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This was sent to me last summer by e-mail (through an anonymous remailer).
The day before, a letter came to my home. The single piece of paper inside had no design or logo, but it seemed expensive. A few stern words had been written in blotchy, angled script - and the note ended with five numbers.
Upon reading the e-mail, I thought hard - and pulled out my '22 federal income tax forms, where I found the same numbers that appeared in the anonymous letter.
The next day, I filed an amended return.In the interest of... fairness, here is the unabridged rebuttal to an earlier TMZ episode...
I am the Warden of Finger Hollow Reformatory.
While others in my field have learned to endure all manner of lies and distortions, my own institution has been exempt, for reasons which will become most obvious.
There are, however, some misapprehensions which cannot go unchallenged. It is supremely irritating to see plain facts distorted by licentious perverts.
The simple truth is that Finger Hollow was completed in 1918. The fanciful range of dates cited elsewhere, "1926 - 1951", refers to the contents of a single ledger. These are the prisoners' admission dates.
The careless phrase "a couple hundred names" is a flat untruth. I count 184 names in the volume.
This facility has a current population of 120 men. During the first twelve years of the reformatory's existence, many men of low morals were released far sooner than they should have been. I reopened the facility in 1932, and only eight of the scoundrels have been paroled since that time.
The "ledger" - which played so prominent a part in the slanderous tale - was merely a lure... A facsimile of the real ledger, which is displayed in my office.
I have created several copies over the years, releasing one at a time into the clandestine world of book-merchants. I hoped they would serve as bait - finding their way into the hands of wrongdoers who might otherwise have escaped punishment. Underestimating the lawlessness of men has never been among my faults.
While they introduced a certain small risk to my operation, I confess I enjoyed the thrill of anticipation even more. I tracked each of these editions, and am confident that none attracted the scrutiny of the deluded "humanitarian" shills.
And one of these ledgers accomplished its task. That reprobate needed only the additional inducement of a post-card, with citations of latitude and longitude, to be enticed to deliver himself into my untiring hands.
The true roster is unknown to all of them. It sits on a desk in the warden's office - my office, which I visit only when a new inmate's name is to be added to the infamous roll. A sharpened quill, an inkwell... and as the page is touched again, I cause pale blue sparks to crackle. A dramatic conceit, true. But it reminds me, as I inscribe the name of another doomed wretch, of my avowed commitment to never shirk my duty.
With that inscription in the roster, the hooligan is locked within bonds far sturdier than granite and iron. The adding of his name signifies the day he will live and relive, over and over again.
I am not certain why this strip of land is ruled by such curious effects. There is a continual freshening of matter here, and a flexibility in the way time is reckoned.
There was a pattern already in place, and I had only to learn it.
Outside this area, all are under the lash of time and decay. But not while on the grounds - for here, I rule as few kings have.
Free from the cares of illness and extended fatigue, my prisoners have uncounted hours in which to endure the correction which brings the most heartfelt remorse.
Among the benefits of mastering the strange phenomena is the establishment of masks. Or so I call them - alterations to the air, maybe by some unfamiliar property of magnetism... For I can make this dark, imposing granite fortress "disappear". In its place, the observer will see whatever I fashion. Most often, I present a mire instead - boulder-filled, choked with thorns. Reeking. Similarily, I can create and hide odors here as well.
And, of course, sound. Muted laughter and howling become inaudible, fading away whenever I wish.
In 1973, a backpacker set up his tent on a rise not far from the carriage house, an outbuilding on the western edge of the grounds. His cigarettes smelled peculiar. Upon investigation of his belongings, two illegal substances were discovered. In he came.
In 1986, a county employee accompanied an intern from the state water agency as he tramped around to collect samples. They followed the path of a stream, doggedly, and despite the visual mask I erected, they came upon Finger Hollow... and stared in amazement. These interlopers examined the walls, and wished repeatedly that they had thought to carry a camera. They heard none of the crazed delirium which emanated from the prisoners, for I did not wish to stoke their interest further. I followed them to a tavern, afterward, but the barkeep clearly did not believe their account. The county man told three co-workers - who decided, talking it over later, that the alcohol on his breath was the more likely explanation. That very night, the man falsified three assessment reports in exchange for bribes. He awoke in Finger Hollow the next morning. The younger man, the state intern, told only one person about my reformatory. He had been assigned to the region due to his low seniority, and before summer returned he transferred to Monterey. But two short years after that, he began stealing premium cable television channels. His apprehension was swift, and his incarceration assured.
They reside on the second floor. The dire cases are on the ground level. Most of them pose such a danger to decent folk that parole is permanently denied.
The basement is for the irredeemably bad eggs... with two recent exceptions.
The smoker is there.
And the writer.
Only these two walked downstairs voluntarily. In the sixty years since I assumed control, only they have polluted my rooms with their ashes and smoke.
It amuses me no end. That's why they remain in the cellar. There is no finer irony than keeping them in the vicinity of deranged killers. It's out of proportion to such a ridiculous degree that I still find it irresistible.
Particularly the smoker. What were the odds? That he - of all men! - would end up in Finger Hollow? He exudes the most wholesome air of innocence, of integrity, leaving aside the disgusting habit. If his radiator hose had burst a few minutes earlier - or if the moon hadn't been out, that night...
On such nights I remove the masks for a while, in the wee hours, unsealing the grounds merely to appreciate the moonlight on the dark stone walls and shutters. The unending moan of the wind, accompanied by the ecstatic ravings of my inmates.
I chanced to notice the car there, with the puddle beneath it. Hood open...
Smoke drifting up from underneath.
On a whim, I left the institution visible. Few things would have made the night more enjoyable than filling one of the empty cells on the second floor (of which there were only three) with an unwilling rapscallion.
From rags and baling wire, he made a makeshift patch for the burst hose. Upon later inspection, I saw it would have been adequate to get him back to town. But most of the water in the car's radiator had soaked into the thirsty soil.
The smoker stepped back and straightened up. Wiping his hands, he looked at the entrance to the driveway of Finger Hollow. The gravel turnoff was still recognizable, back then. For many years since, I've tended the brush at the side of the road so it looks perfectly natural, with no sign remaining of the old path. And the trees have grown thick, completely blocking Finger Hollow from view. The writer had to toil to get here, hiking the better part of a mile from where he'd parked, blundering around...
But the smoker had no such difficulty. He came to my door - as he confirmed later, with tears of extracted pleasure dripping from his chin - only to get some water. Refill the radiator, and move on.
He took a few steps, and hesitated. I saw him smoke thoughtfully. Some intuition acted upon him, perhaps. That suggested a guilty conscience. Rarely do I miss such indicators. I had one of my many hands pick up a lighted torch and hold it close to the window on the first floor. A line of light appeared along the shutter's edge, as it was viewed from outside... and then moved away.
He saw it. I watched him stare... and keep approaching.
I lit a dozen oil lamps and hung them on the walls. They illuminated the path to the cellar. My dungeon. Their course suggested where the master of the house might be found. A route for him to take...
He knocked on the door. And then he pounded -
A handful of the inmates heard that. Some became genuinely happy, babbling about the rescuers that had finally found them, a long-cherished dream. The smarter men held no such illusions. With labored, distracted cackling and moans, they tried to warn him. Run. Save yourself.
But my masking of their sounds kept him unaware. Hesitantly, he filled his lungs with smoke and threw the cigarette away. Then he opened the door.
Seeing the nearest oil lamps, he walked in. Started calling out - "Hello? Uh, hello?"
Hailing me... the warden of the facility.
Other prisoners heard, and grew restless. Some looked hopeful, others anguished. One began to yell and yell, either to draw his attention, or to warn him. But I set many hands to work on these malcontents. Quickly, I applied corrective discipline in the consuming, discombobulating manner these thugs had come to expect. Feet, torso - and I never spare the rod.
At that point, he was only a trespasser. True, a law had been broken. I cannot abide such acts. But it could be said that he was lured inside...
It was almost refreshing to see him, standing there. Just inside the door of Finger Hollow - so utterly out of place. I liked the cut of his jib. He was honest, and decent. Doubtless a hard-working man who had nothing to fear from me. An upstanding citizen... immune from fear of the sort known so well by my charges - the barrage of fingers and brushes and oil, forty other tools, applied with individualized attention, endlessly -
This man, like so many others, would never know of my passion for making the guilty pay for their crimes -
And that was when his hand moved. Up to his pocket...
He took out a pack of cigarettes.
I was shocked! The voluntary use of tobacco was not permitted at Finger Hollow. In any form. Anywhere on the grounds.
But he pulled out a lighter... and violated one of my rules.
No one smoked in my reformatory.
Not since the ineffectual employees had left - and I will mention in particular the last scoundrel who had dared to puff like a chimney here. He had been on the crew that "closed up" the building, loading the furniture and such - but the next summer, he forced himself upon a woman for carnal satisfaction.
First floor, tenth cell on the left.
At any hour of the day, there are a handful of inmates - resting up from a bout with my hands, and doomed to begin another round shortly - who are feverishly begging for one of their beloved cigarettes or cigars. Just one. So addled, and yet the only thing they wanted more was the surcease of the punishment itself. A craving that strong is abundant proof of their moral weakness. A cigar, a cigar. Begging me. Then they can "take it," they say. The unbearable will become slightly less unbearable, if only I will let them smoke. As if I was a tobacconist.
They're going to take it - take their medicine - the way I choose to dole it out. They forfeited the right to smoke. They're not on holiday, here. If they're to enjoy anything, it's the sensual toil I make them endure.
So it was with profound shock that I watched the trespasser stand there and smoke.
My opinion of him changed. From surprise, to diappointment... to suspicion.
It wasn't the mere fact that he had taken up the habit. Nearly all the inmates reeked of tobacco when they were dragged into their cells. Depriving them of that poisonous habit would have been a mercy. And they find it difficult indeed to strike a match when their hands are ever shackled.
I was highly annoyed to see him ignoring a regulation of this institution. He sucked in a second lungful, and looked around. Almost... jaunty. Certainly he seemed to be enjoying his cigarette.
But what of courtesy? Of asking before he defiled my facility? Granted, he could not know I was there, watching him, taking his measure. But even so - it was plainly wrong to smoke in someone else's house, without seeking them out and asking. What if there had been a leaky gaspipe...?
Finger Hollow was the home of 120 men.
But he just smoked anyway. No manners.
And then I longed to teach him the consequences of rudeness. His lessons could begin straightaway, on the second floor...
Or I could move him whenever I saw fit. Silently, quickly, I carried one hooting inmate from a chamber on the first floor to a cell on the flight above. That freed up a place for another inmate, then fast asleep, who vacated the cellar dungeon. Up the back stairwell, floating quickly. His punishment would proceed as if he never switched rooms.
A basement cell was therefore available, and I swung the door open. At my thought, the wall-torches kindled and cast their shifting light.
Yes. I would teach him the lesson of a lifetime.
That cell - and him! Completely mismatched. Laughable.
Yet... outrageous enough to be interesting. Amusing.
He flicked ashes on my floor. And waited.
That gave me pause. He waited, patiently. Not overly inquisitive. Though he must have wanted to go, he appeared to master the wish and be... considerate?
If he had been more nosy, I would have pegged him as a crook. Pilferer. Combing his record would certainly turn up something punishable.
A... preemptive incarceration, perhaps? Very tempting.
But I had never taken that shortcut before. All of my inmates are guilty. I have gone to great lengths to make sure of that. They deserve what they've got coming to them. I carry out their sentence - severe, daily torment - with a perfectly clear conscience. With passion.
The young man standing in my entryway was guilty of breaking two state laws. Trespassing on state property... and violating the regulations of a correctional facility. Wardens have full latitude and discretion in making such regulations.
He was still free only because he had the appearance of... wholesomeness. A shady character would already have watched a cell-door shutting him in. Still - two broken laws, and the likelihood that I'd find proof of undiscovered, and unpunished, crimes. Almost without fail, there's damning evidence to be found in their bedrooms. At worst, a couple of hours of research into their lives - and I've got them. I lock them up, and keep them here, and punish them. Make the world a safer place.
But, as intrigued as I found myself, to see how he'd look in my dungeon - in that particular cell - I hesitated. He was a lawbreaker. He'd earned his berth...
Simply by walking through an unlocked door, to get help with his car trouble? Smoking? For that, I was impatient to lock him away, in the dungeon. I marveled at my own changeable mood... but no. He simply didn't deserve to be here.
I extinguished the torches in what would have been his cell.
To his credit - which annoyed me - he called out three more times. He sighed. After a glance at his watch, his eyes travelled round... and espied the staircase.
He... gulped.
And I confess, that was an endearing sight. Smart fellow. If he could only hear the noises being made, up there, he'd run from Finger Hollow as fast as his legs would carry him.
A benevolent temper ruled me. Certainly, he wasn't excused yet - all I had to do was grab him by the scruff of the neck, or close the front door. See what he thought of the accommodations, underground, which lacked only a presumptuous churl such as himself. If he stepped out of line the least little bit, the clemency I'd granted for his two infractions would be instantly revoked. As likely as not, his character wasn't without its flaws...
In any case, I resolved to investigate him. Pore over the records, watch him closely. I could surely find a few secret misdemeanors, and haul him back here.
The idea disturbed me - just let him depart? A guilty man, escaping the tireless correction of my hands? Going free, without so much as a finger laid on him...
Satisfaction would be assured when I found the evidence, and brought him back into Finger Hollow. As my inmate.
He smoked. A long drag, as he stared at the oil lamps, a lighted trail down the dark hallway...
And then - he took the cigarettes back out of his pocket! To my heightened shock, he lit a new cigarette off the first one.
My sympathy for him was rapidly evaporating. Of all the nerve...
Ignorance. But, really, how could he know? No signs are posted. And yet ignorance of the law is never an excuse. He's guilty. Another count - of the same offense.
It was then that I grew vexed - but with myself. A decision was required of me. This doublemindedness was unseemly. Imprison him, or grant him a reprieve... if only until I found additional cause to justify his doom.
So... I closed the door which led to my dungeon. It grieved me to do it - but it was a mere delay in his sentencing. That cheered me. I could uncover his guilt the following day, if I chose, and make him pass through that doorway and into his overdue delirium before tomorrow's sun took its rest.
He took a step toward the lamplit hallway. Ah, well. Let him follow, down the the cellar, find the locked door - through which he'd be dragged, soon enough! - and turn around. Eventually he'd stumble into the kitchen, grey with dust. The hand-pump still worked...
I brought a bucket out, and placed it near the rusty handle. I'd let him think he was free, then find out his secrets and ferry him back inside. My earlier approval seemed foolhardy - of course this smoker deserved to be here. They all did. That's precisely why I had reopened Finger Hollow. That cherubic face of his - it had almost succeeded. But I was not taken in...
Not gulled even when he turned away, strutting back to the door, in order to fling his old smoke outside. Perhaps not brash enough to grind it under his heel in my foyer, but I recognized his game. A bit too considerate, there. Rather obvious. Carefully scrupulous about little things, so long as they made him appear to be a decent man. Perhaps a ruse to allay suspicions about him? Other behaviors? Criminal behavior. I'd seen his kind often enough.
Well, those cavalier days were about to end.
He walked toward the hallway, sighing out more of that noxious smoke. I watched him check his shirt-tail, to see if it was still tucked in - further pretense of respectability. His hands went into his the pockets of his pants, and came back out empty.. a nervous habit, perhaps, and not without its appeal. He approached the nearest of the lamps -
Something fluttered to the ground, but he didn't look back. I saw it clearly, laying there on my floor. But he hadn't noticed - supposedly. Yet there was the evidence.
It was an empty cigarette pack. Folded. Resting on my floor. And the smoker walked away from it.
Littering.
That was it. Strike three -
I relit the torches. And as he rounded the last turn in the hallway, I threw open the well-oiled dungeon door.
Three misdemeanors... within ten minutes. All witnessed by me. He was guilty.
He was not going to leave and commit more crimes. Another defiant lawbreaker, like all the rest. And he was approaching the stairway that led to his cell.
Out of habit, I started to pick up the evidence. But then I reconsidered my act. And I made a vow. Smoking was against the law, here - because I made the laws - and the empty package would remain in place, to affirm my determination. For I had decided. The next man who dared to smoke in Finger Hollow would be apprehended on the spot, and punished for his infraction.
The smoker started down the stairs. He would not be retracing those steps...
My rage inspired me. At that instant I amended my own regulation. I could ban the choice to smoke for non-inmates... just as I was requiring it here, for certain brash men -
My newest one hesitated at the threshold, moments away from my retribution. He sniffed. Perhaps the stench had finally gotten through his smoke-damaged nose. I hadn't perfected my olfactory mask yet. There were eleven inmates in the cellar, all reeking of intense excitement. And the torches...
He stepped back, and paused.
So I had four gloves take his nearest arm, and pull. As they did, eight more hands shoved from behind -
His resistance was too little, too late. Ten seconds after I made contact, he was inside his cell, watching the door close in his face.
While I stripped him and got him in the stocks, I picked up his cigarette. Dropped, in his anxiety. Forgotten at present - but there would be endless cigarettes coming.
He smokes now. If he's awake, and not laughing hard or eating, the smoker indulges in his signature vice.
It's still amusing to me. His surroundings. The crimes for which he's punished. The absurdity made it all the more compelling to get the writer here, and hold him in the cellar as well. Ten murderers, utterly beyond contempt... and these two trespassing dolts. Repeating the day of their capture, the most grueling of nights, in the full bloom of their manly strength. A closed, riotous, unbreakable loop.
Because of their initial conversation the day the writer arrived, I decided to pair them up. It was a long time ago. Hauling one of them into the other's cell. A welcome break from their normal routine...
The smoker needs to talk. Raving, babbling. Pleading with my gloves and feathers. Not the writer - he doesn't waste his breath. The contrast is pleasing to me. But I chanced to remember an experiment I hadn't performed since the forties - and the vast differences between these two prisoners piqued my curiosity.
So I put them into the same cell, for short periods. They talk. The blabbermouth draws the reticent man into conversation. The thoughtful inmate spurs the outspoken man into blurting thoughts that I can use. Their need to commiserate and be heard overrules their discretion...
They've given me four capital ideas which are now in use throughout Finger Hollow.
At first I did wonder if I had misjudged them. The writer was too cautious. Nervously, the smoker just kept talking, and talking. As he did, I watched the writer carefully. He was staring... at the other man's cigarette.
So I gave him a Lucky Strike. The result was quite dramatic - within a few minutes, he was much more relaxed...
There's a certain irony in that. Most days I set them down on the floor of one cell or another. Leaning against the wall, with their hands caught in thick manacles behind their backs. The cigarettes keep coming.
And they talk. Inevitably, as they traded stories, I learned a great deal. They confide in each other, as if I was unable to hear. What kind of punishment they find purely intolerable. Which spots are the ones they most want me to ignore. Eventually, they both give away their secrets...
Including the fanciful worrying I most like to hear. "What if." I hope it doesn't do this... or, wouldn't it be unbearable if it did that... Say, you don't think it would be so heartless as to... uh...
They keep talking, as they smoke. And I listen carefully.
Two of the smoker's biggest fears have come true for him. And the writer has endured seven of his own clever nightmares.
The road leads from nowhere to nowhere. It's become treacherous. The deteriorating asphalt hasn't been tended in thirty years, and the county has no money to spare for such a low-priority route. There have been no more surveyors out here, or naturalists. Not even the hikers find it worth investigating.
During these past three decades, the only man to come within an acre of Finger Hollow is in the dungeon, having another cigarette and talking quietly with his chum.
In the old carriage house, a number of vehicles are warehoused.
Closest to the door is the writer's pickup truck. His belongings are still tied down in the bed.
Next to it - a red '47 Plymouth in excellent condition. The radiator hose has been replaced, and the water topped off. I must admit, I enjoyed waxing and buffing it. It still turns over and idles nicely.
A new pack of Luckies is sitting on the dash. Waiting.
Dust and corrosion can never mar these fine vehicles, since they sit here for "only" one day. And that day restarts for the automobiles even as it does for their owners - forty thousand times since I arrived here, without interruption, just as I wish.
Forty thousand more would not be enough for some of these miscreants.
I will remain watchful, ensuring that the full measure of justice is served.
Back to part 1, "Finger Hollow"
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