Next morning, though, he grabbed me by the throat, but that was for effect, I reckon.
Marched me out, along the gangway and down these iron steps – just like they are on films and the telly. I was sure I was going over the rail any minute, except there was a net across. Then, well, I survived breakfast, except for the noise – the clamouring of metal cutlery on metal plates on metal tables – the plastic ones are too easy to break into sharp edges. And the stink, of course – night buckets and over-cooked bacon make a heady mix. I was his celly, so they left me alone. He clearly wanted a stooge for something.
I mean, I was already the original set-up guy, the way I ended up in here: I was in Denver, strolling down to the shops on Central when I’m suddenly being bundled into a car just outside some bar on the corner of Main and Fifth – or some such Name-and-Number intersection. Two huge guys with guns stripped me right off in the back of the car, made me wear some smelly gear, stuck me a mask on, and kicked me out the car. I’m just trying to stand up on the pavement – er, sidewalk – and they bloody shot me! Just like that. I was flying back thinking What the fuck? And one of them was out the car and shooting again, and this great grin on him. I felt’em coming into me – like being hit with a hammer.
Then, like they say, ‘It all went black.’
So I wake up chained to a bed, in hospital. That was a first at the time. I’m used to it now, of course.
How did I plead? What to? I’m tried and found guilty. Half a dozen witnesses swore it was me waving a gun. Robbed some department store and got away with half a million. Me and some other guy. Course I couldn’t give him up. It wasn’t me. I reckon they got me because I was a lookalike for one of the guys who did do it. Or my mask was, I suppose.
They found a gun on me – fired. A match for some other jobs.
‘You public defenders are really crap,’ I told this skinny bird who was constantly scurrying and rushing. ‘You know which side to back, don’t you? Your own.’
‘Can’t even try for a plea agreement,’ she tells me. ‘We got no bargaining chips.’
I could imagine her washing her hands on the way out, probably cashing in my chips.
Course, with no defence, I’m found Guilty. Two to eight years and nine months. Name of Jonathon Doughe; with no fingerprint match; fake ID on me under that name. I knew it was fake, but they wouldn’t even check who I really am.
‘With yer fake Limey accent, and an unregistered firearm, we know who y’are, and y’ guilty as shit.’
I’m surprised they didn’t get me for littering the sidewalk with my blood. At least they deducted “time served” in the hospital from my sentence. But I fell down three flights of stairs between the court and the jail bus. So I wasn’t expecting too much kindness in the Pen.
Like I said – Did I? – I learned a lot in the Pen. Trust nobody, nobody, nobody. That was the first three things I learned. Even Joe 132. Sure, he looked after me, but he never said why.
I killed a couple of Latinos on his orders; made it look like they killed each other fighting over who got me over a sink. ‘It’s them or you,’ Joe told me, slipping a plastic blade into my hand. I think he liked me a bit because I’d been to Paestum, in south Italy, where he was born. On the slum-street between the campsite and the beach; on the traffic circle by the sound of it. I told him how it all was there now – we knew the same pizzeria and a couple or so bars, and the ancient temples, and how hot the sand was at midday, and the tiny shells you could find there. Even then, I knew a bit of Italian, from two years night school with Francesca, our very fanciable teacher. I speak it fair to middling now. Napolese accent included, courtesy of Joe and Co.
Want to read more?
Look out for the next post...
Or it's Free on Kindle Unlimited
£3.95 on Amazon Kindle
£6.45 in Paperback on Amazon
Comments