On the Yard by Malcolm Braly

return to the institution.”
    He drove to the prison by himself, using the car the state furnished him. When he turned onto the access road above the institution he slowed to watch the lights moving over the walls like golden fans. He traced the perimeter to check the green all-clear glowing secure at the tip of each tower. What an incongruously beautiful scene it made, the prison like a dense and massive castle, elfin with Christmas light, and all repeated, if magically reversed, in faithful detail on the still dark water of the bay.
    He found Wong nodding in front of the TV. “You didn’t have to wait up, Charlie.”
    Wong smiled shyly. “I think maybe you be hungry, boss. That ham not do much for you, all right?”
    â€œJust a sandwich then. And a glass of milk.”
    While he waited he sat at his desk and read some of the memos he hadn’t found time for during the day. There was one marked Confidential, from the captain of the guard, stating that his informants were still reporting large quantities of contraband nasal inhalers within the institution, but he couldn’t trace the source. Also there were rumors of marijuana which could mean a new route had been opened up.
    The warden removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Their tireless ingenuity! He recalled the time he had ordered the locks changed in the prison commissary, and two days later an inmate had been apprehended with a complete set of keys to the new locks. If only there were some way to reach into their minds and switch such intelligence and energy into constructive channels, but if this were possible the prison would never have been built.
    He replaced his glasses and noted Keep watching, they’ll slip on the margin of the captain’s memo. It was true. Sheeley had worked up through the ranks and he was quite familiar with the inmate weakness they called showboating. The prisoner who held the power to regulate the traffic in inhalers would have to talk about it, floor show, and let it be known that he was Big Dad to all cotton freaks, and he would be subtly pressured into this dangerous admission because there was so little in the prison routine that could make a man feel important, or in any way special, or, for that matter, even simply feel like a man. The need for recognition grew like hunger. In time he would showboat and the captain would hear about it.
    Wong brought a turkey sandwich and a glass of milk on a tray.
    â€œYou better go on inside, Charlie. Thanks for waiting up.”
    â€œOkay. What time you get up?”
    â€œThe usual.”
    â€œYou be plenny tired, boss, better to sleep in.”
    â€œNo, I’ve a lot coming up tomorrow. Good night, Charlie.”
    â€œOkay. Night, boss.”
    Wong left by the front door, but turned quickly and ducked into the garage where he loosened the right front hubcap on the warden’s car. In the space behind it he found a kilo of pot and—he grinned happily in the dark—a small cake of yen-shee where they had been hidden for him by Sammy Low, Charlie’s cousin and fellow member of Hop Sing, while the warden was addressing the Moose.
    Charlie made no effort to hide his loot. He dropped it into his jacket pocket, replaced the hubcap and started towards the front gate. He passed through the double doors, grinning, nodding, and wearing the invisibility that shrouded him as a joint character, who could move with no more notice than “that crazy Chinaman” into the most closely controlled areas of the prison.
    Once inside he took a deep breath and started through the Garden Beautiful towards the brightly lit trap known as four-box. Four-box was the main custodial nerve center within the walls, and all traffic from one part of the prison to another passed in front of its large curious windows. At night Old Tom sat in this web’s center like a huge, benign, and drowsing spider. Old Tom was regular, a good bull, which meant he didn’t