Part 7 (1/2)
”Oh, come on,” Roy said, softening. ”Just shovel a few spoonfuls in. It'll give us a chance to talk.”
Josh wanted to talk, even if it was just to Roy. He pulled over a chair and sat down.
”There you go,” Roy said, wriggling up on the bed until he was in a sitting position. ”Don't worry, I smell pretty as a rose today. They give you a car wash with your oil change here.”
Roy's ears were stuffed with wadded cotton, a faint pink, as though fluid still dripped. Josh lifted the spoon, and Roy opened his mouth to receive the bite. When Josh pulled the spoon away too quickly, the mess dribbled onto Roy's chin.
”You need a towel or something?” Josh asked, squeamish.
”Nah,” Roy answered. ”Hit me again, tarbender.”
The chili smelled like wet dog. Josh slipped another spoonful past Roy's open lips and watched him chew. Odd to feel another person's bite on the end of a spoon.
”So you're a college boy, huh?” Roy said in and around the food.
It was not Josh's favorite thing to admit, a weak spot that might get him hurt.
”I was a college boy, too, a long time ago. Until my life sort of fell apart.”
Josh nodded as if it were all true, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to talk about, but he didn't believe Roy for a second.
”Majored in psychology. They wanted me to do my Ph.D., but I was too f.u.c.king arrogant. Figured I could do what I want, go back anytime. Next thing you know, I'm selling cars, snorting c.o.ke, and f.u.c.king my boss's wife.”
”Beats studying,” Josh said. He didn't mean it.
”Cocaine is a b.i.t.c.h, man. Looks s.e.xy enough from a distance. Makes you want her real f.u.c.king bad. Like an ache in your b.a.l.l.s. Then it's all about her and nothing about you. Take every dime you have and still scream at you for more. Make you do things you can't believe you'd do. But I shouldn't be complaining. I wouldn't be half the man I am now without it.”
Roy laughed at his own joke. Did he mean his missing leg? In spite of himself, Josh wanted to hear more of the life story stuff. You never asked another inmate what he'd done, what crimes or mistakes or bad luck had launched his bit. Crowley said you kept the truth to yourself and saved your bulls.h.i.+t stories for the counselors and lawyers, the ones who needed you to lie. Roy changed subjects, rolling onward, complaining about how dull it was in the ward, nothing but sick men dying and howlers howling. ”How do you stand these f.u.c.king houseplants? No wonder you and Crowley got to be pals. He told me you were a stand-up guy.”
From the grave a word of praise. Josh braced himself to ask about Crowley, but Roy didn't slow down.
”Tell you the truth, I was relieved to hear it,” Roy said. ”Been a rumor they had a rat holed up here, keeping him safe.”
The shock hit him like a live wire.
”Oh, come on now,” Roy protested at his surprise. ”Jesus Christ, are you sensitive or what? Relax a little. I'm dying for conversation here.”
Josh struggled to find the words, hurt this time and panicky, too. A mouth like Roy's could spread stories everywhere.
”I haven't been inside too long, but I know that isn't a good thing to say about someone.”
Roy only stared, a bland look, as though disappointed. Josh felt there was nothing Roy didn't see out of those calm eyes and that Josh could be inside for a thousand years and not know a thing.
”I'll tell you something you won't believe, but you should,” Roy explained patiently. ”All that s.h.i.+t about how bad it is to be a rat is only true because every f.u.c.king guy in here is a rat. They get all upset about rats the way some married guy who smokes pole on the side talks about beating up f.a.gs. I'm including the f.u.c.king jacks, of course. Biggest rats of all. Ratting is just lube reducing the social friction. It's the way we all get by.”
Josh could almost see it, could almost understand the inner workings Roy was hinting at, but the vision was too smeared with cynicism. He'd mull it over. He'd turn it around in his head with three or four other things Roy had told him, and the dozen or so things from Crowley, and even the bits he'd learned from Keeper Wallace and CO Williams. It didn't even matter if they were contradictory, he knew they were still true, because a shudder flowed up his spine when he heard them.
”Don't worry, though. I figured out why you picked up the rep,” Roy said.
The fragment of a second stretched on, and Josh waited for the diagnosis.
”It's your personality,” Roy announced cheerfully, and then went on to explain. ”You show up here on a heavy beef, but you're the kind of dude who smells like he's got no priors whatsoever. So right off the bat the boys are suspicious. Strike two, despite the long bit, they're coddling you in the howler ward. n.o.body appreciates that, and they want to know why. People start making s.h.i.+t up about you just because you're all mysterious. Some guy says, hey, I don't know about that fish. Another guy takes it a bit further and says, he's not really a fish, he's a hard-timer in witness protection, transferred here with soft digs and a new ident.i.ty. Of course, one look at you and it's obvious how f.u.c.king laughable that idea is, but never mind. Almost in confirmation of the aforementioned idiotic reasoning, you get seen chatting up with that s.l.u.tty jack, Officer Williams, trading little bedtime stories and night-night kisses. Now, I'm a flexible give-a-little-to-get-something-back kind of guy, but there are boys in here who'd eat their own c.o.c.k before they'd chat up a cop, even a woman, and Elgin's one of them. He's got principles, you understand. Some guys seem to have a use for them. Me, I never seen any point, so why bother.”
It was far too much to swallow at one time, a single indiscretion turned into a hundred broken laws. But the name that jumped out at him was Elgin.
”What about Elgin?” Josh asked.
”Yeah. That f.u.c.king guy has some vigorous opinions about you. I was talking to him this morning, trying to a.s.sess his att.i.tude and condition, figured I'd find out how he felt about me while they still had him strapped down and sedated, and all he could talk about was you-”
”What about me?” Josh interrupted.
”Well, this is going to upset you a bit”-as though wanting to break the news gently-”but you're intelligent, so I'll lay it out there. Elgin thinks Crowley couldn't have finished that stupid f.u.c.king comic book without some kind of help. And he's got it in his head that you made yourself Crowley's right-hand man, so to speak.”
This accusation, coming as it did on top of a pile of others, felt like the knockout blow.
”Is it true?” Roy asked. ”Did our friend J.C. ever ask you to do him a favor, draw a thing or two?”
It didn't seem to matter how intently Crowley had implored him to keep the truth to himself. Crowley was dead now, and Josh could tell that Roy already knew.
”Yeah.”
”Who's kidding who, right?” Roy asked. ”Your secret's safe with me. But if Elgin gets any better, we're both in trouble. That c.o.c.ksucker's got a nasty, vindictive att.i.tude.”
Josh sat in place, a little sick to his stomach and tingly in his limbs.
Roy lay back, gaze aimed at the ceiling, his hands folded on his chest. Then he said it was nap time. ”f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t food takes the good right out of me.” And he closed his eyes.
Josh could do nothing except stand and leave, the cart rattling on.
That evening, he lay on his cot, shaken by thoughts of Elgin, the sense that even if he was careful, he'd still get swallowed. Then a face peered around the corner of his drum, and he was startled to see Roy standing there, his peg leg strapped on, a physical strength to him that had been utterly absent in the last week.
”I'm going to get you out of here,” Roy announced. It was so ridiculous Josh didn't know if he'd heard him right.
Roy sat down on Josh's bed, the explanation needing that kind of physical proximity, and Josh sat up and squeezed to the side to make room.
”I'm talking about a transfer to another house. Solve all your problems. It came to me like a bolt from the sky. Crowley told me a lot about you, what you did, you know, to get in here, and well, it's pretty f.u.c.king obvious: you shouldn't be here. You know what I mean?”
Roy ran with it hard, building up the credibility of his argument, bolstering a thought Josh secretly entertained on a daily basis. He shouldn't be here. He was not like anyone else. It was self-evidently a mistake, a misdirection in justice, the one thing in this place that actually deserved to be corrected.
”I'm not dragging you around by the c.o.c.k. I've got my bona fide successes in this territory. Got a bank robber named Ronny Vaughn out about three years ago. I obtained all his files, pored the f.u.c.k over them, and found a mistake they made in his sentencing hearing. Cops never turned over the bullets in his gun, which meant he didn't have any bullets in his gun, and they acted like he was armed to the teeth when they were a.s.signing his corrections facility. We pounded at it and pounded at it until they had to reverse. Now he's chilling in a level two near his old lady, same duration but way smoother time, and a f.u.c.k of a lot easier on parole. It's obvious to any idiot you shouldn't be here-we just got to figure out a good reason why. We exert a little pressure, write a lot of letters, find the right judge, and make a little headway. I like the challenge of that. I'm a resourceful guy who, pardon the modesty, is smart as f.u.c.k. It's not like I want to lose you as a friend or anything, but if I can give a brother a better turn and p.i.s.s off some cops and lawyers at the same time, man, that's the best kind of fun I can have these days, let me tell you.”
It was ridiculous and pointless and a waste of time. Josh wanted it, but he couldn't imagine writing the letters, getting the files, seeking the information, going through the trials. Then Roy made a suggestion.
”Brother Mike's got all your files. He's got all the files of everyone in his program. I know because I used to clerk for that fart. Get him to give you your jacket. That way you skip the lawyers and red tape.”
”What if he gets upset about it?” Josh said. ”He's always talking about dealing with what you can change, not what you can't.”