Chapter 4

Nicholas had just turned seventeen when he emerged from solitary. He was hollowed out, utterly focused and colder. People sensed the difference, even if they couldn’t put a finger on it. He made them uncomfortable. He didn’t want trouble, but trouble still wanted him.

Butch wanted his revenge. The others warned Nicholas that he’d been waiting for him to get out of the hole. His jaw healed badly. He blamed Nicholas for the fact that the left side of his face didn’t match the right anymore. Nicholas knew the confrontation was coming.

He didn’t try to avoid it.

They cornered him in the laundry room—Butch and three of his crew. Nicholas didn’t fight back this time. Just covered up, protected his organs and head. They worked him over good. Kicks to the ribs, punches to the kidneys, wherever they could land them. He was grateful they didn’t shank him.

All the while, Butch was screaming in his face, wanting to know why he wasn’t fighting back, calling him a coward, a punk. But Nicholas just took it. Not because he was scared, but because fighting back would have put him back in the dark. And, it was only pain. He was used to pain. Pain meant he was alive.

He ended up with a broken rib, a dislocated shoulder, and a face that looked like raw hamburger. But for once, he was lucky. The guards believed him when he said he hadn’t been fighting. There were cameras in the laundry room. They saw the whole thing. Butch and his crew got sent to solitary.

In a way, Nicholas got his revenge without throwing a punch. They shoved Butch into his old, solitary cell. Two months in, he managed to kill himself. Nicholas heard about it during breakfast one morning. His first thought was admiration. Butch had figured out a way to do it. Nicholas had concentrated for weeks trying to find a way. Butch was smarter than he’d thought.

Nicholas didn’t feel good or bad about it. He didn’t feel much of anything.honest. The byproduct of solitary was his emotions were deadened.

He knew he’d been lucky. If that unknown guy hadn’t taken a risk and gave him that book. If Marcus Aurelius hadn’t been around to write his books. He would have been lost.

He was in the hospital ward for a week after the beating. Cracked ribs take time to heal. The nurse, Ms. Alvarez, a lady who didn’t take shit from anyone. She’d look at his chart, cluck her tongue, and say things like, “You are a smart boy. Why you let them do this? Next time, you run.”

She let him keep books by his bed, even though he was supposed to be resting. Said reading was good for healing. “Keeps your mind moving when your body cannot.”

When Nicholas got out of the medical ward, unaccountably he got a job in the library. The old warden was gone. He guessed that the new regime was trying to keep him quiet about the unusual solitary time. He didn’t hold any grudges, just counted his blessings. He spoke to no one unless he had to. The part-time librarian, Mr. Benson, was a skinny semi-retired teacher with thick glasses. He picked up on Nicholas’ hunger for education. He started casually setting aside books he thought he might like.

“This one made me think,” he’d say, sliding a book across the desk. Sometimes it was philosophy, sometimes history, sometimes science fiction. He introduced Nicholas to Asimov, to Bradbury, to Octavia Butler. Said imagination was as important as facts.

If there was an opportunity to learn from someone from the outside, Nicholas was first in line. They had volunteer programs where people would come in and teach classes. Art, writing, math tutoring, whatever. He signed up for all of them. Most of the other guys thought he was brown-nosing, trying to look good for early release or something. He didn’t give a shit what they thought, as long as they left him alone. They didn’t get that he was starving for knowledge. Books had saved his life and he wanted more.

He even went to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Even though he hated the taste of booze and had never touched a drug in his life, his mom’s addiction had cured him of any desire to try drugs. He went to the meetings, anyway. Partly because it was something to do, but mostly because he had read the big book and was curious about the twelve steps. People coming up from their bottom. Figured there was something there he could use.