A car drove up the hill. A little Mini. A cute little brunette was behind the wheel. She pulled into the driveway -- an’ my brother popped out of the passenger seat. An’ God, he was perfect. Clean clothes, cheap but nice. Wide grin. Happy eyes. I could see ‘em dancin’ even from fifty yards away. He’d filled out a little; not nearly as much as me but as much as he could of, considerin’ his old man was a married accountant in Minneapolis. Accordin’ to my mom, that is. But the bitch might’ve been lyin’. An’ he held himself straight. Rock solid. The girl got out an’ they hugged then headed into the house, his left arm over her shoulders. An’ I think I caught the gleam of a ring on her finger. I think -- no, I know. I know. I know for abso-fuckin’-lutely sure it was a ring.
An’ I started bawlin’. Blubberin’ like a fuckin’ baby in that old Malibu. Thankin’ God for how dark a night it was so my brother never could’ve seen me. Thankin’ God he was gonna be all right. At least somethin’...somethin’...somethin’ in my life was gonna be all right. Somethin’. In spite of everything. It wouldn’t be perfect; I don’t believe that’s possible. But he wouldn’t be a total fuck-up like me. Wouldn’t kill anyboy’s future or hopes or dreams or love or any of that shit. He wouldn’t be like our mom was with us. I could see it in how he kept contact with her. Even now as he was about to start his own life. Even now that he was able to tell her to fuck off, like she deserved. Even now he could move to fuckin’ Maine an’ never have to see that cunt, again. He was keepin’ contact with her ‘cause she’s his mom. Cunt that she is, she’s his mom an’ she’s part of his life an’ he was gonna make the best of it, no matter fuckin’ what. An’ then one day the fuckin’ bitch’d see. She’d finally see how much she’d fucked up her life, too. Especially now that she’s made it so perfect. She’d never admit it to me, but she might to him. An’ that was good enough. That was good enough.
It took me ten minutes to regain control. An’ when I did, I drove straight to LAPD headquarters an’ turned myself in.
Epilogue
To make this already long story a little bit shorter, I got twelve-to-twenty on a plea deal. Seems the videos showed not only what I did to Shayes, but what Wayne an’ Lenny did to him after I was out. Obviously out. For four solid hours. The D-A wouldn’t tell me what was on ‘em, but I could guess from how tight he got in his voice. An’ I can’t blame him for not wantin’ anybody to know about that an’ fuck Shayes over, even more. Plus, I know they showed me bein’ raped, too, which complicated things. On top of it all, the D-A had some details he wanted kept out of the papers. Like what happened to Shayes -- well, let’s just say there’d been a couple of complaints filed against Wayne an’ Lenny before, for -- how’d they put it? “Gettin’ carried away?” -- with some of the guys they’d hired. An’ how the cops hadn’t done a fuckin’ thing about it. But now they had it all on video. With sound. Glorious fuckin’ sound.
Turned out the fuckers produced some of their own pornos. Bondage things. Leather. “Fantasy Fetish” shit they kept in a back room an’ let only their “special” clients rent or buy. They even did some “by request” or “special order.” They had hundreds of ‘em. An’ there were “indications” that some rich fucker from Belgium or Beirut or somethin’ was payin’ ‘em to do a queer snuff film just for him. Shit, fuckin’ Wayne an’ Lenny -- givin’ good ol’ Larry Flynt a run for his money.
I didn’t fight it. None of it. I took the DA’s offer an’ let it roll.
So now I’m back at Mid-State. An’ Connie’s jumped out of my life. An’ it’s cool. All she an’ I really had in common was the fuckin’. An’ now that I can get that same sense with a guy, why even ask her to stay? Not that she would’ve, but I think she was pissed that I didn’t at least ask.
As for Mid-State, it’s funny -- but I do get how this place works. Get it like I never could get on the outside. Like I was born to it. Like Shamar said. An’ fuckin’ Chekov. An’ while the guards may give me a little shit over Shayes, him bein’ a “fellow cop” an’ all that bullshit -- as if, as regards them -- it got me a huge round of respect from guys in the colony. Black, white, brown, yellow, fuckin’ pink purple polka dotted -- they all look at me as the guy who fucked up a cop. So I get served the best chow. I got the best cell -- a two-fer even though most of the new
