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The Children of Pandemonium, the first book in The Spiral Series is free until tomorrow on Amazon. 

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The first book in The Spiral series. The Children of Pandemonium

With a remarkable act of violence, Tera Cortez escapes the brutal underworld of Portland's strip club scene only to find herself thrown into the arms of an ancient evil. Now she must rely on a dark family gift to survive.

Chaff

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Sow's Ear

This is a flash fiction piece about how real life can be more frightening than the supernatural.

Sow’s Ear

10/21/10

                “There’s gotta be something in my body Britney.  It itches so bad…Whatever it is wants to come out.  I gotta get it out.”

                Cathy Simmons stood before a cracked full length mirror and stared at herself.  She was feverish and her green eyes were glassy.  Naked except for the dirty pair of pink cotton panties she wore; her body was death camp skinny, full of sores, and pale.  Her blond hair fell passed her shoulders in locks bound together by weeks of grease. 

                “Damned mirror.”  She said to the picture of Britney Spears in her teen years taped to the glass.  “Can’t see anything is this damned mirror.  Never could.  Need to find a new mirror.  Need a big one.  Yeah.  A big one to see everything in.  I need to see all of me.”

                The single wide trailer she stood in was nearly vacant.  A mound of filthy blankets and pillows was shoved into a corner. Black mold grew up the walls. The carpet stank of mildew and cat piss. Three of the trailer’s four windows were broken out and taped over with cardboard. The fourth still held glass, but was covered by a Nine Inch Nails poster.

Cathy energetically dug at the gruesome sore on her upper lip with the dirt encrusted index finger of her right hand.

                “Damn Brit!”  She exclaimed.  “I can’t understand why I keep getting these things!  I get at them and I get at them but they never go away!” 

                Cathy smiled and cocked her head to get a better look at herself.  Her teeth were red. Blood ran from her mouth and down her chin.

                “Maybe a little cover up will help, yeah, a little cover up will definitely help.  Or foundation?  That may work.” She said. “I don’t know about these damned things.  I go through a bottle of foundation a day to try and hide them.”

                Again she worked at her lip sore and pulled away small bits of flesh..

                “Maybe I should do something with my hair.  It’s too stringy and too blond.  Make’s me look all washed out.  My eyes too green.  Red maybe?  Maybe black?” She asked the picture. “I don’t know, a cut?  No, it’s too short already.  Maybe extensions like yours?” 

                She ran her bloody hands through her hair and slicked it back.

                “I could go bald like you did Brit.  Something out of the blue.  Get some tattoos too.  Something classy right here.”  Cathy touched her chest and left a bloody print.  “Some lips like what you got on your wrist.  That would be beautiful.  Beautiful lips, I wonder what your lips feel like Brit?  Ugh!  My wrist itches!”

                Without thought Cathy scratched the inside of her left wrist and raised a welt.  Focused on her reflection, Cathy soon tore a hole in her skin.

                “Where could I go to get my hair done like yours for cheap though?  No where that’s where.”  She said then sneered evilly.  “Those bitches at the salon always charge me twice what they charge everyone else and then they call me a dope fiend behind my back.  But you wouldn’t take that would you Brit?  Not at all.  You would have those bitches fired.  I know you would.  Yeah that’s right.”

                Finally, she raised her arm, looked at the bleeding gouges, and then laughed joyfully. Cathy showed her arm to the clipping.

                “I think I got it out!  I think I got it out Britney!” She shouted. “Now I’m as beautiful as you!”

                

Blood King Midas

This short comic was the inspiration for Angels…Rest. 

Turning to the blog to jump start the muse

Yes, I need to jump start the Muse. She's run from me for the moment. I suppose this happens to every writer, the words seem to vanish. The story is called "A Dirge Born of Swallows" and it has been one of the most difficult I have written. Of course there is a theme, a tone, etc. There is no outline which is by choice. I usually outline all my work fairly meticulously. This began as an exercise to break me out of some habits I have developed. I needed to "shake things up" as it were. Instead of beginning at the beginning I began the story in the middle by expanding out a previously written short story called "Chasm" to see what happened. What happened was originally a 30,000 word piece. After some feedback from better authors than I, it was stripped down to 16,000 and became "The Children of Pandemonium" a piece that creeped me out in a good way. On the cutting floor, I realized that I had three stories that were all linked together and so I'm developing them in that way.

Which has brought me here, to stare at the last word I typed without an idea of what comes next. I've dropped out of the stream of consciousness where I'm watching the characters move and describing it as a reporter instead of creating it as a writer. This is an unsettling feeling, like I've woken up from a dream that was a far better place to be than the reality I'm surrounded by. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, with my lap top open, and music playing in my headphones. All the things I normally do when writing, and yet I can't get back to that place on the edge of a waking dream. Now I see why writers drink. Maybe that's what I need, copious amounts of alcohol, and drugs. Something, anything to take me out of me and put me back where the magic is.

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

A Brief taste of Angels…Rest.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And I made it all wasted! And I made it all void! 

So he unleashed the Light to stop me, but, I am the spavine rat without eyes. There is no power here but mine...here...just beyond your sight.

© 2012 All Rights Reserved

Static Night

I wrote this story in the middle of 2006 and sent it to a friend of mine in Paris. She enjoyed it and submitted it for me to a contest put on by the PEN American Center. I didn't know she was going to do this. So when I got notification that I had won the Dawson prize for fiction, it was a pleasant surprise in a very unpleasant place. It was also the first money I had ever made from a story so it's a special piece for me. I thought I would put it up on my blog pretty much as it appears online at the PEN Center. There are several things I would do differently now, but I'm proud of this story.

I hope you enjoy it.

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

Static Night

© 8/14/2006

Apartment 25A stepped back from Jake as he stepped up from the parking lot. The too-crisp edges of the cheap apartment door flexed as if laughing. Next to it, to Jake’s left, a darkened window avoided his gaze.

The rubber soles of Jake’s scuffed work boots felt for traction on the concrete curb. Jake wiped sweaty palms from his unwashed black corduroy coat down to his unwashed black corduroy pants. For a moment, he swayed and blinked at the porch-light.  The weak yellow enhanced his dark features. Jake didn’t own a watch and the clock in the decrepit Cadillac he drove had stopped at forever o’clock. It was night. He was sure.

Standing there, staring at the light, Jake forgot his name.

“Jake, you alright, buddy?”

The question held a unique urgency. Jake ignored his buddy Bill. The light and its play were more interesting than the disheveled young man who stood next to him. Jake wanted nothing from Bill. What he wanted was to know the light. Everything it touched seemed to cut itself from the background to float.

The light created essential beings.

“And it is no brighter than a candle.” Jake mumbled.

“What was that Jake?” Bill said.

There were questions no-one should answer.

Jake reached his hand out and twisted it. The skin went black except for a small sliver sliced around the edge. The light became a corona for his hand eclipse. It was an outline of gold.

His hand became more than a tool at the end of his arm, it became life.

Some cultures had worshipped the images he created. They painted them on smooth cave walls. They revered them.

Jake smiled and showed un-brushed teeth his new god.

“It looks like torch-light, Cro-Magnon, Neanderthal.”

“Okay Jake, let’s get you inside. Raquel said it was cool if we blazed through. She’s got some good dope but you have to be straight dude.” Bill ushered Jake to the door. “None of this weird ass bullshit.”

“You have to have a bull to have bullshit, buddy and—” Reluctant to hide god, Jake lowered his hand. “—I don’t see any bulls grazing on the asphalt.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“It’s no David, buddy.  If you are going to sculpt, strive for perfection, channel Michaelangelo, Please create the perfect set of balls out of the words if, and, or what.”

Jake nodded Bill into silence as they took the small step up from the walk to the stoop. The light over the door, the light that had opened up mysteries, lost its divinity. Light became light.

Jake sighed.

“Monet, Degas, dots and swirls. Photons painting impression on vacuum. Art. Electromagnetic paintbrushes washing gesso for our eyes only. Agitated rods and cones jumbling rays of light into images for mind to decipher. Electromagnetic to Electromagnetic. A pulse beating rhythm on biological sculptures formed of fractual blueprints.”

“Jake, I’m knocking now, please shut up and don’t say anything that will—no—just don’t say anything. You know how edgy Raquel can be when she’s spun out.”

Jake raised his hand, winked, and made the okay sign with thumb and forefinger. Yes, everything was okey-dokey.

“You’re not going to stay quiet are you?”

“The Magna Charta led to the Constitution led to the Bill of Rights which guarantees my freedom to speak.”

“Come on, Jake. Raquel ain’t going to let us in if you run on about fractions and magma cartons!”

“That’s fractuals and Magna Chartas and what type of person would discriminate based upon a person’s fascination with God’s blueprint for reality or the rules that govern the manifestations of that blueprint?” Jake cocked his head and raised his right eyebrow. “This experiment in government has sworn to protect the civil liberties of all its citizens—gay, female, black, purple, two-headed, four eyed, and curious.”

Bill shook his head, frustrated.

“Why do you always have to be like this Jake!”

“You!? Always!?” Jake clucked his tongue. “Bill, ‘buddy’, use I-statements. And never say always. Nothing is ever always one way or always another. Life—morphs.”

“Stop it, Jake! Act normal for once!” Bill struggled to keep his voice to a stage whisper. “Fuck your I-statements and fuck your fractuals and fuck your Magna Carton!”

“Charta, it’s Charta, Bill.”

“Whatever!” Bill quieted and pleaded. “Look, just be normal, okay.”

“Normal, Bill, what’s normal, Bill? How normal is it running from one end of town to the other so high that light and shadow mix into a twisted penumbra? This waltz of ours is very far from normal, Bill.” Jake pointed at the pistol bulge in Bill’s waistline. “How many Indians are you planning to kill with that peace maker cowboy?”

“I need it,” Bill said sheepishly. “For protection. But the gun ain’t the point, you being quiet is the point.”

“Okey-Dokey, Bill, my silence shall speak volumes.”

Bill glared at Jake and waited a moment to make sure his friend was going to stick to his word. Satisfied, he turned to the door and knocked.

Jake watched Bill’s fist move back and forth three times.  Each arc of motion was accompanied by speed lines. They were cartoonish. They were comic. Rapping knuckles spurred shock waves in the thin particle board door. Jake thought of vellum and parchment stretched. He thought of drum skins beaten in savage rhythm. He thought of amoebae surfing the waves on the backs of paramecium.

He thought spiraling thoughts but kept his thoughts confined to his mouth. His tongue felt like Scylla. His thoughts were Charybdis. Both threatened the staid pace of social normalcy.

A smile touched Jake’s mouth. What was social normalcy in a meth-driven masquerade?

The window next to the door framed wriggling movement.  Drawn blinds that cut off space from space began a strange dance.  One slat clicked open and closed in time bursts. Like a hollow eye, the opening revealed nothing of the blackness of the mind behind. Jake thought the window wanted to mate with him. The flashing spot of black reminded him of a bug looking to fuck.

“Who the fuck is it!” A woman shouted.

“You know who it is!” Bill said. “Quit tweaking Raquel and open the door!”

“Bill? It sounds like you. Who’s that with you?” Raquel whined.

“Jake, you know Jake, Raquel.” Bill put his finger to his lips and pre-shushed Jake. “Now—will you open the door? We’re tired of standing out here.”

“Yeah, that’s you Bill, always complaining.” Raquel fell silent for a moment. The night breathed. “I don’t think I know no Jake, Bill. I don’t want to open the door for someone I don’t think I know –you understand where I’m coming from, right, Bill?”

Bill sighed and lowered his head. Jake leaned in using his grin like a whip. When he spoke, his voice was whisper cold.

“Can I speak now, oh Pistol King?”

“Pistol King?” Bill said and smiled. “Why did you call me that?”

“Do you know what sarcasm is, Bill?” Jake said.

“Not really, and I don’t think I like it all that much.” Bill looked up. “You want to talk to her? Fine, talk to her.  She’s so spun out right now I don’t think she knows who she is.  You get her to open the door and I’ll shit pumpernickel.”

“That would be something to see. An adventure in all that is human.” Jake put his hand to the doorknob. “Unfortunately no-one will be able to see that amazing feat of evacuation. Little Sammy Sullivan broke the lock last week. He wanted to make sure he had a place to crash whenever his parents tossed him out of the house. I believe he was a cuckoo bird in his past life. I think he is working out the karma incurred from tossing so many chicks from the nest.” Jake opened the door. Trent Reznor’s wails greeted them. “Wasted nights and wasted lives.”

“Raquel didn’t open the door. You can’t hold me to the deal.” Bill suddenly looked desperate. “I don’t owe you nothing, Jake.”

“That is what I said, Bill, even though I want to see pumpernickel pushed piping from your colon, I can’t, in good faith, hold you to the deal. We have entered a world of technicalities and I have no wish to involve the courts.” Jake waved an arm to indicate the darkened interior of apartment 25. “And the only arbitrators available aren’t very reputable. Your asshole is safe, for now, let’s go inside.”

“Yeah, let’s go inside.” Bill eyed Jake suspiciously. “And I don’t owe you, right, Jake.”

“Right, Bill, now go inside.”

Before their eyes adjusted to the dim interior, the smell of deprivation hit them. The smell was the smell of pond water, of sweet tea left sealed too long then opened in the humid air beneath a magnolia tree, of a dumpster full of oranges, apples, potatoes, and banana peels soaked through by rain then heated by the summer sun. The musk of too many unwashed bodies sweating ammonia filled out the stench.

“A den, a den of lions infested with ring worm and scabies.” Jake stepped in and bumped a booted foot into the soft thigh of a male seated on the floor. Jake didn’t recognize him. The man lifted his head and stared through Jake.

“And I’m not Daniel,” the zombie said through rotted teeth. “The hand of God is not upon me. This is the valley. I am the shadow. All who pass cry out in despair.”

Jake made room for Bill to enter and counted one more zombie on the floor, Little Sammy Sullivan, and Raquel. All were lost.

“Little Sammy Sullivan, karma’s thrown you from the nest again.” Jake closed the door without turning his back to the room. “There’s no profit in a cuckoo life?”

Little Sammy Sullivan, seated on the couch, raised his head.  In his lap was a gutted piece of electronic equipment. Palsied fingers sifted a spaghetti of confetti-colored wires without guidance from his conscious mind.

“Whatever you say, Jake.” He smiled. “I like it when you talk.”

“Yeah, speech is a rare gift. We seem to be the only mammals who use it to lie to each other.” Jake nodded at the mess of electronics. “That piece of equipment has lost its coherency. You’ve killed it.The machine is dead and nothing will rise from the corpse.”

“No mushrooms will grow. No carrion eaters will thrive,” the zombie at Jake’s feet whispered. “The hyenas will starve.”

Bill looked around and cringed.

“It smells like a dead asshole shit rotten grapefruit into a cesspool.” Bill looked at Raquel who still was at the window taking snapshots with a single slat of the blinds. “Don’t you ever clean this place up? That looks like the same sandwich from last week. It was maggoty then!  Now it looks like it come back to life.”

“Yeah, that’s you Bill, always complaining.” Raquel fell silent for a moment. The night breathed. “I don’t think I know no Jake, Bill. I don’t want to open the door for someone I don’t think I know—you understand where I’m coming from right, Bill?”

“What the fuck?” Bill said. “We’re already inside, Raquel.  You ain’t got to open the door for nobody. What’s going on in here?” Bill looked at the zombies. “What the hell has got you gone like this?”

“Bill, are you out there? I hear your voice but I can’t see you?” Raquel continued clicking the blinds open, closed. Click-clack. Click-clack. “Where are you Bill? Did Jake eat you? Bill? Billy Bill lil lil lil lil lil lil lil lil lil lil lil.”

“She’s crossed over—they all have.”

“What the fuck does that mean, Jake!” Bill snapped. “Just what the fuck does that mean! They crossed over! What are they, in some kind of spirit world?—”

“Across the Styx, pay your toll. Passed the mouths of Cerebus. Through the gates to kneel before Hades himself!” Zombie number one said. “Journey down journey down.  No pomegranates Persephone, take up the stone Sysiphus, knit a sweater Martha, there is no escape.”

“I don’t like you very much ghoul,” Jake said before sitting next to Little Sammy Sullivan on the couch. “You’re ensnared in melancholy. You are a poor hare trapped by an age far gone. Victorian wags were better at delving into depression.” Jake cocked his head. “You’re taking all the fun out of it.”

“Hey, Jake! Focus huh!”

“I’m sorry, Bill.” Jake pulled a pack of cigarettes and a cheap Bic lighter from his coat pocket and lit up. The flame became clarity in the darkness. Four heads slowly turned and focused on it. Unintelligibly they whispered amazement. Jake let the flame die. He inhaled deeply to let his eyes readjust to the darkness. The zombies stared at where fire had been.

“What’s wrong with them,” Bill whispered.

“I thought I already said, they’ve crossed over.”

“I thought I already said I don’t know what that means.”

“You forgot to add ‘the fuck’ between the word what and that.” Jake grinned. “I enjoy your creative use of expletives, Bill.  They’re the only reason I spend time with you.  It’s an education.” Jake passed the cigarette to Little Sammy Sullivan who slowly, vacantly, took it and smoked. “Anyway, they have crossed over. They have stepped into the spirit. They have entered the dark realm beyond.  Hand them snakes and they won’t be bitten. Let them drink cyanide and they won’t die. Pierce them and they won’t bleed. Think of all the good stuff, light bursting from between the eyes, walking on water,et cetera, et cetera ad infinitum.”

“There are no Messiahs, or Prophets, here,” Zombie number two said.

Bill looked down at Jake. He was afraid and confused.

“They are gods?”

“No—”

Jake laid his hand atop the head of zombie number one and tilted it back. Zombie number one’s eyes closed and his mouth fell open with a wet sound.

"They are the living dead damned to look into the beyond and carry part of the long night back with them. They are petty demons lost.” Jake sat forward and took his hand from the zombie’s head. “And we’re going with them.”

”I-I-I don’t want to cross over,” Bill said softly. “I don’t want to be no zombie. I don’t want to die.”

“They aren’t dead, Bill.”

On the coffee table in front of Jake two large lines of white powder were laid out on a small pane of window glass. The razor used to cut the lines and the straw used to snort them sat next to each other on the table. They were both powdered with meth. It clung as if alive. Jake leaned forward and snorted one line using the straw. He sat back, eyes watering, teeth clenched so hard the muscles of his jaw threatened to split his skin.  Smiling, Jake offered the straw to Bill.

When Jake spoke, his voice was hoarse and powerful.

“Take my hand and rise above this world.”

“I am the dragon,” Zombie number one said.

“I am the beast,” Zombie number two said.

“I am the harlot,” Raquel said as she stripped off her clothes.

“I am the lamb,” Little Sammy Sullivan said.

Silence sat silently on the breasts of everyone in the room.  They stared expectantly at Bill who stared at the straw. He ran a hand through greasy hair, bit his lip, closed his eyes and opened them again.

Jake broke the long silence.

“Your mouth is dry. Your stomach is full of eager excitement. That excitement is spreading into your groin. It is even touching your asshole. Your heart is beating rapidly in a chest so constricted your lungs are having trouble finding air.  Your hands and feet are warm. Your body is reacting as if preparing for sex.” Jake wiggled the straw, tempting. “Penetrate yourself with this. Make love to the universe. Cum so hard you die and are reborn, Euphoria, Bill. Euphoria.”

“You are confronting the unknown.” Raquel was fully nude. She pushed her body against Bill’s. “You are confronting the unknown.”

“Yes, Bill, become. One more night without sleep and we will both see through the eyes of those gone before.” Jake let his voice fall to a whisper. “Or—are you afraid.”

Swiftly Bill snatched the straw from Jake.

“Fuck that! I ain’t afraid of nothing! Push over so I can sit down!” Bill shook Raquel off him. She tripped over the feet of zombie number two and hit the floor hard. “And get off me, bitch! Everyone knows you got herpes! It don’t matter how dead I get, I ain’t never sticking my dick in you!”

Jake smiled wider and moved to allow Bill to work on his line.  Jake leaned back and allowed himself to feel the meth start through his system. Static night closed in on Jake. A veil of brown flies fell over the room. The zombies brightened in the new sienna-tinged reality. He watched Raquel stand. She was a naked wraith. She was a marionette jerking through a Slipknot video. She was a Stanley Kubrick creation. Jake was reminded of an old film running with frames missing. Raquel bent down and pulled zombie number two up onto his feet. She waltzed him through one measure of Hurt before together they pirouetted into the back bedroom.

The door shut with a muted click. The rest of the room fell silent. Soon the song ended. The only sound left was the refrigerator periodically cycling freon.

“Tick, tick, tick, goes the midnight clock,” Jake said to no-one.

 

One North. A short story.

My right forearm

(ONE NORTH)

By

Justin H. Montgomery

© 2008 All Rights Reserved

“Let me suck your dick and I’ll give you a box of Top.”

            I didn’t know what to say to that.  I didn’t know what to say to that so I said nothing.  The silence drew out until one of us was forced to speak.

            “Did you hear me?” He asked.

 His question was plaintive.  I almost felt sorry for the guy.  There wasn’t enough empathy in creation for me to pull down my pants and let him wrap his goateed lips around my junk.  But still, I almost felt sorry for the guy.   Every week a new batch of fish walked onto Duck row in One North packing old sheets, blue wool blankets, and their little brown bags half full of Bob Barker hygiene items; and every week whoever this guy was hit them up for a blowjob.  

To him, those fish looked like someone spilled out a box full of orange jumpsuit wrapped Blowpops just for him to find their bubblegum center.

“Do you want me to suck your dick or not?”

 I did not.  But I was unsure how to say that to him.  This was my first day in a real prison. I was a twenty year old kid floating through another cell.  He knew that.  He knew I was clueless. The look on his face seemed to say to me ‘Hi kid, this is your new home and I am one of a menagerie of strange and curious sights you will see in your stay here at the Washington State Penitentiary Walla Walla.  There is no way out.  There is nowhere to run.  There is only concrete.  There is only steel.  There is only the madness of men.’

I wasn’t going to speak to this pasty skinned man wearing prison blues, pig skin black boots, and a handmade cross hanging from his neck.  In jail, before coming to prison, I had seen other crosses like it.  The Paisas would pull string from their blankets to make them.  They would spend all day spinning the strings together so they could tie tiny knots that would magically form crosses attached to necklaces.  The little pieces of God went for a pre-stamped envelope or two.  This one was red.  It stood out from the white t-shirt he wore under his denim jacket.  I stared at it and ignored him.

 “Whatever.” He said. 

The statement was punctuated by his slamming the mop into the bucket and pushing on.   He didn’t have far to go.  The next cell over was number 4.  I heard him ask the question again.   I heard someone next door tell him to fuck off.  It was probably a black man.  I couldn’t see. There was only his deep voice with its gangster inflection echoing through the nearly empty hallway. 

“You probably shouldn’t stand at the bars with a dick-sucker about.  It’s almost like opening the door for a Jehovah’s Witness.” Jerry said from the bunk behind me. I didn’t turn around.

His voice echoed in the bare cell then out into the bare hallway.  The sound bounced off the walls. It was trapped just like the rest of us.  There were thirty men living in their six foot by ten foot caves.  Somewhere down the tier someone laughed and talked about shooting meth behind a minimart.  I learned from whomever he was that rain water made a great substitute for spit when in need of something to mix with your dope before drawing it up into a syringe. I learned from someone else, a faceless pimp, how to keep my bitches in line. It involved back hands and curling irons and ‘taking no shit’. The talk grew louder.  Each person’s story competed with the others for space on the tier.  Eventually all of it became a mix of foolishness.

 “Maybe he thought you were looking for something.” Jerry said.  “Maybe he thought you wanted him to get on his knees so he could bring you salvation.  He bore his cross right?  Did you see it? All the ones like that bear their crosses. ”

I turned from the bars and looked up to Jerry who watched me. His eyes were stainless steel gray and unnerving.  I had met him that morning on the chain bus down from the receiving units in Shelton. I knew nothing of him, of his past, or of what conviction put him into this place.   He laid with one arm behind his shaven head. With the other arm he cradled his brown duck bag.  He looked like a study of a man in repose. He had his jumpsuit rolled down and tied at the waist using the sleeves for a belt.  His pants legs were tucked into his socks.  Carved into his flesh were grey green tattoos that writhed as he breathed.  There were swastikas, gang signs, names—and there were dates. The numbers jumped out from his arms like advertisements. 

“…What’re you in for?” He asked me after a long pause

His stare set me on edge. I felt bare and flayed before him.  He looked into me and judged me from behind a mask that resembled flesh but was really stone.

“…I shot a guy.” I said finally.

“Oh yeah?” I could tell he didn’t believe me. “Shot a guy huh?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, I shot a guy.”  I said.

“What ‘d you shoot him for?” Jerry asked.

What did I shoot him for?  I asked myself that question often.  Why did I do what I did?  There were too many reasons.  I shot him because I wouldn’t burn people.  I shot him because I wouldn’t steal from people.  I shot him because I earned my money that way.  Everyone knew they could trust me. I shot him because I was getting paid by my friend to guard his house, his dope, and his girl.  He was out of town for the weekend and he wanted me to sit in his apartment with a gun and make sure no one did anything stupid.  Someone did.  A guy had tried to break in and steal his dope.  I shot him four times and missed pretty much everything vital. The guy had actually run away screaming. I got my friend’s dope and his girl out and safe and then I came back because, well, I had shot the guy. Someone had to take the fall. Thankfully my friend was renting the apartment under another name so he didn’t get involved.  The neighbors had pointed me out.  The cops arrested me. The guy I shot had gone on to make a statement at the hospital which implicated me. After the back and forth in court I had taken the plea bargain the prosecutor offered. All that sounded good but why did I really shoot him?

“For my name.”  I said. It was as good a reason as any.

“For your name?” Jerry was suddenly interested. “For your name?”

“Yeah.” I said. “Yeah, for my name.”

For some reason, I felt like I had won a victory. I kept my smile to myself.

“How do you go to prison for your name?”  He asked.

“...My name is Trust.” I said.

We locked eyes for what felt like an eternity.  Finally he nodded.

“Yeah, I get it, Trust. Yeah, that makes sense.” He said.  “You got paperwork on that?”

I left the bars and snatched my brown bag from the metal desk at the end of the bed.  I pulled my copy of my judgment and sentence from the bag.  It was seven papers that freed me from questions about my integrity.  I tossed the packet to him then sat down on my bottom bunk and put both feet up on the stainless steel toilet sink combo.  When my heavy orange plastic sandals hit it the toilet gonged like a mourning bell.  Beneath me the thin plastic mattress crinkled and popped as it took my weight.  I stared at the wall across from me. I saw swastikas, gang signs, names—and there were dates.  The series of pictographs cut into the white paint revealed the ancient red brick beneath. The symbols looked as if they had been painted in fresh blood.

I heard the pages flip.  In a moment the packet inched over the side of the top bunk.  I reached up and grabbed it and set it on the bed next to me.  On the front page I saw my charge ’Assault in the First degree’.  Below those words was my sentence ‘164 months’.  

“Welcome home youngster. You’re gonna be here for a minute.” He said.

“Yeah.” I replied.

I heard the crinkle of his paper bag.  It was followed by his judgment and sentence inching over the side of the bunk.  I reached up, took it, and read it.  Jerry was in for five years on a first degree burglary.  I passed the pages back up to him. 

“I broke into a house and stole a gun.”  He said.  “They got me because my dumb ass left fingerprints on the fridge and the microwave.”

Okay.  It was time to share.  It was the process.  Two men put into the confines of a cell were forced into openness. It was part of the game. I hated this game. I hated revealing the most personal details of my life to someone I had met hours before.  It was like a shotgun marriage. 

“What were you doing at the fridge and the microwave?” I asked, not really caring but aware that if I didn’t ask it would be seen as an insult.

“I was hungry and they had Hot pockets.” Jerry said the chuckled.  “I got busted this time because I love ham and cheese Hot pockets.  At least down in Nevada I went to prison for something real.”

“What happened down there?”  I asked, again, not caring.

“Well, I was strung out for a week on dope. I had been shooting meth in a hotel room with a couple of hookers I picked up somewhere, I don’t remember where.  Freaky bitches, I tell you.  They’d suck your asshole through the tip of your cock.  Anyway, we got down to our last eight ball.  I didn’t want to crash and neither did they.  We were broke and so I grabbed my pistol, walked down to a casino, and jumped through their cash window.  The cashier bitch was so scared she almost shit herself.  I grabbed a stack of cash, jumped back out and tried to leave like I owned the place.  Didn’t work.  They caught me at the door.  And I tell you what.  They did me just like in the movies.  Took me into a back room and beat the shit out of me.  I got saved from taking a hammer to the hands by somebody and their cell phone.  Some lady at the slots had called the cops and they showed up just as the hammer was coming out.  The security dude got a call and put the kibosh to the whole Mob business.”

Jerry sighed.  I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was smiling at the memory.  His pride was heavy in the room.

“I did ten years for that one.”  He went quiet for a moment.  “We’re both in on solid beefs.  I guess we can live together for awhile.”  He said.

“Guess so” I said. “If you can call it living.  Feels like we’re in a bathroom.”

“Yeah.”  Jerry said. “Yeah it does.”

I heard Jerry move. The bunk above me was made of a steel plate bolted into the concrete wall.  The center of the plate was bowed down from countless bodies laying on it. The metal looked stretched.  When Jerry shifted to find comfort the metal shifted with him. The loud pop startled me. I jumped when Jerry stuck his head over the edge of the bunk to stare at me. He smiled showing even white teeth.

“You aren’t a white boy are you?” He asked.

I smiled uneasily back at him and looked away.  I couldn’t take that stare for very long.  His face disappeared and the steel popped again. 

“You don’t look like one.  You look like a Mexican, but not like a Mexican.  You look like you have some white boy in you but then you don’t look like it.” He said. “Are you an Iraqi or something?  You from over there?  You a camel humper?” 

Jerry laughed.  It was a deep booming sound.  The voices from out on the tier quieted. There was envy in that silence.  

“A camel humper!?  Ha!  That would be something!  Come to the joint in Washington and get put in with a camel humper. That never would have happened down in the pen in Nevada.  One of us would have to p.c. up.” Jerry chuckled. “Yes sir, they don’t allow that down there.  The pigs or the convicts. You keep to your own.  I hope they get it right out on mainline.  I don’t want to live with no toad or nothing. You’re alright for now cause we only have to be on duck row for a minute. But I tell you, they put me in with some toad—I couldn’t abide that.”

“I’m not Iraqi. I’m part Mexican, part white, and part Native.” I said.

Again he laughed.

“Oh boy!  You’re a regular Heinz fifty seven aren’t you!” Jerry exclaimed. “That’s a rough one youngster.”

“Why’s that a rough one?”  I asked.

“Why?  You’re gonna see why. Your parents should have kept the races separate.  You can’t run with the white boys cause you’re a little too brown.  You can’t run with the Mexicans cause you’re a little too white.  And them Native’s—they are a strange bunch.  Who knows what they will do.  They might eat you.”  

Again Jerry stuck his head over the edge of the bed.

“Your mixed blood is going to keep you on the outside…” He said.

I heard keys rattling down the tier.  Heavy steel banged on heavy steel. 

“…And you don’t want to be on the outside.” He continued.  “There are monsters on the outside that will take your ass, stab you full of holes, and leave your rotting carcass on the big yard for the vultures.”

The cell door clanged as the steel pins inside disengaged.  Unseen motors whirred and pulled the door open with the sound of knives sharpening on whetstones.  I swallowed hard.

“Walla Walla. When I heard the name of this place I thought of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig and all the other Loony toons.  It’s a funny name for a prison.” Jerry said.

He jumped off his bunk and landed with the grace of a cat.  When his feet hit concrete he was moving to the door.  It was beautiful…and frightening. There was the power of life and death in his body.  At the cell door Jerry turned back and smiled at me.

“…She’s the Concrete Momma.”  He said and laughed.  “And she’s one mean bitch.  She’ll kill you Trust.  Oh yeah, she’ll kill you.”

Behind him other men in orange moved down the tier. Some laughed at unheard jokes.  Some stared into nothing. Most hung their heads and watched their feet. Jerry looked over his shoulder at the passing fish then back at me.  His smile went from slightly jovial to glittery diamond hard. 

“Mainline mainline everybody mainline.” He chanted almost sing song.  “Let’s get some chow.”

I didn’t know what to say.  I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing.  I said nothing, got up, and I followed him out into the unknown.

---

(This is a story I wrote in the last few months before I left prison. It was written as I thought about walking out of  my cell for the last time. I wanted to remember what it was like in the first cell I had been in. While the account is fictional. The experience wasn't. I tattooed the date when I walked out onto my right arm to commemorate my freedom. My date of incarceration is tattooed into my memory. It will never go on my body.)