Chapter 8

There was nothing good about being in prison, but being allowed out of one’s cell and able to move about in the yard for several hours a day was way better than a single hour or two of yard time and the endless loneliness attendant to such in the Kaibab: the Kaibab, where I’d been condemned for my first seven years. And yard time was kind of a misnomer in the “K”. The so called yard time was really just being in a large kennel like cage that happened to be outside; yippee kai yea. The Apache was way better.

The level two unit allowed us four hours a day in the yard, really a walled in, but expansive field. Oh yeah it was a lot better than the kennel. Also allowed were opportunities for classes and job training and the like if inmates applied for them and if the guards had not gigged the inmate who applied. I did my best to keep my nose clean and stay out of trouble.

The showers, like in max, were the main danger zone. There could be fights in the yard on a rare occasion. But fighters and other troublemakers could look forward to rotting in solitary for various periods of time; nobody wanted to be in solitary: two meals a day, a shower once a week—alone—and no communication with anyone. Solitary was bad.

Davonte Brown had just been released from solitary for nearly beating a guy half to death; well, that was my uneducated opinion. Oh, and the victim? Why my cellmate, Lenny Denier. Lenny spent eight days in the infirmary, and look like shit when he finally got out.

Lenny had objected to kneeling in front of Davonte. Well, and like I said, he got the shit kicked out of him for refusing. And, now it looked like it was going to be my turn to refuse—or not.

Only Davonte, me, and two of his very good friends remained in the line of separate single person shower stalls. The three bangers blocked me from getting out, or even having my towel which had been ripped from me.

“You’re Denier’s cellmate, right, Barnes?” said Davonte.

“I don’t want any trouble man. Okay?” I said.

“No trouble man. But I need a woman today, and I choose you,” he said. I paled. He was going to do me, not just make me suck him off.

“I can’t man. No,” I said. He laughed.

“I don’t remember giving you a choice, little man. Your cellmate refused to do as I asked. I got thirty days, and he got, well, his meals fed to him through a straw. You don’t cooperate, you will be getting far worse,” he said.

The two henchmen grabbed me and pushed me face down on the shower floor and the big banger soaped me up and pushed into me. Somebody’s foot was on my neck while he was at it. A few minutes later, he was done with me, and I started to get up. But I was pushed down again, and his friends took their turns.

“Motherfuckers!” I screamed. I was bleeding profusely from my anus and thought that the three of them were done. I was wrong.

“What did you say, little man?” said Davonte.

“Fuck you!” I said. He nodded to one of the others who handed him something. He flashed the something in front of my face—a shiv. He was going to kill me! Visions of Riley and my brother and Briana flashed in my terrified brain.

I tried to break away, but one of them cold-cocked me. I was out, sort of, but I could feel him sawing at my penis. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t; I really was all but unconscious as he destroyed my future with my woman—any woman.

The infirmary was cold. My favorite nurse, Emma, had noticed that I was shivering. I could see that she was getting me another blanket.

Emma’d been transferred from level four, where she’d tended to me a few times in the past, to level two a year before. This was the first time I’d been in the infirmary; well, apart from periodic vaccinations and the like, since my being transferred eleven years earlier. I was so glad she was the one overseeing things.

“A little better?” she said. I tried to nod; I was mostly successful.

I could see that she was feeling sorry for me. We hadn’t talked she and I. My humiliation was too overwhelming to talk to anybody. I wasn’t even a man anymore. Davonte Brown had taken that from me. My hatred for the man would never die.

“Mister Barnes, if it’s any comfort to you, the three of them are on their way to max,” she said. I coughed and tried to clear my throat. I nodded again.

“And, sir, your lawyer is here to see you if you are up to it,” she said. I found my voice.

“Does he know?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Okay, I guess it doesn’t matter then. I’ll see him, but no one else. Okay? God, no one else!”

“Okay,” said Emma Sorensen.

It was a good five minutes before the man came into the room. He was looking down.

“It’s what it is, Horace. But...?” I started and stopped. He knew what I was asking. He shook his head.

“No, no one knows but me, well, and the people around here, in here, the prison,” he said. I swallowed.

“Please Horace. Don’t tell them, especially my woman; I don’t know how I’m going to be able to face her now. I just don’t know what to do or say or be or anything now.” He listened and nodded. There was something in his look that was, well, something, something not good. He was feeling sorry for me, embarrassed for me; those had to be it.

“I was able to get the bad guys sent to max for what they did to you, Adam. This kind of thing is rare, even in here, if not exactly unheard of. It’s automatic max plus ten years for using a weapon. Brown is already gone and shortly the others will be too,” he said. I think I breathed a sigh of relief; it was little enough.

“Adam, there may be some good news. And I know right now that doesn’t even seem possible. But, well, if things break right in the next weeks you may be getting out,” he said.