To The Lions - 02

by Chuck Driskell

  “If I’m going to wear sandals, I’d like the correct size.”

  The diminutive attendant slung another pair at Gage, hitting him in the face. Gage didn’t budge, didn’t even twitch. He continued to eye the little man until the guard behind him nudged him with his baton. Once Gage scooped up his new sandals and slid them on, he continued on to the end of the stark hallway, to a door marked Enfermería. The guard opened the door and, with a painful whack to Gage’s right kidney, propelled him inside. He’d been there ever since.

  Standing alone in a white room with no chairs, it occurred to Gage that he didn’t know what time he’d arrived. He estimated that he’d been in the infirmary for about ninety minutes, an hour of which constituted waiting. He’d first been given a cursory physical by a gruff man he assumed to be a doctor. The man had been quite old, and he stunk of far too many cigarettes. His skin was sallow and, due to his foghorn voice and bizarre accent, Gage had hardly been able to understand his Spanish.

  Next was an x-ray and a cavity search in the presence of two guards. Their jokes tested Gage’s patience. He closed his eyes and counted the seconds.

  Mercifully finished with the physical, the guards shoved Gage out and instructed him to follow the painted yellow line. They walked quite a distance in a bright, hospital-like corridor. At the end of the corridor, built into the wall, was a gray clock mated to an intercom system. The clock was the same type a person might find in a school or hospital, almost certainly wired to the other prison clocks for precision. To the right of the clock, Gage noticed a series of wire glass windows.

  “Stop at the door,” the escorting guard barked. From a hallway on the left, two more guards, these outfitted with riot masks and shields, appeared. They both carried leather-handled batons. The guards took up a position just behind the door and waited.

  The first guard moved beside Gage. “You will be escorted to your cell, after which time everything will come clear as you experience a few days. Evening meal is at eighteen-hundred-hours and will be announced by three blasts of the alarm. Lights out, in your cell, will occur at twenty-three-hundred. Got it?”

  Gage nodded.

  “Toe the door.”

  Gage walked to the door and did a military right-face. He sucked in a great breath of air, wondering if he’d be alive in twenty-four hours. The attendant punched a metal knob on the wall with his hand, making the door swing out.

  From behind him, Gage heard one of the two guards yell “Entra!” Putting one foot in front of the other, Gage stepped into the gladiator’s arena, immediately smelling the piss and sweat of the prison’s male inhabitants. The din slowly faded away as the mostly tattooed, largely bald prisoners stopped what they were doing to turn and stare at the new arrival.

  In all his years, Gage could honestly say he’d never felt quite so singled out.

  Behind Gage, standing at the door, Capitana de la Mancha had appeared. She discreetly crossed herself as she whispered, “Que Dios esté con usted.” Even with no idea who Gage really was, de la Mancha found him interesting.

  She also wondered if his first trip back through the door would be to the infirmary or, perhaps, to the walk-in kitchen refrigerator that doubled as a makeshift mortuary.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The walk to Gage’s cell passed without incident. The main bay, as it was called, was hexagonal and three floors high. Wide concourses ringed the top two floors of cells, protected by floor to ceiling chain link fencing—presumably so no one would take an accidental, or deliberate, tumble to the floor of the main bay. The center of the main bay, on the first level, was the common area. There were built-in steel tables and chairs, along with Plexiglas encased televisions mounted on several large columns.

  As the guards instructed Gage to climb to the second floor, he viewed the prisoners staring back at him. Some had been playing cards, others watching TV. On the concourses, men who had been shooting dice, stacks of strange-looking money in piles by their feet, eyed Gage with dripping contempt. There were clumps of men standing on the concourses and, as Gage could see when he passed by each cell, occasional prisoners reading or chatting on their bunk.

  Every prisoner stopped what they were doing to stare down the new arrival.

  Ignoring the gawkers, Gage turned to take in a sweeping view of the main bay as he ascended. Despite its modern appearance, it was the devil’s gut, churning with acidity, eating away at every man forced to call it home. The smell intensified with each step upward, redolent of sweaty men in need of soap and deodorant. Gage halted, memorizing the image, forcing himself to accept it as his new home. A baton poked his already sore lower back as his escort growled at him to keep moving.

  There were a total of six staircases leading to the higher floors, one on each line of the hexagon. At the top of the tall flight of stairs, Gage was told to move straight ahead before being ordered to halt. Next to him was an open door of a cell. One man was inside, on the lower bunk, reading. Upon hearing the guards he sat up, sneering at Gage.

  “Meet Salvador. He’s your new best friend,” one of the guards chuckled. “Go in and make your bunk according to the diagram on the wall.” At the end of the top bunk, military-like linens and a blanket lay “stockaded” much in the same way Gage recalled from Army basic training. There was a small diagram affixed to the wall at the end of each bunk, showing a properly-made bed. Both guards laughed before their heavy boots could be heard clanging back down the steel stairs.

  Inside his cell, Salvador, Gage’s new best friend, stood and tossed his book on the bed. Unlike many of the other prisoners Gage had seen, Salvador had a full head of hair with a pronounced widow’s peak. His face was lean and menacing as he rolled a toothpick steadily back and forth between his narrow lips. Salvador’s most prominent feature, obviously a mark of his gang, was the massive tattoo of a horse emerging from under his prison uniform. Done in black ink, the horse’s head exploded from his narrow chest and terminated on the highest area of Salvador’s neck. The tattoo was dominated by the steed’s piercing red eyes. Therefore, Gage pegged Salvador as a Semental gang member. Based on what he’d read, the Sementals had a small presence in Berga.

  Despite the menacing tattoo, the remainder of Salvador was unremarkable. He appeared to be about 5’9” and weighed at least sixty pounds less than Gage. Maybe seventy.

  Upon entering the cell, Gage got a full whiff of Salvador’s scent as he perused the square confines of his new home. The bunks were naval steel beds with rounded corners protruding from the wall and supported by hinges so they could be folded to the wall. The mattress was very thin, like two magazines stacked on top of one another. Next to the bunks, also built of stainless steel and rounded, was a sink. Beside it, a pubic hair-encrusted toilet with no lid and no seat. The far wall held three recessed shelves, all holding paperback books, and the rest of the wall, and nearly the entire cell, was covered by pictures of a woman and two boys in various stages of youth. All in all, the cell was bigger than what Gage might have envisioned, approximately fifteen feet square. He nodded to his cellmate, seeing a clear plastic container on his bunk containing his toiletries. Gage noticed the bottle of shaving cream.

  Prisoners began gathering outside the cell.

  Ignoring them and Salvador, Gage reached for the container on his bunk. Salvador grasped Gage’s arm and threw it backward, shouting an unintelligible threat and leveling a finger at Gage’s face.

  Shit.

  Hating the fact that he was already being challenged but steeling himself to stick with his plan, Gage took two steps backward.

  Salvador came forward and swiped at Gage with an open hand but missed.

  Gage raised his fists and bounced on his toes. Outside the cell, the prisoners stood ten deep. Money began to change hands as bets were levied.

  Salvador took up a fighting stance and began to circle.

  Here we go.

  Salvador’s smile was broad and threatening, glinting at the corners due to his gold-capped c
anines. He must not have thought much of Gage, or he was a good actor, because Salvador looked like a sneaky fox who’d just been granted access to the fattened hens’ coop. His first action took Gage by surprise as he suddenly dropped and attempted a front sweep by spinning himself with his right leg extended.

  It was a piss-poor fighting movement for this setting.

  Gage was far enough back, and in an athletic enough position, that he countered the sweep by taking one step back before he unleashed a hard straight right, catching the exposed Salvador above his right ear and knocking him unconscious. Because of his vulnerable position, Salvador fell unnaturally on his already bent left leg. It twisted abnormally before springing out, leaving the prisoner spread eagle on the concrete floor.

  It was not a dramatic fight at all. Outside the cell, “oohs” and “aahs” were followed by derisive laughter. Gage heard a number of prisoners mocking Salvador.

  Despite knowing he was being watched, and judged, Gage simply couldn’t bring himself to continue to beat on an unconscious opponent. Suddenly, the sound of sandals slapping the concrete floor took priority over everything. Whirling right, making sure to leave few feet between himself and the back wall, Gage surveyed the situation. Two men, tattooed like Salvador, stormed into the cell, yelling a similar battle cry. Gage had no illusions that this next encounter would be as easy as the last. The lead man was as large as he was, muscles rippling as he thrust forward with his arm pulled back for a punch.

  Though he didn’t feel natural by remaining still, Gage held his ground until the man swung, ducking the telegraphed punch as he caught the man in the midsection and thrust his own body upward, cartwheeling the man over his head and sending him crashing down onto the toilet in a hail of grunts and curses. By the time he turned to the man’s partner it was too late to see the punch coming. It caught Gage in the nose and cheek, instantly making his eyes water and giving him the taste of salty blood in his mouth.

  Rather than give the man a clean shot at another punch, Gage leapt over Salvador, putting his back to the bars at the front of the cell as he glanced down. Salvador was now awake but didn’t seem inclined to get up. The man who had hit the toilet was coming to his feet, gripping his shoulder and cursing as he grimaced in pain. The third gangster, the one dancing in front of Gage, was tall and wiry and seemed to move with fluidity.

  Having a distinct feeling that the man in front of him had a boxing background, Gage did the only thing he knew to do. Ignoring the looping punch that grazed above his ear, he plowed forward, catching the man as he tried to whirl away. The two fell hard against Salvador’s bunk and, after scrabbling, tumbled to the floor next to the wide-eyed, still motionless Salvador. As Gage struggled to mount his skilled aggressor, he noticed the man with the wounded shoulder staggering out of the cell, saying something to someone. No one else seemed to be wading into the fray, leaving Gage free to ignore the pestering blows from his downed quarry as he rained down his own elbows and punches.

  Hand-to-hand combat had never been Gage’s favorite skill to practice, but he’d always been good at it. An uncontested left elbow caught the downed man’s temple and, as soon as it connected, Gage knew he had him. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, causing Gage to slow the thundering right he was bringing down. Gage glanced to his left, seeing Salvador still lying motionless, like a saucer-eyed possum. Just as Gage was about to dismount his opponent, a ripping, stinging pain sent him tumbling forward.

  As he fell, the nerves in his upper back relayed enough of their frantic message to Gage’s brain for him to realize that he’d just been stabbed. By the time the second thrust caught him, this time in the shoulder, Gage had spun, grabbing the stabber’s knees and twisting him to the floor. Gage quickly cinched his legs around the stabber’s left leg, also grasping it with his arms. Once the man was under control, Gage confirmed that he was the muscular man that had been flipped to the toilet. The man struggled against Gage’s hold, known in grappling as a knee-bar.

  His own anger redlining, Gage repositioned his arms on the man. With his forearm as the lever on the muscular man’s heel, Gage torqued his own body as hard as he could, leaving no chance.

  The tendons popping in the man’s knee might have been .22 rounds going off in the enclosed space. He shrieked like an adolescent girl.

  Gage’s back and shoulder were on fire. He ignored the pain. With Salvador still catatonic and the boxer sleeping nicely, Gage looked outside the cell at the rapt audience of prisoners.

  It was time to leave an impression.

  As Gage had done with the boxer, he slid up the muscular man’s body, mounting him securely with his knees holding steady pressure on the man’s torso. When the man ceased his yelling long enough to open his eyes, Gage said one thing to him.

  “Poner su lengua.” It meant “Stick out your tongue.”

  Gritting his teeth in pain, the man shook his head. Gage placed his left index finger below the man’s right ear, digging his fingernail into the auricular nerve, changing the man’s yell to a squeal like that of a pig.

  “Poner su lengua,” Gage growled, easing the pressure slightly.

  The gangster put his tongue out, but barely. Gage dug his fingernail in again and told him to stick his tongue out farther. His eyes wide with fear, but his fear overridden by the powerful nerve pain, the man put his tongue out. When he did, Gage unleashed a ferocious uppercut, making the man’s teeth snap shut with tremendous force.

  On his tongue.

  Blood spurted, then ran down both sides of the man’s face. He writhed a moment more before falling into a semi-conscious state, moaning in his delirium. Salvador was up on his elbows now, staring with awe at Gage as he stood. Gage motioned to the tall, skinny boxer that had been unconscious.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Enrique,” Salvador breathed reverently.

  Gage stood over Enrique, who was already blinking as if he was in a dust storm. He smacked Enrique’s face several times and, when he seemed lucid enough, told him to drag his partner out and never come back.

  A full minute later, while the crowd dissipated, buzzing with delight at what they’d seen and, as Enrique pulled the muscled body of his felled, and now crying, fellow gang member into the concourse, Gage ripped open his plastic container and removed the lone dingy washcloth. He found Salvador’s shaving kit, rummaging through until he saw a small pair of nostril scissors, clipping the end of the washcloth, then ripping it apart with his hands.

  Gage dropped onto the lower bunk, not breathing for a full twenty seconds due to the growing pain in his back and shoulder. He raised his eyes to Salvador, who had shrunk to the rear corner of the cell.

  Remembering what he’d been told about Salvador’s gang, and what he’d read on the Internet, Gage asked, “Should I expect any more of your fellow Sementals today?”

  Wetting his mouth several times, Salvador shook his head as he mouthed the word “no”.

  Gage pressed one half of the washcloth to the wound on his shoulder, probing at it and estimating that he’d been stabbed with something about the size of a large nail. He tried to reach over his shoulder, but the wound on his back was too far down. Salvador shuffled over.

  “I look?” he asked in English.

  Gage raised his eyes.

  “Trust,” Salvador whispered.

  “Me trust you?”

  “When you arrived, señor, I had to do this.”

  “What about your buddies, did they have to try to kill me?”

  “Sí, señor, they did. Every man here must be tested. Had I not, had we not, would label us to everyone here as coños tímidos. It would be an invitation to our own death.”

  “Coños tímidos?” Gage grunted.

  “Scared pussies,” Salvador clarified.

  Gage pondered Salvador for a moment before he leaned forward. Salvador bent over Gage, lifting his shirt and switching to Spanish. “Sí, the wound here beside your spine is deeper than the shoulder wound. Juan mus
t have hit bone on the shoulder, but the wound on your back went all the way in.”

  “How wide is it?”

  Salvador straightened, showing his pinkie finger. “He got you with what we call a ‘perforador.’ I didn’t see the one that was used, but probably a nail or a sharpened piece of plastic.” He patted Gage’s other shoulder. “Wait.” Unsteadily, Salvador exited the cell and turned left.

  Not knowing whether or not to trust Salvador, Gage stood, moving into the corner of the room protected by the beds on one side and the front wall on the other. Salvador returned momentarily, carrying with him a plastic vial and a weathered box of what looked like detergent.

  “Please, sit.”

  Gage stared at him.

  “Please,” Salvador said. “Now, remove your shirt.” Gage complied. Salvador went into his personal items and came back with a handful of cotton balls. He opened the vial, turning it over to soak it on a cotton ball then pressed it to Gage’s back wound.

  Searing, burning pain.

  Salvador did this three times, then repeated the process on Gage’s shoulder. Finally he retrieved the detergent. “You know Celox?” he asked, holding it up.

  “Clotting agent, yes. I’ve used it before. You guys keep that lying around here?”

  Salvador grinned. Gage could feel the granules being poured over his back, then his shoulder. Salvador took the washcloth pieces, pressing them against the wounds filled with the styptic granules. “Now lie back.”

  “Want me to climb up on my own bunk?”

  “It’s okay,” Salvador said.

  Head spinning slightly, which was disconcerting, Gage rested, feeling the pressure of the makeshift bandage pushing against his back. Salvador wet another washcloth, handing it to Gage. “Your nose, señor, it may be broken.”

  Having forgotten all about the punch he’d taken, Gage wiped the already dried blood from his face, pinching his nose and deciding it actually wasn’t broken, just sore from a solid strike. Footsteps could be heard on the stairs—boots, not sandals—followed by an approach on the concourse. Gage’s eyes were closed but he saw the darkness created by the figure just outside the cell.