The going is tricky with the sediment below the filth sucking on my shoes. Lester is taking long steps that bring his knees briefly clear of the oily stink. My stomach begins to turn again. Beads of sweat tickle my forehead. I think I cannot hold down another convulsion when I see a brick tunnel at the edge of Lester’s homemade light.

Lester stops and dips down into the scum. He comes up with his claw hammer and holds it out for me to see. He is grinning. We climb up into the tunnel and crawl along in the gritty crap that lines its belly. I search for a manhole, but see only the long smooth stretch of sediment. Lester stops suddenly and turns around.

“What are we doing?” I say.

“I must have gone past it,” he says.

My head spins with that same familiar fear. My heart thumps even harder. The tunnel walls seem suddenly tighter.

“What do you mean?” I say. “How?”

“It’s here,” he says. “I missed it.”

“I thought you dug it up.”

“It’s been two years, kid,” he says. “The water rises up down here in the winter and leaves fresh sediment. Right behind you, there. Dig.”

I spin and start to claw at the soft muck, scrabbling like a dog until my fingers rake the bricks below. The stink presses in on me.

“It’s brick,” I say, my voice rising in pitch.

“Keep going.”

Scraps of mud fly through the tunnel and spatter the crumbling walls.

My fingers are numb. They strike something harder than brick.

“I think I got it,” I say.

“Here, use this,” Lester says, handing over the hammer.

I claw at the edges of the old steel plate. My heart starts to slow and my breath is coming easier now. In minutes, I have exposed the entire manhole cover. Using the claw on the hammer, I lift it up and shove it aside. Cool air lies beneath us in a vast empty space that echoes with the sound of dripping water.

“There are ladder rungs,” Lester says, his voice laced with giddiness as he dips the light into the hole.

I see more black water down below. The stench is richer down there, but not as sharp. I see the corroded metal rungs protruding from the brick wall. As I descend into the cistern, the hairy rust flakes off in my hands, leaving them dusty brown.

The water is cold and comes up to my knees. Lester eases himself slowly down and we wade the length of the aging cavern. The walls are alive with spiders that creep and sway under the glow of our dim light. A rat squeaks and scrabbles along a ledge above us, kicking free a swirl of dust into the halo of light.

When we reach the end of the cistern, there is another set of rungs that lead up to the large dark hole of the overflow pipe. The cistern collected water to be used for the women’s bathrooms. When the tank filled up during the wet season, the overflow let the excess water run out into the Owasco Outlet. When the prison was rebuilt in 1930, Lester claims the new wall had to be built around this overflow pipe because the women’s prison wasn’t razed until 1934.

We climb up and in. The pipe is wooden. Narrow, but smooth with only a small deposit of grit on the bottom. Two feet in diameter. Just enough for me to get through without jamming my shoulders. We crawl for a good ways. The only stench now comes from my clothes. The air is stale, but cool. In the thin light from Lester’s bulb, I can see a few feet in front of my face, so I don’t bump into the pile of broken brick and dirt, but when I see it, my heart constricts.

“It’s blocked,” I say in a hiss.

“I told you it was,” Lester says. “We have to dig.”

“How far?”

“Not far,” he says.

I begin to pull at the pieces of brick, pushing them under my belly, then moving the mound back toward Lester with my knees and feet. After a time, the pipe behind us is nearly blocked. Lester moves backward, spreading the refuse beneath him, giving me more room to dig.

A battle rages between panic and hope in my mind. I try to reinforce my will with sweet images of freedom. A walk on the beach, cold sand in my toes. Moonlight dancing on water. The taste of a thick steak, red wine, and a Cuban cigar. But it’s hatred that wins the day and propels me on. The bullet I will put into Frank Steffano’s head. The sound of Rangle’s whimper. Villay’s squeal. Exact revenge.

I work on.

We must be twenty feet farther than the original blockage. Our muffled coughs are snuffed out by the pipe and the dirt. My arms and hands are numb from their work.

Lester clears his throat and says, “Kid. We have to go back.”

I hear, but it doesn’t register.

“Raymond,” he says, “we won’t make it. It’s light outside by now. We’ll have to come back.”

“We’re almost there,” I say, still clawing at the dirt and bricks. “We have to be.”

Lester grips my ankle. I feel the strength in his old hands, constricting my ligaments and the flow of blood. He shakes my leg and I stop digging.

“No, goddamn it,” he says, rupturing the quiet. “We need the night. I waited too long for this, kid. We have to go back.”

Lester lets go of my ankle. The light jiggles and begins to fade. I hear him squirming back down the pipe. I continue to dig, but soon it’s pitch black and I feel the earth squeezing in on me from all sides. A cry bursts from me and I scramble backward, slithering out.

Lester is waiting in the cistern. When I drop down into the cold water, he nods once and turns to go. When we reach the basement beneath the catwalk outside our cell, Lester shows me a spigot jutting out of a pipe that runs up the concrete wall. He turns it on and we rinse most of the stink and slime from our bodies and clothes.

Since most of the Vaseline was rubbed off, it will be harder for me to get back into the cell, so I go first. Lester is able to push me through without drawing more than a trickle of blood from my shoulder. Daylight seeps into the window outside our bars, but everything is still quiet. Lester fits the steel plate and the sewage pipe from the toilet back into the wall. He complains quietly of a pain in his arm. I help him fill the cracks with shoe polish.

We strip out of our clothes and change into our spare set. Lester rinses the dirty ones in what’s left of our hot water bucket from the day, then he stuffs them into the laundry bag and tosses them into the corner. I am climbing up into my bunk when I hear him grunt and collapse on the floor.

I take a panicked look around before I start to yell for help.

There is confusion and shouting.

Lester is taken to the prison hospital.

Later, a guard tells me that he’s had a heart attack. They don’t know how long he’ll be in the hospital. He might not make it at all. After two days of worrying, the company sergeant calls me to his desk. He says that tomorrow I will be moved into a new cell by myself. If Lester survives, we can apply for another double bunk when one opens up. If he dies, I will stay in my new single cell.

Night comes and I lie awake with these thoughts spinning through my head: If Lester dies, it could be ten or twenty years, if ever, before I have the chance to get a drill bit of my own. Even if he lives, when the new prisoners take this cell, they will be sure to find the hole. They will either use it, or report it. If they use it and find the open manhole, the route will be discovered and sealed off forever. If they report the hole in the cell, Lester and I will both spend the next three years back in the box.

Here’s what I keep coming back to:

If I wait, both of us are likely to be in Auburn for the rest of our lives.

If I go now, alone, I just might make it.