PRISON FICTIONS

Summer School

By Joshua Ryan

This is a fictional story about adults, and for adults only.

Part 1

If You Wanted to Know What Your Teachers Were Thinking . . .

This summer is going to be a tough time for me.  It isn’t because anything will happen; it’s because nothing will happen.   Nothing except watching my life continue its slow but constant process of decay.  Unless you move forward, you move backward.  I’m moving backward.

All right.  Teachers have the summer off.  As a high school teacher, I have three months to travel, fix up the apartment, read all the books I’ve been intending to read.   Sure.  As if I had enough money to just fly off to Monte Carlo for a few weeks.   And I’m still a renter—what do I care about replacing the cabinets?   As for reading—I guess I’ve done that before.

Of course, I also have time to spend every night at the bar, chasing down a new boyfriend.  In other words, I have time to find another guy who will dump me before the end of summer.   I’ve done it; I’m tired of doing it.   Now, when I go to the bar, I go to drink.  Well, also to look, from time to time.  But that just shows how weak I am. 

Meanwhile, I can look forward to the great autumnal re-invigoration, the process of getting so bored with summer that you actually feel inspired about “meeting your classes” in the fall.   Yeah.  A thrilling prospect.

It didn’t take me long, during my so-called teaching career, to stop feeling hopeful about the newest inhabitants of Senior English.   People say, “So what if nine out of ten of them are hopeless morons?  You’ve still got that other one.”  Yeah, and that other one is a neurotic little grade grubber.  Like I was.  That’s why I got A’s.  That’s why I got a BA and an MA and landed a job at a good (it says “great”) private school.  So that’s something to live for--helping the next generation of grade grubbers grow up to be just like you.  When I give an exam, I look at the rows of young faces staring down at their bluebooks, and I wonder whether any of it is worth the effort.   For them.  For me.   For anybody.  Knowing that it isn’t.

And what happens if the “students” don’t pass the test?  What happens if they aren’t like me and have their parents die before they get to college, so they’ve got to keep working hard to make sure they can stay in our glorious middle class?   Then I’ll get called down to the principal’s office and have to listen to Dr. Sorenson talk about how she’s been “conferencing” with the parents of “one of our students,” who are “very concerned that the test may have been too rigorous for twelfth-grade children.”  In other words, their kid failed, and I have to change the grade.

I found out about these things during my first year at Santa Pacifica.   I was called to the office to face the parents of Nathan Moretti, aka Nate the Nose, “nose” meaning “coke,” who objected to my detection of plagiarism on his senior thesis.  I use the word “thesis” broadly.  Ten pages, 16-point font, three spaces between the lines.   I questioned whether his reference to the “paralogism of postmodern ‘critique de la culture’” could possibly be self-generated.  Nate said nothing.  Nate’s parents suggested that I was targeting him because of his Italian name.  “What name?” I asked. “Nathan?”  That did it—Nate was exonerated, and I had an admonition inserted in my personnel file.

Then there was Danny Allen.  That was also in my first year.  Danny was the Platonic form of the contemporary student.  Blond.  Beautiful eyes.  Big man on the (losing) basketball team.  Late for class, every day.  Buried in his hoodie— the guy looked like a medieval monk.  Except that his text was the little glob of plastic that was always lying in his crotch.  He must have sent 20 messages an hour, sitting in my class with his hands at penis level.  Never read a book, probably in his life.  I remember, he’d never heard of World War I.  He thought that was the war that Hitler started.  And I was supposed to teach him T. S. Eliot.   I gave him straight C’s on his so-called papers.  That was fair—he deserved worse, but after all he’d gone to some trouble to get one of the girls to write the papers for him.

Then one day, Danny keeled over in my class.  Just keeled over.  Fell out of his seat and hit the floor.  Lay on the floor.  I called 911.  The muscular young men in their clean white uniforms hurried in with their medical machinery, scraped him off the floor, and took him away, a victim of whatever recreational drug he’d ingested that morning.  They were chuckling as they wheeled him out.   Of course, he came back in a week or two.  Rehab does wonders.   In April it was announced that he’d been admitted to the Honors College at State.  Parents had money.  Of course, all our parents have money.

The episode didn’t do much for my professional satisfaction.  I mean, why should I spend my life explaining “The Waste Land” to the Danny Allens of this world?  Nineteen years of education, just so I can deal with shits like that?  I’d looked forward to Sharing Knowledge with Intelligent Young People.  Now, I saw, I had one less thing to look forward to.  Nothing that’s happened since has made me change my mind about that.

As for my “colleagues,” I’d say they’re about evenly divided between guys who wish they could spend more time quilting or mixing the perfect cocktail or maybe selling real estate, and guys who wish they could spend more time sleeping in.  Plus an enthusiastic minority who are bucking for Administration.  Those are the ones you’ve really got to watch out for.

OK.  That was a rant.  I’ve been doing that more lately.  I expect to do a lot of it this summer.  To myself, of course.

The real problem isn’t that I hate the school, I hate the management, and I particularly hate the students.  I’m smart enough to know what the real problem is: I hate myself.  And in my opinion, I have every reason to do so. 

What am I?  Twenty-eight years old.  Five feet 11. 160 pounds.  White.  Blue eyes.  Dirty-brown, curly hair.   Without prominent (or for the most part visible) pecs, abs, or biceps.  Gay. No family.  No boyfriend.  And now I’m supposed to spend three months enjoying myself.  Which means I’m going to do what every other guy like me would do--spend three months trolling the internet for BDSM stuff.

Part 2

Beyond BDSM

Where BDSM is concerned, this summer is turning out to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would.  I’ve discovered . . . prisons!  I mean, two summers ago I started discovering BDSM (I know, I know: I’m a late bloomer), and now I’ve hit the big time.  Or at least the big house.

All right, I’m not good at making jokes.   I guess this is how it went . . .

When I first got going with S & M, I wanted to see myself as one of those big guys that own the dungeon or the slave pit or whatever, which is a total world that he gets to run by his own rules.   No bosses.   No rich people.  No high school principal.  No idea about fitting in with society.  Then I noticed that I also liked to picture myself as one of those slaves that have to do the owner’s bidding.  Which means that they’re free to go the limit.  They don’t need to worry about anything.   It isn’t just “society” they’re free from—it’s plans, careers, responsibilities, self-analysis, self-image, self-development . . . . They don’t need to know how to run anything or control anything, not even their so-called lives.  They just have to do as they’re told.  And they get exactly what they deserve.

In other words, they’re failures like me, only they’re allowed to be failures--which I’m not.  I’m supposed to be running everything.  My classroom.  My career.   My relationships.  All of which I have to plan and arrange and “take responsibility for.”  (I love that expression—“take responsibility for your life.”  What a joke.  A bad joke.)  If I want to go out with some guy, I have to arrange it.  I have to sneak up on him.  I have to call him casually on the phone and happen to mention that I might be free on Saturday.   I have to flatter him, without being too obvious.  I have to find out what jokes he likes.  I have to pretend to be interesting.  I have to find out what kind of sex he wants, and how to give it to him.   Slaves don’t need to do that.  All they need to do is be themselves, which is slaves.   If they have any doubts, the chains are there to convince them.

Whenever I think about that, my hands start shaking, it makes me so high.  I guess I’m the ultimate narcissist—I care only about myself!  

But I should have used the past tense: it made me so high.  Because the thrill didn’t last.  It was OK—I kept going to the sites and chatting with other guys and so on, but it didn’t seem real to me.  I’m not talking about the guys; some of them were real and some of them weren’t.  That’s life.  But slavery wasn’t real.  Actually, there isn’t any slavery.  There isn’t any place where guys like me can go and surrender themselves to the Slave Authority and be bought and sold and so on.  That’s just in stories.  And even in the stories, what happens is that guys check into the Authority or whatever and right away they’re sold to some guy who is just like all those guys I’ve run after in my own life and I got so bored with.   Or they got bored with me.  Or the guys that I never wanted to run after in the first place.

Then last summer, I found something different on one of the slave sites.   It was a picture that didn’t come from the “dungeon.”  It was just a black and white picture of a guy in a prison cell.  A young white guy, maybe three or four years younger than I am.  I stopped and stared at it.  The guy was inside the cell, holding the bars with his big muscular hands, and he was bowing his head.   He knew he couldn’t get out.   You could see that, even though you couldn’t see most of his face, because his head was bowed, and there was a sign in front of him, covering part of it.  The sign was attached to the bars.  It was made out of steel, and it had black paint stenciled across it.  The sign said “24871 SMITH.”

That’s the first thing that grabbed me.  The guy’s name was Smith.  What could be more generic?  The only thing that’s more generic is a number.  A convict number.   Smith was convict number 24871.  That’s what he was.  All he was.  And his number came before his name.

His hands were gripping the bars, like they were about to yank them open, but his head was bowed, like he knew that they never could.  Which was obviously true.  If the guards or whoever went away and left Smith inside his cell, Smith would die.  That was all.  That was all there was to it.  There wasn’t any, “Slave, if you won’t suck my dick I’ll do this and that about you.”  Smith was locked in his cell, and whoever locked him inside had put him there and left him, like the generic object he had become.   Once he’d been Somebody Smith, with various personal characteristics; now he was 24871, locked away where he couldn’t be anything else.   Nobody cared whether he had a dick or not.

The inside of the cell was shadowy, but you could tell it was completely made of steel.  Floor, walls, ceiling, bars, name plate—all of it.   Before they put him in his cell, Smith must have been a guy who wandered around on the outside, having to “make his own decisions” and “accept his own responsibilities.” That was over; that was done.  Now he was an object in a warehouse.   He was a surplus home appliance, the kind that you put away in the basement. He was a six-foot stack of toilet paper, like you see on the shelves at CallMart.

I must have stared at that picture for an hour before I started noticing the guy’s shirt, and the way the human arms came out of the shirt arms.  Smith was wearing one of those shirts that tell you right away that they’re part of a uniform.   It wasn’t like any shirt that you or I would wear.  It was a shirt with a really ugly shape, a shape that told you, “Right now, a thousand other convicts are wearing this same thing.”  If you saw that shirt on anybody, you would know for sure that he was a convict.  It was a thick, rough shirt; you knew that from the look of the cuffs, which Smith had turned up over his arms.   The arms were thick, hard, demanding; that’s what they had to be, or his hands couldn’t have pushed their way out of the shirt and onto the bars.   The bars held firm; they didn’t move; he couldn’t get out of them.  And obviously he couldn’t get out of that shirt, either.  He wasn’t just locked in a cell; he was locked in a second layer of skin.

The picture gave me a lot to think about.  A lot to talk to my dick about.   For a long time, my dick had been asleep.   Now it woke up.   Would you like to be in that cell? I asked.  Yes, my dick answered.  Locked in that cell with 24871 Smith?  Yes again.  With your own number on your own sign--24872 Schuyler?  Fuck yeah, my dick replied.

For about a week I looked at the picture and jerked.  Smith was no slave.  Smith was no master.   Smith was real.   A real convict.  The picture was 1950s, Midwestern, authentic.   I looked it up.  And I thought some more about Smith.  Why was he so interesting?   There must be a million guys like that, just like there must be a million guys like me.  What made him interesting was what they’d done with him.  He’d been sent to prison.   He’d been locked up.   Given a number.   Put into a uniform.  Put into a cell.  His pack of muscle made no difference.   Now he was just a big clumsy object stored in a little steel box.  Even after 60 years, he was still locked securely inside that little gray storage unit, which was locked securely inside the little gray rectangle that was stored securely inside my computer files.

The steel box was serious.   Smith was serious.   Smith was real.   Smith was a real man, gripping the bars and bowing his head to his new identity: 24871.  That’s what they’d made him.  That’s how they’d changed him.   But they had to change him.   He didn’t do it himself.

God! I thought.  Why can’t something like that happen to me?

Part 3

Queens Live in Hives, But Do They Live in Cells?

So that was last summer.   I started looking, and I found some gay prison sites.  I liked talking to a few of the guys on there, only most of them were disappointing.   I mean, they were just BDSM, make-me-your-slave little queens.   Which made me think, Fuck!  I don’t need any more responsibilities.  I’m tired of trying to make things happen.  I want something to happen TO me.

I mean, Tom comes over, who’s my friend from the bar, and we have a few drinks and I tell him, I feel like I’m in jail, only I’m not getting any of the benefits, and he says in that campy voice that I’m getting so tired of, especially when I use it myself, “You’re so kinky.  I guess that’s why we’re not sleeping together, right?”

Like I was dying to sleep with anybody who would want to sleep with me.  I mean, let’s face it.  The guy got his eyebrow pierced, just because some bartender he likes got his eyebrow pierced.  And he’s a teacher like I am!  Only in the public schools.

But he says, “I don’t understand what you get out of that stuff.” 

I think about it for a minute, and I say, “Changing.  Getting changed. You can’t change yourself.”

“Maybe that’s true about you,” he says. “It’s not true about me.  I’m giving up smoking.  All by myself.  Without you nagging me.  I’m almost down to half a pack a day.”

“Like that’s so important,” I say. “I want to change into somebody else.”

“Yeah?  Who do you want to be?  Tom Cruise?  Judy Garland?” 

Again, I have to stop and think, like, how much do I want to piss him off?  Admittedly, he’s pretty cute when he’s wearing that flannel shirt.  Only he’s not wearing it tonight.  “A convict,” I say, “sentenced for life.  Maybe there’d be some hope for me then.”

“Oh Christ,” he says, stubbing out his fag.  “Look, since you broke up with . . . .”

“David.”

“David.   You’ve really . . . you . . .   Look, bro.  I’m . . . . “

“Yes?”

“Nothing,” he says.  “Gimme another scotch.”

Part 4

How to Get Hard and Stay There

Of course, most of what I found on the net was just these old stories about how some guy gets sent to prison and he goes to his cell and his cellmate turns out to be this huge muscly black man with tattoos all over him and they have sex and from then on he has to obey the guy.  The End.   Which was a complete turn-off to me.   Not even a story, because where’s the transformation?   Who got changed?  Not to mention that everybody stopped getting tattoos in about 2013.  So much for that stupid fad.

Besides, now that I’ve read a bunch of things about prisons, I’ve found out that big muscly cellmates who rape you aren’t particularly realistic.  Usually it’s a lot calmer than that.  Then there’s the problem of prison reform.   In some prisons, it looks like the inmates are spending all day watching TV and playing basketball.  A lot of them are walking around in jeans and sweats, like guys out for a walk on Sunday (except that they don’t have the little gay dogs).  So I’m thinking that maybe my fantasies aren’t any closer to real than those “prison” stories I read. 

And now it’s September of last year.   Sweet summer was fading, and the equinox had almost returned.  In other words, school was starting again, and things were getting worse and worse for me.   It was hard to get up in the morning and hard to get to sleep at night.  The doctor prescribed Xanax.  That helped.  It helped a lot.  Xanax is a wonderful thing.  But if this is my life, I thought . . . . 

Then suddenly, I met Nick.

He showed up in one of those prison chat rooms.   Actually, it was a BDSM room; it was just called Prison Such and Such.  But sometimes there was a guy on there that was actually into prisons.  Anyhow, I met him one afternoon, right after school, which is how I could tell that he wasn’t just some dude wankin off before he went to sleep.  Nick was lurking on a conversation I was having with some other asshole, and then he came in and completely took it over.   I mean, he was talking about prison life and so on, and he knew a hell of a lot about it, and he was saying really interesting stuff.  Hot stuff.  So pretty soon the guy I’m chatting with says “later” and now it’s just Nick and me.  Immediately I think, “Nick” is one hell of a good prison name.

Nick and I kept chatting, maybe three days a week.  My guess was, he was a teacher too, because he got really interested in me when he found out that I was.  He was always curious about stuff that I didn't even think was interesting, like faculty meetings and what the principal said to me today and what I thought of the students, especially the problem ones I’ve had.  And yeah, it was good to have somebody I could talk to, somebody I could trust.  It didn’t take Nick long to put two and two together and figure out where I taught and how long and so forth, and he got the complete picture without my even telling him my name.  But he never did anything with the information, not even making jokes about “now I’ve got you where I want you” or anything.  So we were friends, and we talked a lot.  We’ve kept in touch ever since.

It isn’t much about actual sex.  He says he has “obligations,” so he can’t try to visit me during Christmas vacation.  Which I hadn’t even thought about, before he brought it up, but then, yeah, I was disappointed.   But during Christmas break, we chatted just about every day.   He’s a real man, all right.  Direct.  Self-assured.   A man who’s used to being with men.  Being a leader.  Not like me.  A lot of the time, I can’t even lead the kids in my classroom.  Anyway, like I say, we haven’t had a lot of discussions about sex, but we have had some about what we would do in our “cell,” which is this place that we sort of made up between us, in this prison that Nick made up.  I’ve learned more about my fetishes, that’s for sure!

Fetishes.  I guess a fetish is something that you know is better than the rest of the stuff you’ve got.  Maybe that’s why David and I broke up.   Yeah, David.   Lately, I’ve almost forgotten about him.   David’s a really sweet guy.   Not bad looking, either.  But we’d always get to the place where I was supposed to jump into his big nice-smelling bed and snuggle and kiss and suck, with him saying “I love you” all the time, and soft rock music going on in the background, and it was all I could do just to get it up.  One time I said something about fitting the bed out with handcuffs, and he looked all strange and surprised and horrified.  So he could see that I’d been doing it with him just because I had to.  So we broke up.  I’ve got to admit, I felt pretty lonely after that.

I told Nick a few things about David and me, and he sympathized and so on, especially when I said I was getting so depressed, the only reason I woke up some days was to think about things to talk to him about, and I would give a lot just to ship off to someplace where I could be locked down and have to live a real life.

So then there was this long pause, and Nick said, “I’m gonna level with you.”

“Huh?”

“About the reason—one reason--why I’m on these sites.”

 So I thought, oh shit!  Here it comes.  Somehow, I’m gonna get dumped again.

“You see,” he went on, “some buddies of mine got together, and they’ve got a place, way off in the state of Nokomis, where they run a private prison.”

“Private prison?”

“Well, it’s a place where guys like you and me can go, and get confined.  For a weekend.  Or a week.  Or a month.  Whatever.   It’s like a regular prison.  I mean, the way they used to be.  1950s, like we talked about.  Yeah, it’s real.  Actually, I do some work there.  From time to time.”

Then he described the place.  Cells.  Bars.  Restraints.   You hear about these places, but you never actually get close to them.  They existed once, in the recent past.  Or they still exist, but they’re someplace in San Francisco.  Which means they’re in somebody’s closet or something.  But this one did sound real.

So naturally I’m very interested, and Nick says yeah, he’d love to see me there, especially when he’s working.  Which makes me so hard I can barely keep typing.   The reason he didn’t bring it up before is that of course it costs money, and he’s been scared that if he ever mentioned it, I’d think he was only chatting with me because of the money, which isn’t true.

So you can imagine how the rest of the conversation went, and the conversations off and on for the next few months.  I told him I was completely interested, and I knew I’d have time when school was over, nudge nudge nudge, and he was saying, well maybe it’s not for you, and he gave me all kinds of reasons, but I was still really, really interested.   Imagine—actually being a convict, actually getting locked down in a cell, like the guy in the picture.  Overwhelming.  I had to have it. 

Finally he told me the price and it was three thousand dollars for three days, or eight thousand dollars for nine days (two weekends).  “That’s our discount price.”  And he said he could probably arrange for me to “visit” in June.  That’s because I already told him when my summer vacation starts.

Without even thinking I said, “I’m in!  I’ll be there in June!”    He’s still trying to talk me out of it while I’m opening the drawer and taking out my bank statement and doing addition and subtraction and figuring out that, yes, I can do the nine days.  I may eat rice afterwards, but I’ll do it.  The only thing is, I wish it could be for more than nine days.  More like nine years!

I’m fantasizing so strong about the place that it takes me a while to notice that Nick’s tone has changed.  Before he was just conversational, maybe like an older brother.  Sometimes like a businessman.  But now it’s like he’s my prison guard.  Hot!  

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he says.  “There’s a vacancy from June 22 to June 30.  You’ll fly to Acme.  I know you never heard of it.  It’s a little town in Nokomis, a town that shouldn’t even have an airport.   There’s a flight every morning from Detroit.  You’ll have to fly to Detroit and spend the night of June 21, then take the flight to Acme.   Anyway, when you get off the plane at Acme you’ll start to walk out of the airport, like somebody is going to meet you.  And they are.  Two cops will be there and arrest you.  Don’t get funny; these are real cops.”

“Gulp!”

“Yeah, they get paid to do it, and they do good work.  Anyway, don’t get out of line.”

“I won’t.”  Is this hot!  Hotter than hot.  Two big burly officers, closing in on me.   Much better than lying on the couch, trying to finish “Anna Karenina.”

“Don’t.   They aren’t paid to take any lip from you.”

“I’ll behave.”

“Yes you will.  But you may be wondering how they’ll recognize you.”

I hadn’t been.  I’d just been thinking about two big cops arresting me.  “Should I send you my picture?”

I’m thinking:  This is the moment of truth.   He’s never gone into detail about sex, not with me anyhow, but besides the eight thousand dollars, I thought maybe there would be something else, if I was attractive enough.  If he thought I was.  I was always embarrassed by the guy in my pictures, the guy with the narrow face and the curly blond hair. . . .

“Not necessary,” he says.

Whew!  Dodged that bullet.

 “Just give me your address, or a maildrop, or whatever, and I’ll send you an agreement form.  Sign it, mail it back to me.  I’ll send a confirmation.  But this is important: When you open that envelope I send, you’ll see another envelope inside.  That one will be orange, and it will have OFFICIAL BUSINESS stamped all over it.  Don’t open the orange envelope.  It’s for the cops.  Just take it with you and hold it in front of you when you get to the airport.   Hold it so the cops can see it.  They need to see that the thing hasn’t been opened.  So keep the seal on it, as a sign that nothing is wrong.  If you get weak at the end, all you need to do is break that little seal.  Then you can go back home and nothing will happen.”

“Yes sir.”  Shit!  Now I’ll have to rent a maildrop.  Besides paying the $8000!  But that will be worth it.  “I won’t get weak.”

“Good.  See that you don’t.  (Smile)  After that, the officers will take you to a courthouse where you’ll be sentenced.”

“Wow! You’ve got all this stuff worked out.”

“Right, boy.  Happens all the time.”

 Jesus!  This is just getting hotter and hotter.  Unbelievably hot.

“What will I be sentenced to?  How long?”

“You want the judge to say nine days?”

“Nah, that sounds lame.  But I guess I gotta leave it up to you, officer.”

“Leave it up to the court.”

“Sorry, sir.  Up to the court.  What’s my offense, anyway?  Sir?”

“That will be determined, when you enter your guilty plea.   If you’re compliant—and I know you will be compliant—you’ll just sign the forms, and the judge will take care of the rest.”

More forms.   I’m starting to love forms.

“Yes sir.”

“Won’t take long.”

“No sir.”  I’m about to cum right now.  “But what about the money?”   I’m afraid he’s going to ask for a check or something.  I mean, I trust him . . . but I don’t want to leave a trail behind me, if I don’t have to.

“Bring it with you on the plane.  In hundreds.  Makes it easier to carry.”

“Yes sir.”  This guy thinks of everything.

An hour later, I’m at the friendly neighborhood maildrop, paying my 50 bucks for lockbox number 203.  Two weeks later, after 28 visits to the box, my contract arrives.  It’s three pages long and most of it is devoted to relieving everybody except me of all responsibility.  There’s also a section called Personal Identification.   So this is the time when I have to give my real name and my age and my eye color and all that stuff.  Also my driver’s license number.  Oh well.   I’m sure that Nick’s already found my name on the Santa Pacifica website.  I look for his name in the signature box, and I can make out something that looks like “Nicholas,” but the rest of it is weird like a doctor’s signature.  That figures!  Anyway, I read the form and sign it and rush it back to the mail service, addressed to the box number on Nick’s envelope. Then I jerk like I’ve never jerked before.

Part 5

The Quest for Authenticity

So now it’s the last week of school, and I have an appointment to be incarcerated in ONE MONTH!  June 22 through June 30.   Then home for the fourth of July.   But I’ve got to forget about that--going home, I mean.  When I get back from prison, I’ll have nothing to do for the rest of the summer.  For the rest of my life.   Unless I can rustle up enough money to go to prison again.

But I feel great.  It’s the worst part of the school year, and I’m totally happy.  Drifting along.  For once it doesn’t matter that students keep showing up to “discuss their papers,” meaning grubbing for grades, or that I’m the one who has the honor of leading the “seminar” for the parents of next year’s seniors, which is my opportunity to discuss what the school can do to guarantee that the little rats will get into Harvard or Yale.   None of it matters: I’m going to prison!  Convicts aren’t worried about Harvard and Yale.

A few months ago, when we were talking about the prison, Nick emailed me a little brochure he made up.  It doesn’t look like much.  Nobody would call Nick a design artist.  But of course I printed it out, and whenever I’m bored I find it and look at it.  The title is “Real Prison--Real Life!”  “You will be housed,” it says, “in a fully professional prison cell.  You will be controlled with fully professional restraints and regulations.  This is a place where you will NOT enjoy all the comforts of home. This is a place that will make you a CONVICT.”

All obviously very hot.  Also hot that Nick refuses to answer most of those questions that I can’t help asking.  “Why should I spoil your fun?” he says.  When I ask him how big my cell will be, or whether there will be other “inmates” present, or what kind of clothes I’ll get to wear (I’m hoping they’re orange, because that is always so hot! despite the fact that it isn’t 50s or anything), he just says, “You know what a cell is like, don’t you?”, or “You know what inmates wear, don’t you?”  At first I got mad, but then I saw his point.  It’s great just imagining everything that could happen.  What I know is that I’ll be “taken down” by real cops, “sentenced” in a real court building, and “secured” in “an authentic facility.”

You can’t get better than that.  Although I wish I could get more sleep.  I’m going to ask Dr. Jacobs to give me more Xanax.

Part 6

Have You Planned (to Disguise) Your Trip?

Memorial Day happens, then commencement.  Phony word for a phony thing.   Life “commences” at the end of high school?  Mine didn’t.  Hasn’t yet.   Anyway, school is over.  At last.

It’s only three weeks till my incarceration.  I still can’t believe I can actually write a sentence like that!  I’m too nervous to read, and I’m almost too nervous to write.  I watch TV, but my mind keeps wandering.  I can’t remember whether Nick said I’d be allowed to watch TV or not, once I’m “inside the Facility.”  I’d ask him again, but I don’t want to push my luck.  Also, he isn’t online very much these days, and when he is, he’s just there to say things like, “Only 25 days of freedom—enjoy it while you can,” which gets me really hard.

Naturally, I’m thinking, what’s this guy like?  Will he want to have sex with me?  Will I want to have sex with him?  Is this “the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” as they say in that movie?  But I don’t want to hope for too much.  I can’t expect the experience to go on and on.   It’s a business for him, after all.  I just plan to enjoy those nine days as if there was nothing in the world after them.

What with the flight schedule and so on, I’ll be out of town for almost two weeks, so I’ve got stuff to arrange.  Thank God I decided not to get a cat!  Even without an animal or a boyfriend or a summer job, I have to make arrangements for a huge list of things.  I tell people that I’m going on vacation to Nokomis, and they all act surprised, because it’s not Hawaii or something.  Far from it.  If there’s a beat-up little state, Nokomis is it.  So I explain that I have relatives there, and it’s not such a bad place, if you like to relax, and of course they believe me.  Which isn’t surprising, because they don’t pay any attention to me anyway.   If I never came back—if I died!--how long would they remember me?   Anyway, I even told that story to the bartender at the Rendezvous.  I didn’t want him to think there was something strange about my not coming in all the time.  But why should I care?  That’s the thing—it seems like I’ve got to CARE about everything.  Unlike 24871 Smith.  All he had to care about was—nothing.  And it wouldn’t matter if he did.  Nothing would change.  He’d still be locked in that cell.

Then there’s my rent and my car insurance and the payments on my credit cards . . . . Also that report I’ve got to file with the principal about all the stuff I’ve done for “the Institution” this year.  Maybe I can get a raise in the fall--and pay for another trip to prison!  If Nick invites me back!  But every single one of these things, including getting invited back, or even getting INVITED the first time, is something that a guy in Smith’s little steel cell would never have to deal with.  It would all be decided for him.

And when you think about it . . .  Add up all those things you have to worry about—just to get away from them for a week or so!  All the time it takes just to figure them out and fix them up and keep them going and keep them in repair, on and on and on . . . how many years of your life are you spending on those things?  And it’s all wasted.  How much of a prison sentence does that equate to?  But if you spent those years in prison, you’d get: total maintenance, total security, total management, total freedom from all anxiety, social approval, competition, planning, arranging . . . .  You’d be behind lock and key, living with a thousand hot guys and knowing that you’re exactly like them, as like them as one convict number is to all the ones before and after.

Fuck!  Why do I get to do this for only nine days!  

Part 7

Christmas in June

So now it’s June 20, longest day of the year.  Well, almost.  But it seems even longer.  I haven’t been so excited since I was a little kid and it was the night before Christmas.  I go over my checklist: forward mail to maildrop, store car in garage, put “gone” message on the email, pack a bag, print a boarding pass.  Most important, there’s the envelope Nick mailed to me.  Orange?  Yes.  Sealed?  Yes.  Eighty hundred-dollar bills?  Yes.  I’m ready.

Where’s the Xanax?  I’ve gotta get some sleep.

Part 8

The Tragic Risk of Boredom

It’s weird, waking up at dawn--to catch a flight for Detroit, of all places.  The worst thing is looking around the apartment, knowing that in less than two weeks I’m gonna be right back in the same place again.  I’m gonna twist the key in the lock and inhale the familiar closed-up smell and turn on the familiar light switch and see the familiar sofa and the familiar chair and the familiar mess of books on the floor.

And fuck!  Before I leave I’ve gotta take out the trash—almost forgot about that!   OK, so I’m messy.  David used to complain about that.  He said I should have more respect for myself.  Undoubtedly.   I rush the garbage down to the dumpster.

One last check for messages.  Nothing from Nick, but nothing expected.  I turn off the computer, pick up the bag, leave the apartment.  I’m almost down to the street before I realize I need to go back and lock the door.   I’ve got to laugh.  I don’t care if somebody steals my stuff.  Not as long as I make it to Nokomis on time.

Luckily, the cabbie doesn’t want to talk.  I’m all nerved up again.  But at this hour, you get to the airport right away.  Fortunately, my luggage is too small to be checked.  I just run the bag through the weirdness detector, and me through the terrorist detector, and now I’m waiting at the gate.  Usually I need to take my laptop, but this time, I didn’t see why.  Call me old-fashioned, but no-electronics makes things lots easier.  I search my bag one more time—yeah, $8000, right there in the little package.   Ouch!  But it’s worth it.  I feel like one of those high rollers, on his way to Vegas.  And the orange envelope.  That’s still in its place.  Orange, like prison clothes!  “Now boarding . . . “  At last!

Flight to Detroit is a bore.  Nothing but clouds.  And kids screaming.   Please, take me someplace where there’s nobody under 21!  Then--usual airport, usual airport hotel.  You can’t tell whether you’re in Detroit, or India.  But it’s easier this way—just check in and rest.   No obligation to see the sights.  Probably nothing to see in Detroit anyway.   All these memories of teachers’ conferences keep coming back—they’re always in airport hotels in someplace like Detroit.  But this time I don’t have to report to my “break out session” or be bored by windbags in the “ballroom.”  The high point of the hotel is changing my watch to Eastern time.

Restaurant’s not so bad.  I order a steak—my last meal!  Then upstairs to sleep—the usual “king” bed, which emphasizes the fact that you’re sleeping alone.  But that’s OK—I’ve just got to get some sleep.  Early day tomorrow!

Worries?  Yeah.  Obviously.  Not about being kidnaped or anything.  Nobody would think I was worth it.  Nobody I know has any money, and if they did, they wouldn’t spend it on me.  Or being sold as a sex slave, which is what always happens in stories.  I’m not the type, and Nick knows it.  But I realize I might be paying my total savings for some boring “experience” being locked in somebody’s spare bedroom.  That would be fuckin tragic.  I want the real thing.  But that’s a chance you’ve got to take.

Part 9

The Acme Private Tour

No time for breakfast—I’m on the 8:15 flight.  All right; I’d probably just puke it back anyhow, I’m so nervous!

Nick talked about how nobody ever goes to Acme, and I guess he was right   There are only three other passengers waiting for the plane.  It’s one of those dinky little things that doesn’t let you stand up straight.  I hate small planes.  Hate!  Claustrophobic, I guess.  And this turbulence is the last thing I need.  Especially when I can’t see what’s going on.  Nothing but gray clouds, and the view jumping up and down.  You’re locked into the plane—what can you do?  I hate that.  OK, time for some more Xanax.  I take a bunch, all together. 

Whew!  Fifteen minutes after that, I am totally all right.  Totally together.  Floating through the air, watching the clouds blow away, looking down on what must be the state of Nokomis.  Woods and lakes . . . the occasional farm . . . a town . . . a smaller town . . .  More farms . . .   I’m drifting off . . . But hey!  Now the plane is angling toward the ground.  I wonder how long I was out . . . .  Maybe I took too much of that stuff.  But I’m OK now.  And now I’ve landed in Acme.

Acme doesn’t have much of an airport.  It’s just a landing strip and a building that must have been a hangar or something, 60 or 70 years ago.  One ticket counter, with a guy behind it who looks like he’s about 16 years old.  The “gate” is a space with a plastic wall around it and a bomb detector sitting at one end.  I walk through, and there’s the street door in front of me—a pair of glass sliders with a sign saying “Ground Transportation.”  I keep thinking, “I am now walking OUT of the airport, as I was directed to do. . . . I am now walking OUT of the airport . . . . ”

The doors close with a swish, and I’m on the sidewalk.  There are two people milling around, including me.  Well, at least Nick’s policemen won’t have any problem picking me out of the crowd.  A cabbie pulls up to the curb, looks hopefully in my direction, then indignantly steps on the gas.

I slip my hand into the bag and pull out the orange envelope.  Hold it in front of me.  Walk around.  Surprise—I am totally calm.  But where are those guys that are supposed to . . . meet me?  I’m looking around, trying to see a cop.  Then I’m trying to sight any big burly men.  There’s a guy walking out of the door who answers the description, but he’s paying no attention to me.  So what should I do?  Fuck!  If I’d taken my laptop, I could go online and ask Nick to tell me what’s up.  Am I gonna have to spend the night here—how?  Do they have airport hotels?  Unlikely!  And then go back to Detroit, on the one-flight-a-day plane?  FUCK! What a joke my fucking life has become.  I can’t even get arrested.   Even in a shithole like Acme, I can’t get arrested.

I walk in circles for a while, then go back inside . . . and behold!  Way at the end, there’s the “Passenger Pickup” door.   I guess that’s totally different from the “Ground Transportation” door.  I walk fast toward Passenger Pickup, and as soon as I’m through the door, two guys converge on me from either side.  Big?  Yeah.  Burly?  Yeah.  Cops?  Oh yeah.   There’s badges and guns all over these guys.

“Sir, this is a security check.  May we inspect the items you’re carrying?”

“Of course, officers.”

“Please open your bag, sir.”

I open the bag.  They see the money pouch and extract it, official-inspection style.

“Sir, this appears to be a large amount of money.  Sir.”

I look at the guy.  He’s about my age.  They’re both about my age.  But these guys are HUGE.

What should I tell him?  “Business deal,” I say.

“Uh huh.  And that package you’re carrying.  If you’ll permit us, sir.”

He already has his hand on the envelope.  It’s a standard 9 x 12, but his hand sort of dwarfs it.

“Mind if we open this, sir?”

“Uh . . .  No.  I mean . . . ”

They’re good at this act.  They pass the envelope back and forth, nodding to each other; then one tugs discreetly on the plastic seal.  It peels open.  They pull out a sheet of paper.  At least it looks like paper.  It has about a hundred little green patches on it.  Then there’s another sheet.  And another.

One of them bends over and smells the paper.  Nods to the other one.

This is when I notice that the first has a name tag saying NELSON and the second has a tag saying O’TOOLE.   Could one of these no-first-name officers be Nick, I wonder.  They’ve got the standard guns-in-holsters (God, those things are lots bigger than I thought!) and the standard big gold badges and the standard dark blue cop suits.  We’ve moved into the sun, and I smell polyester, heating up.  Oh man.

“Sir,” Nelson says.  “You’d better come along with us.”

Anywhere! I’m thinking.

“Why, what’s the problem?” I say.

“You are carrying a large quantity of a controlled substance, sir,” O’Toole says.

“D-emfilade,” Nelson says.  “Def aid.  I’d say there’s about 500 in here.”

They’re already pulling me toward the curb.  Of course there’s a police car there.

It all happens fast—too fast.  I’d like to enjoy it more.  But it’s still fucking amazing.  In one move, suddenly, they pin my hands behind my back and slap the cuffs on my arms (just like in the stories!).  I hear that little “click,” and I’m cuffed.  Then one of them pushes my head down, and now I’m in the back seat of a black cop car, trying to figure how I’m supposed to relax with my hands locked behind me.  Doors slam, the car lurches forward, and when I look that way I see there’s a barrier between my part of the car and theirs.  A barrier made out of steel mesh.  This car is just like a prison!

I twist around, trying to look back at the sidewalk.

“What did you do with my bag?” I say.  I don’t want to lose my shaver.  It’s a Volardi.

Nelson looks at O’Toole and chuckles.  (Is one of these men actually Nick?)  “It’s in the trunk.  Sir.”

OK, it’s in the trunk.  No option not to believe him.

The ride isn’t long.   I’ve never seen a town like Acme.  Of course, I’ve never been in the Midwest before.  To say the place is low-rise would be overstating the situation.  It’s no-rise.  There isn’t a building higher than one story.  Junky little houses, sometimes with junk in the front yard too.  Gas stations.   A “farm implements dealership” (what’s that?).   A high school that looks like five prefabs, nailed together.  Finally we pull into something that looks like a strip mall, but it isn’t.  It’s a long low building with a metal sign on the wall: “Lake County Justice Center.”  Next to the curb there’s a bunch of other signs, with arrows pointing left or right.  “Department of Motor Vehicles.”  “District Attorney.”  “Sheriff.”  “Acme County Courts.”

They pull me out of the car and stand me next to it.  O’Toole opens the trunk and pulls out my bag.  I must look anxious, because Nelson says, “Don’t worry.  We’ll take good care of it.”

“Yeah,” O’Toole says.  “May have some evidence inside.”

“Not really,” I say.  “It’s just . . . ”

“Don’t worry, sir.  Like I say, we’ll take good care of it.   And we’ll say hello to Nick for you.”

“Nick!  Say hello?  Isn’t he going to . . . . ?”

“What, sir?”

 “I thought he’d be . . . involved.  In my arrest.  I mean . . . eventually.  I mean . . . .”

“We appreciate your business, sir.”

Before I can answer, they grab me by the arms and propel me toward the section of the wall marked “Sheriff.”

I was expecting some kind of lobby, but there’s just a hallway and a bunch of wooden doors.  One of them has “Booking” painted across it.  Nelson pulls out a key, and we go inside.  There’s a counter with a fucking bell on it--like a Motel 12!  Which they ring!   Not very intimidating.  I guess this is what you get for the discount price.  Then an old cop comes out from the back, with a young cop behind him, and Nelson and O’Toole take me to the opposite end of the room and sit me down on this cheap plastic chair with no arms, which is understandable, because my own arms are still chained behind me, and all four cops stand next to the counter, muttering.  Then Nelson and O’Toole, the two guys that aren’t Nick . . . leave!  The old guy buzzes them out through the door, they turn and wave at me, and they’re gone.

It gives me a weird feeling, like I’m sitting on deck after the last lifeboat has gone.   I mean, how many people are in on this?  Does that old guy even know about Nick?  Or that young guy, the one that’s staring at me right now, like I was the next course of dinner?  And if one of them isn’t Nick, do I ever get to meet him?  That’s what I was trying to ask of those first two.  Did they answer me?

I’m really excited, but I’m really confused.   And Jesus, this place is paneled in knotty pine!   The only other time I saw that was . . .

 “Stand up!” the old guy yells.  “Come over here.”  I yank myself out of the chair and find my way to the counter.  “Stand straight.  Turn around.  Raise your arms.  Put your hands on the counter.”   That’s his way of unlocking my cuffs, without having to walk to my side of the formica.  “Turn around.”   I turn around again, and the young guy grabs an arm and starts taking my fingerprints.    

I’ve gotta admit it, my dick is raging.  There’s this sweet looking young cop caressing my hand and holding my wrist in his vice-like grip, saying “left thumb – next left – next left -- palm print – right thumb –next right – next right - wipe it off,” and now I’m fucking fingerprinted!  I don’t know what Nick does to pay all these guys to work overtime or whatever, but it’s certainly realistic, I’ve gotta say that.

Then they tell me to stand against a wall that has paper tacked onto it, and the young cop pulls a camera out of his pocket and takes my picture.  That’s a disappointment.  I was expecting one of those mugshots like you see online—you know, against the height chart and everything.  Well, you can’t have it all.   Then the kid comes around and grabs my arm and opens a door and there’s another hallway and some other doors and he opens one of them and tells me to go inside and sit down, and that’s where I am right now.

Part 10

Real Enough

I’m thinking, this is really an elaborate set up.  I mean, it seems like it’s totally real.   I guess a few thousand dollars goes a long way in Nokomis.  In fact, it’s almost too good to be true.  I mean, how would being arrested for real be any different from being arrested the way I was?  Except for that little conversation about Nick.

I’m thinking like that when the door opens and a guy in a suit and tie comes in and says he’s an assistant DA.  He points up at a plastic box that’s hanging from the ceiling, and he says that everything that goes on in the room is being recorded on video, and he assumes I’ve had my rights read to me, and so on, and so on, very solemn, and I say yes yes yes.   I appreciate the realism, but when is prison going to start?  Because that’s what I really paid for.  But he’s still talking.

He says he has evidence that I’ve smuggled drugs into the state, and that’s a serious charge, and then there’s the matter of a large quantity of money . . . .  “I guess you’ve got me,” I say.  “I’m ready to sign a confession.”

So he pretends to be really surprised, and he says, “So tell me—what are you confessing to?”  And I say, “A guy I talked to online, he asked me to bring that envelope into the state and deliver it to a guy at the airport, and the money, and the cops showed up and arrested me.  So I’m guilty.  I plead guilty.”

“Will you sign a statement to that effect?”

“Yeah, sure.”

So he asks me a string of questions about who the guy was and where I got the drugs and why I keep talking about an envelope and what do I mean by that, like the cops didn’t have the thing but he’s trying to trick me into saying something else, and I say I don’t know about any of that stuff.   So let’s get on with it.

Then he gets this look on his face, like, I don’t get paid to do any more of this, not when the guy’s pleading guilty—which is exactly the look I’d expect him to have!--and he says, “OK, OK, I’ll get you a statement you can sign.  You sure you don’t want a lawyer?”  So I say, “No, that’s carrying the act too far,” and he says, “Huh?”   But then he leaves.

He’s like 40 years old, and he’s wearing a really cheap suit, like he’s got five kids or something, so it’s obvious that Nick doesn’t pay top salaries.

The room smells sort of musty, like they don’t get anybody in there very often, which probably explains how Nick can rent the facilities this way.  But I’m paying for it, and when I look at my watch it’s like, time’s marching on.  Granted, the door is locked, but this isn’t exactly incarceration.

So I’m glad when my ADA comes back with a paper in his hand, which is my “confession and plea.”  I reach in my jacket and pull out a pen, and he says, “Don’t you even want to read it?” and I say, “Yeah, I suppose so,” which I don’t—I just get high on seeing all the legal words in the thing.  Then I sign.

“So when do I go to prison?” I say.

He looks even more surprised than he did before. “You have to go before the judge,” he says.

Yeah, I forgot about that.

“Let’s do it now,” I say.  I know I’m not supposed to order these guys around, but it’s obvious that I’ve got a better hold on the script than they do.

“Well,” he says, “by signing that confession you’ve waived the preliminary hearing . . . .”  Then there’s a lot of legal stuff about “Nokomis standard procedure,” which I’ve got to admire even though I don’t care about any of this shit, but it’s a good act, you’ve got to appreciate a good act, and he says, “Well, Judge Van Meeter is in session this afternoon.  He’s cleaning up some work.  Maybe . . .   But you’ve gotta have an attorney.  I’ll call in a public defender.”  Then he’s gone, without my even being able to object.

So now I’ve just got to sit here.  It’s been a long day already, with the Xanax and all.   I put my head down on the table.  Right away I’m asleep.

I don’t know how long it takes for the door to open and reveal a little guy with a beard, who’s already setting his briefcase down on the table and announcing that he’s my public defender.   You have to appreciate how it’s all kept in character.  He’s exactly the kind of guy I’d expect.  He shakes my hand and tells me that he’s somebody or other; I don’t catch the name.  Then he says, “This is gonna be really hard, now that you’ve confessed and waived your right to appeal.  The best I can do is try to get you a reduced sentence. . . . ”

“You mean eight days instead of nine?”

“What?” he says.  No sense of humor.

“I paid for nine days.”

He looks back at me.  “Paid?”

“Nick.  I paid Nick.”

“Look,” he says, “Let’s cut to the chase.   You’re going to court in an hour, and you’re going to be sent to prison.  It’s my job to try to keep your sentence down.   An insanity plea won’t work, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He’s starting to sound nervous, like I might attack him or something.  (Imagine!  I’ve come a long way in this scenario.)   Also serious, like he was wondering whether it was really a story or not.

“What’s the matter?” I say.  “Didn’t you get enough of the $8000?”

“$8000?” he says.  “You mean that $1000 you were carrying?”

I’m confused.  So this guy . . . where did the $7000 go?

“Where did the $7000 go?” I say.

He just keeps giving me that look.

“I don’t know about any $7000.  You came into the state with $1000 and 100 hits of def aid.”

“You mean 500 hits,” I say.

“100. That’s what you confessed to,” he says, doing a quick check of something he grabs out of his briefcase.  “I’ve got your statement right here.  It says 100.”

“What happened to the rest of them?  Does Nick have them?  Already?”

“Nick?  Who is Nick?”

“Nick!  The guy I was . . . .  Never mind.”

What’s going on?  What did I just admit to?  But I signed a confession.  What was in that thing?

The other guy’s just staring back.  Like he feels sorry for somebody.  Then I get it.  He thinks this is for real.

“Listen,” I say, like an idiot. “Like I said, I paid for this.”

“What do you mean?  Sorry . . .  wait . . . .”

The guy’s phone is going off.   Whitney Houston.  It occurs to me, I wouldn’t even know who she was if I didn’t go to gay bars all the time.   Christ, I’m getting really confused.

 “Yes . . .  Yes . . . Four thirty.  Yes.”  He clicks off.  “Your sentencing will take place at 4:30 today.  What was that you said about paying?  I’m your public defender.  You won’t have to pay me.”

“No,” I say. “Of course not.”

“Acme County pays for my services.”

“Sure.  Yes.”

I think about telling him what happened.  But how do I tell this guy in the geeky little beard that I paid money to . . . somebody .  . .  to fulfill my . . . fetish dream . . . ?  I can see it now on Top Stories.  “Teacher Says Paid Bribe for Sex Fetish.”  No, I don’t think so.  Just let him keep his illusion.

“But in terms of your defense . . . .  I see you’re from California, and you’re a teacher.”

“Wha . . . .  How do you know that?”

“Huh?  Oh, they trace it.  From your driver’s license.  I understand you’ve worked at Santa Pacifica High School for . . . five years?”

We go back and forth about my brief and uneventful life.  But now it’s even harder to pay attention.  I’m thinking about all my bridges, going up in flames behind me.  It’s just a game, but now these cops have been calling California!  Santa Pacifica!  How did Nick let this happen?

“Hold on,” I say.  “Where’s Nick?”

He gives me a look, like, maybe he was wrong about that insanity plea.

“There isn’t any ‘Nick.’  I’m your public defender.   My name is Carter.  Carter Stendel.”

“I’m confused,” I say.

“I know,” he says.  Then his phone goes off again.  He looks at the screen and types something in.  “Look, I got another message here.  I’ll do the best I can for you.  You should never have signed that confession.   And that waiver of appeal.  You signed the whole thing.  That’s a pretty tall hill to climb.  Anyway, I’ll try to shorten your sentence.”

 “Shorten?”

“That’s right.  Shorten your prison sentence.  Prison is pretty much mandatory in a case like this.”

“You mean . . . nothing could go wrong?  With the prosecution, I mean?”

“That’s a strange way of putting it, but I guess you’re right.  You signed the confession.”

 “Yes,” I say.  “That’s right.   Tell me, how long. . . how long will my sentence be?”

Putting “my” before a word like “sentence” . . .  oh man.  Something is really happening to me.

“Could be as little as 10 years.”

“What!”

“Yeah, I know.   It sounds like a long time.  But if I can keep it down that low, you can stay out of White Rock.”

“White Rock?”

“That’s the special facility.  For guys your age.  I guess you never heard of it.”

“No,” I say.  “I never did.”

“You don’t want to go there.”

I wanted to ask the lawyer some questions, but I couldn’t think of a way to say them.   I was already a long way from my classroom.   Besides, he had other things to do.   Before I knew it, he was out the door.

Evidence was mounting.   This didn’t just look real.  It was real.