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Authors: Alan Lawrence Sitomer
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in
the line of fire.”
The prison’s guard tower came into sight. Two men wearing green rain slickers carried high-powered rifles with scopes as they walked across a catwalk one hundred feet above the ground.
“But your boat did float,” Puwolsky said. “Which turned out to be great and terrible. Great because you kicked ass but terrible because word got out, and now some suits in D.C.
want to get one hundred more kids just like you up and running. But other suits in D.C. still believe in the Constitution. That second group went bat shit and now they need someone to flambé
for all this. Stanzer’s career is on the doorstep of being a political piñata unless you never existed. Everyone is in full denial mode right now. No more missions, no more targets;
the program is going to be shut down.”
M.D. remained silent.
“That’s why you’re in this car now, son. Because Stanzer is cutting you loose. If he had any more assignments for you, do ya really think he’d have let you go? Your unit
is over, your papers have been burned, and your entire existence is being washed off the map.”
“You saying he wants me dead?”
“Nah,” Puwolsky answered. “Not at all. Guy probably cares about you. But know this…he cares about himself, too.”
The Cadillac pulled up to the front gates of Jentles State Penitentiary, an institution built in 1896. It started as a rectangular facility of three hundred cells able to hold up to six hundred
prisoners, and operated on the “Two Bucket System.” One bucket for human waste, the other for fresh water. The only rule: don’t mix the buckets.
Prisoners who caused the guards any grief would have their buckets mixed.
In the late nineteenth century Jentles gained fame as one of the worst penal institutions in the United States, and since that time it had done little to lessen its reputation. Many had tried to
shut it down. Many times, too. But the D.T. was like a nonstick frying pan; no matter how much the heat had been turned up, nothing stuck. Lawyers filed lawsuits, journalists did exposés,
and at one point, even the church refused to send any more clergy inside to provide spiritual guidance for the prisoners after two of their fathers were beaten by gang members for refusing to play
the role of drug mule, so the fiends inside could score their dope.
Inside the D.T. a chicken bone became a shank, mice became meat, and year after year mentally healthy people entered but institutionally deranged madmen came out. Over and over the case had been
made that the D.T. violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment against those in detainment. As one of the briefings
said:
“An epidemic of beatings by deputies as well as by inmates, barely edible food, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical care puts the jail’s residents in a constant state of risk
and harm.”
Like most lawsuits against Jentles, it was still being shuffled around in someone’s case file inside the Court of Appeals.
The D.T. stood as a house of monsters housing monsters who had committed and were still committing horrible crimes. Yet, where were all these monsters supposed to go? Without an answer to that
question, the D.T. just kept right on rolling on, business as usual. Eighteen hundred men called the Devil’s Toilet home, and while indoor plumbing, electricity, and telephone lines had
arrived since the gates first opened, the guards still ruled the complex with the same mentality as they did more than a century ago.
Old habits die hard.
Puwolsky waved his badge at an armed guard standing in a gray box, and a sheet of metal ground its way open, allowing the Cadillac to pass through the perimeter. A second gate with a second
guard box stood inside the first. Beyond stood an unmistakable stench of violence, abuse, and death oozing from the prison’s walls.
M.D. spied a chimney in the back corner, smoke rising from
the line of fire.”
The prison’s guard tower came into sight. Two men wearing green rain slickers carried high-powered rifles with scopes as they walked across a catwalk one hundred feet above the ground.
“But your boat did float,” Puwolsky said. “Which turned out to be great and terrible. Great because you kicked ass but terrible because word got out, and now some suits in D.C.
want to get one hundred more kids just like you up and running. But other suits in D.C. still believe in the Constitution. That second group went bat shit and now they need someone to flambé
for all this. Stanzer’s career is on the doorstep of being a political piñata unless you never existed. Everyone is in full denial mode right now. No more missions, no more targets;
the program is going to be shut down.”
M.D. remained silent.
“That’s why you’re in this car now, son. Because Stanzer is cutting you loose. If he had any more assignments for you, do ya really think he’d have let you go? Your unit
is over, your papers have been burned, and your entire existence is being washed off the map.”
“You saying he wants me dead?”
“Nah,” Puwolsky answered. “Not at all. Guy probably cares about you. But know this…he cares about himself, too.”
The Cadillac pulled up to the front gates of Jentles State Penitentiary, an institution built in 1896. It started as a rectangular facility of three hundred cells able to hold up to six hundred
prisoners, and operated on the “Two Bucket System.” One bucket for human waste, the other for fresh water. The only rule: don’t mix the buckets.
Prisoners who caused the guards any grief would have their buckets mixed.
In the late nineteenth century Jentles gained fame as one of the worst penal institutions in the United States, and since that time it had done little to lessen its reputation. Many had tried to
shut it down. Many times, too. But the D.T. was like a nonstick frying pan; no matter how much the heat had been turned up, nothing stuck. Lawyers filed lawsuits, journalists did exposés,
and at one point, even the church refused to send any more clergy inside to provide spiritual guidance for the prisoners after two of their fathers were beaten by gang members for refusing to play
the role of drug mule, so the fiends inside could score their dope.
Inside the D.T. a chicken bone became a shank, mice became meat, and year after year mentally healthy people entered but institutionally deranged madmen came out. Over and over the case had been
made that the D.T. violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment against those in detainment. As one of the briefings
said:
“An epidemic of beatings by deputies as well as by inmates, barely edible food, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical care puts the jail’s residents in a constant state of risk
and harm.”
Like most lawsuits against Jentles, it was still being shuffled around in someone’s case file inside the Court of Appeals.
The D.T. stood as a house of monsters housing monsters who had committed and were still committing horrible crimes. Yet, where were all these monsters supposed to go? Without an answer to that
question, the D.T. just kept right on rolling on, business as usual. Eighteen hundred men called the Devil’s Toilet home, and while indoor plumbing, electricity, and telephone lines had
arrived since the gates first opened, the guards still ruled the complex with the same mentality as they did more than a century ago.
Old habits die hard.
Puwolsky waved his badge at an armed guard standing in a gray box, and a sheet of metal ground its way open, allowing the Cadillac to pass through the perimeter. A second gate with a second
guard box stood inside the first. Beyond stood an unmistakable stench of violence, abuse, and death oozing from the prison’s walls.
M.D. spied a chimney in the back corner, smoke rising from
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