Monkeyshines
chapter eleven b

I gave a speech one night to the membership of the Afro-American Organization about the rebellious slave, Nat Turner. I hated public speaking. I knew my mouth would get dry and I'd want to run away, but I got roped in by Clarence. I felt a bit out of place, a young white guy standing in front of a hundred Black convicts talking hard about freedom and courage. Afterwards, I was surprised and relieved when everyone told me I hadn't looked nervous at all.
My job shaking sheets ended as I was assigned to the prison school. I taught English, arithmetic and history. My students were prisoners who'd been ordered to finish their high school studies and get GED certificates. This new job developed after I met with my caseworker, Mr. Swanstrom. He said I was over-qualified for the laundry. He said I was over-qualified for the prison. He explained his idea about prison very carefully.
He said, "Society has norms." (He drew two parallel lines an inch apart on a scratch pad as he spoke)
"Within the norms,” (He drew wavy lines inside the parallel lines), “People can go their way."
"But when people go outside those norms," (He drew wavy lines that ran outside the parallel lines), "Society must push these people back inside those boundaries." (He scratched out the wavy lines outside the parallel lines).
I took his pen and drew two new parallel lines on his pad, wider apart than his. My lines encompassed all the wavy lines. "Isn't it more appropriate, at times, to set more inclusive standards," I asked?
He grimaced.
"In any case," I said, "I don't think these lines should be drawn in private somewhere without solid, honest reasons for them, and I think the constitution requires this."
He said, "I don't think you understand what I mean." Just then he was told of an emergency and had to leave the office. As he swept passed me, I said, "Ditto."
It was actually a pleasant and interesting meeting. Mr. Swanstrom was a well-meaning social worker from the old school who never imposed a feeling of personal loathing on me like so many prison staff did. I liked him. And I didn't think his ideas were nuts, just too simple and wrong.
He had me assigned to the school. The principal, Mr. Lindstrom, had doubts. So did my students. Most were between 35 and 60 and had no internal motivation to learn. They were told to learn or face a reduced chance for parole. We used first generation teaching machines and weekly tests. They made progress.
Tall Tex, Mad Dog Red Daniels, Freddie G., and Ray 'Rod' Rodriguez were among my students. They were friends from my dorm. They didn't expect me to push them around by insisting they show up for class, so I didn't. I used the classroom to teach anything anyone wanted to learn. If someone wanted to study something I couldn't help with, I harbored them.
Astrology drew much interest. I'd studied it when I was a student at the University of Illinois, in part as an attempt to refute it, but I came to see it as an interesting language with nothing to refute. Some people might use it to predict the future, but I saw the future as impossible to predict reliably by any method. I used astrology as a way to speak non-judgmentally about people and behavior. For me, it was easier than using English. My classroom had astrological charts and poster art on its walls. Ghetto Blacks, Indians, hillbillies, Italians and Puerto Ricans stood in animated groups discussing the challenge confronting a person born with Scorpio rising. I loved it. To me, astrology, like pot, provided a neutral format that encouraged communication.
The University of Minnesota offered a correspondence course in astronomy, and I signed up for it. The first lesson instructed me to plot the stars in the night sky in my location. The lights around the prison were too bright to see the night sky, so I asked the warden if I could go out away from the prison walls to chart the sky. He threw me out of his office.
I also lost my position at the school. Horace Bugg, Mr. Lindstrom's assistant, complained that he received no attendance sheets for my class. I admitted that I didn't turn any in and promised to turn them in in the future. He was pleased. Not very pleased, but pleased a little. Actually, it would be more correct to say he was relieved. I didn't call him foul names, laugh at him, or play stupid to make him explain his point over and over, as many prisoners would have done. I smiled, agreed with his assessment of the situation, and promised to comply with his instructions. I'd submit attendance forms. He might have suspected what I already knew, that the attendance forms I'd turn in would be blank, but I'd bought my little classroom one more month of life.
Horace called me to his office when he got my blank attendance sheets. We argued over whether I turned in attendance sheets at all. We failed to agree on whether a blank attendance sheet really was an attendance sheet. I was sure it was. Horace was sure it wasn't real enough to serve the purpose for which it was meant. He reported our disagreement to Mr. Lindstrom, and I was sent back to the laundry. This disappointed Mr. Swanstrom, because Mr. Lindstrom had told him from the start that I wouldn't make it in the school.
Associate Warden Hacker and I got close after that. I camped outside his office each morning to ask him for a job change. The laundry didn't work for me anymore. Mr. Hacker kept saying, "No." I sensed I’d made a mistake in my approach by giving Mr. Hacker the impression I was trying to manipulate a better situation for myself. He automatically resisted such attempts. So I told him to give me a tough demanding job or I wouldn't work at all.
Mr. Hacker winced, rolled his eyes, and sputtered. My demand was an anomaly to him. But he issued a master stroke of his own. He called Lawrence DeRungs. "DeRungs," he said, " I have a guy in here who wants to work. He's been disappointed with our work program. He doesn't think there's a hard job in the institution. I want you to put him to work." Later I learned that Hacker didn't like DeRungs. What a guy.
This was a turning point. Life got better for me after that, although it might not have done much for DeRungs. He was the carpentry shop foreman. A fine shop it was, too. We had every tool for any job. There were two heavy duty table saws, an old 10" DeWalt radial arm saw, a 24" planer, a drill press, a wood lathe, a metal lathe, a joiner, band saws, sanders, six-foot-square work tables, a 16-foot ceiling, etc. It was a pleasure to work in such a shop.
DeRungs was a guard, officially, meaning he wore a uniform and all, but at heart he was really a farmer who’d been convinced by his wife that a federal job was just what they needed for security. He reminded me of my father, and I liked him. He was a good carpenter, had empathy, and actually worked with his hands, hard. He also drank too much and avoided people who might ask direct questions. He had a Santa Claus belly and a pink whisky nose. When he got too officious, we’d threaten to steal his whiskey stash. He’d laugh at our threats.
The first time he took me outside the fence to work in hack village, he said, "If I have to leave you out here alone and somebody comes around, be careful how you act, and watch what you say."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Just do what I tell you. These people are a little, oh, strange sometimes."
"Okay," I agreed.
Just after I transferred to DeRungs, Hacker pushed through a work order to install a new railing around his patio. Mr. Hacker hadn't forgotten me, I thought. He was going to kill two birds with one stone. He knew I was the only one in the carpentry shop with clearance to work in hack village, and he knew DeRungs had to supervise me by running back and forth between the shop and Hacker's house.
The temperature was below freezing. A blizzard was in progress. Hacker's patio sat on the roof of the second floor and had four inches of ice on it. DeRungs was talking to himself. He said Hacker didn't like him, and that's why he was sent on such a ridiculous job assignment. I said Hacker didn't like me, and really didn't care about DeRungs one way or the other. We decided Hacker was jealous, because we just remodeled the kitchen in the new warden's house, which was right next door to Hacker's house.
This was more like it. This was real life. I was definitely getting to the bottom of things. We almost froze out there, ass-deep in snow, wind blowing furiously. Each of us fell off the ladder several times, into the snow that had drifted deep. We got the railing attached and retreated to the sanctuary of the carpentry shop.
DeRungs and I hid a lot. DeRungs' boss, a federal lifer named J.J. Hunt was always wanting something fixed, particularly things in his house. He was never satisfied with our work, but our work, that is, DeRungs' work, was pretty good. We punished Hunt by making him live up to his name when he wanted us. We spent a lot of time looking for materials in the tunnels. Most federal prisons had a tunnel system that could serve as a bomb shelter. A lot of building materials were stored in Sandstone's tunnels. It was labyrinth in which we'd spend an hour or more just looking for nails. Another good place to go to avoid Hunt was the officers' mess when it was closed. There were always door locks to be checked, tables or chairs to be inspected, or a bit of tile to be repaired. And we could grab a snack, too. DeRungs was always hungry.
Still, we spent a lot of time in the carpentry shop. There were four doors to the shop. One led down the corridor past Hunt's office, one opened onto the yard, one entered the paint shop, and one that was always locked, exited outside the prison. DeRungs would pop in one door, get the omnipresent message that Hunt was looking for him, then shoot out another door. Sometimes he was so obvious he’d ask which way Hunt went, then DeRungs would go another. They’d play that game until DeRungs picked the wrong door. He'd run into Hunt, then he'd fidget and squirm for twenty minutes while Hunt bitched about old jobs and gave instructions for new ones.
One of DeRungs' allies was the paint shop boss, Bill Swanstrom (no relation to the caseworker). He covered for DeRungs when Hunt looked for him. I once heard Bill tell Hunt that he hadn't seen DeRungs, while DeRungs was hiding in the paint spray booth eight feet away.
Professional prison staff were moved around the country to different prisons. Local staff hired from the surrounding community tried to stay near home. In Sandstone, five Eriksons and three Swantroms were hired from the local Swedish-American population. The locals were protected in their jobs by civil service regulations, but they lived with the quiet threat of being transferred to Alaska or Arizona. The professionals, who'd experienced such shifts, were never entirely accepted by the locals. Their lack of roots made them socially suspect, and their behavior was noticeably different. Scandals were common in hack village.
Visits were a break in the pattern of prison life or, rather, a separate pattern superimposed on the more ordinary pattern. Chris visited me three or four times a month, usually coming during the week to get me out of work for the day. Sometimes she’d visit several days in a row. Visits were mind wrenching.
"Hey, Turkey, you got a visit." The tremulous tones of Gabriel's trumpet couldn't sound more grand. Chills and shivers rocked me as I shouted, "Ca-a-all my name!" I’d shower, brush my teeth real hard, scrape the dirt out from under my nails, dust myself with talcum powder, and dress up in the finest denims Sweet William could provide. I’d grin my way across the yard, down the hall, through the search routine, and into the visiting room. Chris would run across the room, flashing a wild smile, and leap into my arms for a bear hug and a kiss.
The visiting room was safety for a while. Real human tenderness and openness were possible. Afterwards, I’d turn my prisoner mentality back on. Prison was a jungle I learned to live in, like a combat zone, and I developed a sense of humor that made it tolerable, but it always shocked me to feel the visiting room and then go back to the cell block.
Little tragedies sometimes happened in the visiting room. A close relative might display disgust or disappointment with an inmate, nearly destroying him. Lovers sometimes failed to restrain their sex play, and got caught, losing visiting privileges. Real psychodrama. I met my future father-in-law in the visiting room. It was an awkward time for us both.
In the summer, we’d use the front lawn as a visiting room. Some of us went outside with our visitor to stroll among the flowers, or sit at shaded lawn tables and sip soft drinks. Box lunches were available.
It was always a pleasure to have a visit at the same time as Benny Lerma. Benny was the Prime Minister of the Afro-American Organization before Low Down Brown. Benny was a Detroit pimp. He had a baby face, a graying Afro and a prodigious wit. His female visitors were always the zenith of fashion, very beautiful streetwise sirens who liberated the visiting area by neutralizing the guards. Like Jennifer, who went to the guard's desk, leaned down and forward so her face was 12 inches from the guard's face, offering him an unobstructed view of her breasts, nipples and all. As she bathed the guard in her perfume, she asked if she could give Benny a little bitty piece of chocolate pie that she brought him all the way from Detroit. Already the guard has trouble remembering what day it is, then she warmly offers him a piece as well. No more bad vibes or parental stares from him for a while.
Benny worked in the electrical shop. Even the few rednecks who called Benny a nigger behind his back, knew he was our best electrician. Benny knew some of them called him a nigger behind his back, so whenever he went on a job, if one of these rednecks stood to gain, Benny would dawdle and put off starting the job, until the redneck did some kind of song or dance to acknowledge Benny's value.
Benny and I lived in the same dorm. I thought he was the heaviest guy there, not in raw killer power, but in his ability to meet any situation with humor, understanding and a positive, effective strategy. One day he was working on the roof repairing some electrical fittings. He fell two floors to the ground, landing outside of the institution. He got up and hobbled around to the front gate, where the guard wanted to see his pass before he would let him in. Benny stood there for half an hour, bleeding from his leg and cracking jokes before the guard got permission from Hacker to let him in. There was some talk about loss of good time for attempted escape that could have but never did get serious.
The back gate was the guards' hangout. It took them half an hour to get through the gate. It took us prisoners time, because we were searched going in or going out. Some guards didn't mind feeling around a guy's crotch for things that didn't belong there, some did. DeRungs searched me. He never got within a foot of my crotch.
Being a farmer, he let me bring in all the onions I could stuff into my clothing. We both lamented that the prison farm closed right at harvest time. To save money, they said. We figured it saved some for whoever got the contract to supply vegetables to the prison. The onion field was across from the back gate. Every time we went through the gate we saw the wasting harvest. It made DeRungs sick. He was honor bound to let me save what I could. I gave onions away as gifts. People wondered how I got them but didn't ask.
It was bad manners to ask direct questions in prison, because of all the plots and schemes going down. Asking a direct question was like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and the person asking the question usually ended up the donkey. Once, as I was hustling across the yard carrying a blowtorch, a new guard said as I passed, "Hey, where do you think you're going with that?" I kept moving, only looking back to say, "I can't stop to talk now, I gotta deliver this to the escape committee by 4 o'clock, and I'm late."
The guard stood there, helpless, bearing the consequences of a dumb direct question. He could bust me for insubordination, but somebody might be pissed that I didn't arrive with the blowtorch, in this case, Hacker, whose office was being tiled. This guard had the smallest boat on the whole administrative lake. He couldn't afford to make any waves at all.
Contraband moved around the joint continuously, and in ever new and ingenious ways. My personal favorite was the occasion of the one and only Autumnal Equinox Acid Drop. Blaine gave his wife Patty a prison handkerchief during a visit. She took it home and dosed each square inch with liquid LSD. On her next visit, she returned the handkerchief to Blaine. The only articles inmates were allowed to take back into the institution from the visiting room were a comb and a handkerchief. Voila! The next Saturday night a dozen people dropped acid.
One of them was Leo Calabrese, an organized crime enforcer. Leo stood six feet five and weighed 290 pounds. He was alternately the nicest guy in the world or a cold, menacing gorilla. He once shot a real gorilla to death at the zoo. Leo had reached through the bars and taken hold of the gorilla's fur, and the gorilla responded by grabbing Leo's wrist. Leo used his free hand to pull his gun and shoot the gorilla dead.
The zoo keeper rushed up stammering, "What the hell's the matter with you, are you nuts? You shot my gorilla, you crazy son of a bitch. I'm gonna call the cops. They're gonna put you away, you crazy... ."
Leo said, "Shut up or I'll shoot you, too." The zoo keeper shut up.
We told Leo that acid would show him some things he'd never seen before. We told him we took it to increase our spiritual strength and insight. It was like an emotional stress/challenge test. We thought Leo might see an alternative to his gangster vision, but when Leo dropped acid, nothing happened. At least, nothing anyone noticed. We were all very surprised about this, as we all got off strong. Drugs/chemicals are partly a matter of dosage per kilo of body weight, so we concluded Leo didn't take enough to affect his gargantuan physical plant. Still, maybe acid didn't work for everyone.
Marvin and I went all over the institution, to the gym, the library, the school, the church, and the chow hall, stoned to the bone. The chow hall wasn't terrific, as the crowd and bright lights made us uncomfortable, and I forgot how to eat. Chewing and swallowing became unmanageable processes. We ambled over to the gym where a barnburner basketball game between the Blacks and the Indians was just getting underway.
These guys played very seriously. The Blacks risked the most, because they averaged over six feet in height and had played a lot. The Indians were much shorter on average, and had played less, but they had extraordinary stamina. They ran the Black team until they were sweating, wheezing and looking exhausted. The Indians also had Little Crow. He was nearly a dwarf, but he hit consistently from 25 feet and never tired.
Marvin worked in the recreation department, and when we showed up at the gym, the recreation officer told him to referee the game. Marvin had tried out with the Chicago Cubs, and had loads of credibility with the convicts; he was a good choice for referee.
"C'mon, Marvin, get in here," the guard insisted. Marvin got up. Terror showed in his eyes. We both knew there was no way he could ref that game. At the last second Joe Blackwell jumped up and asked if he could ref. He'd figured where Marvin's head was. He was reluctant to put himself forward, because he was Black and the Indians might well have objected to him as a biased ref. He saw how jammed Marvin was, though, and he came through. The recreation officer studied Marvin a bit, mumbled to himself, then said, "Okay, Blackwell, you ref." The only thing the recreation officer was certain of, was that he didn't want to ref this melee himself any longer. Marvin and I split before he changed his mind.
We visited the prisoner-operated radio station that was set up in the school. Blaine organized a private concert for us. We were enjoying our jock's selections when Lieutenant Butcher stormed in, yelling, "What the hell are you guys doing here? You're not supposed to be in here. Get your asses out of here before I... ." We melted out the door and were gone like a fog wisping away from a hot sun.
We slid back to the dorm and finally got to sleep sometime before dawn. During the night, the acid was gobbled up by our livers. Everyone seemed fine the next day. The only effect I noticed in myself was a deeper sense of belonging, of being home. Wherever I was, that was home, and where I was supposed to be. I stopped taking acid once I felt I had something to lose. Acid was a little unpredictable, like the point spread between dawn and sunset, or a homemade aeroplane.

Sandstone was mostly dormitories, and the inmates all wanted cells. In prisons where nearly all of the inmates had cells, most inmates wanted dormitories.
******
Monkeyshine #13, Rarity value, a yearning to improve one's position by acquiring something in short supply that others want.
******
On and on it did go. I went up the imaginary ladder without trying. Moved into the ‘best’ dorm, was elected to the inmate council, got a new job and a parole date. I sat in a tiny shack 200 yards behind the prison where the garbage was dumped, at the asshole of the criminal justice system waiting to be pooped out. I burned the garbage from time to time. That wasn't so easy when the temperature dropped to 45 or 50 degrees below 0 Fahrenheit, and my two-pound coffee can of diesel fuel I used to light the fire froze like a rock. I had lots of time to reflect and be alone, no small achievement in a prison. I reflected on a plan to sail away forever on a boat or, better, in a dirigible if I could afford one. (Later I called Goodyear and learned that dirigibles were way too pricey for me.)
I went before the parole board; they asked me how I thought the prison should be run. Nearly swooning, I copped out and said I wasn't competent to answer such a question. I thought I was called in to be told if and when I'd be released. The meeting room was surprisingly dark. A dozen people sat around a conference table, and I didn't know any of them. I could barely see their faces, and I couldn't assume they were friendly. I was afraid. I just wanted to get out of there. Later I thought of lots of good ideas for them.
One day, months earlier, I walked across the yard carrying two books, one about Buddhism, the other about geodesic domes. A guard stopped me and looked at the books. I was friendly, like I usually was, and he was friendly. But he laughed when he saw my books. He handed them back to me, pulled a book out of his pocket, and held it up so I could see it. "Guns Along the Pecos," was the title. He said, "You oughta read a good book, like this. It's books like that that got you in here."
I nodded and said, "Too true, too true," and shuffled on. No, I couldn't assume the parole board was friendly.
As the inmate council representative of a powerful cellblock, I got regular deliveries of chopped liver from Papa Zadie Milman (Papa Zadie was Yiddish for grandpa). Papa Zadie owned a bar in Cicero, Illinois, an occupation which demanded continuous involvement with predatory businessmen and bureaucrats. He habitually curried favor with elected officials. I thought he brought me chopped liver sandwiches the way he'd have brought them to anyone who happened to be the cellblock's councilman.
Papa Zadie was a chubby, gray-haired Jewish Elf. The Feds were squeezing him to testify in an investigation into corruption in Cicero. The specific charge against him had to do with putting liquor of one brand into the bottle of another, cheaper brand. Papa was certainly aware of any number of lucrative opportunities, and no one believed he wasted his time putting liquor in different bottles. The Feds kept taking him to court on new, similar charges. Papa Zadie said he was between a rock and a hard place. If he gave indications that he'd talk about other people's business, he wouldn't survive. On the other hand, he constantly picked up more time to serve, and he was almost 60 years old. How could he survive? Everyone wondered. He inspired us by his calm under fire.
Another opportunity afforded me as council representative was to resolve tie votes in TV disputes, like the time Viva Zapata was showing opposite the 1969/70 National Football League Championship game pitting the Minnesota Vikings against the Kansas City Chiefs. In Minnesota, it was the biggest game of the decade, and considered a shoe-in choice for the cellblock TV. Every Sunday throughout the season the football games were voted in by overwhelming majorities.
There was a potential backlash vote, though, with a dynamite film like Viva Zapata to rally around. Emiliano Zapata was a Mexican revolutionary and was played by Marlon Brando. I wanted to watch the movie, so I encouraged the anti-football crowd to consider the possibility of raising the necessary votes. They did, and when the time came for a vote, 36 voted for the football game and 36 voted for Viva Zapata. As I announced the numbers, I became all powerful. Everyone looked to me for THE TIE-BREAKING VOTE. I rolled it around on my tongue for a moment savoring its flavor, then I said it, "Viva Zapata!" Half the guys in the room roared with laughter and vindication, the other half shrieked miserably, horrified at this incredible turn of events. A couple old guys reached for their nitro-glycerine pills.
The organized crime guys were particularly furious, because I held office at their whim. I hadn't even run for the office. Their block of supporters just drafted me and voted me in. But TV disputes broke all alliances. The football alliance strained to concoct a way to undo this catastrophe. As they did this, the station aired an apology. "Viva Zapata will not be seen at this time due to technical difficulties." The Viva Zapata alliance was snake-bit. What a piece of luck for the footballers. (As Bobbie Burns said, "The best laid plans of mice and men, gang aft agley.") The game was terrific, but heartbreaking to many in my dorm with the final score being 27-7 Kansas City.
Shortly before I left Sandstone, Tall Tex took me aside to say something serious. He rarely said anything serious, so I listened closely.
"Michael," he drawled, "You know, I wouldn't even talk to anyone else like this, but you ain't like most of the guys I'm used to seeing in here. No sir, the population has sure changed over the last few years. We used to only get criminals in here. Now we get you college guys, and I think it's good for the place. Kind a picks things up. "
"Thanks," I said, sort of tentatively.
"With you guys in here, people pay more attention, we get courses and stuff."
"Uh huh," I said, still tentative.
"What I mean to say is, I like you, Michael, and I wouldn't want to see you do no more time, and I think you'll know how to take this, but you oughta consider what twenty years would do for you."
"TWENTY YEARS! I howled.
"Yeah," Tex went on. "Now I don't mean you should DO twenty years, but just look at what you've learned in the time you've been here."
"Oh, man," I grimaced and wagged my head at the thought of doing twenty years.
"You're still a little rambunctious, like I was when I came in. I was a wild one. I used to fight all the time, especially with the guards. I must have been in the hole thirty times. If anybody gave me any shit at all, I was ready to box. Well, I'm pacified now, because, well, the time does something in your head, ya know, but I just wanted to say that this time could be good for you too, Michael. You've learned a lot already, and you can learn more. You just gotta relax."
I liked Tex, and I might have given him a big hug if we weren't in the slammer. Instead I asked him a question I'd been curious about for a long time. "Tex, what's the real story with your kidnapping beef?"
"Sheeit, Michael, you know, it don't even matter any more. I don't even think about it any more."
"But did you actually do it? I mean, were you in on it?"
"Well, this guy that got kidnapped, he was blinded during the kidnapping, and he identified me as the kidnapper by the sound of my voice. The trial was going on at the same time that a Texas Ranger and his kid were kidnapped. The whole state was up in arms about kidnapping. I was convicted and sentenced to twenty five years. The sentence could have been worse, but the judge reckoned the jury had gone pretty far on the evidence they had. Here I am."
"That's it?" I said.
"Well, I told my wife to get a divorce and try to get the kids to forget me. No use having them carry all this bullshit."
"Did she do it?"
"Oh, yeah. Not at first, but after a couple years, she saw her way to it."
"What's the name of that town you're from?"
"Childress. Childress, Texas, but I haven't seen home in a long time. A few years ago they cut my sentence, though, and I should get out next year."
"What are you going to do?" I said, continuing to use this unusual opportunity to ask direct questions.
"That bitch is going to do just what I tell her, that's what!" roared Ray "Rod" Rodriguez as he walked up to us. "And she better not look at another man." Rod and Tex were good friends, and as tough a pair as there was in Sandstone. "How you doin, Mama?" Rod said to Tex.
Tex said to me, "I like these Puerto Rican bitches, don't you, Michael. They got spirit."
On the surface, Rod looked like a dangerous, hell-raising junkie and heroin dealer. In this case, surface appearance and reality were the same. He played the role without apology. He was serving time for heroin trafficking. His accent made my name sound like Myko.
"Myko, Tex and me, we're gone to be rich, baby, at lease if they don't make smack legal befo' we get out."
I said with surprise, "You're going to mess with smack again? How can you even think that?"
"Hold on, Myko. Don't go tellin' me what to think. Nobody tells me what to think. They never have an they never will."
"Tell em, Rod," goaded Tex, "Don't let him fuck with you, Darlin."
"Shut up, bitch, I'll handle this," Rod said in mock annoyance.
"I'm not telling you what to think, I was just remembering that conversation about junkies, you know, with Marvin and John, when you told the story about your mother's monkey. I dunno, I guess I thought you walked away from junk."
"Oh yeah, my Mama's monkey," Rod mumbled in quiet bemusement as he remembered.
(The conversation about junkies to which I referred was about how junkies got desperate and lost their restraint and self-respect. The point these junkies made, each in his own way, was that the restraint and self-respect didn't disappear permanently, but just temporarily sort of shriveled up.
Rod had said, "Yeah, I dint have no self-respect for a while, but I came to my senses, man. But in order to get myself well one time, I had to cop, you know. I was sick. An I was broke, too. I dint have no money, an I couldn't boost any. I was hurtin'. I left the bitch in the bed, and I went over to my Mama's home and I stole her monkey. My Mama loved that monkey, and I handed him over to my connection." Everyone laughed at the thought of Rod trading a live monkey for dope.
"But even hurtin' like I was, man, I couldn't do it. I mean, I saw my Mama's face in my mind, her findin' out her monkey was gone, and I couldn't do it. I grabbed that monkey back. I couldn't live with myself if I was so low as to burn off my Mama's monkey. Sheeit, then that fuckin' monkey got away from me, right there in the restaurant. He ran all over people's tables and climbed up the curtains, me chasin' him, and my connection runnin' out the place. I wanted to kill that monkey, but I caught him and took him back to Mama. I told her I jus took him for a walk.")
"What's Mama's monkey got to do with business, Myko?" Rod demanded, snapping us back to the present conversation. "I ain't going to DO junk no more. I'm going to SELL it. That's where the money's at, baby. That's what this world is about, Myko, monopoly, baby. I'm worried about you, Myko, you ain't going to make it out there."
"Ah bullshit," I said.
"Well, that's all there is out there. What chu gonna do?"
"I expect you're going to quit smokin' marijuana when you get out, eh, Michael," Tex said, with the usual twinkle in his eyes.
"That's different," I said. Tex and Rod both started groaning.
"Well, it is different," I insisted. "Marijuana's a good thing. It's genuinely therapeutic. And I'm not bending over for the church, the police, for, for," I started to bluster, "for the alcohol barons, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, or anybody else!"
Tex said, "Rod, you better run back to the dormitory and git this boy's soapbox, hear?"
"Yeah, Myko's rollin' now. But there ain't no difference, Myko. I mean, if you can pray at the church of marijuana, then I can pray at the church of smack?"
"Yeah, yeah. I know, I know, good for the goose, good for the gander. But that opens the door to countless arguments, and it becomes political, and it turns into prestige, then dollars instead of sense."
"Thas what I was sayin', Myko, it's money; you're spinning your wheels, baby."
"The important thing to understand about drugs is money, I mean, people want to, to LOOK like they're doin' something, I mean, it was Harry Anslinger's job to..., it's like really keeping people from becoming junkies isn't.., listen, in America, we spend a lot of money trying to force people to..."
"I'm gettin' an excedrin headache, Michael."
"Me too," said Rod.
"Me, too," I said, nearly light-headed from trying to formulate a simple statement on so complex an issue; "Anyway, it's count time, we better get back."
A letter from my dad was waiting for me. It was written by his friend, Joe. It said:
Chicago, Nov. 1, 1969
Dear Son Michial,
Hello Michial Thank you for the Thanksgiving card heard I will be seeing you soon at least I hope so. Best regards and good luck and when you get in town let me know I will be expecting you.
Best regards from
Dad & Joe.
At 11:00 pm February 3, 1970, the institution radio station played my request three times. It was the Rolling Stones' version of "Goin Home." The next morning I made the rounds saying good-bye. Christine picked me up at the front gate. We lived happily ever after, sort of.