Handsome Harry Read Free Page A

of piss and shit. Of the guys I’d known who’d been in J-ville, only one had done time in solitary, and he said it was no big deal. He was right. They made you strip naked but they gave you a small blanket, and the cell was big enough to stretch out in. The door had a small window that admitted some of the hallway’s light, and there was a big can of drinking water, and at noon you got a plate of beans. That was a reformatory’s idea of harsh punishment—making you sleep on the floor and piss in a can, eat beans and be alone. It was nothing like the holes I’d heard about from guys who’d been in real joints like Joliet or Michigan City. I could’ve done a month in J-ville’s hole standing on my head.
    When I was let back into general population I had a lot of new friends. The three guys who’d ganged on me had been regarded as the toughest mugs in the place and they’d been lording it over most of the other inmates, who were glad to hear I’d settled their hash. Guys came around to introduce themselves and ask if I needed anything.
    One of the older fellows said he could set my busted nose, so I said go ahead. He positioned his thumbs on either side of my nose and told me to brace myself. It took him three tries to get it right and I couldn’t keep the tears from running down my face, but he did a good job. There you go, kid, he said, Handsome Harry rides again.
    The other guy who’d jumped me in the showers, the one who got away before the hacks showed up, was named Kruger. He’d been the leader and the one to make the crack about busting my cherry. I hadn’t been able to give him anything worse than a shiner and someloose teeth. Now he was being careful to keep his distance from me, and he kept a pair of goons at his side for protection. I affected indifference to him for more than a month before he started to lower his guard. Then one morning in the mess hall I made my move.
    At my signal, a handful of guys started a sham fight in the food line to draw the hacks over there and get everybody’s attention. Some other guys closed up around the two goons, blocking them off from Kruger, who was at the far edge of the crowd and up on tiptoes trying to get a look at the fight. I came up fast behind him and gave him a roundhouse to the kidney with all my might. He made a sound like he’d been stabbed and I was walking away as he fell. By the time they broke up the crowd and saw Kruger curled up on the floor I was already out in the yard.
    They took him to the hospital but there were complications and in another two days he was dead. Internal hemorrhaging, they said. Because the brass had no idea who’d done it or even how, they wrote it up as a factory accident in order to cover themselves.
    I’d heard that a kidney punch could be lethal but I’d had my doubts. I’d figured I would hurt him plenty but hadn’t expected to kill him. Still, I can’t say I was sorry when I got the word. I’ve never been given to casual use of vulgar language—unwarranted profanity implies mental laziness—but there’s no other way to say this: A guy tries to fuck me…well, fuck him.
    A few inmates had seen the whole thing, and the story got around J-ville fast, but nobody ever ratted me. Just like that, I was one of the top hardcases in the joint. Now even more guys were eager to get on my good side, including the two apes who’d been with Kruger.
    The trouble with a hardcase reputation, of course, is having to hold it against all comers. The toughest of them was a guy named Joe Pantano, a big curly-haired Wop out of Jersey. The day we slugged it out in the laundry even the hacks were laying down bets. The smart money was on me and it paid off. I broke Pantano’s nose, then put him down and cooled him with a kick that raised a knot big as aplum behind his ear. We both got a week in solitary, but I was now the top dog in the reformatory and everybody knew it. Only the occasional true fool ever took me on the rest of the