The sound of that knife

Simco was out of the hole. He was back and everybody was aware of it. Anybody else might have gone unnoticed, but not Simco. He was a coldblooded killer.
It wasn't that he invited anybody's notice, he didn't. He was quite, polite, and if you didn't know better you'd swear he was recently graduated from some Ivy League college, maybe Yale, and then you might guess he'd gone on to serve his country for a few years, maybe as a fighter pilot. Clean-cut, handsome, with a good smooth jaw, you might want to introduce him to your daughter, do a little match-making, for he must have great genes. And he had those eyes, calm, non-offensive. Might be a marine, no, not enough fire in those eyes. The calm before the storm? Maybe. A cat ready to pounce? Absolutely not, for he was too relaxed, too sure of himself to bother with such aggressive games.
But then when took his shirt off and you saw his smooth skin and slim, hard-packed waist and hard muscled body, well, something didn't add up.
He had killed his punk. I don't know why, I'm just telling you what I know. He killed his punk, his sissy, whatever you wan to call him. He killed him in cold blood down in the shower room with a guard looking straight at him. He stood over his punk and calmly watched him die while the guard threw a roll of toilet paper at him from a distance trying to break it up. That's the truth. Threw a roll of toilet paper at him, which as far as I'm concerned was a brave act, for I wouldn't even have done that. I'd have got the hell out of there as soon as I heard the sound of that knife thudding into flesh. The killing thrust of a knife is not silent. It has a distinct thud, and if you ever heard it you'll remember it forever. Simco killed his punk right there in broad daylight in front of a guard who committed the brave acte beyond the call of duty of throwing a roll of toilet paper at him.
And then Simco calmly and voluntarily allowed them –for in short order there were a whole gang of guards present, all out of breath and none willing to get close to that bloody knife –Simco allowed them to take him to the hole where he remained for many months until he went to court over in San Francisco and was found not guilty by a jury, not guilty of anything because the jury of ordinary people couldn't believe for one minute that such a nice, clean-cut boy imprisoned at Alcatraz with all those monsters could possibly be guilty of murder and if he was he must have done it in self-defense to keep from being raped or mutilaed or maybe even eaten alive.


William G. Baker, Alcatraz #1259.