“You probably are,” I said. “For her sake, I hope so. Can you tell me anything else about Johnson?”
“No, I really didn’t know him that well. I’ll tell you who can. There is an inmate named Willie Baker. He’s probably the oldest homosexual alive on the compound, maybe even in the world.”
“The one they call Grandma?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said with surprise and amusement. “You chaplains know the four-one-one, don’t you?”
“That’s me, Mr. Information. It’s not the four-one-one, but the nine-one-one that has me concerned.”
“Well, if it come to that,” he said smiling, “I be happy to make the call.”
“Thanks,” I said, “that’s very reassuring.”
I turned to leave and then turned back and said, “Oh, yeah, could you recognize a request that Johnson typed if you saw it?”
“No, and neither would you,” he said.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because Johnson couldn’t read or write. Just another dumb nigga’,” he said smiling, “like all us darkies.”
“You sure he couldn’t write?” I asked.
“As sure as I am that desegregation didn’t end racism in the South.”
That was as positive as Merrill could get. Walking back toward the institution, I wondered who wrote the request for Ike Johnson and if they knew anything about the trouble that Ike was in or maybe who killed him. Maybe he’ll come and see me before the day is over. And, maybe I’ll wake up in the morning and racism will be over, too.
Chapter 14
The compound was alive with the noise of a crowd, distinct voices only heard occasionally-laughter, yelling, religious talk, and profanity, all whirling around together like a brackish whirlpool of sound. Blue movement was everywhere. The activity was astounding; the inmates were in perpetual motion. They buzzed around like bees going from one flower to the next, many of them spreading poison rather than pollen. In the distance I could hear shots being fired on the range, and I wondered if it registered with the inmates that the officers were preparing for the eventuality that they might have to shoot them.
The sun beat down with a vengeance. The only shade was provided by four pavilions that were constructed for just that purpose. Like everything else in the institution, they were uniformly gray. Perhaps they blocked the sun, but they were impotent against the heat. The heat was stifling. Breathing the hot, thick air in and out took extra effort. The breeze that was present at the end of spring had finally given up and left town about a week before. The air didn’t move, which is why the constant movement of the inmates looked all the more out of place.
As I walked through the open population, I was again reminded that I was a stranger in a strange land. This was their world, not mine. Many of the inmates treated me as guests at a dinner party would a servant. Some of them didn’t seem to notice me at all. Others spoke, many of them doing so very respectfully.
As I passed through their midst, I heard contrasting discussions, from talk about God on a seminary level-”The concept of the trinity is not the fixed state of God, but an expression of different ways in which God can be experienced”-to the proliferation of scatological language-”That motherfucker even think about fuckin’ with my shit I’a fuckin’ kick his motherfuckin’ ass two times”-quite often from the same mouth. I heard deals being made, political and sports discussions, and what I never failed to hear anywhere in the prison: discussions of all that was wrong with the Department of Corrections.
I walked down to the recreation field where inmates were very seriously playing. Above the field, in the clear, blue sky, a small flock of birds chirped and sang as they flew-surely a sign to anyone looking: beauty was here, God was here. I usually visited the rec field once a week to be available to the inmates who would never consider coming to the chapel. However, I had already done that this week. This visit was to see Willie Baker, who hadn’t shown up after I had him called to the chapel. I could’ve had security pick him up and bring him to me, but I thought that might make him less than cooperative.
I found Willie at the far end of the rec field sitting on the ground leaning up against the back of the softball fence. He looked about a hundred and fifty. His gray hair, what little there was, made a nearly complete circle around the crown of his head. His eyes were hollow, and his eyeballs seemed as if they would have been too small for their sockets if not for the yellow matter in the corners of them. His stubbly gray beard sporadically covered his gaunt face, dipping down in the recesses of his cheeks because he had no teeth. If he were in any way effeminate you couldn’t tell it by looking at him. However, if he were alive, you couldn’t tell it by looking at him either. Men and women look a lot more alike at his age anyway.
He sat with two other men, both in their twenties. I said men because that’s all this institution incarcerates, not because they looked like men. They were as feminine as any girl I had ever dated, and more so than some. They worked their femininity for all it was worth, too. They were gay and proud; they also seemed to be advertising.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” I said to Willie when I had squatted down in front of him.
Willie’s expression didn’t change. He continued to stare up, which made his pupils almost completely disappear, causing him to look like the blind dude in Kung Fu.
“Grandma,” the inmate to his left said in a high falsetto voice, “the chaplain want to talk whichya.”
Willie didn’t respond.
In the center of the field stood a gray officer’s station. Part of it was open, housing free weights and Ping Pong tables. Scattered all around it were card tables where small groups of inmates played checkers, chess, and dominoes. There was no gambling going on-just ask the inmates.
“Grandma,” he said again, this time patting his cheek as he did, “wake up, old girl. They’s a man what wants to talk whichya.”
Willie’s eyes drifted slowly back down to earth, landing somewhere in my vicinity. Then he said in a soft, airy voice, “Who …”-he breathed out and paused as if this would require the last bit of life that was left in him-” … is … it?”
“It’s the reverend. The new one,” he said.
“The fine one,” the other one said. I smiled.
Willie leaned down and whispered something in the ear of the inmate to his left. He was obviously the spokesperson for the group. His name tag read Jefferson.
“Grandma wants to know,” Jefferson said, “if you think homosexuals have no hope of salvation.”
“I don’t think there’s anybody with no hope of salvation. I say this because I am being saved or redeemed or whatever, and if I can, anybody can.”
Willie leaned down again and whispered something else in Jefferson’s ear. Behind us the other inmates on the rec field were loud and active, sounding like children on a playground. And, in many ways, that’s what they were-children who refused to grow up, men who could find no benefit in becoming responsible adults.
“Grandma say what do you think about priests who molest children?”
“I think they need help. I think they do not need to be priests.”
“Do you think that they do that because they fags?” Jefferson asked.
“Pedophilia and homosexuality are two different things, and rarely is a person both,” I said.
Behind me on the track that circled the entire field, two inmates passed by and snickered. They said something I couldn’t make out. Then they laughed some more. Again, Willie whispered something into Jefferson’s ear. Their actions brought to mind Moses and Aaron.
“Grandma say you all right. What you want to know?” Jefferson said.
“I want to know everything there is to know about Ike Johnson.”
“Grandma say he dead. What else is there to know?” Jefferson said after receiving instructions from Grandma to do so.
“I want to know all about him while he was alive so I can find out why he wa
s killed,” I said.
Beyond the blacktop court where young black men played full-court basketball like they did in Miami, the elderly inmates played horseshoes like they did in retirement homes in Sarasota. Past them, the young white inmates played volleyball the way they did on Panama City Beach. Yet, beyond all of this, the wall of chain-link fence and razor wire served as an ominous reminder of exactly which part of Florida this was.
“Grandma say he a real faggot. A bastard of a faggot. Do anything. Worse than a ho. Say, him getting killed just a matter of time. Sooner or later his kind always get stuck.”
“Did he belong to someone?” I asked.
“You mean was he someone’s ho?” Jefferson asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Grandma say everybody think he belonged to Jacobson, but he didn’t. Grandma say he belonged to another inmate, and they both belong to a cop.”
“A correctional officer here at the prison?” I asked, though I didn’t believe it.
“Yeah. But the point is,” Jefferson continued, “he wasn’t loyal to his old man. He would do anything anytime. He also had a big mouth.”
“What else can you tell me?” I asked.
“Grandma say that all he can say, ’cause he ain’t got a big mouth.”
I thought about all the names that I had come across so far in this investigation. I wanted to ask him about at least one of them.
“Can you tell me who Johnson’s real old man was?” I asked.
“Can’t say,” Jefferson said, and Willie nodded his head in agreement.
“What can you tell me about Captain Skipper?” I asked.
Willie said nothing, but for just a split second the seemingly knocking-on-death’s-door old man was as alert as any twenty-year-old I had ever seen. He leaned over and whispered in Jefferson’s ear again.
“Grandma say, he won’t say nothin’ about that redneck son of a bitch,” Jefferson said.
“Okay, what about Jones, the inmate who works in the infirmary?”
Again the whisper, again Jefferson with the response: “Say all he know is he well looked out for. He in love with them nurses, especially Strickland. Jones say they do things for each other, but Grandma think it a one-way street. Grandma understand what Jones mean. Say if she was straight, she’d love Nurse Strickland, too.” All three inmates smiled widely.
“How about a young officer named Shutt?” I continued.
“Must be new, ’cause Grandma don’t know him,” Jefferson said.
“I don’t really know what else to ask you. I’m trying to find out who killed Johnson and why. Is there anything else you can tell me that would help me do that?”
He shook his head. And then he, and not Jefferson, said, “Look into sex and drugs. It gots to do with sex or drugs or both. Everything out here got to do with sex or drugs.”
“Only thing missing is rock ’n’ roll,” I said.
“We got a little of that, too,” he said.
Chapter 15
“Who can I get drugs from?” I asked a very surprised Anna Rodden.
“Excuse me,” she said, moving her head from side to side in mock confusion. “Have things gotten that bad?” She was wearing a colorful jumper with blooming spring flowers all over it. It fit nicely, though not too nicely, which would have violated her oath. Her long brown hair was worn down in long rolling waves. She was lovely.
“If an inmate wants to buy drugs on the compound,” I said, “how does he do it?”
I was seated across from her desk in a blue plastic chair that sloped down to the left. Behind her, through the window, I could see inmates mowing dead grass. The sun had taken a toll on everything this year, but the grass most of all. The waves of heat made the inmates look as if they were many miles away rather than a few hundred feet. An overweight officer with mirrored sunshades stood nearby to inspect their work.
“Well, let’s see,” she said, narrowing her eyes and tapping her pencil on her forehead. “First he would have to have something to buy them with. This could be cash from an outside account; personal property to trade-say, a watch, rings, or canteen items; or he could be willing to do something-sex, a hit, a favor.”
“Do many of them have what it takes to buy drugs?” I asked.
The officer inspecting the crew outside behind Anna turned slightly to the side. He looked pregnant in profile.
“Not many have money, but almost all can do some service or something. We’re talking about an economy like our own, the trading of goods and services.”
“Just how available are drugs on the compound?” I asked.
“Not as much as you might think after working here and seeing all the crime, but a whole hell of a lot more than a person on the street would think.”
Her phone rang. She picked up the receiver, tossing her head back and slinging her hair out of the way. It swung out to the right of her head and then settled back down to the center. It looked like silk and moved with the bounce of hair on a Breck commercial. If I had seen a more graceful or beautiful sight, I couldn’t remember when.
“Classification, Rodden,” she said into the receiver. “Yes, I’m in a meeting right now. I’ll come over when I finish. Okay. Good-bye.”
She hung up the phone and said, “Sorry. Where were we?”
“I was about to ask how the drugs get in? I mean how can an inmate get drugs past all of the security measures taken to prevent them from getting in?”
She smiled. “Some of the drugs on the compound are homemade. We have chemicals here and a pharmacy. Sometimes inmates get their grubby little hands on that stuff. Usually though, the homemade stuff is liquor. Real drugs come in because someone brings them in.”
“Who brings drugs into a state prison?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
“Well, if you’re asking for names, I can’t help you, but generally it comes down to two types of people. First, there are family members who smuggle dope in mail packages, although that is extremely difficult. Most of the time, family and friends bring drugs into inmates when they come for visitation.”
“But security shakes them down. I see them do it every weekend,” I said.
“That’s true, but you know that it would still be possible to hide the stuff, especially in certain body cavities or in certain parts of the female anatomy. And which officer is going to pull out an inmate’s wife’s tampon to see if she has drugs hidden in it?”
“I see what you mean,” I said, unable to hide my disgust at the picture she had just painted on the canvas of my mind.
“Remember these are the families that produced criminals. Now, not all of them are bad, but some are criminals themselves.”
I nodded my head in agreement. Then, I shook it in disbelief, thinking of the implications of all that she had said.
“Another way,” she continued, “is for corrections officers to smuggle them in and sell them.”
“I’ve heard of that, but does it really happen that much?”
“It’s really hard to say, but drugs do get in, and it’s too much to be coming in just through inmates who get visits. COs don’t make a lot of money. Not often, but occasionally, there’s a thin line between the captives and their captors.”
“What is that thin line?” I asked.
“Time, place, luck-I don’t really know, but I think it’s always borrowed time.”
“You believe in divine justice?” I asked.
“I’ve seen it too many times not to. It’s just not like most people think. It doesn’t come in the same way as the crime. It comes in guilt, paranoia, anxiety, fear, loneliness, and ultimately death-spiritual, emotional, moral death. And those who don’t pay now will pay later.”
“I wonder sometimes,” I said and then fell silent, wondering. “This is off the subject but, have you received any threats lately?”
She smiled. “You mean in addition to the normal stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Why?”
“Just curiou
s,” I said.
“You’re never just anything,” she said. “Especially just curious.”
“Well, just be careful.”
“I always am,” she said.
“Be extra careful for a while, okay?”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.” Her expression said she trusted me and that she didn’t have to ask why.
“What about drug screening?” I asked.
“Officially, they will tell you that we do random drug screening. Unofficially, most of them are conducted after we receive a tip from another inmate. And, of course, after an inmate tests positive once, he is watched very closely.”
When she stopped talking and before I started, I found myself hoping the phone would ring just so I could witness an encore of her earlier Breck girl performance.
“If that is true, how could Johnson have been full of crack in confinement and then the infirmary, both of which did drug screenings that came back negative?”
“There are only three possibilities. The inmate somehow faked the test-traded urine with someone or something like that. Or, it was an honest mistake by the officer doing the test. Or, someone, I mean an officer or a staff member, was looking out for him.”
“Who could tell me names of inmates and/or officers supplying drugs?” I asked.
“A lot of people, but they wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t tell any of us-that would be crazy.”
“Well, I just happen to know a crazy inmate.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Jacobson.”
“I said crazy, not psychotic.”
“Speaking of which-This is off the subject, but have you received any threats lately?”
She smiled. “You mean in addition to the normal stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Why?”
“Just curious,” I said.
“You’re never just anything,” she said. “Especially just curious.”
“Well, just be careful.”
“I always am,” she said.
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