paper.
I got a paper.
It’s a deal, son. Save that light, Hoskins, we got two hot babies comin up. Steady boy and watch her roll, save that tobacco while I get the coal.
Thanks, Timothy.
How long you in for, boy?
Thirty days flat.
Vaggin, pimpin, or hustlin?
Went through a red light with my eyes shut. Judge called it reckless driving.
Mighty reckless drivin. Now tell me the truth, boy.
I lifted a knife at Monkey Ward’s.
Ah hah. You tried to. Good knife?
Seven ninety-five plus tax.
Good, good, son. You shrewd like a chicken.
Butt, Timothy?
Butt me no butts. Already spoken for. Hoskins gets it. Rev’rend Hoskins on his Flyin Machine, waitin for Peter to open the door, got hog drunk and hit the floor.
Lay off it, Greene.
Never!
I’m tellin you.
Never!
Paul Bondi smiled as he listened, his hands clasped under his head, his body stretched out at full length on his steel bunk. A gray Navy blanket, a pad and a steel bunk for tonight. He lay watching the stripes of sunlight on the steel ceiling, listening to the others but thinking his own thoughts:
These fellows have something, he thought, have something which I lack. The vital impulse, along with their lice and bad-smelling itches and wino-red eyeballs. They—
Someone flushed a toilet; the powerful gasping explosion of water sent a wave of reverberations through the steel walls over the cement floor; the entire plumbing system strained and vibrated with the detonating ferocity of a heavy machinegun. Bondi could feel as well as hear the clangor and clamor of outraged steel; the vibrations passed in sine curves through his skull, vertebrae and the bones of his legs.
That plumbing, he thought—like a siege, jazzy and vigorous. Suction strong enough to drown a man. Why? Must be a reason. A reason for everything in the county jail. County jail is a thoroughly rational institution, is it not? What could ever take its place?
Crazy, man!
Crazy is right. See that ole cat there, steppin on his tongue, belly bulgin with beans—?
Fuller’n a tick—
That’s right, fuller’n a tick. Ole Hoskins, thass who; ole black-balled sonsabitch. Hoskins!
Ho?
Les hear tell about the man what ate electric eels to give the girls a charge.
Go long, man. You divin for Hell, talk like dat.
Rev’rend Hoskins is now gonna say a prayer for us all, poor sorry sinners like we is.
My butt, Timothy?
Take it and keep it, friend, or pass it on, as you please.
Thanks, Timothy. You can have my oatmeal in the morning.
Keep it, friend, I beg you.
Character or depravity, what does it matter? Under the aspect of eternity, so to speak? Now you’re talking like an old balding philosopher, tovarish. Watch that stuff. Keep it screened out. Serenity is for the gods—not becoming in a mortal. Better to be partisan and passionate on this earth; be plenty objective enough when dead.
Again the explosion of a flushing toilet and the barrage of anguish from the pipes; through bone and marrow the vibrations jittered, grinding down delicacy, grace, tact, the arts of sense and human concord. Forty men locked, barred and sealed in a cage of steel and cement. Forty bellies semi-bloated with gas, intestines packed with the residue of half-digested pinto beans. Long conversations lost in the shuddering roar and rattle of plumbing.
Sic transit gloria mundi
, he thought.
Think we’ll get a break tomorrow?
Quien sabe, cuate?
Well we should. They got men sleepin on the floor downstairs. Hate to think what she’ll be like come Saturday night.
Who said Saturday night is the lonesomest night?
They got worse jails. Ever been in the one at Juarez?
Ho, Jackson! Gimme light, man, light.
Oh I’m walkin to the river, gonna jump in, I can’t float and I can’t swim, but I’m an easy man… to drown. Cause my baby done leave me, yes my baby done leave me down. So I’m walkin to the river, gonna jump in and drown. And drown. And drown.
Flush that noise! Pass it on to Texas!
Go fly a kite on the
I got a paper.
It’s a deal, son. Save that light, Hoskins, we got two hot babies comin up. Steady boy and watch her roll, save that tobacco while I get the coal.
Thanks, Timothy.
How long you in for, boy?
Thirty days flat.
Vaggin, pimpin, or hustlin?
Went through a red light with my eyes shut. Judge called it reckless driving.
Mighty reckless drivin. Now tell me the truth, boy.
I lifted a knife at Monkey Ward’s.
Ah hah. You tried to. Good knife?
Seven ninety-five plus tax.
Good, good, son. You shrewd like a chicken.
Butt, Timothy?
Butt me no butts. Already spoken for. Hoskins gets it. Rev’rend Hoskins on his Flyin Machine, waitin for Peter to open the door, got hog drunk and hit the floor.
Lay off it, Greene.
Never!
I’m tellin you.
Never!
Paul Bondi smiled as he listened, his hands clasped under his head, his body stretched out at full length on his steel bunk. A gray Navy blanket, a pad and a steel bunk for tonight. He lay watching the stripes of sunlight on the steel ceiling, listening to the others but thinking his own thoughts:
These fellows have something, he thought, have something which I lack. The vital impulse, along with their lice and bad-smelling itches and wino-red eyeballs. They—
Someone flushed a toilet; the powerful gasping explosion of water sent a wave of reverberations through the steel walls over the cement floor; the entire plumbing system strained and vibrated with the detonating ferocity of a heavy machinegun. Bondi could feel as well as hear the clangor and clamor of outraged steel; the vibrations passed in sine curves through his skull, vertebrae and the bones of his legs.
That plumbing, he thought—like a siege, jazzy and vigorous. Suction strong enough to drown a man. Why? Must be a reason. A reason for everything in the county jail. County jail is a thoroughly rational institution, is it not? What could ever take its place?
Crazy, man!
Crazy is right. See that ole cat there, steppin on his tongue, belly bulgin with beans—?
Fuller’n a tick—
That’s right, fuller’n a tick. Ole Hoskins, thass who; ole black-balled sonsabitch. Hoskins!
Ho?
Les hear tell about the man what ate electric eels to give the girls a charge.
Go long, man. You divin for Hell, talk like dat.
Rev’rend Hoskins is now gonna say a prayer for us all, poor sorry sinners like we is.
My butt, Timothy?
Take it and keep it, friend, or pass it on, as you please.
Thanks, Timothy. You can have my oatmeal in the morning.
Keep it, friend, I beg you.
Character or depravity, what does it matter? Under the aspect of eternity, so to speak? Now you’re talking like an old balding philosopher, tovarish. Watch that stuff. Keep it screened out. Serenity is for the gods—not becoming in a mortal. Better to be partisan and passionate on this earth; be plenty objective enough when dead.
Again the explosion of a flushing toilet and the barrage of anguish from the pipes; through bone and marrow the vibrations jittered, grinding down delicacy, grace, tact, the arts of sense and human concord. Forty men locked, barred and sealed in a cage of steel and cement. Forty bellies semi-bloated with gas, intestines packed with the residue of half-digested pinto beans. Long conversations lost in the shuddering roar and rattle of plumbing.
Sic transit gloria mundi
, he thought.
Think we’ll get a break tomorrow?
Quien sabe, cuate?
Well we should. They got men sleepin on the floor downstairs. Hate to think what she’ll be like come Saturday night.
Who said Saturday night is the lonesomest night?
They got worse jails. Ever been in the one at Juarez?
Ho, Jackson! Gimme light, man, light.
Oh I’m walkin to the river, gonna jump in, I can’t float and I can’t swim, but I’m an easy man… to drown. Cause my baby done leave me, yes my baby done leave me down. So I’m walkin to the river, gonna jump in and drown. And drown. And drown.
Flush that noise! Pass it on to Texas!
Go fly a kite on the
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