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The Screaming Man
by Michael Clough That morning the Goon Squad appeared in his doorway. They told him to strip. They said it was procedure and he had to live with it. He left the gray flannel suit on the bed, along with his socks, boxers and shoes. They marched him naked to Ad Seg, security lights flashing above every clanking door. They said solitary was for his own safety but there was more to it than that. He figured that the guards couldn’t bear to be around him knowing what he’d done. Moving him meant there would be no need for simple human communication, no need to speak to him when they dished out his chow. It was like feeding a rabid dog, he supposed. You slam in the tray. You come back when it’s empty. You kick the dog and leave it alone to lick its wounds. You had to wait for permission to enter this corridor and that. It was a maze of human suffering. There were kids here who’d done nothing more than burn up on cheap drugs. By when he got to his cell there were goose-pimples down his arms and legs and he was shivering badly. He expected he’d get something to wear but there was nothing. The cell was grey and damp, with a thin mattress in the corner and a stool that had been bolted to the floor. There were no shelves for books or anything. Once they’d gone he lay on the mattress in the fetal position, wrapping his arms around his legs to keep warm. He could only guess at how long he’d been here. They hadn’t fed him and his stomach ached with hunger. He supposed this was all part of their plan to forget about him, forget what he’d done. Don’t feed the dog. Let it die a slow, agonizing death. He could holler all he liked about the rules and regulations they’d to abide by, all that wordy legal talk. At last he heard the distant clanking of doors and then footsteps approaching, voices. Whoever it was, this con wasn’t coming without a fight. He could make out a lot of cussing and the sort of deft punches and kicks that the Goon Squad took pride in. The screaming began. It continued for how long he didn’t know. He fell asleep and then woke back up to it, longing for silence. Occasionally he heard a thud, as if his neighbor was throwing himself against the walls. He called out to him but all this did was to make him more frantic. There was more thudding now, and more screaming. What was the point? After all, once you were down here there was no one to hear you, at least no one who had the power to do anything. And even if there was someone, there was no reason why they should care. The screaming man was screaming for the sake of it, for his own troubled soul, and there seemed little point in that. He wanted to communicate this. He wanted him to know that he was not alone. He wanted him to know that he too was suffering, only silently. There was a black lead pipe running between the cells and he decided that he would tap out a tune on it, from an old show he liked to watch. It was from his childhood, and there was a comfort in hearing it, even in this cold, echoing chamber. The screaming stopped but it took a while for his compatriot to tap anything back. These taps were hard and then soft, tat, TAT, tat, TAT, and he wondered whether it was a code. Morse. Perhaps it was that. The screaming man knew Morse. He knew his initials and a few words. HELLO. HAPPY. SAD. SOS. He expected an acknowledgement, a new word perhaps or the screaming man’s name, but all he got back was his own sequence. At least the screaming had stopped. If he wanted he could get some sleep. He closed his eyes and almost at once began dreaming. He dreamt he was back in the world. He was on a bench in the park he liked to go to being towered over by three officers; they said they would beat him to a pulp; they said they would dump him in the river. He told them he wasn’t doing anything, only looking, but they cuffed him anyway. He woke to tapping. He was parched and he needed to defecate. There was no toilet, not even a bucket. He paced for a while, and then he sat on the stool holding his stomach, all the while listening to his neighbor tapping. There was no rhythm to the tapping, no meaning, and it was right there in his skull, inescapable. He slumped on the mattress and again tried sleeping. He did better. There were no arresting officers, no parks, only darkness. Time had gone by, but how much he didn’t rightly know. His eyes were heavy and his mouth dry. The screaming man had gone back to screaming. He hammered his fists against the door. “I have rights, you bastards! Hey! I have rights! I have to have food. I have to have water. An’ I need to take a shit. There’s no place to take a shit in here. What the fuck.” Footsteps approached but whoever was there didn’t say anything, and this was the worst punishment of all. “You can’t keep me down here. Not when I haven’t done anything. At least provide me with food and water. Common decency to do that. Common humanity.” At last the guard spoke, “And what would you know about decency, humanity?” He emptied his bladder in the corner. He watched the yellow liquid gush around the stool, against the mattress, and it disgusted him. He couldn’t help but think of how he’d been a bed wetter. The psychologist said it could be a cause, standing around miserable in soiled pajamas watching the sheets being changed, an abuse of sorts. He couldn’t be sure. He didn’t rightly know. All of that was in the distant past when he was a kid. He sat on the stool looking at the wall, imagining it had a window through which he could see things, moonlight streaming through a valley, that kind of thing. And then it happened. On the wall the figure of a girl appeared, no older than twelve he guessed, her golden locks flowing down her back and across her bright blue eyes. He raised his hand to touch her. He wondered what it would be like to take her into his arms. He couldn’t decide whether he was awake or dreaming. His eyes were closed and then they were open. The stench of his guts rose up around him. Reaching down he felt a sticky residue on the backs of his calves. The tune was being tapped out on the pipe, over and over, unbearably loud. A while later, the door clanked open and he saw two guards coming towards him. They shouted and screamed, which he expected – he’d shit himself after all. They swore at him, said they were going to teach him a lesson. He was dragged by his arms along the corridor. “You’re a filthy bastard,” they yelled. “A filthy bastard that needs putting down like a rabid dog.” Later he would wonder about that. He would wonder whether he’d been frothing at the mouth, thinking of the girl. A frothing rabid dog, the judge had said to him. He made no effort to resist. What was the point? It would only make it worse. He took their punches without saying anything. They’d brought him to a shower room that stank to high heaven of shit, vomit and death. “One minute,” he was told. “You got one minute.” “I’ve not been charged,” he said. “You can’t keep me down here if you don’t put a charge on me.” “You’ll be charged, you stinking bastard. You just get in there and keep the fuck quiet.” Afterwards he paced the cell. He did press-ups, push-ups and sit-ups. He tapped the tune on the pipe and when there was no reply he shouted at the wall. In all likelihood his neighbor couldn’t hear him, or he was choosing to ignore him. Perhaps his neighbor was dead; perhaps he had likewise shat himself and the guards had taken him to that shower room and strangled him. It would account for the smell. In his mind he wrote a letter to the governor. It began, “For certain my rights as a prisoner have been violated.” But it got no further. His mind was blank. Anyway nothing could be done about that, not for the moment. He had to wait it out. Still, he determined that on leaving Ad Seg he’d find someone who knew something of the law, someone who didn’t know what he was in for. He would not let them get the better of him. He had erred. He had to be punished. But this was a step too far. They’d put him in here for his own safety, after all, and because they couldn’t bear to look at him. He was not up on a charge. He sat next to the pipe clanking out the tune. Later a guard unlocked the door. He wanted to know what he was doing trying to damage state property. “Those pipes are old and brittle and they could easily break. The cell will be flooded then and you’d have to pay for repairs.” “I was communicating. Speaking to my fellow man.” “Ain’t no one around, baby.” The guard towered over him and slapped him hard eight or nine times. There was nothing he could do. He could only curse the bastard and take it. Once he’d left he could barely move. His stomach was wet and there was wetness on the floor. At first he thought it was blood. It took him a moment to realize he’d urinated. A tray was pushed through the slit; it had on it dry bread and a cup of water. He crawled towards it. He gulped down the water. He devoured the bread. And then he slept and dreamt she was bending over him, kissing him. It wasn’t right but he couldn’t help his dreams. He woke to see a sliver of light coming from the corridor. The screaming was back. He cursed the screaming man; he wished death upon him. He didn’t care that the Goon Squad was in there with the bastard, kicking and punching him. It would be his turn next, he knew that. He had to prepare for the worst. They were in their vests, shields and masks, although there was no need for that, not with three against one. One of them held a bone towards him, which he accused him of making. There was no point in disputing this. There was no point in disputing anything. He kicked out with his remaining strength but there was not much too it. If anything it only made it worse. He felt the cold steel of the bone against his throat. No one said anything. Once they’d gone he tried standing but fell uselessly back on the mattress. He didn’t know where or when. He had to constantly readjust to keep anything in focus. A tray had been posted. He drank the water but left the bread. He sensed that someone was in there with him, and the cell seemed much brighter than before. “Your room stinks to high heaven.” “It’s not my room. It’s my cell.” “Not a hotel. You think this is a hotel or something, well it’s not.” “Some hotel. Bit of bread and water. All I’ve had in I don’t know how many days.” “That’s no good. That’s no good at all. You’ve got to eat. Three square meals a day is what you need. Three square meals. That way you become fit and strong, you become a man. And you listen.... if ever I catch you doing that again, I’ll do more than take my belt to you. I’ll kill you with my own bare hands. We’re lucky they didn’t involve the authorities.” And with that his father was gone. He could hear the screaming again, loud and persistent. He moved towards the pipe and tapped out his tune. There was no reply and he knew then that the screaming man was gone. |
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