Stanley Elkin - A Bad Man

“My kids, God.”

“Kill my enemies, Lord.”

“Please, help my mother to forget me.”

“Help me to learn a trade, Lord.”

“Dear God, please make the parole board see things my way.”

“Help me, God, to give up smoking.”

“To get ahead.”

“Dear Jesus, I can’t stop thinking about women. Help me to forget women. Make me queer.”

“Dear God in highest Heaven, let me win.”

“Place.”

“Show.”

“Grant that society sees fit to abolish capital punishment, Lord.”

“Teach me to get along with others.”

“I need a drink bad, Lord.”

“Dear God, give our leaders the wisdom and strength they need to guide us through these troubled times.”

“Keep China from developing the capability to deliver The Bomb, sweet Jesus.”

“Keep my daughter off the streets. Don’t let her run with a fast crowd.”

“Show me, Lord, how to commit the perfect crime.”

“Dearest Lord, don’t let them discover where the money’s hidden.”

“Gentle the guards, Jesus.”

“Sweet Jesus, protector of my soul, fix my life.”

“Amen.”

“Amen. Amen.”

“Amen.”

Feldman smiled. His joy was immense.

In his dream he had left his cot too. He was on his knees. Like the goyim. He felt he owed it. He was very grateful. “For having escaped the second-rate life,” he prayed; “for having lived detached as someone with a stuffed nose, for my sound limbs and the absence of pain, for my power, for my hundred-and-ten-thousand-dollar home in a good neighborhood, for the tips on the market, for my gold hamper and all the dirty shirts in it, for my big car and good taste, for the perfect fits and silk suits, for my never having been in battle or bitten by beasts; for these things and for others, for the steaks I’ve eaten and the deals I’ve closed, for the games I’ve won and the things I’ve gotten away with, for my thick carpets and my central air conditioning, for the good life and the last laugh — Father, I thank Thee.

“Amen.”

A short time after his monthly physical Feldman received a note from the warden:

Your weight is good, your lungs are clear, your specimen sparkles like a trout stream. But slow down. I tell you for your own good. You’re too nervous. You’ll never make it. The doctor is very concerned, and so am I. I’m no killer — that’s your department. I’m just a custodian, a sort of curator, and it grieves my collector heart if I have to lose one of you guys. You’re terrified. Of what? Of what, Feldman? You make your own problems. If I thought it was guilt — guilt’s good, guilt’s healthy, but your kind of guilt isn’t honest. It doesn’t do anybody any good. It’s diffused, unfocused. Anyway, slow down, play ball, calm down. Life is ordinary, Feldman .

Fisher

P.S. Here are the basic rules of this place. I’ll just sketch them in for you. I won’t be very particular, because you’re probably already familiar with the particular stuff. (We have an expression: “You bad men can’t see the ropes for the loopholes.”)

1. Lights out at 10 o’clock. The day begins (adjusted, of course, to seasonal dawn) at 6:30. That means you can get eight and a half hours’ sleep if you work it right. Bankers don’t get that much, ship’s captains don’t. Guys who have lumberyards in Ohio get less. Actually, it’s an hour more of sack time — this is supported by many sociological studies — than is put in by the average U.S. citizen. Penologists are beginning to think that a greater sleepload is a very important factor in rehabilitation, an aggressive dream life being a major element in holding down violence. (Also, if it’s carried over into the outside would, it gives you jerks less man-hours on the streets.)

2. Keep a neat cell. There’s no real complaint here .

3. Silence at meals. Sit at your assigned table. There’s no real complaint here .

4. You already know the mechanics of permission slips and passes and so forth, so I won’t go into that here except to say that it’s to a man’s benefit to learn to live with nuisance. Accustom yourself to it. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for an annoyed man to enter into Heaven .

5. Work . THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT! I can’t emphasize this too much. Develop a good work ethic. The most difficult thing you will have to face up to here is the problem of sharpening your work ethic in the absence of a profit motive. But this is very important. I assure you, Feldman, if you can overcome your qualms in this area the world will absolutely open up for you. You will begin to understand how ordinary life is. What do you need here that isn’t provided? Food? We give you food. Shelter ditto. Likewise plumbing. If you need an operation or an aspirin tablet, ask and it shall be given. What’s left? Movies? We show subsistence-level movies once a week. Live with an edge on. I don’t say suffer. Repress, repress. Have Spartan sensibilities. Be always a little uncomfortable. Then, when pain comes — and how often does it come? real pain is very rare — it won’t matter so much. I’ve already said more than is necessary. (I don’t owe you anything.) Work hard at your job. You’re in the canteen. These men have a limited amount of money to spend. Still, you’re a merchandiser. See what you can do to improve business in your department. Let’s make that more positive. I want to see improvement over last month’s figures, or else!

6. Sex. There’s no complaint here. I’m no prude. I don’t know what your tastes are and I don’t want to know. What’s okay by consenting adults is okay by me .

7. Free time. This is up to you. You can read, play sports, work in the model shop — whatever. It’s a good idea, however, to make a friend. Many of the men here develop lasting relationships that enrich their lives. Now I know that you’ve been listening to several of these men recently and letting them tell you about their troubles. All I can say is, that isn’t exactly what I mean. You were selfish there, Feldman. You did that out of morbid, unhealthy curiosity and to achieve a basis of comparison for your own comfort. That must stop. (Some of them were putting you on, anyway.) Life is ordinary. Mine is, his is, yours is. I could give you literally hundreds of examples that come readily to mind, but right here on my desk now is the file of Rudolph Held. Held is in this prison for arson. (You’ve probably seen him. Rudy’s the trusty who runs the projector.) Now you might think that arson is a sick, dramatic, extraordinary crime, and for some perhaps it is, but Rudy gets no hard-ons from setting fires. He doesn’t wet his pants when he hears a siren. Rudy’s a looter. He starts a fire and is there on the scene when it takes. He’s always been very athletic, fast, a champion sprinter in high school, and a superb broken-field runner. However, Rudy didn’t have the opportunity of going on to college to develop these interests. He might conceivably have been offered athletic scholarships, but his father died when he was very young — of a perfectly ordinary coronary — and he had to remain with his mother and support her. Actually, he didn’t even finish high school, need was so pressing. Well, this was the Depression, and there wasn’t much work available for a boy like Rudy. He found a job delivering groceries in a wealthy part of town, but then his mother became ill — these things happen — and he needed extra money for an operation. He remembered those wealthy homes and the valuable things he had seen in them. What was more natural for a loyal, dutiful boy than to think of stealing them in order to obtain money for his mom’s operation? But how could a kid delivering groceries, limited mostly to the kitchen, grab anything of value? He knew he’d have to go back at night, to break and to enter. In a wealthy home there are always plenty of people around — servants, guests. It was too risky. (Again, self-preservation is a perfectly normal, ordinary motivation in human beings.) If it was to do himself or his mother any good he had to find some sure-fire way of getting into these homes and stealing the stuff. He asked himself: under what conditions will it seem normal to force your way into a home that is not your own? And the answer came — perfectly rational, perfectly normal : when that house is on fire and it looks like you’re going in to save someone! So Rudy would start a fire and then bust through a window and go in and take what he needed. He made so much noise he was actually responsible for saving many lives, and then, with his God-given talent for broken-field running — and what’s more natural than making use of your talents? — he’d dodge around in the flames and burning rooms, grabbing up whatever he needed. So you see? When you understand the background, there’s a reason for everything. Nothing is strange. Consecutive, the world is consecutive. It’s rational. Life is ordinary .