Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [59]
“Exactly. If he wants. We’ll both know how much he wants that if we see the paperwork, won’t we? What else has he got to do? He asks for the form, fills it out, turns it in. We call that a kite, because he’s sending it into the wind, hoping it’ll fly. If it’s all in order, you schedule it. But let me tell you something: you won’t be hearing from Zach.”
“You’re sure?”
“People will do what people have done, Reverend. Zach never once in ten years requested a visit from Russ.”
Thomas shook his head. The guy had sounded so sincere. “Tell me, why is he so out of shape? Does he not take advantage of the exercise room?”
Yanno shook his head. “Just goes and hangs around. No one turns down the exercise time, but few exercise or jog or even stretch. They like the change of scenery and the space, but not many are motivated to stay fit. There’s no smoking in here, so everyone has been through withdrawal, and they’re healthier that way. And naturally they don’t have access to booze. But the food is what it is—high fat, high starch, low on nutrients. It’s hard to overeat because they don’t get huge quantities, but if all you do is sit and stand all day, you soon go to seed.”
Most of the inmates—with a few bodybuilder and youthful exceptions—were as soft as Zach looked. The population was largely minority, though it seemed the entire globe was represented. Thomas couldn’t shake a dark, heavy feeling that saddened him to his soul.
“We’re just processing a new inmate,” Yanno said, leading Thomas to the intake cell. A young Hispanic man wearing only his underpants sat in the five-by-five-foot windowless chamber away from the sight and even the sounds of the rest of the population. The room had neither bunk nor stool. The front wall was Plexiglas, but the only view from the cell was the cement blocks on the other side of the corridor.
The man looked both petrified and defiant.
“Got as far as the wall in one of our other facilities but surrendered rather than be shot. A lot of times they don’t give up, you know. That’s known as suicide by cop. They make you kill ’em. Some even get themselves hopelessly tangled in the razor wire, but they don’t quit struggling till they’re dead. This guy wasn’t that stupid, but he had to know he’d wind up here.”
“Why no clothes?”
“Policy. You come here, you get stripped of everything but your underbritches. You’re body-cavity searched, hosed down, dried off, and put in this cell until your house is ready. Then you get your slippers, khakis, and tee. He’ll be shackled and cuffed and led to his house, and he won’t be allowed out for anything but a fifteen-minute shower once a week for the first ninety days. In fact, he won’t have any privileges. No TV, no radio, nothing to read, nothing to write with. We don’t apologize for it. We’re tryin’ to break ’em, and they have to prove they’re worthy of privileges.”
“So he behaves for ninety days, and then what?”
“He gets paper and pencil, electricity, a tiny black-and-white TV, and a radio. He gets his daily hour in the exercise kennel.”
“I noticed the TVs. They have cable? Movie channels and all?”
“Yeah, but no porno. Watchin’ TV is the closest these guys come to community.”
“How so?”
“Guys in the same pod will all watch the same show and then discuss it, argue about it. It’s like they’re watching together, despite that they’re in their own houses.”
“So it behooves this guy to keep his nose clean the first three months.”
“And that’s not easy, Carey. The newcomers get both barrels from everybody. They scream at ’em, challenge ’em, mock ’em, taunt ’em. They try to get them to be belligerent to the officers, get them in trouble. And that rumor mill I told you about? Everybody watches TV all day. They see the news; they know as much about a guy’s case as he does, and they push him till he breaks, if they can. ‘What’d you do? Is it true what the prosecutor said? Did you enjoy making the victim suffer?’ That kind of thing. The best plan for a newbie is to not answer, ever. They’ll demand to know if he’s gay, if he’s a rapist,