Establishment

by Howard Fast

  Officer Davenport searched for additional toilets. She found one that had been abandoned for years. “I want this place to shine,” she told Barbara. It took four hours, and Barbara left it shining. What with harsh detergents, cleanser, disinfectant, and the weeks of digging in the garden, her hands were red and rough, the nails broken, the skin toughened; but she had triumphed over the toilets. Captain Cooper returned her to the garden. “But walk carefully,” Cooper said to her. “You pegged yourself as a troublemaker. I still haven’t decided whether to dock your good time. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s up to you,” Barbara said. “At this point, I truly don’t give a damn. You can’t hold me more than six months.”

  “I wouldn’t be insolent if I were you. It doesn’t pay off.”

  “I’m not bucking for honor status,” Barbara said, “and I really don’t give a damn what you do to me. I’ll clean the toilets or mop the floors—whatever you say. That’s up to you.”

  “What’s eating you?” Captain Cooper asked. “This is a damned good institution. As jails go, it’s as good as any in the world.”

  “That doesn’t say much for the world, does it? Five thousand years ago, they discovered that if someone does something the top dogs don’t like, you build a cell and lock them up, and in all the time since then, we haven’t improved on it or found another way.”

  “Do you know a better way?”

  “No, I don’t. But I know this way stinks.”

  ***

  Barbara received a letter from Sally. “Joe tells me you don’t want visitors,” Sally wrote, “and I can’t understand why. I want so much to see you. Joe and I are trying desperately to work things out, and we’re living together again in the house in Beverly Hills, but it isn’t easy. It seems so inane to even mention our problems to you when your own problem is so much greater. Anyway, we do have some hopes and we are trying. I’m on another picture now, and I’m trying to set my mind to give it up after this. But I don’t know if that will work, Bobby, I’m so selfish.” The letter went on for five pages of closely written script. Reading it in the evening in her tiny room, Barbara tried to feel it, to have a sense of Sally and Joe and their difficulties, but it was all so far away. Sally wrote of Billy Clawson’s death, and Barbara felt sick with the waste of it, the hopelessness of it; yet she had hardly known Billy Clawson, and knowing him the little she had, had misjudged him. How many people she had misjudged! How very little of anything she had known, with all she had seen and all of her travels!

  The night before, a woman named Reba Fleming, who was in prison for forging her endorsement on someone else’s Social Security check, had slipped into Barbara’s room after lights out and crawled into her bed. Reba was a buxom blonde of about forty-five. Barbara did not particularly like her, and for that reason she had bent over backward to be pleasant to her. Not too many of the inmates were pleasant to Reba, and she lived in a mournful envelope of self-pity. Now Barbara, asleep a moment before, awakened to find Reba in her bed, caressing her and pleading with her to make love and be made love to. A month before, Barbara would have reacted with annoyance and disgust. Now she found herself wishing that she could satisfy this stout, dull woman’s desperate need for sex and love and sympathy.

  “It’s all right, Reba,” she said, holding her. “Just lie here. It’s all right.”

  She thought of this, sitting with Sally’s letter. She would have to answer it—but not now, not tonight. Tonight she had to write to her father and mother, who were insistent that they both come to see her.

  “It’s so hard for me to say, don’t come,” she wrote. “I don’t really know how to explain that I don’t want any more visitors. When I first learned that I would have to go to prison, the most important thing I could think of was whether I would be allowed to have visitors. There are women here who never have visitors, and it’s a heartbreaking thing, they’re so sad and unhappy over it; but the real cause of their sadness is that they have no one outside to visit them. That’s the root of it. I’m different. I have so many people outside who love me, and I think both of you know how much I love you, so you will not think I don’t love you when I ask you not to come here. Being here is something I must do alone and get through alone. Visitors make it so hard. I try to forget the outside world.” She paused in her writing, then added, “I have made many friends here. As strange as it may sound, I have never been closer to women. I don’t know if any of it can survive outside, but in here it’s good.”

  As time went by, the inmates turned to her more and more frequently. She was their neutral ground, their umpire, their adjudicator; and the more Barbara became the butt of the officers’ venom and resentment, the more trusted and resorted to she was by the prison population. Very slowly, bit by bit, the women in the prison came to realize that Barbara was there because she wished to be there, that her freedom could have been purchased at the price of a few words. It was nothing she ever explained or referred to, yet it percolated through the population. They needed no complex explanations of the role of the informer. They understood it only too well. They brought their sorrows to her, their fights with each other, their dreams, their guilt, and their stories. After all, she was a writer, and as a writer, they decided, it was her obligation as well as her vocation to listen.

  And listen she did—to an endless, sordid tale of poverty, of human souls squeezed dry, of love given and betrayed, of love given and rejected, of women beaten by their husbands, of women once children and beaten by mother and father, of prostitution, of pimping, of murder, of every conceivable form of brutality—and she listened.

  Her marvelous, youthful beauty faded. At thirty-five, she still had the bloom of twenty-five; at thirty-six she looked her age. Her face, burned brown by the sun from her hours in the garden, leaner, the first lines marking it, the first tiny wrinkles around her eyes. She was healthy. She was never sick after that initial bout of depression; and if she was not happy, she was for the most part content.

  ***

  Jean held that she was at an age, considering her life, where nothing could surprise her, but she admitted afterward that she was taken entirely by surprise when her son’s wife, Lucy Sommers Lavette, walked into the gallery. Eloise, sitting at a tiny table and working on their catalogue, looked up and saw Jean’s expression; she said later that if there had been sound to accompany the look, she would have been certain that the second earthquake had arrived. Fortunately, Dan was not present; he was over at Fisherman’s Wharf, where he and Sam were polishing the brass on Dan’s new boat—or at least so Jean thought, not knowing what else they could do for hours in a boat tied to a mooring. Dan had not seen either Tom or his wife since their encounter in Tom’s office, and Jean was not at all certain how he would react if he came face to face with either of them.

  She had to admit that Lucy’s appearance had changed for the better, thinking that it could hardly have changed for the worse. Her hair had been cut short, her make-up was professional, and Jean recognized her beige cashmere as a valid Balenciaga.

  Jean greeted her pleasantly, with just the proper slight touch of condescension, as if to remind her that in the old days, a Sommers might associate with a Seldon during business hours, but a social relationship would be unlikely. “What brings you here, Lucy?” Jean asked her.

  “Curiosity, I suppose. And paintings. Everyone’s talking about your gallery.”

  “And what are they saying?” Jean asked.

  “I’m afraid people feel you’re ahead of your time.”

  “But that’s rather nice, to be ahead of one’s time. Are you looking for a painting, Lucy?”

  “Well, Tom and I are only beginning to acquire things. We thought it would be nice to have a Picasso. Or a Cézanne.”

  Jean and Eloise exchanged looks. “I’m afraid we don’t have a Cézanne,” Jean said. “There are very few of them, you know. You might find one for sale i
n New York or Paris, although I haven’t heard of any. We do have one interesting Picasso. I believe he did it in nineteen twelve, when he was working with Braque. You know, around that time, he and Braque were composing pictures that consisted of flat areas superimposed upon a diversified surface. It was very experimental but quite beautiful if you know how to look at it. If I’m not mistaken”—she turned to Eloise—“they did invent the collage, didn’t they, Eloise?”

  “As far as I know, they did. They laid the groundwork for the Dadaists, who followed them.”

  “Why don’t you bring it out?” Jean suggested.

  Eloise went to the back and returned with the painting, which measured about twenty-four by thirty inches, and placed it on the easel.

  Lucy stared at it for a few minutes, then asked, “What is it? I mean, what does it represent?”

  “I don’t think one sees it that way,” Jean replied tolerantly. “One sees it in terms of space and color, arrangements of space and color—” She paused to glance at Eloise.

  “Very much in the style of Braque,” Eloise said pointedly.

  “Oh, yes, very much in the style of Braque. Of course, Lucy, it’s very much in the eye, the tutored eye and the untutored eye. I would certainly not try to sell a picture like this to the wife of some nouveau whose husband would turn on her in wrath. But Tom was brought up with good paintings, or so I like to tell myself. Of course, my instinct would be to give it to you, but unfortunately Eloise here is my partner—you do know Eloise?”

  “I don’t think we’ve ever met,” Lucy said stiffly.

  “In any case, it’s a splendid painting.”

  “And how much are you asking for it?”

  “Three hundred thousand dollars,” Jean said blandly.

  Eloise turned away and clasped her hands tightly.

  “You can’t be serious!” Lucy exclaimed.

  “Oh, I am, indeed.”

  “I don’t understand this, Mrs. Lavette. I really don’t understand it at all, unless you take me for an utter fool. I was reading only last week where they sold three Picassos at Parke-Bernet in New York, and the highest price was thirty-seven thousand.”

  “My dear, there are Picassos and Picassos.”

  “Well, I certainly have no intention of paying three hundred thousand for that ridiculous painting.”

  “I understand,” Jean said gently. “One should never purchase a painting one doesn’t love, and since I know your reaction to it, I’ll be the first to say, ‘No, Lucy, it’s not for you.’”

  After Lucy had marched out of the gallery, Jean and Eloise stood and stared at each other. Finally Eloise said, “Oh, you’re wicked, Jean. You are so wicked.”

  “Ha!” Jean exclaimed. “I am wicked? If ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black! Who was it marched back there so calmly and came out with that silly Braque collage?”

  “Only because I expected you to explain to her that we don’t have a Picasso and that Braque was a close associate of his in those days.”

  “Eloise, your golden locks will turn purple if you lie like that. Did you say it was a Braque?”

  “You’re the senior partner. Jean, after all, you did go into a detailed explanation, and it was you who told her the price was three hundred thousand. Suppose she had bought it? Suppose she had said yes? Would you have sold it to her?”

  “What are we asking for it?”

  “Fourteen thousand. But hold on; my dear Jean, didn’t you tell me to go back there and bring out the Picasso?”

  “We’re neither of us to be trusted, are we? Would I have sold it to her? I think I would have—just to see what would happen when, as Dan would put it in his own inimitable manner, the shit hit the fan. Ah, well, perhaps we’re better off this way. We don’t have the three hundred thousand but we do have our integrity.”

  ***

  It was a night when Barbara could not sleep. She had not imagined that she would be nervous when this night came, but the others had warned her. “It is a bad night,” Annie Lou had said to her. “It is a night when you is sure you is going to die.” And it was. She was afraid to sleep; if she slept, she could die sleeping and never know.

  The hours were endless. For months time had been her enemy; now time, in its last spasm of anger and resistance, stood still; and Barbara cringed, surrendered her defiance, and pleaded for the night to be over. With surrender came a sort of half-sleep, and when she awakened, the first gray of dawn was in the sky. She rose, made her bed for the last time, washed, combed her hair, and walked quietly through the dark barracks out into the open. She walked across the exercise ground to the sea wall and stood in the misty dawn, watching the sunrise. A tugboat came steaming by slowly, dragging a barge behind it. A man on the barge waved to her, and she waved back. The sea breeze was cold and clean on her face. In the light of day, her fears were dissipating. She examined her hands. She had cut her nails carefully; they were short but clean. The red soreness had worked out of her hands; they were hard and brown. The day before, the girls in the beauty salon, where they were taught hair dressing and skin care, had done her hair. On her little finger was a silver ring, a gift from Ellie, who had pleaded with her to accept it.

  She heard a step and turned to see Captain Cooper, who joined her at the sea wall and stood looking out over the harbor. After a moment, Cooper said, “Well, Barbara, it’s not the worst place in the world, is it?”

  “It’s a prison.”

  “So it is. We have prisons. There’s nothing you or I can do about that. I like to think that it’s better than most.”

  “I imagine it is.”

  “It’s been a strange experience for you, hasn’t it?”

  “Very strange.”

  “It’s an odd thing for me to say, Barbara, but I will say it. I’m glad they sent you here and not somewhere else.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have your breakfast. Then go to admissions. They’ll give you your clothes and your paycheck.”

  “Paycheck?”

  “We do pay wages, not much but still something. We’re not a slave labor camp. Is someone coming for you?”

  “My father. I asked him to be at admissions at ten o’clock.”

  “That will give you enough time.” Cooper thrust out her hand, and Barbara took it.

  Barbara picked up her basket of clothes at the admissions desk and walked slowly back to her room. A cluster of inmates were waiting for her, ignoring Officer Hurley. “Break it up!” Hurley was saying. “Come on now, break it up, or I’ll put you all on report.”

  They were embracing Barbara. “Bug off with that shit, Hurley,” Annie Lou whispered, hugging Barbara. “What the fuck do I do without you, honey child? You are the only black white woman in the joint.”

  “Now this is the last damn time I tell you to break this up!” Hurley shouted.

  “Oh, I am going to miss you, Officer Hurley, you and Officer Davenport,” Barbara said. “But I shall dream about you. You’ll be right there in all my nightmares.”

  It was a poor joke but they loved it, and they broke away laughing and giggling. “You don’t give up, do you?” Hurley said to Barbara. “Jailhouse smartass right to the end.”

  “Right to the end.”

  “Well, don’t ever forget that you’ve been here, lady bountiful. You can tell that to your classy San Francisco friends.”

  “Oh, I shall,” Barbara agreed, and unable to resist, she added, “And do you know what else? I shall tell them that while I am gone, you, my dear, are still here—with a life sentence.” Then she fled into her room, slamming the door behind her, upset because she had allowed herself to be provoked. But the mood passed, and she was overtaken by a sort of melancholy. “Good God,” she said aloud, “I really think I’m reluctant to leave this place, and that is absolutely crazy.” Yet she knew that she had found s
omething there that she had never found anywhere else. “Well, it’s over. That’s the main thing.”

  She stripped off her prison clothes for the last time and stuffed them into her pillowcase. Then she dressed herself in the same white blouse and gray flannel suit that she had worn when she arrived. The clothes were loose. According to the scale, she had lost only a few ounces, but her whole body must have tightened up. She wondered whether her shoes would fit after months of wearing oversized clogs. The shoes were tight but not too uncomfortable. The heels, however, were strange, and they took some getting used to.

  Looking at herself in the mirror, she faced a stranger. “Barbara,” she said very seriously, “you will simply have to get used to the way I am now. I have served my time and paid my debt to society. I have no apologies to make.”

  Dan was in the waiting room at admissions when Barbara entered, and he took her in his arms.

  “Poor daddy,” she whispered. “I never gave you an easy time of it, did I?”

  Driving to the ferry, Dan said, “This is a rental. We drop it at the airport and make the noon plane. Sammy is with Jean, waiting in your house. That’s the way you wanted it, isn’t it?”

  “Just the way I wanted it, daddy. It couldn’t be more perfect.”

  At a few minutes past two o’clock, Barbara opened the door of her house on Green Street and walked into the living room. Jean had been reading to Sam, who was seated on the couch next to her. When he saw Barbara, he leaped off the couch and started toward her. Then he paused, staring at her. His face wrinkled and the tears started. She went down on her knees and embraced him.

  “You won’t go away again?”

  “Never,” she said. “Never, never, my darling.”

  PART SIX

  Memory

  Some say that since the nature of God is unknowable, He takes visible form in terms of worship. Norman Drake paid off his taxicab and stood in front of Tom Lavette’s residence, the old Sommers mansion, in an attitude of respectful obeisance. In all truth, it was less the house that he worshipped than what it stood for. His wife, however, would have been quite content with the house.