The Perfect Mirror
by
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CLANG! THE STEEL GATE HAMMERED OPEN. THE ICY confines of a maximum security prison were now a reality, the indifference, the blank stares. "Now I know why they call it the slammer," I said aloud to no one in particular, the guard’s baton poking me ever so slightly in the back and directing me where I should step next. "Oh, my God! What have I done!" My mind dropped into a haze of utter despair, a wave of helplessness washing away any ability to think clearly. I stood stripped of my humanity, self-dignity, and any form of freedom bestowed on the lowest form of animals. This was the pit of human despair. The climb out of this sh--hole would take many years. Another locked gate banged open, its steel heavy configuration causing friction-grinding on the mooring. "Sorry Sullivan, we have to put you in here." The deputy patted me on the shoulder and gave me a slight nudge with his duty baton. "Don’t hurt me – I’m a human being just like you." Thoughts of John Merek, the elephant man, chased into the public urinals of London, flashed before me in surrealistic color – all of it bleak. "We’re not going to hurt you," the deputy replied. I stumbled into a large barn-like holding cell. The windows of my soul surveyed a room with two upper and lower bunks. Eight or nine guests of Marin County were huddled in one corner whispering. At least I’ll have a place to sleep tonight I thought. I sat on a bench alone, a study in misery. I pleaded to the heavens. "Dear God. If you will forgive the little jokes I’ve played on Thee, I will forget this big joke you played on me." Shadows of useless wars continued to escalate my emotions. An effeminate boy of eighteen approached me. Out of the side of his mouth he asked, "What are in you in for, buddy?" "Smuggling," I croaked, then waved him away in disgust. "I’m not your buddy." My cellmate slithered back to his friends. "What’s wrong with you guys?" I yelled. "At least I didn’t rape anyone. I am not a pedophile." I knew sex beefs were not highly regarded by the brethren. I scanned the room, perceiving an assortment of street people, the true survivors of society. Gold ear rings, clips on noses and tongues, and a variety of tattoos in various colors of the rainbow adorned their bodies. They had desecrated God’s perfection. No sleep tonight. "You can have the bunk," I muttered to the big guy with a gold ear ring. In my wildest dreams, I had never expected to celebrate New Year’s Eve in the Marin County jail. "You can make your phone call, Sullivan," the deputy announced. Clang! Another gate opened. "Hello, Ma. How are you?" I said, as if simply passing the time of day. "Where are you?" she asked. "I’ve been holding dinner for you." My voice choked with spasms of incoherent speech. "Sorry. I’m in jail." I sighed. "You’re what!" Her shriek could be heard across the Golden Gate Bridge. I replied in staccato bursts. "I’ve been arrested and charged with four felony counts of smuggling contraband into the joint. I don’t know what to do. Can you call Tom Reade and ask him about bail? Can you bail me out, please?" The line went dead. Then a soft, "Okay Sean. I’ll call Tom and do what I can." "I’m so sorry," I murmured, cradling the phone. I struggled for air, experiencing another convulsion. The deputy escorted me to a large office where he gave me forms to complete. "Take your time," he suggested. I would be spared the holding pen for a few minutes. The documents were demographics requiring detailed information concerning my life. Where I had lived for the last twenty years, education, family, jobs and a long biography. A matrix requested a short paragraph written with the left hand and then with the right. The thought of fleeing to a country without an extradition treaty appealed to me. I saw it in the movies. An inner voice sighed, "Go to Brazil. Go." After filling out the forms in slow motion, I was escorted by the deputy back to the zoo with its gargoyle collection of characters. Once again I sat with my back to the wall facing my fellow inmates. To my relief they declined to socialize. Why are they staring at me? I thought. I felt like fresh meat on the Serengeti Plains of Africa. My eye caught a television set placed high in one corner of the holding cell. Hooray! "Amos an Andy" – my favorite. My mood brightened for a few minutes as I ignored the snake pit. An hour had passed when the jailer appeared at the gate. The deputy spoke the sweetest sounds ever heard by the criminal mind. "Okay, Sullivan. You made bail." "So long fella. See ya’," the guy with the gold thing in his nose yelled. "Oh no you won’t," I responded. I signed more papers in the front office. Deputy Cunningham handed me my belt. Suicide had not occurred to me. "We’ll give you a lift back to the joint. I understand your car is in the employee parking lot," he said. The cool night air bathed me in freedom. I wanted to take the next missile to the moon. The deputy gave me a ride back to the joint and left me at the main gate. Next to a correctional officer stood Derek Neilson, Associate Warden of San Quentin, hands on hips, grinning from ear to ear. "We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Sullivan," he smirked, seeming like a cobra preparing to strike. "So you made bail. So fast. You must have connections," he said. I knew silence to be the better part of survival. Another CO appeared out of the darkness. They walked me to my car. One in front. One in back. I had no plans to make a run for it as my headlights guided me to the outer gate. Neilson ran forward yelling, "Your lights! Your lights!" Banging on the sign posted at the gate with his two-foot baton, he presented a Keystone cop tableau. I almost laughed aloud as "Lights Out" in big bold letters came into view. The CO smiled knowingly as he waved me through the last gate. I drove in the darkness through the village of San Quentin. Rivulets of perspiration ran down my face until I could hardly see the road. Passing the Marin Rod and Gun Club, I turned on my headlights as I gunned the car to Highway 101. A few minutes later I inserted the key into the latch of my apartment, turning it half way, hoping Ma wouldn’t be home. She sat in a darkened part of the living room. An eerie glow from a single light created flickering shadows on the ceiling. A moth danced a around the light bulb. I sat on the sofa, suppressing yet another spasm of tears. I looked at my mother and could say only, "I’m sorry." Silence filled the little theater flat. I waited for her reaction. "What happened?" she asked. "I’m guilty. Burn the mark of Cain on my forehead." I offered an apology. I fe
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About the Book
New Year's Eve 1959. Sean Sullivan is in the Marin county Jail charged with smuggling contraband into San Quentin Prison. He is thirty-year-old counselor who meets Cassie Buzbee at his birthday party during the spring of 1956. He is reluctant to pursue a relationship with Cassie due to his birth defect. She is attracted to him. The Perfect Mirror is a love story. The reader is a witness to three murders, and six executions. We follow Sullivan's courtship of Cassie – their affair and the singing of songs his mother never taught him. We listen to Sullivan's memory flashbacks wrapped in death and the long road to Cassie's suicide in Fairbanks, Alaska. We feel the agony of Sullivan's visit to his father in a state hospital. Sullivan loses his counseling job and they move to Eureka, California where happiness is in the present tense. Fun visits to San Francisco find him dancing at the Claremont hotel in Oakland. After two years Sullivan is terminated. They move to San Francisco and try communal living with the beat generation. Sullivan works for public welfare and witnesses a murder in the office. He quits and finds night work as an admission clerk in a medical center. His job includes taking id bracelets from the deceased when "death disrobes us all." Christmas 1958, Sullivan reports for duty as a correctional counselor at Vacaville, California. He enters a new world. The facility houses 1800 criminally insane patients. He listens to neurotics who build sandcastles and psychotics who live in them. Day after day, he tries to hear no evil but the system is slowly rendering his sense of morality. His marriage is coming apart. He observes a parole hearing as the unclean try to find God. His gofer, Manuel, is mentally seducing Sullivan. He agrees to a smuggling operation. The charges are dropped November 1960. Cassie divorces Sullivan. On April 16, 1964 she looks into The Perfect Mirror and pulls the trigger.
About the Author
Born in 1926, Robert McKellar underwent many surgeries to correct severe birth defects caused by spina bifida. Little was known about spina bifida in the twenties, and most children afflicted with it died. Despite the odds, McKellar not only survived, but also filled his life with meaning and adventure. He graduated from the University of Portland in 1949, then began a career in teaching that took him to Idaho, California, Hawaii, and Japan. When he wasn’t teaching, he traveled the world, flew his plane, and wrote letters to his mother on which he based his memoir "An Accident of Birth," published in 1996.