoe that kicked the bucket over. Truth be told, 793’s plan had started some time before, like first turning of the small crank that set the gears moving in the old childhood game he and his twin sister played. His mind worked like that, even now, as the plan he had been devising continued to evolve. The lever would move, causing that ole green boot to kick the little yellow bucket over, sending the ball bearing on its twisted path, causing this and that to happen along the way. The chain-reaction game was designed by one Mr. Harold Kramer, who, ironically, was a child-hating toymaker.

The memory of that old game, which 793 had spent an hour putting together for them to play, was his early childhood foundation for problem-solving and logical, methodical thinking. So, his current, irony-driven version of Mouse Trap was something he’d almost worked out and planned to assemble in just a few more months. He wanted to do it after winter was over. Right around the first signs of spring because that seemed like a wiser time of the year.

It was just only the second week of October now, so he figured by April or May, he could have the final kinks sorted out and feel solid about the last few things he needed to study closely and work through. As his life had proven so far, if it weren’t for bad luck, he’d have none at all.

Dean Harrold had been working on the same custodial team with 793 since he’d arrived. That morning, they both worked on the kitchen cleaning assignment before breakfast. Prisoner 793 was caught off-guard while cleaning the bathroom, with the water running as he filled his mop bucket. Knocked over the back of the head from behind, he found himself pinned down on the floor with a shank to his throat. The bigger man yanked down 793’s pants, working them to his knees. The shank broke the skin against 793’s neck with stinging pain. Blood seeped into the grout lines on the floor from his head wound, and everything was muddled.

“Gonna pay now, Pretty Boy. Look what happens when your Big Daddy goes to the hole and leaves you unprotected,” this prisoner who hated Big Bastard, Dean Harrold, gritted out from behind him.

In retrospect, 793 should have seen it coming. When Harrold laid his massive hairy weight over him, pressing him further into the porcelain tile, 793 struggled and screamed against the first harsh searching prod against him. That first stabbing unsuccessful attempt at him instantly cleared the fog, and the oh-hell-no fight response kicked in. Number 793 sank his teeth into the wrist of the man trying to rape him. Harrold dropped the shank only to grab it with his left hand as he screamed from the deep bite. The shank sank into 793’s upper back and was yanked down harshly with the blade slicing through his shirt and skin like butter. He screamed again at the unbelievable pain.

It had been better than the alternative. Prisoner 793 ripped the shank out of himself and stabbed the bigger man in the gut with it. Harrold yowled again while holding his wrist. It had been the moment of hesitation that 793 needed, there on the bathroom floor, and it got Harrold off him. Prisoner 793 scrambled back to the wall, flinging the shank over by the toilets as two guards came bursting through the bathroom door. He put both hands, shaking, on top of his head and sat perfectly still while blood seeped over his forehead and dripped onto his bare thigh. It ran down the wall from his slashed-open back. Shiller had Harrold on the floor and got him restrained as Jensen, the second guard, approached 793.

“What happened, Tarkett?” Jensen said as he looked down at him and then around at the mess on the floor.

Tarkett—793—lifted his left hand and pointed to the toilets. Jensen glanced and saw the shank. Then Jensen looked at Harrold, who was yelling and trying to pull away from Schiller. Two additional guards came in, and as they dragged Harrold out, Jensen called for medical to respond to their location.

Prisoner 793 pointed to his head, then his throat, back to the shank, and motioned to his pants bunched around his ankles.

Jensen nodded. “I got it. And that gut wound?”

He pointed to himself, the shank again, and then made a fist before putting his hand back on his head. Jensen seemed to understand what had gone down.

“Medical’s coming, just sit tight; you can fix your pants. Do I need to do a rape report?”

Tarkett shook his head and pulled his pants up as Jensen told him he would come to the medical unit later, and they would have to complete a written statement over the incident.

“What a mess,” Shiller muttered as he came back in, shut off the water, and got the story from Jensen.

Shiller looked at him. “You alright, Tarkett?”

He nodded, sliding his hands down from his head; they thumped onto the floor at his sides. He felt drowsy and muddled again, and just as two of the medical guys came through the bathroom door, he passed out.

In all, 793 had spent a long four days in the medical unit. Eighteen stitches on his back, nine to close the cut on his head that had bled like Niagara, and five on the lower front, right side of his neck, and they’d put him back together. He looked like the creature from the Frankenstein film and felt like the literary one. He had a raging headache and a mild concussion to top it off. Jensen escorted him back to his cell and told him Harrold had been patched up and was now in the hole. They’d charged him with the incident and had already moved him out of their cell.

Jensen unlocked and opened his door, and 793 walked in. He climbed up onto his bunk slowly, aching all over, and had just enough strength to pull the blanket down but not back up over himself. He slid his hand under the pillow, pulled out his tightly bound bundle of old letters, and held them to his chest. Facing the wall, 793 closed his eyes. They burned, and he squeezed them tighter, fighting it off—this reality—as it finally sank in that he was going to die in here before he ever got a chance to step out into freedom.

Anger, frustration, fear, and honest-to-goodness terror consumed him, but he just felt cheated more than anything. Cheated out of his own life. As 793 lay there, wiping his cheek by lifting his shoulder, he stared up at the ceiling again and came to the realization he really only had two choices left.