Friends Till The End

I was released from the hole after two weeks and sent to the prison infirmary, where my wounds were cleaned, my clothes thrown away, and my meals served on plastic trays. I was carried into the ward fifteen pounds lighter than the day of the football game, my body wracked with a high fever and a series of infections.

The prison medical staff knew of what went on, but lacked the desire or conviction to question it, let alone bring the abuse to a higher authority.

“You’re lucky,” I heard the prison doctor say to me. “Another day in there and we wouldn’t be any help.”

“I wasn’t alone,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

“They took everyone out,” the doctor said.

“Were we all lucky?” I asked.

“No,” the doctor said. “Not all.”

-

The sunlight came down through an open window, warming my face, my left eye still sealed shut. I turned to the right and saw Jaime in the bed next to mine. His left arm and right leg were in soft casts, his face puffy and bruised, and the rest of his body bandaged heavily as mine.

“I thought you’d never wake up,” Jaime said, looking over.

“I never thought I’d want to,” I croaked.

“Vic and Mike are at the other end of the hall,” Jaime said.

“How are they?”

“Alive.”

“Who isn’t?” I asked.

“Rizzo.” Jaime said.

“They killed him?”

Jaime nodded. “They took turn beating him until there was nothing left for him to beat. They told his family he died of pneumonia.”

Rizzo was dead because of us. We made him think that going up against the guards in a meaningless football game had some good value and would somehow make us better than them and give us a reason to go on. Once again, we were wrong. We had made another mistake.

While it was normal in the course of growing up to have lapses in judgment, our errors always seemed to carry a deadly price. We were wrong to take the hotdog cart, and that mistake nearly ruined a man and put us in a juvenile home. We were wrong to go to Rizzo and talk him into taking part in our silly plan. That conversation cost him his life.

The mistakes we were making could never be repaired. I could never give Fernando Gonzalez back the feeling in his arm or take away his pain. I could never give the hotdog vendor back his business. I could never bring smiles back to Vic and Mike; return the sweetness that was at the core of their personalities. I could never take the hardness out of Jaime or the hurt out of me. And I could never bring Rizzo back to life.

A young man was dead because he went deep against the guards and reached for a ball he should not have caught. A young man who went deep, because we asked him.

-

It was two days later when I heard the footsteps, familiar in weight.

“Hello, boys,” Nokes said, standing between our two beds, a smile on his face. “How we feelin’ today?”

Jaime and I just started back, watching him as he read our medical charts and eyeing our bandages and wounds.

“You should be outta here in no time,” Nokes snarled. “It’s gonna be good having you back. We missed you and your friends. Especially at night.”

Jaime turned his head, looking down the corridor, checking the faces of the other inmates. Drew was two beds down, his face a mask of cuts, welts, and stitches.

“It’s been nice visiting with you, “ Nokes said, standing close enough to touch. “But I gotta go. I’m on shift. I’ll see you soon though. You can count on that.”

Jaime mentioned for Nokes to stop. “Kill me now,” Jaime whispered.

“What?” Nokes moved to Jaime’s side of the bed. “What did you say?”

“Kill me now.” It was not a whisper this time. It was in normal tone of voice, calm and clear. “Kill us all now.”

“You’re fuckin’ crazy.” Nokes said.

“You have to kill us,” Jaime said. You can’t let us out alive.”

Nokes was still startled but shrugged it off. “Yeah?” he asked. “And why’s that, tough guy?”

“You can’t run the risk,” Jaime told him.

“What risk you talking about?”

“The risk of meeting up,” Jaime said. “In a place that isn’t here.”

“That supposed to scare me? That street shit of yours supposed to scare me?” Nokes laughed. “Your friend Rizzo was tough too. Now he’s buried tough.”

“Kill us all,” Jaime said. “Or sign yourself up for life in here.”

“I’ve been right all along,” Nokes said. “You San Diego boys are really crazy.”

“Think about it,” Jaime said to our tormentor. “Think about it hard. It’s the only way out for you. Don’t take a chance. You can’t afford it. You kill us and you kill us now.”

Notes