The Warden's Son

It's been a while since I've posted anything, partially because I haven't written anything in a while that I would like to post on this site. This is an excerpt from a novel I'm currently writing, but it might work pretty well as a short story.

The sun is up high. He has no shadow. The rows of cotton are long and winding both ways. They walk in rows, a slow pace, instructed to pick every third bud and then go on to the next row when all the plants are picked and brown. Lance walks in front of Randal, but behind Nick.

Lately this place has been getting stricter, more prison and less-farm. Guards these days hit with no warning, wake up the prisoners earlier, and are more keen on the no talking rule. Nick says it’s tougher regulations, coming down on everyone. But Nick looks at it only straight. You have to look at the guards before they lash out. They sweat more; eyes go from one place to another inadvertently, somebodys, somethings, someones influence, agenda, projected, genotyped, expressed in their behaviour. Morale among the prisoners has risen drastically. Now they have reason, meaning, a common enemy to gather around and whisper about in the bunks, picking out specific ones who seem to want it most.

Final verdict came in last night, but it’s been debated over for months. Who? When? How? Why? They decided on Earl. Some of the older prisoners call him the Red Brat, warden’s son. Good, so we have a victim, but whose gonna be the lucky one to do it? There wasn’t many to choose from. It had to be a lifer, ain’t much else can be done to them. Couple days, weeks maybe, in the hole, thirsty, hunger, standing barefoot on broken glass. That is nothing compared to the message it will send.

This is how it works in the field yards. The prisoner lines keep a certain pace, and there are all these guards up on horses. You go to fast WHIP! You go to slow WHIP! Sounds simple. But lately some guards have been getting a little loose with their swinging. Now they’ll whip you for looking at them funny, sneezing, stretching, shuffling . . . But hopefully this will make them think twice.

Lance walks in front of Randal, but behind Nick. This is the thirteenth row. Just after lunch, nowhere near dinner. He hears Nick whisper: get ready. And his heart beats just a little faster, but he doesn’t take his eyes from the cotton row. Slowly he can feel the wind on his neck get quieter as Nick slows down and gets closer. A figure in front of him has come into view. Everyone knows the drill. So much so that the guard doesn’t even yell out, he just rides up on his horse in the row adjacent. Now Lance looks up.

The guard brings his hand back and Nick tightens and leans forward. Then, just as the guard brings his arm into action, Nick dashes forward out of the way, turns back as the guards brings his hand back once more, grabs the fleeting whip, and pulls the very surprised guard down to the ground. Not even breaking his stride he leans over for the holstered shotgun, pulls it out to the guard, staggering on the bare ground, and fires. 

The blast echoes through the trees every which way, going on for a good five or so seconds. There is blood on him. He can feel it. There is blood everywhere. Cotton stained red today, gathered black and dirty onto the ground in patches. Lance stares down, breathing heavily. The guard, whose name he will never forget, now has a face that is unrecognizable from all sides. Half of it is spread out to other places. When his eyes turn upward, Nick comes in. The man is standing over, breathing heavily, smiling . . .

A sudden yell comes from across the yard. How long the guards had been standing there he doesn’t know. But they’re coming now. Seems they’ve lost all consideration for the crop. Their horses ride right over it. And before they’ve been riding for even ten seconds, Lance and the other men have backed away, and Randal lays on the ground with his hands on his head. Riders come over, hope off the horse, nervous and pointing muzzles. One, wearing a limp tan sun, hat looks down over the guards.

“Ah shit,” wiping his hat off, “that’s Willard’s boy.”

“He’ll have your fucking head for that,” one’s speaking to Nick, still on the ground, “you know that?”

But one’s still on his horse and more upset than probably all of them.

“Well staring ain’t gonna do you any damn good! Two of you take this sick fuck over to the hole, and the rest of you get this troop back to the bunkers.”

They heft Nick off the ground. He laughs as they carry him away.

The guards forget their shifts, and the prisoners are left alone in the bunks. All the guys talk excitedly about the wardens son and his demise. Some talk of times they were wronged by the guard, other make some up. Even more, though, talk of the next one.

“Did you see them guard’s faces when they came over? I mean, they was really scared. Like we was about to do something.”

“Looked like they was pulling up on some zoot suites.”

“So who do we do next? I say it’s Brett. You know, he whips harder than any of em’, and for no reason.”

“Reckon ain’t nobody gonna wanna go out and kill another guard.”

“How do you know that?”

“Yea, I bet all Nick’s gonna get is a few weeks in the hole. He’s already in here forever.”

“Yeah, but Nick kills somebody, the guards think it’s just cause he’s a freak or something. Someone else kills someone, guards will know something’s up.”

“Well then we just gotta find someone as crazy as old Nick.”

“Can’t be too hard.”

“What about that one Mandingo fella, I heard he killed something like six people.”

“If he’d ah killed six people, they’d ah hanged his ass.”

“I bet the hole ain’t all they do to Nick. That Warden’s one sick fucker.”

“That’s just an act, just for the job. He had a son, and that kid turned out decent enough.”

“Till old Nick put a slug in his ass.”

Nick was carried out to the big house. They call it the big house because it’s big. The guards carried him by the shoulders and he knew he was in trouble. But Mr Left and Mr Right looked more scared than he did. And he was in the yard of the big house when the warden came out across the yard and that’s when he knew he was really in trouble. And, as the far as the Warden goes, he had a red face with tears and his voice choked when he yelled at Mr Left and Mr Right but not to Nick “take him down to Status, time them boys down there got started anyway.”

So then they brought him to the back of the yard towards what looked like a storm cellar but they opened it up and all he could see was white, white stairs descending, white ceiling, rail and light. Mr Left started sweating on the way down and his grip loosened a bit. Nick turned around and thought about running, but the Warden and other men were following. Nick said to one I ain't never seen no place this clean. Ya'll've gone all out for me. I think that's mighty nice of ya. Why, this is really special!

Bottom of the white cellar turned out to be a few stories down. Anyone would be safe from anything in here. Immediately he was taken to a soft room that had green, not white, cushions and buttons on the walls and floors except for one wall that was big and shiny and black. They left him in there and left themselves real quickly. Nick hardly had time to turn around and curse his curses at them. And then he was alone. From the rooms or/and halls outside came some muffled voices whose ears he couldn’t penetrate.

The room was like a tree at night time under a streetlamp. Everything was matted in the room and it still is. Nick is still here. The narrator was hoping to show up and find everything over with, but he has decided to change narration techniques. So we are still here, in this dimly lit, windowless, chemical smelling room about forty feet below Crystal County Correctional Facility.

It has been minutes, hours maybe, since he was thrown in rather rudely. He lays down on his back, breathing deeply to get all the kinks out of his back, when a ring comes from the window . . .

Scene switch. Now we are inside the control room of what NASA would have looked like in the 1940s. A man in a crinkled white button up hunched over esoteric buttons and dials he will never understand. He is a science man, not an operator. Put things through a few circuits or frayed wiring patterns and things get all mixed up. But he knows what to do so the Warden will be impressed. Push the small black one over to the right.

The Warden stands behind him now. And behind the Warden are guards who’ve learned nothing of the device down here besides what rumors they have made up. Everything is quiet as The Warden confirms the last few details. Finally he says go ahead.

So the man of science adjusts a few dials here and there before flipping up and lever and pushing the small black button. And nothing happens. The men all stare and what in silence and look towards the Warden, whose lips have curled into a smile. Then there is a ringing resonating from the one-way mirror in front of them. It is faint, but clearly discernible.

And the prisoner, lying still on the ground, starts to scream. His ears ring, buzz, vibrate down to the drums, burn, sting, itch, hurl, bleed all at once. A moment ago he was the prisoner, the murderer, a human but now he has shifted towards a fading portrait of the freedom and serenity of captivity he only just enjoyed, moving away from that and towards a bright white light, a light of peace, of melanin, of spectrum. What is death but whitening, a carrying of white to Ultra White? What is it but a motherboard of copper . . . of soddering, of speakers, and wiring? Once he was Human. But Now he is Nick, Nickerson, Nigel, Naomi, faceless, soulless, an experiment, a cadaver, empty eyes on top of an empty head. And he is moving, away, towards, perpendicular or parallel, descending or ascending all around to death, to new life, to true, no-strings-attached freedom . . .

Back to the little silent room, they got it on tape. Turns out the device only makes the prisoner scream for so long. What it is, as the Warden describes it now, is a “Seizure of some sort. The brain extends, contracts, and extends again, over and over until bleeding starts. That is what you saw there, gentlemen, the . . .subject, bleeding from every orifice on his face. This causes no permanent damage as opposed to concussions, which is where I received my inspiration for this little device. You see, the concussion, in it’s own way, is a natural version of my device. It too, on the severest instances, can ‘reset’ the human brain, like device has done. This is known, in medical terms, as a concussion. But this often causes trauma to the brain. The signal triggers something in the brain, just the right tone and played to such a volume that the brain it self fires all neurons at once. What I have created, in many ways, is a cleansing, a new birth, creating a mind much like one of a new borns, one completely susceptible to outside forces. The subject will retain all basic motor skills, but his only knowledge outside of his actions and surroundings after this day will be programmed entirely by us.”