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How fox [Shane] Got into the System: From Hearing to Johnson City
(Author's note – for the sake of keeping this in the spirit of the story as a whole, but trying to keep the confusion to a minimum, Shane will have one more name in the process before being labeled/renamed fox).
Every member of his group and the member of any of the other petty criminal type organization knew the law. Community level policing meant that the cops knew who was in what gang. Truly petty crimes – like graffiti – were handled by a fine and requiring the gang the offender belonged to to clean it up. Turf wars that resulted in broken bottles and other trash was handled the same way. Fights between rivals were quite literally allowed to run their course. However if a fight resulted in the death of another gang member, injury to a peace officer or innocent bystander, property damage above five thousand, threatening behavior or any other class A or B felony meant permanent enslavement.
Shane was among a group of four sent to beat up a rival. The target hadn't been alone as they expected but instead of calling it off, they decided to take them both on and in the melee the target was injured but his friend was killed. Police arrived as it was ending and Shane was the slowest of the bunch. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder – under the circumstances if the boy had survived the beating the charges would have been lowered to misdemeanor assault. When the kid died, the police tried to get Shane to name his accomplices: You're going away but you don't have to be the only one. Standard for any gang member, he kept his `blood oath' and refused. The way the gang put it was that since the worst that would happen is enslavement, ratting wouldn't save your own skin, so just be a man and take the inevitable. But fear kept him silent, after finding out how the slave system worked he wished he hadn't.
If a crime is interrupted and participants arrested, then a hearing replaces a formal trial. Formal trials reserved for crimes discovered after the fact where perpetrators are unknown or unclear.
Shane is never asked for a plea. He's simply asked if he had been present at the time of the crime. "No" would have delayed matters but would not change the outcome. So he says yes. Asked once more to name anyone else involved, he again refuses. The hearing is in the morning and lasts three minutes. There is no formal sentencing just an announcement when the next transport to the intake facility would arrive. His mother and step-father already refused to visit at any point during his three days between arrest and the hearing. The court clerk called once more to give them a final opportunity now that the sentence was official – they didn't bother to answer the phone.
By 10 am the hearings are done for the day and six men sit in the holding cell waiting until noon when the transport will move them to intake. They range in age from Shane at 15 to probably 30 but Shane can't be sure. None speak but half cry quietly. Shane just sits, numb. He always knew this was an outcome more likely than not, but he had imagined it happening later. Now he realizes that he has no idea what to expect, that his imagining had been based more on the comments of others and not on any understanding of what "you're gonna wind up a slave" really meant. No one ever talked about it. Several men from the neighborhood had been enslaved, but since all contact is lost, the families couldn't say anything (not that they would since there was heavy shame attached to the fact). The justice system was officially mum on what happened after intake. He had also never seen a slave. Since the Bureau of Slave Affairs has what amounts to a quarantine zone between the territories and any facility dealing with it and the free cities, few free men have seen slaves and almost none have seen slaves at work.
The transport is a prison bus half full when Shane and his fellows board. It makes two more stops. The thirty-five men all look very much like those in his holding cell. He guesses he was probably the youngest but there aree four others that have to be close to his age. There seems to be no rule against talking but none do. Like any charmer, Shane is a talker, but everything about this situation says to keep quiet.
The bus makes a turn onto a poorly maintained stretch of road and Shane sees a red road sign saying "For Territory Traffic Only – Turn-Around Lane 50 meters". After a couple of hundred meters the bus is waved through a sentry point. The bus rattles around on patchy roads for about half a kidney busting hour before driving through the fenced gates of a medium sized freight yard. The bus stopps, the door wis unlocked and opened.
A man looking more like a football coach ready for game time or a game of golf steps on.
"Follow the orange path. It will take you to the restroom where you can piss. After you finish, follow the red path to the benches. There is a bag lunch for each of you on the bench. In about an hour your intake will begin and transport will be arranged. We tend to be a calm bunch and do what we can to make this run smooth, but we can make things real rough for everyone in a city second if we need to, all of that is up to you." He leaves and the men on the bus follow.
Orange line to the restroom. There is a urinal trough wide enough for fifty, so the group fits easily. There is nowhere to wash hands so once finished they just followed the red line and take their places at the benches. The bag lunch has a ham and cheese sandwich, an apple, and orange juice. Despite nerves and dread most of the men eat.
After the last of the crinkled bags are placed under the benches the man returns. He has each man count out, starting at one ending at five and repeating until the last man said "five".
"Each group one through five will walk along the green line through that doorway. A doctor will take each of you and check your health. From there you will be sent to an intake agent who will ask a few questions and put together a packet for you. If everything runs as it usually does, you will be on your way to your new locations sometime before dinner." One of the men raises his hand. "I don't answer questions but the doctors and intakes will allow you a few, so raise both hands if you have to piss, otherwise, just wait until your group is called." The man puts his hand down. "Good, now group one."
Shane figures being in the first group is probably best since it means less time to worry. The doctor who takes him into an exam room doesn't look old enough to be a doctor.
"Remove your shirt and put it in the hamper then sit up on the table." While Shane complies, the doctor continues. "Do you know your blood group?"
"My what?" He is shirtless and sitting on the exam table.
"Ok, in a minute I'll prick your finger to get your blood group, otherwise no other blood will be drawn and no shots given. I'm going to give you a general physical. Other than the drop of blood this isn't going to hurt."
The doctor listens to heart and lungs, checks for moles, checks mouth, throat, eyes, ears.
"Now remove everything else and put it in the hamper."
"Everything?"
The doctor nods and what had been a surreal blur begins slowly to focus into something sinister. He begins with his sneakers and socks but moves very slowly as he tries to process. "This is just a doctor, embarrassing but just a doctor so no big deal, just a doctor." He strips down and hops up on the table in a hurry and covers his genitals.
"No, I have to check you for a hernia. So stand with legs apart and hands behind back. I'm going to have to poke up around your scrotum. Hitting me would be a very bad idea."
"Is this the turn your head and cough thing?" He gets down and does as he had been asked.
"Exactly."
It doesn't feel good but it doesn't hurt, it is just embarrassing. And he hops back up on the table when it is over. He answers no when asked if he's had surgery or is allergic to anything that he knew of; answers yes when asked if he had ever been given penicillin. The doctor then draws a small tube of blood from a finger tip and drops a little of it in each of three tubes of blue liquid. After a moment the doctor takes out a marker and writes A+ on his left and right shoulder.
"Wow does that mean I'm the best or something?" He is actually being serious.
"That's your blood group so not the best or the worst, just something we need to know. You're healthy if a little malnourished but that will change quickly." He presses a button on the wall and scribbles some numbers on a pad. A woman opens a door opposite the one Shane had entered from. Shane cups his genitals and blushes and gives out a sudden `eek.'
"Follow me and we'll get the rest of this sorted." She is about as young as the doctor, cute, cheerful. What began to come into focus now is suddenly surreal again except that the cupped hands are trying to hold back an erection.
"Don't I get my clothes back or like a jumpsuit or summin?"
"Depends on what happens next, but no, you follow me just like you are now."
Shane hops down and follows behind at a quick waddle. He doesn't bother looking behind him because he wouldn't be able to cover his butt regardless. The woman opens an office door and points Shane to an armless plastic chair in front of an ordinary office desk. He sits quickly and keeps his hands over his crotch and tries to shrink himself into a space too small for shame to find him.
"You got like a towel or anything I ..."
"No." She is gentle but obviously emphatic as she goes behind the desk and opens a folder. "Have you heard the word slave from anyone other than the judge today?"
"No." It is almost a whisper.
This is what she wanted to hear. Sandy is actually in her late thirties but passes for twenty-five. She is part of a group of activists specific to this age. There is going to be plenty of screaming and name calling and other things meant to assault the personality so it could be reshaped. But she and her group had been able to show in a small study a dozen years before that the doctors and staff at intake facilities had a far easier time with the incoming slaves if everyone up the line was just firm but otherwise quiet and even deferential. The slaves were going to end up where the system put them no matter how the process began, but if this part is handled calmly then the staff involved would be more efficient, result in less turn-over, and nearly eliminate mistaken postings (locating and then relocating a mislaid slave is expensive and confusing and it means that if the slave understands what is happening, he could exploit the mistake and escape – to the best of anyone's knowledge this had never happened, but there is also every incentive never to report it).
"Depending on where you go, you might be given something to wear but for now, just try to relax. Please just answer yes or no to my questions when I'm done you'll get a chance to ask a few questions. Originally from Raleigh" [Yea] "Any living siblings" [No] "Father living in Virginia" [Uh I] "Last you were aware he lived in Virginia" [Yes] "In school" [No] "Dropout" [Yes] "Can you read" [Yes] "Have you ever been employed" [No]. "Sentenced by hearing" [Yes] "Age 16" [No].
"How old?
"Fifteen."
"Birthday?"
"June 9."
Sandy shows no reaction but she is angry. The law is clear. Between 12 and 15 +364 days, the boys are handled through a different intake and processing system. But the law is equally clear. Once the officers of the court put the body on the bus and that body shows up in this kind of intake, he may as well be 30, he will be sent through the `adult' system. Sandy is federal, the court officials filling in the paperwork are local and will sometimes fudge. Sandy will complain because she has to but she knows that nothing will happen even if she was authorized to follow up.
The physical shows a kid of 5' 6", 120. There is a check next to "Malnourished" another next to "Mild" another next to "Poor food choices." This translates as a labor classification low-up – low capacity with expectation of a reclassification to medium between four to eight months of good nutrition and regular labor. She puts that information into the computer on her desk and crosses her fingers. She scrolls through and finds a spot in a processing center in Eastern Tennessee, she quickly assigns him there. She enters a series of numbers relating to where he is from, where he is going and his classification. A moment later the printer spits out a page of identical barcodes. She puts one on a red metal disk, one each on three different color cards, one on a small envelope and shredds the rest of the page. All of this takes about thirty seconds.
"Trust me." He looks up, surprised not at what seems like an odd kindness but the words themselves shock him. She moves to where he sits, his eyes follow hers. She loops the red tag around a plastic wristband (double the strength of those used in hospitals, but still the same idea). "It is less embarrassing for you if you look ahead and just stick your right arm out so I can put this on, then you can cover back up if you have to." He mutely complies, hand returning to crotch when done. He is beginning to try to disappear; his breath slows to the point where it is silent – the polar opposite of the panic hyperventilation she sees more often than not.
"Can I get you to look at me." It takes a moment but he finally does. "In an hour you will get on a train. You will change trains two more times then a truck will take you to a processing center. There you will get a deeper medical work-up. You will be taught the basic slave rules and based on the medical will be put on an exercise regimen. In three to five weeks you will then be taken to a market where one of the holding companies will buy you. From there what happens is up to what the company needs. This envelope has three cards that route you where you need to go. Don't lose it. Losing it just causes serious problems for you and doesn't end in you being free but will get you a bigger taste of slavery than you are ready to handle." The words always sound silly to her and may be insulting to the slave but it doesn't stop the words from being true. "I can't answer much but you have a couple of minutes to ask questions."
"Clothes?"
"No. When you get to processing you will get what is needed based on the weather, but if you stay in that general area you will rarely need clothes."
"How can I not need em?" He starts to focus on the real again and this time the focus never reverts to the strange safety of the surreal.
"Most slave work doesn't require clothes and you will only be with other slaves and overseers, so whether you know it or like it, you will get used to it."
"Where are you sendin me?"
"I can't tell you and even if I could, I could only say where the processing center is, not where you will be sent when bought."
"I guess you're the last nice person I'm gonna see."
"Most people you are going to see aren't paid to be nice, but they aren't paid to be mean for no reason either. Learning the rules will not be fun, but the faster you do that the easier it will be. Processing has every reason to keep you well fed and healthy. They won't start out nice but they won't always be strict, that depends on you. Any other questions? No? Ok, this is a white envelope so follow the white line and the guard at the end will let you know when it's ready to get on the train."
He stands, stooped, hands and envelope covering crotch. A message appears on her screen, she screams "Give me two minutes Brad!" She picks up the phone. "Al, Raleigh fucked up again ... Johnson City ... schedule says tomorrow afternoon ... Bony but healthy, low-up and should be medium fast enough ... " she speaks what sounds like a code of random numbers and letters. "Is there anyone in that center usually spills to the local market or into West Virginia, do I need to call ... great. You're a life saver as usual."
She knows that if Al works his usual magic, a Tri-Peaks buyer will acquire the luckless kid. If that happens, he will never know his relative fortune, but Sandy will. She puts a reminder on her calendar for four weeks to check on his progress and to see if Al will be able to buy the kid.
Shane follows the white line to where it ends in an open holding cell. One of the younger men from the bus and one of the men from Raleigh join him. The older one pulls out his colored cards and fans them out on his thigh. The other two do the same. Shane isn't the brightest but guesses, based on what he sees, that the younger one will change trains with him but whatever stop happened after that, they will be going to different places. They don't speak because none of them sees a reason. Whatever company this misery will get will not be made up of any of the people Shane or the others have seen so far. Sharing names or anything else seems pointless.
"The train is nearly here," the guard says. Sandy calls him a guard but he does't look like one, no stick no weapon, just a walky-talky. "There is a restroom in the train car and you will be fed again shortly. Go ahead and pull out the first card and have it ready." He opens the gate facing the freight yard and escorts them to the second to last car on a freight train, a passenger car with unbreakable glass windows and the words `Slave Transport' stenciled in black on the side.
The door opens and a middle-aged, hillbilly looking man in a police type uniform calls for them to step up. "Grab a seat's the same color as the card you hand me and we'll pull out directly." He closes and locks the door.
The car is half empty but Shane and the other holding a green card find two seats together and choose them without discussion; cold comfort is still comfort. Once the train pulls away the guard picks up the colored cards from each new passenger and says a sack lunch will be handed out soon. The pair stick together at the next freight/slave stop and are able to sit together again on the next leg where they are fed again. At the next yard the pair split. He boards one more train and hands the last of his cards to the guard.
When he steps off the last train he has spoken less than a dozen words since leaving intake. And a night and half a day has passed since then. He has seen but not registered something approaching two hundred naked males most silent like him in three different freight yards. As vulnerable and defeated as they had been naked, they followed spoken orders meaning no one along the line had to raise his voice or threaten. Shane would recall this quiet order and conclude as others had (and totally incorrectly) that the food had been spiked with something to make them docile. In truth the process makes the men feel less ashamed of inaction to believe that.
In the last yard, Shane and ten other men of different ages but the same general body type waited in an open holding cell for a truck. A beat up four-wheel drive truck with `Scotsboro Slave Processing' stenciled on the side stopped in front of the cell. A guard, this one dressed in a martial style with a whip attached to his belt lifted the top of the cage open and put out a step ladder. "A'ite shitsquirts, step up and have a seat and welcome to the rest of your lives." The last boarded, the cage locked, an open hand slapped the side of the truck and it pulled off.
"It's gonna be kina bumpy so you may want to brace yourselves so you don't bump your head against the bars too much. We won't be stopping til we get to the center meaning about two hours. So if you can't hold your piss, shit, or puke then you just do it where you are. Once you slaves are off the rails, the situation is very different. Guards have whips and know how to use them, we don't like to yell but won't hesitate when it's needed and anytime it is, expect the whistle of the whip, the slap when it hits skin and the squealing after."
Finally Shane understands. The relief that the reality of the new world beginning is a cold one, but cold relief is relief all the same. He can tell that the same is true for most of his fellows all with hands held against the top of the cage bracing against the frequent bumps. This statement would only be odd to a neutral observer, not to the caged travelers: they pass a couple of farms and, though they cannot see it clearly, they can get the image of men working, other men swinging whips; the engine and road noise drown out the sound, but the shaky tableau adds resignation to the relief. Once again, a neutral observer would think this insane, but the people in the territories have a different kind of sanity, reason, and logic no less real than the one in the Free Cities, but built on a foundation so fundamentally different that little about it would resemble the reason and ration that freedom maintains.
Territorial Transport – Brief History and Current Scheme
Transport by train using freight yards had been the original design. But all yards could be intake, switching, and pickup locations. There were more processing centers at the time since the influx of the slave population was very large, but after the initial peak processing centers would be consolidated. Personnel used were very close to the old notion of a slave driver with yelling and swinging lashes being constant. Slaves were chained together based on next location and guards at each stop would unchain/rechain based on the next location. Permanent INs were assigned at intake which was little more than attaching the IN tag to the bracelet. The thinking at the time was that this sudden slave reality was best for keeping the newly enslaved in line through fear. It didn't take long for those on the ground to realize this didn't work well required constant, tedious attention.
Five years into the new labor conditions, the first migration had peaked and the Bureau could begin to make some necessary changes. All freight yards could still be used for switching, but only some were designated as intake, others for pickup (occasionally a yard located near closely situated free cities and processing centers in the territories could still function as all three). The color coded system was introduced which meant that chaining the slaves in transit was not longer needed and the guards who had been used for that were either reassigned or retired.
A TIN (temp IN) system was created – processing centers kept running into slaves that needed to be reclassified and changing the IN certificate located in the capital took weeks. The TIN would be replaced by a permanent IN once the final medical assessment was compiled at processing. They would then fill out the certificate with the correct information and classification and send it to the Bureau. The intake was still controlled by slave drivers but once on the trains, the slaves sat in color coded seats but were not chained. Supervisors on the ground noticed that the process went smoother this way.
The latest incarnation is as described for Shane. A decent medical exam to identify slaves with even subtle health issues meant for more efficient process placement. Having the staff dressed casually and treating the intakees' professionally if not outright respectfully meant they were far more willing to behave. The logic was simple: give a man, especially a felon (violent or otherwise) an excuse to fight and chances are good he will if for no other reason than to show he isn't cowed even if the result is a serious beating; however, simply give them no choice but to comply but allow them the dignity' of walking themselves from the bus to the train meant they would essentially emasculate themselves. It meant less stress on all of the Bureau employees, so the whole process smoothed out. Intake centers still had slave driver guards available but they would only show up if there was a reason, otherwise they were entirely out of sight.
The last major change was not to transport current slaves in the same car as new. The amount of fear the existing slaves could instill in the new ones led to frequent near riots. Moving existing slaves by rail isn't common and if it has to happen on a train that will have new ones, a additional car is added so there can be no contact until the new slaves enter the final leg that takes them into the processing system.
The newest system created some transportation headaches, but they were minor in comparison to the regular headaches in nearly every freight yard in the territory.
One final note. Moving them by passenger car was always the plan as was feeding them during transit. Regardless of the abuses from some holding companies that will be covered later, the Bureau itself intended slaves to enter processing having been fed (or at least offered food) and somewhat rested and to leave processing healthy and ready for their class of labor. Just because trains were involved doesn't mean that the egregious sins of the past were being repeated.
How fox (Shane) Got into the System: Processing Part 1
We're holdin our hands against the bars over our heads and all gettin real tired. All that bouncin around is as rough on the insides as the outsides. Imma have a bruised ass cause every time we hit a big bounce the bottom falls out then it rushes back up to smack my bony ass and my head's gonna have some knots on it too. And I think all of us've pissed at least once but so far that's it. So we're all sitting in it. It's nasty but we're all too tired to care much I guess.
"Heads up."
There's two guys with uniforms sittin in bucket seats with NASCAR harnesses, the seats're on top of the cage and against the truck cab. One of em undoes the harness and scoots to the edge of the seat. His buddy holds his shoulders while he unzips and starts pissin on us. A couple of us say Hey' but stop before finishin it with what the fuck do you think you're doin.' The first one buckles up again and the second one pisses too. I wind up showered with most of his. I'm mad enough to cry but don't. It don't take a genius to guess that cryin won't do more than just embarrass me and since the whips ain't for show, maybe summin like cryin would break some rule where they scream I'll give you summin to cry about' and tear me up.
"I'm real sorry guys but I got to take a shit, I can't hold it no more." One guys says that and a couple others says me too and the rest of us say either ok or no problem or thanks for tellin.
I look at the guards. They're just babblin away like they're out on a Sunday ride or summin, while we sit in a sloshing portajohn. Maybe it don't stink much that high up or maybe they don't care or are just pretendin. I guess we don't matter if we can't do nuthin.
We finally get to the gettin place. The truck pulls up to a small brick building with no windows. It sits back a ways from a wall made of pointy logs. We didn't come through no fence or nuthin, just pulled right up to the building. They let us out onto the concrete and let us stretch a minute then tell us to toe a yellow line painted on the ground.
"Hands over your eyes."
Then we get sprayed with warm soapy water when it stops they tell us to lather up the hair then they hose us off. We stand drippin. A slave lookin a lot like me but with muscles and tanned skin and a buzz cut comes out of the building. He's got a leather collar on with tags and combat lookin boots. He's naked and there are some pink welts on his back and ass. He stays with the back turned to us and stands I guess like at attention but with hands behind his back, hands holding each forearm so that the arms kinda make a square.
"This is position one, do it now faggots!" Which we all do. "Eyes straight ahead, don't look anywhere else."
"First and last word from you will always be sir. Understood?"
"Sir yes sir." All together.
"Louder."
"Sir yes sir!"
"Louder!"
"Sir yes sir!" I guess that's finally loud enough.
"Yes, no, thank you, sir, and slave will be the most common words out of your mouths and it will be that way the rest of your lives. Understood?"
"Sir yes sir."
"You're going to be staying in the exam building tonight where you're going to get a full body medical checkup including blood. If there are no problems you move inside the wall tomorrow, otherwise we keep you in exam until we figure out the next step. Follow the slave into the building and fill up the cages as you go along, just one per cage."
"Sir yes sir."
We file in and there's about twenty little dog cages with the doors open and we crawl in. They're cubes of maybe 4 foot with mat floors. There's enough room to wiggle around but not stretch out. When we're all in, the slave closes the cages and I hear a click so I guess they all lock automatic when the gate is shut.
"A doctor will come get you and bring you back, you'll be fed when that's done then lights out."
"Sir yes sir." It echoes like fuck in the little squat room with brick walls and concrete floors. The guard and the slave leave. After a minute or so two doctors come out of another door and each takes one of us. Looks like I'm going to be third so I lay down and try to rest a little and layin on my side takes some of the pressure offa my butt.
I guess I fell asleep cause one of the docs kicked my feet after he opened the cage. I scramble out and follow him. The room is bright white and it hurts my eyes summin fierce.
"You're supposed to call me sir, but don't worry about it." He's young like the first doctor. I have to wonder if they're real doctors or if they just take anybody just to say they checked our health.
He listens to my heart and my breathing. Feels around my neck and pits and around my balls. Looks in eyes, ears, throat. I almost say that somebody already did all that a couple days ago, but have guessed that saying anythin won't change nuthin so I just let him feel me and poke around. He has me hop up on the table and pokes around my belly asking if it hurts and I just shake my head. He thumps around a few places. A guy nurse comes in and asks if I'm afraid of needles and I shake my head so he sticks me and draws three tubes of blood, I was expecting it to hurt but he was super gentle.
The doctor flips a couple of pages in a folder back and forth and looks kinda mad.
"You're fifteen?"
"Yea."
"Why bother with a fucking law if you're not going to fucking follow it?"
I reckon he don't want me to answer.
"Were you sexually active?"
"Does jerkin off count?"
"Well ... so you haven't put your penis in someone else or had one in you?" He says it in a way that's like asking if I like skatin so it ain't like I can get mad so I just shake my head.
For a minute he looks a little sad. I want to ask why but the nurse comes in with a tray full of syringes. I guess my eyes get wide cause he says "Yea it's a lot but it'll be over before you know it. First, though, a little stick in the arm to check for TB."
After that he feels around both shoulders and makes a face. "I'll be able to give you a couple of shots up here but others have to be in bigger muscles so will have to do those in hips and thighs." I just nod. He says what each one is before giving it to me like I would know what they are: hep a, hep b, typhus, typhoid, flu, polio, diptet, mmr, rabies.
"Fuckin rabies?" It comes out before I can stop it.
"Most of the shots are to prevent getting sick from food and water, but that is kept safe anyway, but we want to be as safe as possible. A couple are for colds that won't kill you but are very contagious and can put a crew down for days. Rabies shots now just mean that if you wind up in a place where raccoons or bats might come in contact, then you'll be fine. Nobody gets polio anymore but we still go ahead and give you the shot because better super safe than sorry. You will get the hep and rabies shots three more times. You'll get a flu shot every year and a tetanus shot every couple of years. Otherwise that's about it. If you start to itch really bad or have trouble breathing, bang the cage and we'll take care of it. You're going to be extra sleepy, but that's normal after getting all these shots. You ready to go back." I nod. It really ain't a question no way.
They have to wake the first few up for us to eat when the last of us gets finished. We all eat fast and I'm out like a light in no time.
A guard wakes us up by shaking the cages. Only six of us are let out though. The nurse checks our arms and nods to the guard. He takes us out of the cage room and points to a door at the end of a little hallway and says we got two minutes to use the bathroom. The bathroom just has a dozen toilets in it and they don't got seats and they ain't in stalls. I care but I'm about to bust from both ends so I just sit best I can on it and empty out. I don't usually take my time doing this so no problem for me but the others're having more trouble. Ain't no toilet paper or sinks so I just flush and walk out when I'm done. The guard screams `thirty seconds' just as I open the door and then I hear flushes and the others come runnin out.
He takes us to a nother room with a long bench in it and shelves of boots and collars. We sit and the same slave from yesterday measures our necks and feet. He goes to the shelves and grabs half dozen collars and drops one on the floor in front of each of us. He goes back and grabs the boots and does the same. They're black leather combat boots with the word SLAVE painted sideways on the back of each one. Another guard comes in with a box like a fishing tackle and a clipboard. He pulls out a bunch of colored tags like the ones we got on our wristbands. He hands all of us a red one and two white ones and two of us get two yellow ones.
The slave puts the red tag through the loop on the back of the right boot and the white one through the loop on the left and the yellow one goes on the left boot too. He puts the collar on each of us. We put the first finger on each hand on the sides of our necks and he tightens the collar and puts a lock on it. He wiggles it around after that I guess to make sure it fits the way they want. He cuts the wristbands off and takes that tag and the others we got and puts them through the front loop on the collar.
The guard that's been leadin us around tells us to put the boots on. I'm thinkin that socks'd be nice then I remember that nice don't matter. But the insides of the boots're real soft so maybe at least that part is nice. Then he starts talkin.
"The tags are for us, you don't need to worry about them. They aren't locked on but don't bother taking them off, it's not like taking them off changes anything. Still, the red one means you are here because of the courts, the white means you are considered medium labor capacity slaves. The two of you with yellow ones mean that the food you get will be different until the docs say you're not malnourished anymore, then it comes off and you get the same food as everybody else. Now you're going to start basic training."
The other one that got a yellow tag raises his hand.
"What?"
"Sir," he's real nervous, "what about the others that we came with sir?"
"Doc says they need some more tests. All up and follow the slave to mess for your breakfast."
We stand and start to move and he tells us to stop. "Forgetting something?" It takes a second then we all say, "Sir yes sir".
We walk out of the room and through doorway cut in the log wall and the door is shut behind us. Mess is just a tent with a little table in it. There's six pairs of cookie looking things on it and when the slave in it sees the yellow tags he hands me and the other yellow guy a horse pill and tells us to chew it – like chalk mixed with lemon.
We sit on the ground and eat the brown one like they say. Looks like a oatmeal cookie just darker but don't taste like one, kina no taste except a little salt and some kina nut aftertaste. They say to break the other in half and eat it slow. It looks like biscuits that my nana made but is crunchy and kina foamy at first then pasty and a little sweet. We get water after that and then start on the second half. They say it will make us feel full and I'm starting to feel that. I ate it slow but it feels like I swallowed it whole and I still have more to eat. One guy raises a hand.
The slave watching us says, "I know you think you gotta shit but you don't, it just how it feels at first, it'll pass in a minute then after a couple of days you won't get that feeling no more." The guy puts his hand down.
We finish the second part and get more water. The slave says to stay put til a trainer comes to get us.
I sit crosslegged in the dirt with elbows on knees and chin in my hand. I realize that I've been naked for days and that I ain't embarrassed or nuthin no more. The shit feeling did pass after a bit and now I just feel full the kind of full that should make me tired, but I ain't. The tent sits in the corner of a dirt yard like the size of a basketball court with the log wall to one side and a wooden wall around the rest with another door across the yard from where we came in.
"I guess it's real." I look around and the one saying that seems like he's prolly the oldest of us maybe twenty-five or so.
"So it took sittin here in the dirt for you to wake up or whatever and not the trains and the truck and sittin in shit and bein naked and shit then havin a fuckin collar locked on you, none of that was enough to wake you up?" Another about his age says.
"Sorry."
"No man, don't matter. It is what it is."
The guards wear gray military like pants and black boots and a gray t-shirt. The trainer that comes towards us is wearing khaki cargo shorts with a whip hanging from the belt and a dusty looking t-shirt that prolly started life as white and a pair of brown hiking boots. He traces a line in the dirt with his boot.
"Everybody up and out, line up here, position one."
We get up and kina mumble the sir yes sir thing and do what he said. He steps farther away from the line and the tent and scratches another line in the dirt.
"When I say fall out everybody back to the tent like you were, no need for yes sirs, just do it. When I say fall in you run up to this line, position one, and say your yes sirs. Got it?"
"Sir yes sir."
He says fall out and we trot back to the tent and sit. He says fall in and we all run up to the line and stand like he said and yell the yes sir. Then fall out, fall in, fall out, fall in. He draws a line farther away and we fall out and in over and over and he keeps drawin lines closer and closer to the other door. We do it prolly at least fifty times and the last ones are on wobbly legs and croakin voices. A slave comes through the door with a bucket of water and we all get to drink our fill.
Then he says: "Escape isn't possible. You might be able to make it out of here but since it took two hours by truck to get here, you can guess that there isn't anything around here that would get you back to the free cities. And once we realize you've made it out, it doesn't take long for us to find you and bring you back. There are no houses in slave territory unless they are attached to a work site so no way to hide or find clothes or anything else you might have seen in a movie. If you try to take out a trainer or overseer the payback will be severe and lengthy."
Til now he only said stuff loud enough for us to hear but now he starts to half yell half bark.
"You are all slaves from now until you die. You may get names later but here you are all just slave. You do nothing without permission or order. You never use I or me or it or whatever, just slave. You say the least possible. If you have to piss, you ask permission to speak first, then when allowed, you ask to piss. You say just sir permission to speak sir, permission to piss, or whatever. When you finish an order or a task you say thank you so we know when you think you're done. You will be well fed and kept in top shape. Overseers and whips make sure you give one hundred percent at all times. You will not have to decide anything ever again. Your life is order then action, ask, wait, action and that's it. We don't give a shit if you think, but your life is now work only so if thinking gets in the way, then the whip and other punishments will put your thinking in the right fucking perspective, understand slaves?"
"Sir yes sir."
"What are you?"
"Sir slaves sir."
"Will you ever be free again?"
"Sir no sir."
"Which means you are what?"
"Sir slaves sir."
Then fall out and fall in and answer the same questions again and again at least another fifty times. Then water then ...
"Any of you slaves know how to do a squat thrust?" Two raise their hands. He says to show him and they do and he nods and says for them to show the rest of us and then we all do it a couple of times doing each part of it slow so we can all to it together.
"Count out like this, sir one slavetrainer sir thank you sir. Do it now" he screams. We do and he says to do it again startin at one.
I fuck up.
"Stop cunts. You slave" he points at me. "Repeat to me exactly what you said."
"Sir one slavetrainer thank you sir."
"That's not right is it?"
"Sir no sir."
"What is the right way?"
"Sir one slavetrainer sir thank you sir."
"Over here on fours dumbfuck."
"Sir yes sir." And I move where he points and get on hands and knees. I hear him take a couple of steps back then in a second I feel a slash burn across my back and scream. Then there are three more and I scream more.
"Back in line bitch." I say a panty yes sir and get back in line. And he gets real close to my face and says "Did you fucking forget something?"
"Sir thank you sir?" I'm still panting some and the stinging is turning to part burn and part itch.
"You don't sound like you're sure that's the right answer, so say it like you mean it and if it's the wrong one you'll be back on fours."
"Sir thank you sir."
"For what?"
My sweat turns cold. He asks again this time at a full yell and I say "Sir for whipping me sir." He hollers for me to get back on fours and I do saying my yes sir trying real hard not to cry.
"Slaves are not people that learn by lessons. Slaves are human animals that learn from some form of physical encouragement or punishment. When a trainer or overseer whips a slave that is teaching a slave a valuable lesson for which the slave should thank the superior. Most of the time" he surprises me with a lash that goes across my ass and I yell "the whipping will be because the slave fucks up so the way the slave responds is to thank the superior for correcting him" another lash across my ass this time I don't yell as much. I gotta hear what he's sayin but I also don't want to give in cause I'm sure crying will only mean more and I know more is already comin and is gonna be too much by itself. "Slaves don't come here knowing that but now all you slaves do. But this piece of wet shit made another mistake that he should have known better. You" another lash across the back and I just grunt and am very proud of this "what was his mistake?"
"Sir he said me instead of slave sir."
"Jesus fucking a fly infested camel cunt, on fours next to the shitstain." I hear the yes sir and the yellow tag is next to me and shivering. A lash comes across his ass then mine and he screams and leaps forward while I just grunt. "Back in fucking place dumbshit" and three rapid fire lashes hit him and he starts to cry a little. "You what did the second slave fuck up?"
"Sir called the other slave he instead of slave sir."
He tells both of us fuckups to kneel at his feet and points the now coiled whip at me. "Sir thank you for correcting slave sir." I had been thinking about that hopin and hopin it was the right thing. He points the whip at the other and he says the same thing. "Good now you get rewarded, lick the boot in front of you, do it like it's a pussy or asshole or whatever you used to lick in the free world."
We say our yes sirs and start lickin. I ain't licked nothing so I just pretend it's ice cream and move around it lickin til he says to stop and get back in line and we both say our yeses and thank yous that must've been good enough cause we didn't get no more.
He makes us do the thrusts now and we all count the right way and get to thirty when I start to get wobbly and fall on my knees unable to get back to the start position and I guess the other YT does too cause he screams for us two to stop but the others to keep goin.
I'm thinkin keep my clothes and feed me less and make me pick tomatoes until I die but don't whip me again. And I'm pretty fuckin sure that more will be coming whenever they stop. When they get to fifty he stops them.
"How many more did they do?" He asks the other YT.
"Sir tweny sir." His voice is tiny and I reckon he's thinkin the same thing I am.
"You two start doing them again start at one." We start doing it again and I think I can do a thousand of em if that means no more whippin. When we get to twenty he stops us.
"Don't you fucking lie to me, if just messing up a count cadence gets you a few lashes then it doesn't take even runny shit for brains to guess that a lie will make you think you're being cut in half." He yells at me. "When I told you to stop the first time had you given all you had?" I'm pantin real hard and say an honest yes sir real loud. He tells me and the other YT to start again at one and I get to three before the other one falls and he has me keep goin and I get to six before I fall.
"These two know what the lash is like and don't have to ask again if they weren't giving it all they had. They are not in as good a condition as you four. I had them even out the count then had them go til they couldn't. That's what giving everything looks like and trainers and overseers know how to tell the difference between a real give out and a fake one. You see that real give outs don't mean lashes, but fake give outs ... let's say if I knew either of them were faking, they would watch while you all got some brand new hot stripes across your fucking slave backs. Now fall out for lunch."
How fox [Shane] Got into the System: Processing Part 2
(Author's note. The Processing Part 2 section has fox named as wingman – this is only for this section and will not reappear).
After the lunch break we do the same stuff with diffrent exercises and me and YT can't keep up but don't catch no extra shit for it since we're doin all we could. We move inside the main camp when it's dinner time.
There's like hundreds of naked guys doin work all over the place. It smells like a locker room with busted toilets that nobody cleans. Some whips swing and some yelpin here and there but when I stop for a second to think it seems like less than I thought would be goin on.
The trainer we'd been followin separates me and YT and hands us to another trainer that looked pretty much the same as the first. No words we just follow him to a group of big cells, well kina big. They are deep and wide but only like three feet tall with concrete roofs and mat floors. He takes us to one with a yellow roof and puts us in. We're the only ones.
"When the rest of the crew is caged up for dinner, you'll be fed."
"Sir yes sir." And he wanders away.
The mat is comfortable but smells like pee and bleach. We can sit up and stretch out but even bein on our knees we can't have our backs straight.
"You have a nickname?" He has kina squeaky voice that sounds northern. "Mine's speedy."
"Wingman I guess."
"Sucks to meet like this wingman, but I have to say I'm happy not to be here alone." My moms would call him perky and its kina weird.
"Me too." It's a half lie. In new situations I like to be alone to see what it all looks like so I know how to react and where to run if I got to. They ain't no runnin here and it don't look like Imma be in a position to react in a way Imma like so maybe it is only a quarter lie.
"Can I ask why you are here, I mean what you did to get here?"
"Yea but you first." Ain't like he can do anything it ain't like prison but street rules still apply and since he brought it up he has to say first.
"Auto theft. I was an idiot and got super drunk with my brother and we decided it would be a good idea to steal a car. You?"
"Assery to attempted murder or summin like that, the judge didn't say or I didn't hear if he did. I was with the guys that did it but didn't do any of it myself."
"They get brought in too?"
"Nope."
"Rat on them?"
"No."
"Wow, that's cool man."
"You seem too smart to be in here."
"Smart I guess, but obviously not smart enough. Truth be told, I'm an alcoholic. I used to do all sorts of dumb shit but not criminal until we stole the car."
"You're, what, seventeen?" He nods. "A alcoholic at seventeen?!"
"I was an alcoholic at thirteen."
"Fuck dude. You musta had a real bad family."
"I did but probably not the way you think. My parents weren't abusive they just didn't fucking care about anything but their careers and how everything looked. I'm not proud of being a drunk and there's no way to take pride in being enslaved but if there is a silver lining it's that my parents now have no children and everybody they know knows why. I imagine their status has plunged. I fucking hope it has."
"If you came from money why you got a yellow tag like me?"
"In-system detox. If you do detox in the free cities you get some pampering and the food is decent and meant for a drunk's fucked up digestion. Slave detox is just monitored time in a cage and the same food we get here. It's impossible to keep it down for the first couple of days and something isn't quite right about it so at least this drunk's digestion didn't get all it needed."
The convo is cut short because the rest of the yellow tag crew arrives and hustles into the cell. They're all dusty and smelly and real fuckin tired lookin. Some nod, most don't.
A guy in jeans and a regular shirt comes by with a bag and says "Hands out." All the ones that just got here shove their right hand through the space between the bars closest to them so I do the same. We all get the horse pill again and they all eat it in a hurry and put their hands back out so I do it too. Then we all get the two biscuits just like the ones we got twice already. Everybody pulls their hands back and starts eatin. Some sit against the bars some lean on each other. I just sit where I am and hope I'm not in anybody's place. It looks big enough to hold mebbe thirty of us layin flat more if we had to hold our knees, but there's only twenty. Everybody eats at the same speed and we all finish at the same time. We get a big cup of cold water and drink it slow before puttin the cups outside the cell.
"New guys." I guess he'd be lanky if he could stand up in here. "Couple of simple rules. No fucking. When you have to piss do it out of the bars, there's gonna be some spray back and dribbling but don't just let the hose go in here. We are in here til they let us out so you better not shit in here or I promise we will make you eat it. And if you have the energy to jerk, squirt the jizz out the bars or lick it up we don't want to be wearin your spooge." He ain't rude, just tellin it how it is. "Got it?"
"Sir yes ..."
"Shhhh. Fuck." Everybody looks around. "You don't use that word with us even as a joke they'll beat you blind and pick a couple of us to get it too. I know you're new and all but ..." He doesn't have to finish. Me and speedy just nod.
Some of them talk a bit but most just sorta slouch and stare. The leader guy crawls over to me and speedy.
"Tomorrow night'll be different since you'll be as wore out as the rest of us so tonight you" he points at me "will sleep with your head on my belly and the other one will sleep with his head on yours."
Speedy asks if he can ask why and the leader guys gives him a stupid look. "You guys'll be fidgety tonight and no reason for you to keep a bunch of guys up. Tomorrow night it won't matter since you'll be like the rest of us, make sense?" The last bit is friendly and we just nod.
The guys all start to settle in and the leader says we may as well do the same. Most are asleep in seconds.
I lay on my back with my head on his belly and speedy's is on mine. We all have a dusty pillow that's got a dick and makes growlin noises and I reckon that means we're all dusty growlin pillows with dicks too. He's asleep fast and his deep regular breathin lulls me to a quick sleep too.
[Wingman dreams the first one he remembers since the night he was arrested. It is his version of the common dream of the fringe and he will wake from it wanting to sob, this time in despair alone instead a masculine cry driven by anger and frustration. He will periodically have this dream for the rest of his life. Sometimes he will wake and be unaffected, other times he will give way and cry. Once assigned and accustomed, he will see others of his kind cry and will understand that whatever so-called dignity attached to `boys don't cry' is useless if not actually harmful.
He is alone and naked but not ashamed. He is in a meadow of tall mixed grasses that come up to his thighs. This is in the Smokey Mountains. He runs, the direction is unimportant. He runs through the high grass into an area scorched by a controlled burn that is twenty yards wide. The sun has heated the cinders but not enough to hurt, just enough to make him realize that his feed had been cold standing in the meadow. He starts to run again and crosses a brook with freezing water. He drinks from it and tastes what sweet and mineral flavors that are not locked tight in the cold. He runs to nothing; he runs from nothing. He does not tire. He stops to breathe and to see. The breath is easy the sight is the simple shapes of mountain meadows.
The free would call it beautiful; his dream does not know this word. He will wake from this dream and no matter his state after he will never consider that word. An outsider hearing the tale would obviously think `free' but the dream does not know this word either. The dream is with-without. It is with all desires and without all fears. It is with now and with hope. Though the dream will change little, this last feature will change and fast. Hope will become beauty and free a word outside the vocabulary of it.]
I wake up and have to catch a cry in my throat. I must be pantin bad because the leader puts his hands on either side of my head and brings his level with mine.
"Look at me." He's real gentle and I do. "Take a breath and hold it and let it out slow and do it again and keep looking at my eyes. We all have that dream. You gotta find a way to live with it or let it go. We try to hide each other when one of us cries but we don't always get away with it. They ain't real bad if you cry but anything they do is bad when all you're doin is just normal human stuff."
I calm down enough to ask: "Everybody dreams of runnin through a meadow?"
"No man, mine is riding my cycle through the desert when the sun's coming up. The details don't matter and you may as well keep those details to yourself like you do your name. Got to keep stuff they can't strip off you and sharing your dream don't do nobody else any good either."
"Out and up slaves." A trainer screams as he opens the cell and we all scream our yes sirs.
We all line up in columns and rows in a hurry and stand like we were shown the day before. When we are done shiftin into place everybody starts to piss. Some is splashin on me from behind and on both sides. Nobody asked and the trainer don't scream and since I got to piss bad, I just let go. Since we all got hands behind backs we can't aim and mine sprays both boots of the guy in front of me.
Most of us are finished when the trainer taps me and speedy and four other guys on the butt with his whip and just says "Go'on." We say our yes sirs and I just follow the guys that know where they're goin. We get close to some boxes that have some slaves chained to them and I can tell by the stink that this is where we shit and that's good because I'm about to pop. The guys that know what to do squat over the box and the chained slave slides a slat and man the stink is fuckin awful I want to gag when I get set up. I relax and in no time I'm emptied out like squeezin a toothpaste tube real fast. The slave slides the slat back real fast and I just follow everybody else back to the crew.
Everybody's doin pushups when we get back so we get in a spot and start doin it and six more guys run off to shit. After everybody does that business we do some thrusts and sit ups and some runnin in place. After that we sit in the piss mud we made and eat our breakfast.
After about thirty minutes we're ordered up and whipped to a run that feels like a mile but prolly is only half that. We stop at a flat dusty area that's got big rocks and logs and stuff like that around it and it don't take a smart guy to know what they're for. There's five other trainers there too.
Some of us're put on rock detail where they put the big rocks in a open pack and have to run around the yard area. I get put on log detail with speedy. The logs're different sizes and the trainer makes us pick up the smallest one but it's still fuckin heavy. It's like fifteen feet long and we stand almost at each end of it. We hold it on the left shoulder and walk to the other end of the yard then have to switch to the right shoulder for the walk back then over our heads for a walk there and back and we both almost collapse. The trainer has us put the log down and has us on hands and knees and we pant like dogs in August.
"You get five minutes then back to the log but this time you have to get to the end faster." Then: "Time's up, shoulder the log and get going."
We scramble up and start to walk faster. Everything is wobbly but we keep goin. I know and I reckon speedy knows that if we fuck up or go slow what will happen. Other slaves around us are already bein beat and screamed at. At least our trainer is not a hollerer, at least not yet anyways. We get through the lap with it over our heads and he says to go it all again and do it faster. We do what we can but I know we'll be squealin at the end of the whip at the end of this one.
We don't but are just told to do it again faster. If it was a miracle that we did it fast enough there is no way the miracle'll last long and this time it don't.
He has us on hands and knees again and our sweat is pourin and our heads're hanging. He stands in front and holds down a wide belt lookin thing and tells us to kiss it and we do. It looks bad but it don't scare me like the whip does.
It should've. He hits my ass then speedy's then my back then speedy's and keeps doing this for prolly twenty times. The whip from yesterday burned and stung but that went away pretty fast. This thing really burns and stings and I know it's had to've left bruises. He steps around again, makes us kiss the thing and thank him. Then it's back to the log. I see speedy's back is like a sunburn and his ass is black and blue so I know mine looks the same. It don't take long for exhaustion to override the pain as we keep at the log duty. We do it til lunch break.
Every slave is already exhausted to passin out. I eat slow cause I have to cause it feels like if I eat fast I'll puke and ain't no way there'll be any pity for me if I do that. Looks like most of the others're doin the same.
After a bit one of em screams to switch up so I go pick up a pack and start loadin rocks. A trainer looks at it and says to add more so I do.
"Packs up!" We all put the packs over shoulders and it sits high enough to leave half the back and below exposed. "Now trot!" We run the area around the yard and three trainers stand around it with crops in their hands. They smack ass or back almost every time we pass them.
I got no idea how many times we lap but this time no matter how tired, every time one of em hits my ass with his stinger I yelp and can't get lost in tired to forget the pain.
We get a break then everybody does like a hour of exercises then a break and we switch details then a rest then switch and finally it is time to go back to the cell. I realize I ain't pissed all day. Some did it during the breaks but I guess I was too tired. On the trot back I see others do it so I try to do it too. It ain't easy to piss while runnin but like everythin I'm learnin about what Imma be doin every day ... may as well learn and get used to it.
[wingman stays in the yellow cell for two weeks. Every other day they get their blood drawn and a few are taken into the general population and every few days newer skinny yellow tags take their places. He grows in strength and endurance and part of his pain, though he cannot know it, are true growing pains as the quality of the food awakens his body's triggers to grow. He knows he has had to ask for bigger boots but does not know and will not know that he has added two inches in height and will add another two before leaving. This is true for nearly every yellow tagged slave throughout the territories.
He does not remember dreams during his time in the yellow cell. His sleep is dead sleep as it is for all but the new: once asleep there is almost no movement except for breathing.
He also starts to understand what he cannot name but if he talked to speedy, he would then understand in words even if rejecting it because of the heartless nature of it he is still unwilling to accept.
Exhaustion to hide pain and pain to override exhaustion are shaping tools for body and mind and crushing tools for the spirit. The body processes and adjusts except that the mind interferes. Food and the attention of trainers know the limits of the body and force the pace needed to shape but not break it. They confuse the mind with inconsistency of punishment and with breaking the reverie of the mind lost in fatigue with lashes to already well targeted flesh. There is no way for the mind to adjust to inconsistency or to create a routine when any attempt at it is broken with the physical noise of the lash. The pointlessness and repetition of the exercises, the indignity of sitting on mud made by urine instead of water, kissing the whips, and thanking the one that swings it chip or squash the spirit to the size of a kernel that the slave will guard because he knows if he lets it go HE dies even if he goes on and if HE is ever released then losing even that kernel of spirit will make him ignorant of the beauty and variety of freedom.]
I get moved to one of the normal cells and the yellow tag is took off. I know I'm stronger and bigger but ain't no mirrors around to see it, I can just feel it. Like before I get moved to the cell just before dinner and it's mostly the same except no horse pill. The biggest difference between this cell and the yellow one is that the guys seem to have the energy to jerk off and fuckin is fine – so I reckon it's just that the leader guy didn't want it to happen back there. Not everybody does and I feel ok since I know I can say no. I figured I'd be grossed out by it but I ain't. After I think on it a bit – I guess the better nutrition since it's hard to call it food makes thinking clearer – I realize that the fear people like me have is prolly based on the fact that in prison this kind of thing is rape pure and simple but it ain't here. I'm still too tired to rub one out but I guess that will change since it seems to've for a lot of the rest.
How "fox" Got into the System: Processing Part 3, Project and Bull Breaking
My crew of twenty-five has a project so it ain't just pointless runnin and other shit like that. Got to say that it feels better to do something real. We must be trained enough to only need three trainers and like speedy, hard to say I'm proud of being a slave, but there has to be some pride in knowin I've learned enough not to be whipped every day, or at least not as much.
We got to dig a gradual incline in the dirt that will be eight feet down at the end and like fifteen feet from where it starts. Some of us dig, some carry the dirt away and the rest carry flagstones from a spot about twenty yards away. One trainer watches the diggers, one the carriers, and one the stone guys. Whipping isn't hard, just what they call reminders but not sure yet what or who the hell is bein reminded of what. We rotate every day so that I start carrying dirt in a canvas bag to a spot about fifty yards away, next day I'm carrying flagstones which fuckin sucked cause it ain't the size of the rocks since some're small but that we have to carry so much weight so that means balancin lots of different size stones together, then dug on the third day. By the end of the third day we had it all set for whatever was next.
Next day lots of us are putting the flagstones down the incline while the others mix concrete. The stones have to be mostly level with each other and the trainers check and correct but just by sayin not by beatin. The stones're laid so that there's three straight and narrow areas between them and the last foot or so at the bottom is left uncovered. Then the guys that mixed the concrete start pourin it in the cracks and some of us, me with them, go behind with wet rags to wipe off any stuff that gets on the stones. Then somethin real weird happens. The trainers themselves take a strip of blue plastic and put it in the little blank areas between the stones and then dig a little hole at the part we left uncovered and make sure the plastic bit goes in the bowl. We fall out for the night even though there is still a couple hours of daylight.
Since I got more energy than ever since startin here, I decided it was time to rub one out. I ain't never done it with people around but I'm so used to all of it now that I am past givin a shit. I don't even have to think of nothin cause I cum in like three seconds and it was huge and shot like five feet past the bars. I rest for a couple of minutes and get hard without thinkin about it and take my time this time trying to think about girls back home. I can remember shapes and even the way the couple of boobs felt that girls let me touch, but the memory is weak. I squirt another sac-load and get a little worried that I won't be able to have that horny fuel much longer. Then I think that mebbe once things really settle then I can get those memories back. They're sad since I got no real experience before `wearin the collar' as the guys here like to say but it is what it is.
After the morning shit and breakfast we head back to the worksite. Each trainer picks one guy and puts him on the edge above where they put the little bowls. The rest of us just kneel along the sides. The trainers take what looks like the horse pill I used to get and start guzzlin water. They sit under a shade tree for a while. Then they whisper a little and stand up. They stand over the little blue plastic and I know what's fixin to happen but not what's gonna happen after that. They unzip yell to the guys at the end to throw up their hands when the first bucket gets any piss in it. They count down from three and then it's like fire-hoses spewin yellow water. It don't take long and one guy raises his hand even though they were still pissin. After they zip up they give high fives and move around to where the three refs were kneelin. They ordered the guys to jump down and drink the piss. All three jump down after nervous yes sirs. Two do it pretty fast makin sour faces but otherwise bein fine but one of them and not even the biggest won't do it. The trainer over him starts whippin but the slave won't move. The trainer jumps down and pulls out a shorter but wider and way meaner whip and flails at ass and back for like thirty stripes. After he stops the slave just pours the piss on the ground and pulls back his fist but before he can punch all three trainers are on him. In no time they get zip cuffs on him. We just stare. Two of them drag him off yellin and kickin the other walks out and says:
"That uppity piece of shit will not be working in your crew again but you will be seein him. You don't stop your work to pay attention but you will notice him and what happens to any uppity slave that doesn't just refuse an order but defies it and then attacks. So go on and raise your hands now if you have a mind to pull what that shitstain pulled so we can just save the time and break both of you at the same time."
Nobody does and we are ordered to fall out and go back to the cell and have to stay in it the rest of the day. But we don't get rest what we get is a horror movie.
There're square wooden platforms with whippin posts near some of the cells and there's one right outside ours. A man in an overseer uniform – black jeans and a blue t-shirt with some logo on it has two guys followin him with a whipping post and that's dumb since we already got one. When they put the new one in place we see its got one side tore up so it's all spiky on one side. The trainers bring out the slave and in a real quick flash have his zip cuffs cut and a wrist on either side of the post – we see all this in profile. Once he's on the post I understand why this one is so bad.
Most guys at post for a whippin either have their wrists up so high they're up against the post and for those that can stand on their feet and have some slack they usually push into the post when the whip hits. If he does that it'll be like pushin into a cactus.
The overseer says: "This one will get fifty stripes with the bullwhip." We jump and the slave starts pourin sweat. "It would be less if he just defied the order but trying to harm a trainer makes the crime much worse. He will stay at post after the lashing for the night then will be worked past exhaustion until we know this uppity spirit is broken. He will not receive another heavy lashing for two days but if his spirit is still too uppity then he will get this again daily until he does."
No way to tell but it was a screaming hour, maybe two. Some lashes come fast but then he waits for a bit then there's like a minute for a bit. The time between and where he puts the lash, sometimes wrapping it around his tore up body, keep the slave screaming even between the strokes. I'm shocked when he starts to beg but they stop the beatin long enough to attach a bit to him so we can still hear some of it but most of it is gurgled in spit. He pushes up against the cactus side a few times but learns to keep his weight pulled back. That keeps him from pushin into the splinters but it means the whip can wrap around. I ain't seen nobody that miserable in all my time so far and I can tell nobody else in the cell has either. The slave is prolly seventeen and just a person but bein beaten like a real out of control bull.
Finally it's over. The overseer says nothin, just walks off with the slaves that toted the post. One trainer pours some water down the slave's mouth and waits and does it again two more times then he walks off.
They got his wrists attached so he can't kneel all the way without some of him pushin against the splinters. He sobs for a bit the calms down for a bit and sobs and repeats through the night. He don't sleep and we barely do. I want to say summin to him but don't really know what. Tryin to be positive seems mean and sayin sorry ain't worth the breath and sayin that he got what he deserved has to be against our code but it's not like nobody ever says for real what that is.
When we wake up to do our morning thing the slave is gone from the post. The trainers take us back to the incline and some of us go back to where we dumped the dirt and bring it back and others use hammers and chisels to break the concrete. Once that's done they carry the stones back to where we got them and we start fillin the hole. After like three loads of dirt we got to tamp it down hard because they want it level like nothing was ever there. The ones carryin the stones can see the slave. They said he's got a yoke on and is pullin cinder blocks up a hill at a run. He falls a few times and they whip him to get back up. He pukes a few times and they just keep at it.
No idea where he sleeps but at least the mean post is gone and the normal one back when we get put in the cell. We're all tired and humiliated since we kind of were proud to do summin `real' only to have to erase it. Most are too tired for anythin but a few fuck or jerk. I just start thinkin. It seemed kina odd at first that they wouldn't make us watch them break the guy. I mean they beat him half to death and made us watch but that makes perfect sense since they got to show they can't be messed with like that so all the make an example crap. But wouldn't makin us watch him get broke be a better example? Then I get it, the longer he holds out the more we would prolly respect him and that would lead to more problems.
Halfway through the second day he breaks. We kneel in our columns and rows. And the overseer that did it says:
"This slave refused to understand the simplest rule, do what you are told. Do it and everything goes smooth, don't and you see what happens. The slave is given an order. If he refuses to follow or fucks up on purpose it isn't like the slave will be given a pass because all orders must be followed. The slave will be punished brutally and then made to follow the order and likely that order will be doubled or more when possible. This whip marked muddy hunk of fly-shit is here like this because he refused to drink a bit of piss. All of what you saw would have happened if he didn't take a swing at a trainer, that just meant more lashes and a night at post." He takes five slaves from the ranks and makes them piss in a bucket and hands it to the broken slave. "Drink."
The guy don't hesitate he just chugs but is careful not to let any dribble. It's a lot of piss so he has to stop a few times to catch his breath but nobody says nuthin he just does it til he's finished.
"Hose this bitch off and check for infection. If he doesn't need anything from the med, put him back to work." The overseer walks off and the trainers help the guy walk to the concrete pad where we get hosed off and we are all called back to work.
[wingman sees the slave broken at the end of his third week at the center. He is fast understanding -- but not understanding why -- what slaves are trained to think and how they are trained to observe. Later, perhaps, he will look back and see that his understanding began with his insight on why the disobedient slave was not broken in full public. If he realizes this, he will probably feel some slave pride. This is actually a trait the trainers intend for the slaves to cultivate without direct instruction. A human without some even small amount of pride will not be productive for long and the better companies will avoid purchasing them.
By the end of his time in the center, wingman will have learned how to read the emotions of his trainers and anticipate their reactions. He will be able to pick out troublemakers in not only his crew which changes little but in the others he can see. He will see that the punishments in the last two weeks of his time make sense and are consistent with whatever the slave did and know that the inconsistency of the same for the first weeks was done on purpose.
In a sense this school does hand out the honorarium: with honors. A small green tassel is added to the collar of those slaves that stood out by not standing out. Typically it is one in five and those honored slaves are obviously choice items. But they are never told why, though some likely figure it out at some point. wingman looks around the group about to board the large van. This is the first time he has seen speedy since they were separated into different crews. speedy does not have the green tassel and in facts looks barely conscious and stooped. For the first time, and probably not the last, wingman feels a pity grown from impossible responsibility – `if I had been with him, would he be ok?']