Laoeked1111 Habitica 01-13-2023

Prompt: SETTING/CONFLICT - A man is falsely accused of a crime and sent to prison for life. He is rich enough to appeal, but prison seems to be treating him very poorly. Write about the man trying to survive prison while waiting to get an appeal.

''An Incident in Oclo Prison

Garrison''

He sat in an ash-colored, windowless chamber clothed in a baggy orange suit. The only view of the outside – if ‘outside the cell’ could be considered ‘outside’ – was through the bars that faced a large, open stairwell that was sometimes used by the guards to check on the inmates when the elevator was being repaired. Inside the cell were a dysfunctional sink, a barely usable toilet, and two rock-hard beds. The man looking out at the rusty staircase occupied one of the beds; a second orange-suited man slept in the other. Neither of them gave half a second of thought about being in jail.



Garrison Pace was a stout man with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He wore large black-framed glasses that stretched beyond his face on both sides, and his knotty, neck-length blonde locks were always hastily swept behind his large ears. On weekdays, he would wear, alongside one of three sets of khaki pants, the top of a plain business suit: ironed, black blazer, white button-up shirt, and tie (if he felt it appropriate). He did not own the original pants to these clothing sets, having given them away upon discovering their too-small waistlines. On weekends, he would remain in sweatpants and flannel shirts, his clothing of choice when sleeping.

Garrison was the CEO and founder of Pace Enterprises, a large credit firm that had made him incredibly wealthy. Though never particularly invested in scrupulous business practices, he was often commended both inside and outside the corporation for his apparent consideration of his workers and customers. Garrison didn’t think much of it; as far as the dumpy man was concerned, if he was making profits, things would continue as they were. Overall, he was a fairly ordinary person.

It was strange, then, that one rainy afternoon, Garrison was in the back of an undercover police car and stranger still, when a judge with a fossil-like face turned toward him to pronounce the words, “I sentence you to prison for life.” The skeleton-woman may as well have said, “I sentence you to death.” It was true that not one soul would ever have pointed at the placid man at the defense table and exclaimed he was guilty of not one, but three, murders. Yet, within minutes of the ruling, his body had been stuffed into a transport vehicle and shipped out to Oclo Prison.

Garrison Pace was innocent. He had not committed any felonies, let alone the infamous triple murder of the neighboring city. The prosecution had even conceded that they could not comprehend exactly how the man had covered up the crime so well (because he hadn’t), but apparently the meager evidence they had scavenged was enough to prove his guilt “beyond reasonable doubt.”

Now, Garrison, crammed into a stifling XL orange jumpsuit, sat on a stiff bed in Cell #87 of Oclo Prison. It had been three days since his guilty verdict, but he had hardly thought about the fact that he was in prison; he was thinking about the attire he would wear to work on Monday. There was something tragic in the way he would think: his mind was exceedingly slow; he delegated rather than directed at his company; he would get lost on the drive to work while using a GPS; he would still be thinking about his dinner when he went to bed at eleven-thirty. Moments of otherwise ordinary thinking were elusive and fleeting, but when they came, things would rush back to him. He wasn’t stupid; he was just really slow.

By the time he had apprehended the situation he was in, eight days had passed. The guards were disconcerted when the docile, fat man of Cell #87 was suddenly gushing with his need for an appeal, insisting feverishly that he was innocent, and affirming that he did not belong in this prison. Eventually, his appeal date came: it would be the twenty fourth of March of next year: over three months after his sentence. Garrison Pace would be Prisoner Pace for a while.

The day before the fixation of the date of Garrison’s appeal, he finally got to familiarizing himself with his cellmate. Thoughts of the appeal had preoccupied his mind until then. The man was Alexander Turner, fellow murder convict. That was where the similarities between the inhabitants of Cell #87 ended; unlike Garrison, Turner (as he referred to himself) was tall and muscular and had tattoos running across the side of his arms; unlike Garrison, Turner was quick-witted and even able to converse with the prison guards; unlike Garrison, Turner did not seem upset at being incarcerated.

“Truth is, Pace,” he said at one point, “I’m innocent as you say you are. But unlike you, I ain’t got no money to appeal, and, ‘n honest, I don’ wanna leave. I got no ‘ome outside Oclo.”

Turner made Oclo Prison sound like a luxurious, even opulent, mansion; his woeful tales of wandering the streets and begging for money or sustenance as a cadaverous ghoul upset even the slowest-minded man he addressed. At least, Turner argued, in jail, nutrition was a constant. He flexed his now-large biceps to prove his point, and Garrison was glad of it. And from then, the rich man and the vagrant resided in peaceful coexistence in Cell #87.



“Ya know ‘bout this place’s founding?” asked Turner after the pair had returned from one evening’s mealtime. Garrison, having only comprehended half the question, shook his head to be safe.

“I ‘eard from the old guys” (some of the prisoners had been located at Oclo since its establishment) “that ‘hen George Oclo buil’ ‘dis place up, he wan’ed make a jail better than the normies. Thought they ough’ to be more humane, y’know?”

“So he buil’ Oclo and got funding and e'rything to make the idea real. I ‘eard lotta good things ‘bout the place under Oclo, but after he quit, it’s not been ‘oo good.”

Garrison didn’t respond.

“Pace, you a’ight?”

Garrison nodded. Something of recollection was happening in his mind. In the six weeks he had spent under the crumbling roof at Oclo Prison, he hadn’t once stopped to consider the name: Oclo Prison. Oclo. George Oclo. And suddenly, he made a connection that had eluded him for a month and a half.

George Oclo was the name of an entrepreneur and friend of his father, Jason Pace. The name was now familiar and clear – yes, Garrison was now connecting that great, eagle-like man who would visit the Pace household so many times all those years ago. He had been a mere child then, but Garrison could again picture within his mind the sleek, black suit; the prominent bulges in the bald head; and the hawkish, jaundiced eyes. The thought sent shivers across him. Looking back, it did not seem at all improbable that the scary man would go on to create a prison, but a humane prison? That was a question not settling well in Garrison’s stomach.

Something else was also bothering him now. When Oclo left his position at the prison, he hadn’t done so without cause. As Garrison was now remembering, he had once eavesdropped on a conversation about a jail between Oclo and his father. His father had been speaking rapidly and sternly to the eagle-man, and his son, decades later, was now realizing the implications of the words echoing forth: the person who had gotten Oclo to give his position to them was none other than Jason Pace. Whether or not Oclo really had treated the prisoners better than most, Garrison could only guess, but it was pretty clear from Turner (now uttering grave execrations against Oclo’s resignation) that the policies enacted by his father were not popular within the facility. This secret was to be kept under covers.

Garrison was in the middle of imagining what would happen if such a secret got out when a horrible shriek erupted from one of the lower floors. The sound made his skin crawl. It was followed by huge bangs of fists against metal that sent tremors through the floor and made the central stairwell creak in agitation. More shrieks came.

“Some o’ the weaker folk go insane o’er time,” said Turner after the noise had calmed. He stared into the middle space as he said this as if deep in thought.

“Makes me sad ‘o think ‘bout ‘t,” he continued after some time. “These are bad people, but no’ody ‘serves to lose ‘eir mind.”

He sighed.

“I blame ‘oever took away our man Oclo.”



In the morning of the twelfth of March, Garrison Pace woke for roll call feeling the most cheerful he had ever felt during his stay in prison. His appeal was less than two weeks away, and he was confident that the verdict would be in his favor. Soon, his conviction would be expunged and he would be able to return to Pace Enterprises. He also, though he never made it known, felt that if he was exonerated, he could then help Turner get an appeal and give him a new life outside of prison or vagrancy. On the off chance that Garrison’s conviction was reaffirmed, however, he wouldn’t pay for Turner’s appeal: he wanted his companion with him.

Garrison’s good mood was interrupted when he discovered Turner, already well awake, looking at the staircase. His arms were locked, pointed straight down, and his fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles had lost all color. However, he stopped his strange behavior once he noticed that Garrison was awake.

Garrison didn’t know what to make of what Turner was doing that morning, but he made no mention of it. He figured Turner must have had a bad dream. But maybe he should’ve asked.

It was just after the sun had reached zenith, and the inmates had done their morning outdoor exercise that the prison guards announced it was time for showers. Garrison, Turner, and a dozen other naked men stood side-by-side in a grimy, mold-infused shower room and hosed themselves down. They redressed quickly. Garrison began making his way out of the room when Turner was suddenly in between him and the door. Garrison was confused, but Turner began an explanation:

“We all know wha’ h’ppened after George Oclo was forced outta his post, don’t we gentlemen?”

The others stared at him.

“This man ‘ere” (he gestured at Garrison) “is son of the man who ‘ook Oclo away. His papa is to blame for the disrepai’ of t’is place. He was the one who made us suffer. I ‘eard him say ‘t in ‘is dreams! Now I call for payback!”

Garrison’s stomach dropped. For the first time in his life, he completely understood something as it came to him. He saw that it was utterly nonsensical. Why should he be punished for something his father did? But he also saw that the others were now aroused – they would only listen to Turner’s commands; they would not listen to reason. They were like abused lions suddenly set free in a cow pasture, and they were ready to pounce.

Garrison decided to bolt.

“Seize ‘im!” cried Turner.

Many pairs of hands made contact with Garrison’s body. He was shoved to the ground and slammed with wave after wave of fists in his face, stomach, and groin. He writhed in agony, screaming all the way. At one point, he turned to his side but was immediately thrust back by an expertly aimed kick. Even still, he had looked up long enough to look at Turner.

The man was beaming from ear to ear. His smile shined with a steely gaze; his nostrils let out visible steam. His eyes were wet and glassy, and when he blinked, they blazed with the luminance of molten iron and the luster of daggers flying through the air. He had gone insane. His voice had been replaced with a hollow cackle: “ha! ha! ha!”

The disfigured lump lay crumpled on the mold-ridden floor like a wad of bubble gum trodden on a dozen times. When everything had settled down, of the former innocent cellmates of Cell #87, one was dead, and the other was guilty.