Philipp Meyer - American Rust

“You too, sweetheart.” She squeezed Grace's shoulder then walked out, tottering slightly on three- inch heels, the men at the bar watching her tight pants as she left, the door banging behind her.

“Moneyman must be calling,” announced someone at the bar, after the door had swung shut. A few people chuckled.

Ray tapped his nose. “Thirty thousand a year goes up there, from what I hear.”

Grace was surprised at this slight cruelty. But then she was guilty of it herself.

“Anyway …” said Rosalyn.

The front door banged open again and Heather reappeared, heading back toward their table. When she reached it she leaned over to Grace. “You let us know if you need anything, hon.” She pressed a scrap of paper into Grace's hand. “Just in case, whatever, you call me.” She noticed everyone staring at her and walked quickly out of the bar before Grace had time to respond.

“What was that about?” said Rosalyn, once she'd left again.

“Everybody loves Grace, especially women who—”

“Stop it,” said Rosalyn. She punched her husband on the shoulder, hard. “What the hell is wrong with you today?”

“My piehole needs manicotti.” He spooned a large portion onto his dish. “I'm just hungry, is all, it's just my sugar.”

“I'm sorry we've been away,” said Rosalyn. “How're you holding up?”

“I'm making it,” Grace told her. “Staying optimistic.”

“You really think it'll be okay,” said Ray.

“Yeah,” said Grace. “Somehow.”

He was lying in his bunk, thinking about what he would have to do to the guard, thinking about his lawyer coming and what he would have to say to the lawyer, when the cell door clattered open and a young inmate appeared, escorted by a CO. The inmate was about twenty, a sandy- haired country- boy type, a hucklebuck, despite being in the hole six months the kid still had freckles around his nose. He was much smaller than Poe, thin and good- looking in an almost girlish way but his arms were covered with tattoos the same as the others, a green shamrock prominent on one arm, the letters ABon the other, spiderwebs around each elbow. The CO closed the cell door and walked off down the tier.

Poe sat up in his bunk.

“I'm Tucker,” said the inmate. “They told me about you.”

Poe introduced himself and they bumped fists.

“Heard you're gonna take care of that piece of shit Fisher tomorrow.”

Poe didn't say anything.

“You got something to get him with?”

“Yeah, but I'm not sure about any of it, to be honest.”

Tucker got a confused look.

“I'm still waitin for my trial.”

“Well did you tell them that? ’Cause they told me you was a definite.”

Poe shrugged.

Tucker said, “I know you just got in and all, but these ain't a bunch of people you want to fuck with. You gotta put your mind to this shit. I'll go along and keep lookout if you want, but you got to be the one doing the hitting.”

“I want to get out of here,” said Poe.

“Well you fuckin won't,” said his cellmate. “If they even overheard us having this conversation they'd cut you into fuckin pieces. Larry and Dwayne got about a half dozen life sentences between them.”

“I'm more worried about Clovis.”

“Clovis is just muscle. Fuck Clovis.”

“I dunno,” said Poe.

“I'm telling you don't go back on your word. I'll fuckin forget we had this talk. Knowin how they work they'll stick me on the other end of the knife that goes in your fuckin neck.”

“Whatever.”

“You don't do it,” said his cellmate. “You might as well just fuckin hang yourself. This is a bad place for a young white man to go walkin around without friends.”

Poe went back to staring at the ceiling and Tucker took out his foot-locker and began to arrange his things.

“You touch any of this shit?”

“I didn't even see it. They must have just brought it today.”

“I'll know if you did.”

“Don't worry yourself,” Poe said.

That night when all the lights were shut off there was a tapping at the bars and Poe woke up. He looked out and saw a guard standing there. The guard looked up and down the cellblock, then unbuttoned the front of her pants so her pubic hair was visible. He heard a rustling in the bunk underneath. That fuckin pervert is jerkin off, Poe thought. To that fat fuckin guard. He watched the guard for a time, out of curiosity more than anything else, and then lay back on the bed until it was over.

After some time he heard: “Don't look at her again. I been down six fuckin months and I paid for that shit.”

“I wasn't looking,” said Poe.

“I heard you looking. I know you were looking.”

“I got no interest in your friend,” he said. “I didn't know what was happening.”

Tucker grunted and didn't say anything further. Poe tried to fall back asleep but he was thinking about the guard. It was maybe a setup. They jerk off to one guard but want me to flatback the other one. He couldn't make sense of it. He wondered if they were all working for the DA, trying to trap him further. Except he doubted the DA had any idea what went on here, he doubted anyone did, they wouldn't allow it, it was gladiators every day. It was Roman times. Except maybe he had been sent here on purpose. They acted one way, they wanted the law served, but they didn't mind if you got raped in the shower or your skull cracked by a combination lock. Really, there was no such thing as the law. There was only what people wanted to do to you.

He lay still for a while and he was shaking, fear or anger he didn't know. He thought if I don't beat that guard I got all of them after me, the whites and the blacks both, and the guards won't care. If I do hit the guard I got the guards and the blacks after me. Except certain guards had side deals. Invisible webs. There were deals going down everywhere, only not with him.

He thought about it more and more and he wanted to punch something, he slammed his palm into the wall and rocked the bed, the wall didn't move it would never move, his cellmate punched his mattress from the bottom. He would ignore the cellmate. But still he had just been punched. Though no one had seen it he would let it pass.

He wished Isaac was in front of him, he would knock the shit out of Isaac. All he'd done was get his throat cut and his balls nearly yanked off. He'd paid enough. He'd paid enough that night for anything he'd done. Isaac hadn't paid at all, not a fucking thing.

There was the same din going on outside, the same pointless shouting and music, underneath him his cellmate moving around on his mattress, trying to get comfortable. Isaac would get massacred. The whole hundred ten pounds of him. He would be a snack for these people. That was why he, Poe, was here. He was doing the right thing. He was being a hero. He would act like other people were watching — it would keep his thoughts and actions pure. That was the key to anything: pretend others are watching. It was just like the field, a bunch of big guys wanting to knock the shit out of you, it was your choice. Wolf or sheep, if you didn't choose it was chosen for you. Hunter or hunted, predator or prey, everyone knew it was the ancient relationship.

But it was not just that. It was not just pure nobility. In simple truth this place had been waiting for him. There were those who had capabilities and those who didn't and even in his glory days he had known it, known they would figure it out one day, a bullet he would never dodge. His mother she'd had her hopes but he had known. It was his own in-sides. He'd run out his luck and was living his fate and things considered, he'd been lucky.

He would knock the shit out of the guard. And whoever else. He would treat it like a game he had to play He would go down to the hallway early and run it through his head, visualize the other guy already on the ground. He would take the guard from behind so his face wouldn't be seen. All that mattered here was your deeds, your acts as others saw them, he hadn't known it that morning in the cafeteria but now he did. Then he thought: no. He could not do it. He could not hit the guard. His legs were shaking again and he had to piss and he got down from the bunk and afterward he ran the water in the sink and washed his face.