Stanley Elkin - A Bad Man

Finally there was nothing left to sell and the people had all gone. His father still stood in the wagon, tall, forlorn as a giant. The oxen passed beside him, led by their owners. “What’s to be done with the unsalable thing?” Feldman crooned.

His son, in the stands, stared at him without moving. “What is the unsalable thing?” he called.

“The unsalable thing? My God, don’t you know?”

“No.”

“No?”

“You never told me.”

They were shouting to each other.

“I didn’t?”

“Not once.”

“Never?”

“No.”

“I had to tell you? You couldn’t guess?”

“I never bothered.”

“Some son.”

“Well?”

“Well what? What well?”

“What is it?”

“What is what?”

“The unsalable thing.”

“It’s me,” he said.

A year later his father began to cough. The boy was always with him now on the wagon. During the choking, heavy seizures, brought on, it seemed, by the swelling, passionate spiels themselves, his son would take over the cries, shouting madder and madder things into the streets. The cough grew worse; it would begin as soon as he started to speak.

Feldman went to the doctor. “It’s cancer,” he told his son. “I’m dying.”

“Can he operate?”

His father shook his head. “It’s terminal.” He coughed.

“Terminal,” his son repeated the word.

“Sure,” his father said, coughing so that he could hardly be understood. “Last stop for the Diaspora. Everyone off.”

The boy went to the doctor and conferred with him.

Three months later, when the old man died, his son got in touch with the doctor. They argued some more, but it was no use. The doctor, on behalf of the tiny hospital, could offer him only fifteen dollars for the body.

Where are you going?” the guard asked.

“I’ve been sick in my cell, and I never got an assignment. I was told that I had to see a guard.”

“Plubo. You have to see Plubo.”

“Yes. Him.”

“Where’s your pass? You can’t get through here without a pass.”

“Where do I get a pass?”

“The Fink makes out the passes in this wing. Or the warden if he’s around.”

“Where do I find the Fink?”

“Through that door.” He pointed down a long corridor.

Feldman began to walk toward it.

“Wait a minute, you.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll need a permission slip to get a pass from the Fink. The Fink is only a trusty. He can’t write one up on his own authority.”

“Where do I get a permission slip?”

“From a guard.”

Feldman waited.

“Oh, I can’t give you one if that’s what you think. You get permission slips from pencil men. There have to be rules,” he said.

“Where do I find a pencil man?”

“Return to your cell. Don’t you know anything? The pencil man is the counter.”

Oh, he thought. There were major counts four times a day when a bell rang and the prisoners had to freeze, as in a fairy tale or a child’s game. Minor counts occurred every half-hour, when a guard came through carrying a clipboard. He was the counter, the pencil man. Feldman went back to his cell. He found out he had just missed the pencil man and would have to wait twenty-five minutes for the next one.

He lay down on his cot to wait, but he fell asleep. When he woke he called out to some convicts playing Monopoly in the corridor. “Has the pencil man been through?”

“Ten minutes ago,” a man said.”

Feldman sat up and waited for the next pencil man. When he saw him he called out at once.

“Thirty-eight,” the pencil man said. “Remind me. I stopped at thirty-eight. What is it?”

Feldman explained what he needed.

He showed the permission slip to the Fink, and the Fink gave him a pass. Feldman started to walk off.

“Hold it, smart guy.”

“What?”

“Let’s have that permission slip back. That has to be destroyed. Got any cigarettes?”

“Yes.”

“Give us four smokes. What are they, plain-tipped or filters?”

“Filter.”

“Give us six smokes, and I’ll let you keep the permission slip.”

“I don’t need it.”

“You don’t need it now, but suppose you need it later? Suppose that? Suppose you miss your pencil man and have to wait half an hour?”

Feldman nodded.”

“You see?” the Fink said. “You can never find a pencil man when you need one.”

“But the slip is dated.”

“Only the quarter. It’s the loophole. There’s got to be rules and there’s got to be loopholes. You don’t know anything about this place, do you?”

“I guess not,” Feldman said.

“That’s all right,” the Fink said. “Some of the lifers don’t know much more than you do. The oldest lifers are still learning. Not even the warden knows everything about it.”

Feldman gave him the cigarettes.

The Fink winked. “At lunch rub it in the butter.”

“Why?”

“It preserves it. Otherwise the permission slip gets all yellow and wrinkled. You grease it down, that won’t happen.”

“Oh.”

“Usually I get a couple more cigarettes for that tip.”

“I see.”

“It’s not part of the service.”

“I gave you my last cigarettes.”

“Better yet. You owe me. In this place always get a guy to owe you.”

“I see. All right. I owe you two cigarettes.”

“Four,” the Fink said.

“Why four?”

“For the second tip. Get a guy to owe you.”

Feldman presented the pass that the Fink had made out for him to the guard. Saying nothing, the man unlocked the door. He was in a part of the prison he did not remember having been in before. Offices opened onto a long central corridor. He wondered if the warden’s office was in this building.

He knocked at a door marked “Personnel.” “Come in,” a voice called, and he opened the door. “You want Inmate Personnel,” a man said harshly.

At Inmate Personnel there was no answer and he had turned to go when the door opened. A large ruddy-faced man with white hair stood inside. He had loosened the knot on his tie, and his shirt collar was open. His jacket had been carelessly placed across the back of a chair.

“Hi ya,” the man said expansively.

“I’m looking for Major Plubo, sir,” Feldman said. (The guards’ ratings were astonishing. Feldman had never seen one below the rank of captain. The guard who had directed him to the pencil man was a lieutenant colonel. The pencil man himself had been a one-star general.)

“I’m Plubo. Call me Plubo. I figure an officer earns his respect or he doesn’t deserve it. What good does it do me if you call me ‘sir’ to my face and something else behind my back? Isn’t that right, sir?”

“I was told to see you for an assignment.”

“That was a question. You have to answer a question. I asked, sir, if this business of saying ’‘sir’ isn’t finally meaningless unless it’s earned.”

“I guess that’s right, Mr. Plubo,” Feldman said.

“And you can drop the ‘Mister,’ sir. Plubo’s good enough. Titles aren’t that important to me. There’s just man and man. Don’t you feel that, sir?”

“Yes, Plubo. I feel that.”

“Of course you do, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’ either, Plubo,” Feldman said uneasily.

“Well, you see, sir, I respect you. That’s why I do that. I already respect you. It’s a voluntary thing.”

Uh oh, Feldman thought. Uh oh, uh, oh. Not for nothing were people in jails. Even the guards. Jail was where the extortion was. A place of forced gifts, hidden taxes, tariffed hearts. You paid through the nose, and it was difficult to breathe. But if that was what he wanted, Feldman could stir him with ‘sirs.’ He would pay the sir tax. There would be no sir cease. And in a way, ‘sirs’ were earned. Robbery was hard work, and Feldman did respect him. As he respected many people here. Hats off to the strong-arm guys. Wide berths to the breakers and enterers. He was learning to send along the best regards of his suspicion and fear.