Lucky for him they are.

“Sorry, bro. My bad.” He’s not laughing anymore. He’s holding his hands up, looking suitably concerned about the expression on my face. He must have thought I’d be embarrassed, too. But living in prison takes all that away from you. Your modesty, your humility, everything. “I didn’t mean to come up on you like that, man,” the kid continues. “But shit, dude. You were fucking in a hallway.”

I still think I should hit him. My fists are already clenched when Sloane grabs a hold of my arm. “It’s okay. He’s totally right.”

She sidles out from behind me, somehow now fully dressed though looking mighty dishevelled. Her cheeks are crimson, but she manages to look the kid in the eye. The kid’s face blanches when he gets a proper look at her. “Holy. Fuck. Me! What the…?” His reaction is instant. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Mal, what the hell are you…” A voice, commanding and annoyed, comes from behind us, and then another Widow Maker rounds the corner. Black boots, black jeans, black tee, finished off with a leather cut that bears the VP badge over the top pocket. The guy stops dead in his tracks when he sees me, and this time it’s my turn to look like I’ve seen a ghost. Because he is.

Cade Preston.

Motherfucking Cade Preston.

He opens his mouth, staring at me with absolute shock on his face. “Zee?” and then, brow furrowed, “why are you naked?”

I can’t think of anything else to say, so I make do with the first thing that comes into my head. “You! Why the fuck aren’t you dead?”

4 years ago

Chino

“This food tastes like shit, man.”

“Mmm. Yeah, I’d say there’s a pretty high ratio of shit in here.”

“Fuck a high ratio, dude. This stuff all be shit. That brown mushy stuff be dog shit. That bread be horse shit. And that pudding is bird shit, dude, straight up. I seen the wrecking crews scraping that stuff off the roof.”

I prod the brown slab of reconstituted meat on my tray with my plastic fork, eyeing it dubiously. Marco sees me do it; he makes a derisive chhh sound through his teeth. “Zee, man, tha’s the worst shit on there. That’s Colossus’s own personal brand of shit. He’s back there in that kitchen laying tracks all day long. That’s why black guys don’t eat meatloaf, motherfucker.”

This is how mealtimes play out every day in prison. We complain about the food, and then we eat it anyway because we have no choice. But meatloaf day is especially bad. Colossus, the huge fucking Russian guy who was convicted of killing his wife and kids also happens to be the cook, and he delights in burning everything he sends out of the kitchen. His dry meatloaf is disgusting.

The canteen is humming with chatter and raucous banter between the inmates, everyone segregated into their appropriate racial stereotypes. White supremacists, blacks, Mexicans, Italians… It doesn’t matter if you’re not a neo-Nazi, a gangbanger, a coke dealer or Mafioso on the outside, inside walls like these, your heritage is your creed. The system’s mostly based on hate. The blacks hate the whites, the Italians hate the Mexians and the blacks, the Mexicans hate the whites, and the whites hate everybody, including other whites if you piss them off.

Cast adrift in the middle of this sea of hatred, I sit at a table with Marco, perhaps the blackest person I’ve ever met, and Leroy, who just so happens to be Mexican. There’s an empty chair next to Leroy, awaiting the fourth member of our group: Cade. Cade’s white like me, but neither of us were ‘white’ enough to join the Klu. The Klu are perhaps the largest group after the blacks, and they don’t particularly like when fair-skinned folk race mix.

They call the four of us the UN, a term that even the guards find funny. We’re outcasts. We eat together, shit together, shower together, run the yard together. The only time we’re not watching each other’s backs is at lock up, but then it’s just us and the guy we’re bunked with. And generally shit doesn’t go down one on one like that.

“Where’s your boy?” Leroy asks, hacking at his food with the side of his fork. You get proficient at that when you’re given a blunt plastic knife to cut through Colossus’s food.

Marco chews, open-mouthed, fork hanging loosely from his hand. “Dunno. He’s out, though. Hadley saw him in with the nurse an hour ago.”

This is news. News that makes no sense. “The nurse? Why?”

“He got busted up talking back to one of the guards on his way outta the SHU. They were gonna throw his ass straight back in there, I think, but they done needed the cell for Barteaux. Crazy motherfucker shived himself again.”

Usually you worry about by other people shiving you in prison. Not Barteaux, though. “That is the third time he’s done that.”

“I know, man.” Leroy laughs. “Dude reckons he’s gonna get his ass transferred outta here if the administration thinks he’s being targeted. Someone really outghta’ tell the guy not to keep stabbing himself in front of the cameras.”

Marco breaks off from his own laughter, pointing down the far end of the canteen. “Ho. Hold up. I see our guy.”

Sure enough, Cade’s making his way through the tables, tray gripped in his hands. He’s a big guy, almost as big as me. Dark haired and covered in tattoos. We could be brothers, but we’re not. He got sent away to serve a bullet—a year’s sentence—for a crime he refuses to talk about. I saved his ass from a severe beating kindly being served to him on his first day by the Klu, and ever since then we’ve been friends. When Cade rocks up and slaps his tray down on the table, Leroy prods his finger into the seam of angry looking stitches running from Cade’s temple down to his cheekbone. “What d’I tell you about the clavo, ese? You don’t wanna be keeping that shit in you cell, man. They gonna put your name above the SHU hole they keep throwing your ass into at this rate.”