Doom Fox (28 page)

Leaving the john, Sweeney pauses at the kitchenette door on his way to his desk for a slug of nerve therapy whiskey. But morbid curiosity forces him to enter the door, go gingerly to peer around the silk screen at the horror scene. He retches with a bellow as he flees the grisly chamber for whiskey tranquilizer.

Within the hour, the prison's wake-up whistle shrills. An instant later, lights blast on in Joe's cellhouse. He sleepily rises from his bunk to sit on the icy porcelain throne.

At that instant, in a four man cell on the all white fourth floor D tier above, Kurt Stregner, Aryan commander, sits in shorts on the side of his bunk. He stares into a square of mirror as he squeezes a blackhead on his ruddy, classic Nordic countenance. Painted bust portraits of his idols, Nazi bigwigs from Hitler to arch fiend Himmler, scowl from the walls. His trio of general staff stare from their bunks at the cell door as a guard's key rasps in cell locks on their tier.

Stregner leaps off his bunk to the cell door as a grizzled guard unlocks the cell, pauses, hisses, 'The both of 'em!' before he moves away.

'Shit yeah! Got them bastards!' Stregner and his cellmates shout as they stomp the cell floor.

Their revelry triggers a guttural chant of the word from other cells on the tier housing sect members.

On C tier below, a middle-aged black guard who is a Manual Arts High School acquaintance of Joe and Melvin, unlocks Joe's cell. He pauses, dips his head up toward the din from the tier above. 'Listen to the cocksuckers celebrating' he whispers hoarsely.

Joe's belly aches with the answer even as he exclaims, 'What!?'

The sad eyed guard says softly, 'Melvin and Lucy got cut to pieces this morning.'

Joe goes to the bars. 'Who!?' he exclaims with wild bright eyes. 'Who, Jimmy!?'

The guard shrugs. 'Coulda been any one of close to thirty hospital cons. Nobody finks in here and lives ... so it's just another prison case to mildew in the unsolved files. Poor Melvin,' the hack says before he turns away to unlock the next cell.

'I'm gonna deal justice to that Stregner bastard for Brother Melvin!' Joe venomously whispers as he leans close to Percy seated on the side of the bunk.

'Nigguh, git outta my face talkin' that suckuh shit and ya ain't got but two months 'fore ya parole shot. Ya scored three gran'. Sweet gravy! Lucky fool, ya cain't owe no dead fag nuthin!' Percy whispers savagely as he rises to brush past Joe to take his turn on the throne.

Joe lets himself down on the side of Percy's bunk. He lights two cigarettes, leans and passes one to Percy. The old man inhales as he glares at him.

Joe rises to pace the floor. 'Pops, I ain't stupid. Maybe you right. I don't owe Melvin nothin' since he chumped off his life for some fairy hole and also cause he ain't in no shape, croaked to care 'bout or 'preciate me layin' revenge on Stregner. Ain't no doubt, that's stone logical. But Pops, I ain't gonna let that Aryan cocksucker slide after crossin' a nigguh I knowed into the grave and then cheer out loud, knowin' Big Joe Allen, a nigguh, is listenin'. 'Sides, me and Melvin wasn't no enemies when they hit him. No, Pops, I gotta make that fuckin' Stregner and his hit midget shit some bloody turds.'

Percy exclaims, 'Hit midjut!?'

Joe pauses before Percy, grimly smiles. 'Yeah, I dug him eyeballing from the ward. I made his ugly mug like a vision late last night. I saw his pic and read in the L.A. Times over a year ago 'bout him almost wastin' one of them L.A. Jewish militants with a sniper rifle.'

Percy exclaims, 'I 'member his pichur leavin' court, a Arin lookin' jus like a bulldawg.'

'That's the dude' Joe says as he goes to sponge off. 'He musta picked the lock on the ward door and out-foxed whiskey head Sweeney, or maybe Sweeney ...'

Percy interrupts. 'Yeah, Sweeney coulda laid the shiv on the jokuh and looked the othuh way.'

They laugh feebly. They wash up and dress in silence. Minutes later, as they wait at the door to step out onto the tier for breakfast, Percy says, 'Please son, don't fuck with them peckuhwoods and blow ya parole shot.'

Joe says firmly, 'Sorry, Pops, I ain't gonna let 'em slide. I gotta at least cripple one of 'em. But I think I gotta way to trick 'em into gettin' down tough on me so's I can harm 'em in self-defense. I'm gonna be pat for 'em the first Sunday it rains and we have cellhouse rec.'

They step out into the moving line of cons on the tier. Joe's line stalls at the cellhouse door while the last of D tier's cons file slowly through the door. Giant Kurt Stregner pauses, sneers as he eyelocks Joe.

Joe leans toward him and sets up the trap challenge with a savage whisper. 'Motherfucker, for Melvin, I'm gonna run you back up your white 'ho mammy's ass the next time we got rec in the cellhouse.'

Stregner's lupine lips whiten at the corners before he hideously grins. 'Hooray! We got a date, maybe sooner Shine Liver Lips!' he stage whispers as he moves away through the cellhouse door.

Two Sundays later, incessant heavy rainfall forces boisterous cellhouse rec after lunch. The cell doors are open to permit the cons to stroll the tiers and main floor to visit friends and play board games together. Others play sexual games between infrequent rounds of several hacks. The hacks tear themselves away briefly from a television set on the cellhouse keeper's desk, tuned in to a pro football game they've bet on between themselves.

Fully dressed, Joe lies on his top bunk faking a nap. His face is turned toward the steel wall, his feet point toward the open cell door. His right hand grips three feet of lead pipe as he waits to spring the trap. Percy, shiv armed, is propped up on his bunk. His face and torso are hidden from their view by the newspaper he pretends to read as he watches passing traffic on the tier through a slit in the paper.

'Son, I think one of them Arin bastids jus' sashayed by and copped a gander at us' Percy whispers.

Joe chuckles. 'They gotta be peeing their pants 'bout how to chastise me.'

In his cell above, lifer Kurt Stregner and his trio of Nazi cellmates sit on their bunks chain smoking as they stare grimly through the open cell door at passing cons on the tier. Kurt fondles a one shot zip gun in his lap.

The young Nazi scout that Percy made enters the cell twitching excitement, blue eyes radiant. 'Kurt, he looks asleep!' the muscular blond exclaims.

'Otto, I'd bet that jigaboo is playing the possum game. That's good!'

Otto's face is puzzled. 'Good?'

'Yeah, good. At least for a second or two he'll be a still target for a surprise head shot. He won't have a prayer to make physical contact ... what bout the old darky?' Kurt concludes as he stands.

'He's got his nappy head stuck in the funny papers' Otto replies as he stands.

Frank Klepper, the hospital hit con, enters the cell. 'Klepper, let's go bag the jungle bunny' Kurt says as he rolls the zip gun inside a magazine and steps out on the tier followed by half pint Klepper and the others who trail them.

They go to the rear of their tier, take a back stairway down to Joe's tier. Fluegger and Klepper make con small talk as they stroll toward Joe's cell followed by the quartet of back-up cons. They pause to peep over the railing near Joe's cell at the hacks clustered about the T.V. set on the desk.

Stregner turns to scan the tier. He sees it deserted except for his four henchmen casually walking toward him in pairs. They spy into raucous cells they pass from corners of their eyes to protect their rear against attack by any Joe sympathizers who might alert from poker and blackjack to join a fray.

'Klepper, he's tough! He may even be tough enough to attack with just a twenty-two long in his knot. So you gotta charge the cell when I fire to give him a heart shot with your shiv. Then we'll ice Old Percy whether he butts in or not. He's the only con in the cellhouse nuts enough, and with a reason strong enough to finger us' Stregner instructs from the side of his mouth as he pushes a potato silencer over the plumbing pipe muzzle of the zip gun.

The pair soft-shoe to the side of the target cell. Stregner inches his head to peer through the bars at Joe still faking a nap on his side. Percy sees nothing through the slit in the funny paper, Stregner's head blocked out by the underside of Joe's bunk. Stregner moves to rest the gun's barrel between bars as he draws a bead on Joe's head.

Percy suddenly spots the grey trouser legs, leans from his bunk to get a full view of Stregner squinting down the gun barrel. Percy shouts, 'Joe! He's got a piece!'

Joe pops his eyes open to stare for a mini-instant into the gun barrel before he jerks his head backward toward the rear of the cell. At that instant, Stregner fires the muffled shot that deeply creases Joe between the eyes, half blinds him with a gush of his blood.

Klepper races into bunkside to deliver the shiv coup de grace as Joe scoots his back up against the rear cell wall. He rocks, as he paws the blood from his eyes with his left hand. The pipe in his right hand clubs at Klepper, weaving and dodging as he stabs Joe hard in the upper chest.

Percy leans in from his bunk to plunge his shiv upward to the hilt into Klepper's heart as Stregner charges into the cell, blue eyes demonic as he slashes at Joe's throat. Klepper, dying on the floor, spurts blood as Percy leans from his bunk, tries vainly to wrench his shiv free of Klepper's chest.

Joe bangs the pipe against the side of Stregner's head. Stregner flees the cell, his head bursting blood. Joe lunges off the bunk in pursuit, slips in blood at the cell door, falls, sprawls on his belly on the tier. He seizes Stregner's ankle, crashing him to the floor of the tier. Joe struggles to his feet, lifts dazed Stregner and hurls him over the railing to the concrete two stories down.

The sharp smash sound of his skull commands the attention of the football fan screws who dash from the television set up the front stairway for Joe's tier. The cellhouse keeper rushes to Stregner.

The quartet of back-up Nazis swoop on Joe with shivs. They stab him repeatedly in the back and upper torso before he bloodies them and drives them down the tier with a violent pipe assault. Joe collapses into the arms of Percy and several cons as the guards pound onto the tier.

After blood transfusions and a month of patch up in the prison hospital, and then thirty days in solitary? neither Joe nor Percy were indicted by a Grand Jury which ruled the killings defensive. But Joe's parole consideration was deferred for a year. At the end of that year, he makes parole. But now Percy is secretly distraught and envious at the prospect of the imminent release for Christmas of his long term comrade on their last morning together.

Percy says softly, 'Now, the white folks is cuttin' ya loose tomorrow, for Christmas ... ya owe 'em the rest of ya life back heah if ya fuck up out there.'

Percy pauses to light a cigarette. He exhales a poltergeist of smoke that jailbreaks through the cell bars toward a half open window. .

'Say, son, git on the earie 'cause I'm gonna spiel some bitch phalasphy so's ya can git wise to life and 'hos in them streets.'

Joe, at the basin, turns to face him with a serious face as he brushes his teeth. He fakes rapt interest to please the old man in the short time they have together. Percy pounds his fist against the bunk beside him. Joe sits down, starts to speak.

Percy spiels, 'Don't say nuthin' boy 'til I finish. Ya ain't but forty-five son, still a baby. Like Old Percy, ya in heah on a damn fool's hummer. A cunt hummer. Son for ya survivin' ya gotta git it solid in ya noggin all gash is the same, hairy or bald, tight or loose, and don't make no mattuh if it hangs on a two buck 'ho inna half buck flophouse or a sweet stinkin high and mighty so-called lady on Nob Hill. Alla 'em is 'hos in they pizen pumps. Alla 'em gonna stink like a shithouse in China if they don't wash they nasty double crossin' asses. Gash ain't nuthin' but 'looshun inna chump's skull. Lissen, say iffen the ugliest dog they is stashes inna dark room and a 'nother, the mos beautifuless dog they is sticks out her head and 'vites ya to come in jus 'fore she ducks 'neath the bed, ya gonna go in and shoot jism in that ugly bitch like a elephant, swearin' ya done scored for the bes' cunt they is.'

Percy gets a silver of mirror from a shoe box at the head of his bunk. Joe sits down beside him on the bunk. Percy makes a monster face in the mirror before he holds it for a moment in front of Joe's face.

Joe glances into the mirror. 'What's your point, Pops?'

'My pint is you and me is the ugliest nigguhs ever was. Black or white dogs, and alla 'em 'tween, that's hooked up with ugly jokuhs, rich or poor, is dreamin' secret 'bout wrappin' pussy 'round some cute jokuh's dick. Alla 'em is schemin' when they open they legs to hog-tie a suckuh and win a slave. The black dogs dream 'bout pretty nigguhs ... or peckuhwoods, pretty or ugly.

'That mean mistreatuh I kilt was the prettiest black dog that ever peed 'tween fifty buck slippuhs ... mebbe I ain't told ya how I 'scaped the white boss's cotton fields down in 'Sippi ... come North and built my six truck gardenin' company ... give her everything she wanted 'fore she asked for it ... double sawbuck bubble wine for breakfast, Russky fish eggs at night. I loved that 'ho's spit and shit. I 'dored that dog like she was a princess lady. I ain't tol' ya what happened that night I ... ?'

Joe's heard it before but he shakes his head to afford the old man a grim pleasure. 'I don't think so, Pops, just that you wasted your wife and a man.'

'Well, she's in Hell now wigglin' her ass for the Devil, jugglin' her noggin in her hands ... caught her with the ugliest peckuhwood in Frisco ... uglier than me! She was sweet talkin' him and hollerin' hot whilst he was pumpin' his pink dong up her turd cuttah ... Ah shit! But I made the muthufuckuh twins with my ax 'fore I chopped off her muthuhfuckin' head ... and I swear on the Pope's faggot ass, that 'ho's head rolled on the rug and stucked out its tongue and winked at me like she had ran a game, played a dirty joke on me ... guess the bitch did ...

'I'm near 'bout ninety ... been locked up forty some years ... I ain't jivin', mebbe woulda let her slide if she'd been cheatin' with a nigguh, 'speshully a ugly nigguh ... just couldn't take the peckuhwood after what I'd took down South ... what I seen my poor Mama and Pappy take down there. Don't forgit son, that slut I kilt is the cause I'm here! So's lotsa more cons for sluts. So take a damn fool's advice and don't let Mis Reba dump ya in hot grease agin. Alla the pussy they is ain't worth a secon' in this cage.'