Mama's Boy Behind Bars

by David Goudreault

  * * *

  I was holding back with all my strength—I didn’t want to go bursting into my chief’s cell and attract our enemies’ attention. Aware that they were preparing to attack us, we’d be able to get our defence ready. The best defence is always attack, and we were pushed for time. I decided to wait for the evening meal to pass the whole thing on to Denis. Big Dick would be sitting right next to us so he’d know that the intel came from me, and I’d benefit from his gratitude. Charity begins in Rome, as Saint Francis of the Mafia also said.

  Big Dick would entrust me with the mission to deal with the rebels. I was already thinking about how I’d do it. When and how to take Colossus out? In all probability, I’d also have to kill Louis-Honoré. And Melon? Even Philippe? It wouldn’t be easy to wipe out a whole gang in one fell swoop.

  * * *

  At long last the dinner trolley rolled around. I left my dragon story and jumped out of bed to nab my food as it went by. I was the first one sitting at our table. Waiting for my colleagues. My colleagues who kept me waiting so long that my meat loaf was cold when I finally decided to start eating it.

  I was lonely and getting lonelier. I waited until everyone else had taken their trays back, and then I took mine over and spoke to the guard, in full ventriloquist mode.

  Where’v my fam?

  Paul sniggered. Your little friends are with their lawyers, where they’ve been for far too long, if you want my opinion.

  This was a bad time for them to be reviewing their cases. Louis-Honoré cracked the knuckles of his enormous hands to get my attention. I was isolated, and more vulnerable than an inebriated virgin at a biker party.

  I fled to my cell, praying that our enemies wouldn’t come and take me out. I resisted the desire to hide under the covers, and stayed on guard for more than an hour, watching the entrance to the wing. Eventually Jocelyn brought Denis back. I would have preferred to talk to Big Dick, but like a good soldier I’d deal with his right-hand man.

  He was tucking back a lock of white hair when I threw myself at him. Denif, Denif, I have to talk to you!

  He stepped to one side, ignoring me. Jocelyn hadn’t missed it and started heading over to us. I had to be quick.

  Denif, there’v a plot againft uf, come to my fell right now.

  Jocelyn had reached us and now he could hear everything. Denis was walking determinedly to his cell, pretending not to notice me. Blocking his way, I tried to make him understand the seriousness of the situation one last time.

  It’f important!

  He stopped. Not as important as shutting your mouth and going to bed!

  Laughter broke out in the common area. My proud heart shattered in my rib cage and spun off in all directions.

  Even if you’ve been subjected to it since childhood, you never get used to rejection and humiliation. Humans are social creatures, and even the most idiotic of us need brotherly contact from time to time. If the social element withers away, we’re nothing but animals. Wounded animals.

  To the sound of my fellow inmates’ mockery, I went back to my cell, my head held high. My heart was in bits, my body trembling with fury, I was saving myself and saving face. People whistled at me, repeated Denis’s words back at me, told me to go to back to my kennel. Before I fell onto my bed, I swung my fist at the armoured door and yelled out in rage, Eat shit and die, the whole lot of you!

  Humans aren’t my favourite animal.

  13

  Loyalty

  I dreamed about Edith again. The images were even more disturbing than the first time. I don’t dare even write them here or people will think I’m some sort of deviant. Let’s just say it involved chainsaws, an abandoned warehouse, five German shepherds, and some fancy lingerie.

  I was still reflecting on my dream when the breakfast call sounded. Breakfast! Simple and efficient. This time there was a second cart wheeled around the wing, lower than the regular one. This cart had a toaster, bread, peanut butter, bowls, cereal, and milk. Cows’ milk and very gluteny bread, which was a big problem for me and my delicate intestinal flora. I had made several official requests, but the prison stood its ground, closed to the idea of allowing kamut or soya. And they totally refused to give me any Cap’n Crunch either. Frustrated, I made myself three slices of toast and a big bowl of disgusting Frosted Flakes. Grrrrrreat…

  Denis and Big Dick pretended not to notice that I’d fallen out with them. Since I didn’t talk that much, anyway, I was going to have to work hard on my attitude. The meal was coming to an end, I wasn’t done with sighing and muttering between every mouthful. I was thinking of spitting on my plate when Denis unclenched his teeth. Put your things away at the same time as us and then follow us into the showers without saying a word.

  There, it wasn’t so hard to figure out that we had to talk. People in the business world underestimate the importance of interpersonal communication.

  The showers were still a strategic place to discuss important things. For one thing, we were sure there were no listening devices. For another, the guards were obliged to stay a respectful distance away from us, to respect the inmates’ privacy. And third, you have to look people in the eye. I certainly had to do that at this meeting. Both my colleagues were wearing swim shorts, and the same style at that. Black lycra with a fuchsia stripe and everything. It was weird to see Big Dick in such a simple getup. I was the only one wearing just a penis. Butt naked. You might have said they were wearing suits, or even a uniform, especially with the way they flanked me on either side.

  Under Jocelyn’s hostile gaze, Big Dick didn’t even bother pretending to wash. He started the water and turned toward me. Why did you get Edith’s name tattooed on your arm?

  It’f not Edith’f name! I was shouting without meaning to. I was annoyed, my trick hadn’t gone unnoticed by anyone except for Edith! It’f not an anagram, it’f an acroftic…

  You really think I’m gonna buy that?

  It’f the truth, it’f the firft letterv of a contemporary poem by Leonard Cohen.

  Right, that’s interesting. What’s the poem?

  I can’t quite remember the title…

  But you can remember what you’ve had inked on your arm, right?

  Yef, yef, ov courfe I remember… Territory…intimacy evoked…death heals. That’f it! I’d got myself out of that one!

  Territory: intimacy evoked, death heals? I didn’t know Cohen wrote that.

  Quick, think of something. Yef, it’f from hiv mafterpiefe Beautiful Hoser.

  Big Dick was getting annoyed. Alright, let’s stop messing around, you’re not the only one here who’s read a book, you know. We’re prepared to give you a chance, but we need to talk seriously.

  He threw Denis a complicit look, the kind of look I’d like to receive one day. For now, I had to try everything to change the subject and impress Big Dick. He never spoke directly to me, so I had to seize the chance. I overheard a converfafion yefterday, you won’t believe what I heard!

  Denis interrupted me again; they weren’t here to listen to what I had to say, but to give me another contract, the most important contract of my life. You’d be better off shutting your piehole and opening your ears!

  If they got iced by Colossus and his merry psychopaths, I wouldn’t get any benefits from the contract. Yeah, but but firft I have to tell you that—

  Denis grabbed my throat. Didn’t anybody ever teach you to keep your fucking mouth shut?

  Jocelyn was running over from his observation post, overly keen to intervene. But Big Dick ordered Denis to let me go, so when Jocelyn showed up there was nothing to discipline. Big Dick told him sharply that correctional officers were not permitted to come so close to inmates in the showers. The guard took a few steps back and offered to escort me to my cell. I scornfully refused and faced Big Dick. I had to let him know about the plot even though the clock was ticking. Since we just had ten minute
s per shower, we couldn’t start adding long digressions to the day’s business.

  What I’m trying to tell you iv that Coloffuf wantf to kill you! I’d never heard Big Dick laugh before. It stretched out, long and large, bouncing and echoing around the shows. Hahahaha hahahaha haha hoo ha…

  I’m feriouf, I heard him fay that he’d be in control of our fection by Feptember, that you were going to “leave.” I mimed some exaggerated air quotes to make him understand.

  He started guffawing again. He wiped away the water that was splashing his face and then enlightened me. Colossus isn’t a danger or an enemy. He’s an employee!

  I don’t believe it! Big Dick had plotted out the whole scheme from the start. Lord Almighty, every single thing! Colonel de Gaulle looked like a kindergartener next to him. There never had been any rival gangs in our wing. I ftill can’t believe it!

  Between Denis’s chuckles, Big Dick explained that the Italians directed everything from the outside and he was in charge of everything inside, and everyone else was under him. He got a cut from the tattoos all the way through to the moonshine, via all the drug deals, whether pharmaceutical or not. The entire racial-tensions thing was a smokescreen to keep the guards busy as well as to increase pressure on new inmates.

  Everything was decided in advance. Giuseppe’s thrashing was ordered from outside and paid for by his victim’s family. Butterfly’s case was an internal purge. He was getting too doped up and knew too much about the external operations. Big Dick found him useful and would have kept him, but he went along with what the big boss wanted, the real chief above my chief, the capo de tutti capi.

  My mind was in a whirl, I’d carried out a contract for the Mafia godfather, the legit el padrino of the French-speaking underworld of eastern North America. I was already a Mafia underling, a big shot, I just didn’t know it yet!

  It was such a great honour, I was having trouble breathing. Especially in all this steam. I don’t underftand, why did you afk me to do that? Why not Coloffuf or Timoune?

  Denis took over the story. Timoune had become a problem too, snorting too much. We wanted to get rid of our crazy dogs, kill two birds with one stone. You were the stone. It was a good shot.

  Breathlessly, I turned back to Big Dick. They were making my head spin.

  So good that if you make a go of the next contract, you’ll get a promotion, whatever prison or wing you’re in. Even when you get out, you’ll definitely end up being a hit man for the Italians.

  My dream was coming true, in the showers, with two men in swim shorts. I was finally becoming an official member of the Mafia, with all that that meant in terms of recognition, brotherhood, and hope in life.

  I was a Mafioso, I was down with the biggest organization on the planet. It’s no accident that the underworld is called Le Milieu: it’s the centre of the world. The TV news confirms it every night; all the politicians and journalists get excited about the economy, they don’t talk about anything else. And the two most lucrative markets in the known universe are drug trafficking and weapons trafficking. This is well documented. And well paid.

  * * *

  Lost in my thoughts, puffed with pride, I shivered with unbearable happiness. I had to sit down in the shower to gather my thoughts.

  Denis wasn’t impressed. He said my position was ambiguous and ordered me to get up immediately. Jocelyn laughed cheerfully, only sorry that he couldn’t take a photo. I inhaled a great puff of steam and stood up, watching Big Dick.

  We still need you. It’s going to cost me an arm and a leg, but the Italians can get me out of here in a chopper. Like they did at Saint-Jérôme prison, like they do in France! I’d never seen Big Dick excited, he was getting agitated. But I have to be in the interior yard at the precise time.

  I pointed out that our yard was caged on all sides, even my doves had to slip in.

  Well, obviously not our yard, the yard for the whole prison. So that means I need the guard to open three doors, from two different observation posts. We’re gonna need a solid reason and that reason is going to be your correctional officer!

  More vertigo, the same palpitations. Edith?

  Yup, you’re going to take Edith hostage for me.

  Ah, the eternal dilemma of great men: love or glory? You can never have everything, even if you’re ready for anything. Big Dick was still gesturing, I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear anything. I felt like Sophie in Sophie’s Choice, I imagine, although I haven’t read it yet. Anyway, I had to make a choice, a choice that would tear me apart more than giving birth to triplets. For now, I had to keep all doors open. I put on my best poker face so that Big Dick wouldn’t notice anything.

  Are you alright? You look a bit weird. Disappointed.

  I needed to work on the poker face. I soaped my buttocks and pretended to be feeling sentimental to distract him. I’m fine, I’m juft eager to get going with your orderv, but I wav juft thinking it would be quiet around here with you gone. Well played!

  But you’ll be leaving too! Once I’ve taken off, you can release your hostage. Get ready for a bit of roughing up, those guards all stick together. But they’ll transfer you pretty quickly. You’re going to be a legend, young man, whatever prison they put you in!

  That made me feel a bit better.

  And I’ll look out for you from a distance too, I’ll be more useful to you outside than inside. He put his hand on my shoulder and massaged my courage. If you help me get out of this fucking shithole, I’ll owe you big time. Big Dick’s face was full of promises.

  With tears in my eyes and fear in my stomach, I swore to him that I’d do it.

  It’s gonna be on the twenty-sixth of August. You already have a meeting with Edith, we checked. Tony will be on duty with her.

  I wanted to tell him about my suspicions regarding our corrupt guard, but he rebuffed me.

  Tony’s still on our floor and on our side. His sister already dances for us, he can’t risk being hung out to dry. Until then, keep quiet, don’t start any shit, you have three weeks to make yourself a weapon. I have faith in you!

  Jocelyn came up to tell us we’d gone over our ten-minute shower time and we had to get out. Big Dick ended the meeting with a small nod. Like a good soldier, I went out first. To send the dog sniffing along the wrong track, Denis yelled at me to pay my debts. Next time we won’t warn you first!

  I left the showers feeling happy but in despair. I would have to leave my sweetheart to get my heart’s desire. Or sabotage my attempts at social climbing to stay close to her. Overwhelmed, walking like a trapped wolf, I staggered to my cell. Without replying to Philippe’s greeting, I slipped under my too cold and too thin blanket. I stuffed my face in my pillow but didn’t cry. But it took so much effort that my eyes were sweating.

  14

  Erudition

  If you can’t be them, beat them, as Watson Churchill, a politician from Western Europe, liked to say. I watched a documentary about him on the Documentary Channel between two police investigation shows. During one of the world wars, Churchill had turned out to be pretty useful at beating skinheads and German Nazis. Stalin did most of the heavy lifting, but the little bald guy skilfully played his cards right. The most important thing isn’t to win the war but to be the one who benefits most from it. Churchill inspired me. Stalin too, in different ways. I hoped to use the strategies of the first to live in the opulence enjoyed by the second.

  I slept on it and decided, fuck it, fuck everyone. I was going to kill three birds with one stone: free my boss, climb up the criminal hierarchy, and escape with my lover. I’d take advantage of Big Dick’s helicopter escape to escape myself, on foot. It’s less impressive but it could be just as effective. Yes, I would escape. Thin Lizzy warned you: tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak somewhere in this town.

  You have to take chances when they come. Especially since I was being promised a job as a hit
man on the outside: a hired assassin for the Italians is pretty high-end! I’d have a team to protect me and more money than I could burn through. And that was without even taking into account that Big Dick would be in my debt. Impressed by my sense of initiative, he’d be quick to pull some strings and get me into the top circles. Once I was safely out, with our escape pulled off, they’d ease off on the searches. I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave me the responsibility of some big area of Montreal. Saint-Michel or Outremont, maybe. In any case, I’d need to work on my English, the official language of the metropolis. I was thinking big!

  It was written in the stars, I was going to take my love hostage and then take her gently. I would wait for Big Dick to get through the three doors controlled by the boxes, be out in the yard, and flown away in a chopper, and then, with Edith in my arms, I’d leave too. My promised one wouldn’t need to work anymore, especially not with the mentally ill types you find in prison.

  She would stay by my side, obviously. She’d already told me that we’d still see each other even if I was transferred to a different prison. It would be even better when I get out. We’ll live in a luxury pad in Laval, with a big chrome pickup, a boat, and the new identity that Cossa Notra will organize for me.

  Even my mother would recognize me and come to live with us. I’d eliminate her dirty fat Greek, who isn’t even my father, and everything would work out. I wouldn’t have anything to do except give my wife a son and go to Sears for family photos. Let the good times roll once we were rolling in dough. Edith inspired me.

  Yes indeed, our relationship of exceptional trust was strong enough for that. Even when I was free, despite being able to choose any woman I wanted, I would stay with her. I’d pay for a whore now and then, but it doesn’t count if you pay for it. My soul would belong to her. I was tearing up. We’d build our paradise together, happy, with children that looked like us. Or better still, with pedigree dogs.