"Open."
The steel door slides open and two figures pass through.
"Close."
It clanks behind them. The older of the two adjusts his uniform and starts walking.
He stops abruptly, looking back at his unmoving companion. Reaching back, he grabs the chain between the hands of the younger man and yanks him forward. The obviously-unwilling escortee struggles briefly against the chains, but eventually gives in to the pull. He's a boy, maybe mid-teenaged, small and lithe, and his stare never leaves the ground.
He marches forward against the chains on his legs and fiercely bores holes in the ground from behind a small, black-framed eyemask.
"Open."
They arrive at another door and it opens like the previous one.
"Close."
It slams shut even more loudly than before. Dim overheads light up the stretching hallway before them. Evenly-spaced cells adorned the left and right walls of the hallway on two stories. Eager eyes and grinning mouths fill the gaps in the shadows of the cells.
Murmurs and rumors ooze from between the gaps of the cell walls as the two figures walk ahead. All eyes are fixed on the younger of the two; he trudges behind his captor, silently, begrudgingly, and ignores the looks coming from the walls. His steel-rimmed boots scrape the floor with every step; the escort pulls the chain and manages to quicken the tempo of the metal scrapes.
"Fresh meat!"
Laughter comes from everywhere at once.
"FRESH MEAT!"
Loud, obnoxious, crazed laughter bleeds from the walls. And it bleeds vigorously.
"Hey Cutie," comes a coyly seductive shout from a dark cell, "what's your name?"
Eyes on the floor.
"FRESH MEAT!"
One step at a time.
"Watch your back, Meat!"
The man leads his captive through the jungle of taunts step-by-step until they finally arrive at a door at the end of the hallway. The older man reaches forward and manually opens the door. He pulls it aside and motions for the prisoner to head in.
But he just stands there, staring at the ground, breathing shallowly.
The man reaches back, plants a hand on the boy's back, and thrusts him through the doorway.
"FRREEEESSSSHHHH MMEEEEAAAAAT…."
BREAK
Cigar smoke swirls under a single light bulb.
The air hangs limply, saturated with the smell of sweat and tobacco and anguish. A cloud of swirling smoke casts dancing shadows across the walls, the only the adornment on each of the four gray, bleak slabs, each as confining as the two next to it. In fact, the only things in the entire room are the light bulb, the table, the three people sitting at it, and the contents of a single, open manila folder.
A single sheet of paper and two photos lay clipped to the sides of the folder. The Wiry Man who led the boy through the halls takes a quick glimpse at them while the older man takes a deep drag of his cigar. Wrinkles on his forehead speak clearly of his age; dark and weathered skin tells of years of experience with the worst of cases. A thick mustache sits on his upper lip, matching the gray tone of his hair. His eyes move slowly, looking over the Boy sitting with his eyes closed before him.
He lets out a thick cloud of smoke.
"Conviction?"
The Wiry Man answers slowly while looking over the folder's contents. "Three accounts of homicide: a woman and her four-year-old child in a park as well as a…"
He looks back to the file.
"As well as a… a mime."
The Old Man looks at the Boy, who looks opens his eyes and looks up for the first time since entering the prison.
He smiles. "Don't you just hate them?"
The Old Man reaches out purposefully, almost as if to pat his head, pauses slightly then shoves the him backwards by the face. The Boy falls straight backward in his chair from the force; with his hands cuffed to the seat, he has no choice but to smack his head on the ground.
The Boy stares back at the Old Man, bewildered and stunned by the blow to the head.
"Did you hear me talk to you?" The Boy doesn't stir. "So don't talk unless I tell you to."
The Old Man turns back to other and continues.
"Trial?"
"Yesterday."
"Jury?"
"Judge."
"Sentence?"
"Two life sentences and thirty-five years without parole."
The Old Man looks towards the Boy who hasn't moved from the floor or even let his eyes wander from the Old Man's face. He smiles a wide, toothy smile. "You're gonna like it here, Boy." He stands from his chair. "You'll be taken to the showers and stripped of your possessions and clothes."
He takes another deep inhale of the cigar and speaks as the smoke cloud leaks slowly out.
"There's only one rule: do what we say. There's only one punishment: corporal."
He nods at the Wiry Man, who stands and rights the Boy from the ground back to sitting position. He unlocks him from the chair and pulls him toward the door of the interrogation room; he fiddles the knob and reaches for his prisoner. The Boy turns for a moment and catches the Old Man's attention.
"You're gonna to kiss my gun before I kill you."
He turns and walks out the door.
BREAK
"These are your new clothes."
A pile of faded orange cloth and an old pair of boots lands at his bare feet. He eyes the pile of clothes that's obviously had a history of owners before reaching him and looks back up.
The room is unsurprisingly plain for a shower room: uniformly tiled walls, a drain in the center of the floor, protruding showerheads along all four walls, a small open exit blocked by a row of armed prison guards. It is, however, surprisingly clean.
"Hand over the old ones."
The Boy unfastens the metal plates on his shoulders and knees and they clatter on the floor. A half-orange, half-black uniform comes off next, followed by a metal insignia in the shape of an "S." They join the pile next to his boots. A small metal bar clanks onto the top as the remaining clothes gently float across the bundle. He stands behind the pile of his former clothes with his hands clenched, clothed in nothing but a black eyemask.
A guard lowers his gun, collects the clothes, and turns to leave with them.
"Wait," the Wiry Man says from behind the line of guards, "take the mask, too."
The guard turns back around and reaches for the eyemask; his hand stops inches short as the Boy tightly grips the intruding hand. "It stays." The Boy bends the guard's arm back and pushes him towards the others.
The Wiry Man steps between the guards and moves towards him.
"You think we're here to listen to you?"
He nonchalantly steps closer.
"You think we're interested in anything you say?"
Closer.
"You think we're intimidated by you?"
Within reaching distance.
"You think we're afraid to blow that head clear from the neck it sits on?"
The Boy swings for the Wiry Man's face. He catches the blow, expecting it from the moment they walked through the entrance of the prison.
He whispers, "We're not."
The Wiry Man lands a punch square in the Boy's face and sends him to the floor. He turns and walks back through the line of guards. Behind him, the Boy stands up and feels the nakedness of his face. He grits his teeth and jumps towards the enemy in a fury.
Squeezing the eyemask in his hand, he chuckles. "Not a good idea."
The line opens straight up the middle and the previously tossed guard pulls up a gigantic hose. He catches the Boy in the air with a thick stream before he could even flinch. He slams into the floor and skids a bit as the water pounds his unprotected front. He tries to shield his bare face with his forearms but the constant stream is more powerful.
Eventually, the water lessens to a trickle until there's only a puddle around him. Labored gasps for air are the only sounds as the men systematically left the room.
The Wiry Man turns again as he exits. "Welcome to the Big House."
He grabbed the doorknob.
"And oh, yeah… watch out for AIDS."
The door closes behind him.