Fear Me

4

The next morning, out in the yard.

Romero was there with a Hispanic strong-arm thief named JoJo Aquintez and a big, tattooed biker named Riggs who looked like something that sharpened its teeth on bones in a Neolithic cave. All three of them, sitting on a picnic table near the wall, looking outrageous in their orange prison-issue jumpsuits.

Riggs was saying how he was walking in four months, his term would be up. He had waved his right to parole, did the extra time so he wouldn’t have no parole officer sniffing around his ass out in the world.

“I walk through them fucking gates, boys, I walk high and free,” he told them. “Start turning some green day one.”

Romero knew what that was about.

Riggs was a member of the Mongols motorcycle club, a major player in their meth distribution network. When he got out, he was just going to pick up where he left off. Most cons were like that. Riggs had pulled a nickel for putting a black cocaine dealer in a wheelchair with his bare hands. That’s the sort of guy he was.

Aquintez was saying how he’d be staring at those walls for some time to come, had five more years to pull on his bit. But when he got out, no more armed robbery. That’s what got him here. He was thinking something less violent, maybe insurance fraud. Guy could make a killing at that, if he knew the angles.

Romero wasn’t listening, though.

He was watching Danny Palmquist hanging around by the baseball diamond with all the other losers—the child molesters and rapists, serial killers and weaklings. The other cons didn’t like those types, guys that hurt kids and women. It didn’t take any balls for that. And in stir, real balls carried respect, carried dignity, assured your place in the food chain as a real man. Even in prison there were undesirables, guys you could look down on. Sometimes, when the real cons were having a hard day, they’d go over there to the diamond and kick the shit out of some faggot serial killer or short-eye. Made them feel better about themselves.

Yeah, that’s where Palmquist was.

Keeping to himself, trying to avoid the attentions of the baby-rapers over there.

But some of the cons in the yard were watching him, wondering about the new bitch, thinking about running his track.

“What you think of your new cellie, Romero?” Aquintez asked, pulling off a home-rolled cigarette, half-tobacco and half-Mary Jane.

Good question, that one. Thing was, Romero just wasn’t sure. Kid was a punk, he was meat, harmless as a kitty in a box… yet, yet there was something creepy about the little bastard. Something Romero didn’t care for, but couldn’t honestly put a name to.

“Look where he’s hanging at,” Romero said. “What’s that tell you?”

Riggs shook his head, had half a mind to waltz over there and kick some rapo ass.

“Just a punk,” Romero said. “Ain’t nothing more than that.”

“I hear he was over at Brickhaven, heard he got into some trouble there,” Aquintez mentioned. “Can’t seem to find out what he did, though.”

“Look at him,” Riggs said in his gravelly voice. “He was probably somebody’s old lady over there. Maybe he fell in love with some punk and his daddy took it personal, went after his new love.”

Romero said, “He’s loony, that one. Thinks if anyone throws down on him, his brother’s gonna come save his white meat ass.”

Aquintez thought that was funny. “Gonna break in or what? Never heard of a guy breaking into Shaddock. Out once or twice, but never in.”

“Brickhaven,” Riggs said, scratching his shaggy beard. “That was some funny shit happened there. I knew one of them guys that got done. His name was Fritz, Donnie Fritz. A real nasty piece of work. Him and his cellie, some nigger named Boles… shit, they got done after lock-down, done real bad.”

And that was the word coming down the prison grapevine. Fritz and Boles got murdered in their cells, looked like somebody had taken a chainsaw after them. Nothing but a lot of meat and blood to mark their passing. And after lock-down, yet. That was hard to explain.

“Maybe you want a new cellie,” Aquintez told Romero. “I’ll talk to Benny, he can square it for you.”

But Romero shook his head. “Not yet. This kid is funny, something odd about him. I wanna see how it plays out.”

At the baseball diamond, a big black guy by the name of Reggie Weems was getting tired of waiting. He went over there and all the other rapos got out of his way. He went right up to Palmquist, took hold of him and brought the little shit up real close like he was going to kiss him. There was a scuffle and Weems started knocking the kid around.

“Looks like your boy got a bite with that bait he’s been trolling,” Aquintez said, unconcerned.

Riggs laughed, thought it was funny Weems knocking the shit out of that little weasel.

Romero tossed his cigarette, started over there, not really sure why.

Aquintez said, “Fuck you going? He your punk or what? I don’t know, home, that Weems is a rough one, you better take a blade. Do it proper.”

But Romero didn’t want a blade and he didn’t want Riggs’s help either. The biker said he’d come, that he could handle Weems just fine. But Romero told them he just wanted to watch Palmquist get a dose of reality.

By the time he got there, it was over with.

The hacks hadn’t seen a thing. Partly because the other cons ringed Weems and Palmquist in so they could dance in private and partly because the hacks never saw anything. You could gang rape their mothers three feet away and they wouldn’t put down their magazines to stop it. Lazy, stupid, and indifferent were a way of life for hacks, Romero knew.

Weems was already moving off to join the brothers over by the basketball courts, he didn’t pay no mind to Romero and Romero paid no mind to him. Palmquist was sitting on his ass, spitting out blood and teeth. His left eye was beginning to swell shut and his lower lip was almost ripped from his mouth.

“You like that?” Romero put to him, not bothering to offer him a hand or even a squirt of sympathy. “Well, you better get used to it, Cherry. Because you’re gonna be living on a steady diet of ass-beatings twenty-four/seven. Every day from now on. First they’re going to beat you, then… you know what comes next, don’t you?”

Palmquist nodded. “I know. I been here before, in this situation.”

Romero figured some con had busted his ass at Brickhaven. Wouldn’t have surprised him. “Well, then you know what you’re in for.”

But Palmquist just shook his head. “That fucking nigger is dead, only he don’t know it yet and there ain’t shit I can do about it.” He was grinning now, blood all over his teeth. “See, Romero, I got me an ace in the hole.”

“You’re gonna have more than an ace in there, mark my word,” Romero said.

But Palmquist said nothing.