by Sean Black
With the wall of the bunkhouse at his back, Byron watched the three inmates follow Mills to the door that led into the next bunkhouse. Mills unlocked it, and stepped back. For a moment Mills and his two buddies hesitated. Mills grabbed Red’s shoulder, put his mouth to Red’s ear and whispered something. Despite the moonlight and the late hour, Byron doubted it was sweet nothings.
This was the bunkhouse where Romero had been placed when he was released from solitary.
44
Once Red and the two other inmates were inside, Mills wandered back towards the main administration building. Byron had already noted that the lone night guard in the tower was nowhere to be seen. The cameras that would usually be trained on the bunkhouse doors were pointed elsewhere. Both these breaches of security protocol suited Byron. He quietly followed the three inmates inside the bunkhouse.
Prisoners stirred from their bunks as Red and company blundered around looking for Romero. Clearly their plan hadn’t extend to such sophisticated operational details as which bunk their target occupied.
The commotion was more than sufficient to cover Byron’s entry. He closed the door behind him and stood in the shadows, off to one side. Red stumbled over a pair of heavy work boots left next to someone’s bunk. He lost his balance and ended up sprawling face first on top of a short Guatemalan inmate. The man shoved him off.
All around men were sitting up. Byron spotted Romero on a lower bunk in the far corner of the room. He grabbed a pillow and propped it behind his back. He looked at Red and the two white inmates with the same puzzled expression that he seemed to reserve for almost any threat that came his way. It was the look an animal behaviorist might wear while studying two gorillas fighting in a zoo. The only problem was that Romero was in the enclosure with them.
Red got to his feet. One of his buddies had spotted Romero. ‘There’s the old fuck!’
The three men started towards Romero. Some of the Mexican inmates traded worried looks, but they didn’t move. They knew as well as anyone else in the bunkhouse that three inmates from another housing unit appearing in the middle of the night to give someone a beating didn’t happen without at least some degree of co-operation from the prison guards. Someone had had to unlock the doors.
The two white inmates each grabbed one of Romero’s arms and hauled him to his feet. Red pushed his face into Romero’s.
What happened next, no one had seen coming. Not even Byron.
45
Byron had expected Romero to try to reason with Red. Perhaps to explain that they were on the same side, and that skin color was a superficial difference. What mattered more was that they were both being held unfairly, exploited to line other people’s pockets, so they should be shoulder to shoulder in resisting the prison regime, not fighting each other. That was what Byron had expected Romero to say. But he didn’t say anything as the red-bearded convict wound up to punch him.
That was the first surprise. No words. It was quickly followed by the second surprise. Everything about Romero’s attitude and behaviour up to this point suggested that he held to broad principles of non-violent resistance. He’d struck Byron as a man who used brutality employed against him to undermine the opposition, to highlight the weakness of their position.
That didn’t happen either.
Instead, Romero drew his head and upper body back six inches. Using the grip of the men holding his arms as two stanchions, he thrust his head forward, driving it with his shoulders and chest, like a soccer player attacking a ball from a corner kick to head a goal.
Romero’s forehead crunched into Red’s nose with surprising force. Byron heard the crack all the way across the bunkhouse.
He didn’t wait for what would happen next. He broke into a run and reached Red as he drew back his fist to take another shot at Romero. He grabbed his wrist and yanked it back, snapping it. This time he screamed in pain and his body went limp. Byron let go.
The two men holding Romero released him. They hunkered down a little, making themselves smaller targets, elbows tucked in, hands bunched into fists.
It was a pitiful sight.
Maybe they’d heard how easily Mills had beaten him and figured he looked tougher than he was. Stupid, thought Byron. Really dumb.
He almost saw the shank a second too late. It was a long piece of metal with spikes that got shorter nearer the handle, like a Christmas tree. Like a barbed fish hook, it was designed so that the real damage would be done pulling it back out. He stepped back as it was thrust towards his left side. The sharp metal tip, honed to a fine edge, brushed against his skin, slicing it open and drawing blood.
Byron chopped out a kick to the shank wielder’s leg. He followed up with an elbow that smashed into the man’s face. The shank dropped to the floor. The other inmate bent down to pick it up and Byron closed in on him, put a hand behind the man’s head and pulled it down, bringing his knee up into his victim’s face with close to full force.
Byron spun round. Red was standing there, his hands already thrown up in surrender. ‘Hey, Davis, it’s me. We’re cool, remember?’
They were very far from cool. Byron was all set to give Red a taste of the medicine he’d planned on dishing out to Romero. Before that could happen the bunkhouse light snapped on.
Mills and two other guards dressed in full riot gear stood just inside the doorway. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ Mills shouted.
A second later Byron, Romero, Red and the other two others were engulfed in a cloud of pepper spray. Byron didn’t try to fight his way through it. He kicked out at the shank, sending it spinning under Romero’s bunk where it couldn’t do any harm. Following Mills’s orders, he laced his fingers and clamped his hands behind his head. He lowered himself to his knees as the spray stung the back of his throat, and tears streamed from his eyes.
46
The only good day was yesterday.
It was an old special-forces saying, designed to prepare operators for their work. As dictums went, it was fairly good. For once Byron hoped it might not hold true. Yesterday had started with high hopes of an escape, and ended less than twenty-four hours later in a cell for one in solitary. Romero occupied the next-door cell. The three white inmates were in the infirmary, being treated for their injuries. Sadly for them, no successful treatment had yet been developed for being dumb.
For a man who had only just been released from solitary a few days before, Romero seemed to be in remarkably good spirits. Maybe breaking Red’s nose had reassured him that there was still life in the old dog yet. Byron had to hand it to the old man: as head butts went, it had been pretty damn effective. It was proof that when it came to physical violence, youth was no match for technique matched with experience.
The question now was what Mills’s or the warden’s response would be. Mills had sent in three inmates to teach Romero a lesson and come away with a bloody nose, both literal and metaphorical. Having an enforcer taken out by a senior citizen invited ridicule. In Byron’s experience, small-time thugs like Mills hated, more than anything, being made to look foolish. Romero had made him look foolish and then some. It would not be allowed to pass without action being taken. A prison operated on the warden’s authority. Take that away and you lost control fast.
Mills’s response wasn’t long in coming. This time, Byron couldn’t do anything to stop it. All he could was sit in his cell, and listen, as a cold, dispassionate rage formed in the center of his gut.
47
Given the limited scope of most inmates’ interests (sport, women, and their shitty luck in life), Byron had had the good fortune to be placed in a cell next to Romero. The old man was probably the most able conversationalist among the prison population. He had a broad grasp of what was going on in the world and, perhaps more impressively, why.
Byron learned that Señor Romero had a doctorate from UNAM (the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Mexico’s top university. In his late twenties he had been pursuing a degree when he had become involved in a
labor dispute while on a visit home. Romero had won the workers a pay rise and better conditions. That had been it. He was hooked by a job with a definite real-world outcome.
Not that Byron had ever craved a job as either a company boss or a labor organizer, but he understood the attraction of doing something that made people’s lives tangibly better. Byron’s government work, especially as it related to counter-insurgency, often involved setting up educational and infrastructure projects. Everyone thought it was rappelling out of a Blackhawk with a K-bar between his teeth while firing an M16 on full auto, but more often than not the real work of undermining a terrorist organization came via funding a school or arranging for fresh water to be piped to a village. So, Byron understood the appeal of working on the ground as opposed to sitting in some ivory tower telling everyone else how the world should work, if only they got with the program.
‘You ever have regrets?’ Byron had asked him, their voices echoing through the vent that fed into an air duct that ran the length of the cells on either side.
‘That I didn’t take the easy path?’ said Romero.
‘Yeah.’
‘Doesn’t every man wonder what their life might have been like if they had turned right instead of left? Or, in my case, left instead of right,’ Romero said.
Romero had a bone-dry sense of humor that made Byron smile. For someone who must have carried his fair share of ideological baggage, he still appeared to have an appreciation of the absurdity of life, and of his own absurdities.
‘I guess they do,’ said Byron. ‘Not sure that’s the same as having a regret, though.’
‘Neatly sidestepped, Mr Davis,’ said Romero. ‘If there were a prize for never giving a straight answer you would be some kind of Olympic champion. It may not be too late for a career in politics.’
Byron laughed. ‘Think I’ll pass.’
Lunch arrived a few minutes later. To Byron’s surprise it was better than what was dished out in the mess hall. The bread was fresh. The stew contained what appeared to be chunks of real meat. The fruit, an apple and an orange, was free of mould. It was only when he heard the prisoner delivering it whisper to Romero in Spanish, asking how he was and whether he needed anything, that Byron realized this might be the special ‘Romero’ tray.
He took his time eating. Having food that was actually edible rather than something to be choked down made a pleasant change. It wasn’t Michelin-star quality, but after what he’d been eating since his arrest it tasted pretty damn good. Or should that have been simply ‘it tasted’?
He finished eating, fed his tray back through the slot, and lay down on the concrete slab topped with a sliver of mattress that passed for a bed in the SHU. That was the other upside of solitary. Any time was nap time. No slaving away in the scorching sun. Privacy. No having to listen to dozens of other men snore or fart or talk in their sleep.
Peace.
It didn’t last.
It never did.
This time, Byron was awake when they came for Romero. Three sets of boots marching slowly down the corridor outside. Three guards, faces obscured by bandanas underneath their riot helmets so that all that showed was their eyes. Business eyes. Pupils pinprick small. The dead-soul gaze of men on a mission.
48
Ten minutes later Romero, an oxygen mask placed over his face, was wheeled out of the cell on a gurney. At least, thought Byron, they hadn’t just left him to bleed out. It was a small mercy but a mercy none the less. Even Mills, or maybe the warden, had a limit. Or perhaps they knew that there was a world of difference between beating the shit out of someone and killing him.
A hushed reverence seemed to descend upon the SHU as the gurney passed. Eyes peered through tray slots. No one shouted. The whole atmosphere had changed. It was as if a terrible storm had passed and all that was left was the debris.
Byron had no way of knowing if Romero would make it or not. It had been a sustained beating. The old man was not in the best of health, despite evidence to the contrary in how he had handled Red. Even if he survived and made at least a partial recovery, his health would be damaged, if not physically then psychologically.
A beating like that would alter a man like Romero, someone who believed in the fundamental decency of people. A hardened con could take a beating and not think much of it. Their cynicism and the division of the world into predator and prey provided them with psychological armor. Not so with a regular person. Unwarranted brutality affected them in a different way.
Byron lay back on his bunk. When dinner came, he ate reluctantly. Even though the food was still better than it had been in the mess hall, it didn’t taste as good as lunch had. His appetite wasn’t there. He made himself eat it because he would need the calories.
What had happened to Romero had been a wake-up call he shouldn’t really have needed. There was no doing the decent thing in a place like this. No greater good. The only responsibility Byron had was to himself. Whatever chance arose to get out, he had better take it. If he got a chance to even things up with Mills in the process then all well and good. But he wasn’t going to allow Romero’s welfare or anyone else’s to keep him here a second longer than was absolutely necessary.
* * *
After Romero had been taken away the inmates had quietened. Even the one or two Byron assumed were housed there because they had psychological problems, and usually kept up a fairly constant litany of screams and obscenities, fell silent.
The night was the same. The atmosphere was subdued. It was as if there had been a collective recognition that you couldn’t beat the system so why bother trying?
The next morning that had changed.
49
At first Byron assumed the whispered conversations between cells heralded news that Romero had died. He braced himself. A man twenty years younger than Romero might not have survived such a physical ordeal. That was why Byron had always questioned the use of physical violence to bring someone into line. Even if the force was measured there was no way of knowing whether some underlying condition would lead to the person’s death. An undetected heart murmur, a skull that was thin where it should have been thick, a sudden fall back onto the edge of a sidewalk. The human body was resilient but could prove vulnerable when least expected. You just never knew.
Once the blood had been hosed from the floor, Romero’s vacant cell had been occupied by another inmate. Byron hadn’t spoken to him, even when the man had tried to introduce himself through the vent as Dallas, a drifter, originally from Seattle. He had been picked up on some bullshit vagrancy charge by some asshole cop. From the way he talked Byron got the impression that this wasn’t Dallas’s first rodeo. For once it sounded like Kelsen County had leveled a vagrancy charge against someone who was actually a vagrant.
Now Dallas was back at the vent. ‘You hear what happened this morning?’
Here it comes, thought Byron. Nothing traveled faster than bad news. Especially in a place like this. He was sitting on the floor, his head back against the wall. He closed his eyes. ‘No,’ he said.
‘They called a strike.’
His eyes opened. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘This morning. After breakfast. The cons wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t get in the trucks. They say they’re on strike,’ said Dallas, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘Guards went crazy. Threatened ’em with all kinds of shit. Didn’t make no difference, though. I mean, what they gonna do? Throw everyone into solitary? Don’t have the cells.’
‘Everyone’s on strike? All the prisoners?’
Byron didn’t see the white inmates going along with a strike that had been called by a man that at least of some of them referred to as a ‘Commie beaner’.
‘All of ’em. When the beaners wouldn’t go out on work duty, no one else would either.’
It wasn’t exactly a show of solidarity across the racial divide but the end result was the same. Byron smiled. Romero. Even from a hospital bed he could still piss Mills and Castro. It
didn’t even matter whether Romero had called it or not. In some ways it was better that the leader of at least a section of the inmates was out of commission. What else could they do to him that they hadn’t already tried?
‘You hear anything about Romero?’ Byron asked Dallas.
‘Nope,’ said Dallas.
That was good. If Romero had died it would have gone on the bush telegraph faster than news of a strike. Now, given what had already happened that morning, Byron guessed that the prison authorities were praying that Romero kept breathing. Prison strikes, if they weren’t resolved or met with reprisals, were usually a precursor to something else. Often a riot.
Dallas took the opening of a dialogue between them as the green light to start telling Byron his life story. Although Byron didn’t respond, or offer any encouragement, he kept going. He rolled from birth to his present predicament with barely a pause for breath. A daddy he never knew, a mom whose taste in men never got any better, no matter how many she tried to settle down with. It came off like a bad country song. There was even a dog somewhere in there. Byron let the words wash over him as he thought about the levels of rage that would be washing over Warden Castro now.
Whether Romero had called for the inmates to strike or whether it had been a spontaneous reaction to him being attacked in his cell didn’t really matter. If Mills hadn’t beaten Romero, the inmates would have been at work this morning.
Word was also filtering through that the women prisoners were staying in their units and refusing to work. While much of the men’s labor struck Byron as ‘busy work’, the women assembled electronic goods for sale. Over the last few years a new wave of factories had sprung up in Mexico, driven by high shipping costs between Asia and the US, but why pay even a few pesos when you could have the work done for free, using essentially the same workforce you would have used anyway?