Munmun(27)

“Would I trade lives with you, answer, definitely not,” he said. “Dave, you know how many faceboys they got on the inside? Picture this: your little redrat self getting butchered, fried, and chomped up in one bite like a sumpchewus meatroll, oh dang, what a sight.”

“What did they get you for,” I said.

“Cops think they caught me selling dust,” said little bloodynose.

“But what were you actually doing,” I said.

“Selling dust for sure, but they don’t have a case,” he said.

“We do now,” said a cop over the pee ay.

“OH DANG,” yelled bloodynose.

Bloodynose was sickteen so we got separated at the station, him thrown in with the grownups, me with kids and babies.

Kids and babies was probably worse tobehonest. I looked into Grownholding as we passed and everyone was sitting around all chill, a few psycho mutterers but no one about to bust anyone’s teeth.

Kidholding was different, jumpytense, you could feel in the air, no one knew what the rules were, no one was making plans, it was all just living minutetominute like snakes in a tank.

Plus this Kidholding had a bunch of different scales all mixed together, my scale all the way up to quarterscale, so, kids who outscaled littlepoors by twoandahalf.

So I got thrown into a tank with some middles and littles, and one of the middlest was tenyearsold and you could see in his eyes, a littlepoor teen is candy to him, older and smaller, perfect for humiliating, showing who’s boss.

He grabbed me by the neck immediately.

“What did you just say to me,” he yelled so everyone can hear.

“Kid, what do you think,” I said.

Anytime you have a scumbag tenyearold twice as big as a fourteenyearold, you get a pretty ugly fight, and I got my face pulped a little on the walls before I squeezed away from this kid, headbutted his soft stomach, bashed the wind out, straddled the neck and elbowgouged his eye for a little while, I know it sounds terrible but some tenyearolds will kill you if you let them.

Four hours went by, more fights, kids bragging about terrible things, everyone trying to win the prize of Most Scummy Behavior, a pretty dark time was beginning in the life of Warner.

The city gave me a lawyer, an exhausted middlescale bumping his head on the ceiling of Kidvisiting, rightaway he told me I’m guilty.

“You have no case and we’re pleading guilty, for sure,” he said.

“Maybe it makes a difference if we say a pimp beat me up and told me he was kidnapping my sis,” I suggested.

“Zero difference, don’t bring it up,” he said, shuffling papers.

“What if I say I went to a cop first and he wouldn’t help,” I said.

“Oooh boy,” he said. “Ruleofthumb, littlebro, anytime you feel like saying something bad about cops, don’t, because it will make your life a bunch of times worse.”

Littlepoors take too long to walk from ay to bee with our littlelegs, nottomention we’re not cuffable. So the guards transport you everywhere by carriercage, for example to the special littlepoor courtroom, basically a middlerich judge’s special desk that you sit on.

Trained by my lawyer, I told the judge: I’m not in any squad, never have been even for a second, I didn’t get anyone pregnant, I don’t do drugs and I don’t sell them, I’m just trying to scale up the right way like an honest Yewess citizen. And I didn’t say anything about my sis or Shoulderheads or the cop.

But my face was puffy and bloody from fighting, I was talking weird to this frummy judge, I knew he looked at me and saw someone nogood.

Lawyer suggested Wreckless Endangerment but the judge preferred Attentive Murder, ohwell, I pleaded guilty and the judge didn’t frown or smile but just said, “Well, Warner, I know you’re a firsttime offender, but in your case, I’ll be candid with you, you seem like what I call an onlyamatteroftime offender.”

I tried to nod and frown, like, you make good points, but I know you’ll be fair to me, enormous judge.

“Fourteen is young on some kids, old on others,” he said. “On you it feels old, frankly old enough to know better, so consider yourself lucky with what I’m about to say.”

I was too dumb not to feel a little hope.

“The max is thirty years, but I’m only giving you eight,” sighed the judge. “Two in kidjail, six with the adults. May the Lord King God bless the Yewess.”





III.

WILT





DREAMWORLD


For a year, I didn’t dream.

In kidjail you don’t sleep goodenough.





LIFEANDDEATHWORLD


Instead I dozed super tense everynight, ready to jump up, fight off attacks, get savage. We slept eight nine ten to a cage and the guards cycled new kids in and out every week to break up alliances and keep everyone fighting.

Kidjail had plenty of faceboys for sure, infact the faceboys were the biggest squad, jackedup inky daves with crazy faces inked on their chests, backs, knees, backofthehead, and the first few days and nights were episodes of getting my face pulped, a couple teeth knocked out, nose broke, ribs kicked.

Then after three days the faceboys asked me if I wanted to join.

“I’m honored, dontgetmewrong,” I said. “I just can’t join a squad, daves, it doesn’t fit my beliefs,” and I didn’t actually have any beliefs but that still got me respect so for a few weeks they stopped jumping me, throwing me down, kicking my ribs and stuff, after that the pulpings were just once or twice a month.