“Perhaps I should. We went to school together,” I said. “You know inmates’ uniforms often get switched in the laundry. It may have come in contact with the cleanser when another inmate was wearing it.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. The chemical had not been through the washer and dryer, and the uniform had his name tag on it. It actually stuck to the spear,” he said shaking his head. “Okay. How about medical and dental?” he asked.
“I’ll check them both over the weekend. I can’t today because I have to continue my regular work as well. Also, I’ve been asked to do Ike Johnson’s funeral tomorrow morning.”
“Find out all you can about him from his family,” he said. “They may know something useful and not know they know it.”
“If the opportunity presents itself I will, but they’ve just lost a family member in a horrible way. I’m not going as a detective, but as a minister.”
“You better go as both or some other family is going to lose their son.”
“Like I said, I’ll do what I can.”
“I think it’s best if we’re not seen together. You do those things. I’ll talk with Fortner, make him feel a part of the investigation, and continue to check with the lab. Why don’t we meet again on Monday?”
“Sounds good. Where?”
“If I stop by here, no one really sees. Besides, I could be asking you questions like anybody else. You are a witness.”
“Okay, but don’t believe that nobody sees you. Somebody sees everything that is done in this place. Everything.”
Chapter 13
When Merrill Monroe and I were in elementary school, the history books and the teachers that taught from them painted a benign picture of slaves singing soulfully as they worked on the plantations. It wasn’t that they said slavery was right; they didn’t tell us just how wrong it really was. The slaves were not happy, of course, but only because they didn’t own the land on which they were working. Seeing the inmates, most of whom were black, harvesting the crops outside the institution brought this memory to mind, and I wondered if slavery really ever ended in this country. The two obvious differences between now and then were that they were harvesting watermelons and potatoes, not cotton and tobacco; and they were doing it under the watchful eye of a black man, who, as he put it, was the Head Nigga In Charge.
Being a black man in a small Southern town is not easy. Being an intelligent and ambitious black man in a small Southern town is nearly impossible. I first noticed Merrill’s strength and intelligence in elementary school when I was learning about slavery. Merrill didn’t learn anything during that unit; he already knew it all too well. Our friendship began then, and since that time I’d not had a better friend.
Merrill was a correctional officer sergeant in charge of the outside grounds of the prison. Inmates assigned to him were not considered to be an escape risk and, therefore, allowed to work outside the gate.
I found him in a garden to the left of the institution down on his hands and knees showing an inmate just how to plant the potatoes. The light brown sleeves of his short sleeve CO uniform were stretched tightly over the dark brown skin of his arms. Every time he moved, his muscles flexed, straining his shirt to the point of ripping.
As he instructed the inmate on exactly how to do his job, he spoke in slow, even tones. I had seen him stare down a gang of inmates, two with shanks, the same way. I had also seen him wipe out an entire gang by himself, never raising his voice and never acting as if it required much effort either.
“Sarge, you got a minute?” I asked as I came up behind him.
He stood, nodding at me and pointing at the row of potatoes to the inmate.
We walked away from the garden and the inmates who hear all and see all.
“I was thinking of planting some potatoes and needed some help.”
“Sure, I can help you. Us colored mens knows how to toil under de sun. It what make us so brown and earthy,” he said.
“I am really about to put some sod around my trailer. Want to help?”
“I’ll help with some advice,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Put the green side up,” he said, and then a broad smile crept across his face revealing startling white teeth.
“Thanks for the tip.”
“Us coloreds live to serve y’all, sir,” he said. “It’s what we here for.”
We were both silent a minute. He glanced back in the direction of the garden. I could tell he was not happy with how the inmate was planting the potatoes.
“It’s hard to get good help these days,” I said.
“Yeah. Speaking of which, I heard about what you did in the sally port the other day. Very impressive for a skinny white boy.”
“I’m not skinny,” I protested. “I’m fit.”
“You’s fit before the Atlanta thing,” he said, “Now you skinny.”
He stood directly in front of me, positioning himself between me and the sun. The shadow he cast kept me from needing the shades I did not have. He was always doing things like that and never mentioning it. Any other white person in America, except maybe for Anna, he would have left squinting in the sun.
I could see my reflection in his glasses. I looked distorted, like my face was too big for my head and body. Merrill towered over my six feet by about four inches, totally eclipsing the sun.
“Anyway,” he continued, “you did good. Showed some of these rednecks that a man can be civilized, even holy, and have balls, too.”
“That’s what I came out here to talk to you about. I need to know if Johnson worked for you and what kind of worker he was?”
“He worked for me on paper, but that’s all. He was assigned to me, but he never came to work. Every month I get a note from Captain Skipper that he was using Johnson other places. Said I should go ahead and give him credit for working out here.”
“And you did it?” I asked, a little surprised.
“Captain say do it, I do it. I not smart enough to think for myself. I a machine. They program me, I work. I don’t ask no questions,” he said, falling back into his favorite dialect for expressing his frustration.
Merrill thought for himself all right. However, his life would have been easier if he were a machine. He was as smart as any man I had ever met, but was unable to go to college until recently because of family and money problems. He had, however, spent much of his time at the public library and already had a much better education than most college graduates.
“Did he ever come out here for work?” I asked.
“When he was first assigned here, he came about three times. Didn’t do a damn thing. Worried about his fingernails and hair too much. He should have been a woman. . . . From what I hear, sometimes he was.”
“What have you heard?” I asked.
“Some of the inmates called him ‘Godown—’ “ he said with a broad smile that showed off every one of his snow-white teeth again.
“Godown?” I asked.
“Yeah, because he would go down on anybody.”
“Do you think that had something to do with his death?” I asked, trying not to smile too big.
“It sure as hell a possibility, now ain’t it, Sherlock? Since your man David offed Uriah to have Bathsheba, people been getting dead over the nasty.”
“What can you tell me about Officer Hardy, who works midnights in the infirmary?”
“Ex-military, still in the reserves, I think,” he said. “One hell of a good officer. Smart. Tough. Fair. He’s righteous.”
“How did you know I was playing Sherlock?” I asked.
“I know things.” He smiled.
“Do a lot of people know?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said, “but it’s just a matter of time. They’s very few secrets when everybody lives this close together.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“So,” he said, “you better watch your back, Jack. Sooner or later, the wrong person’s going to know. And . .
.”
“And?”
“Just watch your back,” he said, tilting his head forward so that I saw his eyes above his shades. They were serious.
“How about you watching my back?” I asked.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“Which is more than most.”
“Which is more than most.”
“You’re pretty confident for a black man named after a dead white woman.”
He ran his hand across his short hair and then started patting it. “I’m named after a beautiful white woman. And she was almost as pretty as me. You know Mama swore that we were kin to her somehow.”
“You probably are,” I said. “For her sake, I hope so. Can you tell me anything else about Johnson?”
“No, I really didn’t know him that well. I’ll tell you who can. There is an inmate named Willie Baker. He’s probably the oldest homosexual alive on the compound, maybe even in the world.”
“The one they call Grandma?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said with surprise and amusement. “You chaplains know the four-one-one, don’t you?”
“That’s me, Mr. Information. It’s not the four-one-one, but the nine-one-one that has me concerned.”
“Well, if it come to that,” he said smiling, “I be happy to make the call.”
“Thanks,” I said, “that’s very reassuring.”
I turned to leave and then turned back and said, “Oh, yeah, could you recognize a request that Johnson typed if you saw it?”
“No, and neither would you,” he said.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because Johnson couldn’t read or write. Just another dumb nigga’,” he said smiling, “like all us darkies.”
“You sure he couldn’t write?” I asked.
“As sure as I am that desegregation didn’t end racism in the South.”
That was as positive as Merrill could get. Walking back toward the institution, I wondered who wrote the request for Ike Johnson and if they knew anything about the trouble that Ike was in or maybe who killed him. Maybe he’ll come and see me before the day is over. And, maybe I’ll wake up in the morning and racism will be over, too.
Chapter 14
The compound was alive with the noise of a crowd, distinct voices only heard occasionally—laughter, yelling, religious talk, and profanity, all whirling around together like a brackish whirlpool of sound. Blue movement was everywhere. The activity was astounding; the inmates were in perpetual motion. They buzzed around like bees going from one flower to the next, many of them spreading poison rather than pollen. In the distance I could hear shots being fired on the range, and I wondered if it registered with the inmates that the officers were preparing for the eventuality that they might have to shoot them.
The sun beat down with a vengeance. The only shade was provided by four pavilions that were constructed for just that purpose. Like everything else in the institution, they were uniformly gray. Perhaps they blocked the sun, but they were impotent against the heat. The heat was stifling. Breathing the hot, thick air in and out took extra effort. The breeze that was present at the end of spring had finally given up and left town about a week before. The air didn’t move, which is why the constant movement of the inmates looked all the more out of place.
As I walked through the open population, I was again reminded that I was a stranger in a strange land. This was their world, not mine. Many of the inmates treated me as guests at a dinner party would a servant. Some of them didn’t seem to notice me at all. Others spoke, many of them doing so very respectfully.
As I passed through their midst, I heard contrasting discussions, from talk about God on a seminary level—”The concept of the trinity is not the fixed state of God, but an expression of different ways in which God can be experienced”—to the proliferation of scatological language—”That motherfucker even think about fuckin’ with my shit I’a fuckin’ kick his motherfuckin’ ass two times”—quite often from the same mouth. I heard deals being made, political and sports discussions, and what I never failed to hear anywhere in the prison: discussions of all that was wrong with the Department of Corrections.
I walked down to the recreation field where inmates were very seriously playing. Above the field, in the clear, blue sky, a small flock of birds chirped and sang as they flew—surely a sign to anyone looking: beauty was here, God was here. I usually visited the rec field once a week to be available to the inmates who would never consider coming to the chapel. However, I had already done that this week. This visit was to see Willie Baker, who hadn’t shown up after I had him called to the chapel. I could’ve had security pick him up and bring him to me, but I thought that might make him less than cooperative.
I found Willie at the far end of the rec field sitting on the ground leaning up against the back of the softball fence. He looked about a hundred and fifty. His gray hair, what little there was, made a nearly complete circle around the crown of his head. His eyes were hollow, and his eyeballs seemed as if they would have been too small for their sockets if not for the yellow matter in the corners of them. His stubbly gray beard sporadically covered his gaunt face, dipping down in the recesses of his cheeks because he had no teeth. If he were in any way effeminate you couldn’t tell it by looking at him. However, if he were alive, you couldn’t tell it by looking at him either. Men and women look a lot more alike at his age anyway.
He sat with two other men, both in their twenties. I said men because that’s all this institution incarcerates, not because they looked like men. They were as feminine as any girl I had ever dated, and more so than some. They worked their femininity for all it was worth, too. They were gay and proud; they also seemed to be advertising.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” I said to Willie when I had squatted down in front of him.
Willie’s expression didn’t change. He continued to stare up, which made his pupils almost completely disappear, causing him to look like the blind dude in Kung Fu.
“Grandma,” the inmate to his left said in a high falsetto voice, “the chaplain want to talk whichya.”
Willie didn’t respond.
In the center of the field stood a gray officer’s station. Part of it was open, housing free weights and Ping Pong tables. Scattered all around it were card tables where small groups of inmates played checkers, chess, and dominoes. There was no gambling going on—just ask the inmates.
“Grandma,” he said again, this time patting his cheek as he did, “wake up, old girl. They’s a man what wants to talk whichya.”
Willie’s eyes drifted slowly back down to earth, landing somewhere in my vicinity. Then he said in a soft, airy voice, “Who . . .”—he breathed out and paused as if this would require the last bit of life that was left in him—” . . . is . . . it?”
“It’s the reverend. The new one,” he said.
“The fine one,” the other one said. I smiled.
Willie leaned down and whispered something in the ear of the inmate to his left. He was obviously the spokesperson for the group. His name tag read Jefferson.
“Grandma wants to know,” Jefferson said, “if you think homosexuals have no hope of salvation.”
“I don’t think there’s anybody with no hope of salvation. I say this because I am being saved or redeemed or whatever, and if I can, anybody can.”
Willie leaned down again and whispered something else in Jefferson’s ear. Behind us the other inmates on the rec field were loud and active, sounding like children on a playground. And, in many ways, that’s what they were—children who refused to grow up, men who could find no benefit in becoming responsible adults.
“Grandma say what do you think about priests who molest children?”
“I think they need help. I think they do not need to be priests.”
“Do you think that they do that because they fags?” Jefferson asked.
“Pedophilia and homosexuality are two different thin
gs, and rarely is a person both,” I said.
Behind me on the track that circled the entire field, two inmates passed by and snickered. They said something I couldn’t make out. Then they laughed some more. Again, Willie whispered something into Jefferson’s ear. Their actions brought to mind Moses and Aaron.
“Grandma say you all right. What you want to know?” Jefferson said.
“I want to know everything there is to know about Ike Johnson.”
“Grandma say he dead. What else is there to know?” Jefferson said after receiving instructions from Grandma to do so.
“I want to know all about him while he was alive so I can find out why he was killed,” I said.
Beyond the blacktop court where young black men played full-court basketball like they did in Miami, the elderly inmates played horseshoes like they did in retirement homes in Sarasota. Past them, the young white inmates played volleyball the way they did on Panama City Beach. Yet, beyond all of this, the wall of chain-link fence and razor wire served as an ominous reminder of exactly which part of Florida this was.
“Grandma say he a real faggot. A bastard of a faggot. Do anything. Worse than a ho. Say, him getting killed just a matter of time. Sooner or later his kind always get stuck.”
“Did he belong to someone?” I asked.
“You mean was he someone’s ho?” Jefferson asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Grandma say everybody think he belonged to Jacobson, but he didn’t. Grandma say he belonged to another inmate, and they both belong to a cop.”
“A correctional officer here at the prison?” I asked, though I didn’t believe it.
“Yeah. But the point is,” Jefferson continued, “he wasn’t loyal to his old man. He would do anything anytime. He also had a big mouth.”
“What else can you tell me?” I asked.
“Grandma say that all he can say, ’cause he ain’t got a big mouth.”
I thought about all the names that I had come across so far in this investigation. I wanted to ask him about at least one of them.
“Can you tell me who Johnson’s real old man was?” I asked.
MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH Page 10