Free Protection by Danielle

Then Joey heard Gabriel’s footfalls departing as the other man headed for the cafeteria, and supper.

     
    * * *
     

     
    W hen Joey woke up, the cell was locked down and the overhead lights were snuffed. With effort, he managed to read his wristwatch in the mirror-reflected light: eleven thirty. Gabriel was probably still awake below, immersed in a novel. It didn’t matter. Joey’s bladder was too full for him to remain in the bunk much longer.
    He climbed down the steel ladder as quietly as his prison-issue shoes allowed. Slipping them off, Joey made it within half a meter of the bucket when Gabriel spoke.
    “Careful now. Don’t kick it over. I took a shit in there the size of the Albert Hall.”
    Joey heard himself chuckle. This time the sound wasn’t the mirthless noise of a stranger. When he finished with the bucket he sighed, muscles relaxing, and sat down at the little table.
    “If the guards catch you sitting there after lights out, they’ll order you back to your bunk.”
    “I’ve spent too much time there already.”
    Gabriel threw his long legs over the side of his bunk. Feeling around for his pajama bottoms, he pulled them on and sat down across from Joey bare-chested. “Fancy a smoke?”
    “God, yes.”
    Gabriel lit two Pall Malls and passed one over. Joey took a grateful drag.
    “You never asked what I’m in for,” Gabriel said after they’d smoked in silence for a while. “Guess someone told you.”
    “They said the charge was originally double murder. Your father …?”
    Gabriel nodded. “If you kill your father, they call it patricide. Your mother? Matricide. Do them both in one night, send your parents side by side into the next world, and there’s no word grand enough for it. Which is funny,” Gabriel said, “because in the history of the whole human race, I can’t be the only sorry bastard who’s done it.”
    Joey brought his cigarette to his lips again. Gabriel waited a moment, then reached across the table and poked Joey lightly in the shoulder. “This is where you ask me why I did it.”
      “Why did you do it?”
    “I was the eldest MacKenna.” Gabriel’s gaze slid away from Joey’s. “My sister Maureen was ten years younger. I loved all my family, you know how that goes, but I loved Maureen best. She was my plaything, my own little girl. Used to nurse her with a bottle and rock her on my knee. One day in summertime she came to me crying. Pregnant. I said, tell me his name. He’ll marry you or go to his grave and there’s an end to it. But she wouldn’t say. First time Maureen ever refused me when I was in a state. I bellowed and threatened, but all she did was cry. I thought the bastard was married.” Gabriel gave a humorless laugh. “Anyway. Next week she tells me it’s all over, she got rid of it. I knew a mad old bat down the lane did abortions. But I never thought Maureen would go for one, come hell or high water. And she hadn’t. She’d been made to do it. Being with child frightened my little sister but she wanted the baby, wanted someone of her own to love. Being forced to let that old woman rake into her …” Gabriel took a deep drag off his Pall Mall. “The guilt tore Maureen to bits. I grabbed her and shook her until she gave up the name of the man responsible.”
    “Your father.”
    “Oh, yes. Keeping it all in the family, don’t you know?” Gabriel took another pull off his cigarette. “And me such a damned fool, I never guessed. All us kids were scared shitless of the old man, he’d cuff us soon as look at us, but I never knew he poked his fingers up the lasses’ skirts. And Mum knew. God help us, she knew. When Maureen confessed he’d gone farthest with her, taking her to bed, I … well. You know how they say an angry man sees red?” Gabriel’s mouth stretched, but his eyes were blank. “’Tis true. The world went crimson. Maybe it was the devil coming over me, I don’t know. I smoked and paced the back garden while Mum cooked