Keeplock: A Novel of Crime Read Online Free

short, fat man in a gray uniform and peaked cap, stepped out to welcome the only passenger.
    “Luggage, sir?” he huffed.
    Sir? Was he kidding? The man had to know what I was. I held out my empty hands and muttered, “No luggage,” warning myself not to overreact. This was the world, not prison. I handed him my ticket.
    “One second.”
    The asshole actually put his hand on my chest. I felt my own hand slowly drifting toward my belt buckle. I’d been carrying a weapon for ten years and, most of the time, kept it just below my belt. “This is the world,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Do we have a problem?”
    “You can’t smoke on the bus.”
    I looked at the burning Marlboro in my hand. “Why not?”
    “It’s been the law for two years. Where you been?” He shook his head, then looked into my eyes for the first time. “Hey, the goddamn bus is empty. Sit in the back and smoke if you wanna. But if someone gets on and complains, I’ll have to ask you to put it out. Hell, I smoke, myself. I know how it is.”
    “You ever been in the box?” I asked.
    “What?”
    “Can’t smoke in the box.” I ground out the cigarette and stepped onto the bus.
    We took Route 7 west to the Interstate, then turned south. I stared out the window, feeling like an aborigine in a movie theater. Not that the view was all that strange. Whiteface Mountain, which is visible from high up on the courts, was still snowcapped. I’d spent the last ten years measuring the seasons by watching the snowcap grow and shrink.
    I sat in the back of the bus and I didn’t smoke. It seems stupid, but I saw it as a test. The bus driver didn’t offer to let me smoke because he was nice guy. He offered because I scared the shit out of him. I know all about fear. Fear runs the Cortlandt Correctional Institution. Fear of the C.O.’s, fear of other prisoners, fear of the box, fear of the psych ward. Respect, itself, is gained by inspiring fear in other inmates.
    The myth, among citizens, is that if you stand up for yourself in prison, the other convicts will leave you alone. But the price is much higher than that. I never saw a fistfight in Cortlandt. Men were stabbed every day. Or cornered and beaten with pipes. Or even burned in their cells. The simple fact is that dignity is preserved by a willingness to kill. Nothing less is acceptable, and the worst mistake a prisoner can make is to have another prisoner at his mercy and let him go. Mercy equals soft and soft equals prey.
    Everybody carries a weapon. Or has one stashed where he can get to it in a hurry. I carried a shank with a thin wooden handle just underneath my belt buckle. It fit neatly through a loop sewn into my pants an inch below the top button. When the C.O.’s pat you down, they go over your legs thoroughly, grab your balls and your ass, but for some reason they don’t reach around in front. I was searched hundreds of times. If the C.O.’s had found the weapon, it would have meant the box and a beating. Weapons scare the shit out of C.O.’s, but the blacks have a saying. “Better the man should catch me with it, than the boys should catch me without it.”
    “Say, mister.” It was the driver calling me from the front of the bus. We’d been traveling for about two hours. “C’mon up here. We got a problem.”
    I walked up and sat across from him, trying to keep my voice friendly. Trying to be a citizen of the world. “How we doin’?”
    “See this here?” He pointed to a glowing red light on the dashboard. “We’re overheatin’. I’m gonna pull into Bolton’s Landing and order up another bus. That’s the next stop, anyway.”
    “Bolton’s Landing? Where is that? How long will it take?” I was expected in a parole office on West 40th Street in Manhattan. That afternoon. To miss the appointment for any reason would be a technical violation of the conditions of parole. I was also supposed to pick up a housing assignment when I reported and if the office was closed, I’d be