“Heard you knew about the shipment, and you moved it, player.” The right side of Lopez’s mouth turned up as he spoke to me before Chester came in.
He’d just walked into the door with his hands balled into fists. The washing machines whirred around us as I finished folding my laundry. No other people were in the laundry room at that time. In jail, that was usually a no-no. Witnesses were needed for everything. Otherwise, it didn’t happen. I calmly picked up one of the white sheets from the dirty laundry basket and wrapped it around my hand.
My back tensed up as Lopez circled. I let my peripheral vision govern his footwork.
“Oh yeah? Where you hear that? Because I don’t have anything to do with your little operation,” I replied slowly.
“I know you’re not about to do nothing with that sheet. I fucking know you’re not.”
Lopez closed the laundry door behind him. I heard the lock click as he moved a step toward me. I bent my knees and hunched in position. I scanned his body for weapons. He spat out a razor from the side of his mouth. It shot right into his hand. He held up the gleaming piece of metal and grinned.
“See this? This here is what I got for boys like you.”
He looked away briefly but lunged at the same time, trying to catch me unaware. I retracted my head back as the breeze from his swing tried to connect with my face. I let out a whooshing sound. I circled with him, and we started to dance.
“Snow told me you slashed his face. So you think you’re gonna do that to me?” I teased. My hands hung low on both sides, and I stretched my fingers out, ready to pop him in the jaw. I looked at his body. It was wide open.
“That’s right, bitch. Now it’s your turn.”
Lopez lunged. I saw the metal pass the right side of my face. I bumped into the side of the washing machine, and the edge jabbed me in the side. I held it for a quick minute.
Lopez grinned as his eyes narrowed. He swiped again, and this time, I tunneled my left fist into his lower intestine. He coughed as the impact made him draw up into himself and set him back a few feet.
“How do you like that? Huh? I fucking told you I ain’t got nothing to do with your drugs.”
He yelped, “You bastard.”
He staggered, and I thought that would be the last of it. He put his foot out near my left leg, and my foot came out from under me. I fell on one knee to the ground. I tried to stabilize with one hand, but I wasn’t quick enough. He ran the razor across the edge of my neck. My reflexes made it so that it was just a nick, but I felt the blood trickle down my throat. The red shadow of rage pounded behind my eyes, sending me into overdrive. I burrowed my head into his stomach, blasting him into the back of the washing machine on the other side of the room.
I felt the air run out of his lungs as he slumped to the ground, and the razor fell to the concrete slab. The siren went off, and my eyes flew to the camera in the corner. I quickly approached the door to leave, but on the other side was Chester. He put his hand out.
“Stop right there! What the fuck is going on?” He took one look at Lopez slumped in the corner and one at me.
“I was defending myself! I swear.”
He came straight for me and laced me in a chokehold. “You’re going to simmer down in solitary confinement, Outlaw. This is my prison, and we don’t let shit like that fly.”
That was my first-year introduction. I would never forget it.
Now, one stationary camera in the back left hand side focused on the yard’s activity. Not all thirty men came to the yard. Some others went to the common area, a dilapidated room the size of two living rooms and not enough space for a thousand inmates to congregate. That’s too much testosterone for one area. I wanted to get some sets in and talk to some of the old-timers in the yard.
I strolled over to Austin, who was holding the barbell for another guy. Austin was a tough Mexican in his sixties but strong as an ox. His eyes and ears were to the ground in the prison, and he knew everything. I placed the barbell back in its slot as the guy lifted his head off the bench.
Austin, with his scrappy gray beard and bald head, smiled a lopsided grin as I came toward him.
“Hey, young buck. How are you holding up?” He raised his bushy brow at me as he adjusted his gloves.
I pointed at him. “Stay right there. I want to talk to you about something. I need a spot, too.”
Austin nodded and waited until I got under the bar. “You want to know how you can get a message to Frank, right?” He leaned over the bar and turned back to the guard.
“Damn straight,” I said as I flattened my back against the bench with my feet firmly on the ground.
“Okay. What’s the message, young buck?” Austin knew my weights and slid the heavy steel plates on either end of the bar.
“No message. I need face to face. That’s my Outlaw brother. I know he’s coming out of the hole from last month. That place will send you to your grave early.”
Austin’s grave laugh rang out. “You got that right. Solitary is the place for no one. If your mind doesn’t get you, the rats will. Can’t see your food, either, when they slide it through the hole. They probably spit in it. Many have hung themselves down there. You learned to stay away from Lopez, though others might not have. His sole mission was to send inmates to solitary, and if he viewed you as a threat, he started trouble deliberately. The guards were in on it, too. That’s why Chester knew when to come in like he did. You’re not special. It’s their one-two combination. I’m glad that sorry son of a bitch got transferred.”
“Me too. He was out to get me from the jump. He knew I was an Outlaw.”
“Uh-huh,” Austin responded in recognition.
I shook my head as I felt the weight bear down on me. My arms shook with the new test of the extra weight that Austin had added this time.
“That’s it. Hold it. You got it. Lower down slow. Let’s go. I’m testing you today.”
I sucked in and exhaled on the push up. At three-quarters of the way up, Austin took the weight. He threw me the towel to wipe my face.
“So you ain’t a snitch, huh?” he asked.
“Nope. That’s not how we do it in the Outlaws. Got me five years, but I just have to keep my nose clean for the next six months, you know?”
“Could have been no years. Vlad made a situation for you. Frank told me.”
“I know, but now he owes me. No better situation than to be in the driver’s seat.”
“That depends on you making it out of here alive. Now, let me tell you something. These jerks can smell when you’re about to get close to being let out. They’re going to try and rock you, to make it hard. They’ll try to corner you and get more stacked on your sentence. I wouldn’t be coming out to the yard anymore if I were you. Just lay low.”
Austin lifted the weight down on my chest again as I set up for the second set. He lowered as my arms burned from the lactate build-up. I inhaled on the drop and exhaled, straining hard on the lift. Austin put his fingertips under and didn’t lift the burden. I thought the weight would drop on my chest.
“C’mon now. Quit being a pussy. You got it in you. C’mon.”
I grunted with the last drop of force I had, lifting the bar an inch higher. Austin assisted from there.
“There you go. We’ll make one out of you yet.”