Elizabeth Massie: Naked, on the Edge

Tonya said, “Guess so.”

Jimbo put one arm around Tonya’s waist, glanced around, and then put one hand on Tonya’s right breast. “Shit, it makes me hot, being one of the good guys.”

“Where’s the other con?”

“Cell over this way,” said Jimbo. He gave Tonya’s breast a healthy, painful squeeze, then ushered her down the hail thirty feet, past other steel doors and knob-less keyholes. Beetles scurried into drains; brown, fat-bodied spiders clutched draglines in the shadowed corners. God, don’t let him want to put spiders down my blouse, Tonya thought. Half-way to the second con’s cell, Jimbo spun around, put his hands down the front of Tonya’s guard pants and kissed her neck. “Can’t stop, baby,” he hissed, and Tonya tried to think of what he was doing to keep her mind off whatever the hell he might be asking her to do in a few minutes.

He took up the spoon and felt it and put it into his mouth, pretending there was food on there and that it tasted good. He sucked the good food, it was mashed potatoes with pepper this time, then licked the spoon eight times until it was clean. He licked his lips and put the spoon back in the nick. Then he paced.

One, two, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

He remembered again. The sledgehammer of memory slammed him in the back of the head and he stumbled.

God pity me have mercy why why why don’t please don’t I don’t want to die I want to live forever so I won’t go into the lake of burning torment God no! Marcus fell to his knees then stretched prostrate, his cheek losing skin on the concrete.

“Lord is my shepherd,” he said to the floor. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Shadow of the valley, all the days of my life.” He burst into sobs. His tears were thick with salt. If he could have killed himself at that moment, he would have. But that would only bring him into hell more quickly. There was nothing ahead of him but life’s agony. And then death’s agony.

When the crying eased, he touched the tears on the floor and brought the wet to his lips. Then he stood, found the wall, and walked.

Jimbo pulled his fingers out from Tonya’s bush, sucked them, and then shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Can’t push that too far,” he said. “I want something raring to go when my time comes. I’m a steel rod, baby.” He winked. “You like steel rods?”

Tonya said, “What do you mean, when your time comes?”

“It’s gonna be something special today,” said Jimbo.

“What is it?”

Jimbo said, “I mean this.” He walked another ten feet then planted his hand on a steel door. “There’s a lover boy in here, ready and waiting.”

Tonya came over and touched the door, too. She peeked in through the food slot and couldn’t see a thing but tar-blackness. She had promised herself to do anything for Jimbo. He was her man. He bought her stuff. He liked her ass. He didn’t hit her. Anything, she had told him. But her stomach turned with uncertainty.

There were many things she’d done to keep Jimbo happy. She’d let him pee all over her in the bathtub once. She’d screwed him in a gravelly parking lot where a gang of construction men could look down on them. She’d gone without panties into a hardware store then bent over to show the clerk what kind of nails she wanted to buy while Jimbo watched through the store window.

But she’d never fucked somebody else. Especially not no damned con in solitary confinement.

“You want me to fuck him?” she asked.

“He’s probably too weak to hurt you, baby,” said Jimbo. He touched her cheek and tweaked her nose.

“You mean he’d want to hurt me but he’s too weak?”

Jimbo frowned. Tonya didn’t like his frown. “I don’t know, Tonya. Don’t press me. He’s been there a while. He ain’t gonna hurt you.”

“How long he’s been there?”

“Two years. Longer than I been here. But, like I said, what the warden don’t know won’t piss him off. This con’s got no family, no lawyer checking on him. He could stay here his whole life for all I care.”

Tonya’s head began to pound. “Ever see him?”

“No. But I been down here for feeding. He eats, so he’s alive, just like the other one. Hear Captain Harner took off a couple the guy’s digits one time.”

“What’s a digit?”

Jimbo made an exasperated sound deep in his throat, and Tonya shivered.

“Harner hates rule breakers and human trash,” Jimbo continued. “He even put a buddy guard of mine down here in a cell for a couple weeks for smart-mouthing off.” Jimbo laughed. “Harner’s right on.”

“Why don’t you just go on and let the cons here die? I mean, if the warden don’t know and all. You think they ought to die, right?”

This seemed to make Jimbo think. His lip drew up and one eye squinted. Then he smiled. “Damned paperwork is one reason. But I guess it’s more fun like this, too. Kind of like a secret club. You like secret clubs?”

Tonya’s nose wrinkled. She hoped it looked cute. But in truth, it was a spasm of fear. “Yeah. But what if he’s a queer and don’t like me? He might hurt me then, Jimbo.”

“I’ll be watching, so if he starts to hurt you I’ll kick his ass, how about that?”

“Well….”

Jimbo took Tonya’s arm and shook it. “Well, what? You gonna do this, aren’t you?”

“Sure. ’Course I am.”

Jimbo nodded, then put a key into the hole in the door. “Thought so,” he said.

He knew every corner of his room, every crack, every lump, every chink. His fingers were his eyes and they were rough but clear. Sometimes, though, his mind became his eyes and it showed him the cell from above, a clear picture with him in it, twenty years old, naked, shivering, and doomed.

“I’m sorry,” he said to himself. Five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three.”

His hand rode again over the nick with the spoon. He took it out and carried it with him, dragging it along the wall’s surface so he could hear something besides his own voice and his own breathing.

There was rattling at the food slot, and he ran to the corner and crouched, covering his head with his hands and the spoon and screaming “I’m sorry!” The phantom fingers flamed into agony, recalling their disciplinary amputation, wondering if the fingers beside the scarred spaces might be next.

“He’s screaming!” said Tonya.

“Shut the fuck up and get in there,” said Jimbo. He pulled the door open, and the dim light spilled onto the bare-floored cell.

He saw the silhouette in the middle of the blinding light, a tall, thin human form with long hair. It wasn’t a guard. It was a devil.

Death was here, and it was time to step into the lake of eternal fire and damnation for his unending punishment.

“I’m sorry!” His knees pulled up to his chin and his eyes blurred. “Not now, please!”

The devil stopped in the doorway, said something he couldn’t hear, then took a few more steps. The minister had said to Marcus, “When you die, you’ll wish you could kill your spirit, too, because it’s going to suffer for ever and ever and ever, you murdering bastard!”

Marcus’ throat twisted, and he sputtered in a strangled hiss, “No, please.”

The devil, in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, said, “Be quiet.”

And so he was.

“Be quiet,” Tonya said to the man in the corner. He was hard to see, hard to imagine. Jimbo had said the man was weak and couldn’t hurt her.

He better not, she thought. Or I’ll kick him in the nuts.