Room No. 3

Who is in this room?

It is small but full. Must have been a busy night. I feel hard stares pricking the back of my neck as I shuffle in to join. In a bizarre way, it’s like the first day of school. Where shall I sit? 

I want to be near the wall. I want the feel of something solid. From the corner of my eye, I see the sliver of gray I’m looking for. I slowly head that way, taking my time. Don’t appear too eager or someone else will want it. It’s the instinct of man to follow the eyes of his friend, but shoot first and take what he can when he can. I keep my eyes down and avoid looking up at the wall. I walk a little to the left. Fake them out. Then to the right. 

Almost there. But I’m too excited. They smell it. One of the pricking eyes goes for the kill. He takes two steps and drops his large frame against the gray. He doesn’t fit comfortably in that sliver of wall, but he takes it with pride, arms crossed. I gave it value with my eager eyes. Fuck him. 

And now I’m untethered. And they’re all around me. And my heartbeat picks up. And -- I see one of them shift. He moves slightly to the right, sliding off the wall. Is he moving closer to me? He is. He must not like me standing here. He’s taller than me, but skinny. I could probably take him, but not if he has friends. He looks straight at me and raises his hand, resting it on the wall. 

“You can stand here, if you want, while you wait.” 

I hesitate, but feel myself involuntarily swaying his way. But it must be a trick. He’ll block you at the last second. He’ll pull the seat from under you in the cafeteria. They’ll all swarm around you and laugh like vultures after the hunt. Was this the lion? But that wall. To lean on it while I wait -- and who knows how long I’ll be waiting.   

“Thanks.” I step forward to the wall as he pulls his hand away. 

He nods, “What are you in for?”

I keep my eyes down, tracing the cracks on the concrete with my foot. I used to jump over cracks because of that saying, “Step on a crack, break your mother's back.” I’m not so stupid anymore. I miss being stupid. There’s one line that curves around in half-circle and extends up. I trace it up and up and up.

“Nothing. I didn’t do anything,” I know he won’t believe me just as they didn’t. I almost can’t blame him or them. It’s just how we are. Only a stupid man would put weight on words and believe them simply for their existence. Imagine that kind of idiocy. It’s the stuff of old wives tales, and myths, and religion, and philosophy, and everything else from the Past Times. Words are spoken to trick. They’re just another weapon used in the hunt. But I am telling the truth, I didn’t do anything. 

He laughs and his laughter rolls into his voice, “I didn’t ask what you did, I asked what you’re in for. Two very different things and,” he leans in to share his joke, “between you and me, they’re more often than not completely unrelated.” 

“I fit a description.” 

Whose? I’m not sure.

“Ahh, don’t we all.” He glances around the room with a look of pity. Pity for these men? I follow his line of vision but all I see are men who steal and cheat. Sneering men with tattoos and lined faces and hard eyes. It almost makes me angry the way he looks at them. But, of course, I guess he is one of them. But I’m not like them. I don’t belong here. 

“I’ll be out in a few. I’m just waiting for them to look me up in the system... see I’m not the man they want… see I’m innocent and I’ll be out of here,” he shifts his gaze to me. But his look remains the same. If anything, he looks at me with more pity than he did the room. I squirm. I press my back to the wall but it offers little comfort. 

“Right, yes, hopefully,” he breaks the silence.  

“What do you mean hopefully?” 

“Nothing, nothing. I mean hopefully you won’t have to wait long. I’ve been in here a few days now and the wait… well the wait is the worst part, no? I’m Amos, by the way.”

I adjust and get more comfortable. He may be right about a long wait. These government systems are slow and incompetent, although I would never say that out loud. I look up at Amos, really for the first time. He is tall, though he hunches a bit. He’s older than I first noticed. His eyes give away his age; they’re cracked at the edges by wrinkles in that funny way only time can do, not sun or labor or stress, just time. He doesn’t look how I pictured men in here looking. He looks tired more than anything. I guess he did say he’s been waiting a while. “What are you in for?”

“A little of this, a little of that,” he winks, “My first arrest -- hmm let me remember… Yes it was for being a member of some anti-whoever-was-in-charge organization,” he laughs and shrugs, “at least, that’s what the Big Men said I was arrested for. They’re very clever, you know. If you create a wide enough net, you can catch anyone swimming around. I’m still not quite sure what organization I was supposedly a part of, all I know is I was at a march, back in the Past Times before they were squashed out by those highest up on the food chain,” he laughs again, “You must think I’m ancient. Now we have to be more creative, you see. No chanting in the streets. We have to disrupt in different ways, smaller ways. But I chip away, steadily on, because as long as there’s someone, somewhere to make people uncomfortable, to buzz in your ear and disrupt the sacred normalcy people hold so dear, well I think we’ll be alright. But anyways, I digress, that was the first arrest. Ironically, I was protesting this,” he points to a singular metal number hanging above the door, “putting men in room number 3. Ha, and would you look at me now. I thought I was doing it for other people, but little did I know one day... Well anyways after that it was one thing after another. I went to a few more protests. I walked through the wrong neighborhoods at the wrong times. I’ve given food and water to people who the Big Men say don’t belong here. I’ve fit a few descriptions myself. I guess I’m not very good at following the law, at least not their laws. I follow a different code, a more universal one. I like to think of myself as being on top of Kohlberg’s tower. I can get arrested a million times, you can even put me in room No. 3, but nothing can touch this,” he taps his temple, “I’m invincible on top of my tower.”

Great. I’m stuck next to a protestor, a lunatic. I hope I don’t have to wait much longer. But what does he mean about this room? It’s just the third holding room. The other’s must have been too full, so they put me in here. Although, come to think of it, when I was walking by the other rooms... God, I was so nervous it’s a blur. No, I can remember. They brought me in. It was dark and they opened a heavy metal door that screeched as it swung on rusty hinges. There was a long hallway with the holding rooms. And the first room, well I don’t remember many people, maybe five sitting on the ground. And the second room, the same. But the third… the third… I look around and it’s full. Are there thirty men here? Why haven’t they spread us out? I press into the wall. They’re swallowing me up. These criminals, these drug addicts -- I can’t breathe. But, no, no they must work backwards. That’s it. They fill up room No. 3, then they move on to room no. 2. That’s it, that’s it, that’s it. Or, or maybe the people in room No. 1 are the worst criminals. Maybe they’re terrorists and they’re too dangerous so they have to be separated from the pack. That’s it, that’s it, that’s it. But, but no Amos is a protestor, a protestor part of “some organization.” He has to be one of the most dangerous men here. He should be in room No. 1. Why am I here with him? 

“You don’t know about room No. 3, do you?” Amos gives me that same look of pity. I hate it.

“It’s for petty crimes, no?”

He doesn’t answer me. He’s just looking at me. I hate it. “Who’s description did you match?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t say. But I’m innocent. They’re looking me up in the system… and… and they’re gonna see I’m not their guy and then they’re gonna come and let me out. I don’t belong here.”

“Do you really think any man belongs here? In a cage like an animal? Kicked at and spit on and shackled?”

“You’re criminals. You broke the law and you deserve to face consequences for that. The law has to be followed otherwise everything would be chaos. There would be no order. The law protects us.”

“Hmm yes it should, shouldn’t it. But who do our laws protect? Seems to me, the Big Men like to protect the few at the expense of the many.”

“That’s not true. It protects us, it’s citizens, from people like you!” 

“People like me. Yes, yes it does do that, doesn’t it. It’s a shame the government does such an excellent job of protecting its law-abiding citizens from dissenting voices. And yet, you’re here with me, in an orange jumpsuit in a cage. And you haven’t broken the law. I believe you. But you’re here. So it seems the government hasn’t been looking out for you.”

“No, no it’s just a mix-up. It’s not ideal, but you and me we’re not the same. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m going to be let out any minute now.”

“I hope so. But do you really think they don’t know who you are? They know everything about all of us in this country. They know where we live, and where we work, and what we eat and they know you aren’t the man they’re looking for... but don’t you see? It doesn’t matter to them. They can’t look incompetent. They must preserve the normalcy, the order,” he pauses and looks at me again with that same look. I hate it and I’m starting to fear it, “at any cost. I’m sorry, but I don’t think they made a mistake. You fit a description and they’ve taken advantage of that and now you’re here, with me and the rest of these men in room No. 3. There’s nothing to do but wait.” 

I remember when I was little, a long time ago, a new law was passed. It was something… I don’t remember quite exactly. It was something about preserving law and order. Yes, it was a good law. Everyone in my family liked it. My dad said it was just what this country needed. He said it would bring us back to the good ‘ole days when our country used to be great. It meant safer streets and better neighborhoods. Stricter punishment, that was it. “Strict and swift,” was the motto that was plastered up on billboards. I don’t  remember exactly what kind of punishment but it was good. It was good. It was good. Everyone said it was good. 

I look up at the door. That single metal number taunts me. “What’s different about this room?”

Amos breathes in, his lanky frame filling with air and then just as quickly deflating, “In room No. 3 there is no pretense. Here, there is no thin attempt to treat us better than animals. You see, we’re the worst of the bunch. We’re the runts and the screwballs who make our homes on the fringes of society, circle around it, and stir what little conscience it has left. And what do you do with a crazy animal? With an animal whose foaming at the mouth?”

Strict and swift, strict and swift, strict and swift. And I’m off the wall. No, no, no I don’t belong here. I stumble towards the door and grab the bars. I scream and press my face against the metal forcing my screams out into the hall. I feel the men’s pricking eyes but I don’t care. I scream. I scream. I scream. I’m not him. They have the wrong guy. Let me out. I don’t belong. Over and over. And then there’s nothing left. I feel my throat choking up and warm drops of salt and fear fall from my eyes onto white knuckles still gripping the bars. And then I feel a heavy hand pulling me away from the bars. It’s the man from earlier who took my spot on the wall.

“You should shut up now.”

I let go of the door and turn around slowly to face the room. My hands are red from gripping the metal. I’m untethered. Every single one of the pricking eyes is on me. They look at me with pity. I look back at them and see their tired faces with their hard lines. There’s something darkly comical about them. Standing all together lost in orange jumpsuits that look almost like the Christmas onesies my grandma used to make me wear. Most of them look afraid, some look resigned. They all look tired and old, even the young ones. 

“I’m sorry.” 

They nod and turn back towards one another. I walk back to my spot on the wall near Amos. And we wait.

We wait. We wait. We wait.

I think of the man the Big Men are pretending I am. I wonder what he was like. What did he do? What did he believe? 

I turn to Amos, “What were you arrested for this time? I know you said a little of this, a little of that, but what was it that put you in this room?”

“Well, I tried to write a name on a ballot,” he laughs, “I know there’s only one party and one candidate anyway, but I wanted to vote. I just… I wanted to feel heard. I’ve been shouting at the Big Men for so long now. But they never listen. They don’t have to. And I got so frustrated and I guess the thought of someone, somewhere having to read what I had written and then count it against the candidate they chose for us, even though I knew it wouldn’t do anything... I thought that if I wrote down a vote if it was just counted then I would feel that I count, in some way. It would be so small, just a couple words on paper. But it would be my writing and it would let the Big Men know I’m not fooled by them. So I tried to vote, but of course they caught me. And you know ex-cons aren't allowed to vote. So here I am.”

“That’s what you did? That put you in room 3?”

“Yes. It was only a matter of time anyways. Every year the list of room 3 crimes grows and grows. Soon there will be even more men in here. Soon the whole prison will be made of rooms 3s.”

“What name were you gonna write in?”

“Oh I don’t know, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

And we wait. We wait. We wait.

Again I wonder whose description I fit. I wonder if he was like Amos.

They bring more men into the room. They open the door and slam it shut, herding us in like cattle. I don’t know how many hours it’s been or what time it is. Fluorescent lights flicker from the ceiling. It could be midnight or noon; there is no time here. 

I wonder who will remember me. My parents are dead. I have no siblings. I guess they know that, don’t they. Maybe that’s why they chose me.

I look around me and focus on each man, one at a time. I imagine their stories. I wonder where they’re from. I wonder who they love. I wonder why they chose to live the way they’ve lived, and how they had the strength to.

We wait. we wait. we wait.

Finally, they open the door. They lead us outside like sheep to a cliff. The light is glaring and I squint to adjust. I see a long line of men in orange. They line us up against the outside wall of the prison. I stand up and resist leaning against it. I look straight at the armed men opposite. The men who preserve order. The men who protect our society from those by my side. I wish these men questioned their jobs, their actions, their society, like Amos. I’m ashamed that I never did until I was forced to. The shame bubbles up in me. I try to choke it down. 

I am glad I fit the description. At the very least, I am connected, through some fake accident, to a man who did something that put him alongside these men in orange. 

And finally, my wait is over.