Both of us were handcuffed and tossed into isolation cells.  Eventually, I heard a medical team roll a gurney by.  I looked out the tiny window and caught a glimpse of Bobby strapped to it, still cursing and struggling.  It must have been another hour before someone came for me.  They took me up to the medical floor to be examined.  I had Bobby’s blood on my face and shirt, so I probably looked like shit.

I complained about my back several times to the doctor and convinced him to give me half a dozen aspirin.  Any kind of drug, even aspirin, was like gold in here and could be traded for canteen goodies.

Still handcuffed, I was taken back to the isolation cell where the floor sergeant interviewed me.

“OK, what happened?  Did you do something to set him off?”

“We were playing chess.  Bobby doesn’t like to lose.  I won one game and he went nutso.  I kept trying to warn him off, but he just kept coming.  He grabbed me and the next thing I knew, he was slamming me into a bunk, and deputies were all over the place.”

“You didn’t hit him?  You know karate or something don’t you?”

“It was all so fast.  I probably tried to hit him but I’m not sure I did.”  There were so many nightsticks bouncing off Bobby after the Deputies got there, I was sure they couldn’t tell who did what.  There was no chance Bobby would say that someone my size had done all the damage by himself; even if he remembered, which I doubted.  I groaned a little and rubbed my back.  It didn’t hurt much now, but I was sure it’d ache tomorrow.  Still, I had to look like a victim.  The blood still on my shirt had to help.

The sergeant put me back in the isolation cell.  He’d probably interview everybody who might have seen anything.  My cell mates would be first, but I knew what they’d say; pretty much what I’d said.  Bobby would blame everything on me, but with his reputation, I doubted he’d be believed.  Considering that he did have the twenty years and hundred pounds on me, it didn’t seem logical that I’d attack him.

After another couple of hours, I was finally taken back to my tank.  As the doors clanked behind me, I went into my cell and flopped on my bunk.  My cellies waited until the deputies went back to their station before they started talking. 

“Bobby’s gone for good.  They had Waters pack up his stuff and it’s gone.  How’d you do?”

“I think I’m OK.  They saw him throw me on the floor and he’s made trouble before.”  That was an understatement.  Almost every time there’d been a problem, Bobby had been on one side or another of it. 

“You hurt?” Dick asked.  With blood on my shirt and some still on my face, anyone would wonder.

“My back’ll be sore for a while, but nothing’s broken.  What’d they ask you?”

“Who started it, mostly; and did you set him off somehow?  We said you were playing chess like always and suddenly Bobby goes berserk.  We figured you must have beat him and he went off like he usually does, only worse.”  That was good.  It’s pretty much what I’d told them and close enough to what really happened to keep it simple.  No one in this tank was likely to stick up for Bobby anyway.

“Good job, but Bobby still isn’t gonna have to clean that shower,” I grinned ruefully.  “He still gets what he wanted.”  With the time he was looking at, a little jailhouse fight wasn’t going to have any big effect on his sentence.  So not much had changed for Bobby; unless the next place he went, no one would let him win at chess.