Who Is This Kidd?

    "Let us see. I believe I will...call," one of them says, and knocks against the cot they are using as a card table.

    "Christamighty!" chimes another. "Don't gypsy in again! Stop playin' like a little goil and bet a'ready!"

    "If I do not wish to raise, that is my prerogative."

    "Eh! Such a fetch! Yous a'ways gypsy in. Why'nt yous jus—"

    "Both you quit yo bellyachin'," enters the final of the three. "I'm here to whoop tail, not listin' to you two creeches fetch and moan about one 'nother all night."

   The tickling continues to peck away at the back of my neck, and every nerve in my body is begging me to scratch at it. All I can do is uncomfortably rotate my wrists in their cuffs, and, for the countless time, try not to cry.

    What have I gotten myself into?

    I have only been in here one day (I think—there's no sun, so it's hard to tell), and already I am in my seventh cell. One would think I would be shuttled straight to solitary, but for some reason that I am still trying to piece together, the C.O.s are parading me all throughout the detention center, showing me off like a trophy, rotating me between cells and hanging me off the walls like a prized portrait.

    But I think I am starting to see some strategy to it. Because in each new cell, the inhabitants are a little less scared of me than the ones before. For example, the children in the first cell were practically mortified when they learned who their new bunk buddy was going to be, but by the time the C.O.s unchained me from the wall, those same two inmates were already bored of me, not even bothering to glance my way as the C.O.s dragged me out.

    The inmates in the second cell—a dozen or so small Animals, probably none older than ten—acted as if they had known I was coming. There was no announcement this time about who I was, yet still one of them (a Gerbil, I think) ventured up to me, sniffed my toe, and asked on behalf of his cellmates: "You...you really the Kidd?" I whispered to him yes, of course. I even went so far as to ask for his help in undoing the buckles on my straight jacket. The Gerbil looked to the others for guidance, I noticed one of them nod, and I was relieved to see that...until the Gerbil child backed away from me. "If you the Kidd, you can do it yoself," he said. "We want to see how it done." But I never got to show them, of course.

    In the third cell, after the C.O.s shut the door, the C.O.s tossed in a few black markers. It didn't take long for the children's artistic urges to overpower their fear of me. They approached me like machines going to work. There was no hint of enjoyment or interest in their faces. I couldn't see what they were drawing on my newly bald head, but if the graffiti on my chest and arms were any indication, then I'm sure whatever they scribbled was about as tasteful as you could expect from adolescent criminal boys. When there was no room left to write, they obediently threw the markers back through the bars and sat on the bottom bunk playing rock, paper, scissors.

    By the fourth cell, word must have gotten around about me, because the inmates did not seem the least bit anxious about my arrival. Even the C.O.s at this point were starting to look bored of this exercise. The two guards who were posted at the door had taken it upon themselves to bring over a couple of chairs and play cards. This excited me for a moment, until I saw what game they were playing. Rummy. I scoffed. "Cowards," I said under my breath.

    There was only one guard posted at the fifth cell, and she played Solitaire, a game so terrible that whoever invented it was thoughtful enough to ensure only one person can possibly endure it at a time. The only card game worse than solitaire is War, which I also had the pleasure of watching because that's the game my fifth group of cellmates were playing, which is a game that is equally challenging (and even less entertaining) than a coin-flipping contest...which, again, is the exact game the children were playing in my sixth cell.  

      When I was transferred to the seventh cell, the C.O.s changed shifts, and the outgoing man handed the deck of cards to the incoming one, who in turn graciously offered it to the three boys inside the cell. (He had already brought a puzzle book with him. (Which, might I add, wasn't even a crossword! It was one of those puzzles where you just circle words that are already there on the page!) What the hell was wrong with everyone in this place? Why were they all so...boring?)

    When my three new cellmates started to shuffle the cards, I was prepared to scream as soon as I heard the words "Go fish." But instead, when I noticed how the cards were being dealt and recognized the shifty eyes and familiar arrangements, my breath abandoned me. And when I saw what variant they were about to play! A game of fixed-limit, seven-card stud with a hi-low split! Let me tell you: my eyes sizzled with emotion. I could barely believe it, but they were about to play my game.

    Do I love poker? No. I "love" the taste of black licorice. "Love" videos of high-speed car accidents. "Love" my grandma. But what I feel towards poker is far more meaningful than mere, mortal love.

    If I were to attend a job interview, and the person were to ask me to list any and all of my passions, my only answer would be: "Poker." In fact, I would answer poker for nearly any question in this rhetorical interview. Greatest strength? Poker. Weakness? Poker. Middle name? Poker. Marital status? Poker. Why are you leaving your current position? Poker. Where do you see yourself in five years? Poker. Are you willing to relocate? Poker. What the hell is wrong with you?

    Poker, across the board.

    Hence my excitement upon seeing the three boys pull out piles of makeshift currency (cigarettes, squares of toilet paper, packets of soy sauce, etc.) from under the mattress as soon as they noticed the guard nod off to sleep. Of course, I couldn't join the game—my wrists were still chained to the bars of the narrow window above my head—but I could still watch, and that was enough for me to count myself fortunate.

    Still, the three inmates playing the game show no intention of asking me to join. Like myself, they are about twelve years old. They smoke tobacco and have mouths as dirty as the hole in the corner that I can only assume is the toilet. While they play their card game, they also play other homemade competitions, such as who can tell the most vulgar joke, or, my personal favorite, who can flick their cigarette butt closest to the spot between my eyes. In all contests, bonus points are awarded to whomever causes me the most pain.

    "Speakin' a Gypsies," says the meanest of them. "You think Mr. So-Called-Legend over there be a Gypsykid? Look like he could be. Dirty. Scrawny like a beggar. Smell like a sweaty taco. Yeah, I bet he come from a Gypsy mama."

    "Ha! Your reasoning is admirable, but flawed, I am afraid," says the biggest one. "He does not quite possess any of the fashion sense of a Gypsy, nor does he seem gifted with enough Gypsy charm to even look us in the eye. By the looks of him, I would hypothesize his mother was not a Gypsy...she simply favored their intimate company."

    "Ooo! He say 'intimate company'! Oh, yeah—you right, you right! I wonder if his daddy know."

    "Wait, 'is daddy?" says the smallest. "But I tought....Oh! Yee! I get it—'is daddy!"

    They laugh and squeal.

    "Yeah, boy! He think he hot spit, don' he? Just 'cause e'ryone say he be 'Elroy Kidd' and they be givin' him the royal treatment. Think if he keep quiet and pretend he don' hear us, he gonna look cool or somein', hangin' off 'at wall like a rug. But he gotta open 'at mouff of his sometime. How else he gonna suck thumb aroun' here?"

    "Hee-hee! Yee! F'sho, f'sho! Suckin'is daddy's t'umb...say, whaddaya tink he's in fer, anyways?"

    "Good question. Cuz we all know he too tiny to hurt nobody, and too much of a fetch for nothin' else."

    "I would not be so certain. Keep in mind that indecent public exposure is still very much frowned upon in our society."

    "Hoo! He say 'indecent public exposure'! Ha ha!"

    "Hee-hee! Yee! And maybe—maybe 'is daddy's into dat too! Likes showin' his dingus in museums and stuff..."

    "Although, I do suppose the mute toddler could be in trouble on account of drugs?"

    "Naw, man—A.D.D. meds don' count."

    "Oh! Maybe 'is daddy mechanizes small—"

    "Or what if he has been incarcerated due to a burglary-related offense?"

    "Wrong again, brotha. That take guts, and he don't look like he got much guts." This inmate inhales deeply on his cigarette and looks into my eyes. Everything pauses—the giggles, the card game, the air. We can all feel something great swelling inside him. "No guts. No spine. No pecans," he says. "Far as I can tell, he ain't much more than a blonde-haired sack of Gypsy afterbirth."

    This last jab is the clear winner. As the other two howl and punch each other, the champion finishes his cigarette and flicks the smoldering butt at my face. It bounces off my temple with a spark. I wince, but that is the extent of my reaction.

    Don't ever show them how scared you are.

    That's one of the most important rules in poker. If you show any kind of vulnerability, the more experienced players will notice and rip into it until there's nothing left. (That's why the best Gamblers wear sunglasses: so the other players can't see their tears.) It's funny. There's a lot of similarities between the principles of surviving a poker tournament and surviving incarceration. Like keeping your thoughts to yourself, or being cautious and never trusting anyone. I've been thinking about this a lot...and I am thinking about this now.

    The butt-flicker takes a tin lighter from behind his ear and lights another cigarette. The inmates continue their game, a little less interested in me now that the taunt competition is over.

    But I am still interested in them...and in their card game, of course. Never stop paying attention. That's another important rule of poker. Because if you want to collect chips, you must first collect information. Mentally record anything out of the ordinary, like patterns and ticks. So, from my spot on the wall, I study their styles and pick apart the strategies behind them as if they were pocket watches. With artisan expertise, I recognize each intricate gear and spring that makes the players tick.

    Even though all three of the boys are mean and hardened and cruel, they are also very different from one another. In fact, if you include me, this cell is an extremely diverse one. It is a textbook-perfect sampling of all species. On one end of this spectrum is myself, a norman with no mixed blood of any kind (regardless of the taunts), and on the other end are the cockroaches that scurry in and out of the crevices, minor beings with no proven culture or higher thought.

    Beside the roaches, both figuratively and literally, is Rocko, an animoid rat. The rattoid [or "Rat" (notice the capitalization)] is locked in a cage not much bigger than a hatbox. Whenever it is his turn to draw a new hand or toss in a bet, one of the other two have to do it for him. They stick his cards between the bottom lip of the cage and its chicken-wire wall. And he is a sly one. Once, when he thought no one was looking, he bit his own pawtip and then used the blood to mark the high cards.

    "Christ, Jamie!" he says. "Not again! Our terlet's got less crap than this ca'dgame."

    "Patience, my dear Rattus. I may have little to my name, but I will have it longer than you will have yours."

    This is Jamie. Even though he is the largest kid, he also seems to be the most intelligent. He is a pandaboy with sleepy eyes and a perpetual grin. Animen such as him are the exact halfway point between animals and normans, taking on the qualities of both. This kind of combination is sometimes created when a norman and an animoid fall in love and decide to start a family. An animan child will keep the defining animal characteristics of the animoid parent while taking on the size and proportions of the other. It would have been difficult for anyone to confidently discern whether Jamie was an animan or simply just a animoid, since the scale of an adolescent bear is so similar to that of a fat adolescent norman boy, but Jamie has opposable thumbs—a line of code that is absent in the DNA of any animal or animoid. [If you find yourself struggling in public to tell the difference between the two, you can also look for pants. A Horseman is required by law to wear britches; for a Horse, it is only recommended.]

    "I concede my turn to you, Master Enuff," Jamie says. "Do with it as you please."

    "Careful what you say. I don' believe in safewords."

    The third and final player, Enuff, is the one that I am watching the closest. Despite being dealt the worst hands, Enuff has the largest winnings. He isn't the cleverest or the strongest, but with a hairlip and a head as misshapen as a rotten fig, Enuff commands the game (and the group) through gruesomeness alone.

    He is a manimal—to be specific, he is a boydog: a grotesque, genetic misfire from a pitbull pointed at a norman target. In nearly every other cell I had passed by today, I saw at least one boy like Enuff—a boypig or a boygator or a boycrow—even though the global ratio of manimals to the rest of the world is something like 1 to 1000. This disproportion is pretty common in all criminal institutions, I've noticed. Manimals have hard lives from the moment their parents lay eyes on them. As the saying goes: hard lives lead to hard guys, hard guys lead to hard crime, and hard crime leads to hard time. For the ugly, their dismal fate is chiseled in stone at birth.

    None of this escapes me, including the significance of the lighter tucked behind Enuff's ear. It is an undeniable symbol of power and bravado, especially knowing that the guard could wake up at any second. Lighters are considered serious contraband at any detention center and thus impossible to come by. During tense standoffs in the poker game, Enuff will bring it out and creak open the lid only to snap it shut again. The rhythmic, patient sound chips away at his opponents, reminding them that he, Enuff, is the one on top, the table captain, the one with the largest winnings, the big stack...the bully stack.

    They are a vile trio of children, no question on that. Yet despite the taunting and the cruelty, I find myself holding no ill feelings towards them. I kinda like them, actually. I approve of their language, their smoking, their gambling—I even like how mean they are. "Brutality is the purest form of honesty," someone once told me, and these boys probably believe something close to that.

    More than anything, though, I like their spirit. Since stepping off the bus, the biggest surprise has been how defeated everybody looks—even the Officers, in a way. Their jobs require little effort; Crumshack itself does most of the work for them. The negative energy from the facility smothers spirits so effectively that rebelliousness seems nonexistent.

    But I can actually detect some fight still left inside these three children, can still feel warmth from stubborn coals in their bellies. Crumshack has yet to extinguish the spirits of these three. No, not yet...but soon. I am sure of it.

    "Dumbsuck," grumbles Enuff. He glances over to me as he rearranges his hand. "What he gets for prentendin' he the Kidd."

    "Yeah, well," says Rocko. "He ain't the foist."

    "And who is that, precisely?" asks Jamie. "This 'Elroy Kidd' kid? Everyone acts as if that moniker should have some gravity to it."

    "You mean you ain't never hoid of'm?" Rocko sneers at Enuff incredulously. "Get a loada this rube. Ain't never hoid of the Kidd! You believin'at?"

    "Is there some reason that I should have?" Jamie takes his eyes off his cards to size me up. "He does not appear to be particularly noteworthy."

    "That cuz he ain't the Kidd." Enuff slaps two cards down on the cot and snatches two more from the stack. "The real Elroy Kidd be as big as you. An' smarter'n all us. He got tattoos all up his face and back his head, and he got scars in between." The boydog pulls down his bottom eyelid with the same finger that's gripping his cigarette. "And his right eye be made of solid glass—an' I don' mean he got a glass eye; I mean his eyeball be made of pure glass. It what he use to watch the future."

    Rocko leans his small head way back to look up at me. "I ain't know 'bout all 'at," he says. "But the Kidd is a big guy. And he, like, woiks out a lot, so he's got some guns on the tank fa'sha."

    Jamie folds, sliding his hand to the center. (I take note that he didn’t even discard.) The pandaboy laces his fingers together and uses them like a hammock for his chin. "Do go on," he coos.

    Enuff blows a smoke ring and glances to me for the first time since the name-calling contest. The dreamy hoop hovers before his face and surrounds his vision like a frame around a memory. "In every jaycee I be in, I hear at least one story about how Elroy Kidd walked in one day and broke out the next. Back when I was in Turnington, I heard he knocked out a C.O. once, took his clothes, then knocked out the warden, changed into his clothes, and then, in disguise, sentenced a kid he ain't never even met to death, and then dress up as that kid after the execution." Enuff leans back against the wall. "The place be so mucking freaked out they just let him walk out the mothersuckin’ door."

    Rocko is caressing his throat with his paw. "I didn't knows a warden could do that to a kid."

    "Oh yeah," Enuff says. "Big time. Ours especially. It be like in Funkleburg. The warden be so scared when Elroy Kidd stepped off the bus that he just walked the Kidd right past the cells and straight into the gas chamber."

    "Gas chamber?" says Jamie. "Even in the adult penitentiary system, it has been decades since a gas chamber has been in operation."

    "Yeah, well," Enuff says, "they turned on the heat just for him."

    "A gas chamber does not operate like an oven, friend."

    "It ain't important!" Enuff sucks on his cigarette like it’s an inhaler. "What matters is that he got out again. An' he knew they be comin' for'm the second time, though. About a month before he get arrested, he put half a drop of cyanide in his mornin' coffee. Then he turn the thermostat up in his room by one degree. After that, he took a bath with a lawnmower battery. And, at the end of the day, he fell asleep with a paper bag over his head so he would breathe in his own carbon-dioxide while he asleep.

    "The next mornin' he put two drops in his coffee, turn up the heat by another degree, drop a taser into his bath, and went to bed with his head in a blowed-up balloon. By the end of the month, he be sleepin' in a gas oven, bathin' in an electric oven, and bakin' hisself a poison pie in both for supper. When they brung him into juvie, his body be so used to stress, he be able to fake his own execution. Left the place in a body bag." Enuff runs a thumb across his nose and sniffs. "The morgue be so suckin' freaked out they just let him―"

    "Waits a minute, waits a minute," Rocko says. "I believes in Elroy Kidd just as much as the next guy. But, c'mon...no one'd take Elroy Kidd's body to the morgue. They'd put it on a spaceship or some'in. You know, poor concrete ova it—make, like, a statue out a it. Even if none a the adults liked'm, they'd at least respect’m, ya know?"

    Enuff, without checking the cards in his hand, throws a couple of cigarettes into the pot. "Two menthols an' one gold'n br...wait...that what you think statues be? Buncha dead people in concrete?"

    Rocko considers his hand, then calls Enuff's raise. "Well, you knows...not the big ones, a course. Just the people-sized ones. An' the heads."

    Enuff looks as if he can't decide between putting the rattoid out of his misery or throwing up.

    "Please! Gentlemen!" Jamie is massaging the wrinkles between his brow. "May we desist? My tolerance for this conversation is nearing its limit."

    "Aw, hey now! Yous the one who wanted to know what he looked like, not us."

    "I just wanted to know about his skeletal-muscular system, not about your gruesome concept of masonry."

    "Dog, forget about his suckin' muscles. He big. He could take out any one a us in this joint wit'out even lookin' our way. Look, here a picture Joey drew of'm. He was in Fairview once, an' he got a good look at'm. Drew it up soon as he saw'm."

    Enuff digs around under the mattress then pulls out a flat piece of cardboard (perhaps an unfolded box of cigarettes) then lays it down right on top of the kitty. Jamie leans over to look, Rocko stands on his tippy-toes in his cage, Eli leans back and proudly crosses his arms, and even I stretch my neck out to get a better look.

    [drawing]

    "Wowzas," says Rocko, scratching the hairs on his chin. "Joey drew'at? I need to get him to make me one! Looks just like I imagined he would!"

    "For real."

    Rocko and Enuff continue to admire the drawing, but Jamie's eyes are scooting around as if they are quickly assembling the pieces of a puzzle. "Heavens, do not tell me!" says Jamie at last. "Have neither of you actually seen what this mythical beast looks like?"

    "Well...no," Enuff admits. "But that 'cause he ain't never been here before. Been everywhere else in the county, but not here. No one know why that is. Some say that the Shack just too mean, even for a tall tale like him. And anytime he show up at some other jaycee, he be in and out so quick, people weren't sure he be there at all."

    "Then how on World do you two know that this bugger even exists? As far as you know, he may even be him!" Jamie points to me, and the other two turn to look. I wish I had a moment to ready myself, because I am in the middle of trying to scratch my itchy neck by frantically rolling the back of my head against my shoulders. Now that I am aware of them observing me, I try to act as if I were merely watching a moth fly around the ceiling.

    Rocko brings an end to the awkwardness by saying: "The necklace." In his cage, he raises himself up on his toes to get a better view of me. "He can't be the Kidd 'cause he ain't wearin' no dogtags."

    "Dogtags?" asks Jaimie. "Surely you do not mean those metal plates that dangle from metal chains? You expect anyone to actually possess such contraband? Even if he did, do you not think it would have been discovered and confiscated during intake?"

    "Rocko's right," says Enuff. "All the stories about Elroy Kidd got one thing in common: he always wear his dog tags. Don't matter if they get taken or not―he always be wearin' his dog tags. No one know how he do it, but he do. And no one know why they be so important to'm."

    Enuff puts out his cigarette by crushing it in his hand. He stares down Rocko as he does this. The Rat has a hard time maintaining the eye contact. Without blinking, Enuff drops a half-spent book of matches onto the stack. He leans in towards the Rat's cage. Rocko whimpers and folds, and Enuff continues his story as he rakes in his winnings.

    "I once hear the necklace be left over from some Super Soldier program where kids get took from their parents and raised to be these unstoppable killers. Others say he born in a lab, and the tags be the labels from his test tube. Personally, I believe the story that say he a Robotboy, and he made the necklace hisself from the hearts of his parents."

    Jamie does not seem impressed with any of the tales. It is the first time I see his mouth frown with the rest of his face. "Nonsense. All of it is utter nonsense. If you expect me to believe for one second any of these absurd fairy tales about Robots and vanishing boys, you would as soon―"

    BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZNT!

    A loud noise, something like the buzzer at a Basketballer's event, cuts through the cell block. The Officer outside our door jolts awake, and his puzzle book plops on the ground. My three cellmates freeze like Burglars caught in a flashlight. The Officer stares at them and their card game and their smoldering cigarettes.

    At the far end of the block enter the sounds of a lead door unlocking and swinging open. The light chatter from the other cells hush, and I can hear the heavy steps of a Correctional Officer accompanied by the quiet, squeaky steps of someone else.

    The guard outside our door glances towards the entrance, then back to the three boys. "You got one minute to get rid of all that," he says. He then puts his hands on his knees and pushes himself up and out of the chair. "And you three better pray this isn't the warden."

    He walks away, and the trio of children relax...a little.

    Out in the hall, there are sounds from our neighbors as inmates scurry to their bars to see who it is. There are whispers and shuffles. Then something unbelievable happens. I can feel an...excitement glow to life inside the gloomy cell block, one that I can't quite trust based on all the chronic boredom I've witnessed so far. The energy in the air is palpable. I can tell how far away the visitor is just by tuning in to the electricity between the cells. Anticipation surges ahead of the guest and dies just as quickly in the wake.

    Rocko appears to be particularly in touch with this phenomenon. His whiskers twitch and his ears tilt outwards. He presses himself against his cage, sniffing the air with his long, crooked nose.

    "It him?" whispers Enuff. "It the warden?"

    After a few whiffs, Rocko grunts and pushes away from the wire.

    "Nah...it's the Clown again," he says, and the other two groan and fling their cards down on the cot. "Spit, is it Ma'ch a'ready?"

    The boys immediately begin what looks like some kind of odd ritual. They comb their hair and pick flecks of food out of each other's teeth. Enuff curls down his elastic waistband and hides his lighter underneath the fold.

    As they do this, the tickling on the back of my neck becomes even more irritating. I grimace and roll my head around, but the itch only grows...and turns cold...and traces around both sides of my neck like two little streams of water. They meet at my throat, and something weighty falls between my shirt and my bare chest.

    It's my dogtags.

    I look around for Toby, and then I just barely glimpse his tail above my head. I look up, but am only able to catch a flash of gold as it slips back out through the window that I am chained to.

    Oh my Doug, I think. He did it...I can't believe he did it! He actually did it! And then my excitement melts into dread. Oh God...he actually did it. No, Toby...why? Why, why, WHY?

    No time to think about that. Survival, that’s all that matters now. And since he’s here anyway, maybe...maybe there's a chance for me after all. If I play my cards right, that is.

    The boys are so occupied with whatever the hell they are doing that Toby's appearance went completely unnoticed. I look down the throat of my shirt and find comfort at the familiar sight of the greening plates of copper that are dangling by my heart. They give me courage.

    Maybe it's time I go ahead and throw my chip into this game, I think. You know. Show'm how it's done. So, I clear my throat and decide to finally speak up. My question announces my arrival to the card table, and it reverberates around the cell like the gunshot that starts a race:

    "W-Who's the Clown?" I stammer.