“C’mon. You knew! You had to know, brah!” Rakeem laughed again—the concept of Kyle’s obliviousness too much to handle.
Kyle racked his brain. He tried to recall anything. This time, though, he came up empty. “Whatever, man. I’m dumb, I guess,” Kyle said. “Enlighten me, would you?”
“That’s why those bangers want your cell so bad, brah,” Rakeem continued. “Coke-choa had a little hideaway spot—a little modification to the cell—that gave him that advantage over anyone else trying to keep their shit hidden from the guards. No one ever ratted him out, and in return, whenever anyone needed something to disappear for a minute, he’d stash it away. No questions asked.”
“Where was this hiding place?” Kyle asked.
“No idea,” Rakeem answered. “I’m sure your buddy Leonard knows, though.”
“So he wants to move drugs through the cell,” Kyle said.
“And you’re not exactly Tigre material, if you don’t mind my sayin’,” Rakeem said. “But if he gets his homeboy in there, he can help guard the stash, hide it, sell it . . . Tigres take over the whole business.”
The nurse stood up as another inmate exited the doctor’s office. “Rakeem Rodgers?” she called out, looking back and forth between Kyle and Rakeem, waiting for one of them to respond.
“Really?” Rakeem barked at her. “You think white-boy here is Rakeem Rodgers? C’mon lady!”
Kyle and Leonard didn’t speak that evening until just before lights out when Leonard casually sat up in his bunk and told Kyle, “I just wanna let you know, it’s officially time to watch your ass. It ain’t just me anymore. You got a target on your back.”
“Leonard,” Kyle said. “I’ll put in for a transfer. Just call off your boys.”
Leonard shook his head. “Bad timing, son. You coulda had that deal before. Now that the whole prison knows the Tigres got an issue with you, we can’t just squash this shit. We gotta send a message. Loud and clear . . . Anyway, good night,” Leonard said, turning toward the wall and closing his eyes.
Kyle waited for nearly an hour until he was sure Leonard was asleep, before he closed his eyes. He woke up over and over, afraid he was going to be attacked in his sleep. This was no way to live, he thought. He needed to escape. He needed a silk blot.
CHAPTER 10
February 24, 2016
* * *
The next morning
Kyle used the bruises on his face as an excuse to get him out of his daily activities, including meals and yard time. Although he had these memories now of the “Bad Ochoa,” he wanted proof. If the secret stash spot Rakeem had mentioned was really there, it would be something tangible that linked these newer, less vivid memories with the ones that felt older, and more real, in Kyle’s head.
As soon as Leonard headed out for breakfast, Kyle went to work going through the cell. He started on his own side and carefully felt along each cinderblock brick, and the space in between them, looking for something loose. He checked his own foot locker, and his desk, looking for something possibly hidden underneath. Finally, he moved his metal bunk to the center of the cell and examined the floor underneath. Nothing.
Kyle gave a peek through the small window on the cell door, and then quickly started the same examination of Leonard’s side of the room. Kyle hoped that Sillow would be able to convince Myrna Rachnowitz to send him a silk blot, and that Kyle could get out of Stevenson Youth Correctional before Leonard and the Tigres got the chance to send their “message.”
Kyle’s desire to leave again through a silk blot wasn’t based on the misplaced hope that a third time trying to stop the bus crash would actually be successful. It was simply a means of escaping his current situation. And at this point, any risk in going back, like running into 2014 Kyle and his head blowing up, felt more than worth it. Kyle couldn’t possibly imagine returning next time to a timestream any worse than the one he currently inhabited.
He checked the bricks on Leonard’s side of the room, his foot locker, and his desk. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. When Kyle lifted the two mattresses up from Leonard’s bunk, he finally did find something strange—two wooden rulers.
They were the kind you used in math class and they were just laying along one of the rails. Kyle noticed that the ends of each of them looked rough, like they been scraped against something over and over. He pulled Leonard’s bunk to the middle of the cell now and checked out the floor underneath. Kyle still didn’t see anything unusual. He held the rulers in his hands and went through the cell again, looking over all of the areas he’d looked at already.
Kyle scanned the room over and over again, turning like a kid trying to make himself dizzy. He looked at the ceiling, but there was nothing—not even a vent. Am I crazy? he wondered. For the first time, Kyle doubted even the things that had happened since he’d returned from 2014. He even wondered whether the conversation with Rakeem was a part of this timestream, a memory from another, or even something out of a dream.
After scanning for another few minutes, Kyle noticed a crack in the cement between two of the gray cinder block bricks that looked just slightly off. Perhaps it was from the earthquake the other day, he thought. But Kyle looked at the other bricks, trying to find more cracks, and couldn’t.
He walked up to the crack, which was against the far wall of the cell on Leonard’s side. He felt the cinderblock on top, trying to see if it moved at all, but it didn’t. But when Kyle touched the block underneath the crack, he could feel it give a little. He bent down and saw now that there were cracks which ran all the way around the perimeter of this single brick.
Kyle tried pushing it, but it didn’t go anywhere. He wondered if he could pull it out. The crack was too thin for his fingers, though. How would anyone get their fingers in there? he wondered. Then he realized. The rulers.
Kyle lifted up the mattresses on Leonard’s bunk again and grabbed the two rulers. He slid one into the crack on one side of the brick, and one into the crack on the other side. He used each one to pry the brick, a few centimeters at a time, out from the wall.
Once enough of the brick was sticking out, Kyle used his hands to remove the whole thing. He was surprised at how much lighter it was than he thought it would be, but then he saw why. It was only half of a brick. From the front, you could never tell, but the back part of the brick was missing, which left a hidden space between the back of the brick and the wall.
Kyle laid the brick on the floor and bent down to look inside the hole. He saw a cigar box filling most of the empty space. The box was worn and looked like it’d been used for a long time. He pulled it out and opened the lid, but there was nothing in there.
Kyle sat down and leaned against the wall. In all of his compounded memories, stuck on top of each other like heavy slabs, he had no recollection of this stash space. He couldn’t believe he could know Ochoa so well and, actually, not at all.
The door swung open and Kyle looked up startled. After his shocking discovery, he’d stopped working quickly. He still had the half-sized brick sitting on the ground next to him. His adrenaline kicked in and he stood straight up at attention.
Officer Radbourn’s eyes registered a look of shock as they immediately went to the empty space in the wall, and then right to the brick laying at Kyle’s feet.
CHAPTER 11
February 24, 2016
* * *
Moments later
Radbourn walked over and picked it up. “What the hell?” he said. “Get to your side of the cell.”
He tossed the brick onto Leonard’s bunk, where it made a stifled thud, landing on top of the two thin mattresses. Radbourn pulled his flashlight from his belt and shined it into the hole. He pulled out the cigar box, looked inside and then tossed it on the ground.
He stuck his hand in and felt along the inside. “You got some kind of stash box here, eh?”
“No!” Kyle said. “You’ve got to believe me. I . . . I never saw that before today.”
Radbourn picked up the rule
rs from off the ground. “Oh, you just happened to find it? Bullshit. You were in on it with Ochoa, and you’re trying to run the business without him now that he’s gone.”
“No, I noticed the cracks,” Kyle said. “I’m as surprised as you are.”
“Get your shit packed,” Radbourn said.
“Packed?” Kyle answered, standing up.
“I’m locking this cell down until we can fix that wall,” Radbourn said. “We’ll find you a new cell until this is settled. If you’re dealing at this prison, I will take you down, Cash.”
Kyle thought about his conversation with Rakeem. If the wall were fixed, Leonard and the Tigres wouldn’t be able to utilize the same competitive advantage Ochoa had.
“But—” Kyle started.
“But, nothing, inmate,” Radbourn cut him off.
“Officer Radbourn,” Kyle said, “I had nothing to do with it.”
“We’ll see what the warden thinks,” Radbourn said. “Get your shit together. All of your shit. I don’t want to have to ask you again.”
Kyle grabbed a fresh change of clothes, his blanket and his burnt papers. He couldn’t have imagined making matters with Leonard worse, but this actually had. And now, any silk blot sent Kyle’s way would be left inside a cell he couldn’t access.
Radbourn got on his walkie-talkie. “We got a situation. Third floor, block C, cell twenty-three. I need admin and facilities up here for an unsafe living condition.”
CHAPTER 12
February 25, 2016
* * *
The next morning
Kyle’s temporary cellmate, a one-armed guy who called himself “Sparky,” was completely uninterested in Kyle’s presence, which allowed him a much-needed night of rest. He actually woke up feeling great until he remembered that he had made enemies with the most powerful gang at Stevenson. He had no choice now but to hope for a silk blot—and that he could survive until one arrived. Assuming Myrna and Sillow could get one to him, how Kyle planned to get into his old cell to retrieve it was another matter altogether.
Kyle did his best to look invisible during breakfast. He angled himself so no one could come up from behind without him noticing, and kept looking over his shoulder. Not that he had much confidence there’d be anything he could do to stop it when Leonard and his cohorts came after him.
He still ate every meal in the same spot he used to share with Ochoa in his earliest prison memories. The two of them would always eat in those seats, sometimes joined by one or two other inmates, but usually by themselves. There was very little about prison that varied day-to-day and mealtime seating was no exception.
This morning, Kyle had no appetite and mostly just moved his eggs around on his plate. He was thankful that he had English class after breakfast. Classes helped to pass the time at Stevenson, even though as a former honor student, he was bored by most of the curriculum.
He looked at the clock hanging in the Stevenson chow hall and saw that he still had ten more minutes until class. When he noticed the hands on the clock start to rattle, Kyle looked down at his tray. He saw his orange juice shifting back and forth in his glass, making little waves. Then a jolt sent his tray up off the table and crashing back down.
Kyle looked at the guards and saw how confused they looked. Then one of the guards reached for his bullhorn. “Get under the tables,” he screamed. “Under the tables.”
After the initial jolt, the swaying continued for a while. From under the table, Kyle saw breakfast trays falling to the ground, one after the other. Another earthquake? he thought. He heard a loud crash, turned, and peeked out to see that the huge, metal clock on the wall had fallen. The swaying gradually stopped, and Kyle looked around, trying to gauge for certain whether the quake was over.
The earthquake had led to a short, stunned silence, but once everyone came out from their places under the tables, the mess hall was a madhouse, most of the inmates hooting with relieved revelry.
“Stay where you are,” the same guard called through his bullhorn. “There could be aftershocks.”
Kyle had lived his entire life in New York and not experienced one earthquake, and now there had been two this week. Very strange, especially considering he’d just come back from traveling through time. Kyle wondered whether there was any link between the two.
He pulled himself up off the floor, between the bench and the table, sliding his breakfast tray back in front of him. But, as he did, he noticed something carved into the table:
KC: NO CLASS—2/25/16
It was his initials, and today’s date, and it was etched in the same spot where he’d sat for every meal over the past two years. It hadn’t been there before—he knew that.
He wondered why anyone would take the time to tell him he had no class by etching it into a table in the cafeteria. “Class” wasn’t something many of the inmates at Stevenson Youth tended to care much about.
Then, it hit him. He realized the message was a lot simpler than that. Whoever had done this didn’t want him going to his class today. They’d put it in the perfect spot to make sure he saw it. Who had done this? Kyle wondered. And, why?
When there were no aftershocks for the remainder of breakfast, the inmates were advised to proceed to their next scheduled activity. As Kyle exited the mess hall, he considered making the left turn and going to class. Was the message from the Tigres to try to scare him? Who else would’ve done it?
He turned in the direction of his English class and started walking. On his way, Hector, one of the Tigres, walked past him and give him a wink. Kyle’s heart started to race a little faster. He looked around for guards and there weren’t any nearby.
A few seconds later, Kyle saw Leonard and three other guys standing in the hallway he had to pass through on his way to his English class. Eventually, one of the guards might shoo them away, but probably not before Kyle reached them.
Kyle turned around and walked quickly in the other direction, hoping he could get to his cell before this passing period ended. Now, Hector stood in his way. He grabbed Kyle’s arm to turn him around. “Wrong way, Kyle.”
When he turned, he saw Leonard and the other guys walking down the long hallway toward them. Kyle still couldn’t spot any guards.
Quickly, Kyle threw his shoulder into Hector, brushing past him and running toward his cell. He still had to get down two long corridors before he had any chance of getting inside his cell.
After a few seconds, he looked back and saw Leonard, the three guys he was standing with, and Hector, all running after him. Kyle kept a good lead on them as he turned down the first corridor. He wanted to yell for a guard, but during this time of day, inmates weren’t allowed in their cells, so there might not be a guard stationed nearby.
Kyle looked back again as he came up on the next turn and saw that the Tigres were gaining on him. One of them was far ahead of the pack and Kyle worried that he wouldn’t be able to get into his cell before he caught up.
He turned and shouldered himself through the double door leading to cell block C. He heard the Tigre right behind him burst through only a few seconds later. The door to his new cell would be unlocked at this time of day when most inmates were occupied with class, or other activities.
Oh shit! Kyle thought, as he realized—way too late—that he had no way to keep these guys out of his cell once he got there. Just like he couldn’t unlock his own cell, he couldn’t lock the door of the cell either—only the guards could. He made it and slid inside. With only a few seconds before the Tigres got there, he tried to think of how he could keep them out. He panicked. He was worse off here than he would’ve been if they’d confronted him in the hallway near his class.
Leonard and four other Tigres walked in together.
“We didn’t even have to drag you into the supply closet,” Leonard said. “You made it easy on us. I’m thinking maybe our conversation the other day didn’t get my point across.” The other four stood behind Leonard.
Kyle thought of his dad’
s advice to “stand tall” as Leonard walked up very close to him. He could smell Leonard’s oniony breath. He felt a strange tension in his shoulder blade—anticipating that he was about to get hit.
Kyle made a fist instinctively.
“You messed up, Kyle. Real fuckin’ bad,” Leonard said.
“And you ain’t got no cellie to protect you no more,” one of the other Tigres, Rob, called out. He looked proud of himself until Leonard shot him a squinty look.
“Now, if we’re gonna take over Ochoa’s share of the, uh, prison economy, we’re going to need to make sure people know they can’t fuck with us,” Leonard said.
Leonard held his hand above his shoulder without looking back. “Gimme it, Griddle.”
One of the other Tigres, a tall guy named Griddle, whose face was half-covered by a huge burn, stepped forward and handed Leonard a candy bar wrapper. As Leonard pushed on the bottom of the wrapper, Kyle could see that there was a blade coming out the end of the wrapper, like the edge of a box cutter.
Kyle took a step back and put his hands in front of him. “Leonard. Don’t do it. This is a huge mistake.”
Leonard stepped toward him. “Take your medicine, pussy.” Leonard swung the blade toward Kyle’s neck, but Kyle managed to step backward, away from it. He was going to butt up against the wall pretty soon. The other four Tigres stepped closer as the action moved away from them in the cell.
Kyle put his fists up, ready to fight for his life. He was taller than Leonard, and had longer arms. He was also outnumbered five to one. “Get out of here, Leonard. I’m not fucking around.”
“You think we’re fuckin’ around?” Leonard asked, smiling in amusement that Kyle had put his hands up. “Hit me, you little bitch. Come on, I dare you.”
Kyle felt unsure of what to do. Maybe, if he survived this and could find a way back into his old cell, there would be a silk blot waiting for him. But, for now, this was Kyle’s reality.
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