I’m losing myself. In here, time erodes our identities until just inmate numbers and convictions remain. My lawyer—government-appointed, but still supposedly on my side—said nothing matters but the charges. Once this machine starts moving, excuses and explanations don’t even register. She called me delusional when I told her the truth.
I assume that since Inspector Servais’s number isn’t working and his name’s no longer in the directory, he’s been transferred. When I couldn’t get hold of him, I looked crazy. The guards almost seemed to pity me, but not quite. Pity no longer exists.
The meeting didn’t happen where we thought it would. Mateo put me and Rizzuto in the back of a box truck and drove us over the border. Rebel couldn’t come into Canada since he’s on all sorts of wanted and watch lists, Mateo said. To tap the Iron Pipeline connect we had to go to Vermont.
I brought the bricks. Rizzuto brought a thumb drive full of girls Rebel’s biker club could ship down to Florida, where they’d be too far from family or friends to get help. You see why I had to try and get these scumbags off the street?
Rebel met us at a truck stop with a van full of heat: nines, 45s, ARs, all that. I gave Rebel the bricks. Rizzuto gave him the thumb drive and said pick ten.
Then chaos erupted. Headlights blinded us. A helicopter thundered overhead. Police officers equipped like soldiers jumped out of vehicles screaming and brandishing rifles.
The Americans caught a barrage of taunts when they cuffed me. I figured if I could keep my cover intact, I could use it again. One of the cops helped with a brutal gut-punch that dropped me to my knees. I thanked him. He stuffed me in a squad car.
They sent me to a crowded, decrepit jail where misery hangs over everything like a small amount of weight. Not enough to crush you outright, but it’s always there: a relentless, nagging pressure that drives people crazy. I feel it acutely and it’s only my third day.
Unlike the rest of these poor bastards, though, I’ll be released soon. I’m a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who got dragged into the U.S. due to circumstances I couldn’t control. A five-minute call from Inspector Servais could fix everything. If I could just get through!
Now, my jailers may bring up what they call an administrative charge. Inmates here smoke even though tobacco is prohibited, and one of my fellow prisoners offered me a puff. Whatever he gave me was not tobacco, but some ungodly mixture of chemicals that had me ranting and hallucinating for the next four hours. I apologized, and they let me out of solitary, but they slapped me with an additional possession rap. We’ll have to deal with that when we clear up what happened at the truck stop. That should be easy enough. For now, though, it’s cost me my phone privileges and I can’t get any visitors except my lawyer.
It was through her that I learned we had badly miscalculated the cop-to-perpetrator ratio. Rebel was actually a New York State Trooper and Mateo was an FBI agent, meaning Rizzuto was the only legitimate criminal. When I get out of here, I’m going to be a zealous advocate for better inter-agency communication.
My lawyer also helped me understand that the bricks —two identical, snow-white rectangular kilograms wrapped in cellophane—possessed immense, seemingly supernatural powers.
The second time I met with her, after the incident with the laced cigarette, she laid out the state’s evidence. She showed me a photograph of the bricks and asked me if they were mine.
It’s not what you think, I said. I took them from the evidence room on Dorchester Boulevard and was going to return them.
How you got them doesn’t matter, she said. Who you were before does not matter. You are now cocaine possession in the first degree. That is your new identity. You should plead guilty. I might be able to get you just eight years.
All I could do was stare at the brick pic. I fixated on it and the world fell away. I was a bodyless entity floating in a black void, held in place by the gravitational pull of the ivory twins. It was hard to see them as anything but sentient beings after I realized how much control they exerted. They mooted my identity. They nullified everything I’d done in the 32 years of life that led up to my arrest. They mobilized a zombie army that subsumed me. Cops sprang into action, lawyers scurried into court, a stern old judge stirred in his chambers: all because of the bricks.
Call C division headquarters in Montreal, I told her. Find Inspector Servais and tell him Sergeant Major Cameron Gagne is in trouble with the U.S. authorities. She sighed.
I’ve handled a lot of these cases, she told me. They don’t ever end well, but the ones where defendants put up a fight are the worst.
Maintain your identity, I advised myself silently. Remember who you are.
There’s no way out, she said. Everybody’s got excuses. Everybody’s got a story. Nobody gets off.
I kept staring at the photo of the bricks. Maintain your identity, I whispered. Remember who you are.
They can nail you for more than just the coke, she continued. Human trafficking. Guns. Conspiracy. You could be looking at the equivalent of life.
Maintain your identity, I said out loud. Remember who you are.
My lawyer shook her head. Last chance, she warned.
I covered my ears and yelled: Maintain your identity! Remember who you are! Don’t let them erase you!
[Image Credit : Photo by Alex Shuper on Unsplash ]
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Absorbing and tensely atmospheric. The theme of an overarching, encompassing effort afoot to erase an individual’s identity is particularly hard to describe in a short story but the author’s grasp of paramilitary/police language makes for a realistic (if idiosyncratic) tale that works on more than one level. Strong effort.
Now I’m mad it was a short story leaves the reader wanting more. Me the reader haha. This was a great read. Always maintain your identity!
Wow! What’s a page turner called when you’re reading on a phone? Is it a “thumb scroller”? Whatever it’s called… this was it. A compelling, slippery slope of a story told in a truly unique voice. Looking forward to reading more by this author.