Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [72]
It was a relief for him to go berserk at last; it was an act of pure rationality that had nothing to do with McHenry or the poor fool Mac was taking over the bumps. It was an expression of sanity, a howl of rage at a world that put men in county jails. Everything finally got to be too much and he let go of his passion.
The man was a farmworker, probably a bracero, and he could just barely understand English. He had picked fruit for a couple of weeks, on his knees under the straight lines of prune trees, and one night he got drunk in a poolhall and pulled a knife on a man. He got a year for pulling the knife, and he was not sent to the trusty farm because he had a record of disobedience from his last stay in jail. On the night of his sanitary court trial he stood in front of McHenry stupidly, not comprehending what Mac was telling him. As usual, Jack stood well back, his arms folded, watching the whole procedure. Mac was in an odd mood; he kept asking the bracero if he was willing to pay his fines, and when the man did not speak he gave him more fines to pay or more whacks to suffer.
It disgusted Jack to see Mac, in his pleasant drawl, making fun of the man simply because the man was weak and stupid and Mac had the power. The bracero probably thought Mac was a legal official, and he hesitated and stammered, and finally made everybody laugh by saying, “Wock? Wass a Wock?”
Mac was tickled. “I’ll show you what a wock is. Take his pants down.”
It tore away in Jack, and he came up. He was really out of control, but he seemed calm and possessed. Inside he felt passionate.
“McHenry,” he said, his voice trembling only a little, “you’re about the most chickenshit Southern cracker I ever saw in my life. I bet you got a hard-on right this minute. I bet this is how you get your kicks, you fuckin hillbilly. Aint you ever heard of women?”
McHenry understood instantly and fell back in his chair, wildly signaling, but he was too late. Jack dived at him across the table, and they rolled on the cement floor, punching and grunting, before anybody could stop it.
The fight only lasted a few minutes, and was broken up when they saw Jack beating McHenry’s head against the concrete, his fingers dug into McHenry’s shoulders. Mac’s eyes were bugging out, and blood was coming from his mouth and spattering on the floor, and when they pulled Jack loose Mac slumped down unconscious, his eyes still open. He came back the next morning with a bandage on his head. There was no concussion or anything more serious than a few stitches. Mac must have talked to the deputies before he came back, because they came in before morning and locked Jack into his cell. He stayed locked in until he left Balboa County.
Even the smoothest-running county political machines have their flaws. In this case, the particular judge who was supposed to hear Jack’s case upset the smooth operation of the machine. Costigan, the lawyer, told Jack all about it, his voice dry and bitter. The judge said he would not accept such a drastic reduction of the charge, from kidnaping to a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. It was none of the judge’s business, but he made it his business. All in private, of course, the judge told District Attorney Forbes and Costigan that he thought Levitt ought to do some time, and not county jail time. He hinted that if the District Attorney brought the man Levitt up on a contributing charge, the judge would give him the year in the county jail, and then make it a point to get in touch with San Francisco and have them prosecute on the rape charge. So that the man Levitt would get out of his year and go right back in. Costigan was very bitter about it, but Forbes said he knew a way out of the dilemma. Jack could plead guilty to having had intercourse with the girl right in the car, still inside Balboa County, and they would