Crimes and the People Who Commit Them E-Book

Phil Lippert

• Herausgeber: Fresh Ink Group
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 528

Beschreibung

Lippert was thrown into the bowels of the Michigan Department of Corrections as a seventeen-year-old adolescent.  He remained entrenched in a world of malfeasance for the next forty years. With astonishing honesty, he reveals the raw details of what a life of incarceration looks like from the inside. His observations of human behavior and his stellar ability to tell a story reveal the courage and resilience of a man who has survived horrifying and savage injustice. These are stories of miscreants and corrupt institutions. They are tales of men who have made poor choices and suffered grave consequences.  

His tales of the criminal counterculture are sometimes tragic, but often humorous and redemptive. Through it all, he displays a sly sense of humor and the quiet wisdom of a man who is, ultimately, a survivor. Lippert’s journey has been one of an unrequited longing for freedom. This book is a resonant journey through the geography of a resilient soul.   

Leseprobe

Crimes and the People Who Commit Them

Fiction With Conviction by the Guy Who Did the Time

Copyright © 2021by Phil LippertAll rights reserved

Fresh Ink GroupAn Imprint of:The Fresh Ink Group, LLC1021 Blount Avenue, #931Guntersville, AL 35976Email: [email protected]

Edition 1.0     2021

Book design by Amit Dey / FIGCover design by Stephen Geez / FIGAssociate publisher Lauren A. Smith / FIG

Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 and except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, no portion of this book’s content may be stored in any medium, transmitted in any form, used in whole or part, or sourced for derivative works such as videos, television, and motion pictures, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Cataloging-in-Publication Recommendations:FIC050000 / FICTION / Crime FIC029000 / FICTION / Short Stories (single author)FIC062000 / FICTION / Noir

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021902718

ISBN-13: 978-1-947893-12-2 PapercoverISBN-13: 978-1-947893-14-6 HardcoverISBN-13: 978-1-947893-25-2 Ebooks

Dedicated to Cynthia Joelle Lippert

You inspire me.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Dude

A Canticle for Frank

Good Night, Ruby Slippers

Albert

My Summer Vacation

Sonny II

T.J’s Story

Life Happens

Cloud Nine

The Cracker Jack Man

About Phil Lippert

Preface

Lippert was thrown into the bowels of the Michigan Department of Corrections as a 17-year-old adolescent. He remained entrenched in a world of malfeasance for the next 42 years.

With astonishing honesty, he reveals the raw details of what a life of incarceration looks like from the inside. His observations of human behavior and stellar ability to tell a story reveal the courage and resilience of a man who has survived horrifying and savage injustice. These are stories of miscreants and corrupt institutions. They are tales of men who have made poor choices and suffered grave consequences.

His tales of the criminal counter-culture are sometimes tragic, but often humorous and redemptive; through it all, he displays a sly sense of humor and the quiet wisdom of a man who is, ultimately, a survivor. Lippert’s journey has been one of an unrequited longing for freedom. This book is a resonant journey through the geography of a resilient soul.

Ellen Lord,Behavioral Health Therapist & Poet.

Acknowledgements

Imet Sister Pat Schnapp in 1998, and immediately had a sense that this was someone who would impact my life. She encouraged me to write and when I did, she insisted that I write better, providing the advice and direction necessary to accomplish that. She gathered up a collection of my short stories and produced my first book, God Bless America: Stories by Some Guy in the Joint, which she then convinced the administration of Siena Heights University to use as a textbook. Sister Pat was a driving force in bringing this book into being. To the extent that I am a writer, it is because Sister would have it no other way. I could not be more grateful or humbled by the friendship that has developed over the years and countless hours she has spent advocating on my behalf. Thank you, Sister.

I am indebted to so many people for so many kindnesses and opportunities that were pieces of the puzzle that ultimately became this book; acknowledging them all just isn’t doable. I remain grateful to Lee Lewis of Words+Design for bringing God Bless America into being, which was an essential stepping stone to Crimes and The People Who Commit Them. Writing this book would not have been possible without the support and feedback of my lovely wife, Cynthia, always available with insights and critiques only another writer can provide. Special thanks to Josh and Maggie Mae Compton, along with the entire Compton clan, who welcomed me into their family and an environment conducive to creativity. I am blessed to have two families.

I would never have survived the last few years without the wise counsel of Ellen Lord, who helped smooth out bumpy patches, shed light into dark places, and forced monsters back into their closets. A poet extraordinaire and a dear friend, Ellen’s support has been invaluable.

My family went deeply into debt over the decades shoveling money to lawyers who made big promises and ultimately accomplished absolutely nothing. Early in 2016, retired Michigan State Police Commander Ken Anderson brought my story to the attention of Morning Sun editor Rick Mills. That exchange led to a series of articles that ultimately led to my release. Absent that conversation and what grew out of it, I would remain incarcerated today. Heartfelt thanks to Commander Anderson and Rick Mills.

It turns out that publishing a book is a big job, and very much a group effort. My contribution—writing the stories—was the easy part. Those who work their magic behind the scenes are unsung heroes, and have my sincere gratitude. None of this would have come to be without the expertise and infinite patience of Stephen Geez, founding member and publisher at Fresh Ink Group, and the invaluable input of Fresh Ink Group producer and editor Beem Weeks. Thank you, guys, and thanks to Anik, our cover artist, and to associate publisher Lauren “Wearer-of-Many-Hats” Smith.

(Articles written by Rick Mills are available at www.TheMorningSun.com.)

Introduction

Rick MillsMediaNews Group

Phil Lippert lives on a river these days.

I like that from a practical standpoint, but I love the symbolism—a notion of flowing water, of life moving on, and of peace and tranquility.

This book you are holding will give you a peek at Phil’s life, his core values, his sense of humor, wry observations of other humans of all ilks, and lessons learned in 42 years of incarceration.

How he got there is the story of a one-time prostitute who was renowned for her multiple affairs and became smitten with the teenage Lippert, a schoolmate of her own children, and gifted him with sex and drugs and a car to drive.

One evening, smoking marijuana with his high school wrestling coach, a recon marine recently returned from Vietnam, Phil divulged that his girlfriend was pressuring him to find a hit man to eliminate her husband. The coach responded, “I’d jump at the chance.” After being paid one hundred dollars for the task, he did just that. The murder was accomplished two weeks later.

Both men were arrested within two months, and Lippert was sentenced to life in prison fourteen working days after his arrest for his role in the crime.

It would be forty years later before I met Phil. He didn’t trust me. I wasn’t sure I trusted him. We quickly got past that. He and his family shared every report, every newspaper article, every document and review from the Department of Corrections and Parole Board. Approaching age 63, Phil was a man out of place, a kind and caring individual who took developmentally disabled prisoners under his wing, who often protected the vulnerable from predators, who trained dogs for police work and worked many years in prison hospital units. And he read. He spent hours every day living in books from the prison library.

“I know this may sound weird,” he once told me, “given my his tory, but I am not a violent person. I have never been in a fight. I have never twisted someone’s arm around their back and made them say, “Uncle.”

A series I wrote and published in the Morning Sun newspaper may have helped win parole for Lippert, who has been out of prison at this writing for four years, after successfully completing the mandates of his parole.

Since that time, we have become friends. My wife and I stood with them as Phil married his lovely bride, Cynthia. He’s visited my family and I his. We are friends.

Phil brings compassion, keen observations, 42 years of seeing things the rest of us can only imagine, and a great talent for writing to this book, and to all of his short stories.

I hope you enjoy them…

Dude

My name is “Dude.” I am a country boy and known as a bit of a cowboy, which is an uncommon background in prison. This name was hung on me decades ago, long before everyone was going around saying, “Hey dude.…” It seems a silly nickname now, but that is what I am known as and is too late to change it now. I used to work over in the Hospital Annex. As far as I am concerned, I lucked out and landed the best job in the institution. Who knew? I’ve had a pretty good run, actually.

That is all winding down and the era that shaped my reality is now is very much an anachronism. I don’t know how it all shot past me so fast—the decades, the generations—but suddenly I am an old burnout, a has-been ready for Boot Hill. Such is life.

The tales contained herein all took place at SPSM—State Prison of Southern Michigan—at Jackson. Jackson Prison has stood for many years, since before Michigan was a state, as the largest walled prison in the world. Forget the prisons you have seen on TV; Jackson was a village enclosed by brick walls—five thousand inmates on fifty-seven acres, and an infrastructure as complex as any you will find anywhere.

There were several full-size baseball fields and a football field on the big yard—the “back 40”—a dozen or so factories and several different rec yards. The area between Health Care Annex and the chow hall was called Peckerwood Park, and was primarily frequented by white guys and an ideal spot to smoke dope.

Over from there, the corner where Three Block meets Four Block, was an area known as Casino Royale—which featured three dozen tables used for gambling; poker, blackjack, keno, tunk, and the all-time favorite, skin, were played every yard period with enormous amounts of money changing hands every hour. There was a tacit agreement between those who operated these games and the yard cops—as long as there was no violence at your table, you were good to go.

Put a bunch of guys together and there will be gambling. Case closed, dot the i’s and cross the t’s. This was brought home a few years back when, in response to violence, a new warden declared that he would crack down on gambling and remove that scourge from the institution. It became illegal to play cards on the yard; there were horrendous penalties for being caught with dice or betting slips. Those activities faded away, and were replaced by such things as—Hey man, see those two pigeons on the Control Center roof ? I’ll bet you five cigarettes that the one on the left flies away first…There were a hundred variations that theme.

So much has changed over the years that when I try to tell these new guys how it was in the old days, they laugh it off. Never could there have been such a system in Michigan….

At some point many years ago, our state’s highest court determined that Yes, indeed, women may work inside of men’s prisons.

A lot of guys, old heads like me, especially, were appalled by the notion. Women supervising showers and other more personal moments of the daily routine? Women shouting orders and pushing guys around? Please, no! A large number of those female employees went to work in the Hospital building.

What was known as The Hospital addressed all health care needs. It was Sick Call, First Aid, ICU—which housed critical care patients— and long-term geriatric care. Inmates did all the work. Hard to believe now, but when I started as an Inmate Nurse, we not only did all manner of inpatient care, inmate nurses also did blood draws, sutures, all of the x-rays and lab work. All learned OJT. It worked. When women started working in the hospital, pretty much all the inmates on that assignment were fired and most of the staff hired to replace them were female. Instead of paying inmates sixty-five cents a day, the State hired RN’s, PA’s, Lab Techs, X-Ray Technicians and other professionals to do their jobs. At a million times the cost. Your tax dollars at work.

In those days, every department had at least one inmate clerk and for all intents and purposes, clerks ran the institution. Want a specific job? Give the Classification clerk three cartons of Lucky Strikes. Would you like a certificate for your parole board interview proving that you have attended A.A. for the last four years? See the appropriate clerk. There are a couple dozen clerks who are the real movers and shakers; those jobs are coveted and pretty much impossible to get. There are clerks in this facility who have been in their jobs for decades.

Sick Call has always been a major part of the daily routine. Send in a sick call request and next morning you have a pass to talk to a male nurse to discuss your ailment. It’s a triage sort of thing. It usually doesn’t get more involved than handing out something for athlete’s foot or sniffles. Anything more serious gets referred to a doctor. It is not uncommon for a couple hundred guys to show up for Sick Call.

As part of the on-going effort to keep distance between inmates and female employees, the Activities Building became the Hospital Annex. Sick Call takes place there five mornings a week. Since there is no female staff involved, there is a job there for an inmate worker. When my position in the Hospital was dissolved, my supervisor got me this job. I clean up and generally make myself useful. I was unenthused at first and was thinking of applying to the license plate factory. What a mistake that would have been.

There is an officer who comes to work every morning and does nothing but sit at a desk near the front door of this building. He “works” about two hours every morning. Come through the door and he will take your pass; when you leave he will sign it and give it back. The rest of the day, he does cross-word puzzles, talks on the phone and looks at girlie magazines. Good work if you can get it.

Claude is a very large man, and not what you would call an overachiever. The current state of affairs works well for both of us. I come to work in the morning and usually drop off a couple bear claws or other munchies at the desk, and sometimes a magazine or two. We spend a few minutes analyzing whatever sporting event was televised last night and ignore each other for the rest of the day. Sick call lasts a couple hours, after that we both do our own thing. My thing often is to sit by myself and enjoy an interlude of quiet. What an extravagance. You can be in jail for many years and never know a moment of privacy or quiet.

Once I realized what a sweet deal I had here, I put a lot of thought into making it work for me. The possibilities were endless. For example, there is a room in the back filled with long-forgotten items—a stack of old floor tiles, a one-wheel wheel chair, broken furniture. You know the kind of room. I had some five-gallon buckets in there I used to brew some pretty nice hooch. I could have gone crazy and made ten times as much but I have learned a few lessons over the years. As the Buddha so wisely said, all things in moderation. Having my operation found out would have meant immediate termination. I always had various items of contraband stashed around the place, but again, I didn’t go crazy with it.

The recipe for hooch is simple. Pretty much anything will ferment. You can use potatoes, tomatoes, Brussels Sprouts, corn, whatever. I have known guys who fermented such things prunes, onions, jalapenos, with a resulting concoction every bit as unpleasant as you might think.

I had a good connection in the kitchen, though, so I kept it simple and stuck with fruit. Toss it all into a bucket with sugar, add water and let nature take its course. For yeast to start it off, drop in a soda cracker. A few days later—presto-changeo—you got yourself some wine.

The big problem with this production is the smell. Fermenting fruit smells to high-heaven, and usually when a guy gets busted with some, it is the smell that gave him away. Consequently, a lot of guys making it get nervous and drink it before it reaches its peak. An immature wine is weak and very sweet. You can drink enough to get a buzz, but you will probably get sick and have a horrendous headache. Who needs that?

My brew was stashed away in a safe place, with the smell vented out a window. I could let it sit long enough to become strong as Ajax and sharp as rubbing alcohol. It was highly sought-after. I marketed my product in bread bags I got from a guy who works in the bakery. I’d measure out twelve ounces with my favorite coffee cup, tie a knot in the top, and there you go. Two dollars a bag and that’s a great deal. I let my clientele know when some was ready, and anyone interested (who am I kidding? Everyone was interested) signed up for sick call, where we made the transaction.

Like I said, I could have sold much, much more than I did, but that was never my thing. I dealt only with guys I knew to be absolutely trustworthy.

I made some money, but beyond that, most of my stuff went for barter. The guy who smuggled fruit and sugar from the kitchen got some, the bakery guy got some; there were a couple of old-timers I’d just give some to pretty regularly. I knew a guy who handled impressive amounts of marijuana. We did a lot of trading back and forth.

My thing worked for as long as it did because I always kept it low key. So many of these guys are show-boats and want nothing in life so much as to be seen as Mr. Big. I always thought of them as lightning rods. As long as they were occupying the cops’ attention, I could slip and slide beneath the radar.

Everything I did was designed to promote my one true passion in life: I want to hear your story. I don’t want to hear any boo-hoo, poor me tales; I’m not interested in ain’t it a shame? or the absurd, grandiose lies so many guys tell about where they have been and what they once had. Some guys are idiots and talking to them isn’t worth wading through the b.s. they bring with them. I have no time for guys who are full-time predators, always on the lookout for someone to rip off or otherwise victimize. When I say someone is “okay with me,” it means that he lives his life the best way he can without taking advantage of anyone or creating grief in order to get ahead. I don’t care what a guy did to get here; all that matters is who and what he is in this reality. If you can function as a decent human being in this mad house, you are okay with me.

If there is a real story to you, though—if you have had unique experiences or are just plain interesting, I am all ears. It probably sounds like I’m just nosey, but people who know me will verify that it’s not like that. I’m not “all up in yo bidness” as the bros say. I am truly interested. I believe the adage that there is a novel in everyone. I want to hear yours. I don’t repeat what I hear; I don’t gossip. I don’t judge. I just want to hear your story. I’ll tell you mine in return, if you wish. Tell me where you have been and what you did there and paint me a picture with it. Most people, you may be surprised to learn, are happy to do just that.

Over the years, a lot of guys have trusted me enough to reveal things they have never spoken out loud before. Sometimes the process was excruciating for them. I never took that lightly. Now, as my days on this earth are winding down, it seems a shame that those stories be lost. I have procured a typewriter and set to work preserving what I can of them. The following collection represents a few of my favorites, tales I have either received permission to repeat, or are the stories of guys beyond caring at this point.

One of my challenges here has been to transform much of the dialog into language that doesn’t alienate the reader in the first paragraph. The dialect spoken in prison is pretty rough. It consists of ever-evolving slang and massive doses of profanity. To actually present much of it verbatim would not only risk leaving the reader confused, but also offended. I’ve done my best to clean it up, but for the sake of verisimilitude, a few of those words were included. This is particularly true in A Canticle for Frank. Even though the language is considerably watered down, it may still be a bit much for more sensitive eyes. Fair warning.

Please contact me with any questions, comments, whatever, using the contact button on my Member Page at https://freshinkgroup.com/author/phillippert/.

A Canticle for Frank

Most of my peers have engaged in a wholesale slaughter of their brain cells from an early age. These guys live hard lives, develop serious health issues in their forties and die young. Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, the effects of violence in all its many and varied forms, and just hedonism in general take a toll. You don’t run into a lot of rocket scientists on the yard. There are guys who are into physical fitness, but most of them love to get high as much anyone else. They might get healthier, but they don’t get much smarter.

I know Frank from way back. I always thought of him as an intellectual, although in a more normal environment he might just be a regular guy. (I honestly don’t know. It has been so long since I was anywhere normal.) I always liked Frank because I could get a conversation that wasn’t profanity laced, and had to do with matters outside of the small number of topics that dominate conversation in this corner of paradise. Frank has an impressive vocabulary, but he wasn’t all show-offy about it. The man read voraciously and over the years has absorbed a lot.

Frank was fascinated with the world, and couldn’t wait to travel and see it all. Not as a tourist, but one of those guys you see in documentaries. He had a subscription to National Geographic magazine and devoured every issue. Frank wanted to paddle a canoe along the Amazon River, start to finish, and could tell you what such a trip would entail, the distance of the river, the kind of fish you could catch along the way, the different people you would meet. He didn’t just fantasize about things he hoped to do, he did serious research and absorbed as much information as he could garner. He wrote letters to college professors and people he had read about, asking them questions about their travels, and looking for advice about moving around in dangerous parts of the world. He was fascinated with different cultures and the way people lived in other places, and hoped to visit each continent and see the most obscure places on each.

When Frank was finally paroled a few years ago, I wished him well and thought of him as one of those rare individuals I would never see again. I was surprised and disappointed to hear that he was back, slightly more than four years after I watched him walk out that gate. Not only that, but that he was now a bug (psychiatric head case) and generally not doing well at all. When I tracked him down, he was sitting on a ledge behind the kitchen. It was a hot August day, but Frank was dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, with a jacket over that. He was sitting with his arms wrapped around himself and sort of rocking forward and back, hunched over like he was freezing, and obviously lost in his thoughts. I spoke from a distance of several feet, to announce my approach. It is never a good idea of startle one of these guys.

“Oh, hey Dude,” he said distractedly. “I don’t know how many people I killed.” He continued, “My conscience is clear, but sometimes I wonder.” He continued rocking. “It was just so cold. You don’t even know, man. You never been cold like that.”

As a conversation opener, that was somewhat different, and I admit to being caught a little short. I decided to be nonchalant and pulled up a milk crate to sit on. “Never thought of you as the homicidal maniac type,” I ventured in a casual manner.

“It wasn’t like that,” he said quietly. “My toes mostly. I never knew the human body could register than kind of pain. From the cold. My feet didn’t go numb, they just hurt. From the cold. Each toe was an individual agony. Like someone went down the line with a ball-peen hammer. Then all that running. You don’t know, man.”

“So tell me, Frank. Start at the beginning. I’m all ears.”

“Is that what you think, Dude?” he hissed, suddenly furious. “I’m just some freaking idiot on the yard, and you’re going to sweet-talk me into telling you something about the Taliban? I got news for you, Man, I ain’t the one.” Frank was suddenly standing over me, fists bunched. I was at what you could call an extreme tactical disadvantage.

Frank was on the verge of throwing a serious punch and from our vantage points, I reckoned I couldn’t avoid catching it just above my left ear. Neither of us needed that. “Easy Frank. This is me. Remember how we used to walk this yard and talk about those places you were going to visit? You told me about those people in the South Pacific who built a wooden replica of an old airplane to lure other planes in, like you do with duck decoys or whatever. “

“The cargo cults,” Frank said, suddenly relaxed and sitting back down. “The best thing that ever happened to them was World War II. American planes stopped over a couple times on their island and they went bananas over the stuff the Americans gave them. Canned food, candy, metal tools; they were blown away that such wonderful things existed. They were still living in a stone age culture and thought those guys flying in with all those extraordinary things were gods. After the planes were gone, they built a replica so the gods flying over would be attracted. They put in landing strips and built a reproduction of the compound Americans had established there. The one English word they all knew was cargo.”

Frank went quiet and continued rocking. I remained silent and after a couple minutes, he picked it back up. “Never made it to the Pacific, Dude. Went the other way. Where it is cold.” I asked him where that was and he said, “Up in the mountains, where people kill each other, man. Just because it is so freaking cold. Dude, it was so cold.” Frank shook his head and rocked. We sat quietly for a while, and the announcement came that yard was over. I helped Frank to his feet, and asked him if he needed anything. He looked at me as though sur prised to find me there, and was obviously annoyed by my presence. “The fuck would I need?” he asked belligerently and turned away. I watched Frank walk, and it was obvious that his feet pained him. It was sad to see the state he was in. There was obviously a story here, though, and I knew I wouldn’t rest until I had heard it.

Over the next few days, I asked a couple of the old heads what they knew about Frank’s story and nobody knew much. This guy B-Lo who works in the psych ward told me that Frank had been extradited from Russia “or some damn where over there” and was held in Federal custody for a while. Apparently, people from several different agencies had wrung his story out of him and they weren’t gentle about it. No telling what he went through with them. He had obviously been down a rough road. I gave a lot of thought to how to get him comfortable enough to talk to me about it.

Several days later, I sat down next to Frank on a bench in the west yard and lit a joint. He was quietly rocking, lost in his thoughts. He accepted the joint and took a big hit. “I think this will help my feet,” he said quietly.

“Always been good for mine,” I told him.

Frank was annoyed. “Don’t do that. Don’t get all patronizing and shit because I am fucked up in the head.” He was smoking the joint, but I had gotten off on to a bad start.

“That’s just me being my smart-ass self, Frank. There is no disrespect in that. You know how I do. We walked down a lot of miles on this yard back in the day. You ever known me to not have a wise crack for any occasion?”

“True that,” he finally said. “It was ugly, Dude. There are some real monsters walking around here,” Frank said, gesturing around us, “but they are light weights. I was up there living with creatures who were pure evil. They didn’t care if they didn’t eat, they didn’t care if they were in pain. They literally lived and breathed for the opportunity to kill and inflict grief. You think the DOC doesn’t give a fuck about you? You have no concept of people who don’t give a fuck about you.” Frank was suddenly trembling and on his feet, rage blazing in his eyes. “You think it’s a joke, Man? You think you could go through all that and be superman or something?” He was shouting now, “You dumbass motherfuckers got no idea.” And then, quietly, “You all think you’re so tough.” Frank jammed his hands into his coat pockets and stormed off. It was obviously an effort on his part to move fast due to the pain in his feet.

That went well, I said to myself, more intrigued than ever.

I kept Frank in my thoughts but life’s little dramas kept coming my way and I had other matters to occupy my attention. One of them had to do with some knucklehead friends of my friend Doc. The long and short of it was that one of these goofballs, call him Jerry, swallowed a bunch of balloons filled with heroin out in the visiting room one day last week. Nothing unusual about that. The problem was that they had been inside him for several days now and he was getting nervous. He hadn’t been able to bring them back up immediately after the visit, and hadn’t been able to pass them out the other way since. Doc asked me to grab a bunch of laxatives from the dispensary, which I didn’t mind doing.

Two days later he told me nothing had happened—and this was a massive laxative dose we’re talking about here—and Jerry was not only worried about the balloons, but was in extreme discomfort from the log jam. Doc asked me for an enema kit, and that I couldn’t do. Way outside the area I can move freely in. Finally he asked about a pair of rubber gloves and a length of that rubber tubing they use to tie off your arm for a blood draw. That was do-able. I didn’t ask any questions.

Meanwhile, I learned from another guy that Jerry’s girlfriend was sweating bullets over this scenario. Should it all end badly, it would not take any real fancy police work to trace the whole magilla back to her. She called the balloon manufacturer and spoke with someone in customer service. Apparently, that person was very matter-of-fact about the whole conversation and was able to anticipate most of her questions. She was far from being the first to call with such inquiries. Turns out, different colored balloons decompose at different rates in the human gut. Yellow ones, for example, will give out in five days. The red ones are tougher and will hold out for a very impressive nine days. Other colors fall within that span. This information surfaced on day four.

Doc cobbled together a short piece of eighth-inch PVC, a large heavy-duty garbage bag and the rubber tube he got from me into a horror show of an enema bag. Posting look outs in strategic locations, he slid into Jerry’s cell and told him to assume the position. Doc mixed a whole bottle of baby oil, a bottle of liquid soap and several mystery ingredients with three gallons of warm water in that bag and plugged it in, as it were. I will spare you the graphic details—you are missing a colorful story, believe me—and just bottom-line this by saying the procedure was a roaring success.

All this was just another day-in-the-life story, really. What was interesting to me was that all of the balloons were actually white at this point, their color having been bleached out by stomach acids and such. Two of them burst open on the way out from the rough and tumble way they came into the world.

Doc scooped up four of the intact ones for his trouble, swished them around in a coffee jar with soapy water and within minutes had them sold for more money than I will see in the next six months. Life in the big house.

Watching this lunacy play out over a period of several days and playing a peripheral role in it kept me occupied and I left the Frank question to simmer for the duration.

B-Lo told me that they were working on adjusting Frank’s meds so he could be more functional and live with his anger issues. The problem was that the feds had pumped an entire pharmacopeia through his system and there were all kinds of complications connected with that. Especially since they wouldn’t release any specifics about it.

When I saw Frank again, he was sipping a cup of coffee, staring off into the distance. He was still dressed against that chill that was deep inside him. Handing him a lit joint, I sat and said, “You know what Frank? I once knew a guy who ate live June bugs. He said they tasted like Copenhagen. The chaw, not the city.”

After a long pause, speaking in a neutral voice and still staring off, Frank replied,” You know what, man? I used to know a guy who was utterly full of shit. His name was Dude. The smart-ass, not the cowboy.”

“Touché Franklin!” I congratulated him, “Touché! I knew the old Frankalony was still in there.” I really was delighted. This looked like progress. I told him the Jerry story and he commented that Doc was good people. “The best,” I agreed sincerely. Frank seemed better, but would only speak in response to what was said to him. We made some small talk, and I finally ventured, “I know you been through hard times, man. If there is anything I can do…you know that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Frank said tiredly.

I spent the next few minutes talking about the time I met B.B. King in a bar in Austin, which is kind of a neat story, especially if you are a blues fan, which me and Frank both are. Frank was with me, but he still wasn’t feeling talky. “Just tell me what country you were in, man,” I tried. Something in Frank’s demeanor suddenly changed, hard to describe. It was like he had switched to anger mode, but just didn’t have the energy to embrace it. After several false starts, he sighed, “I don’t even know, man. Over there. Over in that God-forsaken part of the world where absolutely everything is for shit. People fight and kill each other because they wish they were dead, and they are so pissed off about it they just want to take someone else with them. When you are over there, being dead seems like the most wonderful thing in the world.”

“Heard somewhere that you may have been in Russia,” I offered as casually as possible. That broke the one-too-many rule. Frank stood. “You don’t know shit about Russians,” he spat out, finally connecting with his anger. “You think that was fun and games over there? He stood and this time I stood with him. “Frank, come on,” I said. “Don’t you know I’m your friend?”

Frank was enraged. “Then where were you when I needed you?” he screamed. Where were you when I was frozen and starving and going insane from the pain in my toes? Where were you when I was living that nightmare? I destroyed my soul, man! What kind of friend are you? Where were you when I needed a friend?” Frank was breathing hard and looking slightly unhinged.

“I was right here, Frank, where I was when I met you, where I was when I sent you home,” I said quietly. “Otherwise, I would have been there for you. Like I’m here for you now.”

Without speaking or acknowledging my presence in any way, as though he had forgotten I was there, Frank wandered away in his slow, unsteady way. I let him go. That was enough for one day.

This Jerry character was a real piece of work. He always had a scam going. The heroin thing worked out the same way most of them did. Generally speaking, he was fairly well thought of and guys liked him well enough. Something that was always a great puzzlement to me. I thought of him as the sleaziest white boy I ever knew. A text-book sociopath, he was reasonably intelligent, could be charming when it suited him, and was an adept manipulator. He was also a dope fiend.

In my unique position around here, hearing everybody’s stories eventually, I could by this time just about fill a book with this cut throat’s exploits. I don’t want to give him that much ink, though, so I will just offer up this beauty, to give you an idea of the kind of sweethearts you can run into in this bizarre little world.

Back in the old days, you were allowed to attend the funerals of family members. You had to pay the day’s wages of the two officers who escorted you, plus all costs of transportation, etc. You attended the funeral, and in some cases, the graveside ceremony. At this time, Jerry was receiving regular visits from his mother, who was his only family. She regularly deposited money in his account and made sure he didn’t go without too much. I’m giving you the Readers Digest Condensed Version here—Jerry arranged for his mother to be murdered. Some ass-clown friend of his was going out on parole and they arranged for him to kill Jerry’s mom so he could go to the funeral. This sack of crap would show up with a gun, drop both of the officers and Jerry would escape.

First part of the plan worked like a charm. This idiot went over and killed the mom…and then got busted an hour later. Jerry got his funeral, but it was anti-climatic. The story was all over the yard. Someone asked Jerry what his mom did to make him want to kill her. He just shrugged it off and said that he actually had always liked the old girl…it just worked out better for him—in theory at least—for her to get dead. I have never liked that guy.

The next time I saw Frank I gave him a pair of these really thick wool socks that would keep your feet toasty on a trudge across the tundra. I didn’t ask any questions, but Frank knows me and the asking wasn’t necessary. We sat quietly for a while, making small talk, and finally Frank let go a deep sigh. “I only had an eighteen-month parole, Dude. That ain’t shit. I needed that much time just to get my head straight and save up some money. Ford was hiring then and I had no problem getting a great job first week I was out. I lived in a rented room and lived as cheaply as possible. Day I discharged from parole I had a passport. I had booked my flight way ahead, so my flight to New Delhi was about what you would expect to pay to get from here to L.A.

‘’India, man. I was living the dream. I can’t begin to describe it. It’s another world, I can tell you that. I’d be here from now ‘til Christmas telling you about things I saw, food I ate, people I met. India is so far out. Just every day walking-around reality, Dude. I mean, there was a guy, a street vendor, who stood out on the sidewalk with a pair of pointy scissors, and he would trim your nose and ear hairs for a penny. And people lined up.

I’m talking about people in business suits, carrying brief cases, on their way to work, would stop, on the sidewalk, people passing by, and give this guy a penny to snip their nose hairs. Nobody thought anything of it. All kinds of stuff that was just so foreign. I loved it.

It was so hot sometimes, you would think you were in a kiln, but man, it was beautiful. I can’t begin to tell you. My plan was to travel the world, but every day in India was such a great adventure I realized I could spend years right where I was without it ever getting stale. That pretty much became my plan.

I ended up living in a slum village on the edge of Calcutta. Not because I had to, but for the experience; to get next to the people. This little world, Dude, people lived in shacks made out of any material they could salvage. They would just add a room to the last house in row. Your neighbor’s wall might be made of chicken wire with chunks of cardboard wired into it for privacy, and you come along and add a space to that; your enclosure might an old shower curtain and some baling wire. Whatever you can scrounge up. And that’s your home. Whole families lived like that, generation after generation. And they were the lucky ones. There were families who had gone generations without ever sleeping under cover. You cannot even imagine the kind of poverty millions of people live in. To me it was an adventure, to them the only reality they had ever known. Pick up any one of them and drop them into the worst prison in America, and they would think they died and went to heaven. That’s not hyperbole—a big word, I know, look it up—I mean that literally. Three meals a day? Medical and dental? Shoes on your feet. And socks? I’m not kidding, Dude, that would be such a dream for these people, they couldn’t even embrace the concept.

I can tell you from that experience, Dude, people are people. There were folks there who were starving and would share their last crust of bread with you. There was also no shortage of people who would cut your heart out and roast it over an open fire if they could get away with it. Everything in between. I was surprised at how many had regular jobs they went to every day, but earned pennies and could never hope for anything better in life than what they had.

One day this kid comes to me with an Amex Gold Card that had been stolen from a tourist that day and wanted me to do something with it. I asked him why he didn’t do something with it himself. He looked at me like I was an idiot and asked if I really thought he could pass for Blaine O’Shaunessy. I told him probably not.

I got cleaned up, dug out my best clothes, and me and this kid went shopping. Vendors we visited did not ask for ID. I was obviously a Westerner, the card cleared and they were happy with that. We ended up with tons of groceries and all kinds of things that were important to people living in abject poverty. Ultimately, I kept very little for myself. I sent this kid home with a wagon load of stuff and it quickly became apparent that several dozen people benefited from it. Pretty cool.”

At that point I was paged over the yard speakers to report to my assignment and had to go. I said some encouraging words to Frank and headed out. I got to the Health Care Annex to find a guy bleeding profusely from a slice across his forehead. His whole face was covered in blood, which was dripping off his chin. There were two slightly frantic officers standing there, a little green around the gills, looking like they were about to wet their pants.

The story that came out was that this guy was sitting at a card table and someone had come up behind him with a very sharp knife and tried to slice his throat open with it. I knew this guy from the yard, they called him Shy—short for Chi-Town—an okay guy as far as I was concerned, but the kind of guy who was likely to get his throat cut eventually.

A lot of guys don’t like Shy, but he is alright with me. He is an interesting guy, about six feet tall, muscular, with an enormous red afro. You don’t see that ‘fro very often, but when you do, I can tell you, it is impressive. Most of the time he kept it braided up in these long, fat braids that I always thought made for a pretty cool look. Shy was loud and sometimes a bit obnoxious, but he wasn’t looking to victimize anybody. He did his own thing, and if you didn’t like it, he didn’t care.

Anyway, Shy was alert enough that he understood what was coming his way and tried to drop down and get away from the blade. In the end, the slice started next to his left eye, went across that, over the bridge of his nose and on across his forehead. The cops told me that they had brought him over, but all the medical personnel were either on break or off on tending to an emergency somewhere and they didn’t know what to do so they called me. I told them relax, I got this.

I laid Shy on his back on an examination table and went to work getting him cleaned up. I put a stack of 4 x 4 gauze pads on his forehead where the deepest part of the cut was and wrapped an Ace bandage around them for pressure to staunch the bleeding, and just stuck white tape over the rest of the cuts to stop the blood flow until I could get him stitched up. Back in the old days, inmate nurses did sutures. Shy asked me what it looked like and I told him that as such things go, I see worse on a regular basis. “A few stitches and you’ll be back in action on no time”, I assured him.

Shy told me that he thought he had something in his left eye; he said it stung like crazy and asked me to take a look. I noticed that he had kept that eye scrunched tightly shut the whole time. I pried the lids open with my thumb and fore finger and it took a moment to realize what I was looking at—which was the inside of his eyeball. The knife had sliced it in half. Imagine slicing a grape in two and lifting the top of it up. You get the idea. Shy asked me what it looked like. I told him, “It looks like you will be going downtown, Big Guy.” At that moment the captain arrived and asked me for my assessment of the situation.

I told him, “This man needs to see an ER physician immediately. He needs way more attention than we can give him here.” The captain motioned me off to the side, out of ear-shot of Chi-Town and listened to my explanation. He immediately called the Control Center and said he needed transport to the hospital downtown pronto. I’ve watched this scenario unfold a number of times over the years and I have been angered and appalled at how long it takes from the time such a call is placed until he guy is actually out the gate and headed to the ER. In this case, for reasons unknown, it happened fairly quickly. I was impressed.

Chi Town was likewise impressed. “You the man, Dude,” he said, slightly awed. “You make shit happen around here. Guys bleed to death waiting for a ride downtown. You speak, and the place starts jumpin’. You my new hero, Dude.”

“Keep that to yourself,” I told him, “we don’t want people to start taking.” Shy was giving me way too much credit. Sometimes things work, mostly they don’t. Believe me, the fact that things fell into place for him on this thing had nothing to do with me. Still, Shy heard me tell the captain he needed to go down town, and downtown he went. Shy was the kind of guy, I knew my prowess would be broadcast far and wide.

It was three or four days later before I saw Frank again. He was wearing his arctic socks. When I noticed, he explained, “Obviously, my toes are not freezing now, but they hurt. They are sensitive to the touch and it is painful when shoes and socks rub against them. These socks add a lot of padding, and that helps. So, thanks for the socks, Dude.”

I shrugged, “Glad you like them,” I said. “So how you doing generally?”

“How you doing, Dude?” Frank was in a sour mood, but that seemed to be as good as it was going to get. “Know how many times a day someone asks me how I’m doing?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, matching his tone. “Tell me. How many times a day does someone ask you how you’re doing?”

“Too fuckin’ many, that’s how many.”

“You have my sympathy,” I said. “You know how many times a day someone lets me know they don’t give a rat’s ass how I am doing?”

“That’s because you are such an asshole,” Frank opined. “That’s why I have always hated you.”

“I’ve always hated you back, Frank,” I responded. “I should have stuck a screw driver in the side of your head a long time ago.”

“You should have jumped off a bridge a long time ago, and then I wouldn’t have had to carry you all these years,” he said

“You carried me?” I asked incredulously.

“I only let you hang out because I felt sorry for you. We both know, it wasn’t for me, these yard sharks would have eaten you alive long ago.”

It went on in this vein for a while. This is what passes for friendly banter where I live. A lot is said between the lines. You get it or you don’t. When it finally wound down, Frank picked up where he had left off, “There are a thousand great stories from my days in that slum.

A sociologist could go crazy just studying how people live like that and make it work. I mean, on three sides of you, people are living their lives and somehow, they make it work. In most cases, all that is between you and your neighbors is cardboard or some kind of flimsy scrap material, but you adjust your reality to where you don’t hear their sounds or see them through the cracks. Your space is yours and people respect the boundaries. If your neighbor wants to talk to you, he could say, “Hey Dude, what’s up?” without raising his voice, but that would be rude. If he wants to speak to you, he goes outside and comes to your front door. Just like neighbors do anywhere in the world. So many things about that life were fascinating, but I’ll admit, it got old living like that.

I found a little place to rent in what passed as a pretty decent neighborhood and moved without leaving a forward. There were people around me I had begun to care about, but I didn’t need any of that.

Let me tell you something else without going too far afield here. People hear Calcutta, and all they can imagine is the scene from movies or whatever of a city with masses of beggars and lepers and starving children with flies crawling in their nostrils. Calcutta has all that, to be sure, but there is a beautiful city there, Dude. Pisses me off when people say disparaging things about Calcutta. The city is right on the Hooghly River, which makes it not only the oldest seaport in the state of East Bengal, but the only riverine port as well. It is the cultural, and economic and educational center of East India. They have a stock exchange.

There are over ten million people in Calcutta, Dude; way too much poverty, it’s too hot, and pollution is out of control, but I love that city. I love the museums, and the theater, and the concerts; the history, man.

I had liked living in the slum, but that was a little too much reality for me. Sleeping on the ground in my little shack, the smells, no plumbing. There was way too much disease. I compromised on getting a funky little place that was just a few steps up the social ladder from the slum. Mr. Ford had paid me real well, but had to make this money last. I was like Scrooge McDuck. It hurt me to let go of a nickel. So now I am living in a tiny apartment in downtown Calcutta and I knew this wouldn’t last long. I stood out, and was swarmed by beggars whenever I stepped outside. It is true that the worst thing you can do is give them something. When I say swarmed, I mean being mobbed like a rock star. It’s no joke. I had people grabbing at me, begging me in desperation for a penny, anything. They were utterly pitiful, Dude, but my sympathy wore out fairly quickly. They were shoving their diseased children in my face, please help save my child’s life!!! It was just too much.

After a week or so living there, the kid who had brought me the gold card showed up at my door. I didn’t even ask how he had found me. A westerner who lived in the slums? Yeah, I blended. He said there were some friends of his wanted to meet me. I told him I wasn’t interested, but he was persistent. The thing we had done with the credit card was a very big deal. I hadn’t thought much of it, but that haul fed a lot of people. One of the things we bought was a small water pump that ultimately improved the standard of living for a number of people in the slum. On and on. Word of my “bigness” circulated and people just wanted to say thank you. I told him to relay that I said “you’re welcome,” closed the door. Several hours later, I stepped out the door and stumbled over this kid sitting there on the door step. “We go now,” he said and led the way.

“Oh, why not?” I thought. “I’m here for the adventure.”

We ended up in a dark club a few blocks from my apartment. There were six guys there, maybe early twenties, well dressed, throwing money around like showboats and gangsters anywhere in the world. One of them introduced himself as Naveen and poured me a glass of Dom, establishing himself as the Alpha. It took a while for me to relax, but these guys were cool and the champagne was good. The inner circle of this clique appeared to be Naveen and the five guys with him, Amit, Mahesh, Raj, Kumar, and Alok.

There was a lot of joking around, there were women—beautiful women, Dude—don’t get me started on the women—hanging all over us. The party revolved around our table—champagne never stopped flowing, good food never stopped coming. There was coke, hashish—they don’t really smoke weed, but hash is common. I was high as a witch doctor and felt like we had all be friends for years. It was a great time.

You been high before, Dude, you how it is. Anything can be funny. With these guys, everything was funny. I never laughed so much in my life. A big part of it was—and they didn’t have a clue—I was laughing at them. They obviously learned how to be gangsters from watching American television shows and movies. They mimicked Scarface, and The Sopranos, and all the Godfather movies. Raj did his damnest to talk like Bogart. On top of that, they tried to use as much American slang as they could and were constantly getting it wrong. It was hysterical sometimes. My favorite was when Kumar was going for the expression tore up from the floor up, to describe how stoned he was, said, “I am tearing the floor up.”

In the same conversation, Alok made reference to the Richard Gere in the Movie, A Woman Who Is Pretty. All in that lilting accent they have. I loved it.

Even so, you know, Dude, that kind of thing, it’s never been my trip. Sure, I’ll cop a buzz now and again, but I’m not about flashy clothes and night clubs and jewelry and that whole bling scene. But—I don’t know, I just really enjoyed that night. It was fun, and I really hadn’t let off any steam since I got out of the joint. Next day that kid came for me again, said it was time for brunch and the others were waiting for me. Do you know how odd it is to hear a Calcutta street kid use a word like “brunch?”

Anyway, from our conversation the night before, I understood that it was as simple as them needing a white guy, a westerner—one with criminal inclinations—to be part of their circle. They had had one—a Brit—who was no longer around. I couldn’t get the story on what happened to him, but hey, he was in the life. People come up missing, don’t they?

This brunch, I have thought about it a lot, because this is where the wheels came off. This is where I meandered down the wrong path in life. Why did I go? They made me feel important, that’s why. The night before, that whole trip at the night club, I felt like I was clever; I felt like the woman crawling all over me really were bananas about me. I felt like I was That Guy.

What the fuck, Dude? That has never been my thing. But these guys, they were cool. They were cool in a way that was new to me, and I dug it. I felt like I was hot shit. Embarrasses me to admit it, but there you go.’’

At that point, Chi-Town walked up on us, with a patch over one eye. “Dude, thank you, man. You are one righteous white boy. I gotta say it, you alright, man. I owe you. Big time.” In saying this he was shaking my hand and giving me a bro-hug. I was a little confused.

“Shy, what’s up?” I said. “Obviously, I am the coolest white guy on the yard, but all I did was apply a pressure bandage. Basic first aid. You don’t owe me, man.”

“Fuck that, Dude. You made them hunkies carry my black ass downtown; anybody else would have let me bleed to death. They fittin’ me for a glass eye—ain’t that a bitch?—but I’ll be in the hole when it comes in. I got bidness to take care of. I just wanted to give you this.” He shook my hand again, and this time there was a folded piece of paper in his palm. I accepted it and before I could say anything or even look at it, Shy was already walking away from me.

I told Frank the story about how Shy got cut up and lost his eye. Frank was unsympathetic, “I used to lock near that guy in 4 Block,” he said. “He never shut up. Whenever he wasn’t talking loud—all that jive-ass shit those guys talk all day long—he had his radio blasting at a hundred thousand decibels. It was never quiet. Forget about catching a nap or reading a book. I used to dream about somebody cutting his throat. Surprised it took so long for someone to get around to it.”

I shrugged, “There is subject to be some blowback over this. Shy may talk shit, but he ain’t no punk.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Frank mumbled. I could see he was a little stressed out so I asked him if he wanted to grab a table and push a game of chess. “What I want,” he said, standing, ‘’is to get away from you for a while.’’ He walked away without another word.