Half of Paradise

“How do you do it, then?”

“Swing with your shoulders. Let the pick do the work,” Toussaint said. “Don’t tire yourself out. You ain’t working for nothing except that ten-dollar bill they give you when you get out of here.”

“You talk like you’re from the Delta.”

“Barataria.”

“I’m from Martinique parish.”

“What are you serving?”

“One to three for running moon.”

“You don’t look like a whiskey runner.”

“I wasn’t in business long enough to be a professional.”

“You can be out in a year on good behavior.”

“I already had trouble with the captain.”

“How’d you get on this gang? Gang five is supposed to be for lifers and troublemakers.”

“There was a fight when I was in the parish jail.”

“Who was doing the fighting?”

“I was part of the time. The man I was brought in with had to be sent to the prison hospital at Angola.”

“Stay out of fights in the camp. It will get you time in detention, and they won’t let you try for parole when your first year is up.”

“What’s detention like?”

“It’s a tin box no bigger than a baggage trunk setting out in the sun.”

“How many days do they put you in there?” Avery said.

“As long as they want, but they got to take you out each night. The camp doctor makes them.”

“They kept me in the hole eight days at the parish jail. After the third day I couldn’t go to sleep. It was too hot to sleep during the daytime and at night I’d start imagining things.”

“If they put you in detention try counting the rivets on the inside of the door. When you get tired of that you can count the heat waves bouncing off the sides.”

“What are you in for?”

“Ten years.”

“Jesus Christ. What did you do?”

“They said I robbed a fur company.”

“You didn’t do it?”

“They give me ten years. They’re outside and I’m inside. That makes them right.”

“How does anybody beat a place like this?”

“They say nobody beats it. Nobody escapes and nobody comes out the same.”