by Gary Sapp
here?”
Xavier chewed on his toothpick, studied the photos a minute longer and pushed them back to Warden Bright’s side of the desk. Rose Dixon shifted in her stance. Satisfied in his silence, Xavier sat back in his chair. “Surely, I can’t be held responsible for the violence perpetrated by two deranged individuals,” Xavier said smoothly. “There are millions of People of Color across America who has taken the mark. I’ve met with at least 50 men in this prison alone who have sworn an allegiance to our cause, who have visualized our people’s future.”
“Yes,” Warden Bright said carefully. “They have seen days filled with misery and pain…or so I’ve heard.”
“Anyway,” Xavier continued. “Should I be held responsible for the misdeeds of any man who bears the mark in this prison?”
Warden Bright’s brows curled. “Come now, Prince, and be reasonable. You wouldn’t dismiss this event as if it were mere chance would you?”
“Life is God’s most precious gift.” These were Chris’ words. Xavier’s brother had the gift of expression that he would never have. “Even the life of a lesser form of human like Michael Davenport means something to me, Warden. Still, I’m sure your predecessor’s reports that I was in my cell and otherwise detained when this went down?”
Warden Bright flipped through a few pages…and back again before he finally gave up looking for the specific citation. “21 inmates and four prison guards testified that they saw you in your cell at some point when this carnage was taking place if my memory serves me.”
“Well there you are,” Xavier went to stand, putting this meeting to an end.
“Sit down, Prince.” Warden Bright said with some bile. “There’s more.”
Xavier tugged at his pants legs and sat back in his chair and resumed chewing on his toothpick. We didn’t miss a step in planning our escape back to the cells. Be cool, Prince, and play this man’s game until he is satisfied.
It was Donald Bright’s turn to sit back in his chair. He rocked back and forth and back again until the chair would no longer hold him down. “You do know, as old as Calhoun may be that this prison has a sophisticated surveillance system. What’s unique about this system is that if there are any disruptions in the feed, alarms are set off and those who monitor the system are immediately alerted.”
“A wise precaution,”
“But the most ultra-modern system can’t compensate for tampering. Come over this side of the desk, Prince. I want you to see this.”
Prince slid his petite frame to the opposite side of the desk, to Rose Dixon’s displeasure. “What am I looking at, Warden?”
“Just pay attention to this section here…right behind where the two large inmates were standing, just before they rushed Davenport and beheaded him with, what I’m guessing was probably was a machete.”
Xavier did as he was bid without comment. The video played back showing exactly as Warden Bright…and his own memory recalled. Once Davenport refused to give up the when and where of what turned out to be The 411 attacks in Atlanta, Prince ordered the man killed. Julian Moore, like Xavier, just out of the camera’s visual snapped his finger and brought a guard—who’d taken the mark as well—onto the scene who provided the weapon to behead Davenport.
The two other inmates, a homosexual couple nicknamed Sampson and Delilah, intentionally and voluntarily standing in the camera’s view, stayed behind to distract the coming guards while Xavier and Julian Moore made their escape along a preordained route back their individual cells.
Xavier finally observed what the warden had noticed was off about the playback: A small bird that had flown outside the window and provided a shadow against the bright sunshine of that afternoon.
“You saw it too, Prince.” Warden Bright said. “As I said before, the system is designed to identify any disruption. It can’t compensate for someone intentionally giving it the same feed over and over. The shadow of that bird passing not once but again and again gives that away.”
“I’ve been in this business almost my entire adult life, Prince. I’ve seen it all, or at least I thought I had.” Warden Bright spat. “I‘ve seen inmates kill other inmates or guards out of fear of reprisal, or out of a blind sense of loyalty to a group or cause. I’ve never seen what is going on in the short time I’ve been here. Who are you really, Prince? Who are you to command such respect, authority and even…love from what amounts to strangers blindly doing your bidding?”
In the long term, Xavier Prince had neither the time nor the desire to have a prolonged conflict with this man, but he dared not appear weak in the presence of any Rooster at any time. His time in this hell hole was drawing to a close; he might as well test the waters of release right now. “Fortunately for everyone involved, I will be out of your hair in just under 48 hours. This complex web of influence that you swear that I weave at this facility will be at an end.”
Warden Donald Bright spun around and gazed out of his window into the courtyard and then the highway beyond. “And where will you go, Prince.” All of the enthusiasm of the warden’s discovery had evaporated from his voice. “And what will you do…with so much power?”
Xavier surprised himself by answering. “I’m headed…elsewhere... nowhere…I’ll guess I’ll know when I get there. I’ll always go where I’m needed. I’ll continue to pursue equality and justice for my people.”
The other man spins back around and swipes at the folders on his desk in one motion, and knocks most of them to the floor. He hops on the floor and flips again through the mess in hot pursuit of something that Xavier cannot name. Finally, he pinches another photo between his fingertips, Rose Dixon ever present at his side when he stands at full height again.
“This is the photo of Larry Gleason, security guard. He was a husband and a father to three children.” The warden said. “All life is precious, Prince, didn’t we both agree to that point a second ago.”
“We do,” Xavier said in a calm tone. 48 hours, Prince. In two days this entire conversation will be but a footnote to my stay in this Godforsaken place.
“Do we really? Or do you consider Gleason a lesser man like you called Davenport simply because of the color of his skin? Is he—what is the term your people have coined these days—just another…Rooster, just another White Man that rises before any other animal on the farm, searching for a fresh way to keep a Person of Color down and out. ”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Warden.” Xavier said in a dangerous voice that Rose Dixon caught breath of immediately. “I mourned for his family’s loss like I did all the others involved.”
“He had a mortgage to pay, Prince. He had hopes and dreams. He had three children, for Christ sake.”
Xavier turned on him, his anger rising to the surface like an erupting volcano. “I have two boys as well, Warden.” Just as suddenly Xavier willed his muscles in his neck to relax. He had heard Rose Dixon grab her nightstick and he doubted she would return it to her holster before his visit was completed. “This justice system of yours has stolen fourteen months of my life over trumped up charges of Grand Larceny. Our government is convinced A House in Chains is dealing weapons to Western African nations like Liberia and Sierra Leone for a profit in its cold war with Pandora.” He leaned into the warden’s face. Neither man broke eye contact. “They’ve stolen 14 months from my time with my boys, Warden. They needed me out of the way, while Pandora tried to destroy everything my father built.”
Rose Dixon stuck her baton into Xavier’s chest and forced him back.
“You were a lawyer, Prince. You should know that trafficking weapons to foreign agents is illegal under the law.” Warden Bright reminded him.
“As it should be,” Xavier felt a throbbing in his temple come…and subside just as quickly. He sat back down, needing a cigarette more than ever before. “How convenient for your system, that these weapons or all of this cash were never found.”
“Just as the weapon that beheaded Davenport will never be found; or justice brought to the real men who w
ere behind what happened that day ever will be found either.” Bright said with a trace of bitterness in his tone.
The warden chose to remain standing. Rose Dixon planted her large frame in the space between Xavier and the warden.
“What is it that you want from me, Warden?” Xavier asked.
“Respect of self,” The warden said with a blank look on his face.
“What?” Xavier asked as the land line rang four times before Warden Bright seemed to acknowledge its existence at all. “What did you say?”
“Those were your father’s words. That was part of his first mandate after he founded A House in Chains all of those years ago.” The phone rang itself out. “Respect from family and then respect from the community—“
Xavier heard an urgent banging on the warden’s door.
“I’m busy right now.” Bright shouted in the door’s direction. He never unfixed his gaze on Xavier. “I’ve read both of Thomas Pepper’s books on race relations in this country. I’ve fixed his interviews and subsequent chapters on you to memory.”
“Have you, now?” Xavier asked. “I remember those interviews with Pepper as well. He is a…interesting man.”
Whoever was outside of the door hadn’t left. The voice pleaded with the warden to admit him. For the first time since Xavier sat down in this room, Rose Dixon looked unsure of whether the warden was in
