“What’s anything?”
“I mean like kerosene for the lantern.”
“I think there’s enough. The light’s awful low though.”
“Turn it up.”
“I can’t. I think the wick’s stuck. Or else it’s burned down.”
“You want me to take a look at it?”
“Would you? I’d appreciate it.”
Bob Fisher brought the ring of keys out of his coat pocket with the key to Norma’s cell in his hand. As he opened the door and came in, Norma raised up on one elbow, holding the blanket in front of her. He didn’t look at her; he went right to the lamp and peered in through the smoky glass. As he turned the wick up slowly, the light grew brighter, then dimmed again as he turned it down.
“It seems all right now.” Fisher glanced at her, twisted bare back. He tried the lantern a few more times, twisting the wick up and down and knowing her bare back—and that meant her bare front too—wasn’t four feet away from him. “It must’ve been stuck,” he said.
“I guess it was. Will you turn it down now? Just so there’s a nice glow.”
“How’s that?”
“That’s perfect.”
“I think you got enough wick in there.”
“I think so. Do you want to get in bed with me?”
“Jesus Christ,” Bob Fisher said.
“Well, do you?”
“You’re a nervy thing, aren’t you?”
Norma twisted around a little more and let the blanket fall. “I can’t help it.”
“You can’t help what?”
“If I want you to do it to me.”
“Jesus,” Bob Fisher said. He looked at the cell door and then at Norma again, cleared his throat and said in a lower tone, “I never heard a girl asking for it before.”
“Well,” Norma said, throwing the blanket aside as she got up from the bunk and moved toward him, “you’re hearing it now, daddy.”
“Listen, Tacha’s right next door.”
“She can’t see us.”
“She can hear.”
“Then we’ll whisper.” Norma began unbuttoning his coat.
“We can’t do nothing here.”
“Why not?”
“One of the guards might come by.”
“Now you’re teasing me. Nobody’s allowed in here at night, and you know it.”
“Boy, you got big ones.”
“There, now slip your coat off.”
“I can’t stay here more’n a few minutes.”
“Then quit talking,” Norma said.
7
Frank Shelby said, “A race, what do you mean, a race?”
“I mean a foot race,” Fisher told him. “The nigger and the Indin are going to run a race from one end of the yard to the other and back again, and you and every convict in this place are going to be out here to watch it.”
“A race,” Shelby said again. “Nobody cares about any foot race.”
“You don’t have to care,” Fisher said. “I’m not asking you to care. I’m telling you to close your store and get everybody’s ass out of the cellblock. They can stand here or over along the south wall. Ten minutes, I want everybody out.”
“This is supposed to be our free time.”
“I’ll tell you when you get free time.”
“What if we want to make some bets?”
“I don’t care, long as you keep it quiet. I don’t want any arguments, or have to hit anybody over the head.”
“Ten minutes, it doesn’t give us much time to figure out how to bet.”
“You don’t know who’s going to win,” Fisher said. “What’s the difference?”
About half the convicts were already in the yard. Fisher waited for the rest of them to file out: the card players and the convicts who could afford Frank Shelby’s whiskey and the ones who were always in their bunks between working and eating. They came out of the cellblock and stood around waiting for something to happen. The guards up on the wall came out of the towers and looked around too, as if they didn’t know what was going on. Bob Fisher hadn’t told any of them about the race. It wouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. He told the convicts to keep the middle area of the yard clear. They started asking him what was going on, but he walked away from them toward the mess hall. It was good that he did. When Mr. Manly appeared on the stairway at the end of the building Fisher was able to get to him before he reached the yard.
“You better stay up on the stairs.”
Mr. Manly looked surprised. “I was going over there with the convicts.”
“It’s happened a sup’rintendent’s been grabbed and a knife put at his throat till the gate was opened.”
“You go among the convicts; all the guards do.”
“But if any of us are grabbed the gate stays closed. They know that. They don’t know about you.”
“I just wanted to mingle a little,” Mr. Manly said. He looked out toward the yard. “Are they ready?”
“Soon as they get their leg-irons off.”
A few minutes later, Raymond and Harold were brought down the length of the yard. The convicts watched them, and a few called out to them. Mr. Manly didn’t hear what they said, but he noticed neither Raymond nor Harold looked over that way. When they reached the stairs he said. “Well, boys, are you ready?”
“You want us to run,” Raymond said. “You wasn’t kidding, uh?”
“Course I wasn’t.”
“I don’t know. We just got the irons off. My legs feel funny.”
“You want to warm up first?”
Harold Jackson said, “I’m ready any time he is.”
Raymond shrugged. “Let’s run the race.”
Mr. Manly made sure they understood—down to the end of the yard, touch the wall between the snake den and the women’s cellblock, and come back past the stairs, a distance Mr. Manly figured to be about a hundred and twenty yards or so. He and Mr. Fisher would be at the top of the stairs in the judge’s stand. Mr. Fisher would fire off a revolver as the starting signal. “So,” Mr. Manly said, “if you boys are ready—”
There was some noise from the convicts as Raymond and Harold took off as the shot was fired and passed the main cellblock in a dead heat. Raymond hit the far wall and came off in one motion. Harold stumbled and dug hard on the way back but was five or six yards behind Raymond going across the finish.
They stood with their hands on their hips breathing in and out while Mr. Manly leaned over the rail of the stair landing, smiling down at them. He said, “Hey, boys, you sure gave it the old try. Rest a few minutes and we’ll run it again.”
Raymond looked over at Harold. They got down again and went off with the sound of the revolver, Raymond letting Harold set the pace this time, staying with him and not kicking out ahead until they were almost to the finish line. This time he took it by two strides, with the convicts yelling at them to
Raymond could feel his chest burning now. He walked around breathing with his mouth open, looking up at
