A Bad Man

by Stanley Elkin

  In a week all that was left was what Feldman had hidden. Gradually he began to reintroduce cigarettes, books of matches, edible candy, the toiletries. These he let Flesh and Walls and Sky sell.

  “You hate these guys,” Flesh said.

  “No,” Feldman said. It was true. He loved a good customer. Feldman himself was sometimes an easy mark for a good salesman. The formative years, he thought.

  “It’s as though they had to spend money,” Sky said.

  “That’s right. That’s right, Sky.” Feldman felt expansive. Without fear, the mood of his safety still on him, he had begun to miss his life, to feel a sort of homesickness for the habit of being Feldman. He was tempted to talk to them as he had sometimes talked to his employees. (Gradually he had begun to think of the three as his employees. Criminals. The best staff he had ever put together.) “Anticipate the consequences of desire, and you’ll be rich. All things are links in a chain. All the things there are. Objects take their being from other objects. A salesman knows. This is the great incest of the marketplace.” This was the way he spoke to his employees—after hours, the store closed, before a weekend perhaps, or a holiday. There was something military about it. He might have been an officer who had just brought his men through a great battle. There had been blood. Money and blood. All shoptalk, all expertise had a quality of battle about it, of exultation in the escape from danger. Something was always at stake, every moment you lived. No one could ever really afford to tell the truth. Even after hours, when the store was closed. But sometimes the truth was so good you couldn’t keep it to yourself.

  “Unless he’s enormously wealthy a man puts out just about what he takes in. Some people get behind and a few rare ones get ahead, but for the most part accounts balance. This is so no matter what a man earns. There’s something humorous about the plight of some young fellow struggling to get along on five thousand a year still struggling to get along on fifteen thousand a year ten years later. It’s because desire’s built into the human heart. Like the vena cava or the left ventricle. It’s there from the beginning. You never catch up. When I found this out I wanted to be in on the action. I asked myself: if all things are links in a chain, what must I do to control the chain itself? The answer was clear. I must own a department store! Did you know that in England, where they were invented, they used to be called ‘universal stores’? So that’s what I worked for, because the possibilities are unlimited in universal stores. There’s everything to sell.

  “I’m telling you what’s what. That’s usually a mistake, but I don’t see right now how it can hurt me. I’ll surprise you. I’ve always been very fond of my employees. The boss usually is. He loves a man who works for him, who furthers his ends…

  “What was I talking about? Yes. I like to wait on trade myself. Sometimes I try to see how far I can take a customer, if I can wrap him in the chain. Once a woman came to buy some gloves when I was behind the glove counter with my buyer. She spent four thousand dollars and had been on every floor in the store and in almost every department before she left. Admittedly that was unusual. The woman was wealthy and had almost no sales resistance, but wealthy or not, she got in over her head. That’s the test.

  “Listen, it’s like odds and evens, men and women, Yin and Yang. I discovered—I had help, my father was moving toward this before he died—that there are casual items and resultant items. An object can be both, but usually it’s one or the other. Ice cream is casual because it generates thirst. But chewing gum is resultant. That’s why they put it by the cashier’s counter in an ice cream parlor. A hammer is resultant, but a two-by-four is casual as hell.”

  “Tables and chairs,” Flesh said.

  “That’s only the beginning,” Feldman said. “Cloths for the tables and silver for the cloths and plates for the silver and bowls for the plates and soup for the bowls and napkins for the soup and rings for the napkins.”

  Ed Slipper was standing outside the cage of the canteen, watching.

  “And what for the rings?” Manfred Sky asked.

  “Fingers for the rings,” Feldman said, and stepped outside to greet Slipper. “You’re out of the infirmary,” he said. “I’m glad to see you.”

  It was the first time he had seen the old man in daylight, and he felt doubts. When he had gone to his room to bribe him with the chocolate cherries, he had seemed in the dark commendably greedy, someone who could be dealt with. Now the light clarified the old man’s age, stunted his appetite, and he seemed in his infirmity a wanderer, someone loose, virtuous as the sick are virtuous. Feldman wondered if he had made a bad deal, if Slipper even remembered what the deal had been.

  “I have something for you,” Ed Slipper said. “You have to come.”

  Feldman was surprised to discover he was disappointed. He had sought an advantage, but since then he had not felt the need for it. He had been comfortable recently. Suppose the warden had sent the old man. If so, he was no longer safe, he was being threatened again. Something was always at stake.

  The old man moved away from the canteen and through the corridor into the main part of the facilities wing. The fact that they were in the recreation area added to Feldman’s annoyance. Here were the classrooms, the chapels and dining and assembly halls. The gym was here and the TV rooms. The rooms had an air of having been donated. He looked for the brass plaques citing the givers. He stayed away from this area as much as he could, rarely spending any of his free time here. Indeed, nothing about the prison made him feel more a prisoner than its salons. Watching a movie with a thousand men who had not paid to get in made him feel terrible. He had always been uncomfortable if he could not ask for his money back. His cell, at least, despite its being shared and barred, was his cell; his cot; despite its discomforts, his cot. If anything, the very fact that the cell was locked added to his sense of being in possession there.

  “This way,” the old man said. He moved down another corridor, and Feldman followed. They passed a guard, but luckily they were not challenged, for he had forgotten to get a pass. The old man bothered him; he seemed too calm. Sure, Feldman thought, he’s on Warden’s Business. He’s got the flag in his pocket.

  They came to a chapel. “Wait,” Slipper said, “I have to sit down a minute.” He pushed open the door and found a seat on a back bench.

  “Listen,” Feldman said, “I forgot to get a pass.”

  “It’s all right,” Slipper said, “if you see a guard, pray.” He was referring to the privilege of sanctuary which the warden had introduced. If a prisoner could get to a chapel, he could remain there indefinitely—so long as he was praying aloud.

  “Maybe I’d better go back and get one,” Feldman said uneasily.

  “No,” the old man said, “we’re almost there. We already passed the guard. You don’t need a pass.”

  Feldman was positive Slipper was working for the warden. The man had changed. Despite his obvious frailty and need to rest, he seemed very much in control of himself. “I thought for a while you forgot about me,” Feldman said.

  “No, I didn’t forget.”

  “I thought for a while you had. I gave you six days to get my file.”

  “I was in the infirmary, Leo,” Slipper said.

  He calls me Leo. “Sure, Ed. How you feeling?”

  “Well, you know, I got some bad news when I was in the infirmary.”

  Feldman looked at him.

  “They took some tests.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got diabetes.”

  Feldman felt relieved. “They can control that,” he said. Perhaps the old man’s manner was only concern for his health.

  “Certainly they can. But it means something else.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m off the chocolate cherries.”

  “Oh.”

  “Poison,” the old man said.

  “Oh.”

  “Rat poison,” the old man said. “I might as well swallow deadly rat poison.”

  “I see.”

/>   “I don’t need your five dollars a month. There’s nothing I want to buy except candy, and I want to live more than I want a sweet.”

  “That’s right, Feldman thought. Slipper had two obsessions. They conflicted. That warden. “A deal’s a deal,” he said. “It still accumulates.”

  “Well,” Ed Slipper said, “I’ll have an estate.”

  “You’re still in my debt. You’re still my man,” Feldman said half-heartedly.

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t seem to mind much, being sick,” Feldman said. “I’m surprised.”

  “Well, I got some good news too. I’m the second oldest con now, Leo. I moved up two guys. That bird in Atlanta died in his sleep a week ago, and the fellow in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was sprung when someone made a deathbed confession to his crime.”

  That warden, Feldman thought. He knew I went after him with chocolate cherries, and invented chocolate-cherry disease. I exploit obsession; he instills it. “Listen, Ed, I have reason to believe you might not have what they say you have. The night I came to you, the warden—”

  “Shh,” Slipper said, “I hear someone.”

  “—saw me in the corridor—”

  “Shh, it’s the guard.” Ed Slipper fumbled to his knees. “Dearest God, strike down that old bum in Leavenworth in his tracks. Restore my health and hold down the sugar in my blood and urine. Grant me a peaceful, wise old age.” He turned and tugged excitedly at Feldman’s sleeve, pulling him down beside him. “Psst. Pray. Pray!”

  Feldman could think of nothing to pray for. He felt immensely stupid, but the old man was poking him in the ribs. “And God bless Mommy,” he suddenly blurted in a loud voice, “and Poppy and Uncle Ned and Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Julius and Cousin Frank and Dr. Bob and Baby Sue.” He reeled off fifty names. Who the hell are these people? he wondered, amazed at himself. Suddenly he was conscious that the old man had stopped praying and was looking at him.

  “You got a big family, you know that, Leo?” Slipper said respectfully. Then he began to laugh, and he seemed greedy again. Avarice boomed out of his glee.

  “Okay,” Feldman said. “I get it. There was no guard.”

  “Leo,” Ed Slipper said, wiping his eyes, “I swear I thought I heard him. Anyway, I knew what you were going to say. The warden warned me, but I saw the results of the tests myself. I got it, Leo. I got it, kid. I think I got it. Anyway, can I take the chance? I want to live. I’m second oldest con in the country now if the warden didn’t lie about that. What would you do in my place?”

  “What about my file?”

  “Oh sure,” the old man said. “Come on, I’ll show you. That laugh was terrific.”

  Feldman stood.

  “Better brush your blue suit off,” Ed Slipper said. “Floor’s dirty. You got some dust on your knees.” He was still chuckling.

  “Yeah,” Feldman said. “I pray sloppy.” Some shape I’m in, he thought. I make him laugh, the second oldest con in all the prisons. Relax, he told himself, life is ordinary. Nothing happens. “Rested up, old-timer?”

  “Oh yes,” Ed Slipper said, “just give me a hand up, please.”

  He has a buzzer, Feldman thought. I touch him, ten thousand volts of electricity go through my body. A practical joke. You live, you die. Nothing to it.

  He helped the old man up.

  “Your file’s just down the hall,” Ed Slipper said, leading Feldman out of the chapel, “come on.”

  Feldman felt like someone walking into ambush who knew what was coming but not when. It wasn’t too late to turn back, but somewhere along the way his duty had taken over. He had to see it through to the end now. Comic obligation had to have its way. Life was ordinary. He was going to have to step through some door into a pitch-black room where suddenly the lights would snap on. A thousand killers would be singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” His wife would be there, his son. And at the instant that he started to think: Today is my birthday—all the tenors, two hundred and seventy-five of them, would beat the shit out of him. They would cut out his son’s heart and feed it to him, and he’d have to eat it—they’d have a way of making him. His wife would be doing a striptease under a magenta light. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Feldman together again. He groaned.

  They passed Bisch in the hall. Bisch nodded. “What’s new?” he said.

  “What could be new?” Feldman said.

  Slipper took Feldman’s arm and guided him to a door. The word “Library” was painted on the milky glass.

  “Beyond this one, right?” Feldman said.

  “Yes sir,” Slipper said.

  You don’t have to call me “sir,” Feldman thought. Not before a big job. “Shall I open it or shall you?” he asked sweetly.

  “You open it,” Slipper said.

  I am going to blow up, Feldman thought. I am going to explode into a trillion billion fragments, and they will put out a report that I have escaped. There’s going to be a disaster, he thought, looking at the old man’s virtuous face. There’s going to be a disaster, and all I can do is cooperate. And if there is no disaster there will be a disaster. Warden Fisher demands a disaster.

  He opened the door. They were in what appeared to be the library. He looked at the book-stuffed shelves. They didn’t have to go to all this trouble, Feldman thought, transferring all those books, alphabetizing the cards, setting up the Dewey decimal system. Or did they use Library of Congress? He would never know now. That would be the problem he took with him to the grave.

  “This is it,” Slipper said.

  “This is it, right, old-timer?”

  “Yep.”

  “Yep,” Feldman said, “this is it.”

  “Yep.”

  “My file, please, Slipper,” Feldman said. He felt like a straight man feeding a line to the second oldest and second funniest banana in all the prisons in all the United States of America and all its territories and possessions. He felt like sticking his fingers into his ears to muffle the explosion of the big laugh.

  Slipper marched up to the check-out desk. “The file on Bad Man Feldman,” he told the trusty.

  The man looked up at them. Feldman remembered thinking he had the bluest, clearest eyes he had ever seen. “Bad men are on the open shelves,” he said. “Feldman,” he said, underscoring the first letter. “Is that a Ph or an F?”

  So, Feldman thought. They use phonetics.

  “F,” Ed Slipper said.

  “Open shelves, under F,” the trusty said.

  Uv course, Feldman thought, whut then? Liphe is ordinary, and the man’s a phool who thinks it’s phancy.

  “Come on,” Ed Slipper said. They walked back to the open shelves and there, just as the trusty had said, under F, between a volume entitled Federal Offenses and another called Felons and Felony, were seven copies in high stiff black covers of the book on Feldman. Slipper took down a copy, flipped through the two hundred or so mimeographed pages and then removed the card from the little pocket in the back. “This one’s been checked out five times,” he said, offering it to him.

  Feldman shook his head. “I saw the picture.”

  Suddenly the door flew open. It was the warden. Two guards were with him. “Guards,” he shouted, “arrest that man!” They rushed up to Feldman and grabbed his arms. “Throw him in solitary confinement,” the warden roared. “I warned you and warned you! I sent you a letter. I explained how you get along. ‘Life is ordinary,’ I told you. But you think you’re an exception. I know what you did at the canteen, how you forced items on the men they didn’t need, bankrupting them, bankrupting poor men. Deliberately twisting what I told you. You’re up to here with passion. Up to here with it. But life is simple, Feldman. Now you’ll see that. Get him away. Get him into solitary. Lock him up in a cage by himself. Now he’ll learn. Now he will. Fuck-up!”

  Phuck-up yourself, Feldman thought.

  11

  Now I am alone.

  The cell to which they brought Fe
ldman for his solitary confinement was no smaller than the one he shared with Bisch. If anything, because of the absence of the other cot and the small table on which each convict was allowed to arrange his possessions, it seemed a little larger. Nor was it, as he expected, darker. When the warden roared the words “solitary confinement,” they had suggested some black hole-and-corner of the universe, or cramped subterranean quarter the sun never touched. He had expected, really, that it would be a place bad for one’s bronchial condition—a calcimined, limey strongbox locked by big keys, the bedsprings rusted and the mattress mildewed.

  It ain’t the Ritz.

  On the other hand, it was no less institutional-looking, and thus, in a strange way, competent, functional, than anyplace else in the prison.

  When he had taken in that they had not put him into a torture chamber, that he was nowhere where preceding sufferers had etched their dark dates on the walls of their cells like poems of their catastrophes, he substituted another expectation: science. That is, he began to think of himself as of some modern, poisonous by-product, a radioactive pile perhaps, which may only be handled remotely, by tube digits, mechanical arms operated from the other side of thick walls by men in lab jackets.

  Or of someone forlorn, abandoned. He remembered films he had seen as a child, victims abandoned in trick rooms whose ceilings descended hydraulically, an inch an hour, or rooms inexorably flooding with some killing acid. He remembered terrified men standing tiptoe, climbing the bed, pulling a table on top of that, and a chair on top of that, and the mashed, heaped bedclothes on top of that, building a Tower of Babel with the furniture on whose nervous pinnacle they could place themselves, tottering, swaying out some sure-footed doom.

  But he was wrong there too. There was no one-way mirror, so there could not have been a two-way one. The place was not bugged, not because that possibility was too fantastic, but because there was nothing they could learn from Feldman. He was simply isolated, avoided, quarantined, steered clear of in the jail’s society, as one might steer clear of a man who always failed, or one with a contagious disease. And indeed, there were times he had precisely this sense of his confinement, other times when he experienced the same brief, pointless confinement that occurs sometimes during a convalescence.