John Gilstrap - Nathan’s Run

Steadman climbed out of the car as soon as it yanked to a stop. An instant later, Nathan felt the rush of humid night air as the back door came open, and hands were on his shirt collar and the waistband of his shorts, bringing him to his feet. The rough treatment was intentional, he knew—more lessons for killing a dickhead. They wanted him to beg some more, probably so they could think about it when they went home and jerked off. But Nathan was done begging. He was back in the system now, and silence was the only thing that really worked. Silence allowed the dickheads to think that they had won, while at the same time allowing you to preserve your self-respect.

They could hurt him all they wanted, but he wouldn’t beg, and he wouldn’t cry. He’d fight them silently, he decided. His will against theirs. During his ride in the cruiser, stretched out on the Naugahyde seat where the odor still clung of countless drunks and real criminals, Nathan decided that he would never again suffer the humiliations he had endured the first time around. He was going to go down for murder, the worst crime there was. What difference did it make, then, if he ultimately committed the crime for which he would pay anyway? The next time somebody tried to pull down his pants or steal his stuff, there would be a fight, and the fight wouldn’t end until Nathan had won. If that meant that one of them would have to die, what difference would it make?

With the cops and the guards, you had to put up with a certain amount of bullshit and humiliation; it was built into the process. But there was a line where the institutional bullshit stopped and cruelty began. These assholes who’d just busted him had crossed the line, but there wasn’t much he could do when his hands were tied behind him. There was dignity, even, in getting the crap beaten out of you, so long as you took it. Nathan had begged, and he hated himself for it. It was a mistake he’d never make again.

“Come with me, tough guy,” Steadman commanded, apparently noting a change in his prisoner’s demeanor.

Steadman had to unlock the front door to the station before they could enter. With Watts’s participation in the chase, the shift had been stripped clean of personnel, leaving no one behind to watch the store. The Pitcairn County Police Station was tiny by most standards, consisting of a lobby with a watch desk from which extended two hallways. At the end of one hallway was a small locker room for use by the officers on duty and a cafeteria/roll call room where all meetings were held. Down the other hallway were the two detention cells, which normally remained empty during the week, and were packed with drunks on the weekend. New York state troopers, who frequented the station primarily for its bathrooms and coffee, called the place Mayberry.

The original foundation and walls of the detention cells had been erected in 1827, when the community’s concern for a prisoner’s well-being was very much less than what it was today. Window glass and wooden floors were considered outlandish luxuries, and in combination with a flushing toilet and cold-water sink, those luxuries defined the substance of the latest renovation effort to the facility, completed in 1938 as a WPA project.

Unlike his original arrest, in which Nathan spent the first three hours of his incarceration handcuffed to a wooden chair as he was in-processed, Steadman led him directly to a detention cell. The hallway sloped noticeably downward, toward two heavy wooden doors. As they approached, the temperature dropped an easy fifteen degrees, and the humidity seemed to top the scale.

“Not sure what kind of country club you’re used to, boy, but not many of our overnight guests ever want to come back,” Steadman explained with a smile. “Had a drunk in here one night who was so passed out the rats ate out his eyeballs before he had a chance to wake up.

Nathan tried to look impassive, but something in his expression made Steadman laugh. The cop inserted an old-fashioned iron key into the keyhole, and turned the lock with a solid klunk. The three-inch-thick oak door swung open noiselessly, and Steadman stepped aside.

The interior of the cell was three times the size of his room at the JDC, and lit only by a single light bulb dangling near the ten-foot-high ceiling. Besides the rough red sandstone walls and concrete floor, the only objects in the cell were an ancient canvas-on-wood Army cot and a kind of toilet that Nathan had never seen before. The bowl looked like all toilets, but there was a box of some sort over top of it.

“Here’s your suite for the night, Mr. Bailey,” Steadman said with a grin.

Nathan tried to straighten his shoulders and enter his cell with dignity, but couldn’t quite pull it off. Behind the brave mask lurked terrified eyes.

“Lean against the wall,” Steadman ordered.

Still without a word, Nathan complied, pressing the side of his face against the cold red bricks. Steadman kicked the boy’s feet back and to the side to form a human tripod. From there, he released Nathan’s handcuffs.

“Pleasant dreams,” Steadman said as he closed the door behind him. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” He laughed loud and long on that one. As the heavy deadbolt slid into its keeper, the klunk reverberated through the dank cell.

So this is it, Nathan thought. Ended just like it began, in a cage for trying to protect yourself A wave of tears approached from behind his eyes, but he willed them away. You’ll have fifty or sixty years to cry. No sense wasting any now.

Jesus, it was cold in there. He carefully grabbed a corner of the wool Army blanket from the cot and shook it open, checking for bugs. There were none. Wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, he sat on the edge of the cot, which promptly collapsed under his eighty-three pounds. One of the wooden legs had been booby-trapped to look whole. The impact with the concrete floor shook his various injuries to life.

This time, he couldn’t stop the tears. Dickheads.

Sergeant Watts finished his report on Nathan’s capture at 4:30, Li and slid the papers into an interoffice envelope addressed to Sheriff Murphy, who had leveraged his political connections to talk himself into a fancy corner office with a fireplace up in the County Administration Building.

The more Watts thought about the irony of his luck, the more he grumped about the day ahead. He and his boys had made the collar that the big-city guys couldn’t make, but by the time the press arrived to give him credit, he’d be off duty, and the sheriff would hog it all. Shift change was only ninety minutes away. He wondered if there wasn’t some way he’d be able to pull double duty, and give himself an opportunity to witness the bedlam that would be descending on their little community very soon.

The sound of the lobby door opening startled him. Visitors were rare at this hour. In this case, it was another cop, wearing a uniform Watts didn’t recognize.

“Good morning,” Pointer said cheerily. “I understand there was some excitement here last night.”

Watts smiled proudly, despite the inexplicable bad feeling he had about this guy. “Yessir, we got the bad guy. How can I help you?”

“My name’s Robertson,” Pointer lied. “I’m with the Braddock County PD. The Bailey kid’s from my beat. Just here to help out, maybe take him back to Virginia after extradition.” He glanced around the lobby. “Looks like a pretty slow night.”

Something in the way Robertson made the comment made Watts feel defensive. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s always exciting to fix a job that somebody else botched up.” Why the hell would somebody wear gloves on a night like this? he thought, noticing the visitor’s leather-clad hands.