Free The Beast by Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström

almost demonstrably slowly into the
kitchen and drank water straight from the tap. The large shiny head glistened
with scattered drops.
        'Hey!
Over here!'
        This
was irritating, it was Dickybird's unit and he decided who did what. That
skinhead had no fucking rights.
        'Here!'
        Dickybird
pointed at the floor in front of his chair, waited. The new man didn't shift.
        'Now!'
        He didn't
get it, that shaved moron didn't fucking get it.
        Hilding
could sense the silence and glanced nervously at Dickybird, grabbed the deck of
cards, sticking a finger up to show the others that they should hold it. But
Dragan and Skåne and Bekir had caught on long ago; it was time to teach the
skinhead a lesson. Not that the beating was their problem, they just had a
grandstand view! They too could sense the silence; it looked like a fight,
quite a few good rounds coming up.
        They
squared up to each other. The new guy was walking towards Dickybird and stopped
when there was only a hand's breadth separating them.
        Dickybird
had never been faced down before and had no intention of letting it happen now.
The skinhead was taller than he was, probably one hundred and eighty-five, and
had this fucking big scar running from his left ear down to the corner of his
mouth. It was clean, could've been a knife but more likely a razor. He had seen
razor scars before, they looked like that.
        'I'm
Lindgren, Dickybird Lindgren.'
        'And?'
        'We
usually say who we are, round here.'
        'Fuck
off.'
        The
images started up in his mind, Per and Larren, Per's balls bleeding something
fucking awful, Auntie Laila over by the sink screaming her head off, Dickybird himself
running about with the ice-pick lifted shouting that if anyone wanted a taste
he'd stick it in, Per wailing; he had jabbed with the ice-pick at his eyes when
Larren suddenly let his uncle go. Not eyes, that was Larren's bottom line.
        Dickybird
was trembling. He tried to hide it but everyone noticed; he shook and hesitated
and spat, this time on the floor.
        'Where
are you from?'
        The
new guy yawned. Twice.
        'Police
cells.'
        'So
fucking what, of course it's the cells, don't mess with me. Do you have your
papers?'
        Once
more.
        'Listen,
Icky-dicky. That's you, isn't it? You must know I'm not allowed to bring my
sentence in here.'
        Dickybird
shifted his weight from left to right leg. Per was dead long ago, a corpse with
not much left of its balls. The ice-pick had been kept as evidence, shown over
and over to the authorities, on the long way from Blekinge to the young
offenders' institution.
        'Fuck
your sentence, I'm not interested. What I want to know is what's the score.
Like, I don't want no sodding nonces or faggots in this place.'
        Weird
how a room can suddenly shrink, how sounds become words that turn into spoken
messages that bounce off the walls and take up space, suck up energy until
there is no more, only intakes of breath in the silence, and piled- up
expectations.
        The
new guy shouldn't have been able to get any closer but somehow he did. He was
hissing, sending a shower of saliva into the air between them.
        'You
asking for special treatment then? Is that it?'
        One
of them must give way, look down or away, but they stayed facing each other.
        'There's
just one thing you've got to fucking remember, Dickybird. No one, and I mean no
one, calls me a faggot or a nonce. And if it comes from some shot-up, junk-crazed
old wanker, then there'll be bad, bad trouble.'
        The
skinhead poked at Dickybird's chest with his index finger, several times, hard.
Still hissing, he mumbled something incomprehensible.
        'Hotikar
di rotepa, burobengf
        Prison
lingo.
        Then
he poked Dickybird's chest once more, turned and walked back to the cell with
the wide-open