Shane Jones - Crystal Eaters

“Black crystal,” says Jug, sitting down on the cot. “We’re addicted.”

“My job is to bring them in,” says Z., going back on script, still trying to pull off the impossible. He knows a black crystal doesn’t exist, so what Jug says about it doesn’t register. He moves back and forth from terror to strength and back again.

“You guys acting like kids, smearing shit on your faces to mess with others, putting a table in the middle of the road, I mean.”

“What?”

A guard locks the door. The clang raises Z.’s shoulders.

“Basketball accident,” says Jug wincing, reaching for his ankle to tie his shoe. “We have a court here. Half a court. Was going in hard when Little Karl, who will be happy to know can mark up his book when I’m done here, decides to take a charge. I sort of pulled back,” Jug leans backward with his right arm swan shaped, “and pulled off this beauty of a one-hand floater. That didn’t stop my body from toppling over into Little Karl. Damn, it hurt. Never felt pain like that before, like my whole body was shook-up inside. I didn’t make the shot.”

Z. backs up against the cell bars, cold. He’s four feet from where Jug sits but it feels like inches. He breaths in the prison and listens to the ugly sounds from within it.

“I,” says Z. “T-t-t-this place —”

Sweat and urine and men kept in vomit-filled boxes they decorated but are never cleaned have been molded in the heat for weeks. The prison isn’t like Z. was told. The prison isn’t like how it’s promoted to everyone outside it. The prison is a place worse than any part of the village. And since the heat wave was noticeable, since the black crystal has been depleting and getting scary low, things have only gotten worse.

“When it gets hot in here, right at peak late afternoon heat, it smells like a pig farted through a cigarette,” says Jug. “Is that an image or what?” Jug smiles way longer than anyone should smile after saying something so disgusting and then gets serious, smoothing the chest of his shirt, the professional version of himself coming on. “And every few months a group not totally unlike yourselves tries to rescue someone. Usually over-eager city folk with some messed up relative the system got wrong, should have been placed in Willows Bay, right. But everyone likes it here. Okay, not everyone, I see the way you’re looking at me, but why leave something that takes care of you? For example, you could have the worst mom in the world who brings home retards, but she feeds you chicken and buys you jeans and washes your bedsheets, and you forget how she yells and screams and drinks too much and makes the retards breakfast in the morning while they sit slumped, but not you, you don’t say a word because you have it easy with a mom like that, you’re taken care of and you don’t leave it.”

Z. senses bodies behind him. He’s lean and muscular, sure, a little belly on him, and he’s always prided himself that he can take care of himself in a fight, but now, he’s terrified.

“There’s been a mistake,” he says. “You said something about black crystal.”

“It’s tricky to reseal an envelope and not have the receiver be suspicious. What you do is use steam from an iron,” says Jug, and he runs an imaginary iron over his thigh.

Through the bars a hairy hand massages the back of his neck and Z. tries to walk forward and the hand squeezes. A hush of male voices blends with the concrete echoes and metallic sounds of the prison. Z. imagines crawling through the crystal mine dirt as a child, licking it, then getting yelled at by Mom, her hand gripping his neck.

“You don’t want to see what’s behind you,” says Jug. “I figured you’d want to free him. He’s a good one. That black crystal does all sorts of stuff. Makes you feel superman. Problem is we’re about to run out. That’s why I wanted to talk to you, that’s why I let you in here in the first place. All this is going to turn out for the better, you’ll see.”

“It’s a m-m-m-myth,” says Z.

“I’m afraid, good sir,” says Jug, so confident now, not like the previous health meeting, “that you’re incorrect.”

“It’s just dark-colored red,” says Z. “You’re living a lie.”

“Not sure that matters because really, we’re running out,” says Jug. He reaches his hand into a pants pocket and scratches himself.

“Then walk in and steal some. Send Mob of Mary’s.”

Inmates cheer in a rhythmic sing-song way and Z. wonders what’s happening. Is Bobby T. dead? The prison is evil. Arnold is probably saying something offensive. His arms will be torn off by dogs.

“I’ve read the letters. You’re smart,” says Jug, “and also dumb. My sister is like this. She’s the smartest dumb person I know. She has two college degrees and when we get together with Mom she always makes the last point, always breaks people down. She’s unemployed and has never held a job for longer than a month she’s so smart.”

“I remember looking for them,” says Z. “Everyone digging around like crazy in the rain because someone said they thought they saw one.”

From his pocket where his hand scratched, Jug pulls out a tiny twisted branch of black crystal. He holds it up in the dull light between his thumb and finger, turning it and rolling it between his fingers. It’s about two inches long and in its thinness looks breakable. The blackness is undeniable, and without realizing what he’s doing, Z. reaches out to touch it and the hand on his neck digs in deeper and pulls him back. In the jerking-back-to-reality motion Z. thinks the crystal has to be a fake, a set-up, no way, how is it possible.

“They exist,” says Jug, carefully placing the black crystal back in his pocket. “It’s very simple what I’m asking here. No bullshit.”

Z. says it’s just a dark-colored red, you’re being fooled, total bullshit. Everyone is eventually fooled into believing in something that doesn’t exist. Give meaning to your existence no matter what . Z. remembers this passage from one of the books, and he’s proud of himself for being able to recite it, it seems so powerful, it sounds so good, but it has no effect whatsoever on Jug who just sits with a neutral facial expression. And the more Z. thinks about it, the more he thinks maybe it is a black. He too wants to believe.

“You’re perfect because you live there. Spending time in the mine won’t be odd compared to, you know, Mob of Mary’s, or someone from here going in that deep.”

“It does something to your insides?”

“Yes,” says Jug, kind of looking at Z. with a half smirk and general disbelief. “You’re not like my sister, no, not at all. You have things at stake and you’ll work hard to make sure everything works out.”

“It’s not supposed to happen like this. This place, in here, isn’t like how people think it is.”

“If one exists,” says Jug, “more exist.”

Z. getting anxious and self-conscious: “H-h-h-how am I s-s-s-suppose to f-f-f-feel about this?”

“Feel good.”

Z. races back through memories of Younger Years but can’t find a black crystal. Generations have looked and failed. Some believe that a combination of rain and heat bring them up, but this has never been proven, only rumored. It will be impossible to find in hours, days, what has been worked at for years. Z. feels lightheaded, like he might pass out with the next breath. Everything — the heat, the sun, the stress of the jailbreak in reverse, what his life is or isn’t — is killing him. He imagines his count as salt in a half circle around his boots.

There’s a long pause. More bells ringing. Someone from the second floor throws a shoe filled with rocks at a window. Jug shakes his head, rubs his face with two sweaty hands. “Go into the mine and bring back more black crystal. That’s it.”