with really big tits.
And, somehow, she love the lion. She love him like a man, not like no pet. Now, I don't want no picture of the lion fucking her, but the lion could fuck her if he wanted to.”
“Ah, I think I see what you're getting at. He's, like, an archetype of a certain aggressive masculine power.”
“Huh?”
“Ah, I mean—”
“He's a lion and he's got a bitch. And she has tits. And it's all a long time ago. Got that?”
“Yes sir.”
Richard got busy. For days he huddled in the corner madly dashing away. He'd throw pictures away, cursing. He even' went to the prison library and got books with lions in them. And then finally—
“Lamar? Is this what you had in mind?”
He held out a sketch. The lion was a god, the woman a slut with huge tits, her nipples taut as bowstrings. It was master, she was slave.
“Goddamn,” said Lamar.
“Look-a-that! Man, like you got that outta my head! Damn, ain't that a goddamn piece of work! Only, now, wouldn't it be better if the lion was taller? And maybe the gal's tits weren't that big? That's too big. It don't look real. I want it to be real. I like the castle though.”
Richard took the criticism like a man and spent another week on revisions. When he made his final submission, Lamar was quite pleased.
“Goddamn, Richard. You got a gift, if I do say so myself.
Now, say, I wanted you to try other things. You know, other things I see in my head, could you do it?”
“I know I could,” said Richard.
“Goddamn, ain't that something. I want you to draw what I tell you. You do that, I'll look after you. Got it?”
“Yes sir,” said Richard, and the deal was done.
Why was it so satisfying? He didn't know. But it was, and it was a newfound source of pleasure. He could just dream something up and Richard would make it appear on paper. It really made him happy. So Lamar swelled a little with pleasure, taking happiness from the pleasures of his well-ordered world. Everybody feared him. He could nick just about any of the white boys and half the niggers if he so chose. He had a percentage of three dope smuggling operations, including a methamphetamine lab in Caddo county that pulled in a pound of crystal a week. He had his cousin O’Dell about as happy as that poor boy could ever be.
He had Richard to draw whatsoever he chose. He was a wealthy man.
But then, ahead of him, something moved in the vapor, and it all changed, it all went away.
Lamar, startled, looked up. No-goddamned-body was supposed to be in here. He paid Harry Funt, the hack, four cartons of cigarettes a week to make sure nobody disturbed him in his private time.
“Who’s that, goddammit?” barked Lamar.
A huge, dark shape emerged from the steam, just as buck naked as Lamar, gleaming and globular.
“Goddamn, Junior, ain't nobody supposed to be in here.
I bought this goddamn time, fair and square.”
Junior Jefferson went close to four hundred pounds, and naked, his giant body seemed like something out of a movie, especially the way he shone in the light. He had a goddamned strange look in his eyes, too. Lamar didn't like this at all. His feral instincts came alert. Junior was a known rapist and child molester, and perhaps the only man in D block who didn't fear Lamar or his monster cousin O’Dell.
“You know the goddamn rules. Junior,” said Lamar, backing up just a bit.
“It's mine, I paid for it. Paid Harry Funt. It's the goddamned rules.”
“Rules—be shit,” said Junior and reached down and grabbed his cock to show Lamar. It was stiff as a bat and strangely blue.
“Git me some white pussy,” said Junior.
“Git me some white boy asshole, yas, I am.”
“You fucking nigger, you stay away. We got a gang truce and you is over the limits.”
“Your dumb motherfucker cousin O’Dell, he done dissed Daddy Cool and so Daddy Cool sold your ass to Rodney Smalls who done give it to me. You gonna service the niggers for a month.”
Lamar knew in a second it was possible. That O’Dell! That boy was born without a brain in his head! It wasn't just the soft part of his mouth and lip that was missing but a goddamned part of his thinker, too! But if he dissed Daddy, there was no sense in disciplining him, because he was too dumb to know pain from pleasure; worse yet, he had no ability to imagine fear. So to punish O’Dell would be pointless;
Daddy must have decided to punish Lamar in his place, and Lamar saw the terrible justice in it: he was responsible for O’Dell. O’Dell was family.
“You got something wrong, nigger. I don't take it in the ass. I give it in the ass, but I don't never take it there.”
Junior said, 'I asked for you special, Lamar, 'cause you so pretty.”
Lamar had seen Junior kill a bitch in D yard once, just by squashing him against a wall. A snitch, the bitch deserved it; still, Junior just rammed him against the wall, capturing the bitch's face in his huge belly and sloppy, saggy chest.
The bitch beat and chirped, but it was over in two minutes.
That's how fast it could happen in the yard.
Junior advanced on him like the earth itself, set on swallowing him up. Lamar had no weapons; his shank was in his shaving kit in the shitter. He had no boots to kick with.
He was outweighed by a good two hundred pounds of meat and, though strong, was not near strong enough. But he wasn't scared. It was funny: he never got scared. He laughed a little bit. He liked having his back to the wall and everything on the line. It was exciting.
He paused, gathering strength as the giant wobbled in, arms spread, fingers grasping. Just as Junior closed, he hit Junior a powerful blow right above the heart, his
He followed up with a
Junior's rich laughter filled the air as his arms squished around Lamar, his immense bulk flattening Lamar's ribcage, crushing his heart. Lamar felt his head bobbing like that of a dying fish flopping on the dock for the amusement of small boys. With a ham hand, Junior grabbed hold of Lamar's hair and quieted the head and then, beaming with pleasure, bent to give his victim a little kiss.
Deoxygenated, Lamar watched helplessly as the nigger lips gathered to form a dainty seal, then felt a scream of helplessness erupt from his lungs, which shocked Junior a hair, giving Lamar a whisker of a chance. His neck snapped upward, unfolding almost like a turtle's, and in a second he'd sunk his teeth into Junior's nose. He bit and bit, almost choking on the blood, and he couldn't hear Junior scream. But scream Junior did, pulling away, his hands flying reflexively to the torn appendage. Lamar spit some gristle out, bent in a flash and struck upward, another piston stroke that landed in Junior's balls, crushing one testicle.
Junior staggered, seemed to lose it, then flared up in rage just as Lamar drilled him a savage fuck in the throat, this time with a quarter fist so that his knuckles were sharp like a blade. They roared through the flab covering Junior's larynx, but they reached that treasure and crushed it. Junior went down to his knees, gasping. He begged for mercy with his eyes, but Lamar was not into mercy; he quickly flanked the giant and with another open hand drove fuck into the back of his neck. Junior jerked forward as if the blow had a charge of electricity with it and put up a weak arm to ward off more, punches, but Lamar kept hitting him in the high spine and the neck, a f u c k and then a y o u I, using the heel of his palms so that he would break none of his own bones, over and over and over, until the big man lay still.
Lamar stood up from his handiwork, breathing hard. His hands hurt. He was shaking involuntarily. The blood raced and thundered in his brain.
“Fuck with me, see what it gets you,” he explained.
