Trip walked under a butcher’s block and headed back to the elevator.
“I was just having a little fun, ” Pony sheepishly said to the First Couple. “I know there ain’t no horse on this planet that can cook. If there was, you could just have all these little horses in the mansion and you wouldn’t need inmates no more. ”
“I, for one, wouldn’t eat anything a horse cooked, ” Mrs. Crimm said with disapproval. “Think how unsanitary that would be. ”
“That reminds me, ” the governor said, following Trip. “We need to get you straight with the Department of Corrections. I’ll give them a call. ”
“So you must’ve read that nice thing Trooper Truth said about helping me out, ” Pony remarked with joy and amazement. “I sure do wish I knew who he was, ’cause I’d like to show my ‘preciation. ”
Twenty-eight
Hey! Shut the fuck up!” The hostile voice came from inside a cramped, stinking, dark cell. It was late at night now, and the lights had been turned off inside the city jail.
“Shut yourself up!” Major Trader snarled back at the tedious bandit who called himself Stick and had ended up in jail after supposedly bumping his head, which had been covered with a bag, and then faking unconsciousness, assuming he would get a free ride to the hospital and then escape. It hadn’t worked.
“Shut up!” another inmate chimed in, and Trader wasn’t certain, but he thought the offensive voice belonged to Slim Jim, a repeat offender whose specialty was picking car locks and stealing toll money and sunglasses.
“You shut up!” Trader answered back. He was in far too foul a mood to be intimidated by anyone.
“No! You shut up, you motherfucker!” And it was Snitch who was awake now and irritable.
“Si, ” the Mexican boy piped up. “Everybody shut up, par favor. ”
“Stay out of it, spic, ” Trader warned.
“Huh!” the Mexican boy replied, offended. “I seen you jumping around the Dumpster. ”
“Whoa, ” Stick said. “I knew that man was crazy as shit. What he be jumping around a Dumpster for?”
“I think he was jerking off, ” said the Mexican boy, who had yet to reveal his real name to his cellmates or admit to the police that he was a juvenile. “See, I’m hid-ing from the police behind this bar, you know? And I seen him jumping around in the alley and he’s holding his dick and jumping and making all kinda noise. So I run off ’cause he’s loco. ”
“Ain’t you lucky as shit to end up in the same cell with him, ” Snitch sarcastically said as he shoved the flat pillow under the back of his head. “Ain’t all of us lucky to have some crazyass stinking fat loco in the cell with us?”
“Yeah, what you jumping around for, huh?” Stick prodded Trader.
“None of your damn business. But I have a reason for everything and do nothing without a motive. ”
“Whoa. Loco-motive, ” Slim Jim said in a mocking voice. “We got Locomotive on the next bed. ”
“Please. Let’s not fight. It’s bad enough to be in here. For the love of God, let’s show a little consideration and pray for peace, ” said Reverend Pontius Justice, who had dropped off several videotapes at Barbie Fogg’s house last night and then had made the mistake of negotiating for a blow job on his way out of her neighborhood, only to discover that the woman he had decided to solicit wasn’t a hooker but a spinster whose car had broken down after the battery had died in her cell phone.
“What would I want your twenty dollars for?” the spinster had inquired in a strange accent as Reverend
Justice motioned her to come closer to his Cadillac. “If you offering me taxi money, babe, that sure is nice, but I don’t take no money from strangers. ”
“I don’t care what you spend it on, ” replied Reverend Justice, who was intoxicated and worn out and unfulfilled from promoting his new neighborhood watch program that so far had not prevented a single crime. “You climb in and take care of me for a minute, and you can do what you want with this brand-new twenty-dollar bill I’m holding. See?”