One morning he passed Earl’s cell and found him reading The Happy Hooker.
“Reading serious literature?” he said.
“Damn sure educational.”
“Let me see it when you’re through.”
“Un-uh, too young. This lady is depraved.”
“Shit!”
“Now you wanna be a jack-off idiot. That’s what I’ve raised. You’ll get warts on your hands.”
“What about you?”
“I’m already crazy. Must be. I keep coming back here. I must like it, too, don’t you think?”
Ron shook his head, but felt guilty, for he couldn’t deny that anyone who kept returning to prison had to be a fool, or sick, or something. Even Earl. Yet Earl was his teacher, his family behind the walls, his friend. It was disloyal to have such doubts.
The tier-tender job also gave him time to write letters, two or three each week to Pamela, and one every other week to his mother. And one a month to Jacob Horvath. Pamela’s replies became fewer and shorter. Vito picked up a battered portable typewriter on a debt and sold it to Earl for a fix, and thereafter it rested in Ron’s cell and he used it.
Although Ron never became comfortable on the crowded yard, he temporarily lost his fear. Stabbings decreased for a while after the strike, and when they picked up again, Ron, who normally would have identified with the victim, knew that his associates were the deadliest white clique in San Quentin, and this gave him a feeling of power—until one lunch hour. He and Earl had just come from the mess hall, were walking under the shed where the majority of convicts had been driven by the hot sun. Earl was flipping pellets of crushed bread to the sea gulls and seemed completely relaxed and unaware of the flux of the yard. Suddenly he grabbed Ron’s sleeve at the wrist and shouldered into him, turning him as a sheep dog would a lamb.
“Let’s go … quick!”
“Huh?” But Ron went along, stepping lively away from where they’d been standing. From the corner of his eye he saw a flurry of movement a few feet from where they’d been. He looked more closely. A big Chicano was spinning like a dog chasing his tail, his hand clutching at his chest where the black-tape handle of a shiv jutted forth. His mouth was open in an O, as if he were yawning, but blood was flying out. The crowd was scattering from him. Ron saw a small, dark Chicano fleeing with his head down, weaving into the crowd. The big Chicano saw him and started to give chase, but after two paces, his steps weakened—and suddenly his knees gave way.
The whistles began bleating, the riflemen were aiming, guards were rushing forward, and fifty men were hemmed in. The guards began collecting I.D. cards. If Earl hadn’t shoved Ron, both of them would have been in the group.
Now Earl and Ron were outside the shed in the sunlight, and Earl was angry. “Poor fuckin’ Pete,” he said. “Iced for nothing. Motherfucker!”
Now Ron remembered the big Chicano, tall, easy-laughing, who often stopped to slap hands with Earl, Paul, and T.J. Pete had been high in the Mexican Brotherhood. If a man like Pete could be murdered so casually … “Won’t somebody get revenge?” Ron asked.
“If they can get the guy. What of it? Pete’s still dead. They tore somebody off for some shoes … fuckin’ shoes! And the guy didn’t take it … probably couldn’t take it. I keep tellin’ our wild friends that. Eventually some sucker is going to sneak up and do that. Everybody can die. Everybody bleeds. And everybody can kill in the right situation.”
Thirty minutes later the body was gone and the asphalt had a white chalk outline where it had lain. Soon the broganed feet would erase that, too—the last trace of a living being.
And Ron’s confidence ended. He’d never like the yard; now he abhorred it and spent as much time as he could in the cell reading. And where, contrary to Earl’s advice, he’d often napped with the door unlocked, now he never did. Something else was sprouting: a hardening to violence. It was part of the human condition; men had settled matters by the sword since the beginning of time, and although it was often foolish and self-destructive, sometimes it was what a situation required. And if he felt fear, it was no longer the fear of helplessness.
Earl Copen’s routine—and routine is the key to withstanding prison—changed slightly to accommodate Ron Decker’s entrance into his life. Earl still slept late, but now, instead of lounging in his own cell until lunch, he usually visited his friend. Sometimes they played chess, and Earl beat him severely, but he wasn’t interested because he preferred to talk. Yet he found a reserve in Ron, a belief in distance and propriety that came from his background. Earl wanted total relaxation, absolute trust. He also wanted Ron to blend better, to be more adaptable. So he charged through the decorum in the crudest prison style, patting Ron’s thigh suggestively. “Oh, you must’ve played football,” he would say. Or a San Quentin cliché: “Want some jellybeans, kid?” Or sometimes patting his ass or grabbing his crotch. At first Ron blushed furiously, nonplussed and angry, but he saw that Earl and T.J. and others often played and bantered this way, and though he never ceased to redden, he realized that such things indicated equality and acceptance rather then designs, and he began to quip back: “Keep fuckin’ around and I’ll pull it out.”
“Put it right there,” Earl would say, extending his hand.
“Oh no, I don’t trust you.”
Soon total relaxation came, though Ron was never as spontaneous as the others. And Earl loved him as a surrogate son. He loved T.J. and Bad Eye, too, as if they were younger brothers. Earl loved all of them the same, but he thought about Ron more. From the outset he saw the slender youth, though ill-equipped by background for San Quentin’s madness, had strengths that were totally missing from the others, that he himself lacked. Ron could set goals and work toward them, whereas all his other friends lived completely for the moment, psychologically incapable of delaying satisfaction, predisposed to rage at every frustration. These qualities were strengths in situations requiring impetuosity, but a liability when prudence was called for. In many ways, Ron was already more competent than he, but Earl knew things that Ron didn’t. The younger man was committed to crime—because drugs were the area where money could be made in the largest amounts in the least time. It made no difference to Earl what Ron wanted, but Earl wanted him to be successful, and so told him all he knew about crime and criminals—not techniques for robberies and burglaries, but attitudes and, especially, how to read personalities.
“You have fifty informers, so the police say, on the affidavit. You’re not running a Safeway market. Be afraid. Be paranoid. Don’t trust anyone at all unless you know them … under stress situations. If you’re out there dealing big dope, you’re a way out of jail for a lot of them. Put protection on yourself, get insulation, always assume the worst. Paranoia is a necessary trait for a criminal.”
Earl outlined the organizational structure that provided as much protection as possible. On the outside, he should take one person as partner or chief lieutenant, to handle all dealers; and the dealers should only be able to reach the lieutenant by leaving coded telephone numbers with an answering service. That way, if anyone was arrested, the whole thing would dissolve and reform elsewhere. The answering service was blind; the one person who could inform on Ron would be the chief lieutenant. Risk still existed, but there was a barrier normal police procedures wouldn’t get through. At the same time, it was important to keep a low profile so as to avoid arousing a major effort by the authorities.
Earl also implanted his views on life, its ultimate meaninglessness in an indifferent universe. Ron’s mind was fallow ground. And even more than the pragmatics of the underworld and prison, more than a philosophical system, Earl provided a matrix that influenced—though he was not immune from Ron’s criticism.
They usually ate together except when Earl was off plotting with T.J. and Paul. And in the evenings Earl sometimes came in from work to talk. Movies were shown for the North cellhouse in the mess hall on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, and Ron sat with the clique. He liked the special
seats, a whole row that no convict sat in unless invited.
The days drifted into months—by routine.
Ron hadn’t gotten a letter from Pamela in weeks, and although it bothered him, it wasn’t the overwhelming preoccupation it would have been months before. Then came a letter with a return box number at the Los Angeles Central Jail. She’d been arrested for narcotics and wanted money. The letter gave no specifics except that it was a one-ounce possession and the bail was ten thousand dollars, but the words dripped bitter self-pity and vituperation. Ron carried it out to the plaza, watched the fish move through the water, watched the fountain spew up and gleam in the sunlight. He tried to feel some anguish. He felt nothing. He read the letter again and still felt nothing—except guilt for his lack of feeling. Time and distance had corroded love. Not only that, he now saw that most of his love was built on delusion; he’d been in love with a dope-fiend whore who was compelled to self-destruction, and from his own need he’d garbed her in white robes and put her on a pedestal. Yet did he owe her anything? He could have his mother send some money, not as much as Pamela wanted, but enough for a lawyer or the bail premium.
That evening he showed Earl the letter and asked advice.
“Whatever your conscience tells you is right … not what you think other people will think. If she’s been a good broad, you should do it. If she’s been a jive-ass bitch, fuck her in her ass.”
“She’s been a jive bitch. She hasn’t been up here once.”
“Whatever you do is right with me. If you’re wrong, you’re still right.”
Ron tried to answer the letter. The censor sent it back. The regulations forestalled correspondence between prisoners in different institutions without special permission. He neither tried for permission nor wrote again.
One Saturday night five blacks tried to escape by going through a vent in the roof of the South cellhouse and down on ropes through a deep shadow where two cellhouses came together. They gambled that a gun tower guard wouldn’t be alert. Two got down without being seen, but the third man was spotted. The alarm sent three dozen guards searching the prison property, while the surrounding water kept the escapees from leaving. All were caught within an hour and were marched back inside naked.
Earl Copen had to work typing the many reports. He missed the movie and Ron went without him, occupying the reserved space next to Paul. While the mess hall filled, they fell into conversation.
“I hear you’re going to camp,” Ron said.
“Maybe. I did a year of my last bit in the Sierras as a camp cook and the lieutenant wants me back. But I probably won’t get it until after I go to the parole board.”
“When’s that?”
“A couple of months. Depends on when they meet.”
“Is there any chance you’ll get out?”
“Uh-huh, just about what a mouse has in a cage with a rattlesnake. Three years on a safe burglary with four prior convictions is less than they need to rehabilitate. Next year, God willing and the river don’t rise—unless they’re trying to justify building another prison. One year they were crying about overcrowding and the need for a thirty-million-dollar institution, and the percentage of granted paroles dropped two-thirds. You’ve heard of practical politics … that’s practical penology. I figured to do five or six when I got the beef. And I’m the motherfucker who can do it.” Paul ended with a crooked grin.
Not many months before, Ron would have been horrified at the idea of five years in prison. He didn’t even think of his own six years before he would be eligible for parole; he thought only of the judge calling him back. Now five years wasn’t even a long term. Earl had served five years his first time. Bad Eye was nearly thirty years old and hadn’t been free since he was eighteen. T.J. had served thirty-nine months his first time, beginning when he was nineteen, for giving his eighteen-year-old girlfriend ten marijuana cigarettes. He’d learned armed robbery techniques and put them to use within weeks of his parole. He was back for three years on an attempted robbery.
Paul said, “No matter how many years you do, when it’s over, it wasn’t shit. Not when you look back. Then it’s over. Unless you’ve gone insane—and you’d be surprised how many strong men crack up and how many others just get stronger. One old man in Folsom, Charley Fitz, smashed forty-six calendar years. He was nearly ninety when he raised. You’d think somebody that old and down that long would be uptight to cope. Shit! He charged out, and sent back a postcard saying, ‘Not a goddamn thing’s changed. Maybe they move a little faster, but it’s still the same bullshit!’ He went to the zoo …”
Ron smiled, wondering if Paul was telling the truth. Factual truth meant little to Paul if a good lie made his point or was more interesting. And the story of Fitz made a point.
“Did you ever think about straightening up?” Ron asked. “You can’t consider yourself a successful criminal … Earl can’t either. Really, you’re both disasters.”
Paul reddened, touched at a sensitive point, yet unwilling to protest because he was vulnerable. He could make money, but he couldn’t stay out of jail; and it took both to be a success. “Nope, not really. It’s like a poker game—you sit down to win, and you don’t get up while you’re losing.”
“That’s true—for compulsive gamblers. But if you can’t win—”
“I started with fifty years of life expectancy and I’ve blown thirty. I’m in too deep to quit. The only place I’m comfortable is among thieves. I’m a thief, and prison is the inevitable result. We don’t think about staying out the rest of our lives, just how long in between imprisonments. If you do it fifty-fifty, you’re a success. I stayed out four years last time, stealing every day. I shit in tall cotton the whole four years. Vegas, Acapulco, Miami, the whole tamale. So I’ve got memories.”
Ron was silently dubious, for he saw Paul as intelligent and perhaps competent at petty crime, but so totally lacking in foresight and self-control that failure at anything bigger was inevitable. He wagered in his mind that these claims were exaggerations, embellished by time in a world where dreams had no limit. Now, however, Paul was displaying insight that Ron wouldn’t have suspected.
“Maybe one in ten thousand gets out and makes it, gets back in, makes the—” he gestured with two fingers on each hand to indicate quotation marks—“‘middle class.’ But society never forgives and forgets the rest of us. It will let us stay free if we accept being pieces of shit. It’ll let you shine shoes or wash cars or fry hamburgers. That’s for white ex-cons. Think what it is to be black and an ex-convict, and probably uneducated. A hundred years ago you could go away. Now the computers keep you from starting over. In 1903 about two dozen men broke out of Folsom, even shot it out with a posse. A couple died right there, a couple others got hanged, but most of them got away and were never heard of again. No doubt some kept robbing, but a lot of them had to get a plow or do whatever squares did then, otherwise they’d have been caught eventually. But they could start new lives.
“The employers all want a computer printout these days. You can’t hide your yesterdays. They don’t want ex-convicts—and the funny thing is they’re right. A chump goes out of here and he’s fucked up. Especially this prison. Fuck rehabilitation … it’s a full-time job to stay alive.” He finished with a shrug. “Got a cigarette?”
Ron handed him one. The mess hall was nearly full now. The denimed men filled the rows. The blacks had the entire left section. Paul chuckled. “Sometime I’ll show you Earl’s first prison mug shot. He looks about fourteen years old and serious as cancer.”
“Yes, I’d like to see that. Did he have any … problems?”
“Yes and no. Anybody that young has motherfuckers speculating. But he was mean and wild. It was different then … no big gangs, no race trouble. If a youngster would stand up, they’d pretty much leave him alone. Now if he doesn’t have friends, they just rape him and it doesn’t matter how mean he is. King Kong can’t stand up to fifteen or twenty men with knives who not only don’t care about kil
ling, but want to kill. God smiled on you when you found Earl. If he’s your friend, it’s until the wheels fall off, though he’s rotten and treacherous as anybody else if you’re not. It’s a necessity in here. I was worried that you’d get him in some kind of jackpot … let your problems turn into complexes and jeopardize him. And if he gets in a hassel, T.J. and Bad Eye would go berserk, and when they do, the others do the same. But you’re cool.”
“Man, if I got him in trouble … I want to see him outside, even though I can’t really imagine him anywhere but prison. But out there I’d be able to help him like he’s helped me.” Before Ron could go further, the mess hall lights went out and the beam carrying images flashed from the projection booth to the screen.
When spring came, it was visible only in the gardens of the plaza; there flowers bloomed—roses, zinnias, pansies. The rest of the prison retained its dead monochrome. By then, Ron stirred with boredom. He was settled but had nothing to do. His energetic nature had no outlet. He wasn’t interested in gambling or narcotics, except where they led to money, though he saw how these icons were the yeast that fluffed Earl’s mind. Moreover, Ron saw that it was time to build the constructive record to influence the judge.
The Animal Factory Page 13