He was knocked cold. When he came to I was sitting on my bunk and doing my nails with his knife. "The name is Jim," I said, lip-curled and nasty. "Now you try saying it. Jim.
He stared at me, his face twisted-then began to cry! I was horrified. Could this really be happening?
"They always pick on me. You're no better. Make fun of me. And you took my knife away. I worked a month making that knife, had to pay ten bucks for the broken blade...." The thought of all of the troubles had started him blubbering again. I saw then that he was only a year or two older than me-and a lot more insecure. So my first introduction to criminal life found me cheering him up, getting a wet towel to wipe his face, giving him back his knife-and even giving him a five-buck goidpiece to stop his crying. I was beginning to feel that a life of crime was not quite what I thought it would be.
It was easy enough to get the story of his life-in fact it was hard to shut him up once he got in full spate. He was filled with self-pity and wallowed in the chance to reveal all to an audience.
Pretty sordid, I thought, but kept silent while his boring reminiscences washed over me. Slow in school, laughed at by the others, the lowest marks. Weak and put upon by the bullies, gaining status only when he discovered-by accident of course with a broken bottle-that he could be a bully too once he had a weapon. The rise in status, if not respect, after that by using threats of violence and more than a little bullying. All of this reinforced by demonstrations of dissections on live birds and other small and harmless creatures. Then his rapid fall after cutting a boy and being caught. Sentenced to Juvenile Hall, released, then more trouble and back to Hall yet again. Until here he was, at the zenith of his career as a knife-carrying punk, imprisoned for extorting money by threat of violence. From a child of course. He was far too insecure to attempt to threaten an adult.
Of course he did not say all this, not at once, but it became obvious after endless rambling complaints. I tuned him out and tuned my inner thoughts in. Bad luck, that was all it was. I had probably been put in with him to keep me from the company of the real hardened criminals who filled this prison.
The lights went out at that moment and I lay back on the bunk. Tomorrow would be my day. I would meet the other inmates, size them up, find the real criminals among them. Befriend them and begin my graduate course in crime. That is surely what I would do.
I went happily to sleep, washed over by a wave of wimpish whining from the adjoining bunk. Just bad luck being stuck in with him. Willy was the exception. I had a roommate who was a loser, that was all. It would all be different in the morning.
I hoped. There was a little nag of worry that kept me awake for a bit, but at last I shrugged it off. Tomorrow would be fine, yes it would be. Fine. No doubt about that, fine....
Chapter 3
Breakfast was no better-and no worse-than the ones I made for myself. I ate automatically, sipping the weak cactus tea and chewing doggedly at the gruel, while I looked around at the other tables. There were about thirty prisoners stuffing their faces in this room, and my gaze went from face to face with a growing feeling of despair.
Firstly, most of them had the same vacuous look of blank stupidity as my cellmate. All right, I could accept that, the criminal classes would of course contain the maladjusted and the mental mud walls. But there had to be more than that! I hoped.
Secondly they were all quite young, none out of their twenties. Weren't there any old criminals? Or was criminality a malfunction of youth that was quickly cured by the social adjustment machines? There had to be more to it than that. There had to be. I took some cheer from this thought. All of these prisoners were losers, that was obvious, losers and incompetents. It was obvious once you thought about it. If they had been any good at their chosen profession they wouldn't be inside! They were of no use to the world or to themselves.
But they were to me. If they couldn't supply the illegal facts that I needed, they would surely be able to put me in touch with those who did. From them I would get leads to the criminals on the outside, the professionals still uncaught. That was what I had to do. Befriend them and extract the information that I needed. All was not lost yet.
It didn't take long for me to discover the best of this despicable lot. A little group was gathered around a hulking young man who sported a broken nose and a scarred face. Even the guards seemed to avoid him. He strutted a good deal and the others made room around him when he walked in the exercise yard after lunch, "Who is that?" I asked Willy, who huddled on the bench next to me, industriously picking his nose. He biinked rapidly until he finally made out the subject of my attentions, then waved his hands with despair.
"Watch out for him, stay away, he's bad medicine. Stinger is a killer, that's what I heard, and I believe it too. And he's a champ at mudslugging. You don't want to know him." This was intriguing indeed. I had heard of mudslugging, but I had always lived too close to the city to have seen it in action. There was never any of it taking place near enough for me to hear about, not with the police all around. Mudslugging was a crude sport-and illegal-that was enjoyed in the outlying farm towns. In the winter, with the porcuswine in their sties and the crops in the barns, time would hang heavy on their agrarian hands. That was when the mudslugging would begin. A stranger would appear and challenge the local champion, usually some overmuscled ploughboy. A clandestine engagement would be arranged in some remote barn, the women dismissed, moonshine sureptitiously brought in plastic bottles, bets made-and the barefisted fight begun. To end when one of the combatants could not get off the ground. Not a sport for the squeamish, or the sober. Good, hearty, drunken masculine fun. And Stinger was one of this stalwart band. I must get to know Stinger better.
This was easily enough done. I suppose I could have just walked over and spoken to him, but my thought patterns were still warped by all of the bad videos I had watched for most of my life. Plenty of these were about criminals getting their just deserts in prison; which is probably where I originated the idea of this present escapade. Never matter, the idea was still a sound one. I could prove that by talking to Stinger.
To do this I walked, whistling, about the yard until I was close to him and his followers. One of them scowled at me and I scuttled away. Only to return as soon as his back was turned, to sidle up beside the head villain.
"Are you Stinger?" I whispered out of the side of my mouth, head turned away from him. He must have seen the same videos because he answered in the same way. "Yeah. So who wants to know?" "Me. I just got into this joint. I got a message for you from the outside." "So teH." "Not where these dummies can hear. We gotta be alone." He gave me a most suipicious look from under his' beetling brows. But I had succeeded in capturing his curiosity. He muttered something to his followers, then strolled away. They remained behind but flashed murderous looks at me when I strolled in the same direction. He went across the yard towards a bench-the two men already there fleeing as he approached. I sat down ne~t to him and he looked me up and down with disdain. "Say what you gotta say, kid-and it better be good." "This is for you," I said, sliding a twenty-buck coin along the bench towards him. "The message is from me and from no one else. I need some help and am willing to pay for it. Here is a down payment. There is plenty more where this came from." He sniffed disdainfully-but his thick fingers scraped up the coin and slipped it into his pocket. "I ain't in the charity business, kid. The only geezer I help is myself. Now, shove off-" "Listen to what I have to say first. What I need is someone to break out of prison with me. One week from today. Are you interested?" I had caught his attention this time. He turned and looked me square in the eye, cold and assured. "I don't like jokes," he said-and his hand grabbed my wrist and twisted. It hurt. I could have broken the grip easily, but I did not. If this little bit of bullying was important to him, then bully away.