Doing Time

by Bell Gale Chevigny

  Jimmy scored three quick points with a repertoire of left/right corner-catching killer serves that weren’t on display the day before. The crowd ate it up, and Louie yelled, “Hey Jimmy, where’d you get that serve?”

  “In a salami sandwich,” Jimmy joked back. Some cons laughed, but none were Latino, and Jimmy went back to work. With the score now tied at nineteen, Carlos broke Jimmy’s serve with a lunging backhand return of a shot that could’ve given Jimmy point seven. Papo &C Company came alive with whistles and applause, but it was a fleeting celebration. The old-timer broke the kid’s setve again, and went on to score two consecutive points for the game win.

  The sound of applause echoed across the yard, attended by whistles and shouts of “I told ya so!” that stung the ears of the non-believers. Jimmy approached Carlos with his right hand extended. “Good game, kid,” he offered. “Whataya wanna do about game three?”

  Carlos’s cockiness had given way to a sudden awareness. “Thanks, viejo, I’ll get back ta ya,” he managed as he shook Jimmy’s hand, then split.

  After the back slaps and congratulations had run their course, Jimmy sauntered over to the bench and lit a Lucky Strike. Lookmg toward the court, he watched one of Papo’s posses smack Hap’s palm, and then come walking his way. “Ftom Papo,” is all he said as he repeated the smack on Jimmy, and strolled away. Vig came over and pinched his cheek. “No lobster tails, but Barbara brought me spare ribs, and I’ll make a salad.” Looking down at Jimmy’s worn sneakers, he added, “You’re a funny bastard, O’Toole.” Then he was gone.

  The lone figure sat against the handball wall, with his crutches standing guard. Jimmy flicked his Lucky in the breeze, and closed the distance between them. “Pull up some concrete, cracker, ‘n’ I’ll have my maid bring a mint julep,” Hap joked in his gravel tone. Jimmy kept silent and slid down the wall. Quiet seconds passed where the two old friends jockeyed thoughts about in private.

  Finally Jimmy queried, “You got any plans for that three hundred?”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna buy me a lot in Scarsdale ‘n’ plant watermelons. How ‘bout you?”

  “I’m gonna buy all the trees in that neighborhood so they can’t hang your silly black ass.”

  They were quiet again until Jimmy said, “Let me see it, Hap.” The old hustler’s fingers slid into his sock and came out with the carefully folded Ben Franklin, The fast glance of a greedy eye would see the one inch square 100, but examination would reveal only half a bill, skillfully folded over paper.

  “Someday you’re gonna get me killed,” Jimmy said.

  “Don’t worry,” Hap replied. “I’ll bury ya on my lot.”

  1994, Great Meadow Correctional Facility Comstock, New York

  Feathers on the Solar Wind

  David Wood

  A heavy winter rainstorm drummed the buildings of Hesiod Correctional Institution the night Daniel Martin Pinkston finally died in the AIDS Dormitory. It was 2 A.M. when four corrections officers in protective clothing wheeled him on a gurney out the iron door for the last time. Kenneth “South Philly” Johnson and Willie Norton looked up from their card game. John Mohammed “Deathrow” Rollins spared one last glance at the closing door before he began his cleanup duties.

  “That’s two we lost since midnight,” Willie said as he began shuffling cards. “First Parker Calloway, now Pinkston. You know when it goes like this there’ll be a third.”

  “Third time’s a charm,” Johnson said. ‘Til put up a pack of Lucky Strikes that Morgan will go next.”

  “Be quiet, man,” Deathrow snarled. “You don’t respect death and you don’t respect God.” He was stripping off Pinkston’s soiled sheets and double bagging rhem in red contagion bags. “And keep it down! These sick men art’ trying 10 sleep!”

  “Sony, man,” Willie said. “We just can’t sleep.”

  Deathrow looked up as he scrubbed the waterproof mattress with bleach. “I can get you some sleeping pills if you want.”

  “No need, brother,” Willie said. “Til just play with South Philly here and let bun tell me his life story. I’ll be asleep in fifteen minutes.” I le nodded at Johnson, who’d spent most of his life in South Philadelphia before coming to 1’lorida and landing a bid for armed robbery and kidnapping. Now in his mid forties, he was an animate human skeleton, his neon white skin spotted by Kaposi’s sarcoma. Willie, at fifty, was pist as thin, his black skin dry and flaky, most of ins graying hair gone.

  ‘Mint if you need something, you tell me!” Deathrow said, pointing his thumb at his chest. “You got a problem, I’ll lake care of it.”

  He returned to his duties, and the older men watched him for a moment. Like lliern, Deathrow had IIIV, but be was still big and black and bald and muscular, his voice deep like James Farl Jones’s, his energy and patience endless. At nineteen he had killed two police officers, and spent twelve years shooting one wrir alter another into the courts from death row, doing all he could to keep from making that last walk to Old Sparky, Florida’s electric chair. He’d finally got his sentence changed to life, but after one year on the compound he had the virus.

  After six months of bitter denial he converted to Islam, and though he could have spent years on the compound until full-blown AIDS set in, he volunteered to live in the AIDS dorm to work as a nurse’s aide. He humbly performed all the duties shunned by the officers and the doctors and nurses, who visited the dorm as little as possible. He emptied the catheter bags, changed soiled linen, gave bedbaths to men too weak to bathe themselves. He held men up and fed them, checked them for bedsores, and his muscular killer’s hands massaged sore spots to keep them from becoming bedsores. His prison job duties required him to work eight hours a day, five days a week, but he never stopped working as long as he wasn’t asleep.

  “I wish I had that kind of energy,” South Philly said, watching Deathrow carry the contagion bags to the laundry.

  “You got plenty of energy,” Willie said as he dealt the cards. He noticed Jimmie Long across the dorm climbing out of bed into his wheelchair. “Look at you, up all night partying and playing catds. You’re as lively as a feather on the wind.”

  “Give me three cards,” South Philly mumbled. “And hold your sarcasm. You’re full of shit and bad jokes, and your farts stink like roadkill when they float over to my bunk.” He examined his cards and bet two tailormades — Lucky Strikes — while he puffed a cigarette he’d rolled himself. “Deathrow had to slide my locker between our bunks so we could play. My strength is draining.”

  “At least you don’t have to wear adult diapers,” Willie said, reaching for his Chesterfields. “I’ll see your two and raise you three. Now, when you ask me if I’m going to wear briefs or boxer shorts tomorrow, I answer ‘Depends.’ Jimmie’s coming for a visit.”

  “What got you up?” South Philly asked, nodding at Jimmie. “You’re usually sawing logs about now.”

  “Can’t sleep,” Jimmie mumbled, stopping by their bunks.

  “Deal you in?” Willie asked.

  “I’ll watch,” Jimmie said. Though he looked healthier than the two older men, his legs were quickly growing weak. The doctor couldn’t figure out why. His face looked as if it had a rash under the red ceiling nightlights.

  “I call,” South Philly said, setting his cards down, two queens, ace high. Willie showed him three deuces before scooping up his cigarettes. “Damn.”

  “You never traveled enough to play against good players,” Willie said.

  ““Well, I won’t get a chance to travel now.”

  “Oh, you are, in a way,” Willie said. “The earth is twenty-four thousand miles around, and it spins like a sonovabitch. You’re going about a thousand miles an hour and don’t even know it.”

  “Who gives a shit,” Jimmie mumbled.

  South Philly looked at him. “Homey, you in a bad mood or something?”

  “I know what it is,” Willie said, putting on his state-issued glasses and gazing at Jimmie. “Pinkston died tonight, and he’s the
one who gave you AIDS, isn’t he?”

  “Man, I’m no fag!”

  “You two were cellmated,” Willie went on. “You can’t tell me you didn’t get some mud on your turtle.”

  “Man, just shut your fuckin’ mouth!” Jimmie yelled, his cheeks redder than normal.

  “Watch your mouth, bro,” South Philly said, scooping up the cards. “We didn’t invite you over here, so if you want to cop an attitude, take it back to bed.”

  “And don’t get defensive,” Willie added. “None of us got in this dorm by sharing a needle or getting a blood transfusion.”

  “Man,” Jimmie shook his head. “I just don’t want to die like this. This place stinks like a busted meat locker, people dying every other day, we’re fenced off from the rest of the compound, and all we can do is wait to die. I don’t want to die like this, I want to die like a man!”

  “Shut up, punk,” South Philly hissed, rising up on bony legs hidden in nylon pa jama bottoms. “This is how a man dies. Look at me. My mother writes me every week, but here I am, I got myself locked away from her and dying. You think she’s proud of me? You think I’m proud of myself? My father has Alzheimer’s, and she’s trying to take care of him, and she probably wonders every day who’s going to die first, me or my father. But this is how a man dies, with the Ninja or Alzheimer’s, or cancer. If you wanted to throw yourself on a grenade and save your buddies and die a hero’s death, you should’ve joined the Marines.”

  “South Philly, stop running your jaw,” Wyman Reed said, walking through the maże of bunks toward them. “If Deathrow comes back and catches you waking up his patients, he’ll gag you and tie you to your bed.”

  “You guys are waking the dead over here,” Carl “Smokey” Dukes said. “Can’t you keep your voices down?” Both men wore their blankets over their shoulders. Like Jimmie, who had on a sweatshirt over his pajama top, they couldn’t put up with the cold air in the dorm. The heaters were in the ceiling instead of the floor, and the slow-turning ceiling fans couldn’t quite get the warm air down. Willie and South Philly both had fevers that night, and sat on their bunks shirtless, their ribby chests like washboards.

  “I’m sorry, Smokey,” Willie said. “We won’t holler and hoot again. This was supposed to be a quiet party. Go ahead back to sleep.”

  “Hell with that,” Wyman said. “Deal me in.” He held up a pack of generic cigarettes.

  “You up to a game this late?” South Philly asked, shuffling the cards. Wyman nodded. “Smokey?”

  “I’m all out, homey. I’ll just watch.” He pulled an empty wheelchair closer as Wyman sat on the bed next to South Philly. Wyman was a tall black man who hadn’t yet shown signs of the virus, but three long bouts of pneumonia had weakened him. He couldn’t live in open population anymore. Sometimes he’d go outside and stand by the fence, watching inmates play basketball in the distance. He never stayed out long, because it was only a matter of time before he’d be noticed and become the target of insults and catcalls. This irritated him no end: At least a third of them were also infected, though outwardly healthy, and they, too, would be landing in the AIDS dorm.

  “You know they took Pinkston and Calloway out tonight,” Willie said, rolling a cigarette.

  “Hospital?” Smokey asked.

  “Morgue,” Willie answered.

  “Two?” Wyman whispered. South Philly nudged him to cut the cards. “Jesus Christ, that’s not good.”

  “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, man,” Smokey said.

  “Save your church for Sunday,” South Philly snapped.

  “Philly thinks someone else will go before the dawn comes up,” Willie said.

  “This is too morbid,” Jimmie whispered.

  “Why three?” Wyman asked.

  South Philly began dealing. “It goes in threes, Wyman. If two die during the week, it’s a sure bet a third will go before that week is up. Just listen.” He held up his hand for silence. The sounds of snoring men, mixing with the whirring of the fans and the steady tattoo of rain on the roof, but behind it was the rattling, deep breath of several men struggling through pneumonia.

  “You hear that?” South Philly whispered. “We got Death waiting in the wings. It’s that kind of night.”

  “Man, you’re getting a bad attitude,” Smokey said. He was feeling uneasy, as were Wyman and Jimmie. “You’re not psychic.”

  “I don’t know,” South Philly said. “But that’s the way it goes, people die in threes. I used to work in a nursing home in Pennsylvania. Weeks would go by, and then three old people would go in one week, It was strange, no reason for it, but there you are.”

  “C’mon, man, let’s play cards,” Wyman said. “Your talk’s getting too creepy. And I don’t believe it anyway.”

  “What?” Smokey whispered. “That someone else will die tonight?”

  “Far as I’m concerned, that’s a given,” South Philly said. “I propose we each bet on who will die.”

  “Man, you’re sick,” Smokey growled.

  “Ashes to ashes, dustballs to dustballs,” Willie said. “Even the Bible admits that, Smokey. I read my King James daily, too, you know.”

  “So we pick someone in the dorm?” Wyman said. “One of our sick patients?”

  South Philly slowly set his cards down, his face serious. “No, that’s too easy. Way too easy. I predict it will be one of us here.” The other men gazed at him in silence. Even Willie looked shaken. “I say we bet one pack of tailormades each, we each choose a different one among us, place our bets, and wait for the dawn.”

  A dreadful silence fell over them, a silence like an arctic night. Smells of the dorm wrapped around them, smells of sickness and sweat. “It’s sinful,” Smokey said.

  “Sin got us here thus far,” Willie mimicked, “and sin will lead us home.”

  “Don’t try me, Willie!”

  “You fucked a punk like the rest of us,” Willie said. “Don’t give me any of your self-righteous crap, Smokey. South Philly has hit on something, I don’t know what, but I’m game.”

  “You want to die?” Smokey asked. “Is that it?”

  “No, it’s not,” Willie said. “But I’m going to die anyway, whether I like it or not. And if I gotta die, I might as well play one last game with Death himself.”

  Wyman nodded. “Yeah, maybe. But I don’t think no one’s gonna kick off in our little circle. What if it happens, Philly, and it’s not one of us?”

  “Then nobody wins, and we all keep our cigarettes, and die of lung cancer instead.” South Philly looked from man to man. “In fact, the way I see it, winning and losing are both desirable. You win, you get the cigarettes. You lose, you get out of the goddam dorm.”

  This time Smokey didn’t complain. Jimmie was looking into his lap, gripping his wheels. At twenty-five, he looked like a little boy awaiting the whipping of his life. Wyman looked from man to man, intrigued but scared, as though he had just been invited to play a game of Russian Roulette, and he knew he was too tempted to refuse, “All right,” he said. “Let’s go for it.”

  “It’s not right!” Smokey yelled.

  “Shut the fuck up!” someone yelled from across the dorm. “I’m sleeping!”

  “You’re all a bunch of fools!” Smokey whispered. “No wonder you’re in this mess.”

  “You’re in the same predicament, my man,” Willie said. “And you fall as short of the pearly gates as the rest of us. I know more about you than you might think.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you don’t have much leeway to complain about anybody else.” Willie took off his glasses and stared at him. “Now, if you don’t like what we’re doing here, go back to bed, I’m tired of your mouth.”

  Smokey was silent, but he stared back until Willie looked at the others. “Boys, I don’t know how real this all is, but I swear I feel spirits in the air. I’ve been scared of dying since I popped out of my momma’s womb, but just tonight I’d like to look Death
in the eye and prove I’m a good sport.”

  He put his glasses back on. “Now there’s science and there’s the spirit world. According to science, we are mostly made up of water, but we are what’s known as a carbon-based life form. Carbon is that black stuff left over after we burn something, and a friend once told me that no planet naturally has carbon on it anywhere. Carbon comes from the sun and other stars.”

  “So what’s your point?” Wyman asked, still holding his cards.

  “My point,” Willie said, examining his hand, “is that we are made of Stardust. And when we are dead, our carbon molecules go into the soil and become part of other life forms. So you see, part of us goes on, just like the carbon molecules of other living things that are in us now, and all of it comes from the big burning stars in the sky.”

  “So there’s bits and pieces of dinosaurs in us, too,” South Philly said.

  “Something like that,” Willie agreed. “But now we’re heading slowly back to our old carbon selves. I like to think we’re heading back to the sun myself, we’re going back to be cremated into nonex-istence, nothing but that damn Stardust. And if I go, I might as well play over the sunspots, and this little bet is how we can do it, how we can be feathers on the solar wind for awhile, floating and dancing on the music of the cosmos before the final incineration.”

  “Willie, you sure know a lot of big words and ideas for a black man,” South Philly snorted.

  Willie grinned at his old friend. “If it makes you too uncomfortable, Philly, I could talk like Aunt Jemima for a while.”

  “It’s still all a lot of bunk,” Smokey said.

  “If you think so,” Wyman answered, “then you make the first bet.”