Joe's mother is a wonderful cook. The simplest dinner could attract a crowd of thousands, surely.
So there is an unfortunate comparison to be made when grey oatmeal hits his tray. Without protest—should he have expected better?—Joe removes himself from the breakfast line and scans the mess hall for a suitable place to sit.
But the search is fruitless; between the bobbing heads of men lost in conversation, there are no shaded seats in which he can disappear. Standing at the head of the mess hall, visible to all, he feels whatever invisibility he has managed swiftly flaking away.
Joe wades through the sea of prisoners to the best candidate and sets his tray on the table, his eyes affixed to the unappealing breakfast should a harmless, aimless glance cause any trouble.
Joe's capacity for labor has been made exclusive to the laundry room, where must thickened by moisture pervades the air.
And you're forced to breathe it in without mercy, for the room is saturated with men working in what is nearly the same oppressive heat of a July afternoon.
Though there is nothing but the steam and the smell and the orders given for more supplies and the whir of machines and the dampness of shirts, Joe cannot complain. Not thoroughly, at least.
Because he needs the stimulation, anything to get him through the silent duty of his hands sorting through the dirty clothes of men he has yet to know.
Without it, there is room for shadows to grow in the mind.
You know what Joe needs? It's not something obvious, like an actual, comfortable bed or clothes that aren't uniforms.
No, what he really needs is a cigarette.
He had his first smoke when he was ten. The older boys had him tag along after that grand slam of his stole away the whole baseball game.
Their bikes screamed through the town streets before coming to a collective rest in the alley behind the soda shop, and soon one of them drew out a pack of Lucky Strikes that made its way around the huddle. Every boy took one immediately, until the carton came before young Joe.
He paused but he was not nervous. Rather, he acknowledged, despite his young age, that right then, while he was among a group of boys he had no business being around, the act of smoking was made symbolic, so much bigger than the moment.
The boy holding the carton shook it some and the rattling brought Joe back to his skin, where he promptly reached in and took out a Lucky Strike, lighting it with the matches that were going around next.
And so there he was, behind the soda shop, surrounded by Jimmy, David, Alden, Todd, and Buzz as he sucked down a cigarette for the first time.
He remembers feeling the air crush in his lungs, remembers coughing for a spell and even the bird that took flight from the sound of it. He remembers the older boys laughing as they watched, and how they put him to shame as they smoked without effort, breathing out clouds that assumed all kinds of shapes against the purpling sky.
They gave him the rest of the pack, and Joe had intended on keeping it as a souvenir.
But days passed, and he would later show off all the smoke clouds he could make to his friend Ritchie, who wasn't really his friend but they would talk and kick cans some, being the neighborhood outcasts, and that counted as something.
Ritchie was a near-sighted boy with a portly shape about him, a sheltered kid who still clung to his mother's arm. And so the boy would watch in wordless admiration as Joe finished a smoke and stamped it out on the ground.
Ritchie would stare at it for a while, choked by the smell but so lost in how cool it had once looked. So supremely cool.
What happened to that kid? Joe couldn't tell you.
Soon the performances were edged out by habit. Then preoccupation became dependence, and now his fingers ache to feel a cigarette nestled between them.
God—he must really be going crazy, because the smell of one rides the faint brush of wind that just now sweeps across the prison. It's faint but it's there, so subtle you have to scratch for it.
Now Joe's scanning the yard, his fingers flexing, his mouth partly opened, and he doesn't mind for this one moment that he may resemble a stumbling fool. I practically am one, he thinks.
He has a short time about finding the man whose cigarette smoke is reeling him in from the yard like a fish from the ocean. The man is nearly bald and incredibly thin, so much so that his shoulders barely hang the shirt they all wear, it just droops from him like a poncho would.
As the man stands on the fringe, he takes deep, selfish drags and expels them over the heads of the masses. It looks as if a cartoon steamboat rests on his tongue.
Joe watches his shoes take steps he cannot feel, then stops in his tracks. He needs a quick moment to stifle the nervous feeling that overheats him, that locks his jaws together.
Finally, miraculously, the sick feeling passes and he is near enough to say, "Excuse me."
The man looks at him, smoke slipping past his eyes. "What the fuck do you want, new fish?"
"I was wondering where you got that?" He points feebly at the cigarette, being awfully bold for a fish. "Uh, could you—could you spare me one?"
"You must be outta your goddamn mind if you think I'm gon'!" the man says, incredulous. His cheeks flush red and a vein appears like a zipper in the middle of his forehead.
Naturally, Joe freezes.
"The fuck do I look like, a fucking Sears? You want this—" the man holds up the cigarette to Joe's face like fish bait "—you want anything, you go to Red, not me."
"Red?" Questions swirl in Joe's mind for the faintest moment until the man, growing ever impatient with his presence, points out the only dark-skinned fellow among a group of men on the other side of the yard, all of them gathered in the shade of the wall they lean against.
"That guy there. Now leave me the fuck alone."
"Red?" says Joe again.
But this time he stands in one of Shawshank's shadows, facing the man who had been pointed out to him. The man whose face is all deep lines, faint whiskers, black skin, and dark hair hidden beneath a prison cap; the man whose eyes are now focusing on him, twinkling even in the scant light. The man they call Red, for whatever reason.
The others regard Joe with what he figures is protective concern, but it would probably be more accurate to call it hostility. Whichever way you frame it.
But the man called Red waves it off and tells them it's fine, and most of them scatter into the yard, eyeing Joe strangely. The only one who has stayed behind is short, and plump, and Joe can see himself reflected in his glasses.
"What can I do for you, fish?" The man called Red says this so smoothly, removed of the hostile nature that seems to seep from every look and line of dialogue Joe's received thus far. He is taken aback, if not immediately grateful.
"I've been told you're the man to go to for…" Joe looks around, suddenly feeling a chill traipse the length of his spine like cold fingers. "...items of various purpose."
The man called Red smiles. "Hell, the way you looking around, you're too sketchy for business."
This coaxes a small laugh from Joe, which is another surprise. You know how laughter has a certain easing effect to it? It is like a balloon rising from a dark pit. "No, no, I'm fixing to buy a pack of smokes, is all."
"I don't sell razors or shit like that, I'm telling you now."
Joe shakes his head. "No need to. My purchase is strictly tobacco, I assure you. Haven't smoked one in months, but I figure it's a pretty smallfuckup compared to this." He gestures to the walls, the guards; the entirety of their reduced existence.
"Microscopic," corrects Glasses.
Joe nods in agreement, then figures proper introductions are in order. "Name's Joe Hastings."
Glasses takes on an observing silence, but Red replies, "You can call me Red."
"If you don't mind, I'll say that's an unusual nickname."
"Not if you're Irish. Now, if you don't mind me asking, what's a kid like you doing in a shithole like this?"
"Well, Red, I'm afraid you're asking the wrong person."
"Oh yeah? How you come to figure that?"
"I didn't do it," Joe says, though the words had felt like stones in his stomach. "I'm innocent."
There is a peculiar moment of quiet until the two men before him start to crack up. Glasses manages, "Innocent, the guy says. Innocent."
"Yes," says Joe, and it would be wrong to say that there aren't shreds of anger cutting at his composure. "I'm innocent, I don't belong here."
"I don't know," says Red, "you sure do fit right in. Damn near everybody in here's just about innocent."
"How do you mean?"
"You'll find out yourself, just ask around."
Joe throws up his hands. "If you don't believe me, that's fine. I'm sure I can take my business elsewhere."
"No need to get fussy, now," says Red, attitude changing. "You're in here, everything's out there, and that's how it's gonna be for some time. How long you got?"
"Twenty-five years," Joe answers, his voice laced with a subtle acid. "I wouldn't be so wrong to say that's an awful long time away from everything, would I?"
"Try a life sentence. Then you wouldn't have to wonder about anything."
Silence. The heavy, settling type.
"How much does a pack of Luckies go for?" Joe inquires.
"Twenty-five cents," Red answers, "but I charge a twenty percent markup, you'll understand."
"Alright, then." Joe extends a hand, but Red places both of his on top of it, quickly guiding it back to Joe's side while looking about the yard.
"Jesus, could you be any more obvious?" Glasses crosses his arms in front of his chest and leans back even further into the wall, so much so that Joe imagines him falling right through.