American Criminal (10 page)

    Things are not looking good.

    He closed his eyes and attempted to get some rest. Trying to relax, the words of the mafia boss intruded on his solitude.

    Be ready for the Nazis to set you up. It’s going to happen sooner or later. Probably sooner.

Chapter 12

    Despite his anxiety, Burnside fell asleep for several hours. He awoke to the sound of his cell door sliding open. He opened his eyes, looked up, and saw a brawny prison guard looming over him.

    “Get up. Time to get yourself cleaned up,” the guard said, rudely.

    Burnside sat up, ducked his head, and stood. He saw a line of inmates already standing outside. The guard pushed him into line and they began moving. He glanced at the guards flanking them on both sides and followed along like a tame sheep being led with the general flock. They traversed various concrete corridors until they reached a dirty locker room. The locker room housed some of the most beat-up lockers Ray had ever seen. Some of the lockers looked like they had been smashed in with baseball bats. The damage was so extensive, he couldn’t imagine someone doing it with their bare hands. There were numerous indentations where the metal had been kicked or pounded. The worn benches were cracked and broken in places.

    The other inmates from his cellblock began stripping off their clothes and putting them in the beat-up lockers. Most of them didn’t sit on the benches because of the obvious splinters in the wood. Burnside found a smashed locker he could just barely open and followed their example. When they had all stripped, they filed out the back door into a large shower area. The grimy area reminded Burnside of a much-dirtier version of the communal showers in his high school gymnasium. The shower area was a very large rectangular room surrounded by innumerable showerheads.  Six guards holding batons stood against the back wall monitoring the inmates. Burnside couldn’t believe he actually felt grateful for their protection, such as it was

    He found an unoccupied showerhead in a long line of showerheads. He noticed the wall was missing about half its dirty brown tiles, exposing the rotted wood beneath. The wood appeared to be thoroughly saturated with water. He grimaced with disgust and stared expectantly at the showerhead. Several seconds elapsed before the water turned on automatically, dousing his face with tepid water. The temperature steadily increased until he felt hot water cascading onto his face and body. The water felt good on his skin.

   
At least the showers work. I would not have guessed it from the look of this place.

    The inmates occupied most of the showers. Each showerhead was evenly spaced so there was just enough room for a person to stand beneath without touching the elbows of the person next to him.

  
The proximity of the other inmates was unsettling, but the warm water felt soothing. He didn’t have any soap, so he did the best he could trying to rub the dirt off his body with his hands. He realized most of the other inmates had brought their own soap with them. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to ask one of them to borrow their soap bar. He made several slow 360-degree turns as he stood under the shower, pretending to wash both sides of his body. That way, he figured he could look around and make sure no one was sneaking up behind him. All that talk about payback had made him downright paranoid.

    Burnside used his peripheral vision to make sure the inmates on his right and left were not making any sudden moves. After a few minutes, the showers stopped automatically and the naked inmates began filing across the wet floor toward the locker room. Burnside waited until the other inmates went ahead of him. That way, no one would be behind him. He looked around for the guards and saw the last one leaving through a separate exit. He entered the back of the line and trudged across the slimy wet tiled floor toward the locker room door.

    Burnside caught a sudden movement in his peripheral vision and turned quickly to the right. A large fist flew toward his face. He dodged to the side, so the fist only caught him a glancing blow on the side of the head. He was momentarily stunned, but he quickly recovered and got into an improvised boxing stance. He blocked several more punches thrown from a large naked inmate with a shaved head. He sidestepped and launched some punches of his own. He caught the bald inmate in the jaw with a left jab and followed up to his stomach with a hard right. The bald inmate doubled over, clutching his stomach and gasping. Burnside was ready to follow up with a kick to the man’s groin when he felt strong arms seize him from behind.

    A powerful arm wrapped around his neck and pulled him backward. He could feel a huge bicep muscle digging into his face. He lost his balance and slipped out of the headlock, falling hard to the slippery tiled floor. The next thing he knew, the wind was knocked out of him as he received a hard punch to the stomach. He grunted with pain as he watched the bald inmate he doubled over with a punch looming above him, delivering a rain of blows onto his body. He tried to block with his arms, but the unknown inmate who dragged him down from behind had pinned his wrists to the floor. He lost track of how many blows he received as his vision blurred. He struggled to break free, but he couldn’t move his arms. The sharp pain of each individual blow blended into one long wave of pain. His stomach muscles hurt like they were on fire as he fought to breathe. The punches to his face were easier to take because they didn’t knock the breath out of him. There was no letup in the assault. He figured they were going to beat him to death.

    Abruptly, the punches stopped. It took several seconds for Ray’s brain to register that his body was no longer being struck. His stomach stung as if it had been skewered with a thousand needles, but he was finally starting to get his breath back. He breathed in deep, desperate gasps.

    “Turn him over,” a deep voice snarled.

    Burnside was still too weak to move, so there was nothing he could do as they flipped him onto his stomach. The muscular inmate who grabbed him from behind continued to hold his wrists down in a strong grip. His captor gave him just enough slack so he could lean on his elbows. The inmate standing behind him grabbed his ankles and shoved him into a kneeling position. He summoned up his reserves of strength in his battered body and tried to break free. He realized he was in a bad position because he couldn’t get any leverage. The guy in front of him had his wrists pinned firmly to the slimy floor, while the guy in back had his ankles pinned.

   
Why don’t they just kill me and get it over with?

    His stunned brain finally deciphered their evil plan. They were going to rape him. He tried one last time with all his strength to break free of their iron grips and finally ceased his violent struggling. The guy behind him let go of his ankles and grabbed his buttocks. He felt a sharp, searing pain in his anus. He felt like he was having a reverse bowel movement as white-hot pain ripped through his insides. Blood trickled down the back of his legs. He felt like his intestines were being ripped apart as the rapist shoved into him and began thrusting.

    His instincts were telling him to tense up all his muscles in preparation for a final struggle, but he realized his only chance was to do the opposite. Instead, he relaxed his entire body and stopped fighting altogether. He allowed the muscles in his arms to go completely slack as his head lolled down dejectedly on his neck. The assailant holding his wrists on the floor didn’t loosen his grip in response to his cessation of movement.

    Not yet, at least.

    A literary quote flashed into his mind like a lightning bolt from the gods;
Beware the fury of a patient man.
An apt quote from the poet, John Dryden. He gritted his teeth against the searing pain. It literally felt like a hot poker was being shoved up his ass. He gritted his teeth, grinning maniacally as he realized what was happening to him. He never thought he would ever get raped in prison. That was something that only happened to other people.

    “Hey, I think he’s starting to like it. I just saw him smile,” the goon who was holding him down said to the rapist behind him.

    The deep voice sounded muffled as if it was miles away. He tried to imagine the pure energy of his spirit abandoning his pain-wracked body, leaving it behind on the floor like an empty shell, while he drifted away into the air. The searing pain began to feel distant, as if it was happening to someone else.

    The rapist behind him screamed like a cowboy riding a bucking horse as his brutish comrade in front snarled obscene encouragement to him.

    That’s right, guys. Just keep enjoying yourself…..no problem….I can take it…..I can take it….just relax and have your fun….because it’s not going to last. You’re both going to die.

    During the entire ordeal, Burnside kept his eyes clamped tightly shut so he wouldn’t see the despicable face of the man holding him down. He realized he needed to get his bearings if he was going to take any offensive action. He forced himself to open his eyes and stare directly into the ugly brutish face of the gargantuan bald-headed inmate grinning at him like a leering devil. Ray hung his head dejectedly as if he had finally succumbed to the situation.

    “See! I told you he likes it! Keep going!” the leering inmate snarled to his rapist partner.

    To Burnside, his face looked like it belonged to an oversized demon from hell.

    “Come on, give me a kiss, pretty boy,” the massive inmate said, snickering, as he moved his ugly face closer to Ray’s.

   
Keep going. Just a little closer.

    The inmate pursed his lips to simulate a kiss. Burnside used all his willpower to force himself to do the same.

    “This faggot’s gonna kiss me!” the inmate shouted as he moved his flabby pursed lips toward Ray’s face.

   
There you go, fella. That’s the last mistake you’ll ever make.

    Burnside allowed the dam holding back a tidal wave of rage to burst in his mind. He tensed up every muscle in his body, lunging his face forward on his neck like a jack-in-the-box toward the ugly face of the leering inmate.

    An image of a Great White Shark flashed into his mind as he opened his jaws as wide as he could and clamped his teeth down into the soft flesh of the man’s nose. The inmate screamed in pain as Burnside focused all his strength into his jaw muscles. He felt soft flesh splitting and giving way as warm salty liquid flooded his mouth. He ignored the disgusting taste and held his jaws clamped tightly together onto the ragged piece of bloody flesh tearing loose from his assailant’s face. He shook his head from side to side, like a dog tearing at a piece of meat. He felt the soft skin rip and stretch as he moved, spilling more blood. His assailant’s surprised screams evolved into ear-piercing shrieks of terror. The inmate released Burnside’s wrists as he tried to pry his bleeding face away from the relentless jaws. Ray kept his teeth clamped down like a wolf fighting another for a piece of meat.

    “What’s wrong with you, Eddie? What the fuck’s happening to you?” Burnside heard the rapist shout from behind him.

    He ignored the rapist’s panicked voice as he felt streams of warm blood trickling down his chin. The inmate with the ravaged nose could no longer scream. He whimpered like a whipped dog as his hands futilely attempted to pry Ray’s jaws from the gaping wound. Ray held his teeth fast in the torn and bloody flesh. Burnside himself was so torn up that he barely felt anything as the other rapist finally disengaged himself.

   
All right, pal, now I have you both right where I want you.

    Burnside used all his remaining strength to rip the torn and bloody piece of meat away from the stricken man’s face. He spit out the gooey chunk of mangled flesh like a bloody sausage and pushed himself up. The inmate with the severed nose slipped and fell back, clutching his hands against the gaping wound in his face like someone blowing his nose into a tissue. The whimpering inmate vainly attempted to stifle the flow of blood gushing from the gash where his nose used to be. Burnside watched the inmate kicking and flailing on the slimy tiled floor like a seizure victim. He felt immense satisfaction when the inmate stopped whimpering and resumed shrieking.

    The other rapist grabbed for Ray’s neck, but his fingers slipped in the thin coating of blood that had splashed on him from the other man’s wound. Burnside slipped out of his grasp and spun around, smashing the rapist in the face with a closed right fist.  He struck the inmate full on the nose, cracking the bone like a shattered egg. The inmate howled in pain as his hands flew up to his face.

   
Déjà vu.

    Burnside wrapped his hands around the naked inmate’s exposed neck. His adrenaline-fueled muscles gave him the power to squeeze his fingers together until the air stopped flowing to the rapist’s lungs. He kept the pressure steady as the rapist’s cheeks puffed out and his face turned the color of burning flames. He instinctively made the decision that the inmate had forfeited his life the instant he began raping him. He continued to exert pressure on the rapist’s throat as he watched the blood slowly drain from his face as it began turning a sickly blue color.

    Ray suddenly heard voices shouting and the sound of shoes slapping on wet tiles, as people entered the shower area. In moments, he felt fingers digging into his shoulders and arms as he was seized roughly from behind. He kept his grip steady on the rapist’s neck until there were too many strong hands pulling at his body. It took five guards to drag him away. Five pairs of muscular arms were needed to pry his fingers away from the blue-faced rapist’s throat. He laughed like a madman as the guards pinned him to the floor and cuffed his hands behind his back.