Title: Mea Culpa
Fandom: Oz
Category: Schillinger, Beecher. AU(ish).
Rating: NC-17
Summary: "...better to have loved and lost than to be held down
over a pool table and fucked up the ass or something like that."
Written
for the Oz
Magi Christmas challenge 2005.
*
These days they talk about the time 'before:' before the contamination, before
Cyril got fried, before the Muslims fell to pieces, before Keller took a dive
backwards over the upstairs railing.
Rebadow is unfazed. "It'll be quieter now," he tells Toby over a game
of cards. "It comes in waves. In a few years, months even, it will be just
like it was before. Another Said, another Adebisi, another..." He doesn't
finish but Toby knows what he means. Another Keller.
Toby is back in Sister Pete's office, playing secretary while Sister Pete waxes
ambivalent about change in Oz. "I’m not glad to have you back, Tobias, but
the office was a mess without you," she says. "Next time you leave
we'll train someone to take your place. I don't want the files disappearing
when you get paroled. That's not how I want to remember you."
She doesn’t say so, but Toby knows Sister Pete likes having him where she can
keep an eye on him. They're all watching him now. Even Querns has taken an
interest. He checks in on Toby occasionally, drops by Pete’s office while
Toby’s working, like Querns needs to know Toby is still there and not in the
hospital wing or swapping jobs for spurious reasons - like that’s reassuring,
somehow.
And maybe they have good cause to be worried. Chris gutted the Aryan
brotherhood with the anthrax bomb, but he should have known it could only ever
be temporary. Schillinger was in hospital when the bomb went off and two
members of the brotherhood were in the hole. That’s three left behind. And
three’s a crowd.
Toby finds it difficult to care. He walks the common room of Em City like an
automaton. He reads without seeing words, watches television without
headphones, plays games and loses.
His new roommate is a six-foot, Native American who could fuck Toby six ways
until Sunday and Toby wouldn’t notice. Fortunately, his roommate is quiet,
barely speaks more than a sentence or two in one day and that’s usually to ask
Toby to move his stuff (or himself) out of the way.
He gets a visit from Agent Taylor and that at least is unexpected.
“I suppose you thought I only wanted Keller?” Taylor says. They meet in the
usual room, the one with the American flag hanging ostentatiously on the far
wall, like being reminded of one’s country is important when you’re being
denied its privileges.
Taylor wanted Keller the way Ahab wanted the whale. Toby finds it difficult to
believe Keller’s execution wasn’t Taylor’s primary motivation.
“Solving a murder investigation is more than catching a killer,” Taylor says.
“It’s about finding answers, letting the family know what happened.”
Toby could tell him that answers are nothing but a smokescreen, a diversion
before the reality sinks in. Closure is a concept invented by psychologists, a
distraction from the futility of continued counseling when it’s clear nothing
is going to change. Pain goes on long after the explanations, long after the
sentences are handed down or the needle is pressed. Pain is forever.
“Keller’s dead,” Taylor continues. “You don’t need to protect him anymore. Tell
me what he told you.”
Keller’s dead. That phrase has been repeating in Toby’s head since they
returned to Oz. Keller’s dead, Keller’s dead, Keller’s dead. Say it enough
times and it’s nonsensical, meaningless.
“He told me the last time you got a blowjob was when Reagan was president,”
Toby says. “Is that true?” And then he laughs, laughs until Taylor lets him go,
threatening to add conspiracy to Toby’s sentence. Like that actually means
something.
Schillinger is released from hospital the next day. McManus and Querns gang up
to persuade Toby to accept confinement to Em City. Sister Pete offers to
mediate again. Toby reminds her of how well that worked last time.
He tells them he doesn’t need protection only he can’t tell them whether it’s
because Schillinger won’t come for him or whether it’s because he no longer
cares what Schillinger does. A little of both, maybe.
Schillinger comes back and there’s an Aryan brotherhood again. Their numbers
are small and they lack enough power to be a threat, so no one pays them much
attention. The wiseguys have drug smuggling problems to worry about since the
anthrax bomb increased scrutiny of the mailroom. The homeboys have plain old
drug problems – no reliable supply means no consistency in the purity of the
product and their population suffers as overdoses hit them hard. On the upside,
the Muslim population grows as the remaining homeboys look for allegiances.
Torquemada sells some kind of rave drug to anyone who’ll buy it but he’s mostly
fucking Alvarez and maybe that’s all ever he ever wanted. Toby knows a thing or
two about being in love and being oblivious. Toby looks at Torquemada and he misses
it. Whatever it is.
So when Schillinger comes back no one notices and no one sees when he corners
Toby, pushes him into the broom closet just outside the cafeteria.
Schillinger looks older. Keller might not have killed him but he took a few
years off Schillinger’s life just the same. He’s still angry, still threatening
and still so much crazier than his fatherly looks suggest.
Schillinger pokes a finger at Toby’s chest. “I could kill you right now.”
Toby shrugs. “So what are you waiting for?”
“I need to know something,” Schillinger says. He’s inches closer to Toby and
Toby thinks he hasn’t been this intimate with Schillinger since he had his dick
up Toby’s ass. “And think real hard about your answer to this question,
Beecher, it could save your life: did you kill Keller?”
At first Toby’s confused because surely Schillinger knows what happened,
probably got a blow-by-blow run-down the second he woke up in the infirmary,
but then he realises what Schillinger is asking, and he laughs. He laughs and
keeps laughing because there’s nothing funnier than Schillinger not knowing
whether Toby is his enemy or his avenger.
Sure. He killed Keller. But did he murder Keller? The judge didn’t think so,
but then Schillinger understands the politics of Oz better than a random judge
ever could and Schillinger knows the hacks in Em City would make Keller look
like a madman before they’d see Beecher done as a murderer.
“You’re the superior fucking race,” Toby says. “You figure it out.”
“Listen to me, prag.” Schillinger gets further into Toby’s face. Toby grins and
Schillinger sneers. “You want to walk out of here? Then end it now. You killed
Keller and the score is settled.”
It should interest him more that Schillinger is so willing to call a truce but
he’s tired of analysing, tired of reading people in Oz, figuring out what makes
them tick so he can use it against them. Maybe he gets out of here one day,
maybe he doesn’t. Keller is dead. What difference does it make?
“Gee, Vern.” Toby mock pouts. “You say that and it makes me think you don’t
want me anymore.”
Schillinger pushes him up against the wall; his breath is hot against Toby’s
face. “Don’t fuck with me, Beecher. Don’t fuck with me or I’ll fuck you right
back.”
“Come get me,” Toby says, and for a moment their eyes meet, nothing to say,
just a look of understanding. And Schillinger gets it. Schillinger knows.
This isn’t about survival. This is about salvation.
Schillinger releases Toby, pushing him into the wall as he lets go. He’s gone
quickly after that, not even turning around as he leaves.
*
Toby doesn’t schedule sessions with Pete but she talks to him while he works.
She’s not stupid enough to think he’s listening when he’s not but she talks
anyway, maybe hoping for some kind of osmosis style comprehension, like maybe
it will sink in a week or so from now.
“I told Vern you had nothing to do with his stabbing,” she’s saying. “I think
he believes me.”
Toby thinks Vern believes it too. Out of Toby and Keller, Keller is clearly the
master game-player. Toby is good but even he couldn’t pull together all the
elements required to get Schillinger stabbed in plain view of the entire Oz
population. That kind of planning takes sociopathic genius. Enter Chris Keller;
unsung criminal mastermind of his time.
“I’m not worried about Schillinger, “ Toby says.
“I am. One of us has to see to it you get out of here.”
Toby thinks Pete knows more about him than she’s letting on, like she really
can tell what Toby is thinking. He thinks Pete knows what gets to him, keeps
him up at night. And maybe that’s enough for her. A good psychologist keeps you
from surety, keeps you from stagnating in your beliefs.
Toby’s editing her letters, only he ends up rewriting them because Pete doesn’t
know how to ask for something in a way that ensures she’ll get it. She thinks
you need to be nice to people if you want something from them, and nice helps
but sheer balls and a sense of entitlement works better. Toby misses feeling
entitled. He misses the power if gave him.
Sometimes.
Sometimes it’s better to be forgotten, better to give than receive, better to
have loved and lost than to be held down over a pool table and fucked up the
ass or something like that. He’s forgotten how the platitudes go. He’s been
here too long.
“Tobias?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear what I said?” He looks up and she’s eyeing him over her glasses.
“You said ‘it’s not over’.”
“Do you know what I’m talking about?”
He blinks. “No.”
“You’re not done yet,” she says.
He thinks about that for a moment. “So you’re saying I have something to live
for?”
“No.” She’s not that simple. “I’m saying you’re alive. That’s something.”
Being alive isn’t what it used to be.
*
At dinner the new guy flirts with him, winks as he leaves the table, tray in both
hands. He’s former military but apparently he left on his own accord and wasn’t
kicked out for asking and telling as Toby initially suspects. He’s pretty and
cocky and he’ll probably get fucked in the ass as soon as someone remembers
that’s what they used to do around here. Before.
Then again, power gets spun around Oz like a ball on a roulette wheel and if
it’s not rigged, and sometimes it is, no one knows where it’s going to land.
Torquemada has the gays organised and could probably serve up a lethal dose of
whatever he’s dealing if someone fucked with one of his favourites – and the
pretty former military new guy is definitely one of Torquemada’s favourites.
“Hey Beecher,” a voice says, and Toby turns his attention back to his table,
watches O’Reily stabbing processed meat with his plastic fork. “You got a new
boyfriend?”
O’Reily isn’t like he was before. He’s kinder. More concerned and less
accusatory. He’s still eighty percent attitude but if you’re close enough
you’ll see he actually cares. It’s all baby steps, Sister Pete says.
“Not mine,” Toby says. “Yours if you want him.”
“Huh,” O'Reily says, at a loss for a comeback. He skewers a piece of meat on
his fork, lifts it to his mouth but is stopped halfway by something that
catches his attention on the other side of the room. “Speaking of boyfriends…”
Toby follows the direction of O’Reily’s eyes. The Aryans have walked in.
Schillinger and his merry men. Their numbers have swollen, their swagger
strengthened by the return of their leader.
It’s not safe for Toby anymore. But that’s the point.
Schillinger’s eyes meet Toby’s across the room and there’s a full two seconds
of meaning between them: I know that you know that I know that you know that I
know...
Not long now.
*
It happens just after the buzzer sounds for visiting hours, as Toby is leaving
Sister Pete’s office, heading back to Em City.
It’s a lot clumsier than he’s used to and there’s a moment when he thinks it
won’t happen at all because Schillinger’s goons time it so badly they avoid the
guards' changeover by seconds rather than minutes.
But it happens and Beecher gets hauled into the supply room again, bent across
a workbench.
“Hey prag,” Schillinger says, standing on the opposite of the bench. “Miss me?”
He sounds much the same as he always did but Toby thinks there's a slight lack
of edge to his tone, like he’s going through the motions.
They both are. Toby thrashes about, struggles under the thumbs pressing his
wrists into the bench and the strong hands on his shoulders. He calls them
“Aryan fucks” and “faggots” and names he thinks of on the spot but can’t
remember later. He reacts like the attack was unexpected, like he hadn’t been
wandering the halls casually, waiting for them to make their move. He puts on a
show because they wouldn’t understand anything less and it’s fine with Toby
because Schillinger knows and that’s all that matters.
Everything after that is familiar. The rough manhandling of his pants as they
are lowered to his knees, the fingers spreading his ass cheeks and the thumb
that goes in first, pressing him open, the spit mixed with semen and the
eventual all-in-one entry that hurts like hell and probably tears. They put a
t-shirt in his mouth and he screams into the wet cotton because he remembers screaming
helped.
There had to be pain. He knows that.
Schillinger fucks him first, taking longer than usual (he’s getting old) and
then Mercer who is Schillinger’s new wingman. The one’s after that don’t really
matter - they’re younger and have had time to nurse their erections so they
don’t take long. They laugh while they do it, calling him “bitch” and “prag”
and debate which girl’s name to call him.
When they finish they let him slump to the floor, pants still around his knees.
He looks up as they leave and catches Schillinger’s eye. There’s a fleeting
look, a moment of understanding, and then Schillinger’s gone with the rest of
them, leaving Toby alone in the supply room.
He remembers Chris killed Ronnie Barlog in this room. Chris’s presence still
hangs in the corners, hip and shoulder leaning against the shelves.
He says, “Got what you wanted?”
“I did it for you,” Toby tells him.
“You’re such a bitch, Beecher.”
Yeah, he’s a bitch. He was born that way.
*
Dr Nathan tells him the tearing doesn’t need stitches. He gets a stay in the
hospital wing overnight and a stool softener that he knows by brand name.
“It was Schillinger, wasn’t it?” Sister Pete says, at his bedside. “You can’t
let him get away with this, Tobias. He won’t stop.”
“Yes, he will,” Toby says. It’s finished now. All debts repaid.
“How can you know that?” Sister Pete says. “Who’s going to stop him?”
“It’s in the Bible,” Toby says. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” A
fuck for a fucking over. He laughs wryly.
Sister Pete frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“Even Nazis want to go to heaven, Sister.”
She looks at him like he’s turned green. Toby looks away, down the ward to the
door where Busmalis is mopping the floor near the entrance. The mail cart has
just arrived, pushed by one of the Aryans who fucked Toby in the ass earlier.
Toby watches him, daring him to make eye contact. He doesn’t.
Sister Pete touches his hand and tells him to come and see her when he gets
out. He agrees, without taking his eyes off the mail cart.
When she’s gone he sinks his head back on the pillow. His neck hurts and there
are dark bruises around his wrists, and that’s to say nothing of his ass which
is currently being cradled by an air cushion, but he’s alive, and despite taking
a moment of every morning to stare at the spot where Chris fell, Toby still
hasn’t gone over the railing after him. He’s wanted to. Not a day goes by when
he hasn’t wanted to.
But salvation is about forgiving as well as being forgiven, about loving in the
face of adversity, about compromise and meeting your enemies half way. And if
you can find a way to do that in Oz then there’s a possibility that even
Schillinger can go to heaven, and that’s got to be a reason to believe.
“Beecher!” Toby’s mail lands in his lap: two magazines and a letter from his
mother.
The Aryan mailman moves the cart along to the next bed.
Fini