Fear Me

He walked away. He couldn’t trust what his mouth might say and what kind of shit it might get him into. Palmquist’s ticket was already punched. The hacks wouldn’t help him and nobody in the joint would dare intervene in Papa Joe’s business and especially with a meat-eater like Gordo involved.

Bunching his fists, frustrated and pissed-off, Romero began to wonder what he was going to do about it. Was he going to be smart and look the other way or was he going to jump feet-first into the fires of hell?

The thing was, he didn’t really know.

6

Lights out.

Romero was laying on his bunk, thinking and trying not to. There were a lot of things flying around in his head, a real shitstorm is what it was. He was thinking about the kid, about Palmquist, thinking how it was going to be for the little bastard when Reggie Weems and his crew started turning up the heat, started making these beatings a daily thing. How it was going to be when they all started using him, passing him around like a five-dollar hooker in a lumber camp. Because that’s where this trail always led. The kid was in for it. Maybe he already had a taste at Brickhaven, but it was going to be worse here.

Things were always worse at Shaddock.

Romero had seen it before and it always made him sick. Sick to watch some kid putting up with that, his dignity stripped away from him day by miserable day until there wasn’t anything left when those animals were through. Until Palmquist was a pale, trembling thing, a bitch that only spoke when spoken to, that would suck dick or spread his cheeks anytime some lifer snapped his oily fingers.

Romero couldn’tlit get involved.

He got in Weems’ way and there was going to be trouble. And it could only end one way, with Romero shanking him, stabbing that dumb fucking spade until he bled out. And if Romero did that, he made that choice, one of Weems’ crew would rat on him. See to it that he was sitting here at Shaddock Valley for another ten or twenty years. Jesus. The idea of that made Romero’s throat squeeze tight until he could barely fill his lungs with air. But to watch Palmquist go like that…

Reggie Weems is going to be the least of that kid’s worries and you know it now that Papa Joe is putting Tony Gordo on him. Even if the kid slips away from Weems there’s no way in hell he’ll get away from that fucking monster.

Romero had done his share of time. But never in all those years did humping somebody’s ass seem like a good alternative. It was that bad on you, you used your hand. But some of these guys, they liked it just fine, the sex you could get here in prison.

So you’re just going to let them degrade that kid, aren’t you? a voice of guilt hammered at him, just when he’d thought it was long dead. A con with a conscience of all crazy things. Let them turn him into their whore, break him wide open, tear his soul right out…and you’re just going to stand back and let it happen?

Romero didn’t know.

He didn’t know much of anything these days.

So he shut his eyes and tried not to see Reggie Weems or Tony Gordo. He let sleep take him, because tomorrow was just another day like this one and the one two years ago and the one two years from now. Day by day by pissing day, it never changed when you were doing time.

You hardened your heart and bleached your soul white and just looked the other way. It was the only way to get by.

7

Romero woke and he had no idea what time it was.

It was just late.

And dark.

Something was going on and he wasn’t sure what the hell it could be, but it was real or otherwise it wouldn’t have woken him. He listened. Heard his own breathing, the kid’s above him. But something else, too, something that made his throat go dry and the flesh at his scalp go tight and hot. It was a funny wet sort of sound, all sqen uishy and slimy-sounding like something was being pulled out of a drain with a coat hanger.

The springs above him creaked ever so slightly and Palmquist shifted up there…only Romero could still hear him breathing deep and long. He was thinking that whatever was moving up there…it wasn’t the kid. He didn’t know what it was, but he could hear it sliding around with a moist unpleasant sound like a baby crawling free of afterbirth.

Jesus…those sounds…what the hell is happening up there?

Romero figured he didn’t want to know, because whatever it was, it was just plain bad, something you just didn’t want to look upon. The air had gone hot and dank with a gassy odor like rotting cabbage and Romero was gripping the edges of his bunk as if he was on a rollercoaster and was afraid the car might tip him out at any moment. It was a wild ride and his guts were slicked with cold jelly, his eyes wide and sightless in the darkness. He was thinking about that homemade knife behind the radiator…but he didn’t dare go for it, didn’t dare make a sound.

Didn’t want what was up there to hear him.