IT WAS NEARLY NOVEMBER, YET THE EXERCISE YARD shimmered with unseasonal warmth, the masonry walls and concrete basketball court basking in the midday sun. Leaning against the wall of the mess hall, two guards, Testerman and Burchfield, sought the scrap of shade created by the stingy geometry of the roofline, wall, and angle of solar incidence.
Out on the cracked court, ten shirtless men—six black, two Hispanic, two white, killers all of one sort or another—shoved and elbowed and jockeyed in a tight scrum. The wet slaps of skin on sweaty skin mingled with grunts and muttered curses, the scuffing of leather soles, and the clatter of the basketball rattling the rusty rim bolted loosely to the backboard.
Suddenly inmate number 00255787—the tall, muscled white man named Satterfield—bellowed and dropped to his knees beneath the goal, both hands clutching his belly. Blood oozed across his knuckles and poured onto the pavement, and glistening loops of intestine protruded between his splayed fingers.
The guards, both of them hefty men, heaved themselves off from the wall and lumbered toward the prisoners, fumbling at their belts for the only weapons they were allowed to carry inside: small canisters of pepper spray—absurd, sissified standins for guns. Shit, Testerman thought for the thousandth time, a man can carry a gun anywhere in Tennessee except the one place he needs it most—in a bunch of cold-blooded killers. It was a favorite complaint of his. Like sending a soldier into battle with a damn slingshot.
“Break it up, break it up,” Testerman shouted, bulling his way through the sweaty bodies. The nine standing men had bunched up around Satterfield, either spectating or camouflaging, or—most likely—both: watching the action, while also making sure the guards couldn’t. Sons of bitches, Testerman thought.
A long, bloody shank glistened on the concrete beside Satterfield, and Testerman’s first move was to plant his left boot over the business end of the thing. From the round shaft and hexagonal head protruding from beneath his midsole, Testerman saw that it had been crafted from a six-inch bolt, the threads scraped against concrete for weeks or even months to hone a wicked, scalpel-like blade at one end. An opportunistic eye, a deft hand, and infinite patience: any inmate who possessed that unholy trinity of attributes could, sooner or later, procure a piece of metal and fashion a weapon sharp enough to stab a stoolie or gut a guard.
Testerman’s trigger finger twitched atop the pepper spray. “Jesus,” he said, seeing the blood and entrails. Over his shoulder, without taking his eyes off the prisoners, he shouted to Burchfield: “Call for some backup. And a stretcher.” Glancing around the group, he said, “Anybody wanna tell me who did this?” No one spoke. “Thought not. Too bad—I was gonna write up a commendation. Y’all go over there and line up along the fence. Go on now. Git.”
Once they were twenty feet away, Testerman set down the pepper spray and reached into the lower thigh pocket of his cargo pants, tugging out a pair of purple nitrile gloves. In Testerman’s mind, the gloves were even more essential than the pepper spray. In here, one man in every three was HIV-positive; in here, blood and saliva and semen erupted like deadly little geysers on a daily or even hourly basis. After his hands were protected, he took another pair of gloves from his pocket, and—removing his boot from the bloody shank—he slid the weapon carefully into the purple sleeve of the index finger, using the glove as a makeshift bag, not worrying much about whether he smeared whatever fingerprints might’ve been on the shaft. He knotted the second glove around the blade and tucked it into his shirt pocket, careful not to pierce either the glove or himself. Only then did he turn his cursory attention to the wounded man.
Eyeing the bloody coils spilling through the clawlike fingers, Testerman shook his head slowly. “Satterfield, Satterfield,” he said, a grim smile spreading across his face. “Couldn’t’ve happened to a nicer guy.” He sat back on his heels, musing, then nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a whole mess of chitlins hanging out of your belly there, stud. You might just bleed out right here in the yard.” He chewed the inside of one cheek, musing. “Yep. Infirmary’s probably pretty busy today. Might just take a while for them to get here with a stretcher. Might just take quite a while, matter of fact.”
Satterfield spoke through clenched teeth. “Listen to me, you fat fuck. I’ve got friends. Friends in here, and friends outside. You let me die and you’ll wish you hadn’t. Now and for the rest of your sorry little life.”
The guard snorted. “I don’t think so.”
“Think again,” Satterfield muttered. “What’s the name of that good-lookin’ little wife you’ve got, with the blond hair and the hot body? Christie? And that boy of yours—Sammy?”
Testerman’s face hardened. “You shut your mouth,” he snarled. “Don’t you ever talk about my family.”
“Sammy,” Satterfield went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “Something’s not right with Sammy. Autistic, or something? But making progress, I hear.”