Fear Me

11

Romero was sitting alone in the bleachers by the football field when Aquintez showed. “Hey, home, been looking for you.”

“Lot of people seem to be looking for me.”

“That’s what I hear,” Aquintez said. “Word’s out that Black Dog warned you off of Palmquist.”

“Sure, they’re saving him for Tony Gordo. Don’t want me interfering, doing anything impractical like trying to help the kid out.”

He shared his conversation with Black Dog, though Aquintez had pretty much guessed the lay of it. That was prison life: nothing new behind those walls, just the same old games played year in and year out.

Aquintez pulled off his unfiltered cigarette, spitting out a few stray bits of tobacco. “All right, home. I want you to listen to me and hear me on this. You can’t stand up against these people. You can’t throw yourself against the might of animals like Black Dog and the bikers, the ABs and Papa Joe. They’ll fucking skin you, bro.”

“I know that, JoJo.”

“Then why we having this convo, eh?” Aquintez said. “Why am I seeing something in your eyes that looks like suicide? Why am I thinking you’re just crazy enough to try and protect that fish and forfeit your own life at the same time?”

But Romero would not and maybe could not answer that one. Maybe he didn’t know himself. All these lean, hungry years just getting by, just existing in this cage, not caring, not giving a damn, getting real slick and practiced at turning a blind eye… and now this. Now something he could not understand had been activated just south of his soul and he could not get a handle on it. It told him he had to help the fish regardless of the consequences.

It would not listen to reason.

It would not be practical.

It refused apathy at every turn.

“There’s your boy,” Aquintez said, scoping out Palmquist over by the fence, trying to fade away and blend in like a stain on a wall. “There’s your fish.”

“He ain’t mine,” Romero told him.

Aquintez exhaled smoke through his nostrils, then he smiled. “Ah, but you’re feeling bad for him and the ugly fate awaiting him, eh? Something in you—probably that part I love and respect—wants to protect this kid, beat down any of these vermin who come after him. But you gotta be practical, my friend. Papa Joe says you’re going over, you’re going over. You stand in the way… bad, very bad. It don’t have to be Black Dog’s people or the ABs or Papa Joe’s social club, he throws the casheesh out there and every con with a shank’ll be coming after you. You can’t fight that.”

“No.”

“But you’re considering it…”

Romero did not deny that because he couldn’t. Part of him very badly wanted to stand up for Palmquist before those animals got their dirty hands all over him… but another part wanted to distance himself from the fish as much as possible. Because there was no getting around one thing much as he himself tried—Weems had fucked with the kid and now Weems was dead. Something had happened last night. Something had happened when Palmquist was sleeping and Romero could tell himself again and again that he had dreamed it, but he just didn’t believe that.

He kept thinking about what Palmquist had said about this brother of his. Crazy shit. It made no sense, yet Romero could not stop thinking about it.

My brother… Damon… he’s not like us, he’s different.

Ah, it was nonsense. Goddamn fish probably wasn’t right in the head. He’d been victimized at Brickhaven and he wasn’t in touch with reality, threading the needle in fantasy la-la land. That had to be it.

“But something got Weems,” he said under his breath, but loud enough for Aquintez to hear.

“That’s true enough, home.”

“Bodies keep turning up around Palmquist. Cons are slaughtered in locked cells. Cons that seem to be hooked up with the kid in some way.” Romero shook his head. “I’m thinking out loud like some kind of headcase.”

“You ain’t thinking nothing I’m not, bro,” Aquintez said, standing up and butting his cigarette. “Maybe the fish got something going on, eh? Maybe he got a guardian angel. Maybe Tony Gordo ought to think about that.”

Romero watched him walk away, thinking pretty much the same things. The problem was that guys like Tony Gordo did not think. They acted, they reacted. Like dumb animals. They were hungry, they ate. They were tired, they slept. You cornered them, they clawed out your eyes. And when their hormones got the best of them, they—

“Hey, Romero,” one of the hacks said, motioning with his stick. “You got cigarette butts on the ground. Clean it up. Don’t be messing up my fucking yard.”

“Yes sir, boss,” Romero said.