Against the Wind

by J. F. Freedman

  No one’s on the floor. My guards have disappeared. I can’t see very far, the smoke’s too thick, but I know the floor is deserted.

  The hair on the back of my neck stands up, electric.

  It’s a set-up. Something out there is coming for me.

  I strain to look down the corridor, both ways. It’s impossible to see clearly more than ten yards in either direction. The omnipresent smoke fills the building, backlit by fires near and far.

  I have to get out of here. I have to find Lone Wolf.

  I slide out of my cell, my back pressed against the concrete corridor wall. I’m scared shitless. This wasn’t part of the bargain. As quietly as possible I start shuffling down the corridor in the direction of the command center, where Lone Wolf and the other heavies are bivouacked.

  The floor is still wet, and by now it’s become sticky as well, encrusted God-knows-what forming a gel under the flow. It feels like walking on rotted jellyfish that have been lying in the sun, viscid and squishy at the same time.

  I’m at the complete opposite end from the control center, and on the other side to boot. To get there I’m going to have to traverse the entire building, and drop down two floors.

  I stop. Despite the intense heat, my skin has gone dry, clammy. My lips are suddenly chapped; maybe I’m more aware of everything right now, particularly anything tactile—I’m feeling parts of my body that I never feel, like I’m living inside a foreign, hostile country.

  Ahead of me, in my corridor, I sense a figure coming in my direction. I can’t see him, and I don’t think he sees me; but I feel him, feel his silent footsteps on the hard floor. My senses are more highly attuned than I’d thought possible; I feel as tuned in as an Indian scout on patrol. The floor is moving under my feet and I can feel it.

  It should be one of Lone Wolf’s emissaries, coming to check on me. It should be; everyone else is mandated to be bunkered down for the night in his own little space. Only the appointed guards are supposed to be walking the smoky, dark corridors.

  Go back to your cell, man. Go back to your cell and wait, like they told you to. Everything is under control.

  The footsteps are steadily coming closer. I can hear them now. Probably twenty, thirty yards away. Slow and measured, carefully. With the floor being as wet and slimy as it is one misstep and you could fall and break a bone, or even buy the farm completely, over the railing a hundred feet to concrete.

  Go back to your cell, lawyer. This is not your element. Do what they told you.

  From the opposite direction, a second set of footsteps, also coming in my direction. Coming the same way I’ve been coming, passing by my cell. I hear the footsteps stop; then they start my way again.

  I don’t know why it is, the thought I’m thinking this instance; but whatever is happening is wrong. These are not the men Lone Wolf and the convict council have set up for my protection. I don’t know why I feel this, but I know it with absolute certainty.

  “That you?” one of them calls. The second one.

  “Yeh.”

  “He ain’t there. In the cell they gave him.”

  “Shit.”

  They’ve both stopped, where they are. Fifteen yards on either side of me. No one can see anyone else. Five more yards, though, and I’m exposed.

  Whoever they are, they want to kill me. Whoever they are; the ones who have the most to lose, the ones who started it, that’s who it has to be, the ones who burned down the snitches’ cells, tortured and killed them.

  “He ain’t in the meeting room. I checked, all the way ’round. He’d of had to come by me,” número uno calls out.

  “He must’ve got by my side before I started,” the second one calls back. “So fuckin’ thick in here he could’ve practically walked past me I wouldn’t’ve seen him.”

  “He’s in here somewheres.”

  I look on both sides of me. Solid wall, no cells to duck into and hide.

  The first one calls out. “You stay there. I’ll come to you.”

  You cocksucker Robertson, governor asshole, warden dipshit. This is not the way it was supposed to be.

  The first one starts walking towards his comrade; towards me. I hear his footsteps clearly now, carefully navigating the wet concrete.

  He emerges from a cloud of black smoke like an emissary from Hell; he sees me, I see him. He stops dead in his tracks, almost frozen in mid-step. For the briefest of flashes we stare at each other. I have one advantage—I knew he was coming.

  He has all the other advantages.

  “What the … Hey!” he yells.

  I take off, boring as hard as I can right at him, he’s not expecting that, I’m going to try to run right through him, knock him off balance, escape into the darkness.

  My soles slip on the wet floor.

  I fall forward, catching myself at the last instant on my palms, pushing up. He’s come out of his shock, starts at me, swinging his weapon, a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun.

  “Hey,” he yells again. The shotgun swings up towards my face.

  He slips.

  I’m up, sliding by him, my shoulder dropped low like my coach taught me years ago in tenth-grade J.V. football, smashing into his gut under the shotgun, knocking him back against the railing. His legs shoot out from under him and he goes down hard on his back. As he lands his weapon discharges into the air: it’s unbelievably loud, like a bomb going off right in my ear, the explosion is deafening in the silence, echoing like a roll of thunderclaps against the hard concrete walls.

  I’m running, my hand on the railing for guidance.

  I hear the second man coming and there’s another shot in my direction, this time from a rifle; the bullet ricochets off the wall a few feet ahead of me.

  I’m running as fast as I can but I don’t know if it’s fast enough, I can’t out-run a bullet, they’re probably in much better shape than me, all they have to do all day is work out if they’re fitness freaks like so many are inside.

  Men are out of their cells now, yelling, it’s all confusion, bedlam, I’m half-running half-sliding through patches of smoke, past men who see me appearing suddenly out of the blackness, their instincts drive them, they dive out of my way, they have no idea what’s happening except people are trying to kill each other.

  Behind me the footsteps, running at me, there seem to be more than two pair now, I can’t breathe, the smoke and heat are sapping all my strength, what little I have left after being in it all day and half the night, my legs are turning to spaghetti, I slip on the wet floor again, getting a face-full of the scummy mess, slide, pushing myself up, crawling on my hands and knees, I’m wet with this shit from head to toe, running again, my pursuers closing on me, I hear them behind me.

  Through the smoke the four-floor-deep open staircase looms up in front of me. Uselessly anchoring it is the multi-level, blasted-out guard cage, a twisted mass of scorched metal and safety glass, like the hull of a rotting sunken ship, the controls obliterated, the wiring ripped out. I dive for the stairs that spiral around it, taking them three at a time, falling ass over teakettle, my shoulder’s hurting like hell now, a wrenching, burning sensation, it feels like I’ve torn my arm out of the socket, I’m pushing as hard as I can down. Voices yelling incoherently from somewhere off in the distance.

  My pursuers are virtually on top of me now, I hear them right behind me, they know this place and I don’t. I can’t outrun them, I’m not going to make it all the way to safe harbor. There is no safe harbor in this place.

  A shotgun blast detonates next to me, it’s so close it’s almost inside my head, louder even than the previous blast. I hear the pellets hitting flesh and muscle and a man screams. It’s all happening right on top of me, fast and furious.

  Then two more blasts.

  The echoes bounce off the walls, almost as loud as the discharge. They roll down the corridors, throughout the entire building, in deafening waves.

  The echoes roll on and on, growing fainter, then at last the noise stops,
and it’s quiet.

  I can’t move. I’m curled up into a ball, my head smothered in my arms.

  Footsteps walking down the stairs. Feet stop at my buried face.

  “You all right?”

  The bikers are staring down at me.

  “Yeh, you’re all right,” Lone Wolf decides, looking closer. “You just smell bad. But you ain’t dead … are you?”

  “Dumb luck I’m not,” I answer, my voice a hoarse whisper.

  “They offed your guards,” he informs me. “That’s why you were out there on your own.”

  I nod, numbly. Slowly, I get up, holding the railing for support.

  “Sorry about that,” he says, flashing me his thin smile, “guess not everybody in here loves you like we do.”

  Amnesty is no longer an issue. The men who had tried to kill me were the ones who had started the riot and been the ringleaders in the torture-killings of the snitches. They’re going to pay, and pay heavily. I’ll see to that personally. I get no argument from the prisoner council.

  By the end of the day, it’s a done deal. All the prisoners’ grievances will be addressed. Just as importantly, there will be no unit punishment for what’s gone on. Only the perpetrators of the uprising, and those who actually participated in the killings, will face charges. The prisoner council has ID’d and secured them.

  We formalize the agreement in the warden’s office. Martha the hostage writes it up long-hand—there’s no electricity for the typewriters or copying machines. I sign for the state; Lone Wolf and two other prison-leaders sign for them.

  It’s over.

  I STAND TALL, next to the governor, in front of the television cameras. It’s a very big deal. His eminence talks about me like I’m the second coming, the savior of the masses.

  Privately, I made sure he knew, in detail, the role the bikers had played. They’re entitled to consideration now. He doesn’t disagree, but he makes no formal commitment.

  “You gave away the store,” Robertson accuses me as we move to the side, giving the governor center-stage.

  “Next time you do it,” I throw back at him. This is not the time to be pushing my buttons. “I risked my life for you and your buddies,” I remind him. “My clients saved eleven of your people and probably a hundred or more inmates. You owe them, John. Personally and professionally. The state owes them. If you had any balls at all, any guts, you’d let them out. On an IOU if for no other reason.”

  “My ass,” he mutters. He’s sorry he spoke, he wishes this entire episode would go away.

  “It will be,” I tell him. “Those men shouldn’t be in there, John. It was your people that put them in, and they’re dirty. If I didn’t know it before I know it for sure now, I know it like I know my own heart-beat. And I’m going to nail them. To the fucking cross. They’ll be able to drive an eighteen-wheeler up their assholes by the time they get out of where I’m going to send them.”

  “Keep your voice down, man,” Robertson hisses. “Remember where you are.”

  “I know where I am,” I say. “Do you?”

  He starts to walk away from me. I grab his shoulder, stop him. He’s got to hear this.

  “They’re dirty, John. They’re poisoning you. I’m telling you this as a friend, damn it. If you had any brains, any integrity, you’d cop to it and cut your losses.”

  He braces. He’s a mean fighter when he’s aroused.

  “You can’t put it back in the bottle,” he tells me. “I’m clean and so are my men and all the bullshit in the world won’t change that.”

  “It isn’t bullshit and you fucking well know it,” I throw at him.

  “I’m betting my career that it is,” he says. “And I only bet sure things.”

  “There’s no such thing as a sure thing, ace.”

  He starts to walk away. Then he turns back.

  “Don’t think this entitles you to special treatment,” he says. “You were performing a public service. No one forced you.”

  I laugh in his face. After all that’s gone down he’s got the sanctimoniousness to say that out loud.

  “I’ll remember that the next time you call me,” I tell him.

  When I go home I burn my clothes and bury the ashes. Then I take a six-pack into me shower, where I scrub my skin raw for an hour and wash my hair half a dozen times.

  “Come to papa.”

  I’m lying on my back, in my own bed in my own house. Earlier, I had a wonderful home-cooked meal: beef Stroganoff over wild rice, fresh green beans, salad, home-made apple pie a la mode. (And wine—a bottle of Mondavi Cabernet ’85 Private Reserve which I’d saved for a special occasion. I consider getting out of jail alive a special occasion.) All lovingly cooked by my honey’s own two hands, even the pie.

  She comes, her fingers grabbing hard at my hair, her body twisting and tensing with orgasm, ‘shit’ she whispers, ‘oh fuck,’ all the creative things you say when your head is coming off from sex, I pull her closer, pushing my mouth against her wet sticky hair, tonguing her, nibbling her clitoris, she comes again, how nice it is to give pleasure, without any inner warning I start thinking of the men inside that prison who will never taste between a woman’s legs for the rest of their lives and I start to shake, I’m shaking like I’ve got fever, Mary Lou’s next to me, holding me, ‘it’s okay, baby,’ she says, ‘you’re safe now’ she assures me, her body against mine, holding me, making me safe.

  The fear goes away and we make love, tenderly, like in the Song of Solomon, she anoints me with her love.

  “I was scared,” she says. We’re watching David Letterman, finishing the second bottle of wine. “I couldn’t let you know because it would’ve messed up your head, but I was terrified. I was so happy when I saw you walk out of there in one piece.”

  I turn to her; she’s crying, silently, big soft tears running down her face.

  “I was so scared,” she whispers.

  I pull her close. The telephone rings.

  “Is this Mr. Alexander?”

  I sit up, suddenly short of breath.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Rita Gomez.”

  “Yes, I know. I recognize your voice.”

  “I saw you tonight. On TV. That was good what you did.”

  “Where are you?”

  Mary Lou sits up, looks at me, reading my mind. I nod that she’s right.

  “In Greeley. That’s in Colorado.”

  “I know where it is. Who knows you’re there?”

  “Nobody. I’m hiding.”

  “Where have you been?” I ask. “What happened to you?”

  “I got a phone call …” She’s tentative, scared people get that way, women especially. “The day before I was supposed to come down.”

  “Who called you?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  I’ll let that pass.

  “How did anyone know how to find you?”

  “I don’t know,” she says again. “I didn’t tell nobody. I swear.”

  Five hundred miles away, the walls still have ears.

  “Are you mad at me?” she asks, her voice fearful. “For running away?”

  “No,” I answer. That’s a lie; how could I not be mad, she’s ruined lives. But that was then; now, I don’t know. In light of everything, what happened with her seems to have been inevitable, preordained.

  “What did they say?” I ask. “Whoever it was who called you.”

  “That I’d never make it back to testify. That if I tried I’d get killed.” She’s scared out of her mind, I can hear it in her voice, clearly, how can I be mad at her, this call takes a kind of guts I’ve never known.

  “You wouldn’t have been,” I reassure her, as best I can. “I promised you that.”

  “I was scared.”

  “Where you are now—is it safe?”

  “I think so. I hope.”

  “Okay, look. Do you remember that lawyer friend of mine? The one whose office you gave your statement in, in Denver?”

&
nbsp; “Yes?”

  “He’s going to come pick you up. He’s going to take you to Denver and he’s going to stay with you until I get there. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll be completely safe.”

  “I don’t want to run no more.”

  “Good. That’s good. You shouldn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t do nothing wrong. Except what they made me.” She’s starting to cry.

  “You didn’t. That’s right. You’re going to be safe. You don’t have to run anymore.”

  “When will you get here?”

  “As soon as I can. By morning.”

  She gives me her address, a motel, and the phone number. She was smart for once; she registered under an alias.

  “My friend will be there in a couple hours,” I assure her, “and I’ll be there, too.”

  “I’m not running anymore,” she reiterates, as if repeating it gives her strength. “When I saw you on the television and they said what you’d done, you know, I said to myself, ‘Rita, if he can help them, he can help you.’”

  Son of a bitch. It was worth it; it was really worth it.

  “That’s right,” I tell her. “Now just hang on, okay? I’ll be there real soon.”

  “Listen,” she says, stopping me before I hang up on her, “who called me? I think I know … who it was.”

  She’d get there. I knew she would, sooner or later.

  “The cop,” she answers. “The nice one.”

  “Gomez.” It’s always the nice one who fucks you.

  “I know his voice.”

  “WE’RE READY, YOUR HONOR.”

  “Call Rita Gomez to the stand.”

  Five months ago I walked out of the state prison, and got the telephone call from my star witness. Today, we’re finally back in the District Court again with our petition to be allowed to reopen the trial. The wheels of justice may not be frozen, but they do grind glacially slow.

  I didn’t know if Martinez would even let me back in; I’d blown it once, you usually don’t get a second chance. I’m sure it was the overwhelming, positive publicity from my handling of the prison situation that swayed him in my favor. It’s all politics in the end; they don’t want the press trumpeting about a miscarriage of justice for these hardened killers who saw the light and saved some innocent lives, and their lawyer who selflessly and heroically brought about a bloodless (only convicts were killed and they don’t count) resolution.