Darkness

You shrink against your bunk, thin mat torn at the seams and laid flush against the iron cut. In darkness as rare as if impossible here, the smaller dark of your space within the universe provides enough contact to let you believe you exist. Around you, five other cons who share your cell have vanished into silence—like you, afraid their voices will echo too loudly in the canyon of imponderable night. The rest of the POD, too, has filled with not calm, per se, but uneasy quiet. No one knows how to react to this. Not yet. It isn’t supposed to happen. When the power goes out, the backup generator always comes on, spewing its diesel stink throughout the Boone County Correctional Center as though, given a choice between seeing and breathing, the guards prefer to give life to their eyes. Offered the same choice, inmates would take light, too.

When the power shut down, you were in the dayroom with the others. You sat at a table, playing chess with the guy called Arizona, the one man on the POD who always beat you. You had taken his knight with your black bishop in a sacrifice you suspected wouldn’t go as planned. The overhead fluorescent bulbs flickered, died to the sound of several inmates shouting applause, then flashed back on. You would’ve thought nothing of it, worrying instead about Arizona’s smile as he ignored your bishop and checked your king with his rook. Then the generator crapped out, too, and the prison went inky and absent. Even the ever-burning suicide lights in the cell johns disappeared. For a moment, green glows like a pair of ghoulish eyes remained where the two POD TVs had been on, but those soon burned away to nothing.

Inmates shouted and cheered at first. When the lights didn’t return, the noise became a mutter before going mute as if mouths had lost their charge as well. After a minute of dead calm, the chattering returned.

“That’s not good,” Arizona said.

You said, “That’s never happened before.”

“Do you concede?” he said. “You should concede.”

“Are you serious?”

“You know the outcome. Besides, you can’t play like this.”

“Can you?”

“I can tell you where every piece is on that board. Good trick to learn if you want to get better. Besides, people around here cheat.”

You nodded as if he could see you. You didn’t want to admit defeat. Part of you believed you could pull this out. “We’ll let fate decide,” you told him. “If they lock us down, you won. If the lights come on first, that’s destiny saying I’m going to beat your ass.”

Arizona laughed. You figured he probably shook his head. He didn’t answer, though. He didn’t have time.

“Lock down!” CO Anderson shouted, his voice an air raid siren in the black.

“Good game,” you said.

“Another time, Highlander!” Arizona said in a deep, menacing voice, mimicking some old movie you both watched on TV the other day.

“Lock down now!” CO Anderson was one of the prickly guards—the wrong combination of ignorant and mean-spirited. Every con knew how to work around one of those traits or the other, but both at the same time proved to be a minefield. How many inmates ended up in front of the Institutional Magistrate to a face a write-up for something absurd like compromising or assaulting an officer after an offhand comment of “Relax,” or one foot stepping accidentally over the red line around the officers’ desk at the front of the POD? Sure, those charges would be dismissed, but not before uncertain inmates spent days worrying about losing their good time or going to the hole. Nobody needed that kind of hassle. Anderson was best avoided. “Lock down, or I’ll write the whole POD up for refusing an order.”

Groans, raspberries, several voices cussing. Then came sounds of plastic chairs scooting across stone, tables being bumped, books and pens falling to the floor.

You moved, too—close enough to your cell door that you could reach it without injuring yourself, although you bumped into one of your cellmates—Frank Lollick, you thought—and apologized immediately lest you catch an elbow in the dark. Only when you and all five of your cellmates were in a scrum around the cage did you realize Anderson’s stupidity must be contagious. There was no electricity for the CO to unlock the doors from his desk.

Several inmates pointed this out to Anderson in a loud and obnoxious manner. The words dumbass and jackass were used interchangeably. CO Anderson would’ve issued write-ups if he could’ve seen who among the forty-eight men had spoken.

A beacon like a spirit orb blazed on the far end of the POD. Anderson had his palm-size Maglite on as he fumbled with his keys. He went from cell to cell, unlocking each door manually. Both hands full, he couldn’t have reached for his shoulder-mounted walkie to call for help. Had this not been a medium-security facility, one of the cons might have taken advantage of the opportunity to show Anderson some payback. In another life, you might have, but with three months left before your chance to see the parole board, all you wanted was to go home.

Now, with inmates ensconced in their black cells, Anderson’s light is gone, and with it, all the normal POD noise. The occasional word from a prisoner’s mouth sounds like a banshee beckoning. Even the occasional toilet flushing has a chime to it: a deep, vibrating pitch that reminds you of a B-flat chord played on an out-of-tune guitar. That chord lingers in an almost soothing sustain. You listen, feel the hum, and drift.

* * *

You’re in a room with a boombox on the windowsill. It’s blasting some familiar song you can’t quite place. You like it. You want to move your feet to it. This isn’t a prison room. You’re in a house—not yours, but somebody’s. The room has wood paneling on the walls. The floor is covered in a beige shag carpet stained with blast patterns from spilled drinks. Comfortable chairs rest along one wall, along the other an old-fashioned, floor-model console, pre-HDTV. In the center of the room, there’s a table with a large, yellowed rectangle of paper on it.

“Go on, have a look.” You turn toward the voice. A man stands to your left, although you don’t feel his presence. He smells of Brut 33 and liquor—comforting scents from your childhood. His eyes remain invisible to you, hidden by darkness from his hair that enshrouds his face like a black sheet. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s your way out.”

You turn from his pointing finger and walk toward the table. Looking at the paper, you see it’s a map like a pirate’s guide to secret treasure. Lines lead left and right, north and south. Hallways have been marked, passages revealed. It all blurs together. You can’t read it, can’t follow the directions which must be in some foreign language. “What is this?” you say.

The man answers, “Your escape route.”

You look closer and can almost discern the outer walls of the . . .

* * *

A loud burst of static wakes you, followed by a voice on a walkie talkie that roars through the POD like gunfire: “. . . trying to get here as soon as he can, but the snow on the road’s too deep.” Then another voice, more robotic but just as loud, says, “Has anyone heard from the warden?” There are more replies, but the guard has caught his mistake and lowered the volume on the radio. “Sorry,” he says. “You can go back to sleep.”

Well, you think, it’s not CO Anderson anymore. Anderson neither would’ve apologized nor considerately turned the volume down. The officers must have changed shifts while you were out. Is that Jeffers? you wonder. It sounded like Jeffers. You like CO Jeffers. He’s a good guy, although a bit goofy for a correctional officer.

You glance above your head, trying to pierce the darkness and see through the small rectangle of glass you call a window. On the other side of it is a walkway for the guards, followed by another small rectangular window facing the wall, the sky above it, and hills beyond. Sometimes moonlight catches the twin lenses right, and you hope you might find a hint of that now, a glimmer. You see nothing but dark leading through dark to more dark. You know that on the other side of those windows the world of southern West Virginia, both free and captive, has been smothered by eight inches to two feet of snow. That’s the forecast you saw on the news earlier. Not that it matters. The snow out there, even through only two panes of glass, belongs to other lives than yours.

You think about the snow. You think about moonlight reflecting off it. You picture countless flecks descending in that light. So serene, so tranquil . . .

* * *

You’re in a pub, sitting at the bar. It’s dimly lit, shadows making shadows that hustle about, clanking dishes, filling black glasses. The air smells of cigarette smoke and turkey. You look up and spot the bird roasting on a spit above a fire in the window between the bar and kitchen. You salivate. You hunger.

“My wife hates it when I drink,” says a voice to your right. You turn and see a gnome-like man, sandy-skinned and with a beard so black it’s like a thumbprint smudging the features of his face.

“What’s that?” you say.

He says, “She thinks I should be home with her, spending time with her, not out blowing my paycheck on tap beer.” He raises his empty glass as if in toast. “I’m not a bad man. Sure, I broke into a house once for dope money . . .”

“Me, too,” you say.

“. . . but does that make me a monster? Does that mean I should repent and spend my nights kneeling in prayer in the church of her condescension?”

You turn away and notice that someone has removed the turkey and flames from the window, replacing them with empty plates.

“I’m not a bad man,” the gnome says again. “I don’t deserve this fate.”

You say, “Nobody does.”

He says, “We’re all paying for something. What’s your price?”

“Not much more. I hope to be home soon.”

“You’ll never be home,” he says. “What do you think about that?”

“I . . .”

* * *

Blazing light pierces your eyelids, forcing you awake. The Maglite beam jabs at your skull like a shiv. “Goddamn it, Jeffers,” you moan, your voice like sandpaper stroking wet wood. You hope it’s Jeffers. Any other CO might write you up for insubordination.

“Sorry, Mr. Planck,” Jeffers whispers, moving the beam of the Maglite over to the next person. “Have to do count.”

You grumble words even you don’t recognize, while another inmate groans from the blast to his eyes.

“Sorry, Mr. Maxwell,” Jeffers whispers.

The air has grown stale from vents no longer sucking carbon dioxide. You smell urine and thick cigarette smoke, the vents not removing odors, either. You wonder who’s puffing on a roll-up when there’s no way to hide the stink of burning Bible paper. But the darkness masks it, you realize—not the smell, but the act. If one person smokes in this dead space, it could be anybody. If you had tobacco, you’d take one to the head, too. You don’t, though, so all you can do is crave.

Closing your eyes, you see green circles like e-cig tips glowing in front of them. You breathe in, breathe out. You try to relax and find your way back to the bar.

* * *

You’re on your Harley, cruising the highway through miles of night. Your headlight doesn’t appear to be working. You can’t make out the road. The exhaust from your tailpipe chokes you as if you’re driving in circles through it. You cough. You gag. You retch. You’ve forgotten where you were going before . . .

* * *

“Ain’t that some shit, Planck?” says Byron Maxwell’s voice, growling from the next bunk.

“Whuh?” you say.

“Jeffers comes shining that light in our eyes. Could make us blind.”

“Go back to sleep, man.”

“I know, but that ain’t right.”

“He didn’t mean it,” you say, not sure why you’re siding with the CO. “It’s just Jeffers. Plain dumb. Go back to sleep.”

Maxwell mumbles something into his blanket.

“What’d you say?”

“Ain’t right,” he says.

“I know,” you say, just to shut him up. Then, you’re back in the absence of the void. No words, toilets flushing, radios blaring static—it’s all darkness and emptiness. You’ve ceased to be. The world within a world around you retreats into the original nothing. Even the hard clicking of boots on stone as Jeffers heads back to the desk fades to a memory from centuries ago. You are not here. You are not anywhere. You are . . .

* * *

. . . falling backward off a cliff in darkness, a scream rising in your throat, when . . .

* * *

Someone cries out as if being ripped with shanks or bashed with socks full of soap. The shriek lingers like a fire alarm. Panic, terror, dread. You can’t recognize the voice because you’ve never heard anyone scream like that in here—not during beatings by guards or inmates, not when someone gets shot in the eyes with pepper spray, not during other violence no one should have to witness and pretend to ignore.

That’s followed by Jeffers racing down the POD, bumping chairs, shouting “Emergency assistance on three-C” into his walkie, his boots stomping the floor in a way that makes you think of a man running from hellhounds down a gravel path at night. The beam of his Maglite flutters by like a moth, arcing and falling, not aimed in any direction.

You sit up in your bunk and sense Maxwell doing the same. You’re sure your other cellmates have awakened, too. You hear the buzz of people talking but not quite forming words. It’s noise in the night—chaos jargon.

“Somebody’s gettin’ his comeuppance,” Maxwell says.

One of your cellmates asks, “Who do you think it is?”

“Bet you it’s Carlo. Everybody knows that dude’s a snitch.”

The screaming has stopped. All listen in, trying to figure out what happened. Were the lights on, the inmates would be standing at their cages, watching for a sign of blood and heartbreak, a little action to liven up the monotony. Even the Security Team rolling in with beanbag guns and spray cans often proves a fun distraction, at least until the fumes reach you and you cover your face with your tee shirt, hope your eyes will stop burning and you won’t vomit all over your chest.

Of course, whoever’s back there, the Security Team can’t help him. The guards have to unlock every door between here and control by hand, leaving them more a hapless bunch of burglars than the hardcore cops they imitate. If a murder’s going down, even Jeffers is probably too late at this hour in this abyss.

You keep listening, but hear nothing.

“I knew it was Carlo,” Maxwell says. “That’s his voice. Bet you he’s ratting on somebody right now.”

You focus, trying to catch whatever voice Maxwell’s talking about, but there’s no sound you pick up at first. When you do hear something, it’s CO Jeffers canceling the emergency call, followed by radio static, another robotic voice, and Jeffers again, saying, “Bad dream, that’s all.” More radio chatter follows, and you know officers from the Security Team along with whatever lieutenant happens to be on duty will still come to check on the situation, but they’ll take their time about it now.

On his way back to the desk, CO Jeffers stops at every cell to answer questions. He stands at each cage, pointing the beam of the Maglite at his own face as if in a scary movie. You hear the story twice before Jeffers reaches your cell.

“What’s the deal, Jeffers?” you say. You want to hear it told to you as if it’s not real until you get the full effect of the guard’s spotlighted performance.

Maxwell adds, “Was it Carlo?”

“Yes,” Jeffers says. “It was Mr. Lomas.” With the flashlight under his chin, he looks like someone set a potato on fire. “He got spooked in the dark, that’s all.”

“Spooked how?” you say. You’ve heard this place is haunted. It used to be a hospital, with the morgue down where the commissary is today.

“Well, he says he saw his victim’s face staring at him from the other side of his window. His victim. Back from the beyond. Spooky stuff.”

Maxwell says, “He saw a ghost?”

“Could be,” the CO says. “I think maybe he was just messing with me, but who knows?”

“Carlo doesn’t have a body,” you say.

“What’s that?”

“He didn’t kill anybody.”

“That’s right,” Maxwell says. “He’s in here for a robbery, but nobody got hurt.”

The CO drops the light, and you hear him sigh. “Huh,” he says. “Go figure.” Then, he’s off to the next cell to tell this story for the fourth time, adding this new piece of information. You can make out the glow of his light barely stretching around the wall of your cell. It’s spectral, ominous, another spirit in the night. You stare at that slight brightness, clinging to it—a last bit of proof you’re alive, even if trapped here among forgotten souls and the imagined dead.

ACE BOGGESS

Ace Boggess, ex-con and winner of the Robert Bausch Fiction Award, is author of the novels States of Mercy and A Song Without a Melody, and five books of poetry. Recent fiction appears in The Laurel Review, Notre Dame Review, Folio, and other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.