‘Well that’s more like it, Jimmy. You always were a smart lad and I hate to see all that intelligence going to waste. You will go to Juvenile Correction Hall for a term of not less than …’
‘Sorry, Your Honour,’ I broke in. ‘Not possible. Oh, if only I had committed my crimes last week or last month! The law is firm on this and I have no escape. Today is my birthday. My seventeenth birthday.’
That slowed him down all right. The guards looked on patiently while he punched for information on his computer terminal. The reporter for the Bit O’Heaven Bugle was working just as hard on the keys of his own portable terminal at the same time. He was filing quite a story. It didn’t take the judge long to come up with the answers. He sighed.
‘That is true enough. The records reveal that you are seventeen this day and have achieved your majority. You are no longer a juvenile and must be treated as an adult. This would mean a prison term for certain – if I didn’t allow for the circumstances. A first offence, the obvious youth of the defendant, his realisation that he has done wrong. It is within the power of this bench to make exceptions, to suspend a sentence and bind a prisoner over. It is my decision …’
The last thing I wanted to do was hear his decision now. Things were not going as I had planned, not at all. Action was required. I acted. My scream drowned out the judge’s words. Still screaming I dived headlong from the prisoner’s dock, shoulder-rolled neatly on the floor and was across the room before my shocked audience could even consider moving.
‘You will write no more scurrilous lies about me, you grubbing hack,’ I shouted. As I whipped the terminal from the reporter’s hands and crashed it to the floor. Then stamped the six-hundred buck machine into worthless junk. I dodged around him before he could grab me and pelted towards the door. The policeman there grabbed at me – then folded when I planted my foot in his stomach.
I could probably have escaped then, but escape at this point wasn’t part of my plan. I fumbled with the door handle until someone grabbed me, then struggled on until I was overwhelmed.
This time I was manacled as I stood in the dock and there was no more ‘Jimmy-my-boy’ talk from the judge. Someone had found him a new gavel and he waved it in my direction as though wishing to brain me with it. I growled and tried to look surly.
‘James Bolivar diGriz,’ he intoned. ‘I sentence you to the maximum penalty for the crime that you have committed. Hard labour in the city jail until the arrival of the next League ship, whereupon you will be sent to the nearest place of correction for criminal therapy.’ The gavel banged. ‘Take him away.’
This was more like it. I struggled against my cuffs and spat curses at him so he wouldn’t show any last moment weaknesses. He didn’t. Two burly policemen grabbed me and hauled me bodily out of the courtroom and jammed me, not too gently, into the back of the black Maria. Only after the door had been slammed and sealed did I sit back and relax – and allow myself a smile of victory.
Yes, victory, I mean that. The whole point of the operation was to get arrested and sent to prison. I needed some on the job training.
There is method in my madness. Very early in life, probably about the time of my Get-Stuffed successes, I began to consider seriously a life of crime. For a lot of reasons – not the least of which was that I enjoyed being a criminal. The financial awards were great; no other job paid more for less work. And, I must be truthful, I enjoyed the feeling of superiority when I made the rest of the world look like chumps. Some may say that is a juvenile emotion. Perhaps – but it sure is a pleasurable one.
About this same time I was faced with a serious problem. How was I to prepare myself for the future? There had to be more to crime than lifting Get-Stuffed bars. Some of the answers I saw clearly. Money was what I wanted. Other people’s money. Money is locked away so the more I knew about locks the more I would be able to get this money. For the first time in school I buckled down to work. My grades soared so high that my teachers began to feel there might be hope for me yet. I did so well that when I elected to study the trade of locksmith they were only too eager to oblige. It was supposed to be a three-year course but I learned all there was to know in three months. I asked permission to take the final examination. And was refused.
Things were just not done that way, they told me. I would proceed at the same stately pace as the others and in two years and nine months I would get my diploma, leave the school – and enter the ranks of the wage slaves.
Not very likely. I tried to change my course of study and was informed that this was impossible. I had locksmith stamped on my forehead, metaphorically speaking of course, and it would remain there for life. They thought.
I began to cut classes and avoid the school for days at a time. There was little they could do about this, other than administer stern lectures, because I showed up for all the examinations and always scored the highest grades. I ought to, since I was making the most of my training in the field. I carefully spread my attentions around so the complacent citizens of the city had no idea they were being taken. A vending machine would yield a few bucks in silver one day, a till at the parking lot the next. Not only did this field work perfect my talents but it paid for my education. Not my school education of course – by law I had to remain there until the age of seventeen – but in my free time.
Since I could find no guidelines to prepare myself for a life of crime I studied all of the skills that might be of service. I found the word forgery in the dictionary which encouraged me to learn photography and printing. Since unarmed combat had already stood me in good stead I continued my studies until I earned a Black Belt. Nor was I ignoring the technical side of my chosen career. Before I was sixteen I knew just about all there was to know about computers – while at the same time I had become a skilled microelectronic technician.
All of these things were satisfying enough in themselves – but where did I go from there? I really didn’t know. That was when I decided to give myself a coming-of-age birthday present. A term in jail.
Crazy? Like a fox! I had to find some criminals – and where better than in jail? A keen line of reasoning one has to admit. Going to jail would be like coming home, meeting my chosen peer group at last. I would listen and learn and when I felt I had learned enough the lockpick in the sole of my shoe would help me to make my exit. How I smiled and chortled with glee.
More the fool – for it was not to be this way at all.
My hair was shorn, I was bathed in an antiseptic spray, prison clothes and boots were issued – so unprofessionally that I had ample time to transfer the lockpick and my stock of coins – I was thumbprinted and retinapixed, then led to my cell. To behold, to my great joy, that I had a cellmate. My education would begin at last. This was the first day of the rest of my criminal life.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ I said. ‘My name is Jim diGriz.’
He looked at me and snarled, ‘Get knotted, kid.’ He went back to picking his toes, an operation which my entrance had interrupted.
That was my first lesson. The polite linguistic exchanges of life outside were not honoured behind these walls. Life was tough – and so was language. I twisted my lips into a sneer and spoke again. In far harsher tones this time.
‘Get knotted yourself, toe-cheese. My monicker is Jim. What’s yours?’
I wasn’t sure about the slang, I had picked it up from old videos, but I surely had the tone of voice right because I had succeeded in capturing his attention this time. He looked up slowly and there was the glare of cold hatred in his eyes.
‘Nobody – and I mean nobody – talks to Willy the Blade that way. I’m going to cut you, kid, cut you bad. I’m going to cut my initial into your face. A “V” for Willy.’
‘A “W”,’ I said. ‘Willy is spelled with a “W”.’
This upset him even more. ‘I know how to spell, I ain’t no moron!’ He was blazing with rage now, digging furiously under the mattress on his bed. He produced a hacksaw blade that I could see had the ba
ck edge well sharpened. A deadly little weapon. He bounced it in his hand, sneered one last sneer – then lunged at me.
Well, needless to say, that is not the recommended way to approach a Black Belt. I moved aside, chopped his wrist as he went by – then kicked the back of his ankle so that he ran head first into the wall.
He was knocked cold. When he came to I was sitting on my bunk and doing my nails with his knife. ‘The name is Jim,’ I said, lip-curled and nasty. ‘Now you try saying it. Jim.’
He stared at me, his face twisted – then he began to cry! I was horrified. Could this really be happening?
‘They always pick on me. You’re no better. Make fun of me. And you took my knife away. I worked a month making that knife, had to pay ten bucks for the broken blade …’
The thought of all the troubles had started him blubbering again. I saw then that he was only a year or so older than me – and a lot more insecure. So my first introduction to criminal life found me cheering him up, getting a wet towel to wipe his face, giving him back his knife – and even giving him a five-buck goldpiece to stop his crying. I was beginning to feel that a life of crime was not quite what I thought it would be.
It was easy enough to get the story of his life – in fact it was hard to shut him up once he got in full spate. He was filled with self-pity and wallowed in the chance to reveal all to an audience.
Pretty sordid, I thought, but kept silent while his boring reminiscences washed over me. Slow in school, laughed at by the others, the lowest marks. Weak and put upon by the bullies, gaining status only when he discovered – by accident of course with a broken bottle – that he could be a bully too once he had a weapon. The rise in status, if not respect, after that by using threats of violence and more than a little bullying. All of this reinforced by demonstrations of dissections on live birds and other small and harmless creatures. Then his rapid fall after cutting a boy and being caught. Sentenced to Juvenile Hall, released, then more trouble and back to Hall yet again. Until here he was, at the zenith of his career as a knife-carrying punk, imprisoned for extorting money by threats of violence. From a child of course. He was far too insecure to attempt to threaten an adult.
Of course he did not say all this, not at once, but it became obvious after endless rambling complaints. I tuned him out and tuned my inner thoughts in. Bad luck, that was all it was. I had probably been put in with him to keep me from the company of the real hardened criminals who filled this prison.
The lights went out at that moment and I lay back on the bunk. Tomorrow would be my day. I would meet the other inmates, size them up, find the real criminals among them. Befriend them and begin my graduate course in crime. That is surely what I would do.
I went happily to sleep, washed over by a wave of wimpish whining from the adjoining bunk. Just bad luck being stuck in with him. Willy was the exception. I had a room mate who was a loser, that was all. It would all be different in the morning.
I hoped. There was a little nag of worry that kept me awake for a bit, but at last I shrugged it off. Tomorrow would be fine, yes it would be. Fine. No doubt about that, fine …
CHAPTER THREE
Breakfast was no better – and no worse – than the ones I made for myself. I ate automatically, sipping the weak cactus tea and chewing doggedly at the gruel, while I looked around at the other tables. There were about thirty prisoners stuffing their faces in this room, and my gaze went from face to face with a growing feeling of despair.
Firstly, most of them had the same vacuous look of blank stupidity as my cellmate. All right, I could accept that, the criminal classes would of course contain the maladjusted and the mental mud walls. But there had to be more than that! I hoped.
Secondly, they were all quite young, none out of their twenties. Weren’t there any old criminals? Or was criminality a malfunction of youth that was quickly cured by the social adjustment machines? There had to be more to it than that. There had to be. I took some cheer from this thought. All of these prisoners were losers, that was obvious, losers and incompetents. It was obvious once you thought about it. If they had been any good at their chosen profession they wouldn’t be inside! They were of no use to the world or to themselves.
But they were to me. If they couldn’t supply the illegal facts that I needed they would surely be able to put me in touch with those who did. From them I would get leads to the criminals on the outside, the professionals still uncaught. That was what I had to do. Befriend them and extract the information that I needed. All was not lost yet.
It didn’t take long for me to discover the best of this despicable lot. A little group were gathered around a hulking young man who sported a broken nose and a scarred face. Even the guards seemed to avoid him. He strutted a good deal and the others made room around him when they walked in the exercise yard after lunch.
‘Who is that?’ I asked Willy, who huddled on the bench next to me industriously picking his nose. He blinked rapidly until he finally made out the subject of my attentions, then waved his hands with despair.
‘Watch out for him, stay away, he’s bad medicine. Stinger is a killer, that’s what I heard, and I believe it too. And he’s a champ at mudslugging. You don’t want to know him.’
This was intriguing indeed. I had heard of mudslugging, but I had always lived too close to the city to have seen it in action. There was never any of it taking place near enough for me to hear about, not with the police all around. Mudslugging was a crude sport – and illegal – that was enjoyed by folk in the outlying farm towns. In the winter, with the porcuswine in their sties and the crops in the barns, time would hang heavy on their agrarian hands. That was when the mudslugging would begin. A stranger would appear and challenge the local champion, usually some overmuscled ploughboy. A clandestine engagement would be arranged in some remote barn, the women dismissed, moonshine surreptitiously brought in plastic bottles, bets made – and the barefisted fight begun. To end when one of the combatants could not get off the ground. Not a sport for the squeamish, or the sober. Good, hearty, drunken masculine fun. And Stinger was one of this stalwart band. I must get to know Stinger better.
This was easily enough done. I suppose I could have just walked over and spoken to him, but my thought patterns were still warped by all of the bad videos I had watched for most of my life. Plenty of these were about criminals getting their just desserts in prison; which is probably where I originated the idea of this present escapade. Never matter, the idea was still a sound one. I could prove that by talking to Stinger.
To do this I walked, whistling, about the yard until I was close to him and his followers. One of them scowled at me and I scuttled away. Only to return as soon as his back was turned, to sidle up beside the head villain.
‘Are you Stinger?’ I whispered out of the side of my mouth, head turned away from him. He must have seen the same videos because he answered in the same way.
‘Yeah. So who wants to know?’
‘Me. I just got into this joint. I got a message for you from the outside.’
‘So tell.’
‘Not where these dummies can hear. We gotta be alone.’
He gave me a most suspicious look from under his beetling brows. But I had succeeded in capturing his curiosity. He muttered something to his followers then strolled away. They remained behind but flashed murderous looks at me when I strolled in the same direction. He went across the yard towards a bench – the two men already there fleeing as he approached. I sat down next to him and he looked me up and down with disdain.
‘Say what you gotta say, kid – and it better be good.’
‘This is for you,’ I said, sliding a twenty-buck coin along the bench towards him. ‘The message is from me and from no one else. I need some help and am willing to pay for it. Here is a down payment. There is plenty more where this came from.’
He sniffed disdainfully – but his thick fingers scraped up the coin and slipped it into his pocket. ‘I ain’t in the charity busines
s, kid. The only geezer I help is myself. Now shove off –’
‘Listen to what I have to say first. What I need is someone to break out of prison with me. One week from today. Are you interested?’
I had caught his attention this time. He turned and looked me square in the eye, cold and assured. ‘I don’t like jokes,’ he said – and his hand grabbed my wrist and twisted. It hurt. I could have broken the grip easily, but I did not. If this little bit of bullying was important to him, then bully away.
‘It’s no joke. Eight days from now I’ll be on the outside. You can be there too if you want to be. It’s your decision.’
He glared at me some more – then let go of my wrist. I rubbed at it and waited for his response. I could see him chewing over my words, trying to make up his mind. ‘Do you know why I’m inside?’ he finally asked.
‘I heard rumours.’
‘If the rumour was that I killed a geezer then the rumour was right. It was an accident. He had a soft head. It broke when I knocked him down. They was going to pass it off as a farm accident but another geezer lost a bundle to me on the match. He was going to pay me next day but he went to the police instead because that was a lot cheaper. Now they are going to take me to a League hospital and do my head. The shrinker here says I won’t want to fight again after that. I won’t like that.’
The big fists opened and closed when he talked and I had the sudden understanding that fighting was his life, the one thing that he could do well. Something that other men admired and praised him for. If that ability were taken away – why they might just as well take away his life at the same time. I felt a sudden spurt of sympathy but did not let the feeling show.
‘You can get me out of here?’ The question was a serious one.
‘I can.’
‘Then I’m your man. You want something out of me, I know that, no one does nothing for nothing in this world. I’ll do what you want, kid. They’ll get me in the end. There is no place to hide anywhere when they are really looking for you. But I’m going to get mine. I’m going to get the geezer what put me in here. Get him proper. One last fight. Kill him the way he killed me.’
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