Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  Lubresky struggled to keep up, limping as he was. Thick brush and trees grew right down to the river’s edge in many places, forcing the fugitives to scramble through, over, or around all that lay in their path. On several occasions, when the going was impossible, they had to jump in the river to bypass impenetrable vegetation.

  Hoss knew the search party was likely to head for the river, too, recognizing its value as a natural channel out of the area. The river’s wild shore offered endless opportunities to hunker down, unseen unless someone literally tripped over them. But the longer they stayed put, the greater the chance that the searchers would surround them, while daybreak was likely to be their undoing. Now was the time to move, while they still had hours of darkness left to cover them, so, cold and tiring as it was, the two escapees kept moving upriver, away from Blawnox. After half an hour of rigorous work, however, they had made little progress. They discussed swimming to the other side of the river, but both knew that, however peaceful the water looked, treacherous currents lay just beneath the surface. They struck out again northward, managing another hundred yards before pausing. Then, looking back along their trail, they saw in the distance flashlights, jerking and bobbing crazily, as their pursuers slowly moved toward them. If more searchers were upriver, working their way down, Hoss and Lubresky would be trapped. Looking north, they strained their senses but saw or heard nothing. Still, that could change any moment. They had to get off the river.

  “Tom, we’ll go straight up outta’ here and see where we are,” Hoss panted, “an’ grab the first car we can. If we’re gonna get caught and hafta’ run for it, it’s every man for himself.”

  Clambering up and away from the river, the escapees found themselves in luck, but they had to act fast. On flatter ground with greater visibility, they saw more search parties but none, judging by the sweep of the flashlights, closer to them than a couple of hundred yards. Telling Lubresky to follow, Hoss, in a crouched run, made his way into the backyard of the nearest house, then ran to the side of a detached garage. The door was closed and Hoss didn’t want to risk the noise of opening it. Both men could see some people out on their porches, taking stock of the search and trading news and rumor. Likely as not, these river folks were toting handguns and deer rifles. As to what they’d do if an escaped felon threatened kith and kin, there was no question.

  The escapees moved away from the garage back toward the river. Before reaching the tangled vines and brambles of the riverbank, however, the pair took the riskier but quicker route of running north along the furthest fringes of yards and fields—even through an apple orchard. As the two left the trees behind, they spotted another staggered set of flashlights, this time coming along the river from the north.

  “Shit, they’re gonna get us, Stanley,” Lubresky moaned.

  “Tom, shut up and listen. They’re still a couple minutes away, and that’s if they don’t stop to investigate anything, but we gotta find a car. It’s our only chance.”

  Lubresky worked hard to keep up with Hoss. Entering a copse of pines, they knelt to study a nearby house. Lights were on upstairs, but none showed on the first floor … and there was a car parked out front.

  Jack Willams was upstairs in his Blawnox home watching TV. His wife and young son were in the next room. Williams had been out on his porch earlier, upon hearing the workhouse siren. He’d even walked the sixty yards to his neighbor’s house to get any news. Williams’s house was on the outskirts of town, and all seemed quiet, so after a while he went back inside.

  Even so, before going upstairs, Williams checked the locks on the doors. Resting in his easy chair, he had stubbed out his last cigarette ten minutes earlier and was close to nodding off when he heard the familiar sound of his beloved six-year-old powder-blue Chevy firing to life. He sprang to the window in time to see the headlights pop on, illuminating the sequence of mountain laurels and saplings flanking the curve of his gravel driveway. Williams fiddled with the latch to raise the sash and yell out, but before he could, the escapees had floored the Chevy’s accelerator, the back tires grabbing and spitting stones everywhere. Flying from the driveway, the car made a violent right turn and then was gone.

  Free. Hoss could barely contain his excitement. He and Lubresky, who alternated between grinning and rubbing his ankle, were some forty-five minutes east of Blawnox in Jack Williams’s powder-blue Chevy.

  In a grinning moment Lubresky looked over at Hoss. “Stan, do ya think they’ll put a price on our heads?”

  Hoss laughed. “Don’t know, Tom. I don’t think they do that stuff anymore, but maybe they do. That would be cool. We’d be like Billy the Kid or John Dillinger or Capone …”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Lubresky piped in, “or like Wyatt Earp.”

  Hoss playfully punched Lubresky’s arm. “Nah, not like him,” Hoss educated his buddy. “He’s a good guy.”

  For all the fun of the moment, Hoss considered Lubresky a distinct liability now that they were out of prison, and was angling to cut him loose at the first opportunity. Hoss had made it clear that his plans didn’t include California, so they’d be splitting up anyway, but he wanted the parting to come sooner rather than later. Besides, Hoss thought the big oaf wouldn’t make it ten miles after he dumped him; he was likely be caught digging up a shoebox in his landlord’s backyard. Lubresky, however, was less eager to split.

  “C’mon, Stan, just think,” urged Lubresky. “Sand, and those trees, uh … palm trees! And babes, and no law on our back. We ain’t got nothin’ else to do.”

  Turning left on another country road, Hoss replied, “Well, that’s just it, Tom. I got plans for around here. Right off I got some business in Cleveland, so whaddya say I drop you somewhere tonight? Then that’ll be it.”

  “Okay, Stan, but I can’t go home. They’ll have our places covered, huh?”

  After traveling further east, Hoss pulled to a guardrail by the Kistaminatas River. Nearby was a trailer where a girlfriend of Lubresky’s lived. He’d stay with her for a while.

  Both men were soaked and cold. The air inside the car was musty from their coarse woollen prison uniforms. The heater stayed on while the car idled, but each rolled down his window and gulped the fresh air outside.

  “Hey, Tom, we did it! Didn’t I say we could fool all those dumb bastards? Man, I would have loved to see their faces when they saw the hole in that skylight. And do ya know? I was scared silly lowering myself off that roof with those ratty bed sheets tied together. But we’re free as birds. We made it.”

  Lubresky chose his least damp cigarette and lit up, using the car’s lighter. After two long drags, Lubresky said, “Yep, here we are, and they’re still on that damn river lookin’ for us, shiverin’ their asses off. We fooled ’em good!”

  Both fell silent while Lubresky continued smoking, each turning to his own thoughts, but in a minute Hoss spoke up. “Here it is, Tom; you got it made in the shade. Once you get to this girl’s trailer … hell, I bet inside a half-hour you’ll have a hot shower and are knockin’ one off.”

  “Yeah, damn straight I will.”

  “Now, one last thing,” said Hoss. “You gotta—and me too—we gotta get outta these prison duds. At least they ain’t striped but they look funny all the same.”

  Lubresky nodded, lit another smoke, but said nothing. After ten heartbeats, the silence was oppressive. Their getaway car, just filled with laughter and stinging remarks about lawmen, now took on the feel of a funeral parlor. Heading this off, Hoss made a flip statement about a few staffers at the workhouse. “‘Do this, do that!’ Ain’t they got nothin’ better to do than boss us around? ‘Go to bed, get up.’ Well, they ain’t tellin’ me one more damn thing. You too, Tom. We’re done with their fuckin’ rules.”

  Lubresky tossed his smoke out the window and reluctantly stuck out his hand. “Well, see ya, Stan.”

  “Yeah, Tom, see ya around an’ good luck. I couldn’ta busted out without your help. Remember, the thing is to stay out of sight for a while. They
’ll eventually quit lookin’ for us.”

  Lubresky got out, then slammed the door shut. He was going to bend down to look at Hoss and give a final wave, but the car moved away.

  . . .

  In the early morning the day after the escape, Kathy Defino received a phone call at the bakery where she worked. “Kathy, this is Patrolman Red Orris. I just got off the phone with your folks. Kathy, I have to tell ya some bad news.” The young girl felt a tightening in her chest, her first thought that one of her brothers had been in a car crash.

  “I don’t want you worrying none,” said Orris, “but, well, you know Stanley Hoss?” Orris grimaced—of course she knew Stanley Hoss. “Last night him and another fella escaped from the workhouse.” Hearing a gasp from Kathy, Orris attempted to calm her, quickly adding, “We’re lookin’ for them right now. Everyone’s notified and out, and I don’t suspect they got much of a chance of lasting more than today.”

  “Oh God! Oh God! Where is he now? Do you think he’s coming here?”

  “Nah, not a chance. Remember, Hoss has been locked up since Easter and he don’t know where you work nohow.”

  “Yeah, but he sure knows where I live! He said—you know this—if I ever told on him he’d kill me!”

  “I know, I know, but that’s why right now we got a police car goin’ to your house, and he’ll be sittin’ there till it’s all over. Your parents are on their way to get you, so just stay put and try to relax.”

  Kathy put the receiver down. She turned to find the other two bakery workers standing close to her, concerned. She muttered the name Hoss, then reached for a pack of cigarettes in her sweater pocket, for she’d found that smoking helped sooth her jangled nerves. Kathy walked to the picture window at the shop’s entrance and pulled the cord of a large bamboo blind, allowing it to roll all the way down. Pulling up a stool at the window’s edge, she puffed nervously, periodically using her finger to draw the blind back an inch so she could peek out to see if anything evil was close by.

  To help out a shorthanded East Deer Station, Blawnox Chief Mike Belotti sent out a car to pay a visit to Hoss’s wife, Diane, who was not surprised her husband had escaped. She knew him as capable of anything. She informed the officer that Stanley had been living away from her and the kids for the past couple of years but that she’d received a letter from her husband a week ago, when he was still locked away.

  “Stan wrote he was going to bust out of the workhouse, come right here, and take the kids. How did he break out anyway?”

  “Don’t know,” said Officer George Bucha, “guess Stanley’s a pretty slick customer.”

  Diane pursed her lips and looked off toward the horizon, musing quietly, “Yeah, that he is … a slick customer. Anyway, I told the school officials about the letter and they said they would notify you, the police.”

  “They did,” said Bucha, “but it sounded ludicrous at the time because he was in prison and fixin’ to do a long stretch so we figured he was just blowin’ hot air.”

  They were standing in the shade offered by a small porch roof. Inside the house, a couple of her kids drifted closer to the screen door to see who Mommy was talking to. Bucha removed his sunglasses and appraised the young woman: Early twenties, good figure, corn-silk hair. Once or twice during the conversation Diane had flashed an engaging smile—or was it coy? Anyway, the officer decided, she had a way about her. For all her charm, though, there was a gloom in her eyes and she had the worn air of someone with too much responsibility and no help in sight. It’s no wonder, the cop thought. She’d essentially been abandoned by her husband to raise their four young ones alone.

  In fact, as Diane would admit in candid moments, her gloom had deeper roots than just Stanley’s abandonment. As a little girl, she had suffered the nicks and scars of undeserved ridicule and scorn. These injuries, some physical, most psychological, had multiplied to create a young woman who, in her own eyes, “wasn’t as good as everyone else.” By adolescence, her feminine ways and good looks had brought her a modicum of attention, but the confidence this afforded her would last only so long before being undermined by her insecurities; her fears and uncertainties gnawed at her, weakened her, and placed that forlorn look in her eyes, despite her alluring smile. So, yes, Diane’s fairness could prime her confidence, and she tried hard to make this work for her, but, truly, it was like holding a dumbbell at arm’s length.

  Diane put her face close to the screen door to look inside, then turned toward the patrolman. “I’ve got to get in now. I don’t hear anything, so God knows what they’re up to.”

  “Diane, just another minute? Have you seen or heard from Stanley since he escaped?”

  Diane looked Bucha square in the eye. “I’ve been married to Stan for ten years and have been afraid of him the last nine and a half. But I can’t live like this, in fear, no more. Funny thing, too. I think Stan knows it, knows I won’t put up with his shit no more. I used to visit him in county lockup some years ago, but you can check the records at the workhouse. I never visited him even once. Why should I? Leaving me and the kids like he did. Do you know I’m on welfare? Do you think he’d send me a dime, not for me but for his own kids? So no, haven’t seen him and don’t expect to. You may not believe me but if he did show up, I would not take him in. I’d call the cops on him. That’s why he won’t come here.”

  Bucha later reported the interview to Chief Belotti, who said, “You might feel bad for her and you may believe her, that she’ll turn in her husband, but I want you and Szlong covering that house round the clock, both of you going on twelve-hour shifts, till Hoss is caught.”

  After a couple of days with no sightings or news, the police were beginning to think the pair had blown the area. Officers had visited the families, friends, and criminal associates of the escapees, but all said they didn’t know a thing. The cops that interviewed Hoss’s one full sister, Betty, had a gut feeling that she had heard from Stanley, but she was smug and insolent. Short of torture, nothing would get her to talk. Harry, Hoss’s brother, had moved to Chicago some months earlier, so police in Illinois were noti-fied of Stanley’s escape.

  Then, on the Sunday following Thurday’s escape, came a break. East Deer’s police station in Tarentum was only blocks from Hoss’s last known address, 203½ West 11th Avenue, where Hoss’s wife and kids still lived. Red Orris was working the desk there at noon when he answered the phone to hear an unidentified male caller claim that a woman was visiting Stanley Hoss and bringing him food at an old farm off Saxonburg Road in Fawn Township. The tipster quickly detailed the farm’s location and then hung up before Orris could say a word. Orris phoned Chief Floyd Mason of the Fawn Township Police Department. “So we got a tip that Hoss was holed up at ol’ Punch Painter’s Place,” Mason recalled,

  a setup of a couple-three rooms, that’s it. The Painter family ran their farm out there for years; some died off, some went to the coal mines, but Punch Painter was deeded a little patch of land and that’s where he pretty much stayed, in his shanty—you’d be too generous to even call it a cabin. Legend had it that a $10,000 payroll, taken in the holdup of Flaccus Glass Company fifty years ago, was buried in a wooded area on the Painter farm and was never recovered. Punch was always lookin’ for it. But Punch didn’t bother much with anyone. In short, he was a drunk. The most ruckus he’d do was loose off a round when he had too much hooch in him. Ol’ Punch was up there in the woods by himself but, still, we had ordinances about shootin’ and what not, so every now and again we’d have to go visit and tell him to quit shootin’ treetops, critters, and such. All us cops in Fawn Township knew ol’ Punch. He didn’t take to company, but if you came callin’ with Old Crow under your arm or a case of Black Label, then Punch Painter was your friend.

  Well, right after Red Orris fills me in about this tip, I radioed my deputy, Cliff Thompson and tell him what we got. Course, this could be a prank call, but you gotta check everything out. In no time, Cliff pulls up to the station. I hop in and bring along the sawed
-off shotgun we’d use on occasion. We knew where we were going, but you still had to look sharp or you’d miss the rutted driveway, overgrown as it was. In the car there was no chance of surprising anyone ’cause once the woods broke you came to an open meadow, on which sat Punch’s shanty. Sure enough, when we could view the place, Cliff and me see Punch, a young man, and a woman. We’re pullin’ closer, lookin’ at them, and they’re lookin’ right back. I got the shotgun ready on my lap, case something bad comes about, and I see Cliff unsnap his holster. All of a sudden, while Punch and the woman stand still, the guy bolts, who we presume is Hoss. He takes off round back of the place, then disappears into the woods, runnin’ like a deer. We jump out and start chasin’, but after a little bit in them woods we knew it was hopeless. So we run back to the car, yellin’ at Punch and the girl to stay put. We took a road where we’d come to the other side of the woods Hoss ran into, figuring maybe he’d run the couple miles right through and come out where we’d be waitin’ on him. But nothin’.

  I already radioed for backup, so me and Cliff drove back to Punch’s shanty, where we’d meet the fellas comin’ in to help with a search. Since Hoss and Lubresky escaped a few days before, we were all alerted, runnin’ down leads, but I’ll have to say I was still surprised at the manpower that arrived to get up a search party. The state police of Butler sent a sizable contingent, plus a lot of the townships sent men, not to mention a bunch of guys from fire departments. Detective Dick Byers and his boss Bill Jennings showed up, which goes to show there was considerable interest in ending this Hoss escapade. Most everyone was armed, and I’ll bet at least five guys were carrying Thompson machine guns. Within an hour, we even had a helicopter sent by the state boys.

  We first saw Hoss around one, and by two-thirty we’d gathered one hundred men for the search. But when Cliff and me first got back to Punch’s, we straight off went up to him to see what he knew. First thing we see is the girl’s gone. We ask Punch if that was Stanley Hoss who ran off into the woods. He acted stupid, as usual, said he couldn’t really say, it was just someone who stopped by to ask for directions. I wasn’t in the mood for this crap, so I said, “Punch, you know me and you know Cliff. Cliff ’s out of breath from runnin’ so much and as for me, Punch, if I’d of been official-like every time I got called out here, like I should’uv, you’d be eatin’ your meals at county expense—so cut the shit!”