Blood to Dust (18 page)

Mrs. H creeps closer, brushing my arm as her eyes drop down to my package, squeezed into rubber Speedos. My balls are sweating like they’re in a sauna. They’ve been tingling for Pea’s attention for days now. I wonder what it’d take to get her to suck on them.

“I can tell you a lot about this neighborhood if you’re interested, Nate,” she says. I guess she’s talking to me, but she’s still staring at my junk. “The Browns have a bastard child and the Simpsons are divorcing. You can stick around when you’re done. I’ll open a bottle of chardonnay.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I got plans.” I turn my back to her and point the hose at a mound of flowers.

I do have plans. And they’re starting to look crazier and crazier with every tick of the clock.

Tick, tock.

Am I switching teams?

Tick, tock.

Playing right into Prescott’s scheme.

That night, I send Irv to give Pea her food and fifteen minutes of bathroom time. But not before warning him for twenty minutes about the importance of not being a total cunt. I also kindly ask him not to volunteer anymore crucial information about me, such as my last name, license plate, social security number or favorite porn star.

Though deep down, I know it’s too late. She’s on to me. She knows my name and would be able to piece together a pretty accurate picture to the cops.

An ex-inmate from San Dimas named Nate, tattoos covering only the left side of his body.

Yeah, not many of those walking around in the world.

Then again, for the sake of my conscience, I can’t, correction
—won’t
—hand her back to Godfrey after everything that he’s done. And if she’s a mother on top of everything, I ain’t gonna be responsible for her kid becoming an orphan.

I’m going to let her walk away and make it on my own, without her fifty grand. I have a feeling doing this together would only throw us into a deeper pool of shit. Besides, she’s small and blonde and on fucking heeled boots. She’d only slow me down.

There’s no way I’m going down there again. She’s been manipulating this whole house, reigning it with her sweet pussy and philosophical quotes. I have some thinking to do, and going down there means I’ll be handing my dick the key to this out of control train wreck.

Even though I send Irv to take care of her, while trying to read
American Scream
in bed, I still strain my ears to hear them. I hear every curse that leaves his lips as he talks to her and every sarcastic comeback she throws back at him. I keep telling myself I’m eavesdropping because I want to make sure he doesn’t hit her again, but it’s not the truth. Not the whole truth, anyway. The whole truth is that I’d like to hear if she asks about me. She doesn’t.

When her time runs out, she goes back to the basement and doesn’t try striking up a conversation. It’s been thirteen days since she got here. Not too many more to go before they’ll come and take her. She knows it. But she has no idea that I’ve made up my mind.

They’re not touching this girl again. I won’t let that happen.

If Prescott Burlington-Smyth dies—it won’t be on my watch.

FEBRUARY 27
H
, 2010

“DEATH IS THE CURE FOR ALL DISEASES” (THOMAS BROWNE)

Time. Is. Death.

That’s why there’s an overhead clock in ad-seg, its needle always stuck on 12:00. Midnight or noon? Day or night? You don’t know, and after a while, you stop caring. If you want to kill a person from the inside, forget about knives and guns.

Use a fucking watch.

Coming out after a week in the hole, the light of day feels unnatural and almost unwelcome.

I ain’t proud of the reason why I got thrown in the hole, but I’d do it all over again if I had to.

It was yard time, and I was sparring with an inmate while the old schoolers and Frank were watching.

I don’t remember when exactly Marco disappeared from my eyesight and Hefner entered my vision. But when it happened, fear trickled into my gut, for the very first time in my life.

Something bad was going to happen, I knew it, but not to me.

Hefner took two steps toward me and curled his fingers around my neck. “Yo, Bitch.” His Aryan friends grouped behind him, armed with glowing smirks and not much wisdom to accompany their glee. “If you wanna stay alive, you gotta join your brothers.”

I peeled his fingers off and muscled my way away, stoic. “You’re not my brothers.”

“You’re white.” A guy behind him with a tattoo on his forehead took a step forward, holding me in place. “That means you’re a brother.”

“Hispanic,” I corrected. “And an only fucking child. Now get the fuck outta my face.”

“You don’t look Hispanic.” Since when did this bunch turn into a movement of genetic experts?

“Leave the boy,” Frank said, shuffling to my side. He was half my height and delicate in build. He was old and weak, and they were immoral and cruel.

“Says who? You?” Hefner shoved the old man. Frank collapsed on the dirty ground. Hefner’s friends picked him up, clutching his arms tight. I yanked Hefner by the collar and threw him against the fence. “Touch him again and you’re dead.”

“You let the old man ride you, handsome fuck?” Laughter bubbled out of him. “It’s not him I’m after, idiot. It’s you.”

This made me feel better. I can deal with the Aryan Brotherhood myself. But I didn’t want to drag Frank into this mess. I threw a punch straight to Hefner’s smug face, knowing that I was about to get beaten up by at least fifteen men, but what happened next surprised me.

They turned to Frank.

The guy with the brow tattoo dragged him by the arm across the yard, his frail body grinding against the sizzling concrete. His friends followed, kicking and punching the old man.

I had showed weakness. It was Frank. So they kicked me where it hurt.

Him.

I launched at them, peeling body after body from him, before two Aryan Brothers held me in place and glued me to the wall as Hefner strangled Frank with his bare hands. He sat on my old neighbor’s chest in the middle of the yard and squeezed his throat so hard, the veins on Frank’s forehead popped out like purple snakes. I screamed until my throat felt raw, until my lungs bled and my yells became labored breaths, kicking and shoving, trying to break free.

He was killing Frank.

He was killing Frank, and I was standing on the sideline, letting it happen.

He was killing Frank and slaying what was left of my small, meaningless world in the process.

Hefner didn’t care. He was a lifer, anyway. What could they do? Sentence his rotting body to another life without parole?

When I finally broke free, Frank looked dead. The guards were roaming the yard, approaching us with murderous faces.

“You need to get in the hole, or they’ll kill you,” someone whispered in my direction, and I recognized the accent. I turned around, puzzled. “Punch me, boy. Make a mess.”

“What?” I spat blood. I didn’t even realize I was injured. Godfrey was the most infamous, dangerous inmate aside from the death row crowd. . .and he wanted me to punch him?

“If you punch me, they’ll throw you in the hole. Your life will be considered in danger,” he explained calmly, even though the guards were seconds from getting to us. “Make it bloody, lad. I’ll take care of the Aryan bastards before you get out of ad-seg.”

I wasn’t thinking. I just did as I was told. I swung my fist and hit him so hard, he rolled back and collapsed to the ground with a thud.

Godfrey was right.

I got thrown into the hole, and by the time I came out, he had cleaned up the mess with the Aryan Brotherhood. I know that I’m out of the woods because they keep their distance from me in the yard. The cafeteria. When I’m at work. They don’t talk or approach me. And I know that I’ve opened a debt that will be collected at some point. My freedom’s price is far more expensive than what money can buy.

But I don’t care.

He can’t ruin what’s already tarnished.

MARCH 3
RD
, 2010

“WHERE GRIEF IS FRESH, ANY ATTEMPT TO DIVERT IT ONLY IRRITATES” (SAMUEL JOHNSON)

Beth takes me to an isolated corner at lunchtime. You can see us behind the glass door, the way she puts her hands on my shoulders, like it’s okay. Like we’re friends. She tells me Frank’s not dead, and I release the breath I’ve been holding since they threw me in the hole. He had, however, lost his voice box and Hefner broke his spinal cord and cervical spine. The bastard hit the important nerves. C something and C something. Frank won’t be able to talk anymore. Or walk.

He will spend the rest of his life in bed.

Assisted by life support.

Because of me.

She looks like she wants to kiss me, the fabric of her green uniform rubs against my orange clothes, and I turn around and leave before I do something I’ll regret.

Like cry.

Or fuck her.

Or cry and fuck her.

The old schoolers don’t want me around anymore, and I can’t blame them. I’m responsible for what happened to Frank. Godfrey signals for me to come sit with his crowd, but I don’t.

One week, two weeks, three months. . .loneliness is a terrible thing. A close cousin to death. Sometimes, you need company, even if it’s from the devil.

After a month of courting from Godfrey, I cave in and join them. Irvin, the tattooist, is there too. Seb, who’s in his early forties, nudges my shoulder and offers me his peach. I take a juicy bite off it, my eyes still trained on Sergio and the rest of Frank’s friends.

The peach doesn’t taste good in my mouth. Kinda sour. Kinda rotten. Maybe it’s not the peach.

Maybe it’s me.

MARCH 13
TH
, 2010

I grind through my sentence in

APRIL 16
TH
, 2011

Got bored so got a few more tattoos and

OCTOBER 3
RD
, 2012

“ALL THINGS CAN CORRUPT WHEN MINDS ARE PRONE TO EVIL” (OVID)

Godfrey arrives at my cell and gives me a parental hug. Over the last couple of years, that’s what he’s been to me. A fatherly figure. In my world, that means he’s someone who lives under the same roof and who I’d like to kill at some point.

If the yard is a circus, Godfrey’s the ringmaster. He orders fights—bloody fights—for his entertainment only.

He manages his business on the outside from the confines of these tall walls like it’s his goddamned office.

I’m beginning to see why the DA threw every resource they had at locking him in here for forty years on drug trafficking offenses when he stood trial.

He’s a dangerous man. His place is among other dangerous, soulless people.

“Happy birthday, lad,” he congratulates. He clasps me, hissing in my ear. “Got a proper gift for you this year. Much better than a book. Wanna off Hefner? I have a nice opening for you to walk through.”

I shake my head. I killed a man, but I’m not a murderer. All the same, I understand the underlying order in his invitation. Saying no is not an option.

“I’ll just mess with him a little.” I won’t break his spine, but a few ribs—sure. Why not?

I find Hefner scrubbing pans after dinner. Godfrey’s soldiers are behind me, and they signal the kitchen workers to fuck off with a nod.

Everyone leaves Hefner and me alone.

I stalk in his direction, much bigger in size and presence than the useless prick. I’ve spent my years here working out and bulking up, while he spent his years stirring shit and causing trouble. Hefner wipes his forehead with the back of his arm, wheezing.

“Looky here. There’s our pretty boy.” He still sounds cheerful, but underneath the make-believe smile lies fear. I can smell it. The acidic sweat, the labored breaths. Un-fucking-canny. I want to bottle it up and smell it every time I think about Frank.