The Link in the Chain
I do not own Bones. I guess this is my version of a break.
That's the sound of the men, working on the chain, gang. That's the sound of the….oh geez, that's just not working. I'm going to hate that song now, why does it sound so upbeat? This sucks. Keep saying it sucks won't make it suck less. There's no way out of this. How the hell did I get myself into this mess? This might be my worst blunder yet.
"Prisoners! Line up for water break!" The guard shouted.
Sweets and the other men put down their shovels and turned. Sweets knew, now, to follow instructions, don't ask, don't interrupt, just do. He learned the hard way on that account.
I would think I would wake up except for the blistering heat, the pain in my chest, the ratty clothes, and the hell I'm in. Even for a nightmare this is a bit much.
"Next." The guard shouted and Sweets was aroused from his thoughts to step forward for a drink of water.
"Oh it's mister fancy pants." The guard, Frank, teased. "Any more tales of false imprisonment today?"
Sweets stayed silent and shook his head no.
"Yeah those nice clean hands are getting plenty dirty." The other guard, Gary, said taping his Billy club against Sweets knuckles. It was a light tap but the last time Sweets had seen that Billy Club it was being swung across his chest.
"Yes sir." Sweets said handing the cup back as he left for the back of the line. It was two minute break time so he took a seat next to the mound of dirt he had just dug.
"You've gotten pretty quiet." The man next to him said.
Sweets considered if he should talk to the man, no one had much spoken to him since he had arrived four days ago.
"Yeah, talking doesn't seem to do much good." Sweets' tone was bitter.
The man smiled. "Everyone here is innocent don't you know that?" He waited for Sweets to give a response to his joke but the young man's gaze was far away from this place. "Yeah, I just don't think they had anyone as adamant as you."
"Yeah." Sweets said touching his side. "I think I got that."
"So what did you do anyway?" The man asked.
"I was convicted of shooting a highway patrolman." Sweets said.
"Kill a copper huh? No wonder they don't like you."
"No, he's still alive, in a coma." Sweets said rubbing his head. "And I still didn't do it."
"Yeah buddy you just keep telling yourself that." The man chuckled. "At least this is only a short time gig, for most people anyway. How long you in for?"
"I was sentenced to eight months." Sweets said but in a way that he thought it wouldn't apply to him – surely he would get out of this soon.
"Well that's longer than most." The man wiped his brow, he was slightly chubbier and the work was taking a toll on him. "I'm only in for two months then I'm sent up state like the rest. They don't have room you know, that's why we spend time here. Good thing about it though no one's too stir crazy, you know, you don't have to worry about dropping the soap."
The man rolled his eyes and Sweets wanted to be grateful that male gang rape wasn't on his list of things to watch out for but he was having a hard time finding much to be grateful for.
"I'm Chet." The man said starting to hold his hand out and taking it back. "Old habits I guess. I'm a personable sort of guy on the outside, I guess anyway, that's how I got pretty good at what I'm in for, fraud. I like to think of it as creative accounting."
Sweets looked at the man wondering if he should be grateful to have a friend or look at the man for what he was, someone Sweets normally would profile and then put behind bars.
"Prisoners, back to work!" Gary shouted.
The men didn't grumble, everyone got back to their feet and went back to work. It was a well-oiled machine here.
"Hey you didn't tell me your name." Chet said grabbing his shovel. "I heard you shouting to the guards you were an agent or a shrink, Lance or something?"
Sweets thought it over and shook his head, announcing too loudly he was an agent was not going to go over well with the other convicts. "No, my name is Kale Mallory." Sweets dug his shovel into the ground hard. Because that's who they thought I was when they convicted me. Sentenced to eight months here pending the outcome of the highway patrolman with four kids and a sick wife. A man I never met and was accused of shooting on a road I happened to go down. Why the hell did I decide to take a damn trip?
"Hey Booth, ready for lunch?" Brennan said standing at Booth's door.
"Yeah, starving." He said standing up. His phone rang and Booth looked at the caller ID.
"Hello?" Booth said. "Who's calling? Yeah I told you I don't know anyone at the Jackson County Correctional Facility Annex in Louisiana, and certainly no one who's been sentenced there. Yeah I'm sure a lot of guys say they know me. They hear I put someone away and they think they have information and they can get me to come down there. I don't have time for wild goose chases. Yeah, thanks."
"What was that?" Brennan asked after Booth hung up.
"Oh that's the second call I've gotten from there, some guy says he knows me, some Kale something. I checked, no one I've known by that name, ever. Some guy just yanking my chain. Come on Bones I'm starving."
"Are you sure? Seems sort of strange doesn't it?"
"Bones, I can't track down every wrong number."
"Right. I wish Sweets was coming to lunch with us."
"Really? Why? All you two do is argue."
"I know."
"Well Sweets is where he needs to be. That last case was pretty nasty." Booth said thinking back.
"I hadn't expected for Sweets to have to dive so deep into the case." Brennan felt a shiver of her own thinking back to it. "I haven't seen a serial killer that…."
"Yeah it was pretty dark. And hey with Sweets help – his profiles, we got him, behind bars right?"
"Yeah, I was just worried, he seemed to have to get into a dark place, to get in that guy's mind. Honestly Booth it still gives me the creeps."
"I know, the evidence didn't get us far, the guy was good, Sweets' profile, it did it and it was, yeah, dark. But! That's how he earned himself a month's vacation courtesy of the bureau. I'm just glad he took it."
"Yeah, I hope he can relax. He said he was fine but I suspected otherwise." Brennan said as they walked towards the elevator.
"Of course, he's probably off sipping some drinks on the beach, maybe meeting someone who isn't an intern or an employee of the Jeffersonian for once and get laid or something. I'm sure he's having a great time Bones."
Sweets flopped on the cot that didn't give way once you laid on it. I didn't realize they could make cotton out of cement. Sweets hoped sarcasm might give him a sense of normality, sanity but mostly he was just exhausted and his latest attempt at calling Booth didn't work. The first time he thought it might be a fluke, the second time he hoped Booth would have questioned it. I need a new plan. First call at the jail went to Booth, no answer. This was my call for the week here, goody another week another call, I guess I've got time to make it count.
"Hey!" A loud voice shouted and Sweets had a feeling it was to get his attention.
Sweets looked up at the large fellow inmate and hoped Chet was right about the whole lack of rape thing. He got it, most times it was reverted to in long stays, and most of these men were here less than a few months. The jail was full and this was a temporary facility to hold them until a spot opened open in "real jail" as they called it. It also sounded a lot cushier than here.
"I'm talking to you!" The man shouted again. Sweets wanted to say something sarcastic but decided against it.
"Yes?" Sweets asked instead.
"Chief wants to talk to you." He said and kept going.
Sweets stood up and looked down the long row of cots to the end where the office was. The place was small, everything cement, bars over the windows which were plentiful. The windows had to be, there was no air conditioning. The building was built on the cheap and for a temporary purpose. It sat in the middle of nowhere with fences and gates around it. It reminded Sweets a bit of Cool Hand Luke minus the sweat box, at least he hadn't seen one yet. There were a few buildings around it that he assumed were either storage, break houses for the guards and other facility purposes. Still everything about where he was screamed Deep South, as far away from DC, opposite coasts and as far as everyone Sweets knew, where he would disappear.
"Yes?" Sweets said stepping into the office.
The man behind the desk lowered his head and Sweets didn't even see the guard, Lee approach him and strike him in the gut with the end of his club.
"You don't speak until you are spoken to." The guard hissed in his ear. "Now stand up."
Stand up? What the hell, I'm pretty sure you just knocked my stomach into my spleen.
Since Sweets was physically unable to immediately complete the task a second strike was taken across his shoulder. Again he seethed in pain.
"That's enough." The man in charge, Clayton Wallace called out as he walked around his desk and sat on the corner. He was dressed in a suit, a semi warden to the facility housing roughly 80 men.
Sweets tried the best he could to stand up and keep quiet.
"I think you've noticed by now that I run a pretty tight ship." Wallace said.
Sweets had indeed noticed. The men hardly stepped out of line and when they did it was paid for severely. Something Sweets found out quickly and found the abrupt punishment to be effective yet questionable. He had fully committed to an investigation once he got out about how legal all this way. The men here, so separated from the rest of the system seemed to have grown a bit power hungry, and gone unchecked since they were running so efficiently. The work the men were assigned to complete was free labor to the county, saving the county from having to pay expensive contractors. Thought the concept was nothing new it had fallen out of public favor until it was recently brought back in the area as a way to keep taxes down, something all the locals were all for. And when the work was done, but no one was seen having to slave over it to do it, as the men worked in areas they were never seen, it only appeared as magic to the community.
"You know you don't really fit in here." Wallace said stirring Sweets from his thoughts of how this system came to be. Sweets wasn't sure though if that was a question he was supposed to answer.
"Most of these men are pretty hardened criminals." Wallace laughed. "I think that some of them enjoy the work out." Is this man insane? Since when is ten hours of manual labor enjoyable under the blistering sun and oppressive humidity?
"A few of them are like you, think they're smart and can get away with things." Wallace's eyes turned a shade darker. "The man you shot, Will Ryan, he's the son of very good friend of mine."
Uh, this isn't good. Sweets stiffened.
"You're here eight months boy." Wallace said coming closer. "I wouldn't be expecting to make the transfer to the big house if I were you." Wallace punched Sweets across the mouth, it took all he had not to swing back at the bureaucratic prick. Wallace nodded and Sweets was pushed back out the door.
All the eyes were on him as he walked back to his assigned area. There were no bars or cells, the warden had managed to instill such order that no one dared make a move. The two dozen or so cops who roamed the track with shot guns and tear gas didn't hurt any either to prove the point.
Sweets walked by the men trying to look stoic which hoping his organs were still intact. Wallace was right about one thing, these men were pretty much in great shape except for a couple of guys like Chet who was only two cots away. They eyed Sweets with narrowed glances so he chose to stare at the floor. It was a conflicting emotion in him, there were people he almost felt the need to create a bond with though he knew this wasn't Hogan's Heroes but the conflict was that in his real life, he would work late hours to put them behind bars in places like this.
He laid on the bed much slower this time. The men went about their quiet card games in their bunks or read a magazine or left for phone calls, showers where the guards kept order. It was rec time, all one hour of it before dinner which was a nauseating experience as well. Then another hour of rec time and lights out on the bed of gravel and chat.
"What was that all about?" Chet asked moving to sit one empty bed closer to Sweets to talk. "You rat someone out? No, not with that hit you took."
"What?" Sweets asked confused.
"Couple of the guys were talking, they thought you might be trying to sweet talk your way into some cushy job like the laundry or something. They can tell guys like us don't fit well out in the sun."
Sweets shook his head. "Yeah, no, warden's got friends in all the wrong places." Chet didn't follow. "He's buddies with my victim."
Chet thought it a strange choice of words but he shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah well they got that you weren't making friends fast. I don't think they like you though. They think you're too fresh faced to be in here, a real sweet talker."
Sweets wanted to argue for the millionth time that he indeed did not belong here.
"Yeah, real sweet talker, ha, maybe that'll be your name, Sweets."
"That's a fantastic suggestion." Sweets said with enough sarcasm to drown out the entire facility. He threw his pillow over his sore face and hoped the whole thing would fade into an oblivion.
"Alright, well catch you later pal." Chet made his way off to join a game. Sweets wondered if Chet would try and cheat the guys.
I don't care. Yes I do, I don't want to see Chet get hurt. Dammit, I can't care about people here. I've got to work at getting myself out of here. Get out of here, sounds like Wallace has no plans of that happening. And why not, apparently Kale what's his name had no one in the world to care he was gone. He's probably the one who stole my wallet while I was at the gas station. So what if I looked a little bit like him? Who gets sentenced to a jail term with no finger prints run? Oh that's right, I'm just being held until trial. Why do I have a feeling that they are in no hurry to get me on the docket or get me a lawyer. Friends of police men alright – if I don't figure out something fast I'm never going to make it to trial where I might be seen. What century is this anyway? I've heard about people falling thru the cracks, but really? Can it be real? Sure as hell feels real. And it all flipping hurts.
Sweets grabbed at his aching head when the call came, dinner.
Sweets stood in line with the rest as the large man behind him pushed him into the man in front of him. Sweets looked back at the man who pushed who smiled at him. Oh goody, just like high school and bullies. Sweets turned to look at the man who he was pushed into who gave him an equally dark look. Fantastic, bullies who probably never made it to high school they are so dumb. Sweets could hear the guy behind him laugh with the other man behind him and Sweets could guess what game was coming next. Sweets waited until he felt the man ready to shove him again but this time he stepped aside sending the large man behind him barreling into the man in front of him, both men fell to the floor. The other inmates laughed though the pair didn't think it was funny as Sweets shrugged his arms. Sweets noticed the inmates nod their head in something of approval at his move but the laughter quickly stopped as the guards came up and delivered a swift hit to the gut again for Sweets who was again not expecting it having not done anything.
"But I…" Sweets began to say but he knew he shouldn't have for he also earned a strike on his shoulder again. It was the same guard as in Wallace's office and apparently he only knew two moves.
"You got out of line! Back in line!" He shouted and Sweets tried to move as instructed. He had a suspicion that he too was a friend of the injured highway patrol man.
He made it to the cafeteria style layout and tried to unhinge his left arm but it had seized up some from the two hits and the hours of manual labor he wasn't used to. The man behind him who was the one who laughed set the tray on the surface and pushed it in front of Sweets. Sweets nodded a thank you.
"That was a hard hit, it wasn't necessary." The gruff man said. "They don't seem to like you."
"Yeah I got that." Sweets said as he pushed the tray forward as he loosened his arm. The tray was filled with unappetizing and 'cheap as it could be made' food. Sweets wasn't sure if it was his beaten stomach or his sense of culinary standards that made his appetite fade. Still he knew he had to eat something to survive this.
"You've never had prison food before?" The man behind him asked.
"Can't say as I've had the pleasure." Sweets said collecting his tray now that his arm had loosened.
The man nodded his head and Sweets looked around the room. It was larger than the crowd here, perhaps the other buildings were plans to add more men. Sweets was just glad because it meant he could eat at the end of a table by himself, space between the others. Until Chet arrived.
"Boy, you just can't keep out of trouble can you?" Chet asked a little too excited for Sweets latest punishment.
"What can I say, I'm a sadist."
"Really?" Cheat asked.
Sweets shook his head no.
"Well you never know you know." Chet plowed into his food. "Oh I'm so hungry."
"Yeah me too." Sweets said fishing the lower half of a locust out of his gravy and placing it aside.
"Oh don't worry about that." Chet said like it was nothing. "It's the mouse parts that make you worry."
Sweets glanced up and saw the man in line behind him sitting at the next table. Chet noticed Sweets glancing at him.
"That's Dean." Chet said. "He's pretty quiet."
"What's he in for?" Sweets asked. He hadn't been able to judge their exchange in the food line as friendly or setting him up for something.
"Murder." Chet said. Hm, let's not trust him much. Wait, I'm surrounded by criminals and bug infested food, what can be better?
"I heard tomorrow it's supposed to be 115 degrees." Chet added.
That.
Reviews welcome. Not sure...