by Ashley Love
Lex remains silent. He doesn’t need friends, not here, not in this place. Not with shaved heads and swastika tattoos…not in this place. He looks around and sees a table full of others just like Jed…staring, and it hits him, he knows what this is. He would like to tell this kid to go fuck off, but he knows better. Silence is better than disrespect in this type of setup, because if worst came to worst he would more than likely need someone to cover his ass, but he hopes to not be in here long enough to deal with anymore shit like today, and he’s not sure if forming an alliance would be a problem or a solution at this point.
When breakfast is called abruptly Lex is full of relief. He stands without a second of hesitation and walks to dispose of his unconsumed meal, keeping his head down, pretending to ignore Jed calling out to him but he hears it, he sees the hard eyes in his mind and he walks with his head down. Just walk. He feels shoulders bump against his own and he looks up for a second into the hard eyes, hard eyes everywhere and he walks faster, walks alone, walks away. Away from the hard eyes and his stomach turns, sending a jolt of electricity up his spine and his temperature spikes, clamming his skin and he feels his mouth water and he swallows it, gulps it down. Push it down.
He stands in line, waits impatiently for the others to join before the group is escorted back to A-pod, hands cold, stomach on fire. His knees lock and unlock in a restless fashion, hands indecisive as to whether they want to be in his pockets or out, and by keeping his head down he avoids the eyes of the passing guard who is checking the line to account for every inmate. Head down. Avoid the eyes. This is how people are separated here. You either harden or become submissive. You avoid the eyes or you let them consume you, become you…you become it. Those hard eyes become your hard eyes, and you put on someone else’s skin just to leave here alive. You are no longer you. The people next to you are hollow versions of themselves, and you either submit or harden. Either choice leaves you changed for life.
Lex is the first back to his cell and by the time he gets there he’s shaking. As soon as the door snaps shut with a metallic click he sinks to his knees in front of the small metal toilet and tastes his breakfast again. Again and again, stomach tight, he holds onto the edge, grasps it tight, cold and smooth under his fingers as he tries to grip it tighter still. Pressed cardboard, white water. Again and again, fluids running from his eyes and nose until he’s finished, breathing hard, and he lays his cheek against the bowl’s edge and closes his eyes, his stomach in knots, his veins ablaze with need. His eyes blink open slowly and he looks around but sees no one. He is alone. He has no one and he is no one, and this has never been the case for him before. He is not used to being no one…and he’s not used to having no one.
His stomach tightens again and he groans softly, gripping the toilet’s edge, and he presses his forehead against the metal, eyes shutting tight again. The hard eyes haunt him. He is not this person…one of these people. He doesn’t belong here. Ever since he was young he thought this was his fate, but even at his toughest he doesn’t want to become this. Even with his eyes closed he sees them in his mind and he wills them away, replacing them with a softer gaze, going somewhere else, escaping from this place. Think of something…anything…escape.
Submit or harden, his mind tells him, but he hushes it, replacing it with a softer gaze, familiar eyes, and his chest tightens with want, with need, and he looks into those green eyes, lets himself go in them, and they take him away. In that instant there is no other sound in the room but for his breathing, but he is now not alone.
He is calm and at ease and he sees the eyes gazing into his own, feels the arms holding him and he doesn’t resist, sinking into the familiarity, into the comfort, and he needs it, he’s needed it for so long and he knows that no one else makes him feel this way. No pills and no needles. He kneels with his cheek against the metal and his eyes burn with unshed tears as he is surrounded and consumed with the greatest peace he has ever known. He has never in his life felt so whole.
His breath quickens as he feels the cheek against his back, thin arms around his waist and deep breaths that match his own. “Don’t leave me…” he whispers into the room and it feels so real, he never thought he would miss this, never thought he would need it so much.
And in a moment, it’s gone.
The clank of the cell door jars his thoughts and he squeezes his eyes tight as the feeling fades. He tries to hold on to it, tries to go to that place. Don’t go. Don’t leave. Don’t—
“Hey, bitch.” He recognizes the voice as Ramero's and his stomach turns but he doesn't move an inch. “Well, well…look at the little faggot with his face in the shitter. You got a weak stomach, faggot? Let me help you out, motherfucker.”
Before Lex can turn around to respond he feels Ramero’s foot come in contact with his ribs, knocking the breath from his lungs and causing his hands to slip from the toilet’s edge and fall against the floor, sending Lex doubled over his knees with a guttural groan. He heaves a breath and feels his stomach turn just as a large hand wraps around his skull, palming his head like a basketball, and rips it backward, cracking his neck and pulling him back flat onto the concrete floor. His eyes squeeze shut just as Ramero’s palm cracks across his face and he struggles to fight back, kicking his legs and swinging his arms but Ramero has a good 70 pounds on him. He simply grabs Lex by the shoulders, easily turning him facedown against the hard concrete.
Lex grits his teeth and squirms, hissing breathy pants out from his clenched teeth and Ramero holds him down so tight that it’s hard for him to breathe. “Let me fucking go, bitch.”
“What did you say to me?” Ramero growls, fisting the back of Lex’s jumpsuit and hoisting him to his feet in one swift pull. “You need to learn not to talk back, you white-trash faggot piece of shit.”
“Fuck you!”
Lex throws his elbow back hard into Ramero’s chest, causing him to stumble back, coughing. Lex turns around quickly, rushes the larger man and pushes him against the wall, pounding his fists into his face and sides, but he only gets a few good punches before Ramero deftly reaches out and grabs him by the throat, startling him, extending his arm fully to hold Lex at bay as he wriggles and gasps for air. He uses his other hand to swing at Lex, bashing his ribs and cheeks as Lex tries to pry the hand from around his throat. He finally hooks a leg behind Ramero’s knee, sending them tumbling with a jarring slap against the rigid floor, gasping for breaths as Ramero’s hand flies quickly from his throat to catch himself on the ground.
Lex quickly makes a jab at Ramero’s face, catching him in the jaw with a smack and Ramero twists Lex’s arm painfully before pinning it to the floor, pressing his knee into Lex’s stomach just beneath his ribcage, shorting his breath once again as he lets his weight settle on top of him, holding him down.
“Somebody get this motherfucker off me!” Lex squeaks, swinging his free arm to hit Ramero wherever he can reach, his sides, shoulders, and neck, but Ramero just chuckles at Lex helpless beneath him.
“Nobody’s gonna fuckin' help you in here…you’re all alone, bitch.”
All alone.
Something in Lex snaps and fire ignites behind his eyes at the words. All alone? He can’t be. He can’t stay here. Lex grits his teeth and musters all of his strength to reach out and strike Ramero in the throat with his fist, causing him to fall back as Lex quickly scrambles to his feet. He runs to the cell door only to find that the hall guard has conveniently disappeared, and it clicks in his head that after the pain in the ass that he’s been around here the last thing any of those motherfuckers would wanna do while he was being taught a lesson is help him out.
Just as Lex turns back into the room he meets Ramero’s fiery eyes, feels his large hand grip the back of his jumpsuit as the other palms his head again and his face meets the bars of the cell door. He cries out when he feels his flesh split again the cold metal.
“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you’re nobody in here.” Rame
ro jerks him back and spins him, gripping his biceps and shoving him against the bars again. He brings his face close to Lex’s. “You hear me? You’re nobody.”
Lex suddenly heaves a guttural groan as he takes a blow to the stomach, air expelled from his lungs, and he doubles over, fire in the pit of his stomach burning all the way back to his spine. He winces when he feels Ramero’s large hand grip the back of his neck and squeeze, fingers digging in beneath his ears and burning pain up over the back of his skull as he holds him bent over.
“You don’t know me,” Lex groans, trying to steady his voice but his knees tremble along with his voice at the pain in his neck that is so severe he can barely speak at all.
Suddenly a hall guard appears at the far end of the A-Pod hall, and Lex can faintly hear his voice calling, “Hey! Hey!” but it’s quickly muted by Ramero’s words, dry and cutting to the bone.
“I don’t wanna know you…bitch.”
With the last word he brings his knee up to meet Lex’s face.
Lex sees stars for a moment, sinking to his knees as blood stains his hands and the concrete floor. You can hear the crack of his nose breaking all the way down the hall, and it’s deafening to Lex, ringing in his ears so much so that he barely hears the cell door swing open before Ramero’s words fill his barely-conscious mind again.
“Yeah…yell for help, motherfucker. Nobody gives a fuck in here.”
And as he runs his tongue along his teeth, counting to make sure they’re all present, he feels Ramero spit on him just as the hall guard grabs him and drags him from the cell…and he is alone again.
“Hey…”
When Lex finally hears the voice it feels like days have passed, weeks, but it’s only been minutes, seconds even. His skull throbs with a fullness that can only be matched by trying to shove a cantaloupe through a keyhole, and when he lifts his heavy head to pair a face to the voice, he can barely make out the blurred features through his watery eyes. “An attorney just showed up for you…some guy named Robson Blair?”
It’s one of the hall guards. A lot of help those motherfuckers did. Lex scowls. “Yeah…fuck, can I at least wash my fucking face first?”
“Yeah we should probably get you checked out.”
15
Robson Blair is the picture definition of sleaze. He’s the ghetto John-Grisham-novel description of the “bad guy” lawyer…to a tee. The worn gold clasps on his cheap burgundy leather briefcase trimmed in alligator’s hide only accentuate the flamboyance of the diamond-studded watch band, cuff links, and glasses that he boasts, which squeeze the sides of his fat bald head and don’t even have prescription-strength lenses. His suit is tailor-made but his file labels are handwritten rather than typed, and judging by the Rolls Royce car that he pulled up to MCJ in, business it just that to him…business. He works just so he can play. He spends his money on weekend cruises and happy endings and he’s had the same ratty briefcase and secretary since he started working…probably because he’s fucking his secretary on the side, but the briefcase is hideous nonetheless.
But one thing’s for sure…he’s damn good at his job.
Lex bumbles in through the heavy metal door, heavy like his head and it creaks when it swings open but doesn’t draw Robson Blair’s eyes up from where they’re trained on what appears to be Lex’s file laying open before him on the table.
“Hey.” His voice is gravelly, his nose stuffed solid with a cotton roll in each nostril after the resident medic couldn’t get that motherfucker to stop bleeding once she molded his flesh and cartilage back into place. He has the constant urge to sneeze but it never comes.
“Took you long enough,” is the simple response he gets.
He frowns. “Not like I’m on my own schedule in here, man.”
Robson finally looks up from the table and shock registers across his face but Lex’s sure he’s seen worse. “Jesus Christ. You look like you went ten rounds with Tyson, kid. You alright in here?” He furrows his brow a bit to study Lex’s wounds.
“Yeah, I’m straight.” Lex waves him off with a pass of his hand and takes a seat slowly across the table. He receives a look of hard disbelief from Robson but he continues. “Let’s just talk about getting me outta here. You can do that, right?”
Robson chuckles. “Yeah kid, that’s my job.”
“So…how’s it looking?” Lex leans onto the table with his elbows, folds his hands, eyes dancing across the open file discreetly.
Robson sits back, wipes a hand across his shiny bald head, sighs. “Pretty grim, kid. You really did a number on yourself.”
“It’s just a little weed, man.”
“And a glock-nine with no papers and the worst serial number file job I’ve seen in a while. Where’d you get that thing, Ebay?”
Lex scoffs. “I’m a seller not a buyer.” He waits for a sly smirk of understanding from Robson but receives no change in demeanor. Bad joke. He clears his throat. “And as far as papers go, the gun was a gift. You think I was gonna get a receipt with that shit or something?” He narrows his eyes a bit and leans his lanky frame back against the chair, kicking one leg out and slouching.
“C’mon kid, you’ve been out on the streets for how long without a slip up? And if I know what you do, which I’m going to assume I do, considering that you have affiliations with Felix Amostra…” Robson gives him a knowing look, “you have to have brains to some extent to man an operation like the one I assume you’re probably running.”
Lex licks his lips slowly. “I think you need to stop assuming things.”
Robson shrugs. “Then I think you’re gonna have to stop bullshitting around with me.”
The two men are quiet for a moment, staring at each other in an intimidating fashion but neither folds.
Lex finally speaks. “So what am I looking at?”
Robson’s large hand reaches for the file on the table top. He props it open like a book against his fat belly full of medium-rare prime rib and shrimp cocktails. Lex’s stomach growls.
Robson reads over the file diligently, shaking his head occasionally and finally letting out a long sigh. “This is a fucking mess if I’ve ever seen one.” He closes the folder, tossing it back onto the table and the papers flutter a bit inside the pocket. “Truth is, they’re gonna run this hard to you. I don’t see 'em cutting you a lot of slack.” He sits forward, leaning against the table, and unbuttons the top-most button of his suit jacket, allowing it to part for his chubby midsection. “You’ve got three felony weapons charges staring you in the face. This isn’t Texas, kid. You can’t just run around with firearms on you and shit.”
“I need protection,” Lex says simply, throwing up an empty gesture of his hand.
The lawyer scoffs. “Then get a legit gun! Get a dog, surround yourself with people you fucking trust! Goddammit.”
Lex rolls his eyes. “Look, I thought this was a business meeting, not a fucking lecture. Can you cut me a fucking deal or not?”
“We can keep our fingers crossed, but LAPD isn’t as useless as they probably seem to you. They have you in custody now. They know who you are, and I can guarantee they know what you do. They don’t have the proof, but they know, and they’re gonna try and keep you here. Three weapons charges and a possession charge…you’re gonna do some time, no question.” Robson lets the words roll easily off his tongue as he rests back against his chair again, but the hair on Lex’s arms stands up at the thought…doing time.
“How much time?” His voice is weaker than he hoped it would be.
“Depends.”
“What kinda bullshit answer is that? I’m not the fucking jury you’re trying to backhand and scheme on here. I need to know what the fuck is gonna happen to me, and I need to know the truth,” Lex snaps.
“Worst case scenario, you do four years.”
“Four years?! Fuck that,” Lex roars, stands quickly and leaning onto the table with his hands, furrowing his brow.
Robson
throws his hands up. “I said worst case scenario, okay?”
Lex pounds a fist onto the table. “Well you better give me another goddamn estimate 'cause I’m not doing that much time. No way, no fucking way.”
“You think you’re running the show here?” Robson retorts harshly, standing to his feet to mimic Lex’s stance, challenging him, and tension begins to layer in the air. “I’m not one of your boys, okay? I’m trying to get your ass out of this place, so you need to watch your fucking mouth when you talk to me, unless you wanna go for this by your goddamn self.”
“Look man, I can’t stay here…” Lex raises his voice, shaking his head.
Robson shouts over Lex. “Well unless you have some brilliant plan for escape—”
“That’s why I fucking called you!” Lex almost shrieks, battling to be heard, trying to win and the tension in the room builds and builds. “Now can you get me out of this motherfucker or not?”
The room falls silent on both men as they stand stock still, standing their ground, like two rams who keep butting heads, beating and beating until the other can’t stand anymore. Lex wants to fight, he wants to win and get his way, he wants to butt heads and butt heads…but in the end all he's going to end up with is a headache.
“Listen…” he starts, his voice quiet. He releases a long sigh, hanging his head, large ands still spread wide against the table. “Truth is….the truth is I’m fucked up. On some bad shit. And its catching up with me, man.”
“I can see that.” Robson’s tone is cautious but firm and Lex looks up into the man’s face, nose busted and swollen, cheek and eyebrow lacerated and the skin under his eyes beginning to blacken…but his eyes aren’t hard.
