“Hit a guard. They ain’t like it when you hit them, but they sure as hell don’t mind busting our asses, do they?”
“Yep, life’s real unfair,” Knox exclaimed.
“I bet you’re a guy notices stuff. Notice anything weird around here?” Stone said.
“Notice stuff? Man, we only get one hour out a day. Half for chow, half for this recreation shit. Twenty-three hours and two meals in the old eight-by-twelve after that. Ain’t much time to notice stuff.”
While they were talking the man bouncing the ball let it get away from him. It rolled past the blue line. He went to get it.
“Oh, hell,” said Knox, who had just noticed this. “Hey, buddy!”
The man either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He crossed the line and the bullet hit him right in the back. He went down, face first. Stone and Knox started to run toward him, but other shots were fired and they pulled up.
As they watched, two guards sauntered over and picked the man up. There was no blood, Stone noted.
Donny said, “They use those damn dummy bullets if it’s your first time. Hurt like hell. Knock your ass out, but it ain’t kill you. Now, if it’s your second time, well, you ain’t gonna be around for a third time, get my drift?”
They returned to their corner as the unconscious man was carried away.
Stone continued their previous conversation. “What about the prison library? Classes? Workshop? You notice anything there?”
Donny snorted. “What, you been watching reruns of Escape from Alcatraz? Look around, man, ain’t no Clint Eastwood ’round here. They been promising a library the whole time my ass has been here and I ain’t seen one damn book yet. Supposed to have GED classes on TV too, but they say it keeps breaking down. Ain’t no workshops. Ain’t no nuthin’. Get a shower three times a week for five minutes and they stick a damn poker up your butt every time they do that, like you gonna pull a bazooka out your ass somehow and blow ’em away. I’d rather stay dirty. Ain’t like I got nowhere to go.”
He popped a piece of gum in his mouth and chewed it hard with the few teeth he had.
“Visitors, phone calls home? Lawyers?”
Donny chuckled. “At Dead Rock you got to earn your visits. Get a max of two a month. You screw up the least little thing, guess what, you ain’t getting no visitors. And guess what else? From what I hear ain’t been nobody earn a visit at this place in the last five years. I sure as hell ain’t. Not like there’s many folks lining up to come see me, but still. And you got to call collect if you even get near the damn phone. And not even my damn momma is gonna pay for a collect call from me. And ain’t no lawyers coming up here. Ain’t no more appeals for these boys. Everybody’s forgotten us. We ain’t anybody no more. We Dead Rock. Gonna die here, just the way it is. Better get used to it.” He swallowed his gum and hacked up some phlegm.
Stone looked around at the other prisoners. “People seem a little mellow here.” He eyed Donny. “Little too mellow.”
Donny cracked a smile and drew closer. “You noticed that too? Most of these boys ain’t never caught on to that crap.”
“So what drug do they use?”
“Ain’t know, but it’s pretty strong.”
“Do they put it in the chow?”
Donny nodded.
“Which meal?”
“Lunch or dinner, but that’s the thing. You never know which one.”
“So why do you seem so chipper?”
Donny’s eyes twinkled. “I could let you in on my little secret, but what you gonna gimme me for it? Now that’s the sixty-four-zillion-dollar question.”
Stone started to say something but Knox broke in. “Tell us and if I ever get out of here, I’ll take you away from old Dead Rock.”
“Right, shit you will. And besides, you ain’t never getting out of here.”
“I’m a fed, Donny. Assigned to look into corrupt prisons. You think this place is corrupt?”
“Sure as hell is. But if you a fed why would you be getting me out of here?”
“Feds can do anything, Donny. You help me, Uncle Sam helps you.”
Stone added, “And it’s not like you have a lot to lose by doing it.”
Donny considered this. “Okay. Not that I believe you’re a fed, but what the hell.” His voice sank lower. “Any meal you get, don’t eat the damn carrots, just flush ’em down the toilet and then practice your dumbshit look for the boys with the billy clubs.”
A guard started to move their way and Donny skittered off.
Knox said, “Well, that was informative but not particularly helpful except for the carrots. You believe him?”
“Maybe.” He gazed once more up at the walls. “They designed this place well, Knox. I don’t see many weaknesses.”
“Day gets better and better.”
A horn sounded and the prisoners started shuffling in.
Stone said, “The only way I see—”
The shot hit the cement right next to him, shards of concrete splattering up and slicing Stone and Knox in the lower legs. Both men grabbed at their calves even as another shot hit close to them. These were clearly no dummy bullets.
“Get your hands up!” screamed a tower guard through a bullhorn as the shooter stood next to him, his scope crosshairs dead on Stone’s brain.
They both whipped their hands in the air as the blood trickled down their pants and into their shoes.
“What the hell—?” said Knox.
“Ain’t walking fast enough, boys,” Donny cackled over his shoulder.
“What the hell happened to the dummy bullet for first offense rule?” Knox snapped as they hustled after the group.
“Apparently, that doesn’t apply to us.”
“Yeah,” Knox snarled.
A female nurse came to their cell later. They were stripped, searched and then shackled while she stood and watched surrounded by guards.
Through the open door and into the hallway outside, Stone could see a video camera bolted to the wall. He gauged that whenever a cell extraction was done the camera was perfectly positioned to, at best, capture a nice shot of the guards’ backs while they pounded the crap out of the unseen inmate.
Invisible for sure.
The nurse cleaned their injuries and bandaged them up while the guards made snide comments about sissy wounds.
Neither Stone nor Knox said a word.
However, when the nurse was finished Stone did say, “Thank you, ma’am.”
He was instantly hit in the mouth with a toweled billy club, the blow felling him. “You don’t talk to the lady, asshole,” screamed Manson the one-eyed guard as he leaned down into Stone’s bleeding face.
The nurse smiled graciously at her defender as they headed out.
Knox helped him to his feet. “We’ve got to get out of here, Oliver, or we’re dead.”
“I know. I know,” said Stone as he wiped fresh blood off his face, and then he froze.
The guard was looking in at him, his hand curled around the cell door as he was closing it. He wasn’t a young punk one-striper. He was older, and gray hair peeked out from under his cap as he stared at Stone. Right before the door clanged shut the guard gave one brief nod at Stone.