by Jodi Picoult
For nearly a half hour, I wait in the jury box; watching lawyers filter into the courtroom and talk to one another, or read through their motions. The judge is nowhere in sight. I admire the soaring ceiling, the span between walls—architecture that I’ve forgotten.
A young woman hurries down the center aisle and corrals a deputy. She is wearing a pinstriped suit that clings to the curves of her waist and hips, and sensible black heels. Her cornrowed hair has been twisted into a neat knot, and her skin is the color of maple syrup. “Yes, I’m a paralegal for Eric Talcott,” I hear her say, and she points right at me. “He needs his client to review a motion for today’s appearance. If I could just . . .” She smiles into his eyes.
A moment later, she comes toward me. “Mr. Talcott wanted you to take a look at this,” she says, and she leans over the divider of the jury box with a manila folder.
There is absolutely nothing written on the papers in the file. She points to them and whispers, “Nod.” I do, and a tiny knotted balloon slides out of the crease of the folder to drop softly between my feet.
She snaps her folder shut and makes her way out of the courtroom. I try to imagine her with Blue Loc when he is not Blue Loc, but just some guy living with a girl downtown. Then I bend down and tuck the balloon into my fist. Slip it into the waistband of my pants.
Eric arrives a few minutes later and asks the deputy’s permission to approach me, too. By now, I’m sweating so hard there are stains beneath my arms. I feel like I’m on the verge of passing out. “You okay?” he asks.
“Great. Fine.”
He gives me a funny look. “What the hell was that deputy talking about? Some paralegal wanted to see you?”
“It was a mistake. She was looking for a different guy named Hopkins.”
Eric shrugs. “Whatever. Look, what’s going to happen today—”
“Eric,” I interrupt. “Is there any chance you can get me out to use the bathroom?”
He glances at me, then at the deputy. “Let me see.” Apparently, I am enough of a physical wreck to merit a special break, because a different deputy is summoned to escort me to the restroom. He stands outside the stall and whistles while I drop my pants. From behind my ear I take the dollop of ointment Concise gave me that morning for this purpose—a “keep on person” medication for skin lesions. Grimacing, I wipe the salve over the little white balloon, until it is lubricated enough to be pushed into my rectum.
Ten minutes later, I take my seat at the defense table beside Eric. I keep my eyes on the parade of potential jurors who walk through the courtroom doors. I scrutinize the woman with acne, the man who keeps checking his watch, the freckled girl who looks just as frightened to be here as I am. They take the jury surveys that Eric hands out. Some of them glance at me with narrowed eyes, others purposely keep their expressions blank. I wish I could speak to them. I would tell them that they couldn’t possibly judge me any more harshly than I’ve judged myself. I would tell them that when you look at a person, you never know what they’re hiding.
* * *
Wear gloves. Run water through your Alyn condenser. Very quickly add your red phosphorus, using a coat hanger to unclog it if you have to. It’s the exothermic reaction you’re looking for, and it will be immediate. Quickly plug the top that leads to your vinyl tubing, and tape the connection.
When yellow fumes rise from the mixture, shake the condenser. If the pressure gets too high, put the flask into an ice bath until it slows down. Eventually, the mixture will swell up, like a mousse, and then recede.
At some point the cat litter in the milk jug at the other end of your setup will turn hot and purple. Disconnect the rubber tubing from the Alyn condenser. Cut the vinyl tubing off as close to the milk jug as you can. Cover immediately with duct tape.
Be careful. Do not untape. Inside is the phosgene gas that killed your friend.
* * *
Twitch is a twenty-two-year-old who looks fifty. He hangs out in the corners of the rec yard, peeling scabs that fester between his fingers and toes and sniffing at the blood that wells up and still reeks of the meth that runs through his system. When he smiles at you, which isn’t often, you can see the black holes where he’s lost teeth, and the plush white carpet of his tongue.
Most of the time he is spun out—too high on meth to sleep—and subject to hallucinations. He’s not a violent addict, but a paranoid one, and recently he’s become certain that the DOs are bodysnatchers. He plucks at my shirt as I walk by him. “How much longer,” he whispers. He is talking about our supply.
That initial balloon I smuggled in from the court was given to the Mau Mau upstairs in close custody—the black prison gang members. Having given his tithe, Concise has opened the proverbial door for business.
Our first in-house batch arrived in a Bible. The same girl who’d played paralegal at court for me brought a leather-bound edition to the minister who leads the Baptist services here. She cried as she explained how her boyfriend—Concise, this particular day—had found Jesus, and how she’d inscribed a Bible specially for him, only to be told by the detention officers that inmates were only allowed books arriving directly from Amazon.com. Was there any possible way that the minister might be able to get this gift to her boyfriend?
What self-respecting minister would ever turn down a request like that?
When Concise received the Bible during his next appearance at services, he thanked the minister profusely, and then came back to the cell and thanked God. Hidden in the spine, under carefully reglued leather, was an ounce of meth to be sold. That ounce, which would net $1,000 on the streets, was worth $400 a gram in prison—or, as Concise figured, $11,200.
Twitch grabs my sleeve again, and I shake him off. “I told you, I’m not the one who makes the deals.” I turn away just in time to witness a transaction going down between Concise and Flaco, one of the Mexican Nationals.
“It’s a hundred fifty,” Concise says.
Flaco’s eyes darken. “You sold Tastee Freak the same quarter gram for a C-note.”
Concise shrugs. “Tastee Freak ain’t no spic.”
Flaco agrees to the price and leaves; he will be given his prize after Concise receives word of a money transfer from his friends outside. “You taxed him,” I say, walking up to Concise. “Isn’t that . . . isn’t it . . .”
I am about to say “wrong,” but realize what a stupid distinction it is.
“Why?” I ask. “Because he’s Mexican?”
“Now, that would be jus’ plain racist of me,” Concise says, and he grins. “It’s because he ain’t black.”
From a rec yard rap:
Sittin’ in a four-corner cellblock
My weapon is a shank, not a Glock.
Early in the mornin’ the cells pop
Off to the chow hall is our next stop
Eatin’ cold-ass eggs, that’s what it was
See my homeboy Coast, what up, cuzz?
Mobbin’ the yard, our car is deep
We always strapped and ready to creep.
Hit the iron pile, gettin’ swoll to the hub
Ready to war with any scrub
My big bro Snoop gave us word
Shit is gonna jump is what he heard
So post up and get ready to stick
Any mutha fucca that tries somethin’ slick
The handball court was the spot
To run steel in a fool was my plot
Me and this fool on the killin’ field
I shanked him in the necc, it got real.
When his punk-ass gasped, I hit him again
Ran my shank right under his chin.
I left the punk dead in his traccs
187 tat on my bacc
In this cell I’m left to rot
Doin’ life on a murder plot
I don’t care, I’ll do it again
Doin’ twenty-five to life in the state pen.
The diabetic who has been providing Concise with needles also gets him an asthma inh
aler, traded from an emphysemic inmate. At night, after lights out, he scrapes the head and foot off the thin tin canister, fashioning a hollow tube. He carefully pries the cylinder open by applying pressure with a toothbrush until it is a flat piece of metal, ready for shaping.
It will become a zip gun, a deadly chamber for the bullet we’re still hiding.
When I am out of the cell, I make sure Concise will be present to stand guard over our treasure. If he’s going to be gone, too, one of us hides it on our bodies. We treat this tiny missile of gunpowder with the care and reverence a new parent would give an infant.
Tonight, Concise is working on his weapon harder than usual. “Do you ever think about what you’ll do, on the outside?” I ask quietly.
“No.”
His flat denial surprises me. “There’s got to be something you’d like to do.”
“The world ain’t no Hallmark commercial, Chemist,” Concise says. “Most of us are just doin’ life on the installment plan.”
“You could move away with your son. Find a job somewhere.”
“Doin’ what?” Concise asks. “You think people go out of their way to hire brothers with a prison record?” He shakes his head. “Whether or not you get inked in here, you leave with a tattoo.”
I’d like to think that we can be a hundred different people in one lifetime. But maybe Concise is on to something; maybe once you change, there’s a piece that stays that way forever. Until, eventually, you cannot remember who you were in the first place.
Concise rubs the edge of the zip gun more furiously along the cement. “What’s the rush?” I ask.
Rumors about an upcoming race riot spread like smoke; usually they are so thick in the cells you can barely breathe for all the guarded anticipation. But I have heard nothing. In fact, Sticks spent most of the afternoon in his cell, brooding.
“The white boys jus’ lost their supplier,” Concise says. “He got beat to death on the outside. Sticks gotta find himself some drugs, or he ain’t gonna get his patch.”
For all that Sticks controls the whites in our pod, he is still taking orders from someone upstairs in close custody, someone who will expect him to find a new source.
“He’s going to come to us?” If Concise taxes the Mexicans, I can only imagine what fine he’ll impose on the whites.
“He gonna come,” Concise confirms. “But that don’ mean we got to sell it to him.”
* * *
Once you have filtered out your solids, add naphtha to the jar. When the mixture separates, add lye. Stir, so that it doesn’t boil over.
Pour the contents into a coffeemaker pot. When the mixture separates again, pour the top layer into the liter bottle with a sports top. Shake hard for five minutes.
When the liquid settles, invert the bottle, and pour the bottom layer onto a pie plate. A pH strip dipped into the contents should turn red.
Microwave the pie plate until the water evaporates off. The crystals left behind are the finished product.
* * *
There are certain corners of hallways in this jail where the surveillance cameras don’t spy. One stretch is where church and AA meetings are held, another is leading out to the infirmary. These are the spots for a well-placed elbow to the kidney, or a slip of a shank. Whether or not you intend to do so, you speed up as you round the turns.
I am just returning from the GED course meeting—my Ph.D. in chemistry seems insignificant when compared to an entire hour outside bars—when I feel a hand grab me and push me against the wall. A toothbrush, its handle scraped sharp as a knife, is held to the skin of my throat.
I assume it is Sticks. So when I hear, instead, a Mexican accent, I am almost relieved. “Tell the miyate we don’t want to pay extra,” Flaco says.
I can smell the sour stink of urine, and I realize it’s mine. He lets go of me; I fall onto my hands and knees. “And if you don’t listen, gringo,” he threatens, “I know a nice detention officer who will.”
* * *
When I get back to the cell, Concise is going through his mail. A packet from his lawyer’s return address—a forgery—contains a legal pad full of notes. Concise has pulled back the gummy red fixative at the top of the pad to reveal a tiny square cut through the layers of pages, making a little pocket for contraband. Inside is a tiny plastic bag no bigger than a tooth, filled with our second batch of meth. As I enter the cell, he sniffs and makes a face. “What happened to you?”
“Flaco would like you to reconsider taxing Mexicans.” I turn away from him, strip. Pull on my spare pair of stripes and wad the soiled ones into a ball.
“Flaco’s a fool. He’s on the fence with the Chicanos, anyway—he screwed up his first assigned hit for the EMEs.”
I sink down onto the lower bunk. “Concise, he’s threatening to tell the DOs.”
Concise walks toward me and reaches out one finger. He touches it to the spot on my neck where Flaco had held his shank. I brush my fingers across the skin and they come away bloody.
“It’s nothing.”
Concise’s nostrils flare, a bellows. “It ain’t nothin’.” He flattens his palms across the globe of his shaved head; palpable thought. “You’re out.”
“Out of what?”
“The game. The business. The whole thing.”
Astounded, I just stare at him for a second.
“You a liability, man. You got too many enemies in here, because you white but you don’ act white. I can’t take that kind of risk.” He begins to reseal the razor pocket in the legal pad. “I’ll buy you out, fair and square.”
When you are in jail, trust becomes a commodity more rare than gold. How can you believe someone who has built a life out of lying? How can you close your eyes at night, knowing your cellmate has been arrested for murder? The answer is: Because you have to. The alternative—being a loner—is not really an alternative at all. You have to mesh into a group to survive, even if you are surrounded by people who have cheated and stolen their way into position beside you. You have to find someone worthy of watching your back, even if making that pact means admitting that you are just as flawed as everyone else here.
Having Concise, and the African Americans in the pod, standing up for me has afforded me a freedom from Sticks and his cronies. But more than that, it’s given me something I haven’t had for years: a sense of belonging. When you spend your life running by design, you may get far, but you rarely let yourself get close to anyone. I’ve had you, all I’ve ever wanted, but it has come at a price. I left the only woman I’ve ever loved; I never whiled away the hours with a fishing buddy; I kept chatty coworkers at a careful distance. When you let people into the inner sanctum of your life, you risk having them see the heart of you, and I couldn’t chance that. In an odd, amazing way, Concise is the first friend I’ve had in nearly thirty years. It doesn’t matter that he’s a drug dealer; it doesn’t matter that he is black; it doesn’t matter that he’s offering me an honorable discharge from an operation I never felt comfortable with in the first place. All I know is that a minute ago, it was us against them . . . and now it is not.
“You can’t do this,” I say, my whole body starting to shake.
“I do whatever I want,” Concise snaps over his shoulder. “Go on, get lost. You supposed to be good at that.”
I am off the bunk and on top of him before he can even finish his sentence. He is, in that instant, Sticks and Flaco and Elephant Mike and every faceless man and woman out there in the world who has passed judgment on me without hearing all the facts. He’s younger and stronger, but I’ve come from behind to surprise him. I am able to knock him to the ground and pin him with my weight.
“You fool. You know what happen if the DOs find out you sellin’?” Concise grunts. “It’s a criminal investigation. It’s time on top of the time you already gonna do.”
That is when I understand: Concise doesn’t want to end this alliance between us; he wants to protect it. He is trying to save me before I can be implicated alo
ng with him.
At the altercation, a small crowd has gathered around the front of our cell—Blue Loc, poised to jump in and pull me off Concise, a small knot of White Pride boys who are cheering me on, and Sticks, who stands with his arms crossed, an inscrutable expression on his face.
One of the detention officers pushes through. “What’s going on?”
I relax my hold on Concise. “We’re good.”
The DO’s eyes hone in on the cut on my neck, still bleeding.
“Cut myself shaving,” I say.
The guard doesn’t buy a word of it. But the spark that could ignite this pod has dissipated; he’s done all he needs to. As he pushes at the other inmates, getting them to disperse, Concise gets to his feet and shakes his clothes straight.
“I helped get you into this,” I tell him. “I’m not leaving now.”
* * *
The next day is my last day for jury selection, and Concise’s first day of trial. We are both headed over to the courthouse at the same time. “Bet you got yourself a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt,” Concise says.
As a matter of fact, I do. “What about it?”
He grins. “Chemist, Brooks wasn’t no brother.”
“I suppose you think I ought to go to court wearing pinstripes and spats.”
“Only if you’re Al Capone.” Our conversation is interrupted as Twitch flings himself into our cell. “I ain’t conducting business now,” Concise says tersely.
The addict’s eyes dart wildly. “I’m doin’ you a favor, man,” he says. “Thought maybe you’d do me one, too.”
What he means is that in return for whatever information he thinks he can provide, we might give him a free teener. Concise folds his arms. “I’m listenin’.”
“I heard one of the DOs talking when I was up in the infirmary this morning—they’re using the Boss Chair,” Twitch says.
“Why should I believe you?”
Twitch shrugs. “I’m not the one with a bullet up my ass.”
“If I come back from court and what you said is true,” Concise says, “I’ll give you what you want.”
