The Man on the Top Bunk by Stephen Blake

It was lights out. The man on bottom bunk was Ben Ramsay, an unlucky thief who'd spent more time locked up than he had a free man. Ben was doing time for armed robbery on a truck carrying DVD players and widescreen TVs. He had five months left and he counted every day. Rudolph Feuds was on top bunk. Rudolph was relatively new inside. Ben had seen him in the yard a few times, and he walked as if not fussed about where he was. Either prison life hadn't hit him yet or he had too many screws loose and incarceration didn't bother him.

Lights out was probably the hardest part of the day. This seemed to be the time when you thought about what you've lost and what was facing you in the terms of sentence. If anything was going to crack him, Ben thought that this would be the time.

'Don't let it get to you. You'll adapt. So, you gonna tell me what you did or am I just gonna have to guess?' Ben's voice jarred slightly off the block walls. Rudolph said nothing. 'Christ, just thought you might wanna tell me?' He lowered his voice to drone out the ricochet effect.

'Why?' Rudolph's crisp voice was gentle.

'Christ, brother, we share most of the day together, you might as well tell me what you did that got you stuck in this shithole.'

'I killed people.' Ben's eyes opened fully, white as paperand as huge as moons.

'Shit, you killed peoples?' There were killers in this prison but Ben Ramsay made sure he stayed away from them. And you could usually tell them apart from the rest the same way you could tell the Klu Klux Klan from the Africans.

'I did a bad thing and they came for me.' Ben sat up and folded his legs over the side of the bed. He put a hand on his jaw and rubbed the stubble. His eyes moved to the disposable razor on the sink.

'Who came for you?' Rudolph paused. 'C'mon, man, you've told me this much.' Ben twitched in the silence, still looking at the razor.

'The boy's family.' Ben's eyes moved unconsciously to the cabinet under the sink. The door was ajar.

'Yo, what'd you do, man?' Shifting weight. The mattress springs groaned above him. Ben's head tilted up to the top bunk.

'I hit a young boy with my car.' Ben said nothing for a few seconds and thought about what Rudolph had just said. All he could hear was the old man's throaty breaths.

'You killed a kid by hit and run. . . . shit!

Why didn't you stop, man?' Ben licked his lips. For some reason his palms were sweaty.

'It was either the boy or my little Melinda. She was hurt and I had to get her home to mend.' Ben frowned. He rubbed his nose. 'So I chose to get her home before it was too late. I couldn't let Melinda die in my car.' Ben stood up and stretched his legs.

'Damn, that's some shitty choice—rather you than me. So you gonna tell me the rest . . . what happened and that?' Standing up, he could see that Rudolph had his back to him. 'You gonna tell me, man? Got me intrigued.' Rudolph turned over and in the darkness; it was almost impossible to see his gaunt, aging face. Strands of his grey hair stuck out in the dark like strands of aluminium.

'I'm not a bad man. I am guilty, but apart from hittin that child, I never actually hurt anyone.'

'You said you killed peoples,' Ben said.

'I hold myself responsible for the deaths of four people but I didn't actually kill them. I never meant to hurt anyone.' This made Ben a little nervous.

'So what happened then, you got me confused.' Rudolph breathed in deeply again and made himself comfortable.

'I'll tell you, but you must promise me you'll never speak of this again.' Rudolph waited for his answer. 'Yeah, no problem.'

'As I said, I hit the little boy with my car and I had Melinda in the back, almost dead. I couldn't let her go —I didn't know if she'd be the same when she came back . . . I couldn't risk it!'

'Oh . . . kay.'

'I stopped the car and glanced back in the mirror. The boy was on his front and there were bits of glass from my headlights all over the road. Then I saw someone runnin and that's when I panicked. Melinda was on the back seat and she wasn't doin too well. I sped off, and knew if I thought about the boy I would weaken . . . so I blocked him out of my head. How hard I'd hit him, I knew I'd killed him.

'So I raced home. My heart was pumpin so hard I thought it would burst in my chest. When I got home I had to stop and try and calm down. Tellin myself that things were okay.

'I had a two car garage. I had a lot of old furniture in there mainly, but the other side I kept clear for my car. It's an old Volvo, nothing to shout about. I locked myself in the car and dropped my face into my hands. I could feel my heart poundin. I was so scared.' Ben sat back down on the edge of the bed and occasionally looked up.

'Once I'd calmed down I went back to Melinda. She was dyin! My child, she was nearly a hundred years old, and she was dyin in my car!' Ben's puckered, confused face softened. Had he heard right?

'I got out and hurried to the back of the car. I scooped Melinda into my arms. She twitched and grumbled. I hurried inside, to the kitchen. I put her down on the table and rushed to the cupboard next to the sink. I kept a medical box in there. I took it out—after a second of frantic searchin—and set it on the table. My fingers were shakin so badly I don't know how I managed to get the box open.

'There was only one left. I picked out the syringe. It was loaded with the gift of life, the syrup of healin. The box was empty now and I felt afraid and I was sad. It was the end of an era of magic, you see. I was about to make extinct one of the greatest discoveries of science since the creation of lasers.

'I held it tight, tryin to steady my hand. "You can do it, calm down," I said to myself.'

'So, ang on . . . Melinda's your daughter . . . no, can't be. Shit, your mother?' Ben asked.

'I'm gettin to that. You asked to hear this, now listen. Melinda was groanin again. Ben, I was so scared. She needed healin! My hands were steady now. "You're okay, Daddy's gonna heal you",' I told her.

'I pulled back the blanket, not only to inject her but to give her a bit of air. Her beautiful little face peered up at me. Her tiny black eyes were squinted. I stroked her head. There was dried blood in her fur. My little capybara was hurt, but I had the medicine to fix her. I couldn't let her turn stiff. . . I couldn't let her go back to the way I'd found her. All stuffed and nailed to a plaque like some football trophy. She is so beautiful and I love her, she is my baby.' Ben rushed off his bed.

'What's a fucking capybara?' Rudolph seemed not to hear, or had chosen to ignore him.

'I covered her eyes and pricked the needle into her shoulder. She quivered and grunted. I injected the clear formula into her body. I guess you wanna know where I got this stuff from, this medicine. I got it from my father and my father got it from his. You must understand somethin; infertility is hereditary in my family. They always used on it themselves, you see. They injected themselves with it, and I'm the evidence. Rudolph Germaine Feud, the livin proof of my family's formula.

'But I found my Melinda and I fell in love with her. I didn't need a woman to be happy and to give me a child. I'd found my child. My little capybara and she loves me more than any woman could. I gave her life again. I brought her back from the dead, took her from that antique shop and gave her life.' Ben didn't know if to laugh or scream.

'Melinda was more settled, her eyes were still dim and weak, but I knew in time she would be back to normal. And before you ask, I had completely forgotten about the boy I'd hit with my car.

'Melinda slowly woke a few hours later. I was sittin in the livin room in my rocker, drinkin whiskey. I had put her by the fire. I sat in the evenin gloom with the glow and twirlin shadows of the fire waltzin across the carpet like ballroom dancers. I watched her come back to me, and it made me warm inside.' Ben shook his hanging head in disbelief.'

'"How are you feelin?" I had asked her. Melinda looked around, and then she saw me. The shine and life had returned to her eyes. Her mouth opened, showin off her incisor. She grunted. Capybaras sound like guinea pigs. "I thought I was gonna lose you, my dear." She trotted over to me. The last time I weighed her she was nearly three stone—same size of a Jack Russell I suppose. That's when they came for me. The door crashed open.' Ben lifted his head.

'I leapt off my rocker, Ben, scared to death. Melinda was standin on her back feet, eyein the noise from the hallway. Another slam and my door came off its hinges. The rantin and shoutin lit up my house. I put my glass of whiskey on the floor and stood up. Someone ran upstairs. Someone had gone to the kitchen.

'My eyes dropped to the door knob turnin. I glanced back at Melinda. She had gone stiff, posed like she was the day I first saw her on the plaque in the shop. God she was intelligent, what a defence mechanism.

'I edged away from the door, eventually pressed against the windowsill. My eyes unblinkin. My stomach had turned into a ball of knots. My breath shrank. The livin room door slammed open and a big fellow with broad shoulders surged in.' Rudolph cleared his throat and paused briefly.

'"I got him!" he cried, and his friends came runnin. The other two men were just as big, but didn't seem as upset as this man did. "You left him to die. . . you left my boy to die in the street," he shouted at me. I remembered now, for the first time in hours I remembered what I'd done. I was a killer. I'd murdered a young boy. I'd been so hooked on gettin Melinda healed I'd forgotten about the boy I'd hit with my car.
'The boy's father leapt at me and so did the other two men. I really believe they would have killed me. I was too emotionally messed up to have reacted, to have defended myself. I'd taken a child's life. 'The boy's father punched me and tore open my face. I could taste blood in my mouth. I fell to one knee by my rocker and groped for somethin to help me up. I heard the man's heavy footsteps thumpin across the room. Next, he hit me in the ribs and more pain exploded in my body. I thought I was going to die.

'I was on my back now, and all three of them surrounded me. My vision was blurred and the colourful, soundless vertigo in my head made it hard for me to see who it was that was actually hittin me. I looked to my side, next to my rocker and saw Melinda's smooth black eyes and her shrewd, frozen expression. That's when her mouth opened and her incisor stuck out like a tiny dagger. Capybaras are not hostile creatures nor are they carnivores, but what got Melinda heated was her love for me. She only did what these men were doing to me—retaliatin.

'The boy's father's head snapped up as Melinda crashed into him, knockin him off his feet. Her front tooth burrowed into his throat as soon as she latched on to him. He screamed so loud he made me jump. The two other men stumbled back in horror. I bet they thought it was some type of dog, they had to have. . . she was the same size.' Soft humour travelled in Rudolph's voice.
'Melinda turned on the other two then, and her rage had only just ignited. She had gotten the taste of blood in her mouth. Melinda went after the one that tried runnin. She tore him down, slammin him against the hallway floor. She virtually chewed down to the bone. Tearin strips of flesh from the back on his neck like pieces of fabric. The sound of his fingernails clawin along wooden floor rings in my head even now. The man screamed to the skies of Heaven.

'Melinda skulked up to the final man, who was flat against the livin room wall. His eyes scattered from his two dead brothers to me to Melinda. I called to her to stop, but she was in her zone now. She went straight for the throat as she had done with the boy's father. I covered my ears. I couldn't listen to those screams anymore. Pitches of agony. How can I blame her, Ben, she was just protectin me. When she moved away from the dead man . . . there was still blood streamin from his throat. I heard police sirens comin. Comin for me!' Ben licked his dry lips and shook his head softly.

'Jesus, man, I think you've got some fucking problems
. . .' He glanced up at the shifting weight.

'I assure you, it's the truth . . . you must know Trixie, the man who gets things?'

'Mm, I know him, yeah, why?'

'I told him there would be a stuffed animal waitin for him in the delivery port and there would be plenty of cigarettes for him if he got it to me.' Ben slowly looked up from the floor. His face icy and unnerved. 'I'd like you to meet Melinda.' A small beaver-like creature jumped from the top bunk to the cell floor. Ben lunged back on his bed, kicking his out feet.
'Jesus—what the . . . how the fuck you get that in here?' Ben backed up as far as he could. His eyes stretched wide.

'A few letters and phone calls; easy really. Melinda has gotten quite comfortable in the sink cupboard, but she adores lights out because then she gets to come out. I have everythin I need right here with me.' Melinda looked at Ben staring in ghastly shock. The capybara opened its mouth to show off its incisor. Ben screamed a jangling, jutted sound that clambered through the prison.

'Now be nice, Melinda. Ben hasn't done anythin wrong.'