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By Root 14073 0

and utilized the leftover spuds from dinner. There were green limas on the side, and those large half peaches canned in syrup for dessert. It was a good meal, and it was not until the platters and dishes were beginning to stay emptied that there was conversation. Prew inspected his last frank butt, crisp skinned and dark, and put it in his mouth and watched Stark come in from the kitchen and go to the sergeants’ table for his post-meal coffee and a butt and conversation, his undershirt soaked with sweat, sweat glistening from his chunky arms and shoulders, sweat dripping from the hair of his armpits. He liked Stark, warmly, he liked him a lot, Stark was about the only man in this outfit he would give a decent fart for. Maybe The Warden. No, not that sly son of a bitch. Andy and Friday maybe. And Maggio. He swallowed the last of the meat and lit a cigaret, smoky on the tongue over the saltiness. Now to add the taste of coffee to the others.

That was when Bloom moved his dishes over to the table where Prew was and sat down across from him. There was a hopeful lull of conversation around the room.

“I want to thank you for takin care of my dawg when I wasnt here to look out for her, Prewitt,” Bloom hollered.

“You’re welcome,” Prew said. He reached for his coffee mug.

“Here,” Bloom hollered. He seized the metal coffee pitcher and refilled Prew’s cup. “A man can always tell who his friends is,” he hollered. “I always say,” he hollered, “that you can tell what kind of man a man is by the way he treats your pets. I owe you a lot.”

Prew let the coffee sit. “You dont owe me nothin, Bloom.”

“Oh yes I do,” Bloom hollered.

“Oh no you dont.”

“And I’m a man who pays his debts.”

“I would of done the same for any dawg. I just dont like to see some son of a bitch torment a goddam dawg. Any goddam dawg. I dont give a goddam whose goddam dawg,” he said. “In fack, I dint even know it was your goddam dawg,” he lied, and watched Bloom through the exhaled smoke.

“Why, everybody knows it is my dawg,” Bloom protested.

“No they dont. I dint know it. If I had I wount of stopped it,” he said. “So you dont owe me nothin. All I ask from you is you stay away from me.” He stood up and picked up his dishes. “See you later, Bloom,” he said.

The conversation that had billowed up again disappointedly across the coffee mugs and cigarets faded attentively again, like a turned down radio.

“Well, Jesus Christ,” Bloom said. “Is that any way to treat a goddam man when he tries to thank you?” He stood up himself and emphatically collected his own dishes. “I only come over here to show you my appreciation, Prewitt. Certainly not because I wanted to.”

“Well, I dont want your fucking appreciation, Bloom,” Prew said. “How do you like that?”

“Ha,” Bloom said. “If that aint a laugh. Who the hell are you? the King of England? Its awys the poor white trash that runs down the Jews.”

“What’re you tryin to do?” Prew said. “Insult me?”

“Did me and my dawg ask you for any help?” Bloom hollered. “No. We dint. Well, wait till you’re asked next time. Me and my dawg dont need your goddam help, you son of a bitch. In the future please leave me and my dawg alone.”

Prew had set his plate down, but the cup was still in his hand and he threw it. The heavy handleless mug hit Bloom in the center of the forehead. Bloom blinked his eyes and frowned. The cup bounced onto the concrete floor and rolled off unbroken; unconcerned, indifferent, impervious.

Stark was between them before they met, the cigaret still hanging from his crooked about to laugh, about to sneer, about to cry, impassive mouth. He blocked Prew off with his hip and pushed Bloom back in the chest.

“Not in my messhall,” he grunted. “You want to play rough take it outside on the green. Nobody fights in this messhall. This messhall is to eat in,” he said proudly, “and thats all, by god. And its a good thing for you, Prewitt,” he added, “that you dint break that cup, or it would of cost you one thin dime next Payday.”

Bloom looked around the room. There was a little red spot on his forehead. “You want to go outside?