The Twelve-Fingered Boy by John Hornor Jacobs

guards the League of Jerkwads. It’s pretty obvious they want a general pop fight, but fights just don’t happen that often ever since Big Paulie got shipped to the Farm.
    All except Red Wolf. He doesn’t want fights. He wants followers.
    Red Wolf has a group of titty-babies on the smaller court, trying to teach them tribal dances. He ain’t a real Indian, despite the fact he’s holding court in full tribal garb, feathers and leathers and tomahawk and everything. He’s a self-proclaimed phony Indian, which shouldn’t make sense, but it does. He’s bald, rail-thin, and polite to ward and guard alike. It’s hard to tell how old he is.
    I like him. He ain’t Booth. He rolled up on me once, early in my career, when he was just dressed as a guard and not in some Indian costume. He’s faster than he looks. He nabbed the sack with the sweets I was handing off, popped it open, then handed it over to the mark. He sniffed. “Ephemeral, boys. But your body is your body. You can pump all the junk in it you want.”
    In the yard, he moves through some prancing, horselike steps. The wards with him follow slowly, clumsily. They look at us, terrified, as we pass. Red Wolf waves at us and beckons, but I say to Jack, “Ignore him. He’s trying to get them to transcend or find their totem animal or nonsense like that. He wants them to fly or something.”
    â€œSounds fun.”
    Jack marches off toward the court and Red Wolf.

    â€œIt not just your spirit, boys,” Red Wolf says when we get close. “It’s how your spirit is connected to your body and not connected to your body. We’re all chained to our bodies, chained to the earth, incarcerado.”
    He turns to face the boys. He’s in full Indian regalia: eagle feathers, leather with tassels, turquoise stuff I can’t even recognize. But his baldness throws off the effect. He looks like a white man in a costume.
    â€œI hear you boys say that, talking to each other. Incarcerado. Being locked up. But it doesn’t mean that at all. You know what it means?”
    The titty-babies look around sheepishly—at Red Wolf, at Jack, at me, then at themselves.
    Jack says, “Meat? Like carne asada? Like … um … your body.”
    â€œNo. But it’s interesting you’d say that. You’re locked into your own personal meat prison, when your spirit wants to fly. What’s your name, son?”
    â€œJack. Jack Graves.”
    Part of me feels relieved not to be the object of a bull’s attention. I’m glad Booth is gone and it’s a Saturday and I’m not holding and there’s nothing to worry about. Part of me is maybe just a bit jealous of the attention Red Wolf is giving Jack. But then I think of Quincrux and … well … then I’m cool with not getting all the attention.
    Red Wolf turns to the other wards gathered on the basketball court. The sounds of basketballs dribbling, grunts, and catcalls from the other court fall away, and Red Wolf is there, in the center of it all, talking.
    â€œThey can lock up your body, but they can never lock up your spirit.” He walks over to Raphael Santos, a meek little dude from two doors down on B Wing, and puts a finger on Raphael’s chest. Red Wolf taps once, to make his point. “They can control your body.” He raises his finger to Raphael’s head and lightly, gently, puts his fingertip right in the center of Raphael’s forehead. “They can’t touch what’s in here. Nothing can. What’s in there can soar. Can rise up and shuck off this body, shuck off this detention center, and join with other spirits. It can ascend.”
    Red Wolf stops and bows his head. I want to laugh, it’s such an obvious bit of theatrics. Red Wolf snaps back to us, turns around, doing the whole group eye-contact bit they must teach in church or college or wherever he learned it, and then claps his