Doing Time (16 page)

“Fifteen-to-life, I guess — that's what my lawyer, the D.A., everybody is sayin'.” He seemed disinterested in the topic, like it was about someone else, but he kept his eyes on the creases I was attempting. “Whadya think you'll get?” Then he added, “Here,” reached out for the iron, and started fixing my botched ironing job.

“I don't know, not a whole lot…” I knew the maximum I could get was five-to-fifteen. Seemed like nothing compared to what Fitz faced the following day. “Maybe a three-to-nine or somethin'. Not a whole !ot for a life.” It didn't come out like I wanted it to, and I was worried how Fitz would take it.

“You didn't mean to kill anyone; you were just drunk,” he told me as he ironed, not looking up. “Me, I
shot
my wife, and if I had it to do over again …I'd shoot her again.” His face skewed momentarily. When we were both done, Fitz walked to the front of the barbershop cage with his pants, crisp-edge and delicately folded over his outstretched arm, as I plucked mine from the board and held it the same way. He yelled for the CO, by his name, not shouting “see-oh” like all us young turkeys.

“Fuckin' murderer!” It was said loud enough to be heard throughout the courtroom. I stood with my hands cuffed behind me, watching the judge who was emceeing “Let's Make a Deal” with the D.A. and my attorney. My suit was still damp and felt cold and clingy, giving me the feeling of not being in my own body. I switched my concentration to the line of dirty masking tape at my feet, where the bailiff had pointed, telling me where to stand. After a while, I let my eyes wander the courtroom walls, giant mahogany panels that swallowed up the low-toned voices of the players before me so that I couldn't make out what they were saying, just horrific tidbits that branded that night: eyewitness, direction, headlights, excessive… Postponed, Resumed in six weeks. The bailiff opened the twelve-foot-high doors and I exited as I heard quiet sobbing. The handcuffs were removed and I was sent back up two flights of narrow stairs to the bullpens full of people I didn't know. A young Colombian kid was miming out a robbery for some others, showing what had happened. Before I had left the sixth floor back at Q.H.D.M., Fay, an M.O. from the dorm upstairs, told me, “Don't worry, Kerry, that suit is good luck.” I'd loaned it to him for one court appearance and he had snapped up an offer of two-to-six for bank robbery. He'd used a bicycle for a getaway vehicle for the first few rush-hour robberies, then switched to a car and got caught. His wife was furious. And I was dubious of his superstitious predictions. I felt like every kind of luck was passing me by, except bad.

My attorney, Tom, arrived huffing and puffing from the stairs. His suit fit snugly around his portly body and his tie was loosened. The C.O. stuck him in the Plexiglas booth adjoining the bullpen, then put me opposite him so we were separated inside by a Plexiglas dividing wall with round holes in it.

“How ya doin', Kerry. I filed for the Rosario Hearing , , .” he began.

“Tom — what's with the D.A.? You got any offer from him yet? Something to cop out
to?”
I was sick of bus rides and bullpens, and the family's screams echoed in my head a little longer after each court appearance. This had been my third one. “I'll take anything, I just want to get this
over
with …”

He gave me a “Then why did you hire me?” look. There was a long pause. The Colombian kid mimicked a gun with his fingers, pointing them at another guy with a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and heavy acne scars. They both laughed. We looked at each other through the smudged Plexiglas.

“I'll see what they say.” The Colombian kid genuflected as he left the bullpen to go down the stairs.

“See-oh! Ten-ta-six Suicide on the mutha-fuckin' gate!” I shouted it loud and slow like the announcer at the beginning of a prizefight. This time the C.O. was nearby and led me quickly through the routine of sign-in and gates until I was secured on B Side.
Clang.

First I went into the dayroom, where I set down my Tupperware bucket, which again contained cookies and whatnot. The M.O.'s were watching
Penitentiary HI
for maybe the fourth time that week. “No way
anybody
could jump that high …” Ernesto said in a slightly effeminate voice, looking at my face, hoping I would defend him in an argument about one of the characters: an animallike, nonspeak-ing, chained-up black dwarf with superhuman strength. Later on in the movie, he would be chained up in the penitentiary basement and made to watch violent movies while smoking crack. Some of the M.O.'s were dozing in their chairs, tranquilized on Thorazine, Prolixin, Sinequan…

“You're right, Ernesto, no way — he ain't smoked that crack yet,” I told him and some guys stirred in their seats and laughed. Ernesto stamped one foot in anger, and then turned away with a hurt look. He prided himself on being a cut above the others, with more vocabulary and suave mannerisms. He had been robbing cabbies while strung out on crack himself, using a cap pistol. It was a miracle he hadn't got shot. He'd slit his wrists once while he'd been on the M.O. tier, but it hadn't been a real deep wound, and they had simply bandaged him up and sent him back from the infirmary a few hours later. I warned him never to pull a stunt like that on my shift.

I couldn't watch the damn movie — it was just too bizarre for me, so I took a walk down the tier, like it tells you to do in the S.P.A. manual. You come in, go take a simple test the first Monday. Guys help each other openly; if you can't read, the C.O. reads it
to
you, you pass — everybody does — and presto! you're an S.P.A, I stopped at Stymie's cell.
“Sm~cide\”
he said cheerily. He was a young black kid, stringbean tall with one unbendable leg, the result of being hit by a car as a small child. He was afflicted with grand-mal epilepsy. He sold a lot of crack; this was his third time in, and he'd go upstate for sure. Standing up off his bed, he hopped up to the bars. “Suicide, tell the C.O. crack my cell, I'm gonna go watch the movie.” I told him I'd get it done on my return run.

Next I went by 8 Cell, with Lemar, a huge, lumbering southern black man who'd strangled his wife. Lemar was listening to his radio, monitoring the news. He suffered from Parkinson's disease. He shook as he reached to remove his headphones. “H-h-how z-zit g-goin'?” he asked. I smiled at him.

“How ya doin', Lemar? Any
good
news?” Lemar had once gotten fifty dollars from his lawyers for Christmas. It was a fifty-dollar bill stuck in an envelope with a card. The C.O. that did the mail that day — a boozy, red-nosed, balding nobody — watched Lemar as he shuffled up to the gate upon hearing his name called out.

“Wanna
touch
it, Harris — feel the money?” He handed Lemar the bill through the bars like a peanut to a monkey, and watched as Lemar grinned, clutching the bill and shaking it with his Parkinson's tremble. “Feels good, huh? Might be the last money you ever touch.” The C.O. took it back to put in Lemar's account, and went on with the mail call, unable to disturb Lemar's peaceful smile. Fifty dollars is a lot of money in prison. Sometimes I let Lemar wear my vest off of my suit setup. He'd walk down the cell runway, feeling real dapper, though the vest was awful tight. It seemed to brighten up his day. Lemar had been at Q.H.D.M. for a hell of a long time.

“Lock it in!” the C.O. bellowed precisely at ten fifty-five. He unlocked the gate and entered the runway in front of the cells, walking along and slamming shut the cell's gate if the occupant was inside. I grabbed my Tupperware bucket out of the dayroom and took a spot in front of 1 Cell, where a shaft of light hit so I could read. After everyone was locked in, I spread out my blanket on the grimy cement floor. The C.O. checked his cell-locking panel on the gallery — old Decateur cable-and-puiley hardware from the 1930s, controlled by levers and wheels. “Thirteen cell! Take that off back-lock and don't do that shk again!” he yelled and was answered with a clang. “That's better.”

A lot of yelling and kidding came cascading down from the dormitory upstairs, its wire-mesh wall shared with the cell runway downstairs, creating no audio resistance. You could hear everything. A couple of guys upstairs were teasing Shakey, a down-and-out street bum, who begged for cigarettes constantly and smoked the butts off the floor. “Hey, Shakey — do my laundry tomorrow, I'll give you three cigarettes …”

“Five…” Shakey called back up, and the dorm broke into convulsive laughter. Ernesto called out from his cell, and I walked over. “Kerry, I wish they'd get rid of Shakey, ship him to Brooklyn General — he's such a dirt bag,” he whined.

“Hey, Ernesto — he's got a right to be in jail, just like you and me. Get arrested, get three hots and a cot, medication to boot — this is a great country, Ernesto.” This got him laughing, but suddenly he stopped.

“You know, Kerry, if they try to send me to a max when I get sentenced, I'll kill myself, I swear I will…”

“Listen —
nobody
kills themself on my shift — besides, suicide is a C felony, they take you
back
downstairs and book you again, up your bail …” I heard Fitz laughing from 15 Cell. Then, from the middle of the tier I heard an ominous thud.

I ran down the line peering into each cell, but already I knew what was wrong. Stymie was having a seizure. I stood in front of 6 Cell holding both my hands over my head and pointing at the cell like a beach lifeguard, yelling “See-oh! Crack six cell! See-oh! Crack six cell!” The C.O. ran down the D Side catwalk and to his Decateur con-trot panel. I heard the cell door unlatch.
Click.

I ran in and squatted down. The foot attached to Stymie's stiff leg was beating a fast, chaotic rhythm on the stainless-steel toilet. I took his head in my hands, then grabbed a blue N.Y. Giants knit cap that was lying on his bed and stuffed it into his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue. Then I found a sweatshirt also within easy reach and fashioned it into a pillow, the whole time holding his chattering head in my lap. His legs twitched spastically. The C.O. stuck his head in the cell. “Good job, Suicide. I'll call upstairs…” We'd all been through this before.

Stymie surfaced into groggy consciousness just before the nurse and captain came to take him to the infirmary. “Suicide — I dreamed you was playin' cards…” he said in a soft, disoriented voice. “… You had jacks and queens. Did… did I have me a fit?” he asked, and I told him yes. They helped him into the wheelchair and took him upstairs for the night.

I talked with Fitz afterward, about fighting fires, marriage, raising kids, and sentencing, and shared some Oreos with him. Ernesto asked for some aspirin. Then Shakey asked if I would pick up a few butts off the floor for him — I refused and conned a cigarette out of 2 Cell instead. Finally everyone went to sleep, some calling to the C.O. to turn out their cell light from the control panel, some asking
me
to ask him.

I lay on my blanket, head propped against the bucket with a pillow, all butted up against the filthy bars. I stuck my book in the shaft of light —
Bonfire of the Vanities.
When the C.O.'s nighttime snack wagon came, he gave me an ice cream. I dozed off at one point, and woke up suddenly to a fluttering at my eyelid: a mouse was checking me out at close range. The mouse looked huge, larger than life, in the moment that I opened my eyes. It ran off quickly, more frightened than I was, and scrambled into each cell, then darted out, unhampered by bars and shopping for tidbits. Morning came with the noise of the nearby expressway's traffic buildup, and I helped with the chow wagon and breakfast, ending off by cleaning trays. I went and locked myself in my cell, and lay down for sleep to come over me. Another day.

I sat with Chris one day, a young white kid who worked the upstairs M.O. while I worked the cells downstairs. The M.O.'s were lined up at the gate for meds. Each one would hand an I.D. card through the bars to an attractive Jamaican nurse, and in return receive a Dixie Cup with pills or liquid Thorazine or whatever, then maybe a cup of water to wash it down. The whole time the nurse would answer their remarks with varying responses, most distilling to “Just take your medicine, please.”

Chris sat glued to the TV, always making stupid comments like “I'd like to fuck her .. .” at the Excedrin commercial spokespersons. After saying something profound he looked up at me. “Hey, maybe someone'll hang up tonight, we'll save ‘em, split the fifty dollars .. .” His face beamed the bright shine of too many acid trips.

“There ain't no fifty-dollar reward. That's just a goddamn myth,” I told him, picturing him at a Grateful Dead concert — which was where he was busted at — talking about Jerry Garcia or inter-galactic travel plans. He was a real piece of work. I watched him refo-cus on the TV after I had squashed his attempt at conversation: It was a movie —
Death Wish
with Charles Bronson.

From downstairs came a thud. Not very loud in itself, but loud enough within the relative quiet that developed whenever the nurse's wagon appeared. I didn't like the sound of it. I dropped the newspaper and ran down the stairs. There was still a line for meds, and I saw Stymie in it. I walked briskly down the line of cells, one, two, three… I got to 12 Cell, and rushed it — luckily it was unlocked.

A young Arab guy lay with his head bleeding into his Puma sweatshirt and a long-sleeved shirt tied tight around his neck. I loosened it. He breathed. Chris looked over my shoulder. “Get the see-oh, tell him to call the infirmary,” I told him. It was a half-assed suicide attempt: Evidently the kid had tied the shirt around his neck so tight he passed out while standing up on his bed. The thud I had heard was his head cracking against the sink as he fell. He'd be all right. “TwentyTive each, right?” Chris said and vanished before I could curse him out. I was sick of hearing about the supposed reward for saving guys. I doubted the jail was giving fifty dollars to anybody for anything. I wiped the Arab's temple with another shirt handy. “He all right?” came Fitz's voice from 15 Cell, locked in, which he preferred.