Prisoners of the Williwaw

by Ed Griffin

  Frank had won the fight with the Bureau of Prisons about having a Prisoner Council. The Bureau intended the men would have no contact with each other before they went to Adak. Frank argued that the Bureau should let the prisoners elect a government even if by mail.

  Even the small battles, such as sending out mail to the three hundred, Frank won. The Bureau complained about the postage, but Frank sent out fact sheets on Adak's weather, detailed job descriptions for each man and woman, lists of items to bring (parkas, heavy shoes, raincoats, galoshes, sweaters, mittens, fishing gear), and lists of items not to bring (aluminum lawn chairs, umbrellas - too windy, golf clubs). He'd won all the battles, but now he was losing the war. Were the men going to kill each other off until nothing remained of the Adak Island Prison?

  Six dead and seventeen wounded in less than one day.

  Doc came into the kitchen and threw himself in a chair. "Fun city," he said, "fun city. Shit, Frank, me and Hanna been going strong since about eight last night. I never even found out if those knockers of hers are real." Doc glanced over and Frank smiled. "Sorry I didn't relieve you at the airport. You get home to Judy yet?"

  "No."

  Doc poured himself a coffee, sat down and muttered to himself as if he were doing calculations. "Six dead the first day. That gives us about fifty days left. Fifty days and we'll all be dead."

  "What're we gonna do, Doc?"

  "Shoot the sons of bitches starting with Gilmore."

  Frank didn't say anything. He'd believed in these three hundred. They'll be so damn glad to get out of prison, they'll work their asses off. He'd told himself that. And now, not only were they drinking and partying, they were falling right into the hands of Boss Gilmore. The same stupid system that ruled the prison was starting up here.

  "Damn Gilmore," Frank muttered

  "Let's get rid of him." Doc's chest swelled. "We arm ourselves and go to the officers' club and finish him and his troops off."

  Frank pushed his glasses tighter on his nose. "No, Doc, damn it, no." Out of habit he gave his standard democracy speech, about not becoming just a couple of prison bosses eliminating the opposition. But in his mind he pictured himself and Doc taking out Gilmore and sending a clear signal to everyone that there was going to be no more shit on Adak.

  "Fuck democracy," Doc said.

  "No. We're going to hold a council meeting."

  "And what will they do?"

  "I'm going to recommend they hire a cop. Joe Britt."

  "Jesus, Frank. A cop. A guy with a life expectancy of minus ten minutes. Are you going to arm him?"

  "Yes. No. I'm not sure."

  Doc snorted, "Make up your fuckin' mind." He scratched his balls and yawned. "And the candy man, Mister Gilmore, what are you going to do with him?"

  Again Frank gave out his practiced answer. "Co-opt him, Doc. Put him on the council, him and the other boss, Muscoti. They can't fight the system if they are the system."

  Frank listened to himself. Social Systems 101. "Fuck it," he said. "I need a cigarette."

  "The Hag's got some Marlboros on the counter. Take one."

  Frank got a smoke and lit up. Deep pleasure filled his mouth and lungs.

  Both men were silent. Wind howled around the building. Rain beat on the windows.

  Doc broke the silence. His tone was low, gentle. "You can't treat her that way."

  "Who?"

  "Judy."

  First anger welled up, then guilt. "For God's sake, Doc, I -, She - "

  "This is a scary place, Frank. She's been by herself all day."

  "I know it's been tough on her, but I'm trying to get this place under control."

  "Fuck this place."

  Doc stood up and looked out the window. Frank could see Doc's thinning hair moving in the drafts from the wind snaking its way through the window jam. He wore a Green Bay Packers sweater now. Frank imagined that all the clothes he brought were wet.

  Suddenly Doc turned around. "Fuckin' Gilmore is wrecking this thing, makin' it so you can't be with your woman. You got to take over, Frank, a goddamn, motherfucking, military takeover. Like one of them banana republics. You become a fuckin' dictator, tougher than a goddamn warden, tougher than the meanest screw. Somebody fucks up, they swim for Russia."

  Frank knew what Doc was saying. He'd seen it work in prison. A man sent out a message by his actions that he was not to be fucked with. But this was not what they were going to do on Adak. "No, Doc." He spoke in a quiet, firm voice. "We're here to set up a democracy. We don't break the rules because it's convenient. One small misstep and we got the same kind of jungle we just left. Gilmore's no different than anyone else. Give a man freedom, give him a job, put his family around him and he'll reform himself."

  Doc spun his index finger in a circle, like Frank was crazy.

  "Prison bosses are only made in prison."

  "Come on, Frank, get real. You and I take him in his sleep."

  "No, Doc. The council makes the law here."

  "What the fuck. You have to do something."

  "Right. We get a cop on the case. We get the council to lay down the law."

  "The council," Doc snorted.

  "Damn it, Doc." Frank slammed his fist onto the table and stood up. "We're gonna fight for this freedom thing as hard as any son-of-a-bitch warden ever did for his goddamn prison. We're not - " Frank's voice cracked - "gonna fall into prison war games here. Us against them. We're building a society here. Tomorrow we make sure the minister holds church and on Monday we get the school started and the factory open. Men like Gilmore always try to move into situations where people are free. You don't defeat them with bad; you defeat them with good."

  Doc opened his mouth to respond when the kitchen door opened. Hanna walked in.

  "Behold a vision of loveliness who comes from out of the night," Doc said to Frank. "Introducing my new wife, Hanna the Hag."

  "Up yours," Hanna said, her face drawn with fatigue, her hair out of place, and blood on the front of her nurse's uniform. "Gimme some of that coffee. Hi, Frank."

  Doc had told Frank Hanna's story. She'd been a nurse in a Seattle hospital when the underworld got in touch with her as they had on a few other occasions. "One of our own, Myron Abel Talsky, is dying of cancer in your hospital," the contact said. "He's agreed to turn state's evidence on the organization if the government only goes after his surface assets. They're going to let his family keep the bulk of his estate."

  "So?" Hanna asked.

  "So, he's got to go. This one means a lot to the organization. Help us out and you and your three married kids will be set for life. Of course if you don't see things our way, we'd be forced to get the newspapers to investigate what happened to all those drugs at your hospital."

  According to Doc, Hanna thought about it. She knew she had little chance of escape and she'd probably draw some hard time for it, but if she could do it, well - Talsky was a scum bag and her kids could use a financial break - and they did have her about the drugs.

  She used a powerful painkiller - at triple the dosage.

  She figured she could survive a prison term and then retire in style. But prison turned out harder for Hanna than she'd imagined. She grew tired of living in a house full of women. When the news about the Adak prison went around, she put the word out to the organization that she wanted to go. "I'll marry anybody with a real live prick." she said to her contact.

  Doc got up and went to the refrigerator. He opened a beer and took a hard roll from a bag. "You want a hard roll, old woman?"

  "No thanks, soft dick, just the coffee and a cigarette."

  "I borrowed one of yours," Frank said.

  "I thought you were trying to quit. Wrong time to try. Take another."

  Frank accepted the smoke.

  Hanna took a piece of paper from her pocket. "Here's the list of the dead."

  Frank glanced at it and grimaced. "Bozak. I just met the kid yesterday. 'Man, I seen me a salmon in a creek,' he said. 'I'm going fishing.'"
>
  "Gunshot," Doc said. "I don't know why. Some grudge from prison."

  Somebody yelled from the hospital room, "Doc. Doc."

  Doc stood. As he left the room with Hanna, he said over his shoulder, "Get me a safe or something for my medicines, will you?"

  Frank took the coffee cups to the sink and shook his head. Where was it all going? This day was supposed to be the first full day of freedom and already he was guarding medical supplies and setting up a police force.

  "Just like a prison," he muttered out loud.

  He rinsed out the cups and put them on the sink to dry. Instead of a unified group of three hundred, the island was splitting into two camps, Gilmore's people against his own. Was he building a new society or setting up a gang war?

  He looked at the clock. 4:20 AM. It was time to go home … to Judy. The hardest part of the day lay ahead.

  He put Hanna's cigarette in his shirt pocket. He'd smoke it at home.

  Chapter 10

  Frank left through the back door of Doc and Hanna's apartment. How many hours ago had he promised Judy to come 'right home?' Even though a little light appeared in the east, it was still too dark to cross the runway in the center of Adak's U-shaped main street. Instead he would have to walk down to the bottom of the U and then up to Bering Hill, a forty-five minute walk.

  The rain had stopped, the wind had died. Frank breathed the air deeply. It was clean, it was fresh, the air of freedom.

  When he passed the Officers' Club at the bottom of the U, he heard music and laughter even though it was 4:30 in the morning. A tiny thought nagged at him, that maybe it was good to hear music and laughter at 4:30 in the morning. But no - it was Gilmore.

  Frank stopped and stared at the club. There was so much right about the man, his opposition to racism, his leadership ability. Gilmore was the test case. If the Adak Island prison turned him around then the idea would be a success.

  Frank shook his head. It was a tall order.

  As he passed the Officers' Club he wondered if Latisha was there. Her image filled him. Her deep eyes, her soft brown skin, her shining black hair. He looked around at the stark hills just now being lit by the dawn. Desolate Adak provided a great backdrop for a woman of beauty. Poetry on the tundra.

  Frank shook himself and started for the top of the hill where Judy waited. He was tired, that's why he was focusing on Latisha.

  Just beyond Gilmore's club Frank noticed a large rock set in the side of a little embankment. Tundra grasses hung over it like the hair on a shaggy dog and a little sign proclaimed that this was Paint Rock.

  The rock was painted with several messages, most of them dating back to Navy times. At the top "Welcome Bernie" was fading away and to one side green paint said that "Charlie loves - " a name that was no longer visible. Now, in fresh orange florescent paint someone had painted "Fuck You" over the top of the rock.

  Frank walked up the road. Yes, he did miss trees. He laughed to himself about what he had read - in World War II the army told young soldiers that there was a woman behind every tree in the Aleutians.

  He passed the caved-in high-school building and the still-standing facility of the University of Alaska.

  That's what he would do here eventually, he thought. He would go back to teaching. When the population of convicts increased on Adak, he would get the university going and he would teach.

  As he walked higher, he saw Kuluk Bay in the east and yes, it was almost sunrise. It was Sunday morning. After sixteen years he was watching a sunrise again. Black storm clouds billowed just to the south of the sunrise, and Frank knew the sight would soon be gone. He stopped on the road and looked. Judy was waiting for him, but she was probably asleep anyway.

  Rudy. Rudy. Why did you have to die? If only you could see this sunrise.

  If only Rudy were here. He knew the secret. He knew how to melt the bars, how to become a free man. That's what was wrong. These others were out of their cages, but they weren't free.

  The tip of the sun appeared over the island to the east. The sun was fire on the horizon.

  He shook away his reverie. He had to get a few hours sleep and then find Joe Britt and line him up as his cop. It couldn't wait because Gilmore might try to recruit Britt as well.

  Unsure of what sort of reception awaited him, he trudged up the hill, up the three flights of stairs and knocked quietly on the door. "Judy, it's me."

  She opened the door almost immediately, as if she'd been right by the door. A blanket covered the couch and a large butcher knife lay on the coffee table.

  "What time is it? It's daylight."

  "I'm sorry, Judy, there were - "

  "The power went off and… Do you have any idea what this place is like?"

  "That was one of the problems I - "

  "I went to put some curtains up and my hand went right thorough the wall. This place is unlivable."

  Hold her. Hug her, an inner voice told him. He was too tired to figure out if it was Doc or Rudy talking to him or just himself.

  He sat down on the couch and invited her to sit with him. "Once we get settled . . . "

  She sat next to him. "I mean I heard rifle fire all night. Other men were with their wives. That Maggie person came over to check on me. Her husband was home all night to protect her. Where were you?"

  Frank kneaded his forehead, but said nothing. When she got out her frustrations, he could tell her about the people dying.

  "I suppose you and that foul-mouthed doctor were playing some of your prison war games."

  "I'm sorry, Judy." Frank put his arms around her. "I'm just sorry."

  She rested in his arms and said nothing. After a few minutes he led her to the bedroom. She got under the covers while he sat on the edge of the bed and set the clock for 9:15 AM.

  "Why are you setting the clock?"

  "I have to get up early to talk to Joe Britt."

  "It doesn't stop, does it?"

  "Six people died today."

  "Oh, Frank. That's terrible."

  He kicked off his shoes, pulled down his pants and got into bed. He put his arm around her. "I don't know what to do."

  She sat up. "Well, I know one thing. You can get me out of here."

  He said nothing and after a while she lay down again and stared at the ceiling. "It's been so hard, Frank. I've been all alone. I've missed you." She rolled over onto her side, faced him and tentatively put her hand on his face.

  He was fast asleep.

  Chapter 11

  The sun disappeared shortly after sunrise on Sunday morning and a black cloud covered Adak. Maggie woke up early as she usually did, but for the first time in twenty years another person slept in the bed with her. She sat up. She was married. She was no longer Maggie Krueger. She was Maggie Britt, wife of Joe Britt, and she was very much in love.

  She touched the massive shoulder of the big man next to her. Last night he had made gentle love to her. A killer? A man of uncontrolled temper? No. He was gentle, he was loving. She'd been right about him.

  Rain beat against the window. She looked at her watch. 6:30 AM. If this was a weekday, she had to get up in order to leave for the office by 7:20. If it was a Saturday she could sleep until eight, then she had to do the laundry and clean her apartment. If it was Sunday she could sleep until ten and still make the eleven AM service at Our Savior Lutheran.

  For twenty years life cycled on this way. Except for two weeks vacation in the summer and a rare sick day, every week matched the pattern of the one before. Not since she left her parent's home had anything varied. The days and months gave her a sense of security. Everything was regular. She belonged. She was part of her time. She was part of the A.E. Housman Co. of Chicago, Illinois.

  The large man next to her stirred. He was her age, forty-two. He had a bulldog face set on a thick neck. Though his arms did not ripple with steroid-induced muscles, they were big. She rolled onto her side and pushed herself next to him until her breasts brushed against his chest. She kissed him lightly on
the mouth and pulled back to watch him wake up.

  His eyes opened. He blinked and looked around. Maggie smiled. She guessed he wasn't sure where he was either. The last time he woke up in the morning, he was in prison.

  At first there was terror in his eyes. Then he seemed to calm down. "Mornin'," he said. It was the only thing he'd said since they got into bed the night before.

  "Good morning, Joe. Isn't it a wonderful morning? I love you."

  He propped his head up on his hand. "Rainin' again," he said with a slight smile. He bent his head down and kissed her, first on the top of the head, then on the lips. She snuggled up close to him and they both drifted in and out of sleep, their lips together.

  Suddenly she awoke, put her hand on his face, and started to giggle.

  Joe moved his head back and looked at her. She anticipated his question. "I'm laughing because - I don't know why. I guess I'm just happy."

  Joe said nothing, but in his eyes she saw a quiet happiness. He looked like a fisherman watching a sunset or a man standing alone in front of a magnificent waterfall. How different he looked from the Joe she went to see in prison.

  When she first saw him behind bars, he looked out of place surrounded by cold steel and concrete. She watched as his love of trees and clouds and nature faded into the prison stone. Each time she went to see him, nature seemed further from him. Tension increased until at the end it seemed as if electricity crackled all around him. She could barely see the gentle soul of the man she loved.

  Then a month previous, a mere month, he told her about the Adak prison and asked her if she would go with him, and when she said, "Yes, Joe, yes I will," she saw the quiet happiness again.

  He circled his hand several times over her breasts, barely touching the tip of her nipples with his palm.

  She could feel her nipples rise and harden and she felt him, full and large, against the side of her leg. She pulled herself close to him and kissed him passionately, trying to become one with him. She gestured for him to come into her. Slowly he got on top of her and gently, carefully, he entered her.