Paul Cleave - Joe Victim

The pedophiles and other high-risk prisoners are chatting to each other, some playing cards, the damn weather a hot topic of conversation again. Others have retreated to their cells, and not all of them alone-laughing coming from some of them, grunts and whispers and the sounds of pillows being bitten coming from others.

The day drags on. Every day does. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d rather be hanged than endure this for the rest of my life. This isn’t exactly living the dream.

After a while we’re escorted into the lunch hall. Different cellblocks all eat at different times, and our slot is one thirty. Lunch is made up of food that has to encompass at least forty different elements on the periodic table. It’s a colorless and flavorless exercise that lasts fifteen minutes, but, surprisingly, always leaves me feeling full. The trays are made from thin metal that can’t be broken into sharp useful pieces. The tables are all bolted to the ground, as are the long seats we share. Half a dozen guards all stand around the perimeter of the room watching us. The food is wet enough so you can hear everybody else chewing. Another inmate, a guy by the name of Edward Hunter, stares at me as he eats, gripping his knife quite hard, while I stare at the man who burned down the fish store, gripping my knife hard. But even though I’m staring at him I’m thinking of Melissa and how much I miss her. We could have been great together.

Or will be.

Once the jury lets me go.

I take my tray over to the table where Caleb Cole is and sit down next to him. There are scars on his arms and hands. He has the face of a man who has experienced a lot of physical pain. He has the kind of thinness and skin about him that suggests he’s lost a lot of weight in a short time. Prison food isn’t going to reverse that. He looks up at me then back at his food.

“My name’s Joe,” I tell him.

He doesn’t say anything.

“It’s Caleb, right?”

Still nothing.

“So, Caleb, I was thinking, maybe you and me could be friends.”

“I don’t want to make friends,” he says, talking into his food.

“Everybody needs friends in here,” I tell him. “You were in here for fifteen years, so you know that, right?”

“Fuck off,” he says, which isn’t a great way to start a friendship.

“We have a mutual friend,” I tell him. “A guy by the name of Carl Schroder. He arrested you, right?”

“I can’t talk about Schroder,” he says, still looking at his food.

“Why not? He’s the one who arrested you, right? Just before he was fired. I just want to know what happened that night. Something happened, I’m sure of it.”

“Like I said earlier, fuck off, okay?”

“You feel like you owe him something to stay quiet?”

“Schroder is the reason I’m in here with you, and not in general population.”

“Yeah? So why are you acting like his best friend?”

He stops eating. He puts his knife and fork down and twists toward me because I haven’t fucked off like he originally asked. He puts his hand onto the side of my tray and slides it off the edge of the table. It crashes onto the floor with a loud bang and the food goes everywhere. Everybody in the room is staring at me. They’ve all gone quiet.

If he were a woman, I’d know what to do. I’d stab her right where she was. But he’s not a woman. And he’s not a man that I’ve already clubbed with a frying pan or shot or stabbed in the back. I suddenly feel very much out of my depth.

“I’m glad you came over to see me,” he says, and suddenly I feel nervous. “I was in the hospital for a bit after being arrested, then they had me on suicide watch. They thought I wanted to die, and back then that was true. Not now. See, I have more to do before I want to die. Things to take care of. That’s why I can’t talk about Schroder. See, I just need to be left the fuck alone for the next twenty years so I can get out and carry on with my life.”

“I heard you carried on with it a few months ago,” I tell him. “Carrying on with your life doesn’t bode well for others. That’s why you’re back in here.”

“You think you’re funny, don’t you.”

Yes. “No.”

Sound starts back up in the room. More conversation. We stop being the center of attention.

“See, the thing is,” he says, “even if I do make it another twenty years, the people I want to see on the outside may not even be around. So I’d have put up with twenty years of bullshit for nothing. That’s a depressing thought. It’s been with me since getting arrested. It gets me down. It’s why I was on suicide watch. What got me through that was figuring I needed to focus on other things. And in a place like this, a man doesn’t have too many options.”

“One option is to tell me about Schroder,” I remind him.

He shakes his head. “I already told you I’m not telling you about Schroder. Never. I tell you about him, and I’m back in general population.”

“Come on, what did he do?”

“I think I’m going to start focusing on you.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re talking to me right now. Because I’ve been thinking about you over the last few weeks. Everybody in the city has been thinking about you. Tell me about your trial. I’ve heard things. I’ve heard you’re running with an insanity defense.”

“What of it?” I ask.

“My daughter was murdered,” he says. “Fifteen years ago. You heard about that?”

I shake my head. Other people and the things that happen to them don’t bother me unless it relates to me somehow.

“She was murdered by a guy who should have been in jail, but you want to know why he wasn’t?”

I shake my head. I don’t really want to know, or care. He takes the headshake as an indication to carry on.

“Because he’d escaped conviction two years earlier of hurting another little girl because he used an insanity defense.”

I slowly nod. This is good. Very good. “So what you’re saying is it works.”

He stares hard at me. Then he slides his food tray away from himself and steps out from behind the table. He’s thinner than me, a little taller, but there’s something in his face that is frightening. I think if he were put into general population he’d get by just fine.

“I don’t want you using an insanity defense,” he says, and maybe he should be my lawyer. “People need to be responsible for what they did. It’s not right that doctors can come along and make it otherwise.”

“It truly isn’t my fault I did the things they say I did,” I tell him. “I don’t even remember any of it.”

“Uh huh. So you’re using it,” he says, pointing at me. “The defense. You’re using the defense. The same defense that allowed my daughter to be killed.”

“How old was your daughter?” I ask.

He’s not ready for the question, but he’s been studying because he knows the answer. “She was ten.”

“Then there’s no reason we can’t be friends. No reason you can’t help me out and tell me what Detective Schroder did to lose his job.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Well your daughter was too young to be my type.”

He stares at me angrily and I’m not sure why. All I can put it down to is his jealousy. I’ll be getting out of here in a matter of weeks, and he’s stuck here for twenty more years, and that’s the kind of thing people in here don’t like.

“Three days,” he says.

“Three days for what?”

“Your trial starts in three days, so that gives me three days to decide whether or not I want to kill you,” he says. “I’m in here for twenty years no matter what. Killing you won’t add to that. Killing you may even get my sentenced reduced. I’ll think about it,” he says. “I’ll let you know soon,” he says, and he walks away.