Racehoss

by Albert Race Sample

  After that, God was real. He found me in the abyss of the burnin hell, uplifted and fed my hungry soul, filled me with His love and breathed new life into my nostrils. I didn’t walk out of there glowing like Moses, but I knew something had changed in me. I wasn’t the same man anymore. And I knew He would be with me for the rest of my days.

  As ransom for that gift, He gave me an assignment: “Tell them about me.” Tell who? How? Where? When? Plucked out. Uplifted. Dispatched. Me? Ol’ Racehoss? I was given the mission commandment, the “Go ‘Head!” I had to go, no ifs, ands, buts, or maybes about it, even though the starting line had me miles behind.

  As soon as I walked back through my tank door, I felt guilty for not blurting out what happened in solitary. But I knew if I told it, they would think I was crazy. I felt better when I figured out that maybe He meant when I could. There was one thing I knew for certain. If I lived to be old enough until my hair was white as a bar of P & G soap, I would never forget my solitary miracle.

  I took a shower, shaved and got scalped by Crip, wasn’t quite finished lacing up my brogans, getting ready, when Boss Humpy hollered down, “Ol’ Racehoss, that warden wonts you in his office.”

  In a few seconds, “Comin out, Boss.”

  On the way to the front gate, my mind was running a hundred miles a minute. What the fuck could he want this time? I thought as I stepped through the gate. “Yessuh, Warden,” as I entered his office doorway.

  He finished signing some papers on his desk, looked up and handed them to me. “Take ease in there an give ‘em to Boss Jack.” I did an about-face back into the outer office, handed them to him and returned. Big Devil reared back in his chair and looked me over. “Ol’ Racehoss, do you thank you got sense nuff to iron my shirts ‘thout burnin a hole in ‘em? Thank you kin fry eggs ‘thout the lace on ‘em?”

  “Warden, I don’t know much bout cookin and I ain’ never ironed nobody’s shirts befo, not even my own.” If he was offering me a houseboy job, no way. I’d rather go back to the fields than work around the houses. Even back to the pisser. Working around the women meant nothing but trouble and I had enough trouble without any help from them.

  “Well, I kin see you don’t wanna wek at my house.”

  “Nawsuh, Warden. It ain’t that I don’t wanna work at yo house, it’s jus I never dun that kinda work befo. I’m mo uv a field hand.”

  As he cleaned under his nails with a small pocketknife, “How much typin didja do fur Meabs up in the auditorium?”

  “Most uv it. I did all the monthly an quarterly reports.”

  “Didja type letters?”

  “Yessuh.”

  “You thank you kin keep yore mouth shet an not bea tellin ‘em nigguhs in the buildin my bizness if I put you to wek out heah in my office?”

  “Yessuh.”

  “Boss Jack! Cum in heah. This is Ol’ Racehoss,” he said after Boss Jack entered. “He’s gonna be wekin heah in the office wit you an kin hep out wit sum uv the typin, or whutever you need ‘em fer.” Looking at me, “You’ll be wekin under Boss Jack, but I still run the farm.”

  Boss Jack’s expression changed; he didn’t like the bragging remark. He went back to his desk in the outer office. The devilish smile on Big Devil’s face as he picked up the phone told me he enjoyed needling him. He dialed the inside picket, “Boss, I’m sendin Ol’ Racehoss back in an I want you to move ‘em up to th’ trusty tank. Yeah, an leave word fer ‘em to let ‘em out in the mornin wit the trusties. Right, he’ll be wekin out heah in my office. Yeah, thas right, jes add ‘em to yore trusty count.” After he hung up, “Ol’ Racehoss, when you go back inside the gate, stop by the laundry an tell ‘em I said give you sum new whites to wek out heah in.”

  Everything had happened so fast. I changed in the laundry room from my old dingy gray clothes into the new starched and pressed whites (that fit). Just like that! I had been given “the job,” the warden’s bookkeeper! I expected the worst, to be back on a row with a hoe by now. As a rule when we got busted off a job and put in the pisser, it was back to the fields. And I remembered, “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  As soon as I was inside the building, “Ol’ Racehoss, git alla yore stuff, I’m movin you up in Number 5 tank.”

  I quickly emptied my locker, put everything in my pillowcase, and went upstairs. I walked over to the barber area and started chatting with Hip Cat, the barber. He said there was no special night for shaves and haircuts, and he gave them whenever the cons asked. He was a pleasant contrast to Crip, wore fireman-type suspenders, and looked like he was past fifty.

  I already knew the trusty tank door was kept unlocked, “jes let th’ picket boss know where you goin.” We had a pretty long talk before the trusties started coming in for lunch. I knew all the cons who lived on the tank. Some had been in the squad with me and others used to live in 3 tank. I handled each of their PIP cards at least a hundred times and knew most of their prison numbers by heart because I had typed them so often. On my first night in the trusty tank I found out that when it came to gambling and watching Gunsmoke, they were no different from the bunch in 3 tank.

  After eating breakfast on the short line, the call for “trusties” went out. We cleared the backgate; each one went to the peg board outside of the pisser building and punched OUT. When I got to the board, my name wasn’t on it.

  “Stand to one side an let the rest uv these nigguhs cum on by.” After they checked out, “Where in the hell do you thank you goin, Ol’ Racehoss?” half joking. “Ain’ no peg up thar fer you.”

  “I’m goin round to the warden’s office, Boss.”

  “Whut’re you gon be doin in th’ warden’s office?”

  “Workin, Boss.”

  “Well, you jes stand heah til I call th’ inside picket. Ain’t nobody tole me nuthin bout it.”

  After he slammed down the phone, I had to listen to the rules governing trusties coming in and out of the backgate. “I ain’ gon letcha back in the yard unless you been shook down. Jus cawse you trusty don’t mean nuthin ta me. You don’t hafta strip, but you’ll be searched. Is that clear?” I started walking away, and he said, “I’ll hafta make you a peg.”

  “Yessuh.”

  Approaching the front office, I wondered how I was going to get in. I figured it was too early for anybody to be there yet. Surely Big Devil kept the office locked. Walking past the drawn venetian blinds, I saw the lights were on. I stepped inside the door and Sundown was sitting at one of the side desks drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette. “Good mornin, Lieutenant.”

  “Mornin, Ol’ Racehoss,” in his usual low-key voice as if it hurt him to talk. “I already dun made coffee. I didn’ know whut time you wuz gon git heah.” I told him about the delay at the backgate. “Well, I’m gen’ly heah by six ever mornin. If I beat you, I’ll go ahead an make the coffee. When you git heah first, you make it. You kin make coffee, right?”

  “Yessuh,” I said, thinking this was more than I had ever heard him talk.

  “The warden told me an the cap’n yestiddy he wuz gon put you out heah.” Blowing smoke and looking away from me, “You dun got you a damn good job heah, Ol’ Racehoss. You sho betta play yore cards close to yore chest.”

  The conversation ended when Cap’n Smooth and Buzzard arrived. There was nothing I could do until Boss Jack showed up. I didn’t want to sit and listen to their bullshit, so I stepped out and went in the visiting room next door. The trio was long gone before the warden arrived about seven thirty. He called me into his office and handed me a set of keys.

  “This is a extra set uv keys to the front door, desks, an file cabinets. I don’t know which is which, you have to figure that out. Boss Jack usually gits heah round eight, an he’ll tell you whut he wants you to do. One uv them keys fits my desk too. You might need to git sumthin out uv my drawers sumtimes.”

  “Yessuh,” returning to the outer office area.

  Talking from his office, “I tell you sumthin you oughta do quick is you ki
n, learn whut’s in ‘em fuckin file cabinets. Boss Jack’s the only one who kin find a damn thang in ‘em an most uv the time he’s gone when I need ‘em. I cum up heah the other eenin afta quittin time an spent damn near two hours huntin fer last month’s livestock report. Never did find the damn thang. I had to call his house. So learn that quick is you kin.”

  “Yessuh.”

  “Anutha thang, if I wuz you I’d stay ‘way frum ‘at auditorium ‘less you on office bizness. That way, you won’t git in no more trouble.”

  “Yessuh.”

  He was gone when Boss Jack came and I was going through one of the four-tier file cabinets. “How’d you get in the file cabinet?”

  “The warden gave me the keys.”

  “That’s okay then, I just wanted to know how you got in ‘em. Sit down and let me talk to you a minute. How far did you go in school?”

  “I got a GED.”

  “From what I gathered in the warden’s office yesterday, you can type.”

  “Yessuh. About forty words a minute. I’m not all that fast, but I’m accurate.”

  “Well, that’s plenty fast enough. Do you know anything about debits and credits?”

  “Not much, only what I learned when I was taking a ICS course in accounting.”

  He went to the closet and got a copy of every form used in the office. “Here, take these and learn ‘em by name and what each looks like. Afterwards, I’ll show you how to fill ‘em out. By the way, you better go put the flags up. You’ll find them folded up in the back of the visiting room.” As I was leaving, he added, “I’ll sure be glad when the warden decides to get another porter out here.”

  I found Old Glory and Texas, ran them up the flagpole, and returned. “I don’t know if the warden told you anything or not,” he continued, “so I’ll just start at the beginning. You work seven days a week. Until we get a porter, you have to keep the office clean, floors waxed and all. On Sundays, you work in the visiting room.” He looked out the window, “Say, did you know you got the flags upside down? The American flag should always be hung on the top. Do you know what it means when flags are flown upside down?”

  “No sir.”

  “It’s a distress signal. If an airplane was to fly over and see those flags flying that way, the pilot would think we were in distress.”

  “Well, Boss Jack, I don’t know about you, but I’m sho in distress. I ain’ never seen this many forms in my life.” We had our first good laugh together.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.”

  Boss Jack’s persistence prevailed and the warden assigned Jewel to do the porter work, freeing me to concentrate on the bookkeeping. With his patience and instructions, in a couple of months I could handle all the paperwork and knew the filing system.

  He literally turned the work over to me, all the monthly reports, posting the inmate records, and even the employee payroll. This provided him with more coffee drinking time over in the guards’ dining room. He wouldn’t drink the coffee I made in the office for the others. “That belongs to them, and I don’t want any part of it,” he would say. After I got the procedures down pat, I had some free time too and signed up for more correspondence courses.

  Big Devil liked to spend as much time driving in the fields as possible and was in and out of the office, mostly out. He didn’t like the administrative “crap,” and would much prefer seeing how things were running on the farm for himself. He’d walk through the building and kitchen or drive in the fields surveying the work needed to be done. Sometimes he came to the office on the weekends, but usually didn’t stay long.

  When working on the weekends, I had the office to myself. Jewel had no interest whatsoever in the office other than keeping it clean. He spent his leisure time sleeping in the visiting room. Needless to say, I took all the bad shit off my records. Emma “didn’ raise no fool.” Of course, I left a couple of things on my card, but not much. One Saturday after the warden had come and gone and Jewel was fast asleep in the visiting room, I decided to satisfy my curiosity and see what Big Devil had in his desk. While rummaging through it, I ran across the Warden’s Handbook in his middle drawer.

  Thumbing through it, I found a page marked with red pencil. At the top was written, “Handling Convicts.” First paragraph, “Never give a white convict anything he doesn’t ask for. Very proud, arrogant, and independent. Mexicans require close supervision, strict disciplinary procedures often necessary, cunning and rebellious. Negroes: treat like children.”

  Treat like children! I kept sneaking back until I read the whole book. The more I thought about it the more I realized that was exactly the way he treated us, “like children.”

  Rules regarding the employee payroll had been explained to me by Big Devil and Boss Jack. “Nobody” opened the big brown envelope containing the checks before the warden got it. The envelope was to be placed on his desk “intact.” I had orders not to tell the bosses the checks were there until the warden left the office. He took his check, Cap’n Smooth’s, Lieutenant Sundown’s, Cap’n Foots’, and Boss Jack’s. Because of their educational gap and varied social backgrounds, the warden made sure that he handed Boss Jack his check personally, just to keep it straight as to who was paying whom. Boss Jack didn’t like being in the office with all the bosses either, so as soon as he got his check, he left too.

  When the warden was ready to leave, he gave the bosses’ checks to me. I went over to the guards’ quarters and let the off-duty picket boss know the checks were in. I stayed late on paydays to wait for the field bosses to stop by after turning in their squads. Boss Leaks’ spicy humor made the wait worthwhile. As I handed out their checks, invariably one of the bosses asked him if he could borrow some money. Everybody knew he kept a pocketful of cash all the time.

  His response was always the same, “I’d lak ta letcha hav dis money, but I ain’ gon do it. Seem lak ever time I let one a you bosses hav my money, when it cum time to klect, sump’n bad happens to you, lak yore wife leaves you, or yore kids git sick, or yore dawg dies. So Boss, I’d be doin you a favor not ta lend you suma my janky money. I don’t wont my money ta put no hex on you.” The boss got the message and said no more.

  Buzzard stayed out of the way at the back of the crowd and waited for everyone to get their checks and leave. After the time in the warden’s office when he had to “sign” some papers regarding his retirement, I knew the secret. When the warden handed him the pen, Buzzard held it with a death grip and his hand trembled. It took him a good fifteen seconds to draw the two uncrossed streaks of lightning.

  After the others left, Buzzard walked over to my desk to get his check. I gave it to him, signed his name on the payroll sheet and turned it around for him to mark his X, verifying he had received it. I offered the pen to him, but he wouldn’t take it. “Nigguh, you dun th’ rest uv it. Don’t be handin that damn thang ta me. Go ‘head an finish it.” So I marked the X for him too.

  Boss Eatem Up couldn’t read or write either, but could at least make an X. I signed his name on the payroll for him as well. Cap’n Foots, with his seventh grade education, could only do a little better. The warden didn’t have a single ranking officer on his immediate staff who had a high school education and none could put together a report on their operations without help from Boss Jack or me.

  Boss Jack and I were caught up with our work in the office. As usual, to keep from being in the office while the warden was there, he was over in the officers’ messhall drinking coffee. After Big Devil and I were left alone in the office, “Ol’ Racehoss, cum in heah fer a minute.”

  “Yessuh.”

  “I wanna ask you sumthin. Who do you thank is th’ ugliest, Ol’ Cryin Shame or Ol’ Pug?” I didn’t answer and just started laughing. Pug’s face looked like a Pekingese, especially around the nose and mouth; and Cryin Shame was just plain ugly. “I’m serious nigguh, which one uv ‘em do you thank is th’ ugliest?”

  “Warden, neither one wouldn’ win no beauty contest.” />
  Realizing I still hadn’t caught his drift, he said jokingly, “Hell nigguh, I thought you wuz keepin up wit thangs heah in the office. I’m talkin bout that letter that cum in heah the other week or so bout plastic surgery. Well, we got anutha one today.”

  As he talked on, I recalled the letter. It stated that one of the universities had gotten a grant to do research on the use of plastic surgery as a corrective measure for criminal behavior. According to the letter, the researchers deemed the way a person looks has a definite bearing on his/her personality and criminal behavior. They were asking for a volunteer to undergo the operation.

  “I gotta pick sumbody to send up to them Walls. Hell, all the doctors in the world couldn’ make Ol’ Cryin Shame look no betta. Changin his face ain’t about to stop ‘at nigguh frum stealin. He needs a whole new head.”

  Pondering for a moment, “Ol’ Pug’s my choice cawse ain’ nuthin gon hep Ol’ Cryin Shame. He’s jes crazy is hell, the penitentiary’s the best place fer ‘em. So I tell you whut, go ‘head an make out sum transfer papers on Ol’ Pug an les git ‘em on ‘way frum heah on Black Betty.”

  Chapter 18

  From all indications we were going to have a big Juneteenth celebration. Being given a good meal and the day off was the warden’s pre-cotton picking time “rally” and a way to celebrate emancipation all in one fell swoop. This got our engines heated up. When the cotton blossomed, it wouldn’t last long as a “fart in a windstorm,” as Cap’n Smooth would say. That’s when we repaid him.

  Big Devil issued orders to Cap’n Foots to feed us fried chicken and watermelon, plus we had a big ballgame scheduled Saturday. Our team, the Yellow Jackets, was playing the Ramsey Hardhitters for the southern division championship.

  Even though Mr. Meabs was the manager of the team, Big Devil did the managing. He made the final decision as to who played on the team using the Hog Law book to make most of his selections. “If a nigguh don’t pick nuff cotton, he can’t be on my ball team.”

  When the Yellow Jackets beat another team, it was ice cream and cake; but when they lost, it was the soda water boxes for the rest of the night. He punished the whole team when they got beat and those who errored the game off were punished more severely. Being number one was an obsession of his, whether it was producing the first bale or winning a baseball game. Baseball was the only convict activity in which he showed an interest.