Hard Sentences: Crime Fiction Inspired by Alcatraz Read online

  “It was going to my mother.” Stroud groaned, holding his side. His body suddenly ached. “Another thing I’ve come to learn the hard way.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That it’s not a crime to victimize a person behind bars. Once the jumpsuits get thrown on, inmates cease their occupation as human beings and devolve into government property. You can do whatever you want to them.”

  The smile on the guard’s face appeared almost reptilian. “And what’s wrong with that? You ain’t exactly innocent, old man.”

  “Show me someone who is.” Stroud maneuvered his knight into an “L,” considered announcing checkmate, but couldn’t find the energy.

  “You know,” the guard said, moving a pawn down the board, not yet realizing he’d already lost, “you’re a lot of things, but you ain’t stupid.”

  “I don’t know what I am.”

  “You know what’s going on here.” He motioned to the empty prison yard. It was just the two of them—had been for some time now. “You know what’s happening.”

  “I believe I have an idea.”

  “Yeah?”

  Stroud nodded, eyes difficult to keep open. He’d been exhausted his entire life, and it only worsened with age. “Leavenworth finally received its approval.”

  When McKenzie nodded, there was genuine empathy in his eyes. “It took some time. Hell, years, really. I guess it’s been in the process since before I started here. You can thank your publisher for helping speed things up!”

  “One could claim writers have less rights than prisoners.”

  “Are you going to put up a fight?”

  Stroud coughed out a laugh. “What could this body do? My bones are the equivalent of a rotten log covered in moss. One touch and I’ll crack.”

  “You gonna send out more of your petitions?”

  “Will I be given the opportunity?”

  “I doubt it. Not where you’re going.”

  “Alcatraz.”

  Stroud settled back in his chair, weak and surrendered. The word sounded foreign coming from his lips. He could visualize the color draining from his sickly flesh. He thought of roller canaries, birds routinely sacrificed by miners, suffocating underground in their cages after singing through closed beaks all their lives.

  “What will—” He choked on phlegm and cleared his throat, focused his deteriorating vision on the guard. What he spoke again, it came out as a weak whisper. “What will be done with my birds?”

  “Already done removed from your cell.”

  “Where—where will they go?”

  The guard shrugged. “I’m just the guy in charge of keeping you busy.”

  Stroud closed his eyes, mind drifting. “I am overwhelmed with the urge to unfurl my wings and disappear into the clouds.”

  “You got wings, old man?”

  “How far would you chase me? How high?” Stroud asked, lost in a hallucination.

  “All the way to the sun,” the guard said.

  “Even as the heat melted the flesh from your bones, as your eyes dissolved into liquid jelly?”

  “Even then.”

  “Very well.” The dream disintegrated, and he reopened his eyes, his wings gone forever, dissolving to vapor in the cold air behind him “Let’s get on with this then.”

  The guard held out his hand, and Stroud accepted it, his eyes focused on his government-issued shoes and the ground that constrained them.

  The Gas Chamber

  by Rob Hart

  The whistle went off, and Eddy fell in step with the single-file line marching into the dining hall. His stomach gnawed on itself. Between processing and a ferryboat running behind schedule, he missed breakfast.

  As he passed the long row of empty cells, their occupants shuffling somewhere ahead of him, he reached out and drummed his fingers off the metal bars.

  Hunger, at least, was a problem with a solution.

  The dining hall made him think of his high-school cafeteria back in Utah. White paint beginning to peel, thick columns holding the ceiling up. Like it was poured and chiseled from one giant slab of concrete.

  Instead of long tables with benches, the place was filled with four-top tables, many of which were already taken by inmates, sitting in plastic chairs and hunched over metal trays. The low murmur of hushed conversations and harsh metal clacking of silverware permeated the room. There were three guards strolling the gaps between the tables. That was a little different from high school, too.

  Eddy watched as the inmates accepted trays of food through a gap in the bars, from a counter that fronted the kitchen. He had expected something that only vaguely resembled food, flopped onto his plate with indifference. But when he caught sight of the menu board, he couldn’t help but smile.

  Split Pea Soup

  Roast Pork Shoulder

  Mashed Potatoes

  Stewed Corn

  Bread & Coffee

  Eddy accepted a tray of food and a lukewarm cup of black coffee from a hatchet-faced man behind the counter. The food looked better than any meal he’d had recently. He took it and wended through the dining hall, looking for an empty seat. There weren’t any in sight, and within seconds his heart was racing.

  A man standing alone in a place like this probably looked a little like a target. Every second he was on his feet, he was drawing attention to himself.

  He came across a table with three men and an empty seat. He paused and thought about asking if he could sit, but he didn’t want that to be perceived as a sign of weakness. He pulled out the seat and sat, hoping he hadn’t just made a mistake.

  His skin was hot with anger and regret. This was his fault. He knew it was his fault. All he had to say was “no.” Instead he said “yes.”

  It was a mistake he’d repay for the next ten years.

  The man directly across from him, his face a topographical map of scars, slate-gray hair slicked flat to his skull, raised an eyebrow.

  “Here we go,” he said, his voice like a handful of gravel in a tin cup. “We needed a fourth man.”

  Eddy glanced at the other two men, faces down, shoveling food into their mouths. He looked at the man across from him. “For what?”

  The man’s eyes darted around the dining hall, focusing on the guards, who were all far enough away they couldn’t hear. “For if we’re going to get the hell out of here. I’m Milton, by the way.”

  Milton jerked a thumb at the nervous-looking man to his left with the shaved head and glasses and sweat collecting at the base of his neck. “That’s Abner.”

  He turned the thumb and pointed it to his right to a tow-headed blond who looked like a linebacker gone to seed. “And this is Franklin.”

  “I’m Eddy.”

  Abner looked up. “Would you like to hear something interesting?”

  Milton rolled his eyes, but Eddy said, “Sure.”

  “In Russia, prisons are called gulags,” Abner said, pushing his glasses up his nose and toward his eyes. “They’re not very nice. People try to escape, all the time. When they do, they bring an extra person along. Someone they can eat if they run out of food. They call that person the cow. The cow doesn’t know he’s the cow, but he’s the cow all the same. See, if they start a fire, it would give away their location. So they eat the cow’s kidneys and blood because you can eat those without cooking them.”

  “Jesus,” Franklin said. “Kidneys and blood? You gotta say that kind of stuff while we’re eating?”

  Eddy suddenly didn’t feel welcome. He went to stand, looking around for another free seat. “I can find a different place to sit . . .”

  Milton put his hand up and motioned for Eddy to stay where he was.

  “Abner thinks he’s being funny,” Milton said. “His kind of funny isn’t most people’s kind of funny. Abner, we’re not in the middle of the Russian wilderness. You can see the city lights from the windows. We just have to get across the water. Believe me, that’s going to be the easy part.”

  “It’s not so ea
sy,” Abner said. “Lots of people have tried.”

  “We’ll get to that part when we get to that part,” Milton said. He turned to Eddy. “First day in?”

  Eddy nodded.

  “Welcome to the gas chamber,” Milton said. “Eat quick. We only get twenty minutes. Move fast enough and you can get seconds. But your plate needs to be clear at the end, no matter what. You leave food on your plate, maybe they give you a warning this time, being it’s your first day. Next time they start revoking privileges.”

  “Thanks. No one’s really explained . . .”

  Milton raised an eyebrow. “I said you have to eat quick.”

  Eddy nodded and tucked in. The soup was a touch bland, but the pork shoulder was perfectly cooked, and the mashed potatoes were among the best he ever had. He cleared half his plate before he realized the food was singeing the roof of his mouth. He was so hungry he didn’t care. He paused to catch his breath and looked at the other men, who were eating with equal fervor.

  “Why do you call it the gas chamber?” Eddy asked.

  Franklin nodded toward a small box near the ceiling, painted white to blend into the wall. “Tear gas canister. We misbehave, guards turn ’em on.”

  Eddy looked around the room and saw seven he could count from his vantage point. He took a big bite of corn. Perfectly buttery and salty.

  “This food is pretty boss,” Eddy said. “Not what I expected.”

  “They got a thing about the food here,” Franklin said. “They figure if it’s good we won’t cause trouble or try to escape.”

  “Little do they know . . .” Milton said, laughing.

  Franklin rolled his eyes. “Okay. You obviously want to tell us. What’s this plan of yours?”

  Milton looked around again to make sure no one was listening. “It’s well established that digging instruments are hard to come by, correct?” He glanced at Eddy. “At the end of the meal the guards check to make sure all your silverware is accounted for. Plus you have to go through a metal detector.” He stuck a finger in the air. “So don’t go dropping anything.”

  “You think a spoon is going to get you out of this place,” Franklin said. “You’re a kook, Milton.”

  “No, I am not a kook,” Milton said. “I’ve got it all mapped out. Just need something to dig with. And I figured out how we get a spoon or two. It’ll take a little time, but, you know, time is the one thing all of us have.”

  Everyone paused and looked at Milton, who was smiling like he would never stop.

  “We bribe one of the lifers,” Milton said.

  Franklin huffed. “That’s your plan? First you invite this stranger into the crew, like we can even trust him. Then you tell us the way to get this done is getting even more people involved?”

  Milton stuck a finger in the air. “First, there are plenty of guys here with nothing to lose. Chances are whoever does it for us ends up on D-Block for a bit, but we can make it worth his while.”

  He put up a second finger. “Second, you got, what, eight years left?” He turned to Abner. “You got seven. That I know. I got seven, too.” Milton looked at Eddy. “How many you got, kid?”

  “Ten,” Eddy said.

  Milton winced. “Ten years in a place like this. You’re in the prime of your life. You don’t want to spend the prime of your life here, do you?”

  “Does anyone want to be here at all?” Eddy asked.

  “It’s not that bad,” said Abner.

  “Shut up,” said Milton, drawing out the words so it sounded more like “shaht ahp.” “The point is . . .”

  Abner made a low whistling sound like a bird. Milton fell silent, putting his head down and cramming food into his mouth. Eddy looked up and saw a colossal Easter Island statue in a guard’s uniform approaching the table.

  “Gentlemen,” the statue said, in a way that made it sounds like he didn’t think they were gentlemen.

  Milton looked up and smiled. With a mouth full of food he said, “How are you today, sir.”

  “Missing the days when you goons weren’t allowed to talk in the cafeteria,” the guard said. “Used to be just the sound of silverware for twenty minutes. Music to my ears.”

  The guard wandered away, eyeballing another table.

  Abner leaned toward Eddy. “That’s Kowalski. He says that every day.”

  “So this theoretical and charitable lifer,” Franklin said. “What’s the chance he keeps his mouth shut when the guards turn the screws?” He threw a hard glance at Eddy. “What’s the chance our new friend doesn’t go right to a guard as soon as we’re done eating? Maybe he thinks he’ll get a little reward.”

  “I don’t . . .” Eddy started.

  Milton spoke over him. “Anyone here for life is going to know better than to rat.” He looked directly at Eddy. “No one here is stupid enough to rat.”

  Eddy nodded and kept eating.

  “It’s like, there was this one guy,” Milton said, leaning forward, dropping his voice. “Ratted out a couple of fellas who were making pruno down in the bakery. Booze supply runs out and people are clawing at the walls. It wasn’t pretty. You know what they did to him?” He whistled. “It wasn’t pretty, either. Face looked like the inside of a pot of chili. I get nightmares about it sometimes.”

  Eddy tried to swallow the food in his mouth but couldn’t stop thinking about chili.

  “It’s too bad you don’t have a pen and paper,” Milton said, giving Eddy a hard stare. “This is a lot of important stuff. The kind of things you don’t want to forget. You get me?”

  Eddy nodded, scraping at the remnants of food on his tray. How clean was clean enough the guards wouldn’t give him trouble?

  He had a lot of questions. So many he didn’t know where to start with them. But it was nice there were people to show him the ropes. He’d spent the last few days forgetting how to cry, so maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Hell, maybe there was a chance to get out sooner.

  “I’m just saying,” Milton said. “It’s good to have friends in here. If you feel like you owe me anything, I’m around.”

  “I got it,” Eddy said. “And I appreciate it.”

  “Do you?”

  Eddy swallowed the wad of food in his mouth and nodded.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Good,” Milton said. “Looks like we’re all about done here. I’ll get a guard to come over so we can get the hell out of here. We can show you around a bit, Eddy. With any luck, you won’t get to know this place too well.”

  Milton put his hand in the air and stood, Franklin and Abner standing along with him. As Abner got up, he elbowed his cup of coffee onto Eddy. The cup was mostly empty, but as the liquid splashed his gray pants, Eddy jumped a little.

  “Sorry about that,” Abner said, reaching down to blot at the streaks of coffee with a napkin. Eddy pushed his hand away.

  “No harm,” Eddy said.

  The gigantic guard from earlier, Kowalski, stopped in front of the table and surveyed the four of them.

  “You ladies done playing grab-ass?” he asked Abner and Eddy.

  “Just an accident,” Abner said.

  “An accident,” Eddy repeated.

  Kowalski nodded and looked down at the table, mumbling to himself. When he got to Eddy’s tray he stopped. “Where’s your spoon, inmate?”

  “It was . . . just here.”

  Eddy looked around the empty trays and small piles of silverware. He was sure he left it right on top—positive he did that—but there was only the fork and knife. He looked up at Milton. The way Milton was smiling made his heart climb into his throat and expand until he couldn’t breathe.

  “I ask again, where’s the spoon, inmate.”

  Milton raised an eyebrow, the corner of his lip curling up and mouthed the word: “Chili.”

  “I . . . must not have taken one?”

  “Right,” the guard said, putting his catcher’s mitt of a hand on Eddy’s shoulder. “Let’s go have a talk. See if we can’t jog your memory.”r />
  As the guard led Eddy away, he heard one of his lunch companions softly calling after him:

  “Mooooo . . .”

  A Broken Window

  by Matthew McBride

  Sitting behind the wheel, he thought about shooting dope. He thought about her, the one true thing he had ever loved more than anything else. He thought about the way she tasted. He saw her wait for him: bathed inside the hot white glow of that syringe like a pool of rust he longed to drink; to have her live inside his thin black veins the way she did when they first met, so long ago. When the world had been small and perfect and there’d still been hope.

  Worn hinges screeching as the passenger door flung open, Frank Colette, fresh from a stretch inside and determined not to go back, yelling as he fell into the seat, told Joey Knuckles to wake up and start the truck, now, before they both got shot.

  Joey Knuckles opened his eyes when he heard his name. A name he’d both invented and self-applied. His given name had been “Joy,” his Christian name, but he went by “Joey” instead. Adding the “e,” insisting it had been a mistake made by the hospital on his birth certificate, though inside he cursed his mother for burdening him with that name to begin with. A name so daft and feminine in a time when men weren’t born so much as made.

  Why his father would have allowed this, he would never know. Not that it mattered now since he had become someone else. Not that he could ever ask either one of them. But surely they had known life would be hard for a boy with a name like that. He’d fought every day. Broke bones with his fists, broke people open, now everyone called him Joey Knuckles.

  Frank slapped Joey Knuckles across the face and told him to start the engine.

  “Wake up.”

  Joey, sitting up fast, twisting the key with his left hand while he slammed the three-speed shifter into first with his right, held the accelerator to the floor, tires barking as the truck lurched forward and died.

  Frank stared at Joey, who seemed confused. Joey looked down, like he had no idea what could have happened.