by Torsten Krol
“No.”
It’s true, I didn’t know, but I bet it was being tall like I am and broad across the shoulders. All the women like that and Lorraine would be the same, I’m thinking.
“The way you don’t argue with me. God, that pisses me off, the way men think they’re always right and no woman can say something different without her getting a load of horseshit about it. But you don’t do that, do you.”
“I guess not.”
“That’s why we’ll get along. The guys at work, they’re not too bad, but as soon as you sleep with a guy it’s like he’s got the green light to start telling you what to do.”
I’m getting a mixed message here. Is she saying as soon as she sleeps with me it’ll turn bad between us, so she won’t take that risk by sleeping with me? Bad news. Or is she saying she’ll sleep with me because I’m not that kind before or even after sleeping with her? That would be good news. Or is she saying she slept with the guys at work and after she did they gave her the kind of shit she’s talking about? Baddest news yet. I wanted to ask but couldn’t, not out loud, you can’t do that. I didn’t like to think about her and the guys at work. The sooner I got to be one of the guys at work the better.
“Do you carry a gun at work?”
“No way, not while we’re on the block, we might have it snatched and used against us. Only the guys on the outside carry guns, the guys in the towers and in the restricted areas. There’s an armory for use in a breakout or riot, but basically you can go all day without seeing a gun. It isn’t about guns, it’s about management of time and individual units. What that means is, you have to keep the inmates from congregating too many in one place. Sometimes when they do that it’s what they call critical mass and stuff starts happening maybe for no good reason and you’ve got a riot and you have to go to lock-down, which nobody wants. You’ve got to give the inmates just enough freedom to move around in the main areas together so they get to socialize a little bit and don’t go stir-crazy, which is what happens if you keep ’em cooped up in their cells too much. That’s a bad thing for morale, shutting somebody away like that, and it doesn’t serve any purpose, that’s what they teach nowadays in Penal Management. It’s all about psychology and how to make every son of a bitch feel good about himself.”
“Okay.”
What I was thinking about was Lorraine and her gun with no uniform on, not even underwear, just the gunbelt, and it’s having an effect on me like before.
“You’re getting kind of squirmy there, Odell. Like the burgers?”
“They’re good. So when they catch Dean he’ll go stir-crazy on account of being put in solitary?”
“Dean has gone and made his bed and has to lie in it,” she said. “He’s been heading for big trouble all his life. Even when he was a kid there’s all kinds of shit he got up to that drove Bree nuts, setting fires and stealing and one time she caught him torturing a cat.”
“A cat?”
“Then there was the time a neighbor caught him trying to have sex with another boy age eight. That got Dean in a lot of trouble. If he had’ve been older at the time, fourteen, I think, then he would’ve had even more trouble from that particular incident, which was the first time he got caught but not the last bad sexual act he did if you take my meaning. You think he was coming on to you with that whispering in the ear thing?”
“Maybe. It made me jump right up off the sofa.”
“Well, it would if you aren’t expecting it. Whispering in the ear, that’s something nice if it’s in bed with your loved one and not getting hit on by some gay terrorist.”
My hard-on started going down with all that talk about tortured cats and setting fires. Dean was some fucked-up dude all right, and he had some nerve getting me involved in his terrorist lifestyle plus drug smuggling with his pal Donnie Darko.
“What was in it?” The question just popped out of me.
“What was in what? You’ve just got the strangest way of conversing sometimes.”
“The package.”
She stopped eating and looked at me very steamed, then she says, “There never was any package, Odell, you and me agreed about that.”
“So there won’t be no more packages coming this way?”
That made her stop and think before answering. “Well, I was going to talk to you about that as a matter of fact. See, if you’re here all the time, kind of like a tenant, you’ll need to be taking care of the place, you know, keeping it clean and tidy, also bringing in the mail and regular chores like that. Which will include every Tuesday night there’s a delivery from a certain friend of Dean’s that you have to receive and pass over some payment for it. That’s all you need to do, receive the package and give over the payment. The schedule got upset this week by Dean going away like he did, but the package arrived anyway, which I’m thinking was Dean’s way of saying he’s going away and it’ll be different from now on seeing as he didn’t come in, just left it on his own doorstep. If it was Dean and not the other guy.”
“Donnie Darko.”
She gave me a long look. I had done it again about letting my guard down. I think it’s because I am so distracted by this woman sat across the table and this is having a bad effect on my brain.
“Donnie who?”
“Darko.”
“That’s a movie. Where’d you hear it?”
“I must’ve gone to the movies.”
“That wouldn’t make you say the name right here and now. Did Dean tell you who’s coming Tuesday night? You told me you didn’t see him.”
“All I saw was the green Pontiac. Maybe Dean said the name, I don’t remember.”
She was still looking at me suspicious. “I hope you’re not holding things back from me, Odell. We can’t be friends if you’re going to do that to me. Friendship is based on Trust with a capital T.”
“I’m not holding back. I remember now. . . Dean said his friend Donnie D is coming and I better not go outside when he does because it’s private business needs taking care of. I peeked through the window anyway, that’s how come I know what kind of car . . . and when he said Donnie D I asked what kind of a name is that and he told me about that movie Donnie Darko that this guy must like, I guess.”
She started eating again, chewing on a fry. “I guess you can’t help but be a little curious.”
“No I can’t. What’s in the package that comes every Tuesday?”
“See, that’s what I’m worried about, will it come next Tuesday after all this other shit has come down thanks to Dean? Donnie, he’ll hear about it and maybe get cold feet. That package has to come through regular as clockwork or there’s people are gonna want to know why.”
“So what’s in the package?”
That is three times now I asked her. I knew what’s in it, all right. There’s only one thing it can be.
“Relief,” she says. “You’ve heard of relief packages like prisoners of war used to get from the Red Cross in World War Two or something? You know, packages from home with coffee and chocolate and stuff the Germans didn’t have. Relief.”
“So it’s coffee and chocolate?”
“Kind of. Stuff people want that gives them relief.”
“Like hemmeroyd cream?”
“That’s not funny.”
“Well, why aren’t you telling me what it is if I’m the one that’s gonna receive it?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Drugs,” I said. It’s a bad word that come out easy.
“Okay, there you go, you knew all along.”
“And you take it inside the prison.”
“Someone has to.”
“To give the prisoners relief. What kind?”
“All kinds. Weed, smack, cocaine, you name it, only no acid, not ever, that’s too weird what it does and calls attention to itself when some guy does crazy things on it, so that’s banned.”
“So you and me, we’ll be drug smugglers.”
That got her mad. “It’s not like that a
t all. Dean and me do a particular service that people want and get paid for it like a simple business transaction. Nobody gets hurt. I’m going way out on a limb telling you shit like this, Odell. You better not betray me now that I made myself vulnible.”
She was upset again, which I did not want. I wanted her smiling and happy, the way things are supposed to be before people that are attracted get down and make love, which is the ultimate aim here for me. Her too, I hope.
“It’s a secret,” I said. “Our secret.”
“That’s a good way to put it,” she says, cheering up. “When people share a secret it’s like a bond between them that ties them tighter. Is that going to be a problem for you, Odell?”
“Tighter the better.”
She laughed. Not too many women have laughed at something I said like that, which is a Sign that she and me are meant to be together, partners in crime. Lorraine is a drug smuggler and me, I’m a murderer although that was accidental. But I am definitely a body hider so cannot stand on my high horse about Lorraine’s crime.
“That’s all settled then,” she said, sounding relieved.
“Yeah. How do you get it inside the place?”
“Inside my bra and panties.”
“They don’t check for stuff like that?”
“Of course they check. Callisto State Penitentiary is a high-tech containment facility which has got every kind of check and counter-check to make sure nothing happens that isn’t supposed to happen. It just so happens that Wednesday morning a certain female guard is on duty for checking out female personnel for smuggling and she doesn’t find anything. Then later on I slip her some cash after I get mine from a certain other person, no harm done. You just don’t do any of the money handing-over where a camera can see you do it, which we all know where they’re located so no problem. It’s a good clean system.”
“Uhuh.”
“You’re looking all doubtful. Maybe you don’t think it’s a good thing.”
“I don’t know what kind of a thing it is. How many people there are mixed up in it?”
“That’s classified till you join up, which you might not even do unless Connors says you can. Maybe all you’ll do is mow lawns and be here Tuesday nights to get the package from Donnie D, I just don’t know yet. I’m trusting you ahead of time, Odell, because you tried to cover for Dean today even if that’s a lost cause. You’ve got decent instincts in you so that’s why I’m telling you.”
“Okay.”
“And look at it this way – by taking in drugs to keep the inmates happy we spare ourselves and them and their families a lot of grief that might happen if they’re not so mellowed-out as they are thanks to what I do, me and others. Think what kind of a place prison would be if all those dopers and crack-heads couldn’t get what they wanted. It’d be chaos in there with riots happening every other day and plenty of perp-onperp conflict happening. We couldn’t control it, a situation like that, and everyone knows it.”
“So looked at that way, it’s a good thing.”
“I like to think so.”
I thought about it and saw that it makes sense the way she puts it. “Okay then.”
She looked at her watch. “News time,” she says, so we went on through to the living room and she turned on the TV. There was the usual stuff, floods and forest fires made by global warming, plus terrorist bombs going off in all the usual places which got Lorraine mad all over again. “Those people,” she says, “they don’t care who they kill, even their own Muslim kind, little kids and old ladies, they don’t care. That’s the one thing I won’t forgive Dean about, him getting into that nasty shit. It’s one thing to torture a cat, but this killing that they do over there it’s just . . . it’s un-American!”
“Got that right.”
“I will never, never understand that part of Dean.”
“He’s a messed-up guy.”
“Well, he’s gone too far this time. And I was fond of Bree too. What he did to her is unforgivable.” She started in sobbing a little bit, which gave me a good reason to slide over next to her on the sofa and put my arm around her shoulder for comfort but not sexual, not yet awhile, I’m thinking, not till she calms down.
Then there’s stuff about Senator Ketchum who gave a big speech today about not backing down in the face of terror like some wishy-washy types would have us do, “furl the flag and go home with our tail between our legs,” is the way he puts it and it’s something only quitters and cowards would ever think of, which means Democrats, I think. And another thing he says is about the terrorist threat right here at home in the USA, invisible terrorists that you can’t say who they are because they don’t wear that teatowel headgear like over there but we should all be watching out for them because for sure they are out there plotting to commit Terrible Deeds. Lorraine says Amen to what Senator Ketchum’s saying. “I’ll be voting for him next year”
Next it’s some fat lady that won seven million dollars in the lottery and she can’t quit smiling about it, but she says it won’t change her at all and she’ll turn up tomorrow for work at the meat-packing factory like always. “Yeah,” says Lorraine, “for five minutes to tell the boss where to cram it, then she’ll be down the street to the Mercedes dealership. Look at her, she’ll look so stupid behind the wheel of a fancy car, fat like she is.”
“What kind of a car’s right for fat people?”
“I don’t know, some old boat like that one you’ve got out there.”
“Well, thank you. I intend trading up when you get me that job.”
“Here it is!”
The newsreader is saying how in Callisto there has been a murder and the police are looking for Dean Leonard Lowry age twenty-seven. There’s a mug shot of him with longer hair than he had and Lorraine says, “They got that from his record, I bet. I didn’t give them any pictures. Oh, shoot, remind me I have to give Andy a picture of Bree that I’ve got, he needs it for the police report.”
“Okay.”
The news went on to say Dean is suspected of being part of a terrorist cell only the police are not commenting if that’s related to his crime of murder or not. The way they said it sounds like maybe Dean killed Bree because she found out he’s a terrorist, but maybe they didn’t mean it that way. It makes no difference to Dean now anyway, only it’s a shame he can’t put them straight about that. They said he’s to be considered armed and dangerous and must not be approached if seen, only reported to the police or FBI if you spot him out there hiding from justice.
Lorraine didn’t say anything after the story’s over so I kept my mouth shut too so she doesn’t get all upset about having a killer-terrorist brother on the news. I wanted her calm and ready for love, which is pushing impatient at the front of my jeans, but you have to wait until the lady is in the mood. I read that in a magazine and it makes sense even if it is a hard thing to do.
“Well, that’s that,” she said, then starts flipping through the channels till she finds a sitcom with laughter busting out of the can the way they do it to make you think it’s hilarious and you must be an idiot if you’re not laughing too. “You like this show, Odell?”
“Sure.”
“It’s my favorite. Have you got anything to drink?”
I got the leftover Coors and Captain Morgan and scrubbed out some shot glasses, thinking Lorraine is most likely a drink-from-the-bottle kind of beer drinker, but you don’t do that with hard liquor unless you’re some kind of desperate alcoholic person. I set it all up on a tin tray in the kitchen there with blue pelicans on it and brung it back to the living room like a waiter or something and set it down.
“Now that’s what I call service,” says Lorraine, appreciative, then, “You’ll make some lucky soul a real good wife.”
Now that got me sore, being what they all say when a man does anything the least bit useful around the place that does not involve a power tool. But I bit my tongue because I don’t want to be upsetting the apple cart here with regard to love-making later o
n, or better yet sooner rather than later. Lorraine picked up a Coors and popped it while I poured us both a shot of the Captain. It went down easy and I reached for a beer, then the phone rang. Lorraine and me both looked at each other, seeing as neither one of us truly lives at Dean’s place, so who could the call be for?
“More reporters maybe?” I said.
“I can’t handle reporters right now.”
“Only it’s after hours so it most likely isn’t.”
“I don’t care who it is, my nerves are shot for today.”
So I got up and went to the phone. “Hello?”
Silence on the line, but it’s open, you can always tell. “Hello?”
“Are you the guy?” says a voice. It’s partway familiar but then again not.
“Yeah, I’m a guy.”
“The guy I gave the package to, that guy.”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
It’s Donnie D on the line.
“Yeah, listen, I just now saw the news, so what’s that all about?”
“Dean did a bad thing.”
“I guess.” Silence for a few seconds, then, “So how does this work from now on?”
“No difference, same as usual, only now it’s me, not him.”
“You’re gonna be the guy there now?”
“That’s right.”
“The sister, she knows about it?”
“She does.”
“So no difference then.”
“No difference.”
“So why’d he do it?”
“Hey, who knows. Dean was always a little weird.”
“Too true. So you’re the guy now.”
“That’s me.”
“Okay then, see ya.”
He hung up. I went back to the living room.
“Who was it?”
“Donnie D.”
“Donnie D?”
“He wants to know what’s going down with Dean out of the picture, so I told him it’s the same as usual only now it’s me not Dean.”
“Was he cool with that?”
“Sure, he wants to deal with me, nobody else, to protect himself, he said. Too many links in the chain makes a weak chain, he said.”
