Shaker: A Novel

by Scott Frank

  They served dinner at five. Roy watched as inmate servers dropped a mound of ground beef, carrots, a tiny boiled potato, and a slice of Wonder Bread onto his plate. He turned away from the line and stood there with his tray looking around the cavernous dining hall. The faded green and black linoleum looked about as cold and hard as the cement ceiling, the resulting echo giving such a sharp edge to the already loud din that it actually hurt Roy’s ears to listen.

  The kid from the bus, Jerry Wethers, waved him over to a nearly empty table, jumping right in as Roy awkwardly tried to swing his legs over the bench.

  “Stay away from the older kids.”

  “You’re older.”

  “I’m not them.”

  Jerry nodded to a tableful of boys Roy recognized from the garden. The big blond, the one Deems called Knott, was looking his way. Out of his coat, Roy could see that the kid was pretty well cut, lean like an athlete. The boys on either side of him looked to be a year or two younger, somewhere around sixteen, but all just as stoved up as the big pale kid.

  They were all waving at Jerry.

  Knott patted the bench beside him.

  Roy asked, “They your friends?”

  Jerry looked down at his plate. “Yeah, we’re best buddies.”

  A few minutes later, Roy could feel the atmosphere change, the volume in the room dropping all at once. Roy looked up and saw half a dozen boys in jeans and boots stride into the hall. They all wore filthy Stetsons which they now tossed onto a table, immediately clearing the benches, the previous squatters either sliding down or getting up altogether in order to make room for the hats that now held six places.

  Jerry saw the question in Roy’s face and said, “Boonville Cowboys.”

  “Who?”

  “They help with the cattle.”

  “There’s cows here?”

  “Over a hundred head.” Jerry looked down at his plate. “They’re the only ones get to be late for meals.”

  Roy watched a tall boy, he looked older than the rest of the group—looked older than anyone in there for that matter—go to the front of the chow line and start pointing at food, the servers all thumbs now as he made his way down the line. As he got closer, Roy thought he wasn’t even a kid. He looked too old to be in here, maybe nineteen or twenty with his black hair slicked back and eyes that Roy could see were pale blue, even from fifty feet away.

  “That’s Albert,” Jerry was now saying. “See if you can get away with never saying a fucking word to him.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “You see him coming, walk the other way. You walk into a room he’s there, turn around and walk the fuck out.”

  Roy watched as Albert and the other Boonville Cowboys sat down and tucked into their food. Albert laughing at some joke and then, out of nowhere, looking up across the room at Roy. Those eyes cutting through everyone else in between to get to him. Roy found himself unable to look away and stared back until Albert finally nodded and went back to his dinner.

  Jerry shook his head.

  “You’re dead now.”

  —

  C Dorm was the biggest of the three dormitories at Boonville. Over eighty metal-framed beds were jammed into a brick-walled space made for fifty. There wasn’t enough room to walk between the cots, so the boys just walked over them, indiscriminately stepping on the other beds as they went. There were no bunks as, through the years, too many boys had been hurt being thrown off of the upper beds in the middle of the night.

  The real estate nearest the bathroom was the least desired as some poor, soundly sleeping soul would get their spleen crushed during the night anytime anyone needed to take a leak. So, naturally, the only vacant bed was right beside the door. After the fourth time someone stepped on him, Roy noticed another kid, small and younger like himself, point to the floor. Roy shook his head, confused. He then watched as the kid grabbed his pillow and blanket, slid to the floor, and crept under the bed.

  Roy did the same. It was tight and he couldn’t roll over, but he fell asleep and didn’t wake up until Deems kicked him in the neck at morning bed check.

  The first half of every day was spent in school, the three Rs taught by teachers who couldn’t otherwise get a job doing anything, anywhere else. Roy noticed that while most of the boys slept right through classes, no one seemed to care. Least of all the teachers, many of whom looked like they might fall asleep themselves.

  Inmates got a free half hour after lunch and before their afternoon jobs, so Roy headed up the three flights to C Dorm to take a nap. There were only a few other boys up here, all of them, like Roy, younger, more vulnerable types. Mounted around the room were several security cameras with, presumably, a guard or two on the other end, so it seemed like a safe place. Roy would find out soon enough that there were no safe places at Boonville.

  He lay down, immediately heard something crunch under his pillow, and sat up again. He pulled the pillow aside and saw a small brown paper bag folded over. Roy looked around at the other boys in the room, all of them were lying on their beds, trying hard not to look anywhere.

  It took Roy a good five minutes to get up the courage to open the bag. When he finally looked inside, he was more confused than anxious. He first pulled out a note written on a napkin in pencil that said, Don’t share! And below that: I got your back.

  Along with the note there were three Hershey bars, a box of Jujubes, and five packets of Beech-Nut gum.

  Again, Roy looked around the room and found no help.

  At dinner, Knott sat across from Roy while two of his buddies sat down on either side, blocking Jerry just as he was about to sit. Knott smiled at him. “Hey, Jerry,” he said. “Mind if we join you?”

  Jerry said nothing and Roy could see that he was shaking as he set his tray down at the far end of the table.

  Knott then turned to Roy and asked, “How you like it here so far, fish?”

  “How come you keep calling me that?”

  “It’s what you are,” Knott said. “A new fish.” He then leaned down close to Roy. “Something else I should call you?”

  “Roy is good.”

  “How old are you, Roy?”

  “Thirteen. Almost.”

  “You really kill your daddy?”

  This got Jerry looking at Roy from the other end of the table, but Roy said nothing, kept his eyes down, like he was fascinated by the peas rolling around his plate.

  “They say you shot him.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “You shoot him in the back or the front?”

  Roy looked up, about to say that he didn’t shoot him at all when he noticed Albert sitting with the other Boonville Cowboys a few tables over, his back to Roy.

  Knott asked, “You get my present?”

  Roy turned to the older kid. Close up, Roy saw that everything about him was white—his hair, his eyelashes, but especially his skin.

  “I got you a good job, too,” he was saying. “If you need anything else, you just let me know.” And then he and the other two boys got up. Roy watched them dump their trays and walk out of the hall.

  The next day after lunch Roy found a paper bag with some toothpaste, a pack of cigarettes, and twenty dollars cash under his pillow.

  That same night, Roy and Jerry were sitting with some other inmates watching Hill Street Blues when Knott and a few of the other older kids came into the room. Knott walked up to the television and started changing channels.

  Turn it back! What the fuck, asshole?

  Knott ignored them, looked over their heads, right at Roy and asked, “What do you wanna watch, Roy?”

  Of course, now they were all looking at him. Roy got up from the couch. “Nothing. I was just leaving.” And he turned to walk out, pausing only as he saw Albert sitting in a chair at the back of the room, looking up from a book with what looked to Roy like a French title.

  Later that evening, Roy discovered that his bed by the bathroom was already taken by another kid. The kid, older with a m
assive burn scar covering his entire right arm, barely glanced at Roy before asking, “What the fuck you want, fish?”

  Not about to inform the kid of his mistake, Roy just stood there trying to figure out what to do next.

  “Roy.”

  Roy turned around and saw Knott waving at him. “You’re not there anymore.” He motioned to an empty bed in a prime spot near a wall. “That’s you now.”

  Roy didn’t move.

  Knott once more motioned to the bed. “Go on, buddy,” he said. “It’s all yours.”

  All eyes were on Roy as he made his way over to his new and improved spot. When he climbed in, he could feel the stash of gifts under the pillow. Someone had taken the trouble to transfer it all over. He looked at Knott, who was now busy in some important conversation. And then Deems and another guard were yelling at them all to shut the fuck up and rack it, and all at once the room went dark.

  The gifts kept coming for the next few days.

  Something told Roy to just hang on to them; to not eat the candy or spend the money or use the toothpaste. He just kept them piled up under his bed. In plain view for anyone who looked, hoping someone might take them off his hands, but no one touched them.

  Roy’s afternoon “job” consisted of sweeping the bakery. That was it. He just pushed the broom for a few hours. Jerry, who worked as a mixer and had to scrub all of the pots and utensils and was responsible for stacking the fifty-pound sacks of flour he carried up each afternoon from the cellar, asked Roy how he had secured such a cush job. Roy said he didn’t know. Jerry asked if he’d been getting any gifts of any kind. Roy lied and told him he hadn’t. Jerry said, “Good,” and left it at that.

  In the middle of one night, near the end of his third week at Boonville, Roy woke to voices in the bathroom. The spill from the light in that room was bright enough for Roy to see that several beds were empty. He crawled over those and stood on one so that he could peer into the arched, tiled cavern that was the lav and shower room.

  Roy saw a group of boys, their backs to the door, standing in a half circle. Roy recognized the white hair on one of them and saw that Knott’s pajama bottoms were down around his ankles exposing an ass so white it almost blended in with the tile. Knott was looking down at something in front of him, both of his hands holding on to whatever it was, his elbows rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

  “Hurry up,” Roy could hear someone say.

  Knott’s hands moved faster and faster and then stopped altogether as he arched his back and looked up at the ceiling. Roy could hear someone choking as Knott stepped aside and Roy saw a nude and kneeling Jerry Wethers vomit onto the tile floor. Roy watched as one of the other boys put a hand on Jerry’s ass and began rubbing it with almost absurdly gentle strokes.

  There was a scuffle between the group, one of the bigger ones winning and getting a fistful of Jerry’s hair and yanking him closer while pulling his prick out with the other. Rubbing it against Jerry’s lips he said, “Open your mouth, girl.”

  Jerry took the kid in his mouth, pausing only when he saw Roy standing on the empty bed. Knott turned and saw him, too.

  And waved.

  Roy started to climb back into his bed, noticing that many of the boys in the dorm were likewise awake, but had their backs turned to the bathroom. Roy climbed into bed, was pulling his blanket up when his heart nearly exploded. Darryl Deems stood in a far corner of the room, arms folded across his chest, calmly watching all of it, but now focused on Roy as he quickly pulled the blanket over his head.

  The action in the bathroom would go on for another half hour. Deems stayed put for all of it until Knott and his boys finally left the bathroom for their beds, and then Deems went in there himself and dragged a catatonic Jerry into one of the showers. They didn’t come out for another hour.

  At their job the next afternoon, Jerry wouldn’t look at Roy. He just stared out the windows at the row of white unmarked gravestones at the bottom of the hill. As bad as Roy felt for Jerry, he was terrified for himself. He knew it was only a matter of time before Knott and his friends came for him in the middle of the night; pulled him out of his bed, and laid him out on the cold bathroom floor.

  He knew that when that happened, there would be nothing he could do. They would take everything from him, just as they had taken everything from Jerry, turned him into the shell that now leaned against the wall, looking less alive than those stacked bags of flour he had just carried up the stairs.

  Roy grabbed a load of trash, walked outside, and was headed to the incinerator when he saw Albert standing a few feet to one side of the door smoking a cigarette. Without thinking, Roy turned around and started walking the other way.

  “His name is Jeff Knott.”

  Roy stopped and looked back at Albert. The older kid standing there in a clean uniform. His hair slick and all in place. Everything about him right now neat and clean.

  “I’m of course referring to the albino roid freak that seems to have taken a shine to your pinky fresh asshole.” The accent was slight, but there.

  “I know who you mean,” Roy heard himself say.

  Albert dropped his smoke and took a step toward Roy. “I bet you didn’t know that Jeff was a varsity tight end. He might even have made All American if he didn’t have such a bad temper.”

  Albert, already going for another cigarette, held out the pack to Roy, who shook his head.

  “One night after a game,” Albert went on, “Jeff took the homecoming queen second runner-up out for a drive. He parked high in the hills where they both got drunk and he did his best to ruin her. Except Jeff apparently had some…technical difficulties.”

  Albert smiled at Roy and lit his cigarette.

  “The almost homecoming queen who, if you ask me, had already demonstrated rather poor judgment, went on to seal her fate by suggesting that perhaps Jeff’s end wasn’t so tight after all. Well…” Albert smiled at Roy. “Needless to say, Jeff became upset.”

  Albert considered Roy for a moment, then held out his hand and said, “My name is Albert Budin. And I’m here to tell you your future.” Pronouncing it as he always would, Al-bare Boo-dan. Roy didn’t move. He couldn’t if he wanted to. His feet were bolted to the asphalt.

  “You’ve been receiving gifts?” Albert asked. “From Jeff?”

  “I don’t know who they’re from.”

  “Sure you do, but that’s the past. Let’s skip ahead.”

  Albert turned and looked out at the field where Jeff Knott and some other older kids were working out. “What’s going to happen next is he’s going to write you a letter.”

  “A letter?”

  “These things are very formal.”

  Roy looked off at Knott, tried to imagine him writing anything.

  “Anyway, this letter’s going to say that you ought to be his boy because he’ll look out for you. He’ll protect you. He’s going to tell you that, with him, you’re in better hands than fucking Allstate.”

  Roy didn’t quite understand, but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “Then he’s going to come see you. He’s going to say you ate my Oreos. You smoked my cigarettes. You spent my cash.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  Albert put a finger to his lips. Shhh. “It doesn’t matter. But…” And now he leaned back against the wall and looked Roy over. “You killed your old man. You got that in you.”

  Roy let Albert think what he wanted to think.

  “So if I’m as good a fortune-teller as I think I am, you will then tell Jeff to please fuck off. Of course, Jeff won’t like that.”

  Roy flinched as Albert reached out and took the trash from him, walked with it to the incinerator. “His plan will be to wait for you to go into the showers where he and his friends will throw a towel over your head, soap your stick, and fuck you in the ass until you can no longer stand. Then they’ll beat you until you either die or turn into what they want you to turn into.”

  Albert opened the metal door an
d tossed the bag inside. He then stepped back and looked up at the smoke coming from the black chimney.

  “What you have to do, as soon as you can, is go down to the gym and get yourself a dumbbell. Or better yet, you could unscrew a mop handle from the bakery. Or even better, you could take the ringer off the bucket and then beat Jeff Knott with it until he can’t move. Be good if he lost an eye. Something he could carry with him forever. Anyway, then you have to stand there and scream at him, even though at this point he won’t hear you, you have to scream loud and clear so that everyone else will hear…”

  “What?”

  Albert turned to Roy and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Motherfucker,” he said, “I’m a man. And if anybody, and I mean anybody, tries to take my manhood, I’ll fucking do to them what I just did to him.”

  Albert smiled. “The guards will then come and take you away and beat you,” he said, his voice normal again. “They’ll put you in one of the Adjustment Units. But you’ll be able to handle that because you’ll now know that when you come out, no one will fuck with you. Ever.”

  Roy watched Albert finish his cigarette and asked, “What about Jeff Knott?”

  “He’ll most likely want to kill you,” Albert said and blew a perfect smoke ring before he turned to Roy. “But now,” he said, “I’ll have the right to protect you, because you’ve already stood up for yourself.”

  “Why?” Roy asked. “Why would you help me.”

  Albert was suddenly serious. The smile all gone. He studied Roy a long while, then said, “Because you and me, we’re the same.”

  “What do you mean, the same?”

  “Tell me, how did you feel when you smothered your papa?”

  Roy just looked back at Albert. It wasn’t so much the question that threw him as the feeling that Albert knew more about him than anyone else in here.

  Roy asked, “You killed your father?”

  “No. I’m in here for stealing my sister’s car. Little cunt couldn’t take a joke. But that’s another matter. I’ll go visit her when I’m out and clear things up.”