Jude Read online

  One day he came to as an orderly was unhooking his IV. “Good,” the orderly said, noticing that Jude’s eyes were slit open. “Enough jackin’ rec for you. You’re awake just in time.”

  “In time for what?” His mind was still muzzy from the drugs.

  “You’re being moved. Can you get up?”

  Jude propped himself on his elbows.

  “You’re gonna need to do better than that,” the orderly said.

  “I’m working on it. Give me a minute.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t keep the badge waiting. He can get mighty impatient, and he may decide to give you a reason to stay in the infirmary a while longer.”

  Jude managed to sit all the way up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. He waited a moment for the dizziness to subside. When he stood, his legs were weak and his side gave a twinge, but the drugs hadn’t completely worn off yet, so he felt only a tightness and a slight ache.

  “Ready,” he said.

  “Yeah, I see that,” the orderly said with something like a grudging admiration. “Follow me.”

  “So where am I going?” Jude asked.

  “You’re headed for seg.”

  “Seg?”

  “You know. The hole.”

  “What for?”

  The orderly laughed. “I’ll give you three reasons: Slim Slam, the Professor, and Lefty. That enough for you?”

  “But they jumped me,” Jude protested.

  “Yeah, the stupid motherfuckers. Two of them are still in the infirmary—different wing.” And that was all the orderly had time to say before they reached the door and encountered the guard waiting for Jude in the hall beyond. “He’s all yours, boss.”

  “This way,” the guard said roughly.

  Jude followed the man down the hall.

  The guard, as he walked with Jude, kept sneaking little glances at him along the way. Eventually the man spoke. “So you’re the one they were calling Chicken Man.”

  “I guess,” he said.

  “They don’t call you that anymore.”

  Jude didn’t care one way or another what they called him now. Didn’t care much about anything at all.

  “I saw the men,” the guard continued after a moment.

  “Oh?”

  “You’re pretty lucky. You crushed the Professor’s windpipe. He might have kicked it.”

  “But he didn’t,” Jude guessed.

  “Damn lucky for you. Until the doctor got a tube in, he couldn’t get much air down. They’re not sure if his brain was affected. Hard to tell, since there wasn’t that much there to begin with. How the hell did you do that to them?”

  Jude shrugged. He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t remember much. He remembered the pounding in his head and the sound of someone grunting in exertion or pain—it might even have been himself. Also, he remembered the feeling of recognition at the first punch he’d thrown; for more than a year he had been using boxing gloves, and with gloves you couldn’t tell the difference between hitting a bag and hitting a person. Fighting with bare knuckles was different—there was nothing like the feeling of flesh connecting with flesh.

  The guard went on talking over Jude’s thoughts. “I was the one that found you. Well, I found the other three first. I don’t know if I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. You musta spun out. You took those dogs apart. They were all still in the hallway, but you dragged your ass all the way out to the yard. Remember? You were sitting on the bleachers, cool as a cucumber, with that nice little hole in your gut.”

  Jude put a hand to his side, feeling the dimple there.

  The guard noticed. “You’ll have a pretty good scar, I’d say. But you know, it’s not a bad trade—a scar and a couple of bruises for a new name. It’s real hard to change people’s opinions in here, but I guess you did it.”

  They came to another door with a sally port just before it. The man tapped on the Plexiglas with his baton, and they were buzzed through into the disciplinary unit.

  Jude noticed as they stepped across the threshold that the air temperature in this wing was at least ten degrees lower than what it had been in the corridor. He followed the guard to the third cell, where the door was already open. The cell was similar to the other he had occupied with Old Man River, but this one was significantly smaller. It barely had space beside the bunk to stand. There was a mattress on the bunk, but no blankets and no pillow, and instead of being lit by a single bulb, there were two fluorescent tubes recessed into the ceiling and protected by a metal grille.

  “After you.” The guard motioned toward the door.

  Jude stepped through and the guard swung the door closed.

  “Welcome to your new home, Duck.”

  “That the new name?” Jude remarked, but without much interest.

  “That’s it. You went from Chicken to Duck.”

  “Not so different,” he observed.

  “You’ve got the wrong idea. It’s not Duck as in ‘quack.’ It’s Duck as in, when they see you coming, they’d better friggin’ duck. But you’re not all stitched up yet. Lefty wants to turn you out. You didn’t take him down hard enough, and he wants some back. He’s calling for a gladiator fight. They’re already laying bets.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jude said, leaning against the wall for support. He wasn’t used to standing, and his knees had started to tremble and his head was spinning.

  “You best rest up while you can. Lefty will be waiting for you when you get out.”

  29

  JUDE REMAINED IN solitary for a month. He did as much exercise as his cell allowed him, and he kept moving during the one hour a day he was allowed out. He learned to ignore the cold, despite the thin clothes and lack of a blanket, but the light bothered him. He came to hate those two fluorescent tubes behind their steel cage. They remained burning day and night. After two weeks Jude felt as though the light seared his eyelids when he lay down to sleep. There was no blanket to pull over his head, and it got so bad by the end that he would take off his shirt and tie it around his eyes in spite of the chill.

  There was no escaping the hours in that perennially bright, cold light. Jude had no library privileges, much less a radio or a television. The only thing he had to distract him from his thoughts were the voices of the men in the cells surrounding him. The guards let the inmates hold conversations between cells, and they talked, it seemed to Jude, nearly twenty-four hours a day. Jude’s neighbors discovered early that he didn’t respond to any overtures, whether they were friendly or challenging or offensive.

  Occasionally someone would ask about him. After a day or two in the hole new guys would say, “So is Duck in here?” Then they’d try to get Jude to talk. Usually they kept it up only for an hour or two. By the time he was released from seg, they had given it up altogether. Any inquiries about Duck would bring the short answer, “Yeah, he’s here, but don’t bother trying to talk to him. That peckerwood only talks with his fists.”

  Exactly thirty days after he was led into solitary, the same guard who had escorted him in came to escort him out again. When they entered Cellblock B, it was recreation period, and most of the men had opted to stay inside, out of the freezing wind that whistled through the two guard towers and down into the yard below. Nearly all the men that lived in Cellblock B were milling around the long, rectangular room that stretched beneath the tiers. Some played cards or chess, but most stood idly in groups. Few noticed Jude at first. They glanced up casually, but when they caught sight of him, they stared and nudged their neighbors.

  Recognition rippled through the crowd, and everyone turned to look. It was like the first day in the cafeteria, but there was a difference. Because this time there was no silence. Instead the noise of the place swelled. He heard his name, at first muttered, then shouted and followed by laughter. “Duck,” they cried, laughing at the simultaneous name and command. “Duck.”

  Jude ignored it all. He turned to the guard who had escorted him. “Could I go outside in the yard
?”

  “You want to get it over with? Well, it’s as good a place as any—if you want to freeze your ass off. There’s a blind on your left as you go out. They can’t see in there too good from the guard towers, and there’s no video, either.”

  “Thanks.” Jude turned to go.

  It was cold outside. The wind whistled around his ears and numbed his hands. Most of the men in the yard stayed near the doorway to be close to the warmth of the building. Jude slipped past them and walked out into the open.

  By the time he reached the opposite wall, the number of men in the yard had doubled. Many of the inmates who were filtering out came, as he did, without jacket or hat. They glanced over in his direction but clustered with the others, close to the entrance. The crowd around the door thickened, and finally the man who Jude had been waiting for arrived. The others fell back to make a path for Lefty.

  Lefty walked toward him and halted a few feet away. “Last time I saw you, you were gushing like a geyser,” he jeered.

  Jude didn’t reply. In fact, he barely heard him. He was breathing through his mouth, drawing in anger with every breath.

  One of the men from the group by the door called out, “Hurry it up, will ya, we’re freezing our asses off over here.”

  Lefty obeyed. Jude caught a glimpse of the knife in his left hand, and just as he brought his hand up to stab, Jude twisted out of the way. As the knife flashed past, the point piercing the fabric of his shirt, Jude caught Lefty’s wrist and pulled. With his momentum already moving in that direction, the man sprawled forward, his hands stretching out to break his fall. When he hit the dirt, Jude was there, stomping firmly on the knife arm. The small bones in Lefty’s wrist snapped, and Jude bent down and plucked the weapon from his fingers.

  Lefty rolled over and tried to get up, but he was slow. Jude kicked the supporting hand, and Lefty fell heavily, landing on the broken wrist. That tore a yelp from him, and it looked like he was going to stay down.

  “Get up,” Jude said. When Lefty curled himself protectively around his wrist, Jude kicked him. “Get up,” he demanded, and when Lefty only folded tighter, he kicked him again and again. He would have kept on, but the other men reached him then, hands grabbing his arms, wrapping around his waist, pulling him away. He hadn’t even heard them approach.

  “Get off of me,” he panted, trying to shake himself free. He dropped the knife and heaved. About half of the weight dropped away, and when that happened, the others let go. As if from far away, he heard them yelling, “He’s firma, man. He ain’t gettin’ up. You won. Back off, you won.”

  The whole fight from beginning to end had lasted less than a minute.

  Jude stood there panting, the cold air searing his lungs and puffing out in heavy clouds. Someone tried to touch him, to lay an arm across his shoulders, and Jude shrugged him off violently. Another offered him a coat, but he knocked the hand away and turned from him. He walked to the far end of the yard, until he reached the fence.

  He heard noise behind him, and he swung around, ready to go again. Wanting it.

  “Hold on there, I don’t want to fight you.” The inmate who spoke to him was small and thin, with a crooked nose and a cocky swagger. “I just came over to let you know I got something of yours.” He held out the knife, flat in his palm. “Spoils of war.”

  Jude reached out to retrieve it. Hefting the blade, he turned it, inspecting the steel. Then he pitched it up and over both fences.

  “Christ,” The curse came like an explosion. “Why the hell did you waste a perfectly good banger like that? It’s worth at least five packs in here.”

  “I don’t smoke,” Jude said.

  “Jesus.” The man rolled his eyes. “You’re too much. Okay, so you didn’t want the knife. Will you take some advice?”

  “I might,” Jude said.

  “You shouldn’t stand out here by the fence alone. The men up in the towers have mighty itchy trigger fingers.”

  “Thanks,” Jude said, and started toward the building.

  “Loners always stick out,” the little man said. “You might want some company.”

  Jude didn’t respond, but he did slow his pace a little, and the man fell in beside him. They walked together toward the door.

  Jude glanced over and saw that Lefty was still lying there on the ground.

  “Stretcher brigade will be here in a minute,” the man said. “Nothing we can do for him, and nobody wants to get caught standing over the body. Let’s go inside.”

  “I’ll wait,” Jude said.

  “Okay. Well, I might as well freeze with you. By the way, I’m Fats.”

  “Fats?” Jude repeated, looking at the skinny little man in front of him.

  “They say there are two kinds of prisons,” Fats said. “There’s the kind where I’d be called Fats, and then there’s the kind where I’d be called Slim. I’ll introduce you to Slim later; he clocks in at about three twenty. If you ever get shipped out to a prison where you meet a guy named Slim and he is, then you’re in some hot water. Those kinds of prisons make this place look like playschool. You read?”

  Jude smiled slowly. “Yeah.”

  The ambulance service—with a staff nurse in the lead, an inmate pushing a gurney, another carrying an emergency medical kit, and a third with oxygen—trundled out through the door.

  “Okay, they’re here,” Fats said. “You coming back in now?”

  Jude followed him, but the guards were waiting for Jude just inside the door. They slammed him roughly against the wall and yanked his hands behind his back to cuff him.

  The inmates around them hissed and shouted, but the guards bundled him away anyway, and Jude found himself back in the same solitary cell he had left less than an hour before.

  30

  THE NEXT YEAR Jude spent in and out of lockup and the infirmary, with only brief stays in the regular prison population. As soon as he was out, he would fight, and it would be the same cycle all over again. It seemed that everyone wanted a piece of him. At one point there were so many they set up a waiting list. Whenever he got out, the next on the list would have a shot at him, and Jude was happy to oblige.

  It was all he thought about—the next fight. Mostly because it kept him from feeling the knot of emptiness lodged in his heart and protected him from remembering his life before prison. There was no past and no future outside the next battle. He barely even remembered the faces of the men he fought—only the feel of his fists connecting, and the corresponding burst of pain when one of his opponents scored a hit. In the midst of his rage their blows somehow reminded him of love.

  The first two fights were quick because his opponents had expected easy prey and were unprepared for any sort of attack, much less the ferocity Jude unleashed. As time went on, not only did they know what to expect, but only the ones who thought they had a real chance were willing to face him. However, no matter how quick or strong or skilled his opponents, they were never quite prepared for Jude’s savage delight in the event. Nothing short of unconsciousness would end the fight for him. It almost came to that a few times, but somehow he always hung on to win.

  As the fights got progressively harder, the injuries added up. Over the course of the next twelve months he suffered a concussion, five broken fingers and three broken ribs, and the loss of much of his hearing in one ear. He spent a month in the infirmary and the other eleven in solitary.

  Jude won so many fights that for an inmate to lose to him was no disgrace. A man’s reputation was made if he simply scored on Jude. The inmate who cost him his hearing was practically a celebrity for a couple of months, but with each fight that Jude won, the waiting list shrank. There were fewer and fewer who wanted to face him, and the ones who already had didn’t want a repeat performance.

  They didn’t realize that Jude was getting ripe to lose. Some of his fingers didn’t heal properly, and he couldn’t make a solid fist with his right hand. The ear that had been damaged also caused him a bit of trouble with his balance, so
that sometimes simply walking or even standing brought on a rush of dizziness so strong he staggered under it. Increasingly he had trouble sleeping. Most nights in solitary he lay awake, staring up at the thin, greenish light. It was the same kind of light that was in the kitchen of the last apartment he had shared with his father.

  Jude’s weeks of lying flat on his back in the infirmary ate away at his muscles, and he got tired of trying to keep in shape in the hole. He did a few sit-ups, some push-ups, and that was it. Whenever it came time to fight, the strength came from somewhere else altogether.

  After a year passed, the waiting list shrank to nothing. No one else wanted to fight him, and the inmates wondered what would happen when he got out.

  But then a new fish arrived in Cellblock B.

  His name was Benito, and he had been sent up on a double murder charge. He was a big guy, six three and lungs to fit. He came in with none of the timidity that usually accompanied a new arrival. Benito was used to being feared, but when he got to North Central and he said, “I ain’t afraid of nothin’ or nobody … ’cept my mama,” the inmates there didn’t nod and laugh and agree like everyone had in his old neighborhood. Instead they said, “Oh yeah? Wait till you meet Duck. He’s a bug—a goddamned crazy man.” Or, “You want to see tough, you wait till Duck gets out. He’s a case.” Or, “You think so? Duck would make your mama look like mercy itself.”

  Every time he heard one of these responses, Benito’s scowl deepened. Finally he said, “I can’t wait to meet this Duck person. Think someone can arrange an introduction?”

  And the fight was considered on.

  There had been other newcomers who said they wanted a chance against Jude—but there had always been a waiting list, and they were able to see Jude in action before getting a chance at him. All but the real fighters had an opportunity to back out, but when Benito issued his challenge, there was no one else waiting to fight. The slot was his.