Joe Victim

Chapter Fifty

I wake up at seven o’clock. We all do. A loud buzzer goes off. It rips into our dreams and puts an end to any of the good stuff going on in there. Though in this case the good stuff was me remembering the blank look on Ronald’s face when the hammer cracked open his skull. He just stood there staring at me for a few seconds. I think he knew he was dead, but his body was still catching up. I thought he would have dropped like a rock, but it took two or three seconds for him to fall. It was the strangest thing, a physics-defying thing. Killers like to say they don’t remember what happened-that they just snapped, that it was a dream. But the exact opposite is true. Killing has a way of making you feel alive-who the hell would want to forget that?

I use the toilet and wait patiently in my cell for thirty minutes until my block is taken through for breakfast, which appears to be something a patient with the Ebola virus coughed up. My stomach is feeling good. Whatever was in that sandwich has done its best, it’s gone through the motions, and I’ve come out on top. Adam comes and finds me. He looks me up and down. He doesn’t look happy.

“You look better, Middleton.”

“Fuck you,” I tell him.

He laughs. “We showed those photos of you eating that sandwich to a lot of our buddies,” he tells me. “Got a whole lot of laughs.”

“I just need a list,” I tell him.

“What?”

“A list. Because when I get out of here, I’m going to fucking kill every one of them, and I’m going to start with you.”

He laughs at me again, even harder this time. “Christ, Joe, you really do make me laugh. This prison needs people like you, and thankfully for us you’re going to be here for a very long time-unless they end up hanging you, which would be a shame, I guess, until the next funny bastard comes along and we forget all about you.”

He takes me down to the showers. I get cleaned up and Adam tosses me some clothes. It’s a suit. It’s the same suit other prisoners have worn in the past who are my size. The same suit I wore when I was charged a few days after I was arrested. A gray suit with a dark blue shirt and black shoes. I look like a bank manager. Only one without shoelaces or a belt. Adam promises me I’ll be given those before I leave. The shirt has stains in the armpits and smells like cabbage and I shake it out, hoping whatever head lice are asleep in there lands on the floor.

I’m taken back to my cell. I have to wait an hour. Most of it I spend sitting on the edge of my bed wondering about the trial. For the first time the reality of it is all kicking in. I always knew this day was coming, but part of me always believed it never would-part of me was sure I’d be out of here by now, that the police would have found a reason to let me go. The trial date just kept on rolling forward and now it’s here, and suddenly the nerves of the trial kick in and I almost throw up. And then I do throw up. When I’m done I back away from the toilet and Caleb Cole is standing in my doorway.

“A farewell present,” he says, and then he rushes me with something sharp.

I don’t even get to my feet before he hits me, but I manage to lift my pillow so whatever he is trying to stab me with-it actually is a filed-down toothbrush-goes into the pillow, but doesn’t come right through, stopping somewhere short of my hand. I use my other hand to punch him in the balls. He staggers back, but not as far as I’d have thought, and then I throw the pillow at him in what, to anybody else, would probably look quite comical.

He comes at me again, only this time I’m able to get to my feet. I don’t know what I’m doing other than reacting. A survival instinct has kicked in. The room, other than our footsteps and muffled grunts, is silent. This is what a real fight sounds like. I get both my hands around his wrist with the toothbrush, and he uses his free hand this time to punch me in the balls. Or ball. I drop quickly to my knees, but don’t let go of his wrist, knowing it’s the only thing keeping me alive. I pull him forward at the same time. His breathing gets louder. So does mine. I topple back-my back on the bed, my shins on the floor, and feet pinned beneath them. He topples onto me, and for the moment neither of us are throwing punches. Instead both of us are focusing on the toothbrush. I’m guessing nine out of ten dentists wouldn’t recommend having your stomach perforated by one. And the tenth dentist is either a prick or is the one doing the perforating.

“Die, you fucker,” Cole says.

I say nothing. I just keep focusing on the toothbrush. It’s angling at my chest and getting closer as he pushes his body weight into it.

“Die,” Cole repeats, the word thrown at me with spittle and hate. I try pushing upward, but it’s a losing battle.

So I do the only thing left to do. I scream like a girl.

Cole pulls back a little, as if the sound waves are too much for him to handle. The sound reminds me of a year ago when Melissa gripped me with a pair of pliers in a place pliers should never be gripped. I put more effort into the scream. Only it’s not powerful enough, and a few seconds later as the scream fades the toothbrush comes back toward me.

The last thing going through my mind as the toothbrush also threatens to go through it is my mother, my mother and her stupid fucking wedding, she in some ugly dress and Walt saying I do and then them kissing in front of a priest and whoever is unlucky enough to be attending. Then suddenly Caleb Cole is being pulled aside, and there standing behind him is Santa Suit Kenny. Santa Suit Kenny throws him against the wall, then looks down at me.

“You okay?” he asks.

Before I can even answer, the toothbrush that had my name on it now has Kenny’s name on in instead, and Caleb jabs it into him and twists it and turns it and there’s the sickening sound of flesh being punctured and a strange smell too, and then a snap as the toothbrush breaks, half of it left inside Kenny, half of it in Cole’s hand. Santa Suit Kenny staggers back and looks down at his side, where blood is blooming over his prison overalls, a look of disbelief on his face, like he can’t believe this is where his journey of music and molestation is going to come to an end.

Caleb takes another run at me, and he swings the remaining half of the toothbrush at me and gets me hard in the stomach, only the handle doesn’t penetrate me because it has no sharp point on it-it just slides back through his hand, which is wet with blood, but the impact is enough to fire the storm back up in my stomach. It fires up hard and fast and things in there turn over, they turn and turn and I can’t hold on for much longer-scattered showers and a hurricane are on their way.

The guards come in and drag Caleb, the fight mostly out of him now, away from me. I rip my pants down and squat over the toilet and the relief is sudden and painful, but relief nonetheless. Santa Suit Kenny stares at me as his life slips away and I stare back at him, my stomach burning hot as the world fades a little.

“Queen,” Santa Suit Kenny says. “Muff. Punch. Queen,” he says, and I guess as far as dying words go, others have done better.

I lean my elbows on my knees and do my best to stop from passing out, and we stare at each other-me doing the shitting, Kenny doing the dying-and he never says another word and the storm rages on.