Bunker The Animal Factory

1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-84243-757-5
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

Ronald Decker guilty of a first offence, minor drug dealing charge is put away in San Quentin where he is befriended by 'old lag', Earl Copen. Copen is well in with the White Brotherhood just one of the many White, Black and Chicano gangs in constant brutal conflict in San Quentin. Their growing friendship is tested by Ron's rejection of a homosexual advance by another con which leads to an act of ultimately fatal violence and in despair they seize a remote chance of escape. Bunker writes of the sordid, horrifically violent and lawless prison life where life is cheap and death by shiv awaits anyone looking the wrong way with a great literary quality and at a merciless pace that never falters and with the realism and knowledge gained from spending over 25 years in prison.

Edward Bunker, Mr Blue in Reservoir Dogs, was the author of No Beast So Fierce, Little Boy Blue, Dog Eat Dog, The Animal Factory and his autobiography, Mr Blue, all published by No Exit. He was co-screenwriter of the Oscar nominated movie, The Runaway Train, and appeared in over 30 feature films, including Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, the film of his book No Beast So Fierce. Edward Bunker died in 2005 and another novel, Stark, was discovered in his papers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bunker, Edward

Leseproben

Monday began as a typical San Quentin day, so overcast that all light was gray, and even without clouds it took until midmorning for the sun to climb over the buildings. By noon it would be bright, and by twilight it would be glorious, but by then the convicts would be in their cages unable to enjoy it.

The 8:00 a.m. siren whined out work call. The yard gate rolled open and it was as if a dam wall had collapsed. A lake of convicts poured out en route to the industrial area. This was the first day of full work since the strike, and the faces reflected pleasure at going back to looms, saws, and forklifts. Ron had heard several complaints about the loss of wages; six cents an hour bought a jar of cheap powdered coffee and a couple of cans of Bugler tobacco at the end of the month. Many convicts needed nothing more. Many had no means except the factory to get even that.

Ron had expected tension, possibly a hush as the siren recalled the bullets and brutality. But no one seemed to remember the deaths and beatings. Minds were wiped clean as a blackboard under a wet rag. In ten minutes just a few cons were still on the yard, the cleanup crew meandering around with long-handled dustpans and tiny brooms, dabbing at orange peels and empty cigarette packs. The sea gulls descended.

Ron crossed to the South cellhouse, showing his hospital pass to the guard at the door, a heavy steel door studded with rivets.

Convicts pressed out as Ron entered, plunging into the hospital clinic that resembled a bus depot at rush hour. Milling about were dozens of convicts in denim, and collectively they looked as healthy as a football team. A few cons in green blouses moved in and out of examination rooms to the left. At a half-door convicts lined up to get their medical cards and then stood in two other lines to see the pair of doctors. Rather, there were two doctors and one line. One was being boycotted. The doctor’s hair, head, and clothes were so askew that he gave the impression of standing in a cyclone. He yelled and gesticulated in a vain try to get convicts to enter his line. One young, skinny black with a woolly Afro was caught. By gestures one could tell that he had a back complaint. In less than a minute he was waving his arms and screaming; the doctor was screaming back.

A cluttered desk stood on a platform just inside the door, but nobody was behind it, and the convict clerk assigned to it was the one Ron was supposed to see. He looked around the throng for a convict in green blouse with a “a dome bald as a baby’s butt except for some red above the ears … and John L. Lewis eyebrows the same color.” The man thus described passed so close that Ron missed him until he was at the desk, two cartons of cigarettes in one hand and a medical card in another. A second convict followed him, stopped beside Ron but ignored him. The clerk threw the cigarettes into a desk drawer, ran the medical card into the typewriter, wrote a few lines quick as a machine-gun burst, and jerked the medical card. He inserted a smaller card and typed again. The whole thing took less than a minute. “Okay,” he said to the convict beside Ron, “take this little card for the bull to sign.”

“Are you sure it’s cool? I can’t stand a beef.”

“That’s the two-carton diagnosis, duodenal ulcer, and you get milk three times a day.”

“I go to the board.”

“Look, the doctor signed the order. It’s legal as the Supreme Court.”

Ron watched as the convict took the card to the guard, who signed it without glancing at what it said. Ron looked back to the man behind the desk. “Say, are you Ivan McGee?”

“’Tis I, lad. What can I do for ye?” The round red-veined face lost in excess flesh held the same predatory eyes Ron had seen in so many convicts, eyes that were simultaneously fierce and veiled.

“Earl Copen told me to see you about a thirty-day lay-in.”

“You’re a friend of Earl’s?”

“Uh-huh. And they’ve got me stuck in the furniture factory.”

“I can see why you want a lay-in. I suppose Earl will arrange a job change before you need another.”

A light flashed in Ron’s brain, an awareness of how convicts would view the favors Earl was doing for him. He could see this speculation in McGee’s eyes now, and for a moment he wanted to rage out. It was everywhere, and it was sick—and humiliating.

“Got a medical card?” McGee asked.

“No.”

“Never been to sick call?”

“No.”

McGee filled out a blank medical card, using Ron’s I.D. card for name and number. “You sure are a fish,” he said. “The ink ain’t dry on that number yet.” He pulled out the card. “A shoulder separation should keep you idle for thirty days.”

“Isn’t that painful?”

“Not the way we do it.” Grabbing some forms and the medical card, McGee beckoned Ron to follow him through the clinic and up a corridor into the hospital proper. A grill gate blocked the middle of the corridor, watched over by a middle-aged guard in a chair, who opened the gate as McGee approached.

“He’s with me,” McGee said to the guard, waving the documents to indicate Ron.

“Where to?”

“X-ray.”

The X-ray department was in a corner of the second floor. The whole hospital was a separate world from the cellhouses and big yard. It was even outside the walls, though it had its own fence topped with concertina wire, and the ring of gun towers watched over it, too. The floors were polished, and the convicts they passed smiled a civilized “good morning.”

In the X-ray department two convicts were playing chess. One was white, the other black. It startled Ron.

“We need a shoulder separation here,” McGee said.

“We’re here to supply the necessary,” the black convict said.

Seconds later, a twenty-five-pound dumbbell was produced. Ron was told to hold it while standing in front of the X-ray machine.

“Just let it dangle,” the white convict said. “It’s below the photo, but the shoulder will look pulled loose. We call it a York syndrome.”

When Ron and Ivan McGee were going downstairs, Ron asked, “What do I owe you?”

“Nothing.”

“Man, I owe you something!” Ron said.

“If you insist, get me a couple joints. But you don’t have to. Earl and me go way back—”

“What do I do now?”

“Just go to the yard. It will be on the movement sheet this afternoon.”

Ten minutes later Ron was on the yard with nothing to do. It was still empty and only a few minutes after 10:00. The lunch lines didn’t form until 11:00. Four young convicts were near the canteen, sharing two pints of ice cream. Ron recognized them as part of the group from the laundry wall, Earl’s group, but it was not his place to join them. He had nothing else to do so he went to the yard office.

“Earl,” the huge guard bellowed when Ron asked. “That no-good fuckin’ dope-fiend sonofabitch better never show up if he knows what’s good for him.” The guard jerked a gas-billy from his hip pocket and slammed it on the desk. It dented the wood. “Oops,” he said, glancing back toward the lieutenant’s office and putting some paper over the blemish. Then to Ron, he said, “Pay me no mind. I’m crazy. Earl isn’t here. He sleeps until fuckin’ noon and doesn’t come to work until three forty-five.”

Still with nothing to do, Ron crossed the plaza to the chapel, stopping to watch the long-tailed goldfish in the pond for a minute. The Catholic chaplain had a library in his outer office, administered by an inmate clerk. Though overwhelmingly stocked with simplistic religious tracts, it also had some philosophical works and biographies. In an Esquire article Ron had seen reference to the works of Teilhard de Chardin. He found one by the existential theologian and sat reading until lunch beside the fishpond.

When Ron came through the gate he saw Earl, T.J., and a man he didn’t know in the rear of the long lunch line. He was uncertain about approaching until T.J. gave a wide beckoning wave. Earl’s gray stubble was longer than yesterday, and now it was on his head, too. “Get that squared away?” he asked.

Ron nodded. Earl ignored him and continued listening to a story the newcomer told, a man named Willy who had just arrived from Folsom. He was describing the murder of someone named Sheik Thompson, and the story obviously satisfied Earl. The killers had caught him stepping through a doorway and broke his leg with a baseball bat. While he was down they’d stabbed him to death. “Right in the recreation shack. The coach was there—inside—and he couldn’t get past them to get out. He damn near shit his britches. He couldn’t even blow his whistle. When it was over, he ran out screaming like some sissy.”

“He is a sissy,” Earl said. “But it’s hard to believe they finally killed that animal Sheik. There’s been a dozen tries that I know of. He was a tough motherfucker.”

“Yeah … yeah,” the storyteller said, excitedly remembering something. “When the bulls brought Slim and Buford across the yard everybody … everybody gave them a standing ovation. Fuckin’ unbelievable. Even the guards were grinning, and he was a snitching motherfucker, too.”

Suddenly the lunch line lurched forward, uncoiling the knots of talking men. The conversation ended. Ron was in front of Earl and behind T.J.

After lunch the yard was full until the afternoon work whistle. Ron found himself among nearly a score of convicts, a...