“What do you say?” the guard asked.
Freckles smacked his lips. “Size forty-two jacket, sixteen collar, waist thirty-four, leg thirty-two, and”—he glanced again at Jude’s feet—“size ten and a half shoe.”
“Well? Is he right?” the guard addressed Jude.
Jude nodded.
“Don’t know how you do it, Freckles,” Grosso said. “But get hopping. I haven’t got all day.”
The old man disappeared back into the stacks and returned a few minutes later, his arms full. Jude received two pairs of blue pants, two blue shirts, three T-shirts, three pairs of boxers, three pairs of socks, a blue winter coat, a blue summer jacket, two towels, and a pair of brown shoes.
Jude was allowed to dress from his small stock. Then he was told to grab a bundle of bedding, and the guard escorted him down the hall to the records room and left him there. “See you when you get out,” Grosso said in parting. “If you get out,” he added.
Jude was photographed and printed, and though he tried to wash his hands, his fingers left dark smudges on his bedding when he shouldered it.
A guard was assigned to escort Jude to his cell to drop off his new belongings, then take him along to the cafeteria to catch the tail end of dinner. They left the records room and came to a door with another guard behind a Plexiglas booth to one side. Jude’s guard raised his hand to the man, and they were buzzed through to a wide corridor.
“I’m Mike Reilley,” the man said. “But the inmates call me Mama because I try to help out the new kids. How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” Jude said. He had celebrated his birthday in juvenile detention.
“You’re a pretty good size for your age,” Reilley observed—Jude now topped six one. “And,” Reilley continued, “if you can believe it, you’re not the youngest I’ve seen. We had one kid was fifteen when he came here. Personally, I think that sending a fifteen-year-old here is criminal, but I don’t make the laws, so …” He grimaced. “Anyway, since you’re here, I’ll give you the grand tour. This is the security corridor that runs between administration and your cellblock. All the buildings are connected by corridors like this, and at the ends of them they all have sally ports.”
As he was speaking, they reached another Plexiglas guard booth by a wide doorway—the entrance to Cellblock B. They were buzzed through, and Jude looked around at the place he would call home for at least a few weeks. It was a cavernous rectangular room with two tiers of cells, which had old-fashioned sliding doors and fat two-inch steel bars.
“This way,” Reilley said, indicating the opposite side of the room. They threaded their way through metal tables and benches, and Reilley stopped outside the cell marked A17.
“You live right on Broadway,” he said, waving his arm at the open recreation area, “a good address.”
“Why’s that?” Jude said, sensing something behind the remark.
“It means you have a better chance of not breaking something from a fall,” Reilley replied, glancing up at the balcony meaningfully.
“Does that happen often?” Jude tried to make his voice merely conversational.
“Often enough,” Reilley acknowledged. “You’d better hurry or you’ll miss dinner. You can leave your things on the top bunk. Your cellmate, Old Man River, has the bottom bunk, and don’t try to switch with him. He hasn’t been able to climb into a top bunk for more than a decade.”
“All right,” Jude agreed. He stepped into the tiny six-by-twelve cubicle and glanced around. The walls glowed a sickly green in the fluorescent light; there was a sink against one wall, with built-in metal shelves above it, a dirty seatless toilet in the corner, and a double bunk along the other wall.
He left his things on the top bunk and followed Reilley to the cafeteria. The room reminded Jude of the cafeteria at Hartford High. It had the same long, low ceiling and the same cinder-block walls, but as soon as Jude had picked out the similarities, he also noted the differences. The school was the roughest in the city, but the tables and benches hadn’t been bolted to the floor, and there hadn’t been any bars between the students and the people who served the food.
“Trays and stuff are over there,” Reilley said. “You’d better hurry. You’ve got less than ten minutes.”
Already the men at the tables closest had noticed him and were nudging one another. Jude started down the side of the room toward the trays, but he felt the silence gathering at his back, like the front of a storm. As he progressed along the line, pointing at the foods he wanted, the silence followed him. By the time he turned with his tray heavy under the load, it had engulfed the room. All the faces on the benches were turned toward him.
Jude walked through the narrow aisles between the tables. Spotting a seat at the end of one of the benches, he headed for it, half expecting to get tripped up or have his tray upended before he reached it, but nothing happened. He sank down at the end of the bench, ignoring the staring men around him. Then, as if by signal, the silence was broken and conversations started up again.
Jude bent his head over his food to try to hide the pulse beating at the base of his throat. Mechanically he forked up food and chewed.
A shrill bell rang above his head. “Three minutes,” someone called through a loudspeaker.
Jude started to eat more quickly. He wasn’t hungry, but he knew he would be later if he didn’t eat, and there would be no opportunity for a midnight snack here.
Around him men started to rise, taking their trays with them. Jude remained hunched over his food until a guard tapped him on the shoulder with his baton.
“All right, you. Get going.”
Jude stood, picked up his tray, and followed the last few men through the open doors at the end of the cafeteria. He bused his tray and followed the stragglers into the corridor.
It was a different place now that it was filled with men. Sound bounced off the hard concrete walls. Before coming to the prison, Jude had prepared himself for violence, for the constant surveillance, for the loss of independence, but he had not been expecting the assault to his ears. It was the first time he had the vague sensation that the small, unexpected details would prove the hardest to endure.
When he got back to the cellblock, he headed straight for his cell. Picking up the things he had deposited on his bed, he separated the clothes from the bedding. The pile of clothes he placed on a metal shelf over by the toilet. The bedding he spread over the inch-thin mattress. Then he swung himself lightly up into the top bunk and lay down on his back. He made sure to lie so that he was facing the doorway.
A few minutes later an old black man, bent into the shape of a question mark under the weight of his years, shambled into the cell. He brought with him an overpowering version of the faint scent Jude had detected in the cell—sweat and aftershave and cigarettes and that indefinable smell of old age.
This, he thought, must be his cellmate, Old Man River.
The old man started to speak but interrupted himself with a hacking cough that bent him even farther over his knees. “Excuse me,” he said, banging on his chest with a loose fist. “Goddamned smokes. Those tobacco companies, they’re all murdering bastards. They’re the ones that should be in here.” He shook a cigarette out of the packet and lit it.
“So why don’t you quit?” Jude suggested.
His cellmate spoke with the cigarette still pinched between his lips. “It’s the damn nicotine they put in ’em. That’s how they get you. We didn’t know about that shit when I started.”
“You know about it now,” Jude pointed out.
The old man looked at him. “Do your own time, brother,” he said.
Jude had a sudden, overpowering memory—he was thirteen years old again, hanging out with R. J. and the gang near the benches where the ex-cons spent much of their time. Most of them didn’t have jobs, so when the weather was good, they came out to smoke or play cards. Jude and his friends made a game of how close they could drift up to the benches and how long they could lurk there before the me
n scattered them with a spit of curses. They had picked up the men’s words and phrases and made them part of their playground talk. R. J.’s favorite had been, “Do your own time.”
Jude held up his hands in apology, and the man seemed to accept it readily enough.
“So, how long you out of the world?” the old man asked him. “What they give you?”
“Five,” Jude said.
“Walk in the park.”
“What about you?” Jude asked.
“I’m doin’ all day.”
So the old guy was a lifer. Jude was both horrified and fascinated. “How long you been here?” he asked.
“I been inside going on fifty years, but I tell you, I remember that first day like it was yesterday—the first time I saw that wall. She’s scary at first, but now I swear she like my mama—strong, solid, and real protective.” He must have read something from Jude’s face, because he said, “You’ll learn to love her like a mama too, if you’re smart.”
Jude was glad he wouldn’t have to twist himself into love. He doubted if he could.
“Well, we’ll just see how you do.”
“I’ll do all right,” Jude assured him. He told himself that he could manage a few weeks. Surely he could do that.
“Maybe. Maybe,” his cellmate said dubiously, shaking his head. “My last bunkie didn’t make it six months.”
The old man was clearly waiting to tell the story. “What happened to him?” Jude asked.
“Some inmate found out from a badge that he was a chester.”
“A chester?” Jude repeated. It was a word he didn’t know.
“Yeah, you know, a baby-sitter. Got caught foolin’ with an eight-year-old. Fellas around here don’t take kindly to that. So they thought that they’d give him a taste of his own medicine. Well, he bit the pillow for about two weeks before he ratted on them. He left here in a body bag. You know what they say—there are no secrets in the penitentiary.”
Jude hoped that the higher-ups would keep his secret. He didn’t want to think about the punishment for being a DA’s son.
“You done time before?” the old man asked.
Jude shook his head, glad for once of his height. It made him look old enough for his cellmate to think he might have done time before.
“Damn. They always stick me with the new fish. Think I got nothing better to do than school some wet-behind-the-ears peckerwood. Well, I guess I know enough for two of us. By the way, I’m Old Man River.”
“I’m …” Jude hesitated, blanking on the name they had given him for his dummy file, and before he could complete his introduction, the old man jumped in.
“You don’t have no name here in North Central. Not till someone give you one.”
“Give me a name? Who’s gonna do that?”
“Depends. Whoever comes up with the one that sticks.”
“Does everyone have a name?” Jude asked.
“Sure—every convict, that is. Some of the guards have nicknames too. If you’re smart, you won’t use them, but I don’t imagine you’re too quick.”
“How do you figure that?”
The old man grinned, showing a wide expanse of gums, and he said with obvious satisfaction, “Well, you’re in here, aren’t you?”
25
THE NEXT DAY was Sunday, and as they were filing back into the cellblock after breakfast Old Man River asked Jude if he wanted to attend the morning service.
“No thanks,” Jude declined politely.
“All denominations welcome,” River said. “There’s something for everyone. We even have a moment of silence for a Quaker in the congregation.”
“A Quaker?” Jude repeated.
“You got something against Quakers?”
“No, I just didn’t expect to find any in prison.”
River clucked his tongue. “You got to rid your mind of those chains, boy. Look around you. We don’t discriminate at North Central. Everyone can find a place here.” He looked slyly at Jude. “Even you.” Then he turned and followed the last of the men out the door.
With the departure of the religious, there weren’t many left in the cellblock. Jude smiled cynically at all those men faithfully attending service every Sunday, like all true gamblers, hedging their bets, but after about ten minutes of lounging in his cell Jude realized maybe they went just because it was something to do.
Most of the men who stayed behind remained in their cells. There were a couple of scattered groups at the metal tables. Two men were playing chess, another three had cards. Someone on the third tier was picking out a tune on a guitar.
Then he saw them—three men sitting at a table. They had no cards, no chessboard. They were just sitting there … staring at Jude. They were big men, their sleeves rolled up to show their bunched muscles and their stretched and faded tattoos. Two had cigarettes dangling from loose mouths, and they watched him with the intense but empty stare of wolves watching a rabbit. The third one, younger than the others, waved at Jude, fluttering his fingers coyly, and when he smiled, Jude could see that he was missing all four of his front teeth.
Jude looked away. He knew that wasn’t a good sign.
He was right. Later they trailed him on the way to lunch and ousted other inmates to sit at the table just behind him. They followed close on his heels on the way back as well. They made no secret of their intentions; they were out to get him. The question was, what did they want him for? Jude tallied up how many days were left until the election. Sixteen days. All he had to do was survive for another sixteen days.
Jude spent most of that afternoon at the table closest to the guard’s station. He didn’t go into his cell. He didn’t use the bathroom. He just sat and watched the ebb and flow of the inmates as they milled around the floor—and of course he kept a close eye on the three men. They were sitting at a table playing cards, and they were loud enough with the insults and threats they tossed back and forth that Jude was able to learn their names and the general hierarchy of their group. They were called Lefty, Slim Slam, and the Professor. The Professor was the biggest and the stupidest, Lefty was the most aggressive, and Slim Slam—the one with the leering, gap-toothed smile—was the leader.
Jude hovered around the guard station until lockdown, and he didn’t relax until the door clanged shut behind him. The sound that just twenty-four hours before had been so chilling now sounded like salvation.
He let the old man putter around, piss, brush his teeth, fold his prison uniform, and climb into the bottom bunk. When he smelled the smoke from the old man’s cigarette, Jude climbed down from his upper berth. He saw that the old man had fallen asleep with the cigarette still tucked between two swollen knuckles. The woolen blanket he had drawn up to his chest was covered with little round burns, and Jude wondered as he plucked the butt from between the old man’s fingers if he would die in a fire in his sleep instead of being beaten to death before the two weeks were out. He extinguished the butt and—knowing its value—balanced it on the shelf alongside River’s clothes and toiletries.
Jude brushed his teeth, washed his face, and climbed into his own bunk, but just because the lights were off didn’t mean the noise stopped. The sound of caged animals, he thought. He didn’t include himself in his assessment; he knew he didn’t belong there. All the other inmates would know it too—in sixteen days. Fifteen, he corrected himself. Only fifteen now.
26
THE NEXT DAY Jude was given his work assignment. He had no high school diploma, so there was no cushy office job for him. He was going to work in the prison kitchen, though the truth was that he didn’t care where he worked, as long as it wasn’t with Lefty, Slim Slam, or the Professor. He watched carefully as the inmates separated out into their crews, and he breathed easier when he saw that none of the three was assigned to his group.
In the kitchen Jude was given his work station. He was responsible for washing all the pots and pans. He was also given a partner—a grizzled older man somewhere between forty and fifty with sh
oulders the size of a mountain and the heavy, misshapen face of a fighter.
Jude started washing, but his partner pulled a book from his back pocket and started reading. When Jude was halfway through the huge stack of pans left over from the day before, the inmate supervisor walked by, stopped, and spoke to Jude’s partner.
“Hey, Mack, what are you doing, takin’ vacation?”
“The kid said he’d do it,” Mack replied.
“Oh yeah?” The man looked at Jude.
Jude shrugged.
“Nice of you,” the supervisor said. “What a generous guy.” He walked away, chuckling.
There was nothing else to do but wash—and Jude washed for eight hours, with only a half-hour break for lunch. His partner read and smoked while Jude worked, and Jude didn’t say a word. Not that day, or the next or the next. He just bit his lip and played the coward. He figured he could stand it for fifteen days.
And it was all right—for the first few days. It was all right until he started getting looks from the other inmates—sidelong glances that noted his hovering around the guard station, narrowed stares that took in his anxious trot at the heels of the guards. After three days of his evading Lefty, Slim Slam, and the Professor, the other prisoners started letting Jude know what they thought of cowards.
The first incident occurred in the cafeteria. Jude was standing on the chow line when the inmate waiting behind stepped forward and stood beside him. Then Jude felt rather than saw the whole line shift three feet to the right, and Jude was adrift beside the line rather than a part of it.
He stuffed his hands, balled tightly into fists, in his pockets, and stood while the line moved past him. When the last man stepped up to the counter, Jude uncurled his fists and picked up a tray. He got his food and sat alone at the end of one of the tables, but he found he had very little time to eat. For safety’s sake he needed to be one of the first finished. When he cleared his tray, he scraped half his food into the garbage.
It happened again at the next meal, and after that he simply waited off to the side, head down, while all the other inmates got their food. In some prisons, Jude later discovered, cutting a man in line was punished by no less than a month in solitary. The reasoning behind the strict sentence was that cutting was a mark of disrespect, and men had been killed for less.
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