by Grace Mead
“Who you calling ignorant?” Reggie was massive, with a square jaw and thick brow, and—in that moment—that he was a septuagenarian didn’t make him seem less a threat. Matt started to worry about Luther’s safety and thought about calling the guards.
“I saved your ass more than once in here and you know it,” Reggie said. “You could at least be polite. I figured out how to survive in here, so I ain’t too dumb.”
“Sorry,” Luther said. “I get frustrated because I know you’re smart and I just don’t want anyone to think less of you when they hear you talk. Let’s try it again and don’t worry about the difference between the short i and e.”
Matt thought the teaching method unorthodox and sensed a long-shared history between the two. He shook his head and decided that he certainly didn’t need to call the guards. But he might need to find an emergency substitute teacher.
On a Sunday afternoon, a guard summoned Matt from the barracks, informing him that he had a visitor. As a new inmate, Matt was only eligible to meet them in the more restricted spaces and that was a rule Parnell hadn’t bothered to relax.
The officer led Matt to one of the main buildings and into a cavernous room with whitewashed walls, flimsy orange plastic chairs and the sour body odor of a crowd of inmates meeting with family. Matt was surprised to see Eric sitting at a table in the right rear corner.
Despite his shame at his surroundings, a smile cracked Matt’s usually glum expression. “Long time no see,” Matt said.
“Well, I wasn’t sure whether or not I should come.” Eric’s voice was almost drowned out by the other visitors clamoring to be heard over one another.
Matt leaned forward so he could hear every word. “What made you decide to visit?” he asked.
“I was worried about you and I just wanted to come see you. I spoke to your mom and she said you’d appreciate the company,” Eric said.
“Well, I’m glad you decided to come,” Matt said.
“Your mother is just worried to death about you, to quote her.”
“Yeah, well, she’s died of worry many times before, but a bit of worry now seems appropriate.”
Eric’s face paled. “I hope I’m not making things worse by visiting. I could imagine as hard as it is to be what you are anywhere, it’d be particularly tough in here.”
“Yeah,” Matt said. “I’m doing some legal work in exchange for protection right now.”
“What happens if you disappoint your client?” Eric asked, frowning.
“I’m trying not to think about that. Waiting in the principal’s office and all. I’m just trying to enjoy the security for now. I read and write more than I speak to others, which isn’t that much different from life on the outside.”
“Where do they have you working?” Eric asked.
“My client arranged for me to work in the library. I always kind of had an urge to be a librarian, and the books are very comforting. But enough about me. What’s going on with you?”
“Didn’t you hear about what happened this weekend?” Eric asked. “Don’t they let you watch college football in here?”
“No,” Matt said. “No court has yet ruled the constitutional bar against cruel and unusual punishment requires broadcasting college football games.”
“It’s been a crazy weekend and I was up late last night. Surely you at least know LSU’s lost two games since the Florida game.”
“Yeah.”
“They were ranked seventh in the country going in this weekend and they beat Tennessee in the SEC championship. Late last night, West Virginia and Missouri, which were ranked third and fourth, lost. So now it’s between Oklahoma, Georgia and LSU to play Ohio State for the national championship. Most people seem to think LSU’s going to be the first two-loss team to play for the national championship. They’re announcing who will play in the championship game tonight.”
“Wow. My mother must be ecstatic,” Matt said. His pride and happiness at LSU’s victory was made bittersweet by the fact that, if they played for the national championship for only the second time in over fifty years, he wouldn’t be able to watch.
“The best part is that the national championship game will be in New Orleans this year.”
“That’s amazing. Any chance you’ll get to go?”
“I don’t know. Let’s not jinx it by talking about it. They still have to be selected tonight.”
“Okay. Switching gears. Any talk in the legal community about my conviction?” Matt asked, fearing the answer.
“Of course people gossiped at first, but it’s starting to die down. The biggest topic of debate is whether Judge Masterson was right to allow the prosecution to strike that juror. All the lawyers recognize he didn’t have a choice under existing precedent in Louisiana, but there’s at least a debate whether that precedent is correct. So some good has come out of this.”
“Joey Buckner’s still alive, too. That’s another good thing that came of this,” Matt said.
“I don’t know how you can say that,” Eric responded. He gripped the arms of his plastic chair. “You had the same choice, saving your ass or saving his, and you chose to save his. And then he pays you back by testifying against you.”
“I’d like to say I cling to saving Buckner’s life because I’m forgiving, but I think I probably cling to it because it’s one of the few ways for me to find meaning in this whole mess.” Matt looked out into space, careful not to make eye contact with any of the other inmates.
“Oh,” Eric said. “I brought you a couple of books. The guards already searched them, so I think I can just hand them to you. I know you’re working in the library, but I thought you might still like some books of your own.”
“Albert Camus’s The Plague?” Matt asked. “Are things really so bad that reducing life to a nihilistic struggle is the best I can do?”
“Your mother said it was one of your favorite books. I didn’t think—”
“Calm down,” Matt said. “I’m just joking. At least you didn’t bring The Stranger. I hope I’m slightly more sympathetic than the murderer there.”
“You’re no murderer. But you are far more sympathetic,” Eric said. “So I thought of a good story for you on the drive here. Did I ever tell you about my college roommate and the couch?”
“No. Please do.”
“We had a set of really cheap couches we’d bought in our sophomore year and stored for the summer. When we moved into a new apartment, the full-sized couch wouldn’t fit up the narrow stairs to the second floor of the duplex. We knew we couldn’t throw it out easily because it was so large, so my roommate suggested we just tell the people running the storage place that the couch had been in the unit when we rented it. I told him I couldn’t do it with a straight face. So my roommate went into the storage facility’s office and told them we’d moved out of the unit but that ‘By the way, the couch is still in there.’ When they asked my roommate what he could possibly mean, he said the couch had been in the unit when we rented it and it was still there. When they got aggressive and said they never would have rented a unit with a couch in it, he escalated and told them that it wasn’t like he was asking for the discount from the rent for the storage unit that he was entitled to. That cut off any further discussion…”
Matt and Eric continued in that vein, sharing stories about life before they knew each other as if they were meeting in a New Orleans restaurant rather than in the highly restricted visiting area of a state penitentiary. The conversation allowed Matt to briefly escape his immediate environment.
After an hour or so, Eric left and Matt was faced with reality again. So, when he returned to Building 2, he plunged into The Plague. In the opening paragraph, Camus described the town featured in the novel as “ugly,” but Matt suspected it probably wasn’t nearly as ugly as Wheaton.
Matt’s first Christmas in prison was as depressing as he’d expected. The warden at least announced that—as his gift to the inmates—in a couple of weeks they would be given the op
portunity to watch the live television broadcast of LSU playing in the national championship game. So the topic that had dominated conversations throughout Louisiana spread to the inside. The men all looked forward to the game despite the fact that a recent LSU star, now in the NFL, had worked as a prison guard before college.
*
On January 7, the Wheaton cafeteria was filled beyond capacity with men seated in the aisles and standing along walls. They chattered, coughed, grunted and laughed quietly while listening to the announcers and waiting for the game to begin.
Ted turned down the volume on the television set, strode to the front of the room, and started tapping his baton against his left palm. “The warden was very generous to allow you to watch this game as a present, but he and Lieutenant Dietrich have left me in charge. If I hear any noise or any commotion other than just clappin’, I’ll break this up.”
The warden and Lieutenant Dietrich had pulled rank to avoid nighttime duty, but a score of other guards were there. They were nervous about so many prisoners gathering, and Ted could use the slightest hint of trouble as an excuse to disperse them all.
Matt had been lucky enough to secure a seat in the second row so he could see the screen clearly. The Ohio State Buckeyes scored ten unanswered points in the first six minutes of the game and it sucked any ambient noise out of the cafeteria.
LSU responded by giving the ball to Jacob Hester, who ran head-on into the teeth of the Ohio State defense five separate times. On four of his five carries, he gained less than four yards, but he finally battered his way into field goal range. The kick was good, LSU was on the scoreboard and Matt felt his stomach relax.
The defense limited Ohio State to fourteen yards on the next series and LSU had the ball again. This time Hester only lowered his head and pounded away twice before his steady determination bolstered the confidence of the rest of the team. Less than a minute later, LSU’s quarterback rifled a thirteen-yard pass to a tight end for a touchdown and the tie.
Matt started to rise from his seat and had to reverse direction halfway up and clamp his mouth shut to cut short his shout. Looking around, he saw various men contorted in unnatural positions to avoid making noise. But they largely succeeded in remaining silent.
Ohio State’s offense made it easier for the men to keep quiet by marching fifty-five yards down the field in less than two minutes. The Tiger defense dug in and stopped them at the LSU twenty-one-yard line and the Buckeyes’ kicker went onto the field. The center snapped the ball, the kicker whipped his right leg up until his foot was level with the top of his helmet, and the ball launched into the air. At the same instant, a 300-pound defensive lineman crashed through and got a hand on the ball—he’d blocked the kick. Matt bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood to stay quiet.
A single black inmate on the front row let out a yelp. Parnell locked eyes with a white man in the second row who had shoulder-length blond hair and pointed. The man responded by flicking the black man’s ear and he went silent so the inmates could watch the rest of the game. The remaining prisoners—black and white—celebrated the blocked field goal that ultimately won LSU the national championship with a subdued golf clap.
Chapter 21
A few weeks later, Matt returned to Building 2 from the library to find Tyrone missing; at first he thought he might just be late returning from work, but after a half-hour, he began to worry. When he asked around Building 2 before dinner, another prisoner whispered that Tyrone had somehow run afoul of Parnell, who’d had him beaten out in the fields. Fear clenched Matt’s gut throughout the meal as he weighed his options, but he knew he had to approach Parnell.
After returning to Building 2, Matt asked Parnell if he could have a word with him, at his convenience.
Shortly before the lights were scheduled to go out, Parnell gestured for Matt to accompany him to the bathroom. When they were alone, Matt asked: “Do you know where Tyrone is? He didn’t return from work and I’m worried about him.”
“That asshole was tryin’ to sell white lightnin’.” Parnell said, crossing his arms beneath his bulky chest and over a rotund stomach.
White lightning was the homemade alcohol inmates brewed through a process and from ingredients that Matt didn’t want to know, in part because he couldn’t forget the one detail he’d learned—fermenting it somehow involved a toilet. “He damned well knows he can’t do that under my nose. He got beat up pretty bad. He gonna be in the infirmary for a good long while now.”
“As long as he stops, is he going to be safe?” Matt asked, careful to mimic Parnell and use the passive voice.
“Why? You got somethin’ to do with his operation?” Parnell asked.
“No,” Matt responded. “But Tyrone was my cellmate and he introduced me to you. I just want to make sure he’s going to be okay.”
Parnell leaned in toward Matt, inches from his face. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think you had the balls to do somethin’ like that,” Parnell said, his breath sour. “And I ain’t sure whether Tyrone’s gonna be safe. I ain’t decided if I’m through with him.” Parnell’s breath was sour.
Matt found it difficult to believe selling white lightning warranted more than a beating, even in Parnell’s mind. He wondered whether Parnell was trying to manipulate him by exaggerating the threat and likelihood of violence. Wheaton wasn’t Angola in the early seventies, after all, and even Parnell had to pay some attention to the risk of detection and punishment: manipulation might be a smarter first step, even for him.
“Is there a way I can help you change your mind, assuming that Tyrone stops selling white lightning?” Matt asked.
“You still haven’t figured this shit out, have you?” Parnell asked with genuine wonder. “This is fucking prison, man, not some argument about who college students are gonna pick as their student body president. You don’t owe Tyrone shit. I know you paid him good money to meet me, and he ain’t done nothin’ else for you.”
“I just want to know if there’s some way I can help you change your mind,” Matt said.
“There’s one thing you could do.” Parnell leaned back, creating some physical distance. “Some of my boys jumped one of the White Brotherhood and beat him up pretty bad. Bill agreed that it would end there, if’n he got a favor from me. You know what favor Bill wants?”
“No,” Matt said. His heart sank at the possibility Bill might want a turn with the prison’s most educated and outed gay man.
“He wants help with some damned fool lawsuit.”
“What kind of lawsuit?”
“One of his guys wants to sue to try to get the cameras outta the main showers.” Parnell pointed toward the dead camera in the corner ceiling of their bathroom. “Some argument ’bout how it violates the right to privacy.”
“That’s a loser,” Matt said. “Federal courts have rejected the argument that prisoners’ privacy rights outweigh the security interest in having cameras in the showers.”
“So what? I ain’t askin’ you to win this one. Just put in some effort and make sure his papers get typed up nice. You can talk to Bill and tell him the lawsuit is shitty if you want.”
“How bad was Tyrone beaten up?”
“Pretty bad.” Parnell shook his head. “He should be in the infirmary for another coupla nights.”
“Can I have until tomorrow night to think about this?”
“Yeah, I’m feelin’ generous. But remember, you do this for me and Tyrone starts selling shit again under my nose, he’s dead anyway.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that along.”
Matt turned to the trough and relieved himself. There was a time when the thought of peeing in front of Parnell would have made him bladder shy, but such useless fears and anxieties had already fallen away.
*
While working in the library the next morning, Luther noticed Matt was working even more quietly and with greater preoccupation than usual. Luther approached Matt at the cart that held the books he was shelving.
&nbs
p; “Something wrong?” Luther asked.
Matt briefly explained.
“You’ve figured out Tyrone wasn’t selling white lightning, right?” Luther asked Matt, cocking his head to the side.
“I suspected that.”
“Tyrone’s knows better. And if he’d wanted to make a play to be a leader or a dealer, he would have done it years ago.”
“So why did Parnell have Tyrone beaten badly enough to put him in the infirmary?”
“Why do you think?”
“He’s manipulating me.”
“That’s right. He’s testing to see if he can get at you through Tyrone.” Luther looked evenly at Matt.
“So does that mean that he won’t really kill Tyrone if I don’t take over this case for Bill?”
“No. Just like he had Tyrone beaten to show you he could hurt you, he could have Tyrone killed to show you he could kill someone you really do care about.” Matt’s stomach sank as he realized the threat behind Parnell’s manipulation was very real.
“So what do I do?”
“Depends. If you’re just looking out for yourself, which is hard enough in here, you probably tell Parnell you aren’t going to handle the lawsuit for Bill.”
“Why?”
“If Parnell can get at you by hurting Tyrone, you’re going to have a much harder time if things go bad. Are you going to protect both Tyrone and yourself if things go south? You and I both know you can’t do that.”
“But if I don’t protect Tyrone, aren’t I going to be even more isolated?” Matt asked. “Why would any other prisoner ever become friends with me if it just made them more vulnerable? I can’t protect myself, but I can at least avoid alienating too many people.”
“Avoid alienating too many people?” Luther said, relaxing the formality of his usual diction. “You have any idea how much you already pissed everyone off? Some folk hate you ’cause you were rich on the outside; some folk hate you for bein’ white; some folk hate you ’cause you’re really gay and they want to prove they ain’t gay; the White Brotherhood hates you for going to Parnell and being gay; and some other folk hate you for lining up a cushy job in the liberry without getting beaten up even once. You didn’t have no control over some of those things when you walked into this prison, but ever since you got here you’ve only given folks more reasons to hate you.” Luther shook his head.