Michael Seidlinger - The Strangest

I am a fraud.

The feelings associated with being unfit are here, and they keep me bound to a toxic routine of resistance from the officers when asked for the most basic of needs. So they started to ignore me. Example being: They wouldn’t give me food when I needed it. One of the officers said, “It’s slop but it’s still a waste giving it to you. You’ll only throw it up.”

Everything went down that drain. Written or partially eaten.

Everything, even what I wanted to keep.

So much had to do with the time I had been given.

So much had to do with the fact that I couldn’t know how much that would be, or whether or not that would be permanent.

Then Meurks said it in my voice.

I didn’t have to wait long to hear it.

It was my voice. That is my voice: “They’ve made a fan page for me. I’m reaping the reward for what you’ve done.”

Seems I had already done the one thing I might have taken back.

I couldn’t take back any of it. And time, it had a way with making this period the longest. Many of those nights froze in place the moment night fell.

The mornings were even worse.

One morning I find the following sentence written on the notepad. Before reading, I think of the considerations, yet there is only one. Perhaps I had forgotten to flush it down the toilet like the rest.

Maybe I did.

One thing’s for sure.

I had written it.

It read:

There are approximately 570 convicts in this prison.

I am not included in that number.

I didn’t just crumple up and flush the piece of paper. I took the entire notepad and flushed each page. It clogged the toilet.

They forced me out of the cell.

Made me walk the courtyard with the rest of the prisoners.

There were 34 prisoners there, but it might as well have been just me.

It felt like I was in an entirely different yard, separated and enclosed so that the other prisoners could watch if they felt the need.

15 of them did.

When I was back in my cell, the toilet had been fixed and the notepad had been replaced. I broke the pencil so that I wouldn’t be able to write anything else. Nothing would be written that wouldn’t be immediately destroyed.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for sleep to arrive. As always, by the time it arrived, I forgot why I had waited for it so long.

One morning was different. It proved to be different enough. I was at the bars, but when one of the officers started getting close, I went to the far end of the cell. There’s a part of the cell that remains shadowed even during what I figure is high noon. It is my idea that they don’t see me there.

If they don’t see me, maybe I don’t exist.

I don’t exist, and they don’t so much as bother me.

They don’t feed my fears.

They had been doing that a lot the past couple days.

Questioning, always questioning. I came to the conclusion that I was guilty. But that wasn’t enough for them. Officers and prisoners and the occasional person that doesn’t look like they belong in a prison, only stopping by, they question. With their gaze, they question.

With their words, they question.

My idea did not work. They saw through shadows.

“You got a call.”

And then, tapping on the bars, “Let’s go. Now.”

I go along, cuffed at the wrists and cuffed at the ankles.

The officer doesn’t want to hold my arm but has to, security reasons; he holds my arm with two fingers, the least amount of holding he can get away with, and we walk quickly.

I almost trip.

If you trip they kick you and force you back up.

Prisoners call out to other prisoners and guards when led down the hall. Seems they keep quiet. They only threaten me at night.

By day they don’t want to see me.

The walk is quiet enough to hear the thin soles of my shoes scraping against the well-worn, stained prison floors.

The phones are old payphones.

I don’t get any privacy. The officer stands there as I pick up the phone.

It’s someone on the line. It’s whoever wanted to call.

“Zachary?”

The voice is familiar, might be my voice if I hadn’t lost it while talking to Meurks.

“Zachary, are you there?”

He hears me breathing. I have seen blood from my throat. It is raw from repetition.

He knows that I’m listening.

“Okay … I refuse to speak of the incident. I will not speak of the incident. You were always fragile. Don’t deal with social anxieties well …”

The officer listens in.

His voice can be heard without pressing the receiver against your ear.

Distantly I should be concerned, but instead I lower the receiver. Stand there listening to his voice. Seems right. The only thing to do.

“I won’t ask. I want to focus on the matters at hand.”

It sounds like he isn’t concerned.

He was always good about acting, hiding his true feelings.

I get it from him.

A father thinks he knows but he doesn’t. How can he know if I am not fully aware?

“First on the agenda: The film footage. It is all over the net, but not for long. My attorney has made sure to contact the appropriate sources. It is obscene for any site or blog to allow for what is bound to be snuff.”

A father judges without sounding like he’s judging.

“I am under the impression that the associated press is going to create a media storm out of your upcoming trial. I have spoken to a number of my confidants and we are within right to assume that it is true.”

A father once said that things could have been so much different if he had never had a son.

“A problem, and I will not fault you for this, but it seems no public defender will touch your case. I have done my research and a few of my contacts know of some trustworthy lawyers that are at the top of their game. They will take on any case, especially one with as much media attention as yours.”

Balance it out with the early thought that maybe for most, it is the same. Never ready, always barely able to keep up.

“It’s okay, Zachary. I know a person.”

He starts to sound like the way he always does, a fast-talker and a business professional.

“The judge appointed to your case just so happens to be an old friend of Haverly’s. He’s already on it, and you should be thankful. I am not blaming you for what you did. You’ve never been the type to lead, much less follow, so Haverly and I both agreed that the truest course of action is to plead guilty to the murder under the cause of insanity.”

He knows a lot of people.

“I am your father. I am not going to talk about the murder. I am not going to talk about what you did. I do believe that perhaps things have gotten the better of you.”

He is valued by others.

“You never did fit in. I guess it was partially my fault. Your mother and I were never around. We thought we were doing our best by sending you to the right schools and urging you to participate in sports. Well, we thought we were providing you with a stable foundation. You are a good son and I know you are a good person, I am not going to say otherwise; however, maybe it’s time to consider our options. It’s the only way you will survive this case.”

He is professional, a degree of popularity among his peers.

“They are going to put you away for good. Or worse: Capital punishment is being put to an open forum but it is still a just cause; but you shouldn’t worry about that. Haverly has it in our best interest: We don’t have to let it get bad.”