Still with nothing to do, Ron crossed the plaza to the chapel, stopping to watch the long-tailed goldfish in the pond for a minute. The Catholic chaplain had a library in his outer office, administered by an inmate clerk. Though overwhelmingly stocked with simplistic religious tracts, it also had some philosophical works and biographies. In an Esquire article Ron had seen reference to the works of Teilhard de Chardin. He found one by the existential theologian and sat reading until lunch beside the fishpond.
When Ron came through the gate he saw Earl, T.J., and a man he didn’t know in the rear of the long lunch line. He was uncertain about approaching until T.J. gave a wide beckoning wave. Earl’s gray stubble was longer than yesterday, and now it was on his head, too. “Get that squared away?” he asked.
Ron nodded. Earl ignored him and continued listening to a story the newcomer told, a man named Willy who had just arrived from Folsom. He was describing the murder of someone named Sheik Thompson, and the story obviously satisfied Earl. The killers had caught him stepping through a doorway and broke his leg with a baseball bat. While he was down they’d stabbed him to death. “Right in the recreation shack. The coach was there—inside—and he couldn’t get past them to get out. He damn near shit his britches. He couldn’t even blow his whistle. When it was over, he ran out screaming like some sissy.”
“He is a sissy,” Earl said. “But it’s hard to believe they finally killed that animal Sheik. There’s been a dozen tries that I know of. He was a tough motherfucker.”
“Yeah … yeah,” the storyteller said, excitedly remembering something. “When the bulls brought Slim and Buford across the yard everybody … everybody gave them a standing ovation. Fuckin’ unbelievable. Even the guards were grinning, and he was a snitching motherfucker, too.”
Suddenly the lunch line lurched forward, uncoiling the knots of talking men. The conversation ended. Ron was in front of Earl and behind T.J.
After lunch the yard was full until the afternoon work whistle. Ron found himself among nearly a score of convicts, a gathering of most of the Brotherhood. The image of a lounging pride of lions flashed to his mind. Most were in a half-circle around the man from Folsom, Willy, who had eaten with them. He told other stories about what was happening in Folsom, answered questions about how members of the Brotherhood and others were getting along. He was introduced and shook hands with those he didn’t know. Earl and T.J. were outside the circle in close conversation with a splenetic small man called Bird, who seemed upset. From their poses and manner, Ron gathered they were soothing him. He felt out of place and wondered if anyone was silently questioning his presence. Then he relaxed somewhat as Baby Boy came up and slapped him on the back before listening to the new arrival.
A few minutes later, Earl touched him on the shoulder. “Let’s go play some handball.”
“I can’t even hit that thing. I’d be embarrassed.”
“Fuck all that snivelin’. I play terrible myself. I’ll get you some gloves.”
Ron went along without enthusiasm, waiting outside the North cellhouse while Earl went in for gloves. “Here,” Earl said when he returned, handing over a stiff pair of gloves, “they’ll soften when you sweat in them for a couple minutes.” The work siren went off as they crossed the lower yard toward the outdoor handball courts. “Nobody’ll be here,” Earl said. “On weekends there’s six million Mexicans on the court.” He began throwing the small, hard black rubber ball at the wall in a soft, fluid motion, like the initial tosses of a baseball pitcher warming up. The muscles would loosen until he could strain them without tearing anything.
“The Bird seemed upset,” Ron said.
Earl grimaced and stuck out his tongue. “Bird wanted to kill the plumber. His sink is fucked up and the guy hasn’t fixed it. We talked him out of it, but …”
“Would he kill somebody over that?”
“Oh yeah … quick if he thought the guy was deliberately fuckin’ him around.”
Ron was less shocked than he would have been two months earlier.
They played handball for an hour, much of which was spent chasing the ball when Ron missed it altogether, for it had tremendous bounce and speed. The first time he hit it, he nearly quit. It stung wickedly, even through the glove. But soon his hand ceased to hurt, and he liked the feel of fresh air sucked into his lungs because of the exertion. He was down to his floppy T-shirt and a gentle breeze cooled his perspiration. He was having fun. The sun was out, and he forgot he was in prison.
After an hour, exhaustion set in. They came to the shade of the handball court and sat down, using the wall as a brace. The damp T-shirt stuck to his body and made a dark wetness on the wall. Earl, too, was sun-flushed and sweating, though much less so. “You oughta walk around and cool off.”
“Too tired,” Ron answered; then patted the roll of flesh that fell over Earl’s waistband when he sat down. “What’s that?”
“Good jailin’.”
“On this food?”
“Well … every night when you’re in the cell, I ease into the kitchen. Nobody’s there but a cleanup crew and a couple bulls and my juice lieutenant. We open the refrigerators and cook ’em up.” He flipped the ball away and let it roll to a wall fifty yards away. Just beneath his left collarbone, partly hidden by chest hair, was a white scar five inches long.
“Somebody get you, too?” Ron asked.
“Yeah, when I was nineteen years old and thought I was the toughest motherfucker in the world. Now I know everybody can die. No, I knew I wasn’t that tough, but I wanted everybody else to think so. We had a little clique—not like the gangs these days—and three of us were gonna bust some guy’s head … Do you wanna hear this?”
“Sure … Stories of violence fascinate just about everybody.”
“You’ll get a full share here … Anyway, we trapped this guy in ‘A’ Section. It wasn’t lockup then. He had a shiv but there was three of us. Another guy was off on the side and I didn’t pay him any attention. I should have. He whipped out a shiv and put it in my chest.” Earl grunted. “A couple inches lower and he would’ve got my heart. He hit a lung and blood started coming up in my mouth. I started running for the hospital and passed out kicking on the hospital door. When I woke up, I had tubes in me and an oxygen mask. I’ll say this, if they get you to the hospital alive, they’ll save you. We got a couple surgeons who are the world’s experts on stab wounds.”
“What happened to the guy who did it?”
“Ran away … turned himself in and gave ’em the knife. They didn’t try him because I wouldn’t testify. But he knew he had to get off the yard or my partners would turn his lights out.”
“Did you ever see him again?”
Earl laughed. “Not for a long time. He got transferred to Soledad, killed a guy, and went to Folsom. Our beef happened fifteen years ago.” Earl chuckled. “You already met him.”
“Who?”
“Friend McGee in the hospital.”
“McGee! You’re jivin’!”
“Un-uh … him for real.”
“What about saving face? I can’t imagine someone like you letting it go.”
“How can you stay mad for fifteen years? I’ve been on the streets twice and he hasn’t been out. He doesn’t talk about it. Even T.J. and Bad Eye don’t know … just Paul. I’m not afraid of him, and when he transferred in a couple of years ago, it went through my mind. I almost ribbed myself up, but I’m getting old and weak. I want out on the streets one more time. If something comes up and I can’t get around it, I’ll do what I have to do. I’m not gonna let anybody fuck me over … Besides, it taught me a couple of things—that everybody’s mortal and to respect everybody.”
Ron digested the story, looked out over the guard with the rifle on the wall to the necklace of clouds around the peak of Mount Tamalpais.
“You said you’d tell me why … why you’ve helped me.”
“You really wanna hear it?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “I’m not
a punk. I’m already obligated to you, but I’m not paying off by being your kid, queen, or whatever they call it. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“Man, I haven’t—”
“I’m paranoid. I feel like I have to hold one hand over my prick and the other over my asshole. I’m suspicious of anyone who’s friendly. I see it in everybody’s eyes.”
“You haven’t seen it in mine.”
“No … ’cause you’re a lot more slick than most of them.”
Earl looked off, thinking, and then when he spoke the laconic twang and grammatical barbarisms were gone. “All right, I’ll explain … as well as I can. There’s some kind of homosexuality involved, psychological if not physical … if you want to call it that. It’s the need for feelings—to feel—that might be given to a woman. Frankly, if you were ugly, I probably wouldn’t be interested.”
Ron felt an uncontrollable trembling. He disliked this; it reduced him. He started to interrupt but Earl held up a hand.
“But that’s my problem, not yours. Even the little I’ve seen shows me you’re neither stupid nor weak …”
“I’m just not in my element around here. This is new to me.”
“And most of us grew up in it. Anyway, I need somebody … a friend. I love T.J. and Bad Eye and Paul, but that’s a different thing. They don’t fill a certain need. So I’m your friend. I’m not scheming on you. I don’t intend you anything but good, and you probably need me. I’m not the baddest motherfucker here, not by far, but my friends are really bad. Prison is a separate world and you have to build a life separate from the world outside. I don’t have a family, so my friends are my family. If you try to live in both worlds, you’ll go crazy.”
“But if this becomes your whole world, you’ll forget how to cope out there.”
“That happens to a lot of people, and you’ll change here … if you survive. Maybe you can make me think about the streets. C’mon, let’s go up. I have to take a shower and get ready for work … not that I do any.”
“I can’t shower until tonight.”
“Yeah, you’re still in the East block. Maybe we can get you moved over.”
“That takes nine months clean conduct. I haven’t been here two yet.”
“But I’ve been here eighteen calendars and I know how to get things done. We can probably get you better accommodations in a week or two.”
Gathering their shirts, they trudged toward the big yard. The vast cellhouses dominated the skyline like the battlements of castles on mountain crags. As they went up the stairs a Mexican stopped Earl and told him that someone was selling good heroin in the West cellhouse.
On the yard, Earl slapped Ron on the back and disappeared into the cellhouse. Ron felt a sense of loss, realized how swift dependency was growing, and sighed in aceptance. He found a bench in the sunlight and again read the book he’d checked out of the chapel library.
Now that he didn’t have to go to the furniture factory, Ron followed Earl’s example of sleeping through breakfast and coming out on the lunch unlock. He ate that meal with Earl, and sometimes with T.J. or a couple of others. He liked Earl’s friends, the warm camaraderie, and yet never felt entirely at ease. The unease grew to discomfort when many of them gathered in a crowd, so he avoided them when they flocked together, finding that he had to go to the library, chapel, or elsewhere. Earl watched his nervousness and understood, but usually stayed with the clique himself. In the afternoons, after work call, they went to play handball or to sit in the lower yard and talk. The conversations were more deeply personal than any in Ron‘s life. He was unaccustomed to analyzing his relationships with his mother, Pamela, or why he put such an absolute premium on money, which was an obsession with him. He talked about his life outside and could tell that Earl respected him. He told one lie, thinking it would please Earl; it was in answer to the question if he was committed to crime. He answered, “Yes,” but the truth was that he didn’t know. His future was undecided; the clay wasn’t yet hard.
Earl explained why he sometimes kept away from Ron. The unlikely relationship was bound to be viewed by many convicts as that of a jocker and his kid. “I pull ’em up,” Earl said. “But I can’t stop thirty-five hundred convicts individually … and if I did it would be, ‘Methinks thou dost protest too much.’ So it’s best if I keep as much heat off you as I can.”
“I couldn’t care less what they think.”
“In a way you’re right, but in a way you’re not. You may spend a lot of years kicking around these places. You never know. If you get a jacket as a punk, you’ll have that wherever you go. It’ll come up twenty years from now. It’s the next worse thing to being jacketed as a stool pigeon. All a man in prison has is his name among his peers.”
Ron thought it was an exaggeration. As long as he himself knew the truth, it didn’t matter what ignorant convicts thought. In the coming months, his attitude would change. He learned that a good name was important, critically so. He saw a man with friends get slapped and do nothing about it. The friends turned their backs and the man was thereafter made to pay his canteen for protection until he finally checked into protective custody and got transferred. Any sign of weakness invited aggression, and the greatest sign was to get buggered. He saw a good-looking young man with blond hair, from a middle-class background, come in and the wolves descend. The newcomer had no friends. In a month he was wearing skin-tight jeans without back pockets. His eyebrows were blocked, and in the eyes something had died. The tough young Mexicans who had turned the blond into a queen eventually “sold” him. Ron then was glad that Earl was as concerned with appearances as with reality.
On Saturday, after two weeks of running with Earl, he passed through the yard gate late in the afternoon. A square-jawed lieutenant with billed hat cocked to the side was standing with a tall sergeant. The lieutenant called, “Hey, Decker.”
The lieutenant’s nameplate said “Seeman,” and Ron knew it was Earl’s boss. Still, Ron was embarrassed. The yard was full of convicts and it was always embarrassing to be seen talking to a guard.
“You’re Earl’s friend, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I talked to the North block lieutenant, trying to get you moved over. He owes me a favor and he’s willing … but somebody’s been writing the warden snitch letters about people jumping the waiting lists. But … there’s one way.” He winked. “We assign you as a tier tender … if you don’t mind getting up at six in the morning to pour water. When you’re there a while, we get you a job change. You don’t have to move out once you’re there. How does that sound?”
“It’s fine, except I’ve still got two weeks on a medical lay-in.”
“I’m sure you know somebody to take care of that.” The lieutenant grinned.
Ron smiled back, nodded, started to leave.
“One more thing,” the lieutenant said. “He tells me you’re not his kid. I don’t care. That’s your business and his business, but don’t get him in trouble. He’s been clean around here and he’ll get out in a year or so if he keeps it up.”
“I won’t get him in trouble,” Ron said—and as he walked away, the statement was reinforced in his own mind. The last thing in the world he wanted was to get Earl in trouble. The older convict was already the best friend he’d ever had, like an older brother, maybe a father. It was difficult for Ron, even silently, to articulate the word “love” where it involved another man, but he managed to say it to himself.
One week later, Ron loaded his property on a flat-bedded, iron-wheeled cart and moved to the last cell on the fifth tier of the North cellhouse. By nature acquisitive, he already had more possessions than Earl, including oil paintings purchased from convict artists. One was a huge impression of the prison viewed from the Bay, the other of an East Indian barge man in cruddy turban, with distended pupils and a permanent disfiguring bulge in his jaw, the result of holding wads of coca (cocaine) leaves in there year after year. The first night he had the painting, a black came
by, blinked, and went away, returning minutes later. “Say, man, what you doin’, makin’ fun a’ da bro’s toothache?” The tone was accusing. Ron explained, but resented the necessity for doing so. He understood black suspicion, but paranoia was a disease. Thereafter he turned the painting to the wall. When Earl heard about it, he laughed. “That ain’t nothing. In Soledad they have a race riot over anything. One went down because the white car in a Shell T.V. commercial got better mileage than the black car.”
In the North cellhouse Ron began to work as the a.m. tier tender. At 5:00 a.m. a guard woke him by banging a key on the bars. He could go to breakfast then, but he never did. At 5:30 he filled a fifty-gallon drum with hot water and pushed it down the tier on a wagon, filling the cans through the bars with a hose. He had to make three trips. When the other cells were unlocked after 6:00, he swept and mopped, and once a week picked up sheets from the bars, making a list of who turned them in. Until 2:00 p.m. he kept the heavy spike key to let men on the tier in and out of their cells, though after a few days he knew who lived where and handed them the key. Most of them worked, so the only traffic was during the lunch hour. It wasn’t a really hard job, and Ron had less aversion to work than the average convict. It gave him time to read, to exercise his mind, to escape the prevailing ugliness and view the endless vistas of articulate men. In a matter of weeks he accumulated a cardboard box full of paperbacks, many brought by Earl, who shook his head in mock disdain whenever he found Ron reading frivolous entertainments. Ron quickly ceased to enjoy trash; it could not knead his mind like Dostoevsky, Hesse, Camus, and Céline, who were Earl’s favorites. Ron had always assumed that Jack London wrote children’s books until Earl gave him Star Rover and The Sea Wolf. He liked to listen to Earl talk about books. The older man’s demeanor changed. He became enthused, his grammar precise. He had no interest in art forms other than literature, but he didn’t necessarily like everything accepted as great. He disliked Dickens and Balzac, and thought Thomas Wolfe shouldn’t be read by anyone over twenty-one. In three months Ron read more than he had in his entire previous life. He felt his mind widen, his perceptions become more acute, for each book was a prism refracting the infinitely varied truths of experience. Some were telescopes; some microscopes. Once Ron wanted to take his books to the Saturday-morning book swap, but T.J. was on hand when he mentioned it. “Boy,” he said, “don’t ya’ll know we’s gangsters and bullies? If we want some books, by Gawd, we’ll just take ’em. You can give yours away if you want, but fuck all that nickel-and-dime shit.” It was often hard to tell when T.J. was joshing, but Ron didn’t go to the swap. Neither did he give the books away. Eventually he sold them for three cartons of cigarettes and a hand-tooled wallet.
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