Nasty

by Dr. Xyz

  Like a queen exiles the malcontents in her realm, the protective muses within Nicola banished the memory of her family to a place her conscious mind never visited. It was the same site she put all of the other horrors she’d encountered in her short life.

  She could actually hear a door slam shut as the picture and story of her insane birth were safely tucked away in the “never to be opened” section of her brain.

  Blessed and cursed with the gift of selective amnesia, from that moment forward, Nicola had no active memory of her birth.

  Nicola headed for the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. This would be her last night working at Riker’s Island jail, or anywhere else, for that matter. Her short career as a medical technologist was about to end. Harrison had insisted that she retire and stay home after their honeymoon, to supervise the renovation of the Harlem brownstone he’d purchased for them. Never happy about her chosen profession in the health field, she’d eagerly agreed with Harrison’s plan.

  Content and happy about her future, she thought nothing of volunteering to stay and help out when a large group of incoming inmates arrived at the end of her shift. Her colleagues tried to encourage her to go home. They begged her. She smiled and ignored them. It was her last time.

  I’ll never have to work like this again, she thought. A few extra hours won’t kill me.

  Exhausted and drained from the previous events of the day, she pitched in and helped the crew draw blood.

  “Hey, Nicola! I got one of your people! Can’t get this man’s blood! A junkie! You know you’re the only one who can get their damn veins working! I don’t know what we’re going to do when you leave!”

  Nicola looked up at the new inmate her soon to be excoworker had dragged over to her station. She could tell that he’d been on the streets. He was scruffier than most. He had that “I live in a cardboard box home and ain’t had a bath since I was a baby” kind of smell. “Her people,” the folks called them. Just because she volunteered at the homeless shelter every now and then.

  He held his head low, avoiding all eye contact. Nicola knew this man was ashamed. His voice barely audible, it was obvious that he was educated.

  “What’s your name, sir?” Unlike her colleagues, Nicola always spoke to the inmates with respect.

  Never lifting his head, he responded, “Eli…Eli Griffith.”

  She glanced at his sheet and saw that he was in for larceny and murder. Nicola shuddered. She had a soft spot in her heart for folks down on their luck. That was why she had volunteered. But murder? That was where she drew the line.

  Drawing his blood was impossible. He had so many old scarred tracks on his arms and legs, he didn’t have a single viable vein in his body. She tried everywhere: arms, feet, hands; even his neck veins.

  “Uh, sir, where do you, uh, shoot up? What veins are you using?”

  He looked at her face for the first time and smiled when he saw how beautiful she was and remarked, “Pretty lady, you don’t even want to know.”

  She tried his foot again. This time she was successful.

  “I’m impressed. The lady is not only beautiful, but extremely talented.”

  Accustomed to inmates’ compliments, and usually ignoring them, for some reason she took exception to this one. Though accused of a heinous crime, Nicola smiled back at Eli. It was a smile that he’d never forget. It was the last one he would see for many years to come. She placed a Band-Aid on his foot and motioned for the officer to drag him back to a line where other inmates awaited their fate.

  Before she had a chance to catch her breath, they put another inmate in Eli’s spot. She picked up his sheet and saw that he was a notorious bigamist. Nicola had had enough.

  “Hey, that’s it, guys. I’m out of here. I can’t do this one.”

  Overwhelmed with fatigue and a desire to get the hell off of Riker’s Island and back to her new life with Harrison James, she hastily labeled the blood specimens, dropped them off at the laboratory, and said good-bye to her colleagues.

  When the guards let her pass through the steel-gated doors, she ran out with all intentions of never looking back. Never realizing that, all night long, she had mislabeled several blood specimens, including Eli Griffith’s.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Eli’s body curled up into itself. Images of the son he hadn’t seen in years haunted him. His beloved ex-wife, Ophelia, taunted him as the waves of withdrawal swallowed every cell in his body and regurgitated back in to the belly of the one toilet bowl in the cell. This was the worst withdrawal he’d ever experienced, but then again, that’s what he said every time he couldn’t get a hold of Lady H. It always seemed as if the devil had finally successfully chased his Godless, worthless soul to hell.

  Where was that methadone? He’d been there for over a week and he had missed more than one of his doses because of administrative glitches. Sweat poured out of his pores, creating tiny mud puddles in the cracks and crevices of his skin folds. He was so funky, he couldn’t stand his own damned self. This was nasty. He hadn’t had a shower since he’d arrived there. He was scared of the showers. Terrible things happened to men there.

  For a split second, the waves of pain subsided. He sneaked a look at his arms and legs. They were covered with swollen tracks. He checked out his penis. He had used it more times than a few to bring his beloved heroin closer to home. Thick, musky smelling, rusty-tinged fluid seeped out of the newest injection sites. Funny, he never had infected tracks before. Seemed like his body was turning against him in his old age. Yeah. Imagine that. Old and he wasn’t even fifty yet.

  The last time he had picked up his methadone, the nurse had counseled him about HIV and prevention strategies. She’d also told him that he didn’t have it in his blood. He had been so relieved. It was the one thing he was afraid of. The last couple of years, he’d gotten a little sloppy and had started sharing needles with his buddies. He realized that he should’ve taken the free city needles, but sometimes they weren’t always where he needed them.

  Times were getting hard on the streets for him. He wasn’t as young or as resourceful as he had been. He remembered the days when crowds would come from all parts of the city, to see him paint on the canvases he set up in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. His specialties were portraits and landscapes. Though he was definitely talented, he was infamous for rarely finishing a painting. Before drugs had completely consumed him, folks with money, especially white Bohemian women with thick fat trust funds, had been so impressed with his skills, they’d invite him to stay in their New York City pads, hoping he’d develop great works of art.

  Over the years, he had lived in some of the most exclusive addresses in Manhattan: The Dakota, the building where John Lennon was murdered; multi-million-dollar converted lofts in Tribeca, and his favorite hang, the Hamptons. Back in the day, he could always get an invite to bring his paint supplies and stay a month or two in the summer playground of New York’s obscenely wealthy residents.

  His freeloading with the rich was always a short-time stay. Drugs always seemed to corrupt his ability to stay focused. When patrons discovered his talent was limited and his need for drugs unlimited, even the women who kept him for sex had soon grown bored with him. Eli was never discouraged when they tossed him out. There were always new people who spotted him at his village “gallery” who were convinced they could tame the undisciplined artist.

  But that was then. Seemed like now that he was older, folks with money didn’t want a down-and-out junkie around who couldn’t even complete a child’s paint-by-numbers project. Nobody thought he was special.

  A correctional officer walked past his cell. He yelled out at him through the bars, as if testifying to the world. “Hey, officer, listen! Listen up!” The C.O. briefly turned around. “Look, look here. Now I’m gonna kick this habit, but send me some methadone now before I die!”

  The officer looked at him in disgust and spit out, “Fuckin’ junkie, you’ll get it when the nurses call your good-for-nothing a
ss and not a minute before. Now shut the fuck up!”

  He felt like screaming a million obscenities. But he just moaned to himself. Nobody cared about junkies. Even he didn’t care about junkies. Eli had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he had chosen a lifestyle that would eventually kill him. He was too chicken shit to use the old, tried and true, “bullet to the head” method.

  If he’d only taken Alan Montana’s offer of money and a crack at a decent rehab facility two years ago, he wouldn’t be in jail. The wealthy comedian had been so grateful when Eli had helped him find his teenage daughter, he’d offered him the moon. But Eli had always admired him. He wanted to be on equal footing; man to man. To look Alan in the eye. He refused the offer. Alan, impressed by how he clearly needed help, had insisted. But Eli had his pride. The more the comedian begged, his conviction to refuse grew exponentially.

  He had bragged about his experience with the comedian later that night when he was getting high with a musician buddy he’d known for years. The saxophonist shook his head as he injected heroin, wondering why Eli refused the cash. “The biggest tool for a fool is his pride. Ain’t you never heard, pride goeth before a fall, and shit, nigger, junkies always falling.” Still shaking his head at Eli’s foolishness, waiting as the drug took effect, he leaned into a junkie nod.

  Two months ago, when his own habit had him living out of cardboard boxes under the Manhattan Bridge, the young girl Eli and her father had tried to save, died from an overdose. All the money in the world couldn’t keep her from crack and the streets. He wanted to attend the funeral, and maybe ask Alan Montana for help. Once again, the demon pride intervened. He could not ask for assistance, especially since his life was in such a despicable condition.

  Now he was in jail. For stealing. In all of his years as a junkie, he had never stolen. He had truly hit rock bottom. He’d fallen from a high of organizing creative art projects in African villages when he was with the Peace Corps to a new low of conspiring with common criminals.

  He couldn’t help it. He needed money. Dope wasn’t free and the waiting lists for drug rehab centers in the city were longer than all the tracks on his arms combined. With a big hit of cash, he could buy his last stash and then enter a good clinic. He wanted a clear exit out of hell. He was getting too old.

  The irony of the whole affair was that on the day he committed the crime, Al Montana had opened a new drug treatment center in memory of his daughter. If he’d only set pride aside, he could have been in that first group of patients in the new state- of-the-art drug rehabilitation facility, instead of a Riker’s Island prison cell.

  Damn that Badheart, he thought. It was supposed to be a simple robbery. Nobody was going to get hurt. He told him to leave his crackhead brother, DJ, out the plan. He hated crackheads with a real passion. They weren’t cool at all. Garbage fried their brains or something. With Lady H, you just get mellow; not so with that wacky smack.

  Why did DJ bring the gun? It wasn’t part of their plan. And why did he shoot the Arab in the neck? Why? Because he was a fuckin’ crackhead, that’s why.

  Even though he didn’t pull the trigger. Even though he stayed behind to help the dying Arab out. Even though the store’s video camera substantiated all his claims, the court-appointed attorney could not get the self-righteous, junkie-hating judge to set bail at a reasonable level. A hundred thousand dollars! Hell, if he had that kind of money he wouldn’t have had to hold up the damn store. But if bail was a dollar, it wouldn’t have done him any good. He didn’t have that either. Nor did he have a place to stay. On second thought, mused Eli, the judge had done him a righteous turn.

  Finally, they gave Eli his methadone. He swallowed the liquid and smiled to himself, knowing that soon, very soon, the razor scraping his insides out would soon be so dull, he wouldn’t feel anything at all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After a month of regular methadone and nutrition, Eli started feeling human again. Eli eventually ventured into the showers. He might as well get used to them. This would be his second time in jail and his public defender told him to expect some real hard time. Ten years or more. Why so much time? He quickly learned that the combination of robbery, homicide, and drugs made all the difference.

  As he became more aware of his surroundings, his personality returned. His natural outgoing nature forced him to try and make small talk with the mostly younger inmates. It sickened him to know that the prison population could have doubled for a huge dormitory at any of the predominantly Black universities. Instead of spending time learning and expanding their minds to do something truly revolutionary and positive, society and the power elite had imprisoned his brothers and sisters when they were in the prime of their lives. Imprisoned like animals. The best and the brightest could be behind this wall, and nobody would know it. Nobody cared.

  But who was he to look down on society’s corruption and its oppression of his people? He had a college degree. Was only a thesis away from a Masters. How many of his brothers and sisters had he inspired or helped to do better? He had spent the last twenty years of his life looking for money to support his drug habit. The fact that he had had an opportunity to travel a better path was never lost of him.

  Eli often looked at his only prized possession, a pocket-sized portrait of his family. The one he abandoned when he couldn’t conform to his wife’s world. Looking back, there was nothing wrong with that world. Especially when he compared it with the one he currently resided in.

  The day the prison barber finally got around to cutting off Eli’s lice-ridden dreads and his even nastier beard, a spectacularlooking, distinguished man emerged. Unfortunately, his new look attracted the attention of Sebastian La Roux, a male prostitute from the Bronx who was by far the most brutal inmate at Riker’s.

  At twenty-six, Sebastian towered over most men at six-footfive. A disciplined body builder with python-like muscles, he loved to corner HIV-negative inmates and, with the help of his gang, sexually brutalize them. Terrified of contracting the disease, a snitch in the lab gave him the results of all the men he considered as targets. When he discovered Eli was negative, he eagerly awaited an opportunity that would lead to an intimate liaison.

  As prison food put much needed pounds on Eli’s six-foot-two-inch frame, Sebastian was mesmerized and completely turned on by his lean body. He had a thing for older men. He especially liked the idea of turning them out. It was the least he could do. After all, an old Catholic Priest had raped him when he was nine. He’d only be returning a favor.

  He gazed at Eli with wanton lust whenever he could get a glimpse of his nude body in the showers. He dreamt of Eli’s mocha-colored skin and fantasized about the junkie tearing his ass up. Usually a “bottom-man,” he didn’t mind playing “top,” as he was pretty sure Eli would never participate willingly. What he did know for sure was that he wanted to have sex with him; any time he wanted it; any way he wanted it.

  Eli was aware of Sebastian’s intentions. Walking through the exercise yards or sitting in the prison cafeteria at mealtime, he could feel those steel gray eyes tracking him. Rarely taking glimpses at him, he was intimidated by the multiple, thick keloid, imbedded scars that stretched across Sebastian’s forehead, back, and abdomen. They each shouted tales of battles he had been in. Battles where one could only imagine the violent fate the ‘other guy’ had experienced. He looked like a man who regularly battled Satan and, Eli figured, Sebastian La Roux usually won.

  For as long as he could, he tried to avoid the body builder and his two equally menacing cohorts, Jerome and Lady P. His time ran out the day they cornered him in the yard. Guards not around, Sebastian and his crew gagged Eli and dragged him to an abandoned building in a secluded area of the yard. The guard responsible for the old storage unit winked at them as they entered.

  “Don’t take forever; you only paid for fifteen minutes.”

  “Don’t worry, officer. We’ll be as quick as we can!” promised Sebastian.

  Eli fought, clawed, and
kicked as hard as he could. The white rag they shoved in his mouth prevented his screams from escaping. His mind filled with terror, knowing what they were about to do to him.

  “He’s a tough one. He ain’t gonna give in easy,” squealed Jerome. The smallest in the gang, he had sustained quite a few bruises trying to subdue their victim.

  “Don’t like it easy. Hold the bitch still!”

  They pinned Eli against the wall. He tried to jerk his body to avoid his attackers.

  “Lady P, you bring the Crisco this time like I asked you?”

  Lady reached in his pocket and pulled out the stash of lard he had stolen from the kitchen. Sebastian grabbed it from him.

  “Gonna grease this pole good. Won’t hurt that much if you hold still, dammit. Hold still; your ass might like it.” Sebastian, growing weary of his resistance, hammered Eli’s head with his powerful fist. Dazed, confused and with blood trickling from gashes in his face, Eli finally had no fight in him.

  Sebastian ripped Eli’s pants and underwear down, and slathered the white shortening on his cheeks and anus.

  “Gonna hurt me more than it hurts you; believe me. JUST HOLD STILL!” The monster zipped open his pants and released, stroked, and lubricated his eight-inch long, rock-hard dick, preparing for penetration. He stooped down to position himself against Eli, forced his cheeks wide apart, and jabbed his prick up his anus. He thrust his huge member as deep as Eli’s anatomy would allow him to go.

  “Damn, this shit is good and tight!”

  Intense pain shot through Eli’s rectum. It traveled up his spinal column and hit his brain like a nuclear explosion. In epileptic style, his body violently bucked back and forth.

  “Keep him still. I don’t wanna hit him again; might kill him.” Lady P and Jerome tightened their hold on Eli.

  A rapid knock at the door reminded them that time was of the essence.

  “Gonna have to speed this up.”