Cast the First Stone

by Chester Himes

  CAST THE

  FIRST STONE

  Chester B. Himes

  First published by

  Coward-McCann

  1952

  A GREAT NOVEL THAT

  RIPS ASIDE THE BARRED DOORS

  OF PRISON LIFE

  James Monroe was young and educated. He stood before the judge and tried to look humble and heard himself sentenced to twenty years in prison. Here is Chester Himes’s great novel of prison life. It is a story both of brutal debasement and of the slow growth of maturity and compassion. It is a vivid re-creation of a perverse society with its own rules, its own taboos, its own virtues and grotesque vices. And strangely enough, it is also a love story—a love between two men—

  “Accurate and intense…as good as If He Hollers Let Him Go!” A nightmarish picture, illuminated by flashes of sardonic humor. I’ve never read anything like it!”

  —Saturday Review

  JAMES MONROE

  WAS A COOL CAT

  He took his prison sentence without blinking. He fended off the advances of the convict studs and the convict queens with deft skill. He learned every angle of prison life and how to play them all to win.

  By his fourth year in prison, James Monroe had it made. He had money, privileges, power, respect. All he didn’t have was a human being to love.

  Then one day, a youngster named Dido was moved into his cell block. And James Monroe’s shell began to crumble…

  Here, from one of the truly great writers of our day, is an unforgettable story of what happens to a man in prison—in a ruthlessly honest novel of a young black’s agonizing discovery of his own emotions, his own identity.

  Jim looks between the cold-gray bars of his cell seeing the red sun flashing through the naked branches of a distant tree. It is all that he can see of the outside from the small cell he shares with three others who, like himself, are going to spend many years in a single room.

  A prisoner knows upon his first arrival in prison that he is losing time. Time is the one thing that can never be replaced; the element that can never be compensated for by any little victories lurking in the imagination. He knows, or thinks that he knows, that his prison is a place where normal men of normal appetites and desires are shut off from their natural yearnings as a punishment for attacks on a cruel, uninterested society. He thinks that he will be a normal man shut off from intercourse with normal human beings. It is here that he is wrong. For it will be only after time—something quite different in prison than out—has passed that he slowly awakens to the fact that he is not simply a man locked up. Prison is not only keeping him from contact with his fellow humans; it is making him into something else. A man—if a prisoner can be called a man—who thinks, feels, and loves differently from other men.

  Jim Monroe is the prisoner in CAST THE FIRST STONE. In prison for twenty years, he tells his own story in this powerful novel—a novel that is big, brutal, and vicious, startlingly revealing, and, best of all perhaps, enormously compassionate. Jim Monroe shows you how a prisoner faces years, years to think, to live, to suffer, to yearn, to strive for what he considers good. Mostly good is outside of the walls, for inside are only the dreams that germinate in the dark corners of his mind—dreams that come to a fulfillment that is even worse than frustration.

  HE THAT IS WITHOUT SIN AMONG YOU, LET HIM FIRST CAST A STONE AT HER.

  St. John, 8:7

  1

  IT WAS MY first night in the dormitory. It was strange. Everything was strange. After having been choked up for the past ten days, I was excited watching them play poker.

  During my classification period, I had celled up on 5-11 with the other newcomers. Each day after breakfast we had been taken out in small groups for our physical examination by the convict doctors, and interviews by the convict clerks of the deputy warden, chaplain, and transfer officer. We had spent one entire day in the Bertillon office being weighed, measured, fingerprinted and photographed by the convict experts. Many of the convicts who worked in the Bertillon office had been policemen outside and they still had the manner of policemen.

  After ten days, all information relative to my past and future, my body and soul, had been carefully recorded and filed. It had been done grimly and without sympathy. The convicts who had to do with my classification had been as impersonal as the officials. No one seemed sorry for me. If anything, they seemed happy I’d been caught.

  I had been choked up and scared, and had kept thinking of my sentence and my mother and the outside world until I was knocked out with hard dry tears.

  We were on the top range of the 10&11 cell block. It was a very old cell block and the cells were small and grimy and very cold. There were two of us in my cell and I had the top bunk. The cold got into my bones and my back ached like chilblains. But I was scared to complain, scared to ask the guard to take me to the hospital. I had slept in all of my clothes except my shoes and with the two thin dusty blankets pulled tightly about me, and I was still cold. One night I had to climb down in the cold to use my bucket. I could hear my teeth chattering like castanets.

  The days were slate-colored and once it snowed and left slush. At mealtime there were many lines of lock-stepping convicts crossing the gray prison yard. Coming back from the grim examinations across the dull gray, slushy prison yard to the small, dank, intensely cold cell, I was conscious of my feet being cold, my nose running and my back aching. I was never conscious of much else about those first ten days except that I was scared and very miserable.

  I was glad to get out of that cell. Twelve of us had been transferred into the coal-company dormitory directly after supper. As we crossed the barren yard the convict runner, who carried our transfer slips, said the coal company had been made up of Negroes until the previous month. It had been converted into a punishment company for the white convicts, he said. He was a short husky convict, about forty-five, with the sang-froid of a lifer. He might have been trying to scare us. But after ten days on 5-11 I didn’t care. I was glad to get there in the light and warmth and sound of human voices.

  There were close to two hundred convicts in the coal company. Every one of them looked big and tough in their rat-gray uniforms and hickory-striped shirts. The coal company was located on the bottom floor of a big low flat-topped building that had once been a warehouse. The building had originally been one-storied, but a concrete floor had been laid halfway to the ceiling, converting it into two dormitories. The ceiling was very low. The dining-room company bunked in the dormitory above.

  At the front, opening onto the road which came over from the west stockade, were two sliding doors of rusty corrugated steel. Except for an area at the left-front corner, where the zinc-lined washtroughs and open latrine were located, rows of double-decked bunks, spaced three feet apart, extended from wall to wall. There was an office in the corner next to the latrine for the day guards, and a raised guardstand in the middle of the wide center aisle for the night guards. Long wooden tables with attached benches extended down the center aisle, fore and aft of the guardstand. And overhead were the eternal droplights.

  The convicts sat at the tables, in the hard bright light, playing various kinds of games. There wasn’t a vacant seat. I went over to the washtrough to wash my hands. But after supper the water was cut off for the night. A convict told me it was against the rules to turn it on.

  I went back to the center aisle and watched the games. A blanket had been spread over a section of a table and convicts were playing poker. The cards were new. Old cards stamped with various designs and cut into various patterns were used as chips. One convict was dealing and three others kept an eye on things and sold chips. There were nickel, dime, and quarter chips.

  I was all excited and glad to be out
of the cells, but I couldn’t get used to being in the dormitory right off. It was as if I was in a trance. It was so funny to see the convicts walking about and mingling with each other and gambling, just like people outside. I had never thought prison would be like that. It was warm in the dormitory at night and my back had almost stopped aching. It felt strange to be warm.

  In the cells, I had been so scared I couldn’t think. I was still scared, but now it had thinned out so that it didn’t jerk me around and make me wooden, and I couldn’t feel it all the time. But I knew it was still there.

  “You fish?”

  I spun around. A little redheaded guy with freckles was grinning at me. He wore a tight-fitting nylon undershirt, showing his arms and shoulders, and his pants hung low about his hips. His body was smooth and round-muscled. He was the first convict who had spoken to me since I’d been in the dormitory. Everyone had been watching me, but no one had said anything.

  “You talking to me, bud?” I asked. I’d picked up the word the year I hung round Bunch Boy’s gambling joint; Bunch called everybody “bud.”

  “Come on, let’s walk,” he said, jerking his head.

  I turned back and looked at the game, without replying. Then I nodded and swung in beside him. There were a lot of fellows walking in the aisle around the tables.

  “What you in for?” he asked. He was trying to make friends and I felt superior.

  “Robbery.”

  “Ten to twenty-five?”

  “No, twenty. Twenty to twenty-five.”

  He didn’t seem impressed. “That’s what I’m in for, too. I stuck up a jewelry store. Who’d you stick up?”

  “Just some people.”

  We made one round and begun another. I was beginning to feel conspicuous. When I was looking at him it was all right, but when I looked away I noticed everybody was watching us.

  “Ain’t your name Jake?” he asked.

  “No, my name’s Jim Monroe.”

  “My name’s Henry Hill but they call me Jeep.” He grinned. “I drove the jeep for Patton in North Africa.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t believe him.

  “Where were you at?”

  “At where?”

  “In the war.”

  “I wasn’t in the war,” I said.

  “I’ve seen you someplace.” He snapped his fingers. “Stateline! That’s where I saw you. You’re out of Stateline, ain’t you?”

  “No, I’m out of Lake City. Have you ever been to Lake City?”

  “No, but it sure seems as if I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

  I didn’t say anything, and when he didn’t say anything for a moment I began to see the things that I had been looking at. There were the bunks, with the dirty duffel bags chunked into fat unshapeliness with the convicts’ personal belongings, hanging from the frames; and all kinds of pictures and photographs, framed with inlaid wood and carved wood and cardboard wrapped with different colored strings, stuck about in prominent view. And then I began to see the other convicts that I had not seen before. Some were sitting on their bunks, reading and talking; some were walking around like us; some were playing musical instruments; making rings and cigarette holders and stuff, with their workboxes on the bunks beside them; others were coming in and out from between the bunks with the sliding, sidewise motion of crabs.

  And then I began to hear the noises—shoe heels clumping, yells, curses, singing, musical instruments clanking. It all began to seem strange and very far away again.

  “Want a cigarette?” Jeep asked.

  I jumped. “Huh?”

  “Want a cigarette? You smoke, don’t you?”

  “Sure, thanks. I had a carton but the guys chiseled me out of ‘em.”

  He had a bag of Bull Durham in his hand but he put it back into his pocket. “Come on down to the bunk and I’ll get you a ready-made.”

  “Okay.”

  His bunk was down in the far corner. It was dark down there and most of the bunks were curtained. He sat down and I rested my elbows on the bunk frames and stood over him. There was a curtain halfway across the side of his bunk toward the aisle. He drew it closed.

  “Sit down,” he said, patting the bunk beside him.

  “No, I’m going back out and watch the poker game.” I was beginning to feel self-conscious.

  He pulled a box from underneath his bunk and got a pack of cigarettes. He passed me the pack and I took one and handed it back.

  “Keep them,” he said, waving.

  “No, this will do.”

  “Aw, go ahead. Take two or three for tonight, anyway.”

  I took a couple. I didn’t want to be obligated. “These will do.”

  He took the pack reluctantly and held a light for me. When he thumbed the match away he patted the bunk again. “Sit down, you haven’t got anywhere to go. Where you got to go? Got to catch a plane or something? Sit down and let’s talk.”

  “No, I got to get a drink of water,” I said, turning away. “Thanks for the smokes.”

  Somebody picked a clear melody on a mandolin. I stopped. A voice crooned: “Carrying a torch for you…”

  I turned toward the voice. A lad with a babyish face was sitting across on another bunk with the mandolin in his lap. He looked up at me and winked. “Like that one?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said embarrassedly and hurried away.

  “Come on, come on, cut it, Mike,” I heard Jeep saying as I walked away. “I knew him in Stateline. We went to school together.”

  What the hell? I thought.

  A guy was waiting for me when I came out from between the bunks. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was angry. “What was he trying to do?” he asked.

  I started to keep on going, then I looked around and didn’t see anybody else. I turned back. “Huh? You talking to me?”

  “What was he trying to do?” he repeated. “Was he trying to start any funny stuff?”

  I started to ask him what the hell business it was of his. Then I started to walk away. Then I remembered I was in prison, and thought I’d broken a rule or something. “No, he just gave me a cigarette,” I said. “Aren’t we allowed to go to the bunks?”

  “Yes, that’s all right. I just thought he tried some funny stuff. These damn punks are after every new kid that comes in here. I just thought I ought to tell you before they get you in trouble.”

  I felt myself getting red. “Yeah?”

  “You don’t know him, do you?”

  I shook my head, thinking, I don’t know you either, as far as that goes. But I didn’t say so, I was afraid. “You don’t like him, do you?” he persisted. “Hell, naw,” I said quickly. Then I was afraid maybe I’d said the wrong thing so I hurriedly added, “But I haven’t got anything against him.” On second thought I asked, “What’s the matter with him?”

  “He’s a fink, Jim,” the guy said. “He was the one who ratted on those ten men who were digging out of the woolen mill.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s a damn degenerate, too. Half of these guys in here are degenerates. Filthy sons of bitches. I don’t like that stuff and I don’t care who knows it.”

  I looked at him. He was a tall clean-looking man about twenty-seven, with brown hair parted on the side and a nice-looking face. His pants were pressed and his shoes were shined, and his shirt starched and ironed and bleached almost white, and he wore a tie and a slipover sweater. “I don’t either,” I said.

  “I knew you wouldn’t go for that stuff, Jim. I read about you in the newspapers. You’re a college boy. I knew you wouldn’t go for that stuff.”

  “That’s strictly for the apes,” I said, laughing self-consciously.

  He looked so funny I thought, what the hell’s the matter with him, and then he laughed too. I started to walk away. He fell in beside me.

  “Jesus Christ, man, what did they give you so much time for? Did you shoot somebody?”

  “Naw, bud, I didn’t shoot a soul.” I tried to sound tough. “Wish I had
now.”

  “Hell, they wouldn’t have given you no more time for it”

  “Hell, naw, not as much. They gave me what they call exemplary justice. How about that, exemplary justice? Can you beat it.”

  “That’s what they do, give you the book. That’s supposed to scare the other guys. Ain’t that some crap? They wouldn’t have given you no more time if you had killed somebody.”

  “Hell, naw. When they gave me twenty years I thought an atom bomb had hit me.” And I wasn’t telling any lie, either.

  “Boy, that’s rotten. That’s what’s wrong with these people. They get scared and throw the book at every guy that comes along.”

  The con sitting directly in front of me had raised into three sevens with a pair of aces and he slammed down his hand and turned around and yelled, “Get the hell out from back of me with that stale crap!”

  I looked at the guy I was talking to but he didn’t say anything, so I said, “Who you talking to?”

  “I’m talking to you, gunsel.”

  “Screw you!” I said.

  He started to get up and I got set to hit him when he pulled his leg over the bench, but the dealer put his hand on his shoulder and stopped him. He stopped easy enough.

  “Aw, let that kid alone. He’s a new kid.”

  “He’s a lippy son of a bitch!”

  “You’re a son of a bitch yourself!” I said.

  “Aw, beat it, gunsel! Shove off! Go get ready for Freddy.”

  “Who’s Freddy?” a con across the table asked.

  “I’m Freddy,” the first guy said. “Go get ready for me, gunsel.”

  They all laughed.

  “He’s liable to already be ready, Freddy,” another con said. “I seen him talking to that redheaded punk.”

  “Boy, that Jeep can turn ‘em out.”

  “How do you know, Mac?” That got another laugh.

  “The paper said he was only nineteen.”

  “And a college boy.”

  “All he needs is a good turning out.”

  “Not if he’s a college boy, Mac. Them college boys is frantic.”