Chapter 20 #2
Hendrix looked at the sunlight at the edge of the window.
His face was swollen so badly that his right eye was almost swollen shut.
His orbital socket was broken, and the light that snuck through burned his eye terribly.
He looked anyway, craving warmth, craving feeling because he couldn’t feel shit.
The window was too high to see out of, however.
It almost touched the ceiling, and he wondered if they had been installed that way to create a silent yearning for the view on the other side.
He wished they were lower. He didn’t even need to see out of them; he just wanted to feel the sun on his skin.
It was the little shit he had taken for granted.
Even when he didn’t have a roof over his head, he had more to be grateful for than he did inside these walls.
He would take a free tunnel over a sheltered cell any day.
He may have been exposed to the elements when he was homeless, but he would rather fight nature than the inhumanity that existed inside these walls.
The infirmary had patched him up. He had a lacerated spleen, internal bleeding, a broken orbital socket, and three broken ribs.
The warden had grilled him for an hour, asking who was responsible.
Hendrix hadn’t uttered a word. He had never been, nor would he ever be, a snitch.
Hendrix sat on the top bunk, with his back against the concrete wall. His eyes hawked the open cell door as he took the end of a toothbrush across the wall. It would take him all day, but he was determined to sharpen it to a point.
It had taken them hours to even wake him up.
The concussion he suffered from the beating had sent his body into shock and caused swelling in his brain.
He couldn’t be hit like that again. He wouldn’t survive it.
He told himself the next man who ever put his hands on him would die.
He didn’t care if he had to spend the rest of his life behind bars behind it.
He had already lost everything anyway. He wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight or any other night going forward.
The guards played too dirty; they didn’t maintain order.
He didn’t know what type of pull the man who had attacked him had.
If he had the right kind of sway inside, he could come back and finish the job.
Guarding himself and what little he owned was an around-the-clock job.
He would try to keep his head down, but his age alone made him a target.
He was vulnerable in this prison, and he knew it.
He had been paired with a non-violent offender.
His lawyer had made sure to emphasize that fact, as if it made a difference, as if safety existed for a teenage boy behind these bars.
“You need help with that, baby boy?”
Hendrix may as well have been deaf. He wasn’t saying shit to anybody. He would say the least to stop himself from saying the wrong thing. He glanced up and then turned his attention back to his makeshift weapon.
“Yeah, a’ight, you got a long stretch in here, boy.
That silent shit only gon’ last for so long before somebody make you talk.
Niggas in here want to be dominant. You refuse to talk, and all of a sudden, these niggas in here want to hear you scream.
They’re savages that way. This cage turns men to animals.
You giving them a challenge ain’t smart,” the man stated. “You see what happened this time.”
Hendrix didn’t know where the man had been during the attack.
He hadn’t met him until he was returned to his cell.
He hadn’t been too friendly. He was guarded and weary.
He accepted no help, and he was always ready for conflict.
Hendrix ignored the man. He low-key didn’t trust him either.
Ruffin was his name, and he earned it with every old-school song he hummed, as he made his way through the halls of this hellhole.
From sunup to sundown, the man could be heard singing or whistling a tune.
He was older, mid-50s, maybe even 60 years old, if Hendrix had to guess, and time had preserved him well.
He was three times Hendrix’s size, with 40 years’ worth of prison muscles stacked on top of his frame.
The ink from the prison tattoos told Hendrix a story of a man who knew his way around these walls.
Hendrix never turned his back on his cellmate. Ever. He had never felt a fear quite like this. His nervous system was rapid-firing, begging him to flee this place, only there was no exit in sight.
Hendrix’s focus never left his project.
“A’ight, you better recognize an ally when you see one, young homie,” the man stated.
“That shiv ain’t gon’ do shit if you don’t put some weight on you.
You’re too small. You need muscle. Pushups.
Five hundred a day. Get out on the yard, come by the rec, I’ll spot you.
And keep your eyes open tonight. Don’t be where they think you gon’ be. ”
Henny looked at Ruffin, finally, heeding what was an obvious warning. They were coming to finish the job. Henny’s nostrils flared as he panicked inside but showed no emotion outside. He had to finish his shank, or he wouldn’t survive the night.
“On your feet, inmates!”
The bark of the C.O. made Henny’s internal alarm ring as his senses heightened.
He tucked the half-finished weapon under his mattress and scrambled to his feet.
He was barely able to carry the weight of his own shoulders.
His entire ribcage was on fire. It felt like one good punch would end him.
Henny hoped they didn’t do a random search.
Cells had been tossed earlier in the week.
There shouldn’t have been a reason for another shake-down.
If he were caught with the makings of a shank, they’d throw him in the hole.
He took the risk of making it anyway because if the inmates caught him without it, they’d toss him in a grave.
He didn’t know what was worse, defending himself against the other inmates, or the guards.
Both were imminent threats, and to his surprise, the Black officers were the worst of them all.
Both men stood to their feet as the C.O.
stood in front of the steel door. “Face the wall, hands behind your back.”
Hendrix did as he was told, as his mind raced.
He never knew what to expect in this place.
The guards would toss a bunk at 3 a.m. if they felt like it.
He had seen naked brawls in the showers, niggas stabbed up over card games, and men cooking full jail meals using metal stairs and candles.
He’d seen men visit with their girls, then hear moans from sexual favors being exchanged in the middle of the night between bunkies.
Jailhouse rules prevailed. What happened inside stayed inside.
It was like the apocalypse, and every second, Hendrix felt extreme fear.
There was no moment of calm; at all times, he had to be hyper-vigilant.
It was terrifying. Despite his fears, Henny never showed it.
He kept his chin up and his shoulders squared, because he knew if he looked weak, he would be tried again, but this trap was a living nightmare.
“You got a visit, inmate,” the C.O. growled in his ear, slapping on steel cuffs and squeezing the circulation out of his wrists as he jerked him backward out of the cell.
Hendrix felt like a rag doll the way they snatched him around, but he said nothing. The inmates weren’t the only threat inside. The guards were the most vicious of all. He just wanted to walk his time down and stay out of the way.
He was escorted to the visitors’ room, and he watched Bella’s eyes switch from anxious and eager to mortified and terrified in one blink.
She cupped her mouth with one hand, and her shoulders shook as effortless tears pooled in her eyes.
Panic and sorrow caved her chest in. Her legs felt like they were made of regret.
They no longer carried her. I left him in here, she thought as she cried for him.
She was sure that Henny was likely the love of her life, and she had driven away while he was trapped.
Seven years of this. He didn’t want her there, but if she didn’t come, who would?
How could she stay away when stuff like this was happening to him?
Bella’s presence moved potent emotion through his chest. He couldn’t tell what he was feeling because he experienced it all at once.
He loved Bella. The pedestal she stood on in his mind was high, almost unreachable, and it was that part of him that felt inadequate, especially now.
That part of him was angry at her for even coming.
She was going places. She would see the world, but he couldn’t even see the daylight.
This visit was a harsh reminder that he was going nowhere.
While she was out living, he would be inside these concrete walls, dying.
His eyes burned, and he was sick to his stomach as he sat in front of her.
Embarrassment filled him as he grabbed the phone.
He tried to put on a tough face for her, but as soon as they locked eyes, his pain spilled out.
Her world was cracked wide open, and Bella received it, received him.
He had been tortured. She could see how broken he was, and not just on the outside. His spirit was gone.