Doing Time (27 page)

Something seemed out of kilter. He gripped the pills in one hand and with the other pulled himself up to a standing position. He gazed at the naked figure under the spray of hot water, and his weak legs nearly gave out. “Oh my god,” he whispered.

“Give me two cards,” Wyman said, setting two cards on the locker. “I know what you're talking about, us under the influence of that star.”

“Sirius,” Willie said. “Canis Major.”

“Just a star,” Smokey said.

“With Stardust,” South Philly added.

Smokey pulled his blanket closer around him, glancing at Deathrow, who was going from bed to bed, emptying catheter bags into a plastic urinal bottle, writing down the amount, then pouring it into a bucket before moving to the next bag.

“We'd be in a bad fix without Deathrow,” Wyman said, following Smokey's gaze. “That man's a saint. If I could choose one person to survive this dorm, it would be him.”

“Maybe in the parallel world, he's out free and clean of the virus,” Willie said. “Erwin Schrodinger once mentioned that there might be a whole series of different dimensions where the same people were living different lives.”

“That doesn't help me none now, does it?” South Philly said. “Maybe next time I'll try a different dimension.”

Wyman looked over his shoulder. “Jhnmie must be off beating his meat, he ain't come back yet.”

“He's just taking a dump,” South Philly said.

“He could've passed out,” Smokey said. “Let me check on him.” He rose from the wheelchair and stalked off, his blanket dragging the floor.

“He needs to deal with things,” South Philly said. “Maybe we all do. I'll see your two cigarettes and raise you two, Willie.”

In the shower room, Jimmie stared over the wall at the naked inmate in the steam. The two bottles dropped to the floor. Pills fell from his sweaty palm. He was staring at Daniel Pinkston, very much alive, young and muscular as he was when they'd first met, not in his later emaciated state. Jimmie felt he was hallucinating, but Daniel stared right at him, smiling. The tiny metal ring pierced his left nipple, and over that was the team emblem of the Florida State Seminoles tattooed where it always had been.

“But you're dead,” he whispered.

“What does a small thing like that matter to anyone?” It was Daniel's voice.

His mannerisms, his movements, everything; Jimmie felt sick. “I never even tried to say good-bye.”

“I never did like that word,” Daniel said.

“My god, Dan, do you forgive me?”

“For what?”

“For every way I wronged you. For ignoring you in this dorm while you were lying there, dying and pissing your bed, and you wanted to talk, I could see it in your eyes …”

“There's nothing for me to forgive,” Daniel said. “It's you who must forgive yourself.” He turned, and Jimmie followed his gaze. Smokey stood in the doorway, his mouth open, his eyes wide. Steam filled the room in billowing clouds. “Only you can forgive yourself. Nobody else.” He said this while staring at Smokey.

South Philly picked up the cigarettes, his winnings. Wyman shuffled the cards. They turned their heads when Deathrow gave a yell, stepping out of Jimmie's way as he wheeled into the room. “Next time you run over my foot I'll pour this bucket of piss on your damn head!” he shouted before continuing to the shower room.

“I saw him!” Jimmie banged against the bunk, gripping Wyman's arm. The cards fluttered to the floor. “I saw Danny's ghost! Danny Pinkston!”

“Brother, what got into you?” Willie asked.

“Danny didn't give me AIDS, I gave it to him!” Jimmie cried. “I swear! It wasn't his fault! I was punked out when I first came to prison. When I started doing Danny I didn't even know I had the virus! I should've died first, I had the virus first!”

“The truth comes out,” South Philly mumbled.

“Easy on the boy, Philly,” Willie said. “I believe he really did see a ghost. I told you the spirits were restless tonight.”

“I asked him to forgive me,” Jimmie gasped, his voice trailing. “But he said I had to forgive myself.”

“That's the first thing you said tonight that makes sense,” South Philly said.

“Wyman, I need your help.”

Deathrow stood silhouetted in the doorway. His voice was soft, almost a whisper, but the authority in it carried over the roomful of snoring men. “After I tell the bosses.” He nodded at the two officers sleeping on chairs in the Plexiglas-enclosed officers station. “After I tell them, I'll need you to help me with the body.”

“Body?”

“Smokey — he cut his throat with a razor blade,” Deathrow said.

Jimmie stared after him, dumbstruck, as he went to wake the officers. Wyman gazed sadly at the empty shower room doorway. South Philly angrily picked up the cards. “Third time's a charm,” he mumbled.

“Why?” Jimmie whispered.

“He had a dirty little secret,” Willie said. “Parker Calloway told me before he died. Smokey turned state's evidence on his brother, got his brother the chair, when it was him who did the killing. When you saw Daniel Pinkston's ghost, he probably saw his brother's ghost. Only he wasn't capable of forgiving himself.”

“You shoulda took that bet,” Wyman said bitterly. “You'd have scored a few packs of cigarettes.” He rose and headed off to help Deathrow.

“That could've been me,” Jimmie said, feeling tears well up, remembering Daniel when he first met him. He leaned over, weary. Willie, suddenly cold, pulled his blanket over his bare shoulders. South Philly shuffled the cards.

1997, Hardee Correctional Facility Bowling Green, Florida

The face was strange. The voice vaguely familiar.

“Hey, Fox. 01' Foxy, come here.”

I was heading into the gym to work off a little tension when 1 was distracted by a thin black dude in the lock-up section. The concrete slab serving as the gym's floor was split in two equal plots by a walkway lined with heavy gauge chain-link fence. One side teemed with convicts busy at basketball, handball and lifting iron weights. The other side was vacant except for the gaunt stranger and another black, locked behind the double mesh. I started to pass.

“Fox. It's me, man!”

I felt it wise to check out the voice so insistent to attract my attention, and walked over. Two liquid brown eyes swam above baggy lower lids dressing an angular face. Sweat streamed from his steel wool hair and ran down to collect in a pair of kerchiefs tied loosely about his throat. A red and a blue. This was significant because you couldn't buy them at the commissary and they were contraband on the unit. They would get you a case if the boss w.is feeling bitchy.

‘‘It's Earl, man,” he said. “From the Dexter Unit.'
¹

“Earl?” 1 still wasn't believing him. The Earl T remembered from Dexter was bigger, lots of flesh and fat and a jolly face.

“I knew an Far! Peterson. ‘Earl the Pearl' we called him. But we changed it to — “

“Duke of Earl,” he cut me off. “After the song ‘cause I was such a bad dude! 1 lived in H-2, Twenty-one Cell, bottom bunk. You were next doctr in Twenty-two on top. Your cellie was Ebbie something. Big blond guy who worked in the laundry.”

It was Earl all right. I began to piece it together — the voice, the face, the mannerisms — but the changes were numerous.

“You look different,” I said. “Thinner, lean even. You've got some muscle tone, a raw edge to you. Before you were flabby. Used to walk with a cane.”

“Yeah, well, I been workuV out. See.”

He flexed his muscles and made a face like a movie actor. I had to admit he had improved himself considerably. His biceps knotted up into high mounds and lines of separation outlined his individual muscles in fine definition. [ also noticed stretch marks left from the weight he had dropped.

“You lost some weight, Earl.”

“Seventy pounds.”

“That's pretty radical. But it's been a year.”

“Yeah. Lots of changes, m'man.”

It was a cold crawling kind of smirk he flashed me then, right at home on a face with hate-filled eyes. Something had changed deep inside him. He had been a jiver and a player, but he used to be able to enjoy himself too. All that was gone now, replaced by a dark violence I could feel thtough the air.

“What are you doing ovet here in lockup, Duke?”

“Had some trouble on the chain. Got into it with a dude goin' to the hospital.”

I remembered Earl liked to tide the hospital bus. He was a master hypochondriac and an expert at manipulating the doctor. Earl had managed to convince him through the years to get him checked out by every specialist the state had in its prison healthcare stable.

“So, what's the deal?” I asked again, wanting an update on the mental condition of a fellow convict some regarded as unpredictable at best.

Earl the Pearl displayed the basis for his early nickname as his facial muscles pulled his cheeks tight over the bones. He was smiling, but his eyes were cold and mirthless.

“The other dude stayed at the hospital. Doctor's orders. Something about broken bones, t rhink he'll be there a while. Brought me back in shackles and stuck me in lockup. Took away all my shit. Haven't even got a fan. The run is loaded with crazies who scream all night, throw food and piss, break out the windows, and run around [ike psychos at shower time. Last night they tore up their fuckin* sheets
and
jammed up the stutters and Hooded the place. I wake up and step right into a fucking puddle.”

Earl was getting agitated. Foam started to form at the comers of his mouth. His eyes were steady but wild. He stuck his fingers through the woven mesh and squeezed his knuckles white.

“You got co cake it easy. Earl. Cool down. Already they've got you in lockup. They can turn the screws to you. Earl.”

“Let ‘cm start tumin'thcn, ‘cause I had about all lean take. Time to fight back, I been thinking. The Duke is takin' it no more. Erom anybody.”

Talk like that always unnerves me, because 1 understand what can happen when a man reaches that point. The point where a man doesn't care any longer to exercise control and restraint over himself. The point where he feels he is backed into a corner and has nothing to lose. The point where a man starts to become dangerous — unpredictably, savagely dangerous. Earl was near to reaching that point, if he hadn't already. I got the feeling an old homeboy like myself would not be immune from his fury should it break loose at anytime soon. Suddenly I realized the sanity of the chain-link fence.

“I don't see it that way, Earl, This place to me is like quicksand, like one of those Chinese finger stretchers. The more you struggle, the deeper you go or the tighter it gets. But you can be cool and make your way through it and get out.”

“Yeah, unless you're man enough to bust that finger stretcher right off. Tear it up. Rip it right off your fingers and your hands will be free.”

“Only it's not straw in here, Earl. The chains in here are tempered steel. You're not Superman.”

“Yeah? Who the fuck says I ain't?”

Earl had an answer for everything. I was beginning to see that my words were having no effect. His hatred was too deeply rooted and was growing like a cancer inside him. As if to bleed off some of the tension forming in the air around us, the silent mulatto inside the cage with Earl got up and started to work the heavy bag with his fists. His blows thudded like quick snaps of thunder. Earl looked pleased at the support for his tirade. The one-man rebellion had been increased to two.

A job came open in the Major's office, and I sent in the proper form for an interview. 01' Jonesy had made his parole third time up after doing six flat on twenty. The Major called me down for an interview at six o'clock in the morning. I stood outside in the hallway for half an hour before I heard him boom “Come in” through the closed door. I entered quickly and stood in a respectful position before his desk. The Major was struggling to assemble some kind of printed report into a colored tagboard binder. Lieutenant Green, a younger white field boss, sat off to the side scraping mud from his boot into a trash can.

“What did you have on your mind there, Ol' Fox?” The Major questioned me condescendingly.

“Bookkeeper's job, sir. I'm strong in math, good with ledgers, numbers. Can type sixty words a minute, have a college degree, sir. Used to run a construction company in the world.”

The brief summary of what I thought would be pertinent credentials seemed to irritate him. The stack of pages burst from his hands and spread out all over the floor of the room.

“Damn!” The Major glared at me like it was my fault. I sensed my opportunity was at hand.

“Let me help you, sir,” I said, bending down to gather the sheets. I worked rapidly and in a moment had the offending pages ordered and bound. I set the completed report before him and employed my best imitation of obsequiousness.

“There you are, sir. No problem,”

Lieutenant Green looked up over his buck knife. I noticed his big toe was poking through his sock on the foot where the muddy boot was missing. He articulated his version of a command.

“There's a stack of them books that needs puttin' tagatha.” He spit into the trash can, releasing a stream of dark amber from the wad in his cheek that dribbled on his chin.

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” I sounded like a new recruit eager to please his superiors. I sat down at a small table against the wall and began to silently organize and collate copies of a report on sexual harassment complaint procedures. The two prison officers verbally evaluated my person in their own brand of code.

“You know ‘im?” The Major inquired of the Lieutenant.

“Naw. Seen ‘im around.”

Pause… Buck knife scraping mud. Desk chair rocking, squeaking.