Prison Noir

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Don’t hit that flat five every time you run down a blues riff,” Mo would lecture. “Save that and the flat six, even the major seventh or minor third. Use ’em only when the chords shift, and then only maybe. Make everybody ache for ’em, wonderin’ when you’ll let ’em slide witchoo.”

  Fuse brought several of Metal’s songs to their two-man sessions too, surprising Mo with how that boolshit metal could offer clever nuance and space to layer surprises, sometimes even a groove that jumped the rails and cut its own path toward whatever new places it might dare find.

  One evening Mo was shuffling through his charts, looking for something to work on, when he caught Fuse craning to see the faded and creased photo of a young black woman tacked to his bulletin board, her arms in the air, apparently dancing. “That’s my little girl—LaTisha,” Mo said quietly. “She’s thirty-four now.”

  Fuse nodded. “Very pretty.” He had lots of questions. You in touch? She live in Detroit? Ever come to see you? Grandkids? Still, he knew you don’t ask, not if you really cared. Mo would say what he wanted to say.

  “She was born after I got locked up. I’ve never seen her. Her and her mama wanted nothin’ to do with me. Then her mama got cancer and couldn’t beat it, so she sent me the picture toward the end, said maybe I deserved that much, see what I missed.”

  Fuse nodded and waited, resisting the urge to touch his keys.

  Mo pulled his footlocker over, fumbled with the padlock, dug through layers of paperwork. “You ever had any kids?”

  Fuse took a deep breath, not sure how to answer. “A daughter,” he said quietly. “Amanda—Amanda with the beautiful smile.”

  “No contact now?”

  Fuse shook his head.

  “Her mama neither?”

  Fuse shook his head again. “Nobody out in the world since Granny died.”

  “That sucks.” Mo located a tattered blue pocket-folder. “Me neither—not since Mom’s died.” He pulled out two small sheaves of song charts, one set neatly handwritten, the other photocopied from the same material. “Doug made me copies,” he explained, setting one sheet atop the footlocker, handing its companion to Fuse.

  LaTisha’s Dance, read the title.

  And they played it, several times, several ways. Mo marveled at the nuance and style and layered rhythms Fuse added. Sometimes the big guy drifted into wistfulness, closing his eyes as he played, once turning away and wiping his face.

  “She would like that,” Fuse offered as Mo put the charts back into his footlocker.

  “She’ll never hear it,” Mo replied, his frustration palpable. “I’m doing all day.” Life without parole—a death sentence he’d got . . . the slow way.

  “I’m eligible in fourteen-some,” Fuse said. “Maybe I can play it for her.”

  Mo looked surprised, then very serious. He pursed his lips and rubbed his beefy head. “Maybe,” he said.

  * * *

  The days leading up to the first callout on Fuse’s new Saturday slot found him distracted. He worked on the first seven songs they’d selected—three of Mo’s, two of his own, and two of Metal’s—but often found himself also playing variations on the “LaTisha’s Dance” theme. That invariably led to pondering an unwritten song he couldn’t even begin to hear, no matter how deeply he listened: “Amanda’s Smile.”

  Then his bunkie went to the hole after another shakedown, word on the yard being that he had some steel and somebody snitched. Rumors wafted back several times that Psycho’s road-dawg Jack was telling people Fuse got him popped. That kind of talk might fade for lack of credibility, or escalate if more instigators jumped on board. Sitting alone late one night in his cell, the bottom bunk now empty, Fuse set up the keyboard, plugged in headphones, and began to play. He ran through all seven songs, but couldn’t really remember actually playing them. He messed around with “LaTisha’s Dance” a few times, but found himself distracted and frustrated. Amanda kept skittering just beyond his grasp, and for the first time in his entire bid, he realized that trying to connect with any part of his world lost beyond time or those fences inevitably left him feeling alone and afraid. He had nobody, no one to call, no one for mail, not a soul who cared whether he lived or died. With Psycho gone, he couldn’t even busy his mind by hating.

  The next day he sat with Metal and Reggie in the yard, running through the same seven songs while storm clouds rolled in from the west, a gusty breeze blowing cold, and an odor of rain stirring paint fumes in the air. Short and stocky with a random splay of jet-black hair, Reggie mostly worked the patterns, trying beats by slapping his legs and scatting, his mouthed cymbal-swells spraying spit. They paused to watch the train take one and leave one, even as it ignored that beat-up old black tanker. The killdeer seemed unimpressed by it all, his priorities tending toward family.

  “If we have time,” Fuse said, “I’d like to try a Mo song about his daughter, real personal.”

  Metal shrugged, honoring his promise to play anything. He’d proven amazingly adept at exploring other genres and styles, no doubt proud of his prowess, though loath to admit he actually reveled in material he considered beneath head-banging and metal shredding. They ran through Mo’s song a few times, and Metal clearly understood what it meant, what it could mean. He found poetry in the images it conjured, grace in the notes, that tentative reluctance of a shy young woman yielding to her own rhythms, the yearning for a father she never met, the longing of a damaged man whose melody can’t be constrained by the razor-wired electric fences.

  At some point, two young black guys walked up to them, pants hanging low, dark scowls highlighted by narrowed eyes. “You on that music callout now?” one demanded.

  “We all are,” Metal said, setting his guitar in its case.

  “That ’pose to be ours,” the other insisted.

  “That’s on Doug,” Metal said.

  Reggie tilted his head toward Fuse. “He’s been on the list a year.”

  They glared for a moment as the killdeer watched warily. “We’ll see,” one said. They turned and walked away.

  Reggie snorted his derision. “They wanna start somethin’, I’ll start somethin’.”

  “They’ll try anything to get that slot back,” Metal said. “We might need to take a few people and have a talk.”

  Reggie added, “With Jack too. He’s still on that bullshit about Fuse. It’s about time to tune his ass up.”

  “He’s in my unit,” Metal said. “I’ll tell him shut his fuckin’ mouth—or we got a problem.”

  Big drops of rain splattered their instruments. Everybody scrambled to pack up. Lightning flashed in the distance.

  “Attention!” called the speakers. “All yards are closed!”

  * * *

  Never having been to the music space, Fuse followed Mo to the far end of the rec area, through the breezeway with an open-entry bathroom off to the right, then into the gym where incomers streamed in to grab basketballs and argue about the game that hadn’t even started. A pair of doors in the far corner revealed a large storage area converted to a music room, Metal and Reggie already setting up. Two keyboards way better than the toy Fuse owned, real trap-set drums, amps, guitars, a bass for Mo to cut loose, more effects than Metal could channel on a hundred songs—all this had been waiting for them right here, so close and finally no longer out of reach.

  So they played.

  Fuse raced to learn all the keyboard programming. Metal tested effects to augment his new styles. Reggie tuned the drum heads and rearranged the toms until he’d placed them just right. Mo bobbed his head, sheer excitement pumping the big old guy. They laughed, got serious, honed the precision of their charts, and drifted through improvs that took them places from which they only reluctantly returned. Fuse embraced the idea of holding back, leaving holes, saving those drop-ins and blues flourishes and major-seventh jazz highlights for only when they desperately needed expressing.

  And Fuse finally knew this was how he could do his time. Fourteen-some years—m
ore if the parole board didn’t yet want to let him go—a personal keyboard right in his cell, real musicians gathering each week to listen to each other and sound back, a group of like-minders creating places and spaces where no outsiders could dictate what he dared feel.

  When Reggie left to take a leak, Fuse started playing “LaTisha’s Dance.”

  Mo went wide-eyed. He opened his mouth, but found no words as Metal quickly joined in on guitar, his chords and gentle slides first shimmering, then syncopating with delicate harmonics. Reggie came back and tried a simple rhythm. Mo shook his head and hit some bass-note beats, a catchy pattern, nodding toward the snare, the cymbals, guiding his percussionist. Reggie picked it up, embellishing with a wood block, a tom-tom backbeat. Mo added a swaying melodic bass line and quickly danced his way into the groove.

  They glided through the song three times, each pass more expansive, more nuanced, more playful yet ponderous. Fuse felt a twinge of melancholy, so he dared let it ripple through his fingers. That was for Mo, and Mo understood, appreciation in his eyes. This song called out to LaTisha, and though she never knew her father, they all knew him, now more than ever, and maybe the best his little girl could ever hope would be that others might tell her about him, words or not.

  Time eventually ran out, and Reggie bolted to meet someone on the walk. As a music clerk, Mo needed to stay behind to inventory the miscellany. Fuse and Metal headed out with their instruments, following gym stragglers through the breezeway.

  Metal stopped to hit the urinal, so Fuse set his keyboard by the sink and grabbed a paper towel to wipe perspiration from his brow—

  Bam! Bam!

  The side—of his head—

  He spun and fell hard, skull slamming into ceramic tile. He reached with his hand, warm blood running through his fingers. He tried to glimpse what was happening.

  Feet, several feet, the keyboard picked up—

  Bam!

  Back of his head, spreading toward the front, his brain screaming. He tried to raise it up, but couldn’t stop the spinning.

  Blood all on the floor.

  Metal slumped beside the urinal, eyes vacant, arm twitching, shirt drenched red, neck bleeding, hand bleeding, stabs, slashes.

  Fuse laid his head in the puddle and drifted.

  God it hurt.

  LaTisha danced through the tableau, paused to look, then danced away; and Fuse looked for Amanda, her golden curls, those big blue eyes, sweet dimples, the smile of his adorable little four-year-old . . . For an instant he could hear her, but then it got hot, too hot, flames roaring, smoke choking him, stealing his breath, smashing him with dark regrets.

  You tweakin’ that shit again?! screamed his wife, bursting in through the front door. You’re supposed to watch her—not get high!

  But the flames, the smoke—and she kept screaming even as he found her and dragged her outside. Flashing lights raced her to the hospital, her hands and arms burned from trying but failing to reach their little girl. Handcuffs, county jail, court appearances where nobody comes, and finally word that his death-do-us-part wife couldn’t figure out any possible way to go on living without sweet little Amanda, so she gave up trying.

  Please, Amanda, smile for me one more time . . .

  “Goddammit!” Mo bellowed, his voice echoing. “Oh shit—hold on.”

  Officers appeared, then stood around, waiting for health care staff to complete the paperwork that lets an ambulance into the compound. Hey, good luck. Fucking convicts.

  “He’s gonna need state shoes to ride.”

  Too much smoke, too much heat.

  Hospital now. “What—what happened to Metal?”

  “Who?”

  “Man, it hurts.”

  “Sure it does.”

  * * *

  Eighteen days in seg and the swelling subsided, gashes closed, stitches grew out. His ear would never look right, and he couldn’t quiet that incessant squeal on the left side, constant noise, worse when he buried his head in the scratchy blanket.

  The door buzzed open. Officer Silvestri pushed a cart holding his big green duffel into the room. The matronly black woman always looked after her guys and seemed to take it personally when something happened that wasn’t called for. “Ridin’ you out tomorrow, sweetie. Need to fill out the property slip.”

  No keyboard, no cheap-ass Chinese television, no gym shoes—just a bag full of state issue, Granny’s final letters, and paperwork, too much paperwork . . .

  “What happened to Metal?” he asked her.

  She leaned close, sharing a secret, a breach of security. “He’s still listed OTH,” she said. “Beats the worst.”

  OTH—Out to Hospital.

  Fuse didn’t sleep much that night. He hadn’t slept much at all since it happened. Head hurt too much, heat still too much to bear.

  The next afternoon he stood near the back exit of the health care office while they belly-chained and cuffed him. Some prisoner barely out of his teens came in from another joint, belly chain and cuffs. He took the youngster’s place in the transport van, one out, one in, then closed his eyes while they loaded property in the back.

  “Run these boxes back to Mound,” someone said, so instead of heading down Ryan Road they circled back between the fence and the railroad tracks. The driver stopped and rolled down his window to spend too long chatting with an officer patrolling the perimeter. The train crossed Ryan Road and pulled alongside them, Fuse’s only close-up, his last chance to watch the daily ritual, take one, leave one.

  Maybe Fuse would eventually find Metal out in the world—even Reggie too. They might very well rediscover the places they’d conjured together that one time in a converted storage room off the prison gym when fences stopped mattering. Probably not, though “What Could Have Been” is many a prisoner’s only song.

  But he would never see Mo again.

  He would never be allowed to visit him, certainly never have a chance to play music with him. Fuse’s instrument had disappeared, but at least Mo made sure his charts got packed. Good lookin’ out.

  Something got added too, for there in the duffel bag patiently waited a tattered blue folder, photocopies of a natural lifer’s most personal songs, the page on top titled “LaTisha’s Dance.”

  Fuse hoped someday to locate Mo’s daughter, and he would never stop trying to remember Amanda’s smile.

  The train’s mission complete, it crossed Ryan Road and faded into the ’hood.

  As the van pulled away, Fuse turned for one last look, just to be sure.

  Again, that old banged-up black tanker car got left behind.

  FOXHOLE

  BY B.M. DOLARMAN

  Oklahoma State Penitentiary (McAlester, Oklahoma)

  "Silverfox, pack up!”

  Looks like I will be spending some time in the hole. Again. Edward Silverfox. Number 202859. Long-term resident of Oklahoma State Penitentiary. I remember the first time I set eyes on it. Eighteen years old, squinting up at it from a transport bus known as the “Green Lizard,” acid in my throat, I thought, This is it. Welcome to your future. As the Lizard inched its way through the double gates of the east entrance, the whitewashed stone walls of my new residence rose up before me in warning. I mouthed the words “Dracula’s castle” as we off-loaded inside the seemingly ancient, tower-guarded complex.

  We were then led into the facility’s common laundry site, where I was issued clothing and bed linens—two pairs each of boxers, socks, and pants; two white T-shirts; two dress shirts, two sheets; one towel; one pillowcase (no pillow); and one blanket—all inside a mesh laundry bag. My first experience with wearing used, preworn (by whom?) Skivvies had been in the county jail while awaiting trial. After checking out my linens, it occurred to me that I would be wearing someone else’s underwear for the foreseeable future.

  Leaving the laundry, another Native American dude and I were then escorted through another fence and delivered to another building, G-unit, or the “rock,” where I was placed in the smallest si
ngle-man cell in which I’ve ever done time (to date). The depth of the cell was about eight feet, but the width . . . well, I could extend my arms out from each side and simultaneously touch both walls. Per correctional policy, I remained locked down there for seventy-two hours—no showers, no rec time.

  Once allowed out of my cell, I was overwhelmed by the diversity of the population. I marveled that a place like this could exist right smack in the belly of a mostly white farming community. While the place was diverse, it was also very segregated, cliqued up. The blacks stayed with the blacks, though some were 107 Hoover Crips, some were Neighborhood Crips, some Red Mob (Bloods). There were the Gangster Disciples, who were whites and some Latinos. There was Old Grove. There was the Universal Aryan Brotherhood or UABs. There were a few of us Native Americans and even a couple of guys who didn’t really seem to fit in anywhere.

  I remember Madonna’s “Material Girl” coming out of a radio as I walked through the halls. Dudes were playing poker, watching TV, kicking it in groups, waiting on the phone, or waiting on the shower. I learned that rec time would be longer on some days and shorter on others, depending on which officers were working. Some of those guards were real pricks, bringing their frustrations or personal problems to work and taking them out on inmates. I hated the rock, to say the least, and I hardly spoke to anyone. And I didn’t know what to expect. I had heard stories about prison rape, and so I wanted to stay on my guard—whatever that means. Do I just keep sitting on my ass, or what? I had to shower, and although it was a single shower, there was only a half of a wall around it with cells right alongside. Privacy while shitting or showering isn’t something a person should take for granted.