by Jack Finney
"Yes, sir," said the man. "You won't have to phone my relatives."
"Why not," says Allingham.
"I haven't got any," the man said, and smiled a little. He lost his job and got twenty-nine days, the maximum.
They had a little fat guy in; the block bulls had found a complete dismantled phonograph in his cell, in a surprise shakedown. They had a couple of homosexuals in, a guy who'd torn a corset ad from a prison-library magazine, a man who'd shouted at a woman visitor to the prison on one of the tours they're always running through the place. They had a fight case; a man had broken another inmate's arm with an axe he stole from the supply room. They had a guy in who'd been found with a homemade knife in his sock in a shakedown at the industrial-area gate, a guy who'd scratched his name on the painted wall of his cell, and so on; I got tired of listening, and just stood leaning on the rail of The Porch looking out at the Garden. It's a beautiful garden, all right, maybe a quarter-acre of plants, shrubs, and crisscrossing paths in the northeast corner of the prison; probably the best-tended garden in the world. Across the garden, on the second tier of the old Spanish cell block, one of the old men who live there was leaning on the rail smoking a pipe.
They called me, finally, one of the last to go in; there were only six or eight guys left on The Porch — all from my block I noticed, though I didn't know any of them personally. "Jarvis," said the Captain, still looking down at the papers on his desk, "we got some news for you; you and a dozen other guys from your block. It's about the officer who was hit on the head up on your tier Thursday" — he sat back in his chair suddenly, watching my face.
"Yes, sir," I nodded.
It didn't kill him, didn't fracture his skull, though it might have. Only gave him a concussion, and a few stitches. Knocked cold, is all: he's all right now." He sat there looking up at me, and I didn't say anything. I knew the guard was all right; this was old news, and it wasn't why I was here, and I knew it. "Just thought you'd like to have the official word he's okay," the Captain said. "You were up on that tier at the time."
"Yes. sir. I'm glad he's all right."
"Then I got more good news for you." The Captain picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk, then sat looking at me. "Didn't look as though we would find out who did it. Most of the men were out of the block at the time. But there were a couple dozen loafing around there, including you. Could have been any of you hit the guard up on the tier; we don't know who. And I thought maybe we never would find out; nobody'd say he saw it. But things are looking up now. Here." He held out the papers in his hand, and I took them.
There were three papers stapled together, the top one an envelope stamped air mail, special delivery, addressed in pencil to The Warden, San Quentin Prison, California. It was canceled, Green River, Wyoming, Saturday. Under the envelope lay a small piece of rough-textured, blue-lined paper covered with penciled handwriting, with a green-ink time-received stamp on it, 9:31 A.M. yesterday, Sunday. I glanced up at the Captain.
"Go ahead," he said, "read it."
I read it. It was short, and to the point, and was signed, Yrs, Ralph Hafek. It said he'd been lying on his bunk up on the third tier, east block, Thursday, when the guard was hit. It said he'd seen the man who did it, and could identify him. He'd said nothing at the time because he was due out on parole Friday morning, and was afraid he'd he held on as a witness if he admitted seeing the assault. Then, home in Wyoming, he'd told his parole officer, who had advised him to testify. He didn't know the man by name, but could pick him out if he saw him. If they, the prison, would pay his round-trip fare — he had no money himself — he'd come up and point out the man.
I looked at the third sheet; a white flimsy carbon copy of a letter. It had been written yesterday, addressed to the Department of Corrections, and signed by the Warden. It quoted the letter I'd just read, and requested that the state authorize and issue a check in payment of the man's railroad fare, and ended by emphasizing the importance of finding the man who struck the guard.
I looked up at the Captain. "Yes, sir?" I laid the papers on his desk.
He grinned suddenly. "This Hafek's on parole. If he picks out our man it can help him a lot, and he knows it. But the stroke of a pen can send him back here to finish out his term, and he knows that, too. So he's not fooling around; he'll pick out our man. We had a phone call from Sacramento; payment's authorized, and the check will be in the mail tomorrow. We'll air mail it soon as it gets here, and we've already phoned Hafek's parole officer; Hafek will leave after work Friday, and will be here Saturday morning. Glad, Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir."
"How come?" He leaned forward, staring up at me intently. "You didn't like that guard; you had trouble with him."
I shrugged. "We each had our beefs. Doesn't mean I hit him, though, if that's what you mean."
"And yet you look worried." His voice was very soft and quiet. "You're pale, Jarvis, really quite pale — did you know that? You look worried; and maybe you should be. Because you know what the punishment is, don't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Let me remind you, just the same. So you'll know how lucky you are — if you didn't hit that guard." He picked up a little brown loose-leaf book from his desk, and opened it. "You know about Section 4500 of the California Penal Code, Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir; you don't have to read it."
"Don't like the sound of it, that it, Jarvis? Okay." He tossed the little book to his desk. See you Saturday morning, when Hafek arrives. Unless you got something you want to tell me right now?"
"No, sir."
"Then that's all; we got no charge sheet on you today. For a change. Just thought you and the other guys in the block when the guard was hit ought to hear the news. Where are you assigned?"
"Furniture factory."
"Then get back to it," he said bleakly, and I turned, and walked out.
I was shriveled up inside; I could hardly see, walking back to the furniture factory; I thought I might actually faint, and I didn't know what I was doing when I got there. I had to escape from San Quentin prison in the next four days — had to — and I didn't know how. But the thought of Ben and Ruth, outside, getting ready to help, kept me going.
At noon I hurried to the Yard as close to running as we're allowed. Inside, near the gates, I waited till I spotted my cellmate, a tall, thin, white-haired guy neither old nor young; it'd be hard to guess his age. I walked up to him, and said, "Al, skip lunch, I've got to talk to you." An inmate at Quentin doesn't have to show up for a meal if he doesn't want it. Al took a look at my face and nodded, his mouth quirking; he didn't like missing a meal, but he knew I was serious. We found a spot in the sun, and sat down on the asphalt paving in the big Yard enclosed by the four main cell blocks, our backs against the peach-colored east-block wall. "Al," I said, "what do you know about escape?"
"Nothin'."
I nodded, and said, "I know. But you must have seen a fair number of escapes; been around at the time, I mean." I pulled out cigarettes, gave one to Al, took one myself, and lighted it.
"Oh, yeah," Al said. "I seen guys try to make it out of here. Nailed up in boxes, lyin' on top of a truck motor, swimmin' out to a barge on the Bay, hidin' under a load of scrap iron, the time they was haulin' it out of here after the jute mill burned. Once a guy tried it wearin' a priest's outfit he stole. You just wait, and maybe, in time, you see some kind of chance, and take it. And with luck you might make it."
"What if you can't wait?"
He looked at me; he had a pretty good idea of what I was talking about. "Arnie, I don't know," he said. "I've thought about it, and so has every con here, and every screw, too, for that matter, and I just don't know how. Once in a while it's done. A con got out last year, 1954. One day he was just gone, missing at count, and that's all anybody knows to this day. But get it through your head it's just short of impossible. Some of these kids" — he shook his head — "the tough hot kids. You can saw out a bar in the front of your cell, you know, any time you want.
Get some emery paper from the machine shops, or valve-grinding compound from auto repair. Then unravel a sock; get a supply of thread. Smear vaseline or toothpaste or soap on a thread, scrape the emery off the paper, and run the thread through it. Then saw through the bar with the threads. It's easy; you can do it in less than a night. Everybody knows it, cons and screws both; cost a mint to equip San Quentin with chilled-steel bars. But so what? These tough hot kids — just fish, most of them, been here a few months — and they cut out of their cells every now and then; and then where are they? They just get the bulls edgy; the bulls go to hunt them out, and how do they know what the kids are carrying? Damn fool kids can get killed, and some do. They find them half an hour after the short count — hiding out in the block, or the Yard, or somewhere else. You want to get out, Arnie. Out means the other side of the wall."
"But how? Damn it, how!" I drew hard on my cigarette, sitting there against the wall, then threw it down and crushed it out under my shoe.
"Well," he said gently, "figure what you're up against. This place is a hundred years old. They got you in a place where men been working and thinking over a hundred years how to keep you in it. Long before you was ever born, there been guys, and damn smart ones, figuring how to keep you right where you are. Ways there used to be to get out, they been corrected, like the guy swam out to a barge I was tellin' you about. And they got it worked out awful damn tight — so tight, Arnie, I don't know how to beat it. Just a wall's all that's between you and outside. But you can't go over it; there's men on top with guns who won't let you. And inside, there's a place you got to be nearly every minute right around the clock from your first day to your last, and they got it worked out to see that you are; I don't need to tell you. You're missing, they know it and hunt you right down. It ain't like the movies, Arnie. Oh, hell" — he shrugged — "I ain't talking about walkin' off the farm, or out of the camps. I mean from in here, where they really aim to keep you." He put a hand on my arm to shut me up before I spoke.
"So here's what I mean, Arnie. You know what you got to do to beat that? I thought of it a long time, and what you got to do, you got to do what ain't possible. Short of crazy blind luck, all the ways you think maybe you see, just looking around, they ain't ways at all. They got you stopped long ago; they got them all figured long before you did. What you got to do — the only thing you can do, Arnie — is figure how to do the impossible; that's the only thing they ain't guarded against." He leaned closer. "What I mean, there's walls all around you. But there's nothin' across the top outside" — he gestured with his chin at the blue California sky high over our heads above the towering cell block roofs. "They got nothin' between you and blue sky, Arnie, because it's impossible for a man to fly, ain't it? Impossible to go straight up. So they don't guard against it. What you got to do's figure out how to fly, how to go straight up. Or like this; there's guards on the wall. Try throwin' up a rope, and they see you. But if you was invisible, Arnie, they couldn't. But that's impossible; so they ain't guarded against it. You got to figure how to be invisible. Or anything else that just can't be. How do you walk through a wall? How can you be in two places, maybe, at the very same time? How do you disappear right under their eyes? How do you hide, maybe, where there just ain't a place a man can hide in? I ain't talkin' foolish, Arnie. They found out what was possible long before you ever heard of San Quentin. You're in a hurry, Arnie, you got to figure out how to do the impossible."
We were silent for a long time just sitting in the sun, staring out at the Yard. Then Al said softly, "Once in a long while, Arnie, some guys — a guy who knows what I been tryin' to tell you — he makes it. And they never hear of him again. Whether you're that guy, I don't know. I ain't; I don't know how to do what ain't possible. So I just serve out my time."
"You've done a lot, haven't you, Al?"
"Three terms. Fourteen out of the last sixteen years. And a lot to go."
"And you just serve it out."
"That's right."
"How? How in hell do you do it! How do you do a long time, year after damn year!"
"A day at a time," he said. "And I sleep a lot." Guys were coming out into the Yard from the mess halls now, and Al got to his feet. "Good luck," he said quietly, then walked away.
In the factory, I claimed to have stomach cramps, got a pass back to the block, and lay down on my bunk there. Ben would visit me tomorrow. I had the afternoon, the evening, and the night to figure out how to do the impossible.
Ruth's packed bags were on the floor by the front door when I got back from the prison Tuesday. She was sitting in the big living-room easy chair smoking, waiting for me to drive her home to her San Francisco apartment, and to hear how Arnie had taken our decision. She'd been smoking a lot; the ashtray beside her was half full. I didn't say anything right away; closing the front door behind me, I just looked at her, then walked over to the davenport, and sat down across the room from her.
"Well?" she said angrily, impatiently. I knew how she was feeling.
I nodded. "I saw him. And told him."
She wanted to put off hearing about it, then. "Maybe you could tell me about it driving over," she said, and started to stand.
"I think you better hear this before you leave," I said, and she stared at my face for a moment, then sat back in her chair. "I told you escaping was a sudden idea of Arnie's," I said. "And it is. This last Thursday he struck a guard from behind, up on a tier of his cell block, with a glass insulator he'd stolen. He didn't think anyone was around to see him; the block was nearly empty at the time."
"Struck a guard?" She was frowning. "Ben, why?"
I shook my head wearily. "I don't know, Ruth. He tried to tell me. He said the guard was a punk; a wise young punk, he said, who liked to give orders, and that he gave one too many." I shook my head again. "He says you get charged up in prison; he says he's known men to rip washbasins off walls with their hands, for no reason they could tell anyone, but that he knew why. Men clog up the plumbing and flood their cells, they tear up mattresses, or anything they can lay their hands on. Others fight, and Arnie hit a guard." I shrugged. "They don't know who did it; there were a couple dozen men in the block, and any of them might have done it. But an inmate saw it. He was due out on parole in the morning, and kept his mouth shut till he was out, but now they're bringing him to the prison; he'll arrive Saturday morning —this Saturday, Ruth — to point out the man who struck that guard."
She was nodding slowly. "But— is the guard all right?"
"Sure. He was knocked out. They had to take a couple of stitches, but he's all right now."
"And Arnie wants to escape to avoid punishment?"
"Yeah."
"Well, what's the punishment?"
I could feel my face go pale. "Ruth, they'll execute him."
She didn't understand. "Execute him? How do you mean?"
"I mean in the gas chamber, damn it!" I shouted it, getting to my feet, glaring down at her. "They'll try him for assault, find him guilty, and condemn him to death! Send him to Condemned Row, and execute him — that's what I mean!"
She was shaking her head. "No, Ben. They couldn't. Not for striking a man who wasn't even hurt."
"They can! They will!" Then I stopped shouting. "Listen, Ruth," I said softly and urgently, "it was hard for me to believe and accept it, too. It's still hard to believe." I shook my head. "But it's true; it's the law in the great state of California. And it's enforced! Section 4500 of the Penal Code. Arnie quoted it to me; he knows it word for word. Listen! 'Every person undergoing a life sentence in a State prison of this State, who, with malice aforethought, commits an assault upon the person of another with a deadly weapon or instrument, or by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, is punishable with death.' "
"But Arnie hasn't a life sentence!"
"Five to life is his sentence. He wouldn't even serve the five years, of course; it doesn't really mean life imprisonment. But that's how the sentence reads. Ruth, he's technica
lly a lifer."
She was staring at me across the room. "And they'd execute him? For striking a guard?"
I nodded. "They would. They do. There are two men on Condemned Row in San Quentin now, for just that reason. Ruth! Arnie's got to escape! And before this next Saturday morning!"
After a moment she said, "And you're going to help him?"
I shrugged angrily, and got up, and began pacing the room. "What else?"
"Ben, how?" she said.
I sat down and told her. I explained in detail what Arnie had worked out the night before, lying on his bunk till daylight, and when finally I finished, Ruth was shaking her head.
"No," she whispered. "No, Ben" — she was still shaking her head — "you don't have to do that; not even for Arnie. And no matter what it means. Ben, nobody has to do that." She sat silent for several long moments. Then she nodded at her bags by the door. "All right," she said."Then I'll have to help ; you can't do it alone."
"No," I said, "I can't do it alone. Ruth, I hate to ask you, but …"
"But we can't let Arnie die. All right, Ben." She stood up. "We've got a lot to get done by two o'clock in the morning."
By noon we had everything we needed listed, checked, and rechecked to make absolutely certain we'd included every last item; then Ruth made us some lunch with some supplies we'd laid in the day before.
At just after one o'clock we walked out of a parking lot near Mission Street in San Francisco, heading for Market Street. On Market we separated; we'd divided the list, and were to meet at the car at two-thirty. We were to shop only in the biggest, busiest store we could find.
At three-fifteen we were home in the attached garage, the big garage door closed, unloading our packages. Ruth had bought jeans and a work shirt with snap fasteners at the big J. C. Penney's on Market. She had bought half a dozen pints of cream, and three one-pound tins of coffee at the Emporium, and another half dozen pints of cream and four one-pound tins of coffee at the Crystal Palace. In a big supermarket she had bought sandwich meat, cheese, bread, fruit, and cookies, and eight more pints of cream. She had withdrawn money from her bank, and she'd bought four big packages of absorbent cotton at a drugstore. I had bought a square of dark green canvas, half of a pup tent, at an Army surplus store, and a trenching tool. At a hardware store I had bought a two-foot length of pipe, a square of fine screening, a small can of brown enamel, a cheap paint brush, and eight rolls of black friction tape. At a second hardware store I had bought a dozen large bolts and nuts, a good flashlight, two spare bulbs, half a dozen spare dry cells, a large coil of copper wire, and a hundred-foot coil of new quarter-inch rope. On the way home, I had stopped at a lumber yard in the Sunset district, and had bought half a sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood, which I had put into the car trunk. While I was doing that, Ruth walked across to a supermarket and bought half a dozen more pints of cream.