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PANOPTICON is a saga that spans more than two hundred years, the story of Jemima Wilkinson, an actual historical figure, renegade Quaker prophetess and founder of utopian communities and her imaginary descendant, Dion Venn, a prisoner in Panopticon Prison for teenage bank robbery and a grown-up baby preacher in the religious cult founded on Jemima’s ideas.
PANOPTICON explores what happens as people scrape up education from the world’s rummage sale of ideas, when aspiration and desires clash with heredity and history, and when the true cost of loving thine enemy rewards and penalizes people stumbling onward to re-invent themselves and find love.
This first excerpt shows Jemima talking in the religious code that passes for communication between her and her Quaker father, Jeremiah.
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The two of them—Jeremiah the Doleful and Jemima, daughter of Job—when they talked, often talked in verses, giving the citation. Everything was there, after all, to those who knew, and it was a way of keeping oil and water, breeze and tornado, sunstorm and blizzard, calm reason and blazing open emotion, apart.
As Mother slept, Jemimah sat quietly near her head. Jeremiah pulled up a chair near her feet. Settling the big old Bible on his knees, he spoke first. Jemima sat quietly near Amey's head, ready to hand her a cloth wrung out in cool water. Jeremiah pulled up a chair near her feet. Settling the big old Bible on his knees, he spoke first, barely above a whisper.
“Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death. Jeremiah, XII, 7.”
He looked expectantly toward Jemima.
“Father,” she whispered, “perhaps we should ask the doctor to come again.”
“The doctor came yesterday, Jemima. He bled almost two cups and sat by her side before he said he wouldn’t need to come back again.” He took the brass-headed poker and stirred the fire into greater wamth for the still, ashen figure in the bed.
“I will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from me. XXXVIII, 14.” She looked beseechingly at him through a blur of tears, not needing to ask the question.
He clenched his fist on his knee and shook his head. “Thou shalt surely die. XXXVI, 8,” he whispered.
Amey opened her faded blue eyes and smiled down vaguely at the stirring little bundle beside her, then smiled a long loving smile at Jemima.
“I think I’d like you to read some psalms. Jeremiah, read the twenty-third. Jemima, would you put your little sister in the cradle? You’ll have to take good care of her now.”
Jeremiah’s sober voice began to read. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”
Jemima held her mother’s hand and gave the cradle occasional little pushes with her foot. She thought of the lights and the voices that came to her when she was alone. Would they help her, stop her mother from dying? No. They said to her, “Whether thee thinks it good, or whether thee thinks it evil, thou shalt obey the voice of the Lord our God.” It meant you just opened yourself to God and did what your inner light said. You didn’t worry about it, think about it. All you had to do was let God’s words come to you. You never never asked, just let the light come.
When the psalm was finished and Amey seemed to be sleeping, Jeremiah went to the kitchen to eat his supper but Jemima stayed in the room. Amey tossed restlessly and Jemima clutched her hand tighter and tighter.
“It’ll be nice to rest, just to rest. Sleep the whole night through. Not have to bear more, no more births.” She turned her head on the crumpled pillow and smiled brilliantly, lovingly at her daughter. “I shall rest, little Jemmie, I shall rest.” And she was gone.
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This second excerpt picks up on the day Dion has left Panopticon to go home. It begins to explore the personality of the self-educated, Foucault-obsessed Warden, who wars for supremacy in Dion’s psyche with his ancestor Jemima’s influence.
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All day, while all this was going on, Warden was pissed. He’d stood at the window watching his pet project get away from him until the bus pulled out on its way. Then he roared for his secretary-trusty.
“Where in hell is that son-of-a-bitch Izzy? Never find the fucker when you want him. All over the place worse than the goddamn Wandering Jew. Ain’t fit for an inmate. Well, don’t stand there gaping. Go find the bastard! He was supposed to be here typing twenty minutes ago. ”
Warden was underground famous, talked about wherever there were prisoners. Guards, for that matter.
“Big, got a gut. Not what you’d call fat. Not wobbly fat, though he’s got some of that. Well-packed, you’d say. Like a hog for the market, big one fed on grain,chemicals, that weight-lifting stuff—steroids. Big meaty man, shark eyes, gappy teeth, grins a lot but it don’t look funny, snappy dresser.”
“Get the gun away, you could take him.”
“Don’t think so. Like those Japanese wrestlers, big ones weigh six hundred pounds. Win because the other guy can’t budge ‘em. Like maybe some of the weight of him you can’t see.”
“Budge him he didn’t have that gun on his side.”
Guards talking, prisoners. Other places, of course. Not in Panopticon. Couldn’t happen there.
Warden paced. Up and down, back and forth, side to side. Wall to wall, door to desk. Big office, pacing space,everything built to spec, mostly by lifers had time to learn. Nothing outstanding, though. He forbade that. No extra-fine bevels, super-depthy polish. Nothing anyone could point to, take pride in. Just work.
He knew it before, knew it in his heart, knew it before he’d read Bentham, read Fuck-All. Work’ll make ‘em free, bring on the penitence.. Work ‘em and watch ‘em. Can’t do the Bible part now. Bible’d gone by the wayside. Not PC. Not multicultural. That’s okay. Warden’s all they need to know. Warden and Fuck-All. Same thing. Let ‘em finish, smash what was, start ‘em again. Warden always knew it and Fuck-All agreed.
Not good, the boy being gone. He’d gone to a lot of trouble. Now some fool’d decided to let him go two years early. Warden had needed that two years. Two years and he would have worked a transformation, finally had his proof. Now God alone knew what would happen, a soul being sent out into the world half-formed like that. Worse than if he’d never got started. Unstable system now. There was a quick knock and the trusty skidded in.
“Where the fuck you been, boy? You keep that up, you’ll find yourself doing road work. There’s a bunch of new stuff there in Fuck-All, did this lot in green ink so you’ll know where to fit it in. Get cracking!”
On the night Dion arrived, Warden had managed every detail, waited, leaning against the door casing, brilliant light from the fluorescents spilling out and casting his shadow hugely on the pavement. Prisoners were usually transferred in the daytime, no reason not to, easier all around, but Warden had some contacts and he’d arranged for Dion Venn to arrive at night. Might not always be able to do it this way, but Dion was the first since the sunroom had been finished, the first that would let Warden do it right, the way it outght to be done.
Thought how it would feel, cool night air through the blindfold. They hadn’t used real masks for a hundred years, thanks to the Prisoners Assistance Society, but Dion was Warden’s special interest, so there was a night arrival, mask of sorts, personal reception. Prison knew Warden was moving; prison had the feel of execution night. Nothing you could put your finger on, just the way the air swirled through the corridors. Same feeling kids got the night before Christmas when the very molecules of the atmosphere were charged and ancient things were moving again, except the shivers this night weren’t from anticipation, nights like this, when Warden was prowling, you didn’t want to draw any attention to yourself.
Right on time the van drew up. Warden slipped the boys some thank-you cash and they walked around to the back of the van. One of them jumped up inside with the black blindfold so that Dion came out with it on. They helped him down in his leg irons, both arms tethered to the chain around his waist, old chains Warden kept on hand, not silent modern ones they used for public purposes, real clankers worthy of Marley’s ghost. Warden read Dickens straight through and then started over. He especially liked any books involving chains or prisons of any sort. The guards, one on either side, walked him to the door and left him with Warden, who thudded the heavy door shut and slipped his hand around Dion’s upper arm, started to walk forward.
Once he got him in the sunroom, he’d only talk to him or the chaplain or Warden. For company, Warden kept the old rules, so Dion could have his book, Bible, Koran, whatever, one religious book was allowed.
Warden kept most of the old rules, discretely, even for the general prison population. Prisoners Assistance said they had to have access to books, brought a book truck in, even trundled a cart around the cells with an armed guard. Everybody knew to eschew books, knew without being told. Panopticon had the lowest rate of readers of anyplace in the prison system. Prisoners Aid was losing interest there; more rewarding prisoners elsewhere. You liked to get some feedback.
They walked in silence to Warden’s office. He pushed a button and the wall slid back, revealing the sunroom dangling on its heavy spring. Dion didn’t know what was waiting for him. Warden unlocked the restraints, left the mask on.
“Strip,” he’d said, and waited.
© Copyright 2004 Tree Riesener. This work may not be used in any way without the express permission of the author.
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