FLIP WAS UP BEFORE DAWN AGAIN AND, clutching another bagged lunch made by his mother, took a ride with Alfredo. This time Alfredo had the radio on, the sound turned down so Flip could just hear the norteño playing. There were more commercials than music, anyway.
“I need to see my parole officer tonight,” Flip told Alfredo. “Can you give me a ride?”
“Sure. Any problems with that?”
“No. Just got to do it before my week is up.”
“You’re going to stick to the rules, aren’t you, Flip?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“That’s good.”
At the warehouse they split up and Flip went to his loading dock and his team. The first truck came just a few minutes later and it was time for work and not thinking.
When lunchtime came, Flip sat outside in the sun at one of three picnic tables set up in a grassy area beside the warehouse. His meal was simple: a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a little bag of chips. If he found himself getting hungry again before the day was through, he could borrow a dollar from Alfredo and get something from the snack machine.
In prison the one thing they had was food. It was not the best food Flip had ever eaten, but it was hot and there was plenty of it. No one complained about not getting seconds because firsts were generous enough. Flip applied to get a job working in the kitchen, but he was funneled into the carpentry program instead.
He’d never worked with wood before they put him in those classes, but he found it surprisingly fun and more involved than he would have guessed going in. There were advanced training courses available, where workers could sculpt trim and even make cabinets, but they started Flip off small and he found he had an affinity for it. After a while he even imagined that he could make a career out of carpentry if he were given a chance, especially with his certificate in hand. Some places would give a convicted felon another chance.
Flip didn’t know now. Alfredo had been kind enough to get him this job and looking for another might be an insult. Shifting pallets and unpacking great cubes and pyramids of boxes onto shelves was not what he had in mind when he left Coffield, but it was work and work would keep him out of trouble. At least until José came calling.
Thinking of José made Flip frown.
He was beaten up his first week at Coffield by a white boy named McClain. He hadn’t done anything to start the fight; McClain just wanted someone to take his frustrations out on and Flip was a new fish. Flip had no friends then, knew no one’s name except Daniel, his cellmate. Daniel stuck his neck out for no one.
Flip expected another beating when Javier Davila came for him. The man was hard with muscle and laced with tattoos and looked like everything people feared when they thought of a convict. They were in the chow hall where it all went down with McClain. “You got heart, chico,” he said. “Why don’t you come eat by me?”
They sat down at one of the hexagonal, stainless steel tables that had four seats, all molded into one big hunk of metal. Omar Cantu sat on the other side of him. Rafael Zúñiga joined them.
“How long you in for?” Javier asked. This was just making conversation. When Flip told him, Javier didn’t bother asking what it was for. The only thing that mattered was the time, not how you earned it.
“I haven’t seen a fish with gills like yours for a long time,” Omar remarked.
“He means you’re a target,” Javier said.
“Bang,” Rafael added.
Flip had bruises on his arms and the backs of his hands where McClain stomped on them. He’d only looked at himself in the mirror once, but he knew his face was a mask of dark marks, including a blue-black blotch centered on his left eye. McClain punched hard with his right. As the men talked to him, he ate his food and kept his mouth shut.
“I hear you’re from El Paso,” Javier said.
Flip stiffened because he’d only told Daniel that on their first day in the cell. Daniel, who took no risks, would talk to people who were interested. At that moment Flip felt more exposed than ever before. “Yeah,” he said finally.
“I’m from El Paso, too,” Javier said. “And Omar there. We’re both natives of Chuco Town.”
“That’s right,” Omar said.
“Omar and me, we keep an eye out for guys who come from El Paso. Especially when they’re new fish and they got nobody to watch their back. You got an outfit to watch your back?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought. Nobody with a crew would take a beating like that. McClain, he’s got the Aryan Circle watching over him. You know who they are?”
“No,” Flip said.
“They’re bad. They pick you out, they come back at you again and again until you can’t fight back no more. Or you’re dead.”
“But I didn’t do nothing.”
“You don’t have to do nothing,” Javier said. “They’ll come at you because you’re brown, hermano. But they don’t touch nobody who stands with us.”
“Why would you want me?” Flip asked.
“I got a soft spot.”
“What do I got to do?”
“First thing you do, you meet Enrique. If he says you’re okay, then we go on to the next step, but only if he says it’s okay.”
“Who’s Enrique?”
“El jefe.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in the hole.”
“What did he do?”
“He kicked some white boy ass, is what,” Javier said.
Across the table, Rafael giggled like a little girl. Omar was silent, just watching. Flip looked to each of them in turn, trying to think of what to say next. Way across the chow hall, he saw McClain and a bunch of other white boys gathered together at their tables. They didn’t turn their heads his way. The bruise on his face hurt.
“Yeah, okay,” Flip said.