The Silver Cross (continued)
Chapter 6
The Glenville State Prison... was an ominous sight to see when one drove up upon it. It had been built during the Civil War as a fort and was later renovated into a prison. The two barbwire fences that surrounded the perimeter immediately gave one the inkling the it was a correctional facility.
Yet the fort like facade was so daunting that it seemed more like a creepy old fortress built of solid stone and mortar. There were guard towers on each corner watching every movement on the exterior grounds of the prison. The numerous hidden cameras were monitored in the control room, a small annex that had been built off to the side of the main structure.
No one had ever escaped the prison although there had been several attempts. Once in the early seventies there was a prison riot and many of the inmates made it to the outer gates when several were gunned down by machine gun toting wardens. This stopped the revolt immediately and the prisoners were escorted back into their cells. Twenty-four inmates died that day and thirteen prison guards. Many of the dead inmates were youngsters in for heinous crimes.
In the eighties it was the prison fire where an inmate torched a cotton mattress that cause so much smoke that the prisoners began to riot. Hours later the riot was quelled when the smoke began to lift. Only a couple of the elderly inmates has lost their lives through asphyxiation caused by the blaze. The fire, though a diversionary tactic did not allow anyone in or out of the prison but a few fire fighters and some police blood hounds just in case there had been an escape attempt..
All has been quiet for years and the new warden feels he has matters well under control.
New prisoners who checked into "hotel" Glenville (referred to by some of the inmates) were placed into the general population after three days of solitary confinement. The general population was randomly spilt up into three large groups and let outside into the activity areas on weekdays only. There they could shoot hoops, socialize, trading crime stories and work-out with the weight sets provided by the prison gym facilities. On the weekends they would gather in mid sized community rooms in again three shifts and were allowed to watch movies of their choice. The favorites were Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scar Face, the director's cut.
There was your occasional knifings and the pencil in the neck episodes. Scuffles would erupt out of seemingly nothing and could end in eyes gouged out and ears bitten off. Rehabilitation consisted of prison missionaries coming in on Sunday and giving communion and preaching hellfire and brimstone.
The prison took care of her own... she weeded out the undesirables by wielding a giant salad fork fashioned into a machete knife blade. The child rapists and crooked cops were the first to go. Then it was a turf war over who had sold more drugs, who had been convicted of the most violent of crimes and whose wife was the sexiest.
Cop killers were heralded as heroes and might ruled the prison with an iron claw. If you were not a hardened criminal when you entered into the Glenville prison that soon changed like an infectious disease that poisoned the mind and soul of it's newcomers. It was the weak that became the gofers for those they feared. Almost anything could be obtained from the Glenville prison guards, for a price...
To be continued here on WA2K
Eric Pedersen (RexRed)
Copyright 2005
http://rexred.com/thesilvercross.html
