Hatcher had no idea what 126 was raving about.
‘Time to say good-bye.’
‘No!’
‘I’ve been here twelve years, old friend. It has been two years since I saw the sun or breathed fresh air. Enough is enough. Besides, my heart is worn out. It skips every other beat.’
‘But I need you,’ Hatcher implored.
‘Nevertheless . . .‘ He paused. ‘I will miss you, one twenty-seven.’
‘Not half as much as I’ll miss you.’
One twenty-six laughed. ‘Good. You have not lost your sense of humor.’
He first spotted them while chopping out a new area for a garden. Large, bright yellow mushrooms, half a foot in diameter, glowing like jewels in the thick, dank shadows. He picked one, chopped it up, and stuffed it in the pockets of his cotton shirt. That night he sprinkled the pieces on the tin plate of vegetables that was shoved through the slot at the bottom of his cell door. Their taste, a musky, cardboard flavor, overpowered other tastes.
He lay on his pallet and stared at the ceiling, wondering why 126 had told him about the blossoms. Perhaps they provided some necessary vitamin or mineral that would keep his bones from turning to sand.
A dervish mist appeared in the corner of his box, brightening the shadows with soft light, and then, what began as a shimmering aura took shape in flesh and blood, standing in the corner as if awaiting orders.
‘Who are you? What do you want?’ he whispered fearfully.
But the Mushroom People never answered, never spoke. They simply kept him company, and as he learned to trust them he addressed them as he would visitors, describing his daily monotony.
Sometimes he danced with them, spun and twirled an insane Irish jig in his earthen crypt. He made love to the women and sparred with the men. With 126 gone, the Mushroom People became his only friends.
There were days when Hatcher was lucid; there were days when he spent hours in the company of the Mushroom People, dancing, singing, making love, recounting whatever fragments of history he could remember or make up. He told them jokes to keep his sense of humor alive, sang songs to them because music fed the soul.
When he discovered the Mushroom People, Hatcher no longer needed 126. And if the thin line between sanity and madness be judged by what’s in the mind, Hatcher was indeed mad during his years in Los Boxes. It would be two more years before he recovered enough from the brutal, dehumanizing experience to admit to himself that there was no hole in his cell wall, and no 126 on the other side talking to him. It would be two years before Hatcher admitted that 126 was his own conscience.
MADRANGO
The boat came once a month, bringing supplies as well as whiskey and whores for the guards. Its doleful horn announced its arrival with three bleats as it neared the last crook in the river. There was no outside work when the boat came. When the horn sounded, the prisoners were quickly herded back into the boxes. They were not allowed to see the women, although those on the southern side of the citadel could sometimes catch a glimpse of them through the narrow slits in their cells. The boat always stayed three days and then left. A few of the men always went crazy. Like dogs in heat, they lay in their boxes and bayed in agony.
Hatcher was on the north side of the structure. He had not laid eyes on a female since the day he arrived. But when the wind was right he could smell their perfume, the musk of their sex, even the bitter odor of the alcohol, and he would summon the Mushroom People and stay mad for the whole three days.
This time the boat came just before dusk. The men were already inside and dinner was being doled out when the foghorn moaned upriver. Hatcher was confused. He immediately checked the primitive calendar scratched on the wall. It had been only sixteen days since the last visit. Maybe they were going to come every other week, give the guards an extra ration of sex and booze. Maybe they were bringing someone special in, some big shot.
Hatcher, who was eating, slipped a rock away from one wall and reached behind it, pulling out a small bag of magic mushrooms. He broke one of them into small pieces and sprinkled them on what was left of his meager meal. He chewed the rubbery bits well, knowing that the easier they were to digest, the faster and better he would react.
When he finished, he lit a cigar made of crumbled palm leaves stuffed in bamboo shoots. The acrid smoke burned his nose and lungs. He lay back and waited for the Mushroom People. Outside thunder rumbled across the sky and he could hear the first drops of rain splatting against the wall outside his window slit. A cool breeze seeped through the narrow gash in the wall, soothing him. The drab earth colors of his box began to change, growing brighter, and he closed his eyes as patterns took shape and danced on the back of his eyelids. He began to chuckle softly to himself and his stomach began to tickle deep inside.
They were coming. He could almost hear them sneaking down the narrow corridors toward his cell, and he wondered which of the Mushroom People would be visiting him tonight. Not that it really mattered, he loved them all
— passionately. They had never seemed more real. He could hear them outside his cell, hear the door groan open. One of them kicked the bottom of his foot. He giggled with anticipation.
‘One twenty-seven,’ a thick, guttural voice said in Spanish.
The Mushroom People had never spoken to him before. He opened one eye and peered out cautiously. A guard was standing over him.
‘Come,’ the guard said. He reached down, pulled Hatcher to his feet, and led him out of the door. A cold wind, damp with rain, sighed down the stairwell and moaned through the corridors. Hatcher knew better than to ask where the guard was taking him. But the mushrooms were working on him. Colored light patterns blazed around
