Joe Victim

Chapter Seventeen

The fresh jumpsuit is a little stiff, washed with too much starch and not enough care and certainly without any love. It scratches at my neck. I keep trying to adjust it. Shower time is over and we’re an hour away from being put back into our cells, but I’ve come back to mine anyway to be away from Caleb Cole and his thoughts, and to spend some time alone with my own.

I pick up one of the books Melissa gave me, not the same one I started reading earlier. There are six books in total. The people on the covers with flawless skin and defined muscles all look happy because none of them are facing a possible hanging. I scan through the book looking for Melissa’s message. There are no pencil marks. No marked pages. I flick through the third one, no longer reading, just looking for signs, but still no dog-eared pages, no slips of paper coming out, no underlined passages. Same with the fourth book. Same with the fifth. There is no message here. Same with the sixth. The books have all been read before. The spines are broken and the pages a little dirty.

I head out into the common area. The only privileges we have right now are TV privileges. One TV for thirty people doesn’t seem like much of a privilege, but it certainly helps with the boredom. The buttons have been removed from the set and the remote control lives somewhere beyond our cell walls, which means there are no arguments between us as to what we want to watch. The remote will occasionally make an appearance in the hand of a prison guard if there’s something on that he thinks we may want to watch. Which there never is.

Tonight is the news, but me, my cellmates, we are the news, so we don’t bother watching it since it’s nothing more than a window into our lives, or the lives of people just like us. It’s on, just footage blurring into more footage the same way the tedium of jail blends into more tedium. Colors and shapes of people doing shit, getting shot, going to war, and stealing from the economy. Ads come and go-pills for diabetes, pills for blood pressure, pills for getting an erection, pills that I’d need too if I were to try touching the women in those ads. All those guys need to do to wake up a flagging erection is to corner somebody half their age.

A current-events show comes on after the news. There’s a stage with gray carpet and blue walls, and in the middle stands a man behind a podium. He’s talking to the camera. After a minute he’s joined by two more men who have podiums of their own, one to the left of the stage and one to the right. They walk out to what can only be described as unenthusiastic applause, as if the people in the audience were dragged in from jury duty.

The guy on the right is the prime minister. He’s a bald guy in his late forties and the thing about bald guys is I don’t like them. I didn’t vote for him. I didn’t vote for anybody. The other guy I have no idea who he is, but must be the guy wanting to be prime minister, but if I did vote I’d vote for him on account of him having hair. And this is where the world doesn’t make sense. A bald guy running the country, and yet I’m the one in jail?

Santa Suit Kenny is playing cards with Roger Small Dick. They’re a few yards down from me sitting opposite each other at a table. They’re playing memories, where all the cards are shuffled and laid facedown and they have to try to pick them up in pairs. I’m pretty sure it’s a metaphor for their future if both men get out of here. Picking up children in pairs. Lying them facedown. Making memories. But who am I to judge what goes on in the privacy of somebody else’s basement? Caleb Cole is watching me while I try to make out it’s no big deal that I’m being watched. Others are reading books, which makes no sense because they could just as easily read them in their cells.

Edward Hunter is off being medicated somewhere, probably preparing for his own trial coming up later this year. There are benches along the side of the room where people are sitting and smoking.

The volume of the TV is low and the subject matter dull, until I hear the moderator, a good-looking guy with thick, brown hair that must be dyed, say “People are angry at crime. The homicide rate is bloody appalling,” he says, and over the years I’ve seen this guy on TV it’s become apparent he likes to hear himself swear, it’s obvious he feels the word bloody adds a gravitas to his words and labels him as a Go get ’em kind of guy. Sometimes he’ll use the word bastard too. He’s working his way up to saying fuck-knuckle.

“Is the next government prepared to spend more money on law enforcement, more money on prisons, and more importantly, is the government elected this year prepared to follow the will of the people if that will turns out to be a want for capital punishment? Why don’t you answer first, sir,” he says, looking at the leader of the opposition.

“Well, first of all,” the leader of the opposition says, “I think the current government has done an extremely poor job on crime,” he says, frowning at the moderator and then at the camera. “As prime minister, first thing I’ll do is divert more funding to the current police force, and we’ll start recruiting drives because we need more officers,” he says, “because at the moment our men and women in the police are overworked, underpaid, exhausted, and leaving.”

“Yes, yes,” the moderator says, “but your party has made those promises before and when given the chance, never followed through. Just as the current party made those promises before the last election.”

“The current party has let us all down,” the man answers, ignoring the first part of the moderator’s statement. “And that’s why we need a change.”

“But it was your party,” the prime minister says, and he points at the guy running against him, “who cut funding to the police department five years ago.”

“That’s completely untrue!” his opponent says, as if he’s just been accused of stealing candy from a baby and groping its mother.

The moderator nods and holds up his hands. “Gentlemen,” he says, “please, all in good time. Now, the same day people are voting for a new prime minister they’re also voting on-”

“That’s not a great choice of words,” the prime minister says, smiling. “It won’t be a new prime minister they’ll be voting for, but the same one.”

The moderator nods. “Yes, yes, I apologize for that, however we’ll know more later this year, won’t we? But the point is, the same day the people are voting for a government, they’re also voting on capital punishment. If you’re prime minister,” he says, looking at the leader of the opposition again, “will you allow that law to pass? Are you for capital punishment?”

The leader of the opposition’s face has reset back to its factory default, the look of a man who is happy and determined and knows how to run a country, a man who knows he’ll probably win just for not being bald. “Well, Jim, it doesn’t matter what I’m for, it’s what the people are for.”

“So you’re saying you’ll go with the will of the people. Is that right?” Jim asks.

“If there is an overwhelming demand to bring back the death penalty, then my government would certainly explore that option.”

“Explore?”

“Yes, exactly. We have to be careful,” he says. “If there was a referendum and the people decided they wanted never to pay taxes again, are you saying we should follow their will?”

Moderator Jim is nodding. “Yes, yes, I see your point. And you, Mr. Prime Minister?”

“If that’s what the people want,” the prime minister says, the studio lights gleaming off his head, “then we’ll make it happen. I promise. Because unlike my colleague’s example of a referendum on taxes, the death penalty is a reality. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but we all know we have to do it. Nobody wants killers out on the street, and that’s something we can do something about. We won’t be messing around with exploring options. It’s time we take a firm stand on crime. If the country votes to bring the death penalty in, then my government will make it a priority and have it introduced by the end of year. That’s a promise,” he says, and my skin goes cold as I stare at the TV set. This man wants to kill me. He’s giving me nothing to make me change my opinion about bald people. “Don’t make the assumption that we’re going to hang every criminal who goes through the court system. It will only be used in extreme cases.”

“Cases like Joe Middleton?” Jim asks.

Some of the guys around me whoop at the mention of my name and somebody slaps me on the shoulder and gives me a Way to go, Joe. But at this rate the way Joe is going to go is by hanging. My skin gets colder.

“Yes, I imagine so,” the prime minister says.

“And what about those already in the system?”

“They’ve been sentenced already,” the prime minister says, “and we can’t retroactively alter their sentences. What we can do, though, for future criminals, is make their sentences tougher.”

“So in the case of Middleton,” Jim says, “who I think you’d agree has become a catalyst for this entire pro- and anti-death movement, his trial starts next week. It may last two months, so it will be over around the same time as the election. Will his sentencing be held off until the bill is passed?”

The prime minister gives a small grin. “Jim, you’re getting ahead of yourself and also off topic.” Then he wags his finger at him, like a teacher telling off a child. “It’s a good try, but I won’t be drawn into a matter that shall be decided by the courts. I think you’ll find both myself and my opponent are here to debate the issues, not to debate how Joe Middleton’s trial should be run.”

“Go Joe,” somebody yells out from across the room, and I look up to see one of the smokers up on the bench giving me the thumbs-up. A couple of others start clapping. Caleb Cole is still staring at me as if the referendum is a pointless exercise because he’s going to kill me anyway.

The topic goes from me to the economy. They lose me about six words into it. Good economy or bad economy, prison life isn’t going to change. It’s not like we’re all going to declare bankruptcy and get evicted if things are bad, and it’s not like we’re getting champagne breakfasts if things are good.

I get up and move back into my cell. We’re only fifteen minutes away from being put into them anyway. I lie down on my cot and stare up at the ceiling and wonder just how it is I’ve come to be in here-the bad luck, the out-of-whack world that would have done this to me. I think back to times in the real world not so much more than a year ago, where things were good, where The Sally would bring me sandwiches at work and at night I would either visit my mom or somebody I had taken a fancy to. Then I think to that Sunday morning when The Sally showed up outside my apartment, where The Sally jumped on me when I tried to shoot myself, and then, like other times I’ve thought about this, I wonder whether or not she did the right thing.

Everybody hates me.

Everybody except Melissa.

I pick up the books and try to find her message.