CHAPTER 3 JORGE—SMALL TALK
The kid still hasn't learned to shut up during count.
"You always this quiet?" Shawn asks, top bunk creaking as he shifts.
Jorge doesn't look up from his book. "Yeah."
"Just yeah?"
"Just yeah."
Silence holds a while. Long enough that Jorge starts thinking that's the end of it.
Doesn't stick.
"How long you been on this block?" Shawn tries.
"Since I got picked up."
"Which was?"
Jorge doesn't answer that one directly. "Longer than you."
"Guessed that much." A pause, springs shifting overhead. "You from LA?"
"Born there."
"Me too. East side, mostly."
"South."
"Small world. Half this block's from ten miles of each other and none of us ever crossed paths till now."
Jorge doesn't answer that. True enough on its own, doesn't need agreeing with.
"You got another book?" Shawn asks. "Something to pass time with?"
"No. Library cart comes twice a week. Due tomorrow."
"They bring anything decent?"
"Depends what you call decent." Jorge turns a page, not looking up. "Commissary's Thursdays, by the way. Need an order form, tell the guard on morning rounds. I used my last one already."
"Nah, I'm good."
Jorge glances over at that. Something in the flatness of it doesn't sit right. "You sure? Trays get worse fast if you're not supplementing."
"Said I'm good."
Shawn's voice shuts the door on it hard enough that Jorge lets it go. Doesn't push. Just watches him a second longer, reading the shape of what isn't being said, then goes back to the page.
"You always this talkative," Jorge says after a while, "or is it just me lucky enough to get it?"
"Just you." Shawn's voice comes easier this time, grateful for the exit. "Figure one of us has to carry the conversation."
"Didn't ask for one."
"Didn't stop you answering."
That lands closer than Jorge expects. He goes back to the same lines he's already read twice, none of it sticking now that there's a live wire on the top bunk who just slammed a door on something Jorge's pretty sure he's going to want the other side of eventually.
"You gonna keep grunting one-word answers all week?" Shawn asks.
"Probably."
"Cold, man."
"You'll live."
He says it without any real heat behind it, and something about the whole exchange sits different than the ones before, like two men finding the edges of a room that might not be as small as it looked on day one.
Jorge doesn't trust it.
Down the block, a CO's voice cuts through, calling lights in ten. Neither of them moves to end the conversation first.