Peace was an alien concept in Oz.
There was no peace among
the convicted, the desperate, the terrified of Gen Pop. There was
at best an uneasy and temporary balance, sustained only until a new face,
a new mind disrupted the dynamic - and then the deadly dance began again,
the dance of flesh and drugs and ownership and power, alleviated only by
nightfall and the infrequent, deadly chaos of riots.
There was no peace among the constantly monitored of Em City, the glass-encased
monuments to Timothy McManus' hubris: tormented souls trapped in
hell and then given the final indignity, told that this was *not* hell,
but purgatory, as if they were thought stupid enough to accept that.
This place purged no one of anything. Every sin beforehand, every
sin within, was carried with you every day, a monkey on your back more
brutal and ineluctable than any drug habit. No peace for Kareem Said,
love and anger so inextricably intertwined in his heart that the muscle
itself sometimes quailed beneath the weight. No peace for the crippled
Tobias Beecher, a man limping through existence now day by day, his madness
chilled to the deadweight of a black star. No peace for Ryan O'Reilly,
too wired on his own plotting and intellect to ever *want* peace, too reflexively
closed against a long-dead memory of dark eyes, soft hands, and inadmissible
pain. No peace, even, for the incurably innocent Cyril. A child
with no memory, no comprehension, he would never understand peace even
if he experienced it.
And there was no peace among the hacks, the administration. No
peace in Tim McManus' bitter disappointment in his failures. No peace
in Warden Glynn, too weary to enjoy his resigned acceptance. No peace
in Diane Whittlesey, carrying her own secret and not-so-secret sins and
compelled to remain by the merciless needs of her daughter. If Sister
Peter Marie Reimondo, or Father Ray Mukada, still retained any capacity
for peace, they had sacrificed it by remaining here.
Perhaps they achieved a peace of their own by doing so. If so,
it seemed indistinguishable from the numb exhaustion that was the scent
of the air in the Admin offices nowadays.
There was no peace in the escapes of drugs, or of the flesh.
Heroin was a stimulant, as were most of the other drugs popular in Oz.
It brought temporary, illusory escape, not peace. Alcohol brought
no peace either, unless you counted unconsciousness. And the relief
of orgasm, whether alone or with a willing or unwilling partner, never
lasted longer than a few seconds. To invite it to linger was to invite
trust... tenderness... *vulnerability*. All, in Oz, synonyms for
doom.
If there was peace anywhere in Oz, it was here.
One quiet row of cells, never occupied completely.
Death Row.
Schillinger would not have described himself as a man at peace.
He more than anyone else knew that trust was destruction. He'd had
that proved too many times. Rachel. Beecher. The Brotherhood,
in their candy-ass "vote" to have him removed - and Christ, for all the
ridiculousness of that moment it had *still* fuckin' hurt. He'd proved
it *himself*. Because Karl Metzger and Chris Keller had trusted *him*
-- and look where it got them.
But in here, there was no
*need* to trust. No risk, no loss. No game, no gamble.
Days came, days went. He exercised compulsively, finding blessed
relief from thought in physical exhaustion. Later, as his body accustomed
itself to the driving pace and exhaustion was no longer enough to numb
his mind, he continued out of sheer habit. Food appeared regularly.
He ate it, slept soundly, aware only marginally of how his sleeping habits
were changing. With no danger, no threat at his back, his hard-pressed
body was gradually beginning to relax in places he hadn't even known he
was clenched.
Even his carpal tunnel syndrome
- the sheer blind fluke of physiology that in its own way had been just
as responsible for his downfall as Beecher, or Rachel, or Duchene - had
eased off now. The new doctor's 'scrips had been cut back, slowly,
and now, over a year after taking up residence in the last home of his
life -
-- over two months after
his final visit from Rachel, who had looked at him with an expression dense
and congealed with shock, dismay, revulsion (*betrayal?*), and an anger
that had startled both of them, and then explained just *who* she'd met
in the corridor outside --
-- over a month after Warden Glynn himself had come, in the company
of the stupid little kike the state had assigned as his defense counsel,
to let him know that his last appeal was close to completion and final
denial, and it looked like the hanging would go ahead as scheduled -
-- over a week since his
last counseling visit from Sister Peter Marie had ended with her stalking
out, muttering something under her breath he profoundly *hoped* was a wish
he'd burn in hell (he'd always wanted to prove just once she was as capable
of hatred as anyone, just so he could rub her face gleefully in what she
would see as a flaw) --
-- the irony was, after
all this time, he was probably in the best physical health he'd enjoyed
for years. And certainly the best he would ever be again.
The last two months had finally melted away the pot-belly he'd carried
for years. His muscles were defined again, his breath easy, his limbs
strong. He even felt more awake - clean , clear, sharp. He
felt almost like he had in the old days, when his senses were keen and
his pulse strong and even; and yet he was free of the madness of youthful
hormones, and the overconfidence of the twenties. It was like nothing
he had quite felt in his life.
And within weeks he would stand on a platform, look out at the cameras,
and - he had decided this - smile as the floor gave way and he plunged
into oblivion. For Beecher, for Rachel, for Tim fucking McManus,
for Said, for every single fucking person who had ever wanted to be the
one to bring him down - he would smile as he died, because he knew, and
they knew, *he alone* had put himself there.
No one else.
They'd pushed and shoved, gotten him to the edge. But they *hadn't*
been able to push him over. He'd jumped himself. And even those
fuckers McManus and Glynn would be badly hurt by this. Schillinger
wasn't stupid. The first public hanging in the state in seventy-nine
years - how could every newspaper on the Eastern Seaboard, every news station,
*not* insist on seeing it? And all the world would know was that
Oz was a place where they *hanged* people. A barbaric remnant of
another age. Never mind he'd requested this; McManus and Glynn would
come out the monsters. And he - the "sick Nazi fuck", the "motherfucker",
the horror -- *he*... would be... a *martyr*.
Oh yeah. His death would hurt them. And they could not
do a single fucking thing about it. And when he thought of that,
the deep, abiding satisfaction that filled every cell like a slow rush
of liquid warmth always made him smile.
He would never have chosen the word for that particular state of mind.
But it was the closest thing to peace he would ever know.
* * *
<"They tell you 'the product of freedom and security is a constant'.
Know what that means? Means the safer you are, the less freedom you
have; and the more freedom you got, the more danger you're in.
<"Well I used to think
that was bullshit. 'Cause man, when I was free, I ain't *never* seen
or heard of anything more dangerous than the inside of good old Oh-Zee
OZ. But then I got here, and I began to watch. And I began
to see.
<"See, there's things
you can do in here you can't do the same way outside. Shit with Vern
and Beecher? Out there it's a 'horror'. In here, it's the way
o' the world, man. Vern was free to do what he wanted 'cause there
was no one gonna stop him.
<"'Course, other side
of *that* is, *Beecher* was free to do what he wanted to *Vern*, once he
understood there was no one gonna stop *him*. And then Vern gets
Keller to do Beecher back. And nothing's gonna stop them. 'Cause
they are FUCK-in' FREE, man!!!
<"And I heard the stories
from the hacks 'bout the guys on Death Row. Doesn't happen to all
of 'em, mind, but some of 'em... you look in their eyes, this hack says
to me, and you see this scary freaky calm, like they found God or some
shit like that. 'Cause they're lost, they're doomed, everything's
watched right up to the moment they exit the world, stage down.... and
they... are... *secure*. No freedom, no space, no escape. And
it's frightening what happens in their eyes when they know that.
<"'Cause when that happens,
you dead already, man. And the needle, the rope, the guns?
Afterthoughts.">
--Augustus Hill
* * *
He had hit the thirty-seventh of a set of fifty situps when he realized
the odd hollow sounds beneath his hissing breaths weren't an echo.
He slowed, let himself subside to the floor, then looked back through the
bars. His eyebrows went up.
The approaching figure was
Whittlesey.
Schillinger took a deep
breath, turned back, began the set again. He heard Whittlesey stop
behind him, not moving. She said nothing as he went on. Forty-five,
six, seven, eight, nine... fifty. Schillinger rolled back, took a
deep breath as he looked at the ceiling, then got to his feet without haste
or strain and went to the sink. "'Scuse me," he murmured.
The corner of Whittlesey's
mouth tugged upwards, briefly, as she looked him up and down. "Lookin'
pretty good, Schillinger."
"For a dead man."
Schillinger splashed water on his face.
Whittlesey glanced down
the hall. "Yeah. Well."
Schillinger grinned as he
towelled off. He'd never especially liked Whittlesey, and after she'd
shot Ross - one of the few friends he'd still had outside or in - his generalized
antipathy had become a highly focused dislike. But she was more honest
than most, even if she was a hack. He had a grudging respect for
that. "So what brings you down here, Diane? Lookin' to grant
a last request?"
The joke was more reflex
than malice. Whittlesey's sole acknowledgement of it was a brief
flicker of her eyes to the ceiling. "Not exactly. I - "
She took a deep breath. "I don't know how much you hear down here
- "
"With my scintillating social
life?" Vern swept an arm around his cell. "Don't get me wrong,
I don't mind the company, but they're not much for conversation."
"Fuck you, Schillinger,"
came a tired call from down the corridor.
Schillinger chuckled.
He turned back to Whittlesey and shrugged. "So what's this you think
I might have heard?"
Whittlesey took something
from under her arm - a newspaper - and folded it briefly in her hands,
as if trying to keep them busy in the hope it would accomplish something
useful. "There was an election a few days ago. Do you remember
Alva Case?"
Schillinger scowled.
He wasn't quite sure how she'd jumped from one sentence to the other, and
even in his new state of mind he had little patience for this sort of thing.
"I remember the nigger Case, I could give a fuck about the election, 'sthere
a point to this, Whittlesey?"
Whittlesey opened her mouth.
Then, abruptly, she closed it and put the newspaper out so it poked through
the bars into his cell.
Schillinger blinked.
He took the paper. Long-standing habits made him check it briefly
for anything concealed, but there was only the newsprint. He unfolded
it and found the first page, eyes sweeping across the page before they
locked on the headline.
CASE DEFEATS DEVLIN IN LANDSLIDE
"There will be some changes,"
former lawman promises
Schillinger scowled at the
paper, then up at Whittlesey. "What the fuck is this?"
"Read it." It wasn't
an order, just a statement.
Schillinger met her gaze
for a long moment. Whittlesey's face, opaque as always in a mask
of rueful calm, gave him nothing back. Slowly, he dropped his eyes
to the newspaper. It was dated - Christ, what day *was* it? -- two
days ago.
John Devlin's demons have come home to roost - with a
vengeance.
The former Governor, elected for his promise to be "tough
on crime and corruption",
prided himself publicly in the media for
not catering to what he
called "liberal queasiness" in his policies.
But that very stubbornness pushed away his supporters one by one,
as he ran the state in a manner more than one councillor has
called "tyrannical". His term came to a crashing end last night
as Alva Case, formerly of the Justice Department, rode the tidal
wave of the polls to victory. "The Devlin days are over!" was
the cheer at the Case campaign center.
"So many things need changing,"
Case said later in an
interview. "Tomorrow morning I'm reintroducing Bill 97 to the
Legislature, just to start. This time things will be different."
When reminded that many in the Legislature still publicly
support the death penalty, Case responded, "No - they supported
*Devlin*. Devlin's gone. Bill 97 will be law before the
month is
out. There will be no more legally-sanctioned murder in this
State while *I'm* governor."
(continued p. A13)
Schillinger stared at the paper. The words were clear and straightforward.
But they refused to make sense for some long, long minutes.
Eventually he managed the only question he could. "What the fuck *is*
this?"
It was the same thing he'd asked before. But the tone - a tone
he'd never heard in his own voice, a hoarse, almost quavery husk - made
it something entirely different.
Whittlesey sighed. "Sister Pete'll be comin' by soon," she said
to the floor. "And she'll probably be bouncin' off the ceiling about
this. She thinks it's gonna be great news for you too." Unbelieveably,
there was the faintest note of wry humour in her voice. "Why shouldn't
it be... right?"
Schillinger's head jerked up; he met Whittlesey's eyes. What
he saw there stabbed in, twisted like icy burning foil in his teeth, burned
behind his eyes like acid. It was worse than sympathy, worse than
forgiveness; it was...
...it was *understanding*.
Everything, *everything*, he had hoped to gain rested on rising above
them with this death; rested on his becoming beyond them all, on leaving
everyone with the unsolved and unsolveable mystery of *why*. Why
he had done it this way. Why he had "given in". Was there
a new gambit here, a new plot, a twist worthy of O'Reilly? Some dark
inheritance he had left behind in the form of a whispered promise, a knife
in the dark? A twist of blood underneath a stairwell?
None of them could have known that the final revenge was more than
that. There was no promise, no beyond-the-grave trap. Even
Rachel and Beecher, even the ones who knew him more than anyone else ever
could, or would... it was that very knowledge that would prevent them ever
accepting the realization. They knew him too well to believe this.
And for the rest of their lives, in addition to the taint of memory, there
would be a faint but everpresent touch of *fear*.
But this.
Whittlesey looked at him and she *knew*. He didn't know how he
knew, but he did. Perhaps, because in the face of so many of Oz's
real horrors, she alone had managed to remember the real truths of fear,
the truths he'd realized a long time ago and somehow forgotten until that
last incendiary confrontation in Medical.
There was no horror so terrifying as the one you suspected, but never
actually saw. No memory so persistent as the ones you never quite
understood. No expression so brutal as the unanticipated smile.
And his death... his death would have been all of these.
<Would have been -- >
In a spasm of rage his fists tightened in the paper and tore it apart.
It shredded like tissue under the new strength of his shoulders and biceps.
He spun to hurl the remnants at the wall. They slapped against the
concrete and fell to the bed, trailing shreds and streamers of grey confetti.
Breath heaving, he glared at the ruined papers as if willing them to catch
fire.
Whittlesey's calm was admirable, though a few cracks had shown; she'd
started a little, eyes just a touch wider now, and she had to moisten her
lips. "It's not passed yet," she said, quietly but with iron in her
voice. "It may not pass. You might still - " Her words
ran out as if she'd just realized what she was saying: telling someone
that his execution might still take place as a *reassurance* --
But Schillinger was beyond irony. He whirled and planted himself
against the bars, fists knotted on the metal. His face was drawn
in a torn grimace, apelike and brutal, ice-blue eyes like glacier-melt
acid. The rasp of his voice was almost inaudible. "Get the
*fuck* out of here, Whittlesey," he whispered. "Get the fuck out
of here *now*. Do you understand me?"
Whittlesey stared back, face opaque again. "Yeah," she finally
said, and though her voice was low there wasn't damn near enough capitulation
in it for him. "Yeah. I understand you, Schillinger."
Without waiting for an answer she turned and walked away down the hall,
back towards the gate, no faster or slower than usual, nightstick waving
gently by her thigh.
Schillinger remained against the bars for a moment. The breath
burned in his lungs like liquid nitrogen. He sucked in a gasp, held
it, then fisted his right hand and drove it into the concrete wall.
Not knuckles-first - he wasn't *quite* that berserk - but the impact still
hurt like a detonation of acid-splashed fire inside his hand. He
reeled back, gasping, the pain a white-red knife that slashed the fury
to tatters, levelling out his mind.
He let himself collapse onto the bed, bent over his wounded hand, controlling
his breath. Great heaving gasps, in and out. Each breath releasing
a little of the pain, anger drowned beneath it and dissolved. Bit
by bit, the tumult in his mind and flesh faded into silence, like the struck
note of a crystal glance ringing into emptiness.
* * *
<"When you move through life in a chair wit' wheels on, you learn
pretty damn soon that *dignity*'s a word for other people, not you.
But you also learn somethin' else. You learn that the people most
afraid of losing their *dignity* are the people it's easiest to take it
from. And the people who don't care at all about crap like dignity?
Untouchable, man.
<"In the old days they
used to cry 'Death before dishonour'. Nowadays it's 'Anything, please,
just don't kill me.' I been there myself, man. Lost my legs
fightin' to stay free. Din't plan it that way, but I gave up my dignity
to keep my life. You'd asked me before, I'da said, I can live with
that, 'cause I'd be alive.
<"Now I ain't so sure.
<"'Cause one last thing
I've seen. It's that people who'll say 'dishonour before death' usually
only say it once. Before it happens to them. And then... then...
they start to change their tune.">
-- Augustus Hill
* * *
Whittlesey had come just after the breakfast round; it was a couple
hours after lunch when the tap-tap-tap-tap of Sister Pete's footsteps came
swiftly down the corridor. Vern, lying on his cot, didn't bother
to acknowledge her presence as she unfolded the chair she was carrying
with a brisk economy of movement, sat down, and laid her valise across
her lap, sorting and grouping her files.
"Schillinger."
Vern didn't move.
"Schillinger, I know you
can hear me." She glanced around. "The size of this corridor,
everyone can hear me."
Vern sighed. "I was
trying to ignore you."
Sister Pete smiled briefly.
"Schillinger, tougher men than you haven't been able to ignore me."
"Yeah?" Schillinger
swung upright and turned to look at her. "Seems to me God ignores
you just fine, a lot of the time."
Sister Pete only paused
a second in her paper shuffling, but it was enough to tell Vern he'd scored
a hit. He grinned. "Oo. Did that sting?"
She glanced up at him through
her bifocals. "He doesn't listen to everything I'd like, Schillinger.
But He seems to have come through this time, for once." She held
up a copy of the same newspaper Whittlesey had brought.
He felt his smile waver,
tried for a moment to hold it and then let it go with a shrug. It
wasn't worth the effort. "A bunch of murderers and child-rapers get
to live. 'Sthat what you call God comin' through for you, Sister?"
"You might call it coming
through for *you*, Vern."
It was the first time she'd
ever called him by his first name. Vern looked away, indistinctly
irritated by the intimacy. "If God wants anything to do with me,
Sister, I'm pretty sure it involves me takin' a fast elevator downwards."
"Is that what you think
will happen to you?"
She sounded honestly curious.
Perhaps it was that simple, open interest, with no hint of an agenda or
probe attached to it, that provoked him into actually considering the question.
After a moment he shook his head. "I don't know."
She regarded him steadily.
Under the regard he shrugged and spread his hands. "I guess I never
really made up my mind. I never really thought about death being...
it. You know? 'Cause if I ever really thought it was, I'd have
thought, well, what's the fuckin' point? To anything?" He blew
out a breath and studied the far wall. "But this Heaven and Hell
bullshit, I never really believed that either. Far as I can tell,
the only justice in this world's the kind you make for yourself, and I
don't see any reason why it should be any different in an afterlife, if
there is one."
"I should think the issue
would be important to you. Now more than ever."
"Why?"
"Why?" Sister Pete
adjusted her bifocals and stared over them at him. "What do you mean,
'why'?"
"I mean, why is it important?
'Cause if anything I can do or say at *this* point's gonna make the slightest
fuckin' difference to what's waitin' for me, I'd sure like to know about
it."
"Would you really?"
She leant forward, elbows on knees, folding her hands before her.
"Suppose I told you there *was* a way to get you off Death Row. Right
here, right now. Would you take it?"
Schillinger smiled and shook
his head. "What do you think, Sister? 'Course I would."
"Bullshit."
Vern blinked. "'Scuse
me?"
"I said, 'Bullshit.'
As in the product of a male cow's digestive system, a smelly and useless
chunk of organic waste - "
"I heard you," Schillinger snapped. "What's your fucking point?"
Sister Pete stared levelly at him. "I read your confession.
It wasn't coerced. You're here because you *want* to be here, not
out of any penitential martyrdom. You're here because you think if
*you* make the decision to bring about the end of your life, you still
have control over that life. Isn't that it?"
Schillinger said nothing.
"Isn't it?"
"What if it was?"
He got to his feet suddenly and strode to the bars, hands grasping them
lightly, glaring down at her from his full height. She had to crane
her neck back to meet his gaze, but didn't flinch. "What does it
matter to you?"
"It matters because you're
still buying into the illusion that you *ever* had control of your life."
"Illusion?"
Sister Pete held up the
file prominently labeled SCHILLINGER, V. "Everything you've ever
done has been about asserting control, Schillinger, and it's all been taken
away from you. When your mother died, you assaulted your father,
as a way of asserting retroactive control over something you'd already
lost. You couldn't save your mother, but at least you could avenge
her. Except you couldn't even do that properly because your father's
still alive, isn't he?"
Schillinger had to force
the words through an incomprehensible thickness in his throat he couldn't
decipher. "What the fuck do you know about it, Sister?"
"I'm Spanish, Schillinger,
you think we don't know about revenge? It was my people who first
said 'revenge is a dish best served cold'." Before he could interrupt
she went on. "You dominated Tobias Beecher as a way to assert control
over the prisoners here, and over your memories of your wife. But
he came back and half-blinded you. So you worked with Chris
Keller to avenge yourself, and then Tobias turned it all around and took
it away from you again. You lost control of your wife and sons, you
lost control of Beecher, and you lost control of the Aryans. And
you killed Metzger because it was the only way to get any of that control
back. You deliberately chose an ending that would hurt as many people
as it could, and that would make McManus and Glynn look like the monsters
instead of you."
Schillinger stared down
at her, his hands loose on the bars now, his face cold. Sister Pete
nodded with something that looked horrifyingly like compassion. "And
all of a sudden, even that gets taken away. Don't you see, Vern?"
"See what?"
"That the only reason you're
so addicted to control is because you believe it's possible. But
*nothing*'s ever really in our control, Vern. Not other people, not
the world, not even our own bodies, when it comes down to it. All
we ever have is the illusion of control, and when you start thinking that
illusion's real, losing it kills you."
Schillinger let his hands
fall from the bars, closed his eyes, and put his suddenly aching forehead
against the cold metal. "If you've got a point to all this, Sister,
I wish you'd get the fuck to it."
"My point is that if you
acknowledge total control is impossible, then it's no weakness to admit
you don't have it. And you don't need to be obsessed over gaining
and keeping it at any cost. Even your own life."
Schillinger drew in a deep,
slow breath, feeling a cold that was half fury and half something he couldn't
name spilling along his limbs.
"You think I'm obsessed with control, Sister." His voice was
quiet, terrifyingly calm. "You sit there, out there, on the other
side of those bars, and you tell *me* I'm obsessed with the need to control
things." His senses were sharp, cold, metallic; but the burning sensation
and the blinding redness he usually associated with rage were strangely
absent. And his limbs were relaxed, free of the tension that normally
gripped him in his anger. His headache was gone. He turned
just slightly to look at her. "You think you know how to handle not
having control? You really think you know, Sister?
"Step in here and find out."
Sister Peter Marie's mouth
had tightened in something that might almost be anger; but the tiny flare
of her nostrils, the faint paling of skin around nose and eyes, told a
different story. It didn't disguise the familiar acid of her words,
though. "The Lord God made me small, Schillinger. He didn't
make me stupid." She bent down, gathered up her material and packed
it away efficiently in her valise. Schillinger watched her for a
moment, then let himself turn away, moving to the bunk and dropping on
to it more out of inertia than any decision to move.
Rising, Sister Pete paused.
"He didn't make you stupid either. You're doing that yourself."
Schillinger looked up.
"Two thousand years of fire-and-brimstone sermons and the best you can
come up with is 'stupid'?"
"We've already established
you don't believe in good and evil. I have to use words you'll hear."
She snapped her valise shut and turned away.
* * *
<"Nature versus nurture. Are you born what you're destined
to be, or are you made that way by the world you're born into? Is
a criminal made or is he born?
<"They say if you could
make a perfect world, nobody would become a criminal 'cause they'd have
no reason to be. No fear, no hunger, no poverty, all the education
you want. Nobody would rob or kill or do drugs because everyone would
be completely fuckin' happy. They say that's why black folks turn
to crime so much - they live in such shitty worlds it's the only way to
get ahead.
<"'Course, they don't
say much 'bout men like Said. Man blows up a warehouse on purpose
to get into Oz, he ain't thinkin' about gettin' ahead the way you and I
do.
<"Don't say much about
white folks like Schillinger either. Way his dad and mom raised him,
you gotta fuckin' wonder he didn't kill 'em both by the time he was twenty.
An' it don't say much about folks like Beecher - money, wife, kids, a perfect
world... and here he is in Oz, stone-cold freakin' dick-bitin' widowmaker.
And Jefferson Keane, who - in theory - should have cut whatever deal he
could to stay alive. What's theory say about men who find God?
What's it say about pride and hate? What's it say about things no
money can ever buy?
<"What the folks who
make the theories forget, is that you can't *never* make a perfect world,
'cause it's gotta have human beings in it. 'Cause whether you think
it's nature or nurture that shapes who you are, in the end it all comes
down to choice.
<"Choice.">
--Augustus Hill
* * *
He'd worked off the calories of dinner. Now Schillinger rested
on the floor, back against the cot frame, eyes gazing distantly through
the far wall. He spent this time every day massaging his right hand
and wrist, loosening and warming the tendons and muscles as much as possible.
Carpal tunnel never went
away, Nathan had told him over a year ago; the new doc had confirmed that
in a hurried visit to the Row, but added that careful treatment of the
affected hand and regular relaxing massages could make it easier to deal
with. Schillinger didn't anticipate ever putting himself through
the post office labour again, but he saw no reason to make his final months
as painful as the ones before that had been. So every day he made
sure to pamper this one area of his body, granting himself one dispensation
in his strict regimen.
It had worked, at least
as much as could be reasonably expected. He still got regular twinges
from his right hand and wrist, but that was all. Nothing he couldn't
handle. He sighed. He wasn't much for wasting time on useless
speculation, but he sometimes wondered how things would have turned out
if that one tiny thing had been different. No pain, no meds, no slight
but crucial blunting of his edge.... For want of a nail, his kingdom
had been lost.
The door to the Row swung
open; the strong, swift pace of the steps was one Schillinger recognized,
but hadn't heard for so long it took him a moment to place them.
By then McManus was already standing at the door, the on-station hack standing
just behind him to his left with a weary disdain on his face. McManus
seemed oblivious, but that was the thing with McManus - his obtuseness
was often genuine, but he used it to mask awareness just often enough that
you could never really be sure.
People who were reliably
smart or reliably stupid were predictable. McManus was neither.
It was one of the reasons Schillinger hated him.
"Sister Pete tells me you're
less than happy about your impending liberation, Schillinger."
Schillinger gave a lopsided
smile, not looking at him. "Couldn't be more wrong, McManus.
I'm fucking ecstatic."
"Yeah, well that makes one
of us." McManus massaged his forehead with the palm of one hand.
"Word is Bill 97 looks like it might pass before the end of the week.
Which gives me the task of deciding just what to do with each and every
one of you freaks."
Schillinger snickered.
"Don't you hate it when a problem you thought was solved comes back in
your lap?"
"Yeah, I'm sure you'd know
all about that."
The older man's smile disappeared.
"I have two choices, Schillinger.
I can put you in Gen Pop and let you rot, or I can put you back in Em City
and give you some useful work. So the question is, if I *do* take
you back into Em City, what are you going to do?"
Schillinger gave him his
best wide-eyed, guileless blink. "Are you going to let me back in?"
"What are you going to do
if I do?"
"Why don't you ask *Beecher* what *he'll* do?" Schillinger narrowed
his eyes.
McManus didn't hesitate
a second. "What makes you think I didn't ask him first?"
Schillinger's mouth came
open. He'd thrown out the question in an attempt to confuse the other
man; McManus was always easier to handle when off balance. But he
hadn't really considered that so long after everything had gone down, people
would still credit Beecher with the power to be significant. That
people would actually take Beecher into *consideration* when making these
kinds of decisions.
He became belatedly aware
McManus was watching him with a regard that seemed entirely too penetrating,
and moved reflexively to cover the slip. "You wouldn't bother, McManus."
"Wouldn't I."
"Maybe you think you care
enough about Beecher to want him to be *safe*." Schillinger sneered
the word. "But you didn't ask him for the same reason you're not
really asking me anything. You don't give enough of a shit about
anybody else's judgement to care about the answer."
McManus frowned slightly,
as if in puzzlement. Vern rolled his eyes. "Lemme put it to
you this way, McManus: whatever the fuck I say, it's not gonna affect your
decision. 'Cause you know what your problem is? You don't live
in the same world as everybody else. You don't really hear what people
say to you - you hear what you *think* they're sayin', and what you think
they mean. And *that's* what you base your decisions on, Timmy."
He grinned at the way the other man's mouth tightened at that. "Maybe
you did ask Beech what he'd do if I came back. But I'll lay you any
odds that what he said and what you heard aren't the same fuckin' thing
at all."
McManus stared at him, gaze
flat. "Schillinger, haven't you ever wondered why I asked for you
in Em City in the first place? Why I keep trying to bring you back
there?"
"My charming personality?"
"Yes."
Schillinger was getting
really, really tired of people not giving him the answers he expected any
more. "I'm gonna assume you're being sarcastic."
"You know what I'm trying
to do here." McManus lifted his hands to grip the bars of the cell
wall, unconsciously mimicking a prisoner's stance. "Cellblock Five
was meant to be a *rehabilitation* unit. Not just a punishment.
Because you can't cure monsters by teaching them that monsters are all
they are. You have to give them a choice."
Vern grimaced. "Jesus
Christ, what *is* this, Let's All Go Down And Lecture Vern Schillinger
Day? -- "
"You are *ruined*, Schillinger!"
McManus' shout was loud enough and unexpected enough that Schillinger actually
started. McManus jabbed an index finger at him. "You have *no*
hope of reclaiming control of the Brotherhood - there *is* no Brotherhood
in Em City anymore. There's barely anything left in Gen Pop.
I put you back in Em City as you are, you're a has-been, you're alone,
and you're dead. But I can give you another option."
He fell silent, calming
his breathing. Schillinger stared levelly at him.
The silence stretched out.
McManus cracked first. Schillinger had known he would.
"Aren't you going to ask me what it is?"
"No."
"Fine, I'll tell you anyway."
"Oh, Christ...."
McManus ignored the exhaled
imprecation. "You know how to lead. You've got the brains,
the strength, and the charisma to constitute a *force* in Em City.
I can help you make a *new* faction, one that'll keep you on top and safe,
one that'll look way better on your next parole hearing than the Aryan
Brotherhood. You've lost everything you had, Schillinger. But
with my help you can get something new."
Schillinger took a slow
breath, not sure whether he wanted to laugh or throw up. He rubbed
his forehead with the heels of both hands. "You don't ever fuckin'
give up, do you, McManus?"
"Do you?"
Vern's head snapped up.
But the words on his lips froze and died there.
<Vern Schillinger *never*
gives up -- >
( -- said the man sitting
on Death Row by virtue of his freely surrendered confession.)
McManus' gaze this time
wasn't challenging, merely patient. Almost... amicable? "I'm
not out to save your soul, Schillinger. I just wanted to offer you
the choice. And do us all a lot of good in the process."
Schillinger frowned.
"Tell me again why the fuck I should want to do you good?"
McManus raised his eyebrows
and theatrically shrugged. "Because there really isn't any other
choice worth making."
A beat.
"Wrong."
It was McManus' turn to
blink. "'Wrong'?"
"Because it'll be worth
it, it'll be *worth* being a - what'd you say? -- a has-been, alone, dead
- just to get the pleasure out of saying, 'Fuck - you.'" With great
deliberation Schillinger raised his middle finger and held it up to McManus.
For the first time in months, he felt the old, savage grin stretching his
face. <Think you can play me, Timmy-boy? 'Cause if you do,
you're fuckin' crazier than old Toby Beech-ball.>
McManus stared at him, the
familiar, vaguely bemused look on his face. He sighed. "So
that's a no."
"That is a solid fuck-you-up-the-ass
no, McManus."
"Fine. Great.
Don't ever say I didn't offer you anything." McManus turned, then
paused. "'Course, how do you know what I'm hearing when you say no?"
Before Schillinger could
answer he was gone. Vern scowled and leaned back against the cot.
<Fucker always has to have the last fuckin' word, doesn't he.>
Then again, what had he
wanted from his death, if not the ultimate last word?
That was the trouble with
being left alone with your own mind too long, Schillinger decided wearily.
You couldn't spend forever with your own thoughts without beginning to
ask some hard questions about what they were.
* * *
<"Newspeak. The language of Orwell's <1984>. In Newspeak,
the only meaning of *free* is to be free *from* something. You could
say 'This dog is free of fleas'. But the sentence 'This man is free'
is a null concept. 'Cause the entire fuckin' world would be a jail
so subtle and complicated no one would even know they were in it.
No one could. They wouldn't have the words to know.
<"Except the people who
put them there.
<"'Cause that's where
it falls down. Can't have a jail without wardens, without people
who know the difference between freedom and prison - 'cause otherwise who
could tell if someone had broken out? But as long as somebody knows
that, as long as the secret exists, then you're fucked. Because next
to death, taxes, and change, there's only one other constant in the universe.
<"Secrets get out.">
-- Augustus Hill
* * *
"Schillinger."
Vern's eyes snapped open into darkness. The low voice had called
from a nearby cell, waking him from an uneasy doze of dreams he couldn't
remember.
"Hey - Schillinger?"
<Wangler.> Schillinger placed the voice with a grunt of disgust.
He raised his voice to call back. "What the fuck do you want, you
little nigger pest?"
"You seen Father Ray?"
"What?"
"He promised he'd come by
today. But I ain't seen him. I was wondering if you'd heard
anything. Maybe seen him at the door or somethin'."
Schillinger closed his eyes.
<For Christ's sake....> He spoke slowly. "Wangler, I'm in
the same kind of fuckin' cell you are. I can't fuckin' see anything
without a mirror. Use your fucking *mirror*, dumbass."
Silence.
"Wangler?"
Nothing.
Schillinger sighed.
He supposed he should be grateful and just try to go back to sleep.
But the one thing he found impossible to stand was being ignored.
"Wangler?" he called once more. "You still alive there, you little
fuck?"
"They broke my mirror."
"What?"
"This morning while you
were talking to Whittlesey. I was tryin' to see, and a hack bumped
into me an' knocked it outa my hand."
Schillinger let out a breath
of laughter. Christ. "Wangler, you know something? Even
on Death Row, you are the most pathetic, fucked-up excuse for a badass
nigger I've ever fuckin' met." He closed his eyes and stretched out.
Now that was a last word he could live with.
"I know."
Schillinger squeezed his
eyes shut. Not this, not now. "Wangler, shut up and go to sleep."
"Sleep?!" Wangler's
voice skirled up into a harsh crack Schillinger had never heard from the
boy. "You think I can fuckin' sleep 'til I find out about the laws?
It's fuckin' hard just to keep the food down, man! How the fuck can
you *sleep*?"
"I close my eyes and lie
down, that usually helps."
"You know, I been here longer
than you have, Schillinger. You're what, fifty, fifty-one?
You're here a year, it's like nothin out of *your* life. I'm not
even fuckin' *eighteen*, man." Wangler's voice was still low and
harsh, but quivered with a cracking intensity. He, like everyone
else here, had learned that shouting only brought hacks with clubs and
a loss of food privileges the next day. "I don't wanna die!
I gotta know if I'm gonna die or not!"
"Yeah? Newsflash,
Wangler. You are." Schillinger stared up at the ceiling.
"We all are. One of these days. Get used to it."
The response was a bitter
snort of something that wasn't quite laughter. "Yeah, sure, right,
you motherfucker - 'get used to it', you think that fuckin' *helps?!*
What are you, man, are you fuckin' dead already or what?!"
Schillinger stared into
the gloom.
"Schillinger?"
He heard the faint sounds
of movement as the boy got up, moving closer to his cell wall so that his
voice didn't have to carry around the concrete corners. "Is that
it? You wanna die?"
"Do I *sound* like I want
to die?"
"You sound like you don't
much care either way, 'swhat you sound like."
"What makes you think I
would even *tell* you, you little nigger shit?" He edged the insults
with as much anger as he could work into a low hiss, hoping it would drive
Wangler away. He was really *not* interested in continuing this conversation.
Maybe it was Wangler's own
fear. Maybe it was the surreal sound of their voices in the night
air of Death Row, changing the rules. Maybe Schillinger had lost
some key element of conviction that was audible in his words. But
for whatever reason, Wangler's response was not what he'd been expecting.
"Maybe 'cause I *am* a little
nigger shit."
"What the fuck are you talking
about?"
"I ain't stupid. I
know they think I'm a kid and a fuckup. You think I'm some kinda
animal on top of all that. You spent your whole life hatin' people
like me. And here you are practically next to me on fuckin' Death
Row. You tryin' to tell me that doesn't piss you off even a little?"
Schillinger had to battle
a momentary feeling of queasiness. Nothing, *nothing* about this
day had gone quite as he'd expected from the moment Whittlesey had come
by with that newspaper. He'd lost his guard, he realized with despair.
The unchanging days of Death Row had convinced him that his doom was locked,
that he had nothing left to worry about, his fate was sealed. And
he'd relaxed and waited for that day in... in *peace*.
The security of that belief
had been . . . frighteningly comforting.
He should have remembered
you couldn't take *anything* for granted in Oz. *Especially* if it
was something you wanted and had been promised.
"What would piss me off
more," he growled, "is if I had to walk back into Em City and see your
stupid little shitass face grinning at me because you thought surviving
in Oz was some kind of plus."
Wangler was silent for a
moment. Vern rolled onto his side and closed his eyes again.
<Please, God, please let him have gone to sleep.>
"I... I forgive you, Schillinger."
WHAT?!
The only words Schillinger
could find felt numb in his mouth. "You... *forgive* me?"
"Father Ray says I got to
forgive, to make my peace with God, if I do gotta die. So I figure
I might as well get the hard ones out of the way first."
"You know - " Schillinger
had to roll upright, twisting on his bunk to face the angle of the bars
where, across the hall and a cell or two up, Kenny was probably sitting.
"This might come as a shock to you, Wangler, but I really do not fucking
*want* your fucking forgiveness, you shitfaced little ape!"
The breathing in the other
cell had changed to a hard, fast rasp; but Wangler's words came out evenly,
though a little muffled through the clenched teeth. "I forgive you
that too, Schillinger."
"You're enjoying this, aren't
you, you little shit."
"I forgive you, Schillinger."
"Okay, that is *fucking*
enough of that, you genetic mistake, if I hear you say that one more time
I'm going to - "
"What?"
Schillinger stopped.
"What are you gonna do?
Yell and bring the hacks? They'll beat you up, not me. I ain't
done nothin' but talk." Schillinger could *hear* the smile in the
boy's voice now. "There ain't *nothin'* you can do, man. Accept
it. How's it feel?"
<How's it feel?>
It felt -
-- terrifying.
In the gloom-shrouded cell,
the air silently whispering with the breaths of human beings condemned
to die, Schillinger's fury collapsed into naked, crippling fear.
He remembered skulking around the house, a child, lurking in terror of
the Old Man's roars of rage and his hamhanded fists. Helplessness
was a choking lump in his throat.
The moment the strength of adolescence had come to him he'd claimed
the power for his own. Forever. By the force of his fist, by
the fury of his voice, he won his way to command, won his followers.
By his manhood, the force, the *maleness*, that made an alpha wolf, he
brought Rachel to his side and bound her to him. By his very *presence*,
his intangible quality of dominance, he turned heads and silenced the rooms
he entered. Every day of his life had been marked by the presence,
the use, of power.
And here, in this tiny room,
he came face to face with the realization that the last of that power was
gone, given away in the delusion that to *choose* that surrender was a
power of its own.
He had nothing left.
Nothing if he stayed and
died. Nothing if he left and lived. Whatever freedom came from
this law, it would mean nothing for Vern Schillinger. He was more
a prisoner of his own powerlessness than Oz had ever, could ever have made
him.
How had this happened?
How?
Only iron will kept the
sudden unsteadiness in his breath from becoming audible. He turned,
knotting his large hands one in another, squeezing until the knuckles turned
white and his damaged hand sang with pain. He ignored Wangler's soft
murmurs. He ignored the quiet sound of the door opening, the hasty
steps of Father Ray Mukada as he hurried to Wangler's cell, the soft words
of apology for a meeting that had lasted far longer than expected.
He ignored the curious glance of the hack as the C.O. sauntered back to
the corridor door.
He ignored everything except
the frantic hammer of his heartbeat.
* * *
<"Fear in the dark.
<"Every fear you ever
had is greater in the darkness. What you can't see, you can't fight.
Civilization is nothing more than how organized and efficient your lighting
systems are. So what does fear become in a place like Oz? No
windows, no sunlight; every light is artificial, and the darkness is complete.
McManus says, 'Lights out!' and there is darkness. And I wonder.
Does he look upon his work and find it good?
<"Dino Ortolani died
in darkness. Tobias Beecher was raped and branded in darkness.
The SORT team killed the rioters in darkness.
<"In the darkness, doesn't
matter if another man's only three feet away. 'Cause if you can't
see him, he ain't there. And you're alone. In the dark.
With your fear. And the memories of everything you ever did to be
afraid of.
<"Fuck your haunted houses,
man. In Oz, the ghosts are inside *you*.">
-- Augustus Hill
* * *
Though the murmurs in the cell had been quiet, far from enough to disturb
the man who'd slept through the night sobs of Tobias Beecher, Schillinger
still lay awake. Those murmurs, and the quiet breathing of the other
slumbering prisoners on the Row, had been the only sounds. Somehow
that silence was harder to take than any of the noises he'd thought himself
inured to.
If -
(If what?)
If anything. Something.
If he hadn't picked Beecher as a prag. If somebody hadn't *seen*
him battering the drug dealer away from Jan and Cory. If he had never
met Rachel, or Scott Ross, or -
<Oh, for Christ's sake,
stop it. Stop this now.>
Schillinger closed his eyes.
Deliberately, he relaxed the tension in his shoulders and chest, letting
his breath take the pattern it would. It sounded humiliatingly queasy
for the first few minutes. But as he let go of every muscle he could,
the slow unclenching of tension worked its will, smoothing out his breathing,
slowing his pulse. The turmoil of his thoughts did not cease, but
it slowed.
That skill, at least, was
still his. That power was still there. To be free, at least
temporarily, of the past. To hamstring memory by simply not choosing
to remember. All his life neither past nor future had had as much
influence as the moment; all his life, though he valued both dreams and
memory, Vern had known that the only way to shape the world and wield the
power was to act, and live, in the moment.
Perhaps that was why the
day had proceeded as it had. For the last year he had finally been
able to let the moments ride. A blessed relief, that, after the years
of fighting. But when the immediacy of the moment died away there
were only dreams and memory, only phantasms past and future, to occupy
the mind. And lost in those mazy turnings, you lost the edge that
kept you sharp, that kept you on top of the moments as they came.
But now there was a moment,
and its name was fear. And in riding that moment, in defeating the
fear, Schillinger felt something coming back to him.
The sounds had changed.
This time, senses keen, blood slowing to a pulse of something more like
excitement than fear, he placed it immediately: the murmured, incantatory
rhythms of a prayer, a blessing. A pause. A shifting of fabric,
as somebody rose from a cot-side; a soft metallic clank, the shutting of
a door. The sound of footsteps moving with a gentle quiet down the
hall. Schillinger watched as Father Ray Mukada walked past, a strange,
sad smile on his boyish face.
"Hey, Father!" Schillinger
hissed.
Ray's startled jump was
out of all proportion to the volume of the sound. He spun, hand clapped
to his chest in an almost feminine gesture; his wide eyes focused, then
rolled up and closed in a disgusted grimace as he relaxed. "Schillinger,"
he groaned.
"Coming down for some late-night
on-your-knees service, Father?"
Mukada gave him a sour smile.
"Anything I can do for you, Vern? That doesn't involve body parts,
degradation and obscenity," he clarified.
"That kinda takes the fun
out of it, don't you think?"
"Fun." Ray leaned
back against the far wall, folded his arms, and arched an eyebrow as if
considering a concept that had never occurred to him. "You know,
when I was a kid, 'fun' was baseball in the sandlot."
"Yeah." Vern put a
mock-dreamy smile on his face and leant back himself. "Yeah, I remember
the first day *I* learned how to use a baseball bat properly."
Ray closed his eyes; muscles
moved along his jawline. "This may surprise you, Schillinger, but
I do in fact have better things to do than put up with this."
"Yeah? Big meeting
with his Holiness?" Schillinger's grin twisted into a sneer.
"Tell me the truth, Mukada. You were goin' straight back to your
office to work, and then you're goin' to your cell and you're crashing.
Maybe you pause to jerk off and get forgiven first or something, I don't
know - " with a secret glee he noted the glitter of anger in Mukada's dark
eyes - "but you're not goin' anyplace important. Not now."
Ray sighed. "Is there
something you want, Vern? Or are you just alleviating the boredom?"
"Oo, alleviating.
Big word."
A smile tugged at Ray's
mouth. "I went to college, you know."
"Minorities scholarship?"
The smile faded. "As
a matter of fact, yes."
"Ever wonder how a race
that reproduces so fast there's over a *billion* of them can be called
a 'minority' compared to less than seventy-five million white Americans?"
Ray forced a smile.
"Don't ask me. This is the same system that considers women to be
a minority even though they constitute fifty-four percent of the human
race."
Schillinger's amusement
faded into a knot of irritation. Mockery soured quickly when ignored.
"You really think you're gonna make me go away by agreeing with me, Father?"
The priest glanced around
with a frown and smile of feigned perplexity. "Where exactly would
I be trying to make you go?"
"I know your tricks."
Schillinger leaned forward. "Agree with them. Get their sympathy.
Learn to understand them. 'Cause if you can understand them you can
forgive them. Am I right?"
"Those are the words," Ray
conceded quietly.
"So how do you think you're
gonna understand me? You really think you can forgive *me*, Father?
I'll bet you read my confession same as Sister Pete did, same as McManus.
If I came and begged on my knees for forgiveness - " Abruptly Schillinger
slid from the bed and dropped to his knees, clasping his hands before him
in mock prayer. "If I said I'd do *aaanything* to be forgiven," he
batted his eyes, "you think you could forgive me for what I've done?"
Ray stared down at him with
a mixture of anger, revulsion and something Schillinger wasn't quite sure
he could name. Contempt? Fine. He could live with contempt.
Then Ray spoke.
"I think you're suffering
from a misapprehension here, Schillinger." The young man took a deep
breath. "I don't do the forgiving. At least not for anything
you haven't done to me personally. I'm just a conduit."
"Oh, right. God.
I forgot." Schillinger stood with a mock-shrug. "'Course who
could blame me, given his track record?"
"You mean like you?"
Schillinger paused, frowning.
He'd expected a comment like that eventually, but... had that been anger?
As he'd stood, the angles of the shadows had changed. Mukada's face
was in darkness now, harder to read.
"Yeah," he rasped. "I mean like me. If God's the sort of
person you think he is, how do you explain the sort of person you think
*I* am?"
"I don't."
"Because you don't care enough to try."
"No. Because I *can't*." Mukada stared at him, his eyes
catching, of a moment, a gleam in the dim light, shining in the shadowed
outline of his face. "I can't understand you, Schillinger.
Not without having lived your life. Any more than you understand
Kareem Said, or Kenny Wangler. Or me.
"But luckily for me, I don't *have* to." He let out a shaky breath
and smiled. "I work for a boss who specializes in that sort of thing."
Schillinger clenched his teeth. "The all-forgiving God."
"So it says in His job description."
"You really think God can forgive me."
"Depends."
"On?"
"Do you have any regrets?"
For some perverse reason Schillinger decided not to lie. Why
should he be the only one getting surprised? "Yes."
"Then there's hope."
"For what?"
"Redemption."
The two men stared at each other in silence.
Mukada turned and walked away.
* * *
<"Sleep. Tired nature's sweet restorer, that knits up the ravelled
sleave of care. The little death, that teaches us to wait for the
grave. Blessed oblivion, surcease from pain of day.
<"Me, I wouldn't know,
I was a night owl. But the mind is like anything else. Use
it too long without a break, it burns out, sprains or stops working.
They say that sleep deprivation induces visions and madness. I seen
enough crackheads to know *that*'s right.
<"But what happens if
the visions make the mind work better?
<"And how do you know
a vision from reality?"
-- Augustus Hill
* * *
Morning pushups. Breakfast yet to come. His appetite as
strong as ever, despite the relative lack of sleep. Vern pushed himself
hard through the regimen, trying not to think about the day.
"Schillinger."
"Yeah?" he called without
stopping.
"You got a visitor."
"Fuck him."
There was no response.
Satisfied, Schillinger finished the pushups, flipped over, hooked his feet
under the mattress and began the sit-ups. The harsh rasp of his own
breathing was all he heard. One, two, three, four, fi -
Wait.
What was that - that scent?
He turned and she was standing
there. No warning, no expectation, barely even anything to read on
the small, square, sharp-eyed face. She was wearing her hair loose;
the grey streaks in it were longer now. But the perfume was the same.
Rachel.
Schillinger became aware
he had frozen almost in mid-situp. Unwilling to remain in the pose,
he stood. But he didn't reach for a towel, didn't take his eyes away
from hers. She moistened her lips as if trying to make them work
- a cat-quick flicker of tongue, so familiar, and only the sheer shock
of her being here at all muted the automatic rush of lust it brought on.
"Boy," she finally said.
Forcing a smile. "You lost a lot of weight."
He said nothing. That
had been his mistake, last time. He had acknowledged her existence
and she'd destroyed him all over again. No way. Not this time.
A minute. Two.
Four.
Rachel cleared her throat.
"There was a... a special session of the state legislature this morning.
McManus called me. He... he thought I should be the one to tell you."
And as quick as that, resolution
ended. Because in the end, the helpless, humiliating end, he still
had to know. Life or death?
His voice was rusty.
"Tell me what?"
END