It wasn’t Wills, the child molester, serving the harshest time. It was Woods, the marijuana salesman.
22
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES
On Saturday nights, the convicts at Rothe Hall got to watch a movie, one of the perks of being in minimum security and no small reason that the convicts in the main prison wanted to be transferred. After we served the evening meal, the kitchen crew swiftly cleaned up the kitchen and dining hall. Other convicts wheeled an old movie projector into the back of the room and set up a screen.
Reed and Mackey made popcorn and Kool-Aid.
They made a middling impersonation of a theater.
It surprised me to learn that the convicts themselves selected their movies from a prison-issued list. “We’ve got a good one tonight,” Reed said one day. “A Hitchcock movie, Frenzy.”
Anne and I had seen it the year before in San Francisco. Frenzy concerned a serial-murdering rapist; it was a dark and sick and sometimes funny film, though Hitchcock had gone too far for my taste, hinting at necrophilia. It didn’t seem appropriate for the prison, given that this audience had more than its share of murderers and rapists. Unfortunately, that didn’t occur to me immediately.
“Oh, man,” I said, “I saw that one, there’s this rapist . . .”
Then I realized—Reed was a rapist. I was talking to a rapist about a movie about a rapist.
Reed looked about as uncomfortable as I felt.
I finished my shift in the kitchen that night to the smell of popcorn and the opening sounds of Frenzy.
I drove home, thinking again how surreal the prison was. And wondering if Reed ever felt remorse.
Sometimes I was sure he did.
A week or so after the showing of Frenzy, I returned to Rothe Hall. Before breakfast, I had a cup of coffee at a table just in front of the kitchen. Reed came over, sitting across from me with his own cup. After some talk about what supplies needed to be ordered, he brought up the movie.
“That was one sick son of a bitch,” said Reed.
I agreed, and Reed looked away, shaking his head. “Who wants to see a movie about a guy who fucks dead women?” He was disgusted.
Again, I agreed.
Reed took a last big swallow of coffee and stood up. Then, looking into my cup: “You want some more coffee?” he asked.
He took my cup and went over to the coffee urn to refill it. He came back and sat down. He was in an odd mood, and sat gazing out the window toward the hills beyond the cyclone fence with the barbed wire on top. Then, he cleared his throat.
“You know that girl I raped?” he asked.
With the exception of Mackey’s story about shooting at a policeman, I’d never heard a convict talk about a violent crime. But I nodded.
“I knew her,” Reed said. He looked at me as if that explained everything.
A psychiatrist might have paid to have a moment like this. Reed wanted to explain himself to me. “I knew her,” he’d said, as if that separated him from the world of perverts. He cared about my opinion and didn’t want me to think badly of him.
Reed went back to looking out the window. A minute passed, then he stood up and went back to work. I stayed where I was, watching the steam rise from the steam table a few feet away, and listening to the sounds of a kitchen at five thirty in the morning: the walk-in doors opening and closing, water running into the sinks, the metallic clank of trays being stacked and moved out to the line.
If I’d been smarter, or had known more, I might have asked a question to make Reed explain further. I might have gained more insight.
“I knew her,” he’d said.
What had he tried to tell me? That he wasn’t an evil man who jumped out of alleys in the dark, raping women he didn’t know? Did he believe Wills was a pervert because he raped and molested boys, but he, Reed, was normal because he’d raped a female? Is it possible for a man to walk through the world, absolutely normal, except for the odd little quirk that he’s a rapist?
I wanted to see badness in Reed, but I didn’t.
Still, something else Reed said niggled at me. “You know that girl I raped?” he’d said.
He hadn’t said “woman.”
23
PRUNO
Bill and Charlie went fishing for the weekend. They fished together a lot, but usually only for a morning or an afternoon, and always somewhere close, because until I was deemed reliable, one of them had to remain on call at the prison.
This time, they took off for two days, going someplace far away, where no one could reach them.
“That makes you the man in charge,” Bill said.
“That’s right,” Charlie agreed, “you’ll be running the whole show.”
“Couldn’t leave it in better hands,” Bill assured me. He turned to Charlie. “By the time we get back, we might find out we were never needed in the first place.”
They ribbed me, and I enjoyed it. I knew I could handle the main kitchen myself, and ride out to check on Rothe Hall, too, but I was proud that Bill and Charlie agreed.
When I showed up for work on Friday, I was ready. So was Bill. He tossed me the keys and smiled.
“It’s all yours,” he said. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
I was happy to see them go. Partly because Bill and Charlie deserved a couple of days together, but mostly because it gave me the feeling you have when your father tosses you the keys to the car and, for the first time in your life, you drive off by yourself, the old man fading away in the rearview mirror.
That first afternoon went smoothly. After I sent the men back to the cell house, I performed my last duty of the day: I walked around the kitchen looking for pruno.
Pruno had legendary hiding places: in a stainless-steel pan screwed beneath a worktable, behind a wall in the bakery where a hole had been dug out of the plaster. My favorite was the cake hideout: The convicts had taken the plastic liner from a five-gallon milk container and filled it with pruno. Then, ingeniously, they set it on a sheet pan, covered it with chocolate frosting, and placed it on the worktable in the middle of other sheet pans full of real cake. It had only been discovered when a guard, wanting a snack, stuck a knife into the pruno cake.
All these hiding places had been discovered before anyone could get drunk. But sometimes, as with the two Bobs on Christmas Eve, the pruno was found only after some convict successfully got wasted.
It concerned me that I had never found pruno before. Bill had found pruno, Charlie had found pruno, guards I liked and didn’t like had found pruno. But I hadn’t. I’d looked for it, all right, but its hiding places eluded me.
Now, as the man in charge, I decided to redouble my efforts.
I walked out to the dining hall and looked down the aisles; I had to think like a convict. I started by looking under every counter and bench. I checked the inside of the huge coffeepot and peered into the cavernous tray-washing machine. I scanned the walls for signs of holes.
Nothing. But I wasn’t done.
I entered the bakery, opening the oven, checking the top and, on my hands and knees, under the oven.
Nothing.
I opened up bags of flour in case pruno had been hidden inside and covered up. I peered under, over, and around the worktables and sinks. I picked up canned goods, looking for signs of false bottoms.
I continued to the main kitchen.
A shelving unit leaned against the wall of the gun cage, with large pots resting on it. One of those pots could hold pruno. I pulled each one down, but found nothing. I ambled to Stutzke’s station and checked each bag of potatoes and onions. Aldrich’s dishwasher. The bathroom.
I found nothing.
I last checked the center of the kitchen—the grills, ovens, and stockpots. Circling, I saw nothing under or behind or hanging from the sides of them.
I tried to imagine any place I might have forgotten. Then I had a last, brilliant thought: the office. If I were a convict, I might well hide pruno right under the boss’s nose.
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In the office, I opened all the drawers and pulled the desk away from the wall. Again, nothing.
I went home, convinced no pruno fermented anywhere in the kitchen.
I arrived the next morning, ready to pull a double shift. The morning and noon meals went off without a hitch, and the afternoon was a lazy one; grilled cheese sandwiches were on the menu that night, a simple meal that was quick and easy to serve. I served short line in the late afternoon and main line at five o’clock. With the day almost over, I figured I would let the convicts clean up and send them back to their cells so that I could go home with a second day of smooth sailing behind me.
But after main line was over and the dining hall was empty, things started going to hell.
No one had done anything that caught my attention. But I smelled something. Something odd. Something like, well, pruno, which has a distinct, nasty, yeasty, tomato-y odor.
Nothing appeared wrong with my crew. In fact, they all seemed in a darned good mood, going about their business and getting their jobs done.
But that smell . . .
I circled around the kitchen again, trying to find the source of the smell, but with all the food odors in the kitchen, I couldn’t. Still, I had no doubt that somewhere in this kitchen—the kitchen I’d searched for forty-five minutes the night before—a batch of pruno had successfully fermented.
I looked at the convicts, watching for anyone with a cup in his hand that I could check. No one was drinking. I peered into sinks and at shelves for hidden cups, but didn’t find any.
It was frustrating, and I made another round.
Lunatic Bob stood at the grill, making grilled cheese sandwiches for convicts in the hospital. One of the sandwiches seemed awfully thick. I stopped for a moment to inspect: It boasted at least five slices of cheese. The one next to it seemed suspiciously thin, containing no cheese at all.
I stared at Lunatic Bob. “There’s no cheese in this sandwich,” I stated.
He smiled.
Where the hell was the pruno? I jogged around the kitchen perimeter. At one point, Bear, our ever-silent garbage man, stumbled into me. He seemed surprised to find me in the kitchen.
“Hey, Bonham!” Bear bellowed. “How the hell are you?”
I stared at him. This was a man who’d never said anything but “yes” or “no” to me. Now his face wore a big, loopy grin, and he leaned in close.
“Ya know,” he said, his pruno breath evident, “you’re not a bad guy, ya know that?” He edged closer. “I wouldn’t mind putting a knife in some of the cocksuckers who work here,” he whispered.
He rocked back, attempting to ascertain whether I appreciated the depth of his compliment. Then, with a drunken nod, he meandered away. Never again would I hear a full sentence escape his mouth.
Bear’s remark about wanting to knife a few cocksuckers revealed exactly what was so dangerous about pruno. I had drunks in the kitchen with me that night, and all I needed was one foggy mind to disagree with Bear and believe that I was indeed one of the cocksuckers. Next thing I knew I’d have a steel paddle embedded in my brain.
I kept searching, hoping like hell that lightning would strike. Finding the pruno would allow me to salvage a small part of my self-respect.
Lieutenant Covey, standing in the officers’ mess, peered through the windows into the kitchen. Something had caught his eye, and he stepped into the kitchen, stopping just inside the door, his eyes taking in the crew.
I kept circling. I had to spot the pruno in the next couple of seconds or it was over.
I failed.
Behind the grill, Lunatic Bob was having difficulty making his spatula work.
Big Bob, who’d learned his lesson on Christmas Eve, wasn’t laughing this time. He stood by the storeroom, pretending to read the label on a number 10 can of vegetables. He snuck glances at Covey and me, perhaps suspicious that the jig was up.
On the other side of the kitchen, the pot washer was washing pots, but listing precariously to one side.
My new friend, Bear, still smiling, continued his trek around the kitchen, the life of the party.
“Your crew’s drunk,” Lieutenant Covey announced.
“I know,” I admitted.
“When did it start?” Covey asked.
“I just noticed it after main line.”
Covey sighed. “Any trouble?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Well, just Bear telling me he’d like to put a knife into some of the cocksuckers who work here.”
Covey raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Bear said that? He spoke?”
I nodded.
Covey sighed again. “Let’s get them out of here and back to their cells. They can sleep it off.”
Covey called for some guards to escort the crew back to the cell house. While we waited, I told Covey about my valiant hunt the night before.
“Sometimes it’s hard to find this stuff,” he said. While we waited for reinforcements, we took a little walk around the kitchen so that Covey could try to spot the pruno himself.
It took him thirty seconds.
“There it is—right there.” He pointed at the stockpot.
I went over and looked at the “stock” that was always in the stockpot: a few pieces of celery and some onion skins floated on top. Below that, there was nothing but water, tomato puree, sugar, and yeast.
I hadn’t been able to find the hidden pruno because it hadn’t been hidden. It had fermented right in the middle of the kitchen, passing itself off as stock. The convicts’ message was clear: Why waste a good hiding place on Bonham, the man who couldn’t find pruno if he was bathing in it?
“I think we’d better give this whole place a good shakedown,” Lieutenant Covey said.
The convicts, aware that their drinking day was over, launched cries of “Oh, man!”
My face turned red. I felt like a fool. Sensing that I was about to become a pruno legend, I reached down to pour the pruno into the drain, but Covey stopped me.
“Leave it there for now,” he instructed. “I want to show the men.”
I didn’t want anybody to see it.
When the guards arrived, Covey pointed out the fifty-odd gallons of pruno I’d missed. Then he announced a shakedown of the whole kitchen. The guards went into action, herding the happy convicts outside. Meanwhile, Covey told me to pat them down and go home.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “This kind of thing happens.”
The best thing about the next day, Sunday, was that I didn’t have to face Bill and Charlie, who were still fishing. But I did have to face someone else. After main line at noon, a guard informed me that associate warden Gary Boyd wanted to see me. Immediately. The guard stayed in the kitchen while I took the long walk to Boyd’s office.
When I got there, the door was open, and Boyd waited behind his desk. He told me to come in.
In his thirties, Boyd wasn’t a large or intimidating man, and I only suspected he might be tough because of his nose; it looked like it had taken a good pounding. He always spoke in a calm, unthreatening voice; he inspired respect without ever having to demand it.
At first, he didn’t say anything; he didn’t need to—eight or nine five-gallon buckets filled to the brim with pruno surrounded his desk. The guards had delivered it to his office in the middle of the night because they knew how much he liked surprises.
Boyd looked at me, his arms flat on the desk, his face emotionless except for a hint in his eyes that a massive headache was in progress. Finally, he opened up his arms, taking in the buckets around him.
“We can’t have this,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
Boyd shook his head back and forth; I think he was in disbelief.
“I mean,” he said, “we just . . . can’t . . . have this.”
I knew.
That was all Gary Boyd could think to say before he dismissed me.
Because I’d worked all weekend, Bill had given me Monday off, so I didn’t have to fa
ce him until Tuesday.
When I reached the 4B’s Tuesday morning, I peeked in the window before going in; Bill and Charlie had already staked out a booth. There was nothing to do but confront them, so I went in, sliding into the seat next to Charlie. They were in the middle of a fishing conversation, and only paused long enough to say good morning.
“That fish fought,” Bill recalled.
“It was a hell of a fish,” Charlie concurred.
“It made me think of that one I pulled out of Rock Creek a few years back.”
Margie brought me coffee, and Bill and Charlie went on like they always did about fishing; every fish reminded them of another fish that reminded them of another place they’d fished, which reminded them of another fishing story. All of that, in turn, made them debate where they might go fishing next.
“You missed a hell of a weekend,” Bill told me.
“You sure did,” said Charlie.
They both nodded. We all agreed I’d missed a hell of a weekend. I didn’t know whether to confess my failure, apologize, or be silent. Charlie looked out the window. Bill filled his pipe with tobacco.
“I understand you had a hell of a weekend, too,” Bill said, lighting his pipe. He let the words trail off.
“Yeah, I did,” I admitted. “I missed finding some pruno.”
“Well, that can happen,” Charlie said. He gave me a weak smile. Bill leaned back in the booth and sucked on his pipe.
“Yes,” Bill said, “it can happen. You miss a little pruno here and there.” He looked at Charlie, as if he’d just thought of something: “You know, Boyd called me into his office yesterday,” said Bill.
Oh, for Christ’s sake.
Prisoner in the Kitchen Page 12