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Elburn couldn't stop dreaming of Little Stink, a first-time inmate he had to beat down a couple months before his July release from prison. The kid, barely eighteen, was in for homicide, and didn't know what the hell was going on. The C.O.s relished barking at him and found any excuse to, like the times when he wasn't in line for count or didn't clean what he was assigned. The leering convicts followed suit, itching to put the smelly boy in pocket, turn him faggot. Though they were eventually dissuaded more by Stink's pocked face than his body odor. His skin was so tightly constellated with acne that it turned off the usually indiscriminate homos on the block, forcing them to move on to sweeter targets, at least till the boy's skin cleared up.
One of the young bucks who associated with the Horsemen fronted the kid some weed, and though Stink claimed he was good for it, he didn't have a dime in the commissary. It was a common hustle run on all inmates who had a hard time adjusting to jail life: front them some dope to get them hooked, extort the piss out of them, then for extra measure, tack on a ridiculous interest so their debts could never be paid off. It generated constant income without fail, and Stink, another in a long line of suckers, owed Elburn and the Four Horsemen an initial forty bucks, a substantial sum inside the gates. They followed their usual course of action and threatened the boy for a week or so, usually enough time for a deadbeat to rustle up a money order from his family, if he had one, but Stink must have been an orphan, because he still couldn't make his payment. It was only a matter of time before the Horsemen had to tune up his little delinquent ass.
On a humid day in late April when the jail air conditioners crapped out, Elburn, sweating in his wife-beater and jail jumpsuit, monitored the boy's cell for the better part of an hour, until he thought Stink's cellmate had taken a stroll. Tazwell's population was primarily black with a handful of rednecks and Julios sprinkled in each cellblock. In the afternoon, inmates loafed in the common area or huddled around the caged TVs, exercising, or gambling. The Julios always played poker, spades, or dominoes in the corners of the dayroom and would get excited and smack the cards and wooden dominoes down on the tables — a constant thwack thwack thwack echoing through the block. Given all the noise, someone could have fired an elephant gun and no one would've noticed. Perfect time to beat some poor kid.
Elburn, Nate, and Memphis bum-rushed Little Stink's cell while Cripple Clarence sat guard in his wheelchair outside the door. Because a recent staph infection had swept through the block and raised terrible red sores on the unlucky, Elburn and his boys stretched on white rubber gloves they'd lifted from the infirmary. They stood just outside the doorway looking at the kid. Stink sat on his bunk, wearing a thin, white prison-issue t-shirt and the mandatory orange jumper, the top half of his suit hanging down his back so that the sleeves dangled to the floor like lifeless arms. Elburn, Nate, and Memphis could smell the kid before they even entered his cell. Nate put his hand to his nose. "Goddamn, this boy is loud, man." Memphis said, "I know, it's like Barnum and Bailey up in this motherfucker. We should wash him instead of kickin his ass."
Stink, having sensed the impending beat down, whimpered at the sight of them, which prompted Nate and Memphis to pounce even harder. Tears earned ass-whippings where they came from. They pinned him down on the bed, like a steer to be branded, then pulled his arms out straight so that his body formed a T. El watched the boy squirm and couldn't stop thinking of Rance and Herald, his sons who he hadn't seen in years. But the memory of them soon evaporated when Elburn glimpsed the boy's fancy basketball shoes, some crazy, astronaut boot things made of white leather with reflective silver stripes angled down the sides. The boy must've been convicted in the things, since he didn't have a dollar to his name. It was a miracle that all through his trial and county time someone hadn't taken them off him already. Kicks like those would fetch a good price.
After Elburn checked with Clarence to make sure the C.O.s weren't watching, he straddled the boy, plopping down on Stink's belly. The wind escaped the kid in one guttural cough. His baby eyes were round and distended, winking with tears, and Elburn tried not to look into them too deeply. He wasn't heartless. He just had a chore to carry out. In fact, he wished he could've shown the boy some mercy, but quickness was the only kindness he could offer at the time. El warned the boy to keep his head still and bunched one of his considerable hands into a mallet as he drew back his arm. He hoped one hammering would break Stink's nose or his jaw, a fair trade for a forty-dollar jail debt. Following the first unsuccessful thump, Elburn realized that was wishful thinking. Hard as ice, the boy's face. El took aim again and pounded the kid as solidly as he could, then slowly aimed again…and again. And in Elburn's later recurring dream, he hit the kid at least a hundred and fifty times, his fist a square lump of metal, tined like a tenderizing hammer, flattening the boy's face into a bloody cutlet of flesh with each blow.
In real life, however, Elburn had learned to glaze his vision and tune out his ears at times like this, to blur the sight of Stink's swelling eye, mute the breaths gurgling through that mess of a nose. This was for the kid's own good, he rationalized. Elburn was teaching him the upshot of incarceration. Since Stink was a lifer, he'd be locked up, well, forever. This beating could save his life. But El's punches, a little off the mark, weren't doing the job. They only succeeded in raising two bulbous welts on Stink's cheek bone, transforming his left eye into a rotten slit tomato. Blood was smeared across the knuckles of El's gloved hand. The chore was getting ugly, becoming more than a forty-buck beating. As Elburn continued to wail on the kid, he wished he had gone with Nate and Memphis's idea to hire one of the more violent young bucks to beat the boy, but, for some reason, El felt sorry for him. The boy was an orphan like him and Elburn knew that as long as he hurt the kid himself Stink wouldn't become a target for ass-whippings from dudes looking for diversion.
Nate wanted to take a turn, just to end it, but El vetoed that, determined to complete the job himself. "Nah, I got this." He straddled the boy's chest and palmed his head as hard as he could. He drew his fist back again. Little Stink closed his eyes and crimped his lips in preparation for the blow, his breathing as rapid as a scared cat's. Elburn threw all his weight behind the punch, tried to knock Stink's head through the bunk's mattress. He connected on the bridge of the boy's nose and finally felt some give. The kid coughed up a pained grunt and Elburn quickly tagged Stink again before he had to chance to squirm. The boy's nose bone gave all the way this time, making a soft cracking sound. Stink unleashed a crescendoing yowl that turned El's head in the direction of Clarence. Had the guards heard? Clarence scanned the cellblock left and right with a hint of a smile then gave the thumbs-up without looking back at them. "There," Elburn said, "at last." He climbed off the boy and stood back, holding his own wrist and flexing his tender hand to make sure it wasn't his bone that had broken.
The onion-tinged funk of all four of them hung in the cell, and El leaned against the cinder wall for support, turning lightheaded from the head rush or maybe the cancer. He felt himself falling and grabbed onto the toilet. He took as many deep breaths as he could till his knees finally locked. Nate looked back at him. "Nigga, you all right?" "Hell yeah. I'm fine," Elburn said. "You sure?" Nate said. "You sweatin like six motherfuckers over there. Head shiny as a bowling ball." "Nigga," Elburn said. "I told you I'm all right. Stop askin me." Nate shrugged his shoulders and he and Memphis reluctantly allowed the kid to sit up. Stink tried to stand but wobbled and slid off the bed to a squat on the floor. Said he couldn't see. When he spoke it was as if through a terrible head cold. The bridge of his nose was crooked, pointing more toward his right eye, and a thick mustache of blood glistened on his upper lip. Elburn immediately looked away. Even though he was a crook, he never had the stomach for the sight of blood or broken bones. He concentrated his gaze on the cell floor. "Hey, straighten your nose out," he said. "Get it over with. You don't want the nurses to do it."
Stink shook his head. "But it'll hurt."
"Boy," Elburn said, still averting his eyes, "if you don't I'll beat the fuckin stank off you, and that'll hurt more." He kicked the kid in the leg. "Do it!"
Stink placed his hand over his face and hyperventilated, then frowned and shook his head. He looked up at the Four Horsemen who stared back at him in cold anticipation. Then he swallowed hard and drew in four quick breaths, as if preparing to lift something very heavy. A short turn of his hand repositioned his nose with a gristly snap, like a knuckle cracking. He gagged a few times and shivered from the pain. Elburn nearly gagged too. The thought of his looming release date was front and center in his head. He was beginning to at least consider life outside the gates, where maybe he wouldn't have to act like a savage just to survive.
He bent down over Stink, the sorry sight of the boy producing the first odd feeling of remorse he'd felt in years. "Hey, boy," Elburn said. "You're gonna be all right. Shake it off." He looked Stink over and gave him a wad of toilet paper to wipe his face. "You need to puke?"
The boy swallowed a mouthful of bile. His left eye was swollen shut and he could only blink his right as he contemplated the question. "Don't think so. Should I puke?" He looked at each of the four men, one by one.
Elburn sighed his answer: "Not if you don't got to. Now get up, c'mon." He grabbed under the boy's arm to help him stand. He pulled the top of Stink's jumpsuit over his shoulders and dusted him off a bit, eliciting a quizzical look from Nate and Memphis. Elburn didn't care. He was determined to save this boy's life. He whispered in the kid's ear that he better make friends with the Christians or the Muslims if he knew what was best. "Cuz these jail niggas gonna kill you," he said. "They ain't as nice as me."
Stink, holding his nose gingerly, nodded, then glanced out of the cell toward the dayroom. In a panicked voice he asked where they were taking him next, as if they were a gang of crazed rapists.
"Listen, we ain't no faggoty-fuck Nazis," Nate said. "We just takin you to the infirmary, you pussy."
Stink nodded again and breathed easier. They were done with him. Thank ya, Jesus. He slouched toward the cell door, still shivering, and waited for them to lead the way.
Elburn shook his head and grabbed the kid by the shoulder. "Not so fast, youngblood." He bent down and clutched the boy's ankle to jimmy one shoe and then the other off of Stink's feet. He inspected the sneakers before he tucked them under his arm. The Horsemen then peeled off the rubber gloves and escorted the boy into the common area like bodyguards, surrounding him so the C.O.s couldn't see what they'd done to the poor kid. They deposited him at the infirmary desk and one look at Stink's bloated face made a repulsed nurse say, "Eww, what happened to him?"
"Lady, what you think happened? He had an accident," Elburn said. Then he wandered back to his cell and sold the boy's shoes to another inmate for fifty bucks, turning a whole ten bucks profit.
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