- Slop and Showers -
Deadman woke up a little bit before it was time to eat breakfast. He still, after six days, could not remember who he was. On the bright side, he knew enough to know that he really shouldn't be there.
Deadman spent a lot of time with Crowbar. He had taken him under his wing and helped him to make sure and know how to follow the rules. Deadman was grateful of this because he was still very horrified.
He spoke often to the other inmates, some frightened, some very scary. Every time he said he was innocent, Crowbar would laugh and say that everyone in the place was innocent. He was in the midst of child molesters, drug offenders and a guy who was giving physicals door to door. He finally found out why he was there; Murder. He was positive that he didn't do it, but had to stay in here pending his hearing. Using the phone was a possibility but without a memory, there was no one to call. Deadmen hoped he would remember and have someone help him get out of this nasty place. He learned they called him Deadman because, once upon a time, murder meant the death penalty. New York no longer had the death penalty, but the name had stuck.
The food was the worst that he had ever tasted in his life. At least that part of his memory still worked. Some of the food items over the past few days was gooey oatmeal with no milk or sugar. Toast so dry and hard that you could file your fingernails with it. Hotdogs that were cold and hard on one end. Cake that had no taste and has the thinnest icing on the top. The craziest thing was that some of the inmates would go from table to table trying to trade all the types of food. Sometimes, when something was not eaten, ones would pick through it on the trays that were stacked for return to the dungeon where this stuff had to be prepared. Some of this was eaten and the rest was placed in a variety of containers so it could be eaten in the rooms later. The rule book that every prisoner was given said this was not allowed, but the guards didn't mind. He was amazed that there were actually some fat prisoners. Deadman had not been hungry, but knew he should eat something, no matter how bad, to keep his body going.
Earlier in the day, everyone was to go for exercise. Everybody had to go but was not forced to excercise. A couple of transfer guards came and took the entire group to the prison gymnasium. Some stripped down to their boxers, sported some white shorts from a basket and selected some shabby tennis shoes from a pile on the floor. Deadman didn't want to play basketball so he started walking around the perimeter of the gym, thinking to himself.
About halfway through his walk, Murf joined him. He said, so only Deadman could hear, "You best watch out for Crowbar! Some things aren't what they seem."
Deadman looked in the direction of the bleachers on the side where about a dozen inmates sat watching the basketball game. When he caught site of Crowbar, he was glaring at him with the piercing blue eyes. With a chill slipping up his spine, he thought to himself, "it seems that I have seen that man somewhere before."
When they got back to the mod, Deadman asked the guard for a bar of soap to shower. He hoped that the water would be the right temperature and not one extreme or the other. The showers were divided into individual stalls, but no curtains. A frosted plastic door separated the showers and the day room. He hung his stuff on one of the hooks along a dry wall and began his shower.
A couple of the child molesters walked in and went to the back stalls. He took the fastest shower that he had ever taken in his life. It was amazing how fast you could go when you needed to. "Crap" he thought as he dropped his soap. After thinking for a moment, instead of picking it up he quickly rinsed, put on the same clothes that he wore in and headed back out to the dayroom, hair still wet and sticking straight up in the air.