There is no piped-in music here in the annex, but into the 3rd day of lockdown,“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” might be appropriate. That is, if anyone here happened to be a gentleman, which just isn’t remotely real. And “merry?” Scratch that. Sounds too much like “gay” and homophobia rules here. I sometimes think half the tank sleeps upside down in the closet of denial but of course I do not voice that decidedly unpopular opinion.
Christmas? There is 6 or so inches of snow on the roof, but a series of walls, antenna & Satellite dishes prevent us from seeing anything of the outside world. We’re 3 stories up, and the only living things we see aside from official personnel and the occasional visitor are birds. I saw three a few days ago. as always, I dropped what I was doing and watched them wing their way across that acre of blue freedom.
The county jail is on “minimal staffing” due to the holidays, so we are stuck inside our lovely little domiciles. The décor is anything but christmassie…more of a minimalist, cubist approach. The mind is unruly little at best and it takes real effort to keep it from tiptoeing thru frozen tulips of Christmas past. The ghetto cowboy next-door sings, “I’ll be home for next Christmas”, to hoots and hollers from up and down the corridor, a chorus of despair. Maybe so, but he’s one of those guys with a supercharged ID (as in Freud’s ID, not I.D.) and bicycle brakes. At 19, he already has two strikes and is looking at “life without” if and when he fucks up again. More a case of “when” rather than “if.” but he’ll be home for next Christmas. Maybe his last.
There is no chance that I will be the person buying those…”cigarettes” - looked 19, said she was 19, wrote college-level prose and flashed an I.D. that looked realer than real andproved she was 19, (clears throat) and face to face, she was 5’11”, 180 lbs. or so, sexually experienced and insatiable and…and…???…19? OMG!!! None of which means squat to the feds. I’m looking at 15 years for, (cough) “crossing state lines with the intent to have sex with a minor,” mind you. (she turned out to be 12 years old) My attorney is a handsome man of cardboard cut-out charm and he assures me that I’ll get 8 years maximum, so (cough, wheeze, gasp) not to worry. I’ll be home for Christmas one of these … years.
It’s easy to crawl inside some stance of outrage, clamber up on the soapbox, and begin the rant of…whatevah. whining, whining, whining. But that way lies madness, sweet Cordelia, and fake ID’s and embroidered lies do not a defense make - at the federal level. and yet…I loved her, Horatio. Would have gone into burning buildings at a single bound to save her and…and…I’m such a fool.
Is today the first day of the rest of my bum trip? Am I just a blip in Vishnu’s dream of…Christmas past, present, and future? Am I in hell and just don’t know it?
They have unlocked the food slots. Soon the 3-tiered cart will come, it’s approach amplified by jailhouse acoustics so that it sounds like a jet coming in for a landing: the Plane…the Plane! John Frum and the cargo cults of the pacific. (look it up.)
Gabriel leaves the 27th, will be gone by the time your little red-lined eyes scan these lines. Gabriel “Pops”, 71 years old and been doing time off and on since 1957. Half renegade French, half outrageous Chippewa; he is bluff and hearty and takes-no-shit-from-nobody and knows every stupid joke and limerick he’s heard in all those years behind bars. He did his first 18 years for littering, as he tells it, “dumping garbage on the courthouse lawn.” Turns out he came home unexpectedly and “Sancho” was humping his wife. Gabriel blew his ass away, sending his spirit to the happy humping grounds and dumping his sorry ass on the courthouse lawn.
littering? get it? He’s done nearly 15 years here in county, in increments of mostly 6 months or so. When he tilts his head back and begins to roar, the man he once was drags Christmas past to Christmas present. He tells a million stories, only one of which I’ll share with you:
someone mentions a liar…Montana, 1939. the liar. Pops is 10 years old.
“well,” he sez. “there was this boy, indin guy, biggest liar I ever knowed an I knowed a bunch of ‘em…” he wines and grins. “…anyway, the liar comes riding by our ranch one day and we’re sitting out on the porch. Hottest time of the year.”
“Where ya going in such a hurry?” my dad yells out. “Aintcha got time to stop and tell us a lie?” (he was famous for lying, Gabriel tells us.)
“Ain’t got time to stop and visit.” the liar shouted at us. “Your brother got bit by a rattlesnake and I’m off to fetch the doctor.”
Dad’s brother – my uncle – lived 5 miles west of us. We watched as the liar rode over the ridge and disappeared. Dad just sat there smoking a hand-rolled and sipping at a beer. Finally he kinda sighs and gets up, maybe 10 minutes later.
“Better go check…” he sez, “…just in case.” So he hitches up the team and we drive 5 miles to uncle’s place and there’s uncle, sittin’ on his front porch, smoking a handrolled and sipping a beer. Pops eyes are dancing.
“Not a gawd-damn thing wrong with him,” he laughs.
That’s how quick the liar’s mind worked. It’s a great jailhouse story and later I ask him what became of him. The liar. Pops didn’t miss a beat:
“We wuz out combining wheat one day…” he sez. “…terrible heat. And the liar was hungover something terrible and this little kid did something to piss him off and the liar grabbed that little boy and throwed him right in that combine. Ate him right up. Kilt him.”
“Jaysus!” I say. My mind is filling in the blanks, and all of them are horrific, red, liquid.
“We throwed a lariat over a tree limb and tied it around his neck. Just left him there a kicking and trying to climb that lariat rope.”
“I’d a climbed it.” one of the guys sez. Jailhouse bravado.
“You would not have climbed it.” pops sez. he holds up thumb and forefinger to show just how thin the lariat was.
I sit there with all those images rolling. If I had tobacco, I’d be handrolling one. If I had a cold soda pop, I’d be sipping it. And the thing is, it all makes sense in a twisted, kinky sort of way.
…Freud whispers to Jung…
Once upon a time there was a liar who did something terrible and unspeakable to a boy at harvest time, perhaps 1949. And the liar somehow put a rope around his own neck and strung hisself up. And all these years trying to free himself, scrabble his way out of hell. I wonder, now, if pops ever passed out drunk on the courthouse lawn, if he were ever hauled blurry-eyed and repentant before the judge? If he were ever given, say, 18 weeks for…littering?
Christmas dinner has come and gone. my cellie takes a dump, a blanket draped over his hunched form. I pretend not to notice. Yet, I have much to be grateful for. There is a certain editor I adore who shows me what we call “love” which buys my coffee and ramen noodles. she’s a kinky little tangle of gunholl and heart of gold. Nameless, of couse. But I wouldn’t miss MSallthat for the world. heh. heh. And for rose - the exquisite! - When I most despair, a letter from her always mysteriously shows up. Love lifted me. And Barbara, LLT. And just the other day, a card from an attorney who writes such wonderful poetry. And lyn lifshin? Damn, but she can write! I love the hold!
I am caught up in some combine-from-hell called the “justice system.” I do the very best I can. I try to live a life of exquisite integrity and compassion. Is there a one of us who should ‘scape a horsewhipping if we got what we deserved? hmmm? I will forgive them long before the great, gray, anonymous ‘they’ ever forgive me. It’s just part of the experience.
Deal with it. Don’t whine. Remember me. – hamlet’s ghost.
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