Grizz
1988, Prison, North Florida
It had been more than a week since Grizz’s last meeting with Bill in the library. The last time they’d met, Bill had informed him he’d been doing his best but couldn’t tell where the State of Florida was going with the death penalty.
“It seems like it’s been put before the State Legislature a few times already, and it keeps getting voted down. There are a lot of people who want to see lethal injection passed since it’s a more humane death than the electric chair. It’s fucking weird. A lot more people are for lethal injection than against it. Seems like it would be a no-brainer, but it keeps getting squashed. Somebody doesn’t want it passed. Sorry, man. I can’t tell you any more than that.”
Bill looked at Grizz with concern. He almost felt sorry for him. This guy was facing the electric chair, and rightfully so. He deserved it. He’d read what Grizz had done. But Bill could also understand why Grizz didn’t want to die that way. It was barbaric.
Grizz nodded his head in understanding and told him to keep an eye on it. He asked him then if the other inmates had left him alone. Bill told him yes. Psycho and his friend, Bender, had stayed far away from him.
That conversation had been more than a week ago. This was the third night Grizz had been in the library expecting to see him. What was going on?
Just then he heard the door open and saw Bill make his way quietly to the table where Grizz sat. His eyes were red. It was obvious he’d been crying.
“What’s wrong?” Grizz stood.
Bill wouldn’t make eye contact.
“Are they fucking with you again?”
Still no answer or eye contact.
“They know better than to touch you.” Grizz clenched his fists.
“They haven’t touched me,” Bill said quietly.
“Then what the hell is wrong with you?”
Bill looked him in the eyes then. “They didn’t defy your orders not to touch me. They haven’t come near me, so you can’t retaliate.”
“What the fuck did they do? And don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. Now fucking spill it!”
Bill sighed. “They got ahold of Buddy.”
Grizz knew about Bill’s rat, Buddy. He sat down. It was an unusually large rodent and had been hand-fed and cared for by Bill since it was a baby. A rat wouldn’t have been Grizz’s first choice for a pet, but he’d always held a soft spot for any animal, especially since his baby sister, Ruthie, had cared for a family of mice in their old barn. It was why he’d been so reluctant all those years ago to follow his stepfather’s orders to put out the poison—he hadn’t had time to relocate Ruthie’s pets to a safe place. It hadn’t mattered anyway. He’d made good use of the poison.
“What did they do to Buddy?” But Grizz was certain he knew. They must’ve killed it. Stupid sons of bitches.
“They killed him and…and...” Bill’s voice was laced with emotion.
“And what?” Grizz growled.
“They must’ve paid somebody off in the kitchen or something,” Bill said as he tried to stifle his sobs. “They told me he was in the hamburger I ate that day. It was set aside just for me, and when I went through the chow line, Joker made sure it was the one given to me.” He balled up his hands, pressed them to his eyes. “I didn’t know it. I ate it. I ate my pet.”
The thought of what Bill was telling him made bile rise in Grizz’s throat. The musty smell of the library mixed with the heavy aroma of disinfectants used by the cleaning crew caused his stomach to roil. He shifted in his chair, wondered how this news hadn’t reached his ears already.
“Maybe it’s not true,” Grizz said. “Maybe they’re just fucking with you. Maybe Buddy will show back up.”
“Parts of him already did,” Bill said. “I keep finding a different piece of him every day since then. Under my blanket. Floating in my toilet.”
Grizz’s fist came down so hard on the table it caused Bill to jump.
“Those motherfuckers should know better. They may not be touching you, but they are fucking with what they’ve been told is mine. And nobody fucks with what’s mine!”
Bill gulped and gazed at him.
Grizz looked at Bill evenly then. “I’ll find out tomorrow how much of what you told me is true, and I’ll find out why I’m hearing it first from you—and not from my brothers.”
This conversation was over, and Grizz was ready to move on. He’d been curious about something and had never gotten around to asking Bill.
“Tell me why that guard, Headly, lets you use the library. I never asked you.”
“I helped him with his daughter’s hospital bill.”
“How?”
“I used to empty the wastebaskets in his office, and I heard him on the phone with his insurance company trying to get them to pay for a procedure. She’s only twelve and pretty damn sick. I told him if I could use the library computer just the one time, I’d be glad to send my uncle, who just happens to work at that insurance company, an email and ask him if he could do anything to help.”
Grizz’s eyes blazed. “You told me it was just you and your grandfather.”
“It was just my grandpa and me. I don’t have an uncle. I made it up. I used the computer time to hack the insurance company and have the claim approved. Headly thought my imaginary uncle helped. It was the first time I had access to the library computer, and Headly made sure the camera was turned off so I couldn’t be seen using it. Prisoners aren’t allowed to use it. It’s for the librarian only. But I wasn’t just hacking the insurance company. I used the time to set up the camera feed so I could go back in later and use the computer unnoticed. When the claim was approved, he asked what he could do for me, and I told him I’d like some reading time by myself in the library after hours. He arranged it.”
Bill swiped his arm across his face and sighed loudly. With slumped shoulders, he looked at Grizz. “Of course, you know I’m not in here reading.”
Grizz nodded. He’d wondered how Bill had arranged this special privilege and was surprised they hadn’t run into each other before that first night, but then he remembered he hadn’t been visiting the library during his usual time.
Bill then filled him in on the progress he’d made hacking the different law enforcement agencies that might have had Grizz in their systems.
When they were done, Grizz stood to leave. He retrieved the book he’d selected to take with him.
“See you in here Thursday night,” he told Bill.
The next day, Grizz sat with his men in the chow hall. He never held court in public, but this was something he wanted to get to the bottom of immediately, and he didn’t have time to use their coded form of communicating. Not one of them had heard anything about the rat incident.
Grizz looked over at the chow line. “Which one is Joker?”
After they pointed Joker out, Grizz got up and headed toward the food line. As was the norm, the other inmates in line cleared a path for him. When he got to Joker, he whispered, “In the kitchen. Now.”
In an attempt to impress Grizz and without missing a beat, the man behind the food line with Joker piped up, “Go ahead, man. I can handle this alone.”
The guards turned the other way as Grizz followed a shaking Joker back to where the meals were prepared. As soon as the kitchen inmates realized who was following Joker, they looked away and went back to their work. It behooved them to not show any curiosity.
Joker stopped at the walk-in freezer and turned around to look up at Grizz. Before Grizz could ask or say anything, Joker spoke up, his voice low.
“I know why you’re here, man, and I can explain.”
“Talk,” was all Grizz said.
“They came to me because I owed them a favor. I told them assholes not to do it. I don’t know you, but I know of you. I know that just by messing with Pretty—uh, I mean, Bill—they were asking for trouble.”
“Did you or did you not cook his rat and put it in his hamburger?” Grizz narrowed his eyes.
“They wanted me to, but I didn’t. I knew better, and I can prove it.”
Grizz raised an eyebrow at this.
Joker turned around and opened the big freezer door. Grizz watched as he walked to a shelf and retrieved a brown paper bag. When Joker came out of the freezer, he opened the bag and showed Grizz what was left of Buddy in an airtight freezer bag. No head. No limbs. Just a rat torso.
“This is what they brought me, man. I’m not stupid. I’ve been in here long enough to know you’d find out and come looking. This is the guy’s pet. I never put it in his burger. Psycho and Bender don’t know it; they think I did it, but I didn’t.”
Joker could still be lying. The prison was full of rodents, and the man could’ve gotten a hold of one just for this very purpose. Grizz would need proof. He told Joker to wait in the kitchen while he went out to ask Bill something.
Grizz returned minutes later. “If that torso doesn’t have a missing patch of hair where the rat was burned on its left side, then I’ll know you’re lying.”
With trembling hands, Joker turned over the clear plastic bag containing Buddy. Just where Bill had said, Buddy was missing some hair. Joker’s sigh of relief was audible.
“Pack it back up,” Grizz told him.
Joker put Buddy’s remains back in the brown bag and handed it to Grizz.
Grizz nodded, and without saying anything else, left the kitchen.
**********
Less than a week later, the prison warden sat at his desk and reviewed the prison coroner’s report for the two inmates known as Psycho and Bender. He laid it on his desk and reached down and opened his lower left-hand desk drawer. Was it too early for a shot of whiskey?
After pouring himself a jigger, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as the burning liquid made its way down his throat. It soothed his belly that was jutting out almost to reach the desk. Maybe one more.
After his second shot, he pondered these last two prison deaths. He shook his head as realization seeped in that he was no longer running this prison. He’d thought this might happen after Jason “Grizz” Talbot had received the death penalty and was sent here to sit on Death Row. In the almost two years Talbot had been at the prison, he’d managed to do something unheard of. There were several gangs in this prison, each one with their own boss. Talbot had not only wrested the prostitution and contraband business away from the inmates who’d been running them, but he’d managed to establish himself as the authority over all of them.
He was basically the bosses’ boss.
The fact that Talbot had kidnapped a fifteen-year-old and married her should’ve meant isolation and mistreatment from the other convicts. Instead, the man commanded with authority and demanded respect—and he got it. The warden shook his head.
And it was no mystery as to who was behind the canine and prisoner rehabilitation program. The warden was certain that Talbot was going to use the dogs to transport some of the smaller, but more potent drugs. He was a smart son-of-a-bitch. And to make matters worse, if the warden shut down the dog ministry, he’d look like the bad guy to all the human rights activists. They’d accuse him of depriving the inmates a chance for rehabilitation.
As far as the warden was concerned, nobody in this prison deserved a chance at rehabilitation. Hell, even more than half his guards were being bought on a daily basis.
Eighteen months until retirement, the warden told himself. Less than two years of this hell, and I’ll retire with a pension that will make me comfortable for the rest of my life. Hopefully, that bastard will hit the electric chair soon.
His thoughts were interrupted when Officer Headly entered the office without knocking.
“Have you signed off on the report, sir?” Headly asked the warden.
The warden reached for a different set of papers that had been sitting on the right side of his desk. He sighed as he handed them to Headly.
Without saying anything, Headly started to leave the office. He was almost out the door when he turned around to look at the warden.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I think you gave me the wrong report.”
“No, I didn’t, Headly. It’s what you’ll turn in.”
“Sir, this says that it was a murder-suicide. That’s not—”
“I know what the fucking report says, Headly. I signed the damn thing, and it’s what you’ll put on file. Understand? Psycho got a hold of a shank and stabbed his boyfriend, Bender, in the shower. He then went back to his job in the laundry and hung himself with a sheet in the back room. A murder-suicide. Got it?”
“But, sir, the families will want to see, and have the right to review the medical examiner’s report.”
“And they will see one, Headly. They’ll see the one you’re holding. They just won’t see this one,” the warden replied as he picked up another set of papers from his desk and swung his chair around so his back was now facing Officer Headly. The high-pitched whine of a shredder resonated through the small office as the warden reflected on Talbot's brutality. He didn't know exactly what had happened, but this was extreme. If anybody in the prison had ever thought about crossing the death row inmate this would surely cause them to think twice.
Headly just shook his head as he took the falsified coroner’s report and quietly left the warden’s office.
Maybe it was better this way. After all, what next of kin wants to hear their loved one died from choking on pieces of a rat carcass?