by David Wiltse
"What?"
"Don't pretend you don't hear me," Cooper said.
"You hear me."
"What is it?"
Cooper's grin broadened. He enjoyed it when his punk tried to outsmart him because, in here, in the cell, there was no way anyone could outwit Cooper. In the world, intelligence counted for something. Every two-bit clerk who could subtract well enough to make change for a ten was intimidating to Cooper. They could disrespect him and live because there were too many of them to kill.
Everyone seemed to sense the awkward and clumsy movements of his mind and to dance around him like hyenas around a shackled lion. They were legion and he was just one. There was nothing he could do but let them cheat and bully and mock him. The world belonged to the agile; but here, in this cell, the universe belonged to the strong. Cooper's power was rooted neither in wit nor cunning but in raw strength.
"What is it?" Cooper said in mincing tones, mocking the convict above him. "What is it?"
"Honestly," Swann said. "I don't know what you want!"
Honestly.'
Cooper waited for Swann to respond, then kicked the bunk again.
"Now," he said.
Swann leaned his head over the edge of the bunk. He had the look on his face that Cooper loved to see. The placating look of someone trying to hide his fear while calming a menacing dog.
"I don't feel very well," Swann said.
"Shit," said Cooper dismissively. "I want it now."
"No, truthfully, Cooper. I think I have an infection. It might put you in jeopardy. I wouldn't want that."
Cooper laughed. He recognized the tone even if he didn't grasp all of the substance. It was the same bullshit that they all tried on him in the world, scooting around him with their words, twisting things so he didn't know what to think.
He didn't have to put up with it here.
"Time for your nightlies," Cooper said.
"You know I want to…"
"I know you do."
"Anything you want. Normally. But tonight Cooper grabbed the smaller man by the ear and pulled until he came off the bunk, yelping in pain.
"Old Coop's going ridin'," called out a neighboring inmate who heard Swann's groans.
"Coop's ridin'," Cooper called back happily, delighted to be recognized.
He was a respected man on the block, people spoke to him, called out his name in admiration.
If not the strongest man on the block of strong men, he was close.
Three cells away, the new punk's initiation came to a climax with the exultant scream of his tormentor. Between catcalls from the kibitzers the punk could be heard weeping. If he didn't stop soon, the predator would beat him until he couldn't. Cooper hated weepers, particularly crying women or anyone that reminded him of them.
His punk didn't cry. His punk loved him. Not just because Cooper protected him from the other cons who might want to abuse him. He loved him because he loved him, because Cooper was lovable, because he was a good man, and a stud and a nice guy-or at least in as much as circumstances allowed him to be a nice guy. Niceness was not a highly valued characteristic in the jungle.
Cooper tightened his fingers around Swann's throat, feeling the cords of muscle that held the little man's head to his body. It would be so easy to yank it right off. Just one good tug, Cooper thought. He was strong enough, he could pop it off like he was snapping string. Cooper wondered if Swann would flap around like a chicken, or would he just die, collapsing like a poleaxed steer. Cooper had seen the way cattle died in a slaughterhouse, falling as if a hole had opened beneath them, slaughtered without a twitch. He had never seen a human being die that quickly, there was always some fuss, usually noise, too. But then he'd never seen anyone die because his head was pulled off, either. He tightened his grip on Swann's neck until the punk began to cough.
Cooper felt the throbbing begin.
"You love me, don't you?" he demanded, his voice husky now and low so no one else could hear.
"I love you," said Swann.
Cooper thrust harder, beginning to lose control.
"I love you, too," Cooper said, each word tortured from his frantic breathing, and for the moment he truly did. He wanted to squeeze his punk in his arms although the position did not allow it. He wanted to be wrapped in another person's embrace, to feel the warmth of another body, his beloved's body, against his skin.
Cooper finished with the orgasmic scream of a cat, announcing his dominance as he had learned to do in prison, letting the listeners know of his triumph. Quiet passion was for the prey, not the predators.
He slumped across Swann's back as the last of the tremors shook him, then, as always, was almost immediately filled with guilt. He thrust the punk away from him, pushing him with his foot against the wall.
The punk hit his head and moaned.
"Shut up," Cooper said.
"That hurt."
"You're lucky I don't kill you," Cooper said. "If I didn't have to live with you, I'd kill you."
Swann was silent, a shape in the dark, huddled against the wall. Cooper wanted to kick him again. Like a cowering dog, he thought. Just asking for the boot.
"You know that, don't you?" Cooper asked,
"I know that."
"If I didn't have to live with you, I'd probably pull your head right off. You know I could."
"I know it."
"I killed a faggot once."
"I'm not a faggot, COOP."
"You'd better not be."
"I just do it because I love you."
"God damn if I'd share a cell with a faggot. If I ever find out you are one, I'll kill you anyway, I don't care if I never get out. I'll kill you just like I did the other one."
There was a silence and for a moment Cooper thought it to be mood. It would be a bad night, the punk wasn't difficult, perhaps he really was sick, maybe Cooper had injured him after all. He was always such a little shit when he felt abused and, although Cooper could force him to perate, he didn't do it with the same ego-satisfying of cooper's sincerity. Who knew what went on in his mind, crouching ver there in the shadows? Fucking little clerk, Cooper thought, little snot-nose behind the cash register. Cooper had stuck his.38 into the face of dozens of them, seen their smugness change to fear in a second. Seen the color drain out of their faces as if the gun was a siphon and Coop a vampire.
Little shit-fuck, dirty little shit-fuck, hiding in the dark, sniveling.
Then Swann broke the silence.
"How did you kill him?" Cooper relaxed. The tone of voice was just right, the punk was in the proper mood. He would ask the questions and Cooper could say the things he loved to say. It was the part of the evening he liked best, the part after sex when he talked about himself and the things he had done and the things he was going to do. Cooper had forgotten many of the details, but the punk remembered, he coached Cooper when things slipped his mind. Cooper never felt stupid when telling his stories to Swann.
"I kicked him to death," Cooper said.
"Why?"
"I told you, he was a faggot." 'When did you do this, Coop?":,At night. He come up to the car and said could he do anything for me and I said, yeah, faggot, you can do something for me. You can eat my boot."
"I meant how long ago did you do this?"
"Why didn't you say so?"
"I didn't make myself clear, i'm sorry… Was it just before you came to prison, or longer, or…?"
"It was… uh…"
"Was it five years ago, when you were in Nashville?"
"That's right."
"Did the police know about it?"
"I don't know. I didn't tell them. I don't suppose he did, do you?"
"Was that before you killed the girls, or after?"
"Before."
"How did the girls happen?"
"You like that one, don't you?" Cooper said.
"I like whatever you- like, Coop. Your favorites are my favorites."
"They're all MY favorites. I wouldn't have killed th
em if I didn't like it, would I?"
"Would you rather tell me about another one? Do you want to talk about the Mexican?"
"Which Mexican? I done more than one Mexican. I done lots of them. I hate Mexicans."
"The one when you were picking oranges?"
"I done lots of Mexicans," Cooper repeated vaguely, trying to remember.
"You said he got in your face because of his wife."
"Oh, yeah." Cooper waited for further reminders.
There had been so many, how could he be expected to recall the details?
That's what the punk was good for.
Cooper told about them when they occurred to him; it Was up to Swann to remember what he said.
"She was coming on to you… She was sticking her ass in your face when she was on a ladder."
Cooper chuckled. "I remember. Wiggling her ass around in my face like it itched."
"And she wanted you to scratch it."
"Wanted me to fuck it, is what she wanted."
"That's what I meant… Did you, Coop?"
"Did I what?"
"Did you fuck her?"
"What do you think?"
"Did you make her scream?"
"I always make them scream,"
"Is that the best part?"
"What?"
"Making them scream? Is that the part you like best?"
"I like seeing their faces when I put the gun in their mouth."
"You don't do that to the women, do you?"
"I wasn't talking about the women."
"Okay."
"Stick to the point," Cooper said. "We're talking about the Mexican."
"I'm sorry. I get confused sometimes," the punk said.
Cooper smiled in the darkness. The shit-fuck clerks were smart only about what they were smart about. They weren't smart about what Coop was smart about. They didn't know shit about the things Cooper knew.
"There's a lot of them to remember," Cooper said magnanimously. "I lose track myself sometimes."
"There are an awful lot of them. You must have done more people than anybody on this block."
"I done more than any come in the whole damned prison, and don't you forget it. I probably done more than anybody anywhere. What's the record?"
"I don't know, Coop. Seventeen, eighteen?"
"Shee-it, that's nothing. Is that all? I must have done thirty. More probably."
"Do the police know about them?"
"Who cares?"
"They're the ones who count, they keep track."
"They do?"
"They're the scorekeepers, sort of. If they don't know, it doesn't count."
"Bullshit. If I done them, they're dead."
"Just a manner of speaking."
"Bullshit."
"You're right, Coop."
"I'm trying to tell you about the Mexican."
"I want to hear about it."
"Then quit confusing me with all this other shit."
"Sorry."
"I could rip your head off if I wanted to, you know."
"I know you could… Did you rip the Mexican's head Off-?"
Cooper chuckled. "Naw… I gutted him. He come at me with his knife-you know all them Mexicans got knives, they're fucking born with them. I stuck my gun in his face and took the knife away and then I gutted him with his own blade. You should have heard him gurgle in Mexican."
"Spanish."
"What?"
"What did you do with the body?"
"I stuck it in a culvert."
"Do you suppose the police have ever found it?"
"I don't know, you little shit. Do police usually go looking in culverts?"
"I don't know that much about the police, Coop."
"You're in here, ain't you? I guess the police know about you, all right, you little dickhead."
"That was different. I made a mistake, I didn't kill anybody."
"You tried though, didn't you? You just couldn't pull it off."
"I didn't try, I was just defending myself. She attacked me, I was just defending myself"
"Assault with a deadly weapon, right? The judge didn't think you was 'defending' yourself. He thought you was trying to kill your landlady with a butcher's cleaver."
"She attacked me, the woman was deranged."
Cooper turned his back to the other man. He didn't understand what "deranged" meant and he was tired of talking about someone other than himself.
"You're so innocent, I guess they ought to let you go, then," Cooper said, trying to think how to get the conversation back to him.
"I know everyone says they're innocent, Coop, but I really am.
"You just couldn't manage it. If you'd killed the bitch the way you should have, maybe you wouldn't be here now, did you ever think of that?
Kill them and who's to testify if they're dead?
"Who's going to report it? Who's going to… You just didn't have the balls for it. And not everyone isn't. I ain't innocent. I just ain't been they're innocent say they don't know the half of what they were caught for what I done I done, nobody does, not even you. But I'm not telling them, let them find out for themselves."
"They'll never find out about you, Coop. You've got a reputation of deviousness all over the county. You must have bodies scattered all over."
"Uh-huh."
"You put the Mexican in the culvert..
"Yeah."
"And what else?"
"What else what?"
"What other bodies did you hide?"
Cooper tried to think. He knew the answer, he just couldn't come up with it right away. That was how his mind worked, it always got there eventually, but sometimes not as fast as others thought it should. Well, fuck them.
"Them girls," he said triumphantly. "I hid them girls."
"Are those the ones you burned to death?"
II Cooper said, laughing.
"Hell, no. I burned them alive,
"That was in Pennsylvania?"
"Yeah… No. Not Pennsylvania. Can't you remember anything, you little fruiter'? It was in West Virginia."
"I'm not a fruit," Swann said.
Cooper was paying no attention. For once the facts sprang clearly to mind. Some memories were fuzzy and some clear and some so vague he didn't know if he dreamed them or lived them, But this time the pictures sprang vividly to mind.
"I did 'em in an old coal mine in West Virginia," he said proudly. "Just outside a town called Hendricks."
"Why a coal mine?"
"I needed somewhere-what do you call it? — someplace alone."
"Secluded."
"that's it."
"Why did you need a secluded place? You never did any other time, did you?"
"Because they were going to make a lot of noise."
"Why didn't you gag them?"
Cooper grinned in the darkness. He knew all the answers this time.
"Because I wanted to hear them."
"How come you did two at a time, Coop?"
"Did I say that? Did I say I did two at a time?"
"I just thought..
"Don't think, you might hurt yourself," Cooper said.
Damn, he knew so much more about this stuff than any goddamned clerk. It was a wonder anybody so stupid was allowed to live. "I did 'em six months apart I planned it good, too. I got together enough food and shit to last me a week. And a couple cartons of cigarettes. And a lantern.
And some candles. It's dark in a mine, you know, you got to have some light."
"You took a week killing them?" Swann was horrified.
"What's wrong with that?"
Swann was silent.
"Anything wrong with a week?"
"No," Swann said quietly. "I wasn't criticizing.
"I could pull your head off if I wanted."
"I wasn't criticizing."
"I hope to shit not. Ask me something else."
"Where did you find them?"
"The girls you took to the abandoned mine."
&nb
sp; "It was a coal mine."
"Nobody was using it anymore, were they?"
"Of course not. I told you. It was an old mine."
"Where did you find the girls you took there?"
Cooper brayed. This was the best part. He loved this part because of the reaction it got from Swann. Every time.
I picked them up at church."
He could hear the little punk gasp. Every time. He had never seen such a religious nut. Coope coming next. He heard Swann shuffling off his ass and onto his knees.
"Could we pray now?" Swann asked although it wasn't really a question.
Cooper knew that Swann would pray now no matter what Cooper said or did, short of bashing his head against the wall.
" Sure. Pray," Cooper said. He rose from the bunk and knelt beside Swann, facing the crucifix that was barely visible. Cooper didn't see what harm could be done in humoring the little man now and then. It made him play his part more eagerly if he knew he got his reward at the end.
And, besides, Cooper figured the praying couldn't hurt, especially since it was Mostly about him.
"Dear Lord, Sweet Jesus, Angel of Mercy," Swann intoned, "look down on our beloved brother Cooper and bring the spirit of redemption to his soul. Pierce his hardened heart with your love, Sweet Jesus, and let him know the joy of loving his fellow man — ."
Swann enthused onward and Cooper's focus soon drifted off. Cooper had heard the little punk keep at it for hours at a time, so there wasn't any need for him to try to keep up with it all. He paid little attention to the words of the prayer, they often confused him anyway, but he liked the rhythm, the singsongy way the phrases were d "Darling Lord," as if Swann were calling out to his sweetheart.
The punk cared for him; he really did love him.
Somewhere in the midst of all the blabbing to god, Swann would get around to the fact that Cooper was being re leased soon and would need all the help the darling lord could spare when he reentered the world.
He would ask sweet Jesus to walk hand in hand with old Coop and keep him out of trouble. Cooper liked that image and in his mind sweet Jesus looked a lot like Swann himself, but with a scraggly beard. Swann already had the messianic y hair down to his shoulders and some nights Cooper would remove the rubber band that held it in a ponytail and run his hands through it. There was comfort in the idea of a Christ-like Swann, short and weak but smart in a lot of ways that were valued in the world, walking down some long dirt road with his hand in Cooper's. And, in truth, Cooper had some need for comfort. The prospect of freedom after five years of confinement filled him with trepidation. Not that he would ever admit to such anxiety to Swann or anyone else. If they saw the slightest sign of fear or even uncertainty, they would take it for weakness and swarm all over him, prying and pulling at whatever slightest chink they could find until they ripped him open and fed on his insides. But the fear was real, however well he hid it. In truth, Cooper had never done well in the world. It bewildered him with its complex rules and escalating demands. Even his pleasures had to be circumscribed or the police would be on him. In prison the rules were clear and quickly learned and if you were strong enough and vicious enough, you could make your own.