A Bomb Built in Hell by Andrew Vachss Read Free Book Online Page B

prisons don’t pay for medical investigations, anyway.
    T he hack strolled down the tier to Wesley’s cell, carrying a piece of paper in his hand and a concerned look on his fat face.
    â€œListen, kid—you want to go to the old man’s funeral?”
    â€œYes, sir, I really would. Could you fix it so that I could?”
    â€œWell, I
might
be able to if we could really talk, you know?”
    â€œNo, sir, but I’ll talk with you about anything you want to know.”
    â€œGood,” the guard said, walking into Wesley’s cell and lowering his voice. “The old bastard left some money stashed, right?”
    â€œI don’t know, sir. Did he?”
    â€œThat’s the way you want to play it, you’re out of luck. Let the fucking rats be his pallbearers.”
    Wesley just looked blankly at the guard, thinking,
That’s what he’ll have, anyway
. He kept looking straight ahead until the guard finally left in disgust. Wesley had already checked the law and knew he wouldn’t be allowed to attend a funeral—he wasn’t a blood relative in any sense recognized by the State.
    W hen he hit the Yard almost three weeks later, a slender Latin guy was running the Book, and Carmine’sstash of cigarette cartons under the loose floorboards in the back of the print shop was all gone.
    Wesley passed by the Latino without a glance. He wrote off the cigarettes and the Book. Even the whispers about a man being a pussy if he wouldn’t fight for what was rightfully his.
    He did the next years like moving through cold, clear Jell-O. He was able to dodge parole twice by infractions of institutional rules. But the last time, when he only had nine months to go on his sentence, he knew that they were going to parole him to keep him under supervision, no matter what he did. He knew a hundred ways to fuck up the parole hearing, but he didn’t want the additional surveillance that came with getting a “political” label, and he didn’t want the additional time that an assault would add on. So he spent several respectful hours talking with Lee until he learned what the older man knew.
    Wesley appeared before the Board unshaven and smoking a cigarette. The Chairman, some kind of reverend, spoke first.
    â€œIs there any reason why we should parole you at this time?”
    Wesley broke into sincere and hearty laughter.
    â€œWhat is so funny?”
    â€œMan, you
got
to parole me—I’m nine months short.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean anything to us. We want to know what you’ve done to rehabilitate yourself.”
    â€œI haven’t done one motherfucking thing. But so what? You guys
always
parole a man who’s less than a year short—that’s the law, right? Besides, I did all this time for nothing. I’m innocent.”
    â€œThat’s not the law!” the reverend proclaimed self-righteously. “Your case will be reviewed like any other.”
    â€œBut the guys in the block said …”
    â€œOh, so
that’s
it. Who’re you going to listen to, this Board or a bunch of prisoners?”
    â€œBut I thought …”
    â€œNow, we may parole you
anyway
, but you shouldn’t listen to—”
    â€œSee! I knew you were just kidding me, man.”
    â€œThis hearing is concluded. Return to your unit!”
    The note from the Board said he was being denied parole due to his “poor institutional adjustment.”
    T hey kicked Wesley loose on a Tuesday. He was among eight men going home that day, but the only one who wasn’t being paroled. He noticed one guy already nodding from his morning fix and wondered if the pathetic sucker would find the stuff as easy to score on the street as he had Inside.
    The State provided a suit, twenty-five dollars, and transportation to the Port Authority Terminal in Manhattan. The factory-reject suit screamed
PRISONER!
as loudly as black and white stripes