#been doing this particular yard for 26 years it's hell but it's routine
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Short Story #26: Order
Written: 1/21/2017
Being the warden of the prison, in his eyes, was the same as being a dictator, and he enjoyed every minute of it. When he walked down the clean concrete tunnels-if they were not clean then somebody would definitely have to be punished-of the prison, cells on either side of him, prisoners with their eyes averted, he would love to try to get somebody to challenge his authority. On quiet days, he would get annoyed and forced somebody to lick his boots, or sing him a song. On days where inmates chose to speak up, often saying “This aint’ right” or “You subhuman piece of shit”, he would have guards pull them out of their cell, handcuff them, and he would give them a beating that would assure later silence, leaving their crumpled body to lie in the hall for enough time to send a message to the other inmates. Sometimes, if nobody spoke up, he would chose to beat anyone who made eye contact with him, if he couldn’t even get that then the degradation would come in.
To everyone, even the guards, he was “The General”. He had never served in the military, and was actually a draft dodger during the Vietnam war, but in his mind running a prison was exactly the same time. It was a war of human decency, and in his eyes he was winning every day. Inmates would use this title to his face, but when he was gone they would often add to the name, saying “Generally Excessive” or “General Ignorance”, the latter one because of how insecure the man was about his own intelligence. Libraries were shut down most of the time, a rule that came in after he realized that some of the inmates were becoming more learned than him, which made him feel threatened. Three weeks were spent lecturing to the learned inmates about what the “real truth’s of the world” were, in an attempt to correct their “false” education, and “undeserved” feelings of superiority they had towards him. The lectures were thoroughly riddled with confused facts (he claimed Alexander Hamilton was a brave general), discredited statements, and outright bullshit.
Guards were never to question him, and doing so would end up with them receiving beatings, usually followed by their jobs being terminated. A lot figured that it wasn’t worth it to challenge him, but there was a high turnover rate. The only ones who stayed were the ones who enjoyed watching the prisoners get beaten and demeaned, leading the prisoners to live in a constant hell. At a point the prison was in a perpetual lock down, because the prisoners had become so furious about the way that they were being treated, their rights were constantly ignored, and the only way to prevent a riot was to keep them constantly locked up, and beaten one at a time until they became silent.
Silence eventually wasn’t enough for the General, he knew that the prisoners were talking behind his back, he couldn’t trust his guards to not do the same. The surveillance room was where he spent a lot of his time, while he wasn’t out displaying his power, and he would watch the feed of the security cameras, watching to see if any of the prisoners were talking with each other or, even worse, the guards were talking with the prisoners. If he saw anyone doing so, he would announce the prisoner’s cell, and guards would arrive to beat them into silence. He didn’t know it, but the guards in the surveillance room would radio the other guards when the General arrived and left, so they could tell the prisoners when it was safe to talk. There was constant fear that one of the guards would inform the General of this routine, in an attempt to leverage it for a higher position, so they made sure that they would beat the piss out of anyone who did.
Eventually the smell in the cell blocks had become unbearable, prisoners had been in there so long without being able to wash themselves, they became loud again. In response, the general gave his guards face masks so they could bear the stench, and he went into every block to inform the prisoners that if they kept complaining he would take away the privilege of food, and meals would no longer be delivered to the cells of any complainers. During the lecture in cell block D, a guard who had been working in the prison for a year started having trouble keeping his composure. Guards were normally supposed to have their backs to the walls and stare straight ahead whenever the General came through, they were only to move if he needed a prisoner pulled out of their cell, but this guards pulse quickened, his face grew hot, his fists shook, and eventually he stared right at the General and shouted, “Enough is enough! You sadistic motherfucker, I don’t care how much you pay me, I don’t care if you beat me, these people are human beings they-” his outburst was interrupted by a large boom from the General’s pistol, which was now pointed directly at the guard with smoke rising from the barrel. The guard stumbled to the ground, clenched his chest, tried desperately to breathe, his gasps wet and uneven. His hand, when he looked at it, was covered in blood, and when he moved his head to look at the General, in utter disbelief that he had been shot, all he saw was the front end of a grimy, black boot moving quickly towards his face, he felt a sharp pain, and his view arced so he quickly saw the ceiling and then the floor, until it started to fade to black.
The General looked around the dark, concrete room, pistol still in position just in case anybody would have the same idea of speaking out, but silence filled the room stronger than the stench had, and nobody dared look at him. He pointed to two of the guards, who he had trusted since they were always willing to punish unruly guards, and instructed them to carry the body of the dissenter and follow him, turning and briskly leaving the cell block, not even waiting for them to begin their duty. Quickly scrambling out of formation they rushed to pick up the corpse, at first both reaching for the top side, then both moving instead for the bottom side, going back and forth like this several times until they each ended up on separate sides of the body. They could barely lift the guy off the ground and had to resort to quickly half dragging the body, so blood smeared in a line down the hall and covered their uniforms. The inmates and other guards quietly watched as they quickly moved the guy out of the room, trying to catch up to the General who had already left.
Nobody was sure what they were going to do with the man, but guards and inmates talked freely about the subject, all acknowledging that the General was a danger to all. Some guards refused to talk, but they were only the most sadistic, and would sometimes warn the prisoners, one in particular, who had a burn mark covering the right side of his face, saying “If he’s willing to shoot one of our own then you better shut yer fuckin’ mouths, because pretty soon we’re going to be able to shoot any of you that can’t respect authority.” The newer guards would talk to some of the prisoners, agreeing with them that the place had become absurd, and they started to seriously consider storming the control room and opening all of the cells. If the prisoners took over, the General might be killed, and although specialized teams would have to come in to stop the riots somebody new would come into power, and in the end wouldn’t that be the right thing to do?
As this happened, the General watched from the surveillance room. The guard on duty had watched the murder, dropping a glass of water when it happened, and was busy cleaning up the shards when the General had walked in. Too afraid to warn the other guards, the guy on duty instead quietly moved to the back of the room, and let the General watch whatever he wanted. Although he tried to look away from the monitors, he noticed one in the upper right hand side that usually watched the rec yard, which was, for the first time since the lock down, showing activity. It displayed two guards working with wood, but he couldn’t tell what they were doing, he didn’t want to look to long anyways. He was going to quit.
While watching the mass amount of conversations, the General asked firmly for the on duty guard’s walkie, holding out his empty palm until he received it. He held it up to his mouth, pressed the talk button, and in an emotionless voice named every guard who was refusing to talk to the inmates, or treating them like shit, and asked them to come up to the surveillance room. When they all arrived he told them, pacing back and forth, “There is sure to be an uprising soon. Anyone not in this room is sure to be an enemy, and none but us can be trusted. I am authorizing any use of lethal force to stop dissenters and to keep this prison under our control.”
The guard with the burned face looked over at the guard hiding in the corner, then looked at the General, and said “Sorry to interrupt General, but-”
Furious that his train of thought, and surely elegant speech, was interrupted, the General briskly marched up to the guard and stood right in front of him, only an inch away, demanding to know what was so important that warranted this outburst. His right hand was firmly placed on the grip of his pistol, and the guards tried to stare forwards as to not draw any attention. “Sir,” the burned guard said calmly, although beginning to sweat, “the guard there in the corner, he’s been working with the trouble makers.” The General quickly turned his head to stare at the man in question, staring daggers while his face grew red. “He’s been informing everyone when you leave and enter this room.” His pistol was slowly pulled out of the holster. “They threatened to kill any of us who spoke out.”
Instead of a shot being fired, the General began to pummel the traitor over his head with the gun, causing the man to crumple to the ground, hands over his head, blood gushing out. After a couple seconds of this, he stared down at the bleeding man and took a couple seconds to catch his breath, look back at the other guards, and asked for a walkie. The burned man placed his in the General’s open hand, and the General began speaking into it, “I know word has probably spread about what happened to the traitor, and I know you are working against me. Anyone still out is a prisoner in my eyes, and if you do not willingly disarm and place yourselves into cells then you will be duly punished. Right in front of me is the guard who was on duty in the surveillance room, I do not know his name but it is of no importance. What really matters is I know he’s been tipping you rebels off, and anyone who wants to continue with their plans of mutiny will suffer the same fate as him.” He held the walkie close to his pistol as he aimed at the injured guard, who tried to cry out in protest, but his pleas were drowned out by the sounds of gunfire.
As the guards and prisoners listened, there was no longer any question that something drastic would have to be done, and quick. The prisoners started yelling, and the guards had to motion each other over the noise to try to get to the riot equipment as quickly as they could, in order to prepare to defend themselves against the general and his small army. After that they would have to try to make their way to the control room, using tear gas and gun fire if it came to it. One guard, in the block where this plan was hatched, was tasked with running to every block, every check point, to tell the remaining guards what the plan was, no one dared used their walkies.
One guard, who had only been working in the prison for a week, was overwhelmed by the situation and decided to jump of the second story of his block in a suicide attempt, but only managed to break his legs, leaving him screaming on the ground for help. Prisoners watched as he squirmed, and there were no guards in the area to hear him.
In the surveillance room everyone’s ears were ringing, they were way too close to the gun as it went off and were in too small of a space, tinnitus had gripped every one of them. The General tried to shout orders, but they just came out muffled, and although nobody could hear he began to wave his arms frantically to instruct them to leave the room, which lead to them filing out in a clumsy mess. As they were running down a hall, destination unknown since they were all following each other, assuming somebody to be the leader, a guard came running towards them and instructed them to follow him. They couldn’t hear it, but he was shouting, “We need to take the prison back, the General’s lost his mind, follow me to the weapons storage! Mutiny! Mutiny!” A couple guards questioned if they should shoot this guy, since the General told them to not trust the other guards, but he seemed to know what he was doing and none of them really knew what the plan was.
They followed to the room where the other guards were gearing up, grabbing shot guns, assault rifles, tear gas canisters, putting on bullet proof vests, when the messenger had brought in the General’s group. It took a second for both groups to realize what was going on, a couple tear gas canisters were set off, and in the fog all that could be seen was the light from the guns being fired. The General’s men had no idea what was happening, all of their senses were failing them, and most of them ended up shooting each other, firing at the ceiling, or confusedly crawling in a direction that they hoped would lead to safety. One of them managed to shoot a rebel through the left eye, but he had no idea of it and his brains were spread across the walls shortly after when a mutineer had got him with a shot gun burst.
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