A Bad Man

by Stanley Elkin

  “Oh, so you admit it. You want to get out.”

  “Well, Jesus, Bisch, of course I want to get out.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference at all to you whether you’ve paid your debt to society or not. I’ll remember that one when your time comes.”

  “What do you mean ‘when my time comes’?”

  “Never mind,” Bisch said, and from his guilty blush Feldman realized he hadn’t been joking. “Never mind,” Bisch repeated, “the important thing is that you’re unregenerate.”

  “I’m not unregenerate,” Feldman said.

  “Oh ho, sure not.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Tell it to the Marines.”

  “I’m regenerate,” Feldman said.

  It was how, he realized finally, he had to speak, and in a way, because he dared not speak otherwise, he was regenerate.

  With others, of course, he was equally wary. Even with the bad men Walls and Sky and Flesh, he was cautious, and with Herb Mix, the bad man who attached himself to Feldman in the exercise yard. (Where, Feldman noticed, the bad men continued to jump about erratically, just as he had seen them do that first time from his cell. He himself, concentrating on imitating the more normal walks of the other convicts so as not to call attention to himself, sometimes found the restraint too great, the sheer watchful concentration too difficult, and would often start abruptly forward, making the disturbing movement of a man bolting in sleep.) But bad men had little to hope for from vigilanteeism. The paroles such tactics might bring others would not be given them, and one might have supposed that they would have fewer occasions, since they had less need, to make warden’s mouths. They made them anyway, at least in the canteen when there were convicts to overhear them. At these times Feldman, who had adopted a somewhat different approach with the bad men than the one he took with Bisch, would go about his business, paying no heed to their absurd challenges of him. If pushed too far, he might stop and call out to the convicts in the canteen, “You men see what I’m doing. You’re my witnesses. See me work. See me fill your orders and make change and keep the books and dust the shelves.”

  In certain respects, nevertheless, he was a real offender against the new system. An astonishing news item appeared in the prison paper:

  NATION’S 2ND OLDEST CONVICT REVEALS BRIBERY PLOT

  Ed Slipper, this country’s second oldest living convict now serving time in a federal or state prison, voluntarily disclosed to Warden’s Office Thursday the existence of thirty-two dollars and forty cents in his personal savings account at the prison. Slipper, the last of whose relatives died many years ago, has admitted that up until eight months ago he had no scource of outside income whatever for several years, and that the money has been accumulating in his account due to direct deposits by the business associates of Leo Feldman, a fellow inmate and “bad man” sentenced to one year’s incarceration here.

  Slipper charged that the money had been put into his account on Feldman’s insistence, and that in return he was to render Feldman such services as Feldman saw fit to require of him, and to impart whatever informations affecting Feldman that he as trusty might be privy to.

  Slipper, who is himself a “bad man” but who was, in accordance with prison custom and policy, declared an “ancient” and made trusty on his seventy-fifth birthday, insists that he has made use of only seven dollars and sixty cents of the forty dollars placed in his account in eight monthly five-dollar installments. He declared that he has rendered Feldman no services and that he asked Feldman to stop the checks months ago but that Feldman declined. (At present no machinery exists whereby a convict can turn down monies deposited to his account by an outside source, though Warden’s Office has revealed that a rule to that effect is now being considered as a result of this case.)

  Slipper has asked that the funds be turned over to the prison infirmary for the purchase of additional medicines.

  An editorial in the same edition offered commentary on the affair and disclosed some surprising additional facts:

  ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

  That the moral atmosphere of this institution has markedly improved, no one who has witnessed the changes of the past few months can doubt. Yet there remain certain private pockets of pollution which, for all that, smell the worse and offend the more.

  A recent fact-finding committee, charged with bringing to light vestigial episodes of corruption among the prisoners at this institution, has stated that while exact figures are unavailable, there is considerable evidence to support a conservative assertion that at least two dozen permission slips are still forged monthly, along with a like number of passes; that while absenteeism is down fortyseven percent, a check with the infirmary has revealed that only eighty-one percent of the current absenteeism is legitimate; that there are perhaps two or three warden’s-flag missions subverted to private ends each month; and that there are even now a handful of convicts who do not observe the proper seating arrangements in the dining hall. All this, capped by the recent frightful disclosure of attempted bribery in the Feldman/Slipper case, demonstrates that some—if admittedly only a few—convicts still seek to exploit their position.

  Some good signs are likewise in the wind, of course. The same blue-ribbon committee has reported that attendance is up in Warden’s Forest and that on the whole most cons have responded encouragingly to Warden Fisher’s assembly plea that they keep a closer check on each other, but these ameliorating factors are tainted by the discouraging persistence of even a “little” corruption. Once again, the few bad apples have spoiled the barrel, and many are made to suffer for the mistakes of a few self-styled “privileged” characters. It is no accident, of course, that the bribery attempt, long known to Warden’s Office but only just now revealed by Slipper himself, was the work of a bad man. Perhaps the sad statistics in the committee’s report are largely the responsibility of bad men. Perhaps, too, Feldman himself will be discovered to have contributed even more to these statistics than is now known. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

  Meanwhile, it is only fair that we applaud Ed Slipper for his recent revelations, however belated they may have been. It is pertinent too, at this juncture, to encourage the frankness of others. Only with the cooperation of a vigilant population can this prison move closer to the ideals and goals articulated for it by its administration.

  As yet, there have been no purges here among the prisoners themselves, and while history informs us that a climate of purge is often sticky, we would remind history that it has always been stickiest for the guilty.

  Feldman flushed a greasy permission slip down the toilet while Bisch slept. He even wrote a letter to the editor of the prison paper:

  Dear Sir:

  All that was almost eight months ago, when I had been in this prison for barely more than a month. As Ed Slipper himself has said, no good ever came to me from the arrangement, and if I sought advantage none was realized. I have not even exchanged greetings with Mr. Slipper for the past half year, and if my “business associates,” as your reporter calls them, have continued to deposit money to the old man’s account—why, it’s no secret, I think, that I am a wealthy man as inmates go, and that I can well afford it. Indeed, I did not stop the deposits for these last six months simply because, advantage to me or not, I realized that he could use the money. While I do not claim fondness for Ed Slipper, his great age alone demands my respect (as does his status as an “ancient” of this institution, the prison’s own term for him), and I can assure you that it has been nothing darker than sympathy that has motivated the continuance of those funds. Now that I learn he means to turn them over to the infirmary for the purchase of medicine, I intend to continue these contributions.

  Although Feldman destroyed this letter, he found that many of the expressions in it revealed an indignation that he actually felt. He knew it was best, however, to keep it to himself, best generally to lie low. There were only about four months remaining on his sentence, and then he would be free
d. (Actually, he wasn’t sure exactly how much time he had yet to serve. He knew that two or three weeks would be added on to his sentence because of the time he had remained in his cell before asking for an assignment, and perhaps he owed an additional week for other days here and there. He had not bookkept his year well. He was waiting now for the official Statement of Remaining Obligation a prisoner received when he had just twelve weeks to go.)

  His decision to lie low was consonant with the preparations he was making to renew his life on the outside. He wrote some letters to Lilly and even to Billy, though no replies came. He began also to direct inquires to the executives at his store—most, like Victman, had left when he went to prison, while others, seeing a chance to improve their position, had stayed on and taken the deserters’ places—but their replies, he discovered, held little interest for him. He had to force himself to follow the figures and detailed reports in the letters. He began to speculate about selling his store outright or merging it with one of the other department stores, and he wrote to his vice-president, asking him to look around for buyers. The reply came from Miss Lane:

  Dear Mr. Feldman:

  Mr. Nichols is on holiday now with his family, and due to the highly confidential nature of your inquiry, I thought it best to keep your letter here awaiting his return, and in the meantime to offer you some of my own thoughts about this matter. If I am out of line, Mr. Feldman, I hope you will understand that I make these remarks out of a sense of deep loyalty to you and to your store.

  I think I know how terrible this past year must have been for you, how very frightful imprisonment would be for anyone like yourself, who has lived apart from violence and viciousness all his life. I have seen a drawn gun but one time in my life—I mean the time that detective came into your office to arrest you—and although I am not a cowardly woman, my mind still registers the terror of that shock. A pistol! Loaded and pointed at a man who, whatever his faults, would never have offered physical opposition! Surely the guns of justice are no less dangerous and insulting than the guns of chaos. That you would never draw one yourself, I know as certainly as that there was never any wild anger in you, but only an experimental sort of cruelty and a will that sought resistance where there was none to be found—in the market place. (And now I think that maybe you have finally found it. In the prison, in the rifles of the guards forever pointed and loaded as in some eternal stick-up. In the bars of your cell, in the stone and steel and lead and leather—that vicious handful of the fierce old elements of the civil world. Am I right?)

  I am sorry for you, Mr. Feldman, and I read your letter offering to put your store up for sale, and I despair. Believe me when I tell you it is not concern for my job that makes me bold now. I know my value (if you never did: I recall with pleasure the time you tried to reduce my salary, your suggestion when I was still green that I be paid by the job, by the pages actually typed, so much per letter, per envelope, per licked stamp, per search in the files, per appointment made, per telephone call taken in your absence, per staple driven true—oh, there were so many. I recall all our agreements—my counterproposals and yours. That was a combat!), and I know that I could get another job tomorrow. (Did you know, speaking of combat, that I stole from you? That I used my position as your private secretary to obtain merchandise for which I never paid? I tell you this in writing because I know that in our state a convict may not bring suit against anyone on the basis of evidence obtained while he was in prison. Don’t worry. I said I knew my value, and all I ever took was by way of closing the gap between that value and what you paid me. And that at list prices, so you’re still ahead, or rather, we’re exactly even because I probably owe you something for the charm of the arrangement, and even at that I may still be ahead, for I would owe you something, too, for the secrecy, the thrill of the guerrilla risk, the absurdity and outlandishness.)

  There are some around here—your “executives,” your department heads, your lawyers—who say that you have marred your image with the public, that not understanding the terms of your crime, they will be unable to come to this store and feel uncheated. I have heard Mr. Nichols make the very suggestion to Mr. Ray that you make in your letter: that the store be sold or merged, at the very least that its name its name be changed. I hope you never agree to this. I know what went on in that basement. (I came in clothes you had never seen, in a veil—which, it happens, was merchandise I obtained from your store under false pretenses. I disguised my voice and told you that to earn money I meant to become a call girl, and asked if you would put me in touch with any contacts you might have. You told me that the big money was in dirty photographs and tried to talk me into buying an ordinary box camera and doing a series of indecent poses for a “family album” because that was more appealing, more intimate and dirtier than the ordinary studio shots, you said. You even wanted to sell me the “corners” so I could mount the photographs myself when they came back from the drugstore in your physician’s building, where you said they’d develop them.) And I don’t see the harm. (And don’t you see? You’re not the only one who needs freedom, and to be kept alive by the sense of the special. The woods are full of us.)

  Anyway, I hope you reconsider your idea about selling the store. The world is getting to be a terrible place, and I don’t know if it’s your kind or their kind who make it more awful, but if we must have terror, let it be gay and exciting, I say.

  I know you may fire me for this letter, but if you sell the store I don’t care anyway.

  Yours in Crime,

  Silvia Lane

  Feldman fired her. He wrote Billing a confidential letter to ask if she had a charge account at the store. She did, and he assumed that she would continue to use it. Figuring what she had been worth to him over the years at his figures, he subtracted this amount from his estimate of what she might have figured she was worth to him at her figures. Her figure was seven percent higher than his; she had been with him nine years, so she owed him, he guessed, $4,410. In a second confidential letter from Billing he learned that on the average she spent about $640 a year in his store. This, with her employee’s discount of twenty percent, represented $800 in purchases. Now that she was no longer with the store she would lose the discount, and so he wrote Billing a third confidential letter, asking them to research what single girls of Miss Lane’s approximate age and income and educational background could be expected to spend with him each year. The answer that came back was $500. She would be sore at him for firing her, of course, but he knew that buying habits, once established, were as strong as instincts. Say she spent only $400 a year. Round off the $4,410 she owed him to $4,400. He could get his money back, hiking her bills at the rate of fifty percent a year. It would take work. Sooner or later someone as efficient as Miss Lane would wonder why she was paying $600 a year for only $400 worth of merchandise. Carrying charges. (Beautiful things could be done with carrying charges.) Nickel-and-diming her on every bill. Here and there a really gross mistake in his favor. Occasional charges for items never purchased. Then some really flashy stuff with her credits if she objected. The rest to be done with seconds, damaged goods and the clever substitution of inferior merchandise. It would take work, all right, and patience, but the important thing was that it could be done. Of course, it meant that he could not sell his store for twenty-two years, but if that’s what it meant, that’s what it meant. She wanted combat? He’d give her combat.

  In the prison, however, he was never more docile. He had gone underground. He tightened his belt and became a very Englishman of austerity. Realizing how close he was to being discharged—his Statement of Remaining Obligation was sent from the state capital on the same day he received an answer to his last letter to Billing—he regarded the time he spent there more bitterly than ever. He no longer speculated about Warden’s Mind or the meaning behind the sytem. Nor did he seek advantage. (In a way, he was actually grateful to Ed Slipper for exposing him. If Slipper had still been under an obligation to him, even one the old man did
not acknowledge, he might have felt compelled to extract it, might have done something that would get him into trouble. The trick now was to stay out of trouble.)

  When one day he awoke with what he was certain was a fever, he panicked. Suppose he was wrong, he reasoned. Suppose he reported to the infirmary and had no temperature—he would be charged a day for goldbricking. Suppose, on the other hand, he reported for work and the fever cut into his efficiency. Suppose he made a mistake; why, they would charge him for that too. Weeks could be added to his term. The percentage player would report to the infirmary, but suppose the fever had clouded his reason and he wasn’t reading the percentages clearly. What was he to do? In the end he decided—perhaps unreasonably; he was aware of that—that one ought not arrive at a decision and then, simply on the basis of some estimated margin for error, reverse that decision. But again, could he say he had arrived at a decision when he was only inclined toward one? What was he to do? What?

  Eventually he went to the infirmary. His temperature was 102, and they put him to bed. Weak, feverish, feeling as if he would throw up, pains in his arms, his legs, all he could think of was that it was good time, perfect in fact, that it couldn’t be counted against him: that he was safest as a sick man. He resented the medications but took them obediently, unwilling to give any trouble which could boomerang. He thought it a hideous irony that perhaps the very medicines he took to make him well enough to return to that part of the prison where the dangers were might have been purchased with the funds he had given to Slipper.

  In three days he was well enough to be discharged, and was granted an additional half day of “soft duty” to be performed in and about his cell. He was as grateful for the three and a half days he had gained as some other man might have been for a long, paid vacation. But he was careful not to appear too happy, lest his happiness be counted against him.