Джойс Оутс - Prison Noir

And what pathos, too, to consider that this powerfully understated story is being published posthumously. Its talented author, William Van Poyck, was executed in June 2013, just as we began editing this volume, in the Florida State Prison at Raiford on a charge of felony murder.

Joyce Carol Oates

June 2014

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1. For readers interested in exemplary writing by women prisoners, there is no better anthology than Wally Lamb’s much-acclaimed volumes Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters (2003) and I’ll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison (2007).

2.. Disclosure: Kenneth R. Brydon was one of a dozen or so writing students in a course at San Quentin State Prison which I visited several times in spring 2011, though this was not a story taken up in the workshop at that time.

Federal Correctional Institution, Oxford (Oxford, Wisconsin)

Al Webber stood just inside his segregated cell, his pale, doughy skin still beaded with water from his trip to the shower. He was naked but for his boxers and shower shoes, his hands cuffed behind his back.

He stared partially in disbelief, but mostly in anger, at the man in his cell — an invader of what had been his private domain just fifteen minutes prior.

“Who the fuck are you?” Al snapped.

The man, reclined on the cell’s second bunk, replied easily, “I’m your new cellie.”

“Like hell you are,” Al bristled. “You need to tell them to get you the fuck out of here. Now.” He was infuriated by the intruder’s nonchalance. For almost eleven years, cell 301 in the SHU (special housing unit) at FCI Oxford had been his and his alone.

Al rapidly scrutinized the newcomer and weighed the odds of taking him. The new man appeared hardened and fit. Crude, chalky tattoos covered his arms and neck, a witness to years spent inside. Two inked teardrops sprang from the corner of his left eye — the sign of a killer depending on whom you asked. The man’s hair, slicked back off his forehead “wise guy” style, was receding and graying at the temples. He appeared to be in his midforties, at least twenty years Al’s junior. There was no way he’d be able to smash the younger man out of his cell.

As Al turned to address the guard, the heavy door slammed in his face.

“Hey!” he yelled. “I ain’t supposed to have no cellie!”

“Yeah, whatever, pops” came the guard’s tired response. Al heard the key turn. “Put your hands by the chuck-hole unless you want to wear those cuffs all night.”

By policy, Al and the other SHU inmates were handcuffed when traveling to and from their cells. Their cuffs were removed by the guards through the chuck-hole — a slot in the door with a locking steel flap.

Rather than place his hands by the hole, Al crouched so that he could be better heard through the steel door. “I ain’t puttin’ up with no cellie,” he said firmly. “Warden’s orders.”

“I’m not going to ask you again, Al,” the guard replied, exasperated.

Figuring it best to have his hands loose, Al moved his bony wrists to the chuck-hole. Within seconds, his hands were free and the hole was snapped closed and locked.

Rubbing his wrists, Al rounded his body so that he could see the guard through the small square plexiglass window located in the center of the door. “I ain’t havin’ no cellie! Now get the warden down here.”

“Fuck you, old man.” The guard turned and walked away.

Al ineffectually slammed his fist against the door and then spun to face the man on the bunk. “Don’t get too comfortable,” he spat. “You’re outta here tomorrow.”

The man spoke mildly, seemingly unthreatened by Al’s outburst: “I didn’t ask to be in here.”

Shaking his head while he kicked off his shower shoes, Al debated whether he should say something else to the insolent bastard, but he decided against it.

Al despised the BOP’s policy of squeezing two men in a cell in the SHU. The old days were gone, the days when segregation meant single cells — true solitary confinement. As the prisons filled to overflowing and budgets tightened, the feds needed to get the most bang for their bucks. If that meant cramming two grown men into a space designed for one, so be it. But for Al — he could imagine nothing worse. Stuck in a cement box twenty-three hours a day with a jackass he couldn’t stand was torture. And even if Al could stand it, he knew from experience that after a few weeks, every cough, every sniffle, every smacking of the lips. . was like a direct malicious assault on his peace. He remembered one motherfucker whose breath matched the sickening stench of his feet. Al wasn’t sure what had been worse — when he opened his mouth to talk or took his shoes off. Though nothing would ever compare to the cellie who had been in the habit of shitting five times a day. That, thought Al, had been the worst. It had nearly broken him. Having to go to the bathroom in a closet-sized room while another man sat not six feet away was bad enough, but having to listen to another man shit — even at the farthest corner of the cell with your back turned — was a vile experience.

Al took a deep breath and tried to center his energy. He hadn’t had a cellie in a long time. From time to time they attempted to stick someone in his cell, but Al would raise such a stink — he’d even threaten violence — that the guards would move on to the next cell before Al even had a chance to see the guy’s face. This time they had moved another man into Al’s cell while he showered — it was a dirty move and he’d be damned if he’d put up with it.

He stepped into his khaki jumpsuit, leaving the top button undone, and reached beneath his mattress for a comb. Barefoot, he stood in front of the stainless steel sink/toilet combo and looked at the spot on the wall where a mirror would normally hang. There were no mirrors in SHU; they supposedly served no purpose. Shaving was allowed only in the shower. Still, Al acted as if he could see his reflection. Beginning with the ends of his waist-length gray hair, he worked upward, using his free hand to clamp just above the strands of hair he combed. He leaned over the sink to get a better look at his thinning locks in the nonexistent mirror before tying it back with the string from a mophead.

He rested his hands on the edge of the sink and closed his eyes. Attempting to control his rage, he took a moment to choose his words and tone, lips moving with his thoughts. Finally, he turned to face his new cellie.

“Don’t spit in the sink, don’t piss on the toilet, and you better hope to God you don’t snore because if I ain’t sleepin’, you ain’t sleepin’.”

Not a word from the other man.

“You got that?” Al’s voice was full of menace and his blue eyes burned with manic fire.

The man sighed, “Yeah, pops, I hear you.”

Al, feeling he’d asserted his territorial dominance, allowed his aggression to fade. He had been out of general population for eleven years, but prison was a closed society and a man’s reputation, good or bad, often preceded him. Now that the matter of who was boss had been sorted out, Al asked the man his name.

“Martin.”

“Martin what?”

“Martin Monatomic.”

A sour look bunched Al’s already lined face. “What the hell kind of name is that?”

“It’s Greek.”

With a dismissive grunt, Al asked, “You a rat?”

“Nope.”

Al, his brows knit together, stared at Martin and tried to decide if he was lying. Sitting down on his bunk so the two men were face-to-face, Al said, “Me and you ain’t friends. I don’t like to talk, so don’t talk to me.”