Can’t keep thinking about these things. Not on the inside where all you do is wait. Waiting for transfers, waiting for food, waiting for hot water to shower, waiting for visitors, waiting for any day that’s different from the day before. Waiting for your luck to change. Waiting for a trial and then a verdict. Waiting for the end of your bid. Waiting for the good times again. Waiting to get high off the memory of some pussy or herb. Waiting for night and the streets filling up with women strutting ass in jeans. Waiting for the right moment to say, “Hey, sweet Mama” and have her give the look that says, “I can give you something you ain’t had in a long time.” Waiting to get inside her. Waiting to see each other again. Waiting for a job that pays some money. Waiting in line for a movie and when you sit back all you see on the screen is the slow playback of all those years, and you feel like a fool for waiting this long, so you wait for the end. And you wait for the end.

Shit. I had to do something before I lost my mind. Exercises. Yeah. Sit-ups. Push-ups. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. Inhale. Exhale. Sweat on the floor. Sweat on my hands now, pulling at the bars. Sweat making everything slippery, even my words sliding out on tears: “Let me out of here, please. Let me out of here. I wasn’t the only one. I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE.”

And the walls answer you back.

“Shut the fuck up. I’m trying to read.”

“Tell that white boy to shut his trap.”

Brrrrrrrrrriiinnnngggggg. A bell.

I got up from the bed. Must have been asleep. Cells opened automatically. People came by with towels and soap. Shower time. Not much hot water. My turn. Soap? Yes. Towel? Yes. Now lost in a single file moving toward steam and sweat. Hot water. A calm for sweaty arms and hands and legs and ass crack. Then a hand grabbing at my neck. A voice I suddenly knew. “That’s what you get for squealing, Lonny. We’d be free now if it wasn’t for you.”

“Don’t give me that shit. The cops had me, yeah. But they knew it wasn’t only me.”

“How?”

“By the way you fucked up Metro, that’s how. One person couldn’t have done all that. They knew it. I didn’t have to say anything.”

“But you told them where we was, Lonny. You shouldn’t have done that.”

“What do you care, Cuddles? You guys had gone when I looked around. You all left me right there. What would have happened to me? You didn’t care nothing about me.”

“Bet you won’t open your mouth no more.”

“Lay off me, man. I’m getting out of here, anyway.”

“You lying.”

“Naw, I ain’t. I’m getting transferred. I’m going to some juvenile home somewhere. You’ll see. You guys have a record. I don’t. They showed me your photographs when they brought me in. Before I even said anything they had you all nailed. The neighbors even knew who you was. Everybody knew something. Everybody except me.”