The hulking man towered over Whiff as his men stood him before the Goliath of this inbred nation of Philistines. Many lesser prisoners formed a wide semi-circle around this small circle of their seven rulers; this blue-bead-eyed hulk and his six henchmen, all looking like overfed and muscled up Northern football goons. Perhaps three hundred men looked on in total, as did all of the white guards—and he hoped Marshal Talbot, for luck if nothing.

Not being one to await the inevitable but to meet it, shape it, and make it his own, Whiff led off, “Whiff Gleason at your service Sir.”

The hulk then spit on what remained of Whiff’s Jamaican goat-hide loafers and mumbled, “Ole Blue ha’ given ma tree ta one odds a ya boy stretchen’ out dat NBA man, en ya ruin, ruin ar fun, ar one daverse a da day.”

“Old Blue Hauler, from Lynchburg?”

The Hulk waved a massive paw and the crowd behind him separated, an old boxing hand long known to Whiff from his early carnival days emerging from its ranks. Old Blue Hauler was damned near eighty, and had somehow been caught up in the prison system, and walked now up besides the hulking idiot as some form of advisor.

Whiff smiled graciously to save face. “I see you do not need a referee for your disagreements and other refined parliamentary proceedings with Old Blue here.”

Old Blue nodded to Whiff and greeted him in his raspy voice made so by a throat punch fifty years ago in some carnival booth, “Sorry for you Whiff—I see by the neck you are a live lynch—never thought it would happen to you. Why are you here?”

“An innocent Southern white boy—a good boy of good family that none of you sorts would be acquainted with—was slain at my lynching. Since I had risen from my ordeal among buzzards and fled to the riverbank I was judged to have fled the scene of a white murder, and my income qualified me to keep the company of you fine gentlemen, who I would like to render service to in some way either now, or after my release, in order to save my well-worn hide anymore whooping.”

Old Blue grinned and snorted, “Then you might have softened that bit about good whites and us others. This man is Gill Saint, our President. As a negro you may not work below, so therefore have no food cut to offer Gill and whichever one of The Six claims you. Seeing as though your rich white friends on the outside will get you out soon—saying there’s anything left of you—I might recommend to The President that you be permitted to entertain with storytelling and food serving and such, on consideration of your arranging for smuggled goods. None of The Seven will leave these walls—they are all lifers and it does not serve their ends to extend employment opportunities to the released worker-inmates. For if they return to a life of crime they will soon be back here stamping license plates and earning food for The Seven. So you see your bargaining position is not what it would be in the yard.”

After that bit of long-windedness Old Blue stepped back behind Gill Saint as the later loomed with mallet-like hands on hips, and began to muse, “Ya knows how ta set tabal like fo’ capains en karnals, en ta mix tea en such?”

“Yes Mister President. I also sing, write songs, recite poetry, tell jokes, and have memorized the entire Little Golden Books collection—of which I reproduce the paintings with word images—including Brer Rabbit, Old Mo, and Run Son Run!”

The big oaf then gathered him in the crook of his ape arm and rubbed the top of his bald head like Whiff was his long lost dog.

“Ma very own negro boy—I likes dat. Like a karnal id make ma feel.”

A dark hollow voice then sounded from behind them, from the gate, “I don’ think so Big Boy. That there is my negra by right.”

Whiff’s belly flipped inside—a belly long empty now—at the sound of the voice of the killing hobo man, who had stretched him out and left him for the vultures after his own ill-fated lynching. Everyone in the circled turned as one, Whiff held like a standup doll in the crook of Gill Saint’s massive arm, who mumbled, “Ole Blue?”

Old Blue stepped up beside them and whispered, “A Texas fugitive brought in for holdin’. Won’t be around long ‘nough to work, so nothin’ to be got. Didn’t bother addin’ him to the rolls as he just gonna starve a day or two and be gone.”

The lean man, with skin dark as Whiff’s from the sun, a shirt wrapped around his head like a grandma rag, and something branded on his left breast that looked like a label, rolled his torso on his hips like a snake man, and snorted, “Nah old timer, I won’ be starving—that is fo sure.”

Old Blue asked, “Do you see what I see Whiff?”

“Yes, the stone eyes—I’ve seen them already this morning as the sun rose and the night fell all at once.”

Gill Saint, a temper as short as his reasoning span, held Whiff closer, like a favorite possession, and rumbled, “Ba wha’ right ya claim ma negro en ya’ll not prez-i-dent, no’ even a Sixer?”

The interloper prowled forward like an evil hairless two-legged cat, “‘Cause I saved his fat ass from the noose. He is mine by right.”

Gill pushed Whiff aside and rumbled, “Oly right on da Whidzside iz might!”

Old Blue stepped forward waving his arms, stepping in to fulfill his role as the third-person repository of constitutional lore for this unlettered republic of brutes, “Greetings Mister Texas. If you do not mind might I recite the Code of the Fist?”

“Only one of The Six may challenge for the Presidency, and any other of The Six might champion for a stay, meaning you would have to whoop that fella’s hide before throwing down with the President.”

Looking at the interloper to ascertain that he understood, and not proceeding until the newcomer gave a confirming nod, Old Blue then continued, “Each of The Six gets a tenth of the eats of one sixth of the working men and a vote. The President gets a tenth of the eats of each working man, and two votes. Those are the Laws—with all things put to a vote of The Seven.”

“Mister Texas then grinned and chuckled, “So I whoop one ass and I get enough food to bloat me up to the proportions of the ass I whooped, and the right to whoop the biggest ass of them all. A-ddit-ion-al-ly, once I whoop that big ass en become President of the United Fools of this Here Slab, I will collect so much chow, that I will be able to feed my church hymn singing tree-swinging negra there, as well as you Old Timer, so that I will not have to trouble myself with memorizing that extensive legal code?”

Old Blue rolled his eyes and sighed, “Essentially correct, Sir.”

The dark-faced white man—who many might be forgiven for doubting his claim to that status—then danced a short jig that was not unlike Carney Tap, though his heavily calloused feet were used to slap the floor instead of shoes to rap. He then flourished his hands to the side and flashed a wide-faced grin like a vaudeville man in blackface, and said with a tone of feigned innocence, “What pray tell Sir, are the rules of combat?”

The guards were all at the rifle ports, not with rifles, but with pencil, paper, and cash. The crowd swelled as the workshops in the basement emptied out. Whiff looked around in astonishment, his unasked question answered by Old Blue who knew well his turn of mind. “It’s always like this for an election. Even your boys are looking in from the yard.”

Old Blue then stepped forward, brushing down his bristling gray chin whiskers and slicking back his few remaining strands of white hair, waved his hands for silence, and announced the rules of this here electoral process of the simian kind with his raspy voice now cracking as it was pushed beyond its range, “Rough and tumble rules is but three—really two with one caveat: no outside interference; the winner and loser change places in the order of things; except if the winner kills the loser, in which case he does not advance with the post of the loser remaining vacant.”

The call then came up all around, from the guards, from the workers, and from the men out on the yard, “Raw straws! Raw straws! Raw straws!”

This went on for some minutes as six straws were collected on the yard, run up to the outside gate to a guard, run across the catwalk by a guard to the door jockey, and handed off to the youngest inmate—a boy of about 14, who took the straws in hand to each of The Six, who spit on the ends. He then took the dripping mess of straw over to Old Blue, who grasped them by the wet side, arranged them evenly on their exposed ends where they stuck up above his thumb and forefinger and held out his hand. All the while the dark-faced Forester paced like a hungry cat as six men, all heavyweights to his middleweight frame, eagerly drew straws to defend the integrity of their social order, such as it was.

The entire process was extensively ritualistic, taken at a slow pace, for every aspect of the contest seemed to be an excuse for wagering. Who drew the long straw and got the honor to defend the President’s claim, was a source of much speculation.

‘Had that negro boy weighted one of the straws so that the men on the yard could see their favorite fighter—Red Ned, who was doing life for beating a marshal of the NBA to death in a Pikesville pool hall over a 50 cent wager—meet Mister Texas on the pavement?’

‘Had the guard jiggered a straw so that the guards’ favorite fighter—Cat Claw Able who had blinded One-eyed Haystack with his long filed-to-a-point fingernails—could take on the outsider.’

‘Had the boy jiggered a straw so that the Whiteside’s favorite—Rat Swallower Cobb, who ate rats whole to cultivate his image as the ‘human python’, and once raped two guards at once in the print shop—would put Mister Texas in his scrawny place?’

Of course all of these theories on fixing the lot draw implicated Old Blue, who entertained them nonetheless! The whole spectacle was simply outrageous. Whiff could think of so many ways that the affair could be more profitable. But, like some prehistoric cave dwellers of yore, the occupants of this hellish abode clung to their traditions and superstitions with venal tenacity.

Finally, with Gill Saint having contributed his considerable spittle to the bundle of straws in Old Blue’s hands—and to think I would have consented to referee this if asked—the elder’s dripping hand was passed before each of The Six, who in turn drew their straw, holding it aloft to avoid suspicion of cowardice. Having made the circle Old Blue returned to the center of the round space—courteously left open on the right so that the men on the yard cold see the fight—and each of The Six stepped forward with their straws held out. Old Blue checked the straws and raised the hand of Red Ned to the acclaim of the men on the yard whose roar could be heard through the bullet proof glass.

To be continued in Red Ned, Chapter 5, Segregate Me Please, Bookmark 9.