Doing Time (23 page)

Willis looked through the double side doors into the rec area, near empty. No customers yet in the here and now. He'd wait until the movie let out, some cop flick with everyone rooting for the wrong side and waiting for the shootout ending. Meditate outside. The hall's glass exit doors halted him for a moment and he briefly viewed the girls' reflections as he left.

Outside a dead dark sky, a few smokers lounging against the rec wall thoughtfully exhaling. The sound of water over rock, the miniature rapids, soothing to Willis's ear. The temperature was hovering near freezing; snow that evening, late, it was predicted. A half a foot maybe. Start as rain. Change your space, thought Willis. Make the world anew. Put on another wrapper.

Some few brisk striders surfaced under the hanging globe lamps that carved up bits of the night, then disappeared back into the dark, their sock-capped heads swaying to headsets. Keep on the move and everything was all right. The creek flowed close and Willis walked beyond the wide sidewalk to the bank and peered into the blackness sliding by. The creek was slower here, placid, gurgles at odd intervals rather than the signature hiss of the rock-combed waters up near the ballfield, the very end of his legal landscape. The creek came from beyond where he had never been and emptied, according to the library map, into some river he'd never seen and couldn't yet pronounce. Not to follow it, that was prison.

By these barriers, and others invisible, is my life defined, thought Willis. He remembered the immigrants from Central America he had assisted, principally the Salvadorans, but also the Guatemalans. He thought of how they were overwhelmed in so much landscape and here Willis was trapped in a postage-stamp patch of it. They had crossed dangerous borders on their bellies; he stood like a sheep in a gateless pen.

Light flowed from the top of the rec area's steamed glass panels. Willis could hear the inside transformed into a noisy circus: some Ping-Pong, the crack of a pool ball break, other petty competitions with a pushup payoff from the losers. “Man down” was shouted, and the loser hit the floor for settlement. “Gimme good money” shouted his tormentor, no doubt standing over him. “Crack those elbows. Go deeper, touch that bird chest to my fist.”

Willis knew that in the far corner would be a clandestine poker game with worn old playing cards notched
fust so
functioning as camouflaged chips. There was a lookout for the roving compound officer. The poker people would be the usual rapt ruined faces with noses long ago mashed, little hats shoved back on heads, a rodent concentration even from the bystanders: nothing minded but the game.

Everything a gamble here: boccie ball, pro football, which piece of floating bread in the pond would be pulled down first, which duck landing would stumble. Stir the monotony. Most wagers were an ice cream here, a can of tuna there, a shoeshine. It all added up.

In the chilled, windless air Willis heard the ducks holed in a tight pack inside one of the big PVC drain pipes. Muffled quacking sporadically cracked the night air. Willis put a hand into his pocket. He was surprised by the cheese .. . the task.

He passed through a misted door to domino games and tonk, with poker and chess in the distance, all ringing the central carpeted area with its pool tables and Ping-Pong. A mutated boy's club, graying and profane.

There was Bow-Wow standing by himself, and Willis walked to him, growling “Real dog. You okay?”

“Ruff-ruff,” barked Bow-Wow. “Gonna be greater later.”

“I got some cheese I'm looking to move.” Willis tapped his coat pocket.

Bow-Wow made a face. Shook his head. “No man. Binds me bad since I ate it with goat in Jamaica. Anyway, I'm down broke, no bone in my pocket ‘til payday.”

“You change your mind, catch a few bucks, I might locate some chicken too.”

“Can a dog eat a hot-dog?”

Willis walked to the TV area. He had forgotten to slink, to side talk, to jit…whatever that was. Maybe these maneuvers were important. They weren't when he was living homeless, stealing and selling newspapers near the subway. Then he had played it straight, and the businessmen had usually given him a buck for the quarter paper, maybe for not running a game, for not slowing them down. He had easily sold the papers in the cold, he ought to be able to get rid of the cheese and chicken. He grinned about the cheese, the government cheese. On the outside, at the public kitchen, he had given it away. How things turn inside out.

There came a sudden shadow hanging over him, accusing. “Laughin' over nothing now, Willis? Could get you shipped to Kansas. They alteady think you crazy.” Half
&c
Half, the bondsman from Pittsburgh, was momentarily away from his seat at the poker table. He carried a thick stack of red-backed marker cards, which he reflexively shuffled hand to hand. “I'm giving the fools a breather, let'em pass the money around to each other until I get a smoke outside. Then I go back to wotk. Payday.”

Willis looked over his shoulder, then dropped his voice. “I'm just walking around tryin' to sell this cheese.”

“Cheese! I look like a rat to you? What else Russ got?”

“Russ?”

“Yeah, Russ. You just another of his scouts. I know what time it is. He trains ‘em all look over their shoulder.” Half
&c
Half winked at Willis, gave the gang hand signal. “Hey, it's cool, everything be everything. Me and Russ been to school together down Leavenworth. I run an account. Send him homeboys for the legal shit. Now, what else he got?” He held up his hand. “Wait, let me guess. The chicken for lunch today. Probably the better pieces, staff stuff. That his special. Gimme two of the breasts. Have him throw them between some bread he always has, slap the cheese on it. Some mayo too, I know he got in the back book room. I'll skip by after another run on the bank, or you bring it by, whatever. Maybe we want more if somebody else get lucky and have anything left.”

Willis tried to pass him the cheese but he shook his head. “Put it on the sandwich with a little mayonnaise. Russ know. He the best burner on the compound even working on cold cuts.”

Willis walked coward the door, where he stopped for a few minutes and watched two Nigerians engaged in a powerful long-distance game of Ping-Pong. No sense in going back too soon and making Russ think it was easy. Standing next to Willis was Nawaba, another Nigerian, also watching, waiting, custom thick rubber-faced paddle in his hand rhythmically tapping his palm.

“How did you guys from Africa get so good at this game? Was it the Chinese advisers I hear you got over there?”

Nawaba shook his head and laughed. “You got my country confused. Africa much bigger than you Americans think. The Chinese were in the east. You have Cubans in Angola, and, of course, the Texans in Nigeria, and they know nothing but oil and beer and our girls in their hotel beds. But I tell you what makes my countrymen so fine at this sport. We are just many miles of bush and poor villages. The people in their little huts take tin cans and flatten them out, put them on a stick. They stretch a fish net between two milk cans. We get here and it is like a paradise with these paddles and balls, these smooth, fine tables. So now you know and forever can spread the word.”

Willis always enjoyed talking to the Nigerians. “So now, Nawaba, that you got pants pulled over those tribal ballsacks, tell me how you come to speak better English than the hillbilly staff. Also tell me how you lucked into those two Pizza Huts the newspaper said you had. The three cars and boat. The condo at Ocean City.”

“I am just a simple man the government wants to deport to the lions.”

The two of them watched the ball slammed back and forth, the contestants standing impossibly far away from the table swinging hard and accurately. Beyond the Ping-Pong along a far wall were weight machines swarmed by lifters, their extremities blood swollen and heavily veined, some strutting chest out, posing awkwardly, rigidly getting their breath, pushing each other out of the way to peep themselves in the mirror.

The high ceiling collected sounds of the smacked Ping-Pong balls, tacked pool balls, the sharp clack of the weight stacks, the background drone of the corner TV, the hollers of homeboys. It was an atmosphere, if not exactly carnival, lively, a swirl Willis would be challenged to re-create. A pick-up-stick snarl, which deliberate programming could perhaps encompass, utilizing the rec hall as a kind of spinning hub that altered the player's course. Inject a lifelike randomness to it all. It didn't have to affect immediately, five moves later would work the fork to another routine. Day has become night. Your name has been called to report to the lieutenant's office. You have an impending appointment with the incompetent medical professional who will perform a painful procedure …go back three spaces. These junctions, Willis thought, were switching stations. The chow hall would be another. It was almost as if these gathering places were waterholes for predator and prey. He scribbled a few notes and strolled through the door toward the law library.

Across the hall by the bathroom the two girls had been joined by a third, the beautiful, heavily hormoned Michelle. Two raincoated serious fellows, toothpicks moving side to side in their mouths, rocked on their heels. There was no friendly chatting up.

“You don't know?” Michelle shook her head. “I see your work. Know all about it. Seen your work is why. You dig?”

The two raincoats looked at each other and shook their heads slowly. One spit his pick on the floor and ground his heel over it.

Lick-lick, red head scarf coming unwound, said, “Mac game over, man. Mac game gone even for you country ass.”

Willis walked back to the law library. Russ was still standing behind the door, elbows on shelf, chin resting in his palms, smiling. Willis relayed Half & Half's order.

“He was a bondsman,” said Russ. “Got set up by a customer. Imagine that. Who would believe the deceit rolling loose in this land. Half & Half had this specialty of working with the Dominican dealers. He learned a little bit of Spanish like ‘Don't worry,' ‘Talk to no one,' ‘Who do I see about the money?'

“The way he had it worked out he usually got full bond with a ten percent edge, so when they skipped, which was often, he made out fine. The Dominicans had the money, the whole bond in cash, but they knew they just couldn't go down to the station house themselves with it. Police take it, laugh, tell them to come back with more. This one time he took a couple of bales of pot as deposit and it was a set up. When he returned the stuff the Feds came out of the bushes and they laid trafficking on him. Tried to turn him, get the scoop on his customers. He didn't… and here he be. 1 know. 1 did a twenty-two fifty-five for him.”

Russ opened the Dutch door and ushered Willis through to the rear and pulled down several thick law books. Inside were chicken breasts in individual poly bags. “Three bucks, three breasts and three cheeses. Special deal. He always hits me for the bread and mayo. Pays his tab. We look out for each other.”

“Yeah, he seemed fine,” said Willis, his mind moving on. “Ah … what's the Mac game?”

“The Mac game? It ain't you, Willis. It's something been over for all but the idiots. Over since crack hit the streets.”

“Yeah, I heard it was over, but what is it? was it?”

“The pimping thing. You know, running whores. Pimps were mostly put out of business by freelancing dope fiends of all sexes. Crack has them sucking on anything to kiss a pipe. And now there's all those escort services in the yellow pages so convenient for Mr. Businessman. All you got left is some fools hustling nowhere, counting nickels and dimes and wondering who stole their hat.”

“I heard an argument in the hallway between the he/shes banging cards and a couple of country homeboys.”

“Yeah, some of these new boys broadcast tough when they see a few flamers. Big visions of cornering the market, think they're the first ever got the idea. They dream of a locker full of cigarettes. You got more gays here than you see. A lot more. Respectable ones keep to themselves, keep to their own. Meet their gentlemen friends privately. Do the gump bump in the shower at midnight. But there's always some few parading like they still working the street, batting them long fake eyelashes, livin' the life, slow dying from whatever, bodies a bomb of virus. They rub against some of these dumbfuck's minds. Overheat them. Always trouble dancing around them. Use them to cut your hair, but otherwise stay away.”

Willis packed his coat pockets with the food and walked back to the card game. In the hall he saw through the outside glass doors where the girls were gesticulating at the two toughs receding into the dark along the sidewalk. The girls were laughing and taunting, holding their noses. One of the toughs turned back and flicked a cigarette at them, red arc lost in the door lights. Red scarf picked it up and tossed it back weakly overhand, just like a girl.

1995, Federal Correctional Institution Morgantown Morgantown, West Virginia

at 3:25 yesterday mornin'
i awakened to staccato wails of
a sister in sky-high pain and
the kamp was sister packed
i screamed
i shouted
i banged
i yelled
i hollered
i cursed and
the sister of yesterday's wails
carry surgical scars today
all the while
i wondered as
i screamed
i shouted
i banged
i yelled
i hollered
i cursed
where was solidarity?

one afternoon
a sister wept and
i wept inside for the
wreckin'-crew sisters
i can't erase this scene:
a water-soaked mountain of
broken/empty toiletries
shredded literature
cut up garments and
atop the heap
our sister's love one's
pictures hate torn
to bits
all the while
i stood and wondered
where was solidarity?

all kamps install a
stool pigeon snitch box
the box is never idle
'cause louise stole an
extra slice of bread
jeanette is high
how can dotty go on
a furlough when she
has walked on grass
ann bought
commissary for
rose 'cause they
play chicks
rita stole a pair of
chartreuse state sneakers
vivian smokes in bed
how can kisha go
home to attend her
dad's funeral while
not-in-good-standin'
maria was playin' stink
finger in the movie and
as i robbed the kampkeeper's
stool pigeon's snitch-box
notes
i wondered
where was solidarity?