by Tom Swyers
O’Neil’s hands trembled as he reached in the drawer. He pulled some sheets of typewriter paper out, separated one from the rest, and spun the knob while he fed it into position. “What is it you wanted me to type again?”
“Focus, Mr. O’Neil. Type: ‘Solitary confinement beyond fifteen days is torture.’ Make sure the first letter of each word is capitalized.” Phillip wanted to see if the typewriter’s uppercase letters struck lower than the lowercase ones, like the typewritten complaint filed with the Bureau of Licenses.
“Okay, I’m done,” O’Neil said, with his voice cracking.
“Let me see. Hand me the typed page.” O’Neil ripped it out and handed it to him. Phillip’s eyes became slits, his face reddened, he clenched the paper and shook it at O’Neil. Yet all the letters struck level with one another. Phillip wasn’t angry because the typewriter hadn’t malfunctioned like the one used to type the complaint. Certainly, that frustrated him. He simply wanted to believe that O’Neil was the only one behind every second of every day he spent in solitary. But the typewriter told a different story. No, Phillip was angry that O’Neil had typed “years” instead of “days.” “Do it again and do it right this time. I said days, not years.”
“I’m sorry. I’m very nervous.”
“You know what the Mandela Rule is, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well then get another sheet and type it out. As a matter of fact, type it out ten times like before—first letter of each word capitalized.”
“Okay,” O’Neil said, loading another piece of paper. He began typing.
“What is with you? How could you mistake days for years?”
“Like I said, I’m nervous.”
“I think your mistake just shows me that you really don’t think much of the Mandela Rule. Do you think it shouldn’t apply to us? Do you think we’re too good for some stupid United Nations finding? Is that what you think?”
“No,” O’Neil said as he typed away. “It’s just that it’s a new rule and these things take time.”
“Time? Don’t talk to me about time. Every day of delay means more torture for some lost souls in New York, across the country. How many do you torture per day now? How many are in solitary?”
“I don’t know—”
“You don’t know because you don’t want to know. It might cause you to think about what you’re doing. It might cause you to lose sleep to know that you’re the Commissioner of Torture in New York. You don’t want to take that title into retirement, do you? Is that the legacy you want?”
“I’m only one person in the system.”
“You’re the single most powerful person in the system, Mr. O’Neil. If anyone has a magic wand, it’s you. Stop with your smokescreen. Show some leadership, for God’s sake. Are you old school, Mr. O’Neil? Maybe that explains why you keep an old typewriter around. Is that what your problem is? How long have you been in the system?”
“Forty years.”
“Forty? That’s a long time. How old were you when you started?”
“Twenty.”
“What was your first job?”
“I was a CO.”
“Well, you must have dished out some solitary, even if they weren’t using it like it was going out of style back then. Isn’t that right, Mr. O’Neil?”
“It was necessary at times, yes.”
“I’ll bet you miss the good ol’ days. I can see you and your CO buddies today backslapping each other at retirement parties, longing for the good old days when nobody questioned solitary. I can see you yucking it up: ‘Remember when we put Dawkins in solitary back in ‘85? It was like the roach motel for him; he could check in but never check out. Those were the days.’”
“Times have changed since back then.”
“Have they really changed, Mr. O’Neil? Yeah, you guys have to work a little harder and smarter to keep us in solitary. But the results are the same. Look at me. If they hadn’t sprung me because of my innocence, I’d still be in the box today. So you worked yourself up to superintendent at Kranston after being a CO, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, eventually.”
“And from there, you went on to become commissioner. Rising through the ranks—a true American success story?”
O’Neil spun the typewriter knob and handed the paper to Phillip. “I’m finished.”
Phillip pushed the paper back. “Read it to me.”
O’Neil look puzzled. “You want me to read this back to you ten times?”
“Yes, that’s a good idea.”
“Okay, if you say so. But—”
“No buts. Just do it.”
“All right. Solitary confinement beyond fifteen days is torture.”
O’Neil read it over and over again out loud to Phillip. At first the words soothed Phillip. Here was the New York State Commissioner of the Bureau of Prisons reciting the Mandela Rule. Phillip closed his eyes the fourth time O’Neil recited the line. But soon his eyes were wide open. “Stop reading. You shouldn’t have to read it. You should know it by heart. I know what the problem is now. I can hear it in your voice the more and more you recite that line. You know what the problem is, Mr. O’Neil?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“You’re not saying it like you mean it.”
“In all fairness, you’re forcing me to say this.”
“You’re right. But I shouldn’t have to force you to read it. You should want to read it and it should come naturally to you. You should genuinely believe what you’re saying. But you don’t, do you Mr. O’Neil? Let’s be honest. You don’t think the Mandela Rule is worth the paper you typed it on. You think it’s ludicrous.”
“Like I said, times have changed—”
“But have you changed with them?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“Oh come on now, you really don’t think a few years in solitary is any big deal, do you?”
“It wasn’t when I was a CO later in my career.”
“Thank you. At least you’re being honest with me, finally. Do you see what the problem is now?”
“No, not—”
“You’re the problem. Not just you, but anyone who’s been in the system for too long. You all privately think this Mandela Rule is a joke. There’s no way things are going to change with people in the system who love dishing out solitary. There has to be a massive retraining effort. The culture has to change in the Bureau of Prisons. And that change has to start at the top.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m stepping aside and retiring.”
“Oh, I’m not buying that you’re doing anything noble here, Mr. O’Neil. I’m not buying that at all. You’re retiring because you figure you’ve got a fat pension that you’ve worked for all of your life. Like you said before, you want to leave the Bureau of Prisons behind. You want to leave this phase of your life behind and move on to enjoy your golden years.”
“Well, maybe things will change. Kleinschmit is going to be taking over my job. Even you said he’s a good superintendent.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t make him a good commissioner, especially since everyone around him still loves the box.”
O’Neil grabbed a tissue from the container on his desk and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
“It’s not hot in here,” Phillip observed as he moved around the desk to sit down in one of the two upholstered chairs facing the desk. “You’ve got this wonderful central air conditioning flowing from the registers. What’s wrong, Mr. O’Neil? Are you nervous? Are you afraid of me?” A voice in Phillip’s head said, Ask him about Boris. He pushed it aside.
“Should I be?”
“No, you shouldn’t be—not if you believe thirty years in solitary is no big deal. There shouldn’t be any problem with me after I’ve been in the box that long. Right, Mr. O’Neil?”
“If you say so.”
“No, I didn’t say that. Not even close. I’m just mimicking what you said. I’
ve got issues, Mr. O’Neil. Plenty of them, thanks to you and your kind.” Phillip lifted his pant leg, pulled the carving knife out of the sheath, and twirled it in one hand. It shimmered in the cool, fluorescent office lights that hummed with applause, at least in Phillip’s mind. The perspiration started to pour off O’Neil’s head. His lips quivered.
“I have every reason to slice you up right now and to watch you spurt blood like a fountain. There’ll be a bloodbath on this brand new beige carpet of yours. I can smell the newness of the fibers. But the metallic odor of blood would overwhelm it as you squirmed on the floor trying to cling to life. I’ll personally pick you up by the legs and squeeze, shake, and pound your body like an almost-empty bottle of ketchup to get every last drop out. There’d be so much blood that it’d probably stain the subfloor underneath. They’d scrub and scrub, but it wouldn’t make any difference. They could never get the stain and the smell out. This office would be a constant reminder of what solitary could do to a man. Killing you might even cause some long-needed changes. I’m sure you’ve heard of Tom Clements, former head of Colorado prisons. He was shot dead by an ex-con who did time in solitary. When his doorbell rang a few years back, Clements answered it and the ex-con said, ‘Pizza delivery man’ and then—Bam! Bam! Bam!—shot him dead. Read about him the other day on the internet. His killing sure brought about some changes in Colorado. But I’m not going to kill you, Mr. O’Neil. Not today, anyway. But I may move in next door to you, maybe live over the fence in the home in back of you. I know where you live. You and I can be neighbors. I’m sure you won’t mind living near me. There’s no law against it. You can introduce me to your wife and children. We can have barbecues in the summer, coordinate garage sales. I can watch your house while you’re away, pick up your kids from school when you get tied up. You and I can even chair the neighborhood watch committee. After all, a few years in solitary shouldn’t give you anything to worry about, right, Mr. O’Neil? It’s no big deal. If I can take living it for thirty years, you can at least take living next to it for that long. My condition wouldn’t bother anyone else in the neighborhood because they wouldn’t know any better. But you know what goes on in solitary at Kranston. You know what you’ve made me. Have you ever done time in solitary, Mr. O’Neil?”
“I’ve worked in solitary as a CO—”
“Not the same thing, Mr. O’Neil. Not even close. All you prison people are the same. You say solitary is no big deal. Let’s see you do it then. Let’s see the prison union chiefs do it, too. I’m not talking a day of PR time. I’m talking at least thirty days. Otherwise, it’s all talk.”
“Are you done yet, Dawkins?”
“If I could tattoo the Mandela Rule on you, I would,” Phillip said, tucking the knife way under his pant leg. “The name is Mr. Dawkins to you, sir. I know your name game. All the cons had to call you and the other prison brass mister on the inside. That’s what we were told. But you, the COs, and all the other prison personnel could call us by our last names. In this way you thought you could distinguish yourself from us cons, because you thought you were better than us when the truth is everyone—even you—is just one bad day away from becoming one of us.”
“Don’t compare me with a con.”
“Solitary is torture, remember? Sentencing someone to solitary in violation of the Mandela Rule is a crime against humanity. You’ve already had your one bad day a thousand times over. You’re one of us now. Welcome to the dark side, Mr. O’Neil. The system spares no one—not even you.” Ask him about Boris. There’s that voice again.
“All right, you’ve had your say. Anything else on your mind before you leave peacefully?”
Phillip recalled David’s conversation with Julius about Cameron and the CIA. He wondered if the CIA was a part of the system but decided not to ask O’Neil. If it was true and if O’Neil knew about it, he knew he would deny it. That’s what all CIA operatives did without fail because they knew if they didn’t they’d put their own lives in jeopardy. Phillip knew that if he voiced his suspicion and the CIA was really involved, he’d only make them even more desperate to kill him and David too. Phillip couldn’t do that to David; he couldn’t do that to Annie and Christy. There was nothing to gain by asking O’Neil about the CIA’s involvement, and there was way too much to lose.
Ask him about Boris.
Phillip thought by visiting O’Neil he might jar his memory to recall something from his past. But nothing had come to him during the visit, except the name of Boris . . . Boris Dietrich. He recalled that David was trying to identify him.
“Who is Boris Dietrich?”
O’Neil’s jaw dropped, his eyes bulged. He pushed his chair back from his desk with his legs and it rolled toward the window.
“Well, let’s have it, Mr. O’Neil. Don’t make me take my knife out again.”
O’Neil wiped droplets of perspiration from his upper lip. “Where did you ever hear that name?”
“Where I heard it is irrelevant. Judging by your reaction to it, I think you know that name. Who is he?”
“I don’t know anybody by that name.”
“Your reaction to hearing his name tells a different story.”
Suddenly, the office door unlatched and David slipped through the opening and closed the door behind him.
“What are you doing here?” Phillip asked.
Out of breath, David said, “I’ve come to take you home,.”
“Who are you?” O’Neil demanded.
“You shut up,” Phillip retorted.
“Phillip,” David said, staring down O’Neil, “I think we should leave now.”
Phillip stood there as stiff as the Lady of Justice statue on O’Neil’s desk. He was trying to process it all. He couldn’t lash out at O’Neil because he didn’t want to involve David in anything he might do to the bureaucrat. His talk with O’Neil hadn’t jarred his memory much. The absence of his own name from the central office list confused him. Even the typewriter didn’t implicate O’Neil. Phillip decided there was nothing to be gained from staying any longer. As much as it pained him to admit it, there was no closure to be had here. A new option hadn’t presented itself as he had hoped. It was time to make an exit—to regroup, to reassess.
“Okay,” Phillip said. “But before I go, Mr. O’Neil, I suggest that you keep quiet about our talk here today, unless you want the word about Edith and Janet Nowak spread all over New York State and beyond.”
David stood there in a daze, not knowing what to make of the situation. As far as he was concerned, Phillip had relations with Edith and was Janet’s father. But O’Neil didn’t respond to the ex-con’s demand. He sat there slouching in his chair, hands drooping beneath the seat, like he was guilty of something. Does O’Neil somehow believe that he’s the father? That idea was too much for David to grasp at the moment. He just wanted out. He put his hand on the door lever in anticipation of leaving. “Okay, Phillip, it’s time to get going.”
“All right, but I think he knows who Boris Dietrich is.”
When David heard this, his knees buckled. He used the door lever to steady himself and glanced at O’Neil’s slack-jawed face before looking at Phillip. Does O’Neil think—does he know—that Phillip is really Boris Dietrich? David wasn’t going to wait to find out. The last thing in the world that David wanted to have happen then was for Phillip to learn that he was really Boris Dietrich. The guy would explode; all hell would break loose. There’d be a bloodbath. “We can talk about it in the car,” David said firmly.
“But—”
“No time for ‘buts,’ Phillip. We need to go NOW before a goon squad comes and traps us in here. I evaded security to get in. It’s only a matter of time before they figure us out. I don’t think anyone here wants that to happen. We could all be killed.”
All Phillip needed to hear was the word ‘trap’ to get him moving. The last thing he wanted to do was to die trapped in a box at Kranston or in the box known as O’Neil’s office. Phillip knew that while his life w
as out of control, his saving grace was that if needed, he could exert some control over the time and place of his death. And the last place he wanted to die was in a box of any kind.
Phillip moved quickly towards O’Neil, who covered his face with his hands.
“Don’t do it,” David implored.
Phillip rolled O’Neil out of the way and yanked his phone line out from the wall jack. “All done,” he said.
David opened the door a crack before they both slipped out.
In a flash, Phillip wrapped the phone wire around the outer door lever and wrapped it to the lever of the adjacent office door.
“Follow me,” David said, in a hushed voice.
David hoped O’Neil stayed put until they were out. Side by side they strode down the passage between the window offices and the vast sea of cubicles in the center of the office. There were a few employees standing over the cubicle walls talking with one another, too busy yacking to notice the pair. Phillip pushed the entrance door hard and it flung open. They sped by the few people walking in the hallway.
“We’re taking the stairs,” David whispered, pointing straight ahead to the fire exit stairwell. They walked past the elevator banks. The security guard was sitting at his station with his back to them. Phillip then figured out how David had gotten to the office without an ID. The security office was focused on the elevators. There wasn’t anyone guarding the stairs.
The kerplunk of opening doors and the rumble of voices echoed in the stairwell as they both shot down the steps, with David leading the charge. After twenty plus stories they were dizzy when they flung open the ground floor door. In the lobby they race-walked to exit through the revolving door entrance. Once outside they broke into a jog side by side. When Phillip spotted the Mustang across the street, he blew by David like a gazelle. Phillip was in basketball mode like a point guard running a fast break. Phillip headed for the passenger door on the other side. David threw his keys into the locked door, opened it, and lunged to the other side to unlock the passenger door so Phillip could hop in. David peeled out before Phillip fully closed his door, and off they went toward Mohawk City and home base.
