by Timothy O. Davis
Sergeant Wells stared at the D Fac’s green and white linoleum floor. The inmates had not been awoken for chow, but his day had started well before he took over his post. Wells had gotten up earlier than usual. There had been a noise – laughter in the hall or the drunken stumbling of some knuckle-headed Private – and he had reached over for Bethany, his wife. He had forgotten she had moved out; that he had been forced to move back to the barracks. His room much smaller, like his world now with Bethany gone.
You’re always on mission, Leonard; you never want to have any fun.
These were her last words to him as she left their quarters in Rose Terrace, the proverbial sleeve of a blouse sticking out of her suitcase. Her words did not exactly sting Wells like maybe she thought they would. He had just come home from a shift at the prison, and he and Bethany weren’t exactly newlyweds. They had met in high school like many troubled couples and had gotten married after he came home from Basic. Today, though, night shift soldiers greeted him with blood shot eyes. Post Two, Private Schumacher, was barely hanging on when she called Control for the outside door in her Mississippi drawl.
Cooks and inmate cooks fluttered around, getting the D Fac ready for morning chow. Wells imagined her now – laughing, her white teeth flashing in the lamp light, drinking another man’s wine. This man, if there were another man, buzzed his thoughts like a mosquito. He brushed the idea away and finished the count, ensuring the requisite number of knives, spoons, and forks were present. A ladle slammed against the counter nearly hitting his hand. “We ready, Sergeant?” Specialist Brown asked. Wells looked at his hand and then nodded.
Wells called in his count to Control. He released the flatware to the inmate cooks and they put them in a large bin which Wells locked. The inmates wheeled the bin over to a wall in a corner by the cadre tables.
He went to the latrine. Looking in the mirror, he didn’t recognize himself and wondered what Bethany saw before she left. He splashed some water on his face. Any decent guard knew that if some shit was going to go down, it would be here, in the D Fac. Wells once told Bethany that inmates were like bombs. Not so much at breakfast, but by supper, when time had its chance to weigh in, when they had been denied visitation or read a letter from their wife or family or they had received no mail or came in from a work detail to find their cell had been searched, they were ready to burst. Bethany had rolled her eyes and went back to scrolling through her phone. He should have seen it then; heard it in the giggles and gasps she made while staring at social media posts or felt it when she jerked away when he tried to hug her.
Once breakfast started, inmates would line up five to ten at a time and walk toward this wall. PFC Schwartz would be standing next to the bin and ensure each inmate grabbed a fork, knife, and spoon. Wells would be positioned by the door as the inmates came in. He had to get three wash pans so the inmates leaving could drop their spoon, fork, and knife in them. He would then frisk the inmates before they were allowed to leave. The whole operation worked smoothly. He could see Schwartz by the silverware bin, she could see him. Corporal Castillo, the guard watching the inmates dump their trays, would be watching Schwartz and him.
Back in the kitchen, inmate cooks were moving warming trays to set up the chow line. Harris was pointing and yelling, but Wells couldn’t make out what was going on. He watched Harris restore order to the kitchen. It was smooth, almost effortless, and then one of the inmates, Barron, walked out of the kitchen towards Wells.
“Garbage run, Sarge.”
Wells grabbed his cover from the cadre table and went back with Barron. When Wells had first been stationed at the RCF, fresh out of Basic, it was a bit different. Of course, back then, he was much younger than the inmates. In a sense, many of the inmates had watched him grow and mature. Many of them, especially Barron, had fostered his growth as a soldier as if they wanted to prevent him from making their same mistake. He tried to believe that. One day, when he was on Control as SHU guard, he had read Barron’s escape card. Barron was in for battery; he had beaten the brakes off his platoon leader after Barron found out the man had been sleeping with his wife. Before Bethany left, Wells couldn’t understand what drove someone to that kind of betrayal, and he felt something like pity for Barron, but there was also an edge. Barron had the misfortune to discover the affair, but Wells had no idea where Bethany was or if she had left him for someone, and this made him feel like a slow fuse burning.
Wells popped the lock off the wire cage door. The sun was starting to break out through the clouds at the horizon. Reville had been called, but you could still hear it in the air, those brazen notes mixed with the dampness and deep purples and pinks of morning. Barron jumped off the dock and tossed the trash in the dumpster. The smell of old garbage and onions and paint and eggs and stagnant water lingered out on the dock.
“We have time to smoke, Sarge?” Barron asked and pulled out a pack of Marlboros.
Wells looked back inside through the orange-red wire cage door. Harris was stirring something in a pot. Other inmates scurried around setting up the breakfast line. Things would kick off in a few minutes, but for now, he was content to remain on the dock separate but part of the machine. Wells nodded and pulled out his lighter. Barron tapped out a cigarette and lit up, breathing it in under the last perimeter light, which was fading to a dull orange as the sky became lighter.
About a year ago, before Bethany had moved out and before he realized what was happening, Wells had been walking in West Wing. Barron was sitting on his bunk looking at some photos. Wells had stopped to ask Barron about the pictures. One photo was of Barron in fatigues with ruck sack and LBE. He was pretending to step on a fake landmine, and Barron, in the photo, had this shocked look, as though this was not something planned but a surprise that he was about to be blown up. Wells had grunted, handed the photo back, and continued on his patrol of West Wing. Of course, he now felt like Barron had pretended to feel in that photo. He watched Barron smoking and said, “Was it worth it?”
Barron took a long drag, snorted as he exhaled, and shrugged. He put out the cigarette and climbed back on the dock. They went back inside, the breakfast meal was about to start, but it was all the answer Wells needed.
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Timothy O. Davis has an MFA in fiction from Boise State University and an MS in Human Resource Development (emphasis CTE) from Idaho State University. Although born in Alabama, he grew up in North Carolina. In 2001, after serving honorably in the Army, he moved to Idaho with his family. His writing has appeared in Shotgun Honey, Flash: The International Short-Story Magazine, Flash Frontier, The Slag Review, Juste Milieu, The Del Sol SFF Review, Techniques, and the Solano Valley Review. Timothy currently lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
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