by Jay Bell
“How many days is that usually?”
“Just depends. A month or two. You can make it shorter by spending all the money you can.”
“See these?” Michelle sat sideways and lifted one of her feet. “These slippers cost a hundred bucks.”
David frowned. “They look sort of cheap.”
“They are.” Michelle shook her head. “The hospital charges out the wazoo for everything. That’s why you shouldn’t say no to any pills or anything else you can get.”
“Kleenex, Q-tips, aspirin, mouthwash, sleeping masks—” Elijah counted off items on his fingers, which he soon ran out of. “Anything you can get will drain your insurance money. In the end, you might only cut a few days off your stay, but you’re that much closer to freedom. Speaking of which, food is part of that bill. You coming?”
Elijah stood with his empty tray. David wasn’t half done, but he could see grilled cheese sandwiches and ice cream ready for the taking. Maybe he would only have a bite of each, but who cared? He wasn’t paying the bill.
* * * * *
“How are you getting along so far?” Dr. Wolf asked.
“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” David said. He wondered if this was too transparently false, so he added, “But I don’t like that you tricked me into coming.”
“Would you have agreed to come otherwise?”
“I guess not.”
This battle of wits was taking place in a generic psychologist’s office shared by the doctors that met their patients in the hospital. David was sitting up on the comfortable couch, and Dr. Wolf was in a higher chair with a tall, wide back. Like a medieval throne, it was designed to communicate power and authority.
“Have you given much thought to what we talked about last time?”
“A little.”
“I believe we were discussing Connor’s influence on you.”
David pretended he was trying to remember. “I haven’t thought about him much. I keep thinking about Chuck and how many times I came close to … I don’t know.”
Dr. Wolf leaned forward a fraction of an inch. “Came close to what?”
David looked away. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It does to me.”
“You’re just going to think I’m crazy.”
Dr. Wolf gave a comforting smile. “No one thinks you’re crazy.”
“Well, I was thinking about all the times I went by Chuck’s house before. I figured out where he lived after he picked on me the first couple of times. I used to look at his car and think about how much I hated him.”
“Was this with Connor?”
“Huh? No, this was before I met him. Sometimes I would even say things to the car. See, I told you this sounds crazy.”
“I don’t think so. You were reassigning your anger toward an object you associated with Chuck.”
“I guess that makes sense. I used to swear at it, say the things I wanted to say to Chuck but couldn’t. A few times I even walked by with the baseball bat, thinking about bashing it in. When Connor got in trouble, part of me was glad for the excuse to finally do it.”
“Plus, you wanted to avenge your friend.”
David shrugged as if that didn’t matter. “I did pee on Chuck’s car once.”
Nothing like mixing a little truth into fiction. David was proud of the way he was weaving his story. By the end of the session, Connor’s name was no longer being mentioned. Instead Dr. Wolf seemed fascinated in tracing back David’s destructive impulses. Thank goodness their time ended before he ran out of material. David would have to dream up more before tomorrow, but for the moment, he felt more in control than he had in a long time.
Chapter Twenty
In routine, there is comfort. Connor knew what he was supposed to do and when it would happen. Short of using the toilet or shower, most decisions were made for him. He awoke at the same time every day, ate all three meals according to schedule, and went to sleep when the lights were turned off.
While this made for a very boring life, it also took the edge off his fear. Jail wasn’t the hell he had expected. No corrupt warden, no gang of guys came after him with shanks. He even dropped the soap once, but in the solitary shower stall, no one could take advantage of Connor but himself. There was only routine here and slow-moving time.
Until the beginning of the second week.
“Time for you to go home!”
Connor wished the deputy’s words were directed at him, but they weren’t. Instead they were said to the Hispanic man sharing Wade’s bunk. This didn’t come as a surprise. Wade spoke a little Spanish and had tipped off Connor that the top bunk would be available soon, in case Connor wanted off the floor. The bunks didn’t look much more comfortable, but had to be better than the plastic temporary beds.
At lockdown the guard came for their cellmate. The Hispanic man had barely crawled down from his bed before Connor stood and put his hand on the mattress.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Leonard asked.
The guard paused in the doorway. Leonard peered up at him with his desert rat eyes before shrugging nonchalantly. Once the guard was gone, Connor started pulling himself up onto his new sleeping place. When he was sitting, a boney hand grabbed his ankle.
“Not so fast!” Leonard snarled. “In prison, only the bitches sleep on the bottom bunk. I’ve been here longer, and I ain’t no bitch, so the bed belongs to me.”
Connor yanked his leg free. “You’re not in prison anymore, Leonard, and you already have a bed. Now get back in it and never touch me again or I’ll show you who the bitch is.”
Leonard glared but backed down. Connor felt pretty cool until he realized the others might think he was threatening rape. He had meant that Leonard was a bitch, nothing else. Still, the threat had done the job. He stretched out and stared at the ceiling. Even this felt like a huge improvement. From the floor, staring upwards had meant seeing his cellmates in his peripheral vision. Now he could shut them out as much as possible. He could hear Wade turning pages on the bunk below and Leonard muttering to himself, but it didn’t take much to pretend he was alone.
He slept like a baby that night. The next morning, Connor began his routine again. He woke up, ate breakfast with Wade, hit the shower, then walked circles around the dayroom. This was not only for exercise, but also to pass the time until he was sure David would be up so he could make his collect call. As he always did, he heard the very beginning of David’s voice mail message before the line cut off. Sometimes he heard more than other days. Today he heard a hesitant “Hi, this is—” Once he had heard David say his full name before the robotic operator voice cut it off and asked unhearing ears for permission to accept the collect call.
Connor tried not to let this get him down. Hearing David’s voice every day was better than nothing, but he was beginning to worry. More and more often, he imagined David’s look of horror when the police had said Chuck was in the hospital. David had promised on the phone, before Connor came here, that he would wait for him. But now that David had time to think about it all, maybe he had changed his mind. Connor had sent him a postcard on his fourth day. Letters weren’t allowed, only postcards, and David should have gotten it by now. If he had, he hadn’t responded.
“Finish that book yet?” Wade asked Connor during one of his walking rounds.
Connor stopped by the table. “Are you kidding? It’s the thickest book I’ve ever seen!”
Wade would have made a good librarian. He had an endless number of literary recommendations. The most recent was a horror novel about a killer clown. For such a crazy concept, it was full of a surprising amount of heart. The book was so fat it was a miracle the guards didn’t categorize it as a potential weapon. Connor thought he would never finish it, but with nothing else to do, he made steady progress and was near the end.
“Today is Thursday,” Wade reminded him with the hint of a smile. “Anyone coming to see you?”
Connor nodded. “My mom or my
dad. Not sure which. One of them has to watch my kid brother, so it’s never both.” Every Monday and Thursday felt like Christmas. Each prisoner was allowed one twenty-minute visit on these two days, a much-needed lifeline to the real world. “Anyone coming to see you?”
“Yes.” That’s all Wade said. He was still just as private as the first time they had spoken, but Connor was used to it. Wade was a good conversationalist as long as the topic wasn’t himself. Being well-read made him an expert on just about any subject Connor broached.
Today the history of the prison system was on Wade’s mind. Not a topic Connor cared much for but it helped pass the time until evening. To help the guards keep track of everyone, lockdown was in effect during the three hours visitors could arrive. This made the visits even more precious, since it allowed a brief escape from a very boring period of time. When the guards came for Connor, he noted with smugness that Leonard never had a visitor.
The guard brought Connor and three other men to a row of Plexiglas booths that were designed mostly to stop contraband from entering the prison, but also to prevent violent outbursts or escape attempts. Speaking through them took some getting used to, like having a cell phone conversation with a friend who was on the other side of a store window.
Connor saw that his mom was the visitor today and felt a lump rise in his throat. Conversations with her were always harder, since he couldn’t hide his emotions from her. With his father, Connor could suck it up and act tough. His mother already had the red phone pressed to one ear.
Connor picked up the connecting receiver. “Hi, Mom.”
“Are you okay?” She always asked this question first.
“I’m fine. It’s like after-school detention—boring and harmless.”
She gave him a probing look before she relaxed a little. “You look thin. Are they feeding you enough?”
“No, but I’ll be all right. I stocked up on candy bars and chips from the commissary. How are you and Dad?”
“Fine. I think he’s found a job.”
“Really?”
“Well, he had an interview that went well.”
Connor smiled. “Don’t jinx it by talking about it. Is Tommy okay?”
His mom made an exasperated face. “He’s losing teeth by the bucket load. I thought he was going to keep his baby teeth forever, but now he’s spitting them out like watermelon seeds.”
“Yuck!”
“Are you sure he can’t come visit you?” His mom made big eyes. “He’s missing you terribly.”
“No! You haven’t told him, have you?”
“No. He thinks you’re off with David somewhere.”
Connor exhaled. “Good. Uh, I don’t suppose you’ve heard from him?”
“David? No. Why?”
“No reason.” Connor licked his lips. “It’s just I can’t get hold of him. You know that last time you saw him, when he came by the house to tell you guys? Did he seem mad at me?”
His mother shook her head. “Not at all. He seemed sad. Maybe a little angry at the situation.”
“Okay. Never mind. So Dad’s keeping his nose clean?”
“He’s fine. Well, we did have a setback. One of the neighbors gave him a bottle of painkillers. Your dad was complaining about his back, like he does, and the neighbor thought he was being helpful. Your dad tried to hide them from me, but I’ve spent years looking at those glassy eyes and knew right away.”
“That sucks.”
“Yes, and I was livid, but for once your father didn’t walk away. We sat there and talked it out, and I told him everything I’ve been feeling over the years. He had a few things to say too, and we were up half the night. The next day—” His mother blushed. “Well, we’re fine now, that’s all that matters. Really fine.”
The emphasis in her words gave Connor pause. “So that maintenance man at work, the one who had the hots for you—”
The corners of his mother’s lips lifted ever so slightly before she shook her head. “I’m no longer interested.”
“Well, well! Don’t tell me I’ll be getting a little sister soon.”
His mom laughed. It sounded like music in the dire surroundings. The rest of their time together slipped away. The visits were terribly short, but Connor always walked away in high spirits. When he got back to his dorm, he headed for his storage container. Dinner on visitation days was even earlier than usual, meaning a huge stretch of time until breakfast. Connor removed the lid from the container and discovered three of his six candy bars and a bag of chips were missing. The thief hadn’t even bothered removing the wrappers and crumbs, which Connor always threw away.
Leonard snickered behind him, but except for a tensing of his shoulders, Connor didn’t reveal his agitation. He didn’t even turn to look at him. A couple of candy bars weren’t worth getting into trouble over, so he grabbed one of the remaining bars and his book and climbed up to his bunk, losing himself in a fictional world.
* * * * *
“I hope you’re not hiding any deep, dark secrets.”
The words seemed ironic coming from Wade, but Connor was too curious to come up with a snappy comeback. “What are they doing?”
A small platoon of guards walked beside the huge laundry cart that looked like a dumpster on wheels. Connor had seen them collecting dirty sheets and leaving fresh ones last week, but this time the cart was moving slowly, guards disappearing into each dorm for ten minutes at a time.
“Just a standard search,” Wade said. “This place is so tight that they never find anything. Not much, anyway.”
Connor was vaguely aware of the jail’s drug trade, which mostly consisted of pills from the infirmary. Some of the guys farmed out from other jails and prisons, the way Leonard had been, brought stuff with them by wrapping it in plastic and shoving it up their ass or swallowing it before they transferred.
“You worried?” Wade asked when Connor kept watching.
“Well, there is that escape tunnel I’ve been digging with my spork.”
They laughed and went back to reading. Later, when lockdown came again, Connor was putting the fresh sheets on his bed when the door buzzed open and a guard said his name. When he turned around, he found the guard backed by two others. One of them was holding handcuffs, the others had clubs.
“What’s going on?”
“Turn around and put both hands on the bunk.”
Connor complied, feeling like he was being arrested while already in prison. They brought him to the dayroom, where a fourth guard waited with another handcuffed inmate. Then they were led out and down a short hallway to a door marked Inmate Welfare. The other inmate went in first, Connor sitting on a bench outside with guards on either side of him. He waited for what felt like an eternity, asking again what was happening, but the guards ignored him.
Then the other inmate reappeared, head low. He was sniffing like he was crying, but Connor didn’t have sympathy to spare as he was brought into the room. Across a long table sat two male deputies and one female with an air of authority. On Connor’s side of the table were a couple of chairs bolted to the floor. One of his wrists was freed so he could be handcuffed to the chair.
“Do you understand why you are here?” the woman asked.
Her blonde hair had streaks of grey. Crow’s feet beside her eyes made her look tired. Or wise. Connor stopped staring long enough to shake his head.
“This is a disciplinary hearing because of the contraband found in your room.”
Connor thought of the Twix bars in his storage bin and would have laughed if the faces across from him weren’t so grim. “I don’t understand.”
“Contraband is the possession of forbidden items,” the woman explained, as if he didn’t know the word. “Things you hide from the staff working here. Would you like to tell us what you were hiding?”
“Nothing,” Connor said, his face as earnest as possible. Suddenly he felt desperate that they believe him.
The woman sighed and nodded to one of the deputies b
eside her. He nodded in response, reached into a wooden box, and lifted out a small item and set it on the table. Connor stared at it, brow furrowed. It was a toothbrush and a broken pencil, bound together with a plastic wrapper of some sort. It looked like a bizarre homemade cross cobbled together by a desperate vampire hunter. Only when he saw the end of the toothbrush had been filed to a point did he understand, but pretended not to.
“What is that?” he asked.
The woman pursed her lips. “That is what we call a shank. Would you like to tell me who you planned on stabbing with it?”
Someone made of marshmallows, preferably. Even with the pencil acting as a grip to allow more force, Connor doubted the flimsy plastic of the toothbrush was strong enough to break the skin. The would-be knife was the most pathetic construct he’d ever seen. “If there was one class I was good in, it was shop. I promise you, if I was going to make something like that, I would do a much better job.”
One of the deputies snickered before hiding it with a cough. The woman didn’t look amused. Connor wasn’t trying to be funny. He really could have done better. Why not use the pencil as the blade? It had a much better chance of doing damage.
“Possessing a weapon, no matter the quality, has very serious ramifications,” the woman said. “Your sentence can be extended, your commissary privileges taken away. You can be moved to a higher security level, or you can spend the rest of your time here in a disciplinary segregation module.”
Connor swallowed. “I swear, that thing doesn’t belong to me. I don’t know where you found it, but if it was with any of my things, someone else put it there. I just want to keep my head down, do my time, and get out of here.”
The woman sighed. “Every person through those doors says the same thing.” She looked him over, eyes betraying a hint of sympathy until she strayed to his scar. Then he knew he was doomed. “Spend the weekend in disciplinary segregation,” she said. “While there, think about the best way to stay out of trouble for the rest of your time here.”
Connor thanked her in a last-ditch effort to show he was a decent person. Not that it helped. The guards led Connor to another part of the institution where a deputy manned a small station in a dark hallway of closed metal doors. They patted Connor down, as if he were bristling with shanks, before opening one of these doors and pushing him inside.