Joey goes to Chris' room, but Chris isn't there. His bed looks, as per usual, like a hurricane touched down in it; clothes, books, unidentifiable gadgets left in haphazard piles, and the sheets on the floor. Justin's bed is immaculate. Justin was abnormally neat for a boy his age, Joey thinks.
Baby whimpers softly against his chest, and he strokes her head, the soft fuzz of black hair. She's probably hungry again.
He's making a list of parts he needs for the leaking pump when JC shows up. He's still glowing.
"Had a good time?" Joey asks. He needs gaskets, and they better not be used again. He wonders who he should ask. Alex's boys don't seem to care much about maintenance, and they bring him nothing but shit. "Hey, C, dude, you wouldn't know where I could get some new gaskets. Like, new new. The pump on level 3C is leaking again."
"Hang on," JC says and disappears into his room. He's back in a few minutes and hands Joey a box.
"Where'd you get these?" Joey asks when he's opened it.
"I went up early and filched them from a parked car," JC says. "You said you had a leaking pump yesterday."
"Yeah, and it's still leaking. Thanks, man." He claps JC on the shoulder, and remembers - "hey, didja see your boy?"
"I did," JC says, and can't seem to keep a delighted smile off his face. "Oh, right," he adds and digs a bunch of folded papers from his pocket. "I didn't look at these."
Joey looks. It's a police report, filled in by hand. The picture is blurry, but not unrecognisable. Christ, they shaved his head. John Doe, transient. Pen 46. Light labour. "Oh, Pen 46" Joey says. Baby is twisting in her sling, trying to reach the interestingly crackling paper. Joey holds both her hands in one of his.
"What's it mean?" JC asks, reading over his shoulder. "I can never make heads or tails of those things."
"It's the code for Federal Penitentiary 46 at Buck Bridge," Joey says. "I know, uh. I know someone there."
"Where's that?" JC's squinting at the form, as if he's sure there's a map there somewhere.
"Outside town, not far, but it's gonna be kinda hard to get him out. It's not like the camps. Well, it's a camp, but it's not. They have real prisoners there, too, like murderers and rapists. Not just, you know, the sanitised folks."
"Oh," JC says, and his smile has faded.
"It's okay, though," Joey says, "it'll be okay." JC looks at him, and he nods. It will be okay.
"Fuck," Chris says when they show him. "Fuck, that's a maximum security place, isn't it? I bet it is. Fuckers."
"It's not that maximum," Joey says.
There are things he doesn't talk about, that he doesn't want to talk about. Abigail is one: he can hardly think about her, even after six months. The guys respect that, most of the time. They don't meet his eyes when he comes back from the grave. He goes every week. He leaves Baby with JC or Chris and just sneaks down to the cemetery tunnel and spends ten minutes squeezing his hands into fists so tight that his fingers ache and tremble. Then he goes back and holds Baby and listens to her heart and her little gurgles and giggles.
Another thing he doesn't talk about is Abigail's brother. For one, he's not allowed to. "Yeah, oh, and if you mention I come around, I'll cut your fucking balls off," AJ says every time, and even though he usually smiles when he says it, or sneaks a hand down Joey's pants to cup said balls fairly gently, Joey doesn't make the mistake of thinking he's kidding.
For the other, Joey has no idea what to say about AJ, so it's just as well that he doesn't get to talk about him. AJ shows up once a month, just sneaks into Joey's room like a ghost, and god knows how he gets past security. Or past security at Pen 46, for that. Joey asked once, and AJ just shrugged and said, "All about knowing the right people, compadre. You know that." AJ always knew exactly who to know, who to talk to, who to bribe, who to flirt with or fuck, who to fuck up.
Baby loves AJ, laughs and drools at him and pulls at the hoops in his eyebrow. He lifts her high in the air and sings raunchy songs that Joey hopes she won't remember once she learns to talk.
"She's got Abby's eyes," AJ said last month, and he's the only one who can mention her and look Joey in the eye when he's doing it. He has a tattoo that says Baby on his chest. There's one that says Rosa on his shoulderblade, but he's never explained that one. Joey's not sure he wants to know.
"Yeah," Joey said.
"So, wanna fuck?" AJ asked and put Baby back in her crib.
"Yeah," Joey said.
They don't fuck much, but when they do, it's rough and hot and AJ is small and wiry and doesn't let Joey top, ever. Joey doesn't think it's because AJ is too macho to bottom, but just because AJ doesn't trust anyone enough to turn his back on them, not even Joey.
AJ keeps a cigarette behind his ear, and Joey has to tell him repeatedly that he can't smoke down in the tunnels. "Fuck," AJ says and puts the smoke back. "It's like the fucking pen."
"Why do you keep going back?" Joey asked once.
AJ shrugged and scratched his head. "Better than living in the fuckin' sewers, Joe-Bob."
"Don't call me Joe-Bob."
"Sorry, Mr. Fatone." He snapped his head to the side, shook his shoulders, said, "Well, visiting hours are over. Take care. Don't let the rats get the kid," and slunk out the door.
"I'm gonna try to get him out," Chris says. "There has to be a way."
"I know someone, maybe," Joey says and ignores the shiver that runs down his spine. "I'll look into it." Then he goes down to change the gaskets on the pump on level 3C.
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