The aircraft was nearly full. There were single seats scattered around but there were still two places left in the far back, and it was dark back there. Chief stepped around Garrison and started down the aisle, letting him follow along behind him without the unwelcome feel of his guiding touch on his arm. He stood back and let the Lieutenant slide into the row first and as he settled down into his own seat he watched him shift in his seat and lean his head against the cabin's wall. "You should a let them put those patches back on."

Garrison shoved his fingers thorough his hair and shook his head. Chief was probably right but he felt trapped behind the bandages. "I was tired of not being able to see. The glasses are fine."

But the doctor said his eyes were still sensitive, still painful. Besides, he'd said the Lieutenant couldn't really see yet anyway, only pick up light and dark. With him around to help Chief couldn't understand why the Warden would put himself through the discomfort just to 'see' shadows, then it dawned on him. "You'r claustrophobic aren't you?"

It was a reasonable question but it seemed strange to hear it coming from Chief instead of Actor. The young man really was making progress as he worked his way through the manor's vast library. "No." But after a moment a slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I just don't like being stuck in small places."

Chief watched the Warden. He wasn't like the other guys. He didn't talk endlessly about the places he'd been or the women he'd known like Actor. He didn't talk about family or all the contacts he had like Casino. And he sure didn't engage in nervous chatter like Goniff. He talked when he needed to and he'd share information about his life with them, with him in particular, but it was usually to make a point, to help him see a solution to a problem in his own life. Chief knew that while Garrison didn't usually volunteer information, he would answer a direct question, and he'd answer it straight, and the books Actor was encouraging him to read said this kinda stuff started somewhere. "What happened?"

Garrison kept his face turned away, turning into the comfort of the shadows. It took him a long time, long enough that Chief thought he wouldn't answer this time… "My cousin was angry over something one morning. That happened a lot. And he usually took his frustration out on me…. I thought I'd found the perfect hiding place down in the basements." He turned back and Chief could barely make out his eyes, closed even behind the darkened lenses. "He found the trunk I'd crawled into and locked me in."

"How long were you stuck down there?"

"We were supposed to spend the whole day outside so no one missed me until I didn't show up for supper. They started looking for me after that." Nothing disrupted the schedule of that household Craig remembered and he wondered if bombs dropping around him would have moved his grandfather from his place at the head of that long table before he finished his meal.

"What happened to the cousin?"

"Nothing. In my grandfather's eyes he hadn't done anything wrong." Garrison sat for a moment, remembering the praise his cousin had received and his Grandfather telling him that he would have turned the lock himself if he had found him in that trunk. "The way he looked at things I shouldn't have been in the trunk in the first place. By locking me in Reiner was just teaching me a lesson."

"How old were you?"

"I don't know… six, maybe."

Chief had been shoved into small holding rooms in school when he got in trouble, solitary was the destination when he broke the rules or fought in stir,…he'd been living in those solitary cells when he took the Army's offer. He'd even spent some time in the 'box' in Statenville. But none of that had been done by family, it wasn't their way. When his grandfather wanted to correct him or teach him to act different he'd take him outside, or sit him down by the fire and tell him a story about how he should handle himself the next time…sometimes his talks with the Warden reminded him of those stories. Even his mother never locked him up, she'd just shove him outside if he did something to make her mad or when she wanted him out of the way, and she always wanted him out of the way. "What kind a lesson can a kid learn by bein' locked in a trunk?"

Garrison thought a moment. He wasn't sure his grandfather really had a motive in mind when he praised Reiner for what he did while he marched him off for another two days of confinement in his room upstairs. No one came to talk to him about what had happened and why it shouldn't happen again. No one came upstairs to give him the 'moral' to the story… He'd worked that out for himself. Garrison turned to Chief and forced his eyes open, searching the darkness for the younger man's face. "To face up to trouble" he told him. "Not to run away and hide." He had to give in to the pain and closed his eyes again but a slight smile lifted the corner of his mouth. "At least not in small places that can be locked."