CHAPTER 24

 

“Boles,” I said. I could see the fear in his eyes.

“I didn’t snitch you out, man,” he said, laying the book down on the desk in front of him and stepping back. He moved kind of stiff-like and I guess I would too, I had that many holes in me.

“I know. I couldn’t be here if you had, could I.”

I pulled out my knife.

“Why you gonna do this?”

“You know why.”

He took another step back and was up against the wall. I started toward him.

“Oh, man.” His voice broke. He put his hands up, palms facing me and began edging along the wall toward the door. “Man, you’re safe. I’m not going to tell who shanked me. If I was gonna tell I would have already done it. I’m sorry for what I did to you. We’re even. Don’t you see we’re even?”

In a way, he was right. I’d had the same thought myself. The pain I’d put him through almost certainly matched what he’d done to me. In one way the score was settled.

I didn’t even feel the same anger I had when he’d raped me. The day I’d shanked him up on the laundry roof it had disappeared, vanishing a little bit with every hole I put in him until it was all gone. There was no revenge left in my heart, none at all. It was just pure-d empty of everything, all malice.

I walked over to him and he just stood there. I don’t think his knees would let him move. His eyes told me that. I stopped inches from him. His hands went down to his sides.

“You won’t talk? Ever?”

“Oh, man! No! I swear t’God! You’re safe, man. I just want to do my time, get the fuck out of here, that’s all.”

I believed him. I could hear it in his voice.

“You don’t even know my name, do you?” I said.

“No.” He was telling the truth.

“My name’s Jake Mayes,” I said. Then I stabbed him. Who knows why? Just like that. It started in easy enough, then hit something solid so that I had to push harder on the handle before it went all the way in. I looked him in the eyes the whole time. It seemed like it lasted for hours, us standing there, and his eyes changed, just the least little bit, in realization of what was happening, I guess, and his eyelids started to quiver like he was trying to keep from blinking, as if once he blinked it was all over and then all the bones just seemed to go out of his face. I reached up with my other hand, grabbed his shirt and eased him on down to the floor. His eyes were still open. He hadn’t blinked but he was dead.

***

When I turned to walk away, the damndest thing happened. My back tooth hurt like hell and when I felt it with my tongue I knew why. It had bust clean in two. Man! Talk about something smarting! Instantly, I knew what had happened. It was the same tooth I’d chipped the last time I was in here, over to the chow hall. That time when the inmate mess cook buried the cleaver in the dude’s stomach.

The next day I’d gone to the worthless third-world dentist over at the infirmary and he’d given me half a shot of Novocain and did a patch job of sorts on it. Musta been a better job than I thought, to last all this time. I guess I bit down kinda hard on it when I stuck Boles.

Reason I know the fucking dentist only gave me half a shot was I could feel every twitch he made with his stinking fingers and tools inside my mouth and I also knew why he’d been stingy with the juice. Bastard was getting rich selling shit like that to inmates who weren’t particular about what kind of crap they ran in their veins.

Thinking about that made me remember that jerk Larry betting me I’d be back.

Whoa. I was walking toward the library door when that hit me. Motherfuck! I hate it when an asshole like that turns out to be right. And he was. All of a sudden I knew just how right he was. I’d been on my way back here before I’d ever left. I stood there and thought about what that meant for a minute or two and then it struck me that it wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do—hang around a room with a dead body—so I made tracks on out of there.

I got back to the laundry and Dusty was still there talking with his friend. I knew I had been gone longer than I should have.

“What you doing?” Dusty said, when I came up. “You’re walking like you got all the time in the world, moron. C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

The other guy turned and went back inside the laundry and we started walking back to the barber school. On the way, Dusty asked me questions. “You get rid of the knife? Anybody see you?”

Back at the school I had a customer waiting for me. Dusty did too. The guy wanted a flattop. I got out the triple ought blade, rinsed it in the sterilizing solution. When I got done, I stepped back and looked. It was the best flattop I had ever cut. It was a fucking masterpiece, it was. You could land a plane on that flattop. I just laid down my clippers when the steam whistle blew. I knew what that meant. I looked over at Dusty and he at me and he held his hand down low so nobody else could see and gave me a thumbs up. I just nodded. Ice-cold, that’s the way I felt. Frosty. Peaceful. When that whistle blew, something happened inside. Time, as a concept, just disappeared. Just blew away in the wind, went over the wall. History...just like that tooth.

***

A couple of months later, Bud came down and Dusty got him into K Dorm with us. It was Kimmie he’d killed, but he told us it was an accident. She was giving him some grief, yakking that he was always out too late, lame crap like that and he’d tapped her.

“I didn’t even hit her that hard,” he said. “I hit her lots harder lots of times. It was just a freak accident.”

“Fucking life’s a freak accident,” I said and we all laughed, me, him, Dusty and Manny. We were all outside on the ball field, sitting at one of the picnic tables, eating Oreos and smoking tightrolls, playing dominoes.

This was as good as it gets, I thought, looking around. I saw a bird fly up to the wall and then it was gone, flew over the side. That was all right, I thought. Good fucking riddance. This was okay too, sitting out in the grass with my buds. The green, green grass of home. No fucking broads hassling us, just good friends sitting around, having us a ball. I started to think of Donna but got that shit out of my mind. Thinking about broads is what fucks up your time in here. All I want to do now is my time.

Eight more years, thanks to Boles. Yeah, they found out it was me. Fuck it. Like I give a shit.

I can do eight years standing on my head.

Got my shit together, now. I could do eight times eight, snooze all the way through the whole thing. In the zone, man; I’m in the zone. You’re in the zone, you’re free. Fuck, you’re freer than free. You’re a man nobody fucks with. You’re the fucking Master of the Universe. People step aside when you walk by. You stare at any motherfucker you want, all day long, you feel like it. Cracks me up, way these chumps try and become invisible, they see me coming down the tier walk.

Invisible this, I say in my head, when I walk by, and then I do whatever the fuck I want, whatever I feel like doing. Just what-the-fuck-ever. Just like that, amigo.