Chapter 2 - Meeting Cornwhistle
I was walking a cup of water through a group of tables toward the microwave just as the cart of empty breakfast trays was being led back to the kitchens. Most people woke up to eat and then went straight back to bed, but one guy was still sitting at a table.
“Eh yo. You play spades?” he asked me.
I couldn’t tell if he had a chubby face or if it was just the stubble on his neck that made it look that way.
An effeminate voice rang out from across the pod before I could answer, “I wanna play hearts, Cornwhistle, not spades!”
“Shut the fuck up, Prairie!” a third voice answered, a bit muffled from behind a closed cell door.
“You shut the fuck up!” Prairie shot back.
A lady with wavy blonde hair hurried toward the table where the chubby-faced guy was sitting. She saw the bag of freeze dried coffee tucked into my waistband and stopped short.
“Oh shit, you got coffee. Let me get a shot,” she said. “I’ve got two bags comin’ tomorrow, I’ll get you back.”
“Yo, chill,” Chubbyface said to Prairie. “Dude just got hit with four years and you’re over here tryin’ to scare the shit out of him.”
“Sorry,” Prairie said. She looked me in the eye and said, “I’m a woman who still has a penis so they won’t put me in a women’s pod. You’re all caught up now, so how about that shot of coffee?”
I let the question hang on the air for a moment before letting out an uncertain, “uhh… alright.”
Prairie fist pumped a “yes!” and then started running back to her cell. “I need to get my cup!”
Taking the opportunity to finish my walk to the microwave, I put my cup inside, set the timer for two minutes, and turned back to the table.
“How’d you know I got four years?” I asked Chubbyface.
He pulled a newspaper off of one of the chairs next to him and slapped it on the table. “You made the front page, dawg.”
I glanced down and saw my mugshot next to the headline.
Driver in Fatal Accident Sentenced to 3 Years and 11 Months.”
“I wish they’d put me in the newspaper,” Chubbyface continued. “Eh, at least you got a good mugshot. Looks like you got a good haircut and a nice tan goin. I look like a goddamn drunk raccoon in mine. Those motherfuckers took my picture while I was still talkin’.”
“You don’t stop talking for long, do you?” I said while trying to read the article.
Not a moment later, Prairie returned with a cup in hand. “We’re playing hearts right?” she asked.
“Yo, shut the fuck up for a minute. Dude’s trying to read the newspaper,” said Chubbyface.
“Ooh,” said Prairie. “Did you tell him he has a nice mugshot?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” said Chubbyface. “Eh, where’s your boy? We need a fourth for cards.”
“He’s coming,” Prairie said. “I told him I got us some coffee.” She slid her empty cup toward me.
The microwave beeped to announce that I would never get an opportunity to read the newspaper. I got up, retrieved my cup of hot water, set it on the table next to Prairie’s cup, and put a spoonful of the little brown coffee cubes into each.
Prairie snatched her cup back with a, “thanks!” and ran off to fill it with water.
It was just me and Chubbyface again. I asked him, “so if they put you in the newspaper, what would it say?”
“Oh man,” he started. “I’m glad you asked. They’d do it up big, ‘Cornwhistle, Greatest Drug Dealer of All Time, Cut Down in His Prime’ is what the headline would be.” He made a sweeping motion with his hands above his hand. “You ever seen Cheech and Chong? It was like that, but instead of an ice cream truck I was sellin’ dope out of a meat truck. I’d drive over to Port City cuz the dope’s cheaper over there. I’d pretty much trade a whole truckload of meat for the dope, then drive it back here and sell it for a premium. My boss didn’t care how I sold the meat, as long as he got his cut. I’d give him the money for the meat and keep the rest. Easy peasy!
“But then one day I was driving down route 17 through town and the fuckin’ DEA pulled out of the woods in front of me. I didn’t even know there was woods right there! I tried to back up, but another big black SUV had me boxed in. I was cooked. Fuckin snitches must’ve told on me. But yo, I thought, ‘It don’t matter. They ain’t gonna find the dope on me today.’ All I had was a little eight ball on me and I had it tied to my nut sack. Cops’ll pat you down, but they ain’t gonna touch your nut sack... ain’t that right Prairie,” he said with a cheeky little aside as Prairie sat back down with her cup of coffee.
“Shut the fuck up,” she snapped.
Chubbyface continued, “they said they had a warrant for my arrest, so they brought me here. I tried to act cool, but to be honest, I was sweatin’ bullets the whole ride in the back seat of that cruiser. I prayed that that motherfucker with the sunglasses wasn’t working in booking that day. Anybody else working in booking might not strip search you, but if that motherfucker’s workin, you can count on gettin’ strip searched. Welp. Sure enough, that motherfucker with the sunglasses was workin’.
“Eh,” he went on, “you thought he was fat right? Dude ain’t so fat that he can’t jump right through that window in the dry cell and tackle your ass then and there. I hardly had my pants off before I was face down on the tile floor with a knee in the back of my neck. I let him have it too, called him all sorts of names...”
Chubbyface then proceeded to paint the most artistic picture one can imagine with a palette full of all the banned words.
“How much time did you get?” I asked him after he was finished.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I talk to my lawyer tomorrow. I got a PD. I’m hopin’ for a good plea deal.”
“What’s your name?” came my next question.
“Charlie Cornwhistle. My friends call me CC.”
“Your name is really Cornwhistle?”
“Yep. And eh, I heard all the jokes. Go ahead, let me have it. I don’t give a fuck. That’s just who I am. Charlie Motherfuckin’ Cornwhistle.”
Prairie interjected, “can we play hearts now?”
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