Left for Alive

by Tom Hogan

  He took a sip of his beer. “Anyway, it was right after Lucky and I got out. We all went down to The Gimp’s and there was a woman up from San Diego, visiting her sister. She was clearly interested in Clark, but Clark had been inside for a while and you could see he was having trouble responding.”

  His smile broadened. “You could see her getting more and more frustrated. Clark was responding the best he could, but she wasn’t interested in anything he had to write. Plus, Clark had no idea how to respond—writing or otherwise—to her double entendres.”

  Paul chuckled. “I’d loved to have seen that. How’d it all come out?”

  “The whole time she was hitting on him, he had his knife out and was carving on a bar of soap he’d gotten from behind the bar. Just when it looked like she was about to leave, he brought his hands up from below the table. And he’d carved her the nicest little statuette of one dog mounting another.”

  Paul barked his laughter. “How did she respond to that?”

  “She took him home with her. He limped back to Moetown the next day, looking, as Lucky put it, ‘rode hard and put away wet’.”

  They watched the game in silence for the next two innings. Then, without taking his eyes from the field, Paul said, “You don’t like me much, do you?”

  William looked up from his book and joined Paul in staring out at the field. “I like you fine. I just don’t trust you, that’s all.”

  Paul blinked twice. “Why not? I’ve never done anything to you.”

  “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that, William. I’m not one of your laundromat clients.”

  William turned to face him. “Fair enough. To be honest, I was worried initially that I was just being jealous. But it’s not that. My concern is for your brother—and for the camp as a whole. Josh isn’t the same guy when you’re around. And I like the person he is when you’re gone better than the one when you’re around.”

  “Do the others feel that way? Because if I’m doing anything to hurt Josh, I need to know.”

  “They feel it but they can’t articulate it. Well, that’s not true. Clark,” he nodded at the dugout, “calls it ‘tension.’ Josh tenses up every time you go into one of your stories, especially if it involves Baltimore. Don’t get me wrong, he loves having you around, but he’s on his guard the whole time.”

  “I can’t tell if I need to pay attention to you or if you’re just …”

  “I know what Josh did time for.” When Paul’s head snapped up, William continued. “He got drunk one night and told me.”

  Paul stared hard at William, his eyes moving carefully over his face. Then he smiled coldly. “Nice try. But you’re lying. Want to know how I know? Because you’re both still here. And if Josh had told you about Baltimore, one of you would be gone by now.”

  “Okay, you’re right. But he’s still worried you’re going to let something slip.”

  “He shouldn’t be. Because if Josh found out I’d told anyone, brothers or not, he’d kill me.”

  “Then let him know that. So that he can relax.”

  “I will. And thanks.”

  As the week wrapped up, Clark was going back to Moetown with a rich mahogany tan and a notebook full of autographs. He also had baseball caps from each of the teams he had watched, one for each person in the camp, plus The Gimp.

  The shoot having wrapped earlier that day, the three men were back in their suite. They had gone out to dinner together—the first night that someone from the crew or magazine hadn’t joined them. It was also, as William pointed out, the first time all week that any of them had touched his wallet.

  Whatever tension that existed between William and Paul prior to the trip had vanished after their conversation in the stands. With Clark in the dugout, the two men had lazed in the stands, talking occasionally but mostly just taking in the atmosphere and sun.At one point at dinner, when Paul had gone to the bathroom, Clark had pointed a finger at his retreating back and raised his eyebrows at William.

  William shrugged. “We’re fine. We just needed to get a few things straight between us.” He looked at Clark’s smug smile. “Okay, you were right. He’s a nice guy. I never said he wasn’t.”

  Back in the room, their bags packed for the early airport departure, the three sat in the suite, a half-finished six-pack on the table in front of them. William raised his bottle. “I know I’ve said this already, but thanks for all this. It was very generous of you.” Clark raised his bottle as well.

  “Anytime. Seriously. It’s a helluva lot nicer having company than just doing room service and leaving a six-thirty wakeup call.”

  “It must be hell.”

  “Here’s the thing: when I was inside, all I thought about was getting back to this life, these kinds of trappings. But you get fussed over so much on these things—your hair, makeup, clothes, lighting—and all the compliments about how great you look…it becomes your reality. Which is where you guys come in. As The Gimp put it, your job is to remind me that my shit stinks same as everyone else’s.”

  William waved his hand at the surroundings. “It’s the least we can do.”

  It was eleven o’clock, the beers were gone, and sports on the television had given way to news. The men were each stirring in their chairs when William broke the quiet. “What’s it like to be handsome?”

  Paul looked at him warily. “I don’t know if you’re screwing with me or not.”

  “Not. It’s an honest question.”

  Paul thought for a while. “Well, in this business, there’s ‘handsome’ and there’s ‘attractive.’ It’s important not to confuse the two.”

  “Which are you?”

  “Well, handsome, obviously. I’d like to think that on a good day I’m both. But in this business, handsome people get the photo shoots, handsome and attractive people get commercials and movies. Clark’s handsome. In the old days of silent movies, he’d have made a killing.”

  “What about me? Too classically handsome?”

  “You’re attractive. You were probably handsome, too, before someone rearranged your face. But you know you’re attractive, same way I know I’m handsome. And women know it—they love it when someone’s comfortable in their own skin.”

  “What about Josh?”

  Paul sneered. “He’s both, in his own way. And it’s a waste.” He shook his head. “I mean, how can you not care how you seem to other people?”

  Later that night, William was walking around the living room brushing his teeth. The television was still on, though no one was watching it. The late-night movie was an old George Raft picture, in which he did time in Sing-Sing. William kept brushing his teeth but stopped to watch. Clark, who was finishing his packing, did the same. Then the two of them sat down.

  “I love this scene,” William said. “The running your tin cup across the bars. If we’d tried that, we’d have been minus both a tin cup and a few fingers within seconds.”

  Paul walked in and stopped as well. The men tried to don ironic smiles as they watched, but the movie held their interest. “It was movies like this that taught me Prison Behavior 101. Like how to lie on the lower bunk and put my hands behind my head and stare at the top bunk.”

  Paul smiled. “I like how talkative the guards are in these things.” He adopted a brogue. “Any more trouble out of you, laddie, and it’s to the cooler with you.”

  “Five years and I never had an Irish guard. Most of mine were good old-fashioned white trash, best I could tell.”

  “I don’t know about San Tomas, but where I was, the guards were often worse than the cons. Same vicious streak but able to get away with it.”

  “We had the same situation. Until Josh came.” He looked over at Clark. ‘Remember Fat Walt?” Not waiting for a response, he continued. “Walt was a guard who treated us like rooste
rs or pit bulls. He liked fights and he liked to bet. So he’d match us up with whatever whim he—or any of the guards with money—had. He’d lock you in an empty cell and only one person walked out. If the odds were too imbalanced—say, he’d matched me against Clark—then he’d give me a broomstick or broken bottle. Something to even the odds.”

  He stared at the television but his eyes didn’t seem to be taking in the action. “Josh buddied up with Walt for the first couple of weeks—went to the fights, joked about it afterwards. Became one of the guys. Then he waited for the night when Walt had a good match going—two strong guys, evenly matched with just their fists. While Walt was setting things up, Josh just locked the cell door behind him and read out the new rules. Since there was only one of Walt, he could have his baton.”

  William looked at Clark, who had a small smile on his lips. “I wasn’t there, but from what I hear, Walt went from disbelief to anger to total fear in less than a minute. Lucky and I were two floors down and we could hear him scream from there.”

  “What happened to Walt?”

  “They took his face apart, then broke all the fingers on his baton hand. They would have kicked him to death, but Josh waded in and stopped it. It was touch-and-go there for a minute—these guys had the taste of blood—but they backed down eventually.”

  As the movie wrapped up, Paul looked over at William. “I heard what happened to you. How your face got that way.” William tensed, but said nothing. “It’s a helpless feeling, isn’t it?” He looked back at the television. “The first time anyone made a run at me, I was so naïve, so stupid. He said he wanted me as one of his ‘sugar boys.’ I had no idea what that was, so just said no thanks, I’ll pass. And he just smiles and says we’ll see about that.”

  Clark was watching Paul closely. William busied himself clearing the table of the empty beer bottles, glancing at Paul now and again. “Anyway, that night, I hear a key in my cell door and I see this same guy hand a packet to the guard and tells him to come back in an hour.”

  He took a deep breath. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it wasn’t until he whipped out his prick that I realized what he was there for. I was so mad at myself for being so stupid and so disgusted with this guy that I lost it. Just started flailing at him, shouting the whole time. The guard had to come running and get the guy out.”

  His face brightened slightly in the telling, then it sagged. “Next morning, as he’s ending his shift, the same guard comes by and tells me I’m open for business that night or they’ll do my face with a razor.”

  “And that was the longest day of your life,” William said softly.

  Paul looked up and nodded. “I tried everything. Asked to see the warden. They said no. Tried to get in with one of the other groups—gangs—but it was going to cost me the same thing. I hadn’t made any friends in there and no one was going to step forward. And then it was dinner, and then lights out.”

  “Did he come alone or bring company?”

  “He had two other guys with him. But all they did was hold me down.” He shook his head. “Jesus, I sound grateful.”

  “You should,” William said gently. “I worked in the clinic. I saw what a committee can do.”

  Paul looked back down. “The first night was the three of them and a knife. The next night he came back alone, but he had the knife and showed it to me the whole time he was doing it. The third night, I don’t know if he had the knife or not.”

  “And this is where Josh enters the story.”

  A nod. “His regular visit came three days later. He came in, saw how I couldn’t look him in the eye, and right away he knew. And I watched him change in front of my eyes. He was trying to be sympathetic, but the anger was boiling the sympathy away.”

  He finished his beer. “He kept pacing back and forth. Anytime I tried to talk, he waved at me to shut up. Finally he stopped walking and sat down. Pulled out a pen and piece of paper, wrote a number on it, told me to call him that night. And he left. Didn’t even say goodbye. I’d never seen him like that.”

  “I’ve seen that face. Just a few times.” Clark nodded as well.

  “I called him that night at his hotel and he told me we were changing places the next day. He told me how we were going to do it. I tried to argue with him, but—and I’m not exactly proud of this—I didn’t try very hard. He told me one more time what to be ready for, then hung up.”

  Paul rubbed his fingers along his chin. “He told me to put a band-aid on my chin, like I’d cut myself shaving. Just a little extra influencer, he said. Anyway, even though we were only allowed one visitor a week, the next morning he’s back. His hair’s a little longer and wilder and he’s shaved. Then he reaches up and off comes the hair—and underneath it he’s got my prison haircut. He puts the wig on my head and adjusts it. Takes the band-aid off and puts it on his chin. Then we change clothes and I spend the rest of the time answering his questions about my attacker, where I work, things like that. Then our time was up, the guard comes back. I hold my breath, but he just grabs Josh under the arm and stands him up. And that’s that.”

  “So what happened that night?”

  “I just went back to Josh’s hotel room and slept.”

  “I meant to Josh.”

  “Oh. The guy came back and Josh was lying on the bunk, his back to him. Josh had grabbed a piece of metal from the shop during his afternoon shift and had skipped dinner so that he could spend all that time sharpening it. The guy came in, pretty sure of himself by now and grabbed Josh by the shoulder to turn him over. And Josh just rolled with it and buried his knife in the guy’s thigh. Then he told him that if he did anything except nod his head, he’d twist the knife and sever an artery. He’d bleed out before the guard could get there. Did he understand? The guy nodded. And Josh explained that it was all over, the visits, weren’t they? And the guy nodded again. Then Josh removed the knife and buried it in the other thigh. Then he pulled it out and pushed the guy out into the hall.”

  “And that was the end of it?

  Paul shook his head. “The next night the guy was back—walking stiff as hell—this time with his posse. Josh waited until all three of them were inside the cell, then he opened up. He’d smuggled out a grease gun from the metal shop that he’d filled with acid. The first guy got it in his face. The other two tried to run and got jammed in the door. He got them across their neck and back.”

  William looked over at Clark, who was nodding, a slight smile on his face. “Josh has always been imaginative. So that was the end of it?”

  Paul nodded. “He waited a few days to see if there was any payback, but the word had gotten around and he kept up the act, as if the attacks had made him—me—lose it. Everyone kept their distance. After three days he called me at the hotel and said the coast was clear. He’d bribed a guard to allow visits at any time, so the next day I came back, we switched places, and that was that.”

  Clark wrote something on his pad and handed it to William, who read it and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. This might not be my place to ask, but if this solved the situation, why did you guys keep changing places over the next three years.”

  “New blood. Guys would transfer in and want the pretty boy. Maybe they didn’t get the word that I was crazy violent, maybe they didn’t believe it.” He took a long breath, letting it out grudgingly. “I was ready for the first guy, tried to do what Josh would have done. But I screwed it up and wound up pretty bruised up, outside and in. I called Josh and he was there the next day. It was five days before he called and told me the coast was clear. He didn’t talk about what he’d done during those five days, and I didn’t ask.”

  He looked at the television, which was now a test pattern. “The remaining visits were his idea. He said I needed a break—something to look forward to. That way he could assess the situation, deal with things before they got out of hand.” He paused. “I also think he knew th
at looking forward to a week of freedom twice a year was the only way I was going to make it. And he was right.”

  CHAPTER 22

  According to William, Donna’s re-emergence happened in stages. Phase One he dubbed “The Dangerous Debutante”, after a headline in the Enquirer. This was the initial period following the publication of Carol’s article and the accompanying interviews. She was everywhere, it seemed—covers of weeklies, a full-page discussion in The Wall Street Journal of her political views, the morning and evening broadcasts. None of the coverage—save the Enquirer, which William brought up and laid on Donna’s pillow—made it up to Moetown. At Donna’s request, Lucky kept a close eye on the television. On the occasions when her face filled the screen, he switched the channel before Harry took notice.

  Donna’s fame didn’t impact either the camp or the mountain community. Carol’s article had hinted that she was still in seclusion in Canada, considering a return to the US. The Gimp talked to the mountain folks about preserving Donna’s privacy, but it was a needless conversation, since most had moved to the mountains for their own privacy.

  She let her agent field all the offers, including multiple marriage proposals and an offer from a Hollywood studio to star in a bio-pic. When he mentioned the death threats in passing and how he trashed them upon receipt, she demanded that he forward every one of them to her in his weekly package. She read each letter, sharing the more serious ones with Josh, and was struck anew at how deep the hatred ran in some people and how raw the nerve endings still were after all these years.

  Once the initial furor and interest surrounding her re-emergence passed, she entered into what William called ‘the Missing Voice’ stage. This was fueled by the leftist magazines, who kept up a drumbeat for Donna to step forward and be the national spokesperson that the Left had been missing for so long. The legal and academic communities maintained their interest in her as well, urging her to step forward and develop the thoughts at the core of her interview with Carol.