Read Online Handsome Harry by James Carlos Blake - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James Carlos Blake
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another. Red used to say he’d been sentenced to only one day in prison, but the catch was that the day would be twenty-five years long.
One way to break the monotony of prison routine is to refuse to cooperate with its rules. Refuse often enough and strongly enough and they label you an incorrigible. At M City the incorrigibles were called Red Shirts, and not only was I one of them, I was the youngest and the best known, if I do say so myself. We went out of our way to make things tough for the hacks and didn’t care that they could make things even tougher for us. The worst punishment they could give you was a beating and a stretch in solitary. They’d hit you with radiator hoses or some thick book like a catalog or a dictionary so as not to mark you up too badly in case you died on them and some outside doctor should happen to examine your remains. At M City just the threat of a beating was enough to keep most cons in line, and for most of the guys who ever went to the hole one trip was enough.
That’s how it was for my old partner Earl. He’d been in solitary at M City only once—he got two days for talking during a silent period and then arguing with the guard who wrote him up—and he told me he’d do whatever it took to keep from ever going into the hole again. That’s when I realized how much the beating at the Kokomo jailhouse had taken out of him. He was trying to be a Good Convict and make an early parole. I can’t deny that Earl was a disappointment to me at M City, but he’d been a loyal partner and that counts for plenty, and so I always stuck up for him if he got in a scrape with other convicts. Besides, he was Mary’s brother.
Speaking of Mary, I’d exchanged one or two letters with her while I was at Pendleton and she continued to write to me after I went to M City. She came to visit me and Earl as often as she could, which was only every six weeks or so, since she had to take a day off from her job, plus scrape up the dough for the long bus trip and a hotel room for the night. Her mother had kicked out her bum husband Burke andfiled for divorce, and money was tighter than ever. On every visit she brought me goodies of some kind she baked herself. But every now and then when she’d show up, Earl would have to tell her I couldn’t see her because I was in the hole, and she’d be furious with the prison.
My mother and father had also often driven up from Indianapolis during my first year in the pen. Then they moved to a farm a few miles outside of Leipsic, Ohio, which was even farther from M City than Indytown was. After they made the trip twice in a row only to find out I was in solitary both times, I persuaded them not to come anymore. I told my mother to settle for writing me letters, and she did, twice a week without fail.
The only other visitor I had was Pearl Elliott. She came to see me and Earl every two weeks and always saw to it that neither of us was short of money for cigarettes and stuff. The Side Pocket was turning a steady dollar and her trade in license plates and phony documents was going well, and so she’d quit doing driving jobs, figuring they weren’t worth the risk anymore.
It didn’t take long for Earl to realize I was the main reason Pearl came to visit. He told me he’d never seen her look so down in the mouth as whenever he had to tell her I was in the hole.
T he hole—oh man. I got put in the hole more often than anybody else and I did the longest stretches. Name a rule and I broke it.
Those solitary confinement cells felt like coffins in comparison to the regular six-by-nine cages in the main cell houses. The only way a guy my size could lie down was curled up, which is how you would’ve done it anyway, to try to keep warm, because you were naked and without a blanket. There was a low-watt bulb in a steel-mesh recess in the ceiling and they kept it turned on twelve hours a day. The other twelve hours you were in darkness as black as a tar pit. There was
One way to break the monotony of prison routine is to refuse to cooperate with its rules. Refuse often enough and strongly enough and they label you an incorrigible. At M City the incorrigibles were called Red Shirts, and not only was I one of them, I was the youngest and the best known, if I do say so myself. We went out of our way to make things tough for the hacks and didn’t care that they could make things even tougher for us. The worst punishment they could give you was a beating and a stretch in solitary. They’d hit you with radiator hoses or some thick book like a catalog or a dictionary so as not to mark you up too badly in case you died on them and some outside doctor should happen to examine your remains. At M City just the threat of a beating was enough to keep most cons in line, and for most of the guys who ever went to the hole one trip was enough.
That’s how it was for my old partner Earl. He’d been in solitary at M City only once—he got two days for talking during a silent period and then arguing with the guard who wrote him up—and he told me he’d do whatever it took to keep from ever going into the hole again. That’s when I realized how much the beating at the Kokomo jailhouse had taken out of him. He was trying to be a Good Convict and make an early parole. I can’t deny that Earl was a disappointment to me at M City, but he’d been a loyal partner and that counts for plenty, and so I always stuck up for him if he got in a scrape with other convicts. Besides, he was Mary’s brother.
Speaking of Mary, I’d exchanged one or two letters with her while I was at Pendleton and she continued to write to me after I went to M City. She came to visit me and Earl as often as she could, which was only every six weeks or so, since she had to take a day off from her job, plus scrape up the dough for the long bus trip and a hotel room for the night. Her mother had kicked out her bum husband Burke andfiled for divorce, and money was tighter than ever. On every visit she brought me goodies of some kind she baked herself. But every now and then when she’d show up, Earl would have to tell her I couldn’t see her because I was in the hole, and she’d be furious with the prison.
My mother and father had also often driven up from Indianapolis during my first year in the pen. Then they moved to a farm a few miles outside of Leipsic, Ohio, which was even farther from M City than Indytown was. After they made the trip twice in a row only to find out I was in solitary both times, I persuaded them not to come anymore. I told my mother to settle for writing me letters, and she did, twice a week without fail.
The only other visitor I had was Pearl Elliott. She came to see me and Earl every two weeks and always saw to it that neither of us was short of money for cigarettes and stuff. The Side Pocket was turning a steady dollar and her trade in license plates and phony documents was going well, and so she’d quit doing driving jobs, figuring they weren’t worth the risk anymore.
It didn’t take long for Earl to realize I was the main reason Pearl came to visit. He told me he’d never seen her look so down in the mouth as whenever he had to tell her I was in the hole.
T he hole—oh man. I got put in the hole more often than anybody else and I did the longest stretches. Name a rule and I broke it.
Those solitary confinement cells felt like coffins in comparison to the regular six-by-nine cages in the main cell houses. The only way a guy my size could lie down was curled up, which is how you would’ve done it anyway, to try to keep warm, because you were naked and without a blanket. There was a low-watt bulb in a steel-mesh recess in the ceiling and they kept it turned on twelve hours a day. The other twelve hours you were in darkness as black as a tar pit. There was
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