If prisons were open to the public
From “The War Front” series
“The past was better,” Jacinto tells the woman in a suit.
“The AIs would’ve reached the same verdict.”
Jacinto shakes his head, boiling inside his glass container. “No, cuz I didn’t do it.”
Fangi observes him through the glass. “You’re gonna be alright,” she says. “You have it better than we expected.”
“But I didn’t do it!” Jacinto screams, pounding at his glass enclosure.
Fangi stares him down. “Sure, because people that get arrested rarely do,” she spits out.
Jacinto turns his back on her.
She goes away.
Jacinto walks around the office, kicking around the stacks of money.
A small girl with a red balloon and an ice-cream cone looks at him.
“What?” He shoots at her.
The girl laughs and continues watching.
Jacinto starts walking toward her. He kneels down in front of her and strikes.
The glass rattles. The girl takes another lick of her ice-cream.
Jacinto screams as he thunders around the office. He grabs the lamp and hauls it to the floor. But when the object bounces rather than breaks, Jacinto goes berserk.
A crowd starts forming outside his enclosure. They munch on their ice-cream, whispering to each other, smiling. A guy pulls out his telcer, takes a picture. His girlfriend tells him it’s not allowed. A couple reads the story on the glass display, their son hides behind them, afraid to look at Jacinto.
Tired, Jacinto lies down on the sofa. He puts on his eye mask and waits for the noise outside to dissipate.
He ends sleeping only to wake to a knocking. It’s the middle of the night, but park policy: always open.
“What now?” He curses at Fangi.
He saunters toward her.
She doesn’t say anything. Her lower lip trembles.
Jacinto’s face softens.
“Mom’s dead.”
Jacinto buckles. He turns away from his daughter, hiding his face.
She touches the glass and leaves.
The next day is worse than the last.
“I told you he’s a highlight,” a dad tells his sons. “Just look at him.”
The sons look away from the enclosure.
But the dad will have none of it. He pushes them against the glass.
“Look at him.”
The sons lower their head.
“Can we go now?” The younger one asks.
“No, I want you to learn what happens when you do bad things.”
The younger boy looks at Jacinto’s pale face. There’s a streak of vomit and a cut on Jacinto’s face.
“I think he’s ill,” the boy tells his dad.
The dad laughs. “No. That’s just the sight of a motherfucking-money-grubbing prick who stole all our money.”
Jacinto blocks the sounds. He curls up against the sofa, putting his hands around his ears. But he still hears them.
Jacinto crawls under his desk, hugs his chest, and balls over.
“He’s crying,” a man tells his date. His date walks around the glass enclosure, joining him as they kneel down in front of Jacinto.
Jacinto hides his face under his arms and stays there, in the dark.
Jacinto wakes up to a young girl walking inside the office.
“My manager told me to give you the food personally,” she tells him.
Jacinto’s stomach grumbles. He unhinges his rusted form, but contracts back under the desk. “I don’t want it.”
“You have to eat, sir.”
He doesn’t respond.
“Please?” She asks.
He nestles his head between his hands. “Leave me be,” he mutters.
The girl sighs. “At least take some water.”
Jacinto keeps quiet, but he can still hear the girl breathing inside his enclosure.
The girl sets the glass of water on the carpet. “Here,” she says.
Jacinto perks up. “I’m not an animal.” He grabs the water and climbs out of the desk.
The girl apologizes. “My name is Erica,” she adds, extending her hand. Jacinto shakes it and drinks the cup.
“Why do you work here?” Jacinto asks bluntly.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Erica replies. Then blushes. “Sorry, that sounded rude.”
Jacinto crunches the plastic cup and goes back to his desk.
“It wasn’t — I’m not. Rude, I mean.”
“You’re working here, so please leave.”
“You aren’t going to eat anything?”
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“I’ll just throw it up.”
“You’re sick?”
Jacinto chuckles with irritation. “No,” he cries sarcastically. “This is me on my best days.”
“I can call the nurses.”
“No.”
“I can-”
“Please,” Jacinto stresses. “I want to be alone.”
“But procedure-”
Jacinto stands up. He towers over Erica.
“You here’s because you’re an intern, right?”
Erica nods, taking one step back.
“You know why I’m here?”
Erica nods.
“Good. See, I was your age, doing the exact thing you’re doing.”
He pauses and looks at his reflection in the enclosure walls.
“Maybe not as barbaric as what you’re doing to me, but pretty close.”
Jacinto plods closer to Erica, who looks nervous for the first time.
“Anyway, the point of the story is that I followed the rules.”
Jacinto points a finger at Erica, wedging it onto her jugular notch.
“Did as I was told.”
Erica begins gagging from the pressure.
“I was also doing an internship: time to learn and not question.”
The girl twists away and starts toward the exit.
“Degrading people because they told me to.”
The girl stops.
She begins walking toward him.
He grins.
She doesn’t care.
“I am not degrading-”
Jacinto lunges.
The girl screams. The alarms go off.
Jacinto stands up laughing.
“My wife died, and you’re putting me up for a showcase.”
Jacinto struts to his place under the desk.
Prison security arrives. They drag Jacinto out of his hiding spot.
Erica looks at him.
“You indebted people and sold off their houses,” she utters.
They shackle Jacinto and lead him outside.
“You put them out in the streets. Up for a showcase, if you ask me.”
Jacinto spits. “It’s not the same.”
His daughter stares at him from across the table. They are alone inside an interrogation room. She looks at her feet.
“Why dad?”
“She was just there to pick up a fight.”
“You physically assaulted a minor.”
“Fuck a minor! I was also a minor when the bank stole the money. And my age didn’t matter. No community service for this intern. He is white, privileged, so go and fuck him. ”
“You won’t get to attend mom’s funeral.”
Jacinto rolls his eyes. “I never was.”
“I asked for a special favor.”
His eyes brighten.
She steams, “But you blew it!”
Jacinto looks away innocently.
She seethes.
“I am sorry,” he says, extending his hand across the table.
Fangi shakes her head, “I’ve listened to your sorry’s too many times, dad.”
“But I didn’t do it!”
Fangi smiles. “And every time you apologize, you admit to no guilt.”
Jacinto curses himself.
“Bye, dad,” she whispers.
Fangi stands up with her back to her father and walks out of the room without saying another word.
Jacinto throws the fake money in the air. He sits at his desk, writing ferociously with inkless pens and recycled paper. He pokes his nose, scratches his butt, and burps. He plays the part: the visitors leave disgusted and cursing with catharsis.
But once the visitors leave, Jacinto curls back into his nook beneath the desk and cries.
