rest of his life on my account.
I felt faint. He needed water, and I had water in the car, but for a few moments I couldn’t move. And then I was up and running for the door. Slipping on the gravel outside, dust flying. Lunging into the car for the water.
When I burst back into the warehouse, Keith was standing with both arms at his sides like a zombie, staring down at Jeremy, Sicko’s note in one hand, flashlight in the other, pointed at the ground. The sound of the car’s engine faded behind me, replaced by the pounding of my feet on the concrete.
“What is it?”
Keith didn’t respond.
“Why can’t we get him out of those things?” I demanded. “The poor kid’s been in here for a week!”
“You should read this,” Keith said. His voice didn’t sound right.
The boy’s chin was on his chest again, passed out again. Poor boy…I dropped to my knee and tilted his chin up. “Wake up, Jeremy.” His eyes slowly opened as I pressed the water bottle to his mouth. He drank thirstily, gulping like a bird. Water spilled down his chin, soaking his shirt. When he finally shifted his mouth from the bottle, he was already fading.
I set the bottle down. “We’ll get you out of here, I promise. You’re going home, Jeremy, okay? You’ll be home soon, I promise.”
Keith took my elbow and led me to the side. “Just read it.”
So I did, taking the flashlight from Keith to illuminate the note myself.
My hands began to tremble.
17
DANNY WAS ESCORTED from the warden’s office clean, dressed in the blue slacks and tan shirt of the general population, bearing no mark or sign that he’d just spent two days in hell. The hub was half full of convicts playing checkers, watching television, wasting time an hour before lockdown.
Hustles were going down, bets were being made, arguments unfolding, scores settled, gossip passed, all with the warden’s approval. And only with it. Evidently, if a member proved his loyalty, he was allowed certain lenience. It would take some time to understand what limits could be pushed without reprisal. Danny had no intention of exploring those boundaries.
Mitchell led him past the cafeteria, past a door that led to the infirmary, to a short hall that opened to a gymnasium.
“Stay out of trouble,” the CO said, giving Danny a gentle shove through the double doors. He turned on his heels and left him standing alone.
The room was roughly half the size of a typical gym, all concrete. Gray walls, cement floor, open to the night sky above except for a wire mesh. Bright lights hung from metal beams overhead.
Some members were engaged in a game of pickup basketball around a netless hoop that jutted from the far wall. Pull-up bars were fastened to the adjacent walls, most in use by other members going through typical prison yard exercise routines.
The hard yard. No lines on the floor to mark courts, no nets for tennis or volleyball, no bins full of balls or stacks of weights. Just one hoop, the pull-up bars, and eighteen or twenty inmates. Among them: Randell, Slane, and two other knuckleheads he’d seen with them in the dining hall.
He was briefly tempted to turn around and walk out, but the warden had specifically sent him to the hard yard, clearly for a reason.
“You okay?”
Danny turned and saw that Godfrey and Peter had entered behind him, the old man wearing concern, Peter oblivious to anything but his own delight.
“The warden put me in the privileged wing.” Peter beamed. “You like my jeans?”
Indeed, he was dressed in a pair of jeans at least three sizes too large. He’d neatly tucked a bright red T- shirt, also oversized, into the waistband.
“You’re looking pretty snappy there, Peter. Where’d you get them?”
“From the warden. He gave me my own room in the privileged wing. It’s a big room and it has a pillow.”
“It does, does it? Well, I’m sure you deserve at least three pillows.”
The boy laughed, snorting once in his exuberance. “I can eat anytime I want, and they have chocolate milk. The warden is being nice to me.”
“Good.”
“He said that if I’m good, he won’t hurt you, Danny.”
Danny exchanged a quick glance with Godfrey, who forced a grin. The older man rubbed Peter’s shoulder. “The Pete’s living large, my friend. He’s finally made it. Isn’t that right, Peter?”
“Yup. And I’m going to be good. I promise.”
“Did the doctor check you?” Danny asked.
“He said I wasn’t raped. I was just scared, that’s all. Did…did the warden hurt you?”
“Not too much, no.”
“We’ll be good, and everything will be good. I promise, Danny. You can come live with me if you want.”
The exchange could hardly have been more surreal, standing in the hard yard, talking about being good so the warden wouldn’t hurt them. Such was Peter’s simple understanding of Basal. It broke Danny’s heart.
“I would like that.”
The boy’s eyes looked past Danny and went wide. Danny turned around to see Randell, Slane, and the two other cronies headed their way.
“We’d better go,” Godfrey said.
Slane’s hair was slicked back, his lips twisted.
“I need to stay. Peter…” When Danny turned back, the boy was gone.
Godfrey stepped up next to him. “You don’t need to do this, Priest.”
“Stop calling me that. And you’re wrong. I do.”
“I’ve seen him put a man in the hospital with one hit. You should leave.”
Randell was halfway to them, basketball under one arm, face drawn and red, whether from the heat or from anger, Danny didn’t know. Likely both.
“No one’s fighting. The warden set this up.”
“Like I said, you should leave,” Godfrey said.
There were three ways to handle Randell. The first and most obvious was to leave, as Godfrey suggested, but doing so would only postpone the inevitable confrontation, one which Danny was sure the warden intended.
The second was to stand up to the man. Even in Danny’s condition he was confident he could hurt Randell enough to plant permanent doubts in his thick head. But that choice would place Peter in terrible danger. It would also land Danny back in deep meditation.
The third option was the only course that made any sense to him.
