On my way down to the laundry, I stop by sewage. Skid looks up, wrench in hand, as I enter. He’s working on the gray-water filters—a never ending job, those things are antique.
“Hey, Bossman. What’s up?” Skid’s real name is Mark, but the nickname was painfully obvious from the get-go. He’s an OG. Probably has more time under his belt at Quo than anyone else.
“Checking in. Anything I should know?”
“Oh yeah, let me show you this week’s haul.” Skid wipes his hands on his coveralls, then leads me over to a battered basin. Inside is a metal breathmint container, two sharpened pieces of plastic and a bindle, in this case, it’s a knotted condom full of crumbles.
The one reason working in sanitation is a popular job is the contraband. If cells are getting shaken down, all the goods get flushed, then my little sewer rats remove the blockages and reap the reward.
After I’ve taken what I want.
I pick up the Altoid tin first and flick it open. Inside, wrapped in shredded plastic, is some dried out tobacco.
The condom contains shrooms; the dark and the heat in this prison make for excellent psilocybin growing conditions.
I shake half the mushrooms into my palm and pass the rest over to Skid. “For you and the guys. Merry Fucking Christmas I guess.”
He nods. “Appreciate it.”
Everything else goes into my pocket. Always good to have a few bribes or rewards to hand out. A thought occurs to me. “Hey, have you worked on the isolation block recently?”
“I was there yesterday,” he grins. “Blocked toilet, duh, the cisterns are so outdated they hardly fill anymore.”
“Did you see the new guy in the hole?” I ask. I’m not asking for Aurora’s sake, or so I tell myself. I just like to keep tabs on the inventory.
Skid’s grin stretches, revealing a chipped tooth. “That j-cat motherfucker? Yeah, they had to haul him out so I could get to the pipes.”
“Tell me about him.” I lean back against the wall and try to be unbothered by the stench.
Shaking his head, Skid laughs. “That dude is nutso, man. He was in here for a stretch when I first arrived.”
Interesting.“You’ve got history.”
“Not exactly. It was like… four years ago? I was seventeen. He got busted in Havengard without a visa, set for deportation.” Skid’s eyes light up with a rare, genuine amusement. “Kid’s a Brit. Mad as a hatter, but he made those first few weeks at Quo feel like a godsdamn circus—in a good way. I actually missed the freak when he left.”
“How well do you know him?”
Skid shrugs. “Nobodyknowsa guy like that. He was a Quo celebrity. Always singing, doing backflips off the benches, tumbling through the yard. Us new-fish, we couldn’t look away. He made us think maybe this place wouldn’t break us.” He pauses, his grin fading into something much sadder. “But he gotshipped out, and I figured he was just genuinely, deeply broken in the head.”
Unpredictability is a disease in a place like this, and I’m glad he’s quarantined. “He’s been in the hole three weeks. Is he surviving?”
“Thriving, more like. Most guys come out of the Hole crawling. This guy? He was walking on his hands the whole time I was snaking the toilet, whispering rhymes to the floor tiles.”
“Any clue as to when he’ll get out?”
“No, man. But I got the impression he wasn’t fazed one way or another. Gotta be fucking nuts to be happy in the hole. Why the interest, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I shrug, pushing off the wall. “Just keeping my ear to the street.”
Skid nods, pushing his hair back with a dirty hand. “If you want my opinion, boss,thatstreet is one-way to crazy-town. Thanks again for the shrooms.”
“Keep up the good work, Skid.”
Finally, I get to the laundry and lay down the law.
If anyone has a fucking dispute about snacks, there is to be no stabbing.
For fucks sake.
