The Animal Factory (7 page)

Usually Earl went to eat early, but today he waited for the
conversation
to end and his boss to head toward the mess halls. Seeman stopped at the open Dutch doors. “You and your mob be over here after chow,” he said.

“Who’s that?”

“Bad Eye, T.J. Wilkes, and Vito Romero. There’s another one, but Kittredge doesn’t know who he is.”

“Then I sure don’t.”

Seeman smiled, his square weathered face showing good humor. “Hell, I didn’t think you did.”

“Somebody’ll have to clear ’em out of the cellhouses.”

Seeman leaned his head over the door and looked at the old man behind the desk. “Take care of that, Colonel, will you?”

“What time do you want them?”

“Six twenty is okay. Earl will tell you who.” The irascible Army retiree nodded, but his face expressed distaste at taking orders from a convict. The colonel was kept away from groups of convicts where his martinet tendencies could cause trouble.

At 6:20 in December it was dark, though the ubiquitous prison lights left few shadows.

“Close the door,” Seeman said.

Earl shut the door to the outer office and stood beside it. Vito was stiff in the chair across the desk, while T.J. and Bad Eye braced their rumps on window ledges. T.J. was at ease, but Bad Eye was wary and angry; he reacted to all unpleasantness with anger.

Seeman’s hat was off and his steely hair was pressed to his skull. “I’m not asking questions because I don’t need to hear any lies.” He looked around at their expressionless faces. “The story I heard seems pretty far out even for you desperadoes.” He took an envelope from the desk and dumped the red balloon on the green desk blotter. Earl was surprised. Regulations said that all contraband was to be placed in the associate warden’s evidence locker. Earl also felt the sliver of an evanescent idea, and in hindsight would realize he knew the truth at this moment.

Seeman looked at the balloon as if it were a crystal ball; then glanced up at Vito. “What’s it worth on the yard?”

Vito blushed, looked down, and tossed his shoulder. Seeman looked at each face, ending with Earl, who spoke: “Thought there weren’t gonna be any questions, boss.”

“Oops, that’s right. My apologies. Besides, I know Mr. Wilkes here doesn’t know about this.”

“All ah know ’bout is some white lightnin’,” T.J. said.

“Just an old country boy, huh?”

T.J.’s face lit up. “How’d you know, boss?”

Seeman’s pale eyes blossomed with laughter. “Okay, quit the
bullshit
,” he said. “I’ll talk.” He told them that he and Kittredge liked them, but other lieutenants and the associate warden didn’t, and they should think about getting out of prison instead of all this bullshit inside. He was going to let this go because if he locked them up, someone would kill Gibbs wherever he was sent. He wanted them to forget Gibbs if he forgot the situation. He didn’t expect an answer, but he’d watch what happened.

Earl liked Seeman, considered him a friend, though he would never dare admit it. Seeman gave him free run of the prison at night and never asked questions; in return, Earl made sure that all paperwork going to the administration was done correctly. But he knew that some of the license given tough white and Chicano convicts by certain other guards was because of the racial conflict. Blacks had killed several guards in the three tough prisons during the past two years, and guards who had once been mild bigots were now outright racists. Certain of them would frisk a white or Chicano convict, feel a shiv, and pass the man by. It was an unholy alliance, alien to all of Earl’s values. All his life the police had been his enemy, and if he had a political creed it included Marxism. People would never be equal, but the difference should be between a twenty-thousand-dollar home and a fifty-thousand-dollar home, not between a rat-infested hovel and a half-a-million-dollar estate. And the difference should be decided by ability. So he was inclined to the Left, which favored the oppressed blacks. On the other hand, here in San Quentin the guards, while searching cells, found poems describing the joy of bayoneting pregnant white women, and six years earlier, when the racial conflict had only involved small groups of Black Muslims versus Nazis, blacks had escalated matters by sweeping down a tier and indiscriminately stabbing every white man they saw. Now both sides did it whenever the war was renewed. There were huge gangs, and Earl, though not officially a member, had as much influence as anyone on the White Brotherhood, especially since T.J. and Bad Eye were its unofficial leaders.

Seeman, though hated by the black convicts, was not a racist. Rather, he was politically conservative; he saw the militant rhetoric of revolution, with its emphasis on Mao and Che, as a declaration of war on the United States.

It was an odd friendship—the former submarine bos’n who epitomized Middle America and the hard-core convict so ravaged by moral confusion that he believed in nothing except personal loyalty.

Lieutenant Seeman was still talking, and the convicts listened expressionlessly. All of them spoke the same language, but to these men moral abstractions were babble. He ended with a warning that they should rein in, that too many complaints were getting to the higher officials. He told them that if they had any problems, he would do all he could.

Nobody answered. If they wanted something, they would go through Earl, just as he would go through other clerks. Seeman stood up, put on his hat, and put the balloon back in the desk drawer.

Earl’s eyes widened when he saw that Seeman was leaving. Seeman was indirectly
giving
them the balloon. His eyes met Earl’s as he came around the desk to usher the others out. “Be cool, Earl,” he said. “You’re going to get out in a couple more years.”

As Seeman followed the convicts through the front office he told the colonel that he’d be at the movie. Ten minutes later, Earl followed, the balloon making a tiny bulge in his pants pocket.

Some December days in the San Francisco Bay area exhale pure spring, and this was one of them, a Monday between Christmas and the New Year. The sun had burned off the freezing morning fog, and although the lower recreation yard was still crisp, it was dazzlingly bright. Earl sat shirtless on the worn bleachers along the third base line, finishing a joint in the nearest thing to solitude the prison allowed. A red bandanna was tied around his forehead to keep the sweat from his eyes, though it had dried ten minutes after he left the handball court. A still soaked glove lay limp beside him, and his legs ached from the hard hour of exercise. He played poorly but loved the game. He couldn’t bring himself to jog or do
calisthenics
, because he quit the moment he began breathing hard, but when there was competition he kept going until his body screamed in protest and he had to bend at the waist to draw a good breath. Winter closed the handball courts for months at a time, so he played whenever they were open for a few hours. He sucked on the joint, muttering “dynamite shit” inanely, and the aches went away. He was reluctant to make the long trek to the big yard, and then five tiers to his cell to get a towel to shower with. “Too beautiful a day to be locked up,” he muttered, liking the bittersweet ache of longing for freedom. It told him that he was still human, still yearned for
something
more than being a convict. He still hoped …

He’d decided to follow Seeman’s advice and avoid trouble by avoiding the situations. He was keeping to his cell during the day, reading a lot, and when something happened, it was over before he heard about it. One of the Brotherhood had killed a man in the East cellhouse, and the next day during the lunch hour two Chicanos had ambushed a third and cut him up pretty bad. If he’d died, it would have tied the record of thirty-six murders in a year; the record for stabbings, one hundred and seven, had already been broken. T.J. and Bad Eye worked in the gym, and he saw them only at the night movie when the Brotherhood filled two rows of reserved benches. Earl would have come out during the day if heroin was on the yard, but the prison had been dry since he’d gotten an ounce three weeks earlier. Pot, acid, and mini-bennies were abundant—through the Hell’s Angels—but Earl was not interested. In a
paranoia
-laden atmosphere, he couldn’t risk being spaced out.

Earl did know about a strike that was to happen the following morning, but it was known by everyone, including the warden. Someone had illegally used a mimeograph machine to run off
thousands
of copies of a bulletin calling on all convicts to either stay in their cells in the morning or not leave the big yard at work call. The first demand, an end or a modification of the indeterminate sentence—a term anywhere between a year and eternity until the parole board decided—was something Earl fiercely agreed with. It was the cruelest torture never to know how long imprisonment would last. And the demand that prison industry wages be raised above the present
maximum
of twelve cents an hour was also
reasonable
. But then the writer had turned irrational, demanding that all “Third World” people and “political prisoners” be released to the various People’s Republics. This absurdity would attract whatever coverage the press gave the strike and blunt any consideration thoughtful people might give to the other demands—not that many cared about what went on in prison. A strike was futile, yet at least it showed that the men had not surrenderded. It would bring a lockdown of everyone while the leaders were rounded up, clubbed, and segregated. “And I’d better go get some cigarettes, coffee, and food to last until the unlock. Four salami sandwiches a day won’t make it.”

As he stood up on the top row of bleachers, he saw two convicts climbing toward him at an angle. One was Tony Bork, a chunky young con who was the East cellhouse plumber, not a tough guy but personable and known as a “stand-up dude.” He had in tow a slender youth in the stiff, unwashed denim of a newcomer. Even without the clothes, Earl knew the youth hadn’t been long in San Quentin, for although he often saw faces for the first time after they’d been around for months, this one he would have
remembered
. He was too strikingly good looking and young looking,
especially
because of a clear, pale complexion set off by dark blue eyes that were serious but inexpressive. There was nothing effeminate about him, but there was an extreme boyishness that by prison
standards
would be considered pretty. Pretty was a bad thing to be in San Quentin.

“Hey now, big duke of Earl,” Tony said. “I need a favor. Rather, my friend here does. A show pass.” Tony glanced at the youth. “Ron Decker, Earl Copen.” A nod of acknowledgment did the work of the usual handshake.

“Are they running the show lines yet?” Earl asked.

“They were getting ready to when we came down.”

Earl picked up his sweatshirt and handball gloves and started down the bleachers. Bork and Decker fell in beside him. As they walked, he struggled into the sweatshirt.

“You haven’t been here very long, have you?” Earl asked.

Ron shook his head. “Three weeks. Tony tells me you’re good at law.”

“I used to fuck with it. No more. I don’t believe in it. Smith and Wesson beats due process.”

“What do you mean?”

“Besides being funny”—Earl smiled—“I mean that law is
bullshit
. Judges don’t have any integrity. They’ll spring some big shot on a point of law, but when some poor Hoosier in here has the same point, they shoot it down.”

“But when Smith and Wesson won’t do anything, the law might be all there is. I don’t want to impose, but I’d like you to look at my case. I’ll pay you.”

“When I get some time,” Earl said, not noticing that his brushoff made Ron blush.

“What fuckin’ movie are they showing today?” Earl asked. “It’s a Monday.”

“Blood-donors’ movie,” Tony said. “I’m on the list but Ron isn’t.”

Earl glanced at Ron from the corner of his eye and felt bad that he’d stalled him so coldly. “What kind of thing did you want to know about your case?”

“The main thing is the judge said he’d call me back and modify my sentence in a year or two. Some guy in the bus said the judge loses jurisdiction and can’t do it.”

“He used to lose jurisdiction, but six months ago a court of appeals ruled that if he sentenced you under Eleven sixty-eight he can call for reports and review his sentence.”

“That’s what he sentenced me under.”

“What kind of beef?”

“Possession of narcotics for sale with a weed prior.”

Earl made a silent whistle and looked at Ron more closely. “Ten years to fuckin’ life, with six to the parole board. You’d better hope he modifies.”

“Don’t I know it.”

As they reached the top of the stairs, the sound of country and western music from the loudspeakers poured over them. The last line of convicts was going into the mess hall, and the guard checking passes wasn’t one Earl could influence. “C’mon to the yard office. We’ll get a pass from that big sissy.” When they neared the yard office door, Earl took Ron’s I.D. card to get his number. He left them outside. Without saying anything to Big Rand, who was dangling a string before a cuffing, scrawny kitten (one of hundreds in the prison), Earl sat down and typed a pass; then dropped it on Rand’s desk for a signature. The big man ignored it, continued playing with the kitten.

“Hey, you want me to throw that cat in the Bay?” Earl said, knowing Rand just wanted attention.

Rand picked up the pass. “Two weeks ago—Gibbs, remember?”

“Oh, man, that wasn’t nothing.”

“Nothing happened, but a whole bunch of shit could’ve happened.”

“Whaddya think—I was gonna snitch on you? Sign the
motherfucker
.”

“Who is this asshole?” Rand leaned in his chair so he could look out over the Dutch door, dubiously eyed Ron and Tony. He knew Tony Bork and his wasn’t the name on the pass. Rand curled a
forefinger
and Earl leaned forward. “You’re trying to fuck that kid, aren’t you?” Rand accused.