The wonderful thing about smoking meth was that no matter the state of things in the real world, when you were lit, you weren't in the real world. The people around you could be thieves, whores, murderers, lacking respect worthy qualities, incapable of being trusted, and it didn't amount to a tinker's damn. It was all only as real as a sitcom observed from where Boyo went in his mind when he was high, and where he went, there was nothing he couldn't handle one way or the other. In the end, things changed, things got confused. He wasn't himself, was not quite human in the way he looked at the world he drifted through like a ghost, a phantasm of the man who had let nothing stand between him and who he wanted to be or how he wanted to live. It hadn't been real, but it had been really fun.
The thoughts of crystals cooking in a bowl hit him right between the eyes, and without even realizing it, he began to tap his standard issue slipper on the floor, his perpetual scowl growing deeper, his blue eyes tinged with the blackness of his discontent. He had ceased detoxing, but still the thoughts came, as he was sure they would for a good long while, whether he liked it or not. He looked at the other convicts, his fingers tapping against his side without any distinguishable rhythm. It occurred to him, as he fantasized about the feel of the burn in his lungs after taking a hit, about the smell, the instant shift from zero to a hundred miles an hour, that he was losing his edge in a way that he could not afford to do. He was giving to much away. He was slipping, and if you found yourself slipping often enough, for long enough, you would fall and never get back up.
Benjamin stilled himself, with difficulty. His expression eased up a bit. He berated himself internally for his lapse in vigilance. Anyone could have made a move against him then, and he would have reacted to slow to stay alive. He continued watching the others. He--somehow--contented himself with waiting.
They were an interesting bunch, that much was certain. A few looked like they were N.T.B.F.W. for sure, like the lady marine. She had nearly twenty pounds and a few inches of height on Benjamin Raskille, and a real sour look about her. The others were mostly equally dour, but some were just so damned young! It was very trying not to view them as, well, prey. Some were just asking for it, like the scrawny school girl with the delicate features and the stink of unfamiliarity with being locked up coming off of her in waves. She was seated next to a guy who was rather pudgy, with darting eyes that spoke of either fear, madness, or excitement at the sight of the pretty young thing, seemingly unaware of the slobs eyes playing over her hungrily. Boyo had no time for degenerates. They would either grovel before him, or he would break them. Besides, something was called for to kill the creeping boredom that threatened to make him do something really stupid.
Benjamin made a slow sweep around the cafeteria, moving like he had no purpose, as if he were not trying to get next to the big guy, who was too busy undressing the school girl with his eyes to pick up on the circling of the shark. By the time he was close to enough to reach out and touch the other inmate, the bigger man finally spotted him, but he reacted predictably. As he attempted to stand, Boyo threw a one-two combo of punches into his kidneys, an elbow to the temple, and as the man slumped, Boyo dragged him out of his seat and onto the floor, stomping on the other's head and ribs as quickly and with as much force as he could muster. Guards shouted for him to lay flat on the ground, charging at him from here and there, but he waited for them to start swinging their batons before he stopped, allowing them to see that the blows they landed barely phased him. He'd been beaten enough times to take a beating like a man, and the batons weren't any bigger around then the switches his dad had laid into him with, sometimes until Boyo had passed out from the pain. As they handcuffed him and dragged him out of the cafeteria in a stress position so he couldn't stand upright without hurting himself, he swung his head around and smiled at the girl, winking with an eye that was fast swelling from a good shot the guards had got in.
"See y'all later. I gotta' go have some time to myself." He said, still grinning as they took him away.