The Animal Factory (11 page)

No food was served the first day. Late the following afternoon, two cold sandwiches were passed to each man. This went on for two more days, and then the prisoners were unlocked for “controlled” feeding twice a day, fifty men at a time, under the watchful eyes of many guards. Black and white convicts eyed each other with every feeling except affection, but the security was too tight for any
incidents
.

The next morning a few convicts in key job assignments were let out. Earl was still under the blankets, drinking coffee and smoking, when Lieutenant Seeman appeared outside the bars, hat cocked, hands jammed into the deep pockets of a long green coat.

“Hey, bum, ready to go to work?” Seeman asked, simultaneously looking up and down the tier. Seeing nobody, he fished a carton of Camels from his coat pocket and pitched it through the bars onto the bunk.

Earl sat up, took the cigarettes, but said nothing; no thanks were called for. “How many are coming out?”

“Just a few today—captain’s clerk, kitchen workers—a few of them the officer’s dining room crew. Fitz, of course. But I can pull you out if you want.”

“Naw, boss. I’ll wait for tomorrow. It’d ruin my image to be among the first unlocked after what happened down there.”

“Wasn’t that a—” Seeman finished with a snort of angry disgust. “If they had an investigation … Kittredge and I were just going to go down. We knew everybody was frozen and
wanted
to go in. I was so goddamned mad I almost forget myself. I mean … hell, I can see coming down as hard as necessary if someone needs it, but shooting into unarmed men who weren’t doing a goddamned thing except burning a couple of wooden benches … I better be quiet or I’ll get mad again.”

“I’ll come out tomorrow if there’s a few others. What’re you doin’ here during the day?”

“Making lots of overtime. A lot of people are doing it the last few days. A prison can’t run without convicts working.”

The men who ran the prison from air-conditioned offices beyond the walls, the men with faces never seen by the convicts, decided that the weekend was a good time to unlock the cells. The press had forgotten the riot within days, and now two weeks had passed. The honor cellhouses and necessary workers had been on normal schedule for several days without trouble. The known agitators were in segregation.
Bonnie and Clyde
was the scheduled weekend movie, and the officials knew that nothing pacifies a convict more than a good movie.

Ron came out for breakfast with everyone else. Jan the Actress had been going to work after three days of lockup, and Ron had enjoyed the daylight hours of solitude. He’d ceased minding about the lockdown, though if it had gone on for months, he would have. Even before the Monday of madness, he had preferred cell time accompanied by books, letters, and thoughts to the crowded yard, where he felt out of place and on display. The mass violence had reinforced his aversion, not so much when it happened, because the episode was too swift for more than survival reaction, but rather after the shock evaporated and he knew the security of his cell. The animalistic screams, the racial epithets, rose anonymously from the honeycomb of cells and made Ron think of wild beasts snarling in their cages. His contempt for stupidity and his sympathy for the oppressed condition of black people in America had both been overwhelmed by fear. During the lockup, he had to pass along the tier between groups of young blacks. He could feel their hatred as if it were radiant heat. He averted his eyes, stomach upset, and in the cell’s sanctuary his fear was the acorn from which grew the oak of hate—and he disliked feeling that hate. He disliked the entire idiocy of prison and tried to hide from it.

On Saturday, however, he came out. Staying in would have attracted attention, probably from the guards, who would think he had trouble, certainly from convicts who would sense his fear, evalu ate it as weakness and try to exploit it. When he entered the yard from the mess hall nearly four thousand convicts milled in the canyon between the cellhouses. The pale green walls were washed in a hot butterscotch sun. His eyes squinted and tried to focus in the glare. He’d expected a tense silence after the weeks of lockup, especially since the last meeting of black and white convicts had been so furious, but instead he was engulfed by the sound of hilarity, the voices had the timber of a party, and rock and roll music came from the speakers. The faces were bright and animated, though somewhat pasty from weeks of lockup. Friends who hadn’t seen each other during the lockdown slapped each other on the back, hugged, and laughed. The only visible signs of the recent trouble were three extra riflemen and the voluntary segregation of the blacks on the northeast quarter of the yard.

Ron moved with his eyes down, avoiding collisions, looking around for a familiar face. Everyone else seemed to have a friend or to belong to a group. Ron had brought a paperback book along in case he didn’t find one of his few friends. Jan the Actress stood in the sun with two other queens. Ron circled the trio. He was also watching for Psycho Mike and his gang; again in the hope of avoiding them.

“Hey, young ’un,” someone called right beside him. He turned and there was Earl Copen five feet away. The older convict was seated on the concrete abutment to which the weather shed’s pillar was attached. He wore a faded navy blue sweatshirt, its sleeves raggedly amputated above the elbow. He needed a shave everywhere but on his head. The chin stubble was gray, but the bare skull gleamed from a film of oil. His ugly face had an infectiously warm smile, and his eyes were alert. Ron instantly recalled his resolve about Copen, and the stories Jan had told. Simultaneously, his sense of lonesomeness evaporated. He went over. Earl seemed the most relaxed person in the prison yard.

“See you survived the shitstorm,” Earl said.

“It was shaky.”

“This the first time you’ve been out?”

“Uh-huh. I didn’t mind it, though. What’s out here?”

“Just hairy-assed convicts.” Earl looked at him more closely.

“You need some sun.”

Ron looked down, ignored the comment. “When did you get out?”

“Fuck, last week. Me, I’m an honor inmate.”

The laconic way Earl spoke rather than the words gave his speech humor, human warmth. In coming months Ron would learn that Earl had several vocabularies and selected the one he wanted according to whom he was talking to and what it was about. He could use this soft, twangy voice and exaggerate it to buffoonery—or, he could give off the obscenely vicious radiations of a rabid doberman. When he talked about law or literature, he used perfect diction, a mellifluous voice, and precise phrase selection. Relaxed and friendly now, he was interested in the younger man, but not too much. He was offhand rather than intense. When he learned that Ron was assigned to the industrial area—at two cents an hour—he asked if he liked the job.

“Christ, no! But that’s where classification put me. What can—” Ron tossed a shoulder to end the explanation.

“If it’s worth a pack of Camels, go to sick call on Monday. Ask for a convict clerk named McGee. He’s just inside the door in the clinic … a big dude about forty with gray hair. He’ll get you a medical lay-in for thirty days. Actually, for a carton a month you never have to work. But it’s best to get something. Where you work is half the secret of doing easy time.”

“The other half?”

“Where you live.”

“What’s the guy’s name?”

“McGee. Ivan McGee.”

The old con and the youngster stood talking in the shadow of the shed, indistinguishable from the teeming four thousand, two voices lost in the sea of sound. Ron was articulate when he had something to say, but he was not by nature loquacious, and in this unfamiliar environment he had become even more reticent. Not until later did he realize that Earl had him talking easily, about his case, about Pamela, about his situation. Forgotten was the
discomfiture
, the sense of being out of place. Earl seemed interested in his success in narcotics trafficking, and he told with some pride how he’d started selling ten-dollar bags and expanded until he was rich within a year. It was delicious to recall those days of glory. He knew that he’d made more money as a criminal than ninety-eight percent of those around him, men he now had to fear. Earl’s face indicated his interest. Once he corrected Ron about prison ethics. Ron used the term “inmate,” Earl cut in: “Uh-uh, brother. An ‘inmate’ is a weak, sniveling punk. It’s an insult. ‘Convict’ is the term that solid dudes prefer.” This correction was the first tiny lesson, gently given, the forerunner of many.

The lower yard opened and the press of bodies lessened as men went down to sit in the bleachers, lie on the grass, play handball and horseshoes, or strum guitars. The canteen lines were running. And men came from the crowd around the canteen carrying pillowslips of commissary.

Paul Adams and Bad Eye came up. The latter had two brown bags from which the tops of milk cartons peeked out. Paul had an open quart of buttermilk and a sack of tortilla chips. He and Bad Eye glanced at Ron with momentary curiosity, nodded a greeting. He remembered them from the lower yard during the riot, but didn’t recall Bad Eye’s name. Paul’s he remembered; the whitehaired man stood out among the youths even more than Earl did.

The new arrivals aborted the conversation. Ron hadn’t
realized
how much he was enjoying himself talking to Earl. He now experi enced a momentary pique.

Earl offered Ron the sack of chips and buttermilk, but Ron made a wry face and turned them down. “Buttermilk, blah.”

“There’s sweet rolls and regular milk,” Bad Eye offered, indicating the sack.

“No, thank you,” Ron said.

“Go ahead,” Bad Eye said, voice rising.

“Hold on, young ’un,” Paul said, pursing his mouth and shaking his head. “You always wanna force a dude to take a gift. Maybe he isn’t hungry.”

“I’m not,” Ron said.

“Don’t turn it down if you are,” Bad Eye said. Then to Earl. “C’mon, we gotta get to the gym. Brother T is holding some weights and there’s some brew in the equipment room. He’ll be madder’n a Jap if we don’t show pretty soon.”

“Wanna smoke some grass?” Earl asked Ron.

“No thanks. I would, but I’ve got to see somebody up here in a few minutes.”

“Suit yourself.” He slapped Bad Eye on the back and they turned to go.

Watching the figures leave, Ron felt a mingled sense of loss and jealousy because they belonged and he didn’t. For lack of anything else to do, he wandered under the high weather shed where a dozen convicts had spread newspapers and laid out scores of paperback books for the weekly exchange. They would also sell them for a pack of cigarettes for two, sometimes only one, depending on the title and condition.

Ron was looking down at the books when someone touched his shoulder. He turned—and so did his stomach. Psycho Mike faced him, the swarthy face devoid of expression except for the
maliciously
glittering eyes. Ron fought back the surge of dismay, knowing that any sign of weakness would magnetize aggression. The surprise wiped out his resolve to bluff, and then fight if necessary.

“You been duckin’ me,
ése
,” Psycho said.

“We were locked up until this morning,” Ron said.

The Puerto Rican nodded, but he hadn’t been listening, didn’t care; his mind was locked on its own intentions. The crowd was close around them, and he was keyed up and fidgety.

“C’mon,
ése
. I wanna talk to you. You got a problem.”

Psycho Mike jerked his head and made his way through the crowd, but watched Ron from the corner of his eye in animal wariness. Ron followed unprotesting, thoughts twisting, conscious of
weakness
in his legs, resenting the peremptory order and yet afraid to balk. Maybe he could avoid trouble.

They approached the mess hall wall where there were fewer convicts. Some of Psycho Mike’s friends were spread along the wall, faces set in permanent masks of toughness, watching the two men approach. Psycho Mike stopped just beyond the hearing of his friends.

“Some guy’s talkin’ bad about you,” Psycho Mike said.

“Who’s that?”

“Some white dude in the West block … says you’re a rat.”

The word fell like an electrical charge, as terrible an accusation to a convict as a death sentence, and virtually the same. “That’s crazy! It isn’t true!” Then indignation was overcome by fear. “I don’t even know anybody here,” he croaked.

“I don’ know, mon … but we gotta see him … get it straight. Like, if you are a rat and you been hurtin’ my name by hangin’ around me …” The words trailed off into silent threat while he nodded his head for emphasis.

“Well … it’s a mistake. How do we see him? I don’t want my name fucked over.”

“We’ll go over to the West block after lunch. I told him I’d bring you.” The words were cold with menace.

“The West block is out of bounds. Can’t we get him out here on the yard?”

Psycho Mike shook his head. “No, we gotta go over there after lunch. The regular bull on the mess hall gate gets relieved and doesn’t know who lives over there.”

Ron’s sightless eyes were on his shoetops, and his lips sucked together as if they’d been touched by a persimmon, but the expression hid his overpowering sense of being trapped. His hands were jammed in his pockets and were wet with sweat. Temporarily forgotten was his loathing of Psycho Mike.

Convicts sauntered by, going about their own business, and Mike’s cohorts eyed the conversation they couldn’t hear. Ron looked up, and despite his dilemma, or perhaps because it made him more acute, he was struck by the drab monochromatic colors—dull green buildings, dead blue denims. The lack of sun made everything gray.

They stood speechless for a minute, Ron looking away but aware of Psycho Mike’s stare. Then police whistles blew, indicating it was time to form up lines for lunch or clear the area. Those who weren’t eating could go to the other side of the yard or the lower yard. A guard came along, shooing convicts like chickens.

“Let’s go eat,” Psycho Mike said.