On the inside, everyone’s got a story.
Take Ox, for instance. His daddy gave him boxing gloves for Christmas. So Ox set up a fight club in his backyard. Beat ten, maybe fifteen, kids senseless. That wouldn’t have been a problem if he hadn’t taken their money and sneakers as forfeit while he was at it. He figured he deserved something for whipping them.
One kid, that one kid, Ox broke his face pretty good. Blood stopped flowing in places it needed to flow, and the brain went a little wonky. Now the kid gets soup fed to him three times a day through a straw and craps in a bag. The rest of the time he drools and moans. Not exactly what he expected when he pulled on the boxing gloves.
I doubt he knew Ox’s name was Ox.
I wonder what Jack’s story is. He doesn’t talk much. He just holds his body still and remains polite, lying on his bunk.
“Yo. Jack. Where you from?”
Booth calls for headcount, so I don’t wait for Jack’s answer. I hop down off the top bunk, motion to Jack to get up, and we move outside the door. I stand beside the door and point to Jack’s spot on the other side. Boys, both across the empty space of the atrium and along our wall, step out and take position like sentries.
Booth strolls down the walkway.
“Where’s Miller?” he hollers to the general pop.
“Infirmary.” That’s Berman. He’s a good customer. A fiend for the gooey stuff, with a taste for Gummi Bears.
“Right. I’ll have to speak with the day guard.”
Booth jangles down the line, marking our presence on a clipboard as he goes. Once he makes the line and all are accounted for, he jangles back toward us and heads down the stairs. At the bottom he bellows, “Fifteen till lights out! Fifteen! Brush your damned teeth, boys, before Shreve rots them out!”
There’s a smattering of laughter. I smile, showing it doesn’t bother me. But he’ll get his, that Booth.
We go back in the room, and Jack lies down again and rolls over, facing the wall, hugging himself.
I hop back up to my bunk. I adjust the air conditioning vent so it points right at me. I like it cold.
“So, Jack.” The vent squeaks a little with the adjustment. “Where you from?”
“Little Rock.”
“That’s where I’m from, too. Where’d you go?”
Silence. Maybe he’s slow. Didn’t understand the question.
“School, you know? I went to Pulaski Heights. The Panthers. Rah rah. You?”
“Home.”
“Home? Whatdya mean?”
“Home schooling. I never went to school.”
“You mean you just stayed at home? Didn’t go to school?”
After that he stops talking, even when I prod. When I peek over the edge at the bottom bunk, he’s facing the wall, curled up. Maybe he’s asleep.
Whatever.
I read comics until I hear Booth’s voice calling lights-out and the door, my cell door, swings shut as though pushed by an invisible hand. There’s the click that indicates we’re locked down for the night.
I feel more than hear the new kid shift, look around the darkened room, and then settle.
I remember my first night. Hard to forget something like that.
“Hey, Jack.”
Silence.
“It isn’t that bad. Okay? Might look bad now. But it’s not.”
Hell, I don’t know how to soothe a titty-baby.
More silence. Which skeeves me a little. Why can’t the kid react like a normal person, especially when someone’s trying to help him out?
He might have fallen asleep. Could be. Maybe not.
Hell, I don’t know.
I wait, breathing slow. The trick is to make him think from my breathing that I’m asleep, but to stay awake and not let the deep breathing lull me down into the mattress. Into the pillow.
When I’m sure Jack’s asleep, I sit up, tilt my head toward the air vent where the wall meets the ceiling, and put my mouth at the grate.
“Ox. You there, hoss?”
I hear a little echo, maybe Ox adjusting the vent.
“Yeah. I told you not to call me that.”
“What? Ox?”
“Naw. Hoss. It’s like you’re saying I’m stupid or something.”
“It’s just a turn of phrase, bigun. But fine. I’ll stick to Ox. You know, like a farm animal. That cool? How’s that for you?”
“Shreve, one of these days…”
“What? When you get sick of candy? When you get tired of stuffing chocolate bars down your hole? One of these days what?”
“Man, you don’t have to be so uncool.” He pauses. “Uncool, man.”
He’s thicker than a cinder block, but he’s got a point. He’s a hoss, a farm animal, and I shouldn’t whip him so hard.
“Listen, Ox.” I like the lug. I do. I like what he does for me. I try to put that into my voice. I hope it’ll carry through the vent. “I’m sorry, pard. Look. I scored a load of Heath bars. I know you love that toffee stuff. I got a couple with your name on it.” There’s a scratching and then an exhalation of air. Hard to tell if it’s the AC kicking on or if Ox is just mouth-breathing again.
“I like toffee.”
“That’s good, bro. Real good. I’ll hit you up tomorrow. But I need you to run interference at midday Commons. And work escort right before lights out. Can you handle that? Two Heaths and a couple of Blow Pops?”
There’s a gurgle at the other end of the vent. The blockhead is probably drooling on his chest like some Russian dog.
Before Ox can answer there’s a chuff, and the air kicks on. I lie back on the bed and wait, hands cradled behind my head, working out the deals for tomorrow.
On the inside, some folks don’t know what they want. Some folks have to be convinced they want what you got. Some folks have to be convinced they don’t want what you got. You have to scare them bad enough that they don’t think they can take it from you. It’s only been six months since I first came here, but now I can’t remember if the inside differs from the way it is outside. I doubt it really matters. I’m on the inside, and I’ll remain incarcerado for the next eighteen months.
And the new kid? That Jack? How’s he going to figure into my plans?
I’m fading to black, the air blowing above me, through the vent, out into the room, like darkness.
It’s morning. There’s a buzz, and the door clicks and swings open. I hear boys whooping, cawing like crows, rapping homespun lyrics, mumbling, cursing as they roll out of their cells, getting ready for headcount. You can be a blind man in Casimir Juvie and still be able to function fine on scent and sound.
I figured Booth would be here to give Jack the lowdown as to Casimir operations, but no dice. I’ve got to hold the little bugger’s hand.
I hop down and grab the least stinky jumpsuit from the dresser. Bright orange, baby. Nothing rhymes with it. Nothing matches it.
The kid doesn’t look like he’s slept at all. I wonder.
He sits on his bed, looking like he doesn’t want to stand. I’m tugging on the jumpsuit, pulling the sleeves over my arms.
“Look, they gave you the suit. So suit up. I’ll show you the mess hall. The food ain’t that bad.” I zip. “They’ve got to feed us pretty well—otherwise, lawsuits. You know. Kids.”
Jack looks at me, tries to smile, fails, and then moves over to his dresser and takes out … guess what? … an orange jumper. I move on to the can and scrubbing the teeth. I might sample my own product, but I make sure the pearly whites get clean. Nothing inspires confidence like a toothless candy man.
I come back in the room, and Jack’s standing there, trying to zip up his jumper, hands tugging at the tab.
“They stick, the zippers, until they’ve been washed a couple times. You got to grab the belly fabric and rip up.” I’m moving to help the kid when I see his fingers. Something’s weird there. Jack struggles to zip his jumper, and I’m standing there looking at his hands.
I pull on my own jumper, over the greys of underwear and T-shirt, and then look back at Jack still struggling.
“You’ve really got to pull up hard…” I say. Looking again at his hands. He notices me looking at him, and he quickly turns his back. But not before I can get a count.
“Holy crow,” I breathe. There’s not much else to say. The kid’s got extra fingers. They’re not stumpy or anything. His hands look normal. Just extra fingers. “Your hands.”
Jack stops trying to zip and puts his hands behind his back.
“Jack. Holy crap. Your hands. You got like a gajillion fingers. What’s up with—”
He says nothing. Big surprise there. I move closer, wanting to see.
“Jack, it’s cool. I just want to look. At the fingers, man. You could be in the circus or something. Let me see.”
Then something weird happens. The air in front of Jack wavers—like heat fumes on the highway in summer, when you’re riding in a car and looking far ahead—and I feel a slight draft. I can feel a pressure on my chest, my arms, my thighs, and my face. It’s a wind, but it’s not a wind either. It’s slower and more concentrated, and I’m slowly, slowly pushed backward into the wall between the door to the bathroom and our beds. With the wall at my back, the pressure on my chest builds and builds. I can feel something like my ribs cracking, and I’m having a hard time breathing now. Jack looks scared, like he knows what’s happening. Then he barks out a word, “No!” The pressure eases, and I’m on my knees, gasping for breath.
Jack rushes over and grabs me. He takes my hand and pulls me up—he’s stronger than he looks, the little dude— and drags me over to his bunk. I flop on my back, gasping, feeling at my ribs to make sure nothing’s gone crunchy. They feel okay.
“I’m sorry, Shreve. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Jack keeps repeating this, and I don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to get pissed off if he starts to cry. Which might happen. It looks like the waterworks are primed.
“Nothing, man. It’s nothing. Asthma attack, I guess. Used to get ’em when I was younger. You know. Moms is a smoker.”
Jack’s shaking his head, looking down at me. But he doesn’t argue. I don’t know what the hell just happened. I looked at his hands; then things got crazy.
His fingers. I can see his hands clearly now. He has twelve fingers, six to a hand. They look so normal you’d never notice unless you were looking directly at them. Weird.
Jack sees me looking, sees me counting.
He swallows. Starts to say something. Stops. Starts again.
“It’s cool, Jack. You got fingers. Big deal. Ox is freakish large.” Jack winces at the word freakish. I have a way with words, you know? Words are my thing. That’s how you sell. How you survive in a world full of people like Ox, people wanting to take from you everything you have. But I probably shouldn’t say stuff like that to Jack.
“I was born this way. It’s not like I chose to have twelve fingers. Please don’t tell. People will get hurt.”
I think about this. Jack didn’t ask for the extra fingers. I didn’t ask for a sloppy-drunk mother or a ghost for a father. But we got them, didn’t we? We got them. Ox, on the other hand, could try not to look so damned ugly and beat on folks. However, if he did that, he wouldn’t be any use to me. So there’s that.
But the kid is different. You can find guys as large and as tough as Ox in every block. Ringo from E Wing is as stout, and Ponty from D is as tall. But twelve fingers … that goes beyond the population of Casimir Pulaski Juvenile Detention Center for Boys. It goes beyond my experience.
He’s a rare bird, this Jack. But what does it mean?
“Yeah.” Might as well be honest with him. He seems like a cool guy if you can get past the silences. “It’s a monster of a world, always giving us gifts we don’t want. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
Jack smiles then. He’s obviously not used to doing it, and the smile is an uneasy one. But it changes the whole configuration of his face, the smile.
“Thanks, Shreve.” He exhales. “Thank you. You don’t know how bad it can get—”
“I got an idea, pard.” I cough and stand up. My stomach grumbles a bit, and I’m reminded breakfast is waiting. “I’ve lived with a clown for a mother since I was little. I know how it feels to be in the circus.”
Jack nods. He looks at his hands and then back up to me.
“I didn’t know my parents.” He’s not shooting for sympathy; he’s not angry, not anything. It’s just plain fact.
I clap him on the shoulder. “Hell, Jack, you’re not missing anything there. Trust me on this one.”
He tries to laugh and fails.
I guess I do, too. Not as funny as I thought it was.
Then Sloe-Eyed Norman calls for headcount, and we take position outside our door.