Simple by Kathleen George

Checking his name. He was pretty sure they said to each other he wasn’t in the system, some phrase like that.
    Now he looks at the men in line ahead of him. What did they do to land in here? Not just drunkenness and fighting and drug possession. These guys up here on his pod looked rough.
    They all wore red uniforms just as he did.
    Right. Last night, before the harsh soap and delousing liquid, the man who issued uniforms tried to take his watch. He lied and said it was worth only thirty bucks, so they let him keep it. He remembers.
    Now Cal got his tray and sat down at the only seat he could see at a quick glance. There were small white metal tables around the pod floor—each seated four men. The man sitting directly across from Cal was middle-aged, white, or looked white, and he was neat looking about his person, and alert, but at second glance that alertness was the nasty sort. His eyes glittered. His smile was mean. He said, “Nice watch.”
    Cal didn’t answer. Lunch was two hot dogs on a bun, a pile of greasy fries, and some kind of Jell-O thing that seemed to have fruits tumbled in it. Cal began on the meal, planning to eat it all because he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to come out of his cell for dinner. For a long time now, he’d been a solo guy, doing everything on his own. All these people talking and looking at him made anxiety rise in him. It took the form of a ball of anger and nervousness making its way up his digestive tract, fighting the food that was on its way down.
    â€œSo this is the badass came in last night?” The question came from the man to his right. He was large, pale, and sloppy, with messy long hair.
    The man who had commented on his watch said, “Can’t you tell?” The two laughed.
    â€œHe doesn’t want to talk,” said the guy with the dreads, passing. “I tried him.”
    â€œThat’s Levon,” said the man across from him, pointing. Cal could see Levon went to sit with other African American men. There were significantly fewer white guys here, no surprise.
    â€œI’m Sidney,” the man continued. “This here joker next to me is Boreski. Some guy named Shiron is going to come up to you sooner or later and ask what you need to buy. Whatever you buy, I get half or the whole. I watch out for you. That’s all you need to know for today. Otherwise you’ll be overwhelmed.”
    The two men laughed.
    There was a lot of noise, but Cal was pretty sure he heard Sidney ask, “You ever think you’d end up here?”
    â€œNo,” he said.
    â€œAnd we know already: You didn’t kill that chick.”
    Cal shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œYou don’t think you’re better than anybody else, or do you?” Boreski asked. “’Cause that doesn’t go down real good.”
    Cal thought, I am in grade school all over again and I am going to be beaten.
    â€œYou can tell him your secrets,” Boreski said to Sidney. “This guy don’t talk for anything.”
    Cal liked hot dogs. These were not particularly good—he wasn’t sure why, maybe something about the way they cooked them. In spite of the fact that they didn’t taste particularly good, he kept eating. He looked forward to downing the Jell-O and getting back to his cell. The whole place reminded him of a gray playroom for oversized children with its two TVs mounted up high and the “easy” chairs made of blue plastic and the sets of white tables and metal chairs for everything else.
    â€œSee all them buttons,” Boreski pointed. In one corner a guard sat behind a large station with a computerized console that had a thousand buttons. “Colonel could pick you and push a button and kill you if he wanted, just like that. Gas your cell.”
    He nodded. They laughed. It almost seemed true.
    No need for batons or guns.
    When he sat on his cot, not ready to lie down, his stomach in knots, he tried to