Read Online The Four Stages of Cruelty by Keith Hollihan - Free Book Online Page A

“I’m so sick about that,” he said. “I know such things happen from time to time, but I’m still broadsided by it all. I think that’s why I ran across the yard and got in the way. I couldn’t quite believe the whole thing turned violent. I just wanted it to stop.”
    I saw my opening and put the question forward hesitantly. “Did it start because of something that happened in your class?”
    I anticipated a gruff reply, a return to the bad temper, but he looked relieved. “I’m glad someone’s finally asking me about it.”
    “You mean no one has been here to talk to you?”
    I’d have expected the Pen Squad, Keeper Wallace, or some irate CO to have jumped all over Brother Mike by this point, a full day later.
    “No one until now,” he said, offering me the job. “Shall we sit down in my office?”
    I nodded, reluctant now that my plan was actually working so well.
    The office had a desk and a couch and another living-room chair with a coffee table between, and two walls lined with bookshelves and upright file cabinets, like a staggered canyon of skyscrapers. Papers and books seemed to have exploded from every drawer and shelf. He directed me to the couch, and I sank into its deep cushion. He took the chair opposite, and suddenly we were patient and therapist, or so it felt to me. This is where his ease comes from, I thought. He sees all the world through the prism of analysis.
    “The class. Well, there was nothing really. Nothing unusual about the session. I wish I could understand it all better.”
    “It doesn’t always make sense,” I told him. “You had group?” The word session was therapeutic code. I pictured a circle of men explaining their inner rages, cheering one another’s progress on, like addicts with a murdering problem.
    “It was our monthly crit session, not counseling related. Anyone who’s finished artwork that month can show it to the rest of the class for comment and feedback. Those discussions can grow heated sometimes.”
    “Inmates can get heated about anything.”
    He smiled. “You should see grad students.”
    I pushed further. “Did Jon Crowley show something?”
    “He didn’t. He was going to, but then he decided his piece wasn’t ready, and we couldn’t convince him to change his mind. He’s a perfectionist. So a few others went instead. I have eight in that class, one of three groups I meet with every week. Horace Sunfish, Timothy Connors, Bradwyn Delinano, Roy Duckett, Josh Riff, and, of course, Jonathan Crowley and Lawrence Elgin. That afternoon, Timothy showed a very unfinished two-D collage, Bradwyn read a rather unfortunate love poem he’d also illustrated, and Josh showed some of his new drawings.”
    I knew everyone in that crew by sight, and I was surprised at how unlikely they were as a mix. Horace was an Indian. Timothy was an incomplete transsexual they called Screen Door, supposedly because he got banged so often. Bradwyn was half Chinese, half Puerto Rican. Roy was the old-timer with one leg who worked in the kitchen, Elgin a raging Viking, Josh an utter newbie, Crowley your average mid-thirties lifer.
    “Did Crowley and Elgin have some animosity between them?”
    Brother Mike sighed. “A general dislike. But nothing overwhelmingly hostile, or I wouldn’t have had them in the same group. Lawrence can be unpredictable in his opinions—sometimes he’s surprisingly thoughtful, in fact—but Jon can also be moody. If anything, the animosity that day was between Roy Duckett and Jon. Do you know Roy? Roy teased Jon quite hard about not wanting to show his work. But I didn’t think much of it at the time. They’re close friends, almost inseparable, and I find there’s often less patience and everyday politeness in such relationships. But really, Jon’s work was ready to show. I had glanced through it before class when Jon and I had our counseling session. He’d made a lot of progress over the last year on what was an ambitious project, but when