had taken me over and wrapped me up tight until I exploded. I thought about how Leonard was, and Brett. I had seen something close to joy on their faces. I figured mine had probably looked the same. Maybe we all deserved execution just because we could do what we did and not blink an eye. It wasn’t just self-defense. When it all came down and I felt that click inside of me, I had been scared but exhilarated too, and in the moments of the happening I had felt born to kill. Now I just felt small and sick to my stomach and a little weird. Like it had all happened to someone else and I had watched it from a distant rooftop.
My life had been too full of quick punches, blood, and gun smoke. I wanted to go with Brett to some island and live off coconuts and screw until it killed us. I wanted to never throw a punch again. Never see a gun again, not even from a distance, not even a picture in a magazine. I wanted to never be mad again. I wanted to not have to worry about my code of honor. I wanted it not to matter. I even wanted to get away from Leonard.
I was tired of the whole dirty, bloody thing that was my life. I was beginning to consider heavily that old saying about being careful when you fight monsters so that you do not become one. In that moment, I was feeling pretty monstrous. It was as if I had been born under a violent star.
I wondered what Leonard was thinking about.
He was probably in his cell sleeping on his bunk, dreaming of vanilla cookies and Dr Pepper. Happy in pink. He was alive and had helped keep me and Brett alive. For him, that was enough, and for me it should have been.
The guy on the floor stirred and started to sit up. I thought: Fuck it. In for the snout, in for the tail. I stood up and kicked him in the head as hard as I could under the jaw. He went down again and didn’t get up. This time he bled. I sat down on my bunk and watched the blood run out of his mouth.
Hap Collins, you are one walking, talking contradiction. I also decided I didn’t deserve execution after all. I probably just needed a spanking. Maybe someone could call me some names and send me home without my supper. I felt myself tremble as if something cold had crawled up my spine.
I watched some shadows advance down the hall. I heard some prisoners yelling and talking. Somewhere someone was watching a television. There was no television in my cell. Not even a deck of cards. Just the man without nookie, lying unconscious on the jailhouse floor.
After a while a big shadow came down the hall. It fell into the cell, and pretty soon there was a guy following it. He was one of the cops who had arrested us. He was a big guy with a belly that was teasing the buttons on his shirt. He was bareheaded and he didn’t have much hair. He stood at the door to my cell, looking through the bars. He stared down at my pal on the floor, said, “What happened to him?”
“Faintin’ spell,” I said. “Saw a mouse.”
“A mouse, huh?”
“It was a big mouse.”
20
They brought the three of us, wearing handcuffs, into an interrogation room that smelled strongly of Pine-Sol and too much mop soap and more than a sprinkle of urine. The floor was a little slick. A roach lay legs up in the corner.
There was a mirror on the wall, long and narrow, and I figured it was one of those see-through jobs where they could watch into the room from the other side. They couldn’t fool me. I had seen TV and movies. The mirror was smeared in places with fingerprints and nose prints, and some stains that were probably not worth knowing about. There was a single fat bulb hanging down from a frayed, dust-covered wire and the dust was so thick and dark it looked like fungus. I half expected the wire to snap and spray the room with sparks and set the place on fire. I saw a video camera in the top corner of the room on metal struts. Boogers were smeared on the wall, and some of them were big enough to use as bricks in construction. I had the uncomfortable feeling that one of the larger ones was looking at me.
They put us on one side of a long table with initials and fuck-you messages carved into it. I looked up. The camera was pointing right at us. I gave it a smile.
They had already talked to us separately, right before tossing us into our individual cells. Now they had us as a trio, the three of us sitting there in all our jail-suited glory, pink roses in a light green booger-dotted room. They brought us there and went away, and we sat alone for a moment, and then the door opened and two men came in. They were not in uniform.
I knew one of them. His name was Drake and he was a detective and we got along all right. We had had reason to meet before. I hadn’t shot anyone that time, and he knew Marvin, so he had been nice to me. I got off easy. I hit a man at a Dairy Queen because he hit his wife when she dropped his DQ Dude on the way to their table. I thought this was a bit excessive, even though Dudes are good and inexpensive if you go with the basket, French fries, and a drink. The wife got mad at me and I was the one that went to jail. As the old saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.
Drake was whip-lean, black as straight coffee, with a soft-looking face and a boxer’s flat nose. His shirt was lime-colored. It matched the paint on the walls. He didn’t have on a tie. His top button was unbuttoned and his shirttail was pulled out. If he was trying to look any more casual he’d have come in his underwear carrying a teddy bear and a pacifier.
Drake knew Leonard too. Who didn’t? Brett he also knew of. I could understand that. A lot of men knew of her and wished they knew more of her.
I had no idea where Gadget was, or the two who had been in the front seat of the Caddy. I wondered if my cell mate was still napping. I wondered if the weenie dog was somewhere hidden, nibbling on his prize.
Drake had another cop with him. A pink-skinned, redheaded guy with freckles and fat lips. Kelso was his name. He was leaning in the corner of the room acting like he couldn’t believe what the human condition had come to.
Drake sat on one side of the table and we sat on the other. Brett in the middle. The chairs were shorter on our side of the table. It’s an old trick the cops use to make you feel less significant than the interrogator. We didn’t give a damn, though. We were tough enough to tear doughnuts in half.
Kelso kept his corner, turning his head to take us in with those disappointed eyes. Drake lit a cigarette and asked if we wanted cigarettes or coffee.
“Have you got those little flavored creamers?” Leonard asked.
“No,” Drake said.
