by Tim Green
Food comes. Soggy carrots with most of the color boiled out of them. A stiff slice of bread. A cup of powdered milk and an oblong hunk of gray meat-origin unknown. I eat, then push the tray out into the walkway. My calluses don’t fit the grooves above this door. I’ll need new ones, and chin-ups leave my hands dripping with blood. Katas are next. Now I’m breathing hard, sweat mingling with the blood. Tiny scarlet dots spatter the powder blue section of the bars. My own decor.
I do sit-ups and math, talking quietly out loud to hear the sound of a human voice. Numbers turn to history lessons. I recount as much as I can about Auburn. The Seward House, home to the U.S. secretary of state who purchased Alaska. States and capitals. I know a song and I sing it low. Time passes.
“Rec time,” says a guard I can’t see.
My cell door rattles and hums open.
“Step out.”
I do, along with the old man and a brown-skinned young man with a long black ponytail and a thin mustache. We are led up a set of stairs to the roof. A square of concrete caged in by a ten-foot-high honeycomb of rusted metal bars. Recreation. The guard stands outside and locks us in.
The old man gives me a curious look with those magnified orbs, then he begins to shuffle around the perimeter. He is a small man and stooped, and his gnarled hands, like the broad bald spot on his head, are covered with the spots of age. The young punk stuffs his hands into his pants pockets and begins to kick at the walls of the cage. I can only see up. The walls of the roof block any view of the surrounding city.
The bleached sky is dry and crisp. The sun only a glow behind the flat cover of clouds. The sounds of license plates being stamped and wood cabinets being milled float up from unseen shops below. The air is free from the typical stink of human smells, corroded metal, dust, and paint. I breathe deep, then start to walk too, keeping on opposite sides from the old man, following his tracks in the dusting of snow, giving wide berth to the punk.
I am looking up at the place where a mourning dove flapped across the sky when I hear a cry.
The punk has the old man down and he is swinging a blade. I don’t think. I react. My snap kick goes up between the punk’s legs. He shrieks and groans, staggers and turns. The blade slashes for my face. I leap back, seeing two razors melted into the end of a toothbrush. He slashes again. I measure the arc of the pendulum. The next time, I block his wrist, kick him again between the legs, and greet his dropping face with the full force of my elbow. His nose pops like a lightbulb. I pivot, break his arm, and crush the blade hand under my heel; I stomp and grind. Stomp and grind until his screams hurt my ears.
The guard is talking into his radio, but he remains outside the cage. His eyes are calm. The old man is rising, fumbling with the plastic frames of his glasses. I help him. He coughs, but there appears to be no blood. He shuffles for the door, leaning against me.
“Let us out, Clarence,” the old man says.
Clarence looks back at us. He has a shock of salt-and-pepper hair. A neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. His eyes are permanently sad and he appears to think for a moment, then nods without a word and rattles his keys. Another guard arrives. He watches the punk while Clarence leads us back to our tank. The doors hum shut and it is quiet. I hear Clarence answering questions amid the rattle of keys. There is some shouting in the stairwell. Then the voices all fade away.
“Thank you,” says the old man. His voice is small.
I drop down and begin a set of push-ups.
“I heard them say you’ve been in the box for almost twenty years,” the old man says. His voice is a little louder now.
“Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!” screams one of the prisoners who has been denied the enjoyment of recreation, but the old man keeps on as if it were the wind.
“You don’t have to do that to be safe,” the old man says. “What you just did for me? You’ve got protection now.”
I snort at this news. A fragile old man, on his back, about to be sliced open unless I’m there. That’s my protection.
“You don’t know anything,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say.
“Everything matters,” he says.
“Not if you’re me,” I say, speaking into the empty space as if I’m talking to God. “This is my life. This is my world. I don’t want to be out there with those animals.”
“Outside the wall?”
“The wall?” I say. A short laugh escapes me. “No, I mean out there. With them. I’m not one of them.”
“That’s where freedom is,” he says.
“Freedom to be someone’s punk,” I say. “Whose punk are you, old-timer?”
The old man clears his throat. His voice takes on a different cast. It has an edge.
“I survived in here. There are three rules in here if you want to survive,” he says. “First rule: Never show fear. Second rule: Never be a rat.
“I came here in 1967,” he says. “I was thirty-four years old. The biggest buck in A block took my lunch from me on the first day. He said that night, I was going to give him more than that. At two-thirty, I walked out onto the weight court and smashed his skull in with a fifty-pound dumbbell.
“Exact revenge. That’s the third rule. The most important. If you don’t do it, you’ll be a professional victim. You exact it and it’s exact. Not just a reaction, but planned out. Precise. It needs to send a message.
“If someone takes your cigarettes, you smash their hand into jelly in a doorjamb. They push you, you break their knees. Touch your food, you gouge out their eyes. Someone tries to make you his punk? You kill him. Believe me, it’s self-defense. Whatever it is they did to you? You exact a revenge that’s ten times worse, a hundred times if you can. That, they respect.”
It’s silent between us for a while. I hear my stomach rumble.
“What did they do to you when you hit that guy?” I ask.
“I got out of the box in 1970, just before the riot. I didn’t have to hurt anyone else until 1979. Killed him with antifreeze.
“That punk today? Dumbass Colombians. I poisoned one of them two years ago. That’s why I’m here. The other ones sent that kid in here to get me before I get out of SHU. Scared. They’ll keep low now, and no one’s going to touch you either. That’s the game. You don’t have to be a mole. You can bunk with me.”
I laugh again.
“What are you?” he says. “Some homophobic?”
“I’m fine right here,” I say.
“What about books?”
“What about them?” I ask.
“You can’t read in the hole.”
“I got my own dreams,” I say.
“Books are more than just dreams,” he says. “Books are like a mirror… for your soul. You can see yourself. Keep yourself neat and clean. You need that for when you get out. To fit in.”
“There’s no sense in getting out,” I say.
“No sense?” he says, dropping his voice into an urgent whisper that only I can hear. “What are you, certifiable?”
“In, out,” I say. “Jail is jail. I like it okay in my own space. I don’t care what my soul looks like.”
“I’m not talking about jail, kid,” he says. “I’m talking about out. Outside the wall. Freedom.”
“Don’t even say that,” I say, my heart thumping before I know it. I am whispering too. “I can scream louder than that guy next to you.”
“Why not say it if it’s true?”
“It’s not true,” I say. “There’s no way out.”
“Kid,” he says, “you have no idea…”
I wrap my fingers around the bars. My lips are pressed to the steel and I taste its tang through the chips in the paint.
“You’ve been here for more than forty years,” I say in a hiss. “Don’t play with me, you crazy old coot.”
It’s quiet for a time. My ears start ringing and I wonder if I have imagined it all.
“I’m not playing,” the old man says in a whisper that
only I can hear.
“Who are you?”
“Lester Cole,” he says, still low. “Thief and part-time murderer.”
“How?” I ask. “How can you do it?”
“They like me here,” he says. “They trust me. I fix everything. They get a jammed-up pipe and they need a man to go down into the catwalk and wade through the shit, Lester will do it. Anytime. Day or night. Just ask Lester.
“According to the warden, the job of the prisoners is to serve their time and maintain these buildings. I’m good at it. Plumbing. Electric. Air ducts. So I have… opportunities.”
“How?”
“Patience,” he says. “We have time.”
“Forty more years?”
“A lot sooner than that, kid,” he says. “Sooner than you think.”
20
CENTRE STREET. North of Wall Street. South of Chinatown. A powerful street, but relatively unknown outside the legal profession in New York City. Foley Square, and in the middle of it all, a neoclassical monster. Broad stone steps leading to massive fluted columns and justice. Beyond the façade, nearly two dozen men and women. Federal court judges for the Southern District of the Second Circuit. Appointed for life. The best and brightest, insulated from the political system to ensure their unbiased interpretations.
Villay didn’t have the nicest chambers, but he didn’t have the worst either. The crown molding needed refinishing, but the ceilings were twelve feet high and he had a high-backed leather chair. His clerk was Harvard. Third in his class. Thin, bookish, and blond like the judge himself had once been. Judge Villay ran the tip of a pocketknife under his thumbnail as he listened to the upcoming docket of cases. His broad forehead furrowed.
“What was that?” he said, putting his little feet down on the floor and looking up at his clerk over the silver reading glasses perched on his elfin nose.
“An appeal,” he said. “Raymond White v. the State of New York?”
“On what grounds?”
“Racial discrimination. Native American. Not a representative jury.”
“Ha!” Villay said, smiling and wagging his head. “I’ll be damned. Can’t take it. Total bullshit, though. Who’s the attorney? Not Dan Parsons still?”
The clerk looked down and nodded. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“It was my case,” Villay said, straightening his back and widening his eyes so that the clerk would stare into their torn pupils. “Murder one. Life without parole. Guy was about to get the Republican Party nomination for an empty congressional seat. Would have won. Big deal back then, part Native American and all that. But discrimination? Parsons was his partner. Must have run out of good ideas. What a fucking joke. Send it to Kim Mezzalingua. She’ll get a kick out of it and send Parsons packing as fast as you can say ‘summary judgment.’
“What else?” Villay said, returning to his nails.
The clerk cleared his throat and continued to read the upcoming docket until he reached the end.
“Make sure I’ve got time for that drug trafficking trial,” Villay said, opening the cabinet for his coat with one hand and pointing at his clerk with the other. “Schedule a good ten days. I don’t want it rushed. I’m sick of those bastards poisoning our kids.”
He picked up his briefcase just as his secretary stuck her head inside the door.
“It’s Ivan Lindgren,” she said in an urgent whisper.
“Shit,” Villay said. “Tell him I’m gone. Pain in the ass.”
He turned and scuttled out the door that led to the back corridor. The way was longer, but worth it if he didn’t have to see Lindgren. Outside, there was a light gray rain in the air, and Villay hurried to the curb with his briefcase over his head. He slid into the back of his Town Car, lifted the Post from the seat, and told his driver, Jack, to go.
Jack started, then lurched to a stop. Villay crackled the paper down.
“What the hell?”
Through the swish of the wipers he saw Lindgren, his thick brown mustache dripping, his lined forehead beaded with rain, standing tall directly in front of the car. Villay cursed under his breath.
“Go, Jack. He’ll move.”
The driver’s shoulders were hunched over and he clutched the wheel, trembling.
“I… can’t.”
Villay slapped down his paper, huffed, and rolled down the window several inches.
“Get out of the way, you lunatic!” he shouted.
“You talk to me, damn it!” Lindgren shouted back.
Villay looked up and down the sidewalk. Despite the rain, people were stopping to stare.
“What?” he said through his teeth.
Lindgren circled the car, keeping his hands on its shiny waxed surface until his face was in the open space of the window and his fingers were clutching its edge.
“Five years,” Lindgren said in a hiss. “They built that case for five years and you ruled that wiretap inadmissible?”
Villay stabbed his finger at Lindgren and said, “You be careful. You don’t talk to a judge that way. I don’t care who your father is. I’m a federal judge. You’re a government attorney. I’ll blackball you twenty ways to Sunday.”
“I’ll have you…”
“What?” Villay said, moving his face closer to Lindgren, smiling.
Lindgren’s face started to crumple at the edges.
“They killed three people,” he said, his voice broken and his fingertips white. “They admitted it.”
“Thugs. Killers themselves. In case you weren’t aware,” Villay said, “we have a constitution in this country. We have laws. I suggest you go read them.”
“You could have ruled either way,” Lindgren said, his hands dropping to his sides.
“I’m a judge,” Villay said. “I answer to a higher power than my willie. Maybe one day, if you grow up, you will too. Jack. Go.”
Jack screeched the tires as he pulled away from the curb, then he jammed on the brakes before cruising away.
“Jesus,” Villay said, shaking his head. “Go uptown, Jack. Gino’s. And try not to kill anyone.”
Gino’s was already busy, and Villay pushed through the tiny, crowded bar area to the red half-door at the coat check. He turned, and the maître d’ smiled and patted the judge on the shoulders before showing him the way to his table. There were no booths or private areas. Gino’s was wide open. Well lit, with people crammed into small tables sitting back to back. The red wallpaper was adorned with zebras on carousel poles.
Villay sat down across from a stocky gray-haired man with pale green eyes and a diamond pinky ring and said, “Could you find a place that’s a little more obvious next time? Jesus.”
“I’m a lawyer. You’re a judge,” the man said in a heavy New Jersey accent. He wore a dark brown suit and a yellow tie. “What’s the fucking difference? We got nothing to hide. Besides, this is one of the few places where you can sling around a briefcase full of cash without anyone taking notice. Place is a fucking gold mine, and cash only. You believe that?”
The waiter appeared in his gray waistcoat and black tie. He set down some breadsticks and gave them a bow.
“Pellegrino with lime,” Villay said.
“You ain’t going to eat?” the lawyer said, raising his thick gray eyebrows. “I’m getting a sautéed kidney.”
“Just Pellegrino,” Villay said to the waiter, before leaning over the table. “Stop playing games. Ivan Lindgren practically attacked me just now. Let’s get this over with.”
The bullnecked lawyer leaned back with a grin and took something from the outside pocket of his suit coat.
“Nervous. Nervous,” he said. “But not too nervous to take a little something for the missus.”
On the table he set a six-karat pink diamond engagement ring. Villay covered it quickly with his hand and looked around before slipping it into the pocket of his charcoal gray pants.
The lawyer chuckled. “No, not too nervous for that. A million dollars. That’s what it’s worth. A rare sto
ne for a rare stone.”
Villay narrowed his eyes and said, “What about the cash?”
The lawyer knit his brow and said, “I’m a man of honor. If I say five hundred thousand in cash and the ring, I mean it. I’m just telling you you’re getting prime rib for the price of hamburger.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Maybe a little discount will be in order next time, eh?”
The waiter brought the lawyer a glass of red wine, then set Villay’s glass with ice and lime down and filled it from a green glass bottle.
When he’d gone, Villay took a sip, looked at his watch, and said, “Can I go?”
The lawyer swallowed a mouthful of wine, shrugged, and said, “Suit yourself.”
“I mean, is it there?” Villay asked, scowling.
The lawyer reached into his coat pocket again and handed him a blue plastic chip with a white number on it.
“There,” he said.
Villay took another sip and stood to go.
“You should eat,” the lawyer said. “Life is a lot better when you’ve got a full stomach and a nice glass of wine. Hey, aren’t you gonna even say thanks?”
“Aren’t you?” Villay said, turning.
“Yeah,” the lawyer said, leaning back in his chair. “You did good. Thanks.”
Villay gave him a two-finger salute. At the coat check, he took back his raincoat as well as the lawyer’s bulging brown leather briefcase without leaving a tip for the girl. He pushed out through the tight crowd and into the rain with the briefcase under his coat. The smoky clouds were teeming now, blurring the river of taillights and yellow cabs. He looked left and right, felt a small stab of panic at the sight of a police car with its lights flashing, but quickly chastised himself when he saw a cop writing out a ticket.
Still, he clutched the briefcase tight and kept his eyes riveted on the rearview mirror the entire way home to make sure Jack wasn’t looking at him. By the time the black car rolled through the gates, he’d chewed a crater on the inside of his lower lip that was big enough to bleed.