Back in the office she called the numbers in to the security office.
“Hey, Ferguson, if you can’t climax any faster than this, we’ll get a real man in there to help you,” Officer Aiken grouched.
“And if you can’t give birth, you’re taking up far too much space on the planet, Ron.”
“Doctor, doctor,” he screeched. “I’m already at three centimeters.”
“Well, keep tickling it, Ron. Maybe you’ll get it up to three inches.” Frieda said, flinching when Ron slammed his phone into the cradle.
Locking the office again, she went into the television room and sat near the door where she could see down the hall. When a commercial came on, the men started fidgeting. She didn’t usually sit there with them unless they were noisy or there was some problem that required her presence.
“It’s okay,” Frieda teased. “I didn’t catch you at it, whatever it was.” The fidgeting stopped. “I need some information.”
“We don’t know nuthin’. We just cons.”
“That’s why you know, guys. Don’t fight with me, I’m on your side.” She waited until they looked at her. “I’ve seen new men come into the house who act up. And to keep them from bringing the heat down on all of us, you guys teach them the facts of life. Don’t deny it,” she said as the men started to protest. “I’ve heard you. That’s fine. You make life easier for everyone. What I’m wondering is, why haven’t you been able to civilize Greene? He’s been here two months, and he’s still acting like a bull with a bee in his ear.”
“Hmmph! That punk!” Otis muttered.
“He got an attitude, Miss Frieda.” John said quietly. “Be careful he don’t hurt you.”
“He picks on Willis,” Frieda said. “Why do you think he might hurt me?”
Silence. Frieda waited.
“We been tryin’ to straighten him out,” Manny said.
“Greene don’t like queers, or women neither,” Otis offered. “Ain’t no queers in this house since Benny gone home.”
“He know he can always get Willis mad if he call him queer,” Manny said, “and when Willis mad, he fight, and Greene always win.”
“Make him feel like a big man,” Otis added.
“And he doesn’t like women?” Frieda asked.
“He don’t like women who be in charge, Miss Frieda,” John explained. “He got to be top dog, ’specially over women. An’ he know how to use his fists. Be extra careful, Miss Frieda.”
“Jerk need to be in the walls till he learn how to act,” Manny said.
“Why he ain’t never locked down?” Otis asked. “Other mens do time in the hole for less than what he do.”
Frieda watched the light change on the wall across from the stair. Someone was moving just outside the door. As quietly as she could, she got up from the plastic covered lounge chair and stepped quickly to the door. She almost collided with Howard from room number twenty.
“Could I get a couple of aspirin?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
Frieda relaxed. It wouldn’t do to start imagining things. Graveyard shift could do funny things to the mind. She gave Howard his aspirin and followed him up the stairs and into the hall.
All quiet. She walked slowly through the hallway and down the stairs at the other end.
The rest of the night was uneventful. The three men watching television were in their rooms before two o’clock without her prodding them. Frieda’s shift ended at seven in the morning. She had to sleep fast and be back by three in the afternoon to do Derrick’s shift and then her own for the next two days. Back-to-back doubles. Two sixteens. And Greene.
“Well, what’s the verdict on Greene?” Frieda asked Ray when she arrived shortly before three that afternoon.
“The usual,” Ray growled. “Be nice, now, Tommy,” he squeaked, mocking an ineffective mother scolding her naughty child. “Room confinement till Monday morning at seven when the captain gets in,” he added in his own voice.
“Well, that helps me a little. Have a good evening, Ray. I’ll be here when you get back. Maybe he’ll escape before then.”
“Wish he would,” Ray grumbled.
“Doesn’t Security ever tell you why they insist we keep him when he causes so much trouble in here?”
“No, and it’s the damnedest thing. Seems like somebody in here’s being set up. Hope it ain’t me.”
“Or me.”
The main hallway on the ground floor ran from the television room on one end to the dining room on the other. On the left, just outside the dining room, a short hall led to the rear exit, the basement door, the back stairway, and the kitchen. The kitchen was separated from the dining room by a long pass-through counter.
Before five o’clock the men were lining up outside the dining room door. Willis was in the kitchen setting up the food on the steam table, ignoring them as best he could.
Frieda remembered when Willis first moved into the cottage. The security director told the officers that Willis was slightly retarded and easily frustrated. If he felt cornered, he would fight. Because he was soothed by the music he loved, the officers were instructed to allow Willis to play his radio even when he was on room confinement, which was often. What Frieda could not understand was why, if that were true about Willis, he would be given the job of serving food. The kitchen man needed nerves of steel and a lot of self-control, more than in any other inmate job in the entire institution. Everyone always complained about the food and heaped abuse on the kitchen man even though his job was only to serve the food that had been delivered from the main kitchen. And on top of that undeserved abuse Willis had to put up with the stress of living with Greene. Poor Willis.
Frieda stood against the far wall of the dining room facing the door and hallway, watching the men as they snaked in, took their food, and sat down to eat at tables of four. She took her plate last. She had just finished eating when she heard the telephone ringing and went to the office to answer it.
As she returned to the dining room, she saw Greene standing at the foot of the back stairs, taunting Willis through the open kitchen door. At that moment Willis scooped up a spoonful of mashed potatoes and flung them at Greene. Greene ducked, and the potatoes splashed against the door frame near Frieda’s head. She stopped short. Greene spun around when he saw the horrified look on Willis’s face.
“Get!” Frieda said, her thumb pointing up the stairs. The word was like a gunshot.
Already moving, Greene sprinted up the stairs three at a time. A few diners fingered in the dining room, waiting to see what Frieda would do. Several more men gathered at the door, drawn by the drama. They had never before heard Frieda raise her voice. No one spoke.
Frieda entered the dining room, grabbing up a napkin as she passed the counter, and wiped potato spatters from her forehead and hair. She sat down, covered her face with both hands, and shook with laughter. She laughed until the tears came.
“You all right, sarge?” somebody asked.
She stifled a giggle. “Just a little hysteria,” she said wiping her eyes. Willis stood like a statue, shocked by what he had almost done. “Finish up,” Frieda told him. To the rest of the men, who had once more begun to breathe, she said, “I’m going to see if I can get that bozo out of here.” She returned to the office to phone the lieutenant on duty.
“He stays,” Lieutenant Austin said irritably. “He’s on room confinement already. It’s your job to see that he stays in his room.” In the background Frieda could hear male voices telling convict jokes accompanied by raucous laughter. “I’ll stop in when I get a chance,” the lieutenant added.
Frieda spent most of the evening walking through the house. She would make sure Greene and Willis stayed in their rooms. She decided to ask Ray if he would be able to move Greene downstairs nearer the office and farther from Willis.