Keeplock: A Novel of Crime Read Free Page A

the big, bad city. They cover their fear with macho bullshit.
    “Can’t go over there, sir.” I said, trying to sound subservient and firm at the same time, which is a good trick. “That’s not my line, sir.”
    I accepted the fact that Camille would write a ticket and I’d be hit with a two-week keeplock, but I’d been confined to my cell before and the punishment didn’t particularly frighten me.
    Then he shoved me. “Get in the other line, you piece of shit.”
    Goodbye freedom , I thought, here comes the box . The box and the beating that goes with it.
    I shoved him back. There was nothing else I could do. Not with a hundred cons watching me. But instead of clubs and fists, Sergeant Paul Cartier, one of the oldest guards in the Institution and Jack Camille’s uncle, stepped between us.
    “You’re in trouble, Frangello,” he said to me as he led his nephew away.
    Then I noticed that the cons on both lines were stirring. There aren’t many freedoms for prisoners, but those we have, including racism, are jealously guarded. Cartier hadn’t stepped in to protect me. He was trying to prevent what the administration likes to call a “disturbance.” As the ranking C.O., he was responsible for the dining area, and he wasn’t about to let an asshole like Jack Camille start a riot.
    I got my two weeks’ keeplock. Two weeks in my cell doing a thousand push-ups a day, reading magazines, drinking prison hooch smuggled in by my crew. No big deal, like I said. After I came out, Camille and a few of his buddies tried to put the heat on me, cursing me and ordering me about. Only now I was allowed the privilege of not reacting. Once the heat was official, once I was a target, obedience was honorable. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but, then again, it’s not the world, either. After a few weeks, the C.O.’s grew bored and moved on to some other amusement.
    Camille shuffled through my folder, shaking his head. He had deep blue, redneck eyes and blond hair cut to within an inch of his scalp. In the summer he rolled his shirtsleeves up far enough to show the black swastika tattooed on his shoulder. “Hey, Frangello,” Camille finally said, “you buying a round-trip bus ticket? Says here you ain’t been out of jail more than three straight years since you were sixteen.”
    I didn’t answer. This was my day to return to the world.
    He shook his head slowly. “I know I live in a fucked-up society when I have to release a piece of shit like you. Damn, I feel like a traitor to my country signing these papers.”
    “I’m not coming back.”
    I knew it was a mistake as soon as I said it. Camille laughed until snot ran out of his nose. Then he wiped his face on the back of his sleeve and lit a cigarette. “What I’d like to do is put out this butt in the middle of your face. Make a mark so the world can see you coming. Like a sign: SCUM WARNING . Whatta you think about that, 83A4255?”
    We were alone in Camille’s office. No witnesses. And I knew that a prisoner would have to commit a major, major offense to be remanded on the day of his release. My answer was cold and calculated. At that moment, I hated Camille more than the life I’d led for thirty-eight years.
    “Why don’t you cut the bullshit, Camille, and sign the fucking papers?”
    “What did you say?”
    “What I said is that you’re a chickenshit faggot and the only place you’ve got the balls to put that cigarette is in your cunt mouth.” His face reddened, matching the ordinary color of his neck. “You’ll be back, Frangello. You ain’t been straight for ten minutes in your whole miserable life. I already sent out a letter to your parole officer. You’re a piece of shit and you’re gonna get violated the first time you spit on the sidewalk.” He paused, managed a wet smirk. “Personally, I can’t wait to welcome you home.”

THREE
    T HERE’S NO WAY TO describe what it feels like to step out into the open air after a long incarceration.