The Nowhere Girl

15. Letters to the Hitman

Dear Bluey,

Greetings from Belle Reve. Thanks for your letters, they're the best thing about a month I was glad to see the back of. Zoe's still returning hers to sender. Worse than Northern Ireland in here lately. Few boys have gone on a hunger strike, protesting about the cramped conditions, over populations in the cells, not enough activities on rec days. Yesterday, Billy got his head dumped in Yard 4 shit bucket for giving a bit too much lip to Guigsy, who was bitching about the cold outside. Now they've put a little rim inside all the shit buckets so they're too small to fit a human head inside. I guess that's what ya call progress? Big scrap broke out in the caf on Sunday. Old Harry drove a fork into Boomer's gut because Boomer said Australia invented Pavlova and not New Zealand. All hell broke loose and, as a result, the screws took away the TV from Yard 1. No more Doctor Who. Take a Reve con's freedom, take his rights, take his humanity, take his will to live, but for God's sake, please don't take his television! As you can imagine, the boys went apeshit over that and started dropping shits throughout the prison like they were apes. I wonder if that's where saying comes from? Anyway, all the boys are keen on hearing any updates outworlders might have on Doctor Who, so any insight will be greatly appreciated.

My shitter broke on Tuesday because Dennis has the runs from a bad batch of lentils they fixed us. Dennis used up all his bog roll (is that the slang you use of toilet paper?) rations and had to start using pages from an old book we had lying around. Of course the pages didn't break down and just choked the shitter so the whole of Division One could smell his inner demons.

Did I tell you about Tripod in the last letter? Fritz found this cat creeping through the yards a while back. Fritz has been behaving well lately so the screws let him have the cat during day rec. We all started keeping a bit of food from lunch to feed the cat and now he skips on through our cells as he pleases during day rec. Then one of the screws accidently closed the door on the cat and the poor fella had to be taken to the vet who gave Fritz's little kitty a troubling ultimatum: expensive surgery to have the leg removed or a bullet between the eyes (not quite what the surgeon said, but you get the picture.) Word spread around about the crippled cat and we passed around a hat and we all put our months wages into surgery for Fritz's damn cat. It had its op and came right back to us walking around on three legs. Then we had a lengthy discussion about what we were going to call the cat whose life we saved and we all settled on the name of Tripod. The cat's bigger than The Beatles in here.

Glad to hear you got a job; you should be able to save up to rent a place with a roommate. Keep sneaking into collage and don't slack off. You don't want to end up in a shithole like this because you don't want to find yourself all souped up on chloral hydrate and butt-fucked through the laundry fence by the Black Stallion because that's what can happen to kids who don't keep on top of their studies.

Anyway, hope those coppers aren't giving you too much of a hard time. Gotham sound a hell of a lot different from the station. I think Boomer's getting homesick so keep the stories coming. The boys are also hoping you can finish the Great Pavlova Debate. Well, gotta go, kid. Grub's up and I better get my share of bolognese before it goes the way of the dodo. Climb high, kid, tread lightly.

Floyed

P.S. Have you talked to your folks back home yet? I'm not the best man to judge a father-daughter relationship but I reckon if you've been thinking about them so much, there's a fair chance that they're thinking about you.

We've hired a few ex-cons on the Station. So I know what a well-written letter can mean to a man on the inside. It means connection. Humanity. It means waking up.

And I probably wouldn't have gotten out of Arkham alive if it wasn't for Floyd Lawton, Deadshot. He shoots straight and plays fair, even when there's no honour among thieves. I started writing to him when I heard he got arrested again and taken back to Belle Reve.