This Ragged, Wastrel Thing

TWO

Whoever designed this prison was smart. The worse the crime, the higher the cell. I’m up on sixty-third with the other murderers, and from here you get one hell of a view. The harbour, the old town, the lights on Broken Hill. The skyscrapers by the waterfront, the back alleys of the Rivers. They want us to see, see what we’re missing. Maybe they’re teasing us, taunting us with a world that’s forever out of reach. Maybe it’s to make us appreciate the city more, so we never sin again.

It’s been ten years. Seven months to go, and I’m a free man. I’ll finally get out of this f*****g cell, but who knows if it will make a difference. Every night when the lights go out I listen to the screaming. Most of those on sixty-third have lost their minds. They howl like wolves at the moon and keep me awake. The ones with any semblance of sanity smash their skulls against stone walls. Their heads sound hollow. Maybe mine is the only one that’s not.

Sometimes moonlight shines through the bars, paints black stripes across my face. I stare at the moon and think of one thing only. Ten years on and my mind still bumbles around that one night like a moth against a naked bulb that I can only beat my broken wings against. But it’s never enough. My brain just flickers on and off, flashes in the dark, a film chopped up and thrown at me in fragments. No matter how hard I try to piece it all together, I always fail. I just can’t work out why. I can’t work out why I did it.

They say that when one life ends, another begins. Prisoners never escape from The Heights, but last night a body left the building. For five seconds Song Ye-jin was free with wind in her face and lights in her eyes. This morning they were still picking up her splattered flesh and shattered bone off the pavement. They’re probably still trying to wash away her blood.

New life usually means screaming babies with clear consciences and bald, pug-eyed heads. This guy walking into the mess hall doesn’t fit the bill. Five foot eleven, thick-rimmed glasses, a twitchy nose. Everyone knows who he is. There aren’t too many foreigners in Sonaya, and even fewer who play the game. An American in The Heights? He’s already a damn celebrity.

I wouldn’t usually have anything to do with the dregs below, and all they have on this guy is possession with intent to supply. That’s just rabbit food in this city, hardly worth the cell. But towards the end of his first week he walks over and introduces himself, like a pimp from the seventies; khaki threads two sizes too big, a perm like a wig on a giraffe, and tortoise-shell, thick-rimmed glasses that won’t last the week. He sits down opposite me during lunch and doesn’t look the least bit nervous.

‘Dustin Fairchild,’ he holds out a hand.

I take it. ‘Daganae Kawasaki.’

‘I’ve heard of you,’ he says.

‘Good. Then you’re not as stupid as you look.’

Whatever happens next will decide the comfort of his stay. For a moment I think he’s gonna get up and clear on out, but he simply smiles, an American smile; lop-sided and overconfident.

‘They told me you’re a good person to know,’ he says.

‘I’m not. I’m a damn hurricane. You like hurricanes?’

‘I like people who tell me I look stupid.’

I take a clap at my food. Plain white rice, a side of spinach. Spinach is a good day.

‘You look stupid,’ I repeat. ‘How long you been in Sonaya?’

‘Two years. Came here on work, assignment for a paper. New Jersey.’

‘The Garden State. You’re in the wrong city, then. See this spinach?’ I pinch a leaf between my chopsticks and hold it up between us. ‘There’s more green on this plate than in half the Rivers. What were you writing?’

Fairchild shrugs. ‘About the things that cops paid me to stop writing.’

‘Let me guess. The s*x trade. Drugs. Political corruption.’

‘I got a bit too wrapped up in the stories, if you know what I mean,’ he smiles that lopsided smile again. I like this guy. My kind of i***t.

‘I’m guessing the paper isn’t waiting up on you,’ I say.

‘I lost that gig a long time ago. Police wanted to hush me up, and to be honest, I enjoyed being hushed up. It got me into a lot of parties. They saddled me with a two-year sentence, but I’m not worried. They reckon I’ll be out in a couple of months. We’ve got some good lawyers in the States, and anyway, I won’t be short of work, not after this. A few months in The Heights, that’s a book right there. They should’ve thrown me in here to start with. Would’ve saved a lot of time.’

I plough through my rice. Gotta save the spinach for last.

‘I hear you’ve got a pretty interesting story yourself,’ he says.

I look up and stare at his eyes. I try to decide which liquor bottle shares their colour. I settle on soju. ‘I’m on the sixty-third floor,’ I say. ‘If I didn’t have an interesting story I wouldn’t be up there.’

Fairchild’s left eye twitches. Or maybe it’s a wink. ‘I heard you murdered your girlfriend.’

I put my chopsticks down as slowly as I can and use my tongue to search for a stubborn grain of rice wedged in my teeth.

Fairchild holds his hands out like he’s just finished a magic trick. ‘What? I told you I’m a journalist.’

‘And I told you, I’m a hurricane.’

The next time I see Fairchild I’m in my cell. The man must have some powerful friends if he’s already hopping floors like a damn jack rabbit. Either that or he’s got a nice stash of notes stuffed under his mattress.

My cell suits me fine. Ten foot by ten foot of cold stone. A firm mattress on the floor. Clean sheets every week. A sink with only two small chips and a working toilet without a lid. I’ve even got three whole walls to lean against.

I’m a damn sweetheart compared to the other deadbeats above the fiftieth floor, and that gives me the only advantage I need: weekly access to the library. I’m not a fussy reader; anything with words is fair game, I’ll gobble through it just the same. I even read the newspaper when I can get my hands on it. After the government decided that commoners couldn’t be trusted with the internet, papers came back in a big way, but there’s only one left that does the rounds. The Daily, owned by the same hyenas who run the island. The internet was full of s**t, of course, but that’s all done with. Now The Daily is like The Bible; facts are ‘verified’ by the suits, and suddenly we’re a nation of believers.

When Fairchild appears at my cell, I’m leaning against the only wall that catches any sunlight. He even knocks on the open cell door, the softie.

‘Come,’ I say, not looking up. I’m reading up on the elections. Still a few months off, but there’s no harm in doing my homework early. If all goes well, I might even be a free man by the time elections come around. A free man with a vote to my name, too.

‘You got a minute?’ Fairchild asks.

What a cutie. I scan him up and down and return to my paper. ‘About a million of them,’ I say. ‘If I could sell them I’d buy the whole damn island.’

He enters all sheepish, and I watch his eyes dart around behind his glasses, like he’s already looking for an escape route; a hole in the wall. He scratches his nose with the back of his finger.

‘What’s your candy, Fairchild?’ I ask.

He blinks at me like he forgot I was there.

‘I know what a man looks like when he goes two weeks without a fix. What’s yours?’

‘Nothing big,’ he says. ‘Just the white stuff.’

I look back at my paper but I don’t read it. ‘You’ll have to learn to live without it. Doesn’t matter how deep your pockets go, you’re more likely to see a hot tub in your cell than a bag of pollen.’

He nods fiercely and sits down beside me. Look at me, I’ve made a friend.

‘You know a guy by the name of Tsubasa?’ he asks.

‘One arm and hair like a banshee? Yeah, I know him. Been giving you trouble?’

Up close, Fairchild’s skin doesn’t look too good. His nose is pockmarked and red blotches cover his cheeks.

‘He’s been watching me, asking questions.’

‘So what?’ Poor Fairchild. Foreign boy in a foreign prison. ‘Don’t worry, you’re not his type, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s a plover, that’s all.’

His eyebrows scrunch up and reveal his confusion.

‘The bird that flies into a crocodile’s mouth to help itself to a free meal. Plaque and scraps. There are snitches like him on every floor, trying to buy their way out early, that’s all. Probably knows you’re an addict and is waiting for you to slip up. I suggest you don’t.’

‘Slip up?’

‘Don’t go offering cash to the wrong people. Don’t visit the wrong cells. And don’t ask for anything you’re not gonna get.’

Fairchild stares at his knees and nods. His eyes are spinning in his sockets like marbles on the floor. Addicts suffer the most in here; you can train your brain, but the body will never listen.

‘I heard about the escape,’ Fairchild says.

‘You call that an escape?’

‘They say she was the first to ever get out.’

I turn to Fairchild and give him the look that teachers give their kids when they want them to listen. ‘When I was a kid, all I wanted was to get off this island. Travel, you know, find some place better. But it didn’t happen. My dad cheated on my mum, then a little later he choked on his vomit, for extra points. I could’ve left after that, with my mum. I could’ve left this place behind, started anew.’

Fairchild shrugs. ‘So why didn’t you?’

‘Because no one really wants to escape. Song Ye-jin spent months digging a hole in her cell just so she could fly. You ever heard of purgatory? People say that this island’s like purgatory. Get out of The Heights and you’re still not free.’

Fairchild leans his head against the wall and we sit in silence; sucking at the cold stone walls.

‘So what do you want now?’ Fairchild asks.

I stand up nice and slow and stare out the window.

‘I’ve spent ten years with my head down so I can get out of this cell. To everyone else this city might be a shithole, but they don’t see what I see.’

Everything in sight is grey. Scooters zoom by, heading for the harbour or the belly of the Rivers. One or two already have their lights on. The lights glow pretty damn well, even from way up here. Night is coming.

‘What do I want? I wanna get the hell out of here and make up for lost time. And ten years is a hell of a long time.’