Prison Noir

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Twin peered in my eyes and probably thought, I’ll say okay so that this crazy Muslim will leave my cell, but tomorrow I’m asking to have him removed. If any sick prisoner expresses concern that his help might hurt him, the deputy warden must remove him, or be legally liable. But that’s not what happened.

  “Sure, Ali, I’ll take your message to God. What do you got to say to Him?”

  I held Twin’s eyes. “Tell Allah that I’ve been praying to him for twenty-four years, and He has not answered me. Please, Twin, make sure He gets my message.”

  I quickly placed one hand over his mouth and with the other squeezed his nostrils shut. Twin’s arms were cocooned under the wool blankets, but he struggled to breathe and shook his head back and forth. I soon felt him weakening and leaned in to whisper, “Don’t forget to tell Allah I’ve been praying for twenty-four years for an answer.”

  The struggle was short, but I had prepared for Twin’s departure. The same day I had sent Red with my message, I’d noticed a prisoner playing basketball with a strange smile on his face the whole time. He had a mouth guard between his lips. The grin forced by the mouth guard gave me the idea of how to send messengers to Allah with smiles on their faces. I placed the mouth guard between Twin’s lips and elevated his legs to force blood toward his face. The pooling blood would give him color and a peaceful-looking sleep for his journey. Nothing says peace like rosy cheeks. After several minutes, I slowly settled his legs down, loosened the blankets, removed the mouth guard, and turned off the television.

  “Mr. Jackson is in bed watching TV. I’ll be back in the morning to help him get ready for his medical callout.” The officer gave me the peace sign and went back to the Detroit Tigers game on the radio. When he made his rounds in an hour, he would see Mr. Jackson lying there with the TV off and assume he had turned it off before going to sleep.

  The next morning, I informed the officer on duty that I believed Mr. Jackson may be dead.

  “Are you sure?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “He didn’t move when I called his name.”

  The officer went to cell 64. “Mr. Jackson, are you all right?” When there was no response, he called shift command.

  I was waiting in the hallway as the warden and the same nurse from Red’s death arrived. She entered his cell. “He must’ve went peacefully with such a smile on his face. God has accepted him into the kingdom.”

  Her words gripped my hope that the message had gotten through to Allah and I would be leaving prison very soon.

  * * *

  Three days went by, and nothing. I was wondering if I had missed a sign when I was told to report to the deputy’s office. As I entered, he thanked me for making Twin’s last days comfortable.

  “I was told, Mr. Ali, that Twin died with a smile on his face. I’m sure you had something to do with that. You did good.”

  “I gave Twin a reason for leaving during a nice talk we had on the day he died. He was ready to meet the Lord.”

  The deputy gave me a thoughtful look. “I’m glad you got along with Mr. Jackson. The daily reports say that you two enjoyed each other’s company . . . Now, I need another favor, and I’ll owe you.” I didn’t mention the fifty-dollar bonus that was still due to me. “A Muslim prisoner named Myron Woods asked to be assigned a Muslim helper. You’re the only true Muslim helper I have. I know he’ll be happy to have an Arab Muslim.” It was a bit offensive to label me a true Muslim simply because I had been born as one; by implication, converts were not real Muslims.

  It had been three days since I sent Twin on his journey and, seeing that I was still in prison, Allah must not have received or accepted my message. However, Mr. Woods—whose Muslim name was Abdul-Sami (Worshipper of the One Who Hears)—was not a Christian. I’d made a mistake. All of Allah’s messengers were Muslim, so naturally my message should be sent by a Muslim. That’s a true sign.

  “Deputy Warden, I don’t want to become the Grim Reaper. I’d prefer a regular handicapped prisoner this time.” I knew my request would be denied; there was no risk in losing this messenger, especially since he’d requested the only true Muslim helper in the eyes and narrow mind of the deputy.

  Pretending reluctance, I was assigned to Abdul-Sami. The doctor gave him around a month to live with his liver failure. My instructions were to make sure he was kept comfortable and to give him as many morphine patches as needed to ease his pain. Ironic how the laws for narcotics with the living are reversed for the dying. When the time came for me to send Abdul-Sami with my message to Allah, all I’d need to do was place enough morphine patches on him to ease his journey.

  Abdul-Sami was of my faith, so convincing him to take my message to Allah was easy. My only apprehension was the command in the Holy Koran which forbids standing before Allah in a drunken state. However, I now believe Allah exempts modern medicine because it only mimics drunkenness. The morphine was a mercy from Allah, it wasn’t being drunk.

  “Remember, Abdul-Sami, tell Allah that I have been praying to Him for twenty-four years and He has not answered me. I ask that He release me from prison. Allah may have become accustomed to me asking for this for so many years and has simply forgotten.” Abdul-Sami’s eyes were closed as I placed seven patches, for the Seven Heavens, on his arms and legs.

  “I will tell Allah, my brother, and I’ll also tell Him of your kindness to me.”

  We both said, “Amen.” I watched his chest, for I knew my message would go in his last breath to Allah. I once again placed the mouth guard between the lips, and elevated the feet.

  * * *

  I have grown wiser with each messenger I’ve sent. Allah has the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve disciples of Jesus, and the twelve holy imams of Islam. I realized that it would be in keeping with His numerical signs to send twelve messengers before He would answer me. At present, I have sent the following eleven: Red, Twin, Abdul-Sami, Emmit, Michael, Joseph, Jacob, Luke, Manuel, Raymond, and David. After each departure, I have done five daily prayers and then waited to feel better than I did when I began. It’s a Muslim truism that if you feel better after the prayer, Allah has accepted it. Feeling better after prayer had been easy the first three years of imprisonment. But that feeling gradually diminished until, at my twenty-fourth year behind bars, I no longer felt anything. Had Allah answered me at even the twentieth year of imprisonment, I would never have sent any messengers. It’s my fault I wasted twenty years of prayers.

  To present prison staff, I’ve become the compassionate, long-suffering, and totally selfless helper. I’ve gained respect among inmates as well. My cell is never checked for contraband, and I am never asked about my movements in prison. I can also request a meeting with any staff member, even the warden. Only one thing nags at me: the unintended consequence of saving the state of Michigan money. But it’s also my protection, because the state never asks questions when you save it money. It costs five times as much to keep a sick or dying prisoner than a healthy one. When costs go up, questions get asked.

  Thus, I’ve become an asset to the prison system, something you should never become. In some ways I’m the ideal asset, in that I save the state money and have a parolable life sentence with deportation. So I’ll stay in prison until I get sick and then be deported to my home country to burden it with my care.

  The eleventh messenger, David, was one of the three dying prisoners left at this place. Unless something changes, I’ll have to be careful with my last pick. The twelfth messenger must be the best yet. He’s the final sign and hope that Allah will release me from prison.

  This morning, while jogging my five daily miles on the yard, I noticed an unusual pain in my midsection. I attributed it to runner’s stress. However, being a cautious soul, I sent a request to see the doctor.

  * * *

  I explained my symptom to the doctor two days ago. He ordered some blood work and noticed something odd in the results. He ordered further tests and confirmed I have pancreatic cancer, a death sentence under the private
prison health care. I came to the United States from Lebanon without a family, so no one will question the state about my cost-saving death.

  The ironies of Allah continue. I’m the best twelfth messenger I can send. Who’s better for this than me? I would never get the message wrong or forget it. Maybe the eleven messengers I’ve sent were too distracted by their own messages to remember mine. It’s a reasonable conclusion, but still a shock that Allah would allow me to die here when I’ve prayed for over twenty-four years to be released. It’s even more shocking than when Allah took my mother’s life while I was still in prison to teach me great loss. He needed a way to balance my crime.

  It’s the obvious choice that I should be the twelfth messenger, but so unlike Allah’s past behavior. He never killed His messengers to send His own message. Allah always protected those entrusted with His message until they delivered it. Technically, I’m sending my message to Allah, so He doesn’t owe me protection. But now I need to add a new request, since being released from prison is not going to happen. So I ask for protection in the next life from the messengers I’ve sent there, and in this life from the illness that may earn me an abusive helper. Besides dying, nothing is scarier than being abused in prison.

  I am truly the message in the breath of Allah.

  PART II

  CAGED BIRDS SING

  TUNE-UP

  BY STEPHEN GEEZ

  Ryan Correctional Facility (Detroit, Michigan)

  That banged-up old black tanker car got left behind.

  It must have been sitting there for many years, maybe decades, passing time on a split of secondary side-track, no place else to go. Debris and weeds choked the rails, thicker brush growing up through its wheels and broken coupler.

  Fuse sat cross-legged on the weedy patch of wannabe lawn in Ryan Road Facility’s big yard, just inside the pea-gravel track edged by razor-wired electric fences. Oval-walking convicts occasionally disrupted his view of the old tanker, as did the creepy crawl of a lethally armed perimeter vehicle, its skin a shiny state blue. At least you know that climbing the fence is precisely what triggers the patrol’s violent assault. Fuse’s psycho bunkie and his dawgs would crack an unsuspecting head for no other reason than the rumors they started. Like so many others in the joint, they lived the fool-rule: act stupid, put your business on front street, get yourself popped, and save face by calling the nearest body a snitch.

  The daddy killdeer swooped in and challenged Fuse with a cautionary dive, then landed a dozen feet to the left and glared threats before relieving his mate at their ground nest marked by a bright orange traffic cone. Don’t step on the baby, somebody had thought to alert other prisoners, likely some nature lover who’d just as soon padlock a human skull and stab a body fifteen times before ghosting into the crowd. The prim-looking plover fed its lone chick, then settled in to keep an eye on Fuse.

  Beyond the nest, that line of counterclockwisers followed the oval’s arc along the back fence, their backdrop a grassy berm blocking views of the mirror-opposite Mound Road Facility. Back-to-back job-generating prisons in the industry-pocked Eastside Detroit neighborhood must have seemed like a good idea several decades back, maybe not so much now that drugs and other contraband fence-tossings littered the yard every morning, or since a quick bolt-cutter breach proved that ten men could spurt right through and fade into the ’hood.

  A train clanked and squealed its way across Ryan Road, down the spur track that ran alongside both prisons. Every day, the train delivered chemicals to a small paint factory next door to the prison, right across from the Level IV units and chow hall. Fascinated by trains as a boy, Fuse liked to sit right there most afternoons—weather and emergency counts and clear-the-yard assaults permitting—to watch the replacement of yesterday’s empty tanker with today’s full one. The whole process always seemed out of place, this glimpse of purpose and productivity in a rusty, falling-down city, industrious men commanding monstrous and mighty machines. Fuse’s bunkie couldn’t fathom the relationship between man and machine. Last night during one of his rages he destroyed their cell fan. Apparently it had been disrespecting the over-inked lunk by intentionally rattling and wheezing to interrupt another twelve-hour sleep, his rest inexplicably essential for fueling a mind that never actually shifted out of idle.

  His tantrums had been escalating since two slash-and-burn shakedowns in a row convinced him a snitch must have kited about the piece of steel he’d been bragging about having handy. Hearing whispers of blame, Fuse had noticed several glares and hostile gestures.

  Heavy Metal wandered over, set his guitar and battery-charged mini-amp in the weeds, then sat cross-legged and nodded with a “’Sup?” He got the “Metal” moniker for playing heavy-metal guitar—quite deftly—just as Fuse had picked up his own tag for favoring “fusion” styles during his stint on keyboard in a mishmash cover band at Adrian Regional. Wiry and muscle-bound, the long-haired metal-head claimed several names and aliases, just enough to confuse his incoming mail, though only the six digits on his door card truly meant anything to anybody who mattered.

  The engine passed them and grunted as the whole train clanged its way to a stop. The engineer climbed down and joined two men walking from the rear. He studied his clipboard and the numbers on a shiny white tanker, then headed back to the engine. The other two uncoupled the tanker at both its front and rear, then switched the rails to a third side-track heading over to the paint factory pumps. The train grunted several more times as it backed in, picked up yesterday’s empty tanker, then pulled it alongside the prison fence before backing into the full tanker. It coupled with a clank and hiss, then moved forward past the switch. It backed into the factory again, this time leaving the tanker before pulling out and backing up to couple with the rest of the train. Maybe fifteen minutes total, the engineer reversed the whole assemblage across Ryan Road and faded into the ’hood. Still, that banged-up old black tanker car on the other track got left behind.

  The show over, Metal dropped his news with a smirk. “Mo says your keyboard’s out in the warehouse, and Doug’s gonna let you have it since they didn’t catch on before putting in your order.” The approved vendor had put a five-octave Casio with stand on sale for $79, only four bucks over the property-policy price-per-item limit, so he’d written them a letter proposing a $10 credit for withholding the otherwise contraband metal stand, and they wrote back agreeing to $69 without it. That money order to his inmate trust account from Fuse’s granny right before she died proved worth saving all this time. The business office started rejecting everybody else who tried the same thing because they discovered the official sale flyer only listed the $79 deal. All his years down, this marked the only chance for Fuse to order a board with adult-sized keys.

  “You still playing with that butt-kisser up there?” Metal asked, referring to Mo.

  Metal used to be up in unit 4C with Fuse and Maurice—“Mo” for “Modern Jazz.” Then a shakedown that turned up the program’s “borrowed” effects pedal caught Metal a theft ticket and cost him his Saturday afternoon music room slot. His tat-gun and makeshift soldering pencil sent him to the hole. When he got out, he landed over in 700 building. Fuse had taken to sitting outside Mo’s cell several evenings a week to play music with headphones joined by a homemade splitter. That big old black man, who looked like he’d waded into a few too many fights back in the day, more than knew how to dance his fat fingers up and down the neck of his knockoff Les Paul–style guitar.

  “No, Slim won’t let me use his toy anymore.” Slim’s two-octave I’m a Rock Star! mini-key by Hasbro or Mattel or Fisher-Price wasn’t worth the frustration anyway.

  “You put in for your own music slot?”

  “Yeah—more than a year ago.”

  “The rappers who snaked my slot—Doug says he’s gonna cut ’em loose. Two rode out anyway, and he’s pissed about smelling weed and cock-sweat every time they’ve been in there.”

  “But I don’t have a band.”

  “Put m
e on the callout with you. Grab Reggie to play drums. Get Mo on bass—at least till someone else rides in.” As Doug’s music clerk, Mo could help push for Fuse to get that slot.

  “You hate Mo.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s the best on the compound for now.”

  “But all you play is metal.”

  “Man, I’ll play anything. I just want back in.”

  “All original, no covers?”

  “Only,” Metal said, then smirked as he unpacked his guitar and plugged in his effects and mini-amp. He would answer with his hands.

  “So this is how you do your time, huh?”

  Metal fine-tuned a couple of strings. “It’s play music or fight a lot. Oh, by the way . . .”

  The killdeer craned his neck to hear.

  “You need to watch your back. Your bitch-ass bunkie is still talkin’ shit about you.”

  * * *

  Even though Fuse used headphones, Psycho threw tantrums every time he tried to work on music in the cell. The mere sound of fingers striking plastic keys upset that delicate equilibrium of fixations and obsessive compulsions. Every time the doors broke, Fuse and his Casio headed for base, or afternoons with Metal in the big yard, or evenings in the doorway to Mo’s cell.

  “Two more weeks,” Mo said one night. “Tee-Bey got paper, so he’ll be ridin’ to Macomb for prerelease. Ray-Ray and Westside’ll make a play to keep the slot, but Doug says you been here longer. They gotta wait their turn.”

  Working with Mo opened new ways of approaching music for Fuse. Some thirty-odd years ago as a fish—a first-timer—Mo had fallen in with some O-head musicians who taught him the rudiments of old-school jazz guitar. Mo moved on to teach himself new styles by listening, experimenting, and playing with others who’d come and gone in the decades since. Mo offered Fuse some of his original material, meticulously charted, and taught him efficient ways to chart his own. They impressed each other, together shaping sound to conjure exhilarating new realms beyond the fence, whether to make bold statements or simply discover whatever they might find. The progressions, the patterns, the styles—Fuse picked up many, then surprised Mo more than a few times by passing along some of his own. Still, what Fuse liked most was Mo’s tendency to hold back rather than diving all in.