by Greg Barth
Carla wasn’t my first cellmate. I started out with an older lady named Sharon.
When I first entered my room, Sharon noticed the paperback books I had tucked under my arm.
“Nice,” she said.
I set down my things, picked out a couple of books and tossed them to her.
She pointed at the swastika tattoo on my inner forearm. “Even nicer,” she said and gave a thumbs up.
Sharon gave me the lowdown of the prison and how to survive and fit in. I had done some short stints of county time before, but federal prison was different. It was actually better, but you had to learn the ropes. Most important, you had to learn how not to fuck up in a stupid way. The worst place to stand out is in a confined group of women. Women gossip. Women get jealous. Women are vindictive. We’re moody and emotional. I didn’t want to get on the bad side of my own gender. Women can be vicious.
After a couple of weeks, Sharon completed her sentence and was released.
That’s when Carla moved in.
It worked out fine for me. Carla’s profile was typical. Addict? Check. Neglected her dearly loved children, but hadn’t intentionally abused them? Check. True to a man who did bad things that she went along with? Check. Claimed to be innocent of all charges against her? Check.
She had the whole set. I knew she’d be fine, but she was scared at first.
Her first few days were nerve wracking for both of us. I had been nervous my first few days inside, but Carla was terrified of being in prison. I can’t imagine what horror stories she had heard.
Carla was pretty. She had long, dark hair. Longer than mine. My hair was to my shoulders; hers came down to the middle of her back. She was fit, young, full busted, and had a figure that would drive men crazy. Someone had spent a small fortune on ink for her. She had the prettiest tattoos I ever saw. They covered her arms, legs, back, and various parts of her chest and tummy.
Carla’s sentence was twenty-four months.
On our third night together she looked like she was going to cry. I told her, “Look, Carla. I don’t know what you’re used to, but my experience is that prison isn’t so bad. Not my first pick of places to be, but I expected much worse.”
“You ever seen anybody shanked yet?”
“Nope. Not yet. I did see a nasty argument about a girl taking too long in the shower once.”
“Seriously?”
“No, honey, I was just kidding. It’s okay.”
“You aren’t...you know...going to...”
“Going to what?”
“You know... rape me in the middle of the night… or anything like that?”
I laughed. “Only if you ask me nicely and promise to wash good first.”
She smiled at me.
“Nobody’s going to fuck with you in here,” I told her. “Be strong. Be nice. Follow the rules of basic common courtesy. And, above all, don’t look so scared all the time. You’ll be just fine. We’re not a bunch of raving lesbian killers. We’re just people, same as everybody else. The only thing you have to fear is doing something really stupid and being embarrassed about it. It’s kinda like middle school that way.”
Staying with Carla was easy. She was quiet, friendly, and we grew up in the same part of Kentucky. She was younger than me, so I was able to catch up on gossip from her, and I was able to fill in history for her.
Our first conversation consisted of the usual. Where are you from? Who did you know there? We never asked one another what we were in for. That was considered bad form.
When I told her my name and where I was from, she grew distant. “Carson, huh? From East Kentucky.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been away from home a lot of years.”
“We don’t mess around with the Carsons up that way,” she said.
“How come?”
“You know Judd Carson?”
“Yeah,” I said. Judd was my uncle.
“A couple of them Carsons, Judd being one of them, are known to be associated with Magnus. You know him? Magnus Knowles”
I had to stop and think. I knew Magnus. I’d just forgotten him. No, not forgotten. I could never forget him. I’d stopped thinking about him. You can’t undo your past. The best you can do sometimes is stop remembering it’.
Hearing his name set the memories loose in my mind. Magnus Knowles was one of the men responsible for me leaving Kentucky at a young age, him along with my father and uncle.
The memories caught me off guard. I had to stop and think about how I was going to position this with Carla. I was as much a victim of theirs as anybody was, but at the same time, I was associated with them. Related to them. It wasn’t that I wanted to defend their crimes, it was just that they were family, and Carla knew about the things they’d done.
In the end, I simply lowered my head and nodded. “I know them,” I said.
“The Carsons were all bad, but Magnus Knowles was the worst.”
“I was gone before you were involved, but how was it for you?”
“My own father took me to their parties. I was young. At first it started out that I just had to sit on their laps. Of course I didn’t have any clothes on; but, all things considered, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. As bad as... it got later. They shared their drinks, their weed with me. All in all it was okay. I mean, I didn’t feel okay with it, but I didn’t know any better. I mean, my dad was there. They...you know...I sat on their laps, got high, and they...” She looked down, ashamed. “Masturbated,” she said.
I nodded. “It was the same for me.”
“Well you know then, don’t you? At first it was just sitting on their laps. Then it was a whole lot more.”
“And Magnus?”
I couldn’t focus on what Carla was saying. In my mind, I was back there. I couldn’t stop the flood of memories.
***
I sat on Magnus’s lap. We were on the love seat in my father’s living room. His shoulder-length dark hair was pulled back in a samurai-style topknot. He wore a short-brimmed black cowboy hat with silver buckles around it. He had a close-trimmed dark beard on his cheeks and he wore amber-tinted glasses. He was wearing a blue denim button-up shirt and jeans.
I was so drunk and stoned that I was on the brink of blacking out.
“You need to drink some water, Lil’ Bit,” he said. He held a cup to my lips.
I dutifully drank the sulfurous liquid.
“I might throw up,” I said.
“You won’t. The high is just getting good. Has anybody shown you how to turn off your gag reflex?”
I looked around the room. All the other guys were either passed out or engaged with the girls Magnus brought with him. The two girls he brought with him—young like me—both had thick, leather collars around their necks. I was jealous of them, because I didn’t have one.
“How do you turn off the gag reflex?”
“I’ll tell you, but first you have to tell me why you want to know.”
“Well, sometimes I get so drunk, it’s like I can’t go farther. Just when it’s getting really good, I either fall asleep, pass out, or start to feel sick. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to die from it.”
“That’s good, Selena. It means you know your limits. Now if you want to skate along those limits, you have to take control of your body. To turn off your gag reflex, all you have to do is make a fist with your left hand and tuck your thumb inside.”
“Like this?” I said.
“Exactly. Now squeeze tight.”
I did so.
“Now try putting your finger down your throat and see if you can gag yourself.”
I tried. I didn’t gag.
“See? You’re in control of your body. Now the thing is, when your breath feels heavy, and you’re afraid you’re going to throw up or pass out, do that. And switch to water until it passes. You’ll skate along the edge.”
I looked around the living room. My father was passed out. The girl in Uncle Judd’s lap wore only a leather collar and
he was grinding against her.
“Is that what they do?” I said.
“No,” Magnus said. “I’ve told you a secret. You have power now that they don’t have. You’re special. Sometimes I think you’re the most special person I know.”
We each took a drink of water from his cup, but we both followed it with a drink of liquor.
I pointed at the tattoo on his arm. “What’s that?” I said. The image was of a monster standing in water. It had multiple heads.
“It’s the beast. Ever heard of it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s the beast of Revelation. In the Bible. It represents the historical destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and everything that led up to it. Christ came in the clouds way back then and brought judgment down on the people that rejected him. You understand?”
Again I shook my head. “I thought the second coming was in the future?”
Magnus opened his eyes wide and pulled his head back in mock surprise. “Second coming? That’s not in the Bible. Christ can come to his planet any time he wants. Second? He already did that. He can come a third and fourth and fifth time if he wants. Every time he comes, after the first time, it’s a coming in judgment against those that rejected him.”
“I’ve never heard that before,” I said.
“Why do you wear the tattoo of the beast then?”
“I don’t. Why do you wear it?”
“Because the beast is god’s righteous vessel of judgment. The Roman emperors of the time served a holy purpose. They laid waste to those that rejected their savior, going so far as to burn the temple and rip up the stones from the street.”
“I thought the beast was bad,” I said. “Mom said so. Grandpa said so too.”
“They mean well, but they’re wrong. These are secrets that only god’s chosen knows. The beast is the one that manifests god’s judgment in this world.”
I stared at the tattoo on his arm. In my drunken state, it seemed alive, its four paws resting on the water, the savage heads looking in all directions, snarling mouths open.
“And yes, you wear it too. You see that tattoo you have on your forearm in the same spot?”
I positioned my arm so we could see it. It was a swastika. I placed my tattoo side by side next to his. My father had put my tattoo there after my mother’s death.
“Yeah?” I said.
“It’s the same thing. It’s just two-thousand years later.”
“You mean World War Two was god’s judgment?”
“How could it have been anything but? World War Two was the biggest thing that mankind ever did. More people crossed boundaries, more ships crossed oceans, air travel was perfected, the largest armies in history clashed, millions and millions died. Histories of nations were erased. How could god not have been front and center in that? And honey, god always wins. Who took that one on the chin?” He tapped the tattoo on my arm. “You be proud of that. It’s a holy symbol.”
“But Christ is still coming back, right? Mom said so.”
“No, honey. Everything was done in 70 A.D. He destroyed his enemies. Millions of people were crucified under Domitian. They crucified so many, they ran out of wood in Palestine. Now we have to take the world. Everything we need is given to us. If anyone stands in his way, you just look at that mark on your arm. Everything is yours for the taking. You have the power of the beast in your blood, girl. You’re sitting here on my lap, and I can feel the beast surging through you.”
“Can I ask you a question?” I said.
“Go for it.”
“Why do you like me naked?”
“Because you’re perfect that way. Natural. Just like in the Garden of Eden before the fall. Don’t you feel that?”
I looked down and shook my head.
“I’d also like to have you come stay with me and my girls at my place some.”
“My dad wouldn’t like that,” I said.
“I bet I could work it out. Would you like that?”
“Are the girls your daughters?”
“Not exactly. There are no words to describe the relationship I have with them. So what do you say?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some time.”
“Good. Maybe some time. Now, can I ask you another question?”
“Yes, Magnus.”
“Do you really want to take your high to a level that few people know about? Do you want to open new, secret doors? I can show you how to unleash the beast inside you.”
I looked around the room at the people passed out in the furniture surrounding us. “Yes. I want to open those doors,” I said.
“Have you ever tried cocaine?”
***
My mind snapped back to the present before I got to the worst of it.
A room in prison was preferable to my childhood home.
I looked up at Carla. “Yes. Magnus was the worst. He was the most evil man I ever knew. I left home because of him.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe sixteen years ago.”
“I bet it’s only gotten worse since you left.”
“Magnus, he… he talked to me. A lot. He taught me… things.”
“I heard he keeps girls in cages,” Carla said.
“I heard that too.” I thought of the girls I’d had seen wearing only leather collars around their necks. “I think it’s is true.” I shuddered.
“God, that’s just horrible.”
“But it’s not just him. Is it?” I asked.
“I don’t wanna take you back there like this. Bring up bad memories. I mean, it’s your family. Jesus.”
I didn’t respond, didn’t want to remember any more of it.
“Odd that we have such similar pasts. And we both wound up here together like this,” she said.
I looked around at our surroundings. Maybe not so odd, I thought.
S EVEN
Uncle Judd
JUDD CARSON PULLED his truck off the road and got out. He downed his can of Natural Light beer and tossed the empty in the five gallon bucket he kept in the truck bed. He brushed his stringy, greasy hair from his eyes.
Judd unzipped his fly and pissed into the weed-covered ditch on the edge of the gravel shoulder. He farted long and loud. He stood there for a few seconds to let the last drips come out. His prostate wasn’t what it used to be. His gut was too big, so he couldn’t see if he was still dripping or not. Best to just wait. The air felt good on his skin down there anyway.
When he figured he was done, he zipped up and started back to the truck. He swore as he felt warm piss trickle down his thigh.
He saw a couple of aluminum soda cans in the ditch further up. He walked over and picked them up. He found a penny too. He put the cans in the bucket and the penny in his pocket.
He pushed one finger against a nostril and blew a snot rocket onto the gravel.
He was tired and didn’t want to get back into the truck just yet, so he leaned against the fender. The truck was twenty years old. It had been used when he bought it. It was a full-sized GMC. With its sagging rear bumper, dinged up tailgate, mismatched fenders, and quarter panel covered in Bondo putty, it looked like shit. Judd didn’t care. It got him around, and he couldn’t afford anything better.
He didn’t draw a pension from the coal mines. He’d fucked that up by calling in sick too many days and getting fired before he’d put in his time. He’d tried filing a disability claim for a back injury, but that didn’t pan out. Stupid fucking doctor. Or maybe it was the stupid fucking lawyer. In Judd’s eyes, if you couldn’t get a back injury claim for a coal miner, you just weren’t worth your paper. How much easier could he have made it for them?
He’d failed the black lung tests as well. The best he could draw was a small social security disability check for depression. He got a food stamp allotment as well. The first of each month he’d go to the check advance place, pay his debt, write out another check to re-borrow the $500, pay his low light bill, and sell his food stam
p card. The rest of the month he’d get by selling plasma and scrap metal, plus what he won from scratch-off tickets.
He was in a sad spot. He could no longer afford his beer habit, dope habit, and whore habit during any given month unless he struck it lucky somehow. He had to budget everything out. He quit buying cigarettes. He only smoked what he could bum. Sometimes he got lucky and found long butts in the ashtrays outside convenience stores. Thanks to indoor smoking bans, people would throw down a half-finished butt on their way in.
Mostly he got by with a daily 12 pack of Natural Light and the occasional handjob from Wanda. Wanda Sykes lived about a quarter mile up the road from him. He could usually talk her into it around the first of each month when she could get her pills refilled. As it was, he owed Wanda about 120 dollars. The next time he got lucky on the scratch-off tickets, he’d pay her light bill or something.
Wanda wasn’t much to look at in the face. Her skin was stretched and loose over her pudgy frame. But she had kind, gentle hands that beat the hell out of nothing. She had a younger sister that talked on her little phone all the time. The sister had a piece of ass on her, but Judd could never get any play from her.
Wanda had a half-wit daughter named Gabby. She was twenty now. Judd had been with her a few times when she was younger. Gabby was okay but could be annoying as hell.
Judd hocked and spat onto the road.
A car was coming up the way, kicking up a cloud of dust behind it. Judd considered stopping whoever it was, telling them he was out of gas, and see if they could lend him five dollars.
He reconsidered when he saw it was a Sheriff’s cruiser.
The cop pulled up behind his truck and opened the door to his car. Judd recognized Deputy Bostic when he got out.
“Mornin’ Deputy,” Judd said.
“Morning yourself, Mr. Carson. Everything alright?”
“Yeah. Just stopped for a piss.”
The deputy walked up to the truck. He approached the ditch. He unzipped and urinated into the weeds himself. “How’s your brother doing these days? I hear that girl of his got herself in some trouble. Pulling some federal time up state.”