The guard still took no notice. Afterward, Miles guessed the man had been tipped off in advance and bribed. Since guards were abysmally underpaid, bribery in the prison was a way of life.
Near the exit from the showers, where others were begining to dress, was a narrow open doorway. Still surrounded, Miles was shoved through. He was conscious of black and white bodies. Behind them, the door slammed shut.
The room inside was small and used for storage. Brooms, mops, cleaning materials were in screened and padlocked cupboards. Near the room's center was a trestle table. Miles was slammed face downward on it; his mouth and nose hit the wooden surface hard. He felt teeth loosen. His eyes filled with tears. His nose began to bleed.
While his feet stayed on the floor, his legs were roughly pulled apart. He fought desperately, despairingly, trying to move. The many hands restrained him.
"Hold still, pretty boy." Miles heard grunting and felt a thrust. A second later he screamed in pain, disgust, and horror. Whoever was holding his head seized it by the hair, raised and slammed it down. "Shaddupl" Now pain, in waves, was everywhere.
"Ain't she lovely?" The voice seemed in the distance, echoing and dreamlike.
The penetration ended. Before his body could know relief, another began. Despite himself, knowing the consequences, he screamed again. Once more his head was banged.
During the next few minutes and the monstrous repetition, Miles's mind began to drift, his awareness waned. As strength left him, his struggles lessened. But the physical agony intensified a searing of membrane, the fiery abrasion of a thousand sensory nerve ends.
Consciousness must have left him totally, then returned. From outside he heard a guard's whistle being blown. It was a signal to hurry with the dressing and assemble in the yard. He was aware of restraining hands withdrawn. Behind him a door opened. The others in the room were running out.
Bleeding, bruised, and barely conscious, Miles staggered out. The merest movement of his body caused him suffering.
"Hey, you!" the guard bawled from the platform. "Move ass, you goddam pansyl"
Groping, only half aware of what he was doing, Miles took the wire basket with his clothes and began to pull them on. Most of the others in his group of fifty were already outside in the yard. Another fifty men who had been under the showers were ready to transfer to the dressing area.
The guard shouted fiercely for the second time, "Shithead! I said move!"
Stepping into his rough drill prison pants, Miles stumbled and would have fallen, but for an arm which reached out, holding him.
'make it easy, kid," a deep voice said. "Here, I’ll help.. The first hand continued to hold him steady while a second aided in putting the pants on.
The guard's whistle blasted shrilly. "Nigger, you hear met You an' that pansy get the hell outside, or be on report." "Yassir, yassir, big boss. Right away, now. Let's go, kid."
Miles was aware, hazily, that the man beside him was huge and black. Later, he would learn the other's name was Karl and that he was serving a life sentence for murder. Miles would wonder, too, if Karl had been among the gang which raped him. He suspected that he was, but never asked, and never knew for sure.
What Miles did discover was that the black giant, despite his size and uncouthness, had a gentleness of manner and a sensitive consideration almost feminine.
From the shower house, supported by KarL Miles walked unsteadily outdoors.
There were some smirks from other prisoners but on the faces of most Miles read contempt. A wizened old-timer spat disgustedly and turned away.
Miles made it through the remainder of the day back to his cell, later to the mess hall where he couldn't eat the slop he usually forced down from hunger, and finally to his cell again, with help along the way from Karl. His other three cell companions ignored him as if he were a leper. Racked by pain and misery he slept, tossed, woke, lay fitfully awake for hours suffering the fetid air, slept briefly, woke again. With daybreak, and the clangor of cell doors opening, came renewed fear: When would it happen again? He suspected soon. In the yard during "exercise" period during which most of the prison population stood around aimlessly Karl sought him out. "How y' feel, kid?"
Miles shook his head dejectedly. "Awful." He added, "Thanks for what you did." He was aware that the big black had saved him from being on report, as the shower room guard had threatened. That would have meant punishment probably time in the hole and an adverse mark on his record for parole.
"It's okay, kid. One thing, though, you gotta figure. One time, like yesterday, ain't gonna satisfy them guys. They like dogs now, with you a bitch in heat. They'll be after you again."
"What can I do?" The confirmation of Miles's fears made his voice quaver and his body tremble. The other watched him shrewdly.
"What you need, kid, is a protector. Some stud to look out for you. How'd you like me for yours?" "Why should you do that?"
"You start bein' my regular boy friend, I take care o' you. Them others know you 'n me's steady, they ain't gonna lay no hand on you. They know they do, there's me to reckon with." Karl curled one hand into a fist; it was the size of a small ham.
Though he already knew the answer, Miles asked, "What would you want?"
"Your sweet white ass, baby." The big man dosed his eyes and went on dreamily. "Your body just for me. Any time I need it. I'll take care of where." Miles Eastin wanted to be sick. "How 'bout it, baby? Waddya say?"
As he had so many times already, Miles thought despairingly: Whatever was done before, does anyone deserve this?
Yet he was here. And had learned that prison was a jungle debased and savage, lacking justice where a man was stripped of human rights the day he came. He said bitterly, "Do I have a choice?"
"Put it that way, no I guess you ain't." A pause, then impatiently, "Well, we on?" Miles said miserably, "I suppose so."
Looking pleased, Karl draped an arm proprietorially around the other's shoulders. Miles, shriveling inside, willed himself not to draw away.
"We gotta git you moved some, baby. To my tier. Maybe my pad." Karl's cell was in a lower tier than Miles's, in an opposite wing of the X-shaped cell house. The big man licked his lips. "Yeah, man." The hand on Miles was already wandering. Karl asked, "You got bread?"
"No." Miles knew that if he had had money it could have eased his way already. Prisoners with financial resources on the outside, and who used them, suffered less than prisoners with none.
"Ain't got none neither," Karl confided. "Guess I'll hafta figure sumpum."
Miles nodded dully. Already, he realized, he had begun to accept the ignominious "girl friend" role. But he knew, too, the way things worked here, that while the arrangement with Karl lasted he was safe. There would be no further gang rape. The belief proved correct.
There were no more attacks, or attempted fondlings, or kisses blown. Karl had a reputation for knowing how to use his mighty fists. It was rumored that a year ago he had used a shiv to kin a fellow prisoner who angered him, though officially the murder was unsolved.
Miles also was transferred, not only to Karl's tier, but to his cell. Obviously the transfer was a result of money changing hands. Miles asked Karl how he had managed it.
The big black chuckled. "Them guys in Mafia Row put up the bread. Over there they like you, baby." "Like me?"
In common with other prisoners, Miles was aware of Mafia Row, otherwise known as the Italian Colony. It was a segment of cells housing the big wheels of organized crime whose outside contacts and influence made them respected and feared even, some said, by the prison governor. Inside Drummonburg their privileges were legendary. Such privileges included key prison jobs, extra freedom