PART ONE

Augustus Hill:
"Once upon a time--a long, long time ago, right here on Planet *Earth*, motherfucker--the whole world came down to two ex-ta-REEM-ley simple-ass things: Eat, or get eaten.     Like you an' everyone around you was just meat, or not-meat, with nothin' in between...and no damn guarantee at all Predator Number One wasn't gonna suddenly slip-slide 'cross that line and end up restin' in pieces in some other predator's stomach, no matter how many other fellow animals they might'a chowed down on, back in the day.
     "Now, even today, Oz is pretty much all predators, yo: Snakes and sharks and big ol' T-Rexes, cats and dogs, FIGHTIN' like cats and dogs--lions and tigers and bears, oh my. All predators, and not a fuck of a lot of natural prey. So bigger eats smaller, and faster eats slower--stronger on weaker, younger on older, and so on, and so on, and so on...
     "Bob Rebadow, talkin' to God 'cause God's the only motherfucker he knows ain't gonna knock him down and take his Momma's fudge. Or my main man from Sister Pete's drug group, Whitney Munson, spendin' more time in here than he did outside. Or ol' Poppa Alvarez, dyin' in diapers with Alzheimer's chewin' up his brain--man, that's some *ugly* way to go out, you know what I'm sayin'?
     "They was all bad-asses, back in their day--all stone killers. Men. But now they're just OLD men, which means they ain't shit. And that's why, the longer you stay in Oz--the older you get, in this fuckin' place--
     "--the more you know you'll do *anything* to get out, before you end up the exact same fuckin' way."

So: Twelve months later, twelve months since the riot and the fallout thereof, with most of it spent studiously ignoring each other--catching a glimpse, shooting a glance, fielding a repressed snarl with a slight smirk and just moving on. Like two sharks passing in the night, a scarred old great white sneering down on a sleek little mako, and neither of them willing to stop long enough to let their lungs fill up; sure I still got my flat black eye on you, sweetpea...
     (the one I got *left*, that is)
     ...but I ain't about to let myself DROWN over it.
     To just ignore each other, however, was a far easier prospect out in Gen Pop, where you could go days hardly seeing your own cellmate, let alone your--ex. As opposed to being shoved cheek-by-jowl in the clear-walled confines of the re-opened Em City, stuck in the pod across the way and forced to watch Tobias fuckin' Beecher all day and all night, every day and night, like some kind'a fuckin' high-class dessert laid out under under glass. McManus's petty revenge for keeping to his established parole countdown strategy and refusing to play go-between, to translate his dumb-ass requests for the benefit of Mark Mack's tiny A.B. faction; Vern Schillinger could almost hear the weedy motherfucker's "logic" now, rattling around in that half-bald dome he called a skull:
     *Tit for tat, Schillinger. My way, or the highway. Don't do what I want, you don't get what YOU want.*
     (And...we all know what *that* is.)
     Yeah, well--so maybe Vern did, even now; even after the glass in the eye, the weight in the chest, the shit on the face. Maybe, actually--
     (--there wasn't actually any MAYBE about it.)
     Beecher, who he'd taken without even wanting, owned and plundered and threw away. Beecher, who he'd been *surprised* by. Continued to be, much as he might want to think otherwise.
     Up on the catwalk, staring down; giving him the cold shoulder in mess, like they were feuding teenagers in some Goddamn high school cafeteria. Turning on him in the post office, cat-quick, to stick his face so close Vern could see that dumb-ass scruff of beard fairly *bristle*: Ridiculous, fake-biker pussy-tickler. Grew it to show everybody what OUTLAW he is, now his ass is finally out of Vern's pod, on the loose and on the hoof.
     (Fuckin' prag.)
     "Just stop WATCHING me, you asswipe fucking Nazi fuck," Beecher had snapped at him, a couple of days back. And:  "I'm *not*," Vern'd snarled back, automatically. But...
     ...oh, he had been. Still was. Would be again, anytime he thought the little nutbucket slut wouldn't catch him doing it.
     Like picking a scab, scratching an itch. Like digging deep enough to scar, and then...
     (deeper)
     Just couldn't, couldn't, Goddamn--
     (--*help* it.)
     Beecher's voice again, wistful-hateful: *All those good, good times...*
     Oh, uh HUH.
     Said I didn't want to fight, baby--not back then, with the riot turning everything to flaming ratshit around us. But I sure do now, parole or no parole: Fight you to a standstill, punch you so hard you spit blood in my face, curse me, snap and scratch and STILL arch up into me like a cat in fucking heat.
     Rake my back, bite my neck. Give me blood-blisters. Take it like the man I never thought you were, and--
     (*like* it, Goddamnit)
     'Cause there's just something between us, then and now and always: That thing. That cold, strange, hateful vibe. Every time I see you, like a static fuckin' charge, a completed circuit bringin' my hair up on the back of my neck. And yours too, cupcake--yours too.
     (Believe me, I can TELL.)
     But anyway:
     A month to parole. Four weeks, and counting. And 'till then--'till then, Vern had his *own* ass to worry about, without having to take a peek at BEECHER's every wakin' fuckin' hour. Enemies everywhere he looked, everywhere he didn't; no more Scott Ross at his back, and the accumulated jizz of five long years draining away *fast*, leaving him nothing but a prospective target caught in the sights of a flood of incoming fresh fish, newbies too young, dumb and full of cum to know any better. To know who he was, Vern fucking SCHILLINGER--not just another loser, another silent, lumpy mark to stomp down and fuck over, his eyepatch less a brand of respect than a mark of difference, shame, weakness. Not *just* another damn--
     (old man)
     Huhhhhh.
     And speaking of which...
     That moment in the visiting room, squinting through the shield at that half-rotten parody of his own face, red with broken veins and righteous indignation: *Those boys'a yours are fucking out of control. Taking drugs, stealin' from me to pay for 'em. They're just NO DAMN GOOD--*
     (--just like *you*, come to think. Just like I always SAID you were.)
     Vernon. *Son.*
     (You fat-assed jailbird faggot.)
     Then: Leaping up, hammering on the glass with both fists, frustrated rage like a hook in his throat, a ghost-wire dug deep 'round his own thick neck--watching the Old Man shoot him the gleeful double finger and still roaring after him, even with a hack latched onto either arm: Hey, don't you walk away, you cocksucker! Come on, Dad! Get the fuck back here and...
     (find my BOYS)
     Do what you promised. What I *can't*. Do what I've been fucking well PAYING you for, out of my inmate's joke of a "salary", all these years in here--
     The years he'd let slip by, building his base and playing his games, making like big fish in a small pond was really anything more than dog barking himself hoarse on a choke-leash. Letting himself think he had power, like *that* was the reason they had to make sure they locked him down tight every night. Like he...
     (WAS somebody, anymore)
     ...aside from one more number on a page, one more file in a box. One more rat in McManus's glass-walled maze.
     And right at the height--or depth--of his reverie, that familiar/unfamiliar fucking pussy *voice* again, this time for real. Licking across him like sandpaper, live and out loud: Spark to his match, salt to his stinging wound. Sneering--
     "Welllllll, Vern-baby--oh, I knew THAT was gonna leave a fucking mark. Whatcha reading, Mein Kampf?"
     Beecher, slinging himself into the chair across from him and grinning like a demented little blond Tasmanian Devil, possessed by some kind of sudden spurt of bile-drunk energy--getting in Vern's face, his *space*, laying fucking HANDS on him like Vern was the one had "Throw Me Down And Use Me" written on *his* forehead. Snarling in his ear, so close Vern could smell his fresh new brand of toothpaste--
     "I'm gonna see to it that you never leave Oz. You hear me, sweetpea? NEVER."
     (*Ever*.)
     Awwwww, you fuckin' BITCH--

***

Then: Jumping forward, accellerating headfirst through the next few days like a bull charging blind, putting the question to everyone he ran across and getting the exact same thing back wherever he seemed to turn--shit, and plenty of it.
     Bikers, nope. Other Aryans, nooo. Alvarez, that too-pretty Spic fuck, laughing at his discomfort. Not to mention Schibetta, that Wop bitch; somebody was gonna take *him* for a ride on the old skin snake sometime too soon to reckon, assuming he didn't drop that 'tude he couldn't back up for five seconds straight without Pancamo-the-human-punching-bag hangin' all over him. And Vern'd laugh long and loud when Nathan and company sutured up THAT pasty dago ass...
     Down in front of the TV bank, now, hands on hips. And studying the back of Simon Adebisi's massive head, cow-eyes at half-mast, huge nigger-lips chewing absently at the cord of his headphones; mud-man really was some kinda genetic fuckin' mistake, a nightmare leaning tower of blue-black flesh--the jigaboo Ahnold. Sure, Vern wasn't the tallest guy in Oz, but only Adebisi--and Karl Metzger, his undercover Aryan hack contact over in Gen Pop--had the sheer BULK to make him feel physically vulnerable.
     *Beecher? Motherfucker's CRAZY.*
     (Pussies.)
     But--
     --that almost-silent voice at the back of his head finally chiming in at last, nobody's but his very, very own. Murmuring sweet 'n' low, like he was some bimbo it was trying to talk out of her bra--
     --Adebisi...is crazy too.
     (No denying THAT.)
     Fire with fire. Nutjob with nutjob. Set Adebisi on Beecher and walk away quick, then double back to pick up the pieces later on--always assuming the big black bastard leaves anything intact for the picking...
     Reaching out one tentative hand for Adebisi's shoulder; angling to touch as little of that polluted flesh as he can manage, before instinct makes him stop himself short. And feeling Adebisi move almost before he saw the result, meeting a pair of eyes like level, drug-bloodshot velvet jewels, ebony-in-ivory, luxuriantly fringed with cow-calm double wings of lash.
     Vern schooled his own pale face, reflexively, as the man-mountain raised a contemptuously questioning brow. *Some-teeng you waaaahnt, Schillin-jah?*
     (Well...)
     No.
     (*No*.)
     I mean, Jesus Christ Almighty, what the fuck was I just THINKING of?
     Vern shook his head, scowling at his own brief brush with *total* insanity--then stepped back and walked away, as quickly as what jizz he still retained would allow for.
     Behind him, meanwhile--
     --Adebisi watched him go, eyes slit sidelong against the constant glare of Em City's neon lights. Tracing the retreat of the older man's soldier-straight back with what could only be described as a mild, yet definite, look of...
     ...interest.

PART TWO

Augustus Hill:
"Cat and dogs, lions and bears--Oz, home to all creatures great and small. Simon Adebisi, tellin' everybody who'll listen and most who won't 'bout with his big ol' Nigerian lion-haaaht; Vern Schillinger, gruntin' and growlin' and grabbin' all the honey for himself, like he's a real live Viking *bear*-serker. Indians had their totem animals, and inMATES ain't no different: We all got somethin' we wanna be...not to mention somethin' we want all the hardcase fucks around us to think we already *is*.
     "Now, you might argue that Vern, him bein' German and all, he's more like a wolf than a bear: Works in a  pack, big dog, loves his family--and once he's got his teeth in, he don't ever let go. BEECHER could tell ya *that*.
     "But I think ol' Mister Schillin-Grrr's as big a lion as Simon claims to be. I mean, think about it. Lions are greedy posers who make everybody else do the real work, screw people over and take their stuff; call their gang a 'pride', like it's somethin' to be PROUD of. Get their women to hunt all the game, look after all the kids, put out whenever they want--and they just lie there an' look pretty. King of the Beasts, yo: 'Round my Momma's house, that's the kinda ass she would'a kicked to the curb 'fore the brother had time to *blink*.
     "Out in the wild, it's one lion to a pride, one pride to a herd--territory's all marked out, so nobody gotta get in each other's way. In here, though...in here, we ain't got the luxury of leavin' each other alone.
     "So. Two lions to one pride, with no herd, and everybody wanting the exact same thing: Lazy, mean, and they *don't* share. Which means they tend to avoid each other, most'a the time--'cause they know when they DO meet, they way it throws down is either one eats the other...or the other...
     "...eats IT."

A day or so later: Tobias Beecher slouched down low in his chair, nasty-ass new beard on visible edge as he peered at the TV bank through grumpily short-sighted, glasses-less eyes; Vern Schillinger moping unaccompanied up on the middle deck, pretending to (re-)read MEIN KAMPF. Actually watching his ex-prag's slumped and fuming back, of course, in between surreptitious glances at that English-German dictionary he held--wedged between elbow and stomach--underneath the table. His conversations with Grossvater Schillinger rarely having involved anything so detailed as 1930's political policy, even back *before* the Old Man's Alte Mann had kicked the proverbial bucket a' drained-off sauerkraut juice.
     And stationed between, unobserved by either of them...
     ...Simon Adebisi, leaning back against a support pillar like Samson painted Deepest Midnight from bizarrely toque-topped head to bare and dusty toe, "his" CD player--
     (thankh you, Kenny)
     --blasting high enough to shake the teeth of not-so-innocent passersby. WATCHING Vern watch.
     And casting his mind back, at the same time, to that odd little interaction he'd just *almost* had with the neo-Nazi leader: Him, Adebisi, sitting where Beecher sat now, trying to get the most out of a high equal parts newscast babble and tits-induced numbness. Then feeling a shadow fall over him, and glancing up to see Schillin-JAH himself staring down--pale eyes narrowed, grim lips pursed. Almost like he wanted to--
     (*say* something)
     --about--
     (SOMEthing)
     Hmmm.
     But: Letting go of the Aryan--for now--Adebisi let his eyes slide to Beecher, still frowning intently at the TV's flickering screen: Hard with fresh gym-muscle, pure "don't fuck with me" vibe projecting out of every pore like barbed-wire B.O. No longer even a shadow of the soft and pasty treat he'd once seemed like, back when Adebisi first made the mistake of putting off 'till tomorrow what he should have done that very night--regardless of how letting things stew in their own juices usually made them taste SO much better...
     Scared little stuffed-suit bunny'd definitely had that rind of civilization he came in with allll scraped away since, though--along with his watch, his fear-stink fluffiness, and his (no doubt) sweet little cherry. Used to smile whenever you looked at him sideways, like he was hoping you'd give him points for good behavior. And now, after a year in--and *out* --of Schillinger's pure-White pod...
     ...now, what was left of that smile was full of teeth, not terror. A snarl-reflex rictus, mangy and gleeful as a rabid hyena's.
     Adebisi nodded to himself, slightly, proud lips curling in his own version of the same feral grin. Asking, inside his head--
     *So. Schillinjah MAKH you like dees, BEE-chah? Jus' by focking you up yoah pretty blonde ahss?*
     Or--
     *--weah you always dees way, no mattah WHAT he did to you...ondah-neath?*
     Someone in here had been fooling themselves, that much was for sure. The Nazi, for failing to read his prag right, which made him just as weak and old as he tried so hard not to let anyone else get away with thinking he was...or Beecher, little predator masquerading as prey, for thinking he could just drift through Oz's rancid undercurrents and never have to let his true self slip.
     But then again--maybe Schillinger *had* been able to see the bunny had teeth. And maybe he'd done everything he could, in his rough and clumsy way, to make those teeth started growing. Done it on purpose, for some reason, even if he hadn't really known he WAS doing it it. At the time.
     ...interesting...
     And the idea that Adebisi could find anything *Schillinger* did--INTERESTING--
     --well...that was interesting, too.
     (In itself.)
     In Oz, you paid attention to other people mainly to keep safe, but sometimes just to keep *sane*; a man could die of boredom in this glass-walled zoo--as Adebisi himself had seen happen, almost too many times to be worth the effort of counting.
     Of course, unlike the slug-white, shit-brown or bad-imitation-of-black things taking up space around him, Simon--secure in his natural-born coccoon of kingly Nigerian strength--was more than capable of keeping *himself* amused.
     (Mostly)
     Since Jefferson Keane died, Adebisi'd let himself become "leader" of the gangstas pretty much by default. He'd sat back, made other people do the work and reaped the spoils, always--aside from letting Ryan O'Reilly feed that Dago Schibetta his daily dose of ground-glass pasta--keeping to the same unspoken agreement to leave each other alone that every other gang-leader in Em City maintained. He and Schillinger had skirted each other, sniffing and preening, barely bothering to snarl whenever one passed through the other's territory. Avoiding each other, mostly; if Schillinger HAD talked to him, Adebisi suddenly realized, it would've probably been the first time they'd ever said two words to each other beyond a brief, snapped exchange of insults: "Fuckin' nigger" for "Focking *feesh*belly", then on to bigger...and more appetizing...things.
     To Schillinger, Adebisi was an animal. And to Adebisi, Schillinger was just another KIND of animal--the kind that's stupid enough to pretend it's something else. Crocodile to Beecher's hyena, to Adebisi's King of the Em City beasts: A carrion-eating liar, using that soothing growl of a voice and mask of fake old man's skin to trick its way into getting the things it's not strong--or honest--enough to just *take*.
     Adebisi lowered his thick fringe of lash, remembering bright sun on mud-choked river: Crocodiles floating down-current in a single lazy mass, content to disguise themselves as drifting logs, while unsuspecting hippos grunt and feed nearby. Remembering how the crocodile looks slow, sleepy, but MOVES fast enough to take your hand off with one snap. A sly mothahfockah, impenetrable, yellow-eyed--wait all day if it has to, just so it can drag you down under the river's rocky lip and keep you there 'till you're soft enough to eat, piece by rotting piece...
     Could be a lot of fun to wrestle with, though, long as you knew how to work it right. Pin its jaws open so it can't bite, flip it over, search it up and down for the chink in its armored stomach--that soft spot between the plates where hunter becomes hunted, where tail-thrashing living dinosaur becomes just another suitcase or cured hide cowboy boot...
     *Some-teeng you waaaahnt, Schillin-jah?*
     Adebisi looked up again, caught yet another glance. Beecher unaware, or pretending to be. Schillinger *pretending*, but--aware.
     (Very MUCH so.)
     Another grin...wider, now. And that same spark, that spark of--
     (interest)
     Leaving Nigeria, coming to America, rising by sheer strength of body and force of will to where his hungers could grow large enough to eat--*his*--whole world in one swift  gulp...Adebisi had done enough supposedly impossible things, in his time, to see McManus' precious project for the killing jar it was always destined to become: A well, deep and dark as his own big, black heart. In here, drug-hazed or not, "the past" became just as unreal as "the future"; everything ran together, with only the uncensored immediate  *interesting* enough to matter.
     Moments, frozen in time: His to keep, to gloat over, forever. Taking a cop's head. Snorting tits, drawing blood. Steam-rush to the face from an opened kitchen pot; steam-hot rush of some prag's sweet mouth, under the shower's spray. Wangler's reluctant hands in the dark. Beecher's downturned pout, already starting to wobble as he "donated" his watch to Adebisi's collection. The sweaty back of Ryan O'Reilly's thin white neck, almost *begging* for a brief, stinging kiss.
     Schillinger's white, well-guarded underbelly, gone suddenly soft--*yielding*--beneath Adebisi's hard, black hand?
     *He wahnts someteeng, all right. So I geev it to heem--*
     (--for a price.)
     Hunter to hunted. Predator to prey. It's not strategy. No way to get anything out of it, really, except...what you GET...
     The danger. The lure.
     (*Fun*.)
     And in Adebisi's world--in Schillinger's--in OZ--"fun" was usually a good enough reason to do almost...
     ...anything.

Across the room, meanwhile--in strange echo of Adebisi's unheard thoughts, below--
     Life in Oz, Vern thought, had never him much room to maneuver. Way HE saw it, though, that was kinda the point: To have people forever telling you where to do, what to do (or not) and why, and *still* wangle it so you got away with just enough to make sure your precious jizz stayed secure.
     Now, however--as parole approached, taunting him with the possibility of imminent freedom, one more chance to make things right with his wayward boys before they disappeared forever down a black hole of drug-fueled self-destruction--Vern felt his narrow world shrink even further: Nothing left, in his fish-eyed--
     (ONE-eyed)
     --view but Tobias Beecher, all over his ass like some kind of rash, some suppurating case of jock itch times infinity; Beecher, dancing and grinning and picking at their mutual unhealed scabs--preening and teasing, gloating and jeering. Press a bruise and dance away; spit and hiss and sing out a stupid-ass rhyme from just beyond harm's reach; sore a loser as the little shit had always been, he was ten fuckin' times as sore a WINNER.
     Vern shot yet another automatic glance over at newly-hirstute ex-lawyer in question, only to see Beecher finally look up, a second later--like clockwork, their shared radar obviously still in *full* working order--and shoot him back an obscenely fluttering tongue, followed by the contemptuously flippant finger.
     (Fucking...little...BITCH.)
     Rage like a red cloak over a teased bull's head, a killing film over both Vern's itching eyes: That all-too-familiar rush of twarted desire, fermenting fast from low-grade itch to raging, balls-deep burn. That suicidal impulse to grab Beecher right 'round his junkie Yuppie neck, and fuck the hacks; just pull him into range and under the nearest set of stairs, and let nature take its course...
     Lust mixed with hatred mixed with even more lust, making Vern crazy--prag-wild, like he had bees in his (figurative) beard. Making him want to throw the slut down and brand him all over again, on the *other* side. Making him *want* him, period.
     Back. Or...
     (dead)
     ...with "dead"--very rapidly--gaining ground.
     Vern ground his back teeth together, and stiffened himself to plunge back, headfirst, into the far more comforting world of Hitler's Final Solution.
     "Yo, S-Man. Somebody wanna see you."
     Vern didn't even look up. "Fuck off,Wangler. Anybody'd send *you*, that's the kinda company I can do without."
     But Wangler lingered on, nevertheless, looking nervously back over his shoulder. And when Vern *did* glance up, at last--already poised to snarl something REALLY insulting--
     --he finally understood why.

Which was how he found himself *here*, a few minutes later: Off his own home ground and onto Adebisi's, that rancid, alien place whose stink combines a thousand separate layers of rot and temptation. Lounging against the kitchen wall, arms crossed uneasily, as Adebisi strolled towards him--announcing, as he came--
     "I theenk...*you* got a problem."
     Vern shrugged, schooling his face to unreadability. "We all got our own little crosses to bear, monkey-man. So?"
     A calculated stab. But Adebisi just shrugged himself, utterly untouched--a bison, flicking flies. Elaborating:
     "You wahnt Bee-chah dead." A pause. "I cahn do that for you."
     (Man, does news travel fast around this joint, or WHAT?)
     "I got a thousand five--"
     "You GOT *two* thousahnd. Ahnd that deal you told Alvarez ahbout."
     Drugs through the x-ray machine, or whatever else whoever took him up on Beecher's hit wanted to smuggle--fuck, yeah, right. Vern grimaced at the thought; seemed doable enough when he'd first blurted it out, only to have that scarfaced Spic bastard throw it back in his *own* scarred face, but the idea of polluting HIS mail-room system with some mudblood's dirty laundry, correct postage or not...
     (Look, though: You wanna spend the rest of your--sentence--with *Beecher* hangin' over your head?)
     THOUGHT not.
     Finally, reluctantly--
     "...yeah, okay."
     "Not enough."
     Vern felt himself color to his hairline, cheekbones flushing red. And snapped: "Well, that's all I *got*, SIMON. *Beecher*'s the rich boy here, remember?"
     "Caaaalm down, VernON. I weel take yoah money. But I wahnt something *else*, too."
     A snort. "Like fuckin' what?"
     Another goony smile--Afro-African son-of-a-bitch was probably loaded to the gills, just like usual. Probably his idea of a real Goddamn funny *joke*: Callin' Vern in here, then lettin' all his BOYZ watch...and *laugh*...as he actually friggin' CAME--
     Vern snorted again, pushing off; immediately, Adebisi's huge hand connected squarely with his chest, right above the heart. He recoiled, mouth crimping, only to see the huge man's smile widen. And tasted rather than felt Adebisi's breath, and as he leaned in waaay too close for comfort--nose-to-nose--and began, smoothly:
     "Wellll--seence you ahsk..."

PART THREE

Augustus Hill:
     "Y'all ever hear of Marcus Garvey? Dude started the Back To Africa movement? This was waaay before King and X, yo, and shit was raw; had crackers in white sheets lynchin' black men and women down South, Klan meetings all over a lotta the North, too. But when the ones got away complained about it, only thing most people had to say was: 'Don't like it? Then get back where you came from, nigga!'
     "Some did. Most didn't. But me, I say fuck that idea, man--you ain't gettin' *me* on no one-way trip to Chad. I mean, crack and drive-bys is one thing; Mother Africa is full to the gills with shit gets under your skin and stays there, 'till it eats you from the inside out.
     "Ringworm. Hookworm. MaLAria. You wade across a stream, you walk out with leeches on your balls--scratch yourself at night, flies lay eggs in the wound. Next thing you know, they're pullin' some maggot the size of a spliff out'a your damn arm. Only way to shuck a motherfucker *that* nasty is to take your whole skin off from the bottom on up, and start all over again. An' too bad it ain't like we get to do that, huh?
     "'Cause if we COULD, that's the kinda maneuver'd tend to make all those li'l racial considerations seem, well...beside the point."

In the kitchen, after a suitably shocked silence--
     Vern: "No fuckin' WAY."
     Three short words, no particular emphasis--just growl and scowl, fixing Adebisi with his most fearsome pure-White glare, bulky arms knit 'til the veins popped like cables beneath his tattooed S.S. lightning-bolts. While the looming slab of A*freak*an in question just gave an annoyingly tolerant, deceptively musical half-snort rumble at the sight: A warm molasses wave breaking over all of Vern's open wounds at once, sticky and stinging and impossible to ignore, let alone laugh off in return.
     (Too-happy, monster-sized mudskin motherhump!)
     Then leant back, crossing his own--considerably more impressive--arms. And replied, simply:
     "Yes, focking. Or...no way."
     Vern felt the heat reach his ears and flushed even deeper at the sensation, an embarassing sweat-slickness suddenly sparking all over pinkening scalp and fever-bright back of his neck alike. Prompting him to snap, without thinking--
     "Like I'd ever let your black ass touch mine with a ten-foot pole--those tits you keep snortin' finally melt your brain, or what?" A pause. "Or maybe you're just still stewin' over me hooking *Beecher*'s ass out from under you, back then. That what all..."
     (this)
     "...'s really about?"
     Well, apparently so. 'Cause the very next thing out of Adebisi's mouth is:
     "Bee-chah WAS mine."
     Vern bristled, automatically. "Yeah? Check his butt, *Simon*. You got sloppy, I moved in--law of the jungle, ape-boy."
     (I mean, YOU oughtta know *that*.)
     Nature's way. Black on black, white on white; like WITH like, one way or another. You keep to your kind, same as me, or it all goes to hell in a handbasket; even further down the firey chute than this whole damn country's already gone, any road, the inside of Em City--of OZ--included...
     But anyways: Snapping back to the subject at hand, with an almost audible click--
     "--and now I'm s'posed to help you polish your knob 'cause you were too genetically bone-lazy to do more'n steal his watch? Nigger, please."
     "'Please'. I laikh that word."
     Especially coming from *you*--
     (VEHRNon)
     "Yeah? Last time you're gonna hear it. Now get the fuck out of my face, or..."
     Adebisi raised an eyebrow, spat what was left of his latest half-chewed toothpick in the gunky kitchen-cage dust, contemptuously close by Vern's left boot. Projecting, clearly: Or *what*, exactly, little--
     (white, fat, OLD)
     --man?
     *Huh.*
     "Don't want the Beech-ball dead THAT bad," Vern finished, at last--too slow and far too lame for jazz, or jizz. Only to have Adebisi lean right into the haze of his bad eye's blind spot and croon, close enough to warm one already-blazing ear:
     "Ohhhhhh *yes*, you do."
     To which Vern could only clamp his lips and grind his uneven back teeth together, feeling his mastoid muscle pop like a sprung hinge, his flab-sheathed stomach lurch and roil with acid. And knowing, at the same time, no matter how hard he might try to deny it--way down in his core, in the deepest, damndest depths of his Goddamn soul, Goddamnit...
     ...that the son of a pitch-black bitch was RIGHT.

So: Back to MEIN KAMPF, this time in the library; just about the last place anybody Vern "knew" (ha fuckin' ha) in here'd ever think to look for him, and definitely the only place far enough from every other part of Em City--glass walls and ringing floors, no sleep or secrecy, always on display--for Vern to collect his scattered thoughts, punch recent memory in the jaw and kick it while it was down to make it STOP long enough for him to get some sort of *hold* on it.
     But with Adebisi's infectious phantom croon still hard at work inside him, however, threading its way--needle-like--through all the bruised and throbbing creases of his brain:
     *You theenk I wahnt to insult you, Schillin-jah...theenk I theenk you are weak? No. I ahm a lion--you, too. An' between the strong, theah ees no shame. Theah ees only strength...ahnd what comes from strength...*
     Oh, riiight. DEFinitely.
     And the cheque's in the mail, babe. And I promise I'll pull out. And I--
     (*love*)
     --well, anyway.
     Adebisi, shrugging: *Theenk it ovah. An' eef you change yoah mind...*
     NOT fuckin' likely.
     *...send me a lettah.*
     (*Post*-mahn.)
     Times like these--not that there were exactly a LOT of them, mind you--are when Vern really missed the hell out of Scott Ross (that 'ho): Ross, always utterly unimpressed by anyone's problems, even his own. Just squint, and you could almost see the slinky, lanky, *stinky* former Biker rep's ghost take shape just where migraine-haze and cornea-scrape intersected, dark eyes skeptical under his frosty mop of premature senior citizen's curls. Crossing his long, leather-clad arms, and drawling--
     *Know what the main difference 'tween you 'n' me is, Vernon?*
     Why, no, Scott--what WOULD that be, anyways? Fact that I never thought humpin' a hog had to go automatically hand-in-hand with dressing like a San Fran-sissy-co Gay Pride Day reject, or smokin' so much weed my breath smelled like a contact high? Or only washing every six fuckin' months, and then only 'cause somebody else picked me up and *threw* me in the nearest shower?
     *Man, c'mon. Why you always gotta be raggin' on my manly stench?*
     ('Cause it was GROSS?)
     Basic hygeine, you king snake freak. Kindergarten stuff, for fuck's fuckin' sake.
     But: A patented Ross smirk in reply, sliding straight into that habitual "I'm such a bad-ass and you're such a Burgomeister" way of his. *And you always do what they tell you, right?*
     'Cept for when you don't--'kay, granted.
     *The main difference, Big Daddy, is that *I* never worried 'bout it making me look like a fag to give MY bitches the reach-around. Unlike some other guys I could mention.*
     Yeah, yeah, yeah: Says the same open-all-access slut who probably wouldn't've minded gettin' boned up the ass from Adebisi anytime it took his fancy, then laughed about it, afterward.
     *Sure, that too. Your point?*
     Basic transaction, Vern-o. He gets what he wants, you get what *you* want...
     But no. I TAKE what *I* want. 'Cause I can. 'Cause I'm just--that--
     (strong)
     Other people were the ones who gave it up on demand or cut deals to snare themselves a safe place to park their dick, who put out for protection or fought over prags' favors like dogs at the meat-dish. But not Vern Schillinger: Not in Juvie, not in Lardner. Not even in here.
     He'd used to boast about it when he was younger, to anybody who'd listen and most who wouldn't; still did, on occasion, and not without pride. Because it wasn't like nobody'd ever *tried*, either, back in the day--just that Vern had always been ready and waiting, hit harder and lasted longer, made it more than clear he'd go a hell of a lot farther to COVER his already-ample ass than most jailhouse jockers would ever go to get a crack at it.
     Acted the way Beecher should've known to, basically, the second he'd followed Dino Ortolani out onto Em City's killing floor--dumb, soft-belly, born-hooker fuck.
     But then, Vern'd been trained not to trust, from earliest childhood on. And if Beecher'd had an old man more like VERN's Old Man, maybe he wouldn't've ended up gettin' bent over any handy surface Vern could find.
     Synapse-flare inserting a momentary microsecond flash of the riot between those two, apparently unrelated thoughts. Adebisi screaming for mercy or junk in the tear-gas' lung-sting haze, Beecher's answering howl almost enough to drown out the SORT-team's bullets--*shouldn't've taken my WATCH, motherFUCKER!*
      While Vern found himself squatting under a table with a wet shirt pressed to his mouth and nose, watching through widened, streaming eyes as that skinny cunt Wittlesey took Ross down with three quick pops: Head, heart, balls. Shitty way to go, even for somebody who usually smelled like he'd been rollin' in cat piss. 'Course, that last shot probably finished him off pretty quick, comparatively...
     And: Jesus Christ Allfrigginmighty, Vernon, are you actually sitting here hallucinating phantom advice from a Goddamn dead man, former--
     --well, *friend* was probably putting it a little strong--
     --or not?
     (Seems like, yeah.)
     A shadow across his page, then, yet again. And that voice, that VOICE, all ripe and dripping with a fresh new load of humiliation to deliver like some demented pizza-boy from hell: Crow pie, asswipe, hot off the grill. Made it myself.
     "You know the wonderful thing about computers, *sir*?"
     HrrrUHRRR--

A minute or so later, in the hallway outside:
     "He's a bug, Wittlesey."
     "You're all fucking bugs."
     (To *me*.)
     Right, 'course. And you just keep on tellin' yourself that, Lady Di.
     Watching her thin-lipped slash of a mouth press together, tight and colorless--and, at the same time, remembering it all lipstick red and wet from the evening's fifth beer, smirking at something Ross had just whispered in her ear. Or later, Vern keeping hubby busy at the poker table while Ross leant into her from behind, drifting his hand up under that pimp-bait fake leather miniskirt the bike CLUB they all four ran with had got off the back of some truck in Detroit...
     "I saw you shoot Scott Ross."
     "Keep moving."
     Young kid, sick Mom, no more hack job overtime, no more under-the-table cigarette trade to keep you in chemo money; you tell *me* you couldn't use a little extra.
     "If I get out, what I know goes with me," he offered, laying the Daddy-rumble charm on thick enough to caulk a roof. Got the pale blue eye in return, cool and unreadable, and just kept on smiling.
     $2000. Tax-*free*. One phone-call and it's there in your account, no harm, no foul--
     --so stop acting like you're NOT some hagged-out piece of party meat with a badge and a stick who's screwin' her boss every chance she gets and just fucking well *take* it, you pissy little hooker!
     Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime:
     "Okay. Soon as I get verification, Beecher's dead."
     "Beecher's dead *now*."
     "Verification."
     At the mercy of Jew bankers somewhere? Some Goddamn liberal computer system?
     And: Well, Vern heard his mind whisper back, traitorously reasonable--you want *faster* service, there's always...
     (...Adebisi.)
 
Oh, God DAMN it.

And then--

Then it's the morning after the night before, with Vern waking up alone as usual (stupid-ass current podmate notwithstanding), all thread-eyed and lumpy-feeling. Hauling his way through the rest of the day on autopilot, mess-hall to mail-room and back again; offering only a brief grim smile at each new speculation about exactly where Whittlesey might'a hauled Beecher's branded ass off to so early, long before the wake-up bell even had a chance to ring.
     Especially hard to keep quiet right now, too, what with the way he felt: Bats nesting up and down his digestive tract, constant fluttering waves of elation and--embarassment?--
     (*Shame?*)
     --breaking over him in turn, as fresh ache bloomed--simultaneously--wherever he bent. A new bruise or scrape asserting its presence roughly every sixty seconds, seemed like, and all of them in places far too intimate to be easily checked. Even assuming he actually *trusted* that half-breed slut "Doctor" to keep her fuckin' trap shut about it, afterwards.
     Not to mention how, always at his blind spot's very outer edge, Adebisi could still be vaguely caught in the act of flashing that back-and-forth hand gesture at anyone who'd look: *They weah fockHHHING*...
     *Them*, maybe, Missing Link. You 'n' me?
     Fucking NEVER.
     Not even--that one time.
     (That *only* time.)
     Well, 'COURSE.
     But then, that kind of went without saying.
     Memory already reduced to only the briefest of flash-cut inserts, jolting jerkily from frame to frame in a series of bleached-out, backwards-run images; black on white on black, blurry as Vern's squinted mind's eye could render them. Barely a full twenty-four hours safely in the past, but he already had them all neatly shelved away and subdivided from the rest of his brain like some particularly virulent medical sample: MY EYES ONLY. BIOHAZARD, LEVEL FIVE PROTOCOL. FULL CONTAINMENT IN EFFECT.
     Infected. Infect*ious*.
     Contaminated--human--waste.
     Flashback inside a flashback kicking it all off, appropriately enough, when Vern instinctively recreated their first haphazard attempt at "communication": Cruised by the TV bank, flicked an eye Adebisi's way, gave--and received--the barest of all possible bare nods. He'd already cleared an open-ended block of unsupervised gym-time with Metzger, redeemable at both their conveniences, to be shared with the playmate of Vern's choice; privileges of leadership, and what-the fuck-ever.
     Stepping aside to let Adebisi go first, then following, as Metzger closed the door to the weights-area cage behind them both. Then circling each other slowly, Adebisi grinning that sly, too-white smile as Vern's head lowered instinctively, shoulders squaring. Using all his--suddenly inadequate-seeming--bulk to make himself as hard a target as possible, and bracing himself against whatever move Adebisi chose to make his first: A rush, a charge, some kind of coward's trick to get him in close enough to make the first punch REALLY hurt, close enough so John Henry Junior here could stick his shank in as far as it'd go, then *twist* it...
     Adebisi cocking the muscle where his brow should be, under that sideway-clinging puffball of a hat--amused, condescending. Asking--
     "You playeeng hahd to get, Schillin-jah? Ees thees what you call co-op-er-a-tion?"
     But: "It's Schillin-GER," Vern snarled back. And laid his whole right side up against the nigger shoulder-first, like he was takin' one of his old high school football buddies downtown. Skull crashing right into the hollow where Adebisi's collarbone juts out under that fucked-upedly jaunty little neckerchief he wears, drawing a sudden rush of underarm odor hot and rank as anything Scott Ross ever gave off--though not *bad*, exactly, for all its immediacy. Just--
     (STRONG)
     Vern growled again, deeper, nose wrinkling. Thinking, at the same time--*Geez*, Louise!
     ('M I just the only motherfucker in this place actually USES the shower-room anymore, for more'n a place to make somebody else drop the soap?)
     Ever heard of *deodorant*, SImon? New American invention, comes in almost any store...
     Force of motion carrying them both backwards, into the cage's far wall; shared grunt of impact, growl sliding into snarl again as Adebisi flipped them both, huge hands latching heavy as a bench-pressed barbell onto both Vern's biceps at once, forcing him steadily, unwillingly--
     --downward.
     Adebisi's chest, his flat and rippling stomach. His waistband. And Vern's neck and back knotted against the sheer, unstoppable power of his enemy's grip, half-bare scalp crawling with pain, heart pounding as he struggled--in vain--to break his own descent before he REALLY hit bottom, in more ways than one...
     And feeling, no matter how virtuously he fought not to, that one brief shining moment of half-willing dissolution, of total loss of identity. A nihilistic urge to be swept away, *not* take responsibility, give up control--
     --and like it.
     To simply say: Shit happens. Not my fault. Wasn't me, and even if it was...
     (...I just--couldn't--help myself.)
     And don't THAT sound familiar--huh, Vernon? Sounds just like, well, *I* don't  know--
     (Beecher)
     Aw, fuuuuck ME.
     Vern's pale eyes narrowed upwards against Adebisi's bright black shadow, a man-sized hole intent on sucking away everything he had. Like every tract about miscegenation he'd ever read--or *written*--made flesh: Adebisi, a walking African disease made flesh, a barely-human black tide sullying Vern everywhere they touched...Adebisi, his aura alone enough to make Vern's limbs numb and ring with malarial fever, AIDS-level shakes and sweats...
     Just like Beecher. Just for a moment. The worst moment--ever. In the WORLD.
     (...fuuuuck meeeee...)
     Or--
     --maybe Goddamn *not*.
     Hands shooting out, almost eye-level now with the monster to beat all possible monsters--straight out, hard and fast, grabbing and TWISTING 'till the cords in his wrist sparked and spat like pop-rocks. And rumbling into Adebisi's face, hoarse but definite, as he shoved himself upright once more--
     "Said *no* fuckin', jizzball--and that goes double on anything your regular bitches would do. You're dumb enough to think we're the same, you damn well better TREAT us the same: I'm a man, and you don't get on top 'less I *say* so. Which I'm not gonna."
     "Not motch of a bahgain."
     "Nope. But seein' how it's all you GET, you better take it..."
     (...or leave it.)
     Adebisi hissed through his flat nose, less pain than annoyance--an answering rumble filtering up from somewhere inside his chest, so far down Vern could feel its feedback loop through everything below his neck. Then replied, finally:
     "...*taaake* eet."
     Trapping Vern's arms under his somehow and flipping him so they found themselves suddenly groin-to-cushy white butt; Vern's jaw rammed up against the wall, head tilted and straining. One fist up, palm to concrete, arm foreshortened by its own harsh angle; short of temper, short of breath, thumb and knuckles crushed and grating against the painted concrete. All splayed out and panting like an outtake from JURASSIC PARK III--pea-brained Tyrannosaurus Rex with its head caught in a fence, horny Triceratops rearing up from behind, comin' in for the kill--
     And Adebisi's big hand stroking him from throat to breastbone, over and over and over again. Hypnotizing him, or some shit. Adebisi's hot, smooth palm, calluses rubbing and catching against Vern's sweaty skin, unwanted warmth speading outward in a steady, invasive spiral. The pound of his own heart in his ears mocking him, thumping and skipping with every new circle, louder and louder and LOUDER--
     *Uaaauuuugh...*
     Vern felt the hand move higher, brush across his mouth, and bit down, hard. Kicked out, twisting so they were face to face, ice-blue to bloodshot ivory-in-ebony eyeball. Gasp-roared as Adebisi fastened in on his unsuspecting tongue, pulling and bruising--then bit down again, not caring how it hurt, and heard Adebisi chuckle through the blood.
     They humped at each other like two bisons: Fighting, mating. Mating *like* fighting. A pants-on screw with no clear winner, all friction and hate, both of them struggling to make the other come too fast to feel like they'd even enjoyed themSELVES, let alone made the *other* person enjoy it...
     And then, one way or the other--it was over. For now.
     (For EVER.)
     *...that, too.*
     Ghost of Scott Ross, whispering in Vern's exhausted ear. Prompting a blush Adebisi didn't seem to register, thank Christ, as they both pulled away in opposite directions: Vern spitting the lingering taste of that *kiss* out in disgust, flecking the nearest bench with pink; Adebisi laughing again, smacking those cartoon lips.
     "Two thousahnd," he reminded Vern, pulling the tail of his shirt down to hide the stain at his crotch. And grinning, yet again, when he saw how Vern wouldn't be able to do the same.
     "When Beecher's dead," Vern shot back, quickly. Adding, in the part of his mind he was still allowing to think about--*any* part--of what had just happened: And THAT's only if Wittlesey doesn't get there first.
     (*Nigger.*)
     'Cause why would I wanna send a big black Mistake of Nature like you to do a skinny white WOMAN's job, anyway?
     A touch on his arm recalled him, gratefully, back to the here and now: The "lady" in question herself, all fresh and dewy-eyed, like she'd just come from a quickie in McManus's office. They made the corridor with space to spare, free from any prying eyes or ears--and Vern practically had to stop himself from rubbing his hands, kid-on-Christmas-morning impatient, while she insisted on runnin' down some questionnaire, like she was taking a fucking survey: Yeah, I wanted Beecher dead; hell, YEAH, I paid for it--
     (--so gimme my *present*, bitch!)
     Around a corner. Up a flight of stairs. Into a room he'd never seen before, not that THAT meant much; probably some staff-only area. And there behind the curtain, behind door number two, was--
     Beecher, yes.
     But not the way he *wanted* him.

So: A week out of the Hole, with ten years for conspiracy to commit murder hovering over him; damage assessment already in progress, new lists already beginning to form. Sure, Vern was stuck back out in Gen Pop, just got beaten down like a dog--by *brothaz*, no less--while everyone on either side just hooted and hollered, like it was the latest prison system floor-show. But he still Mark Mack inside Em City, ready and willing to jump to his snap. Still had Metzger, almost in place to fill the spot where Wittlesey used to be, now that Timmy-boy's spastic conscience'd finally decided it couldn't quite handle having her around anymore. And Beecher, meanwhile...
     ...was VERY happy with himself. Too happy to be careful--the way he was gonna *need* to be, from this moment on.
     Got nothin' left to lose, Bitch-ball, now you took the last of my dreams away. Nothin' else left on my plate, or my mind...
     ...'cept YOU.
     First time in the mess-hall since they'd let him out of the infirmary, but the Brotherhood welcomed him back like the righteous hero he once more KNEW himself to be. Vern pitched the idea of a random killing to recoup the A.B.'s fading cred, nominated that big Jew Vogel as demonstration-to-be, then got up to get himself another helping of mashed potatoes while the getting was good--and almost collided with Adebisi, for the first time since that...
     (incident)
     ...in the gym.
     Seemed like a lifetime ago, now. And Vern aimed to keep it that way.
     Adebisi gave his toothpick a cud-like chew, eyes gone all half-mast and flirty. "Schillin-jah. You theenkh about me, all that time away een the Hole?"
     Game face on in an instant, fast and furious. Coldly: "Do I look like a person you wanna fuck with, Adebisi?"
     "You look laikh someone I already DEED fock weeth. Vehrnon."
     "Yeah, and you go on ahead and spread that 'round--see just who on the fuckin' face of the EARTH is gonna believe you."
     A smile. "Ah. Bot maybe I laikh eet better eef eet jus' stays between you an' me, laikh now I know sometheeng nobody else knows. An' you...know sometheeng, too. Sometheeng--a LOT of people--"
     Prags, past and present. That wife he told Nathan about. Beecher, potentially...
     "--know."
     Grinning again, impossibly wide. Setting his hat at an even jauntier angle. And then, simply...
     ...rambling away.
     Oh, what the *hell*.
     But: You're in Gen Pop now, Vern told himself, fiercely. One good thing about this whole fucked-up fuck-up of a...situation. Likelihood of running into Adebisi again, unless you go outta your *way* to do it--
     (And why would you? Really?)
     Wouldn't.
     (Exactly.)
     --is fairly...minimal.
     (*I ahm a LION. You too.*)
     Memory's skin, slipping apart to show Vern something he barely remembered, one among many things he'd fought long and hard to erase. Adebisi leaning down for one last kiss, at the very moment of climax--and murmuring, weirdly intimate, right into Vern's similarly contorted mouth:
     *Nevah thought you be so SWEET, Schillin...grrr.*
     Huhhhhh.
     Vern cast his eyes around, restless--scanned the crowd for something to fasten in on, some piece of *natural* prey to lose himself in wanting, getting, using, dumping. Something to remind him of exactly who he was, before he became HOPELESSLY lost in the past, mistakes made and impossible to fix. But all he saw, within easy striking distance, was...
     ...Beecher.
     (of fucking course)
     Beecher, who felt his gaze somehow, and looked up to meet it. SMILING. Like he--
     --*knew*, or something.
     (Or...something.)
     Well, and fuck you too, prag. Dead man walkin'. Be worth it all, ALL of it--even the part I'm *never gonna think about again*--just to see your fuckin' eyes glaze over.
     Vern filled his tray and slung it back down; returned to picking at it, morose but methodical. Fuel for the fire. Chew ten times, swallow, repeat. Repeat.
     Re-fuckin'-*peat*.
     Down at the front gate, as his spies had told him, the "fish truck" had already been by with a load of fresh new cons, among them a certain snake-hipped motherfucker by the name of Christopher Keller. More grist for everybody's mill, plus just the weapon Vern had prayed for, alone and naked on the Hole's cold floor: A suitable means of punishment, gifted-wrapped and made to order--prey turned predator, just right for setting on predator-turned-prey.
     Across the hall, meanwhile, Simon Adebisi hummed to himself while laying down rat-poison, rendered momentarily immune to even the most cutting Italian insults. Thinking how the very best part of all this had to be that no matter how much Schillinger tried, the Aryan would never really be able to wipe what they'd done away completely. It would grow in him, slowly--work on him like glass in that old dago Schibetta's brain 'till he'd do anything to cough it up, even rip out his own guts.
     Adebisi's pure-Black seed, growing in his pure-White heart like worms. Like an open sore, all packed full with bock-fly larva, just waiting for exactly the right moment to--
     --*hatch*.
     Distraction. Fun.
     Victory.
     Nature's way.
     Simon Adebisi, nature's chosen child, gave a sudden, booming laugh, causing Poet Jackson to jump and curse as he grazed his knuckle with a carrot-peeler--before casting one last short glance over at the man he now considered his fellow lion, not that that would ever make much difference to the way in which either of them conducted their personal business. Saw Vern sitting next to Mack, staring intently at his plastic forkfull of mashed potatoes, his bad eye blue-grey and clogged with equally bad intentions....
     Then shook his huge, bald head, closed his own eyes once, decisively--
     --and made himself forget all about it.
 
Augustus Hill:
     "Nature, 'red in tooth and claw'--harsh but true, baby. 'Specially in Oz, where the only law we ain't broken yet is the law of returns, an' where what you give is ex*act*ly what you get, multiplied by at least three HUNDRED. Mother Nature, she's the one who really sets the rules, no matter how many deals anybody else tries to cut. An' it ain't nice to fuck with Mother Nature, yo, just like it says on that old-time commercial...'cause Mother Nature can be a reeeal bitch about it, if you do.
     End of fuckin' story."

THE END