The Animal Factory

by Bunker, Edward

  “We have a disciplinary report here,” Hosspack said. “Do you want us to read it?”

  “Please,” Ron said.

  “You’re charged with D-eleven-fifteen, use of stimulants or sedatives. ‘On Saturday, February 1, while on duty as lower yard sergeant, the writer made a routine patrol of the inmate gym and found inmate DECKER at the top of the mezzanine stairs near the equipment-room door. On entry to the equipment room, the writer found several inmates drunk and in possession of five gallons of home brew (see supplementary reports). The writer believes Decker was keeping lookout.’”

  Ron was astounded. Missing was the crucial fact that he’d pounded on the door and warned those inside. Earl had somehow …

  “How do you plead?” Hosspack asked.

  “Not guilty. I—” He let it hang.

  “But the report is accurate,” said the third man. “You don’t find anything false in it, do you?” His voice had an effeminate shrillness, a bitchiness, as did his hand movement as he spoke. Ron was to learn that most convicts, themselves grossly masculine in every phrase and motion, thought he was a queen.

  “It’s accurate, but I wasn’t a lookout. I was just up there to watch television when they turned it on.” Ron spread his hands palms up, for emphasis. He nearly believed the lie. “There’s no connection with me and whatever was going on.”

  The black lieutenant seemed to nod, as if believing. Hosspack hadn’t looked up while Ron spoke. The program administrator was reading the file. “You’ve only been here a month,” he said, sliding the file to his younger colleague. “You’re doing a lot of time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ron said.

  “Step outside,” Hosspack said. “We’ll discuss it.”

  Ron stepped out and closed the door.

  “What happened?” Bad Eye asked.

  “No talking,” the guard said before Ron could answer. So Ron tossed a shoulder to show he didn’t know.

  In less than two minutes his name was called and he went back in, sitting down when the lieutenant nodded at the chair.

  “We’re going to find you not guilty,” Hosspack said. “We just don’t have enough here to do otherwise.”

  Hosspack shrugged off the gratitude, dropped his pencil on the table, and webbed his hands behind his head, all the while studying Ron from behind the glasses with his liquid brown eyes.

  “How old are you?” Hosspack asked.

  “Twenty-five.”

  “You look younger. Are you having any trouble? Anybody putting pressure on you?”

  For a second Ron wondered if they knew about Psycho Mike, but realized Hosspack only knew how things were likely to be in prison. Ron shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “That’s strange,” Hosspack said.

  “We’ve got a lot of animals here,” the black lieutenant said. “They’ll eat you alive.”

  “I do my own time,” Ron said, knowing do your own time was the ultimate prison maxim for both convicts and officials.

  “You know what we’re referring to, don’t you?” said the younger man.

  “I’ve been warned about it ever since I was in jail.” Smiling, he added half-facetiously, “I think it’s exaggerated.”

  “No, it isn’t exaggerated,” Hosspack said. “I’ve worked twenty years in these places and I’ve seen thousands of cases. Don’t accept favors … get obligated.”

  “I’ve heard about that, too,” Ron said, thinking of the old con in the jail.

  “There’s also the San Quentin cross,” the lieutenant said. “First you get a friend. He doesn’t make advances. Then you get pressure from somewhere else, maybe a gang. They want to start trouble with you so you think you’ve got a violent situation. You can’t come to us, you think, so you go to your friend and he comes in like a knight in shining armor … puts his life on the line, so you think. Now he puts it to you—drop your drawers or he’ll throw you to the gang.”

  Ron flushed, embarrassed, angry, strongly resenting their attempt to make him appear weak and helpless. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Nobody’s going to make a punk out of me, and I’m not running. If you want to help, take me out of the furniture factory.”

  “You have to stay there six months,” the younger man said. “Nobody likes it there, but you’re not at home.”

  “Let’s not get into collateral matters,” Hosspack said. “My warning was because you got picked up with some real jewels—in case you know them. Bad Eye Wilson is volatile as sweating dynamite. Vito Romero would shoot piss if he thought it would get him high, and Paul Adams … he was useless when I came to work here, and he’s got worse every year since. It’s definitely not the group you want to associate with to keep your nose clean and get out of here.” He paused, waiting for a response that was not forthcoming; then turned to the lieutenant. “Anything else?”

  “There are some good programs here,” the lieutenant said. “You can waste your time or make it pay. You can take a trade, go to school, join some groups. We’re not here to fuck you over. If you have any problems, come see me. I’m here to help if I can.”

  Ron nodded as if he was seriously accepting the advice, but he wanted to ask about the unprovoked murderous fusillade and beatings in the lower yard. Had those things been “help”?

  “That’ll be all,” Hosspack said, nodding that Ron could go. One hand on the doorknob, Ron turned. “When do I get out?”

  “As soon as they notify control to make you up a cell move ducat.”

  When Ron stepped out, Bad Eye stood erect from where he’d been leaning against the wall. “What happened?”

  “Not guilty.”

  “Damn, that sure was a lot of talk for that.”

  Ron shrugged, but as he walked back to the cell, stepping around the countless pieces of trash that turned the floor into a ghetto alley, Bad Eye’s comment made him feel guilty. He hadn’t meant anything, but the convict code had a streak of paranoia. Just as a judge needed not only probity but the appearance of probity, a convict needed not merely to be solid, but to have an unquestionable appearance of solidity. Convicts did not indulge in long conversations with officials if they could be avoided.

  The cell gate slammed and was locked. Paul called over, “What happened in the high court?”

  “They acquitted me.”

  “You didn’t do anything … Say, they’ll spring you in a few minutes. Tell Earl to send us some smokes and coffee.”

  “Does he know how to get them in?”

  “Oh, yeah, he knows. He has his boss bring them, and nobody fucks with Big Seeman.”

  Ron folded the blankets, stacked up the magazines, and waited. A few minutes later he could hear Bad Eye cursing, his voice becoming louder as he approached between two guards. The door clanged shut and he called to Paul, “That motherfuckin’ Hosspack and that nigger Captain Midnight … didn’t even crack about the drunk beef. They kept asking about that killing, the one I got cut loose on. Hosspack said he wouldn’t have cut me loose … I’d bust this fuckin’ cell up except there’s nothing left!”

  “Don’t let ’em provoke you,” Paul said.

  “Provoke me! Them motherfuckers retained me. They’ll review in ninety days! I’ll be in this cocksucker a year!”

  Ron was silent, but he wondered how anyone’s sanity could withstand a year in “B” Section; yet he knew that some men had been locked in there for several years.

  Ron Decker turned away from the pass window at the custody office to face the sunny plaza. Half a dozen convicts loitered on the chapel side of the fishponds while the sound of organ music drifted from within. Earl was on the fishpond wall. In a sweatshirt with torn-off sleeves and many holes he was not the Beau Brummel of San Quentin. His head was smooth and shiny in the yellow sun, but a stubble of gray beard was on his jaws. Ron started over, unable to restrain a smile of jubilation at his new friend—and then he wiped it away, wondering if Earl was really a friend. When he got there, Earl reached out to shake hands, and then simultaneously embraced
him. For a second Ron froze, unaccustomed to such gestures between men, and also thinking of all he’d heard about Earl. But there was no time to dwell upon it now.

  “What happened to the others?”

  Ron told him, and Earl grinned until he heard about Bad Eye. Then he dropped his eyes and shook his head. “They’re dirty, sanctimonious whores. They’re making a real madman out of him, and then they’ll kill him because of what they made.”

  Ron was impatient to ask, “That report … how did you—”

  “Shhh,” Earl said, looking around, feigning worry about eavesdroppers. “That’s top-secret shit. Really wanna know?”

  “Sure I want to know.”

  “That’s good ’cause it’s too slick not to brag about.” So Earl told him about stealing the original report, typing a second with a few changes, and then forging the sergeant’s name.

  It was so simple as Earl explained it, yet it seemed unbelievable that a convict could do such things. It didn’t match what Ron thought he knew about prison before he got there.

  “A damn fool would learn to get around if he’d been here long as me.” There was something touching in Earl’s wry self-disparagement, his awareness of the triviality of such accomplishments. “Let’s go to the yard,” he said. “We’re not supposed to loiter around here.”

  As they went down the road, they met Mr. Hosspack pushing a handcart with the files toward the front gate. As he passed the two convicts his limpid eyes flicked from one to the other. He looked at Ron and nodded several times, a silent “Uh-huh, now I see you were lying all along.” He ignored Earl.

  “He told me to stay away from your friends,” Ron said.

  “I’ll bet he did. He doesn’t hate me, not personally, but he thinks I ain’t worth two dead flies and should be locked up the rest of my life, and from his viewpoint he may be right. He doesn’t do half the things to me that I’d do to him if I had the chance.”

  When they entered the yard, Ron felt even more conspicuous than before. If his youthful good looks contrasted with the milieu, the contrast was exaggerated by his companion, who was at the other end of the spectrum. Ron either saw, or imagined he saw, convicts look at him and then at who he was with; they seemed to be knowing looks. These fuckers are like hicks in a small town, he thought.

  Across the yard they saw Psycho Mike going the other way. “When you see him,” Earl said, “walk on by and don’t even look at him. And in general, watch where you go around here. San Quentin has a lot of blind spots and a goodly share of maniacs. I don’t want to cut some fool’s heart out if it can be avoided.”

  “Why … why are you doing all this?” Ron blurted.

  “I don’t really know.”

  “I’m not a punk … not gonna be your kid.”

  Earl’s ugly face lit up; when he smiled it was complete and radiant and wiped away the ugliness. “What about me being your kid?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Just lonesome. I take in stray dogs and cats, too. We’ll discuss the dynamics later.”

  Monday began as a typical San Quentin day, so overcast that all light was gray, and even without clouds it took until midmorning for the sun to climb over the buildings. By noon it would be bright, and by twilight it would be glorious, but by then the convicts would be in their cages unable to enjoy it.

  The 8:00 a.m. siren whined out work call. The yard gate rolled open and it was as if a dam wall had collapsed. A lake of convicts poured out en route to the industrial area. This was the first day of full work since the strike, and the faces reflected pleasure at going back to looms, saws, and forklifts. Ron had heard several complaints about the loss of wages; six cents an hour bought a jar of cheap powdered coffee and a couple of cans of Bugler tobacco at the end of the month. Many convicts needed nothing more. Many had no means except the factory to get even that.

  Ron had expected tension, possibly a hush as the siren recalled the bullets and brutality. But no one seemed to remember the deaths and beatings. Minds were wiped clean as a blackboard under a wet rag. In ten minutes just a few cons were still on the yard, the cleanup crew meandering around with long-handled dustpans and tiny brooms, dabbing at orange peels and empty cigarette packs. The sea gulls descended.

  Ron crossed to the South cellhouse, showing his hospital pass to the guard at the door, a heavy steel door studded with rivets.

  Convicts pressed out as Ron entered, plunging into the hospital clinic that resembled a bus depot at rush hour. Milling about were dozens of convicts in denim, and collectively they looked as healthy as a football team. A few cons in green blouses moved in and out of examination rooms to the left. At a half-door convicts lined up to get their medical cards and then stood in two other lines to see the pair of doctors. Rather, there were two doctors and one line. One was being boycotted. The doctor’s hair, head, and clothes were so askew that he gave the impression of standing in a cyclone. He yelled and gesticulated in a vain try to get convicts to enter his line. One young, skinny black with a woolly Afro was caught. By gestures one could tell that he had a back complaint. In less than a minute he was waving his arms and screaming; the doctor was screaming back.

  A cluttered desk stood on a platform just inside the door, but nobody was behind it, and the convict clerk assigned to it was the one Ron was supposed to see. He looked around the throng for a convict in green blouse with a “a dome bald as a baby’s butt except for some red above the ears … and John L. Lewis eyebrows the same color.” The man thus described passed so close that Ron missed him until he was at the desk, two cartons of cigarettes in one hand and a medical card in another. A second convict followed him, stopped beside Ron but ignored him. The clerk threw the cigarettes into a desk drawer, ran the medical card into the typewriter, wrote a few lines quick as a machine-gun burst, and jerked the medical card. He inserted a smaller card and typed again. The whole thing took less than a minute. “Okay,” he said to the convict beside Ron, “take this little card for the bull to sign.”

  “Are you sure it’s cool? I can’t stand a beef.”

  “That’s the two-carton diagnosis, duodenal ulcer, and you get milk three times a day.”

  “I go to the board.”

  “Look, the doctor signed the order. It’s legal as the Supreme Court.”

  Ron watched as the convict took the card to the guard, who signed it without glancing at what it said. Ron looked back to the man behind the desk. “Say, are you Ivan McGee?”

  “’Tis I, lad. What can I do for ye?” The round red-veined face lost in excess flesh held the same predatory eyes Ron had seen in so many convicts, eyes that were simultaneously fierce and veiled.

  “Earl Copen told me to see you about a thirty-day lay-in.”

  “You’re a friend of Earl’s?”

  “Uh-huh. And they’ve got me stuck in the furniture factory.”

  “I can see why you want a lay-in. I suppose Earl will arrange a job change before you need another.”

  A light flashed in Ron’s brain, an awareness of how convicts would view the favors Earl was doing for him. He could see this speculation in McGee’s eyes now, and for a moment he wanted to rage out. It was everywhere, and it was sick—and humiliating.

  “Got a medical card?” McGee asked.

  “No.”

  “Never been to sick call?”

  “No.”

  McGee filled out a blank medical card, using Ron’s I.D. card for name and number. “You sure are a fish,” he said. “The ink ain’t dry on that number yet.” He pulled out the card. “A shoulder separation should keep you idle for thirty days.”

  “Isn’t that painful?”

  “Not the way we do it.” Grabbing some forms and the medical card, McGee beckoned Ron to follow him through the clinic and up a corridor into the hospital proper. A grill gate blocked the middle of the corridor, watched over by a middle-aged guard in a chair, who opened the gate as McGee approached.

  “He’s with me,” McGee said to the guard, waving
the documents to indicate Ron.

  “Where to?”

  “X-ray.”

  The X-ray department was in a corner of the second floor. The whole hospital was a separate world from the cellhouses and big yard. It was even outside the walls, though it had its own fence topped with concertina wire, and the ring of gun towers watched over it, too. The floors were polished, and the convicts they passed smiled a civilized “good morning.”

  In the X-ray department two convicts were playing chess. One was white, the other black. It startled Ron.

  “We need a shoulder separation here,” McGee said.

  “We’re here to supply the necessary,” the black convict said.

  Seconds later, a twenty-five-pound dumbbell was produced. Ron was told to hold it while standing in front of the X-ray machine.

  “Just let it dangle,” the white convict said. “It’s below the photo, but the shoulder will look pulled loose. We call it a York syndrome.”

  When Ron and Ivan McGee were going downstairs, Ron asked, “What do I owe you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Man, I owe you something!” Ron said.

  “If you insist, get me a couple joints. But you don’t have to. Earl and me go way back—”

  “What do I do now?”

  “Just go to the yard. It will be on the movement sheet this afternoon.”

  Ten minutes later Ron was on the yard with nothing to do. It was still empty and only a few minutes after 10:00. The lunch lines didn’t form until 11:00. Four young convicts were near the canteen, sharing two pints of ice cream. Ron recognized them as part of the group from the laundry wall, Earl’s group, but it was not his place to join them. He had nothing else to do so he went to the yard office.

  “Earl,” the huge guard bellowed when Ron asked. “That no-good fuckin’ dope-fiend sonofabitch better never show up if he knows what’s good for him.” The guard jerked a gas-billy from his hip pocket and slammed it on the desk. It dented the wood. “Oops,” he said, glancing back toward the lieutenant’s office and putting some paper over the blemish. Then to Ron, he said, “Pay me no mind. I’m crazy. Earl isn’t here. He sleeps until fuckin’ noon and doesn’t come to work until three forty-five.”