The Mountain – Abandon all hope…
Kentucky 1983
Part 1
The heavy iron door clanged open with a bang and a deputy filled the doorway with his immense bulk leveling the 12 gauge Mossberg riot shotgun at Romans face.
“And top of the morning to you” Roman quipped, and at once regretted his smartass remark.
The deputy might have been an overweight looking slob not capable of tying his own shoes, prolly why they all wear boots…
But this fat cat had a brief demonstration for roman.
The deputys swiftness in striking roman with the butt of his Mossberg straight to his gut not only surprised roman, well, not really, afterall didn’t he ask for it?
But impressed roman at the same time, the fat fuck was fast as shit in doling out pain.
Hell, he oughta know, He’d been beaten, punched and struck by some of the best in the biz, law enforcement, crazy escapees, hard core criminals… you name it… and romans probably had the shit kicked outta him by it.
Roman slowly stood up holding his midsection trying his best not to throw up on the deputy no doubt inciting more of the large man’s wrath.
Roman hadn’t slept during the night, his nerves were raw from playing out every unthinkable scenario that awaited him. It was just after midnight, the deputy standing before him glaring with such intensity that Roman was afraid he was going to be beaten again… the deputy handed him a garbage bag.
“Put all yer shit in it… and hurry up, smartass”, said the big man.
Another deputy suddenly appeared, holding chains and shackles in his hands. Big man moved aside with his 12 gauge gun at the ready, as if at any moment Roman might make a run for it… fair play. He had before. The other deputy was attaching the shackles around his ankles and threading a chain up to his wrist and around his waist. Note to self… if you act like a dangerous criminal, then you’ll be treated as one.
After they finished chaining their prisoner up like a modern day Harry Houdini, with a nudge from the Mossberg he was shuffled out of his holding cell into the brightly lit hallway, where the deputies handcuffed and shackled the other dozen or so convicted felons together in one long line. The deputies used the barrel end of their shotguns to prod along their charges down the corridor, out into the cold, early morning darkness to board “the bluebird express”… the last bus most of them would ever take anywhere.
Roman fell trying to climb up the first step of the prison transport bus, shuffling was all he could manage in his shackled state. He tried not to smile as he pondered his situation; here he was being transported to a maximum-security facility in the misty hills of Kentucky and in the first act he accidently trips up a freshly convicted cop killer in front of him… and falls back into a violated parolee-three-time loser with a life sentence shackled behind him. He silently promises himself if he survives the next twenty-four hours, he’ll check out Carnegie’s book on “How to win friends and influence people” from the prison library. Such an auspicious start to a sixteen year sentence in one of the country’s most notorious prisons.
Somehow Roman managed to defy gravity and remained standing upright as he quickly mastered the convict-bunny hop going down the aisle.
Once the prisoners were on the bus, with their seats placed strategically throughout, handcuffed and shackled to the steel bar in front of every seat. A thick, mesh screen dividing Roman from the seat in front and back, the soft cushions had been replaced by hard plastic ones and the windows were covered with the same steel, mesh screen.
Roman read the white placard signs with red lettering that dotted the interior… “Do Not Attempt to remove Your Handcuffs or You Will Be shot”… “No Fighting – or You Will Be Shot”… and then his favorite, “Do Not Assault the Guards – or You Will Be Killed”.
After contemplating all of the different ways for him to get shot, Roman glanced around at his fellow passengers, wary not to make eye contact with any of them. It’s a surprising fact just how many incarcerated people die every day by not adhering to this simple rule.
One would be hard pressed to find a more motley crew of convicted felons gathered together, murderers, rapist, robbers and your general ne’er do well thrown in for good measure. Roman looked down at his hands and feet shackled to the steel bar and then out through the window into the night, as the blue bird express chugged along into the darkness, the twisty turning mountain roads, it didn’t matter that he could barely see through the window.
As the rain began to pelt the bus, he kept staring out the window… how the hell was I supposed to survive this? He contemplated.
Roman had spent the last year crammed into a windowless box awaiting trial, after his escape justice came swiftly and unmercifully, a week to the day.
The bus bounced along the pothole infested road, swaying from side to side, he closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of chains rattling and the low voices of men resigned to hell. Like some giant beetle headed into the night, powerful high beams cut into the darkness, as they made our way up through the mountainous road. His fear is real now – like a snake coiling up inside his stomach, growing… choking him.
As the rain started to let up Roman could feel the engine of the old bus strain, gears gnashing, as it climbed the steep grade elevation of the mountain, they had been on the road for three hours. Fog rolled in and covered the road, enveloping everything in its path. Roman smiled to himself… of course… what could be more fitting for this moment than rain, some fog, perhaps a full moon might make an appearance and illuminate the prison as we make our ascent, maybe a coyote will howl upon our arrival?
As it turned out, there was no need for the moonlight, the twisting mountain road rounded a bend and there on top of the mountain, million watt candela lights lit up the night and turned darkness into day. No matter how many stories he had been told, no matter how many times he had played it out in his mind… nothing prepared him for the first time it comes into view.
There’s not much to take in until… until the bus made a sharp turn and banked to the right, surrounded by a thick blanket of fog, it rises up larger than one can imagine, a great hulking fortress, The Castle.
Menacing in its appearance, certainly medieval with its turrets and embankments, built in 1810 from hand carved granite blocks by Italian masons, with the labor supplied by the inmates, they hauled every piece out of the quarry right on the property.
It was used during the Civil War to house dishonorable Confederate soldiers; murderers and horse thieves were hung in the middle of the yard, surrounded by a wall four feet thick of solid granite that stood twenty-five feet tall.
“It’s not that bad, fish”.
Roman didn’t know what it was that tipped off the old con across the aisle from where he was but he obviously saw through his stoic demeanor and try as he might, could not disguise the feeling of fear that first glance of the castle born inside of him.
“No?…” Roman replied.
“Keep to your own, remember what ya’ learned in kindergarten and you’ll be a’right.”
“what?”
One of the other prisoners had been observing Romans reaction and evidently was trying to reassure him.
“No… it’s not that bad”, says another con behind Roman…“It’s worse.”
“Welcome to The Castle, boys” one of the guards shouted out as it came into full view, in all its glory.
Roman’s stomach had grown cold as a stone. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the medieval structure. The gravity of his situation sunk like a stone, deeper and deeper, into this bottomless pit of fear that had replaced his gut. A dark feeling of dread came over him… He knew he would surely die in this place. As the bus rolled up to the massive black iron gate, his eyes were drawn to the wrought iron cursive script above the entrance … “Abandon all hope ye’ who enter here”.
Part 2
Day one.