Penal Farm (Colored).
He saw a ghastly old plantation house, its columns still soaring and fluted, speaking of a grand old age, but speaking as well of rot and decay, for what had once been jet white was now mottled with brown stain, the taint of algae and corruption, or possibly only moss. It had the look of a ruin, though a curtain flapping in an upstairs window next to the portico suggested some form of provisional habitation, perhaps a more engaged owner would have seen it repainted and restored to a glistening white. Who would leave it so decadent? And why?
Next to it was a newer structure that had the look of wartime improvisation, a barracks-style military building of one story, low and busy. It looked like some kind of store, for it, not the old house, was the center of activity, and a line of free Negroes waited patiently for admittance. Earl wondered what could be in there so important to these people, lined up in complete obedience, as if the key to their provenance lay therein. And perhaps it did, for a Negro woman stepped out, and someone admitted her replacement; she had sacks suggesting goods or merchandise, and Earl recollected that he had seen no store alive in Thebes from the far trees, his observation point. This must be the only store around.
Other decayed brick outbuildings stood, some in ruins, some in better repair, all somehow moist in the closeness of the jungle and the overhang of the thick canopy. Beyond that the compound proper, that is, where the convicts must live. He saw a gate and a barbed-wire fence more efficient by far than the crumbled old brick plantation wall. In the distance he could make out barracks, again military-style, presumably the homes of the convicts when they returned from their day's toil in the farm's fields. But he saw something else, which struck him as queer: that is, four towers, each a story tall, each with a shed atop and gaps in the shed walls, where men looked out with binoculars. Hard to tell from here, but he was sure from one of the gaps he saw something he knew well: the water-cooling jacket of a Browning.30 caliber machine gun.
Four towers? Four Brownings? That would bring considerable firepower to bear on whoever challenged authority here at Thebes Penal Farm, and it did surprise him, for such guns might have been common in big Northern pens like Alcatraz or Sing-Sing, but down here in the backwater South?
They didn't even have any of those at the big penitentiary in Arkansas.
The wagon headed to one of the outbuildings and pulled up short.
Goddamn, he thought, we are here, wherever in God's name here is.
The guards dismounted and unlimbered the wagon. His chains were freed from the rings that pinned them, and, roughly, he was dragged off toward the door of a two-story brick building, dating from at least a century before, shabby but clean, as if well-maintained by men who feared lickings if they didn't clean it well. He was pulled indoors.
'Okay, chief,' someone said, 'you cooperate or them bruises you got will seem like Sunday school so far. You catch my drift?' Earl said nothing as he was pulled into a room, and a man with a knife appeared, and without any ceremony at all, began to slice away at his clothes.
'Jesus,' said Earl, as his nakedness was finally revealed.
'Shut your mouth, boy,' said one of the huskies, and there were no less than five of them for this task.
'See, he got a tattoo,' another added.
Someone bent close at the blue ink faded into Earl's biceps.
'He's a Marine. 'Semper Fi,' all that good shit. You a war hero, boy?'
Earl didn't answer; you can't talk to some people.
Then the hose hit him, hard, a jet of screaming water that knocked him backward. Hygiene wasn't its real purpose, though possibly it did some work to that effect. It beat him badly, pinning him against the floor, and purifying him in a rough way. Finally, it stopped, and he began to shiver in the sudden cold, feeling wilted. No clothes were offered.
Naked, he was dragged to his next destination.
'My name,' the man said, 'is of no importance. I want you to know, however, that I have one. I have a real name, but you'll never know it.'
Earl now sat on a wood chair. They wanted him naked, in chains, feeling powerless before this guard sergeant, who was, not to put too fine a word on it, something to see.
'In case you're wondering where you are,' said the sergeant, 'let me tell you. You are in what is called the Whipping House. This is where I do the business of this institution. It's ugly work, but it's necessary.
I am very good at it. The convicts know one thing. Well, two things. One is to stay out of the Whipping House. The other is to avoid the anger of Bigboy.'
It was the man who had rescued him from the hangman's noose, then knocked him cold with a blow that blew up the left side of his face.
Earl looked at him, though he suspected it would be better to keep one's eyes averted in the presence of this fellow.
The sergeant went 240 to 260 pounds, but it was not fat; it was muscle.
He had to have spent hours hauling dead weights up and down to get bulges like that. He had his sunglasses off, and Earl could look into his little red eyes, bloodshot and weak, clearly his one vulnerability.
His skin was pale and would burn in tropical sun as if set aflame, so he wore the hat with the big brim, gloves, and kept his olive green shirt buttoned up to the top. His hair wasn't blond in the yellow sense, but a new snow's fresh white.
'Bigboy. You will become quite familiar with that name,' he said to Earl, 'so I would mark it well. Bigboy. It's a nickname. The men I command call me that. Some of the trustees call me that, our doctor, the colored help who run the jobs in this place, the cooks, what have you.
The convicts call me that, but not to my face, for they know the penalty for disrespect. Now, do you know where I got that name?'
Earl didn't think the question required an answer, but in the next second, whap, a cosh from another guard in the shadows, slapped hard against his wrist, curling his wrist in pain, almost, but not quite, breaking bone.
'No, 'Earl finally said.
'No what?'
Whap! Another blow.
'No sir!' Earl responded instantly, shivering with the intensity of the hurt.
'Much better. Anyhow, you might think I got that name because I am big.
But that's not true. For many years I had another name. In those days I wasn't big. I was weak. I was food. I was free lunch. I was everybody's favorite target. Are you listening?' Insane, Earl thought. The man is clearly out of his head.
'I was a fat weak boy, with red eyes and white hair, a disorder specifically called oculocutaneous albinism. I had a cute little upturned nose. I grunted when I ate, and sometimes I farted. My hygiene was questionable. So I was called Pigboy. It fits, doesn't it? Pigboy.
My papa called me that, so did my mama and my three brothers. Until I was fifteen years old. So do you think I was happy?'
'No, sir.'
'No, sir. Pigboy was not happy. 'Pigboy, git your goddamn ass in here, you goddamned worthless piece of pig shit!' So Pigboy one day in his fifteenth year got himself an ax and he cut Mama and Papa and three brothers up into tiny pieces. The happiest day in Pigboy's life. This was in another state, far far away, under a different name, but nevertheless, it happened, I can assure you. I escaped. I fled. I remade myself many times and had many adventures and learned to trust myself, and at a certain point, I decided I would never again be weak or frightened. I got myself a job on a railroad, laying track. Five years I laid track, getting bigger and stronger. I discovered the gym.
I lifted a million pounds of iron and discovered I had a certain kind of muscle tissue that responded spectacularly to lifting. I worked. I learned. I started fighting. It turned out I was good at it, because I have all that hatred stored up in me, and I like to hurt people and see them bleed. I like to make them cry and teach them they have no chance in the world. So where would such a fellow go? Why, there's only one place:
I joined the Mississippi Bureau of Corrections, where my talents were not only appreciated, but encouraged. Now I am a sergeant and I run this whole goddamned mighty engine of retribution and justice. And my friends call me Bigboy, and every time I hear that, I think of how Pigboy became Bigboy, what it took, how it hurt, what strength and determination it demanded. I tell you that, convict, so you will understand that you are not dealing
