Three Days In The Cooler

by Green Akers

Day 2: Afternoon/Evening

I've had some awful accommodations in my lifetime, but the solitary cell in the Trottingham jail was the absolute worst. It was nothing but a four-by-six cement box—no bars, no windows, and no plumbing save for a small drain in the middle of the floor. Heck, I was probably lucky to have a roof.

I spent my first few minutes of solitary bawling my eyes out, dreaming about my family, and swearing that if I ever got out of this zebra-forsaken land alive, I would take the first boat home and never leave again. Forget the money and the respect—I'd had enough of Equestrian hospitality for one lifetime.

Next, since I had nothing else better to do, I decided to catch up on the sleep I'd lost since arriving. I tossed and turned on the floor for what seemed like forever, but just as I was finally stating to fall asleep, I heard a loud knock at the cell door. "Hey, zebra!" I heard someone shout. "You got a visitor."

The door opened to reveal Mrs. Green. "How are you doing, dearie?" she asked.

"I feel like a rotten apple that's been thrown in the trash."

"Well, don't worry," Mrs. Green assured me. "We've explained the whole situation to Bobby. You'll be out of here in no time."

"I doubt it," I muttered. "I practically started a riot in the dining hall."

"Bobby isn't happy about what happened," Mrs. Green admitted, "but at least we've convinced him that you didn't do anything wrong. Since Lonesome admitted that it was his idea, I made him take a bite out of everypony's lunch to demonstrate that it was safe to eat." She giggled. "After all, I have a reputation to uphold in this place."

"Really? You did that?" I stood there in shock for a moment, amazed that someone still cared enough to take pity on a lowly zebra. I thought about hugging Mrs. Green, but decided the guard behind her would think I was attacking her or something, and settled on a smile and a simple "Thank you."

"Oh, don't mention it, dearie," Mrs. Green said. "Bobby should be down any minute to make things official." She winked at me. "Try to keep your nose clean, won't you?"

I smiled and nodded as the cell door closed, hopeful that my dreams of getting home might actually come true.

---

Bobby took his sweet time getting around to letting me out, and he certainly didn't do it with a smile. "I suggest you stay out of Bruiser's way from now on, pal," he stated pointedly. "I have enough trouble keeping order around here without fools like you provoking fools like him. Capisce?"

"Yes sir," I replied, knowing full well that staying out of Bruiser's way was impossible.

"Good," Bobby said. "Now get out to the yard, and try not to bother ponies for a change."

"The yard?"

Bobby shook his head and muttered something under his breath. "Follow me."

Bobby led me through the jail and outside to the prison yard, which was just a barren, dusty plain next to the main building. I expected the other inmates to be on afternoon work detail, but instead I arrived in the middle of their recreational time. A few ponies were playing chess using small rocks and boards scuffed out of the dirt, while others sat around a picnic table engaged in a low-stakes poker game, and still others stood in a circle kicking around a hoofball. If not for the high walls and mean-looking guards surrounding the place, you could have mistaken the place for some bizarre adult summer camp.

I found Roady lying on his back near the yard wall, his stomach much larger and rounder than before. "You should have known better than to overeat like that before exercising," I kidded him.

Roady slowly lifted his head off the ground and looked at me. "I didn't think I could get my fill of Mrs. Green's food," he admitted with a groan. "I was wrong."

I smiled. "Thank for doing that, Roady."

"Think nothing of it." Roady yawned and rolled over on his side. "I think I'm going to try and sleep off this stomachache."

I decided to leave Roady in peace, and looked around to see what I could do to pass the time. The good news was that I spotted an open dirt chess board that someone had abandoned, and there was an unoccupied pony sitting near the poker table that I could challenge. The bad news was that the unoccupied pony was my talkative friend Smash.

I debated taking my chances with the poker players, but I didn't have anything besides rocks to use for an ante, and trying to take money from the others wouldn't make them any happier about my presence. As nervous as engaging a pony like Smash made me, he seemed to be staring intently at the chess games, and besides, how much could he do to me with all these guards around? I decided to give Mrs. Green's advice about trusting a shot, and walked over to the boards.

"Hey, Smash," I said as I stepped up to the empty board, "would you like to play?"

"No."

"Come on, it'll be fun! It's more interesting than—"

"I don't like chess," Smash said. "It's too complicated, and I'm no good at it."

"Neither am I!" This wasn't a total fib—I had a lot of experience, but it usually involved getting crushed by my sister. "You could beat me with two hooves tied behind your back!"

"I don't want to play."

"Just one game?"

"I don't want to play."

"Well, we don't have to play chess," I offered. "We could play, I don't know, checkers or something."

Smash eyed me suspiciously. "You don't want to play checkers," he challenged me. "It's too simple and boring."

"No, sitting around doing nothing is simple and boring," I corrected Smash. "If you want to play, I am totally game."

Smash was silent for a few moments. "Okay," he accepted. "I'll play one game. If I win, you go away and stop bothering me."

"Deal," I agreed. "But if I win, we have to play until I lose."

We quickly arranged our rocks on the board and began to play. I was pretty confident in my checkers-playing ability, but within three minutes, Smash had me so thoroughly cornered that I briefly considered sneaking a few pieces back onto the board. (Against my sister, I would have. Against a large felon with a talent for breaking things, I didn't like my odds.) "I give, I give!" I said. "You're pretty good at this."

Smash simply turned and returned to his previous seat without saying a word. I sat quietly by the board for another minute or so, wondering if I should push my luck a little farther. "Want to play another game?" I finally asked.

To my surprise, Smash jumped back up and hurried back to the board. "You want me to whup your flank again?"

"If you think you can," I dared him.

Thus began the most epic run of checkers matches in the history of the Trottingham jail. Well, 'epic' might be too strong a term: Out of fifteen matches, I lost fourteen, and most of them weren't close. Despite that, I had fun, and I swear I caught Smash smiling once or twice after executing a long multi-jump combo. All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Unfortunately, game number sixteen was interrupted by a loud "Hey, zebra!" that echoed across the yard. I looked up to see Bruiser walking over to the chess boards, scowling like he meant business.

"Um, hey there, Bruiser," I said as cheerily as I could. "I, uh, hope you're feeling better."

"We're starting a hoofball game," Bruiser said, "and we need another player to even out the teams." He pointed a hoof at me. "I think you should play."

"Me?" I cast a glance at the pegasus guard hovering above us, who was keeping a very close eye on the conversation. "Gosh, Bruiser," I offered, "you don't want me to play! I'm no good at hoofball, and I haven't played in years."

Bruiser took a few steps closer. "I think you should play," he repeated.

Before I could think of a reply, Smash stood up and faced Bruiser. "We're busy," Smash stated flatly.

"Oh, you are?" Bruiser walked over to the game and swept his hoof across the board, sending pieces flying and washing out the board squares. "Oops," he said in a mock-apologetic tone, "I guess you're game's over now, huh?"

Smash stared daggers at Bruiser for a good ten seconds, and for a moment I thought they would square off right then and there. At the time, I didn't know what would happen—Bruiser was big, mean, and nasty, but he still only came up to Smash's nose. The size difference didn't faze Bruiser, though, and he returned Smash's glare until Smash turned and stomped angrily back over to his previous seat.

"Now that that's settled," Bruiser said as he turned back to me, "I believe you're free to play."

I figured I wasn't in a position to argue, so I followed Bruiser over to where the other players stood waiting to choose teams. "I'm captain one," Bruiser declared, "and the zebra is captain two. I get first pick."

Since I had no idea who was good at hoofball and who wasn't, I picked players by looking at their cutie marks and making wild guesses about how useful their special talents would be in a game. Cutie marks don't take positional preferences into account, unfortunately, so I wound up with ten ponies who wanted to be forwards and none who wanted to play defense. I volunteered to start as the keeper, mainly because I didn't think anyone would pass me the ball anyway.

As I watched Bruiser from afar, I pondered the pony's motives for making me participate. He obviously wanted to use the game as an excuse to use me for a punching bag, but how would he pull it off? I had a feeling that by the end of the game, I'd be sorry I asked.

Bruiser started with the ball, and he immediately made a beeline for me, driving the ball right through our entire team in the process. Although my teammates' challenges looked a bit tentative, Bruiser still showed off some impressive dribbling skills, and was surprisingly fast to boot. He kept his cutie mark hidden under his sweatpants, but with those moves, I wouldn't have been surprised to see a hoofball on his flank.

Bruiser charged towards me at full speed, as if he intended to stuff me into the goal as well as the ball. I anticipated this move, and decided to use a little sleight of hoof to swipe the ball away while sidestepping Bruiser just before impact. Bruiser, however, left the ball behind just before he reached me, which made me flinch just long enough to give him a clear target.

Bruiser hit me like a runaway train, and sent me flying backwards into the goal. The net helped break my fall a little, but I still took a hoofball off the kisser after Bruiser re-collected the ball and kicked it at me. "Hey!" I shouted as Bruiser trotted away. "That was a foul! That goal doesn't count!"

"Only wimps and zebras call fouls!" Bruiser yelled back.

This pattern repeated itself two or three more times before I called timeout. "We've got to slow Bruiser down," I told my teammates as they gathered around. "Maybe someone else should be in goal—if I'm farther away from it when he runs me over, it'll give you all time to get in position behind me, or maybe even steal the ball."

My teammates exchanged looks, then looked at me with matching apologetic glances. "We don't dare to challenge him," one pony admitted. "He'll run over anypony to win."

"We were just glad he was going after you instead of us," another pony added.

Looking around the huddle, I sensed an opportunity to win over my fellow inmates by uniting them against our common enemy. "I think we can beat him," I proclaimed. "We just need to find a way to minimize the damage he can do."

"Yeah, right," a third pony said. "Bruiser never loses at hoofball."

"Hmm..." Suddenly, an idea popped into my head. "I've got it! I know how we can win!"

"Really? How?" a fourth pony asked.

"Bruiser invited me to play just to pound me, right?" I said. "So if I switch to forward, Bruiser will switch to defense to make sure he gets his licks in. If I can lure him out of position, and a bunch of you rush the goal, we should have enough of a numbers advantage to score! And, if you guys can keep the rest of Bruiser's team from scoring, we just might have enough firepower to win!"

My teammates were silent for a moment. "Well," one finally said, "that sounds simple enough, but who's going to be the keeper?" This argument took a few minutes to resolve, but at least everyone was on board was the plan.

Everything fell into place right from the start: Bruiser, seeing that I wouldn't be in the way of his scoring drives, dropped back and waited for me near his own goal. Getting the ball from his team was still a bit of a challenge, but when we did, my teammates passed it over to me and made their way to Bruiser's goal, just as we planned.

I took the ball quickly down the sideline. One of Bruiser's midfielders ran me down pretty fast, but Bruiser called him off and came out to mark me himself. I waited until he made his final rush towards me, then kicked the ball past him just before impact. The hit hurt, to be sure, but I figured it was inevitable, and I hoped that the scoring chance it generated would ease the pain.

We didn't score that time, but Bruiser's challenge left his team short on defense and we got a decent shot off, so we kept trying it. Eventually the ball started bouncing our way (metaphorically speaking), and we started scoring. Something else started happening too: I started hearing a few "Nice pass!" and "Great job!" compliments being thrown my way. Ponies even started helping me off the ground after goals! My plan, and my willingness to suffer Bruiser's wrath, helped me earn the respect of my teammates. It was cool to see, and almost made all the blunt force trauma worth it.

We eventually took the lead, and threatened to deal Bruiser his first hoofball loss since arriving in Trottingham. He quickly realized his streak was in jeopardy, and he moved back to forward to try to overcome the deficit. By then, however, my teammates seemed to sense that they had a real shot at winning, and they started getting more aggressive on defense, even against Bruiser. In the end, we hung on for a convincing victory, and celebrated by dog-piling in the middle of the field.

Bruiser coped with his defeat by screaming at his teammates and telling him how awful they were. Amazingly, they started yelling back, telling Bruiser that maybe passing more often and not going zebra hunting would have served the team better. This just made Bruiser even angrier, but before he could do anything, Bobby came out to declare that recreational time was over, and our team filed back into the jail as champions.

---

Roady had slept through our triumphant victory, but he got a good laugh out of it when I described it to him over dinner. "Nice job, Stripes," he said. "It's about time Bruiser ate a little humble pie."

"I just hope I've convinced the ponies around here that I'm an alright guy," I said as I exchanged a hoof-bump with a passing diner.

"I think that's a safe assumption." Roady banged his hoof on the table. "This calls for a celebration! Somepony get me another glass of cider!"

"Sure thing." I stood up from the table, walked over to the cider dispenser next to the serving line, and filled up the largest paper cup I could find. When I turned around, however, I found myself face-to-face with Bruiser. "Oh, uh, hi." I stammered, unsure of his current mood.

"Hey, zebra—I mean, Zebe... Zapa... Zippa... Oh, whatever your name is," Bruiser began. "I, uh, I just wanted to congratulate you on winning today, and, well, apologize for giving you such a hard time around here."

I couldn't believe my ears. "Really? Gosh... Thanks, Bruiser. That really means a lot."

"I'm really not that bad a guy, honest," Bruiser continued. "It's just, well, I've had a few bad experiences with zebras in the past, and just decided that they were all jerks."

"I'm sorry to hear about that," I said, "but I'm glad to hear you've changed your mind."

Bruiser nodded and smiled. "So... Are we cool?"

"Yeah. We're cool."

Bruiser and I exchanged a hoof-bump. "By the way," Bruiser said, "could you help me with something? Beet Green asked me to get some turnips from the kitchen storeroom, but I may need an extra set of hooves to carry them all."

"Sure thing," I agreed. "Just let me drop off this cider, and I'll be right with you."

I hurried back to my table and delivered Roady's cider, then followed Bruiser out of the dining room. I was feeling pretty proud of myself—I mean, winning over a cold-hearted pony like Bruiser? I thought I had accomplished something amazing.

I was wrong.