“Yeah, what’s that?” McCutcheon retested the strength of the sink. Perhaps if they both pulled at the same time a big enough hole could open so that…
Demon suddenly spun M.D. around and spoke in a sincere voice, his eyes wet with tears.
“I always loved you, son. I mean that. I always did.”
McCutcheon listened to his father’s words. Heard every last one of them and then took a long moment to consider his response.
He decided to say nothing. He didn’t hug his father. He didn’t smile at his father. He especially did not say I love you back.
Demon had hoped his boy would forgive him. Hoped his sobriety and changed ways would translate into a new and vibrant relationship with his kid. He wanted McCutcheon to put the past in the past, and see the true essence of his old man’s heart. See his goodness, his light, his deep love. Demon searched M.D.’s face for some sort of sign that his unspoken apology for all the hurt he’d caused, all the pain he’d brought into this young man’s life, would be accepted.
Could what was done be done?
M.D. wasn’t stupid and clearly saw the searching in his father’s eyes. Saw his hunger and his hopefulness and his regret for all the thousands of mistakes he’d made in the past.
He looked away.
McCutcheon carried too many wounds from a shattered, tattered childhood to forgive his father for being such a selfish piece of shit. Maybe one day he could let it all go, perhaps he could forgive and forget and move forward, but for M.D., now was not the time.
Even though it may be the final time he’d ever have a chance.
As Demon slowly recognized forgiveness for his sins would not be forthcoming, he decided to do something very un-Demon like and not pursue the issue further. Instead, he removed his hands from M.D.’s shoulder and decided to let it go. A lump formed in his throat. A lump caused by the fact that he completely understood his son’s perspective.
In fact, Demon thought to himself, I don’t know that I’d forgive me either. Demon wiped his eyes and gulped down the truth, but like all truths this one felt hard and exceptionally difficult to swallow.
McCutcheon returned to surveying the cell. Certainly, a large hole would open if he and his father pulled the toilet off of the wall at the same time, but every prisoner in lockup had probably thought of an escape route exactly like this before.
Which made the plan lame. The more M.D. contemplated yanking out the john, the less he liked the idea. Too clumsy. Too uncertain. Too much cloudiness about where to go, which direction to turn, which path to take. And this was assuming they could even create a hole big enough to slip through. Besides, he knew, escaping the cell wasn’t the goal; escaping prison was. A broken toilet breakout plan felt like a fantasy.
Only two ways of the D.T.; parole or the morgue truck.
McCutcheon knew he needed to stay strong. Keep his eyes on the prize and not give in to despair. Part one of any plan would be remaining certain he could pull something off. If hope died, any plan beyond that would fail.
He began telling himself the things he knew he needed to hear. Relax. Be patient. First ideas are rarely the best ones anyway.
Stanzer had taught him that. Stanzer, the guy, should McCutcheon ever get out, who’d pay.
Like any fight, keep pressing but also remain patient. Solutions will come.
McCutcheon turned around, ready to hunt for a new approach.
“You been staying sharp?” Demon asked, prison slippers on his hands as if they were focus mitts for boxing.
His dad waved him forward, challenging him to see what he’s got. Did M.D. still remember all the things Demon had taught him back when they trained together at the gym?
McCutcheon looked at the sandals on his father’s hands and knew what his father wanted. Demon always loved working out. Back when his father was an up-and-coming boxer Demon epitomized the term gym rat. Then drugs got to him. But even after that, some of Demon’s best father-son memories consisted of training little M.D. to throw hooks, jabs, and pinpoint right crosses. No one had ever seen a five-year-old counterpunch like Demon Daniels’s kid. He was the apple of daddy’s eye in the gym. Some fathers never forget the day they teach their children to ride a bike. Demon never forgot the day he taught his son to smoke the hell out of a speed bag.
Training like a monster was a genetic trait that ran through both of their bloodstreams. Did M.D. still have it like he used to?
McCutcheon took in the dimensions of the small space and then yanked off his shirt.
“Do I still have it? Always.”
Demon smiled. “All right then, let’s see some combinations.”
M.D. began teeing off on the sandals with fists that flew with the speed of a hawk. One wrong move and he’d smash his father. Or perhaps accidentally hammer the edge of the metal bed frame, which stood way too close to where the two of them were trying to box. Any misstep would surely shatter the bones in McCutcheon’s fist. Though practically no room existed to maneuver, the two of them had been doing this balletlike dance together for years, and once they started up again, a musical, thundering rat-a-tat-tat boomed through the halls. The entire cell block reverberated with the echoes of their violent, rhythmical opera.
Sweat began to stream down both of their bodies. M.D.’s rippled torso glistened in the yellow light, and for a moment, a brief and shining and liberating moment, neither of them was incarcerated.
They were free. Free from Jentles. Free from the Priests. Free from their dark and violent pasts, and free from their dark and violent futures.
“You gotta keep your mind strong, son,” Demon said. “No matter what shit comes at you in this lifetime, you gotta keep your mind strong. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Deep wisdom existed in Demon’s advice. M.D. also understood deep irony existed as well. Sometimes, M.D. thought, people with the most fucked-up lives offer the sharpest knowledge.
McCutcheon picked up the pace, his striking ability off the charts.
“Damn, you got world champion skills, son. You gotta be thinking about getting back in the cage one day, no?”
“In case you hadn’t already noticed, Dad, I’m in a cage right now.”
Demon scanned the cell. “Ya got me there.”
More sweat dripped and the pace moved even faster. M.D. struck with focus, ferocity, and extremely bad intentions. Demon tried to push his son to his limits, but struggled to keep up. The pop-pop-pop of McCutcheon’s hands smashing the sandals reverberated like cannon shots down the hallway.
Suddenly, Demon stopped.
“You saved a fucking guard?”
M.D. heaved in and out, his lungs screaming for oxygen.
“I saved a person.”
“But why?” his father asked. “No con takes the side of a screw. Not in this prison. Not anywhere. Ever.”
“Because doing the right thing feels like the only thing I know how to do.”
Demon nodded. His son always marched to the beat of a different drummer when it came to principles.
“You’re ten times the man I’ll ever be, son,” Demon said. “But you know what that means, don’t ya?”
“What?”
Demon slowly removed the prison slippers from his hands.
“Because of it, you’re fucked.”
McCutcheon smiled.
“You mean we’re fucked, don’t you?”
Demon sat down on the edge of the bed and wiped a stream of sweat from his brow. “This, my boy, is very, very true.”
“Long live the kid! Long live the kid!” The chant echoing up the halls caused M.D. to stir from his bed. “Long live the kid!”
“What the hell is that?”
McCutcheon smiled. “Just a crazy old man.”
“Well, I hope he shuts up soon,” Demon said.
“No,” M.D. replied. “What you hope for is that he brought us food.”
“Long live the…hey, there ya are? How’s the penis, kid?”
Fixer walked up to the front of M.D.’s cell pushing a gray cart made from hard plastic. On it McCutcheon spied orange juice, bananas, a few bags of mixed nuts, and a couple of covered dishes, food Fixer probably prepared himself.
“Anyone’s tank need a refill?”
“You know this old-timer?” Demon asked suspiciously.
“I do.”
“And you trust him?”
“Of course he doesn’t trust me,” Fixer replied. “He ain’t dumb. You can’t trust anyone in here, not even your own father.”
Demon did not smile.
“That was a joke. Get it?”
Suspicion blazed in Demon’s eyes.
“How you come to get down here, old man?”
“Yeah,” M.D. said. “How’d you get out of solitary?”
“How do you think I got out?” Fixer tossed McCutcheon an apple, ripe and juicy. “The new major. It’s a new day.”
M.D. crunched a bite from the piece of fresh fruit. Delicious.
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” Fixer said. “Change is coming. Everyone can feel it.”
“Yeah?” Demon asked. “What’s the word?”
Fixer offered Demon a box of Pop-Tarts but he didn’t accept them. Demon loved Pop-Tarts—they were his favorite item in the prison commissary, and these were raspberry, his number one choice.
Yet still, he made no move to accept the gift.
“What you want for those?”
“Nothin’.”
“Bullshit. Ain’t nothin’ for nothin’ in here. I got money on my books. Plenty of it. Name your price.”
“Kid’s already paid for ’em,” Fixer said. “The change out there, it’s all because of him. Smart guys in here, we know who we have thank for that.”
“And the dumb guys?” M.D. asked. “What do they think?”
“They think you need the morgue truck,” Fixer answered, not pulling any punches. “But ain’t exactly a consensus about much going on right now. Not about nothing.”
Fixer re-offered the Pop-Tarts to Demon and M.D.’s father stared at the box. A moment of indecision passed, and after McCutcheon crunched another bite of apple, Demon decided to accept the offering, even though he knew that by doing so he was probably setting himself up for trouble.
But he was already in trouble, he figured, and these were raspberry, well worth the risk.
“That riot woke a sleeping giant. The D.O.C. is gonna review the entire facility. Warden Stroke is out. Deputy Warden Moron gettin’ replaced, too, and Krewls’s time as the lead dog around here is limited. He knows it, though, which makes him real dangerous right now. Y’all watch your ass around him, ya hear?”
The more Fixer spoke, the more credible he became to Demon.
“Paper pushers are slow, though,” Fixer continued as M.D.’s father wolfed down the first Pop-Tart in two gulps, and headed toward the second in its shiny silver bag. “Ain’t no one expects nothing immediately, but there’s gonna be new leadership, that’s for sure. My guess is Krewls’ll survive. The system isn’t gonna go back and right any past wrongs, but moving forward his leash’ll be reined and things for every con in here will be way better. That’s ’cause of you, kid.”
Fixer picked up one of the plates of food.
“What about the yard?” Demon asked.
“Nothing settled yet out there, neither. Whole facility still on Level Orange, doing twenty-three hours a day in their cells. But they did reopen the commissary, church, and library, so things are slowly getting back to normal. Major Mends is talking about getting all the shotcallers together to broker a peace communal. Or at least prevent another riot.”
“What’s up with the Priests?” Demon asked.
“Chaos. Civil war. You done threw them into a power struggle ain’t no one can predict the outcome of. Apparently there wasn’t no kind of succession plan in place,” Fixer said with a laugh. “What’s the word? Contingency. Y’all ain’t had one.”
The old man lifted the flat plate that covered a large bowl, and a waft of spiced steam rose through the air.
“I wouldn’t worry though,” Fixer said to Demon.
“Why’s that?”
“’Cause either way, you ain’t gonna have any friends on that team.”
Demon nodded. He knew the old man’s words were true.
“Y’all want some ChiChi?”
“ChiChi?” M.D. asked.
“Sweet and spicy. This here got beef jerky mixed with salted nuts, a dash of my famous hot sauce, and a bag of Texas beef ramen,” Fixer passed the heaping plate to McCutcheon. “Warning ya, though, this batch got some kick.”
M.D. didn’t need to be offered the food a second time. Hungry as a bear, he plunged a spoon into the strange but wonderful concoction.
“Mmm,” he said after his first bite. “So good.”
Demon cocked his head to the side. “This old man cook for you the whole time you been down?”
“Whole time,” McCutcheon replied.
The scent of the food hit Demon’s nose like a seductive lullaby hits a baby’s ears, and after a moment of deliberation he reached over and grabbed M.D.’s plate. “Let me taste that shit.”
His verdict arrived immediately.
“Damn, old man, your ass is a magician.”
Fixer grinned. “Wait till you taste the cake I made.”
M.D. took his plate back from his father, walked a few steps backward, and sat down on the lower bunk ready to shovel more food into his mouth. “You know I don’t eat that stuff, Fixer.”
“Well, pass it to me,” Demon said eagerly. “’Cause I sure as hell do.”
Demon extended his arms through the bars and took the cake in both of his hands. It was big and lopsided and required Demon to figure out a way to slip it back between the bars.
McCutcheon, glad to be finally eating, plowed another spoonful of ChiChi into his mouth and gazed at the dessert. It looked amazing. Three layers. Chunks of candy bars and cookie crumbles. Fixer must have used a ton of Oreos just to make the frosting, he thought. Clearly, a lot of effort had gone into this creation. It was the most ornate dish M.D. had yet seen Fixer make.
But why?
McCutcheon paused.
Fixer knew he would never touch a bite of the cake, so why make it?
M.D.’s spoon froze midair. “DAD WAIT!!” he cried out dropping his bowl. The ChiChi crashed to the floor.
No, M.D. would not touch the cake. But Demon would.
His father spun his head to see what M.D. wanted but McCutcheon’s warning arrived too late. With Demon’s arms fully extended out of the cell and his waist propped up next to the bars, Fixer pulled out a hidden shiv from behind his back, went low, and ripped a six-inch gash across the top of his father’s thigh near the groin area.
Right at the femoral artery.
Demon dropped the cake and it shattered on the floor. Then he staggered backward as a stream of blood spouted from his thigh like an oil gusher. M.D. lunged and the tips of his fingers wisped past Fixer’s shirt, the old man proving just fast enough to back away and prevent himself from being snagged.
The bars that separated them had saved him.
Demon fell to the ground, not quite sure of why he’d been stabbed in the leg instead of the stomach, head, or chest, but he knew he’d been sliced deep. Fixer stared at the work he’d just done, then raised his gaze. He and M.D. made eye contact, a silent question burning on McCutcheon’s face.
Why?
The old man spoke in a low voice. “Krewls. Guy was gonna bunk me with Pharmy.”
M.D. shook his head and gave Fixer a look of disappointment that sliced through the old man’s heart worse than the old man’s shiv had just sliced through Demon’s leg.
“Hold on, Dad. We gotta wrap that thing.” McCutcheon ripped off his shirt and began performing triage. “Gotta keep pressure on the wound.”
“Pharmy,” the old man mumbled, his shoulders sagging off his small and shriveled
frame. “What could I do?”
“GUARD!” M.D. shouted. “GUARD!”
“A person has to do what a person has to do to survive in here, don’t they?”
“GUARD! SOMEBODY GET A GUARD!”
“We ain’t all as strong as you, kid. We ain’t all…” Fixer searched for the word. “Brave.”
“GUARD!” M.D. cried out as he applied pressure to the wound. “GUARD!!”
Fixer stood in front of the cell and watched as blood from Demon’s leg pooled onto the floor, and a thought crossed his mind. A thought he’d never had after each of the prior murders he’d committed.
If I could rewind the clock, just rewind it to as little as thirty seconds ago, I swear I’d make a different decision.
But life did not work like that. Clocks never got rewound, and during his moment of truth Fixer realized his own darkest fear had just come true.
Prison had eaten his soul. Left in its place: cowardice.
Fixer slunk off, knowing he’d now have to live the rest of his days with this knowledge.
“GUARD! GUARD! GUARD!!!” M.D. howled.
Shoelaces, Fixer thought as he heard McCutcheon’s screams echoing up the corridor. What I wouldn’t give right now for a pair of shoelaces.
“You know what I’m thinking about right now, son?”
“Just hold on, Dad. You gotta hold on. GUARD! GUARD!”
“White sandy beaches.” A faraway look drifted across Demon’s eyes. “Those Cayman Islands got some damn beautiful white sandy beaches.”
“Don’t give up, yet, Dad. Keep fighting.”
Despite McCutcheon’s best efforts to suppress the wound, life slowly drained from the body of his father. M.D. had propped Demon’s legs up so they were above his heart, and with his father’s back against his own chest, wrapped his arms around his dad’s midsection so he could cradle his father in his arms and hold him upright while continuing to apply steady pressure to the wound. Every bit of cloth, toilet paper, and so on that M.D. could get his hands on had been used to fashion together a makeshift field dressing, but all of it was sopped in red from a faucet that could not be turned off.
McCutcheon’s improvised first aid might have helped a little, but both of them knew it was a losing battle. Demon needed the infirmary and he needed it right away.
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