If the bourgeoisie cast him out, the underworld gathered him in. By the time he was sixteen, he had robbed several supermarkets, invested the money in Humboldt County’s premium-grade pot, and was the Grass King of West Hollywood. His next bust came when a full-fledged transvestite turned out to be a state narco agent. In the precinct, Troy looked at the agent in eyeliner, lipstick, and heels, six foot three and deceiving nobody, and just shook his head. Who the fuck woulda thought it? A drag queen narc bull? That got him sent back to the Youth Authority until he turned twenty-one. By then he was a hardened criminal, as devoted to crime as a novitiate is to Rome.
It took them five years to get him again. During those years he finished his apprenticeship and became a journeyman thief. He burned open safes with acetylene torches and planned armed robberies for Diesel Carson and Bobby Dillinger. The robberies included hijacking cigarette and whiskey trucks, supermarket safes (before they went to drop safes and double keys) and ticket brokers. When he first found Carson and Dillinger, they were sticking up 7–11 stores. It was risky and petty. He fronted them living expenses, went out and found them places to rob, spent time studying how to do it, where the money was, when it was there, and who had control over it. He took them and walked them through every step, rehearsed them, and they were happy to go do it. They got seventy-five percent of a whole lot more than the few hundred dollars they’d previously made. It was a lot safer, too, because the scores were planned, not hully-gully where you might run into any kind of a surprise. Indeed, Diesel was sent to San Quentin after he tried to rob a Sacramento poker room on his own. When he came out, the parking area turned as bright as a Yankee Stadium night game. “Freeze!” He froze. “Five years to life,” the judge said. He joined Mad Dog and others in San Quentin.
Two years after Diesel went to prison, a Hollywood Division narco officer planted Troy with twenty-eight grams of cocaine. It was an ounce, a small amount, but it was in gram bindles, “packaged for sale” in legal argot, making it a felony with a mandatory term.
Troy made bail with the deed to his mother’s house as surety. A few weeks before the trial, she had a mastectomy; she would die while he was imprisoned. On the day he was to surrender, he came to court with a 9mm Browning in his boot. He waited until all the words were said, the sentence passed, and the judge declared that “bail is exonerated.” The moment his mother’s house was no longer in jeopardy, he pulled the pistol and backed out of the courtroom. In the corridor, he ran past an off-duty policeman in civilian clothes. The policeman followed him to the stairwell, leaned over, and shot downward. One bullet shattered Troy’s ankle and he fell to the next landing and lay helpless.
They charged him with an attempted violent escape, but then plea-bargained it down to a simple escape, six months to five years instead of five years to twenty years. They had him for ten years on the drug case, another five made fifteen. That seemed eternity.
The Parole Commission determined the actual term within the statutes. With Troy, they could set the term anywhere between one year and fifteen years. He expected to serve five or six because the average for such offenses was about thirty months—and he knew what he’d done was twice as serious as the average escape. He used the first several years to educate and rehabilitate himself. He expected parole. His plans and dreams began to collect dust and atrophy when birthdays picked up speed after number thirty. The Parole Commission apparently thought his escape was many times more serious than the average escape; they kept denying him parole, year after year. After five years of a perfect record, his mother lost her fight with cancer; he wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral. Buried with her was his last connection with law-abiding society. He never again considered being other than a thief.
At ten years, they set his term at twelve years within the walls and three more on parole. He smiled and said “thank you,” but deep inside his heart was stone. He was irrevocably committed to being the criminal outsider. He had nothing vested in society. It had turned him out and expected him to be satisfied as a menial worker as the price for staying out of prison. Real freedom has choices attached; without money there is none. After eleven and a half years in San Quentin, he was no longer a novitiate. Long since ordained, he was at least a monsignor of the American underworld. He loved crime. There was no moment when he felt more alive than when he was cutting a hole in the roof of a business to crack open its safe. He was the predatory leopard and they were domestic house cats—mostly declawed, too.
Six months to get ready. He’d always exercised moderately, now he increased the tempo. He ran laps on the Lower Yard, circling the outfield at a jog that became a sprint down the left-field line to home plate. The days fell away.
At lunch, when most convicts waited in lines in the Big Yard, he stayed in the gym, pushing iron to harden already firm muscles. While he did sit-ups, he remembered an English thief explaining to him it was how they got ready for a caper. In London, nobody carried guns, not the professional thieves, not the cops on the street—so if you could outrun them, or outfight whoever caught you, there was a good chance to get away. Being in good shape was a top requisite for a London thief. It helped in America, too, although Smith & Wesson was at least equally useful. All things being equal, he preferred to run to escape than shoot his way out.
Troy Augustus Cameron felt perfectly justified in being a thief. At the very bottom of his justification was a belief that he needed none. Dostoevsky, through the voice of Ivan Karamazov, had put it succinctly: If there is no God, then all things are permissible. Troy’s parents had never attended church, nor had he. As a child he had believed in God and Jesus because everyone else seemed to and nobody said anything to the contrary. Later on, he fervently wished there was a God, but he could find no evidence thereof. It seemed absurd that God created the universe a few billion years ago; then waited 99.9 percent of its existence to put creatures “in his own image” on a minuscule planet in the tail end of a minor galaxy. It would be as if someone went to a beach, picked up a single grain of sand, and said, “Voilà, I will put my image on this.” God was arguable when mankind thought earth was ten thousand years old and the center of the universe. Francis Bacon began the revolution against God, and Darwin put the final dagger in God’s heart. Only the ignorant and the frightened (who made the leap of faith notwithstanding the facts) now believed in God.
Troy had spent many nights wanting to believe—but he was more committed to truth than to inner peace. His was the only position that fit the facts. To Troy, there was no more God in a crucifix than in a totem pole or a Star of David. Man was free to make God—and he did.
He marked the last six months off the calendar, day by day. Twenty-two days remained when the Pass Window called his job assignment in the gym and said he had a visit.
A visit! He’d had no visit since his mother got too sick. It was a joke that if he was killed and buried under the Big Yard, nobody in the world would ever inquire about his fate. He borrowed a clean shirt, combed his hair, and decided to forgo a shave. He hurried up the worn concrete stairs to the Big Yard and headed down the road toward the Captain’s Office. Convicts were coming and going. With the few he knew, he exchanged a nod or another gesture of greeting—convicts were sensitive about minor signs of disrespect. The guard in the Yard Office waved him through. He circled around the Garden Beautiful. It was early summer, and the incongruous formal garden, complete with a pattern of walkways the convicts weren’t allowed to use, was in full, riotous bloom.
At the Pass Window the sergeant gave him a visitor’s slip. It had his name and number. “Visit” was typed in; and behind that was a dash and “atty.” A lawyer. What lawyer? Was somebody suing him? Not bloody likely. That sure would amount to kicking a dead horse.
He headed toward the Between Gates sally port. As he neared the gate, the guard inside looked him over and let him in. After he was given a quick pat-down frisk, another door was opened and he stepped into the visiting room. It was a weekday and so visitors w
ere few. Convicts sat on one side of the long tables behind chin-high partitions, visitors sat on the other. His gaze swept the room but he recognized nobody. Then a man with gray hair stood up and beckoned. Troy went toward him, frowning. The visitor was grinning. When Troy was across from him, recognition came. It was Alexander Aris, nicknamed “The Greek” or “El Greco.” The last time Troy had seen him, the Greek’s hair had been black. Now it was prematurately white. What a difference a decade can make.
Greco grinned. “Hey, ol’ thing … you surprised?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods? What the fuck are you doin’ here? How’d you get in?”
“All a chump needs is the right ID. I got one that says I’m admitted to practice in the courts of California.”
“I’m gonna need some ID.”
“That’s easy. I’ve got a Mexican in Tijuana. Complete set, driver’s license, credit cards, everything … five hundred.”
“Damn, when I came here it was only a hundred and a half.”
“Inflation, brother, inflation. You look great.”
“You, too, except for the hair.”
“Hey, fool, that’s the distinguished look. I’ll say this, the heat don’t roust gray-haired old men.”
“I heard you were in power out there. Then you disappeared.”
“I got back in the weeds. I got some crazy Mexicans that front it.”
“Dealin’?”
Greco nodded. “You know.”
“Big?”
Greco shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t move tons …”
“You hear about Big Joe?”
“No.”
“They moved him to Pelican Bay. He’s got cancer and they won’t parole him for medical treatment.”
“Damn, I visited him in jail last year when he was down on the subpoena. He looked great. You know, he might be the toughest guy I ever met. In the mind, I mean.”
“Shit, man, that’s where it counts.”
Greco leaned closer and lowered his voice. “What’re you gonna do when you raise?”
“I’m gonna try to make some money, whaddya think?”
“Got anything going?”
Troy shook his head and grinned. “After a decade, what can I have goin’? What I wanna do is make some dough and get outta this country before it turns all the way fascist without knowing it.”
“Hey, bro’, you didn’t turn into a prison revolutionary on me, did you?”
“Hell, no. I’m capitalist to the core. But in ten years the prison population went from thirty thousand to almost a hundred thousand. It’s gonna get worse, man. Fear, man, fear.”
“It’s the niggers got ’em scared.”
“Yeah, but they can’t write laws that say for niggers only, can they? Besides, I’m an old white nigger to ’em. Anybody with a record automatically becomes a nigger.”
“Hey, bro’, you sound … kinda weird.”
Troy grinned and nodded. “What the fuck can you expect after twelve years in the garbage can? But I’m not completely crazy. All anybody’s gotta do is know a little history and look the facts right in the eye … But fuck that … I know you didn’t come four hundred miles and con your way into San Quentin to get my view on the state of the nation. What’s up?”
“I’m gonna put you in business so you can make a pile of money.”
“I’m no drug dealer. That’s too much like … business.”
“Nothing like that. I’ve got a lawyer who specializes in representing big-time drug cases. He’ll set ’em up to get robbed.”
“Shit, tell me more, big man.”
“You’ll need a crime partner.”
“I’ve got two waitin’ for me now.”
“Do I know ’em?”
“I don’t think so. Diesel Carson and Mad Dog McCain.”
Greco shook his head.
“They’re from up north, San Francisco and Sacramento. They’re okay. One of ’em is crazy, but what the fuck’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Here’s the deal with the lip. He wants twenty-five percent.”
“Twenty-five percent! Bullshit! If I gave up twenty-five, I’d have to rob him afterward or feel like a damn fool. He’d be in bed with his old lady while I’m risking my ass.”
Greco gestured for Troy to calm down as he raved. When Troy finished, he said, “We get first count … and he has no idea what we took. We give him twenty-five percent of what we say. We might get—five times that much.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t let me, motherfucker.”
“You know I really don’t like deceitful games. I like to come off the top of the deck with no hidden agenda.”
“I know you don’t. That’s why I’m seeing you. I know other people who are already here ripping and tearing … I don’t have to wait for ’em to get outta San Quentin. The problem is …”
“You’re scared to trust them with so much. The kind that might kill somebody instead of paying off.”
“Lotsa money on the table.” Greco smiled, his eyes twinkled. “But I trust you one hundred percent.”
“You know my track record.”
“So how many days you got?”
“Twenty-one and a getup.”
Greco filed it mentally and nodded. “You parole to L.A.?”
“No. To ’Frisco.”
“You’re from L.A. Born and raised among the rich and famous. I remember what you scratched on the wall in juvenile hall—Troy de Beverly Hills.”
The memory made them laugh so loud that the guard across the room frowned at them.
“You gotta go back to the county you came from. I got popped in ’Frisco.” Troy said. “That bull is still burning us.”
“I better go before they roust me for having too much fun in San Quentin. I’ll give you a number where you can leave messages.”
“I can remember it for right now—but I gotta write it down as soon as I leave the visiting room.”
“I better mail it to you.” Greco stood up. “I’ll leave off the area code.”
“They won’t pay any attention. Write down it’s Aunt Maude’s number, or something.” Troy stood up across from Greco. Troy looked to the other guard, who nodded okay for them to shake hands. “Glad you came, bro’,” he said.
“I’m glad I came, too. I think I’m gonna make some dough from the trip.”
Greco went to the exit and looked back and waved as the guard turned the key and pushed it open for him. Troy gave a little salute and thought about the Greek being amidst the North Beach neon when night came to San Francisco. “Damn,” he said, and headed back to the Big Yard.
5
When Troy Augustus Cameron got out of bed on the morning of his release, his cell was already bare. The few things he was taking with him had already been checked into Receiving and Release. He would get them in a brown paper package with a wax seal—to make sure nothing was added after it was searched and packed. What he was leaving behind, he had already given away: his Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, thesaurus, and a Columbia Encyclopedia that some private citizen had donated to the prison—and the library clerk peddled out the back door.
He’d shaved the night before. Now, as he brushed his teeth, he could hear the cellhouse coming awake. Flushing toilets, someone calling down the tier for a partner to bring the Chronicle at the unlock, and the idiot next door, who happened to be black, already had his TV turned on. Troy had given his own away a week earlier, as was standard practice. Convicts could buy thirteen-inch Sonys, and were required to donate them when paroled. The purchaser could donate it to a specific inmate, but when the recipient departed, he had to donate it to the prison, whereupon it was issued to someone without resources. Over the decade that TVs had been allowed, enough had come in so that now everyone had one, at least everyone who wanted one.
The tier tender came by, lugging the heavy water can with the long spout; it was used to pour hot water through the bars. The cell sinks ran only cold. T
he toilets used water from the bay, and occasionally someone found a small dead fish in the john.
“It’s all over, huh?” said the tier tender. He was a skinny white man in a T-shirt, his pale arms covered with blue jailhouse tattoos. He was in his early forties, which made him ancient by prison standards, serving a third term for trivial offenses.
“Yeah, I’ll be in Baghdad by the Bay this afternoon.”
“Good luck.” He reached through the bars to shake hands and continued down the tier, pouring water.
The morning unlock began, top tier down, with a crashing volley as eighty cells were slammed shut. Trash rained down as the convicts trudged toward the stairs, kicking over what they had swept from their cells.
Troy picked up the shoebox with toothbrush, toothpaste, and a few letters and waited for the security bar to raise.
Instead of going to breakfast, he stepped out of line in the Big Yard and waited while the mess halls emptied. Soon his few close friends arrived for a last embrace and handshake and wish of good luck.
At 8:00 A.M., the work whistle blew, seagulls flew from their rooftop perches, and the yard gate opened. Convicts spilled forth, heading to their jobs. Troy walked down the road toward Between Gates. Receiving and Release was across from the visiting room.
A skinny old sergeant with stooped shoulders and rheumy eyes, nicknamed Andy Gump by the convicts, took Troy’s ID card, found his papers in a short pile, and handed them to one of the convict clerks. The convict brought the hanger with his dress-out clothes. The two other men being released were already changing. Everyone got the same issue, khaki pants, black Navy-style shoes, and a short-sleeved white shirt. The one difference was in the color of the windbreaker.
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