First Blood

'I'm no demonstrator.'

'What I have to know, doesn't that hair get itchy down the back of your neck?'

Always they asked the same. 'It did at first.'

Dobzyn scratched his eyebrow and thought about that answer. 'Yeah, I suppose you can get used to just about anything if you put your mind to it. But what about the beard? Doesn't that get itchy in this heat?'

'Sometimes.'

'Then what possessed you to let it grow?'

'I have a rash on my face and I'm not supposed to shave.'

'Like I have a pain in my rear-end and I'm not supposed to wipe it,' Teasle said by the door.

'Now wait a second, Will. It may be he's telling the truth.'

Rambo could not resist. 'I'm not.'

'Then what did you say all that for?'

'I get tired of people asking me why I grew the beard.'

'Why did you grow the beard?'

'I have a rash on my face and I'm not supposed to shave.'

Dobzyn looked like he had been slapped in the face. The air conditioner whirred and rattled. 'Well, well,' he said quietly, extending the words. 'I guess I walked into that one. Didn't I, Will? The laugh's on me.' He tried a brief chuckle. 'I walked right into it. I surely did. My, yes.' He chewed on his tobacco. 'Just what's the charge, Will?'

'There's two of them. Vagrancy and resisting arrest. But those are just to hold him while I find out if he's wanted anywhere. My guess is theft someplace.'

'We'll take up the vagrancy first. You guilty, son?'

Rambo said he wasn't.

'Do you have a job? Do you have more than ten dollars?'

Rambo said he didn't.

'Then there's no way around it, son. You're a vagrant. That'll cost you five days in jail or fifty dollars fine. Which will it be?'

'I just told you I don't have ten, so where the hell would I get fifty?'

'This is a court of law,' Dobzyn said, leaning suddenly forward in his chair. 'I will not tolerate abusive language in my court. One more outburst and I'll charge you with contempt.' He was a moment before he settled back in his chair and started to chew again, thinking. 'Even as it is, I don't see how I can keep your attitude out of mind when I'm sentencing you. Like this matter of resisting arrest.'

'Not guilty.'

'I haven't asked you yet. Wait until I ask you. What's the story on this resisting arrest, Will?'

'I picked him up for hitchhiking and did him a favor and gave him a lift to outside town. Figured it would be best for everybody if he kept right on moving.' Teasle leaned one hip on the creaky rail that separated the office from the waiting-space near the door. 'But he came back.'

'I had a right.'

'So I drove him out of town again and he came back again and when I told him to get in the cruiser, he refused. I finally had to threaten force before he'd listen.'

'You think I got in the car because I was afraid of you?'

'He won't tell me his name.'

'Why should I?'

'Claims he has no I. D. cards.'

'Why the hell do I need any?'

'Listen I can't sit here all night while you two have it out with each other,' Dobzyn said. 'My wife is sick, and I was supposed to be home to cook di

'Two hundred? Christ I just told you I don't have more than ten.'

'Then it's thirty-five days in jail,' Dobzyn said and rose out of his chair, unbuttoning his sweater. 'I was about to cancel the five days for vagrancy, but your attitude is intolerable. I have to go. I'm late.'

The air conditioner began to rattle more than it was humming, and Rambo could not tell if he was shivering from cold or rage. 'Hey, Dobzyn,' he said, catching him as he went by. 'I'm still waiting for you to ask me if I'm guilty of resisting arrest.'

9

The doors on both sides of the corridor were closed now. He passed the painters' scaffold near the end of the hall, heading for Teasle's office.

'No, this time you go this way,' Teasle said. He pointed to the last door on the right, a door with bars in a little window at the top, and reached with a key to unlock it before he saw that the door was already open a quarter-inch. Shaking his head disgustedly at that, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and motioned Rambo through to a stairwell with an iron banister and cement steps going down and fluorescent lights in the ceiling. As soon as Rambo was in, Teasle came through behind him, locking the door, and they walked down, their footsteps scraping on the cement stairs, echoing.

Rambo heard the spray before he reached the basement. The cement floor was wet and reflected the fluorescent lights, and down at the far end a thin policeman was hosing the floor of a cell, water ru

Teasle's voice echoed. 'Galt. Why is that upstairs door unlocked again?'

'Did I…? We don't have anymore prisoners. The last one just woke up, and I let him go.'

'It doesn't matter if we have prisoners or not. If you get in the habit of leaving it open when we're empty, then you might start forgetting to lock it when there's somebody down here. So I want the door locked regardless. I don't like to say this — it may be tough getting used to a new job and a new routine, but if you don't learn to be careful, I might have to look for somebody else.'

Rambo was as cold as he had been in Dobzyn's office, shivering. The lights in the ceiling were too close to his head; even so, the place seemed dark. Iron and cement. Christ, he should never have let Teasle bring him down. Walking across from the courthouse, he should have broken Teasle and escaped. Anything, even being on the run, was better than thirty-five days down here.

What the hell else did you expect? he told himself. You asked for this, didn't you? You wouldn't back off.

Damn right I wouldn't. And I still won't. Just because I'll be locked up, doesn't mean I'm finished. I'll fight this as far as it goes. By the time he's ready to let me out, he'll be fucking glad to be rid of me.

Sure you'll fight. Sure. What a laugh. Take a look at yourself. Already you're shaking. Already you know what this place reminds you of. Two days in that cramped cell and you'll be pissing down your pantlegs.

'You've got to understand I can't stay in there.' He could not stop himself. The wet. I can't stand being closed in where it's wet.' The hole, he was thinking, his scalp alive. The bamboo grate over the top. Water seeping through the dirt, the walls crumbling, the inches of slimy muck he had to try sleeping on.

Tell him, for God's sake.

Screw, you mean beg him.

Sure, now when it was too late, now the kid was coming around and trying to talk himself out of this. Teasle could not get over the needlessness of it all, how the kid had actually tried his damndest to work himself down here. 'Just be thankful it is wet,' he told the kid. 'That we hose everything down. We get weekend drunks in here, and come Mondays when we kick them out, they've been sick up the walls and all over the place.'

He glanced at the cells, and the water on the floor made them look clean, sparkling. 'You may be careless with that door upstairs Galt,' he told him. 'But you sure did a job on those cells. Do me a favor will you, go up and get some bedding and an outfit for this kid? You,' he told the kid, 'I guess the middle cell is fine. Go in, take off your boots, your pants, your jacket. Leave on your socks, your underwear, your sweat shirt. Take off any jewelry, any chain around your neck, any watch -. Galt, what are you looking at?'

'Nothing.'

'What about the gear I sent you for?'

'I was just looking. I'll get it.' He hurried up the stairs.