Beyond the Guarded Walls

I remember that day when I first saw him. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but when I first laid eyes on Alex Baker I knew we’d both end up together in the coming days of our separate lives. Something about how he looked or something about him that I could not put my finger on. I guess I just knew we’d both end up together soon, maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong.
It was a cool afternoon out in the yard, us inmates referred to it as-January or February if I recall, me and two other men I’d gotten to know, but don’t really know if I considered them my “friends” stood around leaning up against one of the four walls surrounding the yard. I wondered what they thought about me as well.
George Bryant was a buffalo of a man, usually kept to himself, came to Desperation Indiana Penitentiary around November two years ago for murdering his wife and three children. Not long after, stood before the judge, convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The next morning after his court showing George was hauled here. The date was November 13-14 (I don’t remember) and that was the very day we had the first snow fall. It came down hard that night and in the morning when the inmates went out to the yard we just about froze our behinds off. The gusting wind didn’t make it any better I can tell you that. It felt as if a giant snowball fell from the sky and landed on you square in the head, then fell all the way to the ground, covering every inch of you body with the worst numbness you’d ever felt. That’s what it was like that day. Now, though, the snow has thinned and the winter feeling was slowly fading away.
Paul (Paulie, we called him) Garret was more skin and bone more than muscle. He’d arrived in Desperation in the summer of 1923. Paulie’d been sent here for murdering two families in the middle of the night. Each had four children and two parents. The court took his case strictly and sentenced him to the death penalty. He was set to be put down by Desperation’s oldest member in the entire building. Lighting, the oldest living inmates called it. I guess they called it that because a spark of electricity came down upon you like a wolf on a jack-rabbit. I’ve never actually seen anyone killed by Lighting, but I’ve heard stories about it.
Terrence Freeman was said to be one of the worst inmates to step foot in Desperation Indiana Penitentiary. Older inmates said he’d killed over thirty people, then went on the run for a year or two and they also say when authorities finally found him he was hiding out in a small woods in South Bend, Indiana holding a brutally beaten and bloodied little boy. Turns out Freeman raped the boy, beat him, then drowned him in a lake. Test results said the boy had died just a few days before Terrence was found. When the word got out citizens around the Indiana-Michigan area were outraged about authorities not finding him sooner before he took another innocent life of a child. He’d supposedly killed four other children that’d been raped as well before the last one he’d murdered. The children were around nine to thirteen years of age. Inmates had said Terrence was the first man to experience Lighting’s wrath and I believed those stories. Every single one of them.
Alex Baker was a fairly handsome man, kept to himself a lot, avoiding most people that neared him, just leaned against the prison walls and dozed off what it looked like to me. His eyes had this sort of mischievous look in them, like he had a secret or two, one that he hadn’t planned on telling any- one any time soon.
In the cafeteria me and my other “friends” would watch him silently eating his food alone ignoring all of the people around him noisily speaking to one another.
He didn’t eat much at all, usually just took a small amount of food, maybe because the cooking sucked is my guess.
After about four days of him barely saying a word to anybody, George, Paulie, and I watched him walk up to a gang of Hispanics hanging out in a corner of the yard. We were unable to hear what he’d been saying, but after a moment of them talking one of the Hispanic people shook hands with Alex and he was soon on his way back to the wall where he hung out by himself. “Think we should go over there and find out why he’s so quiet all the time,” George said out loud.
“Maybe we should,” I’d replied.
“Alright, then why are we just standing around here talking when we should be over there.” George had said.
We’d all set out toward Alex. He’d been staring at the ground, not noticing us until we were only a few feet from him. After a brief hesitation he lifted his head and looked me straight in the eyes, not George or Paul, but me and me only. His expression didn’t change when he saw me, then he looked at Paulie, then George, then back at me. “Why, hello there, gentlemen, what can I do for you?” His smile started showing, but it was small and didn’t last long.
We didn’t have an answer, no words, nothing.
“Uh, dunno I guess, just stopping by to say howdy I guess,” Paulie broke the silence between the four of us.
“Well hello, then.”
There wasn’t very much to say on the spot right there, it was kind of embarrassing standing there with nothing to say.
“So, what was with those people back there?” George finally said.
“Oh, nothing really, I was just asking them for a favor and what I’d give in return, pretty much it.”
“What did you need? You know, I’m a man here who can get things for a pretty cheap price, too you know.” Paulie’s skinny face smiled gleefully for the first time in a while. I don’t know if I’ve seen him smile ever since I’ve known him, there’s a first time for everything I guess. Paulie did know how to get things, though, he knew people out there who could get tons of things for him to give to the “customer” we called them, though the purchasing was illegal to do. It was like the black market. I’ve seen men carrying about 2 pounds of dope in the yard some days. In the holding cells the place sometimes wreaks of cigarette smoke, but the guards can never find where the smell comes from, because the stench is all over. Booze is a bit harder to sneak passed the guards, but it’s been pulled off before, I don’t know how, but I’ve seen it inside the four walls that close off our freedom from the rest of this godforsaken world.

When I first came to Desperation in 1919 I’d felt alone and went into a depression for a while, but as the years went by I learned more about the place and how to not get yourself killed and life began to get easier.
Back in those simpler times I was an abusive father and husband. Farthest back I can or want to remember was one night when my two boys sat at the dinner table and my wife was next to them, shaking like crazy. I remember not letting them eat. I never let them eat and if they did something I didn’t approve of I’d beat them and the kids would go to school the next morning with fresh bruises on their bodies. The only time the kids ate was at school and my wife had been a stay-at-home mom, she died first, then after the funeral I wouldn’t allow my children out of the house and they soon slowly and painfully starved to death just as she had.
I have the vaguest memory of doing this, but I was found guilty by the judge for starving my family and was sentenced sixty years in prison.
I was considered the lucky one out of the four of us: George was in for life, Paulie had a few more weeks until he was scheduled to be executed by Lighting, and Alex was also in for life.

One day in the cafeteria, the four of us were sitting together at a table no one else sat at. We’d been eating in silence until a man with these glasses that covered up half of his face approached the four of us. He stared Alex deep into his eyes within the darkest depths of his soul it seemed. It was like the man was only interested in only him and no one else had been seen.
“Why, Hello there, what’s a fine piece of man like you doing in a place like this? You need a real man instead of these fags,” the man said.
“ I think I’ll pass on that,” Alex told the man.
“Oh yeah?,” He said, “What you goin’ to do if I stick my-”
“Just try it, Boggs!” George screamed.
Later I found out the man’s name was Charles Boggs, brought in for raping a twelve year old girl. He was supposed to be in for twenty-nine years.
Boggs grinned at George, then at Alex and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close to his wrinkled face. Boggs’ foul breath scorched through into Alex’s nostrils and he could do nothing, but suffer. The three of us stood up, ready to pounce on Boggs if he tried anything other than pull Alex close.
Of course Charles pulled his fist up as if to strike Alex, one of the guards saw this and rushed over to the scene. One of the guards, a large man, grabbed Charles around the waist, trying to make him let go of Alex Baker, a defenseless man against the brute before him. A second guard came up from behind Charles holding up a baton, ready to swing it when he got close enough. The man got closer and closer, then swung with all his might. The baton hit Charles in the back of the head, sending him falling to the ground and letting go of Alex. The first officer took out his baton and started beating Alex with it. Alexander Gaylord Baker went to bed that night with freshly made bruises on his face and body. His right index finger had also been broken. As for Charles, he’d spent three weeks in the hole. I heard that when he came out he had been pale down to the bone and ate like a pig when lunch time came. I also heard he didn’t try to rape anyone and was soon marked as vulnerable and came out of the wash room with marks on his body and the smell of sperm on his prison suit. The morning he’d had large bruises on his face and arms.

On November twenty-first Paulie was due to be executed by Lighting, that’s what the date said today. He was unable to find sleep the night before, I even think he might have done some crying. I don’t blame him. I’d be as scared as he and probably do the same thing. In his cell he lay lifeless on his bed, staring at the ceiling, not noticing the guard approaching him slowly to take him down to where Lighting slumbered. The guard picked him up by the arms, but Paul still remained limp and unmoving. When the man put Paul on both feet he didn’t slump back down onto the floor, just stood in the spot he was set in. The guard took Paul’s arms and put them behind his back, then took out a pair of handcuffs and strapped them around his wrists. When he was pulled he went along groggily.
The guards led him down the long row of cells that seemed to stretch on for a long while, but they soon came to a stop standing in front of a large metal door. This led down a stair way to the basement where they kept ole’ Lighting, ready for another execution.
Paulie led himself down the long, winding stair way until he came to a second door as big as the first. The guard pushed passed him and opened the door. Paul squinted his blood red eyes as the door opened a bright light shined strongly in a small room full of empty chairs faced in front of a glassed off room where Lighting was kept. A priest stood silently holding his ancient bible in two callused hands that covered up close to all of the cover. He’d been the only one in the room, for everyone he’d known before he’d came to Desperation was long gone.
The cuffs that held his arms to the arm rests were set on tight-almost too tight-that his circulation was close to being cut off.