In the Sanctuary of Outcasts

by Neil White

  Steve’s room had been totally rearranged for the game. He had finagled a card table from the recreation department. The cash and properties had been spread out on a side table. Steve had everything planned. He pointed to me. “Hey, you check-kiting, overdraft-king motherfucker, you can be the banker.” Then he pointed to Gary. “And you, mortgage-fraud scum-broker, you are in charge of the property deeds.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Win,” he said, “and keep the game moving.”

  Steve was in his element. High finance, wheeling and dealing—at least as close as you can get to that in prison. He was on an adrenaline high. He moved the game pieces for all the players. If we didn’t grab the dice in a timely manner, he rolled for us. He couldn’t wait for his own turn to come around. He was impatient with us. Even when he did let us roll, he calculated where the game piece should be on the board, grabbed it, and moved it to its appropriate spot without counting.

  Steve had something clever to say about every move. When Gary read aloud the “Go to Jail. Go Directly to Jail” card, Steve asked, “Is anyone else having déjà vu?” And when he drew his own Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card, Steve said, “I wonder if the warden would accept this.”

  In short order, Steve took a lead in the game. We were all out of our league. He had more money than the rest of us. He had purchased Boardwalk and Park Place, and he gloated about the ensuing slaughter. Soon, Gary and the other player were eliminated. I was once again on the brink of bankruptcy.

  Then Mr. Levin walked into the room.

  “Sorry, Levin, no Jews allowed,” Steve yelled. “He’ll try to take over the bank!”

  Mr. Levin and I were friends. He prepared five hundred slices of toast each morning in the cafeteria while I wrote the menu boards and prepared the garnish. He was one of the few inmates who didn’t spend his mornings in the cooler. On the outside, Levin was an attorney who represented New Orleans’ top Mafia boss. I told Mr. Levin I could use some help. I figured a guy who helped Carlos Marcello build a legal fortune in real estate and investments would come in handy in a Monopoly game, especially considering my recent business record.

  He took a seat where Gary had been. With each of my moves, I took Levin’s recommendations. He suggested I buy railroads.

  Steve laughed at the strategy. “What’s with you and the railroads, Levin?”

  “My grandfather worked for the railroads,” Levin said. “They’re good properties.”

  With Mr. Levin’s help, I soon acquired all the railroads; Steve purchased hotels for Boardwalk and Park Place. Rent would be $3,000. If I landed on either property, I was out. As Levin and I discussed my options for hotels on my cheap properties, Steve was hyperactive. His hands were moving so fast across the board, rolling for both of us, moving our tokens forward, reshuffling the cards and money on the board, I couldn’t keep track of all he was doing, but Mr. Levin did. He corrected Steve a couple of times on his counting and then caught him stacking the deck. Steve had shuffled the Chance cards so that the top card was the “Take a Walk on the Boardwalk.” Levin cleared his throat and held the card in the air. Earlier in the game, it had been put on the bottom of the stack. Steve had placed it back on top. Steve knew if I landed on Chance, the game would be over.

  Levin reshuffled the cards, put them back in a random order and suddenly took a greater interest in my success. He kept track of my money, paid my rents and fines, collected when Steve owed me, and continued to advise me on houses and hotels. Levin’s advice was flawless. I accumulated more property and more money. Steve had mortgaged everything to put eight hotels on Boardwalk. He was down to $180 in cash when he landed on a railroad. Rent: $200. With Levin’s advice, I won.

  Steve stormed out of the room. I thanked Mr. Levin.

  “Call me anytime,” he said.

  CHAPTER 45

  The next morning, while transcribing the menu board in the patient cafeteria, I thought about Mr. Levin. As ridiculous as it was to put so much stock into a board game, I had beaten Steve Read, a financial shyster. Considering my recent history with money, it felt like an accomplishment. All I had to do was accept help, albeit from a mob lawyer. For a moment I imagined how Carlos Marcello must have felt with so many people like Mr. Levin watching his back, protecting him, silently ensuring the success of his ventures. At once, I felt guilty…and oddly privileged.

  On the outside, I was reluctant to ask for help, unwilling to share credit, adverse to guidance. I wondered how my life might have turned out differently if I’d been more willing to accept the help of others.

  I heard Ella’s wheelchair behind me. I called Mr. Levin over from the inmate cafeteria and introduced him to Ella. I recounted our Monopoly game to her, including Mr. Levin’s perfect strategy and advice. Mr. Levin smiled and pulled a Chance card from his front pocket—the “Take a Walk on the Boardwalk.” He had never put it back in the deck.

  Mr. Levin had cheated on my behalf. And all of a sudden I didn’t feel so great.

  “You would have won anyway,” Mr. Levin said. “Just a little insurance.” He smiled, put the card back in his pocket, and went back to making toast for the inmates.

  “How you doin’, boy?” Ella asked.

  I told her I was confused. Confused about so many things, but especially about where to live.

  “There’s no place like home,” she said.

  I usually didn’t answer when Ella chanted her favorite phrase but, today, it was pertinent. “I’m not sure where mine is,” I said. I tried to explain to Ella the complexity of moving back to Oxford. But to keep my resolve to live a simple life with my children, Oxford seemed the only choice. “My mother thinks I should move to Oxford.”

  “Sound like she know somethin’,” Ella said.

  Ella was right. Mom did know something. She spoke from experience. When I was fourteen, she moved away with her new husband. I stayed in Gulfport to live with my father. She had missed years of waking up with me in the same household. She had missed my games and performances. She missed holidays. She had missed my life as a teenager.

  Mom had mentioned regrets in passing, but the last time we spoke she was saying something more.

  “Maybe she does know something.”

  “Childrens need they mommas and they daddies,” Ella said.

  “How can I face the people of Oxford? What will people think?” I said.

  “What peoples think,” Ella said, “ain’t none of your business.”

  That night, in bed, I pondered this novel idea—to act without seeking praise from others. A good portion of my adult life had been spent daydreaming about what others thought of me. I imagined and reimagined accolades, awards, trophies, applause. Just wait until they see this! I would say to myself, not even sure who “they” were.

  Journalism had been the perfect profession to spread the good news of my accomplishments. More than sixty thousand households—every neighbor, friend, and relative—received a monthly sampling of my works bound in the finest paper money could buy. People stopped me on the street to talk about a never-before-published photograph I had discovered, or a thought-provoking editorial I had penned. And I was more than happy to stop and elaborate. At times, it made me dizzy. I felt like I was fulfilling a destiny.

  Now, this hunt for adoration felt demeaning. Linda’s news had been the catalyst that convinced me I needed to change. But I had no idea how to replace a drive to impress that had become second nature. Since childhood I had been imagining myself on the pages of The Guinness Book of World Records, or inviting an audience to watch me fly from a tree house roof.

  Ella couldn’t afford to imagine what people were thinking. If she did, she might never leave her room. Her approach was so simple: Here I am. She rolled into a crowd of inmates, made eye contact, and expected us to treat her with kindness.

  I had fewer than five months before I would be set free. And to be like Ella, I had to unlearn a lifetime of habits.

  CHAPTER 46

>   “Have you seen this?” Doc asked. He handed me a memorandum from the warden. According to new rules, inmates could possess no more than 5 books, 25 magazines, 60 cigars, and 288 cigarettes.

  “What’s the rationale?” I asked.

  “You’re assuming these idiots are rational,” he said. “They say it’s a fire hazard.” Doc had accumulated more than 300 medical journals.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Ship them to my girlfriend,” Doc said. “Should make her day.”

  I opened my locker, removed about a dozen books my mother had mailed me, and spread them out on my bed. I wasn’t a big fan of self-help books, but Mom had a bookcase full of them ready to share with the suddenly self-aware. I picked five books with titles that sounded like they might be the most useful, put them in a stack, and grabbed my pad and pencil.

  “You’re not going to read that crap, are you?” Doc asked.

  I put the books under my arm and walked to the cafeteria. After I finished the menu board for the leprosy patients, I flipped through the first book, Tough Times Never Last, but Tough People Do. The back cover read: “Make your dreams come true! Dr. Schuller shows you how to build a positive self-image.”

  I skimmed the book. A few emboldened phrases jumped off the page: “Take Charge and Take Control. Count to Ten and Win! Dare to Take a Risk. Only a Person Who Risks Is Free. ”

  I put the book down and stared out at the leprosy patient courtyard. The last thing I needed was a new voice telling me to take risks. I made a note to send Tough Times Don’t Last, but Tough People Do back to my mother.

  Ella rolled into the cafeteria. “What you readin’?”

  I held the books up for her to see—Divorce Without Victims, Un-twisting Twisted Relationships, Homecoming, and, of course, Pleasing You Is Destroying Me. “They’re self-help books,” I said.

  “They helpin’?” Ella asked.

  I shrugged and imagined how ridiculous I must have looked, turning to paperback books to solve my problems, to a woman who had endured as much as Ella.

  “Do you read much?” I asked.

  “The Bible,” she said. “And I looks at the paper.”

  Ella was certainly wise. And I valued her advice, but I suspected she might be illiterate. The leprosy patient library was well stocked and larger than the inmate library. I had passed it many times and had admired the thousands of books on the shelves. “Do you ever go to the library?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Are there are any books you want to read?” I asked. Like most journalists, I assumed the wisdom of the world was contained on the printed page. “You could bring them here in the morning, and I could read out loud.”

  “Ain’t no need,” she said. “I already knows more than I understands.”

  I wasn’t sure what Ella meant by that. Could be brilliant. Or not. Sometimes, her words seemed out of context like they flew in from another conversation. Other times, she uttered a phrase that opened up my world. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give her a shot at my new challenge.

  “How does a person change?” I asked Ella.

  “Hard to do,” she said. “Hard to do.”

  “Any ideas?”

  Ella hesitated. She generally blurted out whatever popped into her mind.

  “What?” I said, trying to prod her.

  “Keep meddlin’.”

  “I don’t want to interview anyone else,” I said.

  “Maybe,” she said, “you been askin’ the wrong folks.”

  I had talked to Father Reynolds, Reverend Ray, Sister Margie, every interesting inmate, and dozens of leprosy patients. I already had volumes of notes, but if there were a counselor or a nun or a psychologist who knew something about how to change, I suppose I needed to ask for help. And Ella obviously thought someone could offer insight.

  “Who?” I asked.

  Ella leaned forward and in a soft voice said, “Your own self.”

  I walked the track tossing Ella’s words around in my head: What people thinks about you ain’t none of your business. I already knows more than I understands. Interview your own self. As I moved in circles around the inmate courtyard, I decided to take Ella’s latest advice. I would treat myself like any other interview subject. Ask hard questions. Be suspicious of motives. Look for cracks in my own story. Treat myself like a man who had every chance and ended up in prison for bank fraud.

  “Hey, Clark Kent!” Link yelled. “You borin’ motherfucker!” Link joined me on my walk around the track. “What you doin’?”

  “Trying to figure out some things.”

  “Tryin’ to figure out why you so white?”

  I didn’t answer. I stopped to make a note on my pad. Link waited. Then we walked again.

  “You know all that shit I told you before?” Link said.

  “What?”

  “You know,” Link said, “’bout Popeyes and takin’ them cars.”

  “Yeah. I remember.”

  “You can’t write about that shit…unless you give me some money.”

  “You need money?” I asked.

  “If you put me in your story, I want a million dollars,” he said, smiling.

  I tried to explain the premise that if information is related directly to the journalist, without the caveat of being “off the record,” the writer has every legal right to use the material.

  “That some bullshit!” Link yelled. “You can write shit ’bout me without giving me a goddamn cent?!”

  “Yes,” I said. “But, if the information is libelous, litigation is a remedy.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “If a reporter writes something about you that is inaccurate, or reports the story in a manner that is damaging to you, you can sue.”

  “Then give me some fuckin’ money or I’ll sue your ass.”

  “The stories you told me,” I asked, “are they true?”

  “Fuck, yeah!”

  “Look, Link, I don’t know if I’ll ever write anything about this place.” I told him I wasn’t feeling much like a journalist. I couldn’t very well write someone else’s story when I wasn’t sure of my own.

  “I seen your name in that magazine,” Link said.

  The prison library had recently received back issues of Louisiana Life. I was listed as “Publisher” at the top of the masthead.

  “If you put me in one of them magazines, you got to give me some motherfuckin’ cash.”

  “I don’t own those magazines anymore.” I wanted to tell Link that the socialites and ladies who read Louisiana Life had no interest in reading about his escapades. Not to mention that the new owners would never consider publishing anything I wrote. “In fact,” I said, “I’m in jail because I fell in love with those magazines.” I told Link how much money I spent on the best lithography in the South, spectacular photography, shiny UV coatings for the magazine’s cover, and the finest imported paper.

  “Goddamn!” Link said. “You is doin’ time over glossy paper!”

  He had a point, but Link needn’t worry about my writing about him anytime soon. The story—or exposé—I had envisioned when I arrived at the colony didn’t exist anymore. The only thing I had exposed was my own shortcomings. I had uncovered nothing sensational, except, perhaps, that living with the victims of leprosy had turned out to be a strange blessing for me.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not writing about you anymore.”

  “Then why you still writin’ in that notebook?”

  I shrugged. Link smiled like he’d caught me in a lie. I would continue to make notes, but not for the reasons Link imagined.

  The Christmas card from Oxford.

  CHAPTER 47

  Every day after the four o’clock stand-up count, the Dutchtown inmates gathered on the ground floor of our unit for mail call. As the guards called my name, I felt a bit guilty about the amount of mail I received. I had reached out to every remaining friend. And my mother, who had a knack for galvanizing people into action, had encoura
ged all her friends to write, too. I received dozens of magazines, three daily newspapers, and a regular supply of books and letters. Most, I’m sure, orchestrated by my mother’s asking friends to write.

  And Mom was particularly proficient, too. She sent newspaper clippings and snippets about my former interests. She wrote about the births and marriages of friends and acquaintances. She sent photos of our family. And though the photographs were, at times, exciting to receive, they also reminded me of the moments I was missing.

  I received a Christmas card from Linda. The photograph, of Linda and the kids in front of the courthouse in Oxford, was stunningly beautiful. Wreaths with red bows had been hung between each white arch of the courthouse facade. The photograph was taken on a cool day in the late afternoon. Bits of sunlight illuminated the courthouse walls between the shadows cast by the leafless limbs of the oak trees. Linda, arms wrapped around the children, wore a thick white sweater with a dark peacoat and scarf. Maggie wore a red velvet dress with a lace collar. And Little Neil wore a blue blazer with a red-and-blue striped tie.

  It was the saddest Christmas card I had ever received. It was my family without me.

  One thing was clear. She was moving on. I put Linda’s card in my locker and took off my wedding ring.

  I wanted to perform some kind of ceremony. I imagined I would dig a small hole in the ground somewhere on the colony grounds. A burial. I would leave the symbol of our marriage here, where it ended, at the colony. But what if, by some miracle, we got back together? If I left the ring buried on the grounds, I’d never be able to retrieve it.

  So instead, I placed my wedding band inside an envelope. I sealed it and wrote on the outside, Wedding Ring. I found an empty slot in the back of the expandable file folder Doc had given me, and I buried the envelope deep inside.