“He won’t be back for a while,” Tom said absently. He stretched across Warden’s bed, lying full out on his stomach.
“Hey, give a guy room to read,” Warden growled, as pages fell to the floor in a flurry of leaves.
Tom mumbled something into the pillow.
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Why do you always read so much?’” he repeated, lifting his face from the mattress. “My back aches,” he added. “Why don’t you give me a rubdown?”
Warden hesitated then reached out, gently kneading Tom’s shoulders. The soft cotton twisted under the motion of his fingers. It was the most intimate contact he’d had since his arrest.
“I heard something funny about you today,” Tom said, his face in the pillow again.
“What’s that?”
“I heard at your trial they showed pictures of you dressed up in ladies’ clothes. Isn’t that funny?” He twisted around to look at Warden. “Is it true?”
Warden’s hands continued their work. “Yes—it’s true.”
“Why’d you do it? For money?”
“It was a joke,” Warden said. “Only it backfired. It was for a magazine.”
“Did you like it? Dressing up as a lady, I mean?”
“Not particularly.”
“But you didn’t mind it?”
“I wouldn’t do it again, if that’s what you mean.”
“Oh.”
“Does it feel any better?” Warden asked after a while.
“What?”
“Your back—does it feel any better?”
“I think it’d feel better if I took my T-shirt off,” Tom said, sitting up to pull the garment over his head. He lay back again, exposing a broad chest. A tangle of dark hair gathered at the pucker of nipples like tiny palms around oases of flesh. The front of his trousers swelled. He made no effort to disguise his erection.
“Do you want my winkle?” he asked with childlike coyness.
Warden didn’t allow himself to think about what was happening.
“Wait,” Tom said in an urgent whisper.
He sat up and tore a page from the newspaper, crumpling it. He went to the door and stuffed it into the peephole.
“Just in case,” he said, with the quiet self-assurance of one who is wise in matters beyond the norm of experience.
Warden watched him return to the bed.
“Right,” Tom said, stretching out full along its hard length. “Go ahead, do what you want. But just remember—I’m dead.”
In the morning Tom lay in bed after the wake-up call. He watched Warden dress.
“Aren’t you getting up?”
“Shortly,” he said, stretching. “Roll me a fag, would you, mate?”
Warden went to the shelf where Tom kept his few personal belongings—a lucky rabbit’s foot, tobacco pouch, and a pocket comb. He shook some tobacco onto a paper and manipulated the moist brown tufts into the semblance of a cigarette. He handed it to Tom who inspected it and put it in the corner his mouth.
“Haven’t you got a light?”
Warden leaned over and lit it for him. “You’d better hurry,” he said.
Tom spat a piece of tobacco from his tongue. They could hear the other prisoners moving about in the hallway on their way to the latrines.
“I’ll be up in a minute. Can you empty the piss pot for me?”
Warden was amused by the charade, as though he had all the time in the world with nothing to do. When the guard came to let him out to empty the pot he pointed at Tom.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s not feeling well. He’ll be up in a minute.”
“He’d better be,” the guard growled. “No laying about in here. You know the rules. You’d better be up by the time he gets back unless you’re reporting sick,” the guard scowled as he let Warden out of the cell.
When Warden returned he could hear Tom singing.
“I’m ready now,” he declared, as Warden set the fresh pot down.
Warden went to the window, looking out at the groups of men crossing the courtyard.
“Who told you about those photographs of me you mentioned last night?”
“No one,” Tom answered suspiciously, as though he’d been caught lying about something.
“Someone must have told you,” Warden said, watching him.
“I just heard.”
“What do people in here think about such things?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Tom said. “I’ll protect you for as long as you’re in here with me, mate.”
That afternoon in the infirmary with Steve, Warden brought up the topic of sex between prisoners. He felt safe knowing that Steve, who had few friends inside, was leaving soon anyway. Steve was remarkably candid. He told Warden that sex in prison was common, but acknowledgment of it was discreet. A small but vocal group of inmates were agitating for condoms due to a fear of AIDS.
“Some of the men think we should all be tested and the ones who test positive should be placed in separate cells.”
Warden thought about that curious information the rest of the afternoon.
The next day Warden was informed he had another visitor. Ivan sat waiting for him at the window. He’d dressed in as masculine a manner as possible, a wisp of violet hair peaking out from under the brim of a solemn grey fedora.
“Rebekah said I should be careful not to smile too much and upset you, but you don’t look so terribly unhappy to me,” he pronounced.
“I’m just glad to see you,” Warden said.
“How are you really?”
“As you see—gagged and bound hand-and-foot and starving to death. They whip me every evening at sundown and leave me stripped naked in the snow before dragging me off to my pile of straw in the dungeon.”
“Sounds delightful—how do I join?” he said. “I’m glad you’re keeping up your sense of humour. I’d hate to see you lose that on top of all that’s happened.” He looked around to see who might be listening. “I wish I had the bravery to do what you’ve done. I think it’s really quite admirable,” he confided.
“I just wish I’d had the sense not to get caught.”
Ivan giggled.
“I shouldn’t be such a smart-ass about it, though,” Warden said. “It really was a stupid thing. I can’t imagine what made me do it now.”
“I think it’s called love,” Ivan answered. “I hear he’s left the country, in case you’re interested.” His voice lowered. “I gather he felt he had better things to do than rot in prison with the likes of you.”
“I’m sure he would,” Warden said, looking down.
“I’m just angry it’s you and not him in here,” Ivan said.
“No,” Warden said, looking up again. “I knew what I was doing.”
“I know.” Ivan met Warden’s eyes through the glass. “Not many people would give up the one they love for a cause they may never benefit from. Though that’s hardly any consolation, I’m afraid. Anyway, I am sorry.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Warden said. “It’s not as bad in here as it looks. Though I know I can’t make you believe that. But I’ll be feeling sorry for you in a few months’ time.”
“How’s that?”
“Because the food in here is so awful that when I get out I’m going straight to your flat to eat you out of a month’s supply of strawberry tarts.”
“You’ll be most welcome,” Ivan said, beaming. “In fact, if you let me know when you’re coming, I’ll make a new frock for your homecoming!”
32
One day Tom’s sister came to visit, bringing him a deck of playing cards. Later that evening, over a game of blackjack, Tom talked at length about his family, the first time he’d done so. He recounted how he and his four brothers and sister played hand after hand of Old Maid with their grandmother. The old woman, whose picture hung on the wall over Tom’s bed, would lose purposely so they could win. All the children had loved playing with her. Later, in hi
s teens, he’d built a porch for her so she could have ‘something to sit on and watch the neighbours’, as he put it. He explained in detail how he’d erected it, board by board and nail by nail.
Tom smoked one of his rollies, scrutinizing his cards through squinted eyes, rambling on about anything that came to mind. Next to the prison guards, whom he regarded as Judases betraying their own kind, the subject of foreigners was Tom’s biggest gripe. He went on at length, slapping the cards down between them as his anger grew.
The true Brit, he argued, had blue eyes and white skin. Warden’s green eyes seemed to grant him partial immunity in this all-or-nothing categorization. When Warden pointed out that Tom’s own ancestry was self-admittedly one-fourth Greek, Tom replied that his father’s family had all been in England for more than three generations. That, he claimed, was just as good as having solid citizenship.
“What happens when Big Mick’s family has been here that long?” Warden asked, referring to a highly articulate black inmate three doors down that Tom seemed in awe of. “Will his grandchildren automatically be born with blue eyes and white skin?”
“Don’t be daft,” Tom replied impatiently. “There’s no mucking about with fate in these things. Mick’s all right even if he’s…” he stammered.
“Black?”
Tom slapped his cards down. “It’s just all these damned foreigners coming and taking over our land and our working wages that I hate.”
He turned away, unwilling to continue with the game. “Feel my biceps,” he said, bunching the muscle in his upper arm.
Warden obliged, squeezing with both hands.
“Have you ever felt anything so hard?” he asked.
Every evening they played cards and almost every evening the same massage and sexual play occurred. It would start tentatively, with Tom feigning indifference to whatever happened. Afterwards there would be a retreat from the physical act, and the smoking—always by Tom—of a single cigarette, as though to conclude their unspoken arrangement.
Warden wasn’t sure when they slipped over the boundary between what was safe and what wasn’t, but he did nothing to stop it. He knew he was playing with mortality—looking for his Achilles heel. A way out. Over the past two years he’d surrendered to many vices, this just one more.
Still, he hated himself for allowing it to happen. Tom seemed to have no such worries, perpetrating his actions with the false bravado of the sexually ambivalent. Each morning, he delayed rising from bed so that Warden ended up emptying the night pot. He soon began asking Warden to roll his day’s supply of cigarettes. Warden indulged him with a certain sense of amusement. Tom confided that he’d never ask another prisoner to do these favours. Warden alone had earned that privilege.
From Steve, he learned Tom had been bragging to the other prisoners that Warden was his servant, calling him ‘boy’ behind his back. Tom took every opportunity to ask Warden for a cigarette in front of the others. To annoy him, Warden began to offer them to anyone present. Tom glowered, but said nothing at first.
At breakfast each morning, the prisoners ate an unappetizing meal to the sound of scraping utensils and plates. As they filed out of the room, all dishes were dutifully returned. Utensils were carefully counted and checked off to reduce the risk of weapons floating around the prison. Once, a single piece of cutlery had disappeared. The facility had been locked down and turned inside out till it was found.
Two days in a row, Tom had heaped his plate on top of Warden’s, leaving them to Warden to dispose of. On the third day Warden reversed the action, to his cellmate’s surprise. Tom sullenly carried out both plates with a look of belligerence, followed by the hooting and snickering of the others at the table.
Later that evening Tom hung petulantly in the corners of the cell, casting scornful glances at Warden. Finally, he managed to spit out what was angering him.
“You made me look like a fool in front of everyone at breakfast this morning,” he said, his lip curling with anger.
“How’s that?”
“You put your plate on mine so I had to carry it out in front of everybody!”
“What’s wrong with that? I carry yours out for you all the time.”
“That’s right, mate—you carry mine! I don’t carry your fucking plate!”
“You mean I should carry yours out but you don’t have to carry mine?”
“That’s right!”
Tom continued his sulk for the rest of the evening. There was no card playing that night. The next day Warden was held up late taking in a shipment of medical supplies. He ate lunch in the infirmary with Steve. It was Steve’s last day. Warden wished him luck as they parted.
“You, too,” Steve said. “Be careful with that nutcase in your cell. There’s no telling what he’s capable of.”
When Warden returned to the cell, Tom was singing, apparently having forgotten the incident concerning the plate.
They played cards again that evening. Warden won hand after hand, marking the score on the back of an empty cigarette wrapper. His tally was nearly double Tom’s, though his mind was barely on the game. Tom’s face betrayed his frustration each time Warden won. Finally, he slapped his cards down onto the bed between them.
“Right,” he said. “No sex! I’m not sleeping with you tonight unless you let me win.”
Warden tried to soothe him but even with forced carelessness he still won the next round. Tom’s face trembled with anger as he looked up from the defiant hand that had failed him.
“I told you…!” he began.
“What do you expect me to do? You dealt the cards.”
“I’m not sleeping with you tonight!”
“Suit yourself—I didn’t ask you to.”
Tom glared. “Anyway, I fancy someone else now, so it doesn’t matter.”
He waited for a reaction, but Warden merely picked up his paper and opened it as he lay back on his bed.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“You said you fancied another guy. What of it?”
“I fucked him at lunch today.”
“That’s nice. Did you take him out for a drink afterwards?”
Tom’s fist shot out and grabbed Warden’s hair, pulling him across the bed. They fell on the floor, knocking the empty piss pot clanging across the concrete. A cry went up in the corridor as other prisoners caught wind of the fight, banging and clanking along in their own cells to add to the confusion as the guards rushed from cell to cell to discover which one contained the real commotion.
Warden pulled himself together before the guards arrived, smoothing his hair and pushing things back in place. The clamour died in the hallway. He glanced over at Tom, whose face burned with rage and tears.
“I should’ve killed you the first night you came here,” Tom spat out.
The next day Warden put in a request for a transfer. He sat in a wooden chair in the chambers of the prison official who read through his record of conduct. The man clucked sympathetically at his story, but admonished him for risking his good record.
“All right, I’ll move you this time. But you stay out of trouble, young man,” he said. “You’ll be out of here soon enough.”
That afternoon, the guards escorted him to his new cell. They dropped his belongings on the bed and left. That evening, when the nightly dove’s cry ascended the walls outside the courtyard, Warden heard Tom’s voice first and foremost, calling him a cheat and a liar, howling out his betrayal while Warden lay on the cot and cried.
33
In the courtyard, the air carried the earthy smells of spring. Warden lay listening to the drumming of the rain. He’d spent nearly five months in prison. His parole in another month was all but confirmed. In the daytime he avoided the other inmates as much as possible, requesting tasks that allowed him to keep to himself outside of meals. It also helped him avoid the small skirmishes in the drug trade that went on under the noses of the guards.
He lay alone in his cell for hours, staring at the
walls and ceiling. At night, he tried to reconstruct Joshua’s face—the cold, clear eyes and the angry mouth. Like any face, it was ultimately unknowable.
One morning Warden was held up on work detail. He arrived for lunch later than usual, sitting in with the second group of prisoners—his former group. When he entered with his tray, Tom was seated in a far corner with another inmate. It was the first time they’d seen one another face-to-face since their fight.
Warden sat at a far table and ignored him. Tom’s eating partner, he learned later, was Wayne the Knife, recently returned from rehabilitation. Though he knew from Tom that Wayne was only nineteen, his burned-out wasted appearance suggested that of a forty-year-old alcoholic.
Throughout the meal, Warden sensed their attention on him. He looked over and caught Tom staring at him, as though unaware he could be seen in return. When Tom saw Warden watching back, he made a clumsy attempt to pretend he’d been looking elsewhere. Warden made a mental note to avoid the pair at all cost.
When he wasn’t in the infirmary counting supplies, Warden spent his afternoons in the library, stripping articles and cataloguing pages from the daily papers to file in the prison library. On finishing these tasks, he generally had an hour before supper.
At the end of the workday he went to the shower, normally empty at that time. He stripped off his uniform and hung it carefully on a hook above the benches. The pulsating stream tongued his body to a somnolent hiss as he scrubbed his arms and chest with a thick bar of soap.
He closed his eyes and let the water splash over him, running his hands over his face and head. When he opened his eyes, he was startled to see Tom’s tablemate leering at him. Something flashed. There was a streak of blood across the other boy’s chest. For a split second Warden wondered what had happened to him.
Part of his brain alerted him to the danger, sending a hand rushing to his cheek. It came away covered in blood. There was a second jab to his side as the floor beneath them stained bright red, circling toward the drain. Warden remembered thinking it wasn’t an unreasonable sight, given the sequence of events in the last five seconds, as his mind began piecing it all together.
A Cage of Bones Page 24
