The Second Life of Nick Mason

11

“What do you know about the samurai, Nick?”

The two men were walking along the perimeter of the yard. A chain-link fence ran alongside them, ten feet high and topped with razor wire that gleamed in the sunlight. Beyond that there was the other fence. More razor wire. On the issue of which side a man belonged, there would never be any doubt in his mind.

“Not much,” Mason said. “Why?”

“They got this code they live by. Called bushido. You ever hear of that?”

“No.”

“Bushido,” Cole said. He walked slowly when he was talking. “I like that word. I can look back on things in my life now, see how important that was, having a code like that. This shit goes back a thousand years, Nick.”

Mason knew how many books Cole read. Between morning roll and lunchtime, that’s when any man with sense left Darius Cole alone because that was the time reserved for reading.

Cole had an account with the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square and they would send him a new box of books every Friday.

The man read at least one book a day, Nick thought, but he couldn’t shake the streets of Englewood when he spoke.

“You got some of that,” Cole said. “What makes you stand out around here. You got yourself some bushido.”

This is what they did. Every day, after Cole received his afternoon visitors, this was Mason’s time to listen to him. Mason didn’t have to say much in return. In fact, that was probably one of the things Cole appreciated the most, Nick realized, just being able to talk to somebody who knew when to shut the fuck up and listen.

“Don’t have to know the word,” Cole said. “Don’t have to know anything about it. That don’t mean you don’t have it. You remember those first couple times you came down here?”

“I remember.”

“What did we talk about? The rules you got for yourself. To keep your life in order. Keep your mind right. The way you handle things around here. I see you, you got this way of moving around the three worlds in here. White, black, Latino. Whenever you gotta leave your own world, make your way in another… You don’t compromise yourself. You don’t give up nothing. But you don’t look for trouble, neither. I know you think it’s no big deal. Just one day at a time. But when I see that, I see this bushido, Nick. You got that shit up to your eyeballs.”

Cole had been reading everything he could find about Japan lately, a place that appealed to him somehow, even if it was ten thousand miles away. Maybe that was the reason right there, the fact that it was on the other side of the world, different from this prison in southern Indiana in every way you could imagine. A place where honor meant everything, where a man would rather drive a knife into his own gut than bring shame on himself.

But Cole was just about done with the books on Japan. Mason figured he’d hear about samurai and bushido for a few more days and that would be the end of it.

He was coming up on one year in SHU by then. His cell mate was one of the two big bodyguards who had originally brought him over for his first visit. Mixed-race roomies were something you didn’t see anywhere else in the prison. In this block, it was commonplace. Just one more thing to learn about Cole, because Cole was unquestionably the boss of this unit. And that was why this was probably the most color-blind unit of any federal penitentiary in the country.

Mason would usually have lunch at Cole’s table. Afterward, Cole would receive his visitors. He would mediate disputes. He would administer justice. There would be fines levied. Or restitution paid between one inmate and another. Sometimes justice would get a little more physical. Not right there in Cole’s cell, of course. It would happen later, out in the yard or while waiting in line. It would be quick and severe and there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind who sanctioned it.

Everyone called him Mr. Cole. Even the guards.

Mason kept waiting for the hook. He knew there had to be something asked of him in return for this new living arrangement. For all of this deferential treatment. Just listening to the man talk about books every day couldn’t be enough. It would be Mason’s turn to administer the justice, to find the man out on the yard. He’d grown up on the streets of Canaryville, so he knew how to fight. But Cole never asked him to do anything else. I never had a father, Mason said to himself more than once. Maybe this is what it feels like.

A few days after that walk in the yard, Mason was sitting in his cell. It was a tough day for him, tough in a way he didn’t want to admit. Just the fact that it was this date on the calendar. Cole came in and stood over him. He had that way of walking right up to a man-any man in the block-just standing in the man’s space, maybe putting an arm on his shoulder. Something only he could do.

“You’re thinking about her,” Cole said.

Mason looked up at him.

“Your daughter’s birthday.”

Mason didn’t even bother asking him how he knew that. He didn’t bother reminding Cole about his rule, either, that he didn’t talk about his family here.

“Some days are harder in here,” Cole said. “Can’t help that.”

Then Cole did something he’d never done before. He sat down on Mason’s bed, a foot away from him. Mason saw the long scar on the back of Cole’s right hand. He already knew the story behind it. Cole had gone to see a girl when he was seventeen years old, but she lived in the wrong neighborhood. He was two blocks past a line he shouldn’t have crossed when two white men put a knife into the back of that hand. To this day, the jagged scar would be on his mind whenever he shook a man’s hand for the first time.

“I saw you talking to Shelley the other day,” Cole said. “Not thinking of getting ink, are you?”

Shelley was the man with the illegal tattoo gun. He’d made it with the motor from a CD player, an empty pen barrel, and a needle made by stretching out the spring from a stapler. He used burnt shoe polish for the ink. There’s probably one such man in every unit in every prison in America.

“No,” Mason said.

“Today’s the kinda day you might do that,” Cole said. “Get your daughter’s name on your arm or something.”

“I’m not getting a tattoo.”

“That’s all you need when you get outta here,” Cole said. “Cheap prison ink all under your skin, turning green. Might as well write CONVICT on your forehead.”

“If you hate tattoos so much, how come you let Shelley stay in business? One word from you and he’d be shut down.”

“He can ink anybody else he wants,” Cole said. “Just not you.”

Mason stood up. He didn’t mind listening to Cole most days. But today was not most days.

“No disrespect,” Mason said, “I’m taking a walk.”

“Sit down, Nick. You wanna be alone, I get that. But you should be talking to me about something else.”

“Like what?”

“You’re ready to hear this,” Cole said. “Sit the hell back down.”

Mason let out a breath and sat down on the bed.

“I’m going to ask you something,” Cole said. “If you could walk out of here right now, go see your daughter, what would you say to her?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’m saying if you could, Nick. How old is she?”

“She’s nine.”

“Nine years old,” Cole said. “She hasn’t seen you since-what?- four years old.”

“That’s right.”

“You think she remember you?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Other day,” Cole said, “you remember, we was talking about bushido?”

Mason took a moment, let out another breath. “I can’t do this.”

“Shut up and listen to me, Nick. Something you need to hear. There’s more to that code than just having your mind right. You gotta have loyalty, too. You gotta be serving something. Somebody worth giving that honor to. So you get honor back in return. You hear what I’m saying? You know what a daimyo is, Nick?”

“No.”

“A daimyo is the master. A daimyo is the boss. If a samurai don’t have a daimyo to serve, he’s just a rōnin. Like a homeless man. A vagabond. Wandering around the world, begging for food. No purpose in his life. Look around you, Nick. Look at all the men in here. How many of them does that describe to you?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “Most of them.”

“Most of them, yeah. How about every man in here? I hate seeing you being one of those men when you could be doing something else. Something a hell of a lot better.”

“What are we talking about here?”

“You could be a samurai, Nick. That’s what I’m saying. I look at you, I don’t see another inmate. I see a samurai.”

Mason didn’t know what to say. They had passed right by the usual idle prison talk, even by Cole’s standards. Now they seemed to be heading into something else.

“Mr. Cole,” Nick said. “I know you pretty well by now. You’re always thinking eight moves ahead of everybody else. So if you’ve got something in mind for me, why don’t you just tell me what it is?”

“Is that where you think I’m going with this? You think I need a samurai around this place? I got plenty of men who do anything I want. All I gotta do is say the word and it’s done.”

“Then I don’t get it,” Mason said. “What do you want me to do?”

“You know how I’m always talking about this place, how do I say it, being a problem of geography?”

Mason took one look around them. The cell just big enough to fit two men, a small desk, a toilet with no privacy. Beyond that, concrete walls and a thick pane of glass. Fluorescent lights buzzing over their heads. A dozen locked doors and then the fences and a small army of armed men standing between them and the world outside this place. Yeah, Mason said to himself, just a problem of geography.

“I still live in Chicago,” Cole said. “That’s the thing you gotta understand. It’s still my town.”

Cole leaned in toward Mason as he said this. He put out one hand like he was holding the city right there for Mason to look at.

“From there,” Cole said, “I can do anything, Nick. Anything I need to do. But sometimes I need a good set of eyes on the other side of these walls. A good pair of hands out there.”

“You don’t have anybody on the outside?”

“Oh, I got people who work for me,” Cole said. “People I can trust. But I need somebody special, Nick. I need a warrior. A man who can go anywhere. Do anything. I know I got myself stuck on this word, but it’s the only word that really gets at what I’m saying here. I need a samurai.”

“I can’t help you,” Mason said. “Unless you want to wait twenty years.”

“Fuck twenty years, Nick. Do you really want to wait that long?”

“I don’t see any choice.”

“Listen to me,” Cole said. “There’s gonna be this man someday, he’ll come to this prison to do your first parole hearing. Some fat white boy, civil servant type wearing a tie and glasses. You can see him, can’t you, Nick? Like he’s standing right here in front of us. Wanted to be a cop maybe, couldn’t cut it, so now he’s a parole officer. Only way he can have any kind of power over people. But that job, even that’s too hard, chasing down convicts all day, so they ask him to serve on the board and he’s all over that. Sit at a table, hear a man’s story, how he’s changed and found Jesus and he’s ready to be a productive citizen again. It’s all up to him. The man on the board. And if he got himself laid that morning, he puts down a big APPROVED on the file.”

Cole made a fist and stamped an imaginary file.

“Or if his kid told him to go fuck himself, he puts down a big DENIED.”

He stamped again.

“That man’s never gonna sit in judgment of me, Nick. That day won’t come. But that man’s waiting for you. He’s out there right now, but you know how far away he is? That man hasn’t even signed up for the job yet. Hasn’t even done his two years at the community college. He’s sitting in some junior high school class, looking out the window. Don’t even have hair on his balls yet.”

Cole stopped for a moment, shaking his head, tapping his fist on the bed.

“That’s too long to wait, Nick. Too long to wait for that boy to grow up to be the motherfucker who denies your parole.”

“You’re telling me all this for a reason,” Mason said. “What is it?”

“I’m talking about time, Nick. What’s it worth to you? Twenty fucking years. You’ll be what, fifty-five? Your daughter’ll be what, almost thirty years old? You miss her growing up. Maybe she even has kids of her own by then. You miss all of that. But what if that’s just one story, Nick? What if there’s another story where you get yourself out of here and she’s still nine years old and you got a chance to be her father again?”

Mason looked at the man sitting on the bed next to him. He still didn’t know what to say and it felt like a good time to be careful about that. Because none of this was making any sense.

“Listen to me.” Cole stood up. He hooked one hand behind the back of Mason’s neck and twisted his head so that it was inches from his. “You need to hear every word of what I’m saying to you. Because this is how it’s going to work. Those two cops who put you away? One of them’s a detective, who’s gonna stand up in court and swear he put that blood in your car. The whole case gonna fall apart on them. They gonna vacate the conviction, Nick. That’s what they call it. And that prosecutor, he won’t want nothing to do with you. He won’t touch a retrial because it’s all gone to shit. You walk out of here twenty years early, Nick. Do you hear me? You walk the fuck out. No parole. No felony record. Like it never happened.”

Mason knew about prison gangs. La eMe. La Nuestra Familia. Mara Salvatrucha. He knew they had power that extended outside the prison walls. He knew they could say one word and make things happen. But this… This was impossible.

“Remember what I do, Nick. What’s my fucking specialty? I make things clean.”

“I’m not a wad of dirty money. It’s not the same.”

“I’ve been working on this,” Cole said. “You’ll be outta here by the end of the month. I’m setting you up on the outside. Everything you need, it’s all taken care of.”

“The end of this month?”

“What’d I just say? End of the month.”

“Why are you doing this? Why me?”

“You gotta ask that question?” Cole said. “After everything we been talking about, this whole year? I watch you all the time, Nick. Every day. What I need out of a man, it’s all right here. Right here inside you. Don’t hurt that you’re white, too. You look sharp, you look clean, no tattoos. I can send you anywhere in the world, Nick. You fit right in.”

Mason shook his head as he looked up at him. “I still don’t understand,” he said. “You could have picked somebody who-”

“Just shut the fuck up,” Cole said, “and trust me. I picked you. I’m trying to explain why, but maybe I can’t. Not all of it. Maybe you’ll have to find out for yourself what it is I see in you.”

Mason took a moment to weigh those words. “If this really happens,” he said, “what do I have to do?”

“All you gotta do is answer the phone, Nick. It rings, you answer. You do whatever you get asked to do. That’s it.”

The dinner horn rang and inmates started to move down the hallway. Mason stayed where he was, sitting on the bed. He couldn’t help thinking about Gina. About Adriana.

“That night at the harbor,” Cole said, still standing in front of him. “We both know what you lost that night. Your wife. Your daughter. Everything you had.”

They were both right there in his head now. Right there. Close enough to touch.

“This is your chance, Nick. This is your chance to get it all back. All you gotta do is say yes.”

I have to do this, Mason thought. I have to take this. No matter what it means.

“But hear me,” Cole said, “before you say your next word. Make sure you understand what I’m saying to you. All that shit about nobody owning you? That’s gone. It’s a new fucking way of thinking for you. You make this deal with me, it’s twenty years you don’t have to be here anymore. But for those twenty years… your life don’t belong to you.”

Cole bent down close to Mason, close enough that his voice was a low rumble in Mason’s ear.

“For the next twenty years, your life belongs to me.”