By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 16: Establishing Your True Worth

There were bets about how quick Yash would go, and the ones that bet on his thirty-first day in the Coop were right.  I took longer.  Lots longer.  By the time I went to the Room, I was the longest-running slap in the Coop.  But just when I thought I was lost in the system, the boss grabbed me out of the line leaving the chow hall and told me to “stand aside.”  “Aside” was a collection of three slappies–me, a 20-something named Kristian that had been vacationing from Sweden and had suddenly discovered that coke was not allowed on St. Bevons Island, and a young local named Marco, a “rude boy” that had got himself “sent down thee road” to Slappieville.   Marco was a kid, 18 or 19, whose eyes kept roving back and forth like he expected someone to kill him.  Kristian was tall and his stubble was blond, but he was skinny and somehow professorial.  Even after his weeks in Slaptown, he was still looking around him in a bewildered way, like he’d lost his glasses or his cellphone.

The Boss led us to the Intake shack, where Jojo and Malcolm gave us a shower and a new set of browns and boots.  “Lookin you best for thee Man” was Jojo’s comment.  “No haircut?” I said.  “No mon, that stubble you got is you best feature mon.”  When they were finished, they shackled our legs and cuffed our hands in front of us.  Then they locked our cuffs to a chain.  An officer came by, grunted something at the trusties, gripped the end of the chain, and gave it a tug.  We shuffled forward.  “You’re on your way to the Show Room,” he said.  Like we wouldn’t have guessed.  But that was that.  No long goodbyes.

Continue reading Island Paradise – Part 1: Chapter 16 →