Cast the First Stone (2 page)

What the hell? I thought.

A guy was waiting for me when I came out from between the bunks. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was angry. “What was he trying to do?” he asked.

I started to keep on going, then I looked around and didn’t see anybody else. I turned back. “Huh? You talking to me?”

“What was he trying to do?” he repeated. “Was he trying to start any funny stuff?”

I started to ask him what the hell business it was of his. Then I started to walk away. Then I remembered I was in prison, and thought I’d broken a rule or something. “No, he just gave me a cigarette,” I said. “Aren’t we allowed to go to the bunks?”

“Yes, that’s all right. I just thought he tried some funny stuff. These damn punks are after every new kid that comes in here. I just thought I ought to tell you before they get you in trouble.”

I felt myself getting red. “Yeah?”

“You don’t know him, do you?”

I shook my head, thinking, I don’t know you either, as far as that goes. But I didn’t say so, I was afraid. “You don’t like him, do you?” he persisted. “Hell, naw,” I said quickly. Then I was afraid maybe I’d said the wrong thing so I hurriedly added, “But I haven’t got anything against him.” On second thought I asked, “What’s the matter with him?”

“He’s a fink, Jim,” the guy said. “He was the one who ratted on those ten men who were digging out of the woolen mill.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s a damn degenerate, too. Half of these guys in here are degenerates. Filthy sons of bitches. I don’t like that stuff and I don’t care who knows it.”

I looked at him. He was a tall clean-looking man about twenty-seven, with brown hair parted on the side and a nice-looking face. His pants were pressed and his shoes were shined, and his shirt starched and ironed and bleached almost white, and he wore a tie and a slipover sweater. “I don’t either,” I said.

“I knew you wouldn’t go for that stuff, Jim. I read about you in the newspapers. You’re a college boy. I knew you wouldn’t go for that stuff.”

“That’s strictly for the apes,” I said, laughing self-consciously.

He looked so funny I thought, what the hell’s the matter with him, and then he laughed too. I started to walk away. He fell in beside me.

“Jesus Christ, man, what did they give you so much time for? Did you shoot somebody?”

“Naw, bud, I didn’t shoot a soul.” I tried to sound tough. “Wish I had now.”

“Hell, they wouldn’t have given you no more time for it”

“Hell, naw, not as much. They gave me what they call exemplary justice. How about that, exemplary justice? Can you beat it.”

“That’s what they do, give you the book. That’s supposed to scare the other guys. Ain’t that some crap? They wouldn’t have given you no more time if you had killed somebody.”

“Hell, naw. When they gave me twenty years I thought an atom bomb had hit me.” And I wasn’t telling any lie, either.

“Boy, that’s rotten. That’s what’s wrong with these people. They get scared and throw the book at every guy that comes along.”

The con sitting directly in front of me had raised into three sevens with a pair of aces and he slammed down his hand and turned around and yelled, “Get the hell out from back of me with that stale crap!”

I looked at the guy I was talking to but he didn’t say anything, so I said, “Who you talking to?”

“I’m talking to you, gunsel.”

“Screw you!” I said.

He started to get up and I got set to hit him when he pulled his leg over the bench, but the dealer put his hand on his shoulder and stopped him. He stopped easy enough.

“Aw, let that kid alone. He’s a new kid.”

“He’s a lippy son of a bitch!”

“You’re a son of a bitch yourself!” I said.

“Aw, beat it, gunsel! Shove off! Go get ready for Freddy.”

“Who’s Freddy?” a con across the table asked.

“I’m Freddy,” the first guy said. “Go get ready for me, gunsel.”

They all laughed.

“He’s liable to already be ready, Freddy,” another con said. “I seen him talking to that redheaded punk.”

“Boy, that Jeep can turn ‘em out.”

“How do you know, Mac?” That got another laugh.

“The paper said he was only nineteen.”

“And a college boy.”

“All he needs is a good turning out.”

“Not if he’s a college boy, Mac. Them college boys is frantic.”

“Aw, let him alone,” the dealer said.

“Screw you!” I shouted wildly. “Screw all you dirty sons of bitches!” My face was hot enough to burn and I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight everybody.

But they just grinned. They were just trying to get my goat.

“He’s a spunky young bastard,” one of them said.

“Yeah, boy, spunk is what gets you kilt.”

The guy who had been talking to me took me by the arm and pulled me down the aisle. “Some of these guys are hard losers,” he said. “They’re superstitious about anyone standing behind them.” He grinned to show he wasn’t superstitious.

“None of them can gamble,” I said.

He looked at me. “You gamble?”

“I can beat all those chumps. None of them can gamble.”

“Some of ‘em are supposed to be pretty good.”

“What the hell did he get puffed up for? I’ve stood behind guys who were better gamblers on their worst days than he’ll ever be; guys who won and lost more money in a single sitting than he ever had.”

“They broke me last night and I’m a pretty good gambler myself,” he said.

“They must have been lucky, because none of them can gamble.”

He didn’t want to argue. “My name’s Maiden Streator,” he said. “They call me Mal.”

We turned by the door and came on back by the washtrough and the guardstand where the guard sat chewing tobacco and reading a magazine; then turned again down at the lower end and came up the other side where the bunks were closer to the aisle. When we passed the game again I looked that con who’d yelled at me dead in the eye. He looked back until I had gone so far I couldn’t look at him without turning my head and I didn’t want to do that.

“We look enough alike to be cousins,” Mal said.

“What are you in for?” I asked, just to say something.

“First degree.”

“Who’d you kill, your wife?”

“No, a state trooper. He came across the line to arrest me.”

“They can’t do that,” I said.

“I was in Centralia,” he said. “I’d just got in from Chicago. I was running snow from the coast to Detroit and there was a reader out on me. They’d been chasing me and I’d got across the line. I was in the kitchen, eating. They bust down the door and bust in.”

“And you let ‘em have it?”

“Yeah, yeah, he bust in and I bust his heartstring loose. I bust his heart wide open. I bust that other son of a bitch too, but he lived.” His face was flushed and his eyes sparked.

I was impressed. “It’s a wonder they didn’t give you the chair.”

“They did. I was in death row eighteen months and three days and two hours and forty-seven minutes.”

“In death row?” I was shocked. “How’d you get out?”

We turned by the front door and came on back out the other side of the aisle. Jeep came out from between the bunks and said, “Want another smoke, Jim?”

“No, I got some left. I still got those two. Thanks, anyway.”

Mal waited for me but he wouldn’t look at Jeep. Jeep glanced at Mal and said to me, “Come on down to my bunk, Jim. I got something to show you. You know that fellow who was playing on the mandolin when you passed?” He kept looking at Mal. “He’s going to play and I’m gonna sing. We’re practicing for Sunday service week after next. You know how to sing?”

Mal wheeled around and said harshly, “Hell, naw, he don’t know how to sing. He’s a man. He don’t want to sing with you, anyway.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Jeep said.

“Come on, Jim,” Mal said.

“He’s coming with me,” Jeep said, taking hold of my arm.

“Turn loose of me, goddammit!” I snarled, jerking my arm free.

Mal’s face had turned brick colored. “Go on, go on, beat it, fink,” he said to Jeep. “You dirty punk! Scram! Jim’s walking with me.”

“You ain’t nothing but a goddamn punk yourself,” Jeep said. “You’re one of those swap-up bitches. One of those secret whores. You go out in the coal shed so can’t nobody see you.”

Mal turned a sickly white. He started after Jeep. Jeep backed up and put his hand in his pocket. Mal grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down the aisle.

“They’re after him already,” I heard a voice behind me saying. I felt embarrassed as hell.

“Fighting to start off with,” another said. Somebody laughed. My face started to burn.

Mal looked at me to see how I’d taken what Jeep had said. “I ought to go back and hit him in the mouth,” he said, getting very fierce.

“You oughta hit ‘em when you had ‘im,” I said. I was getting pissed-off, fed up with the whole thing. It had taken me down again.

He looked at me. “You don’t believe that stuff, do you?”

“No, why should I? I don’t believe anything.”

“I just hate that stuff so I don’t even want anybody to believe anything like that about me, even when I know it isn’t true.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said.

“Don’t get any more cigarettes from him,” he said. “If I had some you could smoke mine. But I got broke yesterday. I only got some Bull Durham. I’ll show you how to roll your own and you can smoke that until I get some tailor-mades. Everybody in here smokes it, anyway.”

We turned at the door and came back down the other side.

“I know how to roll them,” I said.

“I’ll get you a bag.”

“That’s all right. I’ll have some money by tomorrow. I should have had it already. I told my old man to send me a hundred dollars right away.”

He was impressed.

“You can’t spend any of it until next week,” he said. “I’ll get you that bag of Bull Durham and when it’s gone I’ll get you another one.” He stopped and borrowed a bag of weed from one of the gamekeepers. “What did you want so much money for?” he asked, when he’d caught up with me again.

“I want to get a radio but I don’t see anybody in here with one. I thought we were allowed to have them.”

“We are. They took ours when they moved us down here in this hole. You know, this is a regular nigger’s job. Niggers work down here most of the time. We were in school. They shipped us down here for punishment and took our radios.”

“Yeah?”

“I had one but when I saw they weren’t going to let us have them in here I sold mine.”

We had just passed the latrines again and an elderly, serious-looking stiff-backed fellow stepped out from between two bunks and called, “Maiden! Maiden! Step here a minute.”

Mal turned to me. “I’ll be back in a minute, Jim. I got to talk to the General. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

I went over and started watching the game again. I sure wished I had some money. There was a fat fellow across the table, with most of the chips, and he was through playing. He was just sitting there. He’d won his load. He was sitting there tossing in a chip or two on the first card, or maybe looking at the third if the ante wasn’t too high. Just trying to catch a big pair and ring the dealer in. Didn’t anybody else have any chips worth gambling for. They were trying to ring him in a pot so they could draw out on him. But he was just laying dead.

It was late, close to bedtime. Most of the guys had stopped whatever they were doing and were getting ready for bed. Only a couple of cons were still walking the aisle. The guard had got up and was walking around a little. The seat of his blue serge uniform pants was shiny as glass.

The gamekeeper called it a day and took up his blanket. When the fat guy got ready to cash out a crowd collected. He turned in his chips and said, “I’ll come back and get my stuff.” All the beggars looked disappointed. He had a few chips left over, thirty or forty cents’ worth, and three guys were begging him for them.

While I stood there the lights flashed. The guard rapped his stick on the table top. From all over the prison came the sound of rapping sticks. It was bedtime. And suddenly it was back on top of me—prison and my twenty years. I turned and went slowly to my bunk. I felt numbed.

I had a top bunk next to the outside wall, directly beneath one of the high, barred windows. Hanging at the head was my wooden identification plate with my name and number. I had hung my aluminum coffee pot by a piece of wire to the foot of the bunk frame, and had stuffed my soap, prison-made face towel and tin comb down into it. I had put my Sunday shirt of blue denim and my white string tie underneath the mattress. That, with what I had on, was everything I owned.

Many convicts had wooden boxes. Some were made like trunks and foot lockers with big padlocks. They kept these underneath their bunks at night and on top of their bunks during the day so the floors could be swept and mopped. They were allowed to have these boxes to hold their personal things—tobacco, toilet articles, and such store-bought clothing as we were allowed to have: shoes, underwear, socks and handkerchiefs. But always they were subject to confiscation. The prison supplied a duffel bag but I didn’t even have one of those.

I took off my coat, shirt, pants, cap and shoes. I kept on my long cotton drawers to sleep in. My prison number was stenciled in the neckband. I put the rest of my clothes on the foot of my bunk and crawled beneath the ironed sheet and two dull, gray, dusty-smelling blankets.

Most of the convicts slept in their underwear. We changed them once a week when we took a bath. We didn’t once take them off the rest of the time, winter or summer. A few of the convicts slept in pajamas, and others, like Jeep, slept in their shirts and shorts.

A moment later the guard began to take count. He started at one corner of the dormitory and went up and down the long aisles, counting the empty bunks. He was an old man, pot-bellied and slump-shouldered, but now he walked rapidly and the convicts scrambled to their bunks to be counted. When the guard finished he rapped his stick on the guardstand. That meant the count was right. If the count had not been right he would have counted again. And then if it had still been wrong, he’d have called in the night captain.

The convicts began moving about again; some to the latrine, others from bunk to bunk borrowing magazines, tobacco, matches. The guard turned off the lights over the bunks. Every third light down the center aisle remained on all night. But there was enough light left to see what went on in any part of the dormitory. There was never complete darkness in any part of the prison. The convicts who bunked near the night lights could read as long as they wished. Several convicts sat on their bunks, taking a last puff on their cigarettes. Smoking in bed was prohibited.