by Ryan Schow
When he’s done, while he’s sitting there frothing at the mouth, enraged with blood red eyes and shaking jowls and hands curled at his sides into fists, he turns and stomps out of the cage, slamming it shut so hard it rocks the entire structure.
We all look at each other like we’re not sure what to make of it.
“Your skin feel better?” I ask the geezer.
He turns and looks at the sandwich fixings sitting in water and vomit, picks it up and starts to eat it, but that only lasts for so long because he’s only two bites in when The Warden returns and starts shooting at us with his beanbag rounds.
The surfer curls and rolls over, turning his back to The Warden. He takes one in the kidney, barking out in pain. I take one in the chest, which has me gasping for breath and nearly coming up empty. The geezer takes one in the back of the head and his buddy just sits there, looking at him, eyes as cold and as dead as stones, my shoe now sitting on his foot, unlaced, a bit too big.
The Warden aims at the geezer’s friend’s face, pulls the trigger and the weapon fires dry. From his pocket, he takes out a shotgun round. No, he takes out a solid slug.
“Get down!” The Warden says. The vagrant doesn’t move. He doesn’t even blink. “Show some damn respect!”
Spit is flying now. The Warden has completely come unhinged and now I know why these guys are so scared of him. Whatever disconnect that’s happening in this guy’s mind, it’s got him acting homicidal on a level I’ve never seen before. I try to inch up my pants, but only barely because in that shotgun is a hunk of metal and not pellets or a beanbag.
“Show some damn RESPECT!”
Slowly the guy lifts his middle finger, not blinking, not shying away. His eyes are locked on the psychopath’s eyes and that’s when the gun goes off and a giant hole is blown in the geezer’s buddy’s forehead.
The geezer rustles to his feet, manic, screaming obscenities and I’m sure we’re all going to die, but I’m not doing it with my pants down sitting over a bucket of peach diarrhea, so screw it, I’m going to take whatever modesty is afforded me in this situation.
By now The Warden is yelling at the geezer and the geezer is yelling back at The Warden and pretty soon it’s just The Warden dropping his gun, gripping both sides of his face and howling like some snared, rabid animal. He’s screaming so hard and so loud the surfer starts to scream too, but only in response to his own terror. Me? I’m just sitting back, waiting to see what happens. But the geezer, he’s got a death wish and he’s not about to give an inch of ground.
Pretty soon The Warden turns and storms off. We hear feet stomping all the way to the door, a door opening and a door slamming shut. The gun is just there. But it’s empty. The geezer and I both know that. Rather, I know that.
The geezer’s squawking has turned to sobbing and he’s now standing before his friend, a man with a giant hole in his head and no more life left in him. He wanted to die. It was clear as day. It was like he was begging for it.
“It shouldn’t have gone down this way,” the geezer says, choked with emotion, full bodied sorrow in his every spoken word. “He was a good kid. He was just…sensitive.”
“He was your son?” I ask.
Turning around, eyes narrowed, but wet and inflamed, he says, “He was my partner!”
“Like in crime?” I ask.
“No you fool!” he roars. “He was my partner in life!”
“So you were gay,” I say, getting it.
“Yes,” he admits. “Yes we were gay, so what. This is California and gay is the new straight!”
“It is not,” I say, not even sure why I’m arguing with this guy who apparently just lost the love of his life.
“Shut up!” the surfer snaps, now turning over and just as riled.
I put up my hands in mock surrender, then try to stand without slipping. A second later the house door opens and the house door shuts and The Warden comes walking in with a bucket of his own. We all sit completely still. He opens the cell door and starts overhanding peaches at us. His face contorted with rage, each and every throw becomes more accurate than not. Honestly, it’s like getting struck with baseballs at the batting cages.
Then he’s out of peaches, but that’s not it. “DO YOU WANT SOME PEACHES?!” he screams at the top of his lungs.
“Yes,” I say. The surfer and I say it at the exact same time. The geezer, however, does not reply. He simply turns and stares at The Warden, same as his dead lover had done.
“Do you want some PEACHES?!” he screams.
The geezer doesn’t move.
“Tell him yes,” I say.
“Shut up!” The Warden booms back at me.
He looks at the geezer, who says nothing, then turns and grabs his rifle, fishes a slug out of his pocket, loads the weapon all the while keeping his eyes firmly planted on the old man.
Finally he racks the load, points the weapon at the old man’s head and says, “Would you like some peaches you old son of a bitch?”
The man’s chin lifts, but it’s his body stiffening with fear. Shoulders back, nostrils flared, eyes blinking back tears, he flicks his jaw a few times, stubborn.
“Last chance,” The Warden says, stepping forward.
Finally the man’s countenance deflates and he says, “Yes. Yes, I would like a peach.”
“Good,” he says, leaving the cell. “Eat what I gave you. And the sandwiches if you want.”
And then he’s gone and now I thoroughly understand why these men have lived in such fear of The Warden. He’s mental, but on a massively homicidal, truly untouchable scale.
Two days pass. On the third day, at daybreak, I wake up hearing the surfer guy going on about something. I open my eyes, see what he’s seeing, then jump to my feet and stagger sideways.
Sometime during the night the geezer hung himself with his friend’s shirt. He made a makeshift noose, wrapped it on the bars of the cage, stepped off his cot and died. It wasn’t the struggle that woke the surfer. It was the smell. I smell it now.
The old man’s bowels let go.
I plug my nose, same as the surfer. He looks at me and I look at him. An hour later, The Warden walks in, looks at us, at the dead guy on the cot, and then he looks up at the geezer.
“He crap himself?” The Warden asks, casually.
“That ain’t perfume you’re smelling,” I tell him.
I’m looking at this guy and I’m being cordial, but deep down, I’m planning to kill him. I’m not exactly sure how, but if I ever get out of here, I think I’m at that place where if I get started, honestly, I could give this scumbag the kind of beating he’ll feel into his next two lives.
“Probably gonna stink some more,” he says, producing a peach. The Warden takes a bite and both the pulp and the juices rise to flood his gums and teeth, and then these same juices spill over onto his lips. He slurps it up, sucks the fruit, then takes another bite, chewing loudly, like he can’t get enough.
“I’m sure it’ll stink until it doesn’t,” I tell him calmly.
“Would you like a peach?” he asks, pulling another, smaller piece of fruit from his jacket pocket.
Thinking about how wrecked my bowels are, how I was hosed down and shot while I was suffering the volcanic squirts sort of sours me to the whole idea of eating peaches.
“I’m kinda thinking maybe I’d like one later? If that’s okay with you?”
He makes a face, like he’s considering it, then he says, “Yeah man, sure. Later.”
For a second, I’m not sure if he’s going to lose it again, but he simply smiles a big, creepy smile, then takes another sloppy bite of the peach, chewing loudly, with his mouth open, smiling.
God that creepy freaking smile!
“You come here with a boy?” he asks casually, his eyes holding mine.
I swallow the biggest lump in the world, the one sitting in my throat at the mention of the boy.
“No, why?”
“Found a kid the other day hiding.”
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“Yeah?”
“Yep. Problem is, he don’t like peaches.”
“Is that so?” I ask, my face now ashen, my bowels feeling extra loose once more. If he’s talking about Tyler, if he harms him in any way…
“See I’m starting to think you came here under false pretenses and that gets me a bit peeved. So maybe it’s not the case. But maybe it is. When I get back, I’m going to have a little chat with the kid, see what he’s got to say.”
I don’t say anything. What happens though is that I realize for the first time that in a pinch I’m a terrible actor. Not fit for poker. Like ever.
“Get that sack of crap off my cage and drag him over here. Then you and Point Break over there move against the wall, reach up and grab the bars. Both hands.”
The surfer kid and I get the geezer down, out stomachs jolting from the stench of both feces and urine. We drag him to the cage door, leave him for The Warden.
“Back wall. Bars. Now.”
We do exactly as we’re told. We watch him drag the old man out of the cage, shut and lock the door, then pull his corpse out of the room, a little brown smear trailing behind him. When The Warden comes back, he says, “Get his little homo friend, too. No sense in wasting a good bed.”
We do what he asks, then we head to the back and grab the bars once more.
When he’s gone, neither of us speak. Truth be told, it’s going to be a lot better with the two of them gone, although I do feel bad that they’ve died. For the next two hours, there is silence, then after that it sounds like more bombing, this time much closer. The foundations shake and all the sudden my head is crawling with fear. Will this house be bombed? Will we be strafed by gunfire? Will the place burn down with all of us in it? There’s no way out. I start pacing along the edges of the cage. Everything feels rock solid. I grab the bars and shake them until my arms are like rubber hoses.
“Bailey?” I say.
“Yeah,” she returns, her voice hollow, weak.
“You eating?”
“Eating and shitting,” she says with a terrible sadness in her voice.
“Peaches?”
“What else?” she says. “You?”
“Same.”
“We need to get out of here,” I say.
“No kidding.”
“We’re in a cage. I can’t get out. Is there anything you can do to get out?”
“No.”
“Did you at least try?”
“Early on, sure. It’s no use though.”
More bombs hit and the house shakes, some of the drywall breaking loose and dropping on us. The surfer kid and I find a corner. We find a corner then drag the cots toward us and crawl under them.
“You know her?” the surfer asks.
“Yeah.”
Looking down at my arms, they look like they’re shrinking. Like I’m losing muscle. Damn peaches. Between starvation and the peaches, honestly, I’m starting to think starvation would be the preferable death.
“How much weight have you lost being in here?” I ask.
“Enough,” the surfer says.
The bombs are still going off and now I’m thinking about Bailey and the kid. If The Warden got Tyler, if he hurt him in any way, that just might be the thing that sends me over the edge. I step back from the ledge, tell myself cooler heads will prevail.
The next thing I know, there are three men being ushered into the cage. They’re being hit with what looks like an electric cattle prong. In the other hand, The Warden has a pistol trained on them.
“Get in there, boys.”
One turns around to make a run for it, but the warden hits him in the forehead with the electrified prong, pulling it off before the guy’s legs fully buckle.
The men, all three of them bigger than both me and the surfer, are herded into the cage. When they are in and the door is shut, one of the guys, he looks around, then he looks at us and he says, “What in the hell happened here?”
The floor is a mess of peaches, throw up, crap, sandwiches and fallen plaster.
We come out from the stack of cots, looking at the guy asking the question. The surfer and I, we just look at each other then shrug our shoulders. How do you put words to the things that have happened here? I don’t want to bother, and it’s comforting that the surfer doesn’t want to bother either.
“Something wrong with your mouths?” the biggest of the three says as he’s grabbing a cot off the stack. He has a long beard, one of those trendy beards, and a buzzed head. He would look a lot better and a lot younger if he’d just trim that thing, but whatever, maybe he’s trying to be single.
“No, there’s nothing wrong with our mouths,” I say.
“How’d you get here?” one asks, grabbing a cot for himself.
“Same as you,” I say. “We got caught.”
“Doing what?”
“Does it matter?” the surfer asks.
“Guess not.”
Night comes, as do more peaches, and these three guys, they just gobble them up, talking about how amazing they taste. The Warden glows at the praise of his fruit, but then he looks at me and the surfer and frowns.
“What about now?” The Warden asks, holding up a peach.
The surfer looks away and I say, “Maybe in a little bit. My stomach is upset.”
“That’s understandable,” he says.
Sometime in the night, one of the guys starts snoring and he won’t stop. A few hours later there’s a tussle. It sounds like the guy who was snoring is getting the absolute crap kicked out of him. There’s grunting and exertion, then there’s nothing. Only the heavy breathing of two of the guys. The third guy, he might not be alive.
One thing could be said though: it sure is quiet again. I fall back to sleep, then wake up to the sounds of The Warden. He’s standing over me, just outside my side of the bars.
“What happened to him?” The Warden asked me.
“He’s dead, I think.”
“Looks that way,” he says, eating a peach. My stomach lurches at that sweet smell, at the sight of the pulp squeezing up from the fruit into his teeth. He’s a disgusting eater.
No manners whatsoever.
I look over at the guy on the floor and half his skull is caved in. One of his eyeballs popped out; blood leaked from his nose, mouth, eyes and ears. He’s clearly gone. And the two newbies, they’re looking back at us, wondering what’s coming next.
“Caught these two squatting in one of the houses on the island,” The Warden says.
“Which island?”
“Squatters is squatters,” he says. “People work hard for these homes. Don’t need no vagrants in them, going through their drawers and stuff, stealing their food and jewelry and sleeping in their beds.”
“I think that with the times being what they are—” I start to say.
“What are they?” he asks, looking at me.
“Are we or are we not under attack?” I ask. “Because I thought the entire house was going to come down a few hours ago.”
“Just some boats getting blown up. Maybe a house or two.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“‘Course it does.”
“Then?”
“Then what? You can’t just take people’s stuff. You can’t just break in and take what’s not yours!”
“I agree,” I say, not agreeing at all, but trying to back this psycho as far away from the ledge as possible.
“You kill him?” he barked over my shoulder at the guy with the beard.
“Yeah,” the big one says.
“Both of us did,” the other one adds.
He looks at the surfer, then at me. Then he goes to the door, looks at it, looks at the dead guy, then looks at me.
“C’mere,” he says.
I get up, walk to the door’s bars using every last ounce of energy I have to not look whipped. Through the bars, The Warden hands me a peach and says, “Eat quietly, toss the pit out here when you’re done.”
> I take the peach, looking right at him—into those beady little eyes that are hanging on my very next action—and I take a bite.
He tosses two more peaches at the two new men and ignores the surfer. One of the guys eats his peach quickly while the other saves his.
When the lights go off that night, just as I’m falling asleep, one of the guys says, “Get your hands off my peach!”
“Oh, Jesus,” I mutter under my breath.
There’s the sound of a fight breaking out and the next thing I know, a body crashes into me, knocking the wind out of me. I catch an elbow in the face and for that fraction of a second, as I’m dazed and reeling, I wonder if they’re attacking me. But the fight is happening on my bed, on top of me. I try to get free of them, catch a knee on the outside of my thigh and try not to howl. The fight goes to the floor and pretty soon I’ve had enough.
Everything that’s been building in me, it thunders up through my insides, races out of me like a nuclear bomb exploding. The next thing I know, I’m on the ground, finding a head, grabbing it by the hair and slamming it over and over and over again against the concrete until it’s mashed meat and I smell blood.
“What the hell?” the other guy says in the dark. I throw a fist at the sound of the voice, connect with a nose, then scramble over the beaten guy and attack the face and body with all my might. He breaks free, throwing off my arms, shoving out of my grip. Spinning around, feet come my way, a shoe connecting with my face. I grab the shoe, rip it off his foot, scramble up the body and start clubbing him with his own shoe over and over again. He turns over, covering his head, unloading obscenities by the dozen.
When he’s sufficiently whipped, I toss aside the shoe, grab his head from behind, plant a knee on the concrete and slam the face into the ground once, then twice. I hear his nose crunch for good this time and that’s enough for me.
Crawling away on hands and feet, the adrenaline surge is too much. My body kicks, my stomach pulling in, cramping, then rushing forward in a violent, convulsing upheaval of…you guessed it, half-digested peaches.
I get to my cot, crawl up on it, let the pain run its course. All I smell is blood, vomit and that sickly sweet smell of peaches. My head is an overheated, throbbing thing.
