Lights Out Read Online Free

Lights Out
Book: Lights Out Read Online Free
Author: Peter Abrahams
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers
Pages:
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just raising on his last rep. The bar came down on Brother A’s Adam’s apple—the boy caught the look of comprehension dawning in his eyes as it slipped from his grasp—then crashed to the floor. They found A and B lying face to face, belly to belly, on the bench.
    Eddie toweled off. The C.O. handed him a brown-paper package. Inside Eddie found a suit of clothes. Not a suit, exactly—a bright green short-sleeved shirt, beige trousers with belt loops, a brown leather belt, white socks, BVDs, a khaki windbreaker—but civilian clothes. Eddie found that his hands were trembling as he got dressed. He realized he was nervous.It was a sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time. What did he have to be nervous about? He was getting out.
    “No shoes,” the C.O. said. “The taxpayers won’t spring for shoes. But they still throw in the belt.”
    It was the belt that counted, of course. Eddie hadn’t worn a belt in fifteen years. He buckled it and said: “Now I can string myself up whenever I want.”
    “Be my guest.”
    Eddie laced on his old and smelly basketball high-tops and picked up Prof’s cardboard tube. Then they went up the stairs, through the scanner, and out of F-Block. The yard was full of men in denim. Eddie felt a little funny in his green shirt. They went past a touch football game. There was a brief pause as Eddie went by. He felt eyes on him. Then someone said, “Snap the ball, shithead,” leather smacked flesh, and Eddie walked through another scanner and into Admin.
    The C.O. knocked on a door that said “Director of Treatment.” The door opened, but before Eddie could go in, an inmate came out. El Rojo. He stopped, smiled his white but gap-toothed smile.
    “Amigo,” he said. “Today’s the day, no?”
    As if they hadn’t been talking an hour ago. “Yup,” Eddie said.
    “Excellent.” El Rojo leaned against the wall, in no hurry, took out cigarettes, offered one to Eddie.
    “No, thanks,” Eddie said.
    El Rojo laid his long-fingered hand on Eddie’s shoulder. Gentle, but Eddie felt the strength in those fingers, and the dampness. And he remembered the image that had eluded him:
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
    “Smoke it later, my friend, outside,” El Rojo was saying. He lowered his voice. “After.”
    “After what?”
    El Rojo kept his voice low. “After you get laid for me.” A burst of crow laughter followed, was quickly throttled.
    “Get laid for you?” asked Eddie, looking into the maple-syrup eyes, aware of complexity in their depths, beyond his understanding.
    “It will make me happy just to think about it,” El Rojo replied.
    Eddie shrugged, took the cigarette, and put it in the pocket of his green shirt. El Rojo removed his hand from Eddie’s shoulder, extended it for shaking.
    “Adios.”
    “So long.” That was the truth, given El Rojo’s sentence and the fact that Eddie wasn’t coming back.
    Eddie went in. He smelled a piney smell and thought of Christmas. The director of treatment, sitting at his desk behind a sign saying “Floyd K. Messer, M.D., Ph.D.,” had the right body type for the Santa role. He had fat cheeks, reddened by the sun—photographs of him posing beside hooked game fish hung on the walls. He had curly graying hair and a trim gray beard that, grown out, might have looked just right. All he needed was to learn how to make his eyes twinkle.
    Dr. Messer was gazing at a computer screen, his fat white fingers poised over the keyboard. “Take a pew, son,” he said, without looking up.
    Eddie sat down on the other side of the desk. The piney smell was stronger. “What kind of treatment program you putting him on?” Eddie said.
    Dr. Messer looked up. “Who would you be talking about, son?”
    “El Rojo, or whatever the hell his name is.”
    Dr. Messer gave him a long stare. “Is that any business of yours?” Dr. Messer waited for an answer. When none came, his
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