John Domini - Talking Heads - 77

“Just stay away from that animal,” Garrison was saying. “He can’t tell you anything anyway.”

During a break-in, Junior had been discovered by a young couple. This happened in one of new condominiums that dotted the South End, an area starting to gentrify. The couple who’d stumbled in on the burglary was part of the story, or they were a story in themselves. The man was married to another woman, not the one he was with. He had an arrangement that allowed him to use the condo. So he and this latest woman had arrived at an odd hour, a good time for a break-in. And the man hadn’t wanted anyone to know where he’d been; he’d tried to buy Junior off. It made the young crook snap. Junior raped them both, using his razor when the man’s sphincter muscles wouldn’t give. He’d ended up killing the girl.

When the case came to trial, Ed King had just made Governor. His campaign had promised a hard line against crime, and Rebes got consecutive 35-year terms. It didn’t help that, before the sentencing, his other victim killed himself. The adulterer was found in a hot tub, once again in the South End. He’d opened both wrists with an old Marine K-bar knife, Vietnam-issue, a weapon the man who owned it kept mostly for show. That man had been the adulterer’s pickup — his lover — the night before.

*

Garrison took the hatchway lever when he left. He called a last warning before hauling the door shut. “Watch him,” something. Kit couldn’t be sure how long it was before the other cons started up.

“Garrison!” The voice echoed round the far cell, then flattened over the puddle. “Garrison, you there?”

“I got your momma in here, Garrison.” A second voice.

“Garrison! Garrison, hey. The Irish suck the niggers!”

“Mothafuck’s gone,” a third voice said.

Silence again. Kit stooped at the closet doorway, looking out over the cells, the wrench hanging heavy. The pain in his head went into his neck. He had nothing to compare this to; he’d never expected fear to be such a drain. The seepage puddle looked deep enough to drown in.

Fuckin’ tourists. Party punks, y’know. They want to hear someone say they’re a punk, at a party. They want to know the names of the drugs, but no way they’re ever going to risk a glimpse at what the drugs might make them see.

Aw, Viddich. Rally. Deliberately, Kit recalled Garrison’s insults, and the way the guard had muscled him around. He needed some rage to get the blood flowing. Some movement. He ducked out into the central room. The closet cell was too much for him just now, a sadomasochist fantasy, a dream he was ashamed he’d had. The inspectors ignored him anyway, Ad out of sight in the crawlspace and Amby in the hatchway with a flashlight. Junior was shame itself. “Save my strength, save my strength,” S&M, S&M.

“So who else that out there?”

The voice could have come from any door.

“Yeah, mothafuck, who are you?”

The tool belt rattled and creaked, he felt it in the neck. Working on a chain gang.

“It’s just us now, handsome.” The nearest door. “That ruckus upstairs gon’ take ol Garrison a while.”

This voice was Hispanic, Cuban maybe, and the eyes at the slot were black. Kit recalled the migrant workers. He’d done some good for those people.

“You can’t hide from us, my man. We know what’s happenin’. About fuckin’ time we got a inspection in here.”

“And we know about them pipes upstairs, sweet butt.” A farther voice. “This time that ol’ Irish dicksuck gon’ be gone for a while. ”

Kit strode round the seepage, come on. Come back, Shane. He got out the notepad again. He was here now, his story right here and nowhere else, the overhead pipes too. Flipping pages, he figured he’d start with the guys on the far side of the puddle. From there he could work round to the closet again. Start with just the voices, then come back to look Junior in the face.

“That’s right, get the paper out. Get ready.”

“Talk to us, man. Who are you?”

“… press,” Kit said.

“What’s that? What?”

“He didn’t say nothin. Yo, out there. You with us?”

The silence renewed briefly, a quiver in the fluorescent light. Kit touched his neck.

“I’m with the press,” Kit said.

He sounded remarkably clear that time, even levelheaded. And the response felt better yet, an echoey rumble of almost childish excitement. “The press?” came from behind one door. “The media?”

“The media, no shit?”

“Well well well well well.”

“What newspaper? Hey? Is it the Globe , is that your paper?”

Kit forced up a laugh. Getting stroked for his work gave him a low pleasure at best — nine times out of ten it only made him aware of some new pretension — but down here he’d take any pick-me-up he could get. By now Kit stood at the head of the puddle, his back to Junior’s cell. The walls were close. As he explained who he was and what he was doing, the words had a tin reverberation.

“What’s the name?” one of the doors asked. “Sealover?”

Kit looked left-right among the doors, answering their questions. He regretted the thousand rehearsals he’d had, talking about Sea Level till the spiel sounded stale, far removed from these eyes at their slots. When he glanced at his pad, it was open to the notes on his marriage.

“Huh.” This came from the door at the head of the room. “You ain’t so special.”

Kit shrugged, flipping the page.

“Little dick like you, huh. Why’d they let you in here?”

“Nigger, what’s your problem?” The Hispanic Kit had heard from first. “Don’t you ever think about nothing but the size of a man’s dick? Media is media, man.”

“Zoos is right. Right on.”

“Yo, sealover. Talk to me.”

“Listen.” Kit tried for the feel of a locker-room bull session. “Any of you guys ever talk to Junior there?”

“Junior? Junior Rebes? Yo, only people that nigger talk to’s in his head.”

“Naw,” another door said. “He ain’t so crazy as that. He’s seen some things. It’s just the drugs they givin’ him now.”

“Drugs?” Kit asked.

No answer. Was there a banging upstairs, something more than workshop noise?

“They’re giving him drugs?” he asked.

Or was it that Junior, off in his tattooed world, had started chanting more loudly? This time his babble was punctuated with grunts. Also the con’s beat drifted, irregular, sleepy. It made Kit think of the time, getting away from him. It reminded him he was still a coward, out here at these farther cells.

“Look,” he said, “I started with Junior, with his story. I worked with Junior’s mother.”

“Huh. What kinda story he got? That nigger’s guilty.”

“Yo, you want a story man? Talk to me.”

“Yeah, but first,” Kit said, “Junior—”

“Yo, never mind Junior. Biggest story down here is me.”

“Hey, sealover. You want personal exclusive, I’ll give you personal exclusive. We’ll get real close.”

Once more, the talk behind the doors mounted to a rumble. Kit, his pad and pen dropping, tried to think of specific questions. Drugs decay plaster concrete contracts. But then he should’ve expected this. He should’ve realized that every one of them had a wall full of fantasies. God, Junior’s closet had shaken him. Kit recalled the trouble he’d had with Junior’s mother, the struggle to believe in his asking, and he worked now to make the same kind of connection. He noticed again how Boston blacks generally didn’t talk that Superfly stuff, the Southern drawl of blaxploitation. Boston blacks instead had a sound that was almost Italian, high and sharp. You could hear it in Marvin Hagler, the middleweight out of Brockton. A strange, squeaky voice to come from such a scary-looking man.