Prison Noir

by Joyce Carol Oates

  I smacked him on the chest. “Hey! Come on, how do I beat this shit?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know.” Rick gestured at David thirty feet away. “Go talk with that asshole. If anyone can do it, he can.”

  “I’m not speaking to that maggot, he’d tell on me just for asking.”

  “How’s it get worse?” Rick asked. His head twisted back to tennis. “You’re fucked. What’re they gonna do, put you in prison for life?”

  I stared at the back of David’s head; earbud wires reached up on both sides. I said softly, “A lotta help you are.” Rick laughed, but it was at someone stumbling on the court.

  David’s bald head bobbed a little to some tune. My vision blurred as I glared at him. I did some stupid telepathic shit in my head, as if I could make him agree.

  “You know he did it already?” Rick asked.

  “Yeah,” I nodded, “he probably did.” I pictured him taking the report written by that snot-nosed cop, laughing as he typed away. My jaw was tight and my teeth squeaked.

  “You’ve got that cocksucker in a couple of groups, right?”

  My voice came back whiny: “That don’t mean shit.” I pointed at Dave. “In fact, he’ll fuck with me at the next AA meeting.”

  “So tell the punk how sorry you are, and you’ll never do it again if he’ll help you this one time.” Rick turned and walked backward, eyes fixed on the tennis court.

  “What makes you think he’s got the juice to do shit like that?”

  “Come on! I’ve had shit squashed.” Rick turned back around, and we stopped walking. “You mean you’ve never had a clerk make things disappear?”

  My head shook, still focused on Dave’s back. “He doesn’t fuck around. This guy’s as square as they get.” My eyes closed, and I turned to peer at Rick. “He’s never done a thing for anyone.”

  “What’s to lose? I’ll kick the dog shit out of him if he tells on you.”

  Normally Rick and I turned here, and we went down a slope to the dip and pull-up bars. We could see the rest of our workout crew, Ron and Keith, there waiting for us. I really wanted to bust a good sweat, use the buff to distract me from this fucked-up situation. My shoulders dropped. “I don’t want to talk with him!” I looked over at Ron and Keith. From their expressions, it seemed like they knew our talk was about something serious.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Rick said. He put his hand on my shoulder and shoved me forward. “Go!” David had just turned onto the main road inside of San Quentin. The road ran all the way from the vehicle gate, up past the top of the stairs we’d just walked down.

  I tossed Rick my bag. “I’ll be right back,” I said. The other half of our crew watched; Keith had his arms wide, asking, What? My head nodded toward Rick who was headed down to them.

  “Don’t blow it, Jason,” I said out loud. It felt stupid to be talking to myself, but my lips kept moving. “Just play it cool.” From the way David’s head bobbed, I knew he couldn’t hear me. I stepped quicker, almost running.

  I caught up to him behind the backstop of the baseball field. He didn’t see me at first. “Hey Joe,” he sang, “where you going with that gun in your hand?” His head kept moving as he checked out the visiting baseball team from the streets. David played on the San Quentin Giants last year. This year’s team was on the field all decked out in the San Francisco Giants’ old practice uniforms. They stood in groups stretching and swinging bats. “You know I’m going down to shoot my ol’ lady, you know—”

  Catching sight of me, he abruptly ended his bad karaoke. For a moment it looked like he’d taken a bite out of a shit sandwich. “How’s it going, Jason?” he asked while reaching down and turning off the clear plastic radio clipped at his waist. He was close to eye level in height.

  “Pretty good,” I answered. “How’re you doing?”

  Gray eyes flashed and the same turd-eating scowl came again, but he took a deep breath. His hand waved across the entire yard. “You remember when you got here?” he asked. “What the lower yard used to be like?”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding, “twice as big.” For a moment I lost myself in that memory. It had been better; more space for guys to hang out. Now, on the other side of the baseball field, what was once a part of our yard area stood the school modules.

  David sighed loudly. “I remember when we still had weights, even family visits.” He turned to look at me. “You ever make it out on a family visit?”

  I shook my head. “Naaaw, after conviction my old lady dumped me; the boneyards were done for lifers when I made it back to the joint.”

  David nodded, and his head kept going up and down while he looked forward. I’d decided to not ask him for anything. I opened my mouth to tell him goodbye, but he suddenly turned back and looked at me. “So, Jason, what do you want?”

  “I, uh . . .” The walls were coming in again. “I . . . Why do I have to need something?”

  “Because, Jason, you don’t say squat otherwise.”

  “What, can’t a guy just come and say hi?”

  I didn’t like the way he laughed at my question. “Yeah, you could, but you never do.”

  “Oh, man, that ain’t right!”

  His head moved like the music was still on. “Yep, that’s for sure; you took the words right out of my mouth.”

  “I don’t do that!”

  There was that fucking laugh again and a smirk. “So, Jason, what can I do for you?”

  I wanted to slap that smug look off his face. “Can you talk to the lieutenant for me?” The perimeter track turned left here off the pavement, and now we walked on a gravel road, which was also the home run area for the baseball field to our left.

  With every look, I was getting more pissed. He was sticking his chest out now, strutting around like a rooster. “What did you do?” he asked.

  “What’s with all the fucking condemnation, David?”

  He turned to stare at me with real anger in his face. “You know, Jason, I really love Hendrix.” He reached for the radio. It was a little smaller than a cigarette pack. “We can forget this conversation.” David fumbled with the front to get his finger on a switch.

  “They busted me for pruno!” I said, a lot louder than I meant to. We’d made our way next to some tables on the right side of the road that a number of my partners hung around. My attention stayed on David, pretending that my “road dogs” hadn’t heard shit, but they were all eye-fucking me while checking out my company.

  “You mean you finally got caught?” He said this loud enough to be heard by my fellas.

  My voice lowered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  More of that laugh. “Dude,” he said, “you’re as dirty as they get.”

  At least we’d passed the tables. “You saw me doing what?” He didn’t know shit; he never came around where I did my business.

  His eyes rolled. “Come on,” he said. “You and your cellie were busted, what, six months ago for pruno?”

  The gravel on the road ended, and we turned left onto a dirt path next to a chain-link fence. On the other side were the education trailers. Home runs here would land on top of the module classrooms.

  “My cellie owned it! He told the lieutenant it was his!” I knew this was lame, but my mouth kept going. “The lieutenant found me not guilty.”

  That laugh again. “But this time you didn’t have a cellmate to dump it on, did you?” One of his eyebrows rose up like fucking Spock in Star Trek.

  “Yeah,” I replied, staring down. “He took the heat for me.” The kid had said he didn’t care and agreed to ride the charge in my place. The fact that he had to serve another month didn’t bother him too much.

  Dave’s face was a fucking stone. We walked a couple of steps before he asked, “Remember what the cops used to do to guys making hooch?”

  “Yeah, they poured the shit out in the fucking toilet.” Recalling that pissed me off even more.

  David raised a finger. “The first time, they poured it out.” He let that
settle for a moment. “The second time,” he held up two fingers, “they poured it on your bunk. It went all over: your blankets, sheets, and mattress. Your crap got soaked!” His hands went behind his back, and he spoke slowly. “What’d they do the third time?”

  This asshole was giving me a headache. “They pissed in it.” My face felt flush, and I didn’t dare look at him.

  Another fucked-up laugh. “Which one would you prefer, Jason?”

  No point in speaking. I saw it a toss-up: drinking wine fortified with a guard’s piss, or going through this shit. I might as well be on my knees, with him behind doing me. My shoulders went up and down in a shrug.

  “You know,” David said, “you really need to find yourself another crowd to hang out with. Most of those guys are half your age.”

  “Why? What about ’em?”

  David’s eyes rolled. “You’re kidding, right?” He rubbed his forehead. “In the past six months, your crew’s been busted for one thing after another.”

  “I’m schooling them.” I’d told myself as much many times. “So they don’t get all screwed up.”

  “Schooling?” he asked with a big grin. “Was Big Rick sticking that shank into Skunkweed graduation?”

  I’d had enough. “What’s so fucking funny?”

  “You really don’t know, Jason?”

  “See, David,” my hand waved about, “that’s why I don’t bother talking with you. You come off with this holier-than-thou bullshit.”

  “And you interrupted my walk why?” Now he was angry too. “To see how I’m doing?”

  We’d come around to the far side of the baseball field, heading left again down a dirt path in foul ball territory. We turned right onto the blacktop. “I can’t afford a write-up, David. Can you help me or not?” We walked straight toward the hospital.

  “You can’t afford it?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. Our direction took us past one end of the basketball courts where the San Quentin Warriors were playing an outside team. On the other side were the tennis players.

  “You can’t afford a write-up?”

  “What the fuck is your problem, David?”

  “Right this moment,” he said, as we started up an incline that brought us into the hospital’s shadow, “my problem is you being a pretend friend.” He breathed deeply a moment before adding, “Selling me this piss-poor version of you being a good guy with really bad luck.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” I was wasting my time with this fool.

  “I’m a nobody.” We finally came back to the point where Rick and I had entered the yard one lap before. “But I’ve busted my ass for twenty years now.” We walked a couple more steps before stopping. “Where were you, Jason, when I got serious about my life?”

  “Not in prison,” I answered.

  “Right! While I’d been about changing my life for over ten years, you were still robbing, stealing, and killing.” I stared at the ground, wondering if one of my dogs had a big fucking mouth. David continued, “I got up next to lifers squared up about changing, and I listened.” He stuck out his thumb like a hitchhiker, aiming at my buddies. “Not like a bunch of kids still playing cops and robbers.”

  “You ain’t a fucking saint,” I said. A couple of guys walking close glanced over but quickly returned to their own business. “I’ve seen how you treat guys—like they’re trash. You should hear what kinds of assholes they call you!”

  “You should know,” he countered. “You’re the one doing most of the talking.” David stopped suddenly, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. His hand came up in a fist, and he pounded lightly on his forehead. “Yeah,” he said calmly. “I can be a perfect asshole . . . I gotta own that.” He let his arm drop down, then turned and looked at me. His right eye had a twitch. “But when you walk into that boardroom, Jason, it’s nothing . . . You’re nothing but a fake and a fraud.”

  “I don’t need to hear this shit!” This punk needed correcting. “I’m getting ready to say something I’m going to regret.” Hitting him in the throat would’ve fixed things real quick. My hands were balled tight; I’d done the math for launching on him.

  “Oh, I think you need it.” David swayed back slightly as my body leaned in a little. “And all those thoughts about a sucker punch.” His right eye fluttered. “Seeing how Sherry just dumped me, I’m feeling like I don’t give a shit about consequences either.” He took in a deep breath through his nose. “You may find your back dirty. You think you know me?”

  The punk-fuck had called me out. I needed to do something, or start eating humble pie. I couldn’t blow it . . . not yet. “And you’re supposed to be a Christian!” I said.

  David’s mouth opened at that, grinning as if I’d just told a good joke. “You didn’t go there!” He covered his mouth with his fist, trying not to laugh. “This is what you say to get what you want?” In a moment his eyes became slits. “And you, Jason, aren’t you this solid Alcoholics Anonymous member?” He shook his head as his fingers made the quotes sign. “Sober ten years now? Isn’t that what you’ve been saying at the meetings?”

  “I’m a fucking convict,” I said. “Don’t think you can say whatever you want.”

  “Tell me, Jason,” he responded, his hands on his hips, “where do you put ‘convict’ on a resume? You really think that means shit outside of these walls?”

  “David, what is your problem?” Fuck it, I’ll bust this fool in the mouth. He glanced down at my hands, and I got satisfaction that his eyes went wide a moment.

  He stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. David grinned as his eyes opened slowly, then he reached out his hand, palm up. “Jason, you still want me to help you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, exhaling deeply. My body relaxed a little. Maybe he’d do me right after all.

  “Then I want you to say to me, David, I don’t give a rat’s ass about you, just help me!”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re going to,” he shot back, his voice rough. “All this running your mouth, acting like you’re something you’re not.” His anger was coming up again. He raised his hands, his fingers beckoning. “Come on and say it.”

  “What’s with this ignorant bullshit? Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Sure,” he said, “when you tell me, I don’t give a rat’s ass about you, just help me.”

  A gust of wind suddenly hit us, and David went into this weird look. There was something like insanity in his stare. We stood in silence for a moment. I thought he might be about to jump my ass. But as the wind backed off, the craziness seemed to leave.

  My feet were glued to the spot, wondering what David’s twisted mind was thinking. After ten seconds, I shook my head and said, “This isn’t right.”

  “What ain’t right, Jason, is you strutting around here claiming to be a model prisoner to one side and a gangster to the other. You sign up for programs that other guys are dead serious about, and you laugh about ’em and talk bad about the guys in them.”

  “Fuck you, David!”

  “Perfect!” he said, smiling big, his eyes bright. “Now say it.”

  He wasn’t making me his parrot, but my mouth began to twist. He raised his hand up next to his mouth, coaching me. “I . . .” My voice got tight. “. . . don’t give a rat’s ass.” After that my mouth slammed shut. I wasn’t going to play his fucked-up mind game.

  He dropped his hand a moment and then brought it back up next to his mouth. He opened his pinched fingers a little as he said, “Just . . .”

  “Just do the fucking thing!” I blurted out. “Do it, punk motherfucker! I don’t give a shit about you!” Trembling, I thought my knees were going to give.

  David stuck out his fist, offering me a knuckle bump. “Congratulations, Jason,” he said. “A baby step to an honest man!” This dude was really messed up in the head.

  I ignored the fist. “Don’t talk to me like I’m some fucking kid.” I did my best to hide my shaking
legs.

  “And don’t come at me, Jason, like I’m a scared punk you can walk over to get what you want.”

  A whimper came from deep within me. “Come on, David, will you help me?”

  He looked up toward the top of the hospital, staring as if he saw something of interest. In a moment he said, “Don’t ever ask me this again.”

  “No!” My hand rose up like I was swearing in court. “First and last time!”

  In spite of my promise, he peered at me with arms crossed, showing doubt. “If you tell your ‘puppies’ I helped you,” his thumb went in their direction, “I’ll deny it. That’ll make them wonder who you snitched on to beat it.” David watched me for a moment longer. “I’m putting my ass on the line for you. I could go to the hole behind this.”

  My fingers were running across my lips before he finished speaking. There wouldn’t be a thing said to anyone, except Rick.

  A thought hit me. “I’ll pay you.” That was easy enough. “Give me a list . . . fifty bucks?” It didn’t look as if David was buying it. “How about a hundred?” He still wasn’t smiling. “I could get you two hundred in a couple of months.” Still nothing.

  He crossed his arms again, his chin resting on his thick chest. His workouts showed in his muscled arms and shoulders. In a soft voice, he said, “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what? Tell me what you want, and I’ll take care of it!”

  David shook his head. Glancing down, he kicked at a rock. “I didn’t do it for you.”

  “Didn’t what? Didn’t do what for me?”

  The yard seemed suddenly quiet. “I’m doing it,” he finally said, “because I couldn’t stand seeing your daughter and grandson spend another ten years visiting your sorry ass.” David was a statue; his eyes fixed on me.

  “I . . .” I sputtered while looking up at the sky. Sheila and Jimmy’s faces came. “You’re right,” I said, my voice hoarse.

  David stepped up close. “Knock off the crap, Jason!” He grabbed me by the shoulder. “I’ll see you at the Saturday AA?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, sure.” I still couldn’t look at him. “I’ll be there.”

  “Why don’t you ask your daughter about the Bible she reads while waiting for you?” He squeezed my shoulder tight a moment, then smiled and said, “By the way . . .”