Prison Noir

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Celso could only hope that was true because, one by one, they all left her there. Together, they kept walking until the woman’s cries became just an echo in the wind.

  * * *

  Celso slipped and fell on the ice.

  Flores doubled over laughing. “Easy, brother, you don’t want to end up in Duane Waters.”

  Celso stood up and dusted the rock salt off his jacket. “Where?”

  Flores nodded toward the big building that peeked out from behind the perimeter wall. “The prison hospital,” he said. “Didn’t you see the graveyard when they drove you in through the gates?”

  Celso remembered.

  “That’s where you’ll end up if you let those doctors work on you. That’s where they bury all the lifers—all the guys who outlived anybody who’d care to come pick up their bodies. Them, and mojados like us.” He pointed to the water tower, which stood higher than everything else. “That’s why everybody’s so fucked up around here. We’re all drinking the dried-up corpses of forgotten criminals.” He took a long sip from his plastic coffee mug.

  They came to a stop at the weight pit, where a dozen or so inmates were curling rusted iron dumbbells and lifting warped steel bars. Flores dusted the snow off a preacher bench and sat down.

  “Let me see it,” he said, handing Celso his coffee mug in exchange for the paperwork.

  The mug brought warmth to his hands again. He hadn’t thought to wear gloves. Or a hat. It was a new sensation for him, being numb. It hurt like hell.

  “Why do you want to read my casework?”

  Flores looked at him. “To make sure I wasn’t walking the track with some fucking baby-raping child molester.”

  Nearby, someone cried out in pain. An inmate dressed only in thermal underwear was deadlifting several hundred pounds off the ground. Two other inmates cheered him on as he lifted the bar higher, grunting, yelling. Nobody but Celso seemed to find this peculiar. Flores hadn’t taken his eyes off the packet of paper.

  “What does RGC mean?” Celso asked him.

  “Reception and Guidance Center.”

  “You mean this isn’t prison?”

  “No. Well, yeah—this is prison. But you won’t stay here. This is quarantine. They keep you here until a bed opens up at another joint. That, and to run psych tests and shit.”

  He must’ve been referring to the long afternoon Celso spent answering True or False to a bizarre tape recording of a few hundred seemingly random statements—from the telling (If people make me angry, I can be dangerous), to the ambiguous (I can usually talk my way out of trouble), to the downright obscure (I enjoy repairing doorknobs). When he was done, the proctor had handed him a blank piece of paper and told him to draw a picture of a man on one side and a woman on the other. The inmate beside him didn’t seem to take the assignment seriously: he drew obscene stick figures, with a giant dick and balls on one and huge tits above a hairy triangle on the other. Celso drew a confused young man on one side; on the reverse, he drew Marichuy.

  “Where’s this place at?” Flores asked, indicating where the paperwork noted his previous employment.

  Celso pointed to the left of his open palm. “Near Grand Rapids.”

  “What did you do there?”

  “I killed turkeys,” he said. “But I got fired.”

  Flores didn’t bother to ask why. He just kept reading.

  The report summarized Celso’s life up to his crime. It told of his long ride from Arizona to Michigan. It mentioned his termination from the poultry-processing plant (his employer stated he fired Celso upon learning of his illegal-resident status). It told how he found a new job selling drugs for convicted armed robber Octavio “Spooky” Ramirez; how he started on a trial supply of marijuana, until he was promoted to cocaine, and finally heroin; how, one day, Ramirez and an unnamed man picked him up to accompany them on a prospective bulk drug purchase, set up by the unnamed man; how, unbeknownst to him or Ramirez, this man was an undercover DEA officer; how, upon seeing convicted drug possessor Alfred Burke—accompanied by his girlfriend, convicted check forger Lacey Hopkins—Ramirez stopped the vehicle (against the undercover agent’s adamant protests) to follow Burke to his residence, because, he said, “That junkie owes me money”; how the party forced entry into Burke’s residence, and Celso restrained Hopkins while Ramirez repeatedly struck Burke with his fists; how Ramirez, visibly agitated, produced a Glock 9mm pistol and placed it inside Burke’s mouth; how there remains a dispute as to whether the trigger was pulled deliberately or accidentally, but upon witnessing the shot, the undercover agent drew his own weapon and demanded, in a clear and loud voice, that Ramirez put down his gun; how, according to the agent’s testimony, Ramirez turned to fire on him, but was promptly shot twice in the upper torso by the agent; how Celso was then placed under arrest for home invasion, conspiracy to purchase and distribute a controlled substance, and later, felony murder for the deaths of Ramirez and Burke; and how his court-appointed attorney later pled down the substance and home invasion charges.

  In the weight pit, a group of inmates had gathered. They weren’t working out and they weren’t talking. They were just waiting.

  “That still doesn’t make sense,” Flores said, flipping through the packet.

  The group was staring at a lone inmate doing bench presses, completely oblivious to anyone else.

  “Oh, here it is,” Flores said, stopping at the final page. “You must’ve just misunderstood.”

  One of the inmates grabbed a small dumbbell. He tested the weight in his hand. Not satisfied, he switched it for a heavier one.

  “It doesn’t say you get out when you’re twenty-two, vato,” Flores said.

  The inmate with the dumbbell walked toward the man on the bench, the rest followed. They circled around the man.

  “Look,” Flores said, referring to the paper. “It says, Twenty-two-year sentence minimum.”

  The entire weight pit went silent when they heard the crunch.

  * * *

  Back home, death was an event. It was a small town; when somebody died, if you weren’t grieving them, you were comforting someone who was.

  Up here, death was routine. Maybe, because there was so much of it, people were numb to it. Even at Celso’s sentencing, he had to wait in line. He had spent the week leading up to it rehearsing his speech, but when the moment finally came, and he stood in the crowded courtroom, it just felt like he was wasting everybody’s time. The way the judge got irritated and slumped back in her chair when the attorney mentioned he would need to translate; the way the stenographer paused from typing to take a sip of water; the way the other convicts scoffed at Celso (who was struggling to remember the right words) and kept looking at the clock like they had somewhere else to be; the way the prosecutor yawned and picked the lint off his tie—it all seemed so banal.

  This is what the turkeys at work must’ve felt like. They were unloaded off trucks and hung by their legs on a conveyor belt. His boss showed him where an electric spinning blade slit their throats. The turkeys coasted by in an endless waterfall of blood.

  “No matter what,” his boss had said, “the line’s gotta keep moving. You have to pay attention. Every once in a while, one of the birds is too short for his neck to reach the cutter.” He had drawn out a long knife with a narrow blade and handed it to Celso. “For when that happens.”

  At first, it had been easy. The knife was so sharp, the gullets so thin—if not for all the warbling and death throes, Celso would hardly have felt complicit in the deed. And there were maybe only one or two turkeys the machine didn’t catch for every dozen it did. But then, out of nowhere, there came a bevy of dwarf turkeys—each one of them flapped and squawked and put up a fight. It turned into a melee of blood and feathers, absolute carnage. Celso could do nothing but try and keep up, furiously slashing away. (They were so small, for a moment he thought maybe they’d switched to chickens.)

  When he’d paused to catch his breath, he noticed one of the birds lookin
g at him. Its black, beady eyes were impossible to read. Did it even understand what was happening? He could see them all, staring at him, accusing him. He’d lost track of time.

  Then an alarm had gone off. The line came to a halt.

  Celso panicked. How long had he zoned out?

  Down the line, past a huge, long metal vat filled with water and a wall of steam, he could hear his boss yelling.

  When he’d arrived at the commotion, everyone was watching. His boss was ripping bird after bird off the line and throwing them into a pile on the floor. Soaked from the water, their feathers came right off.

  His coworkers were circled around the pile, their smocks still pristine and free of blood. Eleonel was standing among them. “What’d you do?” he asked his cousin.

  Celso kept staring at the pile.

  When his boss saw he was there, he picked up two of the birds to show Celso the difference: one’s skin was clear and white; the other was dark pink. The pile was mostly pink ones.

  “Not bueno!” his boss had shouted at him. “This is not bueno.”

  And for the most part, Celso had agreed with him.

  * * *

  When a letter came, Flores offered to read it to him. “It’s from Mexico,” he said. “Some girl named Marichuy.”

  Celso smiled. But then he thought about it again and stopped smiling. “What does it say?”

  “It says, Dear Celso, I can’t believe what has happened to you. I’ve tried speaking to your father, but he has been very sick since you left. Your cousin wrote him about everything.” Flores paused to read ahead. He turned sullen.

  “Keep reading,” Celso told him.

  Flores hesitated. “I’m not sure if I should tell you, but I lost the baby. My mother said I should just—”

  The intercom cut him off. It was five minutes to count.

  Flores handed the letter back. “I’ll finish it afterward.”

  But he never got the chance. Before count was over, they announced a bunch of ride-outs. Flores was one of them.

  As hard as he tried, Celso couldn’t make sense of the letter. The words were just an indecipherable mess of squiggles.

  At some point his door opened and the CO told him to pack his things. “Cell transfer.”

  Outside his cell, the transsexual porter stood by and waved hello again. But the cell wasn’t for him; he was pushing a decrepit old man in a wheelchair. As the porter wheeled the guy through the door, the chair got caught on one of the bars. The tranny rammed against the back of it, his breasts bouncing up and down, until, at last, he forced it through.

  “To where I go?” Celso asked the CO.

  The man pointed. “Top tier.”

  * * *

  Celso never knew he was afraid of heights. But as he stood on the narrow catwalk, four flights up from his previous cell, his legs trembled.

  Just as the CO was about to open the door for Celso, he stopped. Something was happening on the base floor. The CO turned and ran back down the stairs, shouting something into his radio.

  Celso worked up the courage to peek over the railing. Far below, an inmate was trying to shield himself and run as another inmate stabbed at him with a sharpened toothbrush. They all seemed so small from up high.

  Slowly, Celso crept all the way to the ledge. It would be so quick, he thought, nobody could stop him. Two seconds versus two decades. A quick, merciful slice or a long, boiling dip.

  He thought awhile about it. He thought about it for days and weeks and months and years.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until they were on the bus that the driver told everyone where they were going. He said something about the market.

  The inmates all scoffed or rolled their eyes at what he said, disappointed.

  Celso turned to the man next to him. “Is far, the market?”

  The man was confused. “Huh? No. Not market—Marquette. That’s up north.”

  Celso held up his manacled hand as far as the chain on his waist would permit and offered his palm as a map to chart on.

  With one of his fingers, the man drew a line from the base of Celso’s palm far beyond his fingertips. “Way up there,” he said. “Over the bridge, ’bout a twelve-hour drive, maybe twice that in this weather.”

  Celso understood. He’d taken a long drive before. At least this time it wouldn’t be hidden in a trunk with three other Mexicans.

  Then a thought occurred to him. “Is more, the snow up there?”

  The other inmate looked at him like he had just asked for his hand in marriage.

  He chuckled. “No, buddy. No, there’s no snow up there.”

  RAT’S ASS

  BY KENNETH R. BRYDON

  San Quentin State Prison (San Quentin, California)

  "They can’t write me up, my parole hearing’s next month.”

  Rick and I headed down concrete stairs. We were on our way to San Quentin’s lower yard.

  “Yeah, Jason, that’s fucked up.”

  I felt like shit on what was otherwise a sunny Saturday morning. An ancient craggy wall towered on our left. Assorted old pipes hung there serving no purpose. An earthy smell came from the various mosses and small shrubs hanging off the wall. They’d been growing for decades longer than my arrival ten years ago.

  We walked in a wide-open path. “I gotta do something!” It felt like the walls were closing in on me. The both of us wore shorts and tank tops; mesh bags slung over our shoulders held water bottles and towels. Rick had talked me into working out. “I am completely fucked.”

  Our steps brought us down the first flight onto the flat middle walkway. On the right side stood a shiny chain-link fence; through it, our reflections showed on the end windows of the huge new hospital. Rick flexed his pecs while I spit at my image and watched the white blob catch on the thick wire. In another eight steps, we started down the second set of stairs.

  Rick asked, his voice jittery, “How’d they bust you?”

  My head rewound the visit. The rookie prison guard had stuck his face up close to the mesh over the door bars. This son of a bitch looked around the cell before his eyes landed on me. I’d held my breath, waiting for his next move. The staring contest was brief, and he then turned and left. I’d cut loose a loud gasping moan.

  “The cop smelled it,” I said to Rick, recalling how he suddenly reappeared. His chin pressed against the mesh to get a good whiff of the lingering odor of fermentation. “Augh, shit,” I’d mumbled as he pulled the door open and ordered me to step out.

  Rick and I turned at the bottom of the stairs, making our way out onto the yard. On his arm were crude tattoos mixed with others showing a degree of artistic talent. I’d done some of the best work he had, covering up some of the shitty stuff from the Youth Authority. Rick stood five ten just like me, and his workouts had put almost as much solid meat on his chest and arms as mine had. We were both blue-eyed and had short, slicked-back blond hair. Rick put a lot into that skin color, but I thought it more of a problem in doing business.

  “How much he bust you with?”

  The memory was kicking me in the ass. It kept going to where they ripped up my place and carried the containers away. When you’re busted, they toss your cell so bad it’ll take hours to put it back together. My jaw flexed; I’d paid a lot to the kitchen worker for fruit and sugar.

  Rick glanced over at me a couple of times. I could see he was waiting for an answer. Finally I barked out, “Ten fucking gallons!”

  “Shit, Jason, were you gonna invite me?”

  It ain’t as if I owed him anything, so I didn’t respond.

  We walked along in silence. Making “good” prison wine was an art, and I had it down. A tumbler of my shit was like two or three of anyone else’s. I’d line up to buy some good weed with what I didn’t drink; even meth if anyone had it. We were moving along in the shadow of the hospital with the yard opening up in front of us. The sounds of basketballs pinging and people shouting and laughing didn’t do much to stir me up. Still, I w
as going to get a workout.

  “Hey, check it out!” Rick said, pointing to the tennis court. Two women were there with inmates as partners. The match had a large audience, and all the attention was for the one young gal. She presented a nice view leaning forward, preparing for the coming serve.

  “I didn’t even get to enjoy the shit.” A deep breath brought the salt smell of the Frisco Bay to me; it only made me sigh deeply. “Man, I’m through. The board will hammer me!”

  My words didn’t register with Rick; he was fixed on the tight feminine body in knee-length shorts bouncing around on the court. I’d seen a lot more skin on Wimbledon, but this was one hard body. When her return landed in the net, a collective sound, “Oh!” came from every direction.

  I stared at my so-called buddy. “Hey, Rick, I heard they’re giving away bags of dope up in North block.”

  “Yeah, that’s cool,” he answered, sounding like a dude dumbed-down with meds. He remained transfixed with the tennis court, eyes glazed over. Any other time we’d both be drooling, but I needed my ass covered before enjoying this one.

  “Fuck!” I said, thinking of my daughter Sheila. “I’ve got to fix this.” I’d written her for five years before she finally answered. She’d just started bringing in my grandson to visit; we’d even made plans to take him on his first trip to Disneyland. The thought of never seeing her or Jimmy again opened up a pit in my guts.

  I looked about the yard, and ahead of me I spotted David, of all people. He wore gray sweatpants and, even in the warm sun, he had on a blue sweatshirt three sizes too big. The billowing sleeves were cut at the elbows. Coming toward us past the cop’s shack, he also turned to check out the girl playing tennis. David had the same stupid grin as Rick. “Hypocritical punk,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m there,” Rick answered. It was bad enough that David would handle the paperwork for this write-up, but seeing how his wife Sherry had gotten close to my daughter, it was certain the motherfucker would rat me out. I grinned. It wouldn’t be a problem to return the favor, telling his wife about him leering at the court cutie.

  Another chorus of “Oh!” came up, including Rick.