220

At sev­en-fif­teen that evening, as Patch was sweep­ing the floors in the met­al shop, the pow­er went out.

It wasn’t an unusu­al occur­rence. Black­jack was bitch­ing out the work­men at week­ly inter­vals. War­den Riley rea­soned the whole sys­tem would be over­hauled, with a com­mer­cial-grade gen­er­a­tor tak­ing the place of the old Kohler.

Until then the lights flick­ered as the work­horse pow­ered up and the ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem went down. Patch heard dis­tant hollers from men who knew the night would be insuf­fer­able, each cell an oven. He did not stop sweep­ing, even when the bright lights fad­ed and emer­gency yel­lows took their place, the long cor­ri­dors dim, the whole place car­ry­ing an air of jaun­dice, a store soon to be out of busi­ness.

When he was done he set his broom, buck­et, cloths, and cleanser back in the sup­ply cup­board, and then he walked deep into the build­ing and stopped by the library, where Coop­er was fin­ish­ing up. The last Thurs­day of each month Coop­er took stock, com­plained that the state didn’t pay over­time but also enjoyed the qui­et.

“I have to hand you my key,” Patch said. “War­den said to see out the month till we train some­one up.”

“You help with these box­es before you go?”

Patch heaved a cou­ple into the store­room. Coop­er fol­lowed him in, the books numer­ous.

When they were done, he head­ed back, walked the same route burned into his mind, two lefts and then he turned right back into the main block, where the day­room sat emp­ty. He fussed with his eye patch, and then he walked up the met­al steps and into his cell, lay down on his bunk and fished a book from beneath the mat­tress. The new guard locked him down for the night.

In the library Coop­er took his hat from the rack and slipped it on, car­ried a rain­coat over his arm, and reached for his worn leather satchel. Inside was a sin­gle book, an apple, and a copy of The Exam­in­er. He locked up, strolled down toward B Block, and passed through two doors, the lock catch­ing for a moment.

At the desk he dropped his keys into the draw­er and wait­ed to be buzzed out.

Black­jack thumbed the Sports sec­tion, whis­tled low to him­self when he saw the Yan­kees head­ing toward the record books, whis­tled again at the Tiger chas­ing down all those white men.

“They reck­on he’s the new Jack Nick­laus,” Black­jack said as he stared at the pic­ture of the boy, a smile on his face.

“About time, though not real­ly my sport,” Coop­er said, as he signed out, flipped the page and signed in again for the morn­ing.

“Not mine nei­ther, though it might be now.”

Coop­er laughed and raised a hand to Black­jack, who hit the buzzer.

Had he looked up from his news­pa­per he might have noticed.

That night Coop­er walked with the slight­est limp.