Stanley Elkin - A Bad Man

The warden’s reasons for denying the men any codified regulations were perfectly apparent, Feldman thought. Since infractions were met with severe punishments, it became the responsibility of the men themselves, as well as their best interest, to try to understand the warden — in short to listen . Nevertheless, they were allowed a certain latitude here. The most literate of the convicts were appointed by their fellow inmates to catch the warden’s words on the tips of their pencils. Later their notes were checked, double-checked, collated against the notes of the other scribes. (In this way a certain respect for scholarship was induced too. Feldman had never been anywhere where there was a more genuine admiration of those who knew facts, though a scholar’s mistakes earned him beatings.) Discussion groups were formed to resolve inconsistencies and to interpret what had been said. Indeed, the warden had created in effect a hard core of penal Talmudists, men who parsed intention and declined nuances like lexicographers, men adept at shorthand, good punctuators and spellers who wrote with a strong, legible hand. Now, as he glanced about, Feldman saw their strained attentions, their lick-lead alertness; they seemed passionate, fools leaning forward.

“I have this day sent to all administrative personnel,” the warden began, “formal notification of my intention to introduce a policy of remission in this institution. Early next week I shall be forwarding to the appropriate officials a detailed schedule of indulgences, which will then go immediately into effect.

“Now, as you know, paroles have, in the past, been based upon projections of a convict’s ability to adapt to the workaday world. Among the documents he has had to include in the dossier he builds for the parole board are letters from a prospective employer, character endorsements from members of the clergy, character endorsements from members of the secular arm, statements of reconciliation from members of his family and, if he’s to return to his old community, from his neighbors. It is on the basis of these, taken with his own pledges of good will, that the board makes it prognosis about the prisoner’s chances on the outside. I need hardly point out to you that such sentimental evidences as these would be of little consequence in a court of law. Of course the parole board also considers a convict’s record, his behavior during confinement, and makes, from hearsay, what it can of his present attitudes. But the poverty of these techniques is illustrated by the dramatic statistics that there is only a twelve-percent difference in the incidence rate of recidivism among parolees and those who are discharged only after serving their full sentences. Twelve percent .

“As you should be able to infer then, there is a distinct tense shift between the philosophy of punishment and the philosophy of pardon. A man is punished for a fait accompli ; yet that same man, up for parole, is forgiven his past and granted his chance largely on the basis of a prediction — say rather a hope —about his actions in the future.

“It is this — this schism between past and future — which my policy of remission and schedule of indulgences seeks to adjust. Henceforward my recommendation to the parole board will be based upon my personal observation of a man’s virtue . ‘Warden’s Approval,’ formerly automatic like the principal’s signature on a diploma, now becomes the vital element in the parole process. The jerry-built letters of recommendation will still be required, of course, and sappy-hearted priests and social workers and wives who forget and sons whose hope exceeds their expectation will still be found to write them, but these will be meaningless without my own recommendation .’

The warden stepped forward onto the apron of the stage, at the length of the wire on his collar microphone. He took another step and must have broken the connection, for he tore the microphone from his lapel impatiently and dropped it to the floor. When he spoke, however, his voice still seemed amplified. “Now I would solicit your honor,” he said. “Now I would urge your virtue. Now I would inspire. You—” he called, “men with pencils, scholars of this place, ministers of my administration — hear me. Explain to them. Speak what I tell you. The tongues of Pentecost are upon me, and I would teach you prison business.

“And we shall prove here again, together, what crusaders traveling armed and East once proved, and what the old popes knew, and the hooded saints who stretched the rack, who turned its wheel, getting God’s awful leverage, and all those who once tied hate-knots on wrists behind backs and then tugged at the strappado, hauling at the lousy heretic’s flaggy self: that virtue is as active a principle as evil, that cruelty is written off in a good cause, that there is no violence like an angel’s violence .

“Let us pray.”

The man bowed their heads uneasily.

“Lord God of hooked scourge and knotted whip, of sidearms and sidecar, of bloodhound and two-way radio, vigilant God of good neighborhoods and locked Heaven — lend us Thy anger. Teach us, O God, revulsion. Remind our nostrils of stench and our ears of discord and our eyes of filth. Grant these men a holy arrogance and instill in them the courage to expose all bad men, to divulge their plans for jailbreak, their schemes of dirty escape in the back of a laundry truck. Give them the will to betray all wicked confidences, to publish secrets right and left. Bestow on them wakefulness, God, to collect the broken-talk dreams of their cellmates, and give them the memory to report verbatim whatever is spoken in anger behind my back or the backs of my guards. Move them to mar a friend’s plot, and to sing like canaries the hymns of their blessed betrayals. Instruct their tongues in delation and denunciation, and arrange it so that all charges brought against anyone anywhere may be made to stick!

“Transubstantiate now their prison garb into their chrisoms, for they would be Thy paracletes, and their very cells become as benefices in Thy penal see. Call on them to abjure and recant all blasphemy, in the murus strictus now and here and in the murus largus then and there. Admit them as successful spies to all infamous councils, and sustain the endura of their reputations, the ordeal of their betrayed confidences. Strengthen all stoolies to Heaven, O Lord, and make them to turn state’s evidence. Marry them to whores that they may correct them, and give them wicked children that they may chastise them. Have them to live at the scene of crimes near telephones.

“ But let their compurgations, if they would make them, fail in their mouths! Strike down all extenuators!

“Amen.”

“Amen,” said the men.

“This isn’t part of the prayer now,” the warden said. “The rest is off the record.” He winked. “We’re moving against the bad men.”

Feldman shuddered.

“Sometimes,” the warden said, “it isn’t enough merely to bring charges or to make sermons. There are — well, you know, you aren’t stupid — things that are done and there’s no recourse. There is…latitude. There are great nasty areas where one is still within one’s ‘rights,’ legal, snug as a bug . Ask yourself. How much time can a man be made to do for being himself? Well, you see the problem. The bad men…Suppose — get that word, ‘suppose,’ I said — suppose they were relaxed to you? Listen to me.” He paused and wiped his forehead with his hand. Then he looked down at his shoes. “It’s embarrassing,” he said at last. “I’m no hinter, no intimator. Let’s not crap around with each other.