Part 9 (2/2)

The party, just as quickly as it had been interrupted, resumed. Josh looked at Roy for some kind of understanding. Roy merely winked.

”Eat, eat,” Jacko commanded, jowly in his baseball cap and his unshaven chin. They reapplied themselves to the ribs and chicken.

Jacko said, ”s.h.i.+t. Wait. Everyone get a mug of swill. f.u.c.k a duck. We need a toast.”

Josh received a mug of frothy, foul-smelling juice, like a rotten orange stuck in the moist toe end of an old sock.

”Here's wis.h.i.+ng you a happy d.i.c.k-sucking New Year.”

The men, as if in chorus, lifted mugs and cheered.

Josh took a sip and coughed, the taste more effervescent and vile than expected.

Jacko looked wronged. ”Hey, that's quality brew.”

”Last week was a fine year,” Roy noted. ”Drink it down, Josh, or we'll feel f.u.c.king offended.” So Josh took another, bigger sip and fought the sick feeling as it went down his throat.

”How many years you been working the hot chocolate, Fenton?” Roy asked.

Fenton, the least cheery and lubricated of them all, chewed the meat off a large, veiny rib. ”That'd be nine, Wobbles. Same number of times I f.u.c.ked your wife when she visited.”

”Well, that's nine times I didn't have to,” Roy said. ”Thanks for being a sport.”

Roy moved nimbly among the pots and the food, swinging almost like a monkey between counters, more light-footed and eager than Josh had ever seen him, scolding Fenton for leaving lumps in the hot chocolate, taking a rib from Jacko's hand before he could eat it. The drinking and the eating and the stirring continued. Josh wondered if the hot chocolate duty was ever going to begin. But it was all good. They didn't pay him undue attention, but they didn't ignore him either. As long as he kept his mouth more or less shut, drank from the mug when it got filled up, and laughed when the others laughed, they seemed to think he was one of the boys.

He felt warm in his bones. Whatever he'd drunk crystallized the room around him, so that he saw little details that much sharper. He noticed the cutting rack, for example, where all the knives were kept behind a long cage, the shape of each one drawn in marker. He wondered why and then noticed an outline in the s.p.a.ce where the butcher knife had been, like an empty shadow.

”All right, party's over,” Roy said. ”Get on out there and start delivering, or we'll never get to bed.”

Jacko poured hot chocolate from the pots into two red jugs and loaded the jugs on a wheel cart with boxes of doughnuts underneath. Then he pa.s.sed Josh a smaller Tupperware pitcher. ”This here's for dispensing on the upper tiers. Fill up the pitcher, then you don't need to carry the jugs up.”

”That's a technological innovation we came up with about two years ago,” Roy added.

”Me?” Josh asked, surprised to be sent out.

”Fenton will show you the ropes,” Roy said. ”He's an expert. A f.u.c.king doughnut artist.”

”f.u.c.k you, Wobbles.”

And then they were beyond the doors of the cafeteria and in the hall.

”You push the cart,” Fenton said. ”I deal the doughnuts.”

Josh was nervous about Fenton taking him around, but high or drunk, he felt a little thrilled, too, given their new and easy acquaintance. Josh pushed the gurney down the hall, and they left the cafeteria behind them, moving as fast as the misaligned wheels would allow.

The tunnel took forever. They pa.s.sed through the octagonal s.p.a.ce of the hub.

”So where do we start?” He could think of nothing better to say.

Fenton had gone internal, whistling to himself, looking about. He rapped the cage of the bubble as they pa.s.sed by. ”Hey, you boys want some hot chocolate and doughnuts?” he called out in a louder than necessary voice. Two COs were inside, sitting in chairs, hard to see in the dimness until you stood right before them. They gave Fenton an indifferent glance.

”Ha ha,” he said to Josh as they pushed on. ”Every year I love giving those f.u.c.kers the hot chocolate middle finger. They can't leave the bubble before the end of their s.h.i.+ft any more than you and I can leave the prison. Imagine being stuck in that little room watching us yard apes walking by like we're on vacation. Armed to the f.u.c.king teeth, though. That's the one cool thing about that job. Other than being a sniper in the sentry tower, I can't see anything else worth doing here, unless you like telling grown men to bend over and hold their a.s.s cheeks apart.”

”Open Sesame!” Fenton yelled as he stood before the hall to C block and waved at the camera.

Five long seconds went by before the gate opened, the clunky automatic mechanics of it giving Josh the feeling that Ditmarsh itself was alive.

When they reached the gate at the end of the tunnel, a CO stood inside the block in front of the secure watch booth, what they called the jack nest. He must have been stretching his legs or doing rounds.

”Evening, Fenton. You fellows are a little late this year,” the CO said through the bars, and buzzed them in, pulling back the cage.

”You can't rush quality,” Fenton answered. ”This is fine hot chocolate we're talking about.”

”I bet it is.”

As soon as they stepped into the block, Fenton howled skyward and tore up the quiet.

”Happy New Year, motherf.u.c.kers! Stick your d.i.c.ks back in your pants and your mugs out your cages if you want to join the party. Your kids are tucked into their beds. Your wife's getting drilled up the a.s.s by her new boyfriend. You might as well cut loose. Anyone slips me the good stuff gets two doughnuts, and his neighbor gets none. Pay up before your neighbor does, especially if you hate the rat f.u.c.k like you know he hates you.”

”Easy, Fenton,” the CO said. ”I'd like to start the new year riot-free.” But his voice was almost drowned out by the reaction from within. The inmates boomed and roared in response, cheering and cursing Fenton's presence. Josh had never heard such chaotic noise before, vibrating his bones like a single angry voice. His heart bounced off the walls of his chest, fright mixed with a kind of stadium excitement. It was his first time on a general population range. Two apartment-like complexes faced each other across s.p.a.ce. Each level jutted out over the one below. The stacks of cells were smaller than he'd expected, but the number of cells was greater. They left the CO and started down the open hall, Fenton leading, Josh pus.h.i.+ng the cart carefully behind him, nervous about the b.u.mps that threatened to overturn it.

”We'll work bottom up,” Fenton said. ”Stick below the overhang or someone will douse you.”

The drums had bars, not doors like in the howler range, and Josh could easily see into each man's crib. The lights were dimmed but not out. There were TVs on in every third or fourth drum, headphones muting the sound, little campfires flickering blue flame. Amazingly, the din of noise did not seem to come from any of the individual cells they pa.s.sed, but from everywhere else at once. A few jokes, a few nods, but most of the men looked worn-out, without cheer, only half alive. To Josh's surprise, Fenton was intent on getting the work done. He filled the pitcher with hot chocolate and pa.s.sed it to Josh, who poured it the into mugs that were thrust out through the narrow s.p.a.ces between the bars.

”Where's Sonny?” one man asked.

”Sonny's taking the year off. Josh is twice the man Sonny is.”

”You guys come around so late I was almost asleep.”

”f.u.c.k yourself and take a doughnut.”

And to a weeping younger inmate: ”Stop crying, buddy. You're dead to her.”

As Fenton skipped a cell: ”Where's mine?”

”You're a box thief and a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I'd rather choke you to death with it than let you eat it.”

”Hey, Fenton. The best wishes to you and your family.”

”Give him an extra doughnut, Josh. No, not the jelly filled, that sugar one. It's not like he's letting me f.u.c.k his sister.”

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