Cell 56

Willow Butler

Asher was staring at him. His chin was jammed – it must have been uncomfortable – up against the bars surrounding his bunk; his fingers were twisted beneath his chin, twitched off at awkward angles. Einar knew he’d been staring a while – it was something he did, when Einar ignored him, stare unblinkingly to try and get some sort of reaction. Often it went on for hours. But tonight Einar curled the corner of his book – it was a second hand book, it did not warrant the delicacy of a bookmark for its corners were already tousled from previous fingers’ use – and placed it on his single pillow. “What?” he asked.

It took a moment for Asher to respond. It wasn’t often that he got a response from his little game and Einar pinpointed the flicker of pride and surprise over usually blank eyes. Asher was one of those boys who had trained himself to speak without emotion and his eyes to remain impassive and dull, no matter the topic.

Still, Einar could tell he was suddenly struggling to find words. “What’re we gonna do when we get outta here?”

He had never indulged himself enough to think about getting out. To even imagine it felt wrong as if somehow their thoughts of freedom were betraying the persecutors’ smug smiles; the judge’s gavel.

He rolled onto his stomach and jammed his chin into his fingers, a mimic of Asher’s broken-fingered clasp on his own jaw. It felt odd to Einar that they were trading each-others’ traits. Often he’d notice himself smiling with a corner of his mouth, singular, as opposed to the broad curve of both. He’d witnessed, a couple of times, Asher watching him smoke and later imitating it but he’d ended up looking more a member of French royalty with the way he flung back his neck – dark hair rolling the stark line of his shoulders – than Einar. They’d been together too long.

“We might not get out,” said Einar.

Asher dipped his little finger in his mouth, pushing at the points of canines.

“No,” he answered carefully, clamping his teeth over his finger. “But, think

‘bout it, Einar. Look who got out last time. Last release, you remember?”

“He was well behaved.” 124

Einar watched the delicate eye roll, the flash of pink-laced whites. Asher preferred his stories to be supported and often sagged under the pressed cynicism of Einar’s tone.

“Ain’t we been?” he threw back, jaw moving mechanically around his finger. His hair fell into his face as his teeth gnawed and twisted.

He laughed. “Sure, you have, maybe. I only just got out of solitary.”

Asher dropped his finger. “Well that’s just technicality, isn’t it?” He supposed that it was, though he’d never been able to look at the world with such simplicity. Never had he looked at their predicament and simply thought of it as a technicality to life, though similarly, he supposed it was.

“Okay, saying it is just a technicality, and like last time they’re feeling – I don’t know-sympathetic?” he shook his head, deciding it was the wrong word. “Bored. Well then what? We get out.”

Einar watched the shifting expression around Asher’s brows, the soft scrunch of his nose and the twitch of his eyelid – the obvious regret in his face asking why he ever bothered to try and get Einar to put the book down and respond when the dull expression and the rushing degradation of being ignored was far more exciting than the chat?

“We going to keep in touch?” Asher asked. His saliva-wet fingers were dangling from the bunk and Einar watched him with a certain level of curiosity.

It had never been explicitly mentioned between them if they actually liked one another – when Einar had first been put into Asher’s cell he’d made his position known fairly quickly. Sometimes when he looked at Asher he could see it in his eyes how he didn’t forgive him, that one side of his face was more abstract than the other.

Einar turned his head, gave him a shrug. “If I need money, I’ll call you,” he answered plainly. Asher was wealthy – his parents had died when he was small. The inheritance had settled into his bank when he’d turned 18.

“Think they’d let a con access to that amount?” asked Asher.

The bed creaked when Einar moved, his legs propelling him up. He wrapped his fingers around the twisted bars of the bunk, forcing himself upright, face to face with the snarled curl of Asher’s sneer. His arms held strong, feet dangling a foot off the ground as they looked to one another. Asher’s mouth was red and wet from where he’d gnawed at the bones of his fingers – his eyes flittered to take in Einar’s features.

“Well, if they don’t, you pull out your gun – don’t you – and you tell them, ‘hand over my inheritance’,” Einar said carefully. His arms had begun to shake, shuddering with the effort of holding up his own weight. “Or I shall shoot. And then you drop your own name, so they know you aren’t an amateur.”

Asher’s sticky fingers caught on his cheekbones. “Master plan, ain’t it?”

“What?” A shrugged.

“Don’t you feel something?” Bill asked. He smacked his lips together to stop himself from pushing him further.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at –“

Bill refrained from rolling his eyes. He was to remain taut and professional. He tucked his sleeves over his elbows and looked at A pointedly. “It’s for your –“ “Yes, it’s for my recovery. But I don’t know what you want me to do.” “You’re not stupid.” Bill was tired. He might soon give up. “You know where we are. It is cold, A, and I want to go home.”

“You’re not stupid’. Is that what this has taught you, Bill? That I’m clever?” Bill shook his head. “No, what I’ve learnt from all this is that you are stubborn, A. It’s unlikely that this will help your recovery, but as you’re aware, it is requested.”

“I’ve got to look sorry,” filled in A. “So that you can say I’m recovered.” “Yes, you’ve got to look sorry.” “Do you want me to apologise?” A was always acting dumb. Like he didn’t understand. “To an empty cafeteria?”

Bill nodded, though he understood its absurdity. “Yes, to an empty cafeteria. Apologise like it’s full. To them.”

“To who.” “You know who.” Bill pushed up his glasses. A was shivering. “Yes I do.” He stood up straighter. “Sorry, cafeteria.” “Who else?” A’s company was wholly unfulfilling. They had stood in the cafeteria and not said a word for an hour. Bill had not tried to engage A - and neither the other way around.

“I don’t know. What do you want me to say? Who –“

“Why do you act dumb now? When we met you said their names a lot. You were proud. Say them now and apologise.” He stopped himself. He was not allowed to force his recovery any more than he already had. He tugged his sleeves back down to cover the goose-bumps.

A smirked. “Sorry ‘them’.”

“We will come back tomorrow.” Bill was resigned.

Behind them two guards shifted from their spots against the wall. They clicked handcuffs around A’s wrists and led him out. A turned his head and the corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk.

“Sorry,” he called, and then the door closed.

Asher had been absent most of the day. It often happened, their cell would clatter open early in the morning and the guards would filter in and pull him from his bed. Einar was always awake when it happened, pushed up into the corner of his bunk, watching. Asher never woke until his ankle was grabbed and he was hefted from the bed sheets. The first time it happened he’d fallen on his ankle – the bone looking odd in its sudden raspberry tones, pink like a slapped cheek. He’d snarled from one corner of his mouth as his twisted fingers were captured and held still when cuffs were placed around his slight wrists.

Sometimes he would be back within a few hours, but most of the time he was missing until dark. Einar never asked about it, and he knew Asher often stared at him with disdain and disappointment that he did not query after his whereabouts. It did interest Einar, though. He’d heard it happening with a few other men, too, their cellies talking about it in the yard – Allen the Rod in particular was certain his cell-mate was snitching on him to the men up top, but Einar didn’t think that was it. At least he doubted Asher would do something like that – he was too proud of his position within the prison to risk falling. No, Asher was far too clever to murmur to the guards about what went on – he’d be putting himself in danger too, for Einar knew for certain Asher was the reason several of the particularly young boys now had soft mangled fingers and flicking awkward wrists. Einar had watched him kick some skinhead kid out in the yard once, his heel jammed into bony wrist like a foot on a cigarette.

It was against him to ask, though. It would appear to Asher that Einar was relenting power to him – which would not do, for the delicacy of their cell arrangement was absolute. Einar did not intend to bow his head to Asher, even if it would satiate his intense curiosity. No, if Asher was ever the one being looked to for answers he would taunt his sudden power down at Einar like a weak King who ruled over a war-born Knight. “Heard Fiddler was getting outta the infirmary real soon, Einar,” Laurence, a man in the cell adjacent to Einar’s, said.

Einar moved from where he’d been on his bunk. His knees caught in the sheets as he threw himself at the rattling cell door; his cheek hit the cold metal bar and his eyelashes caught its rough surface. “That man’s dead,” he responded. “Nobody survives that.”

He heard Laurence laugh, saw a curl of hair fall through the bars. “You’re gonna have’ta try a lil harder next time, mate.”

The bar was blunt against his skull as he smacked his head into it, a rage pulled at him. He thought he growled, screamed a couple times before a guard walked up and smacked a baton into the centre of his forehead.

“There’s still a bed in solitary for you, Cohen,” he said. “I’d pull your shit together or they won’t ever consider you for release like your cellie.”

Einar found himself twisting his fingers like Asher did, off to subtly wrong angles around the bars, a smirk dropped onto his lips. Despite the dull thud in his skull he pressed the beaten spot against the bars and licked his lips. “I’ll keep it in mind, boss.”

He hadn’t even considered that Asher’s absence had anything to do with the mass release of prisoners. He supposed they were putting Asher through tests, of a sort; that the system was combing his mind to see if his twitching smirk held remorse or such for his actions. For Asher was young and there was always the guilt of a judge who put some kid just out of high school behind bars. He felt smug in a sense that the guard, loose-tongued in his taunting, had given him a right of power over his cell mate.

Blood dried on his forehead as he settled back on his bed.

It was later that Asher was pushed back into the cell. He tilted his head at Einar upon entering, his lips tugging at the corner and pulling to that gouged smirk. “You’ve got blood on you,” he said. He pushed onto the top bunk, curling his fingers around the bars once more. Einar thought it was comforting to him, or something – a weakness.

“Yeah.” Einar licked his fingers, tongue flattening against the dents of joints.

Asher stared him down, eyes flickering at his tongue. He wiped the spit-sticky palm over the blood. “And you’re getting out of here.” 128

It was funny how easy it was to see Asher’s dismay at Einar holding such information. Einar knew that if their situation were turned Asher would have announced it with more drama. He’d slide from his bunk and lord about their cell with his knowledge unsaid for hours. It would be a taunt, soft, boring. Einar stared at Asher, watching the idea of his own power crumble, and he smirked.

“They are testing you. For remorse – which I doubt you shall show. You always boast about shooting up those kids. Maybe they’re running out of innocents to release – so they’re letting out the ones they think are victims. Maybe they’re worried you’re so pretty you’re being hurt? Maybe that’s why.” Einar felt himself shudder, his nails dug into his jaw to keep from retracting his words.

Asher twitched, bodily and their eyes met again. Einar looked away, out of the cell and scored his jaw with blunt nails. He could feel Asher writhing with comments he wanted to spit at him, but his bravado held him up. “Maybe the government are just fed up of high school students these days?” he offered quietly, tonelessly.

Einar didn’t respond and their cell fell silent. When the lights went out and the only real light left was the glow from the guard’s torches he watched the cracking warmth of Asher’s cigarette. He was leant in his bed, hair trickling over his shoulders looking like a French royal.

“What is your current sentence?” Bill asked A.

A tilted his head at him. They were, for once, not in the empty cafeteria. Instead they sat in an interview room within the prison. Guards stood outside the door and A’s wrists were chained to the table.

“You already know my sentence, Bill,” A responded. “I do, but you must say it nonetheless.”

A sat up, the chains jingled. “I did it when I was a minor. Sixteen; so it’s a minimum sentence for an adult. Ten years for first degree.” He looked around. It sounded like he was quoting. “It’s clever, isn’t it, how when you’re sixteen you can go and shoot eight people and only get a minimum sentence. You can do a lot at sixteen, marry, fuck, drive – and the government lets you murder too, like a try-out session, with minimum charge. Don’t you think that’s odd, Bill?”

“You’re here for ten years, correct.”

“Less.” A smirked and leaned into the table; his hair fell off his shoulders and hung around his cheeks. “Said that you’re getting me out of here. My cellie confirmed it. Now ain’t that an injustice?” Bill pushed up his glasses and leant back in his chair. “Sure it’s an injustice and if the parents of them kids you killed found out about it they’d hate the government. Thing is you’re a kid, you’re remorseful, and the government doesn’t wanna hold remorseful kids any more. Takes away your future.”

“What, like I took away their futures?”

“Yep.” Bill picked up the clipboard from the table. Across the top of it A’s name was written out in bold print ‘ASHER FAIRCHILD’, his charge typed out neatly below that, and further beneath that the Governor’s stamp of release – a release hidden under the guise of a YOI, Young Offenders Institute Licence Licence – which allowed young offenders release at 22 into a life of probation. In reality, Bill had done this before; it was simply an issue of release. Asher Fairchild would be unmonitored within the world.

“The irony,” A said. His chair rocked as he leant back.

“Tomorrow we are going back to the cafeteria, A,” Bill said. “So I can check off that you feel remorse. Then after that you will meet with the Governor; she will assess you as I have.”

“Great,” A smirked. He stood quickly, yanking at the chains around his wrists. “I have a cell mate to brag to.”

When the guards did not come immediately A started to yell. Bill leant back in his seat and watched until they came. They lumped A against the wall and re-cuffed his wrists.

Now that it had been confirmed to Einar that Asher’s departure was inevitable he sat in their cell and mulled it over. To begin with he hadn’t thought too much about it – he had thought, even, that it would be pleasant to have a different cell mate, for sometimes Asher was boring, with his mangled fingers and wet gouged smirk. But then Einar would consider who he might be put with – he supposed, if the Governor wanted an excuse to hold him in permanent solitary confinement he might be put up with Fiddler – and that would not do. He knew for sure that if they were holed up together he would not be able to hide his blatant disgust and hatred towards him, knew that he’d find some way to dig a shank in his throat – his sense of morals would win over self-preservation and hope of release.

He supposed in a sense he might miss Asher.

The cell clattered open and Asher was pushed inside. His head was lolled heavy to his right side and on his face a grim smile split his cheeks. He moved quickly, hopping to the end of Einar’s bed in a moment. He tilted his head.

“I’m out real soon,” he admitted, like Einar hadn’t told him the day before. Like he knew something Einar didn’t. “Gonna talk with the Governor and she’ll stamp my release, or something, and then I’ll be gone.”

Einar wondered if it was that simple. While the whole process itself had been going on, so far, for about a month he wondered how long it would drag out with the Governor being put into the equation. She was notorious for dangling releases in front of prisoners just to watch them curve in subservience, to watch them slip in their own bravado and feign innocence. Einar had heard she’d done that a couple times with this new release scheme.

“Good,” Einar found himself saying. He reached for his cigarettes and rolled one between his fingers to unflatten it before he stuck it between his teeth and lit. “Maybe my new cell-mate won’t be so dull.”

Asher leant back against the wall-he was crouched, still on his feet and the sheets around him crumpled. “Nah, you’ll miss me,” he said, dropping down. He turned his head, hanging it back like it was too heavy – like something possessed. Einar flicked his lighter, watched the slow wide smile drawing Asher’s slim face. “No doubt.”

Einar didn’t know what he’d feel when Asher eventually left. It was inevitable that at some point Asher would be released – but it was expected that he’d have been inside another five or so years. He’d planned his crime carefully, made sure that no matter what he couldn’t be held in prison for over ten years – if he’d done it a couple months out he’d be in longer than Einar. But the kid was smart – or too in love with himself to do it as an adult and never get out from behind bars.

“I see you looking at me, you pretend you’re this hard-ass, but you look at your cellie like the faggot down on cell 34. You think I’m pretty – you said it.” Asher was twitching, eyes darting over Einar. Smoke spread between them. “You watch me smoke, you think I’m delicate – you like that, don’t you? You’ll miss me, n’ you’ll miss me in particular when you’re holed up with some fatass with a hairy back – trust me.”

Einar’s hands shook, felt anger in his body like a seismic pulse. He spat his cigarette at Asher, the bud bright orange twinged his skin, catching the score of stubble on his jaw and fizzling the hot sound of fat bursting. It fell quickly, the light fading to ashes when the air hit it. He’d turned, found himself with his fingers wrapped around Asher’s throat – the other’s head forced up against the grey walls. “Trust me,” he imitated, “when you’re out I will be goddamned glad, Asher.” 131

He thought of when Asher had mumbled to him about getting out together – what they’d do if it happened, that they’d stay together from necessity and a sincere case of having nobody else. He thought fleetingly that he was glad that he was stuck in prison while Asher was given the opportunity to prove a con’s always a con. Einar reckoned, staring at those dark bugged eyes, that it’d be a year before he was back in prison.

“We have a video of you expressing your sincere regret. A psychologist has evaluated you and deems you a minimal public risk; you have only seen solitary once during your time here. This evidence leads me to believe that you are liable for release within the next week.”

A was sat in front of a new wooden desk. It was polished well and the items atop it were neat and organized. Release papers sat in front of the Governor, a pen in her hands.

“Do you have anything to say about that?” she asked. She did not believe the sincerity of his remorse, though Bill had said it was adequate. Indeed she believed he did not feel any remorse at all. She did not care.

“The evidence say’s I’m sorry, isn’t that all you need to know?” A asked. He leant forwards in his chair. For once he was not wearing chains. The Governor believed the necessity would seem absurd considering A was fit for release. “I’m real sorry for shooting up those kids, Boss, real sorry.”

“That is all I need to know,” agreed the Governor.

Asher left a week later. He forgot his cigarettes and forgot his toothbrush. He’d said to Einar that he’d left him his sweaters which he found beneath the sheets on his bunk. They had faint bloodstains and one a charred burn on the ribcage. It felt empty, there was no more chiding at the smeared toothpastespit in the sink, no more was there a wet sound of teeth around fingers; Einar felt inexplicably loud.

Laurence was the first warning he got. The loud laugh from the adjacent cell was followed by, “They really got it in for Cohen!” like an announcement. The cells rattled as prisoners smacked their foreheads into the bars to get a glimpse at what Laurence crowed about. “Ay! Cohen, you seeing this!”

It was Fiddler. His hunched figure was pushed along by two guards. His hands were still heavily bandaged, shoulder engorged where the bandages were piled together. It was a shock he was even out of the infirmary, though Einar knew he’d been in the cells with the victims for at least two weeks. Hot oil wasn’t something that wounded thoughtfully and when Einar had done it (pushed Fiddler at the hot oil pans during their time in Kitchen work, lugged a scalding pan that had held carrots over his back so he slumped further into the blistering oil) the guards had snarled at him and told him that Fiddler just wouldn’t make it; only so much pain a man could go through. But he had recovered, at least enough for the nurses to grow uncomfortable with his bulky presence and blistered skin – and now was Einar’s real punishment.

“Open cell 56,” one of the guards spoke into a walkie.

Einar watched his own cell clatter open. Fiddler was pushed in; he glanced to Einar and Einar noted how the whites of his eyes flickered like a scared dog. The cell shuddered shut.

In the back of his mind Einar knew that this was a test from the Governor. He was being subjected to provocation for her amusement, to prove that prisoners don’t change, or something. He’d known since Asher had boasted his departure that this might happen. Asher had even said, smug, like he held knowledge over Einar’s head that they were probably going to hole him up with Fiddler – for fun – like people held bears for fighting. He knew that he should keep to himself; that he should continue as he had while Asher had shared his cell, but his morals wouldn’t let him. Fiddler made his stomach writhe.

At some point he’d moved from his bed; at some point he’d torn the forgotten sweatshirts, wrapped them around his fists. He didn’t even realise he’d moved. There was a buzz as the guards left.

Fiddler ducked back, coward, pushed himself back against the cell. He didn’t shout, but the people in the cells opposite were crowing; Laurence’s cell was shaking from his hands on the bars – everything was noise. Fiddler was huge, Einar was quick. Einar’s foot found the edge of his bed; he launched at Fiddler, his knee caught solidly against his gut and his head smacked into his nose. Blood ran cold on his shaved head.

He was moving without thought. His wrapped hands grabbed Fiddler’s ears, dragged him down onto his knee, again again again – until he was dozy, until his face was blood and not much else. Einar could hear his own breath, caught himself wondering if the guards were watching, decided he didn’t care as Fiddler’s head was thrown against the bars.

“Real nice rooming with you,” he heard himself say. Blood soaked through the sweatshirt scraps around his fists, Fiddler went loose in his grip and sagged against the cell like something shot. Einar’s body was shaking, adrenaline moving through him – he felt like Asher with his twitching energy, felt the sudden loneliness of his absence as the cell clattered open again. Fiddler slumped into the open corridor.

The people in the cell opposite crowed and the other prisoners copied, chanting meaningless words as Fiddler was dragged away.

Einar slumped, head hitting the edge of Asher’s bed. He imagined those awkward fingers scratching over the top of his head, the leer in his voice as he muttered, “I told ya, you’d miss me, didn’t I?”