Rhozier Brown - DC Noir 2 - The Classics

“What do you mean, trouble? ”

“There’s some that say the understaffing helps you guys, cause it’ll inspire something to happen, and then you all can say, See? We need more budget. Jobs .”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Maybe some of the guards do.”

“The officers are paid to watch inmates, not make policy. I need to be told about any of them who act differently.”

“I ain’t the telling kind,” said Lucus. “I just sensitive to your problems about image and keeping up the good show so the warden don’t get bad press and take heat from his buddy the governor and every other politician looking to get elected.”

“What’s this got to do with anything?”

“I just glad to help out — with things like that charity program on your desk.”

“You’ve done good work, Lucus.”

“What will it get me?”

Higgins frowned. “You knew that isn’t the way this works.”

Lucus shrugged. “Things change.”

“Don’t go con on me now, resident.”

“Sir, you was the one who showed me about attitude, about getting out from behind it and how nothing would change if I didn’t. So I been workin on my attitude, what’s behind it, what I do. But where’s it getting me? Still right here.”

“You’re down for Murder One, five counts … plus. Where do you expect to be?”

“Oh, I’m a criminal,” said Lucus. “No question about that. I can do the time for what I did, but man, let my crime justify my punishment.”

“Five murders,” said Higgins. “ Plus .”

“I already done my plus in chains.” Stay calm . “But I never did no murders.”

“The law—”

“Sir, I know the law. We were sticking up gamblers. The law made them crooks, which made them marks. The law did that — not me. Figure, heist a crook, he can’t holler for cops. Rodney had the gun, had them fools lined up against that wall, told me to check out the basement. We agreed before we went in there: in and out with cash, nobody hurt, nobody can do shit about us. I’m in the basement looking for whatnot, I hears those pop-pop-pops … Man, Rodney done me just as much as he done them dudes!”

“Not quite,” said Higgins.

“Yeah, well, what’s done is done, but I didn’t kill nobody. It’s the law and Rodney that made me guilty.”

“You chose to rob, you chose to run with a trigger-happy partner, you chose your juvie record, your prior theft and assault rec—”

“Yes, sir,” said Lucus, interrupting with polite formality. Got to hurry this up. “I admit I’m guilty, but fitting my crimes with two twenty-year stretches, back to back, no parole — no right man can do that kind of justifying.”

“It’s a done deal, Lucus. I didn’t think you were fighting that anymore.”

“I got a lot of time to mess with it. Nineteen more years.”

“Might just be enough to make yourself a new life.”

“Yeah. Starting when I’m sixty-two.”

“Starting every time you breathe.” Higgins blinked. “You want something.”

“This new attitude you helped me get,” said Lucus. “Working programs — with my program in my head. Not getting in any beefs since I got out of chains—”

“At least none that you got caught for,” said Higgins.

“I been doing good time.”

“The law isn’t about doing good time. That’s what you’re supposed to do as a minimum. No matter what you do in here, every day is on the payback clock, and you gotta get to zero before you can claim you’re owed.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe not always.”

Higgins shrugged. “What do you want?”

“A transfer,” said Lucus.

“What?”

“Out of here. Right now. Not a parole, you couldn’t pull that off. But you could take a paper out of that desk, sign it, and there it is, a transfer out of the Wall to the Minimum-Security Farm. Effective soon as the ink is dry. Call the duty sergeant and—”

“You’re down for hard time. You’re a five-count killer with one escape and one shot-up officer — don’t tell me where that gun was found — plus a jacket full of incidents.”

“All before I changed my attitude.”

“Never happen. I never bullshitted you it would.”

“The transfer ain’t for me. It’s for my son.”

Higgins blinked.

Blinked again, and in the administrator’s dark eyes, Lucus saw mental file cabinet drawers slide open.

“Kevin,” said Higgins. “Kevin Ellicott, down for …”

“Last year, a nickel tour for what they could get him on instead of big dope. He’s done angel time for thirteen months.”

“Your boy runs with the Q Street Rockers,” said Higgins. “They’re no church choir.”

“I didn’t say he was a genius. What he is, sir, is a juicer. Just about to become a full-bore alcoholic, if he stays in here much longer. And what’s that gonna solve? How’s that gonna make life easier for the warden? What justice is—”

“Doesn’t add up,” said Higgins. “He can get pruno as easy at the Farm as here.”

“Maybe if he gets into the Farm’s twelve-step program—”

“It’s his maybes, not yours. Why isn’t he asking? Why are you doing this?”

“He’s my son. I wasn’t there to bring him up. Hell, if I had been around before I got my attitude program, probably wouldn’t have done him much good. Maybe he could have learned better street smarts, but … he stays in here, he dies in here.”

“Of alcoholism?” said Higgins.

“Dead is dead,” said Lucus.

They watched each other for a dozen heartbeats.

“And you think a transfer to the Farm will keep him alive.”

“It’ll give him a chance.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” asked Higgins.

“I’m telling you everything I can,” answered Lucus.

“That you can ? You got to learn that we create most our own cans and can’ts .”

“We do?” Lucus paused; said: “You always say that we pay for them too.”

“That’s right.”

“Yeah,” said Lucus. “That’s right. So if somebody’s already paid, then he deserves a can .”

Softly, Higgins said, “Don’t blow it, Lucus. Whatever’s going down, don’t blow everything you’ve accomplished.”

“What’s that, sir? Any way I cut it, I still got nineteen years to go. What could I blow?”

“The way you get to look at yourself in the mirror.”

“I see a man there now. I’ll see a man there tomorrow.”

“If you won’t help me,” said Higgins, “I can’t help you.”

“I’ve been helping you — sir. Look at the report on your desk. Let the warden take credit for it, keep his image shiny. I ain’t asking nothing for me. Who I am, what I’ve done, what I can do — one way or the other, all that should pay for something.”

Higgins shook his head: “You can’t bargain for your son.”

“Then what the hell can I do?”

“Let him do his own life.”

“You telling me, no transfer for him?”

“That’s the way it has to be.”

“Thought we defined our own possibilities.” Lucus stood. “Are you through with me — sir?”

“We’re through, resident.”

Lucus walked to the door, turned back. “Answer me one question, sir?”

“Maybe.”

“Why do what you do? Every day, come in here, locked up just like us, with us. Bucking the admin, the law, and the Word and the attitudes: Why you do it?”

“I got kids too.”

Lucus nodded as he opened the door. “Too bad.”

Clock on the wall facing the sergeant’s desk: 1:52. Hour and a half to go.

Close that door behind you, thought Lucus, then said: “Hey, sergeant, got some book work to do. Can you cut me a library pass? It ain’t my regular day till tomorrow.”