Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [84]
Jack explained to him, for the first time, what had happened in Balboa County. Billy listened, smiling, nodding his head as if the story confirmed his thesis.
“Yeah. They sucked you in royally, tellin you that if you cooperate, everthin gets better an better. Man, don’t you know the machine don’t need your help? The only thing you can do to the machine is fuck it up. You can’t help it. But you can slow it down. Now, like my case, man. I forged a check, dig? I won’t give you the whole scam, but like it was a payroll check, some cats got this check protector and print up a bunch, and hand em out to cats like me to cash, for a quarter of the money. So I’m broke an I cash the fucker, an three days later a couple dicks come in to the Palace an haul my ass to jail. On an information ; like, somebody turned me up, dig?
“So me an this dumb kid lawyer goes to court, see, and this bartender gets up an says he seen me endorse the check an he recognizes it, an then some cop gets up there an says they got about fifty checks just like it an endorsed the same way, an my lawyer just sits there. The gas is, I didn’t endorse any of the checks at all! So they got me for a whole goddam crime wave!”
“Well, you got screwed, that’s all,” Jack said.
“Yeah, but my point is, a good lawyer could of got me off. I studied up on this, man. Like, the bartender says he saw me, an he says he saw me write. Well, man, a good lawyer’s gonna hire a expert to come and prove that endorsement aint in my writing, dig, so that makes everything the fuggin bartender says bullshit. An he was their only witness, cause the cat that turned me up sure hell aint gonna show up in court. Hell, whoever it was only turned me up to take the heat off himself.”
Jack thought about that for a while. “Well, why don’t you make an appeal, or something? Like Chessman?”
Billy sneered at him. “Are you out of your skull? Who’s gonna pay for the fuggin transcript? The Urban League? Fuck it. I’ll do my time. But what grinds my ass is all the goddam people takin away my rights, stealin my money, makin it tough on my kids, an gettin away with it. I’m talkin about crime, not law. They don’t even have laws for some of the shit they pull.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin about,” Jack said.
“You wouldn’t. You’re white.”
“Oh. That. Well, I’m here, too. You ain’t in here because you’re part Negro; you’re in here because you forged a check.”
“Sho, man, I aint talkin about that. You’re in here because you’re too fuckin dumb to keep out. So am I. But I was talkin in general, not you and me.”
“Why bother?”
“I give up. You are the dumbest cat I ever met.”
“I just don’t see it,” Jack said. “They put us in here because it was easier than leaving us outside on the street. They had the power and they used it. I’m no victim of injustice. I’m not a victim of anything.”
“Sho,” Billy laughed. “You’re in here cause you love me.”
Lately it had been coming up like that, accidentally, in joke, or a casual touch, or a reference to somebody else; but it was getting to the point where their evening dialogues were tinged with it and making them both nervous. Once, when they were half-undressed for the night, Billy was trying to get past Jack to go to the toilet and he brushed against him in such a way that Jack could feel Billy’s fingers against his thigh. There was a quick shove, an exchange of profanity, and both went to bed infuriated, their friendship dissolved. Jack lay there angry and offended, tense beyond reason, and Billy lay above him mortified and angry, equally tense.
“I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole!” Billy hissed down angrily through the darkness. After a few moments of electric silence, Jack heard him chuckle and add, “Even if I had a ten-foot pole.” But it was several days before Jack built up his nerve enough to apologize.
Sex in prison is a matter of three choices: abstinence, masturbation, and homosexuality. Jack was familiar with all three, in varying degrees. At