Biding Time
*not mine. Author: Joni_Slade. Credit to her and characters from AIO*
In the end, it was the long shot Jake Baumberger who got dropped into solitary for putting his foot through the TV set.
Which means I didn’t win either of my bets, so no sundaes or coffees added to my tally, but the entertainment value of this whole exercise was worth fifty sundaes and coffees.
For one thing, the TV is up high, on a shelf in the corner of the weight room, right near the ceiling. Monday night when I sabotaged it, I had to drag a weight bench over just so I could see the back of it. I never imagined anyone would kick the thing. Oh, I thought F(ph)at Weasel might take it out of commission with that impressive right jab he’s always jawing about, or maybe Lowell “Edge” Edgefield would toss a dumbell at it, sure. Jake must have been doing too much Tae-Bo if his first reaction was kicking the screen in.
Am I losing you, boys and girls? Let me go back to Monday night, the night before Jake Baumberger got himself dubbed Bootglass. (On account of the glass flying when he kicked the TV. Don’t blame me for the name; F(ph)at Weasel’s the one who made it up.)
All right, so first, I had to wait until the weight room emptied out for the evening. It took awhile-I swear, I was up to my twenty-seventh set of delft flies, standing there waiting for people to leave. F(ph)at Weasel turned off the fan on his way out-the guy has an unspoken monopoly on the fan. Finally, nobody left was paying any attention to the TV--the stragglers were only there to avoid dinner. Hey, you would, too, on a Monday-unless maybe you like the unevenly heated mush of leftover meat product they have the gall to call “Campbell Chili”.
I’d planned my moment. On weight room guard that night was one Dameon State, proud of his Master’s in Music, stuck as a prison guard since the local econ went south. He can’t move, though, ‘cause his wife likes her kid’s school telling her that her kid is going to be in their Specially and Interestingly Gifted program once he gets old enough. (Hey, if you lived here, you’d know the guards’ life stories, too.) Suffice it all to say, State thinks he’s overqualified, which means he never does his job.
So I waited until he was giving the ceiling a long-suffering look, and then I threw my weights to the floor, strode up to the TV, and did my best imitation of that Yeti Yell I heard on Art Bell one night. (Once again, if you lived here, you’d seize any opportunity for entertainment, too.) State rolled his eyes and sauntered up to me, but by the time he got close, I’d turned off the TV, pulled a weight bench closer, and leapt on top.
“What’s the matter, Jellyfish?” He sounded bored.
“What’s the matter? Are you blind, State?”
Insults slide off him like rain off an umbrella. The guy spends every minute he’s here pretending that he’s not.
“No, Jellyfish. I can see that you’re distraught. Now tell me what’s the problem before I report you to Mister Grange.”
State believes in other people dealing with his problems. How like him to threaten me with authority.
“Yeah, well, it’s this TV here. The screen’s been flickering. It gave me a migraine, I swear.”
State blinked slowly. “So you kept watching?”
“Whatever, I have to fix it.” I reached up and turned the TV around. It wouldn’t move far without the cords coming loose, but that was fine for my purposes. I fiddled with things.
I’m not going to tell you what I did. Frankly, I don’t know if I can. I’m just especially good at breaking things. It’s a natural skill. God-given, you might say. I can tell what the essential part of a mechanism is, take that out, and destroy the whole thing. Oh, I’m also capable of out-and-out destruction, but subtlety is important when you’re in jail.
I shoved the TV back into place and pressed the “on” button. To my satisfaction, it looked just like it had before.
“Is it still flickering?” State asked me.
“No, man,” I said, pointing.
State wouldn’t look at it. He thinks TV rots the brain. “Good.” He said, and strolled back to his post.
At the cafeteria that night, the Kid plopped down across from me, eyes wide. “What did you do to the TV?” he whispered loudly.
I sat grimacing down at my dinner. Under the table, I jabbed my knife into one of the screws holding the table up. They give us the kind of knives you can bend in one hand, you know, the ones that are almost as sharp as a sponge, but the tables are cheaply made so it’s relatively easy to work the screws loose. This would be the third one I’d removed from this table; no one had noticed that it’d started to lean.
“Come on, tell me, Jellyfish!” the Kid leaned forward eagerly.
He’s in here for downloading a copyrighted mp3 or something. In way, way, over his head. He’s from some part of the country where they use “brisk” as a synonym for “cool,” and he says “copacetic” a lot when he’s nervous. Frankly, I don’t know how he’s survived a whole week in here. It’s funny to watch him come up against the other guys-they don’t know what to make of him. They haven’t experienced that kind of innocence since before they were born. The Kid is the kind of guy Maxwell would have taken under his lofty wing, if Maxwell was still in here. Not out of the goodness of his heart; don’t ever let him fool you. It's just that manipulating people is Richard Maxwell’s favorite pastime, right up there with shooting pool and salivating over computer code. The more inculpable the prey, the better as far as he’s concerned.
“Listen, Kid,” I began. I can never remember his name-Brian or Byron or Blaine, or something (but not Billy-that would be far too interesting). “You didn’t see me do nothing to the TV.” I shifted my weight, which sent the table tilting in his direction. If I pulled the screw out now, the whole table would probably fall over on him. I restrained myself because I didn’t want to see his plate of Campbell Chili spread over his orange jumpsuit.
“Yeah, but I did,” the Kid said. “You turned it around and did something to the wiring.”
“What’s it to you?”
The Kid shrugged. “Just wondering.”
“Well stop wondering.”
I had to wait for him to finish his dinner, which he did, sulkily. Finally, after he’d left and my table was empty, I stood up, twisted the knife one final time, and caught the screw that fell out. Into my sock it went. It might be useful later.
I bet you’re hoping for a rewind, huh? You want to know why I messed with the TV? It was the Kid’s fault. Nah, it was Edge and F(ph)at Weasel’s.
Monday morning weight time. Edge and Weasel nabbed the benches closest to the TV. If someone were to offer either one of them freedom, with the condition that they could never watch Days of the Sands of Our Lives again, both would elect to stay here. Maybe that’s laughable, but both of them are in for assault, and they’re too big and mean-tempered for anyone to say a word of derision about their TV viewing habits. New inmates learn fast-Edge has an awfully short fuse, and is the most hypersensitive person I’ve ever encountered. Weasel takes longer to rile up, but he’s studied like twenty kinds of martial arts and is actually pretty good. (He spells the first part of his name P-H-A-T. I can’t bring myself to spell it like that, but on the other hand, he’s kind of a wiry guy, so spelling it F-A-T makes me uneasy. I’m honest in my diligent record keeping.)
So there I was in the corner benching away the morning, with the Kid hovering behind as a spotter, when I heard the show’s theme start to play: sappy keyboards and synthetic violins. A few of the guys nearby grumbled, but no one was stupid enough to change the channel.
“Oh, Jellyfish,” the Kid gushed in a falsetto. “Today we’re finally going to learn where Buff Trimble has been all these years.”
I cracked a smile. This was the first time I’d heard the Kid tell a joke, but it only made me realize that I’d been thinking just the same thing. Buff Trimble, already stricken with a made-up terminal disease, had disappeared over Mongolia the last time I was in jail-a good chunk of years ago. (Edge was already in here back then, so I’d had to watch it then, too.) I’d tried desperately to forget the show while I was out, but since coming back, I’ve been subjected to it daily. Buff Trimble returned to the show at the end of last Friday’s episode, sparking Edge and Weasel’s endless dialogue over the weekend about where he’d been.
For your listening enjoyment, Sunday night’s dinner conversation:
Edge: Buff always got along with everyone. Maybe he took up with some nomads who cured his hypochridondria.
Weasel: That’s hyperchridondria, you bonehead.
Edge: [looks huffy]
Weasel: [doesn’t notice] Hey, no way, man. Buff’s too independent for that. Prolly walked to the nearest city, learned their language, found a job, and conquered the hyperchridondria by deep Eastern meditation or something.
Me: What are you talking about? Didn’t you see how he looked when he showed up on Lacy’s doorstep? He’s still sick. He’s inches away from death.
Then I stopped short, having realized that I’d just participated in a serious conversation about a soap opera character named Buff Trimble. I thought about Maxwell then and what he’d say if he knew. The only semi-friendly conversations we’d ever had had been one or two lines quoted from this show, always sort of shouted at each other in passing. I guess they were more aggressive than affable, considering they were lines like: “this time, your memory is never coming back” and “the next time you die in a freak yachting accident, you’re going to stay dead”. I’ve said it before, man-if you lived here, you’d do it too. There is nothing else in the world like the boredom you’ll find here at the CCDC. (Say it with me now: “CCDC.” Come on, say it three times fast. You know you want to.)
Jail just hasn’t been the same without Maxwell. For one thing, this time around there’s not a worthy adversary to be found. Not to say that Maxwell was particularly worthy-now and then the guy was practically disabled by guilt. And he was desperate to get out of here and get revenge or closure or something-a desperation that made him weak. He could never go after me for anything I did to him, too afraid of getting caught.
All he could do was glare. Guy has a glare that could make a charging rhinoceros turn around and flee in the opposite direction, over lava that said glare had already frozen. If looks could kill, it’d be R.I.P. Jellyfish, fifty times over. And Maxwell was smart-could always tell I was the one setting him up. Not like the rest of these dunderheads. I’m in with the small-time criminals--not a mastermind to be found. This situation owing to the fact that I was only convicted for vandalism and beating up some kid. No conspiracy to commit murder charge, no hint to the judge that that even happened. Blackgaard was dead, Bovril didn’t want to incriminate himself . . . Glossman, come to think of it, probably squealed, but who would have listened?
I heard that Maxwell survived his little swan dive off the cliff. I heard he can still walk. But he hasn’t pressed charges. I’m a little paranoid about what his vengeful streak has in store for me when I get out. Nothing I can’t handle, but you’ve got to wonder. Part of me hopes that he went all self-righteous after surviving the cliff-hop, you know, like he converted into one of those Odyssey clowns, forgiving and forgetting. The thought makes me crack up. Yeah, right.
Okay, back to Monday morning in the weight room. So I was sitting there watching the opening credits of this insipid show, and I thought, This has got to stop. I could feel my brain leaking out through my ears like jelly.
Speaking of jelly-Jelly, meet Fish. He’s giving you 2 to 1 odds that Edge will flip out more than Weasel if they have to miss their show.
It was the Kid who first pointed out that I have two personalities. He’d been here for three days and, astute observer of human nature that he plainly is, told me so.
“Dude, man, Jellyfish, right? Brisk name. I was wondering, can I sit here?”
It was the first day I’d been working on unscrewing the table, so I was a little busy. “No,” I said. I nodded to the opposite corner of the room. “You can sit there, though.”
The Kid frowned. “That one’s crowded, and besides, those guys are-I mean, they’re-“
“Scary?” I smirked.
The Kid had a look on his face like an injured puppy, but I ignored him.
“This is my table today, okay, kid?”
So he sat at the table next to mine, and leaned over with this brilliant insight. “You’re like two different people, you know? You were really friendly at first.”
Honest, I think I’ve lost my edge when pip-squeaks like him think they’re free to express their insights about my character. But I was busy with the table, so I let it go that time. Besides, he was right. The nice Jellyfish is everybody’s friend. That’s when I humor everyone, make them think I care about their pathetic lives, stay on their good sides. That’s the part of me I’ve taken to calling Fish.
Jelly, on the other hand, stings. I turn to Jelly when I don’t want to be bothered. Jelly ignores everyone, because he has better things to do.
I’m a very complicated person, with dual natures. Fish, for example, only wants a good cup of coffee. A good cup, not the ground mud they give us here. Jelly wants a hot fudge sundae. So I just came up with the idea to bet with myself, about little things, the first one being whether Edge or Weasel would go more impressively ballistic when the TV went out. If it’s Edge, then Fish wins a cup of coffee. If it’s F(ph)atty, then Jelly wins two sundaes. Not that either of me can pay up right away. But I’m keeping track, for when I get out of here.
Yes, I’ve had to split myself into two personalities to ensure my access to intelligent conversation and engaging entertainment. This does not make me happy, but it helps me cope, all right? You’d do it, too.
Okay, so Monday was the day that I realized I knew more about the idiots in Days of the Sands of Our Lives than I know about my own family members. (What’s my sister’s name again? Wait, do I even have a sister, or am I thinking of Buff’s sister?) So that’s the night I rigged up the TV just the way I liked it under Mister State’s devoted supervision, and then at dinner the Kid grilled me and I told him nothing.
The next morning at breakfast, I was eager to see how my plan with the TV would work, but not so eager that I forgot to remove the last screw from the table just as I stood up. It swayed precariously for a moment, then stopped, balanced enough to stay upright for now. Then I headed to the weight room where everyone always gathers at this time. Days of the Sands of Our Lives was almost on.
I picked a bench closer to the TV than usual. I wanted to keep an eye on Edge and Weasel. I figured there wasn’t a way to objectively judge who’ll go crazier, so I decided the winner would be whichever one Mister Grange ended up punishing most.
Jake Baumberger was at the bench next to me; he’d been a pal of Maxwell’s when we were all here together, seeing as they’re both pyros (though the Berger’s the more proud of the fact).
“Yo, Hellyfish,” he sneered as he lifted a single dumbbell behind his head in a French press. He finds that nickname funny, just like Maxwell used to think it was a crack-up to call me “Myron” like the prison guards did. (The guards this time around are more amenable to calling people what they want to be called. The standards went lax in my absence.)
I ignored him, adjusted the weights on the bar, called the Kid over to spot me, and started bench pressing. My shoulders screamed in protest, all because people’d been so slow to leave last night that I'd had to keep lifting. Soon enough, though, I heard that wretched theme music behind the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
Come on, F(ph)atty, I thought.
Over the lounge scene on the soap, in which Buff was explaining to Pameline that he didn’t really greet Lacy before he went to see her, Weasel finally yelled, “Somebody turn on the fan!”
The Kid leaped away to do so.
I set the bar down gratefully and sat up on my elbows to watch the fun. The fan took awhile to get going, but when it finally swung in the direction of the TV, it ruffled the wire I’d played with last night, and-
CHHHHHHHHHHH. Static never sounded so good.
Edge and Weasel let out a string of expletives longer than my prison sentence. I tried real hard not to laugh-okay, I’m lying; I didn’t try hard at all. Frankly, Edge and Weasel couldn’t even hear me over the others’ cheers. Baumberger turned his jack-o-lantern grin on me and I couldn’t help but return it. Look what I’d done-saved us from the banality of daytime TV, restored for the briefest instant our tenuous camaraderie. I felt like a hero. I’d never get credit, but on the other hand, I’d never be blamed.
Our joyful outburst lasted maybe ten seconds, while Edge turned the TV around and Weasel tried to scoot its shelf farther from the wall, looking for the problem. Then the Tuesday weight room guard (Pete Larsen, who always seems an inch away from crossing the fine line from standing guard to becoming an inmate himself) shouted at us to shut up, and we did, but mostly because watching Edge and Weasel had become more amusing.
They’d both given up on fixing the TV and were just watching it, leaning close as if straining to hear behind the static.
“That’s Buff!” Edge said, pointing at a blob on the screen.
Weasel hit the TV, and nothing happened.
“Stop it, man,” Edge said. “You can still see what’s going on if like you kind of squint your eyes.”
“I don’t want to squint!”
This all was too much for the Berger, who’d been rolling on his bench in silent laughter. Finally, he had to breathe, and it came out loud and desperate.
Edge and Weasel both spun around to face him.
“You think this is funny, Berger?” Edge demanded.
Jake shut up. Edge and F(ph)atty took a couple steps closer, and Baumberger got to his feet and sort of squirmed around them, toward the TV. He had a strange kind of glassy look in his eyes as he reached over and turned the thing off. The room went quiet except for the hum of the fan.
Then, with all eyes on him, Jake replied, “No, man. But this is.”
He aimed a roundhouse kick right at the TV screen.
And connected.
Nice form, I thought, as the guards rushed in to drag Baumberger away.
Edge stared at the TV, looking as if he was going to cry. F(ph)atty just looked stunned, probably never knew the ol’ Berger could do that. Behind me, Pete was interrogating the Kid about how this had started, and the Kid just kept saying, “It’s okay, man, everything’s copasetic, it was just the TV, you know? It’s copasetic, you know, man?”
So Baumberger ended up in solitary, while Edge and Weasel both got knocked down to level 3 privileges for provoking him. Since neither Jelly nor Fish had won this particular wager, it was a push. How boring.
I’ve never had my own privileges lowered from a 4. That’s a point of pride with me-I’m never mean enough for guards or inmates to provoke me, never such a pushover that they’ll pick on me for fun. Maxwell was kind of the same; he butted in on my untouchable category, and I didn’t like that, so I went after him. Got his levels down to 1 whenever I set him up successfully, which means he had to spend a week in his cell with zero entertainment options. One time I even got him in solitary-that was after the alarm incident, when I made it look like he’d been trying to pull a Houdini. I was laughing so hard as they dragged him away, but then he gave me that glare. If I hadn’t been released from jail before he got out of the dungeon, the guy would have killed me.
On my way to lunch after the TV incident, I reflected on what had made Baumberger lose it like that. He was probably just so sick and tired of the way things were that he wanted to shake things up a little. Guys get really weird in this place; they grow chips on their shoulders about the strangest things. I’m not as bitter as most of them, because I know I got away with more than I got convicted for. This thought always leads me to wonder again why Maxwell didn’t show up to testify against me. I’m gonna be out of here soon, thanks to that. Maybe the guy wants to have it out with me in person. Fine by me-it’ll give me a chance to finish what me and Bovril started. It still bugs me, though. Maybe the only reason he didn’t show was because he doesn’t like to go to court. For people like us, the hallowed halls of a courthouse aren’t lauded for bringing justice-nah, for people like us, a courtroom is just the last pit stop on the road to hell.
I got to lunch early and took a seat in the corner, with the table I sabotaged in my line of sight. Jelly and Fish made their bets on who would sit there first. Coffee and sundaes-I’m gonna keep track, keep good track of this. Then when I get out, I’m going to Whit’s End. Why not? They can’t do anything to me once I’m out. I’ve got something to prove, you know? Besides, I never got a chance to eat there, and they say it’s an experience.
Somebody tried to sit at the table, which dutifully collapsed. The guy leapt to his feet, flinging greasy tater-tots and cold green beans in every direction. I stood up to see who it was, and it was one of the guys Fish had picked.
I sat down and closed my eyes. In my head, I heard that little bell tinkle above the door to Whit’s End.
I can smell the coffee now.
In the end, it was the long shot Jake Baumberger who got dropped into solitary for putting his foot through the TV set.
Which means I didn’t win either of my bets, so no sundaes or coffees added to my tally, but the entertainment value of this whole exercise was worth fifty sundaes and coffees.
For one thing, the TV is up high, on a shelf in the corner of the weight room, right near the ceiling. Monday night when I sabotaged it, I had to drag a weight bench over just so I could see the back of it. I never imagined anyone would kick the thing. Oh, I thought F(ph)at Weasel might take it out of commission with that impressive right jab he’s always jawing about, or maybe Lowell “Edge” Edgefield would toss a dumbell at it, sure. Jake must have been doing too much Tae-Bo if his first reaction was kicking the screen in.
Am I losing you, boys and girls? Let me go back to Monday night, the night before Jake Baumberger got himself dubbed Bootglass. (On account of the glass flying when he kicked the TV. Don’t blame me for the name; F(ph)at Weasel’s the one who made it up.)
All right, so first, I had to wait until the weight room emptied out for the evening. It took awhile-I swear, I was up to my twenty-seventh set of delft flies, standing there waiting for people to leave. F(ph)at Weasel turned off the fan on his way out-the guy has an unspoken monopoly on the fan. Finally, nobody left was paying any attention to the TV--the stragglers were only there to avoid dinner. Hey, you would, too, on a Monday-unless maybe you like the unevenly heated mush of leftover meat product they have the gall to call “Campbell Chili”.
I’d planned my moment. On weight room guard that night was one Dameon State, proud of his Master’s in Music, stuck as a prison guard since the local econ went south. He can’t move, though, ‘cause his wife likes her kid’s school telling her that her kid is going to be in their Specially and Interestingly Gifted program once he gets old enough. (Hey, if you lived here, you’d know the guards’ life stories, too.) Suffice it all to say, State thinks he’s overqualified, which means he never does his job.
So I waited until he was giving the ceiling a long-suffering look, and then I threw my weights to the floor, strode up to the TV, and did my best imitation of that Yeti Yell I heard on Art Bell one night. (Once again, if you lived here, you’d seize any opportunity for entertainment, too.) State rolled his eyes and sauntered up to me, but by the time he got close, I’d turned off the TV, pulled a weight bench closer, and leapt on top.
“What’s the matter, Jellyfish?” He sounded bored.
“What’s the matter? Are you blind, State?”
Insults slide off him like rain off an umbrella. The guy spends every minute he’s here pretending that he’s not.
“No, Jellyfish. I can see that you’re distraught. Now tell me what’s the problem before I report you to Mister Grange.”
State believes in other people dealing with his problems. How like him to threaten me with authority.
“Yeah, well, it’s this TV here. The screen’s been flickering. It gave me a migraine, I swear.”
State blinked slowly. “So you kept watching?”
“Whatever, I have to fix it.” I reached up and turned the TV around. It wouldn’t move far without the cords coming loose, but that was fine for my purposes. I fiddled with things.
I’m not going to tell you what I did. Frankly, I don’t know if I can. I’m just especially good at breaking things. It’s a natural skill. God-given, you might say. I can tell what the essential part of a mechanism is, take that out, and destroy the whole thing. Oh, I’m also capable of out-and-out destruction, but subtlety is important when you’re in jail.
I shoved the TV back into place and pressed the “on” button. To my satisfaction, it looked just like it had before.
“Is it still flickering?” State asked me.
“No, man,” I said, pointing.
State wouldn’t look at it. He thinks TV rots the brain. “Good.” He said, and strolled back to his post.
At the cafeteria that night, the Kid plopped down across from me, eyes wide. “What did you do to the TV?” he whispered loudly.
I sat grimacing down at my dinner. Under the table, I jabbed my knife into one of the screws holding the table up. They give us the kind of knives you can bend in one hand, you know, the ones that are almost as sharp as a sponge, but the tables are cheaply made so it’s relatively easy to work the screws loose. This would be the third one I’d removed from this table; no one had noticed that it’d started to lean.
“Come on, tell me, Jellyfish!” the Kid leaned forward eagerly.
He’s in here for downloading a copyrighted mp3 or something. In way, way, over his head. He’s from some part of the country where they use “brisk” as a synonym for “cool,” and he says “copacetic” a lot when he’s nervous. Frankly, I don’t know how he’s survived a whole week in here. It’s funny to watch him come up against the other guys-they don’t know what to make of him. They haven’t experienced that kind of innocence since before they were born. The Kid is the kind of guy Maxwell would have taken under his lofty wing, if Maxwell was still in here. Not out of the goodness of his heart; don’t ever let him fool you. It's just that manipulating people is Richard Maxwell’s favorite pastime, right up there with shooting pool and salivating over computer code. The more inculpable the prey, the better as far as he’s concerned.
“Listen, Kid,” I began. I can never remember his name-Brian or Byron or Blaine, or something (but not Billy-that would be far too interesting). “You didn’t see me do nothing to the TV.” I shifted my weight, which sent the table tilting in his direction. If I pulled the screw out now, the whole table would probably fall over on him. I restrained myself because I didn’t want to see his plate of Campbell Chili spread over his orange jumpsuit.
“Yeah, but I did,” the Kid said. “You turned it around and did something to the wiring.”
“What’s it to you?”
The Kid shrugged. “Just wondering.”
“Well stop wondering.”
I had to wait for him to finish his dinner, which he did, sulkily. Finally, after he’d left and my table was empty, I stood up, twisted the knife one final time, and caught the screw that fell out. Into my sock it went. It might be useful later.
I bet you’re hoping for a rewind, huh? You want to know why I messed with the TV? It was the Kid’s fault. Nah, it was Edge and F(ph)at Weasel’s.
Monday morning weight time. Edge and Weasel nabbed the benches closest to the TV. If someone were to offer either one of them freedom, with the condition that they could never watch Days of the Sands of Our Lives again, both would elect to stay here. Maybe that’s laughable, but both of them are in for assault, and they’re too big and mean-tempered for anyone to say a word of derision about their TV viewing habits. New inmates learn fast-Edge has an awfully short fuse, and is the most hypersensitive person I’ve ever encountered. Weasel takes longer to rile up, but he’s studied like twenty kinds of martial arts and is actually pretty good. (He spells the first part of his name P-H-A-T. I can’t bring myself to spell it like that, but on the other hand, he’s kind of a wiry guy, so spelling it F-A-T makes me uneasy. I’m honest in my diligent record keeping.)
So there I was in the corner benching away the morning, with the Kid hovering behind as a spotter, when I heard the show’s theme start to play: sappy keyboards and synthetic violins. A few of the guys nearby grumbled, but no one was stupid enough to change the channel.
“Oh, Jellyfish,” the Kid gushed in a falsetto. “Today we’re finally going to learn where Buff Trimble has been all these years.”
I cracked a smile. This was the first time I’d heard the Kid tell a joke, but it only made me realize that I’d been thinking just the same thing. Buff Trimble, already stricken with a made-up terminal disease, had disappeared over Mongolia the last time I was in jail-a good chunk of years ago. (Edge was already in here back then, so I’d had to watch it then, too.) I’d tried desperately to forget the show while I was out, but since coming back, I’ve been subjected to it daily. Buff Trimble returned to the show at the end of last Friday’s episode, sparking Edge and Weasel’s endless dialogue over the weekend about where he’d been.
For your listening enjoyment, Sunday night’s dinner conversation:
Edge: Buff always got along with everyone. Maybe he took up with some nomads who cured his hypochridondria.
Weasel: That’s hyperchridondria, you bonehead.
Edge: [looks huffy]
Weasel: [doesn’t notice] Hey, no way, man. Buff’s too independent for that. Prolly walked to the nearest city, learned their language, found a job, and conquered the hyperchridondria by deep Eastern meditation or something.
Me: What are you talking about? Didn’t you see how he looked when he showed up on Lacy’s doorstep? He’s still sick. He’s inches away from death.
Then I stopped short, having realized that I’d just participated in a serious conversation about a soap opera character named Buff Trimble. I thought about Maxwell then and what he’d say if he knew. The only semi-friendly conversations we’d ever had had been one or two lines quoted from this show, always sort of shouted at each other in passing. I guess they were more aggressive than affable, considering they were lines like: “this time, your memory is never coming back” and “the next time you die in a freak yachting accident, you’re going to stay dead”. I’ve said it before, man-if you lived here, you’d do it too. There is nothing else in the world like the boredom you’ll find here at the CCDC. (Say it with me now: “CCDC.” Come on, say it three times fast. You know you want to.)
Jail just hasn’t been the same without Maxwell. For one thing, this time around there’s not a worthy adversary to be found. Not to say that Maxwell was particularly worthy-now and then the guy was practically disabled by guilt. And he was desperate to get out of here and get revenge or closure or something-a desperation that made him weak. He could never go after me for anything I did to him, too afraid of getting caught.
All he could do was glare. Guy has a glare that could make a charging rhinoceros turn around and flee in the opposite direction, over lava that said glare had already frozen. If looks could kill, it’d be R.I.P. Jellyfish, fifty times over. And Maxwell was smart-could always tell I was the one setting him up. Not like the rest of these dunderheads. I’m in with the small-time criminals--not a mastermind to be found. This situation owing to the fact that I was only convicted for vandalism and beating up some kid. No conspiracy to commit murder charge, no hint to the judge that that even happened. Blackgaard was dead, Bovril didn’t want to incriminate himself . . . Glossman, come to think of it, probably squealed, but who would have listened?
I heard that Maxwell survived his little swan dive off the cliff. I heard he can still walk. But he hasn’t pressed charges. I’m a little paranoid about what his vengeful streak has in store for me when I get out. Nothing I can’t handle, but you’ve got to wonder. Part of me hopes that he went all self-righteous after surviving the cliff-hop, you know, like he converted into one of those Odyssey clowns, forgiving and forgetting. The thought makes me crack up. Yeah, right.
Okay, back to Monday morning in the weight room. So I was sitting there watching the opening credits of this insipid show, and I thought, This has got to stop. I could feel my brain leaking out through my ears like jelly.
Speaking of jelly-Jelly, meet Fish. He’s giving you 2 to 1 odds that Edge will flip out more than Weasel if they have to miss their show.
It was the Kid who first pointed out that I have two personalities. He’d been here for three days and, astute observer of human nature that he plainly is, told me so.
“Dude, man, Jellyfish, right? Brisk name. I was wondering, can I sit here?”
It was the first day I’d been working on unscrewing the table, so I was a little busy. “No,” I said. I nodded to the opposite corner of the room. “You can sit there, though.”
The Kid frowned. “That one’s crowded, and besides, those guys are-I mean, they’re-“
“Scary?” I smirked.
The Kid had a look on his face like an injured puppy, but I ignored him.
“This is my table today, okay, kid?”
So he sat at the table next to mine, and leaned over with this brilliant insight. “You’re like two different people, you know? You were really friendly at first.”
Honest, I think I’ve lost my edge when pip-squeaks like him think they’re free to express their insights about my character. But I was busy with the table, so I let it go that time. Besides, he was right. The nice Jellyfish is everybody’s friend. That’s when I humor everyone, make them think I care about their pathetic lives, stay on their good sides. That’s the part of me I’ve taken to calling Fish.
Jelly, on the other hand, stings. I turn to Jelly when I don’t want to be bothered. Jelly ignores everyone, because he has better things to do.
I’m a very complicated person, with dual natures. Fish, for example, only wants a good cup of coffee. A good cup, not the ground mud they give us here. Jelly wants a hot fudge sundae. So I just came up with the idea to bet with myself, about little things, the first one being whether Edge or Weasel would go more impressively ballistic when the TV went out. If it’s Edge, then Fish wins a cup of coffee. If it’s F(ph)atty, then Jelly wins two sundaes. Not that either of me can pay up right away. But I’m keeping track, for when I get out of here.
Yes, I’ve had to split myself into two personalities to ensure my access to intelligent conversation and engaging entertainment. This does not make me happy, but it helps me cope, all right? You’d do it, too.
Okay, so Monday was the day that I realized I knew more about the idiots in Days of the Sands of Our Lives than I know about my own family members. (What’s my sister’s name again? Wait, do I even have a sister, or am I thinking of Buff’s sister?) So that’s the night I rigged up the TV just the way I liked it under Mister State’s devoted supervision, and then at dinner the Kid grilled me and I told him nothing.
The next morning at breakfast, I was eager to see how my plan with the TV would work, but not so eager that I forgot to remove the last screw from the table just as I stood up. It swayed precariously for a moment, then stopped, balanced enough to stay upright for now. Then I headed to the weight room where everyone always gathers at this time. Days of the Sands of Our Lives was almost on.
I picked a bench closer to the TV than usual. I wanted to keep an eye on Edge and Weasel. I figured there wasn’t a way to objectively judge who’ll go crazier, so I decided the winner would be whichever one Mister Grange ended up punishing most.
Jake Baumberger was at the bench next to me; he’d been a pal of Maxwell’s when we were all here together, seeing as they’re both pyros (though the Berger’s the more proud of the fact).
“Yo, Hellyfish,” he sneered as he lifted a single dumbbell behind his head in a French press. He finds that nickname funny, just like Maxwell used to think it was a crack-up to call me “Myron” like the prison guards did. (The guards this time around are more amenable to calling people what they want to be called. The standards went lax in my absence.)
I ignored him, adjusted the weights on the bar, called the Kid over to spot me, and started bench pressing. My shoulders screamed in protest, all because people’d been so slow to leave last night that I'd had to keep lifting. Soon enough, though, I heard that wretched theme music behind the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
Come on, F(ph)atty, I thought.
Over the lounge scene on the soap, in which Buff was explaining to Pameline that he didn’t really greet Lacy before he went to see her, Weasel finally yelled, “Somebody turn on the fan!”
The Kid leaped away to do so.
I set the bar down gratefully and sat up on my elbows to watch the fun. The fan took awhile to get going, but when it finally swung in the direction of the TV, it ruffled the wire I’d played with last night, and-
CHHHHHHHHHHH. Static never sounded so good.
Edge and Weasel let out a string of expletives longer than my prison sentence. I tried real hard not to laugh-okay, I’m lying; I didn’t try hard at all. Frankly, Edge and Weasel couldn’t even hear me over the others’ cheers. Baumberger turned his jack-o-lantern grin on me and I couldn’t help but return it. Look what I’d done-saved us from the banality of daytime TV, restored for the briefest instant our tenuous camaraderie. I felt like a hero. I’d never get credit, but on the other hand, I’d never be blamed.
Our joyful outburst lasted maybe ten seconds, while Edge turned the TV around and Weasel tried to scoot its shelf farther from the wall, looking for the problem. Then the Tuesday weight room guard (Pete Larsen, who always seems an inch away from crossing the fine line from standing guard to becoming an inmate himself) shouted at us to shut up, and we did, but mostly because watching Edge and Weasel had become more amusing.
They’d both given up on fixing the TV and were just watching it, leaning close as if straining to hear behind the static.
“That’s Buff!” Edge said, pointing at a blob on the screen.
Weasel hit the TV, and nothing happened.
“Stop it, man,” Edge said. “You can still see what’s going on if like you kind of squint your eyes.”
“I don’t want to squint!”
This all was too much for the Berger, who’d been rolling on his bench in silent laughter. Finally, he had to breathe, and it came out loud and desperate.
Edge and Weasel both spun around to face him.
“You think this is funny, Berger?” Edge demanded.
Jake shut up. Edge and F(ph)atty took a couple steps closer, and Baumberger got to his feet and sort of squirmed around them, toward the TV. He had a strange kind of glassy look in his eyes as he reached over and turned the thing off. The room went quiet except for the hum of the fan.
Then, with all eyes on him, Jake replied, “No, man. But this is.”
He aimed a roundhouse kick right at the TV screen.
And connected.
Nice form, I thought, as the guards rushed in to drag Baumberger away.
Edge stared at the TV, looking as if he was going to cry. F(ph)atty just looked stunned, probably never knew the ol’ Berger could do that. Behind me, Pete was interrogating the Kid about how this had started, and the Kid just kept saying, “It’s okay, man, everything’s copasetic, it was just the TV, you know? It’s copasetic, you know, man?”
So Baumberger ended up in solitary, while Edge and Weasel both got knocked down to level 3 privileges for provoking him. Since neither Jelly nor Fish had won this particular wager, it was a push. How boring.
I’ve never had my own privileges lowered from a 4. That’s a point of pride with me-I’m never mean enough for guards or inmates to provoke me, never such a pushover that they’ll pick on me for fun. Maxwell was kind of the same; he butted in on my untouchable category, and I didn’t like that, so I went after him. Got his levels down to 1 whenever I set him up successfully, which means he had to spend a week in his cell with zero entertainment options. One time I even got him in solitary-that was after the alarm incident, when I made it look like he’d been trying to pull a Houdini. I was laughing so hard as they dragged him away, but then he gave me that glare. If I hadn’t been released from jail before he got out of the dungeon, the guy would have killed me.
On my way to lunch after the TV incident, I reflected on what had made Baumberger lose it like that. He was probably just so sick and tired of the way things were that he wanted to shake things up a little. Guys get really weird in this place; they grow chips on their shoulders about the strangest things. I’m not as bitter as most of them, because I know I got away with more than I got convicted for. This thought always leads me to wonder again why Maxwell didn’t show up to testify against me. I’m gonna be out of here soon, thanks to that. Maybe the guy wants to have it out with me in person. Fine by me-it’ll give me a chance to finish what me and Bovril started. It still bugs me, though. Maybe the only reason he didn’t show was because he doesn’t like to go to court. For people like us, the hallowed halls of a courthouse aren’t lauded for bringing justice-nah, for people like us, a courtroom is just the last pit stop on the road to hell.
I got to lunch early and took a seat in the corner, with the table I sabotaged in my line of sight. Jelly and Fish made their bets on who would sit there first. Coffee and sundaes-I’m gonna keep track, keep good track of this. Then when I get out, I’m going to Whit’s End. Why not? They can’t do anything to me once I’m out. I’ve got something to prove, you know? Besides, I never got a chance to eat there, and they say it’s an experience.
Somebody tried to sit at the table, which dutifully collapsed. The guy leapt to his feet, flinging greasy tater-tots and cold green beans in every direction. I stood up to see who it was, and it was one of the guys Fish had picked.
I sat down and closed my eyes. In my head, I heard that little bell tinkle above the door to Whit’s End.
I can smell the coffee now.