Baccano!/Recap/1934 Alice in Jails/Let's Enjoy Prison Life

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Alcatraz.

Firo is just about to go to sleep when the guy next door starts talking to him quietly. It's the Asian guy with the tattoo. He asks why Firo was taken away separately when they first arrived at the island, and Firo decides to lie and say that the higher-ups took him away because they thought he was from the Mafia.

As they continue to converse, Firo finds out that his neighbor is literally a cannibalistic psychopath. The guy introduces himself as "Ryuujirou", but prefers to be called "Dragon" because it's easier to say. Firo wonders if he should go by a fake name, remembers the "no fake names" rule, and is about to introduce himself, but Dragon already knows what Firo's called because of the incident at the cafeteria.

Outside, a gunshot rings out.


The next morning, Firo is eating breakfast with Ladd at the cafeteria. Ladd waves off the gunshot from last night, explaining that the guards are always training for a possible escapee scenario. Ladd admits his admiration for the guards, who have the look of men who are ready to kill and be killed at any time.

Isaac enthusiastically walks into the conversation. Firo is worried about him being sent into the dungeons earlier, but Isaac laughs it off, saying that he's completely used to it by now. Ladd adds that he had also been sent to the dungeons before, but not for one-night sentences like Isaac. Ladd's longest stay was for ten days, and he adds that another guy who went in around the same time, but for fourteen days, ended up going crazy.

Firo is glad that Isaac's all right despite his trip to the dungeons. Isaac says that he wasn't even bored last night because a fairy came to talk to him. Firo thinks he's going crazy from being away from Miria for so long, but Isaac insists that he heard a little girl's voice talking to him. The voice asked Isaac about Firo, and if he had also taken the elixir. Isaac is oblivious to what this actually means, but Firo freezes. He suspects that the voice has something to do with Huey.

Isaac loudly chastises Firo for not believing in fairies, and the guards warn them about being too loud. The cafeteria goes back to silence. Firo asks Ladd under his breath if Isaac's obliviousness is the kind of thing that ticks him off, but Ladd responds that Isaac is just too oblivious for Ladd to want to kill him.

Ladd asks Firo and Isaac if they are from New York, mentioning that a guy he considers like a little brother is also in New York--a Talkative Loon who carries around a giant monkey wrench. Firo and Isaac recognize the description, and tell Ladd that he recently fled to Chicago after an ill-fated clash with the Runoratas. Ladd wonders if he should go help him out after finishing his sentence, and tells Firo and Isaac about Lua, who is also probably in New York.

All of a sudden, they hear a commotion from another area of the cafeteria. The white guy that came to Alcatraz with Firo is being strangled by the black guy, named Gig. Ladd tells Firo that he gets a feeling that what Isaac said about the "fairy in the dungeons" has something to do with Huey Laforet, and gleefully walks off towards the commotion. The guards are about to stop Gig, but Ladd gets there first and punches Gig in the side with his metal arm.

Gig is knocked unconscious by the pain and goes flying into one of the tables. The guards surround Ladd and take him to the dungeons at gunpoint. Firo realizes that everyone in the prison's probably batshit insane, and wonders how someone like Isaac was brought here. Isaac reveals that he was brought to Alcatraz in exchange for his sentence being shortened to fifty days by someone named Victor.