Ross Sumner keeps up the eye contact for another second or two before throwing his head back and bursting out in laughter. Everyone turns toward us.
“Now that,” he exclaims when he catches his breath, “was funny! No, really, David, that’s what I was talking about. That’s why I sat here. For that kind of give-n-take. For that kind of mental stimulation. Thank you. Thank you, David.”
I don’t reply.
He is still laughing as he rises and says, “I’m going to grab some toast. May I get you something while I’m up?”
“I’m good.”
I close my eyes for a moment and rub my temples. A headache is crashing through me like a freight train. They started after that first beating, the remnants of a concussion and cracked skull. The prison doctor called them “cluster” headaches. I am still massaging my temples, stupidly letting my guard down, when an arm snakes around my neck. Before I can react, the arm snaps back hard, crushing my windpipe. My throat feels as though it’s about to spurt out the back of my neck. My eyes bulge, my hand clawing impotently at his forearm.
Ross Sumner tightens his grip. He pulls back harder now. My legs shoot up, my shins smacking the table. The utensils jump. I start falling backward. Sumner releases his iron grip as the back of my head slams against the floor.
I see stars.
I blink. When I look up, Ross Sumner is leaping high in the air. That boyish grin is way north of maniacal now. I try to roll away. I try to raise my hands to ward him off. But I’m too late. Ross lands on me with his full weight, both knees pulverizing my rib cage.
I see more stars now.
I try to call out, try to scramble away, but Sumner straddles me. I wait for him to start throwing punches, wondering what I can do to stop him. But that’s not what he does. Instead, he opens his mouth wide and lowers his head toward my chest.
Even through my prison jumpsuit, the bite breaks my skin.
I howl. Ross sinks his teeth deeper into the fleshy area right below my nipple. The pain is excruciating. The other inmates quickly surround us and lock arms, a fairly common prison technique to keep the guards away. But somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain, I know that no guards will step in. Not yet anyway. Not until one of us is unconscious. It’s safer for them. Guards don’t like risking injury.
I am on my own.
Still on my back, his teeth drawing blood, I draw on whatever reserves are left in my empty tank. I lift my hands up, palms facing each other, and with all my limited strength, I box Ross Sumner’s ears. The blows do not land flush, but Sumner’s jaw still unclenches. That’s all I could have hoped for. I roll hard, trying to get him off me. He goes with my momentum. When his feet hit the ground, he pounces on my back. He threads the arm back around my windpipe.
His grip tightens.
I can’t get air.
I twist back and forth. Ross holds on. I try to buck and flail. Ross’s grip does not slacken. Pressure is building in my head. My lungs are crying out for air. The stars are back, swirling, but what I mostly see now is night. I struggle for one breath, just one, but that’s a no-go.
I can’t breathe.
My eyes start to close. My fellow inmates’ cheers are one indistinct blur. Ross Sumner lowers his head closer to me.
“That ear looks tasty.”
He is about to bite down on my ear. I barely care. I try again to buck, but there is nothing behind it. All I can think about is being able to breathe. Just one breath. That’s all. His lips are right up against my ear now. I struggle like a dying fish on the line.
Where the hell are the guards?
By now, they should be stepping in. They don’t want a dead inmate. That’s not good for anyone. But then I remember Ross Sumner’s wealth, his family’s proclivity for payoffs, and again I realize that no one is going to save me.
If I lose consciousness — and I’m about to — I die.
And if I die, where would that leave Matthew?
Seconds now from passing out, capillaries bursting in my closed eyes, I lower my chin and let myself go limp. This isn’t easy. It goes against every instinct. But I pull it off. There is only one thing left to do. Fight fire with fire.
I open my mouth and bite down on Ross Sumner’s arm.
Hard.
His cry of pain is the most satisfying sound I have heard in a long time.
The grip on my windpipe immediately eases as he tries to pull his arm away. I greedily gulp air through flaring lips. But my teeth don’t let go. He screams again. My jaw clenches down even stronger. He shakes his arm. I hang on like a bulldog. I feel the hairs of his arm against my face. I bite down even harder.
His blood trickles into my mouth. I don’t care.
Ross has managed to stand. I am on my knees. He throws a punch. I think it hits the top of my head, but I don’t feel it. He tries to gather enough leverage to pull his arm free, but I’m ready. The crowd is on my side now. I throw an elbow at his groin. Ross Sumner collapses like a folding chair. His weight tears his arm free from my teeth, but some flesh stays behind.
I spit it out.
I jump on him, straddle his chest, and start throwing punches.
I flatten his nose. I can actually feel the cartilage spread under my knuckles. I grab his collar and pull him up. Then I cock my fist again, take my time, and throw hard at his face. Splat. I do it again. Then again. Sumner’s head lolls now as though his neck is a weak spring. I’m almost giddy now. My eyes are wide. I pull back again to hit him, but this time, someone hooks my arm. Then someone tackles me from behind.
The guards are on me now, pinning me to the ground. I don’t resist. I keep my eyes on the bloody mess of a man lying on the floor in front of me.
And for a brief moment, I actually smile.
Chapter 5
Warden Philip Mackenzie’s plane touched down at Boston’s Logan Airport without incident. He had grown up a stone’s throw away from Logan in nearby Revere. Back in those days, Logan Airport’s main landing route had flown the noisiest of jets over his house. To a little boy, the sound had been deafening, earth-shattering. His two older brothers, who shared the bedroom with him, would somehow sleep through it, but Little Philip would grasp the railing of his top bunk as the planes passed, the bed shaking so hard he feared falling off. Some nights, the planes seemed to be swooping so low they’d rip the fraying roof right off the house.
Back then, Revere Beach had been a blue-collar community right outside of Boston. It still was in most respects. Philip’s father had been a house painter, his mom stayed home (no married women worked in those days — single women could be teachers, nurses, or secretaries) with the six Mackenzie kids — three boys sharing one bedroom, three girls sharing another, one bathroom for all of them.
The taxi dropped Philip off in front of a familiar four-family home on Dehon Street. The dwelling was decaying brick. The front door was shedding faded-green paint. The large stoop, the stoop where Philip had spent countless childhood hours with his buddies, especially Lenny Burroughs, was made up of chipped concrete. For thirty years, the Burroughs family had taken up all four apartments. Lenny’s family was on the first floor on the right. His cousin Selma, who had been widowed young, had the apartment above with her daughter Deborah. Aunt Sadie and Uncle Hymie were on the first floor left. Other relatives — a churning potpourri of aunts, uncles, cousins, who-knows-what — took turns in the fourth apartment above Hymie and Sadie’s. That was how this neighborhood was in those days. Immigrant families — Philip’s being Irish, Lenny’s Jewish — had poured in from across the Atlantic over a three-decade period. Those already here — they took in family. Always. They helped the newcomers find jobs. Some relatives slept on a couch or a floor for weeks, months, whatever. There was no privacy, and that was okay. These homes were breathing entities, in constant motion. Friends and family members constantly flowed through the corridors and stairwells like lifeblood through veins. No one locked their doors, not because it was super safe — it wasn’t — but because family members never knocked or were denied access. Privacy was an alien concept. Everybody minded everybody else’s business. You celebrated one another’s victories and mourned their defeats. You were one.