Peter Abrahams: Lights Out

“Think about it,” El Rojo said.

“About what?”

“Employment. Good salaries and generous bonuses. No benefits, I’m afraid.”

“What kind of employment?”

“Steady employment, amigo. Do you mind if I offer some advice?”

Eddie didn’t mind.

“You’ve never been locked up before, have you?”

“I’ve been here for fifteen years.”

“I know that. But this is your first sentence.”

Eddie nodded.

“Then you’ve never been released before. Unlike me. As a young man, I spent two years in La Picota. My own fault. I failed to understand the system then, even the primitive system of ours. Two years. An important period in my development, I see now. But even more important was the lesson I learned when I got out.” He started to put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder again, changed his mind. “Time changes everything, amigo,” he went on. “So you cannot simply resume life where you left off. And I suspect that is what you want to do.”

“I wasn’t busted in a steam bath,” Eddie said.

El Rojo showed his teeth. “I admire spirit,” he replied. “Regrettably, it counts for nothing in this world.”

The guard was at the door. El Rojo rose. Again they shook hands, again those long damp fingers stirred some memory. “Be seeing you,” El Rojo said.

Was it a joke? El Rojo had one of those three-digit sentences that get a judge’s name out in front of the public. Walking down the corridor with the C.O. behind him, Eddie laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“You,” said Eddie. “Running errands for a con.”

The back of Eddie’s neck prickled, in anticipation of a blow. But the guard didn’t hit him; he just said, “Fuck you, asshole,” and without much force.

Before breakfast, Prof handed Eddie a cardboard tube. “Mind mailing this when you’re out?”

“Sure,” Eddie said, checking the address: 367 Parchman Ave. #3, Brooklyn, NY.

“A present for Tiffany. Here’s a pack of Camels to pay for the stamps.”

“Forget it.”

Breakfast was fried Spam, tapioca pudding, coffee. Eddie just had coffee. He didn’t want to take anything with him when he went, not even inside his body. With that in mind, he returned to F-31 and sat on the toilet. He was wiping himself when a C.O. came, one he knew. “Move it, Nails. You can jerk off all you like on the outside.”

“How’s that different from here?” Eddie said, getting up.

They went down to the showers. It was an open room off the gym with a cement floor and faucets spaced around the walls. The C.O. stood outside the door while Eddie stripped off his inmate denims and scrubbed under a stream of water that was never hot enough. He thought to himself: Yes. I can go to a steam bath somewhere. I can do it today.

The Ozark brothers had been easy. They liked to work out together with heavy weights, one lifting, the other acting as safety. The boy had walked up one morning when they were all alone at the bench press, Brother A on his back, grunting under a bar bent with weights, Brother B leaning over him to help lower the bar in the bracket at the end of the set. They had the music cranked up and didn’t hear a thing. The boy didn’t think. He just picked up a ten-pound barbell and brought it down on the back of Brother B’s head. Brother B fell forward onto the heavy bar Brother A was just raising on his last rep. The bar came down on Brother A’s Adam’s apple-the boy caught the look of comprehension dawning in his eyes as it slipped from his grasp-then crashed to the floor. They found A and B lying face to face, belly to belly, on the bench.

Eddie toweled off. The C.O. handed him a brown-paper package. Inside Eddie found a suit of clothes. Not a suit, exactly-a bright green short-sleeved shirt, beige trousers with belt loops, a brown leather belt, white socks, BVDs, a khaki windbreaker-but civilian clothes. Eddie found that his hands were trembling as he got dressed. He realized he was nervous. It was a sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time. What did he have to be nervous about? He was getting out.

“No shoes,” the C.O. said. “The taxpayers won’t spring for shoes. But they still throw in the belt.”

It was the belt that counted, of course. Eddie hadn’t worn a belt in fifteen years. He buckled it and said: “Now I can string myself up whenever I want.”

“Be my guest.”

Eddie laced on his old and smelly basketball high-tops and picked up Prof’s cardboard tube. Then they went up the stairs, through the scanner, and out of F-Block. The yard was full of men in denim. Eddie felt a little funny in his green shirt. They went past a touch football game. There was a brief pause as Eddie went by. He felt eyes on him. Then someone said, “Snap the ball, shithead,” leather smacked flesh, and Eddie walked through another scanner and into Admin.

The C.O. knocked on a door that said “Director of Treatment.” The door opened, but before Eddie could go in, an inmate came out. El Rojo. He stopped, smiled his white but gap-toothed smile.

“Amigo,” he said. “Today’s the day, no?”

As if they hadn’t been talking an hour ago. “Yup,” Eddie said.

“Excellent.” El Rojo leaned against the wall, in no hurry, took out cigarettes, offered one to Eddie.

“No, thanks,” Eddie said.

El Rojo laid his long-fingered hand on Eddie’s shoulder. Gentle, but Eddie felt the strength in those fingers, and the dampness. And he remembered the image that had eluded him:

The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

“Smoke it later, my friend, outside,” El Rojo was saying. He lowered his voice. “After.”

“After what?”

El Rojo kept his voice low. “After you get laid for me.” A burst of crow laughter followed, was quickly throttled.

“Get laid for you?” asked Eddie, looking into the maple-syrup eyes, aware of complexity in their depths, beyond his understanding.

“It will make me happy just to think about it,” El Rojo replied.

Eddie shrugged, took the cigarette, and put it in the pocket of his green shirt. El Rojo removed his hand from Eddie’s shoulder, extended it for shaking.

“Adios.”

“So long.” That was the truth, given El Rojo’s sentence and the fact that Eddie wasn’t coming back.

Eddie went in. He smelled a piney smell and thought of Christmas. The director of treatment, sitting at his desk behind a sign saying “Floyd K. Messer, M.D., Ph.D.,” had the right body type for the Santa role. He had fat cheeks, reddened by the sun-photographs of him posing beside hooked game fish hung on the walls. He had curly graying hair and a trim gray beard that, grown out, might have looked just right. All he needed was to learn how to make his eyes twinkle.

Dr. Messer was gazing at a computer screen, his fat white fingers poised over the keyboard. “Take a pew, son,” he said, without looking up.

Eddie sat down on the other side of the desk. The piney smell was stronger. “What kind of treatment program you putting him on?” Eddie said.

Dr. Messer looked up. “Who would you be talking about, son?”

“El Rojo, or whatever the hell his name is.”

Dr. Messer gave him a long stare. “Is that any business of yours?” Dr. Messer waited for an answer. When none came, his fat fingers descended on the keys. “Nye,” he murmured, tapping slowly. “Edward Nicholas.” There was a pause. Then he put on a pair of glasses and bent closer to the machine. From where he sat, Eddie couldn’t see the screen; he watched the tiny green letters reflected in the doctor’s glasses.

“You’ve done a long stretch,” Dr. Messer said, still murmuring but a little more loudly now, so that Eddie wasn’t sure if he was still talking to himself. “Comparatively,” the doctor added. He looked puzzled. For a wild moment, Eddie thought that something had happened, that they weren’t going to let him go. The pores in his armpits opened; a drop of sweat rolled down his ribs, under the new green shirt. Dr. Messer tapped at the keys. “You should have been out in less than…” Tiny words scrolled down his lenses. Dr. Messer searched for their meaning in silence. Eddie realized that everything was all right. It was just that Dr. Messer didn’t know who he was, didn’t remember.