Stanley Elkin - Searches & Seizures

I’m in the corridor of municipal court by 8:30 each morning, a half-hour before the judge begins to process everybody who was arrested the day before. The old hallway smells of disinfectant, though I can no longer smell it, haven’t smelled it for years, or tasted anything for years either — the twin senses reamed out long ago by ammonia, C-N, all the dirt poisons (I do not taste the liquor I stand the lawyers to, or feel its warmth, though I go ah, smack my lips, applaud on my belly my pantomimed thirst) steaming in pails, the heavy, old-fashioned wringers colorless as the pails themselves, as the bleached gray mops and handles.

I see my colleagues, the other bondsmen. They confer with lawyers, approach relatives, those sad-ass poor who huddle there each morning, the faces changed daily but somehow the same, the questions the same, the complaints, the whiny tales of wages docked, not appreciating their small holiday, their kids wild in the hallway and the guards tolerant. (Can they chip marble or leave marks on such tough city property?) There’s no smoking but the Phoenician smokes, not tasting it though his cough seems to betray its effects — I seem marked for lung cancer — like some novice at the beach who does not feel the sun which that night will sear him, turning him red as those useless days on my calendars.

Though I’m here at 8:30, by detaching myself from any single lawyer or group of relatives, by drifting around the hallway from clutch to clutch, I manage somehow to seem to have arrived later than the rest, to make a series of entrances, the spurious authority of the regular on me, the old-timer. It’s only here that I smoke, where no one else may. (I fixed the guard. Years ago I started to give him a hundred bucks a year for the dispensation. I take it off my taxes, a business expense, the cigarettes too.) I move about the crowded corridor, size up the still invisible prisoners by the impression their families make on me, kibitzing one and all, determining in advance whose business to seek out, whose to renounce. I like to see family there because that means roots, strong community ties, and cuts down the risk that a guy will skip, though too much depth on the bench is no good. A good mix is what I like best — a brother or brother-in-law there with the wife, maybe a first cousin. A solitary parent is good, even a girl friend if she’s attractive, one or two kids if they’re well behaved. I also take in the lawyer, culling the shyster from the bespoke, the man who’s already on the case — or even better, the guy on retainer, who doesn’t come downtown often. He’s the fellow I nod at, making my bid like a dealer at auctions, though I’m more amiable with the others. I come on strongest with my fellow bondsmen, distracting them, though from time to time there’s real business to discuss, something so big we have to split the bond. But standing in no one place very long, getting a feel for what I want by floating around like a guy at a party casing possibility.

Dan Tucker’s in the corridor, a gray and handsome man, taller than the half-dozen bondsmen who circle him, chatting him up, trying to find out what an important corporation counsel like himself is doing in the halls. He sees me and waves.

Dan and I go way back. During the thirties Dan was an ambulance chaser, a divorce man, a writer of wills, a house closer. It was in this very building that it happened, that I took fire. In the thirties they stole bread, they took sweaters in winter and galoshes in the rainy season, pails of fuel. The shoplifters were men — hunters, practically. A gentle age, the Depression. So it was, I forget exactly, but a day in winter, some cold day following some colder one, and there they were: the bread and sweater thieves out in force, or at least their relatives, the bread thieves and sweater swipers and fuel filchers, all that lot of conditional takers, nickers of necessities without a mean bone in their body — if anything the opposite, tender-hearted as raw liver, or their relatives I mean, that sad boatload of the dependent. Old Dan Tucker was there, well dressed as now, dapper in his graduation suit but coming in as much to get warm, you understand, as to round up a client. Who could pay? There wasn’t a retainer between the sorry lot of them, let alone a fee, so Dan was in off the street to chat up a pal probably, though there weren’t even any other lawyers around (that’s how bad times were, so bad that trouble drew no troubleshooters, rotten luck no retinue) and, dapper as he was, a little sad himself, as though if times didn’t change soon he might be busted for grabbing a loaf or an overcoat himself one day, and not many bail-bondsmen there to speak of either, for it’s a trade which follows the ego. Freedom and fraud go hand in hand, I think, liberty and larceny, hope and heists, spirit and spoils. So no bailbondsmen there to speak of, maybe one or two old-timers from the roaring twenties, bewildered now that Prohibition was off and gangland killings were down at par value. And the Phoenician’s angry, plenty mad, and the madder he is the more he needs to make himself an oasis. He’ll have an oasis. Let there be an oasis in this desert of mood, this sandy blandness of meager evil.

“Oyez, oyez,” he shouts, erupts. “Make a circle, oyez. The pregnant here and the orphaned there, small orphans closer to the radiators, hold those smaller orphans’ hands, you taller orphans, be gloves to them, that’s it, that’s right. Now the feverish on that side and the coughers on this. Let’s get some order here. Where are my old people, my widowed mothers and my gassed dads? All right, all right, perfect the circle. Now the rest of you form according to your mood, despair to anger like the do re mi. The innocent next, the falsely accused, all those cases of mistaken identity and people whose alibis will stand up in court. Oyez, oyez. Are you an orphan, boy?”

“Sir, I’m not.”

“Who’s inside for you then?”

“It’s my brother, sir.”

“Stand next to that tall orphan. Oyez, are you formed? Are you arranged, oyez?” They shuffle a bit. “Is your tenuous connection to guilt orchestrated proper? I’ll find you out later but I’ll take your word. Can I have your word? Can I?”

They nod, excited.

“Good. Oyez. In a few minutes the hearings begin. They’ll let your people in, but they won’t let them go. It’s jail for the poor man, crust and water for the down-and-outer. I’m Alexander Main the Bailbondsman and you need me, oyez. See that man? The tall bloke in the stripy suit? Recognize him? Know who he is? Tip of your tongue, right? You know him. A big shot, the biggest. You read his name in the papers before you stuff them inside your clothes to keep the draft off. He goes to the night clubs. His photo’s in the columns. He’s had his picture taken more times than you’ve had hot dinners. His brother’s inside now, the cops have him. They keep him apart from your people, the brave men who steal to feed and clothe you. He’s with them now but he won’t be with them long. The judge will set his bail and I’ll pay it. A guy lucky enough to have work and see how he takes advantage? And what work! You know what he does? What this man’s brother does? He’s high up in the Cincinnati Reds and he defrauds the railroads and the club too. Worked out some deal on the fares with certain railroads and pockets the dough for the tickets. It’s very complicated, very tricky. I don’t know, I think the infield and bullpen travel on a child’s ticket. A buck for the line and two for the lining of his pocket. You know what that adds up to in a season? Thousands, oyez, thousands. So what’s he doing here, then? Stripy suit? He’s asked me to go his brother’s bond. Fifteen thousand and he could pay it himself, so what does he need me with my Jew’s hard terms and my tricksy vigorish? Because the rich man’s money is tied up is why. Because the rich man’s money is tied up and earns more than the lousy ten percent it would cost him to undo the knots. So his brother — if they are brothers; they live together, they say they’re brothers — comes to me.