Left for Alive

by Tom Hogan

  “It was while I was defending Ruben that I met Josh. My job was not just to prove Ruben not guilty but to expose the institutional racism that had jailed him in the first place and that kept him there without bail. And Josh was part of that institution.”

  She looked away. “Everyone was quick to judge in those days. I didn’t like Josh at first, and he didn’t like me. I thought he was a flunkie and treated him like one. I was wrong. He was right about me.”

  She smiled at Carol. “I heard you like to play Liar’s Dice with the locals.” She waited for Carol to nod. “You know that there are two people you should never gamble with? Right?”

  “I know not to play with Lucky. Because he cheats. Who’s the other one?”

  “Josh. He reads people better than anyone I know. If I were back practicing law, I’d get him to help me pick my juries.”

  “How did he read you?”

  “He took one look at how I was dressed, how I greeted Ruben. And he knew right then that our relationship was more than professional.”

  “And he had a problem with that?”

  “Not morally, but professionally. Ruben was his responsibility, and I was a complication.”

  A wiry Chicano streetfighter with a face carved by knives and anger, Vasquez was the founder of The Judges, a barrio presence that was both political organization and street gang. A powerful speaker whose angry glare and intense face fit the screen well, Vasquez was a natural successor to Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver. Articulate without sounding white, with a voice that he played like a musical instrument, he was a political force on the rise.

  But in San Tomas he was just a complication. In prison for the first time, he dealt with his caged frustration by overthrowing the leader of the Chicano population, destroying a truce that Josh had worked long and hard to achieve. There were three knifings within the week, then a gruesome garroting.

  Josh sat down with him after his release from solitary. “I wanted to keep you in solitary, but they’re letting you out. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “Means you’re not the powerful guy you think you are.”

  “Means they’re bringing you out where they can get to you.” He pushed a pack of cigarettes across the table to Vasquez, who shook his head. “You killed a cop, Vasquez.” When Vasquez started to speak, Josh held up his hand. “Save it. Whether you did or didn’t, they think you did. Which makes you a dead man. But I can talk to your attorney and see if we can get you…”

  Vasquez spat at Josh. “Fuck you, man. I’m safer out here with my boys than I’d ever be back there,” he nodded over his shoulder at the door to Solitary. “Anyone going to set me up, they’ll have to go through my troops.”

  Josh shrugged, picked up the pack of cigarettes, and left the room.

  “The guards took their time,” Donna said. “It was May of ’72, the world was focused on Vietnam and the presidential primaries. They put a junkie in solitary, four days without a taste. They let him out, gave him a boost, handed him a knife and told him what he’d need to do to get another taste. That night there was a power outage, Ruben’s door opened and he caught a six-inch blade under his heart.”

  She held her cup between her hands and looked at Carol through the steam. “His murderer was discovered outside Ruben’s door, his throat cut. The authorities said the whole thing—the outage included—was an escape plotted by Ruben’s people, that they had a Judas among them. And they closed the books.”

  Donna’s reaction to Vasquez’s death caught Josh by surprise. He’d expected a very public grief, a condemnation for the cameras, a splashy funeral, and on to the next case. Instead, Fairchild came quietly through a side door to identify and claim the body for Vasquez’s mother. Her face was savaged, lines deep, eyes hollow. She signed the necessary papers with a white-knuckled grip.

  The day after the funeral, she handed over her caseload to associates and began her investigation. Slowly, methodically, she built her case against the prison. The walls of her office were filled with lists of witnesses, corroborating evidence, schedules of the guards, and an analysis of the power grid. Much of the material had been provided by Josh. He cautioned her that she had a strong case, the kind that wouldn’t make it to court.

  They came after Donna first. First there were the phone calls to her office, then her private line at home. Then they released steamy love letters to the press, ostensibly written on her stationery. Her cat was killed and hung on her porch, her tires slashed in the prison lot. Vasquez’s mother received threats as well. But Donna moved, changed her numbers, hired body guards for both herself and Vasquez’s family, and kept on with the investigation.

  They shifted their attention to Josh. Two men jumped him one night as he was leaving a grocery store. But the next day Josh was at work, his face puffy and badly bruised. Two guards were out on sick leave.

  So they moved inside, against the prisoners. Privileges and preferred assignments were revoked for anyone remotely associated with the investigation. When the cons, out of allegiance to Vasquez and respect for Donna, hung tough, ‘disturbances and violations’ translated into weeks in solitary. And still they hung tough.

  Two days later, Little Larry lost two fingers to the woodshop’s jigsaw. The next night Juan the Don was visited by someone with a lead pipe; he woke up two weeks later. Donna immediately petitioned for the transfer of the remaining six witnesses. Denied. By week’s end each of the six had recanted.

  She disappeared after that. Every month or so throughout 1973 Josh received a letter, each with a different postmark. She was okay, she wrote, just tired. To the bone. She knew how she’d gotten to this point, but she couldn’t see a way back. She didn’t know how he did it, living within the system and yet not wearing its stink. She admired him but didn’t want to wind up like him—so clear about how things worked, so limited in his expectations. So jaded.

  The next three letters all came from the same Canadian address. Josh found it in an atlas, less than two hundred miles below the Arctic Circle. She was staying with some old college friends and was determined to stay there and turn herself inside out, see what she found. She was keeping a journal to keep track of it all.

  A year later, A Liberal’s Death came out. It coupled the weave of her life with a bitter, straightforward analysis of the prison and legal systems and the society they supported. Critics were impressed by the callous, matter-of-face attitude towards violence and corruption. It was a book without heroes. She examined liberal beliefs about human and societal behavior and their respective capacities for change. And she offered nothing in the way of hope or solutions.

  The public swallowed the book whole. Social theorists saw it as a coda to the ideals of the Sixties. Critics liked its lean tone, its unwillingness to let anyone, the author included, off the hook. It was an uncomfortable read, and despite Donna’s refusal to do any form of promotion, it became a bestseller and college text within a year.

  Josh received an advance copy with the inscription: “Josh—many of the thoughts in here are yours. Thank you for them and your friendship.”

  Below that, in a different color ink, was: “I’ve saved the best for last. I’m a married woman. His name is Pete and he is as fine a man as you, though you refuse to recognize your own goodness. We hope you’ll visit us soon.” Three months later came the news of Harry’s birth, with photos.

  They corresponded but didn’t visit for the first two years of Moetown’s existence. Donna wasn’t ready for the attention she knew her return would generate and Josh had too much work restoring the camp. In her letters she introduced him to Pete and chronicled Harry’s development. The photos showed a strongly-built man slightly shorter than Donna, a bushy ponytail pushing out the back of his John Deere hat. Harry developed from an angry pink face wrapped in a blanket into a sturdy two-year-old with a mane of pure blonde hair.

  She had met Pete while
visiting some college friends who were homesteading up in northern Canada. He was a carpenter employed by the government, restoring the 19th-century line of forts that strung across Canada.

  “He was unimpressed with me at first,” she told Carol. “I put it down to him being some backwoods bumpkin who didn’t know who I was. Turned out he knew exactly who I was, had read my book and liked it. Just didn’t like me, with all my moping and high-handed grousing. After high school he had written to a number of professors in a variety of fields, explained how remote he was, and asked them to recommend courses of study.” She smiled. “It was only because it was such a small town and we shared the same friends that I got the chance to make up for my first impression.”

  “What made you decide to move down here?”

  “It was time. For me to quit hiding. But for Pete, too. My royalty checks let him switch from carpentry to woodworking and sculpture. He needs to be in touch with other artists. And Harry’s going to be ready for pre-school soon.”

  They arrived unannounced the week after Thanksgiving. A battered VW van moved hesitantly through the front gate and up the road to the parking area. The passenger door opened and Donna bounded up the stairs of the L and into Josh’s arms. As he swung her around William, Lucky and Clark stared; none of them had ever seen Josh touch a woman except to shake hands. He put her down only when he saw Pete and Harry in the doorway.

  They took over Cabin Four temporarily, while Clark and Pete set to work renovating Three, adding a loft and small room off back. They began work at nine and, regardless of where they were in the process, quit at 3:30 so that Pete could play with Harry.

  It was sometimes hard to think of Harry as a child. He never toddled, never cooed. From his first day at Moetown he was simply a little member, a part of things. He listened to the dinner talk with a serious brow, never interrupting. He went for long walks with his mother or with Josh, venturing off into the woods to self-prescribed depths. He watched the news with Donna and William and The Stooges with Lucky.

  Pete settled into the mountain community more quickly and easily than Donna. He joined the volunteer fire department, bringing some new skills acquired during his time in the Canadian wilderness. And, along with Clark, he was the mountain fix-it man, whether it was cars or houses.

  Donna took her time settling in, both at Moetown and in the larger community. “I felt like I was intruding. The men had their rhythm already, Harry was asserting his independence. So I kept to myself and read. But William kept coming around, luring me into ethical and political conversations that could go on for hours. Then one night Lucky took me for two hundred dollars in Scrabble, and I knew I was part of the family.”

  “How about the rest of the community? Did they know who you were?”

  “At first I thought no. But Josh assured me they did, that The Gimp had cautioned them all to give me space. Which they did. No one ever asked me about the book. Or about Ruben. After a while I was just one of them.”

  “How about off the mountain? Are you ever recognized?”

  “Once. I’d started doing the grocery shopping for the camp. I went down to Kinsella a few times without incident. Same with San Tomas. But then I was recognized one time at the check-out stand and asked for an autograph. That attracted the kind of attention I didn’t need and certainly Josh and the rest of the guys didn’t need either. So I told the little crowd that had gathered that I was on my way back from vacation in San Diego, heading back up to Canada. I mostly stayed in the camp after that.”

  She looked over at Carol. “Until William told me that you were asking questions about Josh and Baltimore. I talked things over with Pete first, then William. Not with Josh—I was afraid of what he would do. Then I got in the truck with William and came down to meet you.”

  Five days of interviews later, Carol had enough. More than enough, she told Donna. New York wanted her back to begin editing: they had already reworked the cover and were holding an eight-page well in the center of the book.

  She took Donna out to dinner her last night there. “I hope we see each other again, but if we don’t, I want to tell you thanks and how much I’ve enjoyed this.” She raised her glass. “For a recluse, you can sure as hell talk.”

  Donna clinked the raised glass. “I had more stored up inside than I’d imagined. Plus, you’re good at your job. You didn’t let me get away with my standard rant. You pushed me, forced me to validate my opinions. I didn’t always enjoy it, but I appreciated it.”

  She sipped her wine. “I hope this doesn’t sound vain, but I’m worried about how this article will make me look. A lot of the ideas we kicked around—they felt half done. You know?”

  Carol shook her head. “They’re new, that’s all. But they’re original. You just need to keep working at them.”

  Donna swirled her wine. “We’ll see.”

  The next morning, as Carol was finishing her packing, her phone rang. She reached across the open suitcase to answer it. She listened, nodding into the receiver. A smile twitched at her mouth. Then she hung up, went to front desk and checked out.

  A week later she was back. She spent the morning looking for an apartment in San Tomas, then met Donna up at The Gimp’s that evening.

  Carol carried her beer over to the table. Donna motioned for the wine list, a recent addition to The Gimp’s arsenal. A group of women met once a month with the wine merchant, as he made his way from Kinsella over to San Tomas. They tasted the new varietals and made their selection. The Gimp didn’t know wine and had no intention of learning, so long as they drank what they ordered.

  Donna ordered a glass of the Barolo and settled back in her chair. Carol slid a fat envelope across the table. “They’re interested. Absolutely.” She nodded at the envelope. “There’s a check in there for fifty K. Non-refundable, even if you don’t write a single word.” When Donna started to say something, she held up her hand. “It’s an old publishing trick, guilt you into writing.”

  “Well, we’ll figure out who to donate it to later. What about the contract?”

  “Standard. They left the guaranteed line blank. Said to fill in whatever number you want. They think they’ve got the publishing coup of the decade.”

  “Well, I’ll sign it but keep that line blank. We can negotiate with them after they’ve seen a couple of chapters. How about you? Did they agree to our terms?”

  Carol patted her handbag. “Twenty-five K non-refundable, seventy-five upon receipt of a finished draft. And they didn’t care—it’s up to you whether I’m a co-author or an ‘as told to.’”

  They tried different approaches to find and maintain a rhythm. Respecting Josh’s wishes, all the meetings took place down in San Tomas, where Carol had rented a one-bedroom apartment a block from the beach. Donna got up each morning and made Harry breakfast. They watched the news together, then she left him with Lucky to watch The Stooges as she showered. She worked with Carol 11-3 most days, then headed home to take a hike with Harry and Pete and do her share of the chores.

  The book had no deadline, so structure and pace were slow in coming. They walked the beach some mornings, other times they met in the coffee house where William met his clients. Once a week they stayed in Carol’s apartment and tried to organize notes from the week’s discussions, Carol documenting the proposed outlines on her portable typewriter.

  “We’re in no hurry,” Donna told William one night while they were doing the dishes. “It’ll come when it’s ready.”

  “No pressure from the publishers at all? Really?”

  “None. I think they’re afraid of scaring me off. Also, that book they slapped together—the complete transcript of the interviews, along with some previous articles about Ruben and me—that’s selling well.”

  “How’s working with a collaborator?”

  “Carol’s great. Asks the right questions, fires and then falls back. Lets me work things out
on my own. The problem is the schedule. I feel forced sometimes, rushed at others. Remember when we first moved in and you and I would be up ‘til all hours talking and arguing? That’s how I work best. Not 11-3, five days a week.”

  “So what, you want to move it to up here?”

  “What do you think he’d say?”

  “He won’t be crazy about it. But since she’s not looking to write about any of us, maybe he’ll be alright with it.”

  The first two weeks Josh ignored Carol completely. If she tried to talk to him, he mumbled an excuse and left. The third week he was still silent to the point of rudeness, but if he was in the L when Carol and Donna came in for coffee, he stayed where he was. After a month, William caught him smiling at some of Carol’s jokes. The whole process reminded him, he told Lucky, of a wild animal slowly being domesticated.

  After three months of this routine Donna went to Josh. “You’ve got to see that apartment, Josh. It’s so depressing. And she’s up here so much, anyway.”

  Josh didn’t look up from slicing the vegetables for that evening’s dinner. “I’m not the only person who lives up here. Take a vote.”

  The tally was six for, one abstention. Carol moved in to Number Seven the following day.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Don’t look at me that way,” William said to Donna. “I warned you.”

  “I know, but… my God, he looks ten years older than when he left.”

  “I warned you. So did Lucky.”

  “Does he always come back looking this bad?” Carol asked.

  “Always. This is my fourth one, and they don’t get any easier.”

  The three were in Carol’s cabin, their latest chapter on the table in front of William. It was a practice that had started six weeks earlier, when they had run the outline and first two chapters by him. He had read it through twice, making notes as he read, then told them that they were producing a book that would be taught but not read. When Donna objected, he walked her through his notes, page by page. After that they put him in the editorial loop, handing him each chapter at its completion—or earlier, if they found themselves stuck.