Dog Pound

•3•

Three days pass by and in that time, Patrick meets with his mother on visitation day. His mother discusses what's happening at home, which is all good news. Patrick's brother had just went away to college and sent his regards. His father had just gotten promoted and his mother was the same as always, working and keeping the rest of the family glued together. Patrick told her that things weren't so bad so she wouldn't worry and leaves out a few things that she doesn't need to know, such as all of the smuggling going on right under the guards' noses. Seriously, the guys smuggled almost everything; pills, coke, condoms, lube (Patrick wondered who was using those), marijuana was too detectable but sometimes you'd find a can of spray paint or two that some of the kids liked to huff.

He'd also found out his bunk mate's name, finally, and the rest of the boys that he shares the dorm with. The two boys he was booked with were named Brendon and Gabe, Brendon being locked up for destruction of property and Gabe for public indecency but Patrick knew that they wouldn't get much time for that. Maybe a month, give or take. Pete was the dark haired boy that slept in the bunk on his right side and the boy to his left was named Joe and it turned out that he used to go to Patrick's school.

But now Patrick has chores, him and two others have to repaint the walls in the basement by the water heater. The paint was peeling off and chipped and despite the fact that no one ever went to the basement, the guards made it a chore to paint it. Patrick is the first one down there and he picks up one of the wide paint brushes, dipping it into the can of white paint and lazily spreading it onto the wall.

Pete shows up soon after and goes over to the wall, standing about a foot away from Patrick and grabbing a brush. He eyes Patrick through his peripheral, absently spinning the paintbrush in his palm. "How was visitation?" He asks suddenly, dunking the bristles into the metal can.

"It was fine. My mom brought me pumpkin squares." Patrick answers, not looking away from the wall.

"Pumpkin squares?"

"Yeah, it's like pumpkin pie except, y'know, in square form."

Pete hums in response and strokes his brush against the wall. "Why are you here?"

Patrick halts in mid-stroke and resists the urge to say that he's obviously painting. "I told you-"

"No, I mean really, how'd you get put in here? What'd you do?"

Patrick sighs and drops his brush into the can. "I was a target in school. Everyone picked on me because it was easy. My counselors thought I had a little problem with my anger, but the kid had it coming. He was an asshole." Patrick explains briefly then asks, "What about you?"

"I steal anything I can get my hands on; bicycles, money, food, sometimes cars. Guess you can say I'm a kleptomaniac."

"Remind me to hide my stuff from you." Patrick chuckles, picking his brush back up and laying down a vertical stripe of paint.

Pete smiles lightly then shakes his head. Poor Patrick doesn't understand. "Nothing's yours," Pete says. "everything is up for takes like a fucking snatch and grab."

The other boys shows up before Patrick can respond to what Pete has just said, but he replays the words in his head over and over again until it's engraved into his brain, right next to the other thing Pete had told him a little while ago.

"There's no such thing as friends in here."

***

Pete lied awake most nights, sometimes watching as the other boys around him would sleep soundly and he envied them. He couldn't get a good night's sleep for shit and on the rare occasions that he did, his nightmares wouldn't leave him alone long enough to stay asleep through the whole night. He's so damn tired.