By Joshua Ryan

It was a strange-looking room. What you saw was a line of long metal benches, the kind of benches that are big enough for a guy to lie down on and spread out his arms above his head. The benches were lined up parallel, every few feet. And you could tell that guys were supposed to lie down on them, because they had cuffs and shackles at all four corners.

At the head of every bench was a table, with some metal instruments arranged on it.

The panic was rising again, but I didn’t have time to panic. “Go to the drain, boy,” the officer said. He was pointing to the wall across from the line of benches.

I went to the wall. At the bottom I saw a thing in the floor like a gutter, or a big pipe with the top cut off of it. “I want to see you piss, boy. Do it now. And make sure you squirt it all out. We don’t want any accidents later on.”

I didn’t know about accidents, or what could cause them. But I knew how piss-shy I was. I hadn’t thought about pissing — not since the doctor’s exam, anyhow. And that was hard enough, just getting a little piss in his plastic cup. After that, pissing went out of my mind. I guess it had to. I knew I couldn’t piss in front of anybody else — not piss and get it all out, anyway. Yet now I had my orders! And for the first time I realized: my bladder was about to burst.

I had to do it, and I had to do it now. But how could I? There wasn’t any shelter. I couldn’t say, Please excuse me, Boss, I’ll just go into one of these stalls over here. There were no stalls. There were no partitions. There were no white latrines that you can lean into to cover yourself up. There was just my naked prick dangling over that naked slot in the floor. I could smell the remains of the last guys that pissed in that slot. I could see the little film of scum on the tiles beside it, where some of the guys had missed. I could feel the hot piss filling my dick. I could feel the muscles clamping down on it, afraid to let it out . . .

“I told you to PISS, faggot! What the fuck — do you have to squat to piss! I told you to squirt, boy — squirt it out! NOW!”

Oh Jesus! I felt the chain of clamps inside me blowing open, one by one, and the piss rushing out of me, yellow and rich and stinking, splashing into the gutter, splashing onto my naked toes in little drops . . . Oh Jesus! What a relief! I would do anything for a man who gave me that relief!

“Boss!” I yelled. “Squirting it out, Boss!”

“That’s better boy. Now shake it off.”

“Boss! Shaking it off, Boss!”

I turned and saw the officer watching me shake the last drops of urine off the end of my dick. I wanted to fall on the floor and kiss his feet. I wanted to squirm on the floor and lick his leather boots. But that wasn’t what I’d been ordered to do, so I understood that I couldn’t do that. Then the feeling passed, and I was afraid again.

“All right, boy, you’re ready,” he said. “Lie down on the first bench.” That made me really afraid.   Nothing that happened on those benches could possibly be good.

I walked to the first bench and lay down on it. The steel was cold against my ass and shoulders. Cold and creepy. “Stick out your hands and feet.” I stuck them out. “Way out, convict.” I stuck them out as far as they’d reach, and he locked all four of them into the restraints at the corners. Now I was trussed to the bench, staring up at the ceiling. I heard the officer walking away. I lay still, trying to keep the panic down.

Then I heard the officer arguing with someone. They must be out in the corridor, because I could barely hear what they said.

“Well, I’m here, ain’t I?” the other guy asked.

“Yeah, just in time,” Officer Nolan answered.

“OK, man, I know that I’m late. So like, let’s move on with our lives, OK? I got a job to do, I’ll do it. Just let me get started, OK? I gotta party to go to later.”

“Yeah, that so?”

“Yeah, man. It’s New Years Eve, you know.”

“All right, party boy. Just don’t get busted, or you might wind up in here.”

“Sure, man, sure. I’ll remember your advice. Now let’s get started, right?”

“You got the stencils done?”

“You bet. Say, whaddya think I been doin the last ten minutes? Everything’s cool. Relax! I’ll let you know when I’m through with him.”

“All right. He’s all yours.”

The door opened, and clanged shut.

There was a face bending over me. It wasn’t the face of an officer. It was the face of a kid with a pimply white face and long blond dreds.

“Hey,” it said. “I’m Leo. I’m your tattooist.”

“What?”

“I’m your tattooist, dude. I’m here to give you your new set of tatts.”

I knew it. Of course I knew it. I’d seen Jake’s tattoos. I’d jerked off thinking about Jake’s tattoos. Now I was a convict myself, which meant that I’d have to be tattooed. But somehow, I’d kept myself from thinking about that. My body knew better than to think about that. Otherwise, it would be too afraid. It didn’t matter, though. It was gonna happen, whether I thought about it or not. It was gonna happen now.

“No!” I heard myself saying. “Please! Please don’t do that! I don’t want it! Please don’t do that to me!”

“Sorry, dude. You heard the man. That’s what they pay me for. But here’s some shit that’ll help you some.”

He stuck his hand out. There was a little black pill inside.

“Open your mouth, dude.”

I opened my mouth, and the pill dropped in. I swallowed it.

“OK, dude. But you better relax. The way you’re strainin, those cuffs are gonna bite your wrists off. Actually,” he continued, clanking something around on the table behind my head, “there isn’t much pain. Not anymore. Not with these pills and these high-speed needles. Then there’s this Heal Kreem stuff. That’s new. Maybe you heard of it.”

“No. I never did.” He’s gonna tattoo me. He’s gonna tattoo me. HE’S GONNA TATTOO ME!

“It’s pretty new. I use it all the time. It’s the new professional gel. Once I’m through with you, I’ll be slathering it over your tatts. You’ll feel it. Basically, what it does, man, it keeps your tatts from bleeding and aching and all that shit. Eventually, it just washes off. Pretty cool stuff, eh? Big difference from the old days. With this stuff, you won’t hardly feel a thing. After I’m through, you can just lie back and look at your tatts. The ones on the front, anyhow. The ones on the back, you’ll just know they’re there.”

I don’t know whether it was the pill or it was my panic topping out, but I was getting really groggy. The words went around and around in my mind, chasing each other . . . “the ones on the front” . . . “the ones on the back”. . . the ones on the back of what? Then I thought, he means the ones on the back of ME! HE’S GONNA TATTOO MY FUCKIN BACK!

“OK, dude, remember what I said. You gotta relax. You think you can do that for me? Cuz otherwise, I’m gonna have to call the officer back in here, dude, and he’s not gonna like that. They never like havin their smokes interrupted . . . .”

I felt my head moving up and down. I was promising to relax.

“OK, that’s better. I know how you feel, though. If this was a cool-lookin tatt you were gettin, like a clown or a dolphin or a girl or somethin, you know, a girl with big boobs hangin out, or an eagle — I like eagles; I’ve got designs for a few of my own, that I’m workin on, sorta in my spare time — or if it was one of those tribal things, you know, with all those little squiggles and shit, I know you’d be thinkin, DUDE, this is cool! But these convict tags — I guess they’re cool in their own way, they really make a statement, you know, but basically all they are is just big ol’ block letters, man, just big ol’ blocks of black ink. Easy to do, I can tell you that! Just not very challenging, that’s all.”

He touched me on the pec, and my skin shrank away. My nipples must have shrunk to the size of a pin by then.

“Easy, boy, easy. This is just the alcohol rub. Don’t wanta get any heebie jeebies inside your tatt, do ya?”

I couldn’t answer. I was too scared and too drunk on that pill. I swallowed hard, but I couldn’t answer.

“I know what it’s like, dude. Not about the tatts. I’ve enjoyed all of my own tatts. Each and every one of them. But I see you guys in here every day, man, waitin for the needle, gettin the last high of your life off that pill I just gave you — and a couple hours later, it’ll all be gone. That’s it. No more excitement. No more highs for the rest of your life, buddy. It’s kind of sad. But hey! You’ll be completely tatted out by then! So OK, I’m ready.”

He spread something thin and flat over my pec.

“That’s the stencil,” he said.

Stencil? I didn’t know what that word meant anymore. I tried to picture it . . . I closed my eyes. . . . God! This is a nightmare . . . I want to wake up . . .

“Here goes, dude!”

Then it happened. It was like a knife running over my skin, running very very slowly, pricking the skin, in and out, in and out, in and out, until I wanted to scream because of those constant pricks, in and out, in and out, in and out, ruining my chest, ruining my body . . . I wanted to SCREAM! But I couldn’t. If I screamed, the officer would come and punish me. And I didn’t want that. I didn’t want that to happen. So I kept quiet, as quiet as I could, and the knife kept whirring, and Leo kept bending over my chest, and his dreds kept scraping back and forth across my face, and the patchouli kept reeking out of his pits, and his needle kept getting duller and duller and slower and slower, as the drug took hold. . . . Then there was something in my head, something like a dream, but I was awake, so that wasn’t it, but I couldn’t think of a way to get the thing out of my head, so maybe it was just an idea or something, but I couldn’t get rid of it, and it was like I was in a quarry, a stone quarry, with a lot of other guys inside it, inside the rocks somehow, and I was in one of them too, and another guy was pounding on the rocks with a hammer and a chisel and a lot of other tools, cutting and chipping and hammering the rocks, till the stone guys came out of them, all these white stone guys, shuffling out, like rocks out of the quarry, identical stone guys walking out of the stones, like convicts coming off the back of a truck, naked guys, leaving the quarry and shuffling up the road . . .

“All right, dude. So much for your right pec. Congratulations — it’s official! You are now a CONVICT!”

I opened my eyes. I didn’t know what he meant.

“You are now a CONVICT, man! I mean, it’s official. That’s what it says on your chest: CONVICT! Look at it this way — the next time you’re at a party, you won’t have to answer any dumb questions like, ‘So tell me, dude, what do you do for a living?’ Everybody can just read the sign!” He grinned, and his dreds shook back and forth. “I dunno, dude, I just think that’s funny. But anyways . . . Now it’s time for me to work on your left pec, man. Gotta get the second half of that sign on you.”

He swabbed me again — oh God, not the left one too! — and he slapped down another stencil. What happened to those guys, I wondered, those guys that came out of the stone? What happened after they were taken out of the quarry? But I must have passed out, right about then . . . .

“All right!” a voice said. “That’s it for the left pec! I guess you’d like to know your number, dude.”

I looked up. The same pimply white face was still leaning over me. Number? Number? What number? I knew my number. People called it all the time. Area code 6-1-9 . . . But wait! That’s not what he meant. He meant my convict number! Oh Christ. It was all coming back. Convicts had numbers. And I was a convict.

“Well, here it is. Are you ready? You are now — would you give me a drumroll, PLEASE! — you are now . . . Convict Number 3-5-3-3-0-8! That’s you, man! That’s you from here on out. That’s the way they’ll know you.”

I must have looked pretty bad, because I felt him patting me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, dude,” he said. “I know you’re high. But you don’t need to memorize your number right now. You’ll never need to memorize it. All you’ll ever need to do is look down at your chest. Your number will always be there.”

I don’t think I looked very happy about that, but he didn’t pay any attention. “OK,” he said. “Now I’m gonna turn you over and do your other side.”

Huh? Wasn’t he finished? Hadn’t he done enough?   I was too groggy to understand. I felt him unlocking the cuffs and shackles; then I felt him prodding me on my flank, getting me to move. Somehow, after that, I flopped over on my stomach, and he put me back in the cuffs and shackles. I felt him swabbing my back. Oh God! Now I remembered. It wasn’t enough that I had to be CONVICT 353308 from the front side; I had to be CONVICT 353308 from the back side too.

I don’t know how long it took for him to tattoo my back. By the time he was through, I was feeling the needle again, in and out, in and out, in and out. . .. But it didn’t last long. He was almost done with me then.

“All right!” he exclaimed, shutting off the machinery. “I gotta tell you, man, you got one hell of a back on you. Your contours are exactly right. You were born for those big humungous tatts. And I think you’re really gonna like em. A big ol’ CONVICT; then another big ol’ 353308. And they both look really good. Only thing I gotta do now, I gotta put this gel on your back, same as I did on your front.” There was a smell like kerosene; then I felt something cool spreading across my skin, and the burning started to go away.

“OK, man, you’re done. And I’m outta here. I’ll tell the officer you’re good to go. Catch you later, dude. Happy New Year!” And that was the last I heard of Leo.

I lay face-down on the bench for a long time, and gradually the rest of the pill wore off. I wasn’t high at all anymore. That was too bad. Now I might have to start thinking again. But then Officer Nolan came back. I heard his boots walk into the room and stop in back of my bench. “Looks OK,” he muttered. “All right, let’s get you up and outta here.”

I felt him unlocking my cuffs and shackles

“Stand up, boy.”

I slid off the bench and stood up. Then I looked down at my chest. A line of black letters was shimmering across my skin, like the letters on a brand-new truck: “CONVICT 353308.” That’s what my chest said. I knew that’s what my back said, too. I would wear those letters for the rest of my life. Those letters would grow old and die with me.

“All right, boy. Next room.”

I was surprised that I was walking, that I was still able to walk. But there was only a short lag, now, between what the officer said and what I understood. When I reached the corridor, I noticed that the snow was still stacking up around the bars of the windows, and a tiny puff of snow was blowing in through some crack in the glass. There must be a lot of wind outside . . . . “In there, boy” the officer said; and the next door slid open.

In the center of the room was a piece of machinery, a large, heavy piece, taller than your head and wider than your arms could reach. It was the type of machinery that gives no clue to its purpose. It was gray, and it was made of steel, and it had all kinds of shapes and parts, and that was all you could say about it. I looked around. The walls of the room were covered with hooks, with numbers painted above them, and there were strange-looking pieces of metal hanging from the hooks. A convict was walking along one wall, counting the things that were hanging there.

He was a young black guy. He turned and looked at me in a bored way, in the way guys look at you when you walk into a bar and they’ve already decided that they’ll never go home with you.

“OK,” he said. “This won’t take long. See that platform?”

I followed his finger. It was pointing at a little shelf on the lower part of the machine.

“Put your foot on the platform. Your right foot.”

I looked at the shelf. It was shaped like a foot. A right foot. So that was easy. I put my right foot on the platform.

The convict walked over to the machine and pushed a button. Immediately two metal arms came out and folded together, locking my leg in place. What the fuck! I thought. Even after the tatts, I was still able to be surprised by the next thing that happened to my body. The body that had been mine, and was now the property of the Durant Unit.

The convict leaned over my leg and checked something. “Size 8,” he muttered, pushing his cap back. Then he went to the wall and took a metal thing off of a hook. The thing was a foot long and as thick as your finger, with a flange at each end and a hinge in the middle, and two big D-rings sticking out of it along the way. It was heavy; you could see from the way the he held it how heavy it was. He grasped the two ends . . . the hinge moved . . . the flanges came together . . . the thing became circular . . . it closed over my ankle. “Yeah,” he said, “size 8, all right.” He twisted some kind of handle, and the arms opened and closed together again, holding the round thing in place.. Then he stood up and pushed another button. The machine began to whirr and vibrate. Heat came out of it, tremendous heat. I could feel it on my face; I could feel it on my body . . . BANG! . . . Something red-hot rushed out of the machine and crashed through the flanges of steel on my ankle.   I tried to jump away, but my foot wouldn’t move. I was caught. There was an eruption of heat, burning into my ankle; then there was an eruption of cold air, chasing the heat away. I crouched, staring down at my foot, watching the rivet turning from red to gray. The metal arms retracted. I moved my foot. It fell off the platform like a concrete block. There was a steel shackle hanging on my leg, and it was riveted in place.

“Don’t worry, man, that’s the right size,” the convict said, like I’d already complained that it didn’t fit. “Your iron’s gonna be a little floppy at first, but you’re gonna grow into it. They always do.”

He spoke the last words over his shoulder. He was back at work, counting the irons on the wall. I was standing in the center of the room, looking down at my leg. The convict looked sideways. “Nose and toes, man,” he reminded me. So I dragged my leg across the floor and I found a place to stand by the wall, between the fresh shackles hanging down from the hooks; and I stood nose and toes until the officer returned.

 

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