by C. J. Sutton
“So, what did you think of old snake-fucker?”
Three guards sat around a steel table cradling white coffee mugs, the workers breathing in the warmth greedily, not wanting the prisoners to feel its welcome. Walter Perch stood by the door of the social room, uneasy, brow furrowed as though a riot was expected at any minute. Magnus took a seat next to a female of middle age, her stomach bulging over her waistline. They all wore black pants and black shirts, camo gear in midnight.
“He despises humans. He believes they’re below animals. He sees himself sitting on a ledge in between us and them, distinct from us and reaching up towards them. Annie, his anaconda…there is a sexual feeling towards her; a man trying to win the heart of a woman slightly out of his league. He almost worships her…”
Magnus trailed off into thought, while an older man at the opposite end of the table shook his head.
“You know what’s funny, Martin?”
“It’s Magnus.”
“Whatever. It’s funny, because they keep that fucking anaconda down at the zoo in town, but does he know that? He thinks she’s going to stroll up one day and pay his bail, devour us all or break him free. Bake him a goddamn cake with a stick of dynamite inside.”
“He’s said that, has he?”
“Well, no,” said the old man, one eye closing over.
“You’re doing exactly what Mr. Simmonds would want you to do; telling stories, making him more than he really is. In sitting around this table, sipping your coffee which I know has Scotch in it, you’re stopping his recovery, whether you know it or not.”
Silence answered the claims of Magnus, until the older man known as Carter found his courage in the bottom of his cup.
“You’ll be done in a week, chum. You have been given the most pointless task in the world. They keep sending people like you here to heal those left in Dortmund, because let’s be honest: they want the inmates to go to a prison so this place can be shut down. This whole damn building for nine inmates, it’s ridiculous. But, hey, I pull $120,000 a year for working here six days a week doing very fucking little. The four of us get paid so well to watch degenerate fucks that are so messed up that escape isn’t their number one priority. So really, I don’t want you to heal them,” said Carter, finishing his Scotch/coffee cocktail and standing up alongside Brian, the muscle of the team, “because I want my job, and I don’t want this place to become a museum where weekend dads bring their fucking children for a treat.”
Magnus watched as Carter huffed, half expecting him to punch a wall in anger, flushed.
“Don’t mind him,” said Shirley, hardly a rose between thorns. “Carter isn’t exactly a welcome mat.”
“I prefer Simmonds,” said Magnus, unable to detract the unease Walter put amongst the group as he waited for an event to set them all into action. “It’s just the four of you?”
“There used to be a nurse,” said Brian, muscle straining against black clothing to test its stitching limits. “She’d check their health, heal their wounds when they found a way to cut themselves. But Jasper…his whispers taunted her. She became obsessed, tried to set him free. Walter found her with the master key, fired her ass. Last I heard, she killed herself.”
“What about the last doctor?” asked Magnus.
“She was too pretty for this place,” said Shirley, off on a tangent and ignoring the question. “If you’re going to work here, you’ve got to be an ugly brute like me.”
Carter and Brian suppressed smiles, but Walter didn’t budge. The social room had a sink, a coffee machine, a small bar fridge and lockers for the guards to store their belongings. White walls were streaked with decay; maintenance on the structure was waiting for when the inhabitants made an exit.
“How do you manage to hold this place down with four hands on deck, because by the looks of things you don’t use drug therapy of any kind?”
“Well,” said Brian, enjoying the role of fulfilment, “there are some night hands that patrol when we’ve worked too many days straight. They are forbidden from going near the cells, but they can call us in if there’s trouble. Other than them, why do you need more people? Feed them, let them rot. They can’t be saved. The only drugs we have are sedation to keep the claws from tearing out our eyes.”
“They can be saved,” said Magnus, not looking at anyone, focused on the floor. “Everyone can be saved, nobody is naturally a murderer. There are triggers, there are endpoints. I didn’t start psychology to take stabs in the dark and hope. Hope is for those without the skills to make a difference. I will save them, whether you four like it or not. No drugs? Even better.”
He didn’t realise he was finger-pointing.
“Who you got next?” asked Carter, refilling his mug with only coffee this time, trying to be civil with the new member of the team. Magnus deferred to Walter, a leader even if he didn’t have the ego to call himself one.
“Matthew Chaos. You ready?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“I’ll be right outside, just in case.”
“Too bad you’re white,” muttered Carter, drinking heartily, “you’ll pray for drugs.”
Matthew Chaos
Pen and paper is a foolish ploy people use to appear professional. Recording only finds what is obvious. Search deeper, Magnus, pierce the film of their past.
“Another fucking white boy, know what I’m saying? It’s like they send you crispy biscuit motherfuckers in here just to piss me off… like, I ain’t hurting nobody, send in a nigger.”
Magnus watched the young man pace around the room, no restraints, swiping his hand down forcefully with every word. Just the sight tired the doctor out.
“Like fuck that, know what I’m saying. No nigger doctors around? Shit. I’m going to get out o’ here and fuck up your shit, know what I’m saying. No fucking cracker cocksucker goin’ clean me up…you ain’t wiping my ass, know what I’m saying.”
“What’s your name?” asked Magnus, trying to decipher the words rapidly dribbling out of his patient’s mouth. This was a larger room than Claude’s, with a small filter of light shining in through the grates in the top right-hand corner. Light from beneath a cloud-filled sky. Magnus knew his shift would end at 8pm, meaning the day was churning to a close. True darkness would arrive within the hour.
“Matthew fucking Chaos, know what I’m saying. The fucking man. I’ll tear out those white eyeballs an’ down ’em like jelly.”
“Okay, Matthew, what’s your story?”
“No, white boy. No. You say please, know what I’m saying. You talk to me you say please, every single time. No excuses. Try again, know what I’m saying.”
Magnus took a deep breath, leaned back and found the wall behind him. He didn’t sit. He didn’t speak. He watched, calmly, the man before him; the youngest patient at Dortmund Asylum.
“White boys put me here. White boys just like you. One white boy in particular, know what I’m saying. Same ugly fuck hook nose you have. Same cocky look. You fucking related? All you white people escaped the same cunt, know what I’m saying. I will slip through these bars and rip off that tic-tac cock. Wanna see what a real cock looks like?”
Chaos pulled down his tattered black pants to reveal his anatomy, dangling like the trunk from an angered elephant.
“How ’bout I stick this down your throat? Know what I’m saying. Choke on this, motherfucker. Gave it to that nurse, heard she swallowed her tongue. Swallow this, bitch, know what I’m saying.”
The inmate had blood dripping from knuckles, hate pulsating from muscle, a vendetta set deep within his heart. As a cloud moved to give the falling sun more reign, marks were apparent across the wall at shoulder height. Marks made by a man inflicting his own pain on the chambers of his existence.
“So you’re here because of the white man? One white man.”
“Excuse me? All the fucking same, one white man, another white man, you the white man. Might as well be you, fucking hook nose cheese grating fuck. You are i
mpure, know what I’m saying you educated fuck? Impure, uncleansed, blame the nigger for the problems. One day there’s this riot, know what I’m saying. Anti-racism march down the street. Anti-racism for the niggers, but fuck that. I don’t need no pity party from the crackers. I roll up with my boys to show them what it’s all ’bout. Show them that the dark-skinned don’t need no support from the milky. We rock up with planks of wood, know what I’m saying, not that heavy-duty artillery gun bullshit. That’s for cowards. Movies have us tilting it sideways like we know nothing ’bout nothing, that’s all shit. Just shit, white boy. So I smash some bitch in the mouth with my wood. Not me cock, stop staring unless you goin’ come in and suck it. Her head opens up, fucking tomato dropped from the high rise, splatters all over her banner, know what I’m saying. White flag turns red. We don’t need no pity party from the white. I swing my wood, don’t care who it hits, as long as that target is white. I’m like a fucking bull, know what I’m saying, instead of charging at red I’m charging at white and making them bleed red. Cops on fucking horseback, like some slave drivers from the fucking eighteen hundreds. What is this? I ain’t picking no motherfucking cotton. People be running…they still against racism when the black man chases them home with a plank o’ wood?”
Matthew Chaos started re-enacting his movements during the riot, a smirk upon each swing and thrust. He chopped the brick walls like they were made of feathery pillows; he didn’t wince. He growled, spat and cursed as though thirty people stood before him.
“You’re in here because of a riot fight?” asked Magnus, barely paying attention, assessing the coffee stain on his white shirt.
“I been in many fights. This place be crawling with niggers if they pop us all in here. Nah…”
He seemed to calm, sweat and blood pouring off his shiny exterior, his shirt now off and his cock still dangling between his legs in full view.
“White boys, pro-racism, rock up on their motorbikes, know what I’m saying. Wearing vests with a symbol on the back…nigger haters…we’ve clashed before. Leader is the hook nose white man, looks like you, fucking white boy rolls up like he owns the fucking land, know what I’m saying. We holding wood, they holding knives. People screaming, bleeding, dying all around us like a fucking battlefield…”
Chaos is sombre now, staring into Magnus’ eyes, burrowing deep within.
“White boy smiling, invites me over with his free hand. Cops can’t shoot us…too many people…but they want to. They’re waiting. White girl gets too close. I grab her by the wrist, slam her into the concrete. Take off her jeans. Cock…is hard. My boys start running away…”
He’s breathing heavy, erect, standing now. Matthew Chaos moves over to the barrier separating the two men and tries to squeeze his head through.
“I mount her…like the horses would. I can’t hear her screams. I can only feel her shudder. Everything else…is blocked out. Black. Like me…”
His tongue is swishing around outside his mouth, licking the bars, slurping. Magnus can’t retreat any further.
“I feel it building. It’s coming…but I’m ripped out…by the fucking white boy! He’s holding me like a Christmas decoration, know what I’m saying!”
Matthew’s head is stuck, he is kicking and screaming and tears are falling from his eyes, the widest eyes Magnus had ever seen.
“He doesn’t stab me…drags me along the concrete with my cock out…right up to the cops. He said something to them…can’t…quite…remember…”
A black hand flies out of the cell and misses Magnus’ throat by an inch. Magnus falls to the ground, watching Matthew twist his head further and further into the bars, veins popping out of his temple.
“You wanna know the name of that white boy?”
“Sure,” said Magnus, regaining composure despite the scene.
“Jasper James, know what I’m saying.”
Walter Perch streamed into view, placed a boot on Matthew’s face and pushed with all his might. The inmate fell backwards into his cell, coughing out blood and giggling at the same time. The bars were drenched in liquid, their drips echoing throughout the Asylum.
“Who’s next?”
The Hotel Room
The mind determines what is real, and what is not. Alter a mind, and you can alter their reality, Magnus.
The movie danced across the small television set in the hotel room, no volume; a man wading through thick forest moss trying to escape civilisation. Magnus sat on the bed, opening the package that had been slipped under his door during his first shift at Dortmund Asylum. It was marked URGENT. He sipped from a mini Smirnoff taken from the mini-bar; all expenses paid, they’d said. It read:
Dear Dr. Paul
Apologies for the short job description: few people were as eager or as qualified to take on the role at Dortmund Asylum. We hope your first day went well. We no longer want to run the building as an Asylum for the criminally insane. Your contract, which was for 6 weeks, will coincide with the closure of the Asylum. At that time you will be writing a report on each of the 9 inmates remaining in the facility: they will either be passed as sane and sent to a maximum security prison for life, or executed under an act we’ve filed with the government. Due to the extremity of their cases and the direction of incarceration in this country, no other mental health facility will take these cases. Please think very carefully about each case. Your personal recommendation will be added to the assessment by the law and others involved in this situation. If we can assist in any other way, please call the number on the back of this document.
Thanks again for your help, and I look forward to our meeting when your time in Dortmund concludes.
No signature. Magnus placed the sheet on the bed and walked over to the mini-bar. He withdrew two more mini Smirnoff bottles and cracked the lids. He poured them into a glass of dry ginger ale and drank the contents in two gulps. Magnus wasn’t surprised by the letter. He’d read about a similar scenario in Germany ten years ago and had an inkling that this would be mirrored. Nobody deserved to be executed, that was his theory. Everyone could be cured. He’d cured The Goat. He could cure anyone. Magnus just hoped that six weeks was long enough to cure the sickness.
The hotel room was too small, stifling, no balcony to sit on to receive the night air and a window that would only crank open a few centimetres. Other than the television there was no avenue to entertainment, so Magnus was forced to read over the papers he’d compiled during his study and his other work assignments.
He pondered over the two cases he’d seen so far: Claude Simmonds and Matthew Chaos. Both he could understand: at its most basic Simmonds wished to be animal; Chaos wished to be hated. One aspect he circled back to was the mention of Jasper James. If anyone posed the greatest task of his career, it was the biker. These men were condemned to their own stories and their own minds because all they had to be stimulated by was the occasional presence of a doctor, nurse or guard. It enhanced the significance of their stories as they stalked the cells.
There was a knock at the door. Magnus jumped, dropping his papers to the carpeted ground.
“Yes?”
“Ahh, doc…it’s me, your driver. Do you need…anything? Anything to drink, to…play with? Nothing?”
“No.”
“Okay, well we leave at sunrise, earlier shift for you tomorrow.”
“No problem.”
As Magnus tried to catch the thread dangling from his train of thought before the intrusion, he focused on the sounds from outside: nothing. No cars roaring by, no chatter from those walking the night, no hum of life. The town was eerie. The Asylum had a hold deep into the roots of Dortmund. They wanted to utilise it for another means, a means of profit rather than a facility for those with the sickness. And Magnus had six weeks to save their lives.
Imagery from the stories replaced the movement on screen…of snakes writhing, of spiders crawling through human remains…Magnus felt an itch up his nose, blew it hard. Too hard. It bled, the trickle tickling h
is upper lip, dropping onto his black university T-shirt.
“Shit,” he muttered, trying to clean the stain but only rubbing it in deeper. A flash hit the screen, a moment that took him by surprise like the head of Matthew Chaos edging closer and closer in a confined space, twisting into the gap, veins bulging with hateful blood.
“You right, doctor?” said the taxi driver from outside, even though Magnus had hardly said a word. He felt like the inmate, the accused, the man with the sickness given six weeks to prove sanity or be slain by those who cast judgement, executed for profit’s sake.
Magnus slowly lifted from the bed, hoping it didn’t creak, and manoeuvred towards the door. He peered out of the peephole, expecting to see the greying driver doing the same from the other side…but there was nothing, just a hallway with two other red doors and a staircase that led down to the ground floor on one side and up on another…he could feel a presence, lurking in the shadow, waiting for him to leave.
The flashes from the screen danced darkness against the walls, a show for silhouettes to wreak havoc in the room. Magnus slipped the extra lock across the door, checked the knob for safety and turned off the television…and with it, his mind.
Digits Wright
If you wait for the police, you’re handing them the keys to the castle. Once the keys exchange hands, the castle is no longer yours, Magnus.
“I killed my boss with a laptop. Can anyone else say that?”
Magnus had requested a chair for this case, not wanting to fall to the floor in the face of an inmate again. The letter had confirmed the importance of his task.
“The guy I had lunch with for three years, every day, had the QWERTY keys from my keyboard embedded in his forehead.”
Donnie Wright, otherwise known as Digits, was seated cross-legged in his cell, looking up to and nodding at Magnus Paul. His uniform was crisp and neat, no tears or holes in tattered form like that of Chaos. The cell had no inner damage, and the plate Donnie ate off was clean and placed in a container that would be passed to the guards. He even had a plastic fork – a privilege.
