She’s trying to be casual, and she speaks low to the deputy and he pulls me up on the computer. She shakes her head at the screen then at him. She walks over and holds her paper work to her side,
“Mr. Stanton?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. But what the hell?”
“I know. It’s all bullshit.”
“In this case I’d have to agree. A fan?”
“Apparently not.”
She flashes a helpless smile,
“You’re going to trial?”
“Looks like it.”
“You need to fight this. I worry that it’s in this county. You know about it, right?”
“I’m learning fast.”
She touches my forearm, the first time I’ve been touched by a human for no reason in almost a week. The feeling is unfamiliar and warm, and it brings on a sadness without any traces of beauty.
“I’ll pray for you,” she says.
“I’ll take it.”
Her inmate appears in front of her, a black guy with short dreads that look blown backward by gunfire, an uneven goatee and teeth I smell from where I sit. She looks at me and walks him to another table, sits and records what she needs to. She’s glancing at me, then she’s gone. One of the Mexicans appears in front of me. He has thick glasses and greased back hair, tattoos neck to knuckles. He’s wearing golds, a pod worker, a trustee with short time in jail. But anyone can see he’s done real time. The bad rendition of his own face on his arm holding a pistol with his street number above him gives it away dead. That, or a seriously free tattoo on the street. But a few other tics give him away. I’d seen it with my father’s new friends after my mother passed. There’s a look to them, to ex-cons. This one has it in spades. He leans his elbows on the table,
“So what’s up, man? What’s going on with the nurse?”
“She recognized me from downtown.”
“We figured that out. So you’re like a writer, a real writer?”
“It’s my job, yes.”
“Holy shit,” he laughs charmingly but exactly, “why the fuck are you in here?”
I have tried before Helena, tried telling them that I can’t talk about it, but all that points to is child molestation. Even a capital murder charge is something to be proud of in here, depending on the victim. I think about saying assault, but all one of them has to do is have someone on the phone go on-line with my name. For that matter, a bad pod deputy can tell them if they know them well enough, and some of them do. Some of them went to high school together. I look at him squarely,
“Four counts of rape.”
The words check him, and I don’t blink once. He leans back and looks at me,
“There’s no fucking way.”
“That’s what I tried getting across.”
“You going to the box?”
“Yes.”
“All Measures.”
“That’s right.”
He shakes his head at me,
“You know you’re going to get bopped, right? Nobody wins that trial here. We had a guy on your tier up until last month,” he nods to their table, “what was that joto’s name, the dude in on the skin beef?”
“Everett,” one of them says. He looks back at me, “He was in here for over six months waiting for trial, hired a private attorney, and he lost, lost his fucking ass. Two Measures, 16 years, 8 months, and the girl was is ex-wife.”
“Great.”
He smiles, “You know the bitch good?”
“I guess not.”
His eyes narrow, “How old is she?”
I stare at him, “35, man. Come on.”
“You have a private attorney, or a public pretender?”
“I had to have one assigned by the state.”
“What’s their evidence? Not that they need any here. Have you got your discovery yet?”
“No.”
He looks at me and starts to say something, but he’s muted by the deputy’s scream:
“STANTON! ATTORNEY VISIT!”
The Mexican points up the staircase to the chairs and glass,
“They’ll probably have you in the private room. You can hear shit in there, just so you know.”
I stand and he nods to me, “If you can get money for bail, you’re better off hiring a real attorney instead, in case you’re thinking about any of that. Also, keep your mouth shut about your case from here on in.”
The deputy yells at me,
“STANTON! MOVE!”
The Mexican nods at me, and in his nod I see something there, something that tells me he understands that I am here without cause. A seasoned inmate can spot the offense without asking, anyway, and after being locked up with fellow criminals, a false criminal like me isn’t hard to notice. I’m not worried about him running his mouth, even if he does. I wait for the door to pop open and I sit. It’s like a roofed cubicle. I stare at the door behind the glass, off to the right of the view, and I wonder what it looks like, the hallway leading to it, and before that the outside of the hallway, then the check-in area, then the door before it, then the door that leads outside, down the fucking road and back to the world, which grows more magical by the second. I think of the gorge again, of Mia on all fours, seeing a woman’s pussy and thighs, the curves of her back and her hair flopping around her shoulders and face while I fuck her. It’s all based on fear, Helena, every thought, every breath.
He’s a decent looking man, fair looking. He’s in his later fifties with a trimmed goatee and what may or may not be a hairpiece. He’s on the heavy side. He has a smart face, maybe beaten by numbers, though. In the first few glances I see an overworked lawyer, and it worries me. I wonder how many times he faces the accused, if he has his words rehearsed for each charge. He sits and looks at me, and I feel no suffering by comparison, but rather the need to find a paid attorney. He’s too friendly looking for me to see defending me at trial, but I’ve never been to a trial. He gives me a concerned breath and talks,
“I’m Zane Hazel. I’ve been appointed to your case by the state. First off, take everything you’ve heard about innocent until proven guilty and the rest of that bullshit and throw it out the window. Right now, you’re guilty of rape in the eyes of the state. That’s why you’re here.”
“Alright. Great.”
He leans to his elbows,
“Do you have anything you want to say to me, any questions?”
“I didn’t do this. I’m a fucking writer, man. I’ve never been locked up. I’m 39 for Christ’s sake. I miss my life, my dogs. I miss my dogs.”
There is no composure left. I place my head into my forearms and sob. It’s the first time in years.
I straighten up, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s alright, John. I understand, believe me. This is some serious shit you’ve gotten into.”
He shakes his head at me and looks out down to the pod, which is ending walk-time, and the jumpsuits move toward the cells.
“How are you holding up?”
“You mean in the belly of the slave ship? It’s a living nightmare.”
He looks at me intensely. There’s something to him, I don’t know if it’s my delusion of hope, but I sense he sees something in me, beyond the truth, which is obviously a rarity for him, going by what I’ve seen in jail, but maybe a truth worth defending. I can’t shake the phrase public pretender. He returns my stare and doesn’t blink once,
“I want you to know that I’m going to bust my ass for you.”
“Thank you, Zane.”
“I’ll send you the police reports, the discovery. It will be marked legal mail. I’ll see you in about a week. Stay strong.”
He leaves. I press the button and the door opens. The pod deputy is younger than me with a bald head. I grab my tablet from the table and walk past his desk, up the stairs and stand with my back toward him while I wait for the door to pop. It isn’t opening. I count to 60, then turn around. He has a smug smile, the fat prick. Once our eyes meet he pops the door, and I feel a genuine desire to punch him in the mouth. But I smile and tell him he’s done a good job. It confuses his fat rat’s face, and he starts to think of something, but I’m in the cell and the door is closed and he has no choice but to throw the lock.
At lunch, which is actually breakfast time for people not familiar with rapists, speed freaks, murderers, thieves, recklessly drunk drivers and vagrants, Butts nods at me,
“Anything exciting happen while I slept through morning walk-time?”
“No. Talked to Elliot.”
“The snitch?”
“Never mind. Fuck it.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“I don’t have the energy.”
Butts bites into his sandwich. It looks like cat food on Wonder Bread. He shakes his head at it,
“He talks out of his ass a lot.”
The Gay Blade lisps into his tray,
“Good news from your attorney?”
“No.”
The old druggie with the glasses, who Butts calls Trump, watches my sandwich. The pod deputy is walking the top tier. I flop it onto his tray. He picks it up,
“God bless you.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
The table behind Butts’ chair laughs. He looks at me and shakes his head,
“Dude, you’ve got to lighten up. Otherwise when you get out of here, you’re going to be different.”
I look at him. We’re in on felony sex Measures, though mine is at least worthy of trial, but the way things are looking I don’t stand much of a chance. My gut won’t let me back down from the truth, even with all the fear that is living inside of me and through me. A table darkened off in the corner by the vestibule door catches my eye. The guy with the blown dreads is there, as well as a scraggly looking guy with a goatee, a young man maybe in his later twenties who looks like an islander and a thin guy with a shaved head. They eat and stay quiet, but I notice the black guy is grabbing food off their trays, but they don’t seem to mind. Butts shoots me a smile over his food,
“Now, that’s the table you don’t want to sit at, dude. Black one is Peyton, but we call him Fastback. In on 14 counts of rape. He goes to trial in two days. He’s going to fucking lose, that I promise you. He’s tough, though, probably the meanest one in here. He’ll be alright.”
I look over casually. Butts doesn’t need to stare at them, he has the whole place figured out, memorized, even who sits in which seat. Each element of jail is programmed, even flesh. Color by numbers. Almost all are system babies, Helena. They’ve been in and out so many times, they get used to the program, they get comfortable. What is sex and sun, ocean and sweat to a system baby? Mere extras, nothing essential. Butts sips his juice and picks up his sandwich,
“The one across from Fastback is Norman. He’s from Hawaii or some shit. He’s in for molesting his wife’s 8 year old daughter after they’d been married two years. He’s actually one of the smarter ones in here, always reading, always into a crossword. He’s quiet, but he has to be. The one who looks like he just stepped out of the Scooby-mobile is some white trash dude in for yet another parole violation, failure to register as a sex-offender, and the guy with the shaved head is Lovejoy, who’s in on 2 counts of rape. Norman and Lovejoy have both been here for half a year, easily. They keep getting moved back. The longer they sit here, the less time they sit in prison.”
“Is that true?”
“It can be. Not in Fastback’s case, unless you see time served here as time off in prison, but with a Measure, it’s day for day. Even with the time served here, it’s nothing. In cases like mine, it’s definitely a truism. The DA will eventually knock me out of a Measure for a plea, or I’m hoping he will. The girl isn’t crying rape. Her parents are. She’s even admitted that she lied to the Grand Jury.”
A Mexican yells bullshit from the table behind us, and his table laughs. Butts looks at him,
“Go fuck yourself, Torres. Unintelligent piece of shit.”
They laugh again. Butts looks at me,
“I don’t give a fuck. I have nothing to hide.”
Trump picks up his piece of pink cake. It’s shriveled and dry. He mumbles,
“Why do I always get the fuckin’ rape-o cake?”
He looks at me immediately, “No offense, John.”
“None taken, Trump. Believe me.”
He shakes his head, “Child molester over there has piece of cake the size of Gibraltar. I get this fuckin’ thing.”
The Gay Blade laughs into his tray. Butts looks at me, and I break it by staring out onto the cement, which I am doing again, only the sky is still full with rain and brighter because it’s after dinner, which was the same as lunch. And pm walk-time is the same, only we were out for half an hour, then celled in when the med cart arrived. But this deputy, a butch lesbian, decides to leave us in. She rules with an iron twat, short hair, fat around the middle, and extra pissed because she’s surrounded by cock. She yells, she barks, and she blasts the Trailblazers game at full volume after lights-out. Most of the pod is into it, they stand at their windows and watch the televisions, and those who can’t see the screens watch the others watching.
I’ve never been into sports, in fact, I’ve avoided them. Boxing was different, Helena. That was one on one, truly being responsible for your own result. I lay on the bed and stare at the ceiling, try to use the game as white noise but it’s no good. As an extra gift from Hell, the air conditioning, which might shut off for five minutes once every five days, has gone silent, and I hear it all, commercials included, some of them local, some of them talking about businesses right by where I used to live. I can say to a certainty that everything feels futile. Why take a shower, I’m in jail. Why worry about my teeth or the shape of my body, I’m in jail. Even pissing feels like a waste of time, a bothersome distraction that takes me off of this bed. It takes four days for me to take a shit. Bates says, through his rotting teeth fronting a pony-tail, that it’s normal for newboots to not shit for days on end. You don’t even own a plastic cup, until you get commissary, which was begrudged to me on Tuesday by the dyke bitch. Unclassifieds were supposed to be able to order, but she never got to us, and when she sees my tumbler in hand, she calls me to the desk and asks me where I’d gotten it. I tell her I don’t remember. She tells me to set it on the counter, so I do. No more tumbler. Back out onto the concrete, it’s like an afterlife, a nightmare, the jumpsuits, the near night sky that I know looks beautiful from the riverfront.
Two more days and nights are the same as the others, nothing changes. At the table, I find out that The Gay Blade has signed off on 16 years, day for day. He smiles at Trump,
“Life as I know it is over.”
Trump keeps his eyes on his food, and the food on the trays around him. I notice that my fingernails are turning an ugly shade of milk, and they’re flimsy. Out on the concrete, Bates walks next to me. I haven’t been putting off a formal introduction, Helena. It’s just that he’s one of those guys who you describe and shrug, and say, “He’s just Bates.” But he’s also alright, to be fair. I actually like Bates. He’s shorter than me, skinny, and on meds. He looks like a young, watered down Manson with his frailty and half beard. Bates is creepy and lost, but has tons of heart. Turns out that the screams I hear at two in the morning are from his cell, which is almost directly below mine. He screams in his sleep, says he’s been doing it since childhood. Like several of the others, he’s from Forest Grove, apparently a crime center. He talks about his latest arrest, stealing a watch from Fred Meyer while he shopped with his girlfriend. Outside, the security guard goes to grab him but Bates takes off. They detained his girl, who called him from the back of the car, and told him that she was pregnant. She was going to tell him that night before bed. He told me that they arrested him and held him because the guard claimed that he pulled a knife to stop him.
“Did you?”
“Man, fuck no.”
I don’t believe him, but I smell his dark, shitty coffee. I now have no cup, and I’m envious of inmates holding theirs, and Elliot hasn’t come through with any coffee, anyway, though he’s had the letter I wrote his girl for two days. I smell the caffeine from his cup, and it’s almost like sensing an old friend. He hasn’t sipped it yet, and the top of the black is thick. He hands me his cup,
“Go ahead.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure. It’s leaded, man. I cook it strong.”
I raise the hot plastic cup to my mouth, and my palms burn greatly. The foam is thick under my nose, generic and instant, but hot and powerful caffeine all the same. I drink, and it’s like a feeding or a transfusion, a shot of what meth must be like. Even in Hell, in all of this fucking deadness, my blood moves faster. I’m going to write to you about what happened regarding me being here, loyal Helena, because you of all people will get sick to your stomach, like the ones who really know me have.
“Listen, I’m sorry about this morning. I want to come in tonight and drink a little.”
“We’ll be open.”
“Alright. I love you.”
“Alright.”
I hung up. It rang back.
“City Folks.”
“I told you I loved you.”
“I heard you.”
Bill shook his head. She paused for a second. The first wave walked in.
“I have to go. The first team just walked in.”
“Maybe I won’t come down tonight. Maybe I should just move on.”
“Take care.”
I hung up.
Wednesday was ladies’ pool league night. The largest and most wretched women in the county filled the bar with their fat asses and sexual repression. Once in awhile they had a thin one in the herd, but my girlfriend showed up around seven at night and she stayed until closing, drove me home and bitched at me until she had to go to work. Once in awhile we had sex, but not too often. Her weak mind was paranoid over me taking off with a girl after work, or she would try to get herself worked up for home when we got there. I preferred masturbation over either. One of her biggest problems with the bar job was Wednesday. Once in awhile a cow would run her hand down my lower back or touch my hair. But I always walked out of the bar with at least a hundred dollars. Buck smiled at me,
“Trouble in Paradise?”
“She says she’s moving on.”
“Moving on to what?”
“I don’t care.”
The girls pulled out their sticks and rolled them on the table. They were the team from Madras. I walked over,
“Hello, ladies. The usual?”
They cackled and elbowed each other.
“We’ll take three pitchers of Coors Light and a few pizzas.”
“Will you ladies be running a tab again tonight?”
“Only if there’s a lap dance involved.”
They cackled again. I smiled,
“You couldn’t afford it.”
I walked away and poured the pitchers. I nodded to Buck,
“Three pizzas.”
“Cheese or meat combos?”
“What do you think?”
He walked back in the kitchen and threw them in the oven. I walked the pitchers over and came back with the glasses. Vickie walked in and waved to me. I set the glasses down and poured their first beers. Little things like that fattened the tip jar. The pool games went on until eleven or so, and the mating ritual began. I walked behind the bar. Vickie looked at me and smiled. I fixed her a Bloody Mary. She lit up,
“My girlfriend’s daughter’s coming in tonight with them. You’d like her. I told her about you.”
“That’s nice, Vickie. But I can’t do anything about it, being how I live with Satan and all.”
“Maybe she won’t come in tonight.”
“And maybe I’m a Swedish doctor.”
“I don’t know why you don’t kick her to the curb. You should be with a nice girl.”
I looked at her. Bill was right beside her. She saw him,
“Oh, hey Bill. Shit.”
He laughed.
“I didn’t hear a word. But you’re probably right.”
She laughed with him and nodded to me,
“You’ll like Tina. She’s funny.”
I did like Tina. She was a healthy farm girl. She took her vitamins . The bar was in full swing. I hustled my ass off. Rhonda and Cindy didn’t play pool. They ate pizza at the bar and smiled at me over their Chablis. It was just after eight. Tina walked to the bar.
“What can I get for you?”
“A shot of Maker’s and a Newcastle.”
“Nice.”
I set her up. She tipped heavily.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Two months.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Don’t say that out loud. She’ll appear.”
She laughed.
“Vickie said you should dump her.”
“Vickie’s right.”
The door opened and she walked in. I looked at Tina,
“Great. Thanks a lot.”
She laughed and walked past her. They eyed each other. It was good. She sat a few stools away from Rhonda and Cindy.
“Who was that?”
“A customer.”
“I’ll bet. Give me a drink.”
“Goat’s blood or the soul of a child?”
Sam and Lutz broke out laughing. She got up and walked out. I ran some pitchers over to a pool table. I looked outside. It was snowing. Carl and Dale had found a group of bison and blended in. I poured Lutz another. He took the glass and moved his eyes to the door. I nodded.
She sat back down,
“Let’s try this again. Can I have a Whiskey Sour, please, bartender?”
I fixed the drink and set it down. She smiled.
“I don’t have any money.”
I reached into the tip jar. Lutz nudged her,
“Must be nice.”
She took a drink,
“He has a good ass on him, but his brain is evil.”
Sam shook his head at his glass.
“Oh, I think he’s a big sweetheart. You’re lucky.”
Cindy glanced at her, “Damned right.”
I looked around the bar. Everything was covered. I poured a coke and opened a pack of smokes behind the bar. Tina sat down and held her lighter out. She lit me up,
“You work hard. Do you work that hard in bed?”
“Hell no.”
My girlfriend was in flames. I set Tina up with another shot and a beer. She tipped me five dollars.
“Thanks, Tina.”
She winked at me and walked off. I walked over and poured Sam another beer. He looked at my girlfriend,
“How’s work going down at the bathroom joint?”
“It’s not just a bathroom joint. I sell ceiling fans and lighting, too.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
He rolled his eyes at me. She nodded for another drink.
I made her one in a big water glass. It was full of whiskey. I put a ten in the till.
Buck smiled at me through the opening between the kitchen and the bar. I walked back.
We finished the joint and a bottle of red and went back inside. Alexandra was near me at all times, and when she got too close her mother would shake a finger at her. I didn’t know how the Greek culture worked with sex. I didn’t want to cross any lines. There were heavy and drunk Greek women in the room. Everything that was said in the room was translated to her by her mother.
We sat in there and I listened to them talk. The language was a different color, guttural. Each word was spoken with force. It was intense for the stoned Americans. Marty finally told me I should stay over since I was drunk. He said I could sleep on the floor of their bedroom since the three sisters had the extra beds and Alexandra had the couch. I told him I had a bed in my van. I hoped it made it in translation. I asked to use the phone. Marty nodded to the kitchen.
On the machine I told my brother I would not be in tonight, that I was too wasted to drive. I hung up. There she was, backing me up against the counter. She grabbed my shoulders. I started to say something about everybody being so close to the kitchen. She stopped me with broken and uncertain English,
“No time.”
She pushed me down there. I pulled up the front of her skirt, and set it in her fingers. White laced over that dark hair and dark skin, a dark and soft and manicured tuft of hair that lifted the front of her panties barely away from her sex. I pulled the cotton aside and started kissing it. She moaned quietly. I started with my tongue, and brown hips moved into my mouth and my brain spun there, drunken and shocked. The taste was actually sweet, the wet of her fragranced with her smell. She pulled me up and we kissed. Never in my life had I ever…
Marty cleared his throat from behind us. When we turned around he was shaking his finger at her, mocking her mother. She stuck her tongue out at him and walked out. He watched her ass go. He opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. I stood there looking at the ceiling, my arms akimbo. He shook his head,
“Fucking bastard.”
Then he was gone. Back in the living room they were watching a movie. Alexandra sat close to her mother now, only glancing at me every so often, playing with my head. I thought, you nasty little fucking Greek goddess. I watched it with them. I saw Greek porn. After awhile everyone filed off to bed. Marty asked me if I was sure I didn’t want the floor. They said we would have breakfast together in the morning. Alexandra shot me a look from her bed on the couch. A look that made my skin jump up from my bones.
I laid in the back of the van and got her out of my mind as quickly as possible. It didn’t take long. I wiped off and stared at the moon from the back window. It was high and white, white lace against a dark, exotic sky. At once I hated Alexandra’s mother and wished she would die, if just for an hour.
The happy Greek must have died soon. The tapping of her fingernails sobered me. I opened the side door. She was barefoot, clutching a candle. She ducked in. I closed the curtains. Then we heard a quiet but steady knock on the side door. Alexandra put a finger to her lips. Each handle was then tried casually. She undressed through the knocking. I kept bouncing from the knocking to her breasts and stomach. It was torture. Then the knocking went on forever and ceased. Alexandra motioned to me like she was writing a note then she walked her fingers in the air. She had written her mother a note saying she took a walk. I hoped for both of us that the note would hold up. We heard the front door close quietly. She lit the candle.
She laid under me and I kissed her everywhere I could. Her body was flawless and smooth and sculpted, her breasts perfect, her ass going beyond anything I had ever seen. That long dark hair all around her. After I could take no more I put it in. The tightest grip any man could ask for. If I hadn’t already shot just minutes before she showed up, it would have been over long before I’d even worked her panties off. Her body in that light…
I was fucking a Greek myth, a constellation. She turned me over and put me in her mouth. There was nothing she couldn’t do. The only thing she didn’t like was my finger up her ass. She would stop me by biting my lip and shaking her head. I turned her over on her stomach and moved with various speeds, massaging her clit with my finger. She bucked and came a few times then I really let her have it. I held off for a long time, maybe an hour or more. She began to run dry so I went as fast as I could and shot the streams across her back. A lot came out, more than ever.
Then something happened. I looked down at her body and got rock hard instantly, put it back in, went for five or six hard strokes, gripping her hips so tight that she gasped in pain, gave her one more hard one then pulled out and shot all over her again.
I fell back on the bed. She moved her hair from her face and laid on top of me. I would grow hard, she would put me in and we would fuck until I was ready, when she would slide off and ejaculate me. We would kiss until I was hard again then repeat it. It happened all through the night and we fell asleep like that.
The Sun was out and she was still on top of me. We awoke and did it again. Then again. I was hung over and I couldn’t take it anymore. I crawled to the driver’s side and got out, looked around and began pissing by the rear wheel. My shoulders shook gratefully. The Sun was high and painful and I couldn’t face it. Halfway through she was behind me, and she kissed my neck, my ears. She held it while I pissed and she kissed me. Another first.
She was shaking me off. I opened my eyes and glanced over my shoulder to see big mother sitting on the front steps watching the whole thing. She had been awake all night, and she looked rough. Alexandra knew what fuck meant because she sighed before she said it and she kissed me on the ear once more and said goodbye, then walked toward the steps of the house, and she walked it grimly. Her mother stood and they yelled back and forth in Greek. The neighbors awoke and walked out. Her mom kept trying to run at me, but Alexandra was stopping her. Next I saw Marty out front in his underwear. And her mother would break loose for a second and get closer to me, and Alexandra would stop her with all the strength in her body. She turned her head to me from the struggle and yelled,
“GO! GO! GO!”
Marty kept waving me off. The other sisters came bumbling out of the house. I decided it was time to leave.
Back at the house my brother was watching a rodeo on the tube. Jenny and Layla must have been on the east side seeing her mother. My brother asked me where I had been all night.
“Greece.”
He asked me where the hell grease was. I curled up on the rest of the couch and passed out.
I wasn’t sure if I still had a job on Monday. At the site Marty was drinking coffee on the tailgate of his work truck. He nodded and poured me a cup. I had a seat, and we watched the workers drive in with the sunrise.
“I guess I’m not welcome at your house anymore.”
He grinned into his cup,
“You got that right.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head,
“Fuck man, not your fault. I tried to explain to Big Foot that she had no right to come after you like that. I mean here’s her daughter, all over you all night, she corners you in the kitchen and lets you eat her little pussy, -yeah, yeah, yeah, I was watching you fuckers. So what? – Anyway, she sneaks out and jumps in your van with you. I mean, I tried to tell her, which kid in his right mind would walk away from that? And on top of it all you were both drunk. But she wasn’t having it, she wouldn’t listen. Made for a real fucked up weekend at my place. Just glad they’re gone.”
My turn. Medical questions, blood pressure testing, twice. The first test had me exploded to dead, but the second read perfectly. After more sitting, watching the ones who had been there longer than me get jumpsuits, showers, and sent to a cell with their bedding in arms, I actually envied them. I was called for fingerprints, all digital. It was amazing. Roll your palm here, touch there. The world gets more efficient the closer it gets to extinction.
Sitting here now, in this cell, looking back on this, I remember the low whispers of the people next to me talking about their cases, the low and barely audible communication. Frightened whispers flying below the radar of the deputies, communicating like dogs who can only hear the whistle’s frequency, but bad dogs all the same. The tiles and walls and layout of the lobby crawled upon me there, the sick fatigue of not knowing where I would be, in a cell with a big son of a bitch who thought I was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, the burn of my defense bleeding across my knuckles, the weight of his body on mine while he fucks me. He presses his palms into my shoulders, which flatten against the concrete floor and he arches his hips into me, shoots his cum inside of me and all I can do is feel my loosened teeth protesting against my drool on the floor. It won’t come to that, though. I am tired and crazed but I am strong and angry. I start to think about it when I’m called over for a shower. 3 am. I had to strip and lift my balls and bend over, spread my ass and cough. I didn’t want to think about that guy’s job, but I would work it double time if I could come home to you, to the ghost around my typewriter, to your long dream hair and turquoise eyes sending me into that place, that place where I no longer live.
Day 73. The sadness and death bleed from my pores in here. The tears of angels and prison tattoos, the bitter hatred laugh of devils and the hours that absorb me. All the love and air, the taste of wind and sun, the mere fire of a gas stove, a 3 am hour of restlessness in front of a window that opens to a streetlight, all of this a dream now, all of this in my head, my stomach sore from emptiness, my body cold beneath a sorry wool blanket and an over-bleached sheet –the loss of shadows in this half lit cell, the loss of grace. I think of you on nights defined by a dimmed florescent light, I think of the angel eyes of my dead dog, my dead love. I think of Chico living in some obese, child-man’s rooming house space wondering where his daddy went.
I write this to you, Helena, because I started it with you. It started with a touch of your skin in a hot desert park. Odds are if I beat this case and don’t get life in prison, I will more than likely finish this book alone before dawn in a shitty apartment as the other books were finished, or I will be in a different woman’s place tapping it out while she sleeps in another room with my dog next to her. If I get convicted I will end my life before transport comes for me, or I will decide to end it day by day, in a protective-custody cell writing out the works that have been haunting me but had to lie in the wake of precedence. But this book will be destroyed, for a number of reasons.
–But for now I continue this to you, Helena, a muse and love in a few of my writings.
It’s the hours that eat you in here, Helena. The down time, the hours of freezing, processed air and zero privacy. Timing my work-outs, bowel movements, masturbation and even tears around the next deputy’s cell walk. My pink socks are dirty from the concrete floor in here. 20 hours a day in this cell. Pencil stubs and yellow lined paper. The DA wants to see me twist in the wind. Narcs are sent in dressed as inmates, detectives thumb through my stories and poems they make me turn into Property every week, they’ve turned trash to torpedoes, sneaking in my cell and reading my paperwork.
Jack the PI says the truth always comes out in court. I play that in my head like a mantra, to get me into an hour’s nightmare every morning, an hour before the lights flip on full power, and the dim grey walls become white like Mercury, and the intercom blasts instructions for razors and showers, for the med-line then breakfast, which in two hours will be a tablespoon of cold oatmeal and half a frozen apple.
-Excerpt from Bad Jacket, out sooner than later. It’s a book about a writer falsely accused of a sex crime and sent to jail for 128 days. Been tapping it out, well, transcribing from tablets. More peeks as I feel them necessary. Hope you all like it…
Sunday. Sunlight, water, words. Hot in the brain, hot down the arms. The ocean, the cars, the beat of light upon decades. A drive to the house of a great writer long gone, the face of the harbor splayed out beneath the bridge and reaching for Los Angeles. The freeways, the corners, smoke curling out of the windows of old cars. Back at the machine, the new stuff rolling out, a highway through the old cities then the break of light as the landscape waits for color. Deconstruct safety. Walk away from what’s mundane. Walk away from words dead with repetition. The stories must go on breaking bone, with precise wonder.
Let’s run down the list: A sun-soaked parking lot with a reasonable amount of shoppers present. Saturday, hot in California, slightly congested from a suicide drive without pause from the Northwest, a back tire with a gash down to the radial which I noticed in Medford while I let my dog out to run while the attendant fueled us up, the feeling of fear whenever a crack in the road jolted the wheels, but mostly the fear of getting a flat on the Bay Bridge -then a few glasses of red, a few hours of sleep, and I’m in the parking lot breaking in my new S&M Intrikat frame, designed by Chad Johnston, one of my favorite riders. Sean McKinney had sent me the frame in an expertly packaged bubble of pornography.
The frame is the best I’ve ridden. Responsive and perfect. Probably an hour or more into the session, I over-adjust on a front wheel trick and slam face first onto the asphalt. Old pain. Eyes full of water, nose throbbing, that strange sensation of blood running down your neck, and between your collar bones. I’ve had a broken nose twice, so I know it’s not broken. In the grocery store I grab a handful of the hand sanitizing wet wipes and hold off the blood. Some hits the tiles and a few people look at me. I nod to them that I’m fine. A manager starts to walk over so I make my way out. I can feel him watching me. No sense wasting time explaining myself. I make it to the door, reach inside and grab my shirt. It’s one of my good t-shirts, and I’m determined to keep it clean as long as I can. I check the mirror for blood, but I’ve got it all taken care of at this point. I want to keep riding, but I also have a new book I’m writing, and it’s safe to say that the wreck has refocused me, and I feel I’ve been there long enough today. Not as long as usual, but I’m satisfied. I start the engine and wait on traffic, hit seek on the radio and the stop it on the first clear station. Motorhead: Eat The Rich. I sneeze blood against the windshield and start laughing. Something holy about a bloody nose while blasting Motorhead. 41 years of age means nothing. Pedals, tires, asphalt, blood and metal. Timeless perfections. I check my shirt. It’s unscathed. I listen to the song and drive toward the place. In the later 1700s, Jean Jacques-Rousseau said, “When the people have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” The man who inspired the French Revolution as well as nationalism and socialism and so on also happened to set the course for a seriously fucking good Motorhead song, which I hold in the higher of his esteems. And the California sun burned, the nose throbbed with broken vessels, and the windshield had a metallic finish of blood that reflected the sun and music rather nicely, perfectly really. My thoughts spilled across the dash in a pool of music, of words. The colors and the cracks in time are there for us, and only us.
Jeff Stewart 