by Jim Heskett
“Hello, Kellen. I’m not sure you’re supposed to be in the senator’s private bedroom all by yourself. That seems like something he would most definitely not approve of. What are we ever going to do about this?”
The blood drained from his face and rushed to his fists as he clenched them. “Beth, you goddamn thief. You stole my idea and pawned it off to the senator as your own.”
She jiggled the flash drive in her hand. “I suppose you’re referring to this?”
“Admit what you did.”
Beth laughed, a wicked sound coming from between her beet-red lips. “It’s time you moved on and let go of all your petty indignation. If you can’t stand a little competition, then I’m not sure if politics suits you.”
“Maybe. But I’m not doing anything until you admit that you stole from me.”
“Okay, fine, I took your research and told LaVey it was mine. Does that make you happy? If you had any brains, you would have been spending the last few days doing something useful, instead of wallowing in your pathetic defeat.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Kellen said.
“You want this back?” she said, extending the flash drive.
Kellen snatched it from her hand, and she laughed again, a high-pitched squeal of joy.
“You idiot. Obviously, I wiped the thumb drive.”
“I figured you might. That’s why I had a backup plan. Reggie, you can come out now.”
Her face dropped as Reggie emerged from behind the corner at the end of the hallway, holding a phone out in front of him in one hand and a drink in the other. Reggie stumbled a bit, with a massive grin on his face. Looked drunk.
A rumble of panic went through Kellen. “Did you get all that?”
Reggie held up his phone, the screen displaying an app with an image of a microphone. He tapped the pause button. “Yup. Every word. Can’t believe LaVey didn’t catch you in there. That was some exciting shit.”
Kellen could have yelled at Reggie for not warning him, but it didn’t matter now. He looked back to Beth, savoring the creeping despair on her face. “Would you like to be there when I play this for the senator, or should I email you the highlights while you’re standing in the unemployment line?”
Beth clasped her hands over her stomach. “Wait a moment. Be reasonable about this. Can’t we come to some kind of understanding?”
“Not a chance, you dirty intellectual property thief. Your career is over.”
“Hold on a second,” Reggie said as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. He’d turned his body away from Kellen and was now leaning up against the wall near Beth. “What kind of understanding are we talking about here? I can be pretty reasonable.”
Beth grinned at Kellen, then sidled up next to Reggie along the wall.
“Reggie…” Kellen said, but Reggie only held up a hand as an answer.
“What the hell are you doing?” Kellen was watching his victory slip from his fingers, playing out in slow motion right before his eyes. Reggie, the pot-head slacker, was about to sell him out.
“This doesn’t concern you anymore,” Beth said, lowering her head and casting her seductive eyes at Reggie. She traced a finger along his forearm. “What did you have in mind, Reggie?”
Something in Kellen snapped. He’d had no other backup plan, no other way to expose the truth, and Beth had just used her sex-weapon to disarm him. As if she could predict the thing that would hurt him most, and grasped it from the air.
He could punch Reggie in the face and try to force the phone out of his pocket, then make a mad dash down the hall. But, even with the evidence, Beth would find a way to refute it. No matter what Kellen did, she was always going to win. Beth, the irresistible force.
Give up, the voice inside his head said. You don’t belong with these people.
Maybe the voice was right, for once. Maybe politics was not the life for Kellen. All the lying, cheating, and backstabbing that only led to disappointments and sleepless nights, and for what?
Kellen glared at her, but she wasn’t paying any attention to him. “You know what? I don’t even care anymore. You can have all this… all this deceit and bullshit. I don’t want any part of it ever again.”
He strutted past her and was about to leave her to the transaction with Reggie, when one last thought occurred to him.
He grabbed Reggie’s drink and flung it in Beth’s face.
Sweet, sweet justice.
Over Cornbread
(DURING THE FALL)
Gavin Nguyen bounced a tennis ball against the door of his prison cell. Off the door, to the floor, then into his hands. For fifteen minutes, the activity occupied all of his resources. White room, square, two beds, a toilet, and two shelves. Gavin didn’t have much to distract him from his exercise.
His celly Connor was in his own bunk, doing crunches. The rhythmic creak of the bed paired with the throwing motion in perfect harmony.
Connor stopped, panting. “Shouldn’t they have come by for roll call by now?”
Gavin caught the ball and held it, considering the question. He checked his watch. “Yeah, they’re ten minutes late. That’s weird.”
He got out of bed and crossed the tiny room to peek through the safety glass window in the door. Outside his cell, collection of similar cells and a metal staircase led to the common room at the center of the pod. A half dozen faces peered out of their own windows, including Demopoulos the Greek, whose cell was directly opposite Gavin’s.
Demopoulos glared at him. Probably still mad about what happened in the caff the day before.
“Can you see the C.O.?” Connor said.
Gavin strained to extend his field of vision. Red tape marked the edge of the safe area but he couldn’t see the raised guard platform beyond it. “I can’t.”
Connor resumed his crunches. “It’s probably nothing,” he said through the grunts. “This kind of stuff happens from time to time.”
Gavin kept looking, and gave up after a few seconds with no movement below.
Connor finished his set, stood, then lifted his shirt to flex his abs. “Check it out. If you only had a quarter to bounce off me.”
Gavin rolled his eyes. “Show off.” Comparatively, Connor was a massive human, and Gavin imagined that Bibb County Correctional Facility had added a few inches to those arms. Gavin, meanwhile, had spent the last decade behind a desk in Montgomery, worrying about his editor’s red pen and shaving inches off columns.
Maybe if he’d shaved a few more inches off the last column, he wouldn’t be in prison now. Or maybe they would have tossed him in here no matter what.
Connor joined him next to the door and craned his neck. He stood a full head taller than Gavin.
With his head pressed against the glass, Connor said, “Okay, I can see the guard station. There’s nobody there. That’s definitely not normal. Even if they had a staff meeting or something, they’d still put somebody on watch.”
“What do you think’s going on?”
Connor shrugged. “No idea. Demopoulos sure is mean-muggin’ you, though. Check him out.”
Basil Demopoulos, known around as Scarface because of his extensive facial tattoos, was indeed still staring at Gavin across the hallway.
“Maybe you should have given him your cornbread,” Connor said.
Gavin laughed, but it came out as a nervous titter. Demopoulos was a surly bastard, but attacking someone over cornbread? The idea of it seemed so crazy. But in the three weeks he’d been incarcerated in Bibb County, he’d seen noses broken over lesser transgressions.
An alarm sounded throughout the pod. Short, sharp bursts, which meant everyone in the caff or the yard was supposed to drop to the ground and lace their hands behind their heads. But it was after roll call time, and everyone was already in their cells.
“What the hell?” Gavin said. This was definitely weird.
Then a click, and the door unlocked. Gavin stared at the door, then glanced through the window. Inmates started op
ening their cell doors, including Demopoulos.
***
Gavin reached for the knob of the door. It turned. He whipped his hand back.
“What are you waiting for?” Connor said. “Let’s go see what the deal is.”
Gavin watched as Demopoulos descended the stairs into the common area, the Greek’s eyes locked on him like a tractor beam.
Connor pushed Gavin aside and opened the door. Fear told Gavin to stay, but his celly was the only person in the whole pod he trusted, so he had no choice but to follow him.
He stepped out onto the landing that overlooked the common area. The open indoor courtyard contained a set of benches and barstool chairs bolted to the concrete floor. About twenty inmates had gathered by the benches, all of them looking as confused as Gavin. Twenty prisoners loitering in the common area was nothing new. He was used to the sea of khaki pants and shirts, but there were no navy blue uniforms among them. The guard station in the middle of the room sat empty.
“What the hell is going on out here?” he said.
Connor leaned over the railing. “No idea. Let’s ask around. Maybe there was an emergency in one of the other pods or something.”
Gavin gripped Connor’s arm.
“Don’t worry,” Connor said, “It’s going to be fine. Stick by me.”
Seated on a bench, Demopoulos eyed them both as they descended the stairs. The tattoos on his face scrunched and wrinkled around his smirk.
Metal grates clanked under their boots, each step heavier than the last. At the bottom of the stairs, Demopoulos stood up and clenched his fists.
“There!” one of the inmates said, pointing at the entrance on the far wall of the pod.
A guard appeared through the gate as it slid open, the badge on his uniform rising and falling as his chest pumped. He ran a hand through his hair and took a hesitant step into the pod. Keys jangled in his hands. Look of terror on his trembling face.
“What’s going on out there?” Connor said.
The guard swallowed. “It’s happening. Everything is… it’s all turned to shit.”
He dropped the keys and twenty heads collectively dipped to watch them clang to the floor.
The guard spun on his heels to leave, and several things happened at once. Demopoulos took a screwdriver from his pants pocket and stabbed another inmate in the chest. Blood sprouted from the wound. Four or five inmates leaped from their metal barstools and rushed toward the guard. Two black inmates threw punches at two Aryans, and all four of them ended up on the floor, grappling.
Gavin got turned around in the mess, bumped and nudged. When he regained his bearings, Demopoulos was directly in front of him, bloody screwdriver in hand. He swung it down in a wide arc, and Gavin whipped back to avoid the swipe. Demopoulos missed, and the point of the weapon landed in his own thigh.
Connor grabbed Gavin by the shirt and pulled him away from the mosh pit.
“We need to go, now,” Gavin said.
Connor jerked his head at the same gate the guard had opened and they raced toward it. Before leaving the pod, Gavin turned back to look at the crowd. Demopoulos was now screaming, cursing, and glaring at him.
***
Gavin dashed through the door into a long hallway, snatching the guard’s keys on the way out. Heart pounding. He knew the caff was up on the left. Then the kitchen past that. On the right were some office rooms. Maybe he could try a few doors, but he suspected that if any of them had windows, they’d be barred.
They needed to get out. Get free and find out what the hell was going on.
With Connor close on his heels, they pushed on to the caff. Shouts rumbled through the hallway behind them. When they turned the corner into the cafeteria, Gavin skidded to a halt. The C.O., the one who had opened the gate for them, was huddled against the wall. A smear of blood led to his body. His stomach was torn open and his intestines poked out of a massive wound. His face was bloodied and bruised, but he appeared to be breathing.
“Oh my god,” Gavin said as he staggered toward the dying man.
“No time, celly,” Connor said. “Leave him be. We got to find our way out of here right the hell now.”
But he couldn’t help himself. The guard was trying to hold on to his guts as blood leaked from between his fingers. Gavin had never seen anything so grotesque, so powerful, so devastating.
He knelt by the guard. The man’s breaths were rapid, but he made eye contact with Gavin. “You’re the writer,” he said.
Gavin nodded. “Something like that.”
“They shouldn’t have put you in here. Your paperwork… everything you said about them… you were right.”
From Gavin’s arrest to trial to jail sentence had taken only four weeks. No one in the legal system had said anything about how strange it was to have happened at such lightning speed. Not even Gavin’s attorney.
“I’m sorry for what they did to you. I was told not to ask any questions,” the guard said. After that, he closed his eyes and coughed blood. He moaned, took a few quick breaths, and his head fell forward. His hands slipped away from his stomach and a loop of intestines fell free.
“Jesus Christ,” Gavin said as his head swam.
But he snapped back into consciousness when a collage of footsteps joined them in the pod’s cafeteria.
“Damn it, we don’t have time for this,” Connor said. “On your feet, Gavin, if we don’t—”
And when Gavin stood, he turned just in time to see Connor fall to the floor as Demopoulos stood over him, brandishing a length of pipe.
***
Gavin’s celly Connor was on the floor of the caff, out cold. Behind Demopoulos stood five of his crew, fanned out like a set of bowling pins. Demopoulos laughed.
“Look, if you want cornbread,” Gavin said, pointing to the kitchen, “there’s got to be pounds of it over there. There’s no reason to exaggerate the importance of the incident yesterday.”
Demopoulos twisted the metal pipe in his hands. “You don’t get it, reporter-boy. I don’t give two shits about the cornbread. I just don’t like you and your uppity slant-eyed college face. I don’t like the way you hide behind this brawny Aryan motherfucker all day long. It’s time for judgment day, you dumb bastard. No more protector. No more screws to stop anything from happening. Now toss those keys over here and take your beating like a man.”
Gavin looked down at the set of keys in his hand. He’d forgotten he had them.
Demopoulos limped forward and his crew followed as Gavin retreated. On the third step back, he slipped on the blood and landed on top of the dead guard. The urge to vomit overcame him as he gagged. He lifted his hands from the muck of the blood and bile, and wanted to weep.
He held out the keys in a clenched fist, the tip of one thrust between his knuckles like a tiny knife. They would probably kill him, but he intended to make a few marks of his own before they did.
Demopoulos burst out laughing. His crew followed suit, and that’s why none of them noticed when two guards in full riot gear entered from the kitchen, shotguns out.
With eight quick blasts, they shot every one of Demopoulos’ crew dead. Fingers and earlobes flew across the room like flesh shrapnel.
Then they turned on Gavin.
“Inmate, what are you still doing here?”
He didn’t even know what to say. He stammered, and the guard raised the shotgun to the ceiling and pulled the trigger. A mist of debris from the ceiling tile trickled through the air.
“I don’t know,” Gavin said. “The cell doors opened, and then this guard came and let us out of the pod. I was just running from this guy.” He pointed at the crumpled corpse of Demopoulos.
The guard on the left lifted the visor on his helmet. “What should we do with him?” he asked the guard on the right.
The guard on the right also lifted his visor, then stood next to the other guard. He sighed, then jammed the end of the shotgun against the other guard’s face and pulled the trigger. The man’s head came
apart like a watermelon thrown from a moving car.
The body slumped to the ground, next to Connor, who was now stirring.
The still-alive guard lifted a hand to beckon Gavin. “Up, inmate. Not going to tell you twice.”
Gavin put his hands in a puddle of blood to push himself to a stand. He felt drained. Had seen several people die in front of him. He’d never seen anyone die before today, and now he felt as if he’d stepped over some kind of line he couldn’t ever uncross.
He’d once seen a campus security guard eject a stream of pepper spray into the face of a student demonstrating against tuition hikes, and he later wrote about that poor woman’s screams and the way her face twisted as she writhed on the steps of the Student Union. He thought he’d never see humans behaving that way toward each other again, until this moment.
The guard approached and gripped him by the wrist. “New fish, right?”
“A few weeks,” Gavin said, and his own voice felt distant.
“Today’s your lucky day, inmate. You get to walk out of the Bibb County Correctional Facility a free man.”
The guard tugged Gavin by the wrist and they walked through the caff, then the kitchen, and into the hallway past the food storage room. The iron gates blocking their pod from the next one were already halfway open, and the guard guided Gavin through them. Shouts still echoed from down the hallway.
Gavin wanted to turn back and get Connor, but the guard wouldn’t let go of his wrist.
They turned into the next corridor and walked toward a set of doors crisscrossed with safety glass. The outside. Had to be.
Before they reached the doors, the guard stopped. He looked Gavin in the eye. “I know who you are, fish. You were right about all this, and they put you in jail for it. I didn’t get to read your article. I heard about it, though. There was a lot of cloak and dagger shit that went on when you came here.”
“Okay,” Gavin said, unsure what he was supposed to take from that.