Джойс Оутс - Prison Noir

live with those who are broken and humble

in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, to

restore the courage of the broken.

The Cuban almost seemed to be speaking to Cotton. “Isaiah 57:15,” he said.

Cotton glanced up the hallway as the investigator’s door opened and a young, sullen-looking black prisoner silently left the room, staring straight ahead, his leg chains scraping the shiny linoleum floor. A guard appeared with a large brass key in his hand. He opened the cage door and motioned to the Cuban, who followed him to the investigator’s office. Cotton caught a dim glimpse of the large, plexiglass-covered display case mounted on the wall behind the investigator’s desk. It held a wide variety of weapons confiscated over the years, from zip guns to real guns, crude hatchets to spears, clubs to knives. Lots of knives. Cotton had watched the display case grow and evolve during his time there. More than one of the weapons once belonged to him.

The door closed behind the Cuban. Cotton knew the drill. The investigator would plead with, cajole, or threaten each of them, according to his nature, in the hope of getting one or more to turn state’s evidence. Turn state’s. Rat. Snitch. Stool pigeon. Those traitorous labels. In return, the investigator would promise to transfer the rat away from this hated, wretched maximum-security prison to a sweet, soft joint full of fresh promise. He used to guarantee favorable parole recommendations to the parole commission, until parole was abolished.

Cotton had been through the process countless times, for he had an eerie knack for being in the vicinity of almost every murder that occurred in this hulking prison. It was some kind of weird coincidence, that’s all, but even the guards commented on it. Once, on a sleepless night some years before, Cotton got out a piece of paper and tried to recount all the killings he had witnessed over the years. He stopped at around thirty, depressed by the memories and by his difficulty recalling some of them. What did it say about him, he wondered, that he could watch a man be killed and then not be able to remember it? Where did that memory go?

The first one was the most vivid. It always is. A memory still saturated with a surrealistic clarity, a sense of reality so immediate and precise that it defied articulation. The relentless hand moving in and out, the sun glinting on the steel blade, the sense of timelessness, the dull look of puzzlement on the victim’s face, followed by recognition that this is it, this is real, that he was dead and helpless to do anything about it. Cotton easily recalled that first one. Also the second one. Perhaps the third. After that they just became statistics.

It isn’t easy to kill a man, Cotton reflected. At least not with your hands. It’s not at all like in the movies, where you stick a man once and he silently drops like a sack of cornmeal. A gun is one thing, though even then the vitality of the human body could amaze you. A knife or razor, a club or bat, a barbell or padlock in a sock, well, that was wholly different. The primal urge to live, to survive, is powerful, and it takes a lot to overcome that — more than some are willing to give. And when they do die, it is messy, often with bloody reluctance, with thrashing, gasping, begging, imploring, praying, with victims calling to their mothers. Yes, a man will generally fight hard to live, harder than one might think possible. Cotton once saw a man, a small man, stabbed thirty-seven times. The man never stopped moving, never stopped kicking, ducking, bobbing, weaving, fighting, spraying his blood everywhere, burning an indelible vermilion image in Cotton’s mind. It was the assailant who finally gave up and fled, hoping the small man would die. They pulled the sheet over his head in the ambulance, but he reached up and snatched it off. His heart stopped twice at the hospital. But he lived. Cotton had seen, and he had learned.

“That Puerto Rican, he’ll snitch,” declared the thin man. “All that talk about God.”

Nobody said anything.

Someone would talk, sooner or later — Cotton knew that. They always did. As often as not, the testifying inmate had seen little or nothing, but that was not going to stand in the way of his transfer. It was ironic that Cotton, who had seen so many of these killings, consistently refused to rat, while others, who had seen nothing, fabricated convincing stories to sell to the jury. Their colorfully embellished fantasy then became reality, recorded in the law books and newspapers as the gospel truth. Cotton reflected more than once that he seemed to be the only one playing by the rules.

“What is truth?” The words startled Cotton as he realized he had said them out loud. The others looked at him as if noticing him for the first time.

“He had bad nerves,” the thin man announced, and Cotton considered this statement. Bad nerves. What did that mean, exactly? Nobody ever proclaimed to have good nerves. And how does one know when nerves are bad, anyway? A man would knowingly state that his nerves were bad, but it seemed impossible to discern the state of his nerves by looking at him. So it was, too, with a man’s heart, Cotton reflected. It was like looking at one of those calm, still watering holes frequently shown on nature programs. The placid surface promised safe refuge, yet just beneath lurked the terrible crocodile, infinitely patient, waiting to destroy the illusion.

Cotton considered what he would say to the investigator this time. Usually he just explained that he was sleeping, that he had seen nothing. It was sort of an ongoing joke between Cotton and the investigator now, a tired comedy routine, Cotton always being asleep when someone was killed. It was just easier to say that. The investigator knew, he understood, and he, in his own way, respected Cotton’s honoring of the code. He once called Cotton a dinosaur. Someone else would always talk.

This time, though, Cotton really had been asleep. His sixth sense had awakened him to that familiar, awful silence that always signaled something had just happened. Cotton had seen nothing, just the dead body, the blood draining away, pooling beneath Bobby’s impossibly white face.

The investigator’s door opened abruptly, and the Cuban left the office. Each prisoner silently calculated whether the Cuban was inside long enough to give a substantial statement. Had Cotton’s eyesight not been failing, he could have seen the worn outline of the pocket-sized New Testament in the Cuban’s back pocket as he shuffled by. But Cotton hated the chunky plastic eyeglasses provided by the state, so now he mostly squinted a lot.

The guard opened the cage door with his big brass key, motioning to Cotton. It was his turn.

Cotton entered the office, leg irons tugging at his ankles with each step, and he sat down without waiting to be asked. In the corner sat a dusty, moth-eaten county fair keepsake: a large stuffed rattlesnake, fangs bared, ready to strike, coiled around a stuffed, ratty, furred mongoose, snarling in response, the two forever frozen in locked mortal combat. As always, Cotton wondered if this was supposed to convey some metaphorical message, or if he was giving the investigator too much credit.

Looking up at the display case, Cotton saw the spear Outlaw had used to kill Ninety-Nine: a long broom handle with a cruel knife lashed to it. Outlaw ran it through Ninety-Nine’s belly while the man just stood there in the shower with shampoo in his eyes. Cotton was the only other person in the shower when Ninety-Nine was killed. He remembered how his stomach knotted violently when he saw Outlaw, fully clothed, first step into the shower holding that spear, until he understood that Ninety-Nine was the target. He remembered that after Ninety-Nine fell gasping to the wet floor, Outlaw hesitated, his eyes betraying that he was deciding whether he should kill Cotton too. In such a fleeting moment, one’s life can hang in the balance, and Cotton still recalled the strong, coppery taste that had filled his mouth as he locked eyes with Outlaw. That was fifteen years ago. Cotton wondered where he would be now if he had testified against Outlaw, as the investigator and state attorney begged him to. Outlaw was out on the streets now, doing welding work at a shipyard, Cotton had heard.