by Michelle Amy
“I can’t,” I said lightly. “I never push you… I never demand anything from you. But you’re worrying me. We’ve been together for nearly four months. Will we ever reach a point where you don’t feel the need to hide things from me?”
He stood and put his coffee on the table. He raked his fingers through his hair and turned away from me. I heard him take a deep breath and blow it out through his mouth.
“McCoy?”
He turned back to me and rested his fists on his hips. “There are some things that I don’t want to tell you because I don’t want you to see me differently.”
“Differently from what?”
“From who I am now.”
“How are we supposed to get to the next step if you constantly fear me changing my mind about you? I love you. There is nothing you could tell me that would change that. Within reason,” I added, trying to smile encouragingly.
He looked down at his feet. He was struggling with whether or not he should come clean with me or not.
I stood and approached him. I took his hands in mine and held them between us. “You don’t have to tell me right now if you aren’t ready. But, you have to promise me that one day you will be ready. I can’t always be in the dark. You can trust me. You can trust me now, or tomorrow, or weeks from now. I will wait. But I won’t wait forever.” I stretched on to my tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
He closed his eyes as my lips touched his cheek. I released his hands and went to go by him to clean the dishes in the kitchen. He caught my arm and opened his eyes. “Sit.”
I sat. He sat down beside me. “I want you to know who I am.”
I smiled. “I know who you are.”
“No,” he said, “I want you to know all of it. Everything that led me here. Everything that happened that made me into what I am. Everything that happened before you.”
“Okay,” I said, my heart starting to pound. “I’m ready.”
I saw his jaw muscles clench.
“Hey,” I rested a hand on his forearm, “it doesn’t have to be right now.”
He took a deep breath. “Now is fine. I just haven’t talked to anyone about all of this before. I haven’t said a lot of it out loud.”
“Whenever you’re ready. If you change your mind we can stop. Have lunch. Go for a walk. Whatever you need to do, we can do. Just-”
“It’s alright, Veronica. I can handle this.”
I searched his eyes. It sure didn’t look to me like he could handle it. I realized that I was afraid. I was afraid to find out what things he was keeping from me; things he felt would change how I saw him.
Chapter Five
“I was eighteen when I tried to kill my father,” he started. “He went after my mom one night and I lost control. I don’t really know how it all happened, but somehow I had the bat in my hands, and he was on the ground, and I was using the bat like people use those hammers at a fair to see who can ring the bell… I beat him until I couldn’t recognize him. Blood leaked into the shag carpet. My mother was screaming.
“Eventually she stopped me. It took her a lot of effort. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to suffer like he made my mother suffer that night. He didn’t wake up for over a week. My mother stayed every night in the hospital with him while I stayed in a cell and awaited my fate.”
“Eighteen is incredibly young to be arrested,” I said, my heart aching for him.
“I was nineteen when I was brought to prison. It was where I deserved to be.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
McCoy continued telling me what had happened to him after he went to court and was brought to prison.
✤
“I left the police station at six in the morning after I was convicted. My lawyer had me plead guilty and my sentence was ten years- eight with good behavior. It was a bus that picked me and two other guys up. Our hands were cuffed in front of us and connected to chains around our ankles. It was just like the movies. It surprised me how accurate it was.
The ride was three hours but it felt like fifteen minutes. I was so afraid to set foot in the place. The bus dropped us off at the front door and armed guards met us outside. We left the bus single file and were admitted. The process was long. Fingerprints, body searches, showers. Once I was dressed in my sweats- that’s what we wore, not those typical orange jump suits- they handed me a pillow and lead me and the other guys out into the actual cell block.
I felt sick to my stomach. The inmates were in their cells, most of them with their faces pressed against the bars, and they were yelling at us. Fresh meat. New punching bags. They were excited.
The prison itself was massive. It had three hundred cells which held between two to four inmates. The walls were all concrete brick. I knew of guys in C-Block- our cell block- who tried to chisel their way out with sharpened ends of toothbrushes. Everything smelled like the dentist office, for some reason. Everything was sterile and white and gray.
A guard brought me and another new guy to our cell on the second floor and locked us in. We shared it with two other guys.
One was an older man, in his late sixties. His name was Richard but everyone called him Geizer. The other guy was a big man with a bald head and a tattooed neck. The ink was faded so it looked blue rather than black. It was a piece comprised of crosses, spiders, and numbers that signified important dates to him. I never asked what or who they were for. I was sure when I first met him that he would kill me. I was positive. But he ended up being one of the only people in there who didn’t want to end me. His name was Bruce. He didn’t look like a Bruce at all. He looked like someone out of the Russian Mafia or something.
When the cell door closed behind me Bruce pointed at the two top bunks.
“Those are yours,” he said, “don’t hide any shit in your mattress, it doesn’t fly here. The guards do a search every morning and every night and if they find any contraband you spend three nights in solitary. And trust me, you don’t want to be in solitary. That shit will fuck you right up. We call it the Dungeon, and it’s the last place you wanna be.”
My tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth and I failed to answer him. The other guy who had been admitted with me rubbed the back of his neck and nodded towards the bunk above Geizer. “I’ll take that one.” His statement almost sounded like a question- like he was asking permission. I understood his nervousness.
I threw my pillow up on to the bunk on top of Bruce’s bed. Bruce held out his hand and I shook it. “What’s your name, kid?”
“McCoy.”
“What’s your real name, kid?” Bruce chuckled.
“McCoy.”
Bruce shrugged his ox sized shoulders. “Alright, have it your way. What about you?” He turned to the other new guy who was climbing up on to his bed.
“Clint,” he answered.
“Well boys, welcome to the shit storm. We sleep, eat, and repeat. If you have a lot of time to spend here better make yourselves comfortable. Don’t go picking any fights, ‘cause you won’t win. Keep your heads down. Don’t give anyone lip. And, for God’s sake, don’t drop the soap.”
Clint swallowed on top of his bunk and shot me a nervous glance.
Bruce threw his head back and roared with laughter. “I’m just messing with you. Geizer, did you see the look on their faces? I love when the new ones come in. You’re always so sparkly and fresh and… sensitive.”
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms, peering out through the bars at the other cells. Our bunk was on the second level and I could look out over the railing outside and down at the floor below. It was a cement floor with no chairs, benches, or tables. It was everything I imagined it would be. The feeling of loneliness and despair felt like it was going to drown me. The voices of other inmates talking echoed around me and reminded me that I was surrounded by men who had done terrible things.
“What are you in for, McCoy?” Bruce asked, sliding into his bed.
“Attempted murder,” I a
nswered, not looking back at him.
“Pretty young to be trying to kill folks, don’t you think?”
I afforded him a glance. “Apparently not.”
Bruce nodded knowingly. “Well, let bygones be bygones. You’re one of us now. Better learn to accept that or you’ll end up losing it here. What about you, Clint? What did you do that was so bad to land you here?”
Clint sighed. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Oh?” Bruce stroked his chin. “Really? Fancy that, a kid who doesn’t want to talk about his bad deeds. You a woman beater, Clint? A pedo?”
“What? No,” Clint said quickly, shrinking beneath Bruce’s glare. “I robbed a store. It went badly. Really badly.”
“Bad as in somebody’s dead bad, or just bad as in you got caught?”
Clint’s silent response was enough of a confirmation that it was, in fact, the first sort of bad. He fluffed his pillow with a few punches before lying down and rolling away to face the wall.
I pushed myself off the white bricks that I was leaning against and nodded towards Bruce. “And what about you?”
Bruce chuckled. “I’m not new meat, kid, I don’t gotta answer any of your questions.”
I shrugged.
Bruce slapped his knee. “I’m just fucking with you, McCoy. I assaulted a police officer.”
“And they put you here? Isn’t this place for high risk-”
“I assaulted a police officer after I shot my cousin.”
“Oh,” I said, unable to think of any other suitable response. “Right.”
Bruce gave me a quick once over. “You’d better watch yourself in here kid, there are some people who are going to want to be your friend, if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t know what he meant. I had no clue. But I was too afraid to ask him. It was easier not knowing.
Geizer laughed at my pale expression. He had the distinguishable hoarse laughter of an avid smoker, and he had to force himself to stop when he was overcome with coughs. When he collected himself he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Bruce is trying to tell you that some of the lads in here will think you’re a sight on sore eyes.”
Clint looked over his shoulder at me as he lay on his bunk. His wide eyes made it perfectly clear that he knew what was being implied, and he was grateful that it wasn’t him they were warning.
“I can’t change my face,” I mumbled.
“Wouldn’t matter even if you could, I reckon,” Geizer said. “Maybe you’ll get by. Just take Bruce’s advice. Keep your head down. You’ll be alright. Some of the boys in here will say things to you, try to get you to do things. Just ignore them. Don’t wander around the grounds on your own.”
As I stared at the old man I knew that I wasn’t equipped to deal with this place. I was a kid, nearly twenty, and was surrounded by murderers and rapists alike. The men in my cell seemed alright, but they had a seedy past just like every man in the place would.
Just like I did.
It was a big mouthful to swallow. I was one of them. That was the hardest part of the whole thing. I had to come to terms with the fact that I was what I was surrounded by. I had to adjust if I wanted to survive, and I refused to let myself become somebody’s plaything. Ten years was a long time.
Chapter Six
It took exactly thirty-seven hours for someone to get the idea to come after me. My commissary money hadn’t yet come through, but Geizer had leant me one of his books. It was an ancient copy of one of his favourite books, and I found it nearly intolerable to get through. It was dull and I hated the characters, but it was something to distract myself with.
I had my nose buried in it outside in the middle of the afternoon. I had managed to find a seat that was relatively solitary, despite Geizer’s warning not to isolate myself. Most of the men sat in clusters talking amongst themselves. There was a basketball game going on that held my attention for a while. It seemed a friendly enough game. Every now and then a quick argument would take place, but would be shut down by the other players who just wanted to pass the time. To the right of the basketball court was an outdoor gym with old but still usable equipment. I could see Bruce laying on his back on one of the benches, pressing weights together above his head. Geizer was his spotter. I wondered dimly what the point of that was; the man wouldn’t be able to lift fifty pounds without breaking his back.
“Hey there new guy,” somebody said behind me.
I didn’t want to turn around. I entertained the idea of ignoring them to see if they would go away, and decided that those were childish antics that were bound to get me into a fight. So I folded the corner of the page I was reading and looked over my shoulder.
Three men stood behind me. They wore the same pale gray sweat suits that I did. The one who had spoken stood in the middle. He had a goatee and his hands were tucked into the pockets of his pants. His eyebrow crawled up closer to his hairline when I met his stare.
“When did you get here, kid?” His voice had a lazy drawl to it that I didn’t like.
“Yesterday morning.”
He nodded, untucked his hands from his pockets, and stroked his goatee with his thumb and forefinger. “Makes sense, I’d remember seeing you out and about. These are my boys, Dale and Jefferson.” The two men he was with nodded at me, and I nodded back. It seemed to be the common way to greet one another in the prison. The men were big and similar looking, with thick arms and necks and bald heads. “I’m Link,” the goatee man said, “you got a name?”
“McCoy.”
“Damn,” he said, “I like the sound of that. Wanna go for a walk? We’ll give you a tour of the grounds, give you the scoop on the joint. There are a lot of things a kid like yourself should know about this place. Who to trust. Who not to trust. I can watch your back, McCoy. What do you say?”
I soaked in all the details about him that I could. He had a crooked nose that had been broken at least twice. There was a scar cutting through his right eyebrow where hair no longer grew. He favored his right leg. His knuckles were split and scabbing from a fight that couldn’t have been more than a week old.
“I’m alright here,” I answered, “my cellmates already gave me a tour. Thanks though.”
Link’s eyes narrowed. “They did, did they?”
I nodded.
“Did they tell you not to refuse an offer when someone is trying to do you a favor? Did they give you the rundown on how this place works? Did they tell you who you want to have on your side, rather than at your back?”
“No,” I replied, “but they did warn me to keep my head down, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.” I opened my book again and unfolded the page, turning my back to Link and his posse.
His boot slammed into the middle of my back before I was able to read more than three words. It knocked the air out of me and sent me sprawling on to my hands and knees. The impact left a tight knot in the middle of my spine that made my jaw ache. His foot buried itself in my gut and I fell to my side. He stood above me with his hands on his hips, laughed, and then spat on me.
“You can only keep your head down if I let you keep your head down, pretty boy.”
I glared up at him and wiped his saliva off my cheek. The pain in my side reminded me of the pain of my broken ribs the night my father went after my mother. It reminded me of how terrified she had looked, staring up at him like he was some sort of monster out of a fairytale come to life.
Link crouched down and grabbed my chin in his hand. “You listen here, you little shit. I run this place. If I say let’s go for a walk, we go for a walk. If I say give me your lunch, you give me your lunch. If I say meet me behind the greenhouses, you fucking meet me behind the greenhouses. Do you understand?”
I wrenched my chin out of his grip. I could hear other inmates gathering around us. They kept their distance, forming a wide circle around us. It was clear that Link had a reputation here. He had earned fear from the men in the prison, and none of them wanted to venture too clo
se. Or, they just wanted to watch me lying on the ground like a meek child who had just been put in his place. I wondered how long it would be before the guards noticed. It dawned on me that they may not care.
“I said, do you understand?” Link hissed.
“Go fuck yourself,” I snarled.
I saw the rage come to life in him. He backhanded me and I spat blood on to the concrete. Then, without intending to, I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It kind of just started bubbling up out of me and once I started I couldn’t stop. Link didn’t like it. He backed away from me as I staggered to my feet and dragged the back of my hand across my mouth, wiping away my blood.
“I just wanted to sit and read my book,” I said, wiping my hand on my sweats. “I wasn’t bothering anyone. And then you get the idea that it might be fun to try to take me for a walk. I’m going to make something crystal clear to you right now, Link. I will not be your plaything. Stay the fuck away from me.”
Link gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Then he shouted for his two goons to get me.
They rushed me at once, and I didn’t hold back. The anger that had been sitting still in me for all this time- throughout the trials and the court dates and the times in the holding cells- it was all set loose. I had them on the ground in seconds. They didn’t know what hit them. I used everything I could to do damage. My knees, my elbows, my fists- anything. When I had them at my feet and they stopped fighting, I turned back to Link. I smiled at him.
Then I was propelling myself forward, lowering my head, and plowing into him. We both went down on the asphalt and my fists found his face before he managed to regain his bearings. His nose cracked under my knuckles and felt a ripple of satisfaction as he yelped in pain.
I closed my hand over his throat. I could hear the guards coming. They were yelling for the other prisoners to get out of their way.
“Don’t fuck with me,” I said before releasing his throat and getting back to my feet. I stood with my arms hanging loose at my side and put some distance between myself and Link before the guards burst through the tight knot of men who had watched the fight.