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October 07, 2008
Batesville Installment Twenty Two
The rest of the table is laughing while the young man continues his story. “So yeah, my woman, she left the damn truck sittin’ right there on the side of the street.”
“For real?”
“No shit. Here’s this big ass moving truck that I stole after paying for it with a fake cashier’s check, filled with tires I’d conned from some motherfucker the day before. But see, I don’t know none of that. Don’t have a damn clue. No, instead, here I am back at the tire store after the store’s manager called me back saying he’s got a new deal for me.” The young black man shrugs his shoulders and lets a big smile form across his face.
“You got greedy, din’ya? Got too damn greedy!”
“What can I say? Dumb ass fell for my act the day before, I was thinking he’d go for it again. Sheeee-it. So, I’m sitting in his office while he goes to answer a call. See, I should have known right then. Should have known. But I’m just so sure of myself. I don’t even think anything when I see a cop pull up in the parking lot. Just figured he was gettin’ his car worked on or some shit. Damn. So in walks the cops, they got me dead to rights.”
“So they got you, what, for the truck, the tires, the fake check…”
“But that ain’t the worst of it.”
“No?”
“Nah. The cop asks me if he’s going to find anything illegal if he were to search my car. I’m like, shit, if you do, I’m going to be kickin’ some motherfucker’s ass when I get out. So, I’m standing there while his partner opens the trunk, and, and…”
“And what?”
“See, I’d stolen this car the night before. I didn’t want to be drivin’ my own car to this meeting, you know, and, damn…” The young man lets out a big laugh, “The trunk was full of fucking AK-47’s!”
“OH SHIT!” Everybody at the table gets a good laugh out, including Saul Van Deeten. Saul’s not big on the color of a man’s skin, so he doesn’t particularly care that he’s the only white man sitting at the cafeteria-style table with the uncomfortable plastic seats. The older man who was prodding on the telling of the trunk full of machine guns turns to Saul, still chuckling. “So, what you in for, man?”
“Unpaid parking tickets,” Saul replies with a small grin.
“Jee-sus!” Everybody erupts again in laughter. Saul smiles and gets up from the table and heads over to the phones. He knows enough that if he’s going to be here longer than just this night, he needs to not be too closely associated with the blacks. It’s not about racism and all about survival. Saul doesn’t need some Aryan Race motherfucker looking him in the eye and telling him to stick to his own race.
Saul dials up The Man’s number, but there’s no answer. Still no answer. This isn’t good. Not a good thing at all. He knows what happens when you fall out of The Man’s graces. So Saul goes back over to the main common area and picks up one of the novels left sitting around, this one happening to be some sci-fi bullshit, and kills time until lights out. They call it ‘lights out’ but those big bulbs stay lit all night long, burning into you while you lie on your cot. Eventually, there’s a kicking at the foot of his cot. Here it comes, thinks Saul, they’re going to teach me why it’s called ‘The Pokey’.
Saul opens his eyes and, sure enough, there’s some giant white man with a swastika tat on his neck staring down at him. “Get up, it’s time.”
“A’ight,” Saul replies, getting up.
The older black man he had been speaking to earlier turns over in his cot and whispers at Saul, “Hey, gimme your toothpaste and shampoo. You ain’t gonna be needin’ that shit now.” Saul hands the plastic bag of toiletries to the man and nods in his direction, then follows the neo-Nazi over to the guard. Great, the guard’s in on it, too. Then the racist turns around and slaps his hand on Saul’s shoulder.
“Be safe out there, brother.” Saul just looks confusedly at him and hears a buzzing to his left.
“Jesus, go, you dumb motherfucker!” shouts the guard. Saul stares at the guard, not knowing what to do. “Walk through the door, for fuck’s sake!”
Saul opens the door and finds himself in a hallway of closed doors, and just stands there. After what may have been a few seconds or a few eternities, and opening forms in the hallway to what looks like an elevator. “Step through the door, Mr. Van Deeten,” says a woman’s voice over an intercom.
“Huh?”
“Step through the door,” repeats the voice. Saul complies and steps into the elevator. The doors close once he’s in and he feels himself descend. The doors open again and he’s back in the booking room where he had first entered the county’s lock-up earlier that day. A familiar female voice, only this time in person, breaks him from his stupor. “Come on over here, Saul. We’ve got a few things for you to sign.” An older black woman wearing a police uniform beckons him in her direction. Saul signs the forms for her and then follows a guard over to a changing area for him to get out of the orange jumper he had to wear up in General Population and back into his suit he’d had on earlier that day. The guard then leads him back into the elevator and escorts him to another desk where he signs to get his personal effects back. Then they stand there while other people are being processed.
“So, uh, who sprung me.”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” replies the guard. Not rudely, but purely as a matter of fact. He really didn’t know, and he really didn’t care. But Saul does care. It could be one man waiting for him or it could be the rest of the people on the face of the Earth. If it’s the remainder of the world’s population, he’s fine. If it was a clerical error and he’s stuck here in the middle of a rough part of time at night, he’s fine. If it’s The Man, Saul would much rather spend the remainder of his time with a bunch of horny Nazis. Finally, he’s ushered through a revolving door (Saul has to restrain himself from cracking wise about the revolving door of the penal system) and there waits a man he knows all too well.
Posted by Schamberger at October 7, 2008 12:37 PM