The Wicked Go to Hell Read Free Page B

through the interminable hours they lay, hands clasped behind their heads, gazing up at the dirt-encrusted blue night light and thought about their new situation.
    Sometimes they jumped when their mute cellmate choked in his sleep or when the clammy silence was ripped apart by the nocturnal screams which are common enough in over-crowded places.
    They did not exchange a word. From time to time they turned their heads towards each other and each caught the glitter of the whites of the other man’s eyes. Then they would turn over onto their backs and stare up at the ceiling, which was too high and had a barred air vent set into it. Its opening looked like a foul, malevolent mouth which mocked their predicament.
    At the far end of a secret universe an immense muffled roar pulsated—the ocean, which was close by. When dawn appeared through the bars of the vent, turning the night light pale, the two inmates sensed that the rumble of the waves would now die away. But in reality it was fatigue which dimmed the sounds around them. Both fell almost simultaneously into a trance-like slumber, which was not sleep but nevertheless transported them far from reality to a hazy zone that was iridescent and warm.
    *
    Shouts and the sound of measured footsteps dragged them out of their torpor.
    The Bull ran his stick along the bars of their cell as though they were the strings of a harp.
    “Time to shower!” he yelled.
    He thrust his bloated face against the bars.
    “Right, you new lads, settling down in our family boarding house, are you?”
    He unlocked the cell door and left it ajar.
    “Form up in lines! Hands behind your backs! And no talking, you dogs! Silence, or I’ll rattle your bones with my rib-tickler!”
    The mute was first out. He looked even more sallow here, under the corridor lights. His small rat’s eyes, with their mealy eyelashes, kept flickering. The Bull helped him on his way with a kick, as he did every day.
    He laughed out loud, proud of this miserable action, which he had brought to a pitch of perfection and wheeled out each morning with undiminished delight.
    The mute scuttled to the end of the line of prisoners, all waiting in gloomy silence for the order to move.
    Hal and Frank joined him.
    “Forward, march!”
    They moved off between an escort of armed warders. The shower room was located on the floor below.
    It was basic. There were twenty or so cubicles with neither doors nor curtains in a row running along one wall. The facilities for washing consisted of a shower head and an on–off control in the form of a pull chain.
    The prisoners undressed, hung their coarse canvas fatigueson a row of pegs and showered while the warders looked on and kept up a flow of jeers at their expense.
    Hal and Frank stripped to the skin with the rest of the men and stepped into adjacent cubicles. Through the steam filling the room, the prisoners were able to exchange a few words… Occasionally warders would bawl half-heartedly: “No talking!” The sound of splashing water was cheering and the punch of the warm water soothing.
    Hal peeked over the top of the partition separating him from his new friend.
    Frank spotted him.
    “Peeping Tom are you?” he asked.
    Hal gave a leering laugh and yanked the chain, which turned the water on. A stream of warm water rained down on his gleaming body.
    “You’re hardly marked about the body!” he called. “One bruise for effect, now that’s a classy touch!… You took most of it on your mug, because that’s where it shows most.”
    The water suddenly stopped flowing in the next cubicle and Frank was standing in front of him, shamelessly naked, with an angry crease on his forehead.
    “You’re not starting up on that same tack again, are you?”
    Hal’s eyes were flooded with water. He shook himself, released the shower chain and took one step forward.
    “Not starting, continuing… If you think I’m going to be fooled by your sordid little game, you’re making a big