Read The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) for Free Online

He gazed at Moose and waited.
    Moose couldn’t believe it. Didn’t this little fuck know who he was? If he wanted a dogfight, he’d come to the right dog. Moose loved the shit. Moose took a step forward.
    As if by magic, a shiv gleamed in Tom’s hand. Tom stood waiting.
    Moose charged, his arms reaching out.
    Tom slipped to the side. Then, as Moose passed by, the shiv licked out and kissed Moose’s ribs.
    Moose pulled up and turned to look at Tom, who stood waiting. Moose lifted his shirt, looked at his ribs. Blood welled from a six-inch gash in his side. Pulling his shirt down, Moose looked around. The other inmates went about their business, talking, pumping iron, laughing, smoking. It had happened so fast, no one had noticed.
    Moose stared at Tom for a moment, then turned and walked away.
    Tom shrugged and went back to lifting weights.
    The next day a guy who called himself Spots waved Tom over. Because of his many tattoos, Spots looked like a leopard. Spots told him that the Aryan Brotherhood had accepted him as a prospect.
    “The who?” asked Tom. He’d only been there a week. He didn’t know the names of all the gangs.
    Spots did a double-take. “Shit, man,” he said. “You know, the Brand.”
    Tom shrugged. “Never heard of ’em.”
    Spots rolled his eyes. “Fuck me, man. The Brand runs this place. Drugs, guns, pruno, all of it.”
    “If you say so. What do they want with me?”
    “They reaching out, man,” explained Spots. “You know, you can hook up. Be part of the Brotherhood. No one fuck with you. An’ if they do, the Brotherhood got your back.”
    Tom thought about that. “Sure. What do I have to do?”
    Spots smiled. “Nothin’. Everythin’. Whatever they tell you. After you earn your bones, then you in.” Spots clenched his fist in front of his chest.
    “Okay,” said Tom.
    Spots nodded in approval. “You be sponsored by Moose. He be telling you what’s what.”
    “Okay.”
    Spots walked off.
    Later, Tom learned that Moose, rather than being pissed off, had been impressed with Tom’s fury and willingness to jump in the shit. Blood in, blood out. And Tom had already spilled Moose’s blood. So Moose had sponsored him, telling the Aryan Brotherhood that “The little fucker’s faster ’n greased lightning.”
    Tom was in. Within a year he took the pledge and was branded. Being branded was okay with Tom, because he knew it was a rite of passage. It was expected. He’d read about it. Ancient warriors, like the Babylonians and Sumerians, would mark themselves with the blood of their enemies. Tom enjoyed the camaraderie he found in the Aryan Brotherhood and he appreciated the protection it provided, but he never got the rush from it the others did. Most of them were adrenaline junkies who loved the ideas of terror and power. Their drug of choice was violence. Being in the “toughest prison gang” gave them an emotional high, a kind of exalted state, where they believed they were invincible mystical warriors of some pagan religion.
    In Tom’s opinion, the mystical warrior stuff was bullshit. Tom simply wanted respect. He didn’t hate violence. He didn’t love violence. He found it inevitable. To get respect, sometimes he had to become violent. That’s just the way it was.
    Tom spent four years at the “Q”. Then the powers-that-be paroled him. And Tom once more hooked up with Tom Senior, who had hooked up with Tom Junior’s uncle, Arthur. Nervous and skinny, with lank hair and bad personal hygiene, Arthur was into nose-candy – cocaine – and needed lots of cash to pay for his habit. Plus, Arthur thought of himself as a badass and loved playing the part. He had a regular arsenal of guns in his trashy apartment on the third floor of a rent-subsidized complex, along with a freaky girlfriend who mainlined heroin, and a Siamese cat that Arthur always forgot to feed.
    Tom didn’t think much of the whole arrangement. In his opinion, Uncle Arthur was a goof. But he went along with