Not that breakfast is anything to look forward to. Oatmeal, usually. Sometimes with peanut butter. If I’m feeling rich, then maybe some honey. But that’s it. The eggs make me sick and everything else tastes like cardboard.
Work starts at eight. Not everyone has a job. You have to prove yourself worthy, show that you’re a model prisoner, something I’ve done by mostly keeping my head down and minding my own business. And trust me, that’s hard to do when you’re an ex-cop. Every inmate wants a piece of you. Every CO wants to make your life hell.
I work in the maintenance shed with Henry, one of those old guys who knows how to fix everything. It’s Henry’s job to make sure all the machinery in the prison keeps going. That’s a full-time job in a dump like this.
I earn seventy dollars a month, almost double the average income of the other inmates. That means I can indulge in my vices, chocolate and coffee, both of which I buy from the commissary. The coffee is shit, though. It’s instant. Not even granules, but a fine powder. I don’t even think there’s any caffeine in it. You could mix that stuff with hot water and inject it into your eyeballs and it wouldn’t even kick.
After lunch I hang out in the yard. Just to feel the sun on my face. I used to love the beach. Would go there every weekend with Amy. We lived pretty close and I could smell the salt on the air when the wind blew in the right direction.
Not now, though. When I’m in the yard, all I can smell is the chemical stench from the laundry. Just steam escaping from the vents adding to the wet humidity that already clings to my skin like a coating of oil.
After that, it’s back to work until five, supper in the mess hall, then rec time, where we play pool, watch television, chat, play cards, or use the phones in the common area below the cells.
At eight o’clock it’s the final roll call before bed.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
I lean over the railing, see two guards handing mops and buckets to a few guys from the lower cells.
“The infirmary is flooding,” says Nick, the guy from the next cell over. “Whole place is under a foot of water.”
“So they’re taking a couple of mops?” I say. “That’s going to do a lot.”
Nick shrugs. “Heard the storm’s getting real bad.”
“Yeah?”
“Was watching the news last night.”
“What did it say?”
“That the storm’s getting real bad,” says Nick patiently.
I wait. He doesn’t seem inclined to add anything else. “And?”
“And nothing. COs shut the television off before the report finished.”
“Was rec time over?” asks Felix.
“Nope.” Nick taps his nose. “Control the flow of information. See what I’m saying?”
I don’t even bother to suppress a sigh. Nick is convinced everyone in authority is involved in some kind of conspiracy, usually directed against him personally.
“Don’t need the news to tell us the storm’s bad,” says Felix. “You hear it last night? That wind? Jesus, I thought the whole place was going to come down on top of us.”
A loud bang echoes through the wing. I look to the right and see Evans standing at the top of the metal stairs, his baton raised to strike the railing a second time.
Typical. It would be his shift. Right when I’m tired and not in the mood to take his shit. I hate Evans. Seriously. I’m not talking like he irritates me. It’s deeper than that. I despise everything about him. His face, the way he breathes, the little twitch in his eyelid when he tries to intimidate prisoners. He’s a bully, simple as that. A bully who managed to get himself placed in a position of power.
If I’d ever met him on the outside, I would have made it my mission to get him thrown in prison. Maybe pulled him over, “found” some coke in his car, enough that he went down for dealing, not just possession.
Most of the other screws are okay. They come in, do their jobs, they go home. But Evans… the first time I laid eyes on the guy, I knew he should be on the other side of the bars. I’ve seen killers. I’ve seen rapists. There’s always something in their eyes. Evans has that look.
And he doesn’t like me because… well, I’m not sure about that. I think it’s because I don’t back down and I don’t play his games. What’s the point? I’m not a career criminal. I don’t see myself as a murderer. Sure, I killed someone, but killing someone who killed your wife—that’s not murder. That’s revenge. Justice. Besides that, I’m just a normal guy. I was married for two years. Wanted to start a family. My wife was a nurse. I was a cop, then I signed up for the army, then became a cop again when my tour was done. That was it. Nothing interesting. Nothing spectacular.
Until that night.
So Evans can’t figure me out, and that annoys him. He pushes and pushes, trying to provoke a reaction from me. I think it’s what gets him up in the morning. The desire to break me.
I watch him make his way along the walkway. He moves slowly, with a rolling gait that speaks of an old leg injury. He likes to build up a rhythm with his counting. Left foot forward, click, right foot forward, click. He hates it when anyone breaks his pattern.
No one speaks as he does his count. On the walkway opposite, I can see Martinez doing the same thing. She always finishes ahead of Evans. Evans likes to linger, staring at each inmate until they look away. Sometimes it happens fast, sometimes it doesn’t.
I look straight ahead. Evans’s face slides
