Janette Turner Hospital Collected Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

at least damnation is. The sleaze is damned. But he’s only someone who has cracked under pressure. And all of us must have a cracking point, given torture. I’m deeply ashamed of it, but I’m sure I’d break at the first instant of physical brutality. Or even before that, at the mere fear of it.”
    You are not allowing for the rage, they said. Because you’ve never experienced it, you can’t conceive of the rage you would feel at physical abuse. There’s a lot of energy there. It convinces you you’re right. The Fixer, for example, could see that he was driving those pigs crazy. He had something they wanted so badly – the sight of him snivelling – that it was pure pleasure not to give it to them.
    â€œI wish I could believe you, but surely fear is greater than rage.”
    Not yours, they said. You get so worked up about these things. A good sign, if you’re hung up on salvation. You’d get mad as hell and it would jolt you right out of all that garbage of fear you carry around inside your skull. Besides, you can take it from us, and we are experts on this subject, you are not and never could be a sleaze.
    No other award, I am embarrassed to confess, has comforted me so much.
    â€œHaven’t you got any broken windows in here?” George asked from the door. “I fix them good.”
    He sighed.
    â€œJust ain’t nothing for a skilled craftsman to do these days.”
    â€œYou know,” Jed said to me privately after class, “I don’t mean to make an issue of it. It’s no big thing. But we do know what torture is, we just don’t give it such a fancy name. See, I was twelve when they had me up for B and E the first time. They were interrogating me, you know, licking their dirty lips. Three white cops staring at one naked black kid, scared shitless. Used a fireplace poker to jab me in the balls. You’d be amazed how many cops are perverted queers. But then, you wouldn’t believe me. We’re the guys your mother told you to stay away from. Nothing but grief, baby.”
    One lunchtime, in the staff room, a guard asked me: “Have those snivelling sob s told you their cruddy little life stories yet? Every one a bleeding tragedy. They get better and better in the reruns. Mark my word, by the end of the term your whole class will be orphans with unhappy childhoods.”
    â€œAnother thing,” Jed said to me. “Get the hell out of this job. What kind of a nut are you? You think because we like you you’re safe. You’re too hung up on heroics. That shit just don’t mean anything to us. Listen hard now. To me personally, and to a lot of the guys here, you are the sunshine itself. And I would like to pretend that I would lay down my life etcetera for you. Listen, when they throw me in The Hole, I don’t give an inch. If I were the Fixer, just me against the screws, I wouldn’t crack. But if things were to blow up here – everyone inside against everyone outside – and you were in the middle of it, I couldn’t promise you a thing. I can’t tell you what I’d do. I don’t even know. I’ve been through one riot inside and it scared the shit out of me. I saw some ugly things and I did some ugly things. I’ll tell you something – people inside dread blow-ups more than the screws do. I’m telling you this so you won’t take it personally if anything happens. But I would consider it a favour if you would get your luscious little ass out of here, because you are such a stupid innocent snowflake in this hothouse, you make me weep.”
    * * *
    Protoplasmic, was how I thought of the class. Fluid in shape and structure, observers drifting in and out to watch and listen, credit students being drafted out to yard work or to The Hole or to other penitentiaries, reappearing and disappearing.
    I could have looked up records, separated the murderers and thugs from the