The Animal Factory (24 page)

“Your Honor, there’s no question that I sold a lot of marijuana and cocaine, but that means there were a lot of people buying it. In fact, millions of people don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s pretty well established that it isn’t any worse than cigarettes, and less harmful than alcohol. I don’t feel any guilt about doing it. I didn’t hurt anyone. Getting caught was … like getting hit with lightning. Not justice or retribution. Just an act of God.

“When you sent me to prison, I was afraid of it. But I didn’t expect prison to change me … not for good, not for bad. But after a year I have changed, and the change is for the worse … at least by society’s standards. Trying to make a decent human being out of someone by sending them to prison is like trying to make a Moslem by putting someone in a Trappist monastery. A year ago the idea of hurting someone physically, hurting someone seriously, was abhorrent to me—but after a year in a world where nobody ever says it’s wrong to kill, where the law of the jungle prevails, I find myself able to contemplate doing violence with equanimity. People have been killing each other for eons. When I was selling marijuana, I pretty much had the values of society, right and wrong, good and evil. Now, after a year—I’m being honest—when I read about a policeman being killed I’m on the side of the outlaw. That’s where my sympathies are turning. Not completely yet, but with seeming inevitability.

“What I’m trying to say is simply that sending me back isn’t going to do anything. Prison is a factory that turns out human animals. The chances are that whatever you get out of prison will be worse than what you send in. I’ll have to serve
at least
five more years before I’m even eligible for parole. What will that do? It won’t help me. It won’t deter anyone else. Look around. Nobody will even know … so how can it deter?

“I don’t know what I’ll be after half a dozen years in a madhouse. And I’ve already lost everything outside. I think I’ve already suffered enough punishment—” His voice trailed off. His mind searched for more words, but he could find none. “That’s all,” he said finally.

When he sat down, breathless and flushed from his loquacity, the judge nodded to the deputy district attorney. “Do the People have any comment?” As he finished the question, the judge’s eyes swiveled almost pointedly to look at a clock on the opposite wall.

The prosecutor, who was pushing back his chair to rise, let his eyes follow those of the judge. “Uh … the People … uh … concur with the letters from the prison officials and submit the matter.”

The judge faced Ron again, and the visage of kindly patience seemed to harden, or maybe it was the timber of his voice that made his face seem like granite. “Mr. Decker, you originally came before this court and were convicted of a serious offense. Because of your youth and background, I tried to leave an opening to avoid sending you to prison for a
long
term. I wanted to give you a chance both to see what the future could hold and to help yourself. From the information sent me by the prison officials, you are a dangerous man. Whether you were already that or became so in prison is
immaterial
. The ultimate factor is not whether prison will help you, nor whether your imprisonment will deter anyone else. The main thing is to protect society. Anyone who can kill another person in cold blood—and you nearly admitted that you can—isn’t fit to live in society. I know society will be protected for
at least
five years. After that the parole board, if they wish, can let you out. I’m not going to modify the sentence. Motion denied.”

“Then fuck you!” Ron said loudly, unexpectedly, scarcely believing it himself. “Right in your old wrinkled ass!”

The deputy’s fingers digging into his arm and tugging him stopped the words. “Watch yourself,” the deputy said, his voice quiet but taut. “That’s a judge.”

“Yeah, okay.” Ron was up, his eyes flicking over Horvath’s
astonished
face. Then he was going up the aisle, the deputy reaching for the handcuffs. He stopped at the doors and put out his wrists. By head gesture and a hand on his shoulder, the deputy told him to turn. The outburst caused the handcuffs to be put on behind him, making him more helpless. He turned and complied, the shadow of a sneer on his face. He was wondering how long it would be before he got back to San Quentin.

The sanctuary of the psych ward was also a gilded cage. Earl
luxuriated
in the solitude, but he also fretted at the inactivity. Now that the murder charge was no threat he was ready to go back to “B” Section and do whatever punishment the officials wanted. It was a gauntlet that had to be run before he could get back on the big yard. The psych ward time didn’t count toward the segregation term. And if he stayed too long in his “nervous breakdown,” they would transfer him to the Medical Facility, where he might be given shock
treatments
—and rumors of lobotomies were sifting back. The
old-fashioned
brutality of “B” Section was preferable. Moreover, only two successful escapes had been made from within the Medical Facility during the fifteen years it had been open; both escapees had used the gamble of cutting cell bars and going over double fences in the shadow of gun towers.

Still he hesitated until word came that Ron was back from court and in “B” Section. The next morning he told the doctor that he was feeling better. Dutch and the other attendants marked the charts to show an end to his delusions. After a week, the doctor diagnosed a Ganzer syndrome, a form of psychosis that convicts call going “stir crazy.” The following Monday the doctor discharged him. He knew the paper was signed within minutes and had his gear packed when the guards suddenly appeared.

“Get your shit together, Copen,” one said. “The vacation is over.”

When the “B” Section door was unlocked and the noise and the stench poured out, Earl’s stomach turned queasy. Fuck it, he thought stoically. You’ve gotta know how to take a loss or you can’t enjoy winning. He walked in, carrying a pillowcase with all his worldly possessions.

The chunky sergeant in charge of “B” Section was an old-timer who liked Earl. “How’s it going?”

“I’m okay.”

“I thought you might not make it when they took you out.”

“I wouldn’t cheat the state out of a minute.”

“There’s a cell near your friends up on the third tier. That’s where you want to go, I’d guess.”

“Is Decker up there?”

“Two cells from Bad Eye. You’ll be on the other side. You’ll all be close enough to talk.”

“You mean close enough to scream.” Earl jerked his head toward the tiers where the voices were a magnified babble. “We exercise together, huh?”

“Same program, one tier at a time.”

Because they took Earl upstairs at the end and then down the third tier rather than along the bottom floor, nobody noticed his arrival. He looked into the cells as he walked by, especially those near where he was going, but everyone seemed to be asleep. As the sergeant turned the huge spike key in the lock and motioned for the bar to be dropped, Earl threw his pillowcase on the bare mattress on the floor and looked around. One wall was charred and
blistered
from a cell fire, but the toilet and sink were still on the wall; and the mattress and blankets seemed cleaner than usual. He began setting things in order; this would be his residence for a long time.

Not until lunch, when the hurricane of noise slackened temporarily, did he call out to make his presence known to Bad Eye and Ron. Even then it was necessary to yell, and it was impossible to hold a real conversation. He was glad the doctor had continued his Valium prescription. He hated noise and this was the World Series of chaos twenty-four hours a day. It was never entirely quiet, though near dawn only two or three men held screamed conversations. Every few months someone committed suicide by hanging, and half the men were on the edge of insanity. Bad Eye had been in here for nine months and awaiting transfer to Folsom, seething with hatred at the world. Earl remembered when Bad Eye had been merely a wild kid; now viciousness and evil had permeated the marrow of him.

“B” Section had its own exercise yard, actually outside the walls of San Quentin. A doorway had been cut into the outer cellhouse wall—facing the Bay. The hospital ran beside it, an area one-hundred yards long with a fence topped by concertina wire, outside of which was a gun tower. Another rifleman was perched just over the door from the cellhouse. Nobody was going anywhere. Except for an
intervening
headland a mile away, the Golden Gate and Alcatraz would have been visible.

Each tier had a special classification and was unlocked separately for two hours twice a week, morning or afternoon. The bottom tier was the hole, men serving short punishment sentences, most going back to the big yard afterward. The second tier was militant blacks. The third tier was for militant whites and Chicanos, mostly members of the White and Mexican Brotherhoods. The fourth tier was a mix, men locked up for rules violations who weren’t affiliated or expected to start trouble. The fifth tier was protective custody, full of queens and informers, and very few of its occupants came out to the yard to exercise, for as they passed the other cells they were cursed, spat upon, and splashed with piss and shit.

Most of Earl’s friends were on the third tier, some of them having been locked up for years, and during the first exercise period, a bright, cold morning, he was engulfed at the outset by a dozen men. There was laughter, embraces, handshakes, pats on the back. Bad Eye was the most effusive, squeezing Earl in a bear hug and lifting him off the ground. Bad Eye was going on the next bus to Folsom and was glad to be able to say goodbye in person. He was happy to leave, hoping that he could get a parole in a year or two. “I’ll never get out if I stay here. I need a new ballpark. I’ve been down so long a snake’s belly looks like up to me. My fuckin’ crime partner has been out for six years … and he was five years older’n me when we got busted.”

While the rites of camaraderie were going on, Ron Decker stood aside from the throng, smiling softly. He liked watching Earl handle people, enjoyed the knowledge that Earl changed façades easily, being whatever his particular audience wanted. Nor was it merely to
manipulate
them; rather it was because Earl really liked them and wanted to make them at ease.

Soon the group broke up, Bad Eye going to play handball on the small court where the winners kept playing challengers until beaten, the others of the crowd having nothing more of importance to say. Then Earl slapped one on the back and said that he had things to discuss with his partner, indicating Ron with a nod. It was
understood
and accepted.

“Man, I’m sorry about Court,” Earl said as the two embraced. It was the first time Ron had used the gesture without embarrassment.

“It’s a bummer,” Ron said, “but what the fuck …”

“We didn’t handle that move the best way.”

“Hindsight is always wise. I don’t feel bad about it.”

“Naw, that asshole had a good killin’ comin’ to him. Still … you would’ve been on Broadway, and he wasn’t worth that.”

Ron shrugged. The pain was gone, the wound turned into a scar that sometimes itched but didn’t hurt.

“Let’s walk,” Earl said.

Nearly all the two score convicts on the small yard were near the looming cellhouse where the handball court was. The fenced end was open to the wind, occasional gusts of which shivered it. The dark water of the Bay had tips of white. Ron had on a coat and turned up the collar, but Earl was in shirtsleeves and jammed his hands down inside his waistband and hunched his shoulders, jerking his head to indicate that they should walk the twenty yards along the fence.

“What’d your mother say?” Earl asked.

“She couldn’t believe it … and she’s ready to go broke if it’ll do any good.”

“Been to the Disciplinary Committee?”

“Uh-huh. They gave me a year in here. Jesus, it’s an insane asylum. Nobody would believe a place like this.”

“If I found a way out of here, out of San Quentin, would you want to split?”

Ron contemplated just a few seconds. “If you had a way out—I don’t really want to do five more years to the parole board … and then not even be sure they’ll let me out. Do you have a way?”

“Naw, not right now, but I can find a hole somewhere. I know that. The secret of busting out of one of these garbage cans is to keep your mind on it all the time, keep thinking, watching. I do know what won’t work, and all the ways that’ve worked before. But even if we get out, that’s just part of it. It’s a bitch staying out. We’ll need somewhere to go, someone to help—and really a way out of the country. Everybody in this counry is in the computer. The only place a fugitive is safe here is herding sheep in Montana or
something
. Shit! That’s worse’n being on the yard.”

“If you get us out, I can get us some help. My mother … and I know some people down in the mountains of Mexico—Sinaloa—who run things. They’ve got all the guns in the hills. The
authorities
don’t go in with less than a battalion. I know some people in Costa Rica, too. If you get us out …”

They stopped at the corner of the fence and looked out to where cloud-mottled sunlight danced across the tops of Marin’s green hills. A highway came between two of them, angling in a slight grade, the myriad windshields sparkling like jewels. “Yes,” Ron said, “I like some of what this place has done for me, but I don’t like what a lot of years will do.”

Earl slapped him on the back. “Yeah, you’ll start jackin’ off over fat-butted boys.” He laughed loudly as Ron made a wry face and shook his head.

Their attention was attracted by Bad Eye calling for Earl; then waving for him to come play handball. They had the next tally. Earl held up a hand and gestured for him to wait. “I’d better go. You know how sensitive he is. Anyway, we damn sure can’t escape from in the hole—though a couple of game fools did it a few years ago.”

“From ‘B’ Section?”

“Yeah, just cut their way out of the cells; then cut their way out of the cellhouse—and nobody saw ’em. Not the gun bull in the
cellblock
, not the gun tower outside, nobody. Naturally they got busted in a hot minute when they started running amok outside. Anyway, we’ll just cool it in here, do the hole time, and get back on the yard. A sucker doin’ time has to be patient … but not too patient when it comes time to move.”