The Animal Factory

by Bunker, Edward

  “Hey now, big duke of Earl,” Tony said. “I need a favor. Rather, my friend here does. A show pass.” Tony glanced at the youth. “Ron Decker, Earl Copen.” A nod of acknowledgment did the work of the usual handshake.

  “Are they running the show lines yet?” Earl asked.

  “They were getting ready to when we came down.”

  Earl picked up his sweatshirt and handball gloves and started down the bleachers. Bork and Decker fell in beside him. As they walked, he struggled into the sweatshirt.

  “You haven’t been here very long, have you?” Earl asked.

  Ron shook his head. “Three weeks. Tony tells me you’re good at law.”

  “I used to fuck with it. No more. I don’t believe in it. Smith and Wesson beats due process.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Besides being funny”—Earl smiled—“I mean that law is bullshit. Judges don’t have any integrity. They’ll spring some big shot on a point of law, but when some poor Hoosier in here has the same point, they shoot it down.”

  “But when Smith and Wesson won’t do anything, the law might be all there is. I don’t want to impose, but I’d like you to look at my case. I’ll pay you.”

  “When I get some time,” Earl said, not noticing that his brushoff made Ron blush.

  “What fuckin’ movie are they showing today?” Earl asked. “It’s a Monday.”

  “Blood-donors’ movie,” Tony said. “I’m on the list but Ron isn’t.”

  Earl glanced at Ron from the corner of his eye and felt bad that he’d stalled him so coldly. “What kind of thing did you want to know about your case?”

  “The main thing is the judge said he’d call me back and modify my sentence in a year or two. Some guy in the bus said the judge loses jurisdiction and can’t do it.”

  “He used to lose jurisdiction, but six months ago a court of appeals ruled that if he sentenced you under Eleven sixty-eight he can call for reports and review his sentence.”

  “That’s what he sentenced me under.”

  “What kind of beef?”

  “Possession of narcotics for sale with a weed prior.”

  Earl made a silent whistle and looked at Ron more closely. “Ten years to fuckin’ life, with six to the parole board. You’d better hope he modifies.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  As they reached the top of the stairs, the sound of country and western music from the loudspeakers poured over them. The last line of convicts was going into the mess hall, and the guard checking passes wasn’t one Earl could influence. “C’mon to the yard office. We’ll get a pass from that big sissy.” When they neared the yard office door, Earl took Ron’s I.D. card to get his number. He left them outside. Without saying anything to Big Rand, who was dangling a string before a cuffing, scrawny kitten (one of hundreds in the prison), Earl sat down and typed a pass; then dropped it on Rand’s desk for a signature. The big man ignored it, continued playing with the kitten.

  “Hey, you want me to throw that cat in the Bay?” Earl said, knowing Rand just wanted attention.

  Rand picked up the pass. “Two weeks ago—Gibbs, remember?”

  “Oh, man, that wasn’t nothing.”

  “Nothing happened, but a whole bunch of shit could’ve happened.”

  “Whaddya think—I was gonna snitch on you? Sign the motherfucker.”

  “Who is this asshole?” Rand leaned in his chair so he could look out over the Dutch door, dubiously eyed Ron and Tony. He knew Tony Bork and his wasn’t the name on the pass. Rand curled a forefinger and Earl leaned forward. “You’re trying to fuck that kid, aren’t you?” Rand accused.

  “You got a dirtier mind than these convicts, Rand. You really do.”

  “Well, who is he?”

  “A good white brother. Are you gonna sign? I’ve got business. I wanna get to the canteen to stock up in case there’s a lockdown over that strike.”

  “We’ll get you out if—”

  Earl cut him off with an upraised hand. “Uh-huh. I’m a convict. If the joint’s slammed, I’m slammed.”

  “I’ll make sure you get something to eat.”

  Earl didn’t protest, though for a moment he was surprised. Rand (Seeman, too) could be savage to convicts he disliked, especially blacks. He wore a swastika medallion under his shirt.

  Rand signed the pass slowly, making a deliberate childish scrawl, and then handed it to Earl with a grin.

  “I should have signed it myself,” Earl said, but he took it and went out, giving it to Ron. “I’ll walk with you. I’ve gotta get some food and dirty magazines in case they have that strike. We’ll be locked down with nothing to do but abuse ourselves, and I’ve forgotten what broads look like.”

  Ron laughed, showing good white teeth.

  When they reached the big yard, Earl paused long enough to make sure the pass wasn’t questioned; then he went toward the heavy crowd outside the canteen. Others were also stocking up.

  Half an hour before the main count lockup, Earl entered the big yard. Half a dozen of the Brotherhood, including Paul, T.J., Bird, and Baby Boy, were gathered in the afternoon sun near the East cellhouse wall. When Earl walked up, T.J. reached out and brushed the slick-shaved skull.

  “Where’s Bad Eye?” Earl asked.

  “On a visit. You know his folks love their baby boy.” The conversation was about the strike. Nobody thought it would accomplish anything, and Baby Boy was angry because he liked to work and was going to the parole board in two weeks. Yet there was no question of them breaking a strike, even one they disagreed with. “Wha … what we oughta do,” said Bird, a small, tight-muscled man with a big nose and a choleric disposition, “is burn the motherfucker down. I’d go along with the niggers on a riot where we get in some licks. They just talk revolution …”

  “Yeah,” Baby Boy said, “they wanna go back to Africa or wherever, send the fuckers.”

  “Them people over there don’t want ’em either,” T.J. said. “I was readin’—”

  “Fool!” someone said. “Quit lyin’. You know you can’t read.”

  Earl scanned the yard. It was becoming crowded with convicts being herded from the lower yard before lockup. Near the edge of the shed he saw Ron Decker talking to a Puerto Rican whose name Earl didn’t know—but who he did know for a glue-sniffer and loudmouth troublemaker. A couple of the Puerto Rican’s clique were hovering nearby. The conversation was heated, with Ron gesticulating, and the Puerto Rican suddenly jabbing a finger at his chest. The good-looking youth spun on his heel and walked away. Earl saw Tony waiting some distance away.

  The whistle blew and the swarming convicts began to form lines. Earl headed against the tide toward the yard gate. A closeddoor conference took place during count, and Earl locked the washroom door and listened. The warden had gotten word from the stool pigeons (probably in exchange for a transfer, Earl thought) that several dozen inmates, mostly black, planned to crowd around the big yard gate just before it opened, knowing that even convicts willing to work wouldn’t cross such a line. The lieutenants were being briefed by Stoneface Bradley, the pockmarked associate warden. Extra personnel would be on duty. Those trained for the tactical squad would be held in the plaza until needed, and the highway patrol would lend a dozen sharpshooters to beef up firepower on the wall. But they would try to break the strike before it began by opening the yard gate an hour early and running the cons directly from the mess halls to work, or to the far side of the yard away from the gate so they couldn’t gather and create a bottleneck.

  As soon as the count cleared, Earl went to the yard, watched the lines come from the cellhouses to the mess hall until he saw a willowy young black with a café au lait complexion who belonged to the Black Panthers. It was a certainty that he was involved in the strike plans, or at least knew who was. Earl also knew the man wasn’t a racial fanatic. When he came out, Earl waved and walked over and told him what he’d overheard. “For whatever it’s worth,” he finished. The black thanked him.r />
  As he turned away, he saw Tony Bork getting a cigarette lit by another convict nearby. Earl gave a brief wave and started to leave, but Tony beckoned him. The yard was dark except for the floodlights, and convicts were streaming by them en route to the cellhouses.

  When Earl stepped over, lowering his head slightly because he was taller than Tony, the plumber put a hand on his shoulder. “My friend,” Tony said, “the one I introduced you to today, he’s got problems—”

  “I guess so,” Earl said, snorting. “Some cocksucker in Sacramento should get a foot in his ass for sending him here … among the animals.”

  “Somebody cut him in to Psycho Mike—”

  “The Puerto?” Earl interrupted.

  Tony nodded. “The glue-sniffer, yeah. And he’s scheming on the guy. Did him a few favors, bonaroo clothes, et cetera, before Ron knew the score. The youngster woke up to what’s going on, and he’s trying to back off, but Psycho’s on the muscle now and he’s got that little clique.”

  “Is that kid Ron a broad?”

  Tony shook his head. “No, man, but you know that goes. He doesn’t have any henchmen or—”

  “What about you? You trying to turn him out?”

  “You know I don’t play that shit. I like him and I’m giving him moral support … but like I go to the board real soon and I’ve got a good shot at a parole. Besides, I’m no tough guy.”

  “So you want to cut me into the action, is that it?”

  “Somebody’s gonna get him, or drive him into protective custody, or make him kill somebody. Why don’t you pull him?”

  “I need a kid like I need a bad heart. A pretty kid is a ticket to trouble … and I’m too old to ask for that. Shit, I haven’t even booked Tommy the Face in two years. I’m turning into a jack-off idiot.”

  “He’s ten times smarter and classier than the shitbums around here. I was thinking about that blond youngster that Psycho Mike’s boys grabbed off the bus last year—ran a gang bang, made him pluck his eyebrows, and then sold him to that old pervert. The kid wound up in the psych ward.”

  “Fuck it. It’s none of my business. If a sucker is weak, he’s got to fall around here. I came when I was eighteen and nobody turned me out. I didn’t even smile for two years.”

  “Things were different then … a dude could represent himself by himself. There weren’t gangs then. He’s not a killer, but he’s not a coward.”

  Earl shook his head and refused to listen further, but when he turned away he found his jaw muscles tight as he remembered what Tony had described. Raised in reform schools, used to places without women, Earl like everyone else with such a background was not against queens and pretty boys. After several years without a woman, a surrogate could arouse just as intensely. But Earl was against force, and even more than that, he loathed the practice of buying and selling young boys, a phenomenon of recent years. For a moment he thought of asking Ponchie (whom he’d known all his life), or Grumpy or Bogus Pete, all of the powerful Chicano Brotherhood,to jerk up Psycho Mike. Not that it would do any good; with Mike gone (that was easy), others would move in.

  “What the fuck do I care?” he muttered, seeing Paul’s figure working with a broom on an open gutter across the shadowed yard. He went to see if Paul had word of any narcotics. It would be easier to go through tomorrow if he was tranquilized on heroin.

  Late in the evening, while the clack, clack, clack of cell doors being locked reverberated through the cellhouse, Ron Decker stretched on the top bunk of his cell. An elbow propped up his torso as he lay on his side, while spread in front of him, as if for reference, were Pamela’s letters, her Christmas card, a battered collegiate dictionary, and a photo of her against a background of a field of pinkish wildflowers. The last letter, on pale yellow stationery with a hint of perfume, he studied while he wrote. He adored her letters, for she had a flair for mood and nuance and sometimes included a page of evocative poetry. Sometimes the letters made him imagine an entirely different person than he remembered, and he blotted out memory to respond to the letter writer. Ron was uneasy with the written word. He was well enough educated, but lacked experience in transmitting thoughts with the pen. He’d written more since his arrest than in all the previous years of his life. He wanted to make his letters a journal, and the one he was working on tried to convey what he was seeing and experiencing. He described San Quentin’s hideous look, but he could not tell her of the wholesale violence and paranoia, nor of the expected strike. A letter with upsetting information would be returned by the censors. He did tell her that the classification committee had assigned him to the furniture factory, and he was to report in the morning. He was unhappy with the idea of sanding varnish from chairs all day, but there was nothing he could do about it for a while. He told her that he had a personable cell partner, without amplifying that it was a forty-five-year-old queen. He told her that he was disillusioned by the personalities he had found, that he’d expected at least some who were intelligent, but here were the underworld’s stunted failures, muggers, gutter junkies, gas station robbers, and those who committed moronic rapes and murders. Master criminals didn’t seem to exist. He wanted to tell her about the young men raised in reform schools that so deformed their psyches that institutions and institution values were their whole life and whose status was built on violence. He wanted to tell her about racism that went beyond racism into obsession—on both sides—and how it was affecting him to be the object of murderous hate just because he was white. It aroused fear, and a kernel of hatred in response.

  None of these things could be written, so he finally signed the letter. He was putting it in the envelope when the public address speaker blared: “Lights out in ten minutes!” He swiveled on the bunk so he could put the letter on the bars for the last mail pickup. Then he jumped down. Jan the Actress, so called because he’d lived as a woman for ten years long ago, was cross-legged on the bottom bunk, fingers flying and yarn trailing as he worked on an afghan that would sell for ninety dollars in the visitor’s handicraft store or for five hits of acid, twenty joints, or two papers of heroin on the yard.

  Ron stepped to the back of the cell and got his toothbrush, his eye catching his reflection in the mirror. It was odd to see his hair so short and combed straight back—but without a part; someone had told him that some would think a part was sissified. He’d laughed at the ignorance but followed the advice.

  Jan the Actress pulled a cardboard box from beneath the bunk and began depositing the knitting gear. “How’s the problem with that Psycho Mike coming?”

  Ron spat out the toothpaste foam. “Tense. He wanted to know why I was shying him on … and something about owing him.”

  “I could’ve told you he was bad news.”

  “He was friendly at first … and I didn’t know anybody. I should’ve known.”

  “What happens now?”

  “I’m going to stay away from him.”

  “What if that doesn’t work? He’s got some friends and it could get rough.”

  Ron shook his head. He wasn’t afraid of Psycho Mike, not really—and yet in a way he was. And it was demeaning to be worried about someone so stupid. That he would go along with what Mike wanted (he stopped short of fully imagining it) was unthinkable. He already knew what he would suffer if he went into protective custody, and rejected that idea. He was willing to fight if necessary, but could imagine what little chance he had against a clique. If he used a knife—Tony had offered him one—it would be resolved, but he balked at that choice for two reasons: it would at least mean a denial of modification by the judge, and even if he got away with it, the vision of running steel into human flesh was revolting. When he finished his ablutions, Jan was waiting to use the sink. The cell was less than five feet wide, and the space beside the bunks was so narrow that they were chest to chest as they passed. Jan’s fingers brushed at his crotch and he reflexively shot his ass back. “Damnit!”

  “Try it, you’ll like it,” the queen said, the time-worn
parody of a woman’s face screwed up with a smile and desire.

  Ron quickly jumped onto the top bunk, his legs dangling over the side. “This is supposed to be a place of tough guys. Everybody is some kind of pervert. Wow!”

  Jan had turned to the mirror, trying to make thin hair cover lots of pate. “No, they’re not. More the pity.”

  “It sure seems that way.”

  “Just because you’re young, tender sweetmeat.”

  Ron blushed furiously. When the lights were out (though it was not really dark because lights outside the cell threw a bar-waffled glow inside), Ron could see the blackness of the Bay beyond the cellhouse, and beyond the blackness twinkled the lights of the Richmond hills. It was an insult to put the ugliness of a prison in such a beautiful setting. It increased torment to be walking dead amid so much life. He had another thought and stuck his head over the edge of the bunk where he could see the featureless paleness of Jan’s face. “Say, I was thinking about having some guy look at my case today … some older dude with a shaved head, Earl Copen. Know anything about him?”

  Jan’s giggle was quick. “Do I know Earl Copen? Honey, he was my cell partner years and years ago when I came here. For a few weeks. He ripped me off.”

  “Ripped you off. Him, too, Yuk.”

  “Oh, he’s another convict. He waited until the lights were out and—”

  “Spare me the details.”

  “You’re not interested in my love life?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Earl was just a kid then. He was one step ahead of the wolves himself, but he was a wild sonofabitch. Stoneface, the A.W., was a lieutenant then, and I remember Earl turned his desk over on him and spent a year in the hole. And I remember some wolf eyeing him with that look—”

  “I know the look.”