Tod Goldberg - The Reformed

“I wanted it to have that same bite I remembered from the joint. You can’t get that usually unless you add something like engine coolant or acid. Thought the habaneros would do the trick.”

That explained the thick brow of sweat that had already formed on Sam’s neck. But it also proved the best opening Sam could think of to get the information he needed out of K-Dog.

“Who taught you how to make this?” Sam knew the answer to this already, since it was the first thing he’d asked him after their last evening on the pruno train, but Sam knew it would lead to where he wanted to go.

“Originally? My man Ernesto. We bunked for six months before he caught a shank. Poor guy. He’s pissing out of a tube now.”

“Who cut him?” Sam liked saying things like “Who cut him?” It reminded him of being a kid and watching prison movies, which is probably why prisoners talked like that, too. Everything anyone knew anymore was learned on television. Sam took another sip of the pruno. It went down smoother this time, possibly because he no longer had feeling in his extremities.

“Mexican Mafia guy,” K-Dog said. He took another drink, too, but made a face. “You think this needs more ethanol?”

“No,” Sam said. “They have some beef? I mean, wasn’t Ernesto in his fifties?” Oh, crap, Sam thought, he hadn’t told me that again. Fortunately, K-Dog seemed to have been tasting his work all day long and didn’t seem to notice Sam’s fumble.

“Well, Ernesto, he was Latin Emperor from back in the day, and the Mexican Mafia was trying to make a move into Coleman back then, and for some reason they thought Ernesto was a shot caller. Man, he was just an old-ass man already. Read books most of the time. Didn’t even lift anymore. He thought it was foolishness and got stuck regardless. Sam, my man, don’t do time.”

“I’m not planning on it,” Sam said.

“Who plans on it?”

K-Dog actually had a misty look in his eyes. Man, pruno could make anyone feel sentimental. Sam picked up his glass and toasted K-Dog, let him know he felt his pain.

“You gotta be tough,” Sam said.

“True,” K-Dog said, his composure back where it should be.

“Who was the toughest Latin Emperor?”

K-Dog scratched his chin and really gave it some thought. “Well,” he said, “I think you start with a guy like Junior Gonzalez and work your way down. You know of him?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“You should keep it that way,” K-Dog said. “He’s out now. Literally ran into him at Publix one day. You know, that’s the funny thing. Standing in line, buying your shit-you know, Pop-Tarts, Fruit Roll-Ups, whatever-and you look across the aisle and there’s some gangster in line buying the same shit, plus, you know, a big thing of Woolite, paper towels, whatever. Even a gangster needs to wash his shit, right?”

“You guys talk about old times in the parking lot?” Sam hoped he wasn’t overplaying his hand, but, then, he couldn’t really feel his hands anymore.

“We talked some shop. I told him I was keeping it on the narrow, got my own printing company now, all that. He told me he was ruling, which I took to mean he wasn’t giving up the life.”

Ruling. Interesting.

“Was he top dog in prison?” Sam asked.

“Oh, indeed,” K-Dog said. Just then, one of K-Dog’s three cocker spaniels came bounding into the room and leaped onto the couch with Sam. For a guy named K-Dog, it didn’t really fit that he was housing spaniels, but even Sam had to admit they were cute. He could have lived without seeing K-Dog giving the one on the sofa a kiss on the lips, however. “Know what I missed most in prison? These little guys. All my life, I’ve had spaniels. They’re just good, nice dogs. Now, Junior? He was bad news my first couple of years. But by the time I got out? He was working in the library, leading education groups, had the warden’s ear on things. Complete turnaround. Homeboy had already done twenty-five, right? He learned to play the game like all the rest. Me? I just had five years, so I knew I could get out in three, four, if I kept my nose clean. Ernesto? He had my back until that shank, but even still, people didn’t give me too much trouble, on account of what I could do with paper and ink. But Junior was LE to the fullest. Even if he was toeing the line, you knew he was running that gang, inside and out.”

Sam reached over and scratched the dog behind its ear, which caused the dog to emit a low growl of pleasure. If only all things were so easy. He decided to move the conversation closer to the finer points, seeing as the dog’s growl echoed in his head like he was at a Pink Floyd concert in 1974, minus the floating pig and the laser, though he had the feeling that any more pruno would bring those forth, too.

“Did you know Father Eduardo was a Latin Emperor?” Sam said. “I saw him on television the other day and then got on the Google, and there it all was. Can’t see him doing that gang-life stuff.”

K-Dog took a deep gulp of his concoction and then grimaced. It occurred to Sam that K-Dog might want to get his liver examined by medical experts, because there was no way he was human. “He was out of Coleman, time I got there,” K-Dog said. “Man, those peppers. That’s some burn.”

“What was the word on him, though? He must have caused a stir getting out of prison like he did and becoming a big deal.”

“Oh, you didn’t say his name around the LE. You say his name around Junior and you were asking for a beat down. Know what I heard? After he found Jesus and all that? After he started writing kids’ books and shit, he actually turned state’s and rolled up on Junior and maybe ten or eleven soldiers.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Man found God,” K-Dog said. “What can you do? You can’t do anything, that’s what. You can’t very well go out and kill a priest, right? Because those LE boys, they might be gang affiliated, as they say, but half of them are Catholic, go to church on the regular, all that. You kill a priest. They bury you under the prison. So what can you do?”

“You can’t do anything,” Sam agreed. “But now that they’re both out on the streets again, you think Father Eduardo has a reason to be worried? I just see him on TV all the time, and you tell me this Junior is a lunatic. Wouldn’t that put him over the edge?”

K-Dog shook his head slowly. “See, that’s the kind of thing that makes you forget dude is of the cloth and all that. Pride. Loyalty. All that crap? I wouldn’t be surprised if Father Eduardo wakes up dead one day soon. You won’t be able to put Junior on it, I’d bet, because he’s smooth now. But if Father Eduardo trips and lands on an upturned blade? That shit could happen on the real.”

K-Dog clicked on the flat-screen TV he had mounted above his fireplace, and for a few minutes he and Sam watched Bobby Flay challenging someone to make the best apple pie on earth. “This guy?” K-Dog said, and motioned at the television. “He’s a real gangster. Shows up at someone’s house and tells them he’s gonna beat their ass in what they do well.”

Sam watched the show in silence for a bit while K-Dog kept up a running dialogue about how Bobby Flay was going to lose the competition because he didn’t understand you gotta put your heart into a good apple pie. All Sam had learned up to this point was what he sort of knew already, so he decided to make a leap.

“You end up doing any business with Junior after you saw him at the market?”

“Oh, sure, sure,” he said. “You see a guy like that on the outside? You let him know it’s all cool. Because two things can happen: He can think you’re avoiding him because you’re scared of him, or he’ll think you’re avoiding him because maybe you snitched on him or something. And either way, if you end up back in prison-not that I intend to ever go back to prison, you understand, Axe Man-that’s a death sentence. And even on the street, I don’t want the LE having me down as an enemy. I mean, I pay my taxes now and I’m running a legit business.”