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Broken Arrow

Haley.

That was his name.

The thought of what his name might be had slipped into my mind a couple of times over the last year but I’d never thought I’d know it.

He looks different from how I remembered him at City of Hope. His face is covered in bruises. A reluctant hardness and fear rest in his eyes. 

That day at the hospital, he’d seemed like an amiable boy. He’d showed a bit of kindness and humanity to me that  stayed with me. His visit had eased the nightmares that had plagued me.

Silently, I walk him  to my temporary office in a prefabricated cabin, I have to duck to fit through the entrance.  Hopefully once these inmates got the grounds cleared I will get the go ahead to start construction on the Officer’s Building and new barracks for the recruits.

I sit behind the small desk and tell him to sit in the chair opposite it.

 “I-I want to go back with--,” he says feebly.

“No you don’t,” I tell him and I wonder if he even knows where he is. “Now, sit down.”

“I want to be with my brother, please--”

I blink up at him.

Brother ?

 I was sure I would notice if I saw someone who looked anything close to him.

He’s still standing.

“How many times to I have to tell you when I give an order you obey ? Don’t make me repeat myself a third time. Sit down.” I order and he finally sits.

I turn on the ancient computer and it sputter slowly to life. It’s  old technology, but it runs on a closed wire based network to prevent hacking or encryption from the enemy. It’s a smart idea, but the computer is a pain in the ass to use. As it boots up I study him and he looks at the floor. He’s wearing the gray prison pants and shirt uniform but I spot the chain of the  saltire still around his neck.

I reach down to turn on my water percolator.

“Coffee ?,” I offer him.

“What-,” he starts confused. “No.”

“It’s all instant shit anyway,” I say as I mix the grinds into the water. “I haven’t had a decent fix in six months.”

Logging in my credentials with a retina scan, I scroll through today’s intake files for his brother.

Harlow Seth Haley.

 I recognize him as the brunette man who’d refused to let Haley go. I also see a recent note about a possible attack on a younger  inmate on the way here. I do a quick scan of Harlow’s past records and am disturbed. Closing the file I turn back to Haley.

“You won’t be staying with your brother,” I tell him, pulling up his own file. “You’re going home.”

I expect him to smile or be grateful, but he stares at me cautiously.

“Why ?,” he asks solemnly

“I have authority over all releases including early ones. Consider it pay it forward for what you did for me a--”

“I didn’t do anything/ I don’t know you--,” he interrupts.

“Don’t ever interrupt me, understand?” 

I’m still processing that he doesn’t remember me. It has been a while ago, but how many people does he watch throwing up in a hospital ward ?

“I can’t leave Harlow,” he starts again. “ I just want to stay and serve my time...”

Perhaps his  bruises are more serious than they look, perhaps something had happened to him to make him so stupid and to forget we met. In the back of my head I’m starting to think the innocence I found so fascinating was the result of a mental deficit.

Nobody wants to stay here.  Not even me.

While he continues his diatribe on staying, I pull up both of their files next to each other, Harlow Haley’s criminal record runs pages, Alex Haley’s is near empty, just a few curfew violations that all seemingly involve Harlow.

“I am trying to help you,” I tell him.  “I’m a lawyer and any practicing idiot could go to court to get you off easily.  It says here you were bought in for possession with intent to sale. Except I noticed the jacket you were wearing wasn’t even your size… those drugs weren’t yours, were they ?”

“They were mine,” he says.

I wonder if he knows how transparent he is when he lies.

“Really ?,” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, but he won’t look me in the eye.

“Yes, sir.” I remind him. “Now, be honest with me,”

“I…am.”

“Fine. It says here you had three 2oz syringes of psuedomescaline,” I lead him. “Remind  me again  of the street value of those ?”

His eyes cast up at me defiantly, but I can read the uncertainty in them.

“$100 dollars…,” he starts

“Each or all together ?,” I continue. It’s a trap, either way he’s wrong.

“I—don’t remember.”

“Wrong answer.”

“I just want to go back with--”

“You aren’t going back,” I tell him. “I know you didn’t--”

“You don’t know me!,” he shouts urgently. “Stop saying that--”

“What did I say about interrupting ?,” I bark standing up. “ What is it ? Are you afraid Harlow will come after you if I let you go ?”

“Stop talking about Harlow like that. He’s not like that!,” he continues and I lose it.

Fine.

He can learn the hard way.

“You win. Go and be with your brother,” I get up and stand over him forcing him to look up to me. “But just know you screwed yourself out of any chance of any early release or my favor.”

I call Corporal Hunter over my Syndicate to come and pick the boy up. Haley silently watches his knees and I silently watch him. I wanted him to go home for his own good, but also for mine. Something about his face and countenance has sparked my interest and despite my anger as I watch him  feelings closer to  lust seep into my mind.

Perhaps those  feelings were my own insanity from the long celibacy this job and my injury had forced me into.

I’d discovered my type in college. 

I liked power. 

My undergraduate girlfriend Cassia had been the dean's daughter. The way she used her sway to get rid of students who pissed her off and rig some of our grades had been amazing. She was  domineering and never satisfied, she would call me during exams for quickies. 

In law school I’d been attracted to one of the professors and we’d had a number of tumbles in the sheets. I’d drink in his opinions on law and politics in bed all night. My sexual appetite had grown with the stress and competition of law school.  I’d had a number of lovers and discovered quite a few kinks.

All of my partners had been powerful, experienced, competitive. They’d all been flings as none of us had time or energy for anything more serious. 

But since my quick draft into the military, a six month hospital stay and a year on this new assignment the only thing I’d managed was a sympathy handjob from a sympathetic orderly.

When I hear Hunter scanning into the office, I quickly stand Haley up and push the chain of his saltire necklace into his shirt, I brush his skin and it’s boiling. I should take the chain away from him, it could turn into a weapon and is contraband. But considering the hostile environment he’s walking himself into he may need all the help he can get.

When Hunter crosses the threshold and leads Haley out I turn to the long list of messages from my superior officers and pissed off family members to respond to. Unable to shake the feeling his skin left on my fingers , I turn the computer off, deactivate my Syndicate and lock the door.

***

I took a special interest in Haley’s record. Not just his criminal one, but his medical, school and personal records. It presented me with an interesting puzzle and I spent more time thinking about him than I should.

It made me a bit sloppy.

I’d recently been assigned the spoiled civilian daughter of a Lieutenant as an assistant. She hated the position and despite my constant reprimands, the corporals were relentless for her attention. After a month she walked into my quarters offering me oral sex. This offer had come up before with a few soldiers looking for favors and I had denied them.

I was more frustrated than usual and  I didn’t deny her.  Not five minutes after her lips left me I had her  transferred out. For my own protection.

I wasn’t angry with Haley,  I was just waiting for him to come to me, begging me to let him go home. But he never did. I don’t know if Haley knew I was watching or it was just his nature, but he’d proven to be an excellent worker.

 I’d had all the able bodied boys moving rubble from a demolition site and digging the perimeter for what would be the foundation of new barracks.

There were machines to do this work, but this was cheaper and with the demand the RLA had put on construction contractors it made work faster if we could do some of it ourselves.

He was small, but worked just as hard as the men twice his size,  avoided getting any demerits for tardiness and followed all of the rules—which had been designed to be difficult so we could justify keeping the men longer.

The bruises on his face had faded and were replaces with smooth sunkissed skin.  . The truth was he’d make a brilliant soldier, but he’d been marked as exempt from service. The reasoning was closed.

I could relate to most of the men trapped in the camp, they had tried to do one crime and gotten caught. Most were small time drug dealers. They worked hard, obeyed orders and if a call came for them I occasionally gave them 5 minutes.

 However some of them were savages.

During lunch every corporal was called to the cafeteria when a 34-year-old man decided to jump a seventeen-year-old named Greene for his plate. It ended with Greene’s  head bleeding and chunks of his curly brown hair on the floor. Our nurse, Audrina had fixed him up, but he hadn’t spoken or eaten since. He was the same boy who’d had a scuffle with Harlow Haley at the rest stop so I told my corporals to keep an eye on him.

As I walked through the camp, I hear the sounds of another heated argument. I  turn my attention to the construction site where  Hunter is shouting at Haley. Harlow Haley.  The boy looks smug and unaffected when he sees me. He looks almost amused.

“What is the meaning of this, Corporal ?,” I ask.

I spot Alex Haley, he’s holding a shovel in blistered hands and he makes eye contact with me.

“Everyone else back to work,” I shout.

“Haley here doesn’t seem to want to work, Sir. He’s got Deltoro doing his work for him,” Hunter explains.

Assholes like Harlow Haley are part of the reason I got into law. They truly believed they were above the law, above rules and above order.  He was still young, he could be rehabilitated even if I had to see to it personally.

“Care to explain yourself ?,” I ask him.

“I don’t think I have to,” he says. “I’m just over this shit.”

I’m keenly aware that despite my order to go back to work all of the prisoners around are listening in and the field goes dead quiet.  I was going to destroy this brat.

“Watch your tongue, prisoner--,” Hunter starts

“Enough, Corporal,” I say amicably. “ Haley, you should have just told me you were, how did you so crudely put it ‘over this shit ?’ I would have been more than willing to accommodate.”

This unnerves the boy, he looks both confused but also cocky.

I reach into my belt and in a quick motion handcuff Harlow Haley and push him down, until his face smacks into the ground . I see Alex Haley start towards us.

“Don’t you dare,” I spit at him and he stops mid step.

I pull Harlow Haley up with one hand and his  little face is purpling, a stream of red drips down his nose and into his mouth.

“Instead of working, Mr. Haley you get to enjoy some corporal punishment. And then instead of getting up in the morning to work you can spend the next two weeks in solitary. Does that sound better ?”

He doesn’t respond, all I hear is his heavy breathing . “Answer me,” I order him and then whisper into his ear. “Say yes.”

His panting slows and there is only the wet sound of him spitting blood out of his mouth.

“Yes, sir,” he whispers

“Good,” I supplicate and lead him away.

After dinner, I start his punishment and then leave it in the hands of the officers.  When they are finished with him there are a series of gashes and  black welts across lower back from the caning.  I drop him off in a 10 foot cell to recover for the week.

----

a/n

When editing I made myself laugh because canning and caning are two very different things.