Джойс Оутс - Prison Noir

“What I need this for?” D.T. asked.

I told him for trouble.

“What trouble?”

I said no trouble after you use it, and I walked away, leaving him dumbstruck. Oh no, he didn’t give that shank back though — he wasn’t no fool. He tucked it in his pants, probably carried it everywhere he went.

Turns out D.T.’s mama had died, didn’t make it past noon. Oh, Ms. Prichard called D.T. to her office, then she came out by herself, reckoned to give him some alone time in there. He came out sometime after. . passed my cell puffy-eyed and blank stare; aged some too, was thin from water loss and looking empty; the worst had finally come out. In spite of it all, it felt good, I know: getting shit out, shit off your chest, the suffering over with. I’d been there. How was he gone deal with it, his loss, now knowing how to not hold back no more. . All’s left is rage. Oh, I truly was him before. Ms. Prichard had ’mediately got to work ’ranging for him to attend the funeral. He had a better shot than I’d had to make it.

Nothing in here surprise me no more. Saw big-timers bow down to pipsqueaks; killers broke over like a double-barrel shotgun; some had their manhood taken, but not their dignity — their heart! Saw wardens crooked as scoliosis, guards taking bribes for a blind eye. I never mind ’em, tend to my own business like a full-time job. Seems everybody ’round here need their nose cut, instigating trouble for kicks, playing the dozens like seagulls, watching, waiting to see somebody in a jam, gobble it down, then laugh and gossip like old women. Guess you gotta make it your business though to help a guy trying to do good, trying to help himself. Oh no, can’t fight for ’em — give ’em a stick, is just as good. Only Henas and black-hearted folks eat babies, shit on everything they touch; fucked up their life and hate to see others with a future, a soul. They been had their souls sold for rotgut spud juice and ’perimental med pills to cope with the time. Some come fresh off the streets strange fruit; hide behind a bush till someone shake a leaf, bring it out ’em, have him on his knees shining knobs.

Oh, D.T.’s friend ain’t no kind of business of mines; that was a hopeless cause. I turned my back; the warm shower water took me to Ozark Creek. D.T. came in the showers, got all undressed. Stepped ’round the wall blinder, saw his buddy with a throat full. . D.T.’s look was a shattered glass; pieces of his face fell to the floor. His buddy’s was different, caught like a deer in headlights at D.T.’s blues, bright, spellbinding. The pale hand guided his face back to position. D.T. shook his head, grabbed his stuff, and left.

I got back from the shower and saw D.T. sitting on his bunk in the dark, staring at the wall. He turned, looked right through me like glass. Those eyes was midnight. . a dark you don’t go out in; you wait till they brighten up; nothing ’cept death was in ’em. He truly died that day, woke up in hell for the first time where he was all alone, was too full of hope to realize before. . it was all gone now: the scholarship, his freedom, his mama. They couldn’t take nothing else from him ’cept his manhood. Since he already had hell, they’d have to pay with their lives for his asshole. Oh, he had hell to give from what I saw that night; it was exactly what Angel Eyes was gone give ’em.

Gorilla Black came dust-mopping again, waited at the end of the rock for the cell doors to break open for night yard; soon as that happened, he rushed D.T.’s cell, plugged the door with a piece of rubber so it wouldn’t close while he was inside. He stood over the kid with a shank in one hand and his dick in the other, then said, “Shit on my dick or blood on my knife?” D.T. didn’t hesitate and gave him what he’d asked for — blood on his knife. Oh, it was D.T.’s knife that was dripping blood. Wasn’t what Gorilla Black ’spected, him being so fast, a beast! He had sliced open Gorilla Black’s wrist — the shank came out the guy’s hand, but D.T. still had his; had a sword fight, chopping Gorilla Black’s dick down to a stub. Gorilla Black cried like a bitch, hightailed it out of there, bleeding like a hog. D.T. stayed on top of his head, whacking away!

Gorilla Black made it back to his cell, tried to close it behind him. Oh no, Angel Eyes wasn’t having that. He pulled it back open, went inside, and stabbed Gorilla Black all over: his face, neck, head, everywhere. Gorilla Black hollered, screamed, wah, wah, wah —oh, what the babies gone do? You ain’t never heard a man cry till his balls get cut out his sack. Gorilla Black begged for his life, would have put shit on the kid’s dick for him to stop. But Angel Eyes wanted the bloody knife. Had to stop him before he killed Gorilla Black, he wasn’t worth getting a life bit over. He came to his senses and gave me the bonecrusher, then we went straight to the yard. The guards made a round and found Gorilla Black covered in blood, twitching on his floor, butchered half to death.

A couple of days passed; no guards came marching in hockey suits to take D.T. to the grave for the stabbing. The kid was too new to worry; he’d never seen ’em come before. Even so, he was still drugged off stabbing all his troubles away to see the world hadn’t been dropped on his shoulders, yet.

The prison’s alarm blew like a tornado warning through foghorns. The whole place went on emergency lockdown; everyone was rushed to their cells. Teams of guards ran to Ms. Prichard’s office. No sooner, a bunch of nurses came; one had a big ole medical bag, two others carried a stretcher. All the big brass came running: warden, deputy warden, assistant deputy warden, who not. They all came out Ms. Prichard’s office. She was lying on the stretcher: heart machine, IV bag, oxygen mask, all was laying on top of her body. Suits and uniforms had their hands on the stretcher, racing her to medical. But Ms. Prichard was DOA, strangled to death; Mohlerson had found her on her office’s bathroom floor. The whole prison was on lockdown indefinitely.

Three days went by before they fed us — one bagged meal a day, cold cuts and an apple. They had done a mass shakedown, tore up our cells, threw all our personal ’fects on the rock: pictures, letters, clothes, got it all mixed up, trashed most of it. Oh, they was pissed over Ms. Prichard’s murder; had another reason to hate prisoners, mess ’em over.

Mohlerson searched D.T.’s cell and came out with Ms. Prichard’s fancy silver ink pen. They took the kid straight to the graves: hog-tied him, hands and feet cuffed together, slammed his chest to the floor every step of the way, brought blood out his nose, then tossed him down the stairs, all five flights. They whooped him some more when he got to the graves, put him in an observation cell, a plexiglass vestibule. They whipped him like a slave, a lynching, cuffed him to the cell’s bars, left him hanging like that a whole day. Didn’t feed him for a week; when they finally did, Mohlerson made it his business to give D.T. the meals — spitting in his tray, then shoving it through the food slot to the floor. Mohlerson would fuck with D.T.’s head, told him he poisoned his food, ’jaculated in it, put all kinds of shit in it, shit even, wouldn’t put it past him. The kid went long as he could without eating before his will broke. Ended up eating the food loafs, whole rations mixed together into a log, dabbed with some of Mohlerson’s foulness.

Guards wouldn’t give D.T. his mail—’specially Mohlerson, he’d tear it up right in D.T.’s face: letters from his sister, friends, Mama’s obituary. They turned all his visits away, lawyers too. Oh, D.T. was at a place worse than death, was in a living hell, a place no one should ever be, buried alive, alone, no reason or answers for it. No penance or closure, just an open wound, never healing, always pain. He hadn’t been able to see his mama for the last time; convicted of a rape he hadn’t done; accused of a murder he didn’t commit; his teen life snatched away like that, had him in a world of misery, suffering, beyond relief, way past vindication, too far gone for vengeance.