The Incarcerated

His wife dabbed the corners of her eyes with the handkerchief he got her just a week before being locked up. Her frail skinny legs scurried across the dirty linoleum floor of the visitor’s waiting area and through the door to the bus that was to take her back home. She always promises not to cry when she comes to see her husband, and has yet to make a visit where she keeps that promise. Her resolve has improved in the last year so that now she no longer cries in front of him. The tears don’t flow for the safety of her husband or the fact that she must return to an empty house every week. She knows that he can take care of himself.

Every week it was the same old story. Through the glass his wife looked different. They were mere inches apart separated only by that cloudy glass. Her eyes glistened and she fought back to hide the smile on her face as she lifted the heavy plastic receiver to her ear. Seeing his wife he couldn’t help but smile at her as he picked up on his end.

“Hello, Martha,” he smiled.

“How are you today, Leonard?” she wanted to reach in through the glass and embrace him.

“It’s the same as always. You know that”

“I know. I just come here each week hoping it was even an iota better than the last.”

“It’s not so much dangerous in here anymore as it is an awful bore.”

“I’m glad to hear that there is no danger, but how can that be?”

“Well they don’t let us do anything in here.”

“I know that, but how can there be no more danger? You are after all in a prison chock full of criminals and deviants.”

“According to the new law, I’m one of those criminals and deviants too, Martha.”

“But I don’t understand. What about the murderers, thieves, rapists, and all the other violent hoodlums? Where did they all go? Surely, they’re in prison.”

“They were, but they’ve all died off and the ones that remain are much too old to pose much of any threat. And it’s all because of the same reason that I’m in here.”

“That dreaded law,” Martha whispered. Leonard knocked on the glass and warned her not to speak ill of the law into the receiver. “It has kept the riff raff from creating a fuss. I suppose the lawmakers know best. It seems to be working.” The words soured her tongue and she hated to say it, but she knew it was the only way to prevent coming off as a seditionist.

Leonard whispered the words “I love you” through the glass and Martha responded in kind, gripping to the receiver tightly. The rest of the visit was spent with the usual family updates and concluded with Leonard kissing his fingertips and touching them to the glass to meet Martha’s already waiting hand.

“Time’s up!” a guard shouted, “Get back to your cells!”

Leonard heard the clopping of the new guy’s rubber shoes slapping despondently against the concrete floor of the prison hall. He lay back in his bed knowing that this was going to be his new roommate. When the guards tapped on the bars, Leonard saw a tall skinny young man with unkempt hair and a frown on a freckle sprinkled face. The eyebrows furrowed on the newcomer and when the locks of the cell clicked shut his bony fingers wrapped around the cold iron bars.

“But I didn’t do anything,” he whispered to himself.

“Actually you did do something otherwise you wouldn’t be in here.”

“But I didn’t! I’ve never committed a crime in my life. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Nobody did anything wrong in here. But we all did something to get locked away. So what did you do?” Leonard paused as if to ask the newcomer for a name.

“My name’s Walter,” he answered coyly, “And they arrested me while I was teaching.”

“That seems harmless enough. What were you teaching exactly?”

“Shakespeare and history,” Walter became more comfortable as he recalled his arrest, “You see, my personal style is to get the children interested in something, anything and use that to branch off into other aspects of academia. Do you have any idea how intertwined every discipline actually is?”

“Critical thinking. Unfortunately, the world has decided to make that a crime.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Have you noticed how crime has dropped drastically in the past few years? All these trends are because it’s so much easier to control a public that can’t think for themselves. And the powers that be accomplish that by putting the likes of you and me in jail.”

“What did you do?” Walter paused for Leonard’s name and shook his name when he got it.

“I attempted to make this world a better place for my children.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Will across the walkway over there is in here for painting a picture out in the park. Robert there wrote a poem. And next door is Ray who was thrown in here for going out for a midnight stroll,” Leonard chuckles to himself, “You see the people that run the world now aren’t interested in ideas, or thoughts, or any form of creativity. It’s futile to them, you see. Do you know much about prisons in general?”

“I know in some cultures it started off as a place where wrongdoers would contemplate what they had done in an attempt to correct the error of their ways.”

“True; hence the term, ‘correction facility.’ But it evolved, or devolved really into a pit to throw in society’s problems. It became the proverbial rug under which all of society’s scum would be neatly swept. Instead it became almost a university for the career criminal. You put all the most dangerous minds together and they all learn from each others’ mistakes and they come out smarter and more powerful criminals. But someone (I don’t know who) realized that the problem lies in the mind. If you can change the mindset of these criminals, you can allegedly eliminate nearly all crime.”

“But that seems counterintuitive,” Leonard ran to cover Walter’s mouth.

“Try not to use big words. The guards here don’t like feeling dumb. It was different when I was your age. Sure, there were still some dangerous murderers and sadists in the prison but at least the guards at the time sympathized with our kind. Now, practically the entire country has been brainwashed into thinking that there is only one way of thinking.”

“The death of,” Walter looked around for any guards and whispered, “subjectivity? But how does that make what you did a crime?”

“My family and I had just moved into our first house. We spent most of our money so we couldn’t afford the latest technological toys that were all the craze in those days. And as luck would have it, it was the holidays. Sure, we didn’t have the money to follow the latest trends, but we did have boxes and an opportunity to teach our kids how to use their imaginations.”

“And that was considered a crime?”

“It was reported a crime. Playing make believe would, at worst, get you thrown in an insane asylum. But a nosy neighbor saw that I was not only playing with my children but encouraged other children in the neighborhood to join in, I was branded as a ‘conspirator of the innocent.’ In some circles, I was called a pervert.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“It’ll be 12 years this October. My God, has it been that long,” Leonard looked at his calloused wrinkled hands, “My children are all grown up, and I’ve missed it all.”

“How did you pass the time? They don’t let you write unless it’s for letters, they don’t let you read, there’s no music, and we’re not even allowed to talk about books we’ve read or movies we’ve seen or--”

“Stories are stories,” Leonard responded, “We might not be able to sit around and tell each other the story off Odysseus or Huckleberry Finn, but we can disguise the names. If we tell these stories as if they were memories, as if they actually did happen to us then there is no way for them to stop us. They don’t get half the references we tell anyway, not anymore. And the old timers that do simply let us have our time.”

“I’m not sure I can pretend for that long.”

“You’ll get used to it. On the bright side, you have to admit that it’s rather ironic that the like minded are all together in one place. We can converse with each other, secretly exchange ideas, and when we all get out we may actually turn out for the better, intellectually that is.”

“Maybe we can start a new Renaissance.”

“That’s the spirit!” Leonard said as the two looked out through the barred window of their stifling cell. The heat slammed down on the recreation yard, radiating back out into the stale air from the jagged gravel on the ground, contained neatly within the confines of steel, concrete, and barbed wire. “We all still have each other, and not to mention our families out there waiting patiently for us.”

“Will the world ever learn?”

“Eventually, but until then, we just have to wait patiently for everyone else to catch up. And then we can finally move forward together.” Leonard answered sagely. He made his bed hastily and leaned against the window to see how the shadows fell on the recreation grounds. “If you’ll excuse me, they’re about to call for inmates who have visitors. Do you have anyone coming?”

“My wife says she’s on her way. She’s pregnant, you know.”

Leonard just smiled and squeezed Walter’s shoulder, and that is all that the new recruit needed to know everything would be all right. The guards walked down the cells calling out the names of the incarcerated that were to receive visitors that day. Walter, for the first time after being sentenced, allowed a comforting smile melt across his skinny, freckled face. Leonard breathed the air just like he did for the past 12 years knowing that Martha will always be there waiting for him until the family reunites when he is released.