Shepherd

As the Department of Corrections transport bus turned into the drive, Felipe Gonzalez saw a half-dozen inmates in bright orange jumpsuits swarming around the prison’s entrance. Two men were repainting the Marion Men’s Correctional Institute sign, earnestly lettering black paint onto the somber gray stone. Another pair raked leaves and two more plunked green lillirope into the Florida sand, shuffling golden mulch around them.

At least they’re not planting fucking flowers.

Two guards leaned against a prison van, smoking, their shotguns propped against their thighs. They waved at the bus driver.

The bus smelled of sweat and urine. Eight other inmates sat shackled with Felipe, swaying as the bus lurched through its gears, burly caricatures of the schoolboys they had once been.

Once inside three more security gates, Felipe looked around the prison yard. Everything appeared gray, washed out, dirty. Crappy netless basketball hoops leaned at both ends of the court, scruffy benches on the sidelines attested to years of use and abuse. The court itself was a faded pink with its foul lines barely visible.

The ball game slowed as the parade of fresh meat walked by, chains clanking in the hot afternoon sun.

A lanky redhead with blotchy skin hooked the basketball over his hip and hooted,

“Oooh, baby baby! Virgins.” Men swarmed to the chain link fence between them. A chorus of lewd comments and gestures followed the chained men. It looked absurdly like the wave at a sporting event but beneath it was cruelty and dominance, not the froth of entertainment.

A couple of the new guys flinched as one of the ball players clambered onto the chain link fence to scream at them. “Come here, honey, suck my cock!”

“Chickie, chickie, chickie.”

“Gonna plug your ass babycakes, plug you hard!”

The prison guards stood still, arms crossed, eyes dark.

Felipe kept his face impassive, not making eye contact, wide shoulders rigid beneath his orange jumpsuit. A trickle of sweat eased down his neck into the itchy stiff cotton.

Two years. Twenty four months, 104 weeks 730 days. The numbers throbbed in his head like a sore tooth.

Something was off but Felipe couldn’t pin it down. The yard, the guards in their tan uniforms, wide-brimmed hats to protect their faces from the sun. The gleam of the rifles in the towers at all four corners. It wasn’t until he was led into a cell on the third floor and the door banged shut behind him so hard he bit his tongue that he figured it out.

Marion was an old prison, built in the 20s, concrete block construction with an inner yard, classic prison format. Everything was beat-up, worn and tired looking. Except…

The twelve-foot-tall chain link fence with its ugly, curling razor wire at the top was brand new.

* * * *

Just after four o’clock a ripping buzz tore through the cellblock. The alarms trilled, cell doors unlocked and opened by remote, the halls filled with voices, some shouting, some growling. Noise slammed through the hall; it reminded Felipe of high school and the shouting matches in the gym.

He stood at the bars of his cell, rattling them. Still locked.

“Motheerrrfffuuuccckkkeeerrrr!” An inmate in ragged sweat pants and a shred of a tank top stomped by Felipe’s cell. “Can’t get no workout done with these fucking lockdowns!” Brown dreadlocks brushed his shoulder blades, thick as mop bristles.

“Dude, chill. This happens allthe time.” His companion stopped outside Felipe’s cell, eyelashes fluttering. “Oooh, look what Harley’s got waiting for him. Beefcake!” He ran a fingernail—polished in bright green—over a Betty Boop curl looping down his forehead.

Felipe gazed back, puzzled.

“Darling, what’s your name?” Betty Boop cooed.

Dreadlocks whirled back to look in at Felipe, dark eyes surly. A tattoo snaked down his neck and chest, its tongue appearing to lick his brown nipple. “Looks like he does the bench time,” the taller man said. His glance turned from quick appraisal to a slow, lascivious leer. “Where’s your silverware? I’d eat him out with a knife, fork and spoon.”

The two laughed and headed down the hall again. Felipe unclenched his hands from the cool metal of the bars. Around him, prison doors clanged open and shut, and Felipe sank onto the lower bunk bed, covering his face with his hands.

* * * *

Lockdown, it turned out, meant dinner served by a surly guard who slammed the tray through the food slot, spilling half of the stew on the floor. Felipe couldn’t tell what meat was in the stew and he normally hated carrots but he ate everything on the tray—the boiled potatoes, the mystery meat, the two logs of stale cornbread. For a minute he ached fiercely for a cold beer—salty, lush on his tongue—then deliberately pushed the thought away.