Naked, on the Edge (2 page)

Tonya, at nineteen, was ecstatic. She'd never had a boyfriend before Jimbo, had never even been touched in that way by a boy before. Her height, six-one, had scared off most boys, and besides, she was skinny and flat as a train track and her bottom teeth poked out a little. So, with a trembling match she'd lit a cigarette for Jimbo, and the next morning when he got off work and came back by the store, she'd gone out with him and lit more than that.

Dating hadn't exactly been what she'd thought it would be, and she didn't have any girlfriends to compare notes with, she only saw what couples did on movies and on the T.V. But Jimbo kept coming back for more, so she figured it was going okay.

They'd been dating for four months now. At first, Jimbo had made love to her easy, in her bed or his, once out by the pond and once in the back of his pickup on the overlook at Raven's Roost. Then, it began to change. It wasn't making love anymore. It was screwing, fucking, humping. And she had the bruises to prove it. But he was her boyfriend.

Most of the time now he scared her. But he was her boyfriend.

My boyfriend, she thought. She had no idea exactly what he wanted today, a fuck in the prison basement? Probably. Just so he didn't try to put ants down her blouse like he did one time in the woods so she'd buck harder when he came.

They stood alone at the end of a narrow hallway in the far reaches of the prison. Jimbo had a tangle of keys hanging from his belt. It made him look very sexy.

"Now don't be making any noise, you hear me?" Jimbo warned Tonya. "My friends aren't going to say anything but Captain Harner will have me out of here on my ass if he finds I got you in here. He'll probably fine me or even have me arrested. Fuck. You want me locked up in here with these stinking criminals?"

"'Course not." The gum she'd had resting in the side of her mouth made its way back to her teeth. She stretched it, blew a bubble, and it popped. "Now, what are we gonna do, Jimbo?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out. And you be a good little girl and keep your fucking mouth shut. You hear me?"

Tonya nodded.

"It's gonna be underground." His brown eyes sparkled, his square jaw cracked in a smile. He unlocked the steel door to the cellar stairs, tugged the door open, and grabbed Tonya's hand.

Tonya had come into the prison easily, under pretense of visiting a prisoner, Eddie Stratford, who had twenty-five years for armed robbery. Eddie had no desire to see Tonya; she reminded him of his old girlfriend that he tried to kill one time, but he was willing to play the game in exchange for the cash and cigarettes Jimbo was able to provide. "Hi, Tonya, good to see you how's the baby how's the job?"

Jimbo had then sneaked Tonya away from Eddie and hid her in the male guard's restroom. With help and a bribe from another couple buddies who worked check-in, Jimbo’d gotten her signed out. In the restroom, Tonya’s donned an old uniform and put on Jimbo's cap. Her heart had beat irregularly with dreadful hope.

Then Tonya and Jimbo had slipped deeper and deeper into the prison confines, through the gates and down the passageways, Tonya bending low beneath the bulk of her costume so the prisoners wouldn't notice her. Jimbo’s friends winked as they passed. After many twists and turns, they came to the stairs leading down to the solitary confinement cells.

"Ain't supposed to use the cells down there no more," Jimbo explained in a hushed voice as he'd opened the panel to the light box and flicked a switch, throwing yellow glow down the steps. "Warden don't even know we use 'em. Say it ain't humane. Fuckin', pussy-lickin’ ACLU. Fuckin' crybabies. It's their damn fault. What do they think punishment is, a party and a birthday cake? I say screw 'em. Hang the thieves, the drug-addicts, the dealers, the murderers. Hang the goddamned white-collar crooks and those women who don't get off welfare in a year. Torture 'em first then string 'em up where the public can watch and take pictures. Put the pictures in the post office."

"You mean there's guys down there in cells?"

"That's what I'm saying. Keep up with me and keep your goddamn thoughts to yourself.”

Tonya nodded.

"I know what I'm doing, okay?"

"Okay," said Tonya. She didn't know anything about criminal justice, but Jimbo sure did. He knew about everything, cars, politics, religion, hunting. He would make a hell of a president, she thought. Straighten everything out. She followed Jimbo down to the cold concrete floor of the cellar, keeping one hand in his, the other on the crumbling wall. The smell, wafting up from the cellar, was strong, a blending of wet and mildew and cold sweat.

"Only got two down here now," said Jimbo. "Both murderers. Since neither of them made it to death row, some of us guards decided we would give 'em a little treat down here for a while. Captain Harner approved it, and the warden won't never hear of it 'cause he doesn't take much stock in the day-to-day. One's of the criminals down here’s an old fart, been in prison for, shit, over thirty years now. We put him down here for throwing food in the cafeteria. Now he can throw it all he wants, nobody knows or cares. That's him there."

Jimbo pointed. Tonya looked.

The cell was directly in front of them. It looked like a steel closet, with a slot in the door like a mail slot. There was no door knob, only a keyhole. Tonya guessed you tugged the door open with the key. Above their heads, the long, bare fluorescent lights pulsed and hummed.

"Is it dark in that cell?"

"Guess so."

"No lights at all?"

"Don't think so."

"How do they see in there?"

"They don't, idiot."

Tonya took a deep breath that stung her nose. She shifted one foot to the other. "How long's that guy been in solitary?"

Jimbo shrugged. "I don't know. Couple, four months. He don't make a sound, but he's alive 'cause he eats what we stick in the slot. He's got a mattress, too, so he can't complain. Homeless people ain't got mattresses, so this asshole should send us a thank you note, don't you think?"

Tonya said, "Guess so."

Jimbo put one arm around Tonya's waist, glanced around, and then put one hand on Tonya's right breast. "Shit, it makes me hot, being one of the good guys."

"Where's the other con?"

"Cell over this way," said Jimbo. He gave Tonya's breast a healthy, painful squeeze, then ushered her down the hail thirty feet, past other steel doors and knob-less keyholes. Beetles scurried into drains; brown, fat-bodied spiders clutched draglines in the shadowed corners. God, don't let him want to put spiders down my blouse, Tonya thought. Half-way to the second con's cell, Jimbo spun around, put his hands down the front of
Tonya's guard pants and kissed her neck. "Can't stop, baby," he hissed, and Tonya tried to think of what he was doing to keep her mind off whatever the hell he might be asking her to do in a few minutes.

H
e took up the spoon and felt it and put it into his mouth, pretending there was food on there and that it tasted good. He sucked the good food, it was mashed potatoes with pepper this time, then licked the spoon eight times until it was clean. He licked his lips and put the spoon back in the nick. Then he paced.

One, two, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

He remembered again. The sledgehammer of memory slammed him in the back of the head and he stumbled.

God pity me have mercy why why why don't please don't I don't want to die I want to live forever so I won't go into the lake of burning torment God no! Marcus fell to his knees then stretched prostrate, his cheek losing skin on the concrete.

"Lord is my shepherd," he said to the floor. "I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Shadow of the valley, all the days of my life." He burst into sobs. His tears were thick with salt. If he could have killed himself at that moment, he would have. But that would only bring him into hell more quickly. There was nothing ahead of him but life's agony. And then death's agony.

When the crying eased, he touched the tears on the floor and brought the wet to his lips. Then he stood, found the wall, and walked.

J
imbo pulled his fingers out from Tonya's bush, sucked them, and then shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Can't push that too far," he said. "I want something raring to go when my time comes. I'm a steel rod, baby." He winked. "You like steel rods?"

Tonya said, "What do you mean, when your time comes?"

"It's gonna be something special today," said Jimbo.

"What is it?"

Jimbo said, "I mean this." He walked another ten feet then planted his hand on a steel door. "There's a lover boy in here, ready and waiting."

Tonya came over and touched the door, too. She peeked in through the food slot and couldn't see a thing but tar-blackness. She had promised herself to do anything for Jimbo. He was her man. He bought her stuff. He liked her ass. He didn't hit her. Anything, she had told him. But her stomach turned with uncertainty.

There were many things she'd done to keep Jimbo happy. She'd let him pee all over her in the bathtub once. She'd screwed him in a gravelly parking lot where a gang of construction men could look down on them. She'd gone without panties into a hardware store then bent over to show the clerk what kind of nails she wanted to buy while Jimbo watched through the store window.

But she'd never fucked somebody else. Especially not no damned con in solitary confinement.

"You want me to fuck him?" she asked.

"He's probably too weak to hurt you, baby," said Jimbo. He touched her cheek and tweaked her nose.

"You mean he'd want to hurt me but he's too weak?"

Jimbo frowned. Tonya didn't like his frown. "I don't know, Tonya. Don't press me. He's been there a while. He ain't gonna hurt you.”

"How long he's been there?"

"Two years. Longer than I been here. But, like I said, what the warden don't know won't piss him off. This con's got no family, no lawyer checking on him. He could stay here his whole life for all I care."

Tonya's head began to pound. "Ever see him?"

"No. But I been down here for feeding. He eats, so he's alive, just like the other one. Hear Captain Harner took off a couple the guy's digits one time."

“What’s a digit?”

Jimbo made an exasperated sound deep in his throat, and Tonya shivered.

"Harner hates rule breakers and human trash," Jimbo continued. "He even put a buddy guard of mine down here in a cell for a couple weeks for smart-mouthing off." Jimbo laughed. "Harner's right on."

"Why don't you just go on and let the cons here die? I mean, if the warden don't know and all. You think they ought to die, right?"

This seemed to make Jimbo think. His lip drew up and one eye squinted. Then he smiled. "Damned paperwork is one reason. But I guess it's more fun like this, too. Kind of like a secret club. You like secret clubs?"

Tonya's nose wrinkled. She hoped it looked cute. But in truth, it was a spasm of fear. "Yeah. But what if he's a queer and don't like me? He might hurt me then, Jimbo."

"I'll be watching, so if he starts to hurt you I'll kick his ass, how about that?"

"Well. . . ."

Jimbo took Tonya's arm and shook it. "Well, what? You gonna do this, aren't you?"

"Sure. 'Course I am."

Jimbo nodded, then put a key into the hole in the door. "Thought so," he said.

H
e knew every corner of his room, every crack, every lump, every chink. His fingers were his eyes and they were rough but clear. Sometimes, though, his mind became his eyes and it showed him the cell from above, a clear picture with him in it, twenty years old, naked, shivering, and doomed.

"I'm sorry," he said to himself. Five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three."

His hand rode again over the nick with the spoon. He took it out and carried it with him, dragging it along the wall's surface so he could hear something besides his own voice and his own breathing.

There was rattling at the food slot, and he ran to the corner and crouched, covering his head with his hands and the spoon and screaming "I'm sorry!" The phantom fingers flamed into agony, recalling their disciplinary amputation, wondering if the fingers beside the scarred spaces might be next.

"H
e's screaming!" said Tonya.

"Shut the fuck up and get in there," said Jimbo. He pulled the door open, and the dim light spilled onto the bare-floored cell.

H
e saw the silhouette in the middle of the blinding light, a tall, thin human form with long hair. It wasn't a guard. It was a devil.

Death was here, and it was time to step into the lake of eternal fire and damnation for his unending punishment.

"I'm sorry!" His knees pulled up to his chin and his eyes blurred. "Not now, please!"