After the big snow a bright day came, so bright it hurt the eyes, and it was followed by a dusk so long and deep the earth seemed to be spilling into the sky. First it was light blue and then purple and eventually a lingering deeper blue again, and at the end of it everything was fixed and still. Even the snow, which was deep, went hard. It didn’t take long to notice the cold. It was cold of a different kind than Marcus had ever felt. The surprise-meat sandwiches and even the big cart he had pushed them in on were extra cold.
It wasn’t as bad in D Block as it was in solitary. When Marcus delivered their trays the two child abusers were bunnied up in the corner. Marcus looked at them and they blinked.
You shaved your head, said the one with fleshy lips.
Marcus didn’t say anything.
How come you to shave your head? said the smaller one.
Marcus waited for a minute with his cart and watched them begin to eat. They had built a tent of blankets. The bread of the sandwiches themselves was chewy it was so cold. The child abusers chewed on it hungrily.
You be sorry you shaved off all of that hair, said the first one. Cold as it is.
Even among D Block it had gone quiet. The cold came right through the walls and hung around like a thick gas. Marcus didn’t want to, but he went to the slot window and looked out. The jail made unusual popping and groaning noises. To him it was like a ship, or an ark, frozen in an antarctic sea. He wished he could get someone to realize what was happening, but no one did. Earlier while they were cooking breakfast somebody opened the side door and they got to see out. They saw the snow. The world was soft white and blue and black and it went all the way across the trees to the mountains, which were woolly white too. It was as if the mountains were right there in front of his face, instead of miles away.
If I had a camera, we would take that picture, said Sue, the cook.
Once the lights were out Marcus reached into his clothes, where he had hidden the panties, and they were still there. He brought them out as carefully as he would a baby animal. Each time he took them out Marcus liked to pretend it was the first time he had found them. He hadn’t even told Lolly about the panties. Lolly was the mudman’s name. He was lean, with a network of veins that wrapped all around his arms and went up his neck, even to his temples, where they pulsed softly when he ate or thought.
Lolly did the exact same things at the exact same times every day. But they had changed a little after he met Marcus. For instance, he had drawn his boat up next to Marcus’s and they had started to talk at night.
It aint hard to figure out, Lolly said. He said this every night and repeated it seven or eight times in the way other people brushed their teeth or gargled. Lolly never slept. He did something else in which he talked to people who weren’t there, and Marcus smelled his sweat and saw the flash of his arms gesturing in the dark.
If I hadn’t of went to drinking, he said. Don’t never go to drinking, Marcus.
Too late, said Marcus.
Lolly’s wife had been going out on him for years and he never said a word about it until one afternoon he went over to the man’s house and emptied a .357 into his chest. The man had been mowing his yard. Everybody understood the simplicity. But to Lolly it was of the complexity of a cut jewel. He held it up and turned it around so different lights and colors formed and chanted to it. At first Marcus tried to answer back to his questions because he thought Lolly wanted a way out, but gradually he saw that the jewel was impenetrable and precious to Lolly and that he wanted to kill the man more now than he had been able to kill him before. He was keeping Marcus awake. Marcus had become almost sorry he had a friend, because life had been so much easier without one, and he just wanted to be alone with the undiscovered panties. Zoomer slept, and the others without friends slept, dreaming no doubt of titties and checkbooks. Lolly pushed and reached and shaped with his hands and arms with great strength as if he were mixing mud, but no matter how hard he mixed it would always come out to the same consistency.
Tonight Marcus had an idea.
Just lie, he said.
Huh? said Lolly.
In the blue light Marcus saw the same look out of Lolly’s eyes that he had seen in the dogs before the needle went in. Huh, said Lolly.
Why don’t you just tell a damn lie.
Lolly sat up on his boat.
If I hadn’t of went to drinking, he said.
Marcus turned over. He could see his own breath, but he could see it in a new way, such that it came out of his mouth or nose and wavered around and stayed in the air a long time. He was afraid the panties would lose their feeling. If he kept them out too long, they did, like bubblegum. But they would always regenerate. He could put them up and take them back out later. Probably it was the depth of the cold. Everybody was buried in big army coats. The sheriff had brought them in, a pile of them so big they couldn’t even see who he was until he dumped them on the concrete table in the dayroom.
May hurt the rhubarb tonight, said the sheriff. Think the frost will hurt the rhubarb, Mr. Brabson?
He was talking to Lolly. The sheriff called him Mr. Brabson.
Think it will do it good, Sheriff, said Lolly.
The sheriff began to size them up. You need you a big one, he said to Sykes. Sykes looked as if he had taken offense. He was big and round and soft with black-rimmed plastic glasses. Sykes always took offense. He lived to fight. When he couldn’t fight a person he fought air. He called fighting taking it to the road. By God, he would say, we’ll take it to the road. Early on Marcus thought he was the only one Sykes had chosen to hate. By God what are you looking at? was the first thing he said to Marcus. By God I asked you a question. You by God answer me. But Marcus saw that he threatened everybody. It is on, he said. It is by God on right now, big boy. Marcus had figured he was in jail for killing somebody, or several people, but it was only for felony failure to appear.
I remember, said the sheriff. I remember how sometimes I didn’t have no winter coat when I was a boy. We was lucky if we even had wood cut.
He cocked one skinny lean leg up on the concrete bench at the table. I always did look forward to thrashing time too. They had this big old machine that come around that done the thrashing. Daddy always had wheat. I looked forward to that because it meant I’d get me a new bed pillow. I’d get a new bed pillow and a new straw tick. That always did feel good to me. Get in them coats, boys. I done told you how cold it is going to be.
Everybody had put on a coat except Purkey and the sleeper. Purkey didn’t want a coat. But he did have on a shirt, which was unusual for Purkey. The sheriff threw a coat over the sleeper. Marcus didn’t know who the sleeper was because he slept all the time. After the sheriff left, Marcus lay on his boat. The lights went out but the blue light of the snow was brighter than the yellow light of the lights had been.
Your coat has got more fucking pockets, said Sykes, standing over Marcus’s boat.
Take my fucking coat then, said Marcus, making as if he would take it off.
This was how you dealt with Sykes.
Take my fucking coat right, Marcus kept saying.
I don’t want it now, said Sykes. They done give it to you, big boy. It has done got all your shit on it.
He shut up for a second, but then he said, But all’s I don’t understand is how come they give you one with more pockets.
Because he is special, said Zoomer.
He will be special, said Sykes, too softly. At the road he will. Mine is ripped, too.
But he hushed. If you talked too much, the cold got into your mouth and slurred the tongue and hurt the teeth. It was as if it had already frozen the concrete, and it was coming up through the boat and its mat directly into Marcus’s side and his limbs. It was hardening his face. Marcus tried to cover up. He imagined that he was on a straw tick, whatever that was. And he had straw for his pillow. That had to be awful scratchy. He held the panties against his face and imagined that it was not his warmth in them but hers. He smelled the fabric, trying to differentiate it from the jail’s cabbagy smell of years of prisoner habitation. He felt its weave, which smelled of the dryer and slightly of cigarettes but of something else too, something more marvelous. In his mind Marcus ran through seeing the girl again, and when he came to the end he would rewind and run it again with the softness and warmth of the panties on his cheek. This was the way, exactly the way, they had felt on her own skin. From the panties Marcus thought he could tell what she washed with and ate and how her voice sounded when she thought nobody could hear the sound of her voice. He could remember how she walked. She had a kind of float to her as if her hipbones were filled with a lighter substance.
When something woke him up he was sure it was daylight. The light was bright, coming through the slot windows, and several men were standing around him. But it was still only the blue light of the snow that had brightened as the night went on. It was bright enough to see that one of them had the panties. Lolly was talking even more persuasively.
What are you doing? Marcus asked.
At first they didn’t say anything. Then Zoomer said, Having us a party.
Marcus started to get up and realized his feet were numb from cold. His ears were numb too. A few of them started pitching the panties around in such a way that made Marcus feel as if his heart had been pulled out. Zoomer started screaming. Marcus had heard Zoomer scream before and it was awful. It rang against the walls. Marcus was certain the jailers would hear it and be in there in a second, but they stopped pitching and Zoomer calmed down. He had the panties and was smoothing them carefully on the table.
Respect, said Zoomer. Have a little.
But he didn’t even know the first thing about handling panties. Marcus wished he could kill Zoomer and kill everybody in the room and have the panties back. He was trembling on top of his shivering, but it was best not to let on. Everybody else, except Lolly, was in a festive mood. The whole dayroom was filled with mirth and moonlight. They were stomping and squeezing themselves and if they passed in front of a slot window a lingering smoke came out of their nostrils.
Is it always this cold? Marcus asked.
I aint never seen it like this, Lolly said.
Zoomer was passing out the cups. He had worked hard on them. It had taken effort to amount up nine plastic cups from the kitchen. The cups were an attractive golden plastic. Zoomer distributed one to each. Kimsey was sitting on the table dangling his legs and holding his cup out, and Purkey was going from man to man pushing the way football players used to do before a game in high school. Marcus wished he never had quit football or high school. Zoomer brought out his container, which he had patched together out of various containers, and it was bigger than Marcus had heard. It was full too. Each prisoner, including Marcus and Lolly, held out his cup, and Zoomer poured and everybody bitched about somebody else getting more and Zoomer shushed everybody.
Sykes gave a sign that wrestlers give before a move.
Nobody’s going to hear nothing, he said.
Marcus looked at him. How do you know? he said.
Because of the tragedy, said Zoomer.
What tragedy? said Marcus.
The sheriff’s tragedy, he said. He held up his cup. His wife is dead. Zoomer swirled his drink. She is very extremely dead.
How come?
Because that is often what happens, said Zoomer, when you get run over by a damn car.
Sykes laughed. He made a move on an imaginary opponent.
He didn’t say nothing. We just now seen him, said Marcus. He was pointing as if to prove it.
People don’t say nothing about something like that, said Zoomer.
He was probably crazy right then, said Purkey. I was crazy right after that woman died.
But you killed her, said Zoomer.
Marcus felt for the sheriff, if it was true. He thought back on it and something had been wrong with him, the way he acted about the rhubarb and the straw pillow. Once everybody had a drink Zoomer brought out the Lysol. Everybody cheered softly when he held it up. Zoomer went around and sprayed a good spray of Lysol in each cup. Marcus started to smell it and Zoomer slapped him.
Do not smell it, Zoomer said. If you smell it you won’t drink it. Oh, God, do not smell it.
The slap didn’t even sting, but it had popped loudly.
I wouldn’t let him slap me like that, said Sykes.
One thing about it, Zoomer said. They won’t be no germs in here.
They all looked at him. All drank. After they drank there was a great deal of muttering and swearing and some choking and somebody said, God-damn Zoomer that is nasty, and then a pause before they started drinking again. Zoomer sipped and smacked his lips as if it were delicious.
Even old mudman is having him some, said Zoomer.
It got quiet. Everybody stared at Lolly holding his cup.
Boys, said Lolly, you gone turn it loose. You don’t be careful you gone to.
Everybody thought about that. It sounded like a warning, but how could it be much of a warning when Lolly had a drink in his hand too?
I like the sound of that, said Zoomer.
It was quiet again, as if things could go either way now.
I thought you didn’t drink, said Marcus.
I do in a pinch, said Zoomer.
Is it a pinch? asked Purkey.
It is a pinch, Purkey, said Zoomer.
Marcus realized that Zoomer looked different because he didn’t have on his glasses. He had big watery eyes. Marcus thought that was because he spent so much time reading the books and magazines his parents brought him. Zoomer would not share his books and magazines. He would not share the candy they brought him either, except for some of the hard ones and even then no straw-berry. Zoorner’s parents thought very highly of him. He was their only child. Marcus tried to stay off to himself because he saw it had started. Marcus was young but he still knew that it didn’t matter what anybody did, because when it needed to start, it started. Even the sleeper had risen. He had not risen fully but he was far enough up to drink. The sleeper had freckles all over him. Marcus drank more. It was no time before the top of his head began to tingle and the angel hole opened up. The taste was very bad. His body began to hum. Marcus looked over at Lolly, who was sipping. The vein of his temple winked. Marcus felt the angel hole slip a little wider. It was nothing but air, an air hole. Marcus wished Lolly would do something. He realized he had been counting on Lolly to steer, but when he thought of what there was to steer he didn’t want to think of Lolly steering it.
Everybody was lightening up. Some had even taken off their coats. Purkey got excited. When he got excited, he jumped up and down and wrung his hands as if they were wet. He did that for a few minutes and then he had to puke. He made it to the toilet and puked several times.
It’s gone, he said, the toilet bowl magnifying his sobs. I can’t get it back.
A lot is already in your bloodstream, said Zoomer. Besides, it aint been flushed yet.
Purkey began to lap from the toilet like a dog, but he stopped and puked again.
Purkey is pukey, said Zoomer. Pukey little Purkey. Have you ever read that book about the pukey little Purkey?
Zoomer poured more for Purkey. He poured with one hand and Lysoled with the other.
I gave you a extra spray, he said to Purkey. Everybody liked Purkey.
Fuck you, Zoomer, said Purkey through his tears.
Marcus had seen Purkey before they both got in jail. He was hard to miss because he rode a bicycle around all the time. Not that many people in Alexander County rode bicycles anymore, but Purkey did. He was wiry, with stringy hair. He had strangled a woman to death with her bra. It was a woman he barely knew from a plant where they both used to work until Purkey got fired. His lawyer tried to tell them that Purkey was retarded but Purkey wouldn’t have any of that. He pleaded guilty and before long he was going to Brushy, soon as they had a bed. Everybody thought a lot of Purkey. He was always doing something funny. One day they were waiting to be signed back in from work and somebody said, Old Purkey, he’s a good one, and somebody else said, You wouldn’t think he’d of done nothing like they said he done. Every-body got quiet and concerned and didn’t know what to say. Finally Zoomer spoke up. Why, he said, he was wanting that pussy. That’s how come him to do it. And everybody cheered up and agreed that must have been true.
Marcus lay back on his boat. His feet and ears never had gone back to feeling, but now he didn’t mind. It was like springtime. He could smell the grass somebody was mowing. He could smell his baptism water again. Marcus reminded himself that the panties after all were only panties. They weren’t the girl. But he still waited for a chance to take them back. He felt funny. It was something additional to drunk. It was good, but not good enough. It was a little sad to realize that even something additional to drunk was not enough. Marcus wondered how additional he needed, and it seemed to be very very much.
Purkey had the panties over his head. He had them such that the two leg holes were on each side of his face and his mouth was right there in the crotch. Marcus could see his lips moving through the cloth. It sickened him and he was afraid he would puke too.
Okay, said Zoomer, pointing to Purkey’s mouth and unzipping his fly. I’m sinking it in.
Purkey jerked the panties off and laughed as if that were the funniest thing ever and wrung his hands in the air. Zoomer had sat down on the table and was studying the Lysol can. It was a big industrial one. A radio played.
Lysol Brand Disinfectant Spray kills viruses and bacteria on environmental surfaces in your home and in public places, read Zoomer. He had the can right up in front of his large, watery eyes, each of which seemed to look around one side of the can. It eliminates germs and odors on hard nonporous surfaces that you come in contact with every day
Zoomer paused, turned the can around, and sprayed a long spray right into his mouth. He licked his lips.
Use Lysol Brand Disinfectant Spray in empty garbage cans, in pet areas, in sick rooms, under sinks. He paused, choking a little. Lolly stopped laughing. He had been laughing at everything Zoomer read, and even when he stopped he waited expectantly, ready to laugh some more. His laughter was disappointing to Marcus.
Wonder what it feels like to kill somebody, said Zoomer. I wonder what the natural high is like. What is it like, Lolly?
Lolly shook his head and laughed a little more softly
It has to be an adrenaline rush, Zoomer said. God. What’s it like, Purkey?
What, said Purkey.
Killing somebody. What does it feel like? Is it a rush?
Purkey stared at Zoomer as if he had crossed a line.
In diaper pails, resumed Zoomer, in empty hampers, on door-knobs, around toilet areas. Fast easy effective.
Kimsey swung down from the ceiling pipe and without looking up Zoomer said, I am not involved in that.
What he was not involved in was the vent grate that Kimsey had removed and had been sticking back on with little things he made out of toothpaste. Kimsey would take a running start and leap up the wall and hang on a pipe and swing over to the grate. Tonight he had his light brown hair slicked back. He had a big plan and it seemed that tonight, since God had sucked all the warmth out of the world, all big plans were being put to work. Kimsey had it to the point where he could disappear into the duct with only the bottoms of his feet hanging out. He was developing a way to F Block and once he was in there, he was going to fuck every female in the jail and then run, he had told Marcus. Run so fast nobody would ever catch him.
Don’t tell nobody, Kimsey said to Marcus. But my girlfriend is in jail. She wouldn’t want nobody to know she was in jail.
Kimsey and the girlfriend had a stormy relationship. He was known for exploits with her and for running. Kimsey was the fastest runner in Alexander County. Nobody could catch him and many had tried. In high school they tried to get him to run track and he did for a little while but when they got to the meet and put him in the 880 he cut across the football field, jumped over the chain link fence, and kept on going. Marcus had seen it. He was practicing football. Another time the girlfriend was holding a birthday party for Kimsey in a stolen pickup truck and he was allegedly putting birthday cake all up in her pussy when the law put the lights on them. Kimsey fled and some of them stayed behind in wonderment over the cake. Others took off after him in the dark but he was gone. The girlfriend was smart. She said she didn’t know nothing about no Kimsey and they wanted to know what was that big K on the cake and she said she thought it stood for Ken.
Kimsey’s girlfriend was a screamer, they said. This was why the cops pestered him so much, because what could they desire more than a screamer?
Use on finished surfaces in basements, Zoomer continued. Closets, attics, laundry rooms, storage areas, vacation homes, boat interiors, shower stalls, and recycling bins.
Excellent! he called out. He started holding the can like a microphone. He would look at its text, memorize it, and then hold the can up and speak, or nearly sing, into it. Zoomer had a fine, clear radio voice. Excellent for controlling mold and mildew on mattresses, pillows, and shower curtains. He held up the can. Damn. Excellent.
Purkey had laid out the panties on the table and was humping them slowly, about one hump every fifteen seconds. The sleeper called out, Bring them over here. You been on them all night. He had a high voice. Lolly stayed next to Marcus and sipped his cup. He kept looking at Marcus with expectation. Marcus wondered if Lolly would back him up if he piled onto Purkey. But it seemed to be happening from a distance. Everything would have been so bad if it hadn’t been so good.
It is unlawful, said Zoomer, to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling. Hold container upright six to eight inches from surface. Nine or ten inches, by God, and your ass is in jail.
He stopped and listened. They could hear the rat of Kimsey scratching in the ceiling. The rat moved quickly away and they heard his voice as if from a great distance.
Shit, said Purkey. F Block. Apparently Kimsey had shared his plan with Purkey too. Purkey tried to scamper up the wall like Kimsey had, but his hands slipped off the pipe and he fell on his back. Uh, said Purkey. He started having convulsions and while he was having them Marcus got the panties back and put them down in his clothes. Lolly stood in front of him and blocked their view as he did it. All of a sudden Marcus felt like crying.
Something had happened to the pipe. It had crumbled into pieces and what remained lurched and ejaculated a long sliver of ice, which shattered on the floor. It was followed by some air and then water. It was a good-sized pipe and the water came out fast. For a few minutes they just watched, enjoying the water because it was warmer than the air. It must have been more than a few minutes, because some of the boats had turned into boats. They had to stand on the table and there wasn’t room for everybody on the table.
The drain, said Zoomer. Somebody unstop the drain.
Purkey, on his knees, sloshed in the water feeling for the drain. He had turned wet and white, with his wild stringy hair pasted to his skull and his teeth chattering. Purkey sucked air through his chattering teeth and called out, due to the coldness of his wetness, which Marcus remembered from his baptism. Zoomer made everybody get down off the table and wait in line, though he had to push some of them and they fell with loud splashes and came up blowing spit and hollering. He stationed Sykes atop the table and Sykes leaned down and invited each man onto his shoulders and lifted him up the vent, but when it was his turn Lolly refused.
Stay here and be drownded then, said Zoomer.
Lolly climbed on Sykes’s back and pulled himself into the vent with the smoothest strength Marcus had ever seen. Marcus went after him. He climbed into the vent, through which frigid air was moving as in a cave. The vent was big enough to crawl in, but it was slick on the bottom and every so often had sharp things and was pitch black dark. The sound of prisoners rumbling through the vent was so loud Marcus was sure they would be caught. It was almost a relief because he wished somebody would stop them. Something would, he thought. Didn’t it always? He was moving as quickly as he could into the nothing but in a second a rumble came up behind him and something grabbed his leg and came over him with a bunch of elbows and knees. Marcus knew it was Purkey from the smell of the puke. Purkey weighed enough to make the vent flex and for a second they were wedged in it with Marcus screaming, but Purkey got over him and went on. It was only a second until they came to the place where everybody was all bunched up. Marcus heard a great deal of breathing and he could smell them but he wanted to draw up closer from the cold, but Purkey’s big ass was between him and Lolly. A distance ahead Kimsey was pecking on a vent.
Hello, said Zoomer’s voice. Hello, ladies.
There was no answer from the females.
Who is that? said a female voice, but it was Sykes making a female voice.
It aint nothing but the boys of D Block, said Zoomer. We have come to fuck you.
Everybody started laughing and that led to hollering and shoving, and Kimsey was apparently beating on the vent with something because in a second it gave and then the whole contents of D Block started dumping through it, each one pushed out by the one before him though some came out in twos. Everything was open again and it was dark in F Block but it had females in it because Marcus could hear them screaming and see their shadowy forms running around wrapped in blankets. It seemed as if the males were trying to herd them into a corner but they wouldn’t go. It was terrible the fucking that was about to be unleashed. Marcus tried to help corner them but his ankle hurt. As he limped alongside Purkey Marcus saw him get kicked in the balls by one of the females. It was not a tentative, feeling kick, but rather a sweeping karate one that struck with a sound like a good deep punt, erasing all herding instinct from the room. Even before Purkey hit the concrete it had fallen quiet enough to hear his scream, which wasn’t even a scream at all but just air from his throat. It made everyone shield himself, some with both hands. Marcus tried to fix his eyes on the woman who did it. She was short and wide, with long hair that disappeared into her blanket, and he still could not believe her leg would go that high.
That is for what you done to my friend, said the woman, who seemed to be their leader the way Zoomer was D Block’s. Then she said, They are all drunker than hell.
What did you expect, honey? said Zoomer.
We wanted somebody to fix the fucking heat, said a female voice other than the leader’s. When she said it her teeth chattered.
Zoomer looked around.
Marcus is a roofer, he said. Do you know anything about heat, Marcus?
We don’t need no fucking roofer, the woman said. We need heat.
It was so good to hear the word fucking and even roofer out of a female mouth that Marcus forgot about Purkey for a second. F Block rolled around in his vision, locking down every second or two.
Where is ours at? said another female voice.
Your what? Marcus said.
Our liquor, dumbass.
Marcus tried to pick out which one it was. The females had all gathered together on the concrete table with some of them facing one way and others the other way so nobody could sneak up on them. The males were all walking around slowly trying to walk off bruises and rubbing at various areas of their legs. Sykes was trying to stop some bleeding. Everybody was soaking wet. Lolly had backed up against the wall. Marcus could tell the women had already unified. They were only about six or seven, plus the leader. Some had articles of clothing tied around their heads. In the blue light Marcus could see their breaths fogging out.
We aint drunk, said Sykes, licking his blood.
It sounded as if he had said it before.
The women laughed.
We smell it, said the leader.
We smell it too, said Zoomer.
You, the leader told Zoomer, aint nothing but a sleazy-ass junkie.
The females all laughed at that too, obscuring Zoomer’s response. In the laughter Marcus tried to move cautiously away from where Purkey lay. Purkey’s body had started jerking back and forth, still screaming the same way without sound, such that it was traveling gradually across the floor like a dismembered grasshopper leg. Marcus held onto the panties beneath his clothing but now the panties felt like a foreign growth. Backing up, he tripped on a boat in the corner. He caught himself before he fell, but all the women on the table and even the leader were looking at him such that he felt embarrassed and flattered for a second, but he realized they were looking at the boat instead of him.
Look it! one of the women at the table said. She had her hand over her mouth.
It was Kimsey on the boat, and he had his forehead against the back of the woman’s neck, as if he were holding her still, the way Marcus had seen cats do. Blankets and clothes were piled over them, as if they had tried to hide, but they were definitely doing it. The whole room fell quiet and the women on the far side of the table came around to see better. Marcus felt them checking each other to see who it was and as soon as they figured it out they began to talk among themselves. Knowing her, he heard one of them say, he is probably up her ass.
No, said another, he is probably doing it that a way to keep from having to look at her face.
Have you ever looked at her nose? She thinks she is the best thing that ever pissed through hair.
They laughed again.
Hey, the leader called out. Stop it.
But Kimsey didn’t stop. He kept going. And she wasn’t screaming. Not far away, Purkey kept going too. Zoomer had walked over closer.
The thrill of victory, said Zoomer, nodding toward Kimsey. And the agony of defeat.
It was silent.
You all aint nothing but a bunch of old whores, said Sykes.
You all are drunk, hollered the female leader.
Zoomer made a motion as if tipping his imaginary hat. Kimsey had stopped and the other females were laughing a low wicked laugh, but the males were kind of ignoring it. Kimsey wrestled his way out from under the blankets and clothes, pressing down too hard on the girlfriend, but she never moved and kept her face turned to the wall. Marcus was surprised that Kimsey still had his clothes on. Kimsey jumped over Purkey and leapt onto the concrete table, scattering females, one of whom screamed. Several lost their headdresses. He grabbed the pipe and swung himself back and forth until he could fly back into the vent. It was about halfway up the wall. They heard him go thundering away in it.
Damn, said Zoomer. What an exit.
Everybody followed Kimsey, except for the agony of defeat, who still lay twitching on the floor next to the thrill of victory and her mound of clothes and blankets. A part ran down the hair on the back of her head. Marcus waited a minute before he climbed into the vent because he thought she was crying. He thought the mound of clothes and blankets was moving in the way it would with sobbing, but Sykes had him by the back of the neck and was trying to stuff him into the vent. Marcus wondered why their vent had been in the ceiling when the females had it on the wall. Once they had gone a ways in the duct and everybody was clotted up, breathing and stinking, they heard what sounded like screaming and bawling, but the sound was squeezed down smaller, as if it were very far away.
I think that would of went a lot better if we would of brought them something to drink, said Marcus.
The screaming increased and died back.
What did you ever expect from a bunch of jailbird bitches? said Zoomer.
Marcus had the urge to run. He felt as if that were the only response to what they had opened up, but it was hard to run in a vent. They reached a ninety-degree turn straight up. Marcus could tell because blue light was descending through it and somewhere way up were the sounds of voices and scratching as prisoners squirreled up it. Also, something was flowing down the vent pipe across his face and his arms and the rest of his body Marcus couldn’t figure out what it was at first. He thought maybe it was water, but it was lighter than water, though it still stayed clammed all over him. As he tried to scramble up the vent the way the others had he realized it was nothing but cold. It was cold on top of cold, because he was already numb to the elbows and ankles and his face was a mask down to his neck and where the neck attached to the chest. It was a new kind of cold that didn’t wait on anything. It was trying to stick his face to the vent pipe.
In a few seconds his feet started working and he went right up the pipe as if the world were sucking him out. The higher he got the more the cold became the opposite of itself. It was like a blanket, except the opposite of a blanket, one that wrapped you up immediately and sank down into your bones with its cold instead of warmth, but Marcus kept paddling and reached the top and Zoomer pulled him out and dropped him in some hard snow. Marcus jumped up. They were on top of the jail. The top of the jail was a large level plain of snow with various pipes emitting steam and little motors and shiny hoods jutting up around them. The cold was awful. It worked its prisoners like puppets, running them toward the edges of the snowy plain beneath the beautiful blue light, and the moon was waiting far above the trees in the very sharply starry sky: No one knew just then that it would be the coldest night of the twentieth century in East Tennessee. Marcus sure didn’t. If he had of known, things might have been different. But right now he ran, or at least moved, because he could not feel his footsteps. It seemed like they were running from jail and running from jailbird bitches, running from everything that could be run from, and some of them hollered with freedom as they went.
On the edge of the jail one body had already sailed off and was rolling two times in the soft snow below. It was Zoomer. On the way down his coat winged open and fluttered. Right now he was cussing and had snow all over his face and he was clutching at it as if it really stung, and the figure of Kimsey was fifty, a hundred yards away, running with huge, floating strides. Sykes was dropping too but he got too far forward and belly flopped in the snow louder than if it had been water. Marcus tried to get Lolly to go with him at the same time, but Lolly shook his head and gestured and wouldn’t go.
Come on, Lolly, Marcus hollered out, and it was interesting how clear his voice was.
Lolly shook his head. Marcus always remembered Lolly’s face. The look on it was like the day he was baptized, as if it were asking a big question, except this time he realized the question only had one possible answer. But he realized it on the way down, and on the way down Marcus was amazed at how quickly the air moved around him, and despite his numbness he felt freer that he ever had before, with the big dark block of the jail stuck in the earth, bobbing in the cold, and him flying off it.
Stephen Marion’s stories have appeared in four editions of New Stories from the South. He is a native of East Tennessee, where he lives and works as a journalist. Marion’s fiction has appeared in Tin House, The Oxford American, and Epoch. His novel, Hollow Ground, was published in 2002.
In January 1985, the temperature where I live in East Tennessee dropped to twenty-seven degrees below zero. As luck would have it, several guys escaped from the county jail that night, and a wild series of events occurred. I had gone to school with one of the guys who escaped. He was one of the ones who ran back and knocked on the front door of the jail wanting to be let in. Another of the guys I had only met briefly. He had come by my house intending to rob it (he and his brother were on an armed robbery spree at that moment) but for some reason decided not to after asking me if I knew anybody who wanted to sell a bird dog. I had always wanted to tell his story, as I imagined it at least, out of gratitude for sparing me. He didn’t actually have a Lysol party, however. That occurred later in the same jail, and it involved different people, but it still caught my eye.