That night he drove sober for the first time in years. Singing Apache songs for the dead, he saluted the Milky Way. He heralded Yolkai Nalin. His voice rang strong. His tone was true. When he wasn’t staring into the sky, he was looking into the rearview mirror. And sometime between two and three in the morning, Frank Just Frank appeared, his ghostly figure standing in the middle of the RV. Sam didn’t dare look away from the mirror to check and see if it was real. He just drove on. The ghost didn’t speak. It didn’t move, other than to nod its head. And in that nod came decades of acknowledgement that Sam was on the right path. They stared into each other’s eyes for a long time, until Frank Just Frank vanished. Sam looked immediately to the sky and noticed a shooting star. Funny, he’d always thought they were things falling to the Earth. What if it was the other way around? What if they were things returning to the sky?
Frank Just Frank’s appearance and the shooting star filled him with a powerful sense of hope. The bones of his arm and hand had proven that he’d been right all along. It didn’t get him where he wanted to go, but it was a start. And as he glanced up and down his body at his web-toed feet, his legs, his other arm and the ribs that held his torso together, he knew that he’d figured out how to join his friends. He didn’t know how much of himself he’d have to give, but he’d do whatever it took to join them in the afterlife of the Milky Way.
Until then, he had an RV, the rest of his bones, a clear view of the night sky, and a desperate desire to become a shooting star.
It was enough for now.
THE WINDMILL
Rebecca Levene
I’ve always thought that old adage, ‘Write What You Know,’ isn’t the truism that those giving advice to writers purport it to be, especially when it comes to genre fiction. But here it really does apply, because Rebecca has indeed worked in prisons and with those incarcerated within. This, then, is a story very much grounded in reality, but it is also a ghost story and that supernatural element, rather than detracting from the realism of the piece, adds all the more to its emotional core. This is supernatural fiction at its very best.
Lee could see the windmill from the small, barred window in his cell. It sat, incongruous, near the peak of Brixton Hill, its vanes broken and helpless to catch the wind shaking the stunted trees around it.
He’d lived off Coldharbour Lane for five years and never once visited the place, but now that he couldn’t, he felt drawn to it. Its unreachability was like a symbol of his confinement. Possession with intent, four year sentence almost certainly. He was on remand right now, but no brief was getting him out of this. He’d be behind the door for nearly two years.
His cell mate lay curled on the bottom bunk, his hand tucked under his chin so that it looked like he was sucking his thumb. Maybe he was. They didn’t let you in here until you were twenty-one, but Arif could have passed for a schoolboy with his gawky, rail-thin body and hairless face. He smelled bad, a fuggy cloud of BO and old smoke around him in the confines of the eight-foot-by-ten cell. When he’d taken a shit earlier, a shower curtain pulled around him for an illusion of privacy, the stench had felt like a physical presence, an unwelcome third cell mate.
Arif hadn’t seemed to care or even notice. He was shivering – detoxing. The pus-filled track marks on his arms said he’d been using smack for a good long time. He was probably clucking for crack, too. Crack to pick you up from the smack and smack to calm you down from the crack. That nice little symmetry kept the customers coming.
“I’ll sort you out,” Lee said. “Got something coming in tomorrow.”
Arif was shivering so hard, when he shook his head it looked like just another involuntary convulsion. “Nah, I’m getting clean, innit? Girl from NACRO said she could get me in a hostel. I only use ’cause I’m homeless.”
“Whatever you say.” Lee knew the mantra: I offend because I use, I use because I’m homeless. Get me a home, I’ll stay clean and straight. It’s what those fucking do-gooders crawling around the prison said to people like Arif, all comforting and understanding, and the users had learnt to parrot it back at them every time they landed inside.
“I mean it,” Arif said. “I’m going on C-Wing. Drug free.”
Lee grinned. “Me too. Guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
There was a shuffle of footsteps below, the screws unlocking the cells on the twos. They’d be up to the threes in a minute and then he could go down and get his breakfast, make contact with a few friends he knew were also on G-Wing. He took a last look through the bars at the windmill as he heard the key turning in the lock. He could see vague, dark forms flitting around it, probably kids who’d climbed the fence, enjoying their freedom.
Fuck ’em. They’d got problems of their own. Maybe they’d be buying off him once he was out.
Two days later they told Lee he was moving to C-Wing. That meant random piss tests, but who cared? He didn’t use himself. He pushed his belongings into a clear plastic bag – boxers, packet of biscuits, spare shirt, radio, no Playstation yet, not while he was still on basic – then clanged down two flights of stairs to hover round the meds hatch, waiting for someone to escort him over.
The screw, some fat cunt bulging out of her white shirt, led him through the exercise yard. The cracked concrete skirted the side of grim old F-Wing, Fraggle Rock, where they sent the mental cases too far gone to survive on the main wings. C-Wing was against the far wall, newer and cleaner than the others. He remembered it from last time, painted a brighter yellow colour than the rest of the nick, the paint not yet faded enough to make the attempt at cheerfulness just pitiful.
The screw at the front desk kept him waiting for ten minutes, writing in his log book when he knew Lee was there. Sweat stood out in drops among the ginger stubble on his head. “Curtis,” he said when he finally looked up. “You’re in 329. Go on, get a fucking move on. We’re locking down in a minute.”
Lee stared at him, just stared long and hard, and the other man wriggled like a worm on a hook. But when he saw the screw’s hand crawling towards his baton, he turned and walked away. No point ending up in seg.
The cell was two floors up. On the first landing there was a table tennis table, two men playing and others hanging at the margins waiting their turn. He recognised three he’d sold to on the street and nodded at them as he passed, knowing at least one of them would seek him out later, asking what he could get them. The two men at the end of the landing were customers too, one sitting as the other stood behind him, cutting his hair.
Up another level and it was quieter, only two ragged white men standing near the top of the stairs. They were drinkers rather than users, to judge by the broken veins on their noses and the bellies hanging over the top of their prison-issue grey sweatpants. They didn’t interest him – they could brew their own hooch if they wanted it, using mouldy bread and socks and orange squash, fermented in the bog. Disgusting, but then that’s what addicts were. They gave up all self-respect to the drug.
His new cell was a little bigger than the last, and cleaner too. He’d asked for non-smoking and by some kind of miracle he seemed to have got it. The only smell was the throat-burning odour of industrial bleach. The window was bigger as well. He peered through it and was surprised to see the windmill, nearer here than it had been on G-Wing. That wasn’t right, was it? He reckoned it should have been on the opposite side of the prison, but maybe he’d got turned around. It was there, anyway, a black blot against the storm-heavy sky. He could hear the faint sound of the wind slapping against its broken vanes.
“Creepy, innit?” Arif said behind him.
Lee jumped, then clenched his teeth and turned round. “What the fuck are you doing here, Hussein? I can’t sort you out ’til tomorrow. Fuck off and come back then.”
The other man blinked, slow and stupid. He wasn’t sweating or shivering any more, but the bones standing out sharply beneath his skin made him look halfway dead already. “Told you, didn’t I? I’m clean. I’m in here with you.” He nodded
over at the bunks and Lee noticed for the first time that he’d spread his meagre belongings over the upper bed.
At least he knew his place. Lee dumped his plastic bag on the more desirable lower bunk and shifted the TV so he could see it better when he was lying back. He flicked it on and leaned back. It was showing snooker, the world championship maybe, but the colour had leached from the picture and everyone sounded like they were shouting underwater.
“I’ve gotta get clean,” Arif said. His hot, rank breath wafted against Lee’s cheek. He was crouched beside the bunk, wobbling on his toes.
Lee grunted.
“It’s different this time. My girlfriend’s pregnant – I’m gonna be a dad.”
“Lucky you,” Lee said. “Now shut the fuck up.”
But Arif didn’t seem to be listening. The useless little shit was crying, big fat drops rolling down his cheeks as his bloodshot eyes gazed into some inner space. “Started drinking when I was eleven. Then I started using when I was fourteen. Stupid, innit?”
Lee propped himself up on an elbow to look at him. “Why don’t you save it for someone who cares? Tell it to the chaplain. She likes sob stories. Probably flicks herself off to them at night.”
Arif’s eyes latched onto his, the fever still lingering in their depths. “I’m just saying. It’s killing me. I’ll be dead, and for what? So I’m stopping, this time, for real.”
Lee rolled over and turned his attention back to the TV, where grey balls rolled towards black pockets. “You’ll never stop,” he said. “It owns you, man.”
Lee saw Tasha across the length of the visitors’ room. She’d dressed up for him, a short black skirt and a top that sagged between her round tits. Aaron was cradled in her left arm, nuzzling at the material to get at the nipple beneath. Lee felt something clench inside him at the sight of his son. It was an odd, almost uncomfortable feeling, but he’d grown used to it in the five months since Aaron had been born.
“How you doing, sweetheart?” She leaned forward to kiss him.
He shrugged as he let himself enjoy the kiss for a moment, the moist heat of her mouth and the muscle of her tongue. Then his own tongue probed deeper and hooked the package tucked behind her teeth into his own mouth.
He sat back and stroked the silk-soft hair on top of Aaron’s head, marvelling at the heat that came from his scalp, as if a fire burned beneath that delicate skin. “Don’t worry about me, babe. I’m doing fine.”
Supply and demand, Lee had learnt about that for his GCSEs. He had enough smack to sort his customers out and enough demand to keep prices right up. Freeflow let him go to the library, a chance to sell his product to users on other wings. He hung out among the neglected paperbacks and racked up the cash. By the time the bell rang again, he swaggered back to C-Wing with a bundle of cash owing. He’d come out richer than he went in after his last stretch, and he reckoned he’d do as well this time.
Dinner meant going back to his cell with his chips and beans and shrivelled sausages on a tray. Arif was already there, but he rose from the only chair as soon as Lee came through the door, pulling himself up onto the top bunk to eat with his neck bent beneath the low ceiling.
“Got some gear,” Lee said.
Arif shrugged, hunched shoulders pressing against the concrete above him. “Don’t need it. I’m off that stuff.”
Lee speared a bean on his plastic fork, studying it for a second before swallowing it. “I can get you methadone.”
“Same thing, innit?” Arif said. “Same junk. I don’t need it no more.”
Lee saw a new light in his eyes, brighter and less feverish. He scooped up another mouthful of beans, then realised his appetite had gone and let them dribble back on the plate. The chips were soggy with grease and the sausages looked grey, like they’d been made of ash. He threw the tray on the floor and walked the four paces to the window.
The sun had passed to the far side of the prison, leaving the windmill in shadow. It seemed deserted at first, but Lee could hear the sound of music and a squawk of laughter. Then, improbably, the sleek shape of a car drove into the gloom at its base. Someone spilled out of the door, their sex unknowable at this distance. Lee saw them tumble drunkenly to the ground before another figure pulled them up. There was a second burst of laughter as they circled the car.
He didn’t see that it was on fire at first. It was only when the flames licked against the windscreen and the glass broke with a sharp crack that he realised what was going on. He laughed. Some cunt would be getting the bus to work tomorrow.
“What’s going on?” Arif said, head bobbing as he tried to peer around Lee’s.
“Nothing,” Lee said. “Fuck off.”
The flames were burning high now. Their light made the day seem darker and Lee found himself tensing for the explosion as the petrol tank went up, only it never came. Was that just something he’d seen in films? If he’d been home he would have Googled it, but inside he was left to wonder.
He was startled when he saw the first of the figures leap over the fire, a flash of white that could have been teeth or face and then they were down the other side and he could hear the cheers. They all started after that, running in circles round the burning car, faster and faster, then flinging themselves over it to yells whose meaning was lost to distance.
It didn’t seem like a bunch of kids any more, bored of hanging out on Coldharbour Lane. It looked more primitive. The car was melting and warping in the heat, losing its industrial edges to become something more formless. The shouts could have been in any language, the faceless figures from any country.
Lee turned away, shivering. Mad bastards, anyway. The cops were bound to see the fire and then the arsonists would be joining him in here.
His mate Gary got moved onto C-Wing two days later. When the screw unlocked Lee’s door at ten o’clock, he found Gary waiting outside, leaning against the railing that circled the landing. He grinned beneath his crooked nose. He’d cut his cornrows since he’d been banged up and he was running his hand over the dark stubble as if he still hadn’t quite got used to the feel of it. They clasped hands as they embraced and Lee had a brief lungful of Gary’s cheap deoderant.
“Fucking bastards,” Gary said. “Fuck-ing bastards.”
Lee shook his head. “Gotta be more specific, man.”
Gary blinked, then his face fell. “You don’t know. Shit.”
Aaron was his first instinct. It was a freezing thought, painful even to touch with the edges of his mind. It must have showed in his face because Gary shook his head. “No, man. Nothing that bad. It’s just your beemer. Someone nicked it. The cops found it burnt-out outside that windmill. Fuck knows how the little fuckers got it in there.”
The cold warmed to a burning rage. It flushed Lee’s cheeks and sped his heart. “Who was it? I’m gonna kill ’em. Who was it?”
Gary backed away a step as he shrugged. Lee’s temper was legendary. He’d spent a long time cultivating the legend, and he’d watered it with enough blood. “Don’t know, man,” Gary said. “They didn’t catch nobody.”
Lee remembered the dark figures, dancing and leaping and laughing round the burning car. He’d joined in the laughter, but now he understood that it had been at him. Did they know he’d been watching, trapped behind the bars of his cell while they roamed free? They’d find out that his reach extended beyond the walls of the prison. He was due another visit from Tasha today. She could get the word out.
He hung around the wing’s front desk, waiting for freeflow when he’d be allowed to make his own way to the visitors’ centre. Only when the bell rang and the two metal gates to the wing were opened, the screw on the door put a hand out to stop him.
“I’ve got a visit,” Lee said.
The screw shook his head, looking down at his paper and not at Lee. He had a blue tattoo below his shirt sleeve, a crude heart he could have got in the nick.
“I’ve got a fucking visit,” Lee said. “Check again.”
“All right,
Curtis – don’t fraggle out on me.” The screw sighed, like Lee was just a minor irritation for him, and turned the list around so he could read it. His name wasn’t on it. “Looks like you’ve been stood up. Can’t imagine why, with your winning personality.”
Another prisoner pushed past him, some big Turkish bastard, and Lee had half a mind to let him know how he felt about that. His fist clenched, but he made himself step back. A few days in seg was the last thing he needed right now, and one of the screws on the wing had a score to settle with him from when he’d kicked off last time he was in. He was just looking for an excuse to dish out a beating.
Most people were off at work or education, so at least there was no queue for the phone. He punched in his pin, followed by Tasha’s number. A group of Jamaicans lounged at a table beside him, and the slap of dominoes echoed through the wing as it rang seven times – then her answer phone kicked in. He swore and slammed the phone back on its hook. Fucking woman. What the hell was she doing that was more important than seeing him?
He saw one of the Jamaicans staring at him and snarled back before heading down to the gym to work off some of the rage on the weights.
Evenings inside were always long, but that one felt endless. The cell pressed in on him, the ten foot width seeming to shrink to five, and then four, then narrower still until he imagined he could feel the concrete walls rubbing against his shoulders. The only escape was the window, but the window meant the windmill.
It was full dark now. His eyes strained for the familiar shape, but it was no more than a dark stain on the horizon. The wreck of his car had probably been removed. The mark where it had stood would remain, grey ash against the green grass. He wondered if it would still be there in two years’ time when he was released.
House of Fear Page 11
