Caged to Kill

by Tom Swyers

  Slowly, David brought his finger past Phillip’s head and stepped away from him. Sitting on his finger, with its wings open, was a butterfly.

  “He must have thought you were a flower,” David said, smiling. Phillip was wearing his favorite violet-blue turtleneck.

  Phillip stood like a statue, mesmerized by the small butterfly slowly opening and closing its wings. The undersides of the wings were pale gray with a continuous band of orange crescents inside iridescent blue spots along the edges. The topside of the wings were powder blue with narrow black margins.

  “That’s . . . spec-tac-ular,” Phillip said in a stage whisper, as he calmed down. “What is it?”

  “It’s a male Karner Blue butterfly.”

  “Really? It’s named after this town?”

  “Yes, it was formally identified here around 1944 by the author Vladimir Nabokov and named after the town. But they are also found in other states with similar ecosystems.”

  “Didn’t he write . . . Lolita?”

  “Yes he did. Have you read it?”

  “No.” Phillip moved his head around the butterfly, slowly inspecting every detail “Can we keep it?”

  David’s eyebrows popped up. “Where would we keep it, Phillip?”

  “I don’t know. A jar, maybe?”

  David couldn’t believe that Phillip, of all people, wanted to imprison the Karner Blue. But he understood that he meant no harm. Phillip had the fascinated look of a little boy on his face—a welcome change from the leftover prison stare that was still his default expression. “And what would you do with it?”

  “I don’t know. Just watch it, I guess. I’ve never seen a blue butterfly.”

  “Well, we can’t keep him. The Karner Blue is an endangered species. It’s against the law to mess with them. One of the reasons they’re endangered is because so many butterfly hunters want to add them to their collections. Besides, he’ll only live a few days before he dies. We don’t want to take that away from him.”

  “Really? That’s all the time he’s got?”

  “Yeah, he’ll mate and the female will lay some eggs and another generation will come to life before the summer is out. Then that generation will produce some eggs that will winter over. The cycle will repeat itself next spring.”

  “The eggs will survive the winter?”

  “Yeah, as long as there’s a good snowpack to insulate them.”

  Phillip nodded. He knew the value of a good snowpack to insulate himself. When the winter wind howled and it was snowing in the rec cage, he was the only con to venture outside at Kranston. The COs would give a shovel to any inmate if they wanted to take a stab at clearing some snow. There was no place to shovel it except to the middle part of the cage. Piling it up there allowed Phillip to create a rectangular walking path around the perimeter of the cage. But more importantly, over time the shoveled snow in the middle accumulated to a height of six or seven feet, high enough to create an igloo. He could make a snow cave, where he could curl up, fall asleep, and protect himself from the bedlam of solitary, at least for part of the hour he was allotted for daily rec. “Why are they endangered?”

  “They have a hard time co-existing with humans. The Karner Blue caterpillars only eat wild blue lupine. Habitat like this pine barren, which is favorable to its growth, is disappearing into house lots and shopping plazas. If there’s no lupine, there’s no more Karner Blues.”

  A breeze blew across the meadow and the butterfly flew away. David and Phillip chased it over a dune and into another meadow, where dozens of Karner Blues danced above the lupines like they were blown out of a confetti cannon.

  Phillip gaped at the scene, wild-eyed; to him it was like a bit of Fantasia. He brought his hand to his mouth in astonishment and gasped. His smile was so wide that even his huge hand could barely cover it. “Can I borrow your phone, David? I want to take pictures.”

  “Sure,” David said, taking the cell out of his back jeans pocket. He tapped the camera icon, and handed it to Phillip. “Zoom like this, tap the screen where you want the camera to focus, then tap this icon to take a picture. You got it?”

  “I think so,” Phillip said, raising the phone towards the swarm of butterflies.

  “Try to stay on the path as much as possible. You don’t want to disturb the vegetation.”

  “Okay.”

  The phone made a shutter click sound every time Phillip took a picture. He took close-ups bending over, lying on his stomach, and on his back. He took distance shots from a variety of angles. David just sat on the path and watched him dance along the strip of sand that wound through the meadow trying to get the best shot. He fit right in, dressed in his violet-blue turtleneck, a color that was a close match to the female Karner Blue. The entire scene reminded David of when he first brought Christy to see the Karner Blues at the age of seven.

  When the camera’s memory chip was filled to capacity with pictures, Phillip staggered back to David totally out of breath but with a grin still painted on his face.

  “What are you going to do with all those pictures?”

  “Hang them in my barbershop.”

  “That’s a nice idea. They’d fit in well. We can take the camera over to Staples and have them download the pictures to make posters. Speaking of your barbershop, did you get all your paperwork in for the grand opening tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Tomorrow is a big day.”

  “Yes.”

  When David reached Manny Romano by phone three weeks ago, he was between customers in the same Syracuse shop where he had taught Phillip barbering thirty years ago. After he talked to Phillip, he told David he was willing to vouch for Phillip’s two-year apprenticeship. He signed the necessary paperwork required by the Bureau of Licenses.

  Phillip was fortunate. Changes to the law required that Phillip’s apprenticeship training be within one year of applying for a license, but there was no time-frame requirement back when Phillip was working for Manny. He was grandfathered in, so long as he passed a practical exam, which he did with flying colors.

  David had rented a space in a small brick commercial building on Central Avenue within walking distance of the Red Apple Motel. The space was like a wide hallway that went back twenty feet to the rear of the building. It had enough space for a waiting area in front, one barber chair in the middle, and a back-office area with a rest room off to the side. There was a frosted picture window in front. Annie hand-painted “Phillip’s Barbershop” in blue and a barber’s pole underneath the name. David rescued a used barber chair from a cosmetology school that was going to pitch it. Christy picked up some mirrors from around the neighborhood on trash day that they put up on the walls to make the space look bigger. Phillip picked out the black and white checkered linoleum floor from the Habitat for Humanity thrift store. The entire family helped to install it. When Phillip fell in love with some purple neon tubing on Craigslist, David and Christy picked it up and put it up around the perimeter of the ceiling.

  They were all excited to open for business. Phillip was just as scared as he was excited. All they thought they needed were customers. Everything seemed ready. But there was no way they could prepare themselves for what would happen when they opened the next day.

  Chapter 8

  On Monday morning, Phillip and David parked the Mustang in the front of the store to make it look as if there was a customer in the barbershop. Sheets of rain blew down Central Avenue from the west. In the parking lot, oily puddles and little lumps of soggy newspaper inserts dotted the pavement. Overhead, ominous clouds promised more of the same.

  “Well, here we are!” David beamed. He was hoping that his upbeat attitude would put Phillip at ease.

  Phillip knew that his daily routine was the thread that held his mind together. But there was nothing that felt routine when he ventured outside of his room. He could always control what went on in his cell. He couldn’t imagine people walking in and out of his cell all day. But that’s what he
felt it would be like to work in a barbershop.

  Not daring to look in the mirror hanging on the wall over work counter, Phillip went straight to his work station when he and David walked through the front door. He checked his assortment of electric clippers that hung on cup hooks under the counter. He made sure that the lithium batteries on the clippers were fully charged. On top of the counter, he had placed his stainless steel instruments of precision. Combs, scissors, shears, and his straight razor were all laid out on a white terrycloth towel like a surgical tray. Phillip picked up the razor and checked the blade. With his back to David, he took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. But his hands shook like an alcoholic with DTs.

  “Why don’t you give me a shave while we wait for real customers?” David asked while sitting in the barber chair and leaning back. “We don’t open up for twenty minutes anyway.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Relax, Phillip, you’re going to do just fine. You just need to get into the rhythm—into the routine of handling customers one at a time.” David was trying to reach Phillip. He knew how much Phillip valued a routine.

  But touching somebody—anybody—was not part of Phillip’s daily routine and having to touch so many different people, all day long, fell way outside of his comfort zone. Phillip knew this day would come. He had spent days visualizing ways to handle it, but the situation continued to make him lose sleep. Up to that morning, Phillip had never imagined a waiting area full of customers. He stared at six chairs in the waiting area when he walked through the front door. David had placed them there Sunday night after dropping Phillip off at the motel. “What if there’s more than one customer in the shop?”

  “Then they’ll have to wait their turn, Phillip. Don’t rush. Take your time and give the customer in your chair your undivided attention.”

  “But they’ll get angry if they have to wait too long.”

  “They understand that they have to wait, Phillip. That’s how it goes in a barbershop.”

  Phillip nodded. Beads of sweat popped up on his forehead. In solitary, nobody waited for him. And if he made a CO wait, he’d be punished somehow. Now all the customers had become COs in Phillip’s mind. The thought made his blood heat and his hands go cold.

  “Why don’t you lather me up?” David said.

  Now David was acting like a CO to Phillip—barking orders. Phillip closed his eyes for a second. He thought about the walk in the Pine Bush and how it put him in such a good mood all day Sunday. He looked forward to hanging the posters of the Karner Blues in his shop. It was easy for him to travel to places in his mind. That’s all the traveling he could do during his decades in the box.

  He threw a black plastic barber cape over and around David, then tilted the chair back exposing David’s neck. At that angle his jugular veins popped into view. Phillip thought he saw one begin to throb. He tried to contain himself—to stem the rising tide of excitement. In anticipation, he skipped the hot towel. Reaching for the electric shaving cream dispenser, he quickly pushed the button with his thumb, and the warm menthol-scented foam flowed into the palm of his hand. His jittery hand smeared pale blue cream all over David’s neck to cover the veins. But it was too late.

  David Thompson.

  The demons were back. Phillip stared down at the man who relaxed in his barber chair and his body shuddered with the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.

  In his dreams early that morning, Phillip had stabbed David to death once again and then woke up screaming his name. The dream was so intensely real he could almost smell the blood. It had taken place just over an hour ago. Now David sat in the barber chair as vulnerable as a sleeping baby.

  Phillip watched himself reach down for his straight-edge razor with its stainless steel blade. It was like a closed-circuit TV camera in his head, detached and remote. Phillip asked David to order the longest razor available because his hands were too large to control a regular sized one. They both researched the disposable razor blades on Amazon. Phillip asked David to order the highest-rated brand for sharpness. Only five-stars would do.

  For a few seconds, Phillip saw his hands come into focus on the black and white screen in his head. He would grip that blade and slice those veins, then he would stab David like a madman with the carving knife tucked away in his sock. Finally, he saw himself grab both his scissors and shears and stick them in David’s heart before he walked through the filthy weather back to the safe zone of the Red Apple. He’d take the carving knife to defend himself later against whatever came his way.

  David Thompson . . . must kill David Thompson.

  Phillip hated himself for these feelings that he could not control. Deep down inside he knew that David had sacrificed a lot to give him a chance to make it. He wanted to make it too. He wanted to be a barber, to live on his own as a free and independent man. That’s what he saw himself doing in his best dreams. He wrapped hope around those dreams like his mom wrapped a yellow ribbon around a tree hoping for his release. But Phillip couldn’t help the way he felt; it surged up in his gut like a flood tide—unbidden and unstoppable.

  Phillip was furious at the way David plucked him from his room and threw him into everyday life. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready. He’d stare outside his picture window and try to imagine himself outside. When he felt strong, he’d sprint to the ice machine and back or make a dash for the laundry room. From his point of view, it looked like progress. But this was too much, too soon.

  Phillip’s eyebrows drew together and almost ran down his nose. As his face turned crimson, his lips thinned until they disappeared. His body quivered when he grabbed the straight-edge razor. As he turned his back to the entry door, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Looking back was the face of a man who was about to bug out.

  Kill David Thompson now!

  David sat there with his hands folded on his lap, eyes closed, and a slight smile on his face. Little did he know that he had purchased the weapon that was about to send him to Eternity.

  With a flick of Phillip’s left wrist, the razor blade popped open from the handle like a switchblade. He passed it to his right hand like he was crossing over a basketball back on the Syracuse playgrounds. Phillip now held the back of the blade steady with his index finger. He twirled it in the overhead light and the blade glistened. There wasn’t even a fingerprint smudge on the mirrored surface. He stood over David breathing heavily. Narrowing his eyes to shield them from the squirting blood that would come, he brought the blade to David’s throat.

  Suddenly, the shop bell jingled while the entry door opened. In walked a tall man with thinning, straw-blond hair wearing large, mirrored sunglasses. Pulling the razor away from David’s face with a jerk of his arm, Phillip turned around to focus on the intruder. David opened his eyes at the bell and sat up in the chair.

  The man looked down while he pulled out the clipboard tucked under one arm. His head slowly revolved on his neck—left then right—as he scoped out the shop. He made no greeting.

  David popped out of his chair and wiped the shaving cream from his face with a terrycloth towel he snatched off the counter. He wasn’t about to make their first real customer wait for service. “We don’t officially open for a few minutes, but we can take you early.”

  Phillip stood there frozen in place, with the razor in his hand. He couldn’t believe that he was a split second away from killing David. Waves of guilt and shame flooded his brain, rendering him incapable of speech.

  Standing just inside the door, the man was taller than Phillip. Beneath his black wool overcoat, he wore navy blue slacks and an open-collar, powder blue dress shirt. You could see a white t-shirt underneath at his neckline. “It looks like you’re already open to me.”

  “No, no,” David said, “Phillip was just trying out a new shaving technique on me.”

  The visitor removed a ballpoint pen from his coat pocket, pulled the cap off with his teeth, turned the pen around, an
d stuck the end in the cap before removing it all from his mouth. “The law says if you’re shaving a man, you’re an open barbershop.”

  Then it hit David—this guy was a government man, a bureaucrat. He wondered if this incident was another CO shakedown. But he had researched the law. The COs as peace officers had no jurisdiction in a place of business unless, perhaps, there was a crime in progress. There was no crime in shaving a man’s face. David ripped off the barber cape. He was primed and ready for this new round of CO-generated BS. He would catch this clown in the act and then turn the tables on him either here or in a court of law. While his brain churned, the lawyer persona politely inquired, “What can we do for you, sir?”

  The man didn’t say anything. His only response was to put pen to paper on his clipboard and begin writing.

  David moved toward Phillip, who stood stock-still, hands at rest on the back of the barber chair, blade held in plain view. For a second, Phillip also wondered if this man was a CO. But he was too overwhelmed with remorse to give it much thought. He had very nearly killed his only friend.

  Keeping his back to the man, David covered his mouth and whispered to Phillip, “Is this guy a CO?”

  Phillip looked at their subject. The man’s sunglasses covered a good portion of his face. But he didn’t have to see it to make up his mind. He knew of no CO who was taller than him. He didn’t know of any CO who was as thin as this guy. Phillip shook his head.

  “Okay,” David whispered, “let me handle this. Lose the blade, Phillip.”

  Phillip folded the blade back into its handle and pressed it against the back of the chair.

  David walked over towards the man and stood between him and Phillip. “Are you here in an official capacity?”

  The man didn’t look up. The only sound in the room was his pen scribbling on his clipboard. “Absolutely,” he said, without budging. More scribbling filled the air.

  “Could I see your badge or some official identification then?” David asked.