Part 22 (1/2)

”I'd be having a tummy ache for sure,” Jacko said.

It hardly seemed possible they could all fit within one drum. The voices. .h.i.t the walls as if there were a hundred people inside. After the mugs and cans had been refilled with brew, Roy raised his cup and a silence fell.

”You're as nasty a bunch of devils as I've ever known. Here's a taste before we blow the house down.”

After the clinks and the solemn nods and grunts, they threw their drinks back. Only Screen Door was lacking a receptacle, but she sat with a smile on her face, the mascot happy to be in the company of men. Jacko belched loud and long. Fenton accused him of having no respect.

”You see, respect,” Fenton told Josh, ”is a core principle.”

A debate arose over principles, Roy arguing against Fenton and Lewis. Fenton said that without principles a man would suck pole, take it up the a.s.s, waste himself on needles, turn animal.

”The only thing I respect is the length of my G.o.d-given p.e.n.i.s,” Roy countered.

”It's true,” Jacko said. ”Wobbles has an enormous w.a.n.g.” He picked up the tube and squirted another mouthful for Screen Door.

”Started growing again after my leg got chopped off,” Roy said. ”Someday I'm hoping it will reach the floor.”

”Without principles,” Fenton went on, ”you're lost. Nothing but a beggar.”

”Now, now,” Roy said. ”Let's not be divisive. Don't criticize what you don't understand.”

But Fenton's words nudged Josh. He stared hard, so Fenton began to talk to him.

”This is what Roy overlooks. This is the important stuff that makes a drum rat a man. You keep your business to yourself. And don't tell anyone about anyone else's business. Share your spoils. Study your surroundings. Keep your friends first and your family second. Be willing to sacrifice anything except your own honor. Don't apologize, no matter what the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds do to you.”

”And lie every chance you get,” Roy added.

A jack appeared at the door. Josh almost had a heart attack at the sight, but none of the others flinched. ”I bet you boys are hungry,” the jack said. An inmate carrying two boxes of pizza stepped in and laid the cardboard at the foot of the bed, then backed out.

Jacko leaned over, flipped open the box, and detached a slice. ”It's cold,” he said.

”Cold night,” the jack said. ”We're hearing a lot of noise outside,” he added. ”Think you could turn it down?”

”The f.u.c.k you say!” Fenton roared. The jack left, and everyone howled.

Lewis started playing the guitar. The sound was delicious and unexpected. Josh couldn't believe how well he played. Each musical note was a distinct ent.i.ty in fluid s.p.a.ce. Fenton gestured for Josh to join him on the bed. Clumsy, off balance, Josh pulled himself away from Screen Door and sat beside Fenton. ”My mother's boyfriend beat me all the f.u.c.king time,” he started, and he told a tale of woe with a sharp, evil laugh.

Josh tuned out, nodding at the appropriate stops, grinning Fenton's grin, but the brew had altered his sense of time and place. Lewis bent over the guitar, stroking the strings, muttering words, no one else paying attention. Was he really in prison sitting in Fenton's drum? He had become someone he didn't recognize. Was there a shred of him worth saving? He thought of Brother Mike's arms around him. Screen Door looked up, as though wondering what was wrong. ”Nothing,” Josh said, answering an unasked question.

”We get it, and then what?” Fenton said, and suddenly Josh realized that Lewis's music had stopped and everyone was looking to Roy.

”We get the comic book,” Roy agreed. ”We figure out what it's telling us. We keep the knowledge safe, between you and me, Billy. No offense, boys. We give up nice and gentle after that, pretend it was all a big misunderstanding, and we bide our time. A month from now. A year from now, we go after it and make ourselves very f.u.c.king rich. All of us.”

”You think they'll really give it over?” Jacko asked.

”No, I don't think they'll really give anything over,” Roy answered. ”That's why we've got to have the big bang.”

”The big bang,” Lewis said. He stood up, lifted his guitar by the neck like a baseball bat, and swung it against the wall. Everyone ducked as it splintered. Lewis swung again and again, crumpling the body of the guitar into fragments.

”Holy f.u.c.k,” Jacko said. ”That was spontaneous.”

Lewis grinned, but there was a sheen of sweat on his face. ”Always wanted to do that. Just like the Who. The big f.u.c.king bang.”

”I got splinters in my mouth,” Screen Door said.

”You been sucking my leg by accident?” Roy asked.

”Roy's right,” Fenton said. ”We need the big bang. No other way.”

”I generally am,” Roy said. ”About time you fellows figured that out.”

”When?” Lucky Bones asked, standing as though antsy, as though he could charge off at a moment's notice.

”Soon enough,” Roy said. He tried to hold a calmness in his voice after Lewis's outburst, but Josh could see he was barely keeping it steady. He lifted his mug.

”Drink up and be merry, for tomorrow or the next day or the tomorrow after that you may get your f.u.c.king head blown off.”

The tins were raised in toast.

42.

Driving the next evening, I couldn't have been tighter. The weather had turned harsh with a thick, snowy freeze, making the route to Ditmarsh nearly impossible. I willed Ruddik to make it in, too. I wanted to be there when he pa.s.sed over the drugs. I didn't want to put Fenton off again, even because of an ice storm. I had that hunched-over posture, leaning up against the steering wheel and muttering, ”f.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k,” as I drove, like it was a prayer to Saint Christopher. I turned off the radio because I needed every brain cell on high alert. The highway was awful, squeezed down to a single furrow grooved through the snow. I counted three cars off to the side of the road in angles of abandonment, one almost mounded by ice and snow, the others freshly deposited. The slush on my winds.h.i.+eld kept piling on and thickening up, congealing to cut off my view. The wipers worked harder and harder with each sweep, sticking at times and then unsticking, as though exhausted by the heavy push. When I spotted Ditmarsh, I felt relief as well as the usual dread. At least the end was near.

Inside, I stomped the snow off my boots and warmth back into my legs. The tile floor was a mulch of dirty slush, but the ammonia smell was as strong as ever. Brian Chester watched me from behind the high counter. I expected the usual banter, about how few of the dumbs.h.i.+ts had managed to make it in and how f.u.c.ked the boys stuck on s.h.i.+ft were, but instead Chester told me Wallace wanted to see me immediately. Jesus Christ, I thought, again. Had Wallace caught Ruddik? I told myself, turn around, get in your truck, and keep driving. But after a second's pause I felt the momentum of routine pull me like gravity. I pa.s.sed around the metal detector and beyond the point of no return.

When I knocked on the Keeper's door, I braced myself to meet a man I'd been trying to bury. But instead of encountering Wallace's dour vengeance, I found him smiling up at me from his desk as if he'd been awaiting my arrival with enthusiasm. Across from him sat a stranger, sober but languid in his chair. I knew he was a civilian, because he looked like he was on a GQ safari shoot, wearing khaki pants, a multi-pocketed hunting vest that was all fas.h.i.+on and no hunt, and a denim s.h.i.+rt open at the collar, the kind of goofiness that a prison visit brought out in some. Wallace asked me to sit in the third chair, as though GQ and I were students running for cla.s.s president and Wallace our proud princ.i.p.al.

”Kali, this is Bart Stone, a journalist with the Press-Times.”

If he'd introduced the man as Santa Claus, I couldn't have been more surprised. Bart Stone himself.

He looked different from what I'd expected, less wonky, more war correspondent tough, sandy-haired, tan-skinned, a nose that bent right a little at the end as if it had been broken in a bar fight. I'd obsessed about what I'd say to the p.r.i.c.k in response to his article, and now I was inexplicably shaking his hand. Next I heard Wallace describing me to Stone as a top performer. He wanted Stone to get the full picture of me, to understand the facts, that I was a role model for the modern-day corrections officer-college-educated, military-trained, articulate, savvy to the psychological and cultural nuances of a varied prison population, thorough and disciplined, yet flexible enough for dynamic security, physically fit, and unintimidated by hard-core inmates. It was over-the-top praise I would have melted to hear a few short months ago, but now I sat numb and unmoved. Wallace crescendoed his description with the comment that I had been recently selected for the elite URF team, only the third female corrections officer in the inst.i.tution to wear the riot gear as an urgent responder. He didn't mention that entry to the unit had been predicated on my filing a discrimination grievance with his name on it.

Stone, with the gruff voice of a country musicloving cigarette smoker, said he was pleased to meet me. ”I appreciate your help in seeing me around.”

Seeing him around? I looked at Wallace. ”Sorry, I'm a little lost.” Pleasant and baffled as can be.

”I've been in touch with Mr. Stone for the past few weeks, ever since he wrote his first article about us. I've been trying to give him a more fair and balanced perspective on the work we do and the dangers and difficulties involved. To get a better feel for the inst.i.tution, Mr. Stone has asked that he receive a guided tour, but one that gets off the beaten path and onto the ranges. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have lead that tour, Officer Williams, and I thought it would be a good opportunity for Mr. Stone to meet you firsthand.”

Wallace talking to Stone for weeks about me, about us, about what we do. I had the sense that he'd left me out there as bait while he figured out where Stone was willing to go with his reporting, and now he was offering me up. Maybe because he thought I was so pliant and lost.

Wallace looked to Stone to explain my confusion. ”I didn't tell Officer Williams about your visit. I wanted her to show up for a normal s.h.i.+ft and have you accompany her on rounds without any preparation. That way you'll see exactly how we function.” Then Wallace was back to me. ”Mr. Stone is going to shadow you on your rounds, just like a probationary CO on first s.h.i.+ft. You're going to perform those duties like you always would, except with Mr. Stone at your side. This will give him an opportunity to see what we really do, how we work with inmates, and what challenges we face on a regular basis.” Then Wallace gave one of his grim shrugs. ”Unfortunately, it's not a good night. The weather throws inmates off, believe it or not. But since Mr. Stone made it in, we'll make an adjustment to our plans and begin after key-up, which takes place in forty minutes. I don't want to expose you to any inmate traffic, Mr. Stone. It's a safety precaution, but I think you'll get an honest view of routine penitentiary life, one that few civilians experience. I need to warn you, however, that your presence on the ranges will likely provoke some hostility or outspoken behavior. Officer Williams is at her discretion in a.s.sessing what is or is not safe in any situation, and her word is final.”

Stone opened his mouth, some point he felt it necessary to make. ”That's the way it goes with this job. When a reporter shows up, everything changes.”

The world revolves around you, a.s.shole. All the pleasantries were being tied up too neatly before my eyes. Naturally, I couldn't resist blowing it up, and I asked for a moment to speak with the Keeper privately. This provoked a bit of awkward silence until Stone clapped his knees and mentioned a profound need to use the bathroom before we toured the cellblocks.