The cook-up was canned roast beef and chili, with Cheez Whiz heated on the hot plate and spread onto whole-wheat bread. It was delicious with mustard and chips on the side, but we were out of chips. "Get them from Steppenwolf," Slide Step told Manley.
The inmate store was open only during certain hours, but there was always one or two cons who ran an inmate store. The mark-up was 30 to 50 percent, but if you needed credit-it was two for one. "Hey, if you don't like my price," the convict running the store would say, "then you can wait for draw day." Inmates could withdraw money from their inmate accounts twice a month-on the 1st and the 15th of each month-and they were limited to thirty dollars. Other money could come from inmate visits, where visitors could bring you an additional fifteen dollars a visit.
Manley came back with the chips, and told us that Bottoms was blowing a bunch of guys in the bathroom again. "Got caught cheating on his man," he said. Black was teaching him a lesson, by making him blow several guys in a row. I looked at Slide Step, who was on the other side of the room. He was staring at me. Suddenly, I wasn't hungry.
As pure fantasy, the idea of having to do a bunch of guys might seem like fun to some-but in reality-the guys in there were mostly creeps. And some of them didn't even shower every day.
Slide Step nodded at me to take the chair next to him, in front of the TV. I went over and sat down. "You all right?" he asked. "You seem kind of funny."
I said that I was OK.
A black inmate, I didn't know, stood in the doorway to the dayroom and nodded to Slide Step. He nodded back. They weren't saying hello.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it," he said, his eyes were fixed on the TV, "it's nothing."
I took a bite of my sandwich, but I didn't want another bite.
Red, Chet, and Taylor walked through the day room and headed out to the back porch. Red looked at Slide Step and nodded. It was the same kind of exchange as the guy who had stood at the door.
Slide Step looked down at my plate. "You're not hungry?"
I shook my head.
"Scatter," he shouted toward the pool room.
"Yo!" Scatter yelled back.
"You want my boy's spread?"
Scatter came out smiling, holding a stick. "Cool! Good looking out."
"I'm not feeling well," I said.
"You don't look good," Slide Step said. "Why don't you go lay down for a while?"
"OK." I got up and went down to my cell.
I never was very good at getting away with anything.
I went down to my room, but it was too early to sleep. My head was swirling with questions. Did Slide Step know, and how did he find out? Did Red say something? Or what about Scatter? He promised he wouldn't say a word, but what if Slide Step asked him directly? And how could I trust him, anyway, since he'd already got what he wanted?
I thought about Bottoms being punished for cheating. Old Iron jaws, someone called him, because you'd need iron jaws to do that many guys. I would kill myself before I let someone make me do that, yet somehow I don't think Bottoms minded it. On draw days, I had seen guys lined up in the hallway, as Bottoms did what he seemed to like to do and was getting paid for it all at the same time. I remembered him coming out of the bathroom smiling, with his pockets jingling with tokens. Except that when he was done, he had to give the money to Black.
When Bottoms yelled up the hall for Black, a guy who was sitting down next to him in a chair looked up. "Bitch! Don't be spittin' them dead babies out your mouth while you're standing over me!"
Slide Step never would have made me do something like that, even if I was caught cheating on him. I had never thought about it before, but I was curious as to why Bottoms was named that in the first place-since he should have been named something closer to Head or Lips. Slide Step said that only Black tapped that ass, meaning, he would pimp out Bottom's face, but he saved his ass for himself.
I was surprised at how casually Black had asked Slide Step if he and the others could fuck me before I left for court. If was like he was pointing to Slide Step's tray and saying, "Are you finished with your dessert?"
I would have asked to be locked up, in solitary confinement, if I thought the gang was going to come after me. But that was assuming I could see it coming before it went down. And of course, that also assumed that the guards would let me. Bottoms said that when he once tried to get into lock-up, the guards told him that if he didn't like fucking no more, then he should go back out on the yard and fight like a man. They weren't going to take up space in segregation for a punk who was having marital problems. Bottoms told me that the worst thing about it was how they told him. "They said it with the door wide open, so that everyone in the dayroom could hear."
I wasn't sure I believed Bottoms story. There weren't that many guards at Riverside, but I had never seen them act that mean to anyone.
What if Black and the others got me before I saw it coming? Or what if they drugged me, like Chet had done, by slipping me Thorazine? I thought about locking myself up, while I still had a chance, but if they wouldn't let me, I'd have some explaining to do.
I wished I had someone to talk to, but my dad used to say that you could tell a lot about someone by the company they kept.
