by Ed Griffin
"Sure."
He squeezed her hand as she left. The soft touch of her. Again he felt passion, but - the power plant. The lights had gone out twice in the last hour. And Gilmore. Gilmore was next.
Frank watched her go, that walk, that wiggle, but no - countless times he had forced himself not to watch a woman guard walk down the tier. He had work to do.
As to Joe and Maggie, they were the kind of settlers he needed, people who looked at Adak as an opportunity, not a sentence. And Joe would make a perfect cop. The feds had him down as a crazed killer, but the cons respected him, even feared him. When trouble came and he needed some muscle of his own, Britt would be perfect.
The difficulty would be getting the council to go along with the idea of having a cop on an island full of cons. Even though it was in the plan to have convict police, Frank hadn't brought the subject up yet to the prisoner council. But he was determined to not just appoint a police officer. This island was to be a democracy.
"Earth to Villa. Earth to Villa." It was Boss Gilmore.
Frank stared up at Gilmore's ironic, mocking face. "Mister Gilmore." Here was the man who would ruin everything he'd worked for. Frank glanced at his clothes: prison blues spotless, a gold pen in the spotless shirt and - a Rolex on his wrist already. How did the man manage to look so in control?
Frank looked at Gilmore's wife. Quietness seemed to emanate from her. Her smooth skin rested in stillness; she moved softly as if not to disturb the silence around her. What a contrast to this wind-buffeted island with out-of-control convicts on it. If only he could rest with such a one, for a minute, for an hour, for…
"Je-SUS, Villa. Stay with us."
Frank pointed to his map. "There are some barracks up here on Bering Hill that you and your wife can - "
Gilmore flicked his hand at the map. "Sure, sure, but where's the Holiday Inn?"
Frank said nothing.
"Well, then where's the officers' club?" Gilmore glanced sideways at Latisha and slipped into black dialogue. "See, Mista Charlie, the brothers jes got out of the pen. They needs to PAR-TY."
Gilmore was mocking him. The man normally spoke like any other middle class American. "You know damn well where the officers' club is."
Latisha didn't laugh at his accent. "I'm Latisha Gilmore," she said.
Gilmore looked at her strangely, as if she didn't normally talk to people. "Sorry. This is my wife, Latisha."
"You've done a great thing here, Mister Villa."
A wave of strong feeling swept through him, almost to the point of bringing tears to his eyes. The quiet one, the deep one, the beautiful one had complimented him. "Thank you," he murmured.
What was happening to him? He was losing control. Was he just tired? Was it that he couldn't function in this strange world where women were something besides prison guards and caseworkers?
Gilmore kept at him. "Come on, Villa. I think you should loosen up, man," he said, an easy smile on his face. "Let the guys party. Nobody's done anything special for these guys in a long, long time. Give them a little party and they'll be able to put up with this weather." As if on cue a fierce wind flapped a corrugated steel panel on the roof.
Gilmore finished his thought, pointing outside. "Let the guys party."
Frank felt the anger rise inside him. "Gilmore, we got one, maybe two month's supply of food and heating oil. Then the lights go out and the heat goes off and the Feds stop flying in food, unless we send them a big check. So you can forget partying and concentrate on money!"
"Chill, Villa, chill." Gilmore retained his easy smile.
Frank took a calming breath and returned to his notes. "Like I was saying, you can make your home up here on Bering Hill at least temporarily."
"Sure, Villa, sure. Home. Now what I had in mind - "
Gilmore's words were cut off. A fierce wind grabbed the corrugated steel panel and sent it sailing like a giant Frisbee. Through the window Frank saw a convict walking away from the air terminal, carrying his family's luggage and Frank saw the steel panel heading for his back. "Look out!" he yelled, but it was no use. The panel sliced into the man's upper back. Frank ran out to help, but even as he did, he knew the tally sheet would now be at 298.
Chapter 8
The lights went out and Latisha felt the rain sweep in through the hole in the roof. Gil pulled her toward the door as bits of roofing peppered the inside walls. Terror gripped her, but also excitement.
Who had Frank Villa shouted at? She couldn't see.
Gil pulled her out to the front of the air terminal. "Are we going to our house?" she shouted over the wind.
He didn't answer her. Instead he led her to a car in the parking lot, its engine running roughly. "Gil," she shouted again, "This is no fun. Let's walk like everyone else." All the other families were sloshing along toward Bering Hill, carrying their belongings in shopping carts. They were pioneers settling a new country - and she was one of them.
"Too wet to walk," he yelled and tried to open the passenger door for her, but it wouldn't budge. He went around the car, where one of his men held the door for him. The man shouted, "Don't turn 'er off till you get where you're going."
Gilmore got in and tried again to open her door without success.
A sudden gust yanked her parka hood off. Pelting rain slammed into her. She opened her mouth for a deep breath and felt her tongue assaulted by the driving rain. She smiled. This weather was fierce, almost devilish. Here there was no room for sitting on a fence - you'd be blown off. Here it was black and white, good and bad, yes and no. Latisha smiled. This is what she needed in her life. Decision. Action. No more life as usual.
Gilmore opened the door at last. "I'm sorry, fine lady." He always called her that. "Fine lady."
She slid into the front seat, which was mildewed and smelled musty. Her head was drenched. "So long, Boss," the man outside called, "I'm outta here."
She wished people would call him something besides Boss.
The man ran into the sheets of rain and was gone. Gilmore looked at her for a moment, then gently touched her face. "Hello, fine lady," he said softly. He kissed her lightly. "God, do you smell great."
His kiss was an easy kiss, gentle, loving. "Come on," it said, "let's make things like they used to be." Many nights she had fallen asleep with that easy, soft kiss. How pleasant to go back there.
A wind bounced off the air terminal and rattled the car. She pulled away from the kiss and sat up straight. "How come you're against Frank Villa?"
"Whoa. Where did that come from?" He moved back to the driver's seat and put the car in gear. "Villa doesn't understand convicts. This is not a Sunday school."
"Why don't you work with him?" In the past the rules said he lived his life, she lived hers. There were to be no questions. She was changing all that.
He didn't respond. A sudden squall hit the windshield. He pulled over, stopped and shifted to neutral. He took her hand. "It's a new beginning. I'm trying to change. I need your help."
Yes, it was a new beginning and she'd given herself a few lectures about working with him, encouraging the good, discouraging the bad. She knew she was coming across as a moralist.
She squeezed his hand. She cuddled into him. "We're home, Gil. Home."
He didn't answer, he just kissed her, long and deep and hard. His kiss stirred her. It had been a long time. His hand slipped down and touched her breast and landed on her stomach.
"Oh, Gil," she said, putting her wet face against his wet face. This time was going to be different. So he had promised, and so she had seen in his eyes. He was different this time in prison. Prison was getting to him.
He kissed her again and she searched for him in the kiss. Where was he?
Had she made a mistake? Still the debate raged in her mind. "You're crazy," her boss at Sears said. On the other side his mother pleaded with her. "You're his last hope." And the prison chaplain advised her, a little crudely she thought, "Hell, wives can leave if they want after six months and b
esides, a prison boss' wife's got nothing to worry about up there."
"Ah, freedom," he said, glancing over at her, giving her that super sexy look. The whirlwind. Like the first time she saw him when she was twenty-five. It was in Detroit at a party given by her father to celebrate a very successful limited partnership that he and three other doctors had formed. Gilmore was there because the fifth partner was the organization.
He was a leader that night, drawing them all in, the white doctors, the black doctors, their wives, - and she too, was drawn up into the whirling, irresistible vortex of wry humor, intelligent discussion, bold plans, and fearless action that was James T. Gilmore.
The squall lessened. He drove onto Adak's main road. "We just have a little way to go."
"To Bering Hill?"
"No. Our place is right down here." He pointed out the front. "Bering Hill is way the hell around a big bend in the road and up a hill."
"Look at that building." She tried to read the sign through the rain. "Diesel something."
"Diesel Electric Power Plant."
The building looked strange. It rose out of the ground without landscape, without trees, without bushes. It was stark and cold. Every building she saw was that way. There was tundra and then there was building, like a skyscraper in the middle of an ice field. "Brrr. Give me a warm fireplace here. Does our house have a fireplace?"
"Hmmm," he whispered, leaning over to nibble her ear, "I had other ways in mind of keeping warm."
She slapped his knee.
They drove past a big rock with graffiti on it. Jeannie Dickinson, the little girl from the plane, trudged along in the rain with her parents. Latisha put her hand on Gil's elbow. "Wait. Stop. Let's give them a lift."
"We're not going that far. They're going up the hill. We're just a little further."
"Come on, Gil."
He stopped, putting the car in neutral. Latisha opened the back door and shouted for them to get in. The woman and Jeannie got in and with them a lot of wind and rain. "Holy shit, Boss," the woman said, "I ain't never seen so much rain."
Her husband, the Asian man, waved them on. He had their luggage in a shopping cart.
"Wow," Jeannie said. "Like I saw an eagle."
Latisha turned to look at her. She was smiling despite the fact that her black hair was soaked and lay plastered against her face. "This place is cool," she said.
"I like it, too," Latisha answered.
Jeannie's mother opened her purse and looked at herself in a pocket mirror. "Fuck!" she said.
They drove to the top of the hill, carefully maneuvering around giant potholes, passing several other families struggling up the hill, the wind in their faces. Latisha read the map and found the Marine Barracks, where they let Jeannie and her mother off.
Gil turned the car around. "Wait," she said as they passed a view spot on the top of the hill. "Let's get out and look."
"Get out?"
"Come on."
"It's raining."
"Not as much."
"Latisha, I've got to get to our place."
"Why? What's the rush? We've got fifteen years here."
"I just do."
"Why?"
He looked frustrated, but he put the car in neutral and pulled on the handbrake.
She tucked her hair under her hood and got out. The visibility had increased, but the wind still howled at them, bringing with it the strong smell of the sea.
They could see below them what the map euphemistically called Downtown Adak, the runway, the factory, the hospital, the store and piles of rubble from previous structures on the shores of Kuluk Bay.
To the south stark hills and mountains marked the beginning of the wilderness area. Gilmore shook his head. "It ain't much, but - if the feds keep shipping prisoners up here…"
"It'll get crowded."
The wind whipped her parka hood off and blew her hair so that she had to grab it and hold it down. "I like the wind," she said.
"You like it?"
"It rips away the artificial."
"Along with various buildings. One thing, however, it makes you look - mighty fine. Very sexy."
While she held her hair with both hands, he leaned toward her and kissed her lightly on the lips. His kiss lingered there and got deeper. Soon his arms were around her, and she abandoned her hair to the wind and put her arms around him. "Whew," she said coming up for air, "so that's what a williwaw is."
"Shit, woman," he said, talking bad, "you're the williwaw. Want to go to the back seat and do the wild thing?"
She put her hand on his mouth and smiled. "Wait."
A sudden, cold wet wind hit them from behind. Gilmore turned around. "Holy shit," he said. "Look."
The clouds had lifted enough to reveal a snow-covered mountain, its top still in mist. She noted again the snowy starkness. There were no trees or bushes of any kind on its slopes. Hundreds of American bald eagles, deprived of trees, clutched the telephone lines at the base of the mountain.
"That's Mount Moffett," he said. "Let's get back in the car. This wind is a mother."
"No, look Gil, there's another mountain." She pointed farther north.
"I see," he said without enthusiasm. "Let's go."
In the car she turned again to look at the mountains. Why was she so fascinated with nature? she wondered. She'd been a city girl all her life.
"This is such an interesting place," she said.
He glanced at her, like she was kidding.
They started down hill. "What are you going to do here?" she asked, surprised she hadn't asked before. "I mean you said "a nightclub." What does that mean?"
He smiled that careful smile of his, the one he used when he was trying to figure out how to slant information for her. "Listen, fine lady," he took her hand, "I'm about to show you. A golden opportunity. The former officers' club. The building has survived in great shape. See, guys getting out of prison need a little fun. They need a taste of the life they've been denied for so long. Don't get me wrong. We need the factory. We need a source of income for the future. But you don't treat ex-cons like they were the rotary club. You let them raise a little hell, then you come down hard. You get some muscle to enforce the rules. Cons understand power and authority. They don't understand all this democracy thing Villa is trying. In reality, I'm going to do more for law and order on Adak than ten Frank Villas."
She pulled her hand away from him. "Villa is trying to do something good and you should - " she pictured Villa's tired face, his worried eyes - "You should - you should - "
"That's just it, Latisha. We should do what? For twenty years guys in prison do what they're told. Get up at six. Eat at eight. Take a shit at - you get the picture. Guys don't elect the warden, they don't make the rules. Then, bingo! Frank Villa expects in one day they'll become model citizens. He's dreaming. When the head of a prison organization says, 'Show up for work on Monday,' the guys will show up."
"What about that little girl's mother?"
"Hey - that's her wish."
"Prostitution?"
"Extra money."
Latisha shook her head.
"And we're breaking the prison fag habit."
"Oh come on, Gil."
"Listen, fine lady, you don't legislate morality. You channel wild behavior, you control it. You make a business out of it. You don't shake your finger at it. Swear to God, sometimes I think Villa's setting up a church men's group."
"I don't know about all that, but - " He started to turn into a driveway - "What is this?"
"This is the what I wanted to show you, the Officers' Club."
He stopped in the parking lot. A sign said this was the Eagle's Nest Officers' Club and this was COMO and UOPH and BOQ, but the part of the sign that explained the letters was gone.
He shut off the engine.
"How are we going to get to our house if this car won't start?"
"Don't worry. It'll start. I want to show you this place. It's fine."
He wasn't an
swering her questions, but in any case, she thought, it might be interesting to get an idea of Navy life. The US Navy, unlike many others - the Russians, the Japanese - had learned to live on these islands. They had rec. centers, hobby shops and even a McDonald's. It wasn't the devil wind that defeated the Navy - it was peace with the Russians.
She smiled. "Let's take a look."
"All right," he said enthusiastically and opened his door.
"Wait," she said putting her hand on his arm. "My luggage, my dishes, where are they?"
"Not to worry. They're in the trunk."
"Gil, you're sure?" It wasn't really the dishes, the platinum-edged Grace china, that were important. It was the old heavy cast-iron skillet. More of her mother was in that skillet than in the china. Her mother's early married life, frying bacon for her husband as he struggled through medical school. Even later when they had a maid. A week before she died, Latisha found her out of bed, stir-frying some onions and peppers in the skillet. "This skillet is gonna be yours, Latisha," she said. "Be sure you don't go scrubbing it too deep. You'll wipe out your father and me."
That skillet was all she had left in the world. Just a layer of carbon on an old skillet, some platinum-edged china, and a marriage about to undergo one last try.
She had to do what she could.
"Come on," he said, "bundle up. I'll show you."
He got out and opened the trunk. There was her luggage, the china, and the heavy-looking box marked kitchen.
Seeing her dishes made her want to get settled. "I can't wait to get to our house. Right after we do this tour, we go home, okay, Gil?"
He smiled and closed the trunk. "Let's go. It's raining."
They ran for the covered entrance. As he rounded a corner of the building, the wind and the slippery grass sent him sliding to the ground. "Shit," he said.
Green stains and muddy, sandy dirt covered one side of his blue prison pants.
"Jesus Christ, what a place!" he exclaimed.
In the entryway they loosened their parkas and walked in. She noticed his eyes exploring the walls of the entryway. He touched the walls.