They made me do the books for them when they found I was an actuary. The only one they’d ever met. To quote from my firm’s blurb, “Actuaries are highly valued and respected professional problem-solvers and strategic thinkers with a deep understanding of financial systems and expertise in insurance matters.”
Okay, so I’m not family. I don’t got a family name like Camorra, like they all seem to have, ‘It’s The Family name,’ they tell me, usually before sticking something in me. I’m the next thing to real family. I am now, anyway; they got me a one-day release and I got married.
‘Purely to make you one of The Family,’ they told me. ‘So we trust-a you a bit more, eh? Capisce?’
She’s a young woman called Maria, of course. Gorgeous looking girl, black hair and everything. And I mean everything. This marriage seemingly demonstrates my willingness and commitment to The Family.
‘I’m committed alright, Joe. I can show you how committed I am if I can stop out overnight with her.’
‘Watch y’ mouth, Limey. She’s my daughter.’
‘I’m not calling you Papa,’ I told him.
‘Good. I’d rip your tongue out.’
Well, at least I got out for a day. Fresh, unbridled air. They say that about being inside. It’s true. It’s like the air’s stale inside the walls. Even in the yards. Like it knows where it is.
So I’m inside.
I’m inside the Pen; and I’m inside The Family; and inside the books, too. I’m just what they needed, it seems. So I have reams of paper, three cell phones – two of which must never leave my cell. Er, our cell. And a hundred or so code words I had to memorise, rather than write down anyone’s name or address or “job title”. I’m immune to having the info beaten out of me because I only memorised the second half of the incoming data – the codes, not what they meant.
Not that it helped me totally. Papa made me slash a guard’s face one time. It was his face or my balls, so I suppose ninety days solitary and an extra two years on my sentence worked out cheap, all in all.
‘Keeps you tame,’ he told me. ‘Mio caro ragazzo’. The bastard patted me on the head, calling me his dear boy. He was holding a meal tray at the time, though.
They came for me; the guards. Just marched me out in the middle of morning slops. I’m all protests and demanding; like you do – it’s expected. Not a word from them. Silent Syzwicki leading the way.
Parole hearing they sprung on me. First in the three years I been in there.
There’s five of them lined up the other side of a huge table.
‘A Quintet of Tokens, huh?’ I sat before they invited me to. Nobody on my side there – no lawyer or rep or anything.
‘You’re stitching me up for another eight years plus, huh?’ I reached for a cigarette on the table, but the guard behind me belted me in the ribs. I don’t smoke anyway – mug’s game. But it pissed’em off nicely. My image could do with a few bruises and splits; I mean, nobody comes out a parole hearing covered in blood. I could be the first. What a boost to my status that would be, to come limping out a parole hearing with a split lip, bleeding ear and two years added.
The bastards. It wasn’t a parole hearing at all. Seems that some Chicago guy had rolled into Denver, and he was the spitting image of me. One of the witnesses from my case saw him. Told a cop he shouldn’t be out yet, meaning me. And it all came out – fingerprints, DNA, revised witness statements, no alibi. So it’s hello to him; and goodbye to me.
They wouldn’t even let me back inside. Dragged me out, literally. ‘I gotta tell Joe 132,’ I went out yelling and fighting. That was a new experience for them, too: the first inmate to be beat up for wanting to stay in.
Have you seen that Pen? It’s thirty miles from anywhere. They put you on the prison bus with your bag and twenty dollars you had to work for – the penal system still owes me a hundred and seven dollars, sixty cents – and drop you off in town, outside O’Malley’s All-Day Bar. How to stay straight and sober, huh?
It took me two days to find the office where me and Maria got married.
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