MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH

by Michael Lister

  Some inmates actually came to my office out of a desire for rehabilitation, recovery, and spiritual growth—that was as refreshing as it was novel. Most came over trivial matters relating to their job or bed assignments or wanting to use my phone.

  “Chaplainsuh, I’s wandering if you could let me use the phone,” Inmate Jones, an elderly, slow-talking and slow-moving black man, said when we were seated in my office. “My aunt is real sick. I need to call my peoples.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “As you know, the department will only allow me to place a phone call for you in the event of the death or serious illness of an immediate family member. Even then I have to verify it by an outside official like a doctor or funeral director.”

  “Just this once. I really need to talk to her. She raise me, you know.”

  “Is she at home or in the hospital?”

  “She at home.”

  “The only thing I can do is give you a phone pass that will allow you to call collect from your dorm.”

  I opened my desk drawer to retrieve a phone pass form. When I looked down, there was the request from Ike Johnson. In the events of the morning, I had forgotten it. I shut the drawer.

  “She got a block on her phone,” he said, failing to see the contradiction in what he was saying.

  If she really wanted to hear from him, why would she have a block on her line? I often wondered how inmates could tell me with a straight face how close they were with their families and yet admit that their families had gone to the trouble of placing a block on their phones that prevented them from calling.

  “The only thing I can suggest is for you to have another family member call or write her.”

  He stood up to leave, obviously angry.

  “Would you like to talk about how your aunt’s illness is making you feel?” I asked.

  “All I want to do is call my peoples,” he said, opening my door to leave.

  “By the way,” I said, “how did you find out that she was sick in the first place?”

  “I call my moms,” he said before he thought about what he was saying.

  “Why don’t you call her again and ask her how your aunt is? In fact, if she has a three-way feature on her phone, she can then call your aunt, and you can talk to her that way.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said walking through he open door.

  “I’m trying to,” I said. “If you can think of how I can help you within the rules, I will be happy to do it,” I said—more to the back of his head than anything else.

  As soon as he left, I opened my center desk drawer and extracted my mail and the request form. Inmate request forms are how inmates make requests from of staff members in prison. The top of the request form stated that it was from Ike Johnson and to Chaplain Jordan. The request read: “Dear Chaplin sir, I really need to talk to you very soon. Can I come to your office tomorrow? It’s real important. I scared I either going to try to escape or kill myself and don’t know who to talk to. Sir, you my only hope. May God bless you, Chaplin sir.”

  Unlike any other request I had ever received, this one was typed. Most inmates did not have access to typewriters, and the ones who did were only allowed to use them for official reasons such as law work. I glanced up at the date. It was dated the day he was killed. I should have received the request that day, but, because of the incident in the sally port, I had not picked up my mail. Ironically, his death was the very thing that had delayed my getting his plea for help. I felt sad for him and just a little sick. If he were planning an escape, why would he request to come and see me? Obvious question, I know, but it must be asked. Did he really send it? I wondered what he was going through and if it were the sort thing that people were killed for.

  I reread the request several times. The type had several distinguishing marks, not the least of which was that the letter “t” was missing the right side of the crossbar, the letter “o” was missing the bottom curve, and the letter “a” was much darker than the rest of the type. The typewriter that produced this request would not be difficult to find.

  While I was examining the request, Mr. Smith tapped on the door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  “Brother Chaplainsuh, they’s two mo’ to see you now.” Mr. Smith’s blue uniform was always neatly pressed and buttoned to the top button.

  “Do you know what they want?” I asked.

  “One say he didn’t get the Father’s Day card we sent him. The other one wants you to make copies of his legal papers.”

  “Sounds like they can wait a minute or two. Would you mind coming in and talking to me for a few minutes?”

  “Nosuh, I don’t mind,” he said as he swaggered in and slowly took his seat. “I done something wrongsuh?” he asked.

  “No. Nothing like that at all,” I said reassuringly. “Actually, I need your help.”

  “Okaysuh.” He was slumped so far down in his chair as to be nearly horizontal. His head hung down as if it were too much effort to keep it up. His long arms dangled on either side of the chair, nearly touching the floor.

  “I’m still trying to understand how things work on the compound and wondered if you could explain it to me.”

  “’Splain whatsuh?” he asked slowly.

  “First of all, how often do you hear inmates talking about trying to escape? I’m talking about serious talks about escape attempts.”

  He hesitated. “Nosuh, not many ever say anything like that to me. Too hard. Chances are they couldn’t make it. Not worth it. This place harder to get out of than it look.”

  “Has anyone ever tried to escape from here before?” I asked, knowing that he had been here almost the entire three years this institution had been open.

  “Nosuh. Not as I know of. Couple from the work camp did, but they caught them lickidy-split.”

  “What do you think about the escape attempt we had yesterday?

  “I think he a fool. Everybody know what they do to the trash. Maybe he wanted to die. Never tell about him.”

  “But you don’t think that it was a serious escape attempt?”

  “Nosuh. Either he wanted to die, or somebody wanted him to die.”

  “I see. What can you tell me about drugs or alcohol on the compound?”

  “They’s those who have it. They’s those that would love to have it but can’t afford it. They’s those who do anything for it.”

  “Is there a lot of it on the compound?”

  “Nosuh, not a lot. And they’s really only two things—buck and hash.”

  “How do they get it?”

  “Most the liquor is homemade. Inmates in food services or the chapel sneak juice or old fruit and sugar back down on the ’pound. Mix it up and let it ferment.”

  “You mean inmates have stolen our communion juice to make buck?”

  “Yesuh. Some go to church on communion night ’cause of it. They hold it in their mouth until they get back down to the dorm and then they all spit it into an old can or a plastic bag they stole. The clerk that worked here before me used to steal some every week and sell it down on the ’pound.”

  “What about hash?”

  “Hash come in during visitation, or some officer bring it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some of the inmate’s family members sneak it in and slip it to them while they visit or leave it in the bathroom and the orderly get it when he clean up. And, they is officers that will sell it to you. Not many left, but they always a few.”

  “Is it expensive? Hard to get?” I asked.

  “Cost whatever man’s got. Cookies, cards, smokes, or a hit on someone.”

  “No cash involved?”

  “Nosuh. Not enough of it to be able to bribe officers and it don’t do no good for inmates.”

  “Everything’s done on trade?”

  “Yesuh. Inmate say, ‘You do this for me or that for me and I give you my canteen.’ They pay—it just ain’t with money.”

  “What can you tell me about h
omosexuality on the compound?”

  “Well, they’s the punks, the pimps, the sisters, and then the inmates who use they services. The punks are the real fags. They like it. They was fags before they come in here. They have pimps who look after them and hire them out. The sisters are faggots who just go with each other. They don’t have no one to protect them and they don’t hire out. They just in love, I reckon,” he said, shaking his head and then growing silent.

  We were both silent for a moment. I looked at him. He was looking down, which is what he did most of the time. He was old, with solid gray hair, except for the bald spot. He seemed feeble. His brown lips protruded and his nose seemed to spread across his entire face. His eyelids twitched occasionally—probably wishing they had been closed more often throughout his painful life. His hands were very large and his fingers all came to sharp points at the ends.

  “You said that some inmates use the services of a punk, but are they not considered to be punks themselves?”

  “Nosuh. They straight on the outside. It’s just they can’t get none in here. In here they a big difference between pitching and catching.”

  We were silent again, and I mused about the moral difference between pitching and catching in the social order of Potter Correctional Institution. What a strange world I had entered.

  “The punks,” he began again, “wear women’s stuff.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Panties, pantyhose, perfume. Shit . . . I mean stuff, like that.”

  “What?” I asked truly amazed. “Where in the world do inmates get women’s clothes and perfume?”

  “Get it from one of the female officers.”

  I gave him a look that said, No way.

  “Yesuh,” he said with a world-weary smile. Some of these womans who work out here are lonely. They do lot of stuff for inmates they likes. If they like one, nobody better mess with him.”

  “Do any of them actually have affairs with inmates?”

  “Some do, not many. Not really affairs, but they have sex. Get an inmate to come into the laundry room with ’em late at night when ’most everybody’s asleep. Some of the black officers get white inmates. They chance to have a white man. But this don’t happen a lot. Too hard in open dorms. But a lot of them let inmates gun them down.”

  “Gun them down?” I asked as if I had been born yesterday, and in this world I had.

  “They jack while they watch the officer in the control room of the dorm. Control room glass, and you can see everything in the bathroom. They got a squad that get together and gun down the female officers, especially the fat ones. Some of the officers encourage it, and some even expose themselves to the inmates. Some don’t even know it’s goin’ on.”

  “Who all knows about this?”

  “’Most everybody on the ’pound.”

  “Officers too?”

  “Some. Not too many. Everything that we do, somebody know about. Everything.”

  “So if an inmate does something, it’s because some officer or staff member allows him to do it.”

  “Yesuh.”

  “Most of the inmates trust you, don’t they?”

  “I got respect. Not the same thing. Inmates don’t trust no one. They life say they can’t trust no one, not even the chaplain.”

  “Really? So I have no hope of real acceptance and trust from them?”

  “Nosuh. You got mine. You probably get others, not many though.”

  “I see. What’s the overall feeling about the officers and staff?”

  “Nobody give ’em much thought ’less they mess with us. The jits are not smart enough to be cool so that the officers don’t get in our business. They so stupid.”

  “The jits?” I asked.

  “Jitterbugs. Young inmates. They not convicts like us. They inmates. A true convict don’t get in no trouble. ’Cause if you stay clean or look like you do, officers stay away from you. Convict wants to do his time quiet with no trouble. Jit ain’t got the sense God give a dung beetle. ’Sides, most of them don’t have a lot of time anyway, so they do it the hard way. But, they be back. Eventually they learn.”

  “If an inmate—or a convict—wanted to escape, could an officer be bought to help?”

  “Nosuh, probably not. They sell you dope, maybe turn they head when you beat up a punk, but they wouldn’t help you get out.”

  “Did you know the inmate that tried to escape yesterday? Johnson.”

  “Nosuh, not really.”

  “What about an inmate named Jacobson?”

  “Yeah, I know of him. Watch your back around him. Some people say he crazy, but he ain’t. He’s dangerous. Lot of inmates say they killed before; most of ’em ain’t, but Jacobson’s a killer for real. I bet he’s lost count of the number of people he’s offed.”

  “Is there anybody else I should talk with?”

  “Yesuh. They’s an old homosexual on the ’pound. He say very little, but he know a lot.”

  “What’s his name?”

  He started to speak and then stopped. “I don’t know his real namesuh. Everybody on the pound call him Grandma.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate it.”

  “Yesuh. Thank you for what you do. You the first chaplain I seen who really care and don’t act like he any better than the rest of us.”

  “Mr. Smith, I’ll tell you a little secret: I’m not.”

  Chapter 6

  John Jordan’s first rule of detection: start with what you have, even when what you have isn’t much. I knew that Johnson spent his last night in the infirmary and that Jacobson was there too. So I went to the medical building. The medical building, like every other building at PCI, was gray. At least everybody referred to it as gray; I felt that it lacked sufficient color to actually be classified as a color, even a color as colorless as gray. The medical building, which actually housed dental and classification also, was always filled with inmates lined up waiting for service. Some of them were there to see their classification officer, others to see the dentist, and still others to see a doctor or pick up medication.

  Just inside the building there was a small inmate waiting room where inmates sat in silence staring at the front wall until they were called in by the particular official they were waiting to see. To the left was dental and classification, and to the right was medical and pharmaceutical, all of which were behind locked doors. I turned right— the opposite direction from Anna, whom I would rather be visiting.

  After unlocking the medical department door with my key, I walked down the long hallway leading to the infirmary, wondering how many other staff members had a key to the medical department. It made sense that the chaplain did; I spent a great deal of time in the infirmary.

  Along the way, I passed the nurses’ station where two nurses— one white, one black, both elderly and overweight—sat. Each had an inmate seated across from her and was laboring to check his vital signs. The inmates’ slightly amused slightly fearful looks said they wondered if the nurses had a vital sign between them.

  I also passed by two exam rooms. In one, Dr. Mulid Akbar, PCI’s senior health officer and my personal advisor to the Muslim religion, was examining the knee of one of the inmates, who seemed to be in a great deal of pain. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just trying to get out of work, and then I felt guilty for being so jaded. It’s just that in the few months that I had been at PCI, I had been lied to more than the entire rest of my life. However, I vowed again, right then and there, not to become so callused that I expect to be lied to.

  At the end of the hallway and to the left, I entered the officers’ station for the infirmary. There I found to both my surprise and delight Nurse Strickland, whom I had briefly met the day before. She was seated on the officer’s desk swinging her legs back and forth and chewing bubble gum while warmly conversing with Officer Straub.

  “Well, hello, Chaplain. Jordan, isn’t it?” Strickland said.

&nbs
p; “Yes, John. Hello. How are you two today?”

  “Never better,” she said in an upbeat voice, but she was looking down. “By the way, my name is Sandra, but everyone calls me Sandy.” When our eyes finally met, she glanced at me and then looked away. She was that not-so-rare combination of beautiful and insecure. At that moment, I wished for the chance to help make her more secure. She was beautiful and I wanted to tell her so.

  “I’ve never seen you here during the day before and now I’ve seen you two days in a row,” I said. “Have you been transferred to day shift?”

  “Oh, no. I’m too much of a night owl. I wouldn’t be much use around here most mornings. Just with everything that happened yesterday and all, I’m trying to lend a hand. We also have an ACA inspection coming up soon, and I’m putting in a lot of overtime to whip things into shape.”

  “We keep trying to get her to join us here on day shift,” Officer Straub said, never taking his eyes off her, “but she just won’t do it. I think she’s a vampire.”

  She slapped at him in mock anger and then opened her mouth just enough to expose her vampire teeth and started toward his neck, but then got embarrassed and stopped. She looked down and then back at me to see if she had made a complete fool out of herself.

  I tried to think of something to say that would assure her that she had not. “If you want to drain his blood, I can wait in the other room.” And then I laughed, but soon discovered that I was laughing alone. She looked upset and a little pale.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot all about yesterday. I know you were the first to check Johnson. It was very insensitive of me. I’m really sorry.”

  “It was just so horrible. So much blood . . . everywhere. It really got to me. I didn’t think it would, but it did. I think I’m going to walk outside for a minute and get some fresh air. Would you like to join me, Chaplain?”

  “Sure,” I said and then turned to say good-bye to Straub, but could feel the intensity of his stare immediately. I had interrupted his play and he made no attempt to hide his anger. I simply nodded and turned and walked away.