The Four Stages of Cruelty by Keith Hollihan

inside. The rush of embarrassment caught me hard—maybe my tiredness, maybe my sense that they never gave me a fucking break no matter how hard I worked to ignore it. But instead of reacting, I forced my voice into that tone of a teacher in a room full of grade school students, and said, “I suppose this delivered itself?”
    Josh again. A similar drawing to the one Brother Mike had shown me. This time the female barbarian had a sword in one hand and decapitated head in the other, a snake tattoo winding around her wrist. She was sexy and saucy, hip thrust in exaggerated fashion to one side. She wore furs on her waist, high boots, and nothing on top, those well-endowed breasts with dark, lusty, and, once more, remarkably upward-pointed nipples. My distinguished colleagues gathered around.
    “Amazing how those things get around,” Cutler said.
    “You mind if I make a few copies?” Droune asked, the twitters about to erupt.
    I had no doubt they’d already xeroxed the shit out of it.
    “Maybe blow it up, frame it, put it on the living-room wall,” Franklin suggested.
    Then: “Howdy, Radar,” Baumard said in a loud voice. Everyone knew it was a warning, that Michael Ruddik had just walked into the room, meaning there was a rat on deck.Instantly I felt the dynamics of the school yard play out in predictable fashion. From being the target, I became another bystander. That didn’t mean I sympathized with the new victim. Instead, I shared the group’s disdain as much as I felt personal relief. On the surface, there was nothing about Ruddik to inspire any particular loathing. He was early forties, experienced, tall, athletic, even good-looking in a dark-haired, brooding kind of way. But he was widely suspected to be the resident Secret Sam, a member of the corrections staff covertly assigned to investigate inmate complaints against COs. Every institution had one or more—sometimes FBI, sometimes DEA—someone watching the watchers. Coming off my recent meeting with Keeper Wallace about my actions involving Shawn Hadley, Ruddik was the last person in the world I wanted to run into. I shoved the drawing into my locker and got out my jacket.
    “Check this out,” Franklin said. Ruddik ignored him.
    “Oh, come on, Radar,” Droune said. “Don’t be such a prude. That’s a work of goddamn art.”
    Ruddik, who hadn’t said anything, merely got a pair of rubber gloves from his locker and gave Droune a mock salute. Then he left.
    I was about to do the same, given the freedom to go home for that most silent of nights, watch some taped talk show, and pass out in front of the TV, when Baumard asked me if I’d work his bubble shift for him so he could read his grandkids
The Night Before Christmas
.

9
    How could I say no? Single me. No children of my own. No brothers or sisters with cute nephews and nieces. No parent to look in on. No husband or boyfriend to fear offending. No presents to buy. I needed the cash. A bubble shift was as good as a night on the couch, except you got paid for it. With all the inmates snug in their cells and a complete lockdown enforced, there would be little need to pay attention. Safe, all-seeing, and powerful, requiring no physical exertion. If you kept one ear cocked for the radio and your partner kept his mouth shut, sweet dreams awaited.
    So I said yes—before I learned that Cutler would be my shift partner, a man who couldn’t keep his mouth shut for more than two minutes at a stretch.
    Still, when we settled in for the duty after a dinner of pizza and chicken wings ordered in special by Baumard, even Cutler seemed subdued by the night and the long shifts leading up to it. The floor of the bubble was raised inside, and you felt like you were floating above the ground. The caged and glassed windows ran a complete circle around and above you, giving you full vision of the main hub. At night you kept the lights dim. On the console desk you had black-and-white cameras directed at fixed spots in