Burl N. Corbett was awarded an Honorable Mention in Drama in the 2022 Prison Writing Contest.
Every year, hundreds of imprisoned people from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population.
CAST:
Sgt. Samuel McMullen: A heavy-set, medium-height man with graying hair, who is about to retire after twenty-five years of service.
Neil Moriarty: A heavy-set, medium-height lifer, who has known Sgt. McMullen since he was hired.
TIME AND SETTING:
9-10 A.M. during morning “yard,” on the bottom row of the concrete bleachers behind the softball field backstop. Heard throughout the action: the random sounds of batted, shouts from the ballplayers, and occasional announcements from pole-mounted loudspeakers.
ACTION BEGINS:
(Sgt. McMullen enters stage left, approaches inmate Moriarty, who is watching a softball game from the lowest tier of the bleachers.)
NEAL
Hey, here he comes, Mr. Short-timer! Pull up a chair and sit a spell.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Sitting with a smile next to NEIL) Yeah, that’s me, I guess. How’d you know I’m leaving?
NEAL
Ha! (Grins) We’re all in this mess together, pal, and whenever your buddies gossip, little jailbirds listen. People talk. Shit gets around. You know the story.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(His eyes sweeping the field) Yes, by God! After twenty-five years, I oughta.
NEAL
Yeah, I guess we both do. Hell, I came here the same year that you made the big leagues. During your rookie season, you were all spit and shine and laid some grief on me when you nailed me along the walk without my ID. Big deal – I had left it in another shirt, but you thought otherwise.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Claps his hands in astonishment) Get outta here! You mean that you can remember crap like that after a quarter-century? Hell, I can’t remember my grandkids’ middle names and, half the time, I forget my wife’s birthday! And don’t mention our wedding anniversary! Every July, here comes a double-barrel ass reaming!
NEAL
Don’t feel bad. I have seven grandkids and can’t remember theirs either.
SGT. MC MULLEN
No? Yet you can remember minor hassles from the Stone Age? What about your wedding anniversary, Mr. Selective Memory? I bet you forget it too, don’t you?
NEAL
(Stares at his feet) No, I remember it just fine, except I don’t have a wife anymore.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(With sympathy) Jeez, I’m sorry, man. When did she pass?
NEAL
(Casually) She didn’t – but our marriage did. No, she’s fine. In fact,I just spoke with her on the phone last month.
SGT. MC MULLEN
So, she still feels something for you?
NEAL
Yeah, but she’s too polite to say it to my face. (Pauses) She claims that she’s forgiven me for all the changes I put her through, but I suspect that she’s just too old and tired to argue anymore.
SGT. MC MULLEN
Well, at least she accepted your call. She coulda stiffed you.
NEAL
True. (Chuckles to himself) Tell you what, Sarge: if we ever decide to remarry, you can be my best man. Won’t be any champagne toasts, though.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Laughs) I’d be honored to, Neal, but Friday’s my last. Goodbye Erie and hello Florida!
NEAL
Florida? The land of water moccasins, diamondback rattlers, copperheads coral snakes, fire ants, alligators, and mosquitos out the gazoo? Did I miss anything?
SGT. MC MULLEN
Yeah, the absence of snow up to my tits, uncomfortable uniforms, and noise, NOISE, (shouts) NOISE!, from first count to last!
NEAL
(Hollers) WHAT NOISE? (Chuckles) All right, I’ll concede your reasons, but don’t try to con me that you won’t miss a few of us cool old heads, like maybe me.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Pretends to look around for spies, shields his mouth with his right hand) Jesus, you wanna get me fired? Two measly days to freedom, and you’re fixing to jam me up? (Laughs) OK, dammit, I’ll tell you true. I’ve known some of you guys longer than I’ve known my youngest son, so, sure, a man can’t help but to like some of you jokers. What the hell? I’m human too.
NEAL
(Pretends to scan the area for snoops, looks up at the sky and assumes a posture of prayer) Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I confess: I dig some of you older, mellowed out guards too. It’s just too bad we can’t sit down over a keg of beer and drink and piss away our differences.
SGT. MC MULLEN
A keg? If I could, I’d maybe spring for a case.
NEAL
A case? C’mon man. With your retirement package, you can afford a truckload of Old Mud!
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Grins) Yeah, I earned every goddamn cent of it beating flat my arches while dealing with wanna-be gangstas and professional assholes. Neal, I’ve been hoeing a long hard row for a long, long time.
NEAL
Just funnin’ with ya, Sam. I’ll be the first one to admit that I couldn’t handle your job for a single day, let alone several thousand of them. In this madhouse, patience is the coin of the realm, and I blew most of mine gambling in various courts.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(With a pretense of umbrage) Whoa, partner, let’s back up a bit! What’s with this “Sam” business? What happened to Officer McMullen? Where he go?
NEAL
I dunno – I guess he split about the same time Inmate Moriarty did. It’s just a damn shame that it took us two and a half decades to acknowledge our mutual individuality.
SGT. MC MULLEN
I was just fucking with you, Neil, but you gotta understand our dilemma. If we get too buddy-buddy with you guys, some of them would use that as leverage, try to get over on us. (Pauses for a half-minute, thinking to himself) You remember that Jamaican counselor who got canned last year?
NEAL
The cat from the islands, mon? The dude who should’ve had a translator following him around?
SGT. MC MULLEN
Yeah, him. He got off on the wrong foot, handing out candy bars and chewing gum and after-shave samples – contraband – to his favorites, and when the brass hears about it, they figure that he’s liable to get conned into smuggling drugs, so out the door he goes, crying the “no pension” blues.
NEAL
I get the point, Sarge: Give a man an inch and, the next thing you know, he’s over the fence shooting you the finger for spite.
SGT. MC MULLEN
Yep, an ounce of prevention forestalls a two-year hit for attempted escape!
NEAL
(Muses) It’s hard to alter the status quo. To the bureaucratic mind-set, smoke never comes from a smoldering cigarette butt; it’s indisputable proof of another Chicago fire. Its mantra is “When in doubt, overreact; make a preventative strike; kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.”
SGT. MC MULLEN
Well, that’s a cynic’s viewpoint, but you gotta admit, Neal, when you’re perched atop a keg of black powder, a spark can be just as fatal as a lightning bolt.
NEAL
OK, I’ll grant the validity of your analogy and admit that familiarity can breed contempt or, worse, disorder, but why do some of your fellow cops got to come on so damn arrogant, strut around like storm troopers eager for a pogrom?
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Looks down at the ground, then up across the field) Keep this to yourself, Neal – you never heard it from me – but some of them are just plain scared, and they wear their bad attitudes like armor, hoping for protection. Of course, a few of them are just mean s.o.b’s up for trouble. (Pauses to adjust his hat) I guess I shouldn’t be letting the horses outta the barn, but a smart guy like you has probably guessed as much.
NEAL
It’s crossed my mind, yeah. But don’t they realize that, come a riot – God forbid! – hard-asses like them will be the first captives thrown to the lions?
SGT. MC MULLEN
Those kind of guys always think it won’t happen here, not to them, not on their watch. I’ve wasted breath over the years trying to show them the light, but no dice. They’re trapped in their movies, doomed to play their roles to the final curtain.
(They watch the game in silence for a half-minute. A foul ball strikes the wire screen in front of them; they flinch from the impact)
NEAL
Whew! That one had our names on it! (Pretends to mop fear-sweat from his forehead) Look, Sam, I came up with a theory why the authorities forbid the guards and prisoners to address one another by their first names. Want to hear it?
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Glances at his watch) Sure, fire away. There’s another half-hour of yard left.
NEAL
(Earnestly) There are societies that believe that names possess power, and give secret ones to their children at birth to protect them from trouble makers. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. Write them off as superstitious ninnies. But maybe they’re onto something. A number is the first thing the state gives a new inmate. If it wouldn’t prove too unworkable – all those numbers screeching out of tinny loudspeakers all day, getting mixed up – the authorities wouldn’t even use our last names. After all, it’s much easier to punish numbers, instead of individuals with a name. And the casual use of a first name goes another step further:it would serve to actually humanize those individuals, which is the last thing any warden needs. According to penal theory, familiarity leads to privilege, which is the first slippery step to anarchy. Therefore, you must call me Moriarty, and I must call you Officer McMullen, or at least Sarge.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Amused) And that’ll put the thumb in the dyke, huh?
NEAL
(Grins) Yep, apocalypse delayed!
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Jumps up to shout at two arguing players) YO! You two at third! Yeah, you and A-rod. TUNE OUT THE STATIC! I got better things to do than drag you to the hole. (The argument subsides, the game resumes. SGT. MC MULLEN sits down)
NEAL
You know, Sarge, once upon a long ago, I was a pretty fair ballplayer myself. In 1964, I made the county All-Star team when I played Legion ball. In the All-Star game, I had a walk and a single off the fastest pitcher in the league, stole two bases, and scored the first run. If I could run the bases without an oxygen tank strapped to my back, I’d be pitching or catching right now.
SGT. MC MULLEN
Were those the positions you played back then?
NEAL
Hell, no! I didn’t have the arm to pitch, and I wasn’t brave enough to catch. I played short stop, where the action was. (Pauses, looks at the sky, chuckles) My team stank, lost seventeen games in a row. One day, we played the best team in the league – hell, the damn state! The year before, they had won the Pennsylvania championship. Anyhow, to make a long story even longer, I was at short, a runner at first, and the batter hit a screamer over second. I dove to my left, knocked it down, and as I rolled ass over appetite, I flipped the ball to the second baseman, who turned the double-play. When I got up, I saw about two hundred people in the stands up on their feet, hollering and clapping.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Impressed) Wow! I bet you can still hear them cheering.
NEAL
(Laughs) Not hardly. Just when I make the play of my life, a damn freight train passes by the left field fence, and drowns out the applause. There I stand, like I’m in a silent movie.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Laughs) Did you win the game?
NEAL
Are you kidding? When we finally managed to beat the second-worst team a few weeks later, the local paper put it in headlines like we had won the World Series. Then we lost another seven or eight straight. We were lucky that the boozers down at the Legion bar didn’t rip the uniforms off our backs.
SGT. MC MULLEN
I did OK in Little League, but couldn’t make it in Legion ball – never learned how to hit a curveball. ‘Course, by then, I preferred to hit on girls!
NEAL
(Grins) Bet you didn’t hit for average with them, either.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Chuckles) No, I gotta confess that I went down swinging more than once.
NEAL
(Sadly) Don’t we all? It’s just part of this game called “life.” Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, and then we die, and there ain’t no “sometimes” about that.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Thoughtfully) You know, Neal, the word between us guards is that you got a raw deal, got screwed-over by every lawyer you ever had, that you don’t belong here. Is that true?
NEAL
(Looks at SGT. MC MULLEN in the eye, then turns away) Yeah, it’s true. There I was, a good father of four with no criminal record, a forty-eight-year-old make-no-waves kind of guy who made the mistake of practicing self-defense in my own home against a drunken attacker without possessing enough dough to hire a halfway decent defense attorney. And at the udder of the law, public defenders suck hind tit.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Shakes his head, frowns) And you had no luck with your appeals?
NEAL
(Snorts in derision) No, once a D.A. hangs your scalp on his lodgepole, he fights like a demon to keep it. Prevailing pro se is the equivalent of a high school poet winning the Nobel Prize in literature. Sarge, you know it as well as me: Justice is a demanding mistress, and poor schnooks like me can’t afford to buy her affection.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Throws out his hands) Jeez, I don’t know how you stand it. All those years wasted, your kids growing up without you…
NEAL
That isn’t the worst of it. At least they had a father for a few years, but my grandkids barely know me. I can see myself in their features, but I never had the chance to influence their souls or spirits or whatever the hell you want to call it. That ancient continuity between generations has been severed, and I sometimes wonder what the consequences will be.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(With passion) Christ, Neal, I’m sorry. I never thought of it like that. (Pauses to reflect) When I first started, I expected to hear inmates bitching every day about their innocence, but it never occurred. Nearly everyone I talked with admitted their guilt, although they were pissed about all the extraneous shit tacked on for spite. So, I tend to keep an open mind when someone does proclaim their innocence.
NEAL
Well, in my case, I did take a life, so I’m guilty of that. Whether or not it was justified, as I maintain, has already been determined by the only judge worth honoring, and I eventually expect exoneration. Until then, I try to get through each day without adding to my karmic debt. For me, a good day is a day without hassle.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Nods in agreement) Amen to that! Hell, I don’t get a charge outta badgering guys about their dangling shirttails and bullshit crap like that. I just wanna return home every day without a black eye or a stack of grievances filed against me.
NEAL
Yeah, the smell of pepper spray in the morning never lit my fire, either.
SGT. MC MULLEN
The other night, my wife and I figured out that all the shifts and double-shifts and weekends and holidays I had worked during my joy-filled career were the equivalent of a twelve-year bid!
NEAL
(Feigns surprise) Is that all? Hell, you’re just a visitor compared to me. (In a serious tone) But you got to remember – you chose to work here. You could’ve left if the shit got too bad to stomach. Plus, you made big bucks and collected more benefits than one of those mythical Big Apple welfare queens!
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Throws up his hands in surrender) OK, you win, all true, but still, that’s a lot of time spent among people who – uh, how can I put it? – don’t exactly share my “interests,” shall I say?
NEAL
(Forcefully) And there’s the problem in a nutshell! These people that you can’t identify with, the same low-life sons-of-bitches that complicate your life, feel exactly the same way about you! And they don’t know the real you anymore than you know the real them. Each of you represents the feared “other,” the bugbear of civility.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Taken aback) So, according to you, I oughta shake their goddamn hands every morning and share my history with them? C’mon, Neal, get real! These clowns ain’t what you’d call the cream of society.
NEAL
No, I’m not sayin’ that. Hey, I wouldn’t drink with most of these losers, either. But, if we Americans expect to survive as a nation, we have to realize that our irrational fear of the “other” is the root of prejudice and violence its fruit. (slaps both knees for emphasis)
SGT. MC MULLEN
Jeez, I never looked at it that way, but it makes sense. However, Neal, you gotta admit that people just naturally prefer the familiar and distrust the strange. It’s just instinctive, human nature, and we all know how easy it is to change that.
NEAL
(Nods slowly) Let me tell you a little story to illustrate my point, Sarge. It won’t take but a minute. Back in the late sixties, I lived in Greenwich Village for a few years.
SGT. MC MULLEN
Don’t tell me – let me guess – you were a hippie!
NEAL
(Raises his hands, palms extended) Stop right there! Give me a little credit, OK? I might’ve had long hair – what the hell, it was in style – but I never protested the war, and I only smoked pot when socially necessary.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Puzzled) Then why the hell did you go there for?
NEAL
Aside from the free love, you mean? (winks) Well, I wanted to be a writer, maybe walk a few blocks in Bob Dylan’s boot prints, join the party. My head was plumb full of adolescent, romantic crap like that back then.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Smiles indulgently) And then what happened? In a hundred words or less, I gotta go soon.
NEAL
(Laughs) I wrote a few bad poems, got the clap twice, and wound up my career tending bar at a Bowery wino dive. After I had my fill of the counterculture, I scooted back home to Pennsylvania and got married. Next thing I knew, here I am, four-fucking-hundred miles from my family.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Glances at his watch) And, your point is…?
NEAL
It isn’t my point, Sarge. I’m merely borrowing it from the Beatles, the cats who wrote the soundtrack of my generation. In the last verse of the last song on their last studio album, they sang, “And in the end/ the love you take/ is equal to the love you make.”
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Skeptically) So, you think we oughta wear flowers in our hair and dance around with you jokers beneath a diamond sky, whatever the hell that means, like your hero Bob Dylan sang? Go all peace and love like Charlie Manson preached before he went off message? C’mon, Neal! You can’t be serious!
NEAL
(Firmly) I’m as serious as a riot, Sam. I’m not recommending that we should exchange Christmas presents or walk the track holding hands. Only that we should regard each other as fellow human beings, rather than bitter adversaries. (Shakes his head and smiles) It just hit me that maybe that nasty prison camp warden in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” was accidentally right for the wrong reason when he said that Luke’s suffering was the result of a “failure to communicate.” Whenever anyone talks at someone, instead of with them, he widens the gap of communication, and then both will suffer the consequences.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Leaps up to shout at the same two men) HEY! Didn’t I tell you two to cool it? STIFLE IT BUT GOOD, BEFORE I SEND YOU TO THE SHOWERS! (Shakes his head, looks again at his watch) Let’s see, another forty-eight hours or so, and I’ll walk outta here (shouts) A FREE MAN, GREAT GOD ALMIGHTY, FREE AT LAST!
ANONYMOUS VOICE
Where you goin’, Sarge? The promised land?
SECOND ANONYMOUS VOICE
Shit, who cares where he’s going, long as he takes me with him!
THIRD ANONYMOUS VOICE
Fuck you, mack. Sarge be takin’ me.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Gently, to NEAL) See what I mean? There’s your human solidarity for you, your brotherhood in action. Each of them would brain the others in a heartbeat to go with me, and don’t forget it. (He stops, looks at NEAL) And so would you, if it was your last chance for freedom, wouldn’t you?
NEAL
(Looks at the ground, then at SGT MC MULLEN, then across the field) Probably.
(Shakes his head in disgust) Yeah – damn it! – I would.
SGT. MC MULLEN
(Begins to extend his hand to comfort NEAL, then pulls it back. The loudspeaker announces the end of yard) Hey, Neal, I gotta go, round up the stragglers. In case we don’t see each other again, good luck with your theory of coexistence, but I’m afraid this joint is short of philosophers. (Looks around to see if anyone is watching, then offers his hand to NEAL) Take care, my friend. I’ll remember you in my prayers.
(They shake hands, clasp each other’s shoulders, then hug)
NEAL
(With repressed emotion) Thanks, Sam. I’ll do the same. Box up some of that Florida sunshine and ship it to me next January.
(They turn abruptly, walk away to their separate destinies)
ANONYMOUS INMATE (to NEAL)
You and that sarge cousins or somethin’? Huggin’ each other like that?
NEAL
(Over his back) Nah, man, he’s just a guy who used to be one of the “others,” but now he ain’t.
ANONYMOUS INMATE
Others? What the fuck is they?
NEAL
(Walking steadily towards the exit gate and the remains of his future) The others? They’re the dudes staring back at us from our mirrors.
ANONYMOUS INMATE
(To himself, as NEAL merges into the crowd) Man, that old head musta gone stir crazy!
CURTAIN
Purchase Variations on an Undisclosed Location: 2022 Prison Writing Awards Anthology here.
