A Brief Moment in TIme Read online

  Gavin started to leave, then turned back to Ryan with what he hoped sounded like a threat. “It helps to know who your friends are in here.”

  The kid nodded.

  Gavin walked away maintaining an outward calm, yet silently imploding. He gave Stubby a look that said, “The kid’s even more messed than I thought,” and then continued past him, leaving his friend to draw his own conclusions.

  Alone in his cell, Gavin sought refuge in the private world he had created. It was a world he could usually escape to with ease; he’d been doing it for so many years. But that evening, Ryan’s words haunted his familiar place.

  The demons of his own past haunted him, too. Though he’d worked hard to bury them, he’d obviously been unsuccessful. He fell into a fitful sleep. He was eighteen again, filled with hope for the future. Yet when he looked in a mirror, it was Ryan’s image, not his own, that stared back at him. And when he looked down, there was blood on his hands.

  Strict routine ruled the lives of the prisoners at Swenton. The morning bell sounded, bringing them back to the harsh reality of their incarcerated world. For once, Gavin was glad to re-enter that world. The one he’d just experienced in his dreams was a greater hell by far. He’d awoken in a sweat, having run from something much too frightening to remember.

  At breakfast, announcements were made for the day. A rehabilitation program was being initiated at Swenton. Prisoners within two years of their parole were being “encouraged” to attend. Incentives were being offered to those willing to participate in the program. What it boiled down to in Gavin’s mind was that those who didn’t attend would have to work longer hours. It didn’t sound like incentive to him, just another form of coercion.

  The program began that morning with nearly forty in attendance in the prison auditorium. The men around Gavin were whispering about the so-called rehabilitation being offered. He heard the usual scoffing, some obviously against the idea, others asking questions. The room went silent, however, as a woman walked onto the stage.

  She was fortyish, Gavin guessed, and not unattractive—just somewhat plain looking with her hair pulled back a little too severely in a bun. She might have had a decent figure as well, but it was covered in a coat-style dress that gave very little indication of what was underneath. Nevertheless, judging by the men’s response, she may as well have been Madonna. Gavin noticed her blush slightly as she cleared her throat to begin.

  Speaking loudly over the still-audible whistle, jeer, or muffled comment, the woman introduced herself as Kathryn Harding. She then listed her qualifications, to which Gavin didn’t really listen; he was much more interested in the conversations going on around him.

  She’ll have her work cut out, he mused. No one’s taking her seriously.

  As she continued, a few words and phrases caught Gavin’s interest. Others around him must have heard too, because the room became quiet.

  “This is an innovative approach,” she was saying, “developed by some of the leading psychologists in the country. With this methodology we don’t use labels, except to say that we’re all teachers and all students. There is no therapist or patient. No murderer, no criminal, no victim. We are all equal—human beings who have chosen different experiences in life.

  “Our goal will be to help you see yourself free of those labels. And once free of them, you can begin to see yourself as anything you want to be.”

  Gavin was riveted to her words. They were completely different from what he’d been expecting, and they affected him deeply. He felt torn. He wanted to dismiss them as outlandish, impossible even, yet part of him wanted to believe they were true. Commonsense argued that it wouldn’t matter how he saw himself; people would always look at what he had done and label him as a murderer. He could hide from it. He could pretend otherwise, but he couldn’t change what was.

  She went on to describe the program, which consisted of group sessions and individual counseling. In addition, she would be choosing four to six men to work with for an extended period, those particular men being chosen according to the proximity of their parole, their record of behavior, and their participation in the group and individual sessions. Her plan was to continue to work with those men once they were fully released.

  Gavin wasn’t sure why, when he had serious doubts about the validity of the woman’s claims, but for some reason he wanted to be a part of her little experimental group. Moreover, he sensed he would be.

  The woman introduced her colleagues, two men and another woman who would be working with her in the program. Sessions would be starting the following week, and groups and times would be posted in the dining hall.

  The prisoners, glad to have missed an hour of work, were dismissed to go to their jobs. Gavin listened to the chatter as the men made their way to the industry area. Some were still making crude jokes about the women they had just seen, while others challenged the effectiveness of the rehabilitation program.

  Gavin was caught up in his own introspection—a mixture of thoughts and feelings composed of Ryan’s words, his own unsettling dream, and the strange, enticing things the woman had just shared.

  “The only thing I need to rehabilitate me,” Stubby interjected, “is a good woman and a place to call home when I get out of this shit hole.”

  Several others agreed by nodding or grunting. Although somewhat primal, Gavin couldn’t disagree with the sentiment. Stubby, along with many of the other inmates Gavin had gotten to know, had learned their lesson. They wouldn’t be repeating their crime. In a sense, they were already rehabilitated. They were not the same men they’d been ten or twenty years before.

  Gavin wasn’t either. He hardly knew the foolish kid he’d been seventeen years earlier. That kid was long gone—or at least he’d thought so—until he’d met Ryan, until that dream had made it all seem so real again.

  As he entered the millwork shop where he worked as a supervisor, the first face to greet him was none other than Ryan’s. The kid half smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “They told me to report here. What do you want me to do?”

  Gavin quickly assessed the situation. Jobs were assigned according to seniority. He pretty much ran the place now and had men he trusted working the big machines. Fish were usually a pain in the ass, and more often than not they liked to complain rather than work. The work wasn’t complicated, but a stupid or careless move could cost someone a finger or an arm.

  He sighed. With little choice in the matter, he gave Ryan some simple instructions and had him work with Rocco. Then he went over to the other side of the room where one of the planers was acting up. He knew it so well, he could repair it with his eyes closed.

  As he worked, his thoughts fixated on the woman they’d just heard. Does she really believe that we’re all the same? Does she honestly see herself as equal to the men she just addressed? He questioned again what the benefit of that kind of reasoning would be. Is it for real or just some new psychological trickery, a way to mess with our minds?

  Gavin believed the mind was a complicated thing, capable of more than most people believed. He’d proved it over the years. He could escape in his mind when he was alone at night. He’d honed it well, but he’d never spoken of it to anyone, not even his family who visited him regularly.

  He wondered what this woman’s view might be on subjects like that. He doubted it was something he’d ever be comfortable sharing, but still he was curious.

  Gavin looked up to see Rocco walking toward him with a scowl on his face.

  “I can’t work with the kid, Gavin. I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumors, but I’ve heard some pretty wild stuff about him. I believe it, too. You just have to look at his eyes—something about him is really disturbing.”

  Gavin coughed to keep from laughing as he listened to the older man’s concerns. Rocco was a friend of Stubby’s and as superstitious as they come. Gavin’s plan was going smoothly.

  “All right, send him over here.”

  Ryan appeared minutes later, and G
avin put him to work tightening some bolts on the planer. After a few minutes of silence, he hoped the kid would be content with the lack of communication, but it didn’t last.

  “How long till you get out?”

  “A year, maybe longer.” Gavin was eligible for parole within the year, but most were denied the first time, and he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Gavin shrugged.

  “What’s that rehab program all about?”

  “I guess they want to try and make respectable citizens out of us.”

  “We’re no different than they are.”

  Gavin stared at the kid. The statement came out of nowhere, yet it was oddly similar to the one the psychologist woman had made earlier. Again it wasn’t so much from a place of defiance as a place of knowing. He wondered what made the kid tick, how his mind worked.

  “Why do you say that?” Gavin asked.

  “It’s who we all are, deep down. You, me, that guard.” Ryan motioned ever so slightly with his head. “We’re all the same.”

  “In what way?”

  “What we’re made of, what we’re capable of…None of this is real, you know.”

  Chapter 3

  AGAIN, GAVIN woke up in a panic, drenched in sweat as the morning bell sounded. It was becoming an uncomfortable pattern—one that he longed to change.

  He’d been attending the group sessions three times a week for two weeks already, and individual sessions were scheduled to start that morning. The woman that had introduced the program was the facilitator of his group, but she was different from the woman who’d spoken in the assembly that first morning. She seemed more relaxed as she got to know the men, and as she loosened up, she let more of her personality show. Gavin was truly enjoying the meetings and was looking forward to the individual sessions.

  She led the group in a guided meditation at the start of each meeting. At first the men found it a joke, and when instructed to focus on something enjoyable, all kinds of crude suggestions were offered.

  By the end of the second week Kate, as she’d asked the men to call her, was making progress. Gavin found the exercise easy enough, but kept most of his thoughts to himself. It was very similar to the mind games he played, or used to play, at night. The now-frequent nightmares had all but obliterated the refuge he’d created. Something about Ryan’s presence, and now Kate’s, had changed things, complicated things, in his life.

  Kate had them close their eyes and try to imagine a space. She helped them define it, making it their own. Then each time they would return to their space, but they would embellish it, notice or create something new within it. She repeatedly told them the space was theirs alone, that it was a safe place that no one else could enter without their permission. She encouraged them to make it personal with images of loved ones, to fill it with objects and activities that interested them. It was their haven, a space uniquely theirs that no one could take away, change, or destroy.

  Gavin was amazed that he could, even in the presence of Kate and nine other men, enter his space and become so caught up in it that he was unaware of anything else happening. It was like some sort of hypnotism.

  Each time the men sat in a circle, facing outward, and Kate walked around the perimeter, talking in a soothing voice, guiding each to his own personal sanctuary. Mystical music played softly in the background, and Gavin could picture a robed man in the swaying grasses of a far-off land, playing his flute by a bubbling stream while birds called out their greetings. It was easy to be drawn away to a better place.

  After meditating for about fifteen minutes, Kate spoke to the group, and then they participated in a question and answer period. Gavin hung on her words, and as the days progressed, he had more and more questions that he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He hoped he’d feel more comfortable during the individual counseling.

  Gavin entered the designated room when it was time for his private session, and Kate greeted him with a smile. He couldn’t help but notice that she had an attractive quality about her. She still wore her hair in a bun and dressed a little too conservatively for her age, but her eyes were bright, and her kind smile made Gavin feel at ease.

  “Hello, Gavin,” she said in the soft, silvery voice that he had come to know from their group sessions. “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks.”

  A large desk was the focal point of the room, but Kate didn’t sit behind it. She sat in one of two identical chairs positioned in the center of the small room. The lighting was subtle—just a dim lamp on the desk and some natural light coming in through vertical blinds.

  “Have you been enjoying our sessions?”

  “Yeah, I have,” Gavin replied sincerely. “It’s nice of you to help us escape like that.”

  She smiled at his play on words. “It’s something you can do yourself now that you know how. You can go to your special place any time you like.”

  Gavin wanted to share his experiences but felt some lingering apprehension. Instead, he just nodded.

  “What I want to convey in these sessions is an understanding of who you are. How would you describe yourself, Gavin?”

  Gavin knew she’d have background information on the prisoners she was counseling, but he was candid anyway. “I’m a convicted felon, serving time for second-degree murder.”

  “Is that all you are?”

  Gavin shrugged. “In here it is.”

  She gently corrected him. “You’re still a son, even though you’re in prison. Isn’t that right?”

  Gavin nodded.

  “You’re a brother, a friend, a citizen of this country? What about the work you do every day? Aren’t you a supervisor?” She glanced at her notes.

  He nodded again, beginning to understand where she was leading.

  “Those are labels our society has given you, Gavin, and they all define you in some way or another.” She handed him a sheet of paper with several columns of words on it. “I want you to look at these words and circle the ones that you think describe you best.”

  Gavin took the pen that she offered and glanced at the page. It was an extensive collection of adjectives in alphabetical order from “able” to “zealous.” As he stared at the intimidating list, Kate offered encouragement. “Nobody else gets to see this, and there’s no right or wrong. It’s just a starting place to help me know how you see yourself.”

  Gavin circled half a dozen words, trying to be as honest as he could in describing himself. He handed the paper back to Kate.

  “Now...” She handed him another paper identical to the first. “I want you to circle words that you think others might use to describe you.”

  Gavin grimaced, not liking the second exercise. His parents had been nothing but supportive. He had the respect of many of the other convicts and even some of the guards. But when he heard the word others, he thought of the world in general and felt as if “murderer” was tattooed across his forehead for all to see. He looked up at Kate.

  She was patiently waiting for him to complete the exercise. “It’s not as easy, is it?”

  “No,” Gavin sighed.

  “That’s fine, let’s move on. Why don’t you circle words you’d like people to use to describe you?”

  She must have seen the hesitation that was still evident on Gavin’s face, because she changed her tactic. “Okay, how about this? I want you to imagine that you’ve just come to this planet. Nobody knows you, and you have no past. You’re a brand new person, ready to make a brand new life for yourself. The words that you choose to define yourself are exactly what you’ll become.”

  “That’s easier,” Gavin admitted, liking the world of make-believe that Kate offered but questioning it just the same.

  Kate looked at the list Gavin handed her. She smiled. “This is the Gavin McDermott I see before me.” She read the words aloud. “You already are all these things, Gavin. Do you believe that?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Not rea
lly.”

  “This is going to be our work together. For the next few weeks, I’m going to help you see that who you are is not what you think about yourself. It’s not what others think of you. Who you are is something fundamental and unchanging. It’s the basis of who we all are. We’re the same, Gavin. You and me. You just don’t know it yet.”

  Gavin left the meeting uplifted. Being around Kate left him feeling like a normal human being. He almost did feel like her equal when he was with her. He still didn’t understand how others would be able to see it that way, but it was a start, something he truly enjoyed.

  With a little work, he’d managed to avoid conversations with Ryan, and that helped his over-all state of mind as well. He found the kid peculiar, making him uneasy and, oddly enough, curious at the same time. What was really strange was that some of the things the boy said seemed to reiterate the ideas Kate was introducing.

  The next morning, however, after listening to complaints about the kid, who’d received the nickname “Chucky,” Gavin had no choice but to put Ryan to work with him.

  “I might have spread it on a bit too thick, telling those stories about you,” Gavin admitted. “Now nobody wants to have anything to do with you.”

  “It’s the way I wanted it.”

  Gavin frowned. The kid actually believes he’s responsible for the situation turning out the way it did, like he’s controlling the events of his life, somehow? If he truly believes that, then what the hell is he doing in prison?

  “This isn’t real, you know,” Ryan repeated the strange words he’d spoken once before. “You, me, this place—none of it’s real.”

  He was sure now that Ryan wasn’t playing with a full deck, and Gavin was suddenly thankful for the rumors he’d started about him. It served to keep the kid quiet. If the others discovered what he really believed, if they heard him talking this nonsense, they’d know he was really just crazy, delusional, and they’d have him for lunch. He decided to humor the kid. “Okay, we’re not real; this place isn’t real. What are we doing here then?”