‘We’ve come up with this great idea for a film. It’s about a man who’s been wrongly imprisoned for killing his wife, and he’s been sentenced to life without parole. He’s a loner and stands up for himself, won’t take shit from anybody. He gets beaten up but he never snitches. He spends time in the prison hospital and time in solitary, but he never gives in; he’s indomitable.
‘And then he makes friends with this other prisoner, a black guy who gets things smuggled in from the outside for other prisoners. He asks him to get him a small rock hammer, supposedly for carving pieces of stone, but really he’s planning to use it to tunnel out of the prison, even though it’s going to take him years.
‘In the meantime, he’s also started working for the prison governor, doing his accounts and shit like that, and the governor’s crooked as they come. When he escapes, he takes all these bogus bank account numbers with him – accounts the governor’s been using to squirrel money away in – and cleans them all out and then sends all the evidence he has against the governor to a newspaper, and the governor’s arrested and everyone in the prison cheers. And he’s a rich man now, so he goes down to Mexico and lives a life of ease – it is Mexico we’re thinking of, isn’t it? Yeah, thought it was. He’ll probably build boats down there.
‘But he never forgets his old friend, and tells him that if he ever gets paroled he’s got to go to this place where he’ll find a tin full of money buried under a stone, and he’s got to use it to follow him down to Mexico and become partners with him in the boat business. And the last shot of the film will be the two of them walking towards each other on the beach, and I swear to God, Eric, there won’t be a dry eye in the house when the lights come on.
‘And we’re not just pitching the idea, either. We’re going to insist we’re in it. We’re figuring I’ll play the part of the guy who escapes, and Big Guy the part of the fixer. So what do you think, Eric, brilliant or what?’
Eric replied falteringly. ‘I think it is brilliant, Uncle Jeff, but doesn’t it remind you a bit of The Shawshank Redemption?’
‘What’s that?’ his uncle asked.
‘It was a film with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in it. They were prisoners too.’
‘You ever heard of this film, Big Guy?’
‘It’s a waste of money me even going to the movies, Lawrence. Someone sits in front of me and the damn screen disappears. So no, I’ve never seen this film, or any other film for that matter.’
‘Me neither,’ Jeff said. ‘I can’t see there being another film quite like this one, Eric.’
Eric told Jeff of his journey to Dannemora, and the help given to him by Red, Lily and Larry. He told him of his guardians in Santa Cruz and the school in San Francisco, his reasons for running away and his search for Susan.
‘If it wasn’t for being locked up in here, Eric, I’d be glad to take care of you myself. We’re family, and there’s nothing more important. We’re here to look after each other, and I know if anything had happened to me your daddy would have taken care of Susan…’ He paused for a moment, as if remembering something.
‘That time we came to visit you in Santa Cruz. You remember it? I’ve always felt bad about it: the hurt and the scarring it might have caused…’
Eric interrupted him. ‘That was all sorted, Uncle Jeff. My dad was annoyed at Susan for tearing up his Bible, but he forgave her.’
Jeff looked at Eric mystified. ‘I’m not talking about your dad’s Bible, Eric. I’m talking about taking you to the Paul McCartney concert!’
‘It was never my idea to go to that concert. It was Mrs Lawrence, your Aunt Anna, who wanted to go. We were having problems at the time and I thought if I just agreed with her, it might help smooth things over. I should’ve saved my money. We got home and she started comparing me to the fucker – and you don’t need to be an Einstein to figure out who came off worse.
‘I told her she’d do better comparing Paul McCartney to my old man: he was nearer his age than I was, and she shouldn’t get fooled into thinking he wasn’t by some stupid dye job. You want Paul McCartney I said to her, you go get him. Best of luck to you too, sweetheart. Go break a fucking leg, lose one if you have to, makes no difference to me.
‘Anyway, we arranged to buy tickets and Mrs Lawrence insisted I get one for you. She thought you’d be company for Susan and told me I was being neurotic when I said a concert like that might damage you. Susan’s one thing, I said to her, Eric’s another.
‘Susan was old enough to make up her own mind. She’d always been a Beatles fan, and the way she saw it, Paul McCartney in concert was the closest she’d ever get to seeing the Beatles in concert. I tried talking sense into her, but she wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t get her to appreciate that there’s a chasmic difference between the next best thing and plain residue.
‘You know when you wash your hair, Eric, and some of it always gets stuck in the plughole? Well that’s how it was for me at that concert. I sure as hell didn’t imagine I was listening to the Beatles that night, and I’m not sure I even saw Paul McCartney. All I remember is that every time I looked at the stage, I saw a plughole full of dyed hennaed hair!’
McCartney, he explained to Eric, had written some of his favourite Beatles songs and Hey Jude still remained his all-time pick. The last great song McCartney had written was Maybe I’m Amazed and after that, he’d started a slalom run to hell, a descent presaged by The Long and Winding Road and confirmed by Ebony and Ivory and the Frog Chorus. The restraining influence of the Beatles had gone, and so too had any semblance of quality control. His music now was fit only for elevators and supermarkets.
‘It’s a damn tragedy, Eric, and if I ever met the guy I’d give him a good shake. I’d get hold of those fat cheeks of his, give them a good squeeze, and then slap him. And it’s not just what the music’s become; it’s what he’s become – a smug little bastard who tries too hard to be cool and pretends he’s just a normal guy. Well, God help the person who ever treats him like he’s just another normal guy: he’d be out of the door sitting with his ass in a puddle before he even knew what had happened.
‘And he talks such grandiose shit these days, too. I saw him interviewed on television soon after 9/11, and he was saying how he was going to do something for the people of New York and the rest of the country; raise their spirits and make them feel good about life again. So what does he do? He records a song called Freedom. You ever heard the lyrics? They must have taken him all of three minutes to write – and the music? Maybe two!
‘Well, I’ll tell you this for free, Eric: the song didn’t make me feel any less crap about life! I didn’t think: “Okay, we’ve lost a couple of towers, but at least we’ve got a new Paul McCartney song out of the tragedy.” And you know where the song did best? Fucking Rumania!
‘I tell you, I laughed silly when one of his tour buses got stolen. You hear him afterwards? Talking about how there was a lot of love in that bus and how he hoped the love would rub off on to the people who’d taken it. Well tell me, how the fuck would he know how much love there was in that bus? You ever think he ever stepped foot in it? No chance: it’s limousines and private jets for Saint Paul.’
‘But why were you worried the concert might damage me, Uncle Jeff?’ Eric asked. ‘I enjoyed the concert.’
‘Because it was family entertainment!’ Jeff said. ‘We may as well have taken you to a recording of the Sonny & Cher Show. Music’s meant to divide families not bring them together. Kids and parents shouldn’t be listening to the same music: they should hate each other’s music, and not even think about rubbing shoulders with each other in the same audience. And there was no audience worse than the one we became a part of that night! Middle-aged parents and grandparents behaving like eighteen-year-olds; old women moving suggestively and old men pulling strange faces and playing air guitars. I tell you, Eric, there’s nothing more embarrassing than a bunch of old fuckers pretending to be young again.
‘And tell me this, what kind of a
brainless twat takes a six-foot sign to a concert with them? How the hell are the people sitting behind supposed to see? There was one in front of us until I tore it from them. And do you know what it said? God Bless John, George and Linda. I ask you, can you imagine either John or George turning up to that concert? More likely they were turning in their graves!
‘Big Guy’s got an interesting theory about their deaths. Tell Eric what you think, Big Guy.’
He looked around to make sure they were still alone, and then spoke conspiratorially. ‘I think McCartney had them killed,’ he said. ‘He was the first to leave the Beatles and I think he resented that, felt he’d been pushed out of his own creation. I think he was right in thinking this too, and I think along the same lines as your uncle in thinking that it was The Long and Winding Road that prompted the others to throw him out. I think …’
‘That’s the seventh time you’ve used the word think, Big Man. I’ve told you before: if you want to be a successful writer, you have to start broadening your vocabulary.’
‘I’m not writing to Eric, Lawrence, I’m talking to him. This is how I talk. This is how other people talk. Now butt out!’ He turned his attention back to Eric. ‘McCartney wanted people to think of him when they thought of the Beatles. He wanted to tour the world and play Beatles music without being inconvenienced by two other people doing the same thing. Imagine what it would have been like if John and George had rolled into the same city and played concerts on the same night he was playing. It would have been commercial suicide and a popularity contest he might well have lost. He couldn’t afford to take the chance.
‘So what does he do? He recruits two crazies, one in the US and one in the UK, and probably promises them free tickets to his concerts for life. You’ve got to bear in mind that there are people crazy enough to accept such offers. One crazy succeeded and the other failed, but even the failed attempt resulted in Harrison becoming a recluse; it probably contributed to his early death too. So when we think of the Beatles now, who do we think of? That’s right, Paul McCartney! I’m working on getting proof but it’s proving difficult and, in the meantime, I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention this to anybody. I can’t afford law suits on my salary.’
‘What about Ringo? Why hasn’t anyone killed him?’ Eric asked.
Both Jeff and Big Guy burst out laughing.
‘Why would anyone want to kill Ringo?’ Big Guy answered. ‘He’s no threat to anyone! Besides, if all the Beatles but McCartney were killed, there’d be too many questions to answer, too many coincidences to square.’
‘I can buy into that, Big Man,’ Jeff said.
Jeff’s ready and enthusiastic support for such a preposterous notion would have set alarm bells ringing in the minds of most rational people, but in Big Guy’s case, a man in the process of writing the Shawshank Redemption, they never made a sound.
‘I don’t mean to rush you guys,’ Big Guy said, ‘but you’ve got thirty minutes before I go off duty and The Blimp comes on. He’ll blow a gasket if he finds Eric here, and that means trouble for all of us.’
‘How come time slips by quickly when you’re enjoying yourself, and the rest of the time, when you want it to pass quickly, it just strolls around like a three-legged tortoise on Quaaludes?’ Jeff asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Eric said. ‘Do you think we should talk about Susan now, where I’ll find her?’
‘Hershey, Pennsylvania,’ Jeff replied.
Chocolate
The last Eric had heard of Susan was when news reached the Gole family that she’d dropped out of college and started dancing with a Polish folk troupe. Jeff smiled at Daniel’s misunderstanding of the situation, and clarified it for Eric. He told him that Susan had left college to pursue a more alternative career; rather than climb the conventional greasy pole to success, his daughter had decided to slide down one for a living!
‘If I’m honest, Eric, I’d have to say I disagreed with her decision. I don’t mind going to those clubs once in a while, but like any father, I sure as hell don’t want to turn up and find my own daughter dancing there. It’s hypocritical I know, but that’s how life is and that’s the way I am.
‘Susan knew I was on shaky ground and she didn’t hold back from telling me. She said there was nothing wrong with such entertainment, that the body was a thing of beauty and shouldn’t be hidden from view. She argued that if people were more open about their bodies, there’d be less crime of a sexual nature in the world, and that what she was doing was neither sordid nor pornographic.
‘I knew she was right, but I wasn’t about to tell her so. I know I can be headstrong and obdurate at times, but so too can Susan. She went her own way after that argument and we lost touch. And then out of nowhere, she turns up here at the correctional facility!’
A rapprochement had taken place between them in the grounds of the prison, close to the picnic table where they now sat. During the time of their separation, the father’s indignation had mellowed and the daughter’s naive idealism quietened.
Susan had been a popular dancer in the clubs where she entertained and had made good money. Unsavoury elements, however, had now started to encroach upon her innocent world, and many of the once well-managed venues had become lax and undisciplined. Many of the newer dancers openly used drugs, and managements now subordinated the artistry of the pole to the fatuity of the lap. Susan had always refused to perform such dances, and consequently employment opportunities for her had become scarcer. She did, however, have new ideas of her own, and these ideas incorporated chocolate.
The three loves of Susan’s life were her body, dancing and chocolate, and it had always been her dream to blend all three into one artistic performance. The brainwave rolled to shore in Galveston while Susan was walking along its beach. It was the height of the city’s hot summer and temperatures were in the high nineties. She was with a friend, who was extolling the virtues of blue M&Ms and their power to help paralyzed rats walk again. She placed two on Susan’s hand and told her to eat them. ‘Better than fish oils,’ she’d said.
It wasn’t so much the colour of the M&M’s that intrigued Susan, as the fact that they didn’t melt. ‘It’s a pity they don’t make milk chocolate that doesn’t melt in your hand,’ Susan had said to her.
‘Oh, but they do,’ her friend had said. ‘They’ve been making it since the forties. Tastes like shit, too.’
‘You ever heard of the Desert Bar?’
Eric shook his head.
‘It was a chocolate bar developed by Hershey that could withstand temperatures of 140 degrees. It was made for the soldiers fighting in the Gulf, but the company made too much and there were stocks left over after the war ended. They packaged the excess bars in desert-camouflage wrappers and marketed them as chocolate novelties. I bought one, and it tasted like wax – the only damn chocolate bar I’ve ever had to chew!
‘Anyway, there’s supposed to be stock of this chocolate in Hershey somewhere, and Susan’s gone looking for it. She arranged to meet a guy called Finkel. I tried calling him one time to find out how Susan was doing, but he’s not listed in the phone book. I’ve got his address though, or leastways, the address Susan gave me. She passed this way about three months back and I can’t say for sure she’ll still be in Hershey, but you could start by talking to this guy Finkel.’
Jeff pulled some crumpled pieces of paper from his pocket, smoothed them on the picnic table and examined each one. ‘Here it is!’ he said, ‘Fred Finkel, Gravel Road, Hershey.’
‘Time to make a move,’ Big Guy said. ‘We need to get Eric out of here. I can take him into Dannemora and he can get a bus from there.’
The two distant relatives said their goodbyes. Jeff thanked Eric for dropping by and told him to give Susan his love. ‘You find her, she’ll take care of you,’ he said. ‘She’s a good girl.’
Eric kissed him on the cheek and followed Big Guy to a parked car. Big Guy unlocked it and told Eric to climb in. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes, Eri
c,’ he said, and true to his word he was. He returned dressed in civilian clothes, and fired the engine of the specially adapted car. A child’s booster seat enabled him to see through the windscreen, and large blocks of wood attached to the pedals allowed him to accelerate and brake. He drove slowly and with great care, checking the mirrors every five seconds. They were overtaken by every car and truck heading in the same direction, and though they arrived at the bus station in one piece, they also arrived there too late for Eric to catch his intended bus.
‘Still, better to arrive ten minutes late in one life than ten years early in the next,’ Big Guy said cheerfully.
Eric would have gladly settled for the happier medium of arriving on time, but was in no position to say so. He was, however, both grateful and relieved when Big Guy offered to take him to a rest area on the interstate. ‘You seem to have luck hitch-hiking, Eric. Maybe your luck’s still in.’
It was dusk and a cold rain had started to fall. Big Guy gave Eric his umbrella, told him to take care of himself and then drove off.
Eric looked around the rest area. There were few cars there and only one vehicle with a light on. The bus looked vaguely familiar, and Eric decided to approach it.
Bob sat at the wheel reading a manual, something he should have done in Montreal. He was unsure of the vehicle’s controls and even less sure of its legal pedigree. The accompanying registration papers, however, had been professionally forged and he didn’t doubt they would pass inspection; crossing the border from Canada had been a breeze.
He played with the controls, turned every switch and pressed every button until he was happy he understood them. He then turned the ignition key and was about to pull away, when there was a sudden knock on the window.
‘Goddamn!’ Bob yelled.
If the knock hadn’t scared him sufficiently, the sight of what he took to be an alien peering through the window certainly did, and as the side door slowly opened, his body tensed. Bob breathed a sigh of relief when the shape of a small white boy came into view wearing a strangely shaped bicycle helmet.
Last Bus to Coffeeville Page 27
