Prison Noir

by Joyce Carol Oates

  The Monster shoved me onto the bed and went on and on about how I had betrayed him, how this isn’t how things were supposed to be, how the kids had made me impure. Nothing made sense. He went to put on a shirt and laid the gun on the nightstand. Without a thought, I picked it up and simply shot him in the back of the head.

  He turned around and laughed at me.

  Holy shit! This was it. My life was over. I held on to that gun like it was my own hand. We weren’t going to make it through this. His fingernails dug into my hands, but I was not going to let go. He was not going to get my boys. He was screaming, and I must have kept shooting.

  The rest is like a puzzle. Pieces are missing, and no combination provides me with the entire picture. Even now, a decade later, I stare at each one, waiting for closure. I shot him seven times and only recall three. Logically, I know I did them all, but I just can’t remember. It’s like being in a car crash—you know something happened, you recall some parts, but most of it is a blur.

  I told my attorney he had purchased quiet bullets to kill us with. The attorney told me there was no such thing, that there must have been a silencer. There wasn’t, and I knew this for a fact because the Monster used to play Russian roulette with me if I didn’t have the laundry done on time. His schedules and his rules took over my life. Since the Monster’s clothes were not to be washed with the boys’ clothing, I would run late. On those nights, Russian roulette became the norm. Once the weapon clicked and I was still alive, he’d keep playing with his guns, cleaning them and shooting them out the backyard, trying to hit the basketball, as I finished up the wash. I was very familiar with the quietness of the bullets. He told me he purchased them specifically to kill us so that the neighbors would not hear. I had no reason not to believe him, all things considered. I had never known him to make an idle threat. He always followed through.

  When the ballistics came back, my attorney apologized. The bullets had no gunpowder and are illegal to purchase; this is why they made so little noise, and likely why the Monster laughed at me when I shot him. The first shot didn’t even pierce his thick skull. After that first shot, I believe karma, fate, luck, or just a mother’s sheer will to protect, took over.

  * * *

  There is no fate taking over my present situation. American Idol’s psychosis is getting worse, and my sanity is teetering. A hospital run would give us some relief. We need that. Eighteen days ago, I stopped taking my blood pressure pills.

  * * *

  Twenty-eight days the Monster lay dead in our bedroom before I buried him in the backyard. Thirty-two days it took me to clean up our room. When it was all clean, I knocked on the police station’s door and turned myself in. Before that, I forced myself into that room for one hour every night after I put the boys to bed. I puked every time I entered it; the stench was overwhelming. Our last morning together would flash over and over in my mind like a film on repeat. I wasn’t able to sleep, I was short with the boys, I wasn’t able to function except to clean up this mess from the Monster, just as I had been doing for years. Every time we fought, I cleaned the room, cleaned up my body, hid the bruises, fixed the broken doors, fixed the chairs. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.

  Once everything was done in the bedroom—the carpet removed and replaced, the bed thrown out on bulk trash day—I put up wallpaper, bought a peaceful rocking chair for the room, and just sat there. I never cried; I just sat there. I didn’t know what to do. What I did know was, if something had happened to any of my sons, no matter what, I would want closure. I would want to know what happened to my son even if he was a beast. I couldn’t live with the Monster’s parents always wondering what happened to their child. They deserved some peace of mind. I spent one last weekend with my children before knocking on the police station’s door. After that I took a plea, and ended up here at Death Valley.

  * * *

  Lately, Death Valley has been entirely too much for me. The constant noise from American Idol is like bugs crawling in my ears. I wonder if that is how the Monster felt about the boys. All I know is, one way or another, I need to have some peace. Thirty-six pills I crushed up with my lock and stirred them into the chili. One bowl has beans and one does not. The bowl without the beans has the pills. American Idol’s greed may very well be the death of her. Two bowls: one for her, one for me; her choice, my treat. I mix up a glass of Nestea iced tea and offer her some chili. This significant moment is mine.

  ANGEL EYES

  BY ANDRE WHITE

  Ionia Correctional Facility (Ionia, Michigan)

  Fish! Every day they come in younger and younger. Pretty soon they’ll be babies, and I’ll end up having a work detail changing diapers. I’d rather shine shoes than smell shit all day and hear their crying. Oh, they’ll be crying when they get behind the wall, the whole lot of ’em, whining all day—mama can’t help now! They all look the same too, when they first come inside: stretched face, locked lips, eyes out of sockets, looking up and ’round the rotunda, dumbstruck on how big and old it is. Ain’t no pictures on the walls and ceiling. No saints, no angels, just cracks and chipped paint, dirty gray and filthy white, ugly ’nuff to be a sin. God ain’t in here, oh no, only all kinds of religious groups. Some of ’em fishes gone be on their knees serving with their mouth, others gone be carrying a flat piece of steel in the name of a group. Some don’t make it a day and run to Blue Hoe Card. Getting on protection won’t help ’em none—what they’re running from is there too, or can get there the same way.

  Oh, ’em fishes would come in and see a lot of guards at the rotunda—keys jingling and boots stepping hard on the concrete floor, moving in a hurry—having their fish heads spinning and hearts jumping, feeling so safe, and for good reason. It’s a setup for failure though. When they get behind the wall, eager feet to the rescue is the last thing they’ll be hearing and seeing; they’ll be scared, and for a-whole-’nother reason. They’ll see me shining guards’ boots—the white man’s. I know what they be thinking, Jabo Tut’s a house nigger! Before long, a whole lot of ’em wished they was shining shoes instead.

  I was once like the one or two young bucks of a batch that ain’t a cur. Oh, I ’member wings in my stomach flapping ’bout when I done my first stretch, was eighteen years old and ready for whatever.

  I’d seen some wild ones come through that bit hard, like a piranha in a fishbowl. One stood out, I mean this boy gave a helluva first impression. Had the kind of face that drew you in: clean, forever young, an innocence begging you to corrupt, to violate him. Take it for yourself or ruin it for others if you couldn’t have his youth and ’thusiasm, good looks and ’telligent features. Oh no, a look that a certain type of convict—Henas, what I call ’em—took as feminine; they’d scavenger hunt for someone easy to slide up on, spit in their ear, isolate ’em, and later have the fish walking ’round with his finger latched onto his belt buckle. I could tell this kid’s ’pearance was deceptive, had the doo-doo chasers fooled from the get-go. He was medium height and build, barely legal, if not still in high school; probably living with Mama, baked chicken and potatoes fed, baby fat over muscles hungry for the weight pit, a rare treat for the Henas—so they thought. He had a piss-yellow ’plexion, like his mama laid him in her bladder spill for a while. It was his eyes, though, blue as a late Joplin sky, that had the Henas yapping over. It wasn’t normal for his skin and was something exotic, a prize. I could see that this boy had something else other than Massa’s genes behind those baby blues. Oh, it was vicious, nasty in a bad way, just waiting to come out.

  Our eyes were different colors, but we saw the same old raggedy castle, Michigan Reformatory—Gladiator School! In Ionia—“I Own Ya” what it’s called—oh, need Harriet Tubman to get you out of that prison town. All was built on swampland, in the middle of the wilderness. A city boy won’t find his way out these dark woods; endless trees blocking the light, every way winding back to the starting spot, confusing you, and Billys riding around in pickup trucks with double-R sixes and year-
round license to shoot a nigga on sight. Frustrating ’nuff to have you stay behind the wall and take your chances in the concrete jungle.

  Didn’t recognize the building in front of the rotunda was the chow hall when I first got here. It was all bricks and a set of steel double doors. Seagulls lined the chow hall’s ledge, waiting, watching, and swooped down on anything put up in the air, swallowing it whole. They had no fear of people, shitting on convicts at will. I was given a bedroll and simple ’nuff directions. “J block, that way,” the guard said outside the rotunda, pointing at a building ’minding me of the abandoned ones I used to play in at the commercial district when I was a rascal. I had looked straight ahead, not at J block but what was in front of it: all the blue coats and black shoes, like I had on, all either standing or walking or working out or playing basketball inside the gated projects. Oh, it wasn’t like no projects I’d seen before! All of ’em, I mean every single one of ’em, stopped and stared at us come in carrying our bedrolls under our arms. These guys was big—swelled chests, pumped shoulders, muscles busting out their jaws—and was mean mugging us out of habit. Some of ’em stepped to the fence that separated the yard from the walkway, straddling it, and made remarks ’bout us being fish, trying to scare us the way vets do, picking out the weak ones.

  I was forty years old then, far from a fish. Done twelve years already in Missouri State Penitentiary, five years in the fed joint. You couldn’t tell like most half-breeds—smooth skin, good hair, see, look good for seventy-eight, huh? Oh, still’ll give ’em a run for their money. Done the type of crimes that kept me in big ole houses, fancy apartments, with mighty pretty women, a crew of gorillas. Scared, oh no, I was dangerous! My eyes was charcoal, gasoline pumped through my heart, and I had three bodies under my belt. The sort of build that brought strength your way to check what you’re made of.

  I came up out of Missouri earth, hard nuts and no give, the only way my manhood gone get took is cold and loose; they have to kill me first! I couldn’t wait to make an example out of anyone who tried. And I did: just six months in, a flabby nickel-and-dime prison loan shark had overcharged me the going rate. Oh no, I wasn’t paying extras for nothing! Him coming on strong meant or else to me; either blood on his knife or shit on his dick. I ain’t never ran from a fight—brought it to your doorsteps. I didn’t sneak up on him, I walked up with a bone-crusher, stabbed him twice in the neck and once in the heart, putting his dick to the dirt for all to see. And they had; watched all six foot four, 270 pounds of dead meat hit the ground jiggling. I spent five years in the graves, came out the wrong nigga to fuck with.

  Oh, Henas was riding the fence too, always smoking over fresh fish and dropping lugs, hoping one would bite. A whole bunch of lugs was dropped on D.T., the blue-eyed lil’ brotha. Yeah, Henas was already trying to sink their hooks in him. J block connects to I block like a right-angle math symbol, the prison yard slap dead in the middle of them. So was the fence; Henas walked the length of it up to J block’s entrance, doo-doo chasing, howling through the gate, mostly at some white guys, particularly one they called Suzanne Somers, and also Angel Eyes (the name that D.T. became known as, oh, for a-whole-’nother reason).

  Inside, J block looked as industrial as it gets: stripped concrete floors and walls—stained with bleach from half-ass blood-spill cleanups—and rusty iron rails and bars, shit brown, a decay that ate away your sight, eroding your emotions to a numbing oil base, with time drying out hope that’s brushed away like dandruff. Oh, a factory as any I’ve seen. But its finished product came out an assembly line of cells, in state blues and bloodshot eyes. Narrow steps and rails corkscrewed to each floor, five in all, and D.T. was assigned to cell 36 on J-5, the pen-house, better known as Predator’s Row, the same floor I was on, oh, would you believe he wound up my neighbor. The rock, long as a city block, had rows of barred cells, faced a depressing gray wall and dirt-shaded windows, tinting the already bleak forest. We was near the end of it. Guards would only make their rounds when we was locked in our cells or during chow—when everybody was gone—never when the cells was open for mass movement.

  After the rock cleared, the guards could see the slain bodies on the floor. Sometimes during chow they’d make a round and find a body or two dead in their cells: some under their blankets with their wrists and heels slit, bleeding out, others butchered on the floor. Those near death usually was took to health care, got their cornholes sewed. Oh, you’d keep your eyes and mouth closed and keep moving ’cause you’ll know better than to do anything but. You didn’t have to be con-wise to know you was on your own on the rock. Guards gassing the meat wagon wouldn’t come and pick up the man down till it was over. They knew better. The first look down to the other end of the rock made your knees wobble and your johnson yank back: it was far, narrow—a long desolate tunnel to hell. No way out ’cept past a world of trouble, ever present like stink on shit.

  It was quiet when Angel Eyes walked down the rock, passing each grim and grimmer mug popping out every cell. They watched to see if he’d look. Henas had their hawks stuck outside the cell bars, staring at his backside. The kid had done good not to look in anyone’s cell. He walked straight, head up, attitude in his shoulders, ’nuff not to come off too cocky. It would have been took as a front. Had that happened, had he done that, they’d thought he was looking for something, what else ’cept sausage and hard-boiled eggs. Oh, he was already in for rape. No reason was good ’nuff reason for ’em, it’d tickled their fancy, raping the rapist—a white girl! Daddy’s lil’ girl was the daughter of L. Booth Peterson, Oakland County’s top district attorney, I hear one racist son of a bitch. A blind man could see D.T. ain’t did that. He should have known better not to cross 8 Mile, fooling ’round with those devils.

  D.T. had to feel like a giant inside his cell, a birdcage. You can’t even spread your wings without touching the walls. The toilet and sink was elbow to elbow in the back corner, jamming your legs and arms together, feeling like you’re taking a shit in a phone booth next to a coffin for a bed. Rust poured out the sink bowl, and the cell’s floor was scraped and mutilated, like a cat’s work to the side of the couch. D.T. knew better, Heathcliff ain’t sharpened nothing, it was somebody who knew what time it was. The kid had to suspect it wouldn’t just be his freedom he’d be fighting for, but his manhood.

  Morning always cleared the dark cloud for a minute. What a sight to see: fishes shooting out their cells before the door closed back for breakfast, like cowboys, tossing their coats and shoes out the cell and hopping in the stagecoach. They’d come out pulling up their pants, tripping over shoes, shit face, crusty eyes, and hot mouth; turning the breakfast table’s ’mused faces salty and mean, mugging ’em fishes for a-whole-nother reason—John Wayn’en. It’s what they called it, a really bad look on a fish. ’Least a vet done ’nuff time not to give a Jim Crow anymore ’bout hygiene. Henas would be up before the rooster, watching ’em hard. Maybe it’s the idea of catching a fish with his draws down that have ’em willy-nilly; maybe not? Same difference to Henas, they have the ups on their prey, it’s all that matter to ’em.

  Opportunity comes when the cell doors break open. Most Henas on our rock talk a fish out his draws, all ’cept Gorilla Black. Oh no, he liked taking it . . . forced entry, ’specially to punks acting like they’re tough. He got off on proving they ain’t thoroughbreds but sissy boys. Gorilla Black was a bona fide predator, all head and shoulders, black as motor oil, ugly ’nuff to deserve the name Tracey to soften his ’timidating ’pearance, a stocky fella, built like a Sherman tank. He was nasty as a rattler and hung like a palomino. He’d put a hurt’en on a seasoned whore, D.T. hadn’t a hope or prayer and was in a world of trouble. Gorilla Black laid on D.T., telling other Henas the boy was off limits, that Angel Eyes was his! Those Henas knew better than to step on Gorilla Black’s toes. I didn’t know better, I ain’t no Hena—Gorilla Black knew better than to cross me, a big-game hunter! I’ll cut him into lil’ pieces and feed him to the gulls. D.T. was a shar
p one though. He would leave his cell for breakfast already dressed, groomed, on his Ps and Qs. When he didn’t go to breakfast, he was up, made bunk, reading a book: business, law, oh, had a good lawyer and strong appeal in court. Him and the girl had been fooling around; there was no evidence of rape. The girl’s best friend sided with D.T. Oh, you’d never catch him sleeping when the cell doors broke open. He ’minded me of myself. Almost—he hadn’t been tested yet, but it was coming.

  One day I had went to the counselor’s office, Ms. Bitchard—actually, Prichard; the other name was what they called her. I went to her office so she could straighten out ’em taking me off the special diet line—they know I’m a diabetic and can’t eat that other shit! They rather see Jabo Tut dead than spend another dime sending me out to the world hospital. I’ll check out when I’m ready—I’m gone write the final chapter! And it ain’t gone be nothing nice. D.T. was already in her office when I got there. I waited right outside the door and heard ’em loud and clear as a church bell. Said things ’bout him enrolling back in college. Didn’t recognize her voice though; she was all sweet on him like nobody else. You’d ’spect a house to fall on top of her mean ass, evil as she was. But not to him: she was giggly, gibberish, asking personal questions, oh, twirling her fancy gold ink pen. She never unlocked the armor gate and let prisoners inside her office. All business was handled through the bars since she was back there alone. Oh, they had something going on ’tween ’em; he was in her system, probably didn’t even know it. His mother was sick, the cancer had got hold of her, he was hurt in the worst way over it. I took a peek and saw her eyes, green as a leaf, wide as all outside, taking him in: his pain, frustration, helplessness, ’flecting off her plump cheeks ripe with sympathy, lips that was usually thin and pink had swelled to Kansas strawberries. Her orange hair, pear-shaped as could be, had never looked so good, ’specially the way she stared at him, into those eyes of his.