You Believers (41 page)

Now Jesse looked up at the ceiling. He thought of Mike. He should have guessed Mike would turn on him. Jesse would get out of this mess, and Mike would go down. Jesse had already been asking if anybody knew Mike Carter, little baby-faced, punk-ass bitch. Nobody claimed to know him, but when Jesse put together enough money for a hit, they’d be lining up. Jesse whispered, “Hey, Mike, I know where your granny lives.” He lay there waiting for the sounds of Fat Mack below sinking into his sleep.

When he thought about Mike, that juice ran in his blood like electricity sparking, and he had to move. He needed to get up, but he hated the way Fat Mack’s eyes stayed on him when he walked around the cell. Jesse clenched his jaw, released. Clenched his fists. His hands ached from all the pulling of those tobacco leaves.
Fuck this
. He clenched his arms, released. Legs. Released. Then his whole body clenched, five counts, released. The clenching, releasing, it helped. He listened. The snoring was steady now.

Jesse slid to the floor. Checked Fat Mack’s face. Jesse crouched down to do his push-ups. He locked his legs, held his weight on his
toes and his palms. He lowered slowly, then up, and down, and up. They worked his ass off out in that tobacco field, but if he didn’t stay at his push-ups, sit-ups, he’d get soft. Hell, look at Fat Mack. They worked him all day, tying bags on the flower heads of those tobacco plants so they’d go to seed. They worked him, and he was still fat, a puddle of a man spreading out wherever he sat.
Not me
, Jesse thought, feeling the sweat break as he pumped up and down.

Fat Mack coughed, and Jesse stood, looked down at those gray eyes, the one drooping. They said he’d had a stroke once. Good God, he was an ugly man. He grinned, only half his face moving. “You look like you’re fucking something.” He shook his head. “A man’s a sad case when he gotta try and fuck a floor.”

Jesse stared down at him, thinking how good it would feel to kick Fat Mack in the mouth. Jesse grinned. “Shit, I get all the pussy I want.”

Fat Mack pulled himself up. He smiled. “Yeah, you so bad, ain’t you.”

Jesse sat on the metal bench bolted to the floor, heard the buzz that reverberated off the walls, signaling that another hour had passed. They weren’t allowed to have watches, clocks. One hour was as good as another. “Fuck this,” Jesse said.

Fat Mack said, “What? What’s the ‘fuck this’ for this time?”

“I don’t like not knowing what time it is.”

Fat Mack shifted. Jesse hated the way every time the man made a move, there had to be this breathing sound. “Well, that buzzer you just heard, it said that it’s one more hour before lunch. Then the next buzzer will say lunch, and the next means time to get back out in the fields.”

Jesse looked at his hands, blistered and the nails caked with tar. “What happened to the idea of convicts making license plates?”

“This ain’t the movies. You in cotton county, tobacco row.”

Jesse picked at his nail. “I ain’t no slave.”

Fat Mack made a coughing, laughing sound. “Yeah, you are.”

Jesse dug a little tar loose from under his nail, flicked it to the floor. “Ought to at least give us gloves.”

Fat Mack shook his head. “It’s a work farm. Ain’t your momma’s rose garden.”

Jesse gave him a look. How’d he know his momma had a rose garden? He went back to his hands, thinking of her garden, her special gardening gloves, her shears, her hat. She always had the right tools for everything she took on. Except Jesse. Jesse stood, walked a few steps across the cell, gave Fat Mack a glance. “I hate being watched.”

“I know,” Fat Mack said.

Jesse went back to the bench, sat down. He looked at Fat Mack. “I hear you like to cut. Get right between the ribs, and the air goes like a busted balloon. I hear you don’t even blink.” Fat Mack said nothing, just watched him with that flat-concrete gaze. It was the kind of face a stupid man could fall into, trying to get some kind of meaning out of it. “I get it,” Jesse said. “You don’t need to say nothing.”

“You want me to tell my business so you can tell your shit. I ain’t interested. You think you’re the first one to fuck up a gal?”

“You don’t know me. I’m one bad fucker. I’m—”

Fat Mack raised his hand. “Don’t say it. Jesus, God. I know
you
the devil boy.”

“All right,” Jesse said. “Forget it.” He hated it when Fat Mack called him devil boy, but he’d let him have it. He knew it’d be useful to have a partner if he wanted to make a break. And nobody wanted to mess with Fat Mack. They said he could run like a rhino. With the tobacco plants a good five to six feet high, it’d be nothing to disappear in the leaves. If there was more than one running, the guards wouldn’t have a single target. It’d be useful to create a little confusion
in the leaves. Jesse chewed at his nail, trying to get a little bit more of the tar out. He looked at Fat Mack watching him. “It true you move fast as a rhino when you’ve got the need?”

Fat Mack shrugged. “It’s what they say.” He grinned.

Jesse had to look away from that face. “I hear that’s how you slip the shank in. Nobody expects you to move that fast.”

“It’s called a knife. Only in here do they call it a shank. Ain’t ever been nothing but a knife to me.”

Jesse kept his eyes on his hands. “I’m planning on a way to run free of this place. Down at the end of the field, there’s a little dip in the land. I figure if you run through the tobacco plants, they can’t get a clear view to shoot. They might see movement, but they can’t see exactly where you are. If you can get down to that little dip in the land, there’s a good twenty yards they can’t see nothing from where they stand guard in the field.”

“They don’t stand guard,” Fat Mack said. “The guards sit high on those horses. I do believe sitting high on those horses gives them a better view of those little dips in the land. And those guards think nothing of kicking a horse in the ribs to make it run. They’d be right on you before you got a chance to cry to momma for help.”

Jesse kept talking. “I’m saying you run
through
the tobacco plants—I don’t mean run down those nice clean rows where the horses can chase you down easy. You keep your head down and run across the rows of plants. The horses, I’ve watched them, they don’t like the smack of those leaves. They always back off a little when a guard tries to take them straight through those rows. The ground goes uneven where the plants rise, and those leaves, they can smack.”

“And I guess you have no trouble running in ninety-degree heat while getting whipped by those leaves.”

Jesse shrugged. “Pain is a passing thing, man. I can take that.” He looked at Fat Mack, who kept his eyes dead while he slowly, just
barely shook his head. Jesse studied his hands as if the plan were right there. “I’ll get past that,” Jesse said. “Keep running until I’m clear of the leaves to that dip in the land. And I know just half a mile west is a river, and I’m home free once I hit that river.”

“Home free,” Fat Mack said. “Like it’s some ball game out there.”

“I’m just saying I’ve heard some have broke and run from this place. Why not me? I’m fast. And you could break with me.”

Fat Mack lifted his head a little, his eyes on Jesse like he was coming into clearer focus. “So you want a diversion, a big diversion while you make your run for the river.”

“Nah, man. It’s not like I need you. I just heard you can run, so maybe you’d want to run with me.”

Fat Mack leaned back into his bunk, his eyes fixed on Jesse. He laughed while his eyes stayed dead. Then he broke into coughing and just coughed and breathed until he got steady. He shook his head. “Nah, it’s not like you need me. You’ll just disappear into those leaves ‘cause you’re the devil. You can outrun anything.” He struggled to sit up again, farted, not a sound, but the smell came creeping out.

Fat Mack grinned. “You break from the line, devil boy, they’ll be on you like flies on shit. And you seem to underestimate those rifles. The guards on the horses, they the fucking elite squad. Cowboys. Marksmen. You think those guards don’t practice, you think they don’t sit up there just hoping for a chance to get a round off at one of you idiots thinking you can run? I’ve seen them at the end of the day—while we’re heading in to eat, they go out to the fields for a little target practice.” Fat Mack paused, looked Jesse in the face. “Hell, man, you’ve heard them out there, firing at the plants we’ve bagged. Plants six feet tall with these canvas bags tied on top, looking like a row of scarecrow heads out there in the fields. They do it for entertainment. Getting ready for the real thing. Like you on the
run. Once I saw how they like shooting those things, I told them, ‘Give me a marker and I draw a face on those bags for you once I tie up those flower heads.’ They like that. Feels like they’re blasting a man’s face off when they take aim.”

“Those bagged plants can’t run,” Jesse said. “They planted in the dirt. Ain’t nothing to hit something standing still. And I can run. I’m the—”

Fat Mack drew up, looked at Jesse and raised his finger. “Don’t need to try to convince me with that devil bullshit. I see what you are.”

“You don’t know half what I’ve done. If you knew, you’d know I’m not just some other asshole sitting in your cell.”

Fat Mack settled back. “All right. Every man’s got to tell his story. That’s why I hate a cellmate. You been trying to tell me since you walked in here. Tell me about the other one. You so damned proud of it. You led her out in that field like a lamb to slaughter. You know how fucking cliché that is?”

“I did. She walked right out of that truck. She stopped, and I said, ‘Don’t you want to get high with me?’

“‘Sure,’ she said. So she came over, stood right next to me. I could see she was shaking, so I smiled, lit up, offered her the joint. She reached. I let it drop to the ground. She bent for it, and I grabbed her up by the neck and squeezed.” He looked at Fat Mack. He had his attention all right. “The little bones in her neck popped like bubble wrap.” Fat Mack nodded. “I threw her down, looked up, and even the trees seemed to be shaking. Little brown birds flying away. I scared the trees, the birds, even scared the fucking worms under my feet.”

Fat Mack smiled. “I guess the devil could do such things.”

“I finished smoking that joint. And she stared up the way dead things do. Then I noticed her neck; it was so white, little blue veins. I had her knife in my pocket, a little pocketknife. What did she
think she could do with that? I made a swipe on her neck with the blade. Just a thin red line barely. And I told you I like to make things bleed.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that.”

“Mike, he was hollering, ‘Ain’t you done yet?’ He was hiding behind a clump of trees. I told him to bring me something to finish her off. Made him bring me a screwdriver. Then he ran. I looked back to the dead girl. A black-and-yellow butterfly was on her hair, just sitting there. Can you believe that?”

Fat Mack nodded.

“So I smacked it away and stabbed at her neck with this big old screwdriver.

“I finally just got tired. Couldn’t get Mike to help me drag her up under some bushes. I couldn’t leave her out in that field. I needed time before somebody found her. So pussy Mike, he just stayed behind those trees, and I had to drag her myself. I looked for a good spot to dump her, saw a big butterfly going at some purple flowers like it didn’t given a damn about me. So I threw her right there. I took a few steps back. All you could see was some trash scattered, those bushes, and some trees.” He looked at Fat Mack to make sure he was listening, but his eyes were still up on that flickering fluorescent light. “You ever notice how easy it can be to make a thing disappear?”

“Yep,” Fat Mack said.

“So I’m standing there, feeling like it’s a good day, and then I feel someone watching. I look across the field and see a pair of deer. A mother and her fawn, standing still, ears twitching. I raised my hand like a gun, said, ‘Pow.’ And they didn’t flinch. I told them, ‘You ought to be scared of me,’ and they stood staring. Can you believe that?”

Fat Mack kept his eyes on the light above, but he nodded.

“They watched,” Jesse said. “They weren’t even scared. I hate
something watching me.” Jesse picked at the tar under his nails. He was thinking it was a good story; at least it was when he remembered the way she’d trembled, the way she’d walked right to him, the way her neck had popped like bubble wrap. He thought it made a good story. But when he looked at Fat Mack, he was just leaning back with his eyes closed, like the only thing on his mind was going to sleep. “So what you think?”

Fat Mack opened his eyes, said, “I think you about to be a dead man. You got a little too much pride for one boy.”

Jesse stood. He went to the door as if that could give him some kind of safety from Fat Mack. “Well, it didn’t go perfect. It went so fast I forgot to fuck her. Didn’t even get her ring.”

“I ain’t talking about that. There’s too much of that shit in the world to hear any more about it. You think you something ’cause you can choke some girl. Cut up another. You think that’s something ain’t been done a thousand times before?”

Jesse looked at his hands. He’d never get clean of that tar, not in here. He hated shit under his nails. “I gotta get out of here,” he said.

Fat Mack leaned forward. “You might think you can run like the devil through tobacco plants. But those guards, they been getting ready for some cocky son of a bitch like you. You go running through that field, no matter how fast you think you going, some guard sitting high on his horse gonna get a bead on you, put a bullet through the back of your head before you know what hit.”

Jesse shook his head. “Nah, I got a plan.” He didn’t tell Fat Mack that he’d been practicing running low to the ground, moving fast along those rows of plants. He wouldn’t take a straight line but zigzag, keep them wondering where he’d go next. It would be a better plan to have Fat Mack out in that field. They’d go first for the fat man who moved like a rhino. Be easier to hit his fat ass.

“You got a plan,” Fat Mack said, grinning.

“Think about it,” Jesse said. “When we take a water break, all that’s on anybody’s mind is getting a drink, taking a piss. They loosen up then.”