by Brandi Wells
There were probably fifteen of us crammed in the cell. No benches or beds, just a ledge jutting four or five inches out of the wall. We were all sort of half leaning, half sitting on the thing and I could feel the edge jabbing into my ass. There weren’t any bars like you’d expect, just a door with a square piece of yellow plastic for a window. Over in the corner an old rusted toilet, not much white to it anymore.
There was me and a couple guys that looked about my age. Then there were some younger kids, who looked scared and uncomfortable, and had already smoked through all their cigarettes. They kept trying to bum cigarettes off the rest of us, but we knew better. You have to make them last.
I lit my second one of the night and looked around the room.
“Hey man,” this old guy slurred, pulling at the shirttail of the guy next to him. “Hey, you got ten bucks?”
The guy shrugged him off.
“You don’t need any money in here.”
The old guy kept at him, but the young guy looked sinewy and had his hair slicked back like a punk. I thought the old guy oughta leave him alone. The old guy must have gotten the same idea, because after a few minutes he started around the room, asking everyone for ten dollars.
No one had any money and we told him so.
A guard brought us dinner after I’d been there about an hour. It was this one hotdog on a Styrofoam plate and some baked beans. The beans were cold and runny and smelled like ketchup and the hotdog was cold, too. I wasn’t hungry enough to eat the shit, so I just stood there, holding the plate and watching the old guy.
He sort of hobble-waddled around the room, asking everyone for their hotdog. Pretty much everyone gave it to him, because no one wanted to eat the thing. I couldn’t figure out how that skinny old man was going to eat all those hot dogs. He looked so happy, smiling, saying “Thank ya,” and nodding.
He walked over to the toilet, holding that plate full of hot dogs, and looked up and smiled. Then he dropped a hotdog on the floor, tossed the bun in the toilet, and flushed it.
The guy next to me shook his head, muttering, “Crazy old bastard.”
The old guy waited a few seconds, tossed another bun in, and flushed the toilet.
“What’s he doing?” one of the younger guys asked, between mouthfuls of hotdog. That guy was probably the only one eating his hotdog. He was dipping it in baked beans and cramming it in his mouth.
The old guy dropped a third bun in and flushed. And another. And another. And another.
We just watched, just leaned against the goddamn rail that was jabbing us in the ass, hungry and tired and wishing it was tomorrow so we could make bail.
The old man looked up and smiled again, giving the toilet another flush. He kept smiling and laughing, a sort of breathless, wheezing noise. He dropped another bun in, and flushed.
“Oh, fuck no,” one guy said. “There’s no fucking way.”
He jerked the old guy by the elbow and the rest of the hotdogs and buns went sprawling across the floor, bouncing and rolling along. The old guy was still laughing.
“I’m not gonna stand in shit and piss, you fucking lunatic,” he said, slinging the old guy away from the toilet.
One of the hot dogs rolled up to my feet. It was covered in dirt and little pieces of rock.
The old guy was still laughing and saying something I couldn’t hear.
The other guys let him have it, holding him against the wall, spitting in his face while they took turns swinging at him. I took a few swings too. It’s hard not to get in the spirit of things. It only took a few minutes and the guards were there, pulling the old guy out of the room.
Nobody used the toilet all night. I think one of the young guys pissed his pants, but none of us said anything about the ammonia smell. We just stood, leaning on that ledge and smoking cigarettes.
The guards came by in the morning and told us to clean the mess off the floor, but none of us would do it. They didn’t let a single one of us make bail until late that afternoon, and by that time my girlfriend figured out where I was. When she bailed me out, she tried to smack me around, right there in front of the bailiff. He laughed and told her I probably deserved it, deserved it just like every other guy.
And I figure that old guy didn’t deserve it. He probably just wanted his own room.
