The Bobby Gold stories - Anthony Bourdain [1]
Bobby Gold in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg irons shuffled into the courthouse and sat down next to his parents' attorney. Things did not look good. Eddie had not been any help. He wasn't even in court today. Bobby examined the jurors' faces, not liking what he saw.
The old bat at the end, juror number twelve, was shaking her head disapprovingly. She had a daughter in college, Bobby recalled from voir dire. She was thinking about all that coke - all that pharmaceutical-grade cocaine, headed in Bobby's car to supply college kids. Might as well have been her daughter's college — to get her daughter hooked, turn her daughter into a coke-sniffing, dangerously underweight coke-whore, tossing off scabby drunks at some imagined truck stop for her fix. Juror number four didn't look too friendly to Bobby's cause either — a retired jarhead with two sons in the service. With that haircut, he was a definite guilty vote. Things did not look good.
When they gave him ten years, Bobby was not surprised.
Bobby Gold in an orange jumpsuit stood quietly in line for tuna noodle casserole, coleslaw and lime jello. The other convicts on line in front of him and behind were thick-necked, over-muscled gladiators compared to the scrawny, pencil-necked Bobby. He'd have to exercise — and fast. He'd have to get big, bulk up, get tough. Tomorrow he'd get a tattoo. That would be a start. Something badass. He had to get big. It was going to take a lot of lime Jell-O.
He was adding muscle. He read the muscle magazines after his cell-mate was done with them. He went to the prison library and read up on anatomy, nerve clusters, bones, pressure points, martial arts. He'd been — supposedly — pre-med in school, so he could order books from outside. He knew what to look for.
Bobby Gold in a towel in the communal shower asked his buddy LT how to get the other convicts off his back. Two cholos from the Mexican gang had tried to jump him earlier in the week, and yesterday, one of the Muslims, a whippet-thin ex-junkie who called himself Andre, had taken a parker roll right off of Bobby's tray. What to do?
"You'll have to kill somebody, little brother," said LT, rinsing the shampoo from his eyes.
"Who?" asked Bobby. "Who should I kill?"
"Anybody'll do," said LT.
Bobby Gold on a gurney with squeaky wheels, two knuckles pushed all the way back to his wrist, was hurried to the prison infirmary in restraints.
His nose was broken, ribs cracked, spleen ruptured. There was a three-inch puncture wound below his right shoulder where air whistled from a lung. A chunk of Andre's flesh was still stuck between his molars from when Bobby took a bite out of his cheek. Bobby felt a little bad picking Andre, but he hadn't been big enough yet to tussle with the other convicts. And Andre had asked for it. Bobby was watching One Life to Live in the dayroom — and fucking Andre had changed the channel to the fucking Jeffersons. Hadn't even asked if anyone minded. Bobby had looked over at LT and LT had smiled and shrugged.
He didn't think he'd killed the smaller man, though he'd certainly tried everything he could. After Bobby had kicked him in the balls from behind, he'd kneed him in the head, stepped on his neck and then broken both his own hands whaling on Andre's face. When Andre's buddy shanked him from behind with a sharpened