CELL MATES

Even at two in the morning the cellblock in a maximum security penitentiary was never
completely devoid of noise. The main lights were extinguished, the televisions and radios had
been ordered to be shut off, and then the final order for silence about the cellblock has been
blared over the intercom. But still it was never completely silent. You could still hear the
graveyard shift guard with his radio turned down low as he paced up and down the row, the
toilets flushing, tormented men crying out in their sleep, jacking off, coughing, sneezing, farting,
sobbing.

Then there was the occasional cry of pain and anguish as an inmate decided to take himself out
by slashing his wrists - possibly with a homemade shank he had crafted from a melted down and
sharpened toothbrush handle and disposable razor - but then couldn’t handle the pain of what he
had just done to himself or the fear of what was yet to come. Terrifying thoughts of would the
afterlife be worse that what he was fleeing prematurely.

Some nights, like tonight, you heard an inmate, almost always a fish, scream out “Mommy.” The
sign that a new inmate or "fish" as they were referred to in the joint, was experiencing what he
feared the worse before he came inside the penitentiary. For some reason when a fish, fresh from
the street, got turned out for the first time, he often called out for his “Mommy.”

Thad Jensen had heard grown men scream that out probably close to a thousand times he
imagined since he had been locked down for his fifteen years. Fifteen years to the day since it
was past midnight already. Today was the day. His day. He be getting his walking papers in
about a dozen hours. No parole guidelines for him to follow, he had done his whole bit. He'd
walk out the doors a hard con.

From an early age the locals always said that he was a bully. A bad kid. A no good punk destined
to go nowhere but jail or the cemetery.

The locals had been right.

He was just seventeen years old the night he committed the crime that got him sent up. Already
smashed one fall Friday night on a combination of a bootleg Quaalude and a bottle of the old
man‘s vodka, he had walked into a convenience store and tried to waltz out with a twelve pack of
beer. Shit beer at that, Olympia. The clerk, a pensioner in his sixties, had stupidly chased Thad
into the parking lot, where Thad who was already big for his age, had broken the clerk’s nose
and jaw with a series of brutal punches and kicks. After a witness called in the crime, a high
speed chase ensued which ended with Thad face down on the pavement and his hands cuffed
behind him, his parent’s car totaled against a telephone pole. Thad was a bloody mess by the
time he was transported to the county jail. Several of the cops having decided to give the old
clerk a bit of street justice revenge.

He was tried as an adult and was given a sentence of fifteen years but would be eligible for
parole in four if he behaved while serving his sentence. He had no reaction to the sentence. He
showed no remorse. And he sure as shit didn’t behave while serving his sentence.

Because of his young age he was sent to the St. Cloud Reformatory where he quickly learned
that since he was white he was now a minority . Thad had never even seen a black man in his life
other than on televison but it didn’t take him long to realize that he didn’t like them. Any of
them. And that included Asians, Indians, or Hispanics, too. Thad was an equal opportunity racist.
He was quickly recruited by an Aryan prison gang, and because of his size, which would become
greatly enhanced by hours spent on the weight pile and handfuls of steroids smuggled in by
enterprising guards, he became a valuable enforcer. Young naive Thad bought the wannabe
Nazi’s bullshit rhetoric hook, line, and sinker, and soon he was sporting a tattooed swastika on
his chest and carrying around a bootleg copy of Mein Kampf, even though he didn’t understand a
fucking word of it. Not that he could of even read most of it since he was sporting about a fourth
grade reading level at best. The combination of his appearance - shaved head, six foot four,
massive pumped up tattooed guns - and his lizard like brain made for a frightening individual.

It didn’t take him long before he began to build a thick disciplinary jacket with the prison
administration. He was written up dozens of times for assault, possession of narcotics and
weapons, disrespect to officers, and numerous other infractions. The day he reached his twenty
first birthday, rather than being released on parole, he was shackled and transferred to the
penitentiary at Stillwater where he was greeted with open arms by his fellow comrades.
Stillwater Penitentiary was the turf of the white prison gangs. They ran the show at Stillwater.
Not the niggers. Not the chinks. Not the beaners. Not the guards. White power ran Stillwater.
Thad was finally at home.

And that’s where twelve years later Thad Jensen found himself. Stillwater. His home. On his
final night in the joint he laid in his bunk and mentally reviewed his personal resume. He had
ignored the order to shut off his radio instead placing it on his pillow next to his ear with the
volume turned low. The Doors were jamming on Roadhouse Blues. Lighting a pin joint of ditch
weed Mexican he settled back on the scratchy mattress to get some serious thinking in. He took a
sip of jailhouse hooch fermented from oranges.

Thad had survived dozens of prison gang wars and uprisings. He had been stabbed. He had been
shot (barely grazed but still shot) by a tower guard during a riot. He had been gassed and maced.
He had spent months in the hole without letting the assholes break him. He was a high ranking
lieutenant with the Aryans. And now he had fulfilled the terms of his sentence without the
benefit of parole. He would walk out the gates a free man. A hardened con. Not a man to fuck
with.
He was also thirty-three years old, had no home to go to, no family to speak of since they had all
disowned him over the years, had the education of a mentally challenged fifth grader, and no
idea what life outside these walls held for him. His counselor had managed to find him a room at
a shelter upon his release along with a job at a aluminum can recycling plant. The job started at
minimum wage. Thad wasn’t worried though. His brothers on the outside would set him up.

Thad heard his cellmate stir in the bunk underneath him.

“Sounds like someone is getting it tonight.”

“Yea, it’s Tuesday. Fresh meat always gets brought in on Tuesdays first thing in the morning.
Fucked in the ass before midnight.” Thad coughed out a laugh.

“I didn’t. They brought me in on a weekend,” replied his cellmate.

“Well, you’re a whole different fucking matter all together. You’re one of those high profile
cases.”His cellmate was indeed high profile and more. He possessed what inmates called a
“freak” jacket. Timothy Logan had been a twenty-six year old mortuary sciences student who
had been picked up for raping and killing a sixteen year old girl who was on her way home from
a high school basketball game. What the police found when they tossed his apartment brought
him semi-national attention. Timothy had been interning at a Minneapolis funeral home where he
worked the night shift. All by his lonesome. Turns out he liked it like that. When the police
shook down his apartment after they picked him up for the murder, they found hundreds of nude
photos of both dead females and males which had been taken at the funeral home. They also
found several videos of him engaged in sexual intercourse with female stiffs.

Timothy’s attorney tried the insanity defense. It didn’t work, and after a somewhat sensational
trial which was seemingly covered non-stop by both local and national media, was found guilty
late on a Friday afternoon. The sheriff in charge of the county jail felt that they could not provide
the security that Timothy required for his safety from his fellow inmates, so rather than waiting
out the weekend he was transferred the following morning to the penitentiary.

In a bit of payback for all of his years of being a pain in the ass to them, the warden thought it
might be a hoot to put a child raping murderer diagnosed with necrophilia, right into Thad’s cell,
who had only six months left to serve. Thad was pissed behind belief at this show of total
disrespect but he kept his mouth shut. He was just too goddamn short in time to bitch about it.

His first night inside, Timothy who was small of stature, had been cornered in the shower and
turned out by a couple of black gangsters from St. Paul. He didn’t call out for his Mommy. He
just took it. And he took it for weeks until he finally broke down and asked Thad for protection.
For a price of course, Thad could offer him protection against rival gangs and lone predators, but
Timothy would still be required to take care of the members of Thad’s gang if they so desired.
The fee was a weekly deposit from Timothy’s family into Thad’s inmate account.

But when Thad walked through those gates in a couple of hours, Timothy would be on his own.
Their deal would be null and void. No one would be watching Tim’s back. Not a good situation
for young Tim.

“I’ve got a proposition for you, Thad.”

Thad drained his cup and poured himself another drink. “And what the fuck can you offer me
now? You know I don’t mess with jailhouse sissies. You think with a couple of hours left that I‘d
want what you could give me? Shit! First thing I‘m gonna do when I get on the street is get me a
good looking whore and nail her right through the mattress.” This was total bullshit. Thad had
punked out more young white boys than he could remember and he had only been laid once, with
a woman, before he had been locked down and that had been a drunken gang bang with a forty
year old wino with no front teeth.

“No, not that. Here’s the deal. If you can make a protection deal with your brothers for me. That
is if they can guarantee my safety after you’re gone. I’ll turn you on to a score that’ll easily
bankroll your first year on the street.”

His interest piqued, Thad sat up in his bunk. “What kind of score?”

Timothy got out of his bunk and took a seat on their communal toilet. “You make the deal to
keep me safe and I don’t mean just safe from the other inmates, I mean no more getting fucked
by your brothers either. You get me two weeks of total protection to prove to me that you’re
word is good and I’ll mail you directions to the easiest score you could imagine. I’ll even give
you name of the fence so the whole deal will be cool for you.”

The graveyard shift guard, a rookie, stopped in front of their cell. “Shut the hell up in there and
hit the sack or I’ll write both of your asses up.” Thad shot the finger to the guard who stood and
glared at him for several moments but then moved on.

Timothy got up and walked to the front of the cell to make sure the guard hadn’t stopped to listen
in on their conversation. He had already moved on down to the end of the cellblock.

“What to do you have to lose? I’m still locked up here and if I fuck you over I know what’s
going to happen. So what do you say? Man, I’m running out of fucking time here.”

“You‘re sure as hell gonna have to give me more information than that before I cut a long term
deal to save your ass. A lot more.”
Tim started to rub his hands together excitedly. “Just before I got busted I had to work on a old
broad who died of a heart attack. Came from a rich family. Stinking fucking rich. For her funeral
the family had her laid out wearing two gigantic diamond rings and a matching diamond
necklace. Must be worth a fortune. Here’s the kicker. They buried them with her! They didn’t
give a shit about ‘em. The funeral director tried to convince them to take them before we closed
her box but they were adamant about burying the old bitch with them. So we did. I was planning
on digging her up myself but I got arrested before I could.”

“And just what the hell does that have to do with me?”

“You guarantee my safety and I’ll mail you the name of the cemetery, the old broad’s name, and
the number of her plot. All you have to do is dig up the old bitch and snatch the jewels. The
fence will give you no problem, either. I’ve known the guy for years. I‘d imagine you‘ll clear at
least 35K or 40K. Those are some massive goddamn stones!”

Thad had already made his decision. He had nothing to lose but he tried to make it seem like he
was in turmoil while he thought it over.

“All right.” He signed deeply. “You got a deal. But I’ll tell you one thing. If this is some kind of
a set up or I dig that stiff up and there’s nothing in that box but a bunch of bones, you’ll regret
the fucking day you ever walked into my cell! By the time my boys are through with you your
asshole will be big enough to park a car in.”

“It’s no set up. It’s guaranteed. But how can I be sure that you won’t back out on the deal once
you get the diamonds?”

Thad glared down at him from his top bunk. “Because I’m giving you my fucking word! How’s
that? My word’s been good on the yard in this prison for twelve goddamn years so it‘s good
enough for your worthless ass.”

“All right then. We’ve got a deal.” Timothy slid back on to his bunk.

Thad was so geared up he didn’t sleep a minute for the rest of the night. At breakfast he would
clear the deal with his crew. It was to be hands off Timothy. But once he had the diamonds and
had sold them, he’d be in contact. Then they could do to Timothy whatever their hearts desired.
Turn his asshole into a train tunnel for all he cared.

By noon he had cleared out processing and was given a lift in a prison van down to the shelter.
He started his new job the following morning. It was shit but he kept his mouth shut. He just had
to gut it out for two weeks. With his meager prison savings he bought a city map, crowbar,
flashlight, a cheap knock-off Buck knife, and a shovel. He wrapped the items in a plastic garbage
bag and hid them in a crawlspace behind the shelter.
The time passed slowly. Life was torture for Thad on the outside. Inside he was a big man. A
player. A convict. A man of respect. Outside he was just another minimum wage worker with a
record. And the world was different. Confusing with it’s cash machines, Internet, cable
television, computers, and SUVs. He spent his nights in his shitty little room drinking rotgut
beer. And even though he was free from the constraints of parole, the second day at his new job
he was given a quick visit by a couple of smart ass detectives from the Organized Crime/Gang
unit. Just to let him know they’d be keeping an eye out for him.

The envelope arrived sixteen days after Thad had been released. Inside was the name of the
cemetery, a map and grid number for the grave, and the name and address for the fence. So far
Timothy was a man of his word. Too bad for him that Thad wasn’t.

That night he climbed out the window of his room, grabbed his tools, hot-wired a old Chevy
owned by another ex-con at the shelter, and drove carefully to the cemetery. His driver’s license
had expired while in prison and his driving skills were a rusty as hell but he arrived at the
cemetery without any problems. The gates were secured with a wrap around chain and an old
padlock which was broken off easily with a few swings from the crowbar. He drove the Chevy
in, closed the gates behind him, and wrapped the chain back around it.

Since he couldn’t read for shit it took about an hour to figure out the grid used to locate the
grave. Then he wandered in circles for almost another hour before he finally stumbled on to it.
The gravestone was fancy and looked expensive so that was a good sign. He stuck his shovel into
the soil. It slid in like butter and he found the digging to be relatively easy. It had been a wet
spring and the dirt came up in huge wet clumps.

After several hours of digging his shovel hit the vault. That’s where he ran into problems. The
sealant glue on the vault must have been industrial strength and by the time he had broken the
seal to the vault with the crowbar and muscled it open (Thank God for prison weight programs,
the lid was heavy as a son of a bitch) it was almost dawn. He was exhausted and covered head to
toe in mud and sweat.

Thad stuck the end of the crowbar into the lid of the casket. It popped open with a crack.
He turned his flashlight on and scanned over the body inside. The old girl inside was still in good
shape. She almost looked alive. Good looking old broad. Timothy had done a good job. Thad had
been expecting a skeleton or at least a rotting corpse with a funky stench but she was neither.
Just a little musty. But Timothy, that child raping pervert, hadn’t been lying. The old lady was
sporting two huge rocks on her fingers and a equally enormous one around her scrawny, chick
neck. Thad giggled like a little kid as he pulled them off the body and climbed out the grave.

Time was running out. Thad had no idea when the grounds keeping crew would show up for
work. So suddenly revived by the adrenaline pumping through him, he sprinted to the car, threw
the diamonds inside, grabbed a change of clothes and a towel, and ran over to the
groundskeeper’s tool shed. He quickly stripped down and hosed himself off. The water was
freezing and the temperature was probably somewhere in the forties and it took all Thad had in
him not to scream out. He toweled off the best he could and threw on the fresh set of clothes.
When he pulled out of the graveyard and on to the main road the morning commute traffic was
light. He was almost home free!

It was still early morning, and the fence, who ran a pawnshop, wouldn’t be open until eight, so
Thad parked the car in a alley down from the shop, put the diamonds in his jacket pocket, and
walked over a couple of blocks to get some coffee and a couple of burgers at a White Castle.

Promptly at eight o‘clock, Thad walked into the shop. The geezer behind the counter was beyond
ancient. Had to have been closed to ninety if he was a day. This was going to be a fucking
breeze, thought Thad.

He peered up at Thad through thick, pop bottle lenses.

“Can I help you?”

“Yea, Timothy sent me.”

“Ah yes. You are Thad then. Timothy’s friend. Timothy called me from prison. Said that you
would have some diamonds to sell. Timothy and I did a lot of business together. He knows I am
always in the market for diamonds. Let me lock the door so we can conduct our business safely.
This is a bad neighborhood.” The old man flicked a switch on the counter. Thad jumped uneasily
as a automatic bolt slammed home on the front door. It was the same sound made by an
electronic prison gate.

The old man clicked his tongue. “Ah, poor Timmy. Who would have thought a boy with such a
bright future would be doing the horrible things he did. But anyway, let us see what you have.”

The old man’s eyes bulged and he gave an audible gasp when Thad placed the diamonds on to
the counter. He had to hold back a grin. Obviously, the old fart liked what he saw.

“Whe..? Where? Where did you get these?” The old man had picked up the necklace and was
examining it closely. His shirt sleeve had pulled up and Thad noticed blurred blue numbers
tattooed on his wrist.

“Does it matter? Do you want them or not? I don’t have time to fuck around all day.” Playing the
tough guy hoping that things would speed up.

The old man reached under the counter, pulled up a strong box, set it on the counter and reached
inside. But it wasn’t a fistful of hard cold cash that he pulled out. Fuck no! The crazy old bastard
had a German Luger in his shaking hands and he was aiming it right at Thad.
“What the hell is this? Have you lost your fucking mind you old son of a bitch?”

Thad could not comprehend this unprecedented turn of events. Here he was, the meanest
motherfucker that had walked the yard of the two toughest goddamn prisons in the state for the
last fifteen years, and then this dried up turd has the balls to pull a piece on him for no good
fucking reason! Did he think he was going to rip him off? After all his hard work? He better
think fucking again.

Thad reached his hand around to his back pocket, pulled out his Buck knife and snapped it open
with a flick of his wrist.

“Now you listen to me you old bast…”

The shot hit Thad high on the shoulder and knocked him straight down to the floor. It felt like a
horse had kicked him. He rolled over to his hands and knees and tried to get up but the pain was
incredible. His breathing was ragged and a reddish, foamy froth was running out of his mouth
and pooling on the floor underneath him. The old man had shuffled around the counter and was
coming towards him. Thad saw his knife about five feet away and started to crawl towards it.

“Your rob my daughter’s grave and come in here and try to sell me her jewels, you piece of shit!
The same diamonds my wife smuggled out of Germany when she was fleeing the fucking Nazis!
The diamonds that she smuggled out up her ass!”

Thad knew he wouldn’t be able to get to his knife. He stopped crawling and tried to look over his
good shoulder at the old man. His daughter? What the hell was he…?

“What? Oh shit! Oh fuck! Man, it wasn’t me! It wasn’t my idea! It was that goddamn Tim! He
set me up on the score! It was T..”

***

Even at two in the morning the cellblock in a maximum security penitentiary was never
completely devoid of noise. The main lights were extinguished, the televisions and radios shut
off, and the order for silence about the cellblock has been blared over the intercom. But it was
never completely silent. You could still hear the graveyard shift guard with his radio turned
down low as he paced up and down the row, toilets flushing, tormented men crying out in their
sleep, jacking off, coughing, sneezing, farting, and sobbing.

But laughter was something you rarely heard late at night in prison. But tonight was much
different. One inmate was laughing. Laughing uncontrollably. Laughing hysterically. Laughing
to the point where the tears rolled down his face and the rookie graveyard shift guard had to call
the goon squad to haul his crazy ass down to segregation before they had a goddamn riot on their
hands.

Since he had been locked up it had always been the inmate’s habit to read his mail late at night
when it was more quiet. So tonight Timothy Logan sat on his bunk and read the Minneapolis Star
Tribune news clipping that his mother had sent him. It was about an ex-convict who was shot
and killed while pathetically trying to rob a respected local pawnshop owner with a knife.

And he laughed and he laughed and he laughed.