The Dead Celebrities Club

by Susan Swan

  There are literary connections too. Sylvia Plath’s boyfriend, known as Buddy in her novel The Bell Jar, had been sent there for TB in the 1950s and the famous poet had broken her leg skiing on a nearby mountain. When he’s not at the library, Tim is prowling around the town’s cobbled streets, eating tasteless resort food while young, dark-haired waitresses rush up and down wearing apologetic smiles.

  He’s made friends with the motel owners, two brothers — big, cheerful, outdoor types. According to the brothers, most of the people in the area work at the prison, and many of their guests are visiting incarcerated relatives. While Tim waits for a call from the prison, he drinks coffee in their homey office with its moose head on the wall and framed black and white photographs of winter sports at Lake Placid.

  The brothers asked Tim how he knows Dale Paul, so Tim explained that they had met at Munson Hall, a boarding school in a wealthy Toronto enclave. Their fathers had run into each other on the first day. The men had been friends at university, although they seemed vastly different to Tim.

  Aaron Nugent had become a dentist in North Bay, Ontario; he was a short, sandy-haired man with a diastema, as the gap between his two front teeth was known. It was an odd trait for a dentist to have, but Aaron claimed it would be too much hassle to fix it.

  In those years, Aaron Nugent looked much as Tim does now. But unlike Tim, Aaron was overly fond of off-colour stories, and Tim had felt slightly ashamed of his father that first morning at Munson Hall. Dale Paul’s father was tall and commanding, and he headed up the Fairfield Furniture chain, although Mr. Paul didn’t strike Tim as a business type.

  After their fathers left, Dale Paul told Tim that he lived only a few blocks from the school, but his father had put him in boarding so he could pull up his marks. Tim appreciated Dale Paul’s friendliness that day, and he was relieved when a wizened master said the boys would be rooming together in the red brick building behind the school’s clock tower. The dormitory was faux Georgian in style, with high ceilings and tall doors that displayed gold lettering on the heavily varnished wood. Each of its five floors had been ranked according to the ages of the students, and Dale Paul and Tim slept on the top floor with ten other thirteen-year-old boys. During the first week, Tim and Dale Paul joined the United Nations Club. They spent most of their free time together, until Earl Lindquist arrived and changed everything.

  For years after they had graduated, Dale Paul and his then-wife, Esther, sent Tim a Christmas card. It wasn’t entirely a surprise when, a few months before the charges were laid, Dale Paul asked Tim to write Dale Paul’s memoir. No doubt his old friend imagines Tim is still the impressionable boy he had been at school, a kid from the sticks that Dale Paul thinks he can boss around.

  8

  Dale Paul

  CLIMBING OUT OF the truck, I hear the racket of lawn mowers and outboard motors coming from Lake Placid. Already the free world is beckoning, a haven of pleasure. Along the ridge sprawls the gulag.

  The guard (I am having trouble calling him a C.O.) points at a hodgepodge of brick buildings surrounded by a razor-wire fence; behind the buildings are a scattering of wooden dwellings attached to one another by covered walkways. In the centre of the lawn, a shoddy fountain gurgles and sings next to a plot of dead daffodils as brown and wrinkled as burnt paper.

  That’s us, the guard mutters.

  That open-air den of mole tunnels is my new home? I stand hypnotized, and in my mind’s eye I see the moth-coloured face of my old school’s clock tower, its football fields, and the stone residences that housed boys like Earl and Tim and myself along with the ancient, yellow-teethed masters who taught us Latin and Greek.

  What is waiting for me inside Essex prison? Will I be met by a congregation of bums and losers eager to crow about the fall of someone like me? The old saying that the market can be wrong a lot longer than you can stay solvent didn’t apply to me; lo and behold, I have been sentenced to the hoosegow for exercising my talents.

  Up ahead, the C.O. grumbles something I don’t catch. Leading me around a stand of scrubby poplars, he points at the gully behind the prison. A tranche of blue fills my eyes. There’s a small lake in the gully between the ridge and the mountain. By the north shore of the lake is a park that resembles the rundown recreation areas often found in small towns. There is no bandstand, but there are a few unpainted picnic tables and two dilapidated tennis courts without nets.

  Should I have brought my tennis whites?

  The C.O. shrugs. That’s where our Michael Jackson dancers practise.

  Before I can ask about the dancers, the C.O. points down the road at the compound with the watchtowers that had frightened Caroline. They put the real bad boys in there. The C.O. smirks. Deep in the forest, where they can’t get out.

  And that? I nod at a tall Alpine house on a graded slope outside the prison. By the house, rough-looking men are planting sapling trees.

  The warden’s place.

  His own Great Camp? I ask.

  Ha ha.

  The C.O. doesn’t grin. Clearly, he is a man who prefers laughing at his own wisecracks. As we stroll through an anodyne concrete archway, my heart begins beating wildly and I curse myself for leaving my pills in the car. Caroline usually makes sure I have them on my person, but she was too distracted this morning to remind me. I take Rhythmol for tachycardia — the affliction that taxes my old, fast-beating heart.

  Anxiously, I follow the C.O. into a room in the Receiving and Discharging Building. It’s the size of my walk-in closet on Half Moon Lane. I have purposefully worn an old, double-breasted suit, and when the C.O. asks if he should mail my clothes home, I suggest he burn them. The man doesn’t crack a smile. He asks me to undress and then he searches my orifices; his latex-sheathed finger inside my rectum feels thick and unpleasantly warm.

  I receive the standard prison issue: two large-sized khaki uniforms called “browns,” two blankets, two sheets, and a pillow. I am also given undershirts, socks, and undergarments. I can buy sweatpants at the commissary. Then the guard marches me out into the yard and leaves me standing dizzy and frightened like a prison mole blinking up at the light.

  Unfortunately, the dope has left me feeling light-headed. If you aren’t subject to spells of dizziness, it’s hard to fathom a sensation akin to a space opening behind your eyes, a portal that lets in air where coil upon coil of your brain matter should be. As soon as my dizziness kicks in, my heart begins beating too quickly. The sinus node, the body’s natural pacemaker, is sending the wrong electrical impulses through the right atrium, increasing my heart rate. Because I make a crash when I fall, because a large falling man changes the environment no matter how much I might wish otherwise, because I will end up a creature of ridicule, I have no interest in fainting on my first day in my new home.

  The tang of male sweat drifts my way. I force myself to turn around. Nothing has prepared me for the sight in front of me in the prison yard. I may as well have stepped into a scene from the television show Oz. Most of the ne’er-do-wells are black or Latino, while the beefy guards are white-skinned, and they all stand waiting for me to play my role in the tawdry prison melodrama to which I’ve been consigned against my will.

  Over by the gate, an imposing black man wearing a Vandyke is heading my way, followed by three guards who are each restraining a German shepherd. The man’s closely shaved head rests like a black bowling ball on his shoulders. As he comes closer, I see he is wearing rimless glasses and a dark business suit. His stiff military bearing and the way the other men look at him suggest I am about to meet the warden.

  Nathan Rickard, the warden says, extending his hand. The tremor in his voice suggests my presence is having an impact. Celebrity has a habit of doing that, although you could chop up my Midas-like traits, along with the traits of other celebrities, and feed the parts into a blender and out would come some variation of a well-known financier and nobody would notic
e the difference. I was once mistaken for Wolf Kruger, the head of the securities commission. Wolf and I don’t even look alike. Yet there is something there — a grave facial expression, a knowing gleam in the eye. The gold dust of celebrity does the rest.

  Behind the warden, some of the prisoners are clapping and calling my name while others are yelling the same insults the journalists had used earlier: Fraudster! Crook! You get the gist. The warden ignores the men and steers me forward, his large dark eyes behind the lenses of his glasses darting warily around the yard. We have almost reached the prison buildings when three men step into our path. Is one of the miscreants about to stick me with a knife? They could be bubble-wrapped for all the good my ability to read my fellow humans does me this morning. While I try to quiet the arterial flutters of my heart, one of the scofflaws shouts, Make us rich, Dale Paul!

  With your money and my ideas, we’ll go far! I execute a mock bow.

  The scofflaws call out enthusiastic hurrahs. The German shepherds begin to bark, standing on their hind legs, straining against their leashes; the guards appear to be marshalling all their strength to keep the dogs under control. A whistle shrills; the dogs drop to all fours, stop barking, and the cries die away. By the time the warden and I reach my dormitory, the place has assumed a churchy quiet.

  If you figure out how to make money in here, let me know. The warden smiles an odd, secretive smile.

  You have my word, good sir, I reply.

  Heck, you sound just like you do on television. He chuckles.

  He doesn’t realize I am serious. In the parking lot this morning, while Nugent stood chatting with the guard, the idea of betting on the death of aging celebrities popped into my befuddled brain like the ping of an email dropping into my inbox. To qualify, you must be in the news and about to die.

  Can you see where I’m going with this? Well, all in good time.

  9

  Each inmate is responsible for making his bed in accordance with regulations by 7:30 a.m. weekdays and by 10:00 a.m. on weekends and holidays. Workdays off during the week are considered to be the inmate’s Saturday and Sunday. Each inmate is also responsible for sweeping and mopping his personal living area to ensure it is clean and sanitary. Lockers must be neatly arranged inside and out and all shelving must be neat and clean.

  — FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, INMATE

  ADMISSION AND ORIENTATION HANDBOOK

  MY SLEEPING QUARTERS at Essex are in one of the two-storey wooden buildings attached to others by a covered walkway. From my research, I know that some of the original prison buildings were part of the athletes’ village for the 1980 Winter Olympics. I’m not surprised to see five interlocking circles carved in the wood above the door.

  The warden waves his hand at two men standing near the front of the building. I look them over carefully, feeling the curious sensation I often experience with my fellow humans — that they are not entirely real, or at least not as real as I am, although they keep making signals at me through a wall of Plexiglas. Perhaps everyone experiences a similar metaphorical wall, although I have always been shy about exploring that possibility. One of the men is a tattooed thug who wears his golden hair long and tousled like a Viking. The other one is a young ghetto tough, with dreadlocks and a facial scar. Something about the bashful way the dreadlocked prisoner holds himself reminds me of Arnie, Esther’s golf caddy, except the scofflaw’s front teeth have been filed into points. Arnie would never do anything to spoil his smile.

  This is your bunkmate, Derek Williams. The warden smiles, and the Viking smiles back. Derek runs the Michael Jackson dancers program, the warden says.

  The Viking shoves his face close. Nothin’ else to do in here, mate! His facial tattoos make it impossible to read the man’s expression.

  Your other bunkmate is Marvin Bailey Jr., the warden adds.

  Yo, the ghetto tough mutters.

  I’m trembling. Thankfully, the men don’t remark on my nervous state, and a moment later, a C.O. named Martino appears. He’s an affable fellow with a beaky nose and a pair of round and slightly vacant eyes. After promising to get my meds, he leads me through the long rows of cubicles to my new bunk, where I am to stow my prison things. He says I will work at a prison job from 7:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with a forty-five-minute lunch break, followed by a few hours of leisure time before supper at 5:00 p.m. For seven dollars a month I will tutor men who wish to get their high school certificate. Imagine. I used to earn more than seven dollars a second just a few short months ago.

  After Martino leaves, my bunkmates show me how to scan my id in the Chow Hall, grab a tray, and walk the food line. The vast room rings with coarse-sounding male voices. When I walk in, one or two white prisoners hurl the same ill-informed invective about letting down our vets. These men are clearly fools who believe the lies the media has been spreading.

  Hey, mate, over here! Derek gestures to a seat next to Bailey. I take a few steps and hesitate. The rest of the room is banging tables and clapping. At what? At me? Yes, at me. It seems the vote is heavily in my favour: two-thirds for and one-third against. The nay faction is mostly white, I can’t help noticing. Things could be a lot worse.

  I was given a fork and a spoon and an ugly rectangular tray with depressions in the plastic for plates and cups. Neither the tray nor the cutlery looks particularly clean, so I pull out my white linen handkerchief, a keepsake from Caroline, with my initials embroidered in its corners. On the way in, I insisted the guard take my last twenty-dollar bill and he allowed me to keep the hanky along with a package of Tums.

  My spoon is encrusted with half a spaghetti noodle, so I move my hands under the table and go to work.

  A precautionary measure, I explain. Bailey looks incredulous, and Derek tips his chin at something across the room. The warden is making his way to us through the tables of men. I promptly rise; slowly, hesitantly, Bailey and Derek stand up too. The warden sometimes eats with his boys, and it turns out this is one of those days. A man in a chef’s hat follows along behind, holding out a plate of the same steaming mush served in the chow line.

  Gimme some milk, the warden tells the cook, and we all sit down. Derek and Bailey begin gobbling the disgusting gruel, and I avert my gaze as Bailey starts pushing the hamburger meat onto his spoon with his index finger.

  May I please have a knife? I ask the cook, who has reappeared with the milk jug. The cook shoots me a wide-eyed look and hurries back to the kitchen.

  Knives are dangerous in here, mate. Derek shrugs.

  You bes’ eat up, bro, Bailey adds. Ain’t goin’ be nuthin’ left.

  There won’t be anything left, you mean. But I’m waiting for the warden to start, and you should too.

  Bailey appears momentarily startled, and so does Derek, while the warden pours himself a huge glass of milk. Then, to my amazement, he, too, begins to gobble his food, shoving the goulash onto his spoon with his fingers.

  Would any of you like some ketchup? I ask. The bottle is a tawdry brand called Catsup.

  The warden grunts and shakes his head, so I turn my eyes to my bunkmates. How about the two of you? I ask, waiting for them to offer it to me.

  Instead Bailey grabs the ketchup bottle and squeezes what is left onto his plate, jabbing his fingers into the red goop in a repeat performance of his grotesque shovelling procedure. To my disgust, he licks his fingers clean.

  Use this, good sir, I say, handing him my hanky. When I nod reassuringly, he solemnly takes the handkerchief and wipes off his fingers.

  10

  THE FIRST NIGHT, as I lie in my cot, I happen to look up at the planks supporting Bailey’s bunk and notice the words Northern Particle stamped on the wood. Our beds have been made from particleboard, which is cheaper and denser than regular plywood, and the particleboard was manufactured by a company I used to own in British Columbia before a fire destroyed its warehouse. The fire dispensed toxic f
umes into the forest like a sprinkling of lurid holy water and I lost a great deal of money.

  I wanted to view the damage, so I took a floatplane up to the small coastal city where the factory was located. Pater came along in the hopes that he could talk me into going back to university. That day in Prince Rupert, he realized I was never going to become a professor who teaches the philosophy of history, which had been his ambition before Mother’s father forced him to join the family furniture firm.

  He was something of a business failure, my dear old Pater, a man who couldn’t succeed even in a nepotistic job — a scholar manqué whose single hope had been to teach at some small, inconsequential college. As a boy, I imitated his manners and formal way of speaking, although the two of us rarely saw eye to eye.

  For instance, Pater taught me it was wrong to reach out for what you want, so I ended up with the usual wasp inhibitions about declaring one’s right to self-interest. I swore I would rid myself of my chains.

  Humming to myself, I bring out the portable reading lamp that Derek has loaned me until I save up enough money from my prison job to buy one at the commissary. These lamps are made of cheap metal and don’t open until you press down hard on the spring.

  I clip the lamp onto my notepad, and, with the stub of a lead pencil I found under my bunk, I begin to sketch my father. What a good thing Pater is no longer with us — he would have shuddered at the idea of me bedding down with thugs.

  Fortunately, he died before I moved to Long Island with Esther, my hard-drinking, golf-addled ex-wife; my son, Davie; and my mother, Gloria Paul (alias Googie), daughter of the Fairfield Furniture chain. Mother was born in the United States, and if I’m making it sound like my grand-parents were a cross between a Montauk sofa and a Louis XIV chair, in many ways that is the case. Mother was distantly related to the Roosevelts of Oyster Bay. Her grandparents were good friends of Melvil Dewey, the education reformer, and the names of my maternal great-grandparents are in the old records at New York’s Social Register.