It had been all Blaze could do to avoid the blows at first, but when he’d steadied his stance and punched back, and the two of them had smashed out the front door, tumbling to the summer-dead grass with shouts and swearing.
Someone, perhaps their nearest neighbor in the RV park, had called the cops. It was astonishing to think of, even now, that a fellow carny would involve the local law, but that’s what had happened.
When the cops had shown up, Mom and Pop, who adored Alex in spite of everything, had pointed the finger at Blaze. They told the cops the drugs belonged to Blaze, and then the cops had taken Blaze away.
He should have known better than to attempt to go straight. At the very least, he should have read the signals his family had been sending him that whole summer that they did not approve of his attempt at self-improvement.
Why do you need that GED?Pop had asked.What a waste of time.
Don’t yell at Alex,Mom would say.He needed that money you’ve got tucked in that old lunchbox of yours. Here’s five, go get yourself a corn dog.
Go on over to Teller’s ring toss booth,Dad would tell him. The law is sniffing around, trying to figure out his scam, so you’ll play and win for a bit until they go away.
Still working on that GED?Alex would mutter, bumping Blaze hard with his shoulder.What an idiot.
He’d been an idiot not to protest when he’d been arrested, but after the quick trial, where his parents testified against him, he’d gone quietly into shock and let himself be fingerprinted, strip-searched, and hauled off to Wyoming Correctional.
When he’d attempted to call home on the prison landline during phone time, most of the time, nobody answered. That was because there was a recorded message that the phone call was coming from the state prison and his family was totally within their rights to refuse the call.
When Mom or Pop or Alexdidanswer, the phone call was terse, and Blaze always seemed to be in the wrong, with Alex, the innocent victim.
Typically, Blaze was turned down flat any time he asked them to come visit him, that or they ignored the question completely. But then, the Butterworths were good at ignoring what they did not want to acknowledge. Like the law, or what was right, or even the common decency to visit him. The shock of their betrayal made him feel numb, like he’d been pounded to the ground and simply left there to wilt in a pool of his own blood.
Now, though, he was getting out of prison, which would make the intense interview he’d had with the parole board worth it. The copious application paperwork for the Farthingdale Valley New Start program, had been worth it, too, along with the nerve-racking Zoom call he’d had with a guy called Leland Tate, who seemed to run the program, and who had an I’m-in-charge voice without even trying.
Blaze had gotten into the program by the skin of his teeth, it felt like, and he was pretty sure Mr. Tate hadn’t exactly believed Blaze when he’d explained that the drug charges against him were false.
Who cared about that? Getting into the program would get him out of prison six months early, which would give him a chance at a new life, a new everything. He knew he wouldn’t mind doing chores, taking care of horses, building paths, or doing whatever was needed if it would get him out from behind bars.
There’d been a week-long delay, however, in getting him transferred to the valley, for reasons nobody in the prison administration, including the warden, took the time to explain to him. But, of all people, Leland Tate took the time to call and explain to Blaze about the issue with the contractors not finishing in time, something about problems with the outbuilding for the kitchen, the plumbing snafu in the bathroom facilities, the platform for the tent for the dining hall that needed leveling, and on he went, so many details that Blaze had lost track.
Mr. Tate had seemed very involved in the explanation at any rate, and the whole thing sounded much more like summer camp than it probably was.
Blaze had never been to summer camp, but he knew that whatever the program had to offer, it would be a damn sight better than Wyoming Correctional. Once he was out from behind prison walls, maybe someone from his family would talk to him or even visit him at the camp, because family visits were allowed, weren’t they? Or maybe they were forbidden, Blaze couldn’t remember.
Added to his anxiety about the delay, was that they’d moved his cellmate to a different cell, so each night he was alone. He would be processed out in a few days, but until then, he was at risk each night. Alone, he would be pretty defenseless against what was sure to come his way.
A pair of inmates on level two had somehow finagled the system or bribed a guard and had gotten hold of the master key to the cells. It couldn’t be believed, something out of a black and white prison film, but there it was. The inmates liked to go into a cell where one guy was sleeping alone, and mess it up, taking what they wanted, maybe even attacking the guy inside, assaulting him, raping him.
Blaze had been smart not to sashay through the break room or the dining hall or even the yard and brag about his upcoming parole or the summer camp-like setting he was about to step into. He also knew better than to announce at dinnertime that he was alone in his cell every night.
Maybe he’d get lucky and the two goons would not know how alone he was. By the time they did figure out where he was, in a cell by himself, he’d be long gone.
Every night, what once seemed a well-dodged threat was now one night closer. If he didn’t get to pack up his meager belongings in a black trash bag, if he didn’t get to step into the white van with the prison’s logo on the side, like,tomorrow, then he risked being mashed to pieces come the bedtime.
The little rape gang didn’t have a proper name, so Blaze had always thought of them as the chance that was coming his way. Not a good one, for sure, and one he wanted to avoid at all costs.
Each night, he tried to keep his eyes open all night, all the way till morning, especially the night after they told him that yes, tomorrow he would be out of there. But that night, he heard footsteps in the corridor outside his cell.
He sat up in bed, eyes glued to the long window in his door, beyond which the half light from the corridor glowed. Sure enough, he heard the large turnkey in the lock, and the long bolt being pulled back.
When the door opened, the two goons silhouetted against the light, he was on his feet. But barefooted, wearing only boxers and a t-shirt, he could not fend them off and found himself smashed against the wall, then bent over by one goon as the other rifled through his meagre shelf of stuff.
“No commissary credits?” the goon going through his stuff asked. “No gum?”
“Gum?” asked Blaze, shrieking the word, not caring if he was loud enough for everyone to hear, including any guards who might be patrolling at that end of the cell block on level two. “Gum? You broke in here hoping to find gum? Are you that fucking stupid?”
With a growl, the second goon pulled him up straight, smacked him hard, then shoved him onto the lower bunk. Wincing, Blaze couldn’t see the guy’s face, but he saw the motion where his hands went to the snap on his prison-issued cotton pants. Because yes, for some reason, for this pair of dickheads, gum and rape went hand in hand.
