by Susan Swan
Dear Mr. Rooney:
You will be surprised to know that I am writing you from inside a prison. I am here because, well, let’s just say I’ve had financial troubles. I won’t bore you with the details. But your appearance on television this morning compelled me to write and introduce myself.
I’d like to encourage you to stay away from drugs, although I realize this may be a tiresome thing for someone to say to a man of your age and position. Unfortunately, an addiction is hard on the people who love you. My own son was not above taking the occasional beta blocker when he felt stressed …
I stop typing. Should I tell Mickey Rooney about my hunch that Davie is still alive? I press Select All and delete the letter.
I begin again. Without mentioning Davie, I write almost word for word what I said in the first letter. Then I add:
Mickey, I hope you won’t hold my concerns about your health against me. I assure you I do not often write fan letters. Please be good to yourself. I loved your acting in Boys Town with Spencer Tracy and it would mean a lot to me to know you are doing well.
I reread the last sentence. It would mean a lot to me to know you are doing well. Do I really mean that? It seems I do. Hand on heart, I am aware of the perils of treating a celebrity as a friend. Clearly, they do not know you as well as you know them, but I can’t help myself. I want the actor to take charge of his life. After all, he hasn’t lost his old spunk. I return to my letter.
I realize I ought to offer you an explanation. The police think my son, David, jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. And the public believes it’s my fault …
I stare at the sentence “And the public believes it’s my fault.” Better not to get into what happened with Davie. I delete the last two sentences and start over once more:
One of my best memories of being with my son is watching your film It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Of course, I saw every one of your Andy Hardy films when I was a boy and I identified with the way Andy never gave up. You said as much on Oprah’s show, although you described it as hitting your head against the wall …
If by any chance you want to write, I would be very glad to hear from you. I can be reached at …
I keep my letter to Mickey Rooney in my locker. Then, one chilly December afternoon, when the prison feels cold and inhospitable, I look up his agent and mail the letter to the Los Angeles address.
24
JUST AS NUGENT promised, his story about me appears in the New York Times Magazine along with an unflattering mug shot. There is also an aerial photograph that shows Essex the size of a Lego set safely tucked away in a pinewoods. A bone of reassurance for Times readers.
At least Nugent did what I asked and omitted Earl’s name. Putting Earl on the dead pool has been revenge enough; I don’t need to draw his ire too.
Nugent starts with the usual rundown: “Dale Paul, known among his financial cronies as the Pension Fund Whale, was convicted of three charges laid by federal prosecutors. These charges included a willful miscalculation of pension contributions; cross-trading that involved his companies buying from each other; and forging documents and investing in gold without permission, with the result that untold billions in U.S. military pension funds were lost.
“He was acquitted of seven other counts, including the misuse of corporate perks, such as taking the company plane on holidays with his British girlfriend, Caroline Worsley.”
In a highly sarcastic tone, my old friend remarks: “Fraud isn’t a black-and-white crime like robbery or murder. Instead, there’s always the question, Was the crime intended to be a crime? That’s why a hedge funds manager like Dale Paul believes he’s innocent. Furthermore, his belief in his innocence is bound up with rage over the U.S. justice system’s plea-bargaining practices. The prosecutorial game of overwhelming a defendant with charges so that he or she admits guilt whether guilty or not — these practices keep Dale Paul awake at night. He claims the charges aren’t true.”
Thank you, Nugent, for pointing out that fraud is open to interpretation. But why did my old pal use the phrase he claims? Is Nugent hinting the charges were just? And why skip over the way money managers like myself help capital flow around the world? If you are a maker of widgets, you can’t do without our help. Who else but a lord of liquidity will give you the cash to get your business off the ground? Few banks or investors have the courage to take a chance on your enterprise.
Toward the end of his article, he touches on the way the scofflaws revere me: “In a world of endless head counts and starchy meals, financial wizard Dale Paul has adjusted to prison life by teaching the convicts financial skills, and they appreciate it.”
And then the treachery of his final sentences: “Is there life after fraud?” Fraud — the word is my proof. Nugent believes I am guilty.
“Even though his work in prison won’t make Dale Paul rich, it does make him a felon worth reckoning with — an unlikely crusader who is helping his fellow man.”
Felon, indeed. There it is again: the taint of guilt. At least he was kind enough to say I was helping my fellow inmates, although I didn’t set out to help others. Helping the scofflaws arose from my plan to help myself. Isn’t that the way the world works? Everyone is self-interested, and nobody is more self-interested than I am.
25
MANY JOURNALISTS HAVE called the prison about Nugent’s magazine piece, but the warden has forbidden me to call them back. He is angry with me for doing a media interview without his permission, so he has docked my swimming privileges. Then, out of the blue, a message arrives from a relative I’ve never heard of. Intrigued, I dial the number and say hello.
Don’t send me any more letters, a wheezing voice says. I read about your dead pool in the Times.
I think for a moment. You are … Mickey Rooney?
Fuck, yeah. His voice cracks as if a winter storm has blown out his windpipe. Are you the infamous felon?
They say I am, but it’s not true. We don’t have time for me to go into what happened.
Geez, too bad. Is that stuff about c-coin true? Are you betting on my death?
It’s a joke, good sir. You’re going to outlive the others. In fact, I’m counting on it.
Yeah, well, your joke ain’t so funny, Mr. Convict. People don’t under-stand how crappy it is to be famous. What you’re doing is nasty, okay? I mean, somebody like you oughta know better.
I’m not sure I do. Don’t you have a sense of humour?
Maybe you don’t remember who you’re talking with here … He wheezes again and then comes a noise like a sigh. A lotta people have forgotten me, he says in his raspy voice. He sounds so sad I feel a twinge in my bad, old heart.
Before I can utter some reassuring words, the line goes dead. As I put down the phone, a cloudlet of dark and soggy thoughts floats into the space behind my eyes. Somebody like you ought to know better. Those were Mickey Rooney’s words. Should I take him off the list? I run through several scenarios: Bailey and Derek will grouse about finding another celebrity to replace him, and the warden will dislike changes to the dead pool that might affect Trish Bales’s study on my workshop.
Alas, Mickey Rooney doesn’t understand that my own fame is news I have never fully absorbed; I have been too preoccupied with shutting out the vicious way others have blamed me for my success. Point being, I used to read the hateful letters and emails that Bip, my assistant, reluctantly showed me, so I am more sympathetic to the old thespian than he might think.
PART FOUR
TROUBLE
1
Dale Paul
Quote of the day from Mae West: “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”
— THE BULLETIN BOARD AT ESSEX FEDERAL
CORRECTION INSTITUTE, 2012
I’M AT THE lectern. Four hundred scofflaws look up at me like expectant schoolchildren. I blow out my cheeks, bring on the s
impleton logic. What you are doing is no different than traders on the stock market, I tell my students. And the odds are ten to one for each celebrity. Or let me put it this way: if one celebrity has a ten percent chance of winning, then ten candidates (ten times ten) have a combined chance of winning of one hundred percent.
The men laugh and clap. After the round of applause subsides, I move on to Zsa Zsa Gabor, my sentimental favourite. When I was a boy, Mother was often mistaken for Zsa Zsa, I explain, but like Humpty-Dumpty, Zsa Zsa has had a bad fall. And at her age, a fall spells trouble. But, as you know, the handicaps of our celebrities go up and down like a junk bond. That’s why you must read the reports that Derek posts on our prison website.
Yo, Big C, a scofflaw yells. (C is for c-coin. Everybody who is anybody here has a nickname.) The place rings again with enthusiastic noise. There is nothing I can do wrong, it seems. Nothing at all. C-coin is a hit. Think of a giant Mexican piñata filled to the brim. Think of a fiesta guest breaking the piñata open so our commissary receipts flutter down on the heads of the prisoners. Think of men tossing c-coin into the air like Uncle Scrooge in a Donald Duck comic book. That will give you some idea of the carnival atmosphere that c-coin has created.
Encouraged by the men’s smiling faces, I move on to the law of supply and demand. It doesn’t take long. The men understand the economic principle intuitively because our dorms are a hive of black-market activity — everything from liquor distilled out of candy to sessions of tattooing to bargaining for chicken patties stolen from the food warehouse to the selling of drugs and cigarettes — all these entrepreneurial schemes comprise the hundreds of small businesses going on right under the warden’s nose.
Satisfied they’ve understood, I turn to the naughty derivatives that created the financial crisis in 2008. Now we’re going to discuss option contracts, I tell the scofflaws. Obviously, you don’t want your children to follow in your footsteps.
Good. The men look puzzled. Prefacing a tricky financial explanation with “obviously” eliminates awkward questions. Most people won’t admit they don’t understand what you’ve said.
So obviously, I continue, you and the mother of your child hope to pay no more than one hundred fifty thousand dollars for your child’s food, housing, and education until the child is twenty-one. I have put that figure together for you after factoring in the statistics for the sex of your child, your socioeconomic background and family history, not to mention my projection of inflation and the first round of iq and psychometric testing.
So obviously, I repeat. Obviously, you hope your child will be drug-free and without a criminal record when he or she turns twenty-one. So obviously, I have to charge you a premium of fifteen thousand. This modest sum may result in thousands of dollars for you later.
A bout of whispering and coughing breaks out. I glance around the room, looking severe, and the noise dies away.
I pick up my thread: I realize the sum of fifteen thousand could be a stretch for some of you, but let’s imagine you have the funds, and by the time your child is twenty-one, he or she is healthy and crime-free. Obviously, our option contract has zero value, and you get no money back from me. But say your child has health problems and you have doled out more than one hundred and fifty thousand, or say he or she needed a lawyer to fight a drug charge. Obviously, that is going to cost you seventy thousand. So you are obliged to hire a second lawyer, who wants another seventy thousand to fight another drug charge … Shall I fill in the dot-dot-dot?
The scofflaws dutifully shake their heads.
Okay, you get the picture. After paying for food, clothes, and legal fees, you have forked over more than one hundred and fifty K. Obviously, you’re in luck because I must pay you the difference between the one hundred and fifty K and the huge sum you’ve been forced to spend on your child. Sound fair? Obviously, yes. I wait for them to give it up. Instead, raucous grumbles erupt from every corner of the room and I’m obliged to cut the workshop short.
They file out, looking relieved. It was too soon to get into the messy history of collateralized debt obligation. Obviously.
2
NOBODY COMES TO see me over the Christmas holidays. Meredith is too busy closing the sale on the house. In the chapel, the scofflaws lustily belt out “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” after receiving lame toiletries and two bags of chips. The scene is hopelessly maudlin: the men mouthing sentiments I deplore, the tawdry Christmas fir weighted down with ancient necklaces of yellow popcorn, the kernels shrunken and stained like the teeth of a corpse. Equally preposterous: the large sleigh hand-carved by the scofflaws and pulled by gauche-looking wooden reindeers.
On Boxing Day, Bailey and I are ordered to clean the C.O.s’ washroom, an unpleasant task that requires face masks. Aldo is responsible for stocking our sanitary cart with bottles of cleaning agents, brushes, sponges, mops, industrial vinegar, giant rolls of cheap toilet paper, and the jugs of bleach that can burn a hole in your nostrils. Every so often, we stop our work and silently accept the supplies the woodhick hands us, doing our best to ignore the ill-mannered jests from the C.O.s who have dropped by to see me mop the bathroom floors. The washroom is filthy because the guards don’t care about the mess they make.
Hey, the chomo missed something! Aldo points at the windows on the shower doors. Guess Bailey don see too good, huh? Aldo sniggers.
The light bad in here, bro. Bailey glares at Aldo through his oversized prison spectacles.
You mean you can’t see, Four Eyes! Aldo shoots back. The C.O.s guffaw.
While Bailey sulks, I spray a huge circle of foam on the tiled wall. I drizzle in a face, adding an overhanging eyelid on one of the eyes. The resemblance to Aldo is striking. I pull down my face mask and bow. Look like anybody you know?
The C.O.s laugh again.
Don’t fuck with me, Dale Paul, Aldo snarls. Or I’ll get you sent to the hole.
Aldo wants to send me to solitary confinement! I contort my features in an ape-like grimace. An idle threat from a slack-jawed hominin!
The C.O.s laugh harder.
You cocksucker! Aldo cries. What did you call me?
I called you a hominin. It means human. Not to be confused with hominid, or ape. I begin to rinse the soap off the tiles, furtively moving the hose close to Aldo. Feigning a look of surprise, I pretend to lose my grip and douse him; the water from the hose makes a large, gratifying stain on the crotch of his pants.
He jes pissed hisself! Bailey chuckles.
Aldo’s face crumples. To my astonishment, he looks as if he might cry, and I feel as if I’ve been caught tormenting a child.
You all fuckin shut yer mouths, Aldo yells. While the C.O.s applaud, he storms off, his face teary, his filthy track shoes splashing through the puddles.
3
I AM TEACHING Bailey English grammar in the computer studio.
With some encouragement from me, Bailey has dropped Uncle Remus for a video of Malcolm X, the dead Black Muslim spokesman. He is too young to know the civil rights leader, but he likes the idea of Malcolm X having been a convict, too. I press play and turn down the volume so other men won’t hear Malcolm X’s voice. In the video, the black leader is discussing his problems with a rival who has fathered children with teenaged girls.
I nod as I press pause, and Bailey begins scribbling down what Malcolm X is saying: “I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.”
I press play again.
“If my followers go against my preaching, they are acting out of religious sincerity,” Malcolm X adds. And on and on it goes: pressing play then stopping the machine so Bailey can write down the words. At the end of the tape, Bailey opens his notebook and shows me several neatly written pages of dialogue. In each paragraph, he’s recorded what Malcolm X has said in faultless English.
B, I always could read some, he says when he sees my look of surprise. Member those postcards my dadd
y sent?
He is referring to the postcards from his father with bright, glossy images of Seattle, Washington, or Anchorage, Alaska. The message on each card was always the same: Maybe one day you’ll see this place, Marvin. Or: As soon as you’re older, you’ll come here too. Bailey took each card as a paternal promise, a veritable oath.
Eventually, Bailey noticed all the postage stamps had been stamped in San Francisco, and his mother admitted that his father was incarcerated in Alcatraz so she had sent packages of postcards to his father and one by one he had mailed them back to Bailey.
I am moved by the tale of Bailey’s father and his postcards. After all, I, too, hope to open my boy’s mind to life’s possibilities.
B, I kin read all the words on my daddy’s cards now, Bailey crows.
Without warning, the clammy herald of unpleasant things creeps up my back. Anxiety isn’t the only emotion that brings on tachycardia. Joy also sends blood pumping crazily through the antechambers of my bad, old heart. Then — wouldn’t you know? — Aldo appears, afire with menace. He points at my bunkmate and draws a line across his throat.
You see that, B, Bailey whispers as Aldo saunters off. Aldo goin’ git me.
Nonsense. The cretin is only trying to scare you.
4
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I’m obliged to use the washroom kept open for Food Service workers. Nobody is there, but I sense a presence, and I stand as if frozen to the washroom floor. Through a haze of steam at the far end of the shower stalls, Bailey is dangling by his heels from a showerhead. His prison sweats are soaked through, and his sopping dreadlocks hang over his forehead like shrivelled bulrushes. A shudder passes through me.
I step cautiously into the shower room, hot steam assailing my face. To set Bailey free, I have to navigate the rest of the showerheads spewing scalding water.
