The Animal Factory E-Book

Edward Bunker

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 373

Beschreibung

Ronald Decker guilty of a first offence, minor drug dealing charge is put away in San Quentin where he is befriended by "old lag", Earl Copen. Copen is well in with the White Brotherhood just one of the many White, Black and Chicano gangs in constant brutal conflict in San Quentin. Their growing friendship is tested by Ron's rejection of a homosexual advance by another con which leads to an act of ultimately fatal violence and in despair they seize a remote chance of escape. Bunker writes of the sordid, horrifically violent and lawless prison life where life is cheap and death by shiv awaits anyone looking the wrong way with a great literary quality and at a merciless pace that never falters and with the realism and knowledge gained from spending over 25 years in prison.

Leseprobe

Ronald Decker guilty of a first offence, minor drug dealing charge is put away in San Quentin where he is befriended by “old lag”, Earl Copen. Copen is well in with the White Brotherhood just one of the many White‚ Black and Chicano gangs in constant brutal conflict in San Quentin. Their growing friendship is tested by Ron’s rejection of a homosexual advance by another con which leads to an act of ultimately fatal violence and in despair they seize a remote chance of escape.

Bunker writes of the sordid, horrifically violent and lawless prison life where life is cheap and death by shiv awaits anyone looking the wrong way with a great literary quality and at a merciless pace that never falters and with the realism and knowledge gained from spending over 25 years in prison.

Edward Bunker, Mr Blue in Reservoir Dogs, was the author of No Beast So Fierce, Little Boy Blue, Dog Eat Dog, The Animal Factory and his autobiography, Mr Blue, all published by No Exit. He was co-screenwriter of the Oscar nominated movie, The Runaway Train, and appeared in over 30 feature films, including Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, the film of his book No Beast So Fierce. Edward Bunker died in 2005 and another novel, Stark, was discovered in his papers. Along with some short stories published as Death Row Breakout.

‘Integrity, craftsmanship and moral passion…an artist with a unique and compelling voice’- William Styron

‘Edward Bunker is a true original of American letters. His books are criminal classics: novels about criminals, written by an ex-criminal, from the unregenerately criminal viewpoint.’- James Ellroy

‘At 40 Eddie Bunker was a hardened criminal with a substantial prison record. Twenty-five years later, he was hailed by his peers as America's greatest living crimewriter’- Independent

www.noexit.co.uk

To my brothers—in and out. They know who they are.

Contents

Title PageDedicationThe Animal FactoryCopyright

The Animal Factory

Dawn pushed a faint line of yellow on the city’s low skyline when the prisoners, nearly five hundred of them, were herded from the jail’s sallyport to the parking lot. Waiting was the fleet of black-and-white buses with barred windows and heavy wire separating the driver area from the seats. The air was filled with acrid diesel exhaust and the stench of rotting garbage. The ragtag prisoners, more than half of them black or Chicano, were in columns of two, six to a chain, a busload to a group; they looked like human centipedes. Everywhere were deputy sheriffs in knife-creased uniforms. Three deputies were assigned to each bus, while the others stood back with fat .357 Magnum Pythons dangling from their hands. A few fondled short-barreled shotguns.

Despite the smell, many men breathed deep, for no cool air entered the windowless jail, and they had already spent three hours in seventeen-foot bullpens, as many as fifty in each. Behind them the jail trustees were already sweeping the cages for the second court line of the day.

Ronald Decker was young, looked even younger than he was. In contrast to the generally disheveled clothes of nearly all the others, he wore a neat corduroy suit that had withstood three days of going to court, getting rousted awake at 3:30 a.m., standing in the jail cages, riding the bus in chains, waiting in the packed bullpen beside the courtroom, getting a twenty-four-hour continuance, returning to the jail in the evening. When the steel gates crashed, loud-speakers blared, and there was no sleep until midnight. Today it’ll be over, he thought. The attorney had tried to save him from prison, but a garage with two hundred kilos of marijuana and a kitchen table with forty ounces of cocaine was just too big a bust. No matter that he, or the fat fee, had convinced the psychiatrist to report that he was a cocaine addict who would benefit from treatment. No matter that the probation officer was convinced by his “good” family that an alternative program would be rehabilitative. The district attorney, who had a legion of subordinates and didn’t know one case in a hundred, sent a personal letter to the judge demanding prison. Ron grinned wanly, remembering what the deputy district attorney had called him yesterday: the “boy wonder” of drug dealers. At age twenty-five he was hardly a boy.

The prisoners climbed onto the bus, a deputy roughly guiding the befuddled winos so their chains didn’t entangle as they swung around to be seated. A Chicano even younger than Ron was handcuffed beside him. Ron had already noticed the yawns and sniffles of withdrawals and hoped the youth wouldn’t vomit the green fluid that junkies cast up when their stomachs were empty. The Chicano wore khaki pants and Pendleton shirt, the uniform of the East Los Angeles barrio.

Ron and the Chicano got seats, but the bus had just thirty-two and was carrying sixty-one men. The aisle filled.

“Okay, assholes,” a deputy called. “Move back in there.”

“Man, I ain’t no motherfuckin’ sardine,” a black called out.

But the men were packed in. Once Ron had seen some prisoners refuse. The deputies had come with mace and clubs and the rebellion was short-lived. Then the driver had raced down the freeway and thrown on the breaks, sending the standing men crashing around. Finally, so the word came, the rebellious ones had been charged with assault on a peace officer, a felony carrying up to ten years in prison.

It was 6:20 when the bus whooshed and started moving. Other buses were also getting under way, en route to dozens of courtrooms in every region of the vast county: Santa Monica, Lancaster, Torrance, Long Beach, and more obscure places like Citrus, Temple City, and South Gate. No court would convene until 10:00, but the sheriff’s started early. Besides, another five hundred had to be processed for court in downtown Los Angeles.

The mood on the bus had an element of levity. It was something to be riding down the freeway when the rush hour was just beginning. Some of the chained passengers, mostly the drunks, were oblivious to the sights, while others stared avidly at everything. Some, next to the windows, stood up when a car with a woman whipped by; they tried to stare down at the best angle to see bare thighs pressed against the car seat.

Ron was too tired. His eyes felt gritty and his stomach had a hollow burning. Already thin, he’d lost nearly twenty pounds after four months of jail food. He dropped his head back against the seat and slid down as much as he could, given the chains and the cramped leg space. Through the hubbub a set of voices, easily identifiable as belonging to blacks, pulled his attention. They were close and loud.

“Listen, blood, I damn sure know Cool Breeze. Breeze, sheeit, that nigger’s hotass wind! Nigger calls himself a pimp … an’ ain’t nuthin’ but a shade tree for a ho. He take a good workin’ bitch an’ put her in a rest home. Me, I’m a mack man an’ a player. I know how to make a bitch bring me monee …”

Ron smiled involuntarily, envious of anyone who could laugh and lie with such gusto in these circumstances; but blacks had had centuries to develop the knack. It was hard not to feel embarrassed when they boisterously called each other “nigger,” as if they hated themselves. And pimp stories were a cliché in jail; every black claimed to be that or a revolutionary. No, he thought, “every” was an unfair exaggeration. It was stereotyping, and by doing it he was being unfair to himself, too. Yet, those he’d found in jail were certainly different from the blacks he’d done business with, musicians, real hustlers who were cool. Indeed, he’d believed everyone’s stories when he first came to jail. He seldom lied about his own exploits, and because he’d made quite a bit of money, he expected to find others who’d done the same. He’d found incompetents and liars. Now he was going to prison. It was a long fall from a West Hollywood high rise and a Porsche Carrera.

The courtroom bullpen was twice as large as the cage at the jail, and concrete benches lined the concrete walls, which were defaced by graffiti scratched into the paint.

“Okay, assholes,” a deputy yelled as the column of prisoners filed into the room from a tunnel. “Turn around so we can get the iron off.”

Ron was among the first unchained and he quickly took a piece of bench in a corner, knowing that half the men would have to stand around or sit on the floor. When the deputies left, locking the door, the room quickly filled with cigarette smoke. The ventilation shaft in the ceiling was inadequate, though most prisoners had to mooch butts. A few men handed out cigarettes, and a dozen hands were extended. One red-faced man of fifty in a plaid shirt and work boots freely passed out cigarettes and used the largesse as a wedge to vent his woe.

“I’ve got sixty days suspended for drunk driving and they’ve got me again. What’s gonna happen?”

“Suspended?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then he’s gotta give you at least sixty days.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Oh, God,” the man said, his eyes welling with tears that he tried to sniffle away.

“Check that puto,” the Chicano addict sneered. “I’ve got the joint suspended, five years to life, and another robbery … I ain’t snivelin’.”

Ron grunted, said nothing. He knew that sixty days in jail could be a greater trauma for some than prison for others. What he couldn’t sympathize with was the unmanly display. Hidden tears he could understand. He felt them himself. But what he felt and what he showed were different. The man had no pride.

“Save that shit for the judge, turkey,” someone said. “We can’t do a thing for you.”

The quip brought a couple of chuckles, and the man rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and tried to compose himself.

The long wait began. Ron sighed, closed his eyes, and wished the judge could mail the sentence. What difference did his presence make? It was going to be the same no matter what.

After 8:00 a.m. the lawyers began visiting their clients, calling them to the barred door and talking softly. When the public defender came, carrying a yellow legal pad, a crowd gathered around the gate. Ron thought about cats in a television commercial.

“Fuckin’ dump-truck P.Ds,” muttered the Chicano. “All they say is “so stipulated” and “waive.” They waive you right to prison … punks all want you to plead guilty.” Nevertheless, he joined the crowd at the gate. He’s exaggerating, Ron thought, but not a whole lot. After four months I know more about justice from being in jail than from two years of college. They don’t really care about justice. “They” was both lawyers and judges. That he was disillusioned indicated how naïve he’d been to begin with.

“Okay, you drunks and punks and other assholes,” a deputy said at 10:00 a.m. “When I call your name, answer with your last three numbers and get up here.”

Ron paid no attention. This was the municipal court line, the misdemeanors. His court was for the afternoon. His eyes were still closed when a large key banged the bars. “Decker, front and center.”

Ron jerked from his stupor and saw his attorney, Jacob Horvath, standing slightly behind the bailiff’s shoulder. Horvath was tall, with long, thinning hair, flared suit, and upturned gray moustache. His hands were soft. He’d learned his trade as a deputy U.S. attorney, and now earned a dozen times that salary by defending the dope peddlers he once prosecuted. Narcotics laws and search and seizure were his specialties. He was very good, and charged a fee commensurate with his skill.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Tell me,” Ron said. “You talked to the judge.”

“Not good. The trial deputy would go for the rehabilitation center, but the big boys downtown are watching this one. The judge—” Horvath shrugged and shook his head. “And guess who’s in the courtroom.”

“Akron and Meeks.”

“Right. And the captain of the administrative narcs. It’s on their own time. They don’t get paid for this.”

Ron shrugged. Nothing would be changed by their presence, and he had accepted the inevitable weeks ago.

“I talked to your mother this morning.”

“She’s here?”

“No, in Miami, but she left a message to call her so I did. She wants to know how things look and told me to have you call her collect this evening.”

“Just like that. She thinks I’m in the Beverly-Wilshire.”

“I’ll get a court order.”

“Make sure it’s signed and goes back on the bus. The pigs at the jail won’t let me near a phone otherwise.”

“Okay … Anyway, the judge doesn’t want to bury you, but he’s under pressure. I think he’s going to send you to prison, but keep jurisdiction under Eleven sixty-eight. Keep your nose clean and he can pull you back in a couple of years when the heat’s off.”

“A couple of years, huh?”

Horvath shrugged. “You won’t be eligible for parole for six years, so two is pretty soft.”

“I guess you’re right. It isn’t the gas chamber. You did what you could.”

“You were selling dope like you had a license.”

“And I don’t see anything wrong with it. I really don’t. Somebody wants it.”

“Don’t tell the judge that, or anyone at the prison.”

A prisoner came back in handcuffs, escorted by a deputy. Horvath and Ron stepped back from the door so the man could be let in. When Horvath stepped up to the bars again, he glanced at his gold Rolex. “Gotta go. I’ve got a preliminary hearing upstairs scheduled for eleven. I have to see the client for a few minutes first.”

“Is Pamela out there?” Ron asked quickly.

“I didn’t see her.”

“Shit!”

“You know she’s got troubles.”

“Is she hooked again?”

Horvath made a face that confirmed the fact without saying it. Ron had wanted Horvath to ask the judge to let them get married, but this piece of information stopped him, sent a hollow pang through his stomach. As he nodded and turned back to the bench, he resented Horvath as the bearer of bad tidings, thinking that he’d paid eighteen thousand dollars to go to prison, recalling the promises that Horvath had made to get the money. Ron had learned since then that the business of lawyers was selling hope. Hot air was what they usually delivered. In all fairness, Horvath had fought hard to get the search warrant, and all the narcotics seized from its use, thrown out as evidence—but the warrant was solid, based on oath and affidavit, which wasn’t what Horvath had said when he asked for a fifteen-thousand-dollar retainer.

Just before lunch the last pair of prisoners from morning court were brought in, new faces who’d probably spent the night in a substation, skinny youths with shoulder-length hair, peach-fuzz beards, and filthy blue jeans. They looked like city hippies, but their voices were pure Georgia farmboy. Ron wouldn’t have noticed them except that they asked him to read their complaint. It said they were charged with violation of Section 503 of the Vehicle Code, auto theft. They couldn’t read, didn’t know what they faced, and yet didn’t seem disheartened by their predicament. They were more interested in when the food was due.

At noon a deputy dropped a cardboard box outside the bars, calling all the assholes to get in line. Some crowded and jostled. Ron hung back.

“Straighten up, assholes, or I’ll send it to Long Beach,” the deputy called. Long Beach was where sewage went.

“That’s where it belongs,” someone called.

“Then gimme yours,” another said.

“Knock it off!” the deputy yelled.

The men quieted and the bags came through the bars, each with salami between two pieces of bread and an orange. It was all the food they’d get until morning unless they got back to the jail early, which was unlikely for those going to afternoon court. On his first court trip, Ron had looked at the bag’s contents and handed it away. Now he wolfed it down with the same gusto as the undernourished winos, pocketing the orange and dropping the bag on the floor. Litter everywhere mingled with the odor of sweat, Lysol, and piss.

Because he was the only prisoner going to this particular courtroom, the deputy handcuffed Ron’s hands behind his back. They went down a concrete tunnel and reached the courtroom by a side door. The deputy took off the handcuffs before they entered. Court was not yet in session and the room was empty except for the police emissaries in back spectators’ seats. One of them smiled and waved. Ron ignored the gesture, not because of a particular animosity, but because a response would have been unseemly. The young prosecutor was shuffling folders at his table while the court reporter and clerk moved around on hushed feet. A huge state seal flanked by the flags of California and the United States was on the wall behind the bench. Ron was struck by the contrast between the back-room cages of justice and the courtroom’s solemn dignity. The public saw the mansion, not the outhouse.

“Take a seat in the jury box, Mr. Decker,” the deputy said, and as Ron followed the instructions he smiled, thinking he had gone from “asshole” to “mister” by walking through a door. In a few minutes he’d be “asshole” again.

Horvath scurried in with perfect timing. He’d just put his briefcase on the counsel table when the clerks jumped into place, court reporter at his machine, clerk beside the chamber door.

“Department B of the Superior Court of the State of California is now in session, the Honorable Arlen Standish presiding. All rise.”

As the few people stood up, the judge came through the door and mounted his throne. He was all brisk business in his black robes. He was a big ruddy man who radiated vigor. Except for tufts of white hair above his ears, he was totally bald—but his pate was tanned and marked with freckles.

Everyone sat down as the judge shuffled some papers, then looked up, first at Ron, then at the policemen, without changing his expression. He nodded to the clerk.

“People versus Decker, probation hearing and sentence.”

Ron didn’t wait for the deputy to motion before getting up to join Horvath at the counsel table.

“Ready for the people, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said.

“Defendant is ready, Your Honor,” Horvath said, glancing at Ron and winking, though it had no significance.

The judge moved some unseen papers, slipped on glasses for a few seconds to read something, took them off and looked down. Everyone stood quietly waiting for him.

“Do you have any remarks, Mr. Horvath?”

“Yes, Your Honor, though in substance it is what you’ll find in the preparation report and the evaluation of Dr.”—Horvath glanced at notes—“Muller.”

“I’m familiar with both reports … but proceed.”

“This young man is a classic example of the tragedy of our era. He comes from a good family, attended college, and there’s no history of any criminal activity until two years ago when he was arrested with a half-pound of marijuana. Both the probation officer and the psychiatrist report that he started smoking marijuana in college and, as a favor to friends, began getting some extra to sell. In the youth culture, this isn’t criminal. But things have a momentum of their own, and someone wanted cocaine, and he could get that from the same place he got the marijuana. In other words, he drifted into it without realizing what he was doing. He was also using cocaine quite heavily, which clouded his perspective, and although there’s no physical addiction to cocaine, there can be a psychological dependence.

“According to Dr. Muller, Mr. Decker isn’t violent or dangerous. On the contrary, the psychological tests show an intelligent, well-balanced personality, providing he is weaned from the drug dependence …”

Horvath went on for five minutes, and Ron was fascinated. It was weird to listen while he was being discussed. He was impressed by Horvath’s plea for leniency.

The prosecutor was next. “I concur with much that counsel says. This young man is intelligent. He is from a good family. But that gives him even less excuse, because he had every opportunity. The facts don’t indicate that this was a hobby, which counsel seems to imply. Mr. Decker was living in a seven-hundred-dollar-a-month apartment and owned two automobiles, one of them a twelve-thousand-dollar sports car. The amount of drugs that he was caught with are worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. If he needs treatment for his own drug problem—and cocaine is not addictive—the Department of Corrections has programs. Above and beyond that, this is a serious offense, and if someone with this degree of involvement, someone who has every advantage and opportunity our society provides, doesn’t go to prison, it would be unfair to send those who haven’t had such opportunity.”

When the prosecutor finished, the judge looked to Ron. “Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Is there any legal reason why judgment should not be passed?”

“No, Your Honor,” Horvath said. “I’ll submit the matter.”

“The People submit,” said the prosecutor.

“Frankly,” the judge said after a judicious pause, “this is a difficult case. What counsel says—both counsel—has merit. There is a lot of good in this young man, and yet the People have a right to demand severe punishment because this offense is so serious. I’m going to send him to prison, for the term prescribed by law, but I think that the statutory term of ten years to life may be too severe. Many years there could ruin him and not serve society’s best interests … so I’m going to retain jurisdiction under the provisions of Section Eleven sixty-eight, and I’ll ask for reports in, say, two years. If they’re satisfactory, I’ll modify the sentence.” He looked directly at Ron. “Do you understand? If you show signs of rehabilitation, I’ll change this sentence in two years.” Then to Horvath. “Now this matter is off calendar, and it’s your responsibility to make a motion.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Ron felt the deputy’s hand tweak his elbow. Sentence had been passed and he was going where he had expected to go.

Ronald Decker began the ten-day wait for the prison bus. Since his arrest five months earlier he’d told everyone that he was going, but part of him had believed that he would avoid it somehow. The imminent reality created both anxiety and curiosity. He asked questions, listened to stories. Prison was more than a walled-in place; it was an alien world of distorted values, ruled by a code of violence. Some tales contradicted others; the viewpoint depended on the experiences of the speaker. A middle-aged forger who had served eighteen months as a clerk in the administration building while living in an honor cellhouse saw prison differently from a barrio Chicano who had gone in at age twenty and spent five years walking the yard and bouncing between segregation and the cotton textile mill. The clerk said, “Sure those lowriders stab each other, but if you mind your own business, nobody bothers you, except when a race war is happening. Then you stay in your cell.” The Chicano said, “A vato can get killed quick. Every day somebody gets hit. You need to get in a gang. They run things.” The clerk explained that there were four powerful gangs, two Mexican, one white, one black, and that they existed in varying strengths in every one of the prisons. The clerk didn’t know much about them, and the Chicano wouldn’t talk. However, a few days later the Los AngelesTimes had an article about the fifty-seven murders and three hundred stabbings that had happened in three prisons—Soledad, Folsom, and San Quentin—the previous year. Nearly all the violence was attributable to the gangs, which, according to the article, had started up for protection during the early racial violence but were now running rackets when they weren’t killing each other. The two Mexican gangs were at war, as were the whites and blacks. “Fifty-seven killings!” Ron said. “What kind of place am I going to?”

“You might miss Q and Folsom,” a potbellied old con said. “But you might have trouble wherever you go. Some people can go there and fade into the crowd, but sure as shit you can’t. Know what I mean?”

Ron threw the paper on the bunk and nodded. He knew.

“You’ll look like Gina Lollobrigida to some of those animals who’ve been down for eight or nine years. Even to some who aren’t animals but just hardrock convicts. The jockers will have one idea and the fairies will want to gobble you up. Shit! Give ’em a chance and all they’ll find of you is shoelaces and a belt buckle.” The man laughed as Ron blushed. Prison culture, he knew, distinguished between masculine and feminine roles, but he was repelled by all of it. He didn’t condemn it, but it wasn’t for him. He was especially touchy about it because he’d seemed to attract homosexual propositions since puberty.

“So how do I handle it?”

“Start out by not being friendly and don’t accept favors. The game is to get you obligated. Don’t shave too much and wear ragged clothes. Talk out of the corner of your mouth with a lot of motherfuckers thrown in … and give off vibes that you’ll ice the first bastard who fucks with you. It’ll make ’em think about it. Nobody wants to get killed. And some people do get through with murder-mouth and nothing behind it. But they don’t look like you. ’Course you could put a shiv in one and that’d keep ’em off you … leastways them that ain’t serious. But if he’s got friends … and it’d keep you from getting out.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Ron said. He thought of asking what the prison authorities would do if he asked for help. Certainly others were in the same situation and the men who ran the prison had responsibility. Asking for protection was distasteful, but getting buggered or killing someone was beyond distaste. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself after submitting to that, and killing, even without penalties, would be hard. He couldn’t imagine himself taking someone’s life. He didn’t ask, sensing that appealing to the authorities for help was taboo. Maybe he could hire bodyguards. He asked if that was possible.

“Maybe, but what’d probably happen is that they’ll take your money, extort more, and then turn on you. Then again, you might find someone. Shit, I’ve seen twenty cartons of cigarettes buy a stabbing … right in the fuckin’ lung.”

The questions had been partly rhetorical, but later Ron lay on his bunk and thought about the price of twenty cartons of cigarettes for a stabbing. It was cheap enough—if he could afford it. One week before the bust he’d had fifty-three thousand dollars in cold cash, another twenty-five thousand dollars or more in pre-Columbian artifacts from Mexican ruins (stolen and smuggled by the same persons in Culiacán who sold him narcotics), a Porsche, a Cammaro, and a partnership in a downtown parking lot. Thirty grand was lost when the narcotics were seized. The police had seized twelve grand, and turned eight over to Internal Revenue, which claimed he still owed sixty thousand. Some policemen had kept the missing four thousand. Five thousand in the bank had gone to the bail bondsman to get Pamela out. But before she made bail, some jackal among their acquaintances had broken into the apartment, stolen the artifacts, the stereo, the color television, and his clothes. The Porsche had been sold to pay Horvath, who also got the pittance from the forced sale of the parking lot. Pamela had the Cammaro, all that remained of his empire. It had been stripped like autumn leaves in a gale.

Maybe I can’t afford twenty cartons, he thought, and grunted in disgust.

Ron knew that this would be the last visit. Tomorrow or the next day he would ride a sheriff’s bus to prison. When his name was called at 10:00 a.m., eight men were in the four-man cell. Every night the jail filled with drunks and traffic violators who hadn’t paid their tickets. The floor was always littered with bodies, many without mattresses but too full of booze to care. In the late afternoon they were moved to the county farm to make room for a new batch. All but one were awake. The old con was reading the newspaper by light coming through the bars. The recessed cell light had been burned out when Ron arrived and never replaced. Three middle-aged blacks and a rotund Indian were playing nickel-and-dime tonk on a bunk, while two others watched. The sleeper was on the floor in front of the toilet, which Ron had to use. The wino was snoring lustily, spittle drooling from his toothless mouth. In jail vernacular he was a “grape.” After a momentary hesitation, Ron stood as close as possible and pissed over the sleeper’s head. Most of the stream went into the toilet, but as it expired and he shook himself, some fell on the man’s face without breaking the rhythm of his snores. Ron rinsed his hands and turned around. The gate would open any moment and he had to be ready. If he hesitated, the gate would close and he’d miss the visit.

The old con had lowered the newspaper and his expression was of a privately enjoyed joke.

“What’s on your mind?” Ron asked.

“See … it’s already got you.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Time in the cage, how it corrupts. Six months ago you wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that—” he glanced toward the wino on the floor—“pissing on somebody, you couldn’t have done it.”

“He’s just an old grape.”

“Ah, that’s what you think now. It wasn’t what you thought then.”

Before Ron could comment, the door slid open and the deputy at the control panel called his name. He stepped out, tucking in the wrinkled denim shirt as he walked by the faces of the cells to the front and picked up the visiting-room pass.

The corridor with waxed concrete floors and prisoners moving along right-hand walls, watched by deputies, was so quiet that soft music from recessed speakers could be heard plainly. But as he neared the visiting-room door, Ron was washed by a tide of sound, an accretion of two hundred separate conversations. A trusty took his pass, said, “E five,” and put the pass in a pneumatic tube. Row E, window five, Ron thought, going to where he’d been directed. “E” Row visitors would come in a bunch when the prisoner windows were full. All phones would go on simultaneously, and go off automatically in twenty minutes. Ron sat on the stool and stared through the dirty Plexiglas, freedom inches away, wondering what kind of acid would simply melt the barrier and let him walk away. The thought was academic. Desperate moves were not his style. Next, he looked at the visitors at the windows across from him. Most were women visiting sons, lovers, and husbands, bearing the historical female burden to endure. The single impression of the throng was poverty. Prisoners came from the poor. Even the hallowed right to bail favored the wealthy. As always, he looked for pretty women. Mere sight had now become a semiprecious experience. A Mexican girl, perhaps still in her teens, with lustrous black hair to her waist, velvet skin, and fawn-like eyes, was visiting a man with the dark granite features of an Indian. Ron watched the girl’s ass and thighs pressing against her jeans as she shifted around.

A fresh cluster of visitors filled the air, their faces flashing into his as they looked for the right prisoner. Pamela came quickly, plopping down with a smile. Since he’d gone, she’d returned to jeans and bra-less T-shirts, blond hair hanging straight down. She was the complete hippie chick, and without makeup she looked young. The “skinny blond with big knockers,” she called herself.

Ron immediately saw the pinpointed pupils; he’d seen them several times lately, but now he didn’t want to argue so he would ignore them. She carried a pencil and tablet, ready in case something needed to be written down. Each held a dead phone at the ready, smiling and feeling stupid.

Somewhere the switch was thrown on and twenty conversations commenced along the row.

“Hi, honey, why so glum?” Pamela asked, turning her mouth down to mock the mask of tragedy.

“Not glum. I’m probably going tomorrow. Two buses are scheduled.”

“You’ll be glad to get out of here, won’t you? This is shitty—except I can visit twice a week.”

“Horvath says the judge won’t let us get married. I don’t really know if he asked him. Fuckin’ mouthpieces are lyin’ bastards. They take your money and fuck you over quick.”

“What about just putting down that you’re married?”

“I’ll try it.” He needed married status to get conjugal visits. “You know you need to get fucked good to keep you in line.”

She winked in exaggerated lewdness.

“Get I.D. in my name,” he said. “You won’t have an arrest record under that name so there’ll be no trouble. They can’t very well take your fingerprints. At least I’ll be able to touch you when you visit there.”

“I won’t be able to come as often.”

“I know.”

“I’ll call tomorrow to see if you’re still here.”

“I’ll be glad to get it started. All these months in jail don’t count.”

“What?”

“The time doesn’t start counting until I get there.”

The information triggered sudden tears, which momentarily startled Ron, for although she was volatile, given to all kinds of emotional outbreaks, these tears were out of proportion.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“Things are just … so shitty.” She managed a smile. “I’m going to start hustling again.”

“Don’t tell me about it.”

“That’s where you found me,” she snapped, anger replacing anguish. “I mean, what the hell …”

“Do what you have to do, but you don’t have to tell me. I’ve got enough trouble as it is.”

“I’m sorry. I’m uptight. I never thought I’d miss a man so much.”

After a pause, he changed the subject. “Oh yeah, I talked to the bondsman. He’s giving back some money. Send me enough to buy canteen and keep the rest for yourself.”

It was information he’d given before. Nearly everything had been said before, and there was nothing really new to say. The glass was more than a barrier to freedom; it was a line between lives. Two persons together, the condition of an entity, atrophied when they were divided. Yet he felt more longing than he ever had outside. Then she had been merely a convenience, a portion of his interests. Now she was the focus of his hope and dreams because everything else was gone. He wanted to tell her, though he’d done so in letters already, but before he could speak the phone went dead. Time was up. Men began to stand up along the row, making final, pantomined communication before a deputy began ordering them to move out. Pamela quickly wrote on the tablet and held it up to the glass. “I love you,” it said, with a sketched sunflower behind it. She held up three one-dollar bills, the amount a prisoner could receive. Not needing it, he shook his head.

As Ron was heading back to the tank, face twisted with his thoughts, Pamela was crossing the parking lot to the Cammaro where a slender, light-skinned black in bell-bottom jeans and multiple strings of beads was waiting behind the wheel.

Long before daylight Ron and thirty others were stripped naked, skin-searched, given white jumpsuits, and then put in waist chains, handcuffs, and leg irons. They hobbled through the cold darkness to the bus while men with shotguns and mackinaws stood on the sidelines, mist coming from their noses and mouths. The prisoners shivered in their seats until the bus had been under way for ten minutes, its headlights finally probing the ramp to the freeway. Ron was one of the few who had a seat to himself, and he felt lucky. Pleasure comes from trivial things in jail.

For the first hour they sliced through the city on the nearly empty freeway. Ron gazed out at the dark silhouettes of the Hollywood skyline, remembering other days, wondering how long it would be until he saw freedom again. He sat near the rear, a shotgun guard in a cage behind him. Beside the guard was the open toilet, and Ron would regret having taken a seat close to it long before the day was over.

As the sun came up, the bus catapulted through the mountains. The driver turned on a radio. A speaker was nearby and Ron’s mind drifted with the music and shifted from gnawing anxiety to longing. He was going to face a long, bitter experience before he “danced beneath a diamond sky … silhouetted by the sea …”

The bus ran along the coast highway, stopping at San Luis Obispo to unload some prisoners and gather others. Ron’s name wasn’t called and the queasiness in his stomach increased.

By late afternoon the bus had made another stop at Soledad amid central California farms, and again Ron wasn’t called.

In the town of Salinas the bus took on fuel. As the driver climbed back on, he faced his passengers through the wire.

“Well, boys, next stop is San Quentin … the Bastille by the Bay. Our estimated time of arrival is seven-thirty tonight … God willing and the river don’t rise!”

“Well, get the motherfucker rollin’ an’ quit bullshittin’,” one rough wag said. “We wanna see if it’s bad as its publicity.”

“You’ll see,” the driver said, swinging into his chair and starting the motor.

Earl Copen was serving his third term in San Quentin, having come the first time when he was nineteen, and he sometimes felt as if he’d been born there. If he’d ever conceived eighteen years ago that he’d be in the same place at thirty-seven, he would have killed himself—or so he thought sometimes. He was as comfortable as it was possible to be, and still he hated it.

Weekdays, Earl Copen slept late, a luxury afforded by his job as clerk for the 4:00-p.m.-to-midnight lieutenant, a job he’d had for twelve years, except for two periods of freedom, one lasting nine months, the other twenty-one months. The earlier years had been spent walking the yard or in segregation. On Saturdays during football season he got up early and went to the yard to pick up football parlay tickets from his runners. It was profitable and passed the autumn and early winter.

He came out of the North cellhouse in the breakfast line, following the denimed convict in front of him along the twin white lines under the high corrugated weather shed. Outside of it, crowded together on the pitted wet asphalt, were legions of sea gulls and pigeons. When the convicts filled the rectangle of the big yard, the sea gulls would circle overhead or perch on the edges of the giant cellhouses. Or fly over en masse and shit on everyone.

The two mess halls were inadequate to feed the four thousand convicts from the four cellhouses at the same time, so the North and West honor units ate first. They could return to the cellhouses where the gates were kept open while the other cellhouses ate, or they could stay on the yard, waiting for the gate to the rest of the vast prison to open at 8:00 a.m.

Earl removed his knitted cap as he stepped through the door, exposing his shaved and oiled head. He checked a stainless-steel tray for cleanliness, found it satisfactory, and dragged it along the serving line. A cold fried egg, burned on the bottom and raw on top, flopped onto the tray; then a dipper of grits. He pulled the tray back so the server couldn’t give him the bitter dry fruit, but took a piece of stale bread. The convict servers slopped the food on without worrying whether it spread into two compartments. Years ago this had infuriated Earl, and he’d once spit in a man’s face for doing it, but now he was indifferent. Nor did he pay attention to the food except when it was inedible. Usually the menu was forgotten by the time he was picking his teeth.

All the convicts sat facing the same direction at narrow tables in long rows, a hangover from the “silent” system. The tables hadn’t been replaced in this mess hall because it was also the auditorium and they faced the stage and screen. He head-jerked a greeting to a pair of Chicano cooks in dirty whites who were standing against a rear wall; then turned down an aisle. Blacks turned into one row, while whites and Chicanos turned into another. When their row filled before that of the blacks, they started another. Official segregation had ended a decade earlier; the regulations now said that convicts could enter any of three rows, but nobody crossed racial lines and nobody wanted to. Racism was a mass obsession that infected everyone, and there was continual race war. So the mess hall had a row of blacks, followed by two or three rows of whites and Chicanos, then another row of blacks.

Earl gulped down the swill, mixing grits with the half-raw egg. The weak coffee was at least hot and took the morning taste of cigarettes from his mouth. He finished quickly and got up, carrying the tray. Inside the exit door sat a large garbage can beside a flat cart. Instead of banging the tray against the can to remove the garbage, and then stacking tray and utensils, he dropped everything into the can—cup, silverware, tray—in a token display that he was still a rebel.

The coffee had loosened the night’s phlegm. Outside the door, he hacked and spat the goo on the asphalt and lit a bad-tasting cigarette.

Most of the North cellhouse convicts were trudging back toward the open steel doors, a few throwing crumbs of bread to the fearless pigeons on the ground, while the sea gulls wheeled raucously overhead. When the convicts were gone, the sea gulls would drive off the pigeons and gobble whatever remained.

The high cellhouses, their green paint streaked and stained, cut off the morning sun except for a narrow patch of yellow near the weather shed. The three dozen convicts who stayed out gravitated toward the meager warmth. Neither the ticket runners nor any of Earl’s close friends would be there. They lived in cellhouses just now being unlocked.

Earl decided to wait in the warmth of the yard office until the mess halls emptied and he could take care of his business. The East Coast games started at 10:00 a.m., California time, and he had to have the tickets by then to avoid being past-posted. He turned toward the high-arched gate with the gun tower on top. The big vehicle gate had a smaller pedestrian gate. A midnight-to-morning guard, a newcomer Earl didn’t know, stood with a list of weekend workers who were allowed to pass through. Earl took out his identification card with “third watch clerk” under Scotch tape at its top. He held it forward and spoke before the guard could check the list. “I don’t think I’m on there, but I’m Lieutenant Seeman’s clerk and he wants me to do some typing.”

“If you’re not on the list, I can’t let you through.”

“I’m just going to the yard office down the road.”

“If he needed some work done, he should’ve put you on the list.”

“Look, Big Rand comes on duty in a few minutes. Let me go and I’ll have him call you to clear it.”

The guard shook his head, his lip raised in a sneer. “Can’t hear you, buddy.”

“Look, be logical—”

“Logic don’t cut wind here.”

“Okay, pal,” Earl said, turning away before he got into trouble. Eighteen years of prison had made him hate authority worse than when he was a rebellious child. And he was unaccustomed to scenes like this. He thought of having the guard transferred to Lieutenant Seeman’s evening shift by talking to the convict clerk of the personnel lieutenant; and then he would put the fool in a gun tower on the Bay for a year. Some guards had been around too long for such things, but this one was a fish and it would be easy. A year ago another fish had resented Earl’s roaming around at night and his obviously favored position. The guard had begun searching him and making him wait to get into his cell. When a vacancy came for a guard in “B” Section segregation, Seeman moved the fish into it. There the guard had to put up with the bedlam of two hundred and fifty screaming convicts who burned cells and threw shit and piss on passing guards. He learned that some convicts are more equal than others—that even though a convict couldn’t win a direct confrontation with a guard, when that convict had worked as a clerk for a supervisor for years, he had influence. Army clerks have the same indirect power.

Knowing what he could do calmed Earl and made it unnecessary