by Brad Parks
During the slow songs he danced with her too. But there was nothing indecorous about it, no below-the-waist involvement. It was just dancing.
By the time he dropped her off, it was past midnight.
“I haven’t had fun like this in ages,” he said. “Let’s do this again soon.”
CHAPTER 29
The noise and the lights came simultaneously, assaulting more than just the senses ordinarily assigned to them. The lights tasted like battery acid. The noise felt like a blow to the head.
It was early, though I couldn’t guess the time. I just knew one moment I had been in the trenches of a deep and edifying sleep, and the next moment Randolph was under attack by an army of corrections officers.
They came into our wing, shouting orders, aiming for shock and awe and, from my standpoint, achieving it quite fully. Even as someone who theoretically should have been expecting some kind of offensive—since it was my snitching that generated it—I was completely disoriented.
“Everyone out, everyone out, everyone out,” I heard from the common area.
“What’s . . . what’s going on?” I asked. Under the circumstances, I didn’t have to get into character to act confused.
“Inspection, sir,” Frank said, struggling to extract his bulk from the bottom bunk.
Before I had done much more than prop myself up in bed, a corrections officer I didn’t recognize—meaning he wasn’t normally assigned to Randolph—burst into our room.
“Let’s go, you two. Out, out,” he barked.
Frank was already on his feet, walking toward the door. The CO stomped toward me so aggressively I thought he was going to hit me.
“All right, inmate, you got a point,” he said, grabbing the bed frame and shaking it. “You want more? Keep lying there.”
With my motivation now in less need of assistance, I swung my legs around and dropped to the floor. Soon, I was out in the common area with the other men, all of us bedraggled and grumpy. A CO ordered me not to talk and to place my hands, palms down, on the mattress of one of the empty beds in the middle of the room.
From the shouts down the hallway, I could tell a similar scene was transpiring in the other two wings as well. The coordination was impressive, even ruthless; a consonance of action well beyond what I had so far seen from FCI Morgantown personnel.
I knew I had nothing to worry about. My contraband was safe, well off-dorm. I was still scared stupid.
Then I realized that was half the point. They wanted us to feel terrorized. This was our forceful reminder that we were not free men; that they could do this at any time they wanted, whether we liked it or not; that they were in control, not us.
I looked around the room. The men who weren’t scared like me were straight-up pissed off. There was a lot of under-the-breath grumbling, most of it profane descriptions of the COs’ sexual preferences. Still, everyone kept their hands on the beds. That was the other point of the shock-and-awe routine: to convince us resistance was futile.
It took about a minute to remember the raid was actually a positive turn of events for me. Mrs. Lembo had done well. A dorm-wide inspection—with no specific room or wing being targeted—would undoubtedly prompt speculation about what had triggered it. But there would be as many theories as there were men in Randolph.
Once we were all accounted for in the middle of the room, the COs plowed through the rooms one by one, in teams of two. Some of the teams were decent about it, showing a modicum of respect for our belongings. Others were almost gleefully malicious.
When contraband was discovered, they would shout out the item, document it, then toss it in a large black plastic garbage bag. There were times they’d speculate how many points an inmate might be receiving when it came time to mete out discipline.
Most of what was being stumbled upon was innocent. Food that had been stolen from the kitchen. Chewing gum, which wasn’t sold in the commissary and therefore wasn’t allowed. A pair of pliers purloined from a work crew. That sort of thing.
When the team hit our room, it wasn’t long before I heard, “Got some Slim Jims here!”
Frank’s face fell. I couldn’t see where they had found his treasure, but the disposal of it happened within our view: Frank’s precious Slim Jims, thrown in the trash.
I wondered how the inspection was going over in Doc’s wing. All throughout the poker game that previous night, he hadn’t made mention of our pondside conversation, nor of his suspicions about me. At least he couldn’t accuse me of throwing the game: Jerry had gotten all the cards from start to finish, cleaning us out in relatively short order.
The only big find on our wing came out of one of the corner rooms about fifteen minutes later, when one of the COs was suddenly crowing, “Suboxone, I got Suboxone!”
I had heard about this stuff. It was an opioid that came in paper-thin sheets, allowing you to hide it pretty much anywhere. And it was powerful. Even a tiny little piece could keep you high for hours.
The COs had determined that this particular sample had belonged to an inmate named Murphy, and they were saying things like, “Murphy’s heading to the SHU now. Think he’ll get one month or two?”
Having chatted with Murphy a few times, I felt a twinge of guilt. He was a nice enough guy from Philly who had told me about his plan to turn his life around when he got out. He had a baby daughter he hadn’t met yet, which had made me think about Amanda and our baby, whom I looked forward to meeting on delivery day.
“Tough break, Murph,” I said softly.
“No talking, inmate,” barked the CO who had already given me a point.
I glared back at him. In my mind, it was a defiant gesture. Although I did keep my mouth shut from there on out.
Maybe ten tense minutes later, the teams had completed their sweep and I thought we were going to be sent back into our rooms to clean up the mess they had made.
Instead, that’s when they brought in the dog.
* * *
• • •
It was the dog, a German shepherd mix, that proved to be Doc’s undoing.
I got this all during and after breakfast from Masri, who was in Doc’s wing and watched everything up close. I had assumed the dog—one of the COs said he had been brought in from Allenwood—was for drug detection. But he had been trained to sniff out cell phone batteries, and his nose was sharp enough to smell them through concrete.
Which is where he found Doc’s phone. In the wall. Apparently, Doc had worked free the edges of one of the blocks in his room. With enough wiggling, he could slide it out, like a cabinet drawer, and store things inside.
When he was done, he’d shove it back in place, then artfully seal the cracks with toothpaste, which blended nicely into the whitewash paint. When he wanted to access it again, he’d just clean away the toothpaste with water.
Inside Doc’s little stash box, the COs found several bags of pills, three jars of clean urine—which he had been using to beat drug tests—and the phone. It was current generation, and it contained ample evidence that not only was Doc using it to smuggle pills inside Morgantown, but he had been continuing his pill-mill operation on the outside, hooking up his old customers with a new doctor who had taken over the prescribing.
I thought about Doc’s tale of woe, about the alleged nurse who did him wrong, and wondered if any of it was true. Gilmartin’s admonishment—everything your fellow inmates tell you will likely be a lie—had seemed so cynical. But I guess there was something to be said for the instincts of an FBI agent who had spent a career listening to criminals prevaricate.
Masri said Doc cried when they led him out. He wasn’t heading for the SHU. He was going from Club Fed to hell: a high-security facility out in Indiana. There, he would serve out the rest of his sentence and whatever else they were going to tack on for this new offense—which would no doubt be substantial, now that he was a two
-time loser.
And whereas I had felt bad for Murphy, I didn’t feel any regret about Doc.
Murphy was a guy with a problem. Doc was the problem.
As the day unfolded, there was a lot of buzz about what had triggered the raid. But Karen Lembo had brilliantly covered for me there, too. Word soon got out that a BOP muckety-muck—a regional director or something like that—was scheduled to be visiting Morgantown. The brass had wanted to show him Randolph, which therefore had to be squeaky-clean.
Whether this was true or a rumor Mrs. Lembo had skillfully planted, I couldn’t say. I just knew I was safe.
This allowed me to move onto more pressing matters. Like the new opening in the Randolph poker game.
During laundry duty, I found Bobby Harrison and laid everything out for him: He had lied to me with the five-can buy-in thing and was therefore screwing me over with the ten-can payment, but I would forgive him, and continue the payments—ten cans a week, not ten a day—if he would come to the game that night and recommend I take Doc’s place.
After some negotiation, he agreed. We both knew he was getting a fine deal.
That was the first of two financial arrangements I made that day. The second came after lunch. Doc’s departure hadn’t just cleared a place at the poker table. It had also opened up the job of Mitch Dupree’s best friend at Morgantown. And I was determined to start filling that void—with a little help from my massive (and massively intimidating) roommate.
Nothing cemented a friendship faster than facing adversity together and finding out you had each other’s backs. And, with the proper motivation, Frank Thacker was adversity personified.
I was sitting on top of my bunk when he came into our room.
“Hey, Frank,” I said.
“Sir,” he replied. I was starting to think Frank didn’t actually know my name.
“Sorry about the Slim Jims.”
“Not your fault. I shoulda hid them better.”
“You going to get in trouble?”
“They gave me a point, sir,” he said morosely. “First I’ve gotten since I come to Morgantown.”
“Aw, man, that’s terrible,” I said. “You going to be able to get more?”
“Suppose I could. There’s a man who will sell them to me. ’Cept I don’t got no cans right now.”
Perfect.
“What if I told you there was a way you could earn some by doing me a favor?”
“What kind of favor?”
“Do you know Mitch Dupree?”
The name didn’t appear to mean anything to him, but he said, “Yes, sir. I think I do.”
“I want you to pick a fight with him.”
Frank’s expression shifted a little. He had probably been the biggest kid in his neighborhood, and nothing had changed since. A man his size didn’t need to fight, and he certainly didn’t go looking for one.
“Ain’t got no quarrel with Dupree,” he said.
“I know you don’t. Doesn’t matter. He’ll be playing poker with me tonight at seven o’clock in the card room. Give us about thirty minutes to get going, then come in and accuse him of being the snitch. Say you heard he’s the reason we had that raid, and you’re pissed off because you lost your Slim Jims, and now you’re going to make him pay.”
He was already shaking his head. “Already got one point today. Don’t want to get another for fighting.”
“You won’t. I’ll come to Dupree’s defense, and you’ll back down. I’m trying to get into that poker game full-time, and I want him to feel like I’ve done him a solid. You just have to scare him a little. The card room is all the way down at the end. The COs almost never go in there. It’ll be over so quickly, they’ll never even know about it.”
Then I got to the interesting part of the proposition: “And I’ll pay you twenty cans.”
The entirety of his huge forehead lifted in surprise. “Twenty cans?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, giving him a dose of “sir” for a change. “You have to make it good, though. Make him think he’s going to get his ass kicked.”
“Okay,” he said, before his crazy roommate could change his mind. “Twenty cans.”
CHAPTER 30
The first part of my plan went perfectly.
Bobby showed up, followed by Mitch and Jerry. We shared some somber reflections about Doc, gone but not forgotten. All three knew about the cell phone, of course. They professed total ignorance about the pills, the pee, and the rest of the things that seemed so at odds with the cheerful, kind, affable guy we knew.
“Guess you never know what a man’s really doing with himself when you’re not around to see it,” Jerry opined.
No, Jerry, you sure don’t. . . .
Once we had eulogized Doc to what felt like an appropriate degree, we moved onto the business of the game. Just like I had paid him to do, Bobby proposed me as Doc’s permanent replacement. Actually, he laid it out like it was a foregone conclusion. Mitch and Jerry acceded to it with polite murmurs. Ultimately, my cans would spend as well as anyone else’s.
Then we started playing. As in the first two nights, my only real goals were to stay in the game as long as possible and to continue neighborly relations with Mitch. When I lost, I did so good-naturedly. When I won, I did so without gloating.
I was in the midst of trying to draw an inside straight—odds of success: roughly one in thirteen, but what the hell—when Frank rounded the corner and entered the card room. His proportions were such that he changed the air pressure when he entered a room. Even Bobby, no dainty flower, glanced Frank’s way.
Frank lumbered over to Mitch, who was on the other side of the table from me, and loomed above him.
Well above him.
“I got a problem with you, Mr. Dupree,” Frank said.
The words themselves were not especially intimidating, particularly with the courteous title thrown in. And, speaking strictly as a thespian, his inflection was a little flat. But being as it came from a mouth surrounded by 350 pounds, it was effective enough.
“And what’s that?” Mitch asked. He was trying not to show fear, but his already high voice had climbed another half an octave, bringing it into alto territory.
“I’m hearing you a snitch,” Frank said. “That inspection was because of you.”
Jerry and I put our cards down on the table. Mitch was still clutching his. Bobby sat up like a rod had been inserted into his back. These were fighting words, except no sane non-colossus would take on Frank.
“Well, now, people hear all kinds of things,” Mitch said. “That doesn’t make them true.”
“Lost my Slim Jims because of you,” Frank continued.
“I’m sorry to hear that. But I had nothing to do with it. I lost a pair of socks my missus knit for me. Why would I bring that on myself?”
Bobby interjected: “Yeah, didn’t you hear? The inspection was just because there’s some kind of big cheese from the BOP coming in.”
“Don’t know when I’m going to get Slim Jims again,” Frank said, ignoring them both. “They was a special occasion. Afraid I’m going to have to beat you up now.”
Again, Frank’s delivery left a lot to be desired. And, again, it didn’t matter.
“Now what’s that going to solve?” Mitch asked.
“Make me feel better about losing my Slim Jims,” Frank said.
“I didn’t have anything to do with you losing your—”
Frank interrupted whatever Mitch was about to say by grabbing his neck. I sprang to my feet, rounding the table, ready to begin my intervention.
“I could tear your throat out right now,” Frank growled. “That way you couldn’t snitch no more.”
Mitch’s eyes flared with fear. Frank leaned into him a little, increasing the pressure. The other guys at the table were simply frozen. Only in action
movies do people react to unexpected conflict with instant heroism. In real life, they need a little time to figure out what’s even happening.
“Okay, that’s enough, Frank,” I said in a stentorian voice.
But Frank wasn’t paying me any attention. His hubcap-size hand was covering the entire front of Mitch’s fleshy neck, with the thumb and fingers wrapping around to the back.
“Don’t like no snitch,” he said, with his teeth bared.
This time it actually was theatrically convincing. But I had this sudden fear he wasn’t acting. It was like I was seeing a different side to Frank, a savage side that was only coming out now that he quite literally held a man’s life in his huge hand. Morgantown was supposed to be reserved for nonviolent offenders, but had Frank slipped through the cracks somehow?
I spoke with renewed force: “I said that’s enough, Frank. Knock it off.”
Mitch wasn’t speaking. It wasn’t clear to me if that was from fear or from being physically incapable of getting air into his lungs.
Whatever the case, this had gone on long enough.
“Stop it!” I said. “Now!”
I pushed Frank with both hands. He didn’t budge.
“They gave me a point,” Frank said. “Never got no points before.”
Mitch was clutching at Frank’s hand, trying desperately to rip it off. His efforts to move Frank were as successful as mine.
This had to end. Immediately. But I couldn’t even seem to get Frank’s attention, much less stop his behavior. Not knowing what else to do, I gathered my legs underneath me and, with every bit of strength I could summon, launched myself into Frank’s midsection.
This finally staggered him. A little. He took two steps backward, releasing his grip in the process.
Mitch gasped for air.
