don’t have a club in town that books entertainers.”
I said, “Officers, my professional name is Johnny Cato. I’ve got nothing to hide. My full name had always been too long for the marquees. I’ve fallen into the habit of using the shorter version.
“My legs went out last year. I don’t dance anymore. My wife and I decided to go into business. We are making a tour of this part of the country. We think that in your town we’ve found the ideal site for a Southern fried chicken shack. My wife has a secret recipe that should make us rich up here.”
Porky said, “You’re a Goddamn black lying sonuvabitch. Every one of you Niggers come up here to open another cat house or suck your whore’s pussy. You and that bitch aren’t married. You’re a low life pimp and she’s your whore. I’ve seen her around. I’m telling you boy, get your Nigger ass out of town. We don’t want you here.”
I said, “Yes Sir, I’ll forget about the restaurant like you say.”
They turned and walked out. I knew Stacy’s boss had put his finger on me. It was too late to catch the train back to the city. There was one a day at eight P.M. I knew they’d be back. I was trapped. I’d heard radio bulletins warning that the highways were snowed under. I couldn’t even walk out of town. I snorted the sizzle and sat trying to figure a way out.
The chief of police came back at three the next afternoon. I let him in.
He said, “Boy, I’m not satisfied. I’m going to forget about the phony registration. Now there’s a more serious matter. If you and this young woman aren’t legally married you’ve broken a law I can’t overlook. When and where were you married?”
I thought fast. I tried to remember a courthouse fire from the newspapers. I couldn’t.
I said, “Sir, we were married three years ago in Waco, Texas. I just can’t understand why you doubt we’re married.”
He said, “I’m going to take you in. I’m going to check your story. If you’re telling the truth, I’ll let you go. If not, you’ll get a jail sentence.”
He took us down. We were mugged and fingerprinted. Afterwards we were taken to his office.
He said, “Boy, you lied to me. I called Waco. There’s no record of your marriage.”
They locked us up. An hour later we walked out on two-hundred dollar bonds each. We got a cab to the motel. I understood the bond delay. The joint had been searched. We got her stuff from the whorehouse and sat in the train station until eight P.M.
We got back to the city early that morning. I knew when my fingerprints got to Washington the F.B.I. would rush back the news I was a fugitive. I had to get out of town.
The police chief knew my destination when I left his town. “Bet ’Em Big” called Pennsylvania. Stacy was parked, ready to leave for the new spot the next day. The chief must have flown my fingerprints to Washington.
The city rollers, with a captain of guards from the joint busted Stacy and me. I was held for the escape. Stacy for harboring me. There was one angle I couldn’t figure. All the way to the lock-up it bothered me. How did the city police and that screw know just where in that big city to put their hands on me?
I had been transferred to county jail when I figured it out. I have made many stupid mistakes in my life. None was more stupid than the one that put me back in the shit house. I had a letter in my bag from Stacy. The rollers that searched our room while we were in jail made a notation of my city address. I had played the hick coppers cheap and here I was with my balls in the fire.
Rachel rushed to me from the whorehouse. I fought the charge of escape. After all, they couldn’t prove it to the extent that they could tell in court how I had escaped. At my first hearing I told the judge I hadn’t escaped. I told him one night before midnight a screw unlocked the cell and took me to the front gate and released me. I had a friend who had supplied the scratch for the underground release.
It was a very thin story, but it was strong enough to forestall my return to the joint. I was sure bad things would happen to me back there. Bet visited me. He offered to do anything for me. I was lost. No one could help me.
Mama came from California to visit me. She was sick and old. In fact she was dying. She had heart trouble and diabetes. I don’t see how she made the trip. It was an old scene. I was in a barred cage. She was crying on the outside of it.
She sobbed, “Son, this is the last time we are going to see each other. Your Mama’s so tired. God gave me the strength to make the long trip to see my poor baby fore I go to sleep in Jesus’ arms. Son, it’s too bad you don’t love me as much as I love you.”
I was crying. I was squeezing her thin, pale hands in mine between the bars.
I said, “Now look Mama, you know we all got Indian blood in us. Mama you ain’t gonna die. Mama, I’ll live to get a hundred like Papa Joe, your father. Come on now Mama, stop it. Ain’t I got enough worry? Mama I love you. Honest Mama. Forgive me not writing regular and stuff like that. I love you Mama, I love you. Please don’t die. I couldn’t take it while I’m locked up. I’ll take care of you when I get out. I swear it Mama. Just don’t die. Please!”
The screw came up. The visit was over. His hard face softened in pity as he looked at her. He knew she was critically sick. I watched her move slowly away from me down the jail corridor. She got to the elevator. She turned and looked at me. She had a sad, pitiful look on her face. It reminded me of that stormy morning long ago she had stood in the rain and watched the van taking me to my first prison bit. I get a terrible lump in my throat even now when I relive that moment.
A week passed after Mama visited me and went back to California.
I went into court for the third and last time. The judge ordered me into the custody of the joint’s captain of screws. Stacy was released.
The captain and his aide were grimly silent. Their prison sedan sliced through the sparkling April day. I was on the rear seat. I gazed at the scurrying, lucky citizens on the street. I wondered what they’d use on me at the joint, rubber hoses or blackjacks? I felt so low. I wouldn’t have cared if I’d dropped dead right on the car seat.
We went through the big gate into the joint. The warm April sun shone down on the ancient grimy buildings.
The yard cons leaned on their brooms. They stared through the car window at me. The sedan came to a stop. We got out. They took off my handcuffs. I was taken into the same cell house from which I’d made the escape thirteen years before. I was locked in a cell on the flag.
In the early afternoon a screw marched me to the office of the chief of the joint’s security. He looked like a pure Aryan storm trooper sitting behind his desk. He didn’t have a blackjack or a rubber hose in his hand. He was grinning like maybe Herr Schickelgruber at that railroad coach in France. His voice was a lethal whisper.
He said, “Well, well, so you’re that slick blackbird who flew the coop. Cheer up, you only owe us eleven months. You’re lucky you escaped before the new law. There’s one on the books now. It penalizes escapees with up to an extra year.
“Ah, what a shame it isn’t retroactive. I am going to put you into a punishment cell for a few days. Nothing personal mind you. Hell, you didn’t hurt me with your escape. Tell me confidentially, how did you do it?”
I said, “Sir, I wish I knew. I am subject to states of fugue. I came to that night and I was walking down the highway a free man. Sir, I certainly wish I could tell you how I did it.” His pale cold eyes hardened into blue agates. His grin widened.
He said, “Oh, it’s all right my boy. Tell you what, you’re a cinch to get a clear memory of just how you did it before long. Put in a request to the cell-house officer to see me when you regain the memory. Well good luck my boy, ’til we meet again.”
A screw took me to the bathhouse. I took a shower and changed into a tattered con uniform. A croaker examined me, then back to the cell house. The screw took me to a row of tiny filthy cells on the flag. My first detention cell was on the other side of the cell house. The screw stopped in front of a cell. He unlocked it. He prodded me into it. It was near the front of the cell house. I looked around my new home.
It was a tight box designed to crush and torture the human spirit. I raised my arms above me. My fingertips touched the cold steel ceiling. I stretched them out to the side. I touched the steel walls. I walked seven feet or so from the barred door to the rear of the cell. I passed a steel cot.
The mattress cover was stained and stinking from old puke and crap. The toilet and washbowls were encrusted with greenish-brown crud. It could be a steel casket for a weak skull after a week or two. I wondered
