Chapter Thirty-Five
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Hot dogs tonight,” Manny reports when he gets back from chow. “I was going to sneak a couple out for you, but they were watching us like hawks.”
I tell him I still don’t have much of an appetite anyway. “But thanks for the thought.” He sits down on my bunk, says he’s worried about me, and asks whether we can talk. Bracing for the pep talk that’s coming, I give him an indifferent shrug.
“I know something’s the matter with you, Corby. You’ve been staying in here, skipping meals. Why don’t you go over to Medical and get checked out?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, but when I was bagging up the laundry this morning, I noticed there was blood in your underpants.”
I cover my fear of exposure with an angry retort. “How do you figure that’s your fucking business? Do me a favor, will you? Keep your hands off my underwear.”
“Then put them in the laundry bag rather than leaving them under your bunk, douchebag!” Other than that time with the snake, this is the closest he’s ever come to yelling at me and, in a way, I’m proud of him.
Most cellies just ride it out in close proximity, but Manny and I have come to care about each other.
He shows it more than I do, but the friendship is mutual.
I’m grateful for it, as annoying as he can get.
“If it’s hemorrhoids, they can give you some suppositories, Corbs.” Groaning, I tell him I don’t have hemorrhoids. “Jeez, I hope it’s not an ulcer. My friend Finley had a bleeding ulcer and when he took a shit, there was this blackish blood.”
“Stop it, Manny. I don’t need to see a doctor because there’s nothing physically wrong with me. Those bloodstains were from weeks ago and never came out. Okay?”
“Maybe it’s emotional then. I know something’s up with you. If you don’t want to talk to me about it, maybe you should put in a request to see one of the shrinks who come here.”
I consider his suggestion. There are two psychologists at this place.
I’ve heard that the younger one is pretty good, but seeing Blankenship would be a waste of time.
He’s the one who interviewed me when I was on suicide watch and he was pretty much dialing it in.
Their schedules rotate, so you can’t make a specific request. Maybe I’ll give the psych wheel a spin anyway.
Telling either one what they did to me would be brutal, but at least it would be confidential.
Keeping it to myself is driving me nuts.
Still, even if I get the new shrink, how useful will a sympathetic ear and some coping strategies be when what I really want is to figure out how to make those fuckers pay?
“Hey, you’re right,” I tell Manny. “I have been acting douchey lately. Sorry. Maybe I should go talk to one of those shrinks.” He says it couldn’t hurt.
“Oh, by the way, do you mind if I hold on to those ibuprofens?” I ask him.
It’s been a little over a week since the assault and it doesn’t hurt as much, except when I take a dump, which is when there’s a little blood.
I promise him I’ll order him a replacement bottle on my next commissary sheet.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Hey, by the way, you got any more of those Jolly Ranchers?” I remind him that he ate the last of them. “Did I? Oh, yeah. My bad. Mind if I watch TV?”
“Go for it,” I tell him. I lie on my bunk, face to the wall as usual, half listening to Alex Trebek and then Pat Sajak. Start dozing when one of those lame-ass sitcoms with the phony laugh track comes on.…
I must have slept for a couple of hours at least, because when I wake up, it’s already lights-out.
Needing to take a leak but not trusting my aim in the dark, I sit on the seat.
My butt is still sore, so back in bed I grope around in the dark for the ibuprofen.
Instead, my fingers touch the smooth, cool surface of my river stone.
I pick it up and clutch it in one hand, fumble around for those tablets with the other.
I swallow three more, then flop back down and try to deep-breathe my way back to sleep.
No go. The night demons are taunting me. …
Maybe after I get out of here, I can contact one of those investigative reporters on TV or in the paper.
See whether I can get someone to do an exposé about the kind of shit Piccardy and Anselmo are getting away with in here—not just what they’ve done to me.
What about what they did to Solomon? And others.
I didn’t witness it myself, but it’s gone around the compound about how they amused themselves that time by convincing Billy, a Down syndrome inmate, to imitate a bunch of farm animals.
And how Piccardy got transferred here because his uncle, Zabrowski, pulled some strings after Lover Boy knocked up that female inmate.
Maybe if the public gets wind of this shit, the commissioner might have to fire them both.
That’s the thing DOC is most afraid of: negative publicity, complaints from the public. …
Maisie understands that you’re “away” but that you’re coming back.
We still have to figure out how that’s going to work.
Yeah, well, maybe if you’d brought her down here to see me, they wouldn’t be telling you she needs a shrink.
Tell the truth, Emily. Isn’t keeping her from me another way to punish me because of Niko?
Having to be caged in here for three years isn’t punishment enough?
And what do you mean when you say we have to figure out how that’s going to work after I’m out?
How much are you going to try to restrict access to my daughter?
When that judge came out of her chambers with her decision, she said some sentences were easy to decide, others kept her up at night, and mine was one of the latter ones.
My decision is that you are to be incarcerated for a period of five years, suspended after three, and another three years.
Then she pounded her gavel and left the courtroom.
I bet she hasn’t thought of me once since then.
… And why had Dad sobbed when he heard her decision?
Who was he crying for: the grandson he’d only bothered to see once?
For himself because he’d fathered a loser for a son?
It’s doubtful Professor Ledbetter was crying for me.
If that had been the case, he probably would have answered the one letter I’d written him two or three weeks into my bid here.
Or maybe even shown up here and sat down across from me to see how I was doing. …
I have months, not years, left to go before I get out.
No matter what’s going to happen between Emily and me, I’ll fight her tooth and nail if she’s going to try to screw with my parental rights.
I was a good dad before it happened. She knows that.
Doesn’t that count for anything? Does it all just come down to that one worst thing I did? I guess I know the answer to that one.…
Piccardy and Anselmo better watch their backs once I’m out of here.
If I can’t get the media to do anything, I’ll find some other way to make them pay.
At the library, I’d found an article in the staff newsletter about the pair.
They’d played football for competing high schools.
After graduation, they both enlisted in the army.
Both went to Fort Benning for basic training and they bonded there.
Piccardy fought in Afghanistan, Anselmo in Iraq.
After they both got out, the article said, they commuted to the police academy for their training to become correctional officers.
They’ve run 5Ks together, been each other’s best man, and competed together in one of those Tough Mudder challenges.
The article included two photos of them.
In one, they’re at a game at Yankee Stadium, both of them wearing US Army caps, one of them with an embroidered eagle, the other camo with a stars-and-stripes patch.
In the second picture, they’re caked with mud and baring their teeth for the camera—a couple of self-congratulating “tough mudders.”…
Lying here, I imagine the two of them jogging along some country road, unaware that I’m tailing them in a car—something heavy like a Ford Expedition or a Chevy Suburban.
When I’m sure no one’s coming, I gun it, passing close enough to scare them both.
Then I turn the car around. When I get close enough for them to recognize me, I floor it, aiming right at them.
It’s a sick fantasy, but a satisfying one.
They deserve it. Then I’m stopped cold, realizing who didn’t deserve it: my little boy.
I was at the wheel when he died, too. Nausea overtakes me.
I get off my bunk, rush to the bowl, and heave.
Lying back down, I break out in a cold sweat.
You see what kind of a sick bastard prison’s turned me into, Emily?
And half the time, you can’t be bothered to pick up the phone and accept the charges?
You can’t manage more than a couple of letters a month, sometimes one a month?
How long has it been since you visited? Two months. Right, Em? Eight weeks. Fifty-six days.
Clock says twelve forty-seven…
One sixteen…
Two thirty-nine.
Fuck all this lying awake thinking. What I need is sleep.… The river is loud tonight. After all that rain we’ve had, it sounds urgent as it rushes past, heading south. Rubbing my thumb against the stone, I begin to relax. Start to doze. Wake up, doze some more, then fall into a deep sleep.