Quickly, just before he applied the lockdown on me, I spun around to face him, and that put my face right up against his. He still had me in the hold when I bit his nose, and I didn’t let loose either when he let loose his hold. Fact is, I ended up with a face full of blood and some flesh in my mouth.
The cigarette thief was still standing there in shock, while all the guys at the card table just stared at us. It must have taken me four or five steps to get to the bastard, and when I did the side sweep kick to his knee, he quickly grabbed it, lowering his chin to make a nice target, when I kicked him in his face.
Both of them were now screaming. I jerked my cigarettes out of the thief’s pocket, and pulled out another one, and lit it to replace the one I had lost, when the guy put the stranglehold on me.
I needed some water. The blood on my face, and the bits of flesh in my mouth...I could feel the onrush of vomit.
I had to get it off...but somewhere down the corridor that led back to the police office, I could hear the pound of footsteps. The cops had heard the guys screaming.
Quick as I could, I stepped into the first cell right near the card table and found the sink. Then just as quick... I turned on the water and splashed my face, then I did it again, and just kept doing it until I felt the hand grab my shirt collar. It was a cop. The guy that had arrested me.
“Hell Bonner,” he growled. “You some kind of animal. You ain’t been back here only five minutes and right off your back to trying to kill some guys.”
I just stared at him, water running down my face and my eyes still full of anger. I was pissed.
Now I was in more trouble, and all at once I felt like the animal the cop had called me. I should have hurt them a lot worse I thought. Put them in the hospital for a month. Make them remember me anytime they take advantage of somebody.
“They pushed,” I blurted out. “I didn’t give up my right to defend myself just because you locked me up,” and while I’m talking he’s guiding me out of the cell.
“Sit here,” here he said, motioning for one of the guys at the table to scoot over, so I did but he went on.
“I should lock your ass up in one of these cells, and by God I swear that’s exactly what I’ll do if you start any more trouble. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah,” but then before I could tell him again that I didn’t start the fight, an old guy sitting across the table from me spoke up.
“Hey boss,” he said. “This guy didn’t do a thing until one of those guys put a choke hold on him, and by God, I’ll go in court and say the same thing if you want me to.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” the cop said. How about you guys keeping your eye on him while I get these other guys over to the hospital?”
“Sure thing boss,” and then as the cop left me to look after the cigarette crooks, the old man leaned across the table. “His name’s Pete. Been on the force for a lot of years. Straight guy.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“If you ever been in jail before, then you know why we call all the cops boss, and refer to them as the man, when we talk about them amongst ourselves.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Been there.”
We all watched the cops take the bad guys out through the door from the bullpen. They were leading the stranglehold guy who was still holding both hands up to his nose, and sort of whimpering. Two guys, had to support the cigarette thief, because he couldn't walk. The crippled leg would need an operation. The old man, Charlie, poured me a cup of coffee and set it in front of me.
“Thanks, Charlie,” I said, “My name is Bonner but I go by Jake.”
“Glad to meet you” Charlie said, and he had a big smile on his face that matched the twinkle in his eyes. “Things are kind of slow in here, so I think all of us enjoyed the entertainment. Except for the bad guys that is,” and that got a laugh from all around the table.
“Time for you to meet the rest of us. We're all drunks, and we get sent here regular. The big guy next to you is Harry Smelt, and next to him is Willy Nettles. Guy beside me is Buck Beckner.”
“Hi guys,” I said. And just like that, I was feeling good. I had a nice warm feeling all over, and as I took a sip of my coffee, I suddenly got the feeling that somehow I had ended up where I belonged. No. Not the jail. It was these men. A bunch of drunks, but they all together exuded the friendship that had nothing to do with whom I was. These guys accepted me. Already they were my friends. They had opened a door.
Maybe Cambridge wasn't such a bad place.
Chapter 5
The four drunks had a lot of stories to tell, and we kept talking until late in the night. No sooner would one of them tell a tale than one of the others would start another story. Finally, I started asking questions about the town.
“How’d this town get started,” I said.
”Indians,” Charlie said, and then Buck added to it. “Delaware tribe. Maybe thirty of them, along with their womenfolk, lived down along Wills Creek. Maybe down about where the Viaduct is today. That was the old Mingo Indian trail, and then the white folks came, and later some people from the Isle of Guernsey, over off the coast of France came, and they named the county after them, so right now you’re in the Guernsey County Jail which also serves as the Cambridge City Jail. We did at one time have a county jail but that was back in the civil war days and we even had two ole Hunt Morgan’s rebel soldiers locked up in it one time.”
“Hunt Morgan?” I looked askance at Charlie.
“He was a rebel general during the civil war, and he’s the only rebel to ever invade a northern state. He crossed the Ohio River down around Indiana and fought his way clear up into the northern part of the Ohio, where he got surrounded by the Yankees, and had to surrender.”
“Those guys they locked up in the county jail, were just a couple young guys, looking to pleasure some of our pretty girls, so they slipped away from the camp down at Lore City, while they were fighting a little skirmish with some Yankees that was on their tail, and just slipped on up here to Cambridge, where the local police arrested them.”
“Wow,” I said. “They teach you all that in school?You guys got a fabulous memory. Old Morgan must have been quite a guy.”
“Yeah,” Buck laughed, “but that’s not the end. The story goes on. One of Morgan’s captains, a guy named John Collins, diddled a girl down there in Lore City, and she had a boy child, who later had his own boy child, who became a bank robber.”
“What would old John and his General, think if they knew that John had a great, great grandson, that robbed banks?”
That night as I lay relaxed on my bunk reliving the events of the day, I had to chuckle.
“Rent a bar stool,” I whispered.
Then during the night, I woke and then sort of laid in a daze, letting my mind wonder, and it came to rest on the young bank robber. With the heritage that he had, why did he rob banks?
Old Charlie stuck his head in my cell to tell me about breakfast the next morning, but I had already heard the steel door out in the bullpen clang. I hurried out to get my tray and then went to the table where my new friends were already sitting.
“Don’t drink that crap in your cup,” Charlie warned me.” It’s worse than panther piss. I’ll pour you my brew in just about two seconds.”
I looked down at my plate. A biscuit, with something that looked like ham gravy, and a little dab of syrup, with a cracker to dip in it, not the normal jailhouse fare. Cambridge. A town of interest.