Stanley Elkin - A Bad Man

He passed Warden Fisher in the corridor, but the man did not return his nod.

He found the old man. His room was in the wooden, school-building structure which Feldman had first entered when he came to the penitentiary. With its armchair and wooden bed and small bedside table and single lamp, it looked like a room in a wicked hotel. There were no bars on the window. Slipper lay on top of the bed — there was a thin green linen bedspread across it — eating his candy. “You like my room, kid?” he asked.

“It’s nice,” Feldman said.

The old man laughed. “Sure,” he said, “it’s wonderful. I’m eighty-seven years old. How long you in for? You a lifer?”

“No,” Feldman said, “I’m only here for one year.”

The old man seemed relieved. “Well, they give shorter sentences nowadays,” he said. “Except in the South. Hell, even in the South you don’t hear that ninety-nine years plus seven any more. Them other three old guys — they’re in the South. It’s no accident those bastards are still alive. Balmy breezes, clear skies. Goddamn South. I have to be twice as strong to last out the winter. You heard any weather reports? And more humane parole laws too. Don’t forget that. I’m the last. Fourth to last. A young man today don’t stand a chance of breaking our records. You noticed, didn’t you, you had to get a guard to unlock this chickenshit room? I demanded that lock. I don’t want no favors. I’m no martyr, but I didn’t do what they said I did. Hell, I don’t even remember what they said I did. There are innocent men in this place, don’t kid yourself.”

“I know,” Feldman said.”

“What? You? Don’t kid yourself.”

“Couldn’t you get out?” Feldman asked. “Your age? A parole?”

“No, I can’t. No. I can’t get out. I could of got out. Cupid was working on it. But I’m a bad man. That’s what that new warden says. You should have seen my outfit. I wore one. But the doctor said I’d get sick, and they gave me this. This room too. And the soft job. Trusty. It’s the jerk’s own rule. After seventy-five every con is a trusty. Age has its privileges, he says. It’s Chinese , he says. Shit. Don’t do me no favors. Why are you here?”

“To do you a favor,” Feldman said. He went to the side of the old man’s bed. His Hershey bar had been broken into little squares. On each chocolate square he had placed a cherry Life Saver. “You shouldn’t have to eat that,” Feldman said.

Slipper shrugged. “You make do in this life, kid,” he said.

Feldman pulled a long thin box of chocolate-covered cherries from the pocket of his suit. “Here,” he said.

“You bastard,” the old man said, taking the candy.

“I keep the accounts,” Feldman said. “At the canteen.”

“You got a swell job,” the old man said glumly. “I got a swell room, and you got a swell job. We’re doing terrific.”

“I keep the accounts,” Feldman repeated, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. Here we go, he thought. Here we go and here we come. Out of retirement. In from lunch. Business as usual. He stared pitilessly down at his customer, the old man on the bed, struggling to sit up, his face radiant with suspicion, seeming, looking, sniffing, a victim manqué . He was just an old man, proud only of an oblique statistical distinction. It was enough. You make do in this life, kid, Feldman thought. But circuitously, he cautioned. “Whoever it was died sometime in 1945,” Feldman said. He glanced down briefly at the note he had made on the box of candy. “February or March,” he said casually. She, probably. We’ll say ‘she,’ old-timer. And we’ll say ‘died.’ Love goes, people forget, but we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and we’ll say ‘died.’ She died in February or March of 1945 and you haven’t had your five dollars a month from that time to this. I keep the accounts.”

“It was my sister,” the old man said.

“I’m sorry for your trouble,” Feldman said. “So I thought: It’s been almost twenty years, and in twenty years there’s time to break any habit.”

“Is there?” the old man said. “Is there?”

“ Any habit. And don’t give me that , old man. This is twenty years I’m talking about. You weren’t such an old man then. You didn’t have the habit of your old age then. You were just a seasoned con with years until your seventy-fifth birthday.”

“I was innocent then too,” the old man said petulantly.

“ You listen to me ,” Feldman commanded. “So I thought: Twenty years ago it was cigarettes, an extra pint of milk, an occasional cigar maybe. The candy is as recent as your grudge, as your age and your obsession with it. Maybe it dates from your being declared an ancestor. I’ll bet it does. You’re never too old, old man. Sky says there’s a fortune in dread, that doom’s a gold mine. Doom is peanuts. Obsession— that ’s where the money is. There’s a king’s ransom in other people’s dreams.”

“What are you talking about?” the man protested. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Feldman lifted the tiny chocolate wafers with their cherry Life Savers from the bedside table. They seemed like hors d’oeuvres for a children’s party. He dropped them into the wastebasket. “I’ve written my lawyer,” he said. “There will be five dollars in your account by Thursday.”

“What is this?” Ed Slipper said. “You think you can buy an old man for five dollars?”

“No,” Feldman said, “you don’t understand. This would be five dollars a month. Every month. You’re going to live forever. You’ll be rich.”

“No sale,” the old man said.

“That’s not your decision.”

“Whose is it you think?”

“Mine. The money accumulates no matter what you do. Every month — five dollars. All sales final.”

“I’ll return it. I won’t touch it.”

Feldman laughed at him. “Then I don’t know my man,” he said affably.

The old man groaned. “I’ll touch it. I always touch everything.”

“It’s your sweet tooth, Ed,” Feldman said.

“I liked stuff.”

“All you criminals do, Ed. You all do.”

“I couldn’t see why I should have to be the one to go without.”

“You’re on the staff then, Ed. I’ve put you on the staff welcome aboard.”

“What do I have to do?” Slipper asked dully.

“Whatever comes up,” Feldman said. “You’re a trusty. What’s your work?”

“I’m in Administration. I clean up the offices.”

“I want my file,” Feldman told him.

The old man looked at him as if he were crazy. “Your file? ”

“I’ll give you four days,” Feldman said.

The man stared.

“All right, say six. What’s the matter, don’t you think you can do it?”

The old man smiled.

“Sure you can,” Feldman said excitedly. “You old dog. Let’s see those fingers. Spry. Pretty spry, flexible, strong still. Spry old man. Thank your sweet tooth.” He pointed to the candy. “Expensive tastes are a blessing, hey, old man? That’s crap about dissipation. Indulgence is the thing to keep a guy in condition. Afford, afford and enjoy. Meaning of life, money in the bank. Live soft, live long. Hope those bastards down South never find out.” Feldman clapped the old man’s shoulder. “I’m a good boss. A good boss doesn’t rub it in. We’ll get along, you’ll see. That’s right, eat, eat your chocolate cherries. Goodnight now. Suck, chew. Sweet dreams. Goodnight, kid.”

Feldman started back toward his cell, almost happy. It sets a man up, he thought, it sets a man up to get away with something. He didn’t see Warden Fisher approaching until they were almost abreast of each other. He decided to cut him.