The road crew was coming back in for the day. Those are the inmates that are allowed to go out pick up trash, cut grass, or any other kind of menial task the government wants done for free. When I was first hired as a correctional officer, I was surprised to learn that most of the inmates loved being on the road crew. Kitchen was boring. Being a rock man, or custodian was under too much supervision. The road crew was the top of the line. The officers that drove the trucks had the most seniority and they were the most lenient. They were coasting towards retirement. You could kill another inmate as long as they didn’t have to do the paperwork. It was as close to freedom as these inmates were going to get in a while. They would scour the grounds for half-smoked cigarettes and if they found any, the officers didn’t mind letting them smoke, even though it was forbidden. What could it hurt? The one thing they couldn’t do is to bring any of that nonsense back to the facility.
I worked at the Thompson correctional facility on Evergreen Drive. It was a medium security facility. These inmates were 11/29’ers or prisoners convicted of misdemeanors. They weren’t your rapists and murderers. They could still contribute to society if they turned it around and a good deal of them were likeable fellas. In most cases, they behaved because they didn’t want to lose their current sentencing and get sent state-side or to the penitentiary. This was especially true of the road crew. It was a gravy job and no inmate wanted to ruin that.
When their shift was over and they were done for the day, those inmates had to be processed back into the facility. They had to be counted and strip-searched. I absolutely hated the strip-search. We usually processed them through one of the four solitary confinement cells that were out in front of pods A and B. You’d close the door and they would hand you their clothing one by one, starting with the shoes. You’d pull out the soles of the shoes and check the bottoms. Then you’d pull the socks inside out and shake them. Same for the rest of their clothing, including their nasty sweaty underwear, which I never touched. I’d have them do it for me. Finally, I’d give me that last humiliating command: “Squat and cough,” like some projectile was going to just shoot out their rear-end. I would give the command but I never had any intentions of taking a closer look. If they wanted whatever they shoved up there that bad, then they could have it. Some guards had a saying, “In your ass, it’s a pass.” And I never had any issues with that until Charlie.
Charlie was a smaller inmate. I think he was barely over five feet. He was mousey and very shy. You could tell he wasn’t a very smart man and he was mentally incapable of taking care of himself. You see enough inmates to know when someone really did not belong there. He wasn’t a criminal. He was a child. I always felt kind of sorry for him. He was destined to be a failure, to lose, to only achieve a certain level of sustainability in life, if even that. There were no Aces in the hole for him. He needed help. None of the other inmates messed with him though. He just didn’t have any friends. He was pitifully lonely.
Charlie was a good worker and the road crew officers liked having him around. I think they felt sorry for him too and would let him sit up front in the truck with them. None of the other officers I spoke with knew what he was in for. If you liked an inmate, you didn’t bother looking up his record. I figure whatever he did it couldn’t have been that bad if it was a misdemeanor.
It was mid-August and the inmates were especially rank. Four of us officers were processing a hundred or so inmates. I saw that Charlie was next in line. I was half-heartedly going through these searches. I was just ready to get it over with.
“Next.”
“Hey Officer Gatlin.”
“Hey Charlie. How was it out there?”
“Nice, but hot.”
“Yeah, it smells like it.”
Charlie chuckled, but would not look up. He never looked up. I never really looked into his eyes. I searched through all his clothes and there was nothing unusual.
“Alright, Charlie, squat and cough for me.”
At this point I usually don’t even pay attention. I turn my head and listen for the cough. When I hear the cough, I tell them to get dress and go to their pod. This time was different. For the first time in my career, something fell out and hit the floor. It sounded like a coin and I could hear it wobble before it came to a standstill. I looked down to see a bronze coin about the size of a silver dollar. Engraved on it was a woman dressed like a Greek Goddess in a toga holding a skull in one hand and a snake in the other. The snake was biting her in the arm and blood was trickling down and pooling around her feet. I surprised myself how close I had move to see what was on the coin. It had grabbed my attention and I was focused on the coin until I noticed how ridiculous Charlie looked. Naked and crouched down like a humanoid bird laying an egg.
“Are you kidding me!!! What in the world are you thinking?”
“I’m sorry Officer Gatlin. I saw it on the side of the road. It’s so pretty.”
“You know we can’t allow this. I’ll get in trouble. You’ll get in trouble.”
“Please. I need it. It’s good luck. It will protect me in here.”
I shouldn’t have done it but I let him have it. I figured it would be like a fidget toy or something and soothe his anxiety a bit.
“You can have it but you can’t let any other inmate see it or find it. You better not talk about it to anyone, even another officer. Is that understood?”
“Yes sir. Thank you. Thank you very much,” he said and I although I couldn’t see his entire face, I could tell he was smiling.
Lieutenant Adams asked me to work a double that night. I agreed. What else was I going to do and plus I needed the money. It’s an easy gig. Most of the inmates are asleep on third shift. This was physically the easiest job I ever had. You made a round every hour and recorded the time in your log. Simple, of course until some mayhem went down.
It was still second shift when I discovered Charlie in the bathroom. It was just after dinner and we had already collected the trays. Charlie had brought his tray into the bathroom and chunked into the trash. He was at the sink washing his new coin.
What are you doing? I told you not to have that out in the open and why did you throw your dinner tray in the trash?”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t even look up from washing his coin. He just ignored me and I hate that more than anything. I’d rather be cussed than ignored.
“Alright, give me that damn coin.”
I snatched the coin from his hand and put it in my pocket. He looked up with a sullen and angry face, an unrecognizable face. He looked different. He walked toward me and put his hand in my pocket. I was caught off guard. You should never let an inmate get that close to you but it was Charlie. I didn’t expect his brashness. I let him have the coin but decided I was going to blast him with pepper spray to teach him a lesson. I grabbed my spray in one smooth fast motion. This was the first time I had ever used it and I admit I was looking forward to it. We could do this thing in the bathroom and no one would say anything. It wouldn’t hurt Charlie that much and he was too timid to tell anyone. I could run the showers to dissipate the spray like the inmates did to get rid of the smoke smell from their cigarettes. I pushed down the nozzle and gave him a healthy blast to the eyes, but he just stood there eyes wide open. Now I was forced to keep spraying. If this wasn’t effective, he would never be intimidated by it and I might have to resort to other not-so-friendly procedures.
He never blinked and I never stopped spraying until the bottle was empty. We stood there looking at each other, neither one making a move. I was thinking about what I should do next but I was kind of stuck. I couldn’t call the other officers with the pungent spray still lingering in the air and him flashing his shiny new toy. They would know that I had used my pepper spray and would want to know why. Charlie would throw me under the bus and tell them that I had let him have the coin, but worst of all they would know that this small pitiful man had got the best of me.
“Just put that coin away when you’re done washing it!!”
The rest of second shift was uneventful. I did several more rounds. Charlie was laying in his bunk staring at the ceiling with his right hand in his pocket rubbing what I knew to be the coin. He never moved or took his hand out of his pocket.
Third shift was lights out. The inmates cleaned up the recreation room, had their showers, and went to bed. I was a pretty lenient officer. If any of the inmates weren’t ready for bed and they still wanted to talk, I would let them go to the bathroom and hang out there as long as they were quiet. I would bend the rules if they were willing to work with me. I did my first several rounds of third shift and everything was quiet. There was no one in the bathroom. I guess everyone was too tired to stay up later than usual and I was glad. I always worried that one of the other inmates might start complaining about the noise and then I would have to contend with some drama and the accusations of favoritism.
At one in the morning, I did another round. To do a round you have to walk from the guard station and into the recreation room which is a separate room in front of the living quarters where all the bunks were. At one side of the living quarters was the bathroom and showers. I would usually go first into the bathroom then walk around the bunks. This time though I was curious about Charlie. I was getting nervous about him filing a complaint about the spray and I wanted to invite him into the restroom. I was going to apologize but he wasn’t at his bunk. I decided that he must already be in the bathroom and I would have a chance to talk to him.
I went through the door of the bathroom and I could hear one of the showers running. I walked past the toilets and to the last shower stall. Charlie was sitting on the floor, legs spread out and blood all around him. He was naked and chewing on his left ring finger. Laying on the ground in between his legs were two of his fingers he had already gnawed off from his hand and next to his detached fingers was the coin. I noticed that any blood that touched the coin seemed to be immediately absorbed.
“Squat and cough Officer Gatlin,” he said and then started laughing, flashing his blood-stained teeth. He held his hand high and I could see that a new greenish finger was growing in place of his missing index finger. He smiled and chomped down on his ring finger, swinging his head from side-to-side like a dog trying to dislodge a piece of meat from the bone. I heard the bone snap and he pulled away his head tearing one last string of flesh away and spitting his finger to the ground.
“Code Red! Code Red!,” yelling without realizing I hadn’t even grabbed my radio yet.
I ran out of the bathroom and fumbled for my radio. When I got to the recreation room Officer Devon in the pod across the hall had already heard me. He had pulled his radio out and was calling for a Code Red. I could see that other officers were entering my pod.
“Gatlin, where is the code.”
“In the bathroom!”
“Then why are you out here,” screamed Officer Devon.
I turned and followed the other officers into the bathroom and already they were calling for the restraint chair.
“Charlie is hurting himself. Get that damn chair up here now,” I could hear another officer yelling. I was frozen at first. Two of the other officers had grabbed him by the legs and were dragging him away from the running water. Charlie lunged at Officer Devon and bit into his forearm. Devon screamed and starting punching Charlie in the face. Lieutenant Adams came running into the bathroom and pulled Devon away. I finally jumped in and grabbed Charlie by his wrist. By that time enough officers were on top of him. The put the spit mask over his head and shoved him in the chair, restraining his hands and feet. All this time Charlie was laughing.
We all stepped away to gather our senses. It was a collective shock. We were trying to get a mental grasp of what was happening. We heard an unrecognizable sound but then again who would know what a growing finger would sound like. A green finger had sprouted through the mangled flesh of Charlie’s middle knuckle and then the other came through his ring finger. We all stared it- the human hand with three alien fingers, those being much longer than Charlie’s original fingers. It was a startling mash up of demon and man, the metamorphosis of which was not quite finished. He tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair as if waiting patiently to resume his grisly transformation.
“I want my coin Gatlin,” said Charlie. His voice was different. It was deeper and full of malice.
“What is he talking about?”
“Lieutenant, I don’t know.” My lie immediately betrayed me. I couldn’t help myself but I looked right at it. The Lieutenant walked over to pick it up.
“Don’t touch it!!!”
“Gatlin, you’ve got some explaining to do.”
“I can’t explain this.”
The Lieutenant thought better of it and told me that it was my responsibility to clean up the mess and to get rid of the coin. Everyone was to fill out an incident report but before we did we were going to meet and discuss the appropriate details and which should be included and which should be omitted. As the Lieutenant left the bathroom, I could hear him yelling at the inmates to get back to their bunks.
They rolled Charlie into the medical office and left him with the nurse. This was a minimum-security facility. There was no room especially made for suicide watch. If it ever got to that point, you called the psychiatrist and had him pump the inmate full of Haldol and shipped downtown and that was our immediate plan of action. I first had to clean up the biohazard that was pieces of Charlie in the pod bathroom.
I had my latex gloves on but I didn’t feel one bit safe when it came to picking up that coin. I started first with the fingers. I picked those up and put them into the red biohazard bags. I was shocked to see no blood. Was it true? Had I really seen that coin absorb the blood? I didn’t know but I felt relieved that I didn’t have to clean up blood. The coin seem to shimmer and glow. I know it was all in my head but it stood out. It scared me. Where was this thing from? Where did he get it? I was scared too not just because Charlie was a monster but he was a monster with a personal vendetta against me. I was going to make it right, but he had changed before I had the chance.
“Code Red!! Code Red!! Code Red!! Medical office! Medical office!”
I hesitated. I did not want to answer that call. Who would blame me. I waited for a moment and then something just pushed me to go. I had to respond. I ran as fast as I could down the hall past the kitchen. I could see the other officers running from the opposite end but there was no excitement in their faces, not even a nervous anticipation of action, but a look of unadulterated fear. They didn’t want to respond either. We as a group turned up the hall leading to the medical office. Other officers were gathered outside the door but couldn’t get in. I could hear the buzzer but the door would not budge. I ran up to the window and peered inside.
The nurse was a big man. It was odd that he was a nurse and not an officer but even odder than that was that he was laying on his stomach but his neck was twisted so that he was looking up at the ceiling. His arms were broken and laid across his back. Charlie had climbed about five feet up the wall like a spider. His flesh was torn on various spots of his body. He had been biting off what flesh he could, revealing another body underneath. On the nurse’s desk was an eyeball. It was Charlie’s. Nothing alien had grown in his empty eye socket, at least not yet.
“We’ve got to get in there and restrain him.”
“No, we don’t,” mumbled Officer Devon.
“Charlie, your coin is still in the bathroom.”
I don’t know what possessed me to say that, but I think I wanted a resolution and I wanted it fast. Charlie turned his head far enough for me to see his other still-intact eye.
“My coin. Yes, please.”
For a moment I thought I heard the old passive Charlie.
“Get away from the door and go back to your pods,” I said.
“What are you doing?”
“Early release Lieutenant.”
We all cleared from the door and walked back to our pods, well except for me. I went to the recreation room of the pod across from my assigned pod and waited with Devon. I radioed up to booking and told them that they were to buzz open the door to the yard when I radioed to do so. Devon and I just waited and watched.
“We should go and get your inmates out of there and put them in this pod, don’t you think?”
“Sure, if you want to, but I’m staying right here.” I felt bad but I was sure that Charlie was more concerned with escaping instead of hurting other inmates, or at least I hoped so.
Soon Charlie came limping up the hallway. He looked like a calico cat that had been run over by a car. In some places he was a torn, bloodied, and battered human and in other places he had patches of scaly skin, not resembling anything from this world. He walked through the recreation room and disappeared through the dark of the living quarters. It took a while but eventually he came back out and stopped in the recreation room peering through the thick security glass. I walked out of Devon’s pod and walked towards the door that led out to the yard where inmates were usually loaded into trucks to work the road crew.
“Buzz the door open.”
The door unlocked and I propped it open with a door stop. Charlie was watching me but wouldn’t move. I decided to walk back to Devon’s pod and go back inside. I wasn’t going to get in Charlie’s way. Looking through the security glass across to the other security glass where Charlie was standing gave me a strange sense that I was now his prisoner. I would never be able to not think about him, to not fear him. I was his prisoner.
Charlie hobbled out of the recreation room. He made his way past the end of the pod and walked out the yard door and to freedom. I hurried to the yard to catch a glimpse of him and which way he would be going. I saw him scramble up the fence with ease and crawl over the top of the razor wire. The razor wire was clutching to his skin, but he didn’t care. It was as if he didn’t even feel it. He pushed his body over the other side of the fence and dropped to the ground. I could see that the wire cut him deep from his elbows to his wrist. He bled profusely, spilling out and falling to the wet grass. He saw me looking at him. He clutched the fence with his hands.
“Gatlin, remember to squat and cough.”
Charlie walked away. The monster was free. Laying on the pavement of the yard in front of the fence was a shiny coin.