Manny tracked Harry’s progress down the hall, marvelling at the way the old man navigated around the throng of inmates as if they weren’t there. Harry’s white cane, as striking as his powder-white hair, tapped back and forth in front of him, squeezing a path down the chamber. From his vantage point on the platform above the hall, Manny speculated about how Harry did this. Guys spilled out in front of him, walked around him apparently without noticing him, and barged and milled and loafed around in all directions without Harry Chance once having to pause or divert course. Manny had seen Harry pull this trick many times, but it was still a wonder how the guy made his way with such purpose. If Manny had been in Harry’s shoes, he’d have needed to make use of his large frame to force his way to his destination, and he’d have collided with a few folks along the way.
The old man reached the foot of the stairway beneath Manny, placed a papery hand on the rail and began to ascend. He didn’t use his stick, preferring to tuck it under an arm out of the way. Instead, he uses his hand as a guide as he hauled himself upward. When he’d gone two thirds of the way to Manny’s platform, his foot struck against a lone deck shoe abandoned on a stair, kicking it through the gap behind. The shoe bounced softly against a support and spun with a lazy rotation towards the ground. On its way down, it struck the shoulder of the wiry, thin-faced man who stood under the stairs where he’d gathered with a cluster of companions.
A bunch of new losers, Manny thought as he studied them. The wiry man considered himself to be something. That was clear from his demeanour. Clearly, the gang around him had decided that the guy was something, too. And maybe he was on the outside, but things played differently in prison. It was important to know whom to mess with and whom to avoid.
‘Hey, I’m sorry, mister…’ Harry said. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
The wiry man scowled as he looked in Harry’s direction. ‘Are you being funny, old man?’ His companions must have sensed his mood shift. Being struck by a falling shoe cast from stairs by a blind man was clearly offensive. ‘Only I didn’t find it that funny.’ The cohort tailed the man like some ragged honour guard as he moved out from under the stair, an instant swagger in their gaits.
Here’s trouble, Manny thought and glanced around the hall. Everyone else was busy, even the prison officers. Even the inmates nearest the stairs found urgent business elsewhere, and shuffled away. There was no hurry in their movement, no obvious clearing away from the space nearby, yet a gap emerged around the group, nonetheless. Manny tensed, his knuckles whitening as his fingers closed around the rail in front of him. Including the wiry guy, six men were sizing Harry up. Manny had seen him take on three dudes at once, but never six.
‘No,’ Harry replied, ‘I simply didn’t see you, I’m afraid. On account of being blind, you see.’ He slid his dark glasses from his face, revealed his opaque eyes, and grinned down at the man.
The others were at the base of the stairs now, poised. Harry winked at them, returned his glasses to their normal position, and slipped the cane down so its tip rapped against the stair. The sound echoed through a brief lull in conversation.
‘Very funny, wise guy. Only, and I’ll repeat this in case you are deaf and stupid, too. I didn’t think it was funny, at all. Hitting a bystander with a shoe like that… that’s intimidating. It’s behaviour that might get someone hurt.’
Manny moved towards the stairwell, his movement slow enough he hoped those below wouldn’t notice. It was his fault Harry was in this predicament, having asked the blind man for a chat. The old guy knew stuff and Manny wanted his advice. It was obvious Harry was in for a beating, but to Manny’s thinking, it was essential that this didn’t happen before Manny had the opportunity to get that information from him. Nevertheless, the chances of Manny and Harry having that chat were slim. Harry was in for a beating. The only thing in his favour was that the stairs were too narrow for the six men to go at him simultaneously. That aside, the blind man didn’t stand a chance. The old man would end up in hospital, and it might take days or weeks before Manny had an opportunity to talk to him again.
All the guys were waiting for was the say so from their leader, who had manoeuvred to stand behind them, relishing the moment before he launched them into action.
It was the typical position of a coward. The wiry guy wasn’t one to lead from the front. Well then… Manny gazed down. The drop to the hall floor was several feet further than he would have wished and he would feel the jolt as he landed, but he’d survived larger drops. With a deep breath he vaulted over the rail, twisting his position to land as lightly as possible. His ankles protested a little at the pressure he put on them, but he ignored the pain. In one quick motion he got behind the wiry man, grabbed his arm and buckled it behind his back so tight the guy yelped. ‘You leave him alone,’ Manny whispered in his ear. ‘He ain’t worth your hassle. Do you hear me?’ He didn’t wait for the guy to respond. ‘Do you hear me?’
The remaining five men spun around, surprised by the change in fortune. One of them advanced towards Manny and so he gave him a glowering stare. ‘I can make this real nasty if I choose too,’ he said simply. That made the man back off. ‘Now, mister boss man, what Harry did was an accident. An accident. He knocked the shoe over on account of him being blind. No offence was meant. And you shouldn’t take any from it. Get it?
‘Now, tell your goons to back off and hang out somewhere else. Harry and I have some business to discuss.’
The wiry man’s body tensed. Manny knew the guy was assessing the situation, checking for an easy way to reverse his predicament. Manny tightened his grip as the expected wriggle to escape fizzled to nothing. ‘Well? Harry apologised to you. Won’t you apologise to him?’
The man nodded slowly. ‘Sure. Sure. I’m sorry… Harry. This was clearly a misunderstanding. An accident. Dudes shouldn’t leave stuff on stairs for blind guys to trip over. Right? Ain’t I right, fellas?’
The crowd of hardmen began to laugh and nod, and Manny relaxed, the danger averted. ‘Good. So, we are good, yeah? No more stupid stunts? Otherwise the guards will be on us like the clap and none of us want that, do we?’
‘No. No we don’t,’ his captive agreed. ‘You gonna let me go now? Or the guards will be down on us right enough…’
Manny considered this. ‘Get your heavies to move away from the steps first.’ As the man waved them off, Manny continued, ‘That’s it. Okay. See, we’re all friends, really.’ He released the man slowly, allowed him to spring away.
‘Yeah, we’re all friends,’ the guy agreed, but his expression told Manny otherwise. Helping Harry had been a dangerous move, perhaps. Well, there’d been nothing else for it. He wasn’t about to stand by while Harry got beaten.
As the gang idled away, Manny joined Harry on the stairs and they ascended to the walkway above.
‘I would have managed them all, you know?’ Harry remarked as he tapped his cane against the hard floor, working out his bearings.
Manny laughed, ‘No you wouldn’t. Do you know how many of them there were?’
‘Six.’
Manny raised an eyebrow and tried not to sound surprised. ‘That’s bullshit. There’s no way you’d have taken them all.’ He grasped hold off the man’s elbow and guided him to a halt against the railing so they both overlooked the hall. The encounter with the men meant there wasn’t much time left before they would be sent back to their cells. ‘Still, it would have been fun watching you try.’
The other man chuckled, a sound as dry as autumn leaves. ‘Well, I’m glad you’d have got entertainment out of it, but seriously, those guys didn’t stand a chance.’
Manny laughed with him and for a moment the two of them stood together in silence. ‘Thanks for coming to see me,’ he said, eventually. He didn’t seek out company much inside, preferring to keep to himself. The place reeked of petty politics, which Manny never enjoyed, and so he retreated to the edges of prison society, kept his head down and his nose clean. ‘Someone told me you were back inside.’
Harry rested his cane against the rail. ‘Yeah. That’s me, in and out, in and out. Got sent in yesterday for blind begging. Ha ha ha. It’s too funny, it really is. I’ve lost count of the number times a judge has popped me in here for that. I kinda think of it as a holiday. Well, I get a bed and food and a warm shower. What’s not to like?’
Harry was a likable sort of guy. Even for an old blind fuck he was funny and good spirited and a decent soul. It was a wonder he continued to break the law and wind up inside so often.
‘Anyhow,’ Harry said, ‘I should thank you for helping out. You didn’t need to, but you saved a bit of unpleasantness. And I reckon I owe you a favour. I’ll put in a good word with the warden for you. He’s going to bump into me today anyhow. I’ll tell him you did me a good deed, see if we can’t get you out of here…unless there’s something else you wanted?’ He paused, turned to face Manny in a way that made it appear as if he were studying him. ‘Well?’
If only Harry had that amount of influence. Yet, Manny’s crime had been a serious one, and his sentence was long. There was no way Harry would be able to get Manny’s term reduced. ‘Have a word for me, old man,’ he said. ‘I doubt it will help, but…’
Harry smiled. ‘You never can tell. Today might be your lucky day.’
That made Manny snort. ‘Some chance,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, I need some advice.’ He tossed his request around in his head before asking. He’d rehearsed it a few times, but found sticking to a script impossible. ‘When I get outta here,’ he began. He wasn’t approaching the subject the way he wanted, but had to carry on. ‘You know, on the day they come tell me I can walk back out into the world…’ He hesitated. Down below, Cooper Healey slipped a card from under the table and won a hand of whist against Frankie and Marlin. Beside them, Elmore and Janek gossiped about nothing, and beyond them, other guys, most of whom Manny didn’t know, chatted and lied, played games and schemed. Manny loathed them all. ‘On that day I want to get my woman back, Harry. You know, Taylor… I mentioned her to you before.’
‘I remember,’ the old man said, his voice small.
‘I know she’s out there living her life, doing her thing. Her and my kids. And it hurts me right here.’ He poked his chest with a stiff finger. ‘Sometimes it hurts so bad I think I’m gonna burst because I don’t get to see those girls growing up. And Taylor, she broke my heart.
‘But do you know?’ He leaned towards the blind man, his words conspiratorial. ‘I’m no fool. She thinks I did her wrong and that’s why she sent me here, but hell, she screwed me over, fucking with that goddamn sergeant.’ He breathed a lungful of air, attempted to control his temper. ‘But she’s still my woman. And when I get out, I’ll have her back where she belongs.’
‘And how do you plan to do that?’
That was exactly the problem, Manny had no idea how he’d go about it. If he’d been in Taylor’s position he would have fled to the other side of the country and made sure no one knew where he’d gone.
‘Listen, Manny, I know this doesn’t sound cool coming from a guy whose surname is Chance, but you need to get yourself a plan. Reflect on what happened that night with the sergeant, make up a story for it. Your story. Your truth. Use that to win her over. Plan with that in mind. Make her believe you were the good guy, the one who was wronged. Once you convince her of that, she’ll come running back to you. You’ll see.’
Manny smiled, happy that he’d started the conversation with Harry. He was smart enough to do what the old man suggested, of course he was.
The old man’s free hand closed tight around Manny’s arm, squeezed. There was a warning in his next words. ‘I hope that’s what you want, though. You need to sort that out in your head first. Winning her back is one thing, revenge… well, that’s something else. And I sense you aren’t certain about why you want to do this thing. Listen. Have a proper think about that. Work out what your aim truly is. Picture the beauty of it. Breathe its odour. Let your tongue tingle with pleasure when you consider how good it’ll be when your ambition is realised. Now… once you have that, once you have it cemented in your skull tighter than that tattoo is stuck to your ass, then you’re ready to work out how you’re gonna achieve it. You can figure out all the things that will stop you getting what you want, too. List all the random shit life might throw your way, all the petty crap that’ll prevent you from getting it done. Say, like a tree falling across a rail track, or a chronic belly ache, or a cop fucking with your girl. Plan against those things.
‘That’s the lesson, Manny… You gotta think. You gotta plan. And you gotta think some more about all the obstacles standing in your way. Remove as much… chance… from the game as you can. Now, by my measure, you ain’t got as much time to work this stuff through. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe not. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell.’ The old man straightened up. ‘The bell’s about to go,’ he said, ‘so we won’t speak about this again. Just get yourself prepared, do you hear me?’
Manny’s head was swimming. Harry had given him so much advice, he struggled to get it. ‘Thanks,’ he said, lamely, his mind elsewhere, as he chased his estranged family through the corridors of his imagination.
Harry patted him on the back. ‘You’ve got to get that story right, son. Got to get it sorted in your head and make your plans around that. Otherwise…’ Harry made an odd gesture suggestive of someone getting their throat cut. ‘Bad shit will come off it for you.’ ‘Sure, Harry.’ It was impossible to work out what he wanted. He closed his eyes, not hearing Harry’s stick drumming against the metal of the gangway as the old man clattered off.
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