by Thomas Pluck
Chapter 14
Jay was bussed to Rahway a year before Cheetah, and entered the chilly cruciform edifice without a friend in sight. A concrete bunker with four wings, where the inmates walked free on three open tiers. Jay had bulked up some, but not enough. He’d heard tales that kiddie-rapers got a broom handle shoved up their ass until it came out their mouth. That was the first prison myth he saw shattered. If the short-eyes were tough enough, no one did a damn thing about them.
For example, Feature held court in the mess hall with a big crew, when by all rights he should’ve been piked at the gates as warning to all his predatory kind. He wasted no time. Dumped Jay’s tray on day one, and said if he went down easy, all was forgiven.
Jay’s answer was to break the handle of a plastic spork off in Feature’s cheek.
Within a week Feature and his crew cornered him in the shower. Jay took three of them with him to the infirmary, but not before they took what they wanted.
An orderly with a Norse rune tattoo whispered in Jay’s ear while he sank below the hospital bed in a morphine haze. White men need to stick together in here. We can protect you, bro. Birds of a feather flock together. They’ll be running trains on your ass like Grand Central.
Jay’s jaw was swollen shut. He closed his eyes in answer.
He woke to a black trusty sweeping the floor, knocking the broom against his bedside. Soon as you can walk, we’re coming for seconds.
Jay plugged his ears while the trusty told him everything Feature had planned.
In the morning, old bikers with grizzled beards huddled around his bed reciting hate-filled bullshit. Called themselves the Heimdall Brotherhood after the whitest god of the Vikings. Jay nodded his bandaged head in agreement. Survival, he told himself. Like he’d pretended to love The Witch. A tattoo is a scar by choice, and scars are armor. Enough scars and the witches and monsters can never touch the real you inside.
The tattoo gun was made from a smuggled electric toothbrush. Their Norse arrow emblem speared on his right deltoid. This is Tyr, the warrior god, a Viking lord said, and slapped the fully decorated Thor’s hammer on his meat slab arm. Kill one of the mud people, you’ll get your hammer. Start with Feature. We’ll get you the shank. Then you’re protected.
When Jay hobbled back to his cell, a hack told him to report to the library. Italians played chess in one corner with pieces made of toilet paper mâché. A few cons pored through outdated law books.
A rawboned old coot ran the place. He wore his white-streaked hair back in a ponytail, his face scruffed with a red pepper beard that barely hid a star-shaped scar in his right cheek.
He sneered at the tattoo on Jay’s arm, which still wept blood. “You fell for their play,” the old man said. “You dumb shit. You’re gonna need to be a whole lot smarter to last in here. This here’s the best job in the joint. How you think you landed in shit this sweet?”
Jay gripped the shank in his pocket. “I’ll die before I pay for anything that way, geezer.”
The old devil smiled and rolled his sleeve. The faded tattoo of a viper’s head stared from the back of his left hand, its fat copperhead coils looping around the forearm. “A rattlesnake’s only got one play,” he said. “The bite’ll kill you dead, but you can corner one in an open field. Because it’s too damn stupid to back down.”
He flexed and the viper’s tail flicked, death without warning. “Name’s Okie Kincaid,” he said. “I got wind of how you tore through Feature’s boys. I can make a good boxer out of you.”
“And what if I don’t want to?” Jay made a point in his pocket with the shank.
Okie laughed. “Don’t make me shove that down your throat.” He skipped back into a boxer’s stance, nimble as a mountain goat.
“You ain’t touching me and walking away,” Jay said. He held the blade low.
“You think that’s a gift? The Hitler Bitches got wind of a cell search coming,” Okie said. “Then it’s on your jacket, not theirs. You shank Feature, it costs them nothing. It gets you a death on your jacket.”
“I’m in for life anyway,” Jay said. “Got nothing to lose.”
“You got plenty,” Okie said. “A man’s nothing but what he does. You wanna be the sucker who does other people’s shit work, you go ahead. Feature’s crew runs hooch, the HB boys must want to take over.”
Fear and confusion jerked Jay like a puppet. He lunged with the blade.
Okie juked left and hit Jay in the liver. The shank clattered to the floor. He scooped it up and hid it away. When Jay caught his breath, Okie pointed to a wall of stacked boxes filled with mildewing books. “Unbox those, fiction on the left table, nonfiction on the right.”
Jay limped to his task.
After he stacked the books, Okie told him how the white power gangs eyed the new fish for good muscle, and paid gangbanger wolves to put the scare into them. “You ain’t the first, and won’t be the last.”
“I can’t let this go.”
“The hacks will be watching you,” Okie said. “And no one thinks you’re a punk. Not after the damage you did. You made four on one look like even odds, and you can’t even fight. Not yet.”
Okie hid the shank in the library, and sure enough, a cell-to-cell search went down that week. The night after, Wing Four woke to howls and gurgling screams. In the morning, Feature and two of his crew died in the infirmary puking their guts. Rumor from the orderlies was that someone dumped a bottle of Drano in their last batch of toilet-tank hooch. The mix stunk so bad they couldn’t smell the poison before their throats had liquefied.
Okie winked at Jay across the mess hall, and sipped from an invisible flask.
Jay followed him to the yard’s boxing ring to train.
Footwork came natural. He’d danced the Cajun two-step with Mama Angeline from a tender age. Hardest part of sparring was holding back when his opponent wanted to take his head off. Learning patience and timing. His cheekbones thickened over time. His knuckles grew prominent, his body lean. He saw the rhythm in every movement.
Okie learned to box in the Marines, where he’d also learned to steal. When they fled Korea, he kept right on stealing weapons and morphine from military depots to arm and fund bank robberies across the Midwest. He worshiped the Depression-era outlaws, and while free, he’d made a pilgrimage each year to the desolate highway in Bienville Parish where Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were gunned down, to piss on the marker dedicated to the lawmen who’d done it.
“When I was a boy, they paraded their corpses through town. Laid ’em on a slab in the drug store. I snuck in and put my finger in a bullet hole in Bonnie’s leg.” Okie smiled. “She was a beauty, but both of ’em were dumb sumbitches. No one should ever know an outlaw’s name. Copperhead’s deadly ’cause he gives no warning. Strikes, then fades into the leaves and disappears.” Okie flexed the tattoo on his arm.
He wasn’t the best boxer himself, nor the best corner man, and his third-strike life stretch for armed robbery proved him a terrible thief. But as the adage goes, he was a great teacher. And Jay soon followed his every word.
“Don’t watch the eyes,” Okie coached. “They lie. Watch the heart, the plane of the chest. Keep your head down. Sink at the knees! Like your balls are a pair of watermelons.”
Chapter 15
They drank and talked old times at the bar, but Dante’s eyes were somewhere else. Worried, and not hiding it well. “I got a meeting with the Fox. You throw the Cajun a nice party tonight. Maybe he’ll remember who his friends are.” Jay shook his hand before he left. Dante showed the wounds plain in his eyes.
“You hungry?” Cheetah said.
“I’m always hungry.”
They got in Cheetah’s Benz G55, a silver Jeep for rich folks.
“Told you Dante took care of us,” Cheetah said. “Rene, too. It’s Raina, now.”
“No shit?” Jay said. “How’s he look?”
“She,” Cheetah said. “And call her Raina, all right? Don’t make a big deal about it.�
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“Sounds like you’re riding a gravy train with biscuit wheels.”
“Sure wish it was.” Cheetah let out a long sigh, and his slim fingers worked the teak steering wheel. “The club’s a washing machine for Frankie Dellamorte’s money, but we still need bodies through the door. Newark’s changing. Dante sees things my way. Lose the girls, expand the kitchen. Make it a sports bar during the week, and a dance club on the weekends. Run book if you got to. How’s that sound to you?”
“Real smart,” Jay said, leaning back in the seat.
“Well, Frankie doesn’t see it that way. He’s been running things at the port from his castle in Livingston so long, he can’t see that a strip joint won’t have much of a future, least not there by the Rock. Not when the Hustler Club’s looking at putting one of their steakhouses in the hotel around the corner.”
Jay half-listened, people-watching through the window tint.
“We’ll throw a little party at the club tonight,” Cheetah said. “Let’s get you out of prison clothes. My gift to you, to make up for not being there to get you myself.”
Cheetah’s haberdasher had a corner shop in Silver Lake. He fitted Jay in fine Italian wool that camouflaged the bulge of prison muscle. He needed an hour to hem the pants and take the waist in on the jacket, so they grabbed dinner at the Priory, a brownstone that had once been a church but now served soul food that nourished both the body as well as the spirit. A woman sang jazz in the back, framed by a stained glass window.
Jay worshiped over a plate of fried catfish with red beans and rice. He chewed slow, with his eyes closed. All he could do not to cry. The tang and spice brought back images of Mama Angeline and Papa Andre working through a mess of crawfish boiled crimson, potatoes, and corn cobs piled on newsprint spread over their kitchen table.
“We’re in something good here. You should be part of it.”
“The life’s not for me, brother,” Jay said, and flaked off a piece of catfish with his fork. He told him about his folks up and disappearing, and Cheetah looked at the sunset blazing the stained glass. All Cheetah had had was his grandmama, and Jay had been there when Cheetah learned of her passing.
“Seems I was better off with no one to lose.” Cheetah frowned. “You’re gonna need work to keep the cops off you.”
Jay savored a bite. “Got work. What I do need is papers. Stuff that’ll pass more than a glance. The cops are already so far up my ass I’m tasting badge polish.”
Cheetah laughed. “You went right back to where you killed that boy. All I did was jack cars, but I haven’t been back to Baxter Terrace, not even to look. If I see one of the bangers who used to push me around, I might throw all this away, to put him in the ground.”
“I’m just looking for my folks. Not trying to rub it anyone’s face.”
“You find anything?”
“They’re back in Louisiana, best I can see. Storm hit them.”
Cheetah nodded. There was nothing to say.
“Where you working?”
“I told you about Tony. The mechanic?”
“You’re gonna be a grease monkey?”
“Papa worked with his hands.” Jay steered back toward business. “I don’t have my birth certificate or my social. So I need a driver’s license, insurance, the works.”
“I’ll get Mack to hook you up, but that won’t be cheap. Not even with friend prices.”
“I’m good for it. Hell, what I did for Dante, he ought to pay.”
“He always pays what he owes, but he sees it as a down payment on the next favor.”
“Then he can keep it.” Jay laughed, and chased the last bit of rice and beans around his plate. “Save a man’s ass, and he acts like I’m trying out for the position of number one punk.”
Back at the club, Leticia swung flagpole on the second stage for a crew of drunk suits while Beyoncé thumped from the speakers. The blue lamps highlighted her muscled legs, stiff as wrought iron. The men flicked crumpled bills and snickered to each other. The crowd had an edge to it. Men hyped on vicarious adrenaline, eager to make women perform for their benefit. Mack leaned back to the bar, his cigar bobbing as he watched the patrons. Cheetah patted Jay on the shoulder and beelined for the office. “Have a drink, in your new suit. I got a few calls to make, then we’ll celebrate.”
Jay had to admit, the suit felt good. He’d never seen Andre in one, had only worn one himself in court, but those had been cheap, scratchy things. A man in a suit can get away with anything, Okie had said.
Jay eyed the jeweled rows of glass bottles behind the bar and settled on Wild Turkey. His Papa’s drink. He lifted the glass, clinked with Mack, and tasted the whiskey’s smooth fire. It warmed his face and brought him back to his last drink with Ramona, and her anger and her tears on the night he walked the tracks to meet her a final time. Waited below her window while she dressed and slipped out the back porch with a blanket and a bottle of Jameson’s. They walked hand in hand to their secret spot in the park beneath the railroad trestle, where they’d met nearly every night each summer. Away from the frowns of their parents and the knowing glances of their friends. A little further each night. Careful and tentative, as if disarming nuclear weapons.
Jay slammed the whiskey back. It bloomed in his belly and out through the skin and sent memories fleeing. Cheetah walked to the bar with a slender Latina on his arm, a tall angular beauty sheathed in black. She regarded Jay coolly and offered her hand.
“Raina. You look sweeter than a Ruston peach,” Jay said, and bowed to kiss her broad knuckles.
“Thought you said you’d die of heartbreak when I left you,” Raina said.
“Hope kept me alive.”
Raina laughed, and Jay saw his old friend’s face break the surface. She pulled Jay in tight. “You had your chance, papi,” she said, rocking him side to side, pressing her cheek into the corner of his neck.
Cheetah called to the bartender, who left a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and four glasses. Cheetah poured, and raised his glass. “To my brother Jay, free after twenty-five years.”
They drank, and Cheetah quickly refilled their glasses.
“Mi familia’s back together,” Raina said, and patted the corners of her eyes.
“Almost,” Jay said. The liquor ate away at his joints and softened the edges of his vision, turning the night into an old home movie on Super 8. “To Okie Kincaid,” Jay hoisted his glass. “May the crazy old son of a bitch be neck-deep in pussy and corn liquor, wherever he may be.”
Mack chuckled and Raina slapped Jay’s shoulder, and they all drank.
Okie wouldn’t have liked the party. He was all business, a pure outlaw. He counseled Jay to drink in moderation, and bed only strange women he never planned on seeing again. His meticulous lessons bordered on paranoia. An outlaw’s like a coyote. Everyone wants him dead. In our case, being paranoid’s just seeing the true natural order.
The DJ segued into “I Touch Myself” by the DiVinyls and announced the new girl as Stacey. She wore fire orange curls and a sleek emerald teddy. Sharp nose and strong thighs, with a foxy grin that said yes, but not with you. She leapt on the pole like she owned it, and danced for herself. Patted the hands that tucked bills in her garter like dogs on the head.
Jay stared as the dancer worked her set. Felt as giddy as a boy, riding his bike down a monster hill with no brakes. Raina smiled and slinked away toward the dressing room.
Cheetah palmed Jay a bankroll. “Walking money.”
Jay pocketed it without counting. “Thanks, brother.”
“Me and Raina,” Cheetah said. “Got a house in Forest Hill. Big yard. We want to adopt. Now that’s tough with my record, but we had hers expunged.”
“You’ll make great parents,” Jay said. “Reckon I ain’t much use as a character reference.”
“Things take time,” Cheetah said. “Time and money. Another reason the girls have to go. They don’t give too many kids to folks who run titty bars.”
The DJ anno
unced the next performer as Mariko. The dancer who’d clocked Jay with her shoe strutted out in a schoolgirl uniform and huge eyeglasses that made her look like a cartoon goldfish. She twirled her plaid skirt and flashed red satin beneath, eliciting hoots from the crowd.
A woman nudged behind him, soft breasts pillowed against Jay’s shoulder blades. She smoothed his suit over his shoulders, squeezed his arms. Stacey, the redhead. With Raina beside her.
“Still got your nose open for your big-tit bitch,” Raina husked in his ear. “Stacey’s gonna take you to the VIP room. Make you forget all about her.”
Jay didn’t want it like this, but there were gifts one couldn’t say no to.
Stacey flashed him a grin and took him by the hand, bouncing ahead barefoot. Jay floated after her on a cloud of whiskey through the curtains into a private corner of the VIP room, where she pushed him into a low-slung leather chair.
“You’ve been away a long time,” she said in a clipped Slavic accent, and placed his hands on her breasts. Jay groaned at the soft flesh, his head lolling forward. “I’ll make you feel like a free man.” Her broad hips parted his knees as she pressed in close, unbuttoned his shirt and ran her nails over his chest.
Jay leaned back, let her soft skin and musk perfume distract him from her bored eyes.
“So strong,” she said, and ducked to rub her lips over his nipple.
Jay shivered and kneaded the back of her thighs, cupped her behind. “Might go back to prison, if you were waiting when I got out. Where you from, Stace? Guessing it ain’t Long Island.”
“Ukraine,” she said, and tweaked both his nipples.
Jay winced and hunched over. She pressed a finger to his lips, stepped back to let her teddy pool at her feet. She reached behind herself and unsnapped her satin brassiere.
Jay studied how her perked white breasts held their shape once released. “Sweet mercy.”