by Scott Frank
Whatever that meant. Roy decided to just nod.
“No, you and I are alike in a different way. Do you know what the word ‘empathy’ means?”
Roy didn’t move. Albert smiled.
“It’s okay if you don’t. I didn’t expect you to. But maybe later you’ll stroll over to our pathetic little library and look it up.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to know what it means. And because I want you to.”
Albert looked off, ready to go wherever it was he went during the day. Roy never saw him around.
“But you need to do this other thing soon,” he said, his tone cold now. “You need to do it soon or people will start to wonder.” He then looked at Roy a long moment and added, “I’ll start to wonder.”
Roy watched as Albert walked away, disappeared around the corner. He looked off at Jeff Knott and the others lifting weights out in the field. He then stared at the spot where Albert last stood. Stared at it until the dinner bell sounded and he jumped, his heart beating so hard he could feel the pulse in the back of his throat, his mind reeling at how someone who had always hid from force of any kind could have gotten himself into such a sorry situation.
He sat by himself at dinner and didn’t dare look up from his food for fear of accidentally making eye contact with the wrong person.
While no one had yet to make any kind of physical move on him, Roy knew he was afforded this reprieve only because everyone thought he was a murderer. But he could feel them all watching him, trying to figure him out. And once they did, once they saw what he really was, Albert’s nightmare prophecy would come true. Albert might even join in.
Roy could certainly never do what the weird, vaguely French kid had suggested. He had never hurt anyone. Whenever Roy imagined himself fighting back, his kicks and punches were all slowed down, as if he were underwater or in a dream. The blows always softening before they landed. If he were to strike someone like Jeff Knott, the first shot would have to put him down or Knott would surely come back at Roy, maybe even kill him.
Roy thought about those unmarked graves at the bottom of the hill and pushed his tray away.
He wondered where Jerry was. How had he missed the dinner count? There was no sign of Deems either. If something was wrong, the other guards didn’t seem too concerned. And then the bell sounded and it was time for everyone to line up for another count. Roy kept his head down as he dumped his tray, started walking toward the back of the line when he bumped into Deems.
“Watch your little feet, sunshine,” Deems said, and shoved Roy aside.
Roy noticed that the guard’s khaki trousers were wet at the hem, but didn’t think anything of it until they found Jerry dead in the showers two hours later.
By the time everyone filed in for evening rack, a thick cloud of steam had drifted from the lav into the dormitory. A guard went into the bathroom to shut off the showers, but came running right back out, yelling for them all to stay put.
An order they, of course, ignored. The instant the guard left the dormitory, barking into his walkie about “that fucking Wethers kid,” everybody bolted for the shower room. Roy was at the rear of the pack, but he could see well enough.
A nude Jerry lay curled up on the shower floor, eyes bulging, his skin beet red from the hot water, a seemingly endless discharge of white foam surging from his mouth. They would hear later that Jerry had choked himself to death by eating several large bars of county soap. But as Roy watched Deems, in those wet trousers, now push his way through the crowd, he knew that someone had helped Jerry stuff all those bars down his throat.
In that moment Roy felt something that he’d never felt before. Rage. Real, true, white-hot rage. His entire body burned with it. He could feel the flush on his face as he thought about just how much he hated everyone standing outside the shower gaping at Jerry Wethers. He hated the guards and he hated himself for being so weak, for allowing himself to end up in this God-fucked place in the middle of hell.
In that moment Roy decided that he would not, ever, let himself become Jerry. He would not, ever, let anyone do to him what they had done to Jerry. He would be stuffed into one of those unmarked graves before he would ever let that happen.
On the way back to his bed, Roy grabbed a large bar of soap from one of the sinks and put it inside his sock.
The next day he got two more bars and put them in the sock along with the first. He then swung the heavy sling at his open palm and fought the urge to scream. For a moment, he thought he had broken his hand.
Roy thought, This will do.
For the next three nights, he lay awake clutching the weight close to him working up his nerve. On the fourth night, he rolled out of his sheets, slid to the floor and started the long crawl under the beds to where Jeff Knott slept. Twice, he had to stop and wait for the occupant in the bed directly above him to fall back asleep. Once, he was almost caught when a kid reached down to the floor in the middle of some bad dream, grabbed Roy by the hair, and then leaned down and stared under the bed wide-eyed, but still, thankfully, sound asleep.
Nearly an hour later, Roy found himself standing beside Knott’s bed covered in dirt and sweat. The sock had snagged on several bed frames along the way and was already ripped. Roy cursed himself for not bringing a backup as the first swing might now be the only one he would get.
He studied Knott’s face, so pale it seemed to glow on the pillow. He had thought that he would hit him in the chest first, knock the wind out of him before hitting him in the head a couple of times. But now he thought he might have to hit him in the face first and get it over with. He was debating these two options when Knott woke up and those pale blue eyes fixed on Roy. There was a question there to be sure, but luckily for Roy, Knott’s instinct was to smile and then ask it. He got as far as “Hey, fish” when Roy hit him in the mouth with that sockful of county soap.
He knocked out most of Knott’s front teeth with that first hit, was going for a second when the sock snagged on a broken molar in the back of Knott’s mouth. Roy yanked the sling free and lost a bar of soap in the process. Rather than fight back, Knott covered his face and so Roy hit him again, this time nailing him on the Adam’s apple. The sock shredded and lost the remaining bars, but Knott was now trying to sit up, too busy gagging for air to fight.
Roy was surprised how easy it was to shove the bigger kid off the bed. He then squeezed around between the other cots, a couple of kids waking up, but leaving him alone as Roy started to jump up and down on Knott’s face.
He heard a strange voice somewhere far away, yelling.
I don’t want your fucking candy bars! Or your fucking jobs! I’m a fucking man! So if you or your faggot friends come anywhere near me, I’ll kill you! Do you fucking hear me? I will kill you, just like I killed my old man and just like I killed every other asshole who fucked with me!
Roy realized that there was a bedspring in his hand. He didn’t know how it got there, but he turned and saw an unfamiliar face in the dark, acne-scarred and the tiniest eyes he’d ever seen now nodding at him and then at Jeff.
Roy looked at the spring and then crouched down, pulled one of Knott’s hands away from his face and jammed the spring into the dark softness underneath. He then stood up and heard that strange voice say, All of you, stay the fuck away from me, or I’ll do the same to you!
He could now hear other voices, adults, Deems among them. He was turning away when he felt something burning hot on the back of his head, and fell at once into a deep and, finally, peaceful sleep.
—
When Roy woke up two days later, he tasted blood and couldn’t yet open his eyes all the way. His tongue worried a spot in the back of his mouth where he’d lost a tooth and his face hurt at the turn of his head. He had at least two bruised ribs and could feel a third that might have been cracked. His hand was wrapped with two of his fingers splinted. Roy figured this injury was either the result of repeatedly hitting Knott or from the guards stomping on it, or both
.
Thankfully, he could remember none of his own beating and wondered if he had even been awake for it. He could only remember the first blow of his attack on Knott, and had no recollection whatsoever of his journey from the dorm to where he was now, what he assumed to be the Adjustment Unit.
He looked around at the cement walls, all chipped and stained, a clump of hair on one of them, seemingly growing out of a smear of dried blood.
There was no bed or any furniture of any kind. Just a thin wool blanket and a foam pillow without a case. There were no windows or vents, the only air coming through a narrow slit in the door through which meals were delivered. There was a commode in the corner, chipped and streaked in colors that Roy couldn’t immediately identify.
He wrapped himself in the blanket and fell back asleep for what felt like an entire day. He remembered waking up in the dark and having to piss. It took him a while to find the commode in the pitch black cell, and then emptied half of his bladder before passing out again.
He woke up to a metal tray being pushed through the slot on the door. Roy grabbed it and stared at the gray-green brick that sat on the plastic plate. It was hard to the touch and smelled vaguely of macaroni and spinach. A key in the lock startled him out of his examination and he backed up against the wall and readied himself for whatever new hell was about to come through the door and hurt him.
But when the door swung open, it was Albert Budin who stood there with a towel draped over his shoulder, a bucket in one hand, and some clean clothes in the other.
“Oh, good,” he said. “You’re alive.”
—
“What they do,” Albert was saying, “is they take all the leftover food and press it into these blocks.” Albert had sat on the floor, his back against the wall smoking a cigarette as Roy washed himself off with the water in the bucket, politely looking away when Roy changed into the clean clothes. Roy moved very slowly, discovering more and more bruises along the way. His skin was so sensitive that the simple act of cleaning up and getting dressed nearly brought tears to his eyes.
“It looks like shit, but it doesn’t taste so bad. And you need the calories.”
Roy wondered just how Albert was able to be in here. Albert said something vague about the guards owing him a small favor. Later, Roy would learn that the guards at Boonville owed Albert a lot more than any favor. For the truth was, as Roy discovered, that the peace at Boonville was kept by Albert, not the staff. And when the time came for Albert to leave, Roy would, for a little while at least, take over that role.
“They had to take him to a hospital in Springfield.”
“Who?”
“Knott. Do you know what you did to him?”
“I can’t remember.”
“You should remember,” Albert said. “You well and truly fucked that boy up.”
“I remember hitting him in the face with a bar of soap.”
“No, you hit him in the mouth and knocked out all of his front teeth on the top, another three on the bottom.”
“I did?”
“You broke his jaw and both cheekbones.”
“With a bar of soap?”
“With your heel.”
Roy looked at the bruises on his bare feet. Both of his heels were black-and-blue, with deep cuts in one.
“You also tried to poke out his eye with a bedspring.”
Roy could see the kid with the pocked-up face and the lizard eyes handing it to him.
“But as it happens, you missed by a sixteenth of an inch, and pierced his sinus canal.” Albert shook his head. “His fucking sinus canal—that’s a new one.”
Roy asked, “Are you from France?”
Albert smiled, as if Roy had just passed some test he hadn’t realized he was taking. “No, I’m originally from Canada, Montreal, but they speak French there and that’s very perceptive of you. Most of the other dipshits in here are too stupid to know the difference between accents, but you picked it up. That’s very good. You’re not like the other mental cases in here. Bunch of fucking hillbillies, worse thing they ever did was take their daddy’s tractor for a joyride.”
“Mental cases?”
“Most of the people here are fucked up for sure, but they’re not criminals.”
“What about Jerry Wethers?”
Albert considered Roy a moment and said, “You feel bad for him.”
Roy shrugged.
“He was in here the first time for putting a gun in someone’s face for fifty dollars. Fifty dollars. That’s like doing it for fifty cents. He was a fucking moron. He had no chance to survive this place. Quit wasting your time worrying about him. You’re not like him.”
Albert got up and sat down next to Roy. His eyes were clear, like he slept a full ten hours a night. Roy could smell aftershave. Unlike most everyone else at Boonville, the place seemed to make Albert stronger.
Roy asked, “How old are you?”
“Almost eighteen. They can keep you here until you’re twenty if they want to.”
Roy nodded, thinking Albert looked a lot older than eighteen. Roy also wasn’t entirely convinced that Albert’s “French Canadian” accent was genuine. During the brief time they’d spent together so far, Roy had already noticed it coming and going.
“Did you look up the word I told you to?”
Roy nodded. “Empathy.”
He asked, “You know what it means?” Then answered his own question, “The ability to feel for our fellow man.”
Roy nodded, not sure why Albert was so obsessed with this particular word.
“There anybody you feel for, Roy?”
“My little brother.”
“Why?”
Roy just looked at him.
“What has he done for you?”
“Done? He’s not even two.”
“So you feel love for him just because he’s your brother?”
“He’s my family.”
“And is everyone in your family so deserving of your unconditional love?”
Roy couldn’t answer that one.
“The family you choose is the only family that matters.”
“I love my brother.”
“Love is a waste of time. Worse, it makes you weak. I know this because I was in love with a girl once.”
Call it instinct, but Roy was pretty sure that he didn’t want to hear about Albert and this girl he once loved. Maybe if he told Albert that he was tired…
“Her name was Betsy. She was half pit bull, half something else I can’t remember. Beagle, maybe.”
Roy said, “Oh.”
Albert smiled and shook out another cigarette. “I was in our apartment in Montreal when I spotted her out the window, all the way from the fourth floor. She was trying to cross Boulevard Newman and fuck if anybody was stopping for the poor thing. I was sure she’d get hit by the time I got down there. She had made it halfway to the divider and was looking to step off the other side when I ran out into the street, waving my arms like a traffic cop, and scooped her up.”
Albert lit his smoke and said, “The dog didn’t have a tag, so I just brought it up to the apartment and let it fall asleep on the couch. My sister came home from work and told me to get rid of it, but I refused. I didn’t blame her. It was just the two of us then, and she barely made enough as it was. I told her not to worry, that I would figure out how to feed it. She just shook her head and told me to keep it off the bed. I slept with it in the bathtub.”
Albert offered the smoke to Roy, who shook his head.
“The next day I see a notice in the lobby by the elevator. Missing Dog. Betsy. Pit bull mix. Trained. I ripped the notice off the wall. But my fucking sister…” He shook his head. “She had already seen it and called the number. That afternoon, there’s a knock at the door, it’s Jorge Panadero, this teenage dealer liked to wear his hair in a ponytail, hang out, do his thing up on the roof. He said he got off the elevator one day and Betsy didn’t follow him. A whole hour went by before the guy had any inkling s
he was gone.”
“So you gave the dog back?”
“What else could I do?”
Roy knew there had to be something else. He didn’t have to wait long to find out what it was.
“It wasn’t the same without the dog. I missed her. So I go up to the roof a few days later. Jorge’s up there like usual, sitting in a lawn chair getting high on his own weed, waiting for customers. Betsy’s chained to a pipe, looks miserable. But I can tell she’s glad to see me. I pet her, say to Jorge that I’ll buy the dog off of him. He says she’s not for sale. I tell him that she’s clearly not happy. He tells me to get fucked, and so I throw the dog off the roof.”
“You what?”
“She was chained, so she didn’t go far, but then her collar broke.”
“What did Jorge do?”
“I think he was in shock. He got up and made a move for me, but he was so stoned it wasn’t all that difficult to throw him off, too.”
Roy opened his mouth, but could not speak.
“The dog lived. Somehow. I don’t know how. But it did. So after Jorge’s funeral, I went and asked his mother if I could have it, but his mother said no. A week later, I left Canada.”
Albert stood, picked up the towel and the bucket, and loudly knocked on the door. “Teddy!”
A moment later, Roy once more heard the key in the lock and the door swung open. Teddy, a tall, reedy guard with a flattop, looked at the two of them. If Albert was bothered or self-conscious he didn’t show it. He nodded at the guard, started out, and then stopped.
“Love and hatred are both weaknesses,” he said. “The most powerful thing a person can feel is indifference. You can’t hurt a man who feels nothing. Don’t forget that.”
—
On Sunday, Roy stepped out of Building A and saw his mother—sunglasses, legs crossed, sitting by herself atop one of the redwood picnic tables. She’d cut her hair in a new way and wore a dress that Roy had never seen before. She smoked a cigarette and looked off at the graves at the bottom of the hill, ignoring the stares from the other families. Roy figured that, from the way they kept looking and whispering, they probably thought she was a movie star. He also figured that she was well aware of the attention.
