Caged to Kill

by Tom Swyers

  Phillip stood up. He knew those words. He had heard them yesterday at Kranston and then from some cop at the bus station. “What’s wrong?”

  “Annie and Christy are home. They can’t see you here.”

  “Oh, okay,” Phillip said, moving towards the front door.

  “No! You can’t go out that way. They’ll see you. We’ll go out the back door. Follow me.” David felt awful for kicking Phillip out. It was frigid outside and the wind was howling in gusts. Phillip didn’t have any money, didn’t have a coat. Then it hit him. The storage shed way at the back of the yard would serve as temporary shelter. David opened the rear door. “Go hide in the shed back there. It’s open. I’ll come and get you later.”

  “Okay,” Phillip said as he strolled out the door.

  “You’ve got to hurry, Phillip.”

  Phillip tried to upgrade his shuffling step into a jog. He had some spring in his step, but not much stride. He hadn’t run more than five yards in thirty years. There wasn’t room in his exercise cage. Instead, he’d bounce around to get his heart racing, maybe do jumping jacks, try to keep his strength up, work to fight off the demons.

  Later, under cover of darkness, David opened the shed door. He peered into the structure with an LED penlight in hand to find Phillip lying on some patio furniture cushions, covered with lawn tarps to keep warm.

  “Phillip, wake up.”

  “I’m awake, just had my eyes closed.”

  “Let’s go. We need to move you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, you’ll freeze to death out here.”

  They walked around the dark side of the house over to David’s waiting 1974 Mustang in the driveway and got in. David had told Annie and Christy that he was going to drop off a book at the library and then stop at Stewart’s to pick up some milk and eggs. He had the car engine already running and had boosted the heater up to full blast. Phillip bathed in the warmth, putting his big hands up to the heater vents and rubbing them together. His lanky body twitched and shivered as he absorbed the luxury of the hot air and leather seats.

  “Buckle up,” David said.

  They backed out and headed a few miles to Central Avenue in the town of Karner. It was the commercial road and a straight shot from Albany to Mohawk City for miles, punctuated by a stop light at every quarter-mile mark. Car dealerships, run-down diners, dollar stores, strip malls, mobile home parks, fast food joints, and flophouses lined either side in a more or less seedy continuum.

  Food was the first order of business. After he got over the shock of seeing so much hot food and being able to select freely for the first time in decades, Phillip almost put the Golden Corral into bankruptcy by scarfing down everything he could at the all-you-can-eat buffet. Then they headed for the neon-lit Red Apple Motel sign. The motel served as a refuge for errant husbands who had been kicked out of the house and itinerant construction workers. David knew that it offered weekly and monthly rates. He paid a week’s rent to the bored desk clerk. Phillip requested a small room. The clerk replied that all of the rooms were small.

  Side by side, David and Phillip walked past room after room in the one-story brick motel that formed a “U” facing the four-lane road. The place reeked of cigarettes and stale beer, and other odors best left unmentioned. Each room had a picture window overlooking the littered parking lot. The debris of broken lives shifted in the wind around the cracked tarmac—wrappers from Burger King, shredded Price Chopper Supermarket flyers and half-crushed beer cans. In one room, they could see a balding overweight man in a wife-beater T-shirt lying on his bed watching TV with a cheap cigar in one hand and a bottle of Thunderbird in the other.

  David left Phillip at room 133 with fifty dollars in cash and a promise to return the next day. Phillip thanked him, closed the door, and dropped on the bed. He opened his leisure suit jacket with one hand and plunged the other hand down a hole in the jacket’s interior lining to remove the sheathed carving knife he had taken from David’s house. He whipped it out, held the razor edge up to his face, and smiled.

  Chapter 2

  Phillip drew the shabby curtains over his smudged picture window, barely dimming the racket of traffic on Central Avenue, and pushed a button to turn on the nightstand lamp. He clicked it off and on, over and over again. At Kranston, he had to ask a CO to turn off the lights. Half of the time they’d ignore him.

  Next, he figured out how to turn on the heat to his room, with the knob on the rust-tinged vent under the window. He couldn’t believe he had control of the room’s temperature. Turning the wobbly knob as far as it would go, he cranked the heat all the way up—not only to take the chill out of the place, but also to make up for all the heat he’d missed out on over the years while he was laid out in cold storage.

  Phillip went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. The toiletries were the same size as prison issue, but the soap smelled incredibly sweet, like fruit or candy. It wasn’t harsh like the lye soap scraps he had been using for thirty years. In the shower, he waited for the CO to holler that his five minutes was up. The only noise he heard was the whoosh of jet streams of warm water pulsating off his back and circling down the drain with a gurgle. From force of habit, he hurried up anyway and dried off. He couldn’t believe that he could shower every day—every second of every day—if he wanted. No more three times per week shower schedule. The terry cloth motel-grade towel felt as thick as shag carpet to him.

  As he climbed into his lumpy double bed, he marveled at the thickness of the blanket and bedspread. He didn’t notice that they were dated and worn. It didn’t matter. They both beat out his thin, prison-issued blanket and the clammy gray sheets that came from the laundry in the joint every few weeks. The rumble of the room heater sounded like the engine of a car. He remembered sleeping in the back seat footwell on the floor of his parents’ Plymouth station wagon. He used to curl up, rest his head on the drive-chain hump in the middle of the floor, and sleep to the sound of the car racing down the Thruway. The floor was always warm, just like his bed now. His motel pillow was way softer than that hump or anything the Bureau of Prisons issued. After a minute, he fell into a deep sleep.

  He saw the white cinder block walls of Kranston again in his dream. All he saw outside of his bars were those white cinder block walls. Though stained with urine, feces, blood spatter, and the boot scuffs from the COs, they were the only bright thing about Kranston. Everything else in the place was the monotone color of dirt, steel, and rust.

  It was Phillip’s turn for an hour in the recreation cage.

  “Garcia? Jose Garcia? I’m supposed to share my rec cage with him?” Phillip asked the CO as he backed into his meal slot to get cuffed for the trip from solitary to the rec cage.

  “Yeah, he’s your rec partner today. No more lip from you, Dawkins, or I’ll write you up.”

  The system was brilliant in its design in those days. Cage the men to the point of insanity and then pair them off for a play date for an hour per day.

  Another CO joined them to the rear, and all three of them rounded the corner of the long corridor and the rec cage came into view—a caged area about the size of a trailer unit attached to a big rig on the highway. Phillip was panic-stricken when he saw Garcia uncuffed in the cage doing pushups. He looked the CO directly in the eye.

  “Sir, can I ask you a question?”

  “What is it now, Dawkins?”

  “Did you search him in his cell?”

  “Of course we did.”

  “How about pat-frisking him before he went in the cage?”

  “Sure. That’s all standard procedure. You know that, Dawkins.”

  Phillip didn’t say anything else. There was nothing else to be said. Though he didn’t know Garcia, Phillip knew that he had attacked another prisoner with a piece of broken glass thirteen years ago, inflicting a cut on the prisoner’s arm. But to refuse rec would be like calling the CO a liar. Refusing rec was like admitting you were a coward. And you don’t want that rep in prison. B
ut it would be the first time and the last time that Phillip would share rec with Garcia. Years later, each inmate would have a separate cage for rec periods.

  The CO opened the rec cage and Phillip entered with his cuffs on. The door closed and locked behind him. Phillip backed into the door slot to get uncuffed when Garcia stood up from doing push-ups.

  Before he could get uncuffed, Garcia gritted his teeth and made a bum rush at Phillip, shoving him to the ground. “Incoming missile, you son of a bitch,” Garcia screamed.

  A “missile” was prison slang for a contract hit. Some gang member had demanded that Garcia cut up Phillip or else. You could never avoid your enemies in prison. They’d use someone else to hunt you down.

  Phillip fell on to his back and tried to keep Garcia away by thrashing his legs and feet.

  “Get the hell away from me!”

  With every kick from Garcia’s foot, Phillip grunted and gasped for air. When the horror hit him that he couldn’t protect his face, his eyes bulged; his face turned crimson red.

  One CO yelled for Garcia to stand down while the other rolled his eyes and sighed while reaching for his radio to call for backup.

  Fights during rec were not uncommon and the COs appreciated this aspect of the system. They would rather have the inmates beat the crap out of each other than beat on them.

  As Phillip writhed wildly trying to keep Garcia in front of his feet, Garcia got around Phillip and stepped on his hair. Phillip could hardly move his head. Garcia whipped out a shank from the back of his shoe—a razor melted in a toothbrush handle.

  Phillip screamed when he saw it. The same CO yelled at him again, ordering him to put it down. But Garcia knew the protocol. The two COs would not enter the cage without backup. Time was on his side.

  Phillip saw the blade come at his face like Garcia was thrusting in slow motion. He turned to one side to protect his face; the razor severed his ear and cut his neck open. Phillip felt the warm blood on his skin. He knew he’d been slashed but didn’t know where.

  Terror and shock, a one-two punch, froze him for a second though it seemed like an eternity. He feared Garcia had severed a neck artery and that he’d bleed to death in a few minutes. His eyes bulged as he faced his own mortality for the first time ever.

  Phillip saw a long hallway of light appear above Garcia’s shoulder. It grew longer and larger.

  “Put it down, Garcia! Put it down!” the CO screamed.

  But he didn’t look away from his prey. Garcia was spaced-out in his kill zone—a serial killer’s favorite place.

  Blood was gushing out of Phillip as Garcia raised his hand again. Phillip saw some figure standing in the light at the end of the hallway.

  “Nooooooooooo!” Phillip pleaded.

  The next slash found his cheek. The incision quickly faded in a pool of blood. Phillip felt like his face was on fire.

  Phillip flipped his feet over his head to try and kick Garcia. But all he could do was graze his shoulder. Garcia grinned. A struggling victim was an extra rush.

  The next slash took part of Phillip’s nostril off and traveled across his left cheek. The blood was now pouring into his eye sockets. He couldn’t see. It flowed into his mouth and nose. He felt as if he were drowning. One ear was filled with blood. Phillip could barely hear. What he did hear was the muffled laughter from Garcia.

  Backup arrived, and a squad of COs in “hats and bats” slowly opened the cage door. Garcia stepped away and sat down with his back to the cage. He took a deep breath and looked at peace, while Phillip roiled in agony, still bound by his cuffs, unable to even press his hands against his face to stem the flow of blood which flowed over his chin and down his neck.

  Phillip waited for his life to flash before his eyes, but there was nothing.

  All of a sudden, Phillip shot up in bed and let out a loud screech. He was shaking like a rattle; his cotton shirt was drenched with sweat. His hands covered his face and he was breathing heavily. He realized immediately that the recurring nightmare had found him again. But something was different. The nightstand lamp he left on didn’t shine on white cinder block walls. Instead, there was dark-stained paneling. He remembered now that he was in a motel room. He thought that David had put him there, but he wasn’t sure if that was just another dream.

  The carving knife lay before him on the nightstand. It told Phillip that David wasn’t a dream. He picked it up and slid it from the leather sheath. The knife glistened under the lamp. Streams of reflected light shot out against the shiny paneling as he gently twirled it. He admired its genuine staghorn handle. Phillip read the manufacturing engraving: “Sheffield.” He thought it was a well-balanced knife: twelve inches in overall length, a four-inch handle and an eight-inch blade. His breathing slowed and his eyelids grew heavier with each twirl. He eased the knife back into the sheath and cradled it, carefully laying the leather piece on the bedspread beside him. He rolled over on his side and fluffed up the pillow before resting his head there. His face, still hot from the nightmare, was cooled by the pillow. He recalled the agony of twenty-five years ago. After hundreds of stitches and a dozen operations and a year of sleeping in bandages, he couldn’t sleep on a pillow because of the excruciating pain until years later. It all seemed like yesterday.

  Never again.

  As he drifted off to sleep, a voice in his head kept repeating one name.

  David . . . David Thompson.

  Chapter 3

  Over the next week, David tried to get Phillip a place to live through government agencies, non-profits, and some churches. But in his mind what they had to offer was worse than the Red Apple Motel. The few rooms or apartments they showed were all located in far off, crime-infested neighborhoods in Albany or Mohawk City. Phillip said he didn’t care about the neighborhoods so long as the room or apartment was small and quiet, like the self-storage lockers along Central Avenue. David feared Phillip was going to live like a hermit wherever he ended up.

  But David figured that Phillip would have to walk outdoors one day and all he could see in these neighborhoods were scenarios that would land Phillip right back in prison. There was no program in place to help convicts like Phillip make the transition from solitary to the streets. The Red Apple Motel was a ten-minute drive from David’s house. He could easily keep an eye on Phillip there and quickly respond to any urgent calls.

  When the Mustang pulled out of the motel the following Saturday, everything—including the man and woman panhandling in front of ALDI’s Supermarket—was covered in a film of road salt. The white crusty coating was left over from an early April snow squall that had hit midweek. Phillip was hanging out the open passenger window like a dog when they passed U-Haul Moving and Storage. They passed it every time they cruised up and down Central Avenue. Today they were on their way to David’s house to have lunch with the family.

  “Phillip, do you mind rolling up your window? I know it’s sunny out there, but it’s barely above 50—”

  “You know, come to think of it, I really think I could live in one of them storage units.”

  “I don’t think it’s allowed, Phillip.”

  “Nobody would know.”

  “Sooner or later, they’d find you out and we’d be right back where we are today—looking for a place for you to live.”

  “I could wash my clothes in the laundromat next door. I could use their bathroom there too. That ALDI’s store is close by for food.”

  “Sure, and we could install a wood stove in the unit for heat.”

  “No, the vent for the wood stove would be a giveaway. You’d want a kerosene heater. It doesn’t need a vent.”

  “Drop it, Phillip. If you’re thinking of living there, you might as well call up the superintendent at Kranston and ask if your cell was still available.”

  Phillip sat back in his seat, rolled up the window, and became quiet. David’s comment had hit too close to home. Phillip despised being in solitary from day one. But now he found himself afraid of freedom. He’d be
a liar if he said he hadn’t thought about retreating to his cell. Life was awful there, but at least it was predictable. Everything was new to him now; all his nerve endings were raw. He felt like he’d been ripped from the womb at age fifty.

  The Mustang rumbled down the inner lane of Central Avenue toward Albany. There were two lanes headed in each direction, separated by a single turning median. David heard a siren wail in the distance; it was getting closer fast. He looked left and right at the intersection fast approaching, but he didn’t see any sign of the source. No flashing lights directly in front of him either. He quickly checked his rearview. Nothing. He glanced over his right shoulder at the outer lane and saw it was jammed with traffic so he couldn’t pull over.

  Phillip was of no help. He didn’t move and stared straight ahead like a statue. He wondered if the siren meant they were coming to take him back to Kranston.

  David’s turn to cross the intersection was imminent. If he missed it, he’d have to travel a full mile before he could turn around. So he rolled the dice and entered the turning median. The light was red and he came to a full stop to wait for the green arrow that would let him cross Central. Nobody was behind him. The siren screamed closer.

  David looked at his rearview once again. “Oh, no!”

  Phillip turned to David. The film of sweat on his forehead glistened in the sunlight. “What’s wrong?” he croaked.

  David pointed to his rearview. He spotted the siren’s source. The broadside of an emergency vehicle dressed in flashing lights was making a turn in his direction into the median from the opposite side. “Paramedics,” David blurted.

  Traffic on the other side was backed up in both lanes. The only way for the paramedics to clear the intersection was through the turning median and David was smack dab in the middle of it.

  David pulled the Mustang over to the right as far as he could to allow the paramedics to pass, but it took a good thirty seconds more for traffic to clear in the oncoming lanes so the vehicle could squeeze through.