Nine
____________
Hittin’ the Fan
The next couple of weeks
delivered more excitement than a dozen mega-celebrity horror, thriller, and
action films combined. The Perv got stabbed in the leg in the chow hall, a
fight broke out in the arts and crafts room involving six inmates, numerous
boys were forcefully assaulted, and four youths attacked Cornell on the yard
one evening. Cornell easily held his own but ended up spending a couple of days
confined to his cell.
Monday and Tuesday on the
construction site proved to be a horrible time for the newbie inmate Stone; the
building site contained too many blind areas. Two youths brutalized Renie one
of the mornings leaving him feeling weak, violated and less than a man.
Once Cornell returned to work
that Wednesday things flowed more normal again, at least out on the
construction site. Inside the prison was a different story, chaos reigned for
the rest of the week with a huge fight breaking out on the yard involving at
least sixty youths. Prison officials discussed a complete lockdown, but decided
that the construction crew, kitchen workers, and other pertinent workers with
good disciplinary records, would be allowed to report to their prospective work
assignments.
Two youths fell from a high
scaffold on the infirmary’s construction site breaking some bones in the
process. It happened to be the same two teens that had attacked Renie. Cornell
only smiled while medics transported the two off-site to a hospital across the
desert over three hours away. Correctional Officers, working overtime rotating
shifts, guarded the injured boys while special restraints kept the youths in
their hospital beds for as long as recovery took. Recovery could take several
months.
“For five percent of your
canteen issue,” Cornell addressed Renie, “I can make sure nobody touches you. I
usually charge a lot more, but I’ll give you a work-buddy discount. Think about
it.”
It didn’t take Renie long to
come to a conclusion, “Sure, sounds good.”
“Deal?”
“Deal!”
The two shook on it before
returning to hang some sheetrock. Gypsum sheetrock is only used in staff office
sections throughout the prison’s new construction. Concrete remains the product
of choice for all inmate common area walls, floors and ceilings.
“Hand me the screw gun, Ren,”
Cornell demanded.
Picking it up from the floor
Renie passed it to Cornell who used his hands, forehead and a knee to hold up a
large piece of gypsum board. Cornell let one hand free, spit a screw from his
mouth into it, and then proceeded to use the screw gun to secure the sheetrock
to the metal stud framing underneath while Renie measured and cut more boards.
“This is hard work,” commented
Renie.
“Sure is.”
“How’d you end up here, Cornell?
Oh, I know the story, but I mean,” he thought for a moment, “I mean, you know,
the why behind it all, or maybe the how behind it all, I’m not sure how to put
it into words.”
Cornell understood what his
friend meant. He spit the last screw into his hand and positioned it onto the
screw gun. After screwing it into the sheetrock, he replied, “I was a pretty ok
kid until I was ten, that’s when my little eight year old brother died. Nobody
said anything to me at the funeral. I felt I died that day and that I was of no
importance to anyone. It was my little brother that died, my best friend in the
world, the only person who looked up to me. We jumped on trampolines, climbed
trees, played tag, read stories and ate ice cream together; I loved my little
brother. When they lowered my little brother down into that dark grave, I
changed. My heart went with him into that cold abyss, down to the pits of hell.
I’ve never been the same since.”
Renie studied his friend’s
sorrow-filled eyes and replied, “Wow, your little brother. I can’t imagine.”
Avoiding his inner pain, Cornell
refocused the conversation, “But goin’ to this new Cyrene meeting has helped. I
feel God is more real, not just a bunch of religious junk and rules, but
someone I can know.”
“Me too. You been readin’ your
Bible?”
Cornell grabbed another sheet of
gypsum board and lifted into place against the wall, “Yeah, some. I read the
first part of Genesis, the book of Ecclesiastics and the Gospel of John. Now I
plan to read the book of Revelations.”
“You've been busy.”
Renie grabbed another piece of
sheetrock.
“Remember the cuttin’ rule.”
Renie answered, “Yep. Measure
twice and cut once.”
They both laughed.
“Sounds like somthin’ a couple
of gangstas would say,” Renie smiled.
Cornell confirmed, “Measure up
your opponent two times and cut him up once.”
“I’m thinkin’ we need another
Cyrene meetin’ about now.”
“You got that right, kid.”
Once the boys completed that
room’s sheetrock Cornell introduced Renie to the fine art of drywall finishing.
Taping the lines where the gypsum board met, including the angled corners, was
step one. Renie got the hang of it all rather quickly.
“You almost look like a pro,
Ren,” boasted Cornell.
“Maybe I can get me a job doin’
this kinda work when I get out. If I get out, that is.”
Cornell smoothed some of the
drywall compound over a row of screws, and replied, “Construction is a place
where you can do just that. A hard worker that is skilled is all them
construction contractor folks out there be lookin’ for; the fastest, best and
most dependable.”
Renie responded, “On the outside
they use automated tools, I watched ‘em once.”
“Bazookas, boxes, nail spotters,
angle tools... more tools than a graveyard has tombstones,” affirmed Cornell.
“But we won’t be usin’ any of them tools in here. Maybe if we get some free
staff construction workers later on they’ll let ‘em bring in some tools.”
“It would look better on a
resume,” Renie thought out loud.
“Yeah, better than thoroughly
efficient in all nonessential skills.”
“Ha, ha, very funny,” Inmate
Stone was not amused.
“We better get movin’, the day’s
almost done.”
Following Cornell’s lead, Renie
worked as fast as he could. Quite a bit of drywall board needed to be hung in
that room and two others before the day’s end. The two talked about the
crazy things going on inside the prison the past few weeks, knifings, rapes,
beatings, and the disrespect many displayed toward the staff. Cornell informed
Renie that it was normal for new prisons to have a testing period where things
go wild, staff members transfer or quit, inmates get rolled up and moved out;
he said it usually always settled down once the inmates see that nothing is
accomplished by stupidity, except to get locked down.
“I see what you mean, Cornell,
everyone thinks all these prisons start with no experience under their belt,
but they have eons of experience from the entire system.”
The two were interrupted by
another inmate abruptly, “Hey, you ain’t never gonna guess who died, go ahead,
guess,” pressed Schizo, a nervous acting skinny inmate known for a personality
that bordered on the fine line between sanity and the disorder of
Schizophrenia.
“You, Schizo,” replied an
irritated Cornell, “if you don’t tell us now.”
“Ok, ok, I’ll tell ya all.”
After a brief pause, Renie
questioned, “Now... or?”
“Yeah, yeah, guys, hold on a
moment. My mind ya know. Well, it was that big Indian fella, but I don’t know
how yet, though.”
“So the contract out on him was
sealed,” commented Renie.
“That ain’t the half of it,”
Schizo boasted.
Renie asked, “What’s the rest?”
Looking like a school kid with a
big secret, Schizo proudly replied, “He ain’t no Indian, or was no Indian,
ain’t half Mexican either. That’s why he never talked much. But he knew most of
what was being said by the border boys, ‘cause of it comin’ from Latin someone
told me. If ya know what I’m sayin’.”
“I ain’t followin’,” Renie
begged for clarification.
“Just let me think a bit.”
Cornell encouraged, “You better
be thinkin’ faster, Schizo.”
“Ok, ok, I got it,” he pulled up
his pants a bit, “He was Italian, yes, ma’am, Italian. He was the great-nephew
of some big time mobster guy in the Big Apple, as I heard it. Those bikers he
supposedly killed in Texas, well, he did do it, but it was ‘cause they ripped
off the mob family in a drug deal or somethin’. He was sent here on some sort
of prison witness protection gig to do his time.”
“That didn’t work,” Renie
chuckled.
“Paybacks are tough,” added
Cornell.
Schizo informed the two he had
to make the rounds with the news and dashed off.
“Another day in paradise,” Renie moaned.
Next Chapter: Hide & Seek
No comments:
Post a Comment