The Harvest
Fiction
Fear of an uncertain future reduced Matthew to mind-numbing anxiety as the police cuffed him and crammed him into the backseat of their squad car. He consoled himself with thoughts of his grandparents who would, of course, be downtown to bail him out within hours of his obligatory phone call. Their money could work miracles. He had nothing to fear.
Calming himself, he appraised his situation as the cops drove away from the strip center where Matthew and his buddies had broken into a hardware store. The others had escaped but Matthew had tripped over an unseen object in the darkened alley behind the store. A cop had caught up with him and hauled him unceremoniously to the patrol car where his partner waited. The back seat smelled of vomit and urine and disinfectant.
Grandpa’s money had the boy feel smug and superior to the two officers.
They drove away, the policemen silent and grim. Matthew watched the city lights pass by lights multiplied by raindrops scattered across the back seat window.
Something was not right. The car drove east, not west- not toward downtown and the Justice Center, the fortress-like building that housed the law enforcement divisions, courts, and the jail. Matthew straightened to sitting attention as they passed the city’s business loop. He began to sweat with fear. The night felt hot and muggy. Handcuffs prevented him from removing his red nylon jacket- his gang colors. Confusion merged with panic when he saw that they would soon be past the city’s boundary, into the suburbs, and beyond the limits of the Dallas police’s authority.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
The police officers stared ahead with silent disinterest.
“Hey! Where are we going? The police station is back that way.”
One of the officers twisted in his seat to look over his shoulder.
“Shut up,” he snarled.
Beyond the city, the driver pulled into a parking lot. There, the larger of the two officers handed Matthew over to two burly men in a white van. The squad car turned back the way it came and disappeared into traffic. Locked into the rear of the van, Matthew lost all sense of direction.
The driver turned into a gated drive to a long, low warehouse somewhere between Dallas and Shreveport. The two men escorted Matthew inside a room with steel bars and heavy wire mesh. They handed him over to a man who scribbled on a clipboard and then took the prisoner to a cell furnished with a cot, a combination toilet, and a wash basin and left him there. Matthew dozed off.
Later, two men in heavy blue work uniforms took him to a small windowless room furnished like a monk’s cell: bed, table, chairs, dresser, and tiny bathroom.
“The library cart and the breakfast wagon will be around in a couple of hours,” his escort said and left without getting a response.
Matthew tried to open the steel-clad door. Locked. He knocked. No answer. He picked up one of the aluminum chairs, the only things in the room not bolted down or built-in, and beat on the door, only to create small dents in the metal skin and a bent leg on the chair. The door swung open and three men in blue rushed in and without a word, pinned him down on the bed, stuck a syringe in his arm, and held him down until he stopped struggling. As silently as the men had entered, they departed, leaving the teen unconscious.
Matthew woke, groggy from the knock-out drug, and tried the door again. Still locked. Cold, unreasoning fear welled up in him. He fought against it. To go off the rails now, he thought, would only make his situation worse. He would kill time until someone came to feed him or change his bed linens. Or inform him of his rights.
Blue uniformed men had stripped him of his personal items- cell phone, wallet, keys, cash, watch, and his most prized possession, a pendant necklace made from the automobile grille emblem pilfered from a parked car- his gang fetish. Without a watch, he could not estimate how much time had passed.
An elderly man accompanied by two blue-uniformed goons entered the room.
“Hello, Matthew,” the older man said. “I’m Doctor Cole. I’m sure you have some questions for me, so let’s get started, eh?”
“What is this place? Why am I here? Why didn’t the police take me downtown?”
Cole was an elfish man, wizened and kindly in appearance, with a bashful smile. “This is an experimental facility operated by a few select members of the city’s police department,” he said.
“When do I get my phone call?” Matthew still held out hope for Grandfather’s money to bail him out and line up a lawyer for him.
The smile faded. “Oh, I’m afraid prisoners here do not have phone privileges. Next on your schedule is your evaluation.”
“Evaluation? What is that? How long will it take? When do I get out of here?”
The boy grew angry at the thought of a delay in contacting his grandfather.
“The first evaluation will take four or five days. At the end of that time, we will determine the next item on the agenda.”
“A week!” Matthew shouted. The two muscular guards stiffened, ready to spring. “That’s not even legal.”
He didn’t know that but assumed a time limit on how long a prisoner could be held without contact with the outside world.
The doctor offered an elfish smile.
“I’m afraid laws regarding the treatment of felons do not apply here. You must learn patience.”
“What do you mean, ‘the laws don’t apply’? I’m not a felon because I have not been convicted.”
“You were caught in the act. A conviction is unnecessary.”
The room spun around Matthew.
“No trial? What kind of place is this?”
“This, son, is an organ transplant facility.”
