Prisoners of the Williwaw

by Ed Griffin

  "When?"

  "Now."

  "But school …"

  She kissed him. "We sail, we read, we study, we make love. Come on."

  In his life this was the first woman who had ever really loved him. Here was love. "Let's do it," Frank said.

  They sailed into port and Angela went home to pack. Three days later a man in a three piece suit came on board. "I'm Angela's father. We came home a week ago. Angela has decided to take a trip to Europe. She left yesterday."

  "Did she -?"

  "Leave you a note? No, she said you were a real gentleman and that's why I expect no trouble from you leaving this boat. I have an envelope here with some cash in it to help you find a place to stay."

  Frank stared at the man. His eyes narrowed, his teeth clenched. A cold, hard feeling filled his heart. The man treated him like lower class scum. He could forgive that, but Angela… She had made no attempt to counter her parents' wishes. Her father's power and money controlled her life.

  Love was an illusion.

  He went back to his old crowd on the south side and a year later he went into a deserted bar one Saturday afternoon after eight hours of cutting grass for a landscaper. A short woman, barely five foot tall, sat by herself, watching the Milwaukee Brewers. She wore a purple turtleneck that revealed her perfectly shaped breasts.

  Frank struck up a conversation with her. Her name was Judy. He relaxed. He had a few beers. He laughed. Love was impossible, but there was always good times and sex. She took him to her place. They made love. The next week he showed her around the University of Wisconsin. She said she liked a man who was on the way up. They made love again. She wasn't Einstein, she wasn't Joan of Arc, but she was a lot of fun. She made him feel in control, in charge. He was the leader. It was a nice feeling.

  Judy was soon pregnant. They married and then there was Frank Jr.

  Frank opened his eyes and stared again at the woman on the wall of the cell. She did not look anything like Angela or Judy. "Bonnie." Frank read the name out loud to hear the sound of his own voice. "Bonnie, how did you treat the man who carved your face?"

  Frank sat up. His back hurt from the cold cement. How long had he been here? The guards always took away a man's watch and they allowed no calendars in the hole. He stood up. He didn't like being naked. He stepped over to the picture of the woman and traced her face on the wall. He had no luck with women. Angela had left him and five years ago Judy stopped coming to see him when Frank Jr. reached his teens and said he didn't want to visit his father anymore.

  He traced the woman's hair. In prison falling in love with any woman, guard or teacher or outsider, was crazy. It could go nowhere. Frank rubbed his hand over the painting as if to make it go away. The only answer to women was to build a very high wall in your heart.

  Someone in another cell screamed. Then the rattle of the meal cart. He heard Doc. "Thanks, asshole, for the cold hot cakes. And look - french-fries. What a balanced meal."

  Somebody pushed a plastic tray through the slot in Frank's door. Cold hot cakes, congealed butter, french-fries and a plastic cup of water. His stomach turned, but then growled. He sat on the raised platform and ate. Then he put the plastic tray on the floor and watched three cockroaches attack it.

  His taste buds called for a smoke after eating, but there was nothing he could do about it. He lay on his back cradling the bump on his head with his hand. Was Rudy dead? He closed his eyes and remembered the picture of the sun casting bar shadows across him. Rudy had dreamed of one day seeing the sunrise again. From their cell they only caught a glimpse of the noon sun and then only in winter because the sun was low in the sky. Rudy talked about sunrise all the time. "I'd go fishing early in the morning, Frank, and I'd see the sun come up. When you see the sunrise, you know there's hope for the world."

  Rudy. Rudy. Where is the hope now? My idea, my dream - you were going to help me.

  Prison riots destroyed everything. The public screamed, "Control those animals." Wardens and guards went back to procedure with a vengeance. No privileges, long lockdowns. He'd never get a hearing now.

  Rudy, what should I do?

  Rudy. At first Rudy was his teacher, then his friend. A person he could share his soul with. He was a crazy ironworker, a lover of ideas, a hard-drinking tavern brawler, a foreign language scholar and - a killer. Then a reformed killer. He was the first person Frank met in prison when they shoved him into Rudy's already-crowded cell.

  Frank remembered how strange he felt in those first days in prison, sentenced to life for killing a cop. Gone was the world beyond the old high walls of the prison. Life - or was it death? - lay inside the walls. How can this be happening to me? he wondered just as he had when the judge said "life in prison."

  A sense of unreality. It was the same feeling he had when an off duty cop walked out of the manager's office of the bank he was robbing. The cop had been applying for a loan. Frank's partner and the cop started shooting. The partner had reassured Frank there would be no guns. Frank saw the cop fall and knew his own life would be a nightmare from then on.

  It was Rudy who taught Frank the secret of how to do time. "First of all, Frank," he'd said, "forget about the law, forget about the lawyers. They're not going to help you."

  "What do you mean, Rudy? My lawyer's working up a plea on prejudice, I should've got a change of venue."

  "Come on Frank, you're in for killing a cop. You think that because of some lawyer's smart trick, they're going to let you walk out of here? Forget it, man. Forget the lawyers; they're gigolos living off families like yours and mine, rich men robbing from the poor all over again. Hell with them! The con who spends his time with the lawyers is like the union guy who spends his life in the factory making sure the boss don't screw him. Never in all those years does he say, "Hey, I make cranes," or "I make roto-tillers." Never! He's busy fighting about time off and pay and health benefits and safety regulations. Finally one day he retires and he goes home and his missus says, "What did you do with your life?" and he says "Nothing" and drops dead.

  "That's what a con who studies the law is like. He spends his life in prison trying to figure out how to get out of prison. He writes briefs, looks up laws and demands new books for the prison law library. Hell with that, Frank! Maybe one guy, maybe two, out of thousands have gotten out of prison earlier because they became jail-house lawyers."

  "I'm a lifer. I got to fight them," Frank countered.

  "Look at history - I don't know - you figure it out. Cons get smart about the law - and the government puts the death penalty back in. That's what happened in the 70's and 80's.

  "And who wants to be a lawyer anyway? They talk up their asses about a lot of stuff nobody else knows anything about and they think you're stupid because you don't know anything about Habeas Corpus. Lawyers ain't got no soul, either. Name me one, except the unwashed kids out of law school, who ever stuck his own neck out for a con."

  "Hell, Rudy, it gives you something to do in here."

  "What do you want, something to fill the hours or do you want to live, I mean really live?"

  "How can you really live in prison?"

  Rudy paused for dramatic effect. "You walk through the bars - don't laugh at me now - listen. You walk right through the bars and you enter the world of ideas. You begin to live a new life. You read, you read literature, you read philosophy, you read religion, you read the great novels, you read all about prisons. The real revolution is there in the world of ideas."

  "Rudy, you're telling me to become a monk, a god-damn monk from the Middle Ages!"

  "Well yes, I'm saying that you need a lot of discipline, a lot of toughness. It takes one hell of a man to get into the world of ideas and stay there. Most cons want to spend their time here concentrating on the latest doings of the guards. Oh, and throw your TV out. TV keeps cons drugged."

  "But how can you even be a good scholar locked up like this? The professor at the university, he can go to the library whenever he wants. We're in cages."


  "Frank, you've got to forget the fucking bars. Like the black man taught us long ago, you're only a slave as long as you think you're a slave. The bars are an inconvenience, I'll admit that. You can't get enough of the right kind of exercise, and you can't get to the library as often as you might want, but believe me, enter this new world and the bars will melt away!"

  Rudy followed his own advice - and that convinced Frank more than anything. Frank watched him. Hour after hour he would pore over a history of China written in Chinese. When he finished for the day, he would sit back and smile. Frank could see the joy of discovery on his face. He looked full, as a man does when he eats a good meal.

  Frank started and Rudy showed him the tricks, how to read after lights out, what kind of bribe the librarian needed to get the right books.

  Slowly Frank entered the world of ideas. The bars began to fade. Frank plunged into geography and history and the social sciences. He studied the history of communism and it made him wonder about the Russians, and then he wondered why so much of history - as he knew it - had happened in the Northern Hemisphere. As a result he studied geography and discovered how many of the world's religions came from desert regions. Next he studied deserts and understood the power of water for the future.

  On and on it went, question after question. Knowledge was a crystal, a million crystals all connected. It was a house with a million doors.

  Frank was amazed. He lived in a new world. Rudy was right, the bars seldom stood in his way and this new life of study, this monk's life, - well damn it - it was exciting, just like Rudy said it would be.

  But it demanded discipline, iron discipline. When guys sent messages on the water pipes, Frank learned to ignore them. He couldn't let himself get into the endless world of who was the toughest con and what was going to happen to whom in the yard.

  As for the guards, he learned to ignore them and, harder still, he had to learn not to hate them. Once a new guard was sent to their block to conduct a shakedown. The previous guard had laughed at Frank and Rudy, but left them alone. Somehow this new guard felt threatened by all this learning. While Frank and Rudy stood in front of their cell, the new guard discovered their notes. Frank had been doing a survey of prisons throughout history; Rudy had been translating a Chinese novel into English.

  The guard laughed. "Fucking college students we got here in this cell! Ha!" And he ripped up their notes.

  Frank seethed with anger, ready to chuck it all and turn to guard hating.

  "No, no, Frank! Discipline! Stand strong! Melt the bars! Start over! You can only be humbled if you let yourself be humbled!"

  Frank stayed in the world of ideas and a new concept came to life in his head, an island prison, a place for a convict and his family, a place where a man could have a real job and a real say in things, a place of freedom and democracy. Freedom heals, democracy cures. He printed the words and hung them on his wall. The prison chaplain and Rudy helped him develop the ideas.

  And now Rudy was probably dead.

  He heard someone begin a slow, rhythmic beating on the wall. He hoped it was not a head beating on the wall.

  Another man screamed. Rumor had it that one of the men in the hole covered himself with feces every day. Someone started singing mock opera at the top of his lungs, perhaps to mask the sound of the screams "Toreador - a, don't spit on the floor - a, use the cuspidor - a, that's what it's for-a."

  Frank put his head in his hands. How was he going to survive this place?

  Keep your sanity, Frank. He felt a bug in his hair. Slap. Best to play the word game. Riot. All R's about riot: regression, repression, refuse, reject, report, replace, renege, repress, restrict.

  No hope now for his island prison. Hope - happiness, harmony, home, homo sapiens, hurry, hard. Freedom - free, Frank, fresh, french fries, fried. Fried? Yes, they all might get fried, killed, on his island prison. Convicts were convicts for a reason. Convicts: cage, care -

  Someone was coming down the hall. The slot in front of his cell opened. "Inmate Villa?" It was the warden.

  Frank sat up. "Yes?"

  "I want to thank you for saving my life."

  "You're welcome. Rudy?"

  "I'm sorry. He's being buried tomorrow in the prison cemetery."

  Frank winced. A pang of grief shot through him. His world was forever changed. How could he walk the line without Rudy? "Listen Frank, you say yes to the man and you say yes to yourself. You walk the line."

  "I - I need a favor," the warden said.

  "What time is it?"

  "Ten thirty-five."

  "What day?"

  "Thursday, the day after the riot."

  "Why am I in the hole?"

  The warden didn't answer.

  "Why?"

  "You know, Villa. It's a riot response. Lock everybody up."

  "What's the favor?"

  "The news media wants to interview a convict about the riot. I thought you would be the most rational spokesman."

  "Why don't you get Doc? He's an MD."

  "Come on, Villa. You know Doc's mouth. Say whatever you want to the media. I'm going to argue that the key problem is that one underpaid doctor cannot care for a thousand men."

  "Can we talk about this when I'm dressed and out of the hole?"

  "Will you do it?"

  Frank hesitated. He was being used. Calling the prison doctor a hack on TV would never fly. Saying the system didn't care would sound like the usual prisoner complaint. But the warden said he could say whatever he wanted. He could feel Rudy next to him, nudging him in the ribs. Now, Frank, now.

  It's not my way, Rudy. I work within the system.

  Now, Frank, now.

  Frank pushed his glasses on tighter. "Okay, get me out of here."

  The warden called the guard. "Oh, I saved your novel for you, Island Prison or something."

  "It's not a novel. It's a proposal."

  The warden began to laugh. "Oh, come on, Villa." Frank could hear the warden chuckling to himself as he went back down the hall.

  Chapter 3

  Stick with me now, Rudy, Frank silently prayed as Congressman Sulkowski gaveled the subcommittee into session. This was his moment in the spotlight, his chance to present his plan for a better prison.

  His mouth felt dry, his stomach quivered. Four years of proposal writing, six years of studying the justice system, a year since the warden gave him the chance to talk to the media after the riot. Congressman Sulkowski put down the gavel. "We have some ... guests today." He nodded to Frank's table where Frank, Doc and Boss Gilmore sat in chains, surrounded by beefy sheriffs. Frank had chosen Doc and the warden had appointed Boss Gilmore, though Frank didn't know why. Boss Gilmore had contributed nothing to his idea.

  "But first," the chairman continued, "we're going to hear from Congressman Murphy who has put forth this idea to establish an island prison."

  After Frank's interview, Utne Reader did a feature on his prison proposal. Then Congressman Murphy's office contacted the warden and a lawyer on the congressman's staff visited Frank. Next the congressman himself came, accompanied by news cameras. "Interesting proposal," Murphy said. "It gets tough on crime by putting convicts on a god-forsaken island, yet it saves federal money."

  Frank knew that Murphy had entered the race for Senator from Ohio and desperately needed something to take the public's mind off a land development scandal. But did the congressman really intend to set up such a prison or was he just putting on a show for the media, with prisoners in chains at a congressional hearing?

  He would soon find out. He listened to all the sound bites in Murphy's talk: "Get tough on crime." "Stop paying for these repeat criminals." "It's work or starve."

  When Murphy finished, Sulkowski called on Frank. "What statement did you want to make today?"

  Frank looked up at the raised dais. There were only three representatives there, Sulkowski, Murphy and Richter. Sulkowski and Richter looked bored, while Murphy conducted business with his staff.
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  Get to the heart of it, Frank thought. He struggled to his feet, his legs fettered, his hands locked to a belly chain. His glasses slipped on his nose, but there was nothing he could do about them. Bright TV lights swung onto him, reminding him of his prison mug shots. Behind him the spectators silenced their fidgeting and coughing. They were listening.

  "Give us an island," he began, "give us our wives and families, give us a little freedom and we'll give you back rehabilitated men. We'll cut the recidivism rate in half and in half again."

  Chairman Sulkowski rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, then turned to an aide.

  Frank tried to gesture with his manacled hands. "Give us what it costs to maintain each of us for half a year in prison and we'll become self sufficient. You pay no more."

  Sulkowski turned from the aide and glanced at the papers in front of him. "I see you will have no guards on this island, just a satellite in orbit over you and the US Coast Guard around you?"

  "Correct." Out of the corner of his eye Frank saw John Graham from the Bureau of Prisons make a note. Graham and Dr. Philip Adamson, prison psychologist, sat at a table similar to theirs but without the guards. Also at the table was the professor of history he himself had asked to come.

  "And you'll have convict police on this island?"

  Frank's stomach sank. Here it was. Police with guns or without guns. "Yes, sir."

  But there was no other question..

  The chairman glanced at his paper again. "And your families... they've agreed to come?"

  Before Frank could answer, Congressman Murphy shuffled a set of papers to the chairman. "Never mind, Mr. Villa. Congressman Murphy tells me the information is right here." Sulkowski flipped through the papers. "Several wives have already agreed to go with their husbands."

  Frank felt sweat on his forehead. His own wife, Judy, had not returned the form. He'd written her, but no answer.

  Congressman Richter took the papers from Sulkowski. "You mean, these women have agreed to this?"

  "Love conquers all," Sulkowski said.

  Congressional hands went over the microphones. Heads bent toward each other with whispered comments and jokes. Frank had heard it all before. "Three hundred convicts and three hundred welfare mamas. Good riddance."