by Les Edgerton
PRAISE FOR LES EDGERTON
“JUST LIKE THAT is yet another Les Edgerton winner. Mr. Edgerton in his prison memoir conjures up in honest, Bukowski-esque prose a mad dog life lived behind and beyond the bars of institutional correctional facilities. Literature’s version of Johnny Cash, America has yet another gifted bard to sing the blues of time served.
I have long believed Mr. Edgerton to be an American original, who has for too long remained one of our best kept literary secrets. As a publisher I want to put to print whatever he writes, as a reader I want to devour the pages, as a writer, I’d be happy to pilfer just a few of his lines.”
—Cortright McMeel, author of SHORT; publisher, Bare Knuckles Press and Noir Nation Magazine.
(For Monday’s Meal)
“The sad wives, passive or violent husbands, parolees, alcoholics and other failures in Leslie H. Edgerton’s short-story collection are pretty miserable people. And yet misery does have its uses. Raymond Carver elevated the mournful complaints of the disenfranchised in his work, and Edgerton makes an admirable attempt to do the same. He brings to this task an unerring ear for dialogue and a sure-handed sense of place (particularly New Orleans, where many of the stories are set). Edgerton has affection for even his most despicable characters—”boring” Robert, who pours scalding water over his sleeping wife in “The Last Fan”; Jake, the musician responsible for his own daughter’s death in “The Jazz Player”; and Tommy in ‘I Shoulda Seen a Credit Arranger,” whose plan to get hold of some money involves severing the arm of a rich socialite—but he never takes the reader past the brink of horrible fascination into a deeper understanding. In the best story, “My Idea of a Nice Thing,” a woman named Raye tells us why she drinks: “My job. I’m a hairdresser. See, you take on all of these other people’s personalities and troubles and things, 10 or 12 of ‘em a day, and when the end of the day comes, you don’t know who you are anymore. It takes three drinks just to sort yourself out again.” Here Edgerton grants both the reader and Raye the grace of irony, and without his authorial intrusion, we find ourselves caring about her predicament.”
—Denise Gess. The New York Times Book Review
“Edgerton establishes the kind of convincing, and wrenching, interiority with his characters achieved by only the most adept fiction writers.”
—Peter Donahue, Sam Houston State University
“This is good fiction; Edgerton writes lean and nasty prose.”
—Dr. Francois Camoin, Director, Graduate School of English, University of Utah and author of Benbow and Paradise, Like Love, But Not Exactly, Deadly Virtues, The End of the World Is Los Angeles and Why Men Are Afraid of Women.
“Les Edgerton is much more than a fiction writer or a story teller. When you read his work, your ears prick up, your eyes go wide, and your spine tingles. You get the sense that Edgerton has been there, lived the lives of his characters, fought their fights, cried their tears, placed their bets, drank their Wild Turkey, smoked their cigarettes. He writes with a stunning accuracy, a convincing authority and a stark reality. At the same time, he strikes a balance between beauty, sensitivity and humor. Edgerton isn’t concerned with keeping your interest. He wants to reach into your heart, tear it out, hold it for you while it’s still beating!”
—Vincent Zandri, Bestselling author of The Innocent, The Remains, and Godchild.
“…the characters in Edgerton’s world bite down hard and grind up one another with their back teeth. Their authenticity is palpable as soft-shelled clams; these are sad, mean, fully human characters who long for connection almost as fiercely as they fear it.”
—Melody Henion Stevenson, Author of The Life Stone of Singing Bird
“Edgerton’s best stories are uncompromising in their casual amorality. They stare you down over the barrel of a gun, rip you up whether or not the trigger gets squeezed.”
—Diane Lefer, Creative writing teacher at UCLA and on the MFA in Writing Faculty at Vermont College. Author of The Circles I Move In and has received fellowships from the NEA as well as five PEN Syndicated Fiction prizes.
“Les Edgerton creates a vivid and compelling world. We feel the rhythm of his language and live in the skins of his characters. Altogether, a memorable experience.”
—Gladys Swan, Faculty member, Missouri University and on the MFA in Writing faculty at Vermont College. Author of A Visit To Stranger, Do You Believe in Cabeza de Vaca? and other novels and collections.
“…Edgerton draws memorable portraits of these dangerous and unpredictable characters…”
—Library Journal
“There’s no question that Leslie Edgerton loves to write... he does it so well! Edgerton deals with people often called ‘losers’ in a wonderfully poignant way and his affection for his characters gives strength to this collection of stories, one of which has received the Booker nomination. Join our support of this fine writer which Arts Indiana Magazine calls “one of Indiana’s best writers.”
—Border’s Bookstore Newsletter, September 27, 1997.
“Les Edgerton writes like a poet with a mean streak, and his prose goes down easy and smooth like good liquor as it carves up your insides.”
—Henry Perez Bestselling Author of Mourn the Living and Killing Red
“…He’s got a story to tell you so get ready; it’s coming at you fast. Get ready…”
—Linwood Barclay
“…tense and hard hitting…”
—Paul D. Brazill
DEDICATION
As always, I’d like to dedicate JUST LIKE THAT to my readers. Without readers, writing is like having sex with yourself. The feedback you get for your performance is ultimately flawed. Trust me that this is true… For Aaron Patterson, publisher extraordinaire, who saw the value in this book and believed in it. For my agent, Chip MacGregor who is simply… the best. And, again as always, for the love of my life, Mary, my life-partner and total eye candy, and for the greatest kids a guy could ever have, Britney, Sienna and Mike. And, finally, to my friend Bud (yes, there is a real guy named Bud) who I shared many of these adventures with. Bud saved my life back there in Pendleton and I owe him big-time. If this ever gets made into a movie, the only actor who could play Bud’s part accurately would be Chuck Norris.
FOREWORD
PARTS OF THIS NOVEL have already seen publication as short stories in various publications, including Murdaland, Flatmancrooked, Kansas Quarterly/Arkansas Review, High Plains Literary Review, Houghton-Mifflin’s Best American Mystery Stories 2001, and Noir Nation. A couple of the stories taken from this novel were nominated for the Pushcart Prize
It’s largely autobiographical—perhaps 80-85% taken from my own life. It’s centered around a road trip that I actually took with a friend from the joint.
Awhile after I was released on parole from Pendleton after serving a couple of years on a 2-5 sentence for second-degree burglary (plea-bargained down from 82 counts of second-degree burglary, one count of armed robbery, two counts of strong-arm robber, and one count of possession with intent to deal), I was working in a barbershop in Lakeville, Indiana for a guy named Dean. His shop was cleverly named “Dean’s Barbershop.” Dean was a truly cool guy and I loved working for him. At the time, I was charging $1.00 a haircut; at the end of my journey as a stylist, I was charging $100 per cut.
Every single morning when I arrived at work, Dean always said the same thing over our morning coffee before we opened the doors. “Les,” he’d say, a faraway look in his eyes. “Do you ever think when driving to work that someday you’d just like to keep going until you run out of gas, and then, wherever that is, you get a job there and live there?” I admitted I had the same thought many times myself. After all, until I was about 40, I’d never lived in one place more than two yea
rs at a time. Some places I’d lived in more than once, but never more than a two-year stretch at a time. I loved moving to new places and even today, after two years in one place I find myself incredibly bored with wherever I am. Although… I’ve been stuck here in Fort Hooterville for many years… (I’m still bored and more than ever!)
Anyway, Dean never followed his own dream, but one day, I did just that. Was on my way to work and hadn’t even thought about it when I woke up that morning, but halfway to Dean’s it struck me that, yeah; I’d like to keep driving until I ran out of gas.
So… I did just that. I pulled over, got on the phone and called Bud Palmer, a friend of mine from the joint who was out also. Like many ex-cons, Bud was of the same mind as I was—that “rolling stone” mentality, and in a nanosecond, he said, “You bet. Give me half an hour and I’m with you.”
An hour later, we were on our way. We would have left sooner but I had to stop to pick up some cash… at a convenience store. (Which I can talk about as the statute of limitations is past for what transpired there. Other things in the book are fiction and because of that statute of limitations thing…)
Where to, neither of us had a clue. I just wanted to go somewhere warm and interesting, and to me, that meant South.
We ended up in Lake Charles, Louisiana after some adventures along the way in Kentucky and New Orleans. Bud ended up climbing on a Trailways after a week or so and going back home to his girlfriend and I stayed awhile longer, and eventually I came back to Indiana also.
I could never understand what the big deal about leaving a place and moving to another. At least in those days, you couldn’t move anywhere in the U.S. where you weren’t $100 from home, wherever home was. That was the most Greyhound charged for a one-way ticket to anywhere in the country. That means that if the worst thing happened—you couldn’t get a job, ran out of money, whatever—you were only a hundred bucks away from getting to where you had a support system and friends or family. And, no matter how broke a person might be, when push comes to shove, you can always come up with a hundred bucks.
To make this work as a novel, I had to take some liberties with the time line. Actually, I took two trips (with a different buddy) and have kind of combined them into one. One trip was a bike trip where another friend and I decided to take off on our bikes and go to Mexico. We never made it, but some of the things we did and experienced on that trip are included in JUST LIKE THAT. One thing I left out, is that at the time (of the bike trip) I had hair down to my waist and a long ZZ Top kind of beard (this was before ZZ, or at least before I was aware of them.). We arrived at the Grand Canyon and there were these little places where you could pull your vehicle off the road and gaze down into the Canyon, and we were pulled off, toking on a joint and drinking some brewskies, when four RVs pulled over and all these “popcorners”* started piling out of their campers with their cameras and taking pictures. Only… they weren’t taking pictures of the Grand Canyon. They were taking pictures of us! That’s when I first shaved my head and cut off my beard (long before Michael Jordan!). Just too much… tourists taking my picture over the Grand Canyon.
*”Popcorners” is a term an old girlfriend of mine gave to retirees. One time, we were at an American Legion drinking and they were having a dance with one of those big balls swirling overhead and we looked in at the dance, and she said the dancers looked like “popcorn popping” with their white hair bobbing up and down. Ergo… “popcorners.”
A lot of this novel takes place in the joint at Pendleton and is based on experiences I had there. I think readers will get a kick out of these parts. Most books written about the joint have most of it wrong. The reason is most folks who find themselves in prison are barely literate and not likely to write a book about their experiences. At least not the ones who find themselves in state joints. In federal joints, it’s a bit different, as they house white collar criminals, but then most federal joints aren’t anything like state joints. If I ever think I’m going to end up in a state joint again, I’m pulling a federal crime and ‘fessing up to that so that I go to Prison Med instead of Michigan City! There’s really no comparison.
I had one of my advisors (Diane Lefer) at Vermont College when I was getting my MFA who asked what I thought about a famous author (whom I won’t name) who writes a lot of his fiction about criminals and the joint. I told her that while I enjoyed his fiction, I didn’t buy a word of it. His stuff sounded like it came from a guy who’d spent a night or two in the drunk tank or maybe spent a few hours as a reporter in a joint. There’s no way such experiences counts for anything at all. It’s like those kids who go through the “Scared Straight” programs. They may go inside the walls and they may even have inmates pretending to “break bad” on them, but it’s not even close to a real experience. These kids know they’re not going to wake up in the morning and for the next several years, having to watch their backs every second. There’s only one way to get that experience and that’s to get sentenced and actually live it.
The “Scared Straight” shows are really a joke. I’ve watched a bunch of them and to begin with, the kids are surrounded by hacks who, if an inmate actually broke bad with them, would have the guy in the hole and the kid hustled out immediately. It’s a stretch to think these kids actually get scared, especially since some of them have already done juvie time and may have already had somebody try to get their brown eye. And, they never have truly bad dudes participating in these deals—most look like the kind of guys who the actual bad dudes are breaking bad on. There’s no way the prison is going to let them hang out with Charlie Manson or his cellmate, Roger Smith, the “most-stabbed inmate in history.” The guys who participate in this program are trying to get out by doing this kind of “community service,” and have a boatload of good time to even qualify for the program. They’re not going to put kids in contact with the dudes who are truly bad. The kids who go through this stuff have to know this. It’s a good idea in conception, maybe, but I’d be surprised if any other than the truly naïve are much influenced by the experience.
Anyway, in JUST LIKE THAT, the reader will get a bit truer look at the joint than they will in most books… There’s a scene where Jake (the protagonist) and Bud are in a swamp in Louisiana and just shooting the shit about fears that shows the criminal mind fairly accurately. Cathy Johns, then the assistant warden at the Louisiana prison at Angola (the Farm) read this and wrote me that it was “the truest account of the criminal mind” that she’d ever read. Should be. I was a criminal for a long time.
Hope you enjoy it!
Blue skies,
Les Edgerton
www.lesedgertononwriting.blogspot.com/
CHAPTER 1
We were having beans this meal. That’s not news—when we don’t have beans, that’s news. My main concern was not biting down on a rock. There are rocks all the time in the beans. If I looked around, I would see everyone else eating the way I was. Carefully, so as not to bite down on a rock. As if I cared.
There are long rows of inmates, just shy of five hundred of us at a sitting when we eat. Twenty to a table, ten on each side. Five rows of tables, five tables to a row. There are no tablecloths on the tables, just the metal painted gray, gloss finish. They feed us in shifts. We do almost everything in shifts. They don’t want us all together. That could lead to trouble.
Rows of blue denim. Guys in blue denim eating at gray tables. Civil War motif in 1968. Boy, wasn’t that the truth!
Not every table is full. Here and there is an empty seat. Individuals who didn’t feel like beans tonight or stayed in their cell for another reason. I see a few spots where there are two vacant seats right next to each other and I can guess why they skipped supper. There are more absent than usual but that’s because it’s payday—when the state issues you your monthly chit—and everybody has been to the commissary buying bags of cookies and Pall Malls because of their length—more for the money. If I hadn’t owed all my money out, I’d be back in the cell myself, eating
Oreos and not worrying if I was going to bust a tooth.
The man across from me said, “Hey, look at that.” He kicked me under the table.
I looked where he was looking and saw one of the inmate cooks walking fast and he had a meat cleaver in his hand, held down, blade up. He was walking like a man with a mission, in a straight line. He walked with even, precise steps, each stride the same length as the previous and the same speed. Not slow, not fast, just the same. He walked in a line that could have been marked off with a carpenter’s plumb line chalked on the concrete, up to the head table, and his last three steps were like this: The hand with the cleaver went back on one like a pendulum; swung forward in an underhand arc on two and sank into this inmate’s blue denim belly on three. It was as smooth a thing as I had ever seen. The man whose belly had received the cleaver had cooperated as if they had practiced their little dance together for hours. He stiffened in awareness on the first of those last three steps, began to rise on the second and was fully risen on the third, in perfect position.
There was a general hubbub of noise like what you’d expect. I forgot to check the spoonful of beans I just put in my mouth and bit down hard on a pebble. I was almost done with the meal and I did that. Stupido!
***
They were locking us down. I went in first, when we were all in front of our cells. What was the point in staying out on the tier walk for just a few extra seconds? We were going to be in all night anyway.
My cellmate was awake, a guy named Larry something, I kept forgetting his last name. The last month before your parole hearing they put you in a cell, keep you from some of the trouble in the dorms. Larry was all right but he wasn’t Dusty. Bud had already been cut loose back in November. I missed my friends from K-Dorm.
