how long they’d punish me in the box.
I turned and walked to the cell door. I stood grasping the bars, looking out at the blank cell-house wall in front of me.
I thought, “The Nazi figures after a week or so in this dungeon I’ll be crying and begging to tell him how I escaped. I’m not going to pussy-out. Hell, I got a strong skull. I could do a month in here.”
I heard a slapping noise against the steel space between the cells. I saw a thin white hand holding a square of paper. I stuck my arm through the bars of my cell door. I took the paper. It was a kite with two cigarettes and three matches folded inside.
It read, “Welcome to Happiness Lane. My name is Coppola. The vine said you’re Lancaster, the guy who took a powder thirteen years ago. I was clerking in an office up front. I took my powder a year and a half ago.
“They brought me back six months ago. I’ve started to cash in my chips a dozen times. You’ll find out what I mean. I’ve been right in this cell ever since. I got another year to go with the new time stacked on top for the escape. I got a detainer warrant from Maine for forgery up front.
“We’re in big trouble, buddy. The prick up front has cracked up four or five cons in these cells since I came back … There’s six of us on the row now. Only three are escapees. The rest are doing short punishment time like two days to a week. I’ll give you background on other things later, I know what screws will get anything you want for a price.”
I lit a cigarette and sat on the cot. I thought, Coppola is a helluva stud to keep his skull straight for six months on Happiness Lane. He doesn’t know I’m just here for a few days.”
That night we had a supper of sour Spanish rice. I heard the shuffling feet of cons filing into the cell house. They were going into their cells on the tiers overhead. The blaring radio loudspeakers and the lights went off at nine. Over the flushing of toilets and epidemic farting, I heard my name mentioned. The speaker was on the tier just above my cell.
He said, “Jim, how about old Iceberg, the mack man? Jim, a deuce will get you a sawbuck the white folks will croak him down there. A pimp ain’t got the heart to do a slat down there.”
Jim said, “Jack, I hope the pimp bastard croaks tonight. One of them pimps put my baby sister on stuff.”
I dozed off. After midnight I woke up. Somebody was screaming. He was pleading with someone not to kill him. I heard thudding sounds. I got up and went to the cell door. I heard Coppola flush his john.
I stage whispered, “Coppola, what’s happening, man?”
He whispered, “Don’t let it bug you, Lancaster. It’s just the night screws having their nightly fun and exercise. They pull their punching bags from the cells on the other side. It’s where drunks and old men are held for court in the morning.
“Buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Don’t give them any lip if they ever come by and needle you. They’ll beat hell out of you. Then take all your clothes off and put you in a stripped cell. That’s one with nothing in it, just the cold concrete floor. Buddy, there are at least a dozen ways to die in here.”
All the rest of the night I lay staring at the blank dirty wall in front of me. I wondered what Rachel and Stacy were doing. I had to make contact with a screw to mail some letters on the outside for me. The joint censors would never let whore instructions pass through. Every few minutes a screw would pass and flash his light on me.
That morning I watched the cell-house cons file past my cell on the way to breakfast and then to their work. All new arrivals the day before were also in this line.
That afternoon I got letters from Stacy and Rachel. They had also sent money orders. They missed their strong right arm. They were working bars downtown. “Bet” was handling any falls they might take.
Coppola within the first week hipped me to the angles of survival. I had a screw who would take letters directly to the girls. He would get his pay-off from them. He would bring me cash from them.
I got a letter from Mama. I could hardly read the shaky writing. She sent me religious tracts inside it. I was really worried about her. The tight cell and the fear of a year in it was getting to me. The little sleep I got was crowded with nightmares. I was eating good at high prices. I still lost weight.
The first month I lost thirty pounds. Then I got bad news twice within the fifth week. I got a letter from Stacy. Bet had been found dead on his toilet stool at home. It really shook me. He had been a real friend. I got a very short note from Rachel. She was in Cleveland.
It said, “I ran into an old doctor friend of yours the other night. He was looped. He bought me a drink. Lucky for me the bartender asked how you were doing. The doctor spilled his guts. He told me about a dead patient of his who came back to life. My worst wishes. P.S. Please drop dead. I’ll keep the Hog.”
The joint waived the balance of Coppola’s time to face the rap in Maine. The skull pressure was getting larger. The cell was getting tighter. With Coppola gone I was in real trouble the third month. It was like a deadly hex was at work to crack me up.
None of the screws would cop heavy drugs for me. I settled for whiskey. I stopped using the safety razor. I didn’t want to see the gaunt ugly stranger in my sliver of mirror. It wasn’t just the cell. It was the sights and sounds of the misery and torment on the row and in the nightmares.
Mama was bedridden. She was too sick to write. I got telegrams and letters from her friends. They were all praying that I’d get out before Mama passed. I got a pass to the visitors cage. A screw took me and stood behind me the whole time. It was Stacy. She was pregnant and living with an old hustler. Her eyes told me how bad I looked. Her letters dropped off to one a month with no scratch.
At the end of the fourth month my skull was shaking on my shoulders like I had palsy. A con on the row blew his top one night around midnight. He woke up the whole cell house. At first he was cursing God and his mother. The screws brought him past my cell.
In my state the sight of him almost took me into madness. He was buck naked and jabbering a weird madman’s language through a foamy jib. It was like the talking in tongues Holy Rollers do. He was jacking-off his stiff swipe with both hands. I gnawed into my pillow like the runt to keep from screaming.
The next day I put in a request to see the Nazi. Nothing happened. A week later I was sitting on the John with my head between my knees. I heard the morning line moving to breakfast. The line had stalled for a moment right outside my cell door.
I looked up into a pair of strange almost orange eyes sunk into an old horribly scarred face. It was Leroy. I had stolen Chris from him many years ago. He still remembered me. He stared at me and smiled crookedly as the line moved out.
I got my screw to check his rap sheet. The screw gave me the whole rundown. Since nineteen-forty Leroy had been arrested more than a hundred times for common drunk. He had also been committed to mental hospitals twice. I was forty-two. I was twenty when I stole Chris from him. I asked the screw to pull strings to send him to another cell house. I gave him a rundown on the Chris steal and how weak Leroy had been for her. The screw told me he couldn’t cut it.
Leroy was doing only five days for drunk. Leroy had to stay in the cell house. I wondered how Leroy would try for revenge. I had to be careful in the morning for the next five days. I had to keep my feet and legs away from the cell door. Leroy might score for a shiv and try to hack something off when he passed my cell. I worried all day about what he would do. Could he somehow get gasoline and torch me?
That night I heard the voice for the first time. The lights were out. The cell house was quiet. The voice seemed to be coming through a tiny grille at the head of the cot.
A light always burned in the breezeway behind the grille. The pipes for all the plumbing for the cells were there. I got down on my hands and knees and looked through the grille’s tiny holes. I couldn’t see anybody.
I got back on the cot. The voice was louder and clearer. It sounded friendly and sweet like a woman consoling a friend. I wondered if cons on one of the tiers above me were clowning with each other.
I heard my name in the flow of chatter. I got back down and listened at the grille. A light flooded the corner. It was the screw. I spun around on my knees facing him. The light was in my eyes. He said, “What the hell are you doing?”
I said, “Officer, I heard a voice. I thought someone was working back there.”
He said, “Oh, you poor bastard. You won’t pull this bit. You’re going nuts ‘Slim.’ Now stop that nonsense and get in that cot and stay there.”
The cellhouse lights woke me up. My first thought was Leroy. I got up and sat on the cot. Then I thought about the voice. I wasn’t sure now. Maybe it had been a dream.
I wondered whether I should ask the screw about it. One thing for sure, dream or not, I didn’t want to go
