On the Yard (14 page)

Restlessly, Juleson stood up and snubbed out his cigarette. He walked to the end of the aisle, nodding at the officer in the custody office, and drank from the water cooler. Above the hum of the cooler's motor he heard the murmur of the classrooms located on the lower floors. Returning, he stopped on impulse at Lorin's desk to ask, “You got any coffee?”

Lorin looked up, shaking his head. “I'm sorry.” He was a fresh-faced boy of twenty-two, whose blond hair even cropped down to a few inches in length still formed a wavy froth. His eyes were clear and intense, open so wide they appeared to be strained. He seemed to give off an odor, both sour and musty, as if he seldom changed his underwear.

“My mother hasn't written in three months,” Lorin continued. “I'm out of everything. Have you asked Hudson?”

“It's all right. I don't really want it.”

He offered Lorin a cigarette and lit another himself. He riffled the stack of student papers on Lorin's desk. “Uncovering any hidden mathematical genius?”

“If there's any here, it's too well hidden.” Lorin picked up one of the papers he had finished. It was red with check marks and corrections in Lorin's minute and perfectly formed script. “Fractions,” he said scornfully. “You'd think they were attempting group theory.”

“For them it is group theory, whatever that is. It's as difficult and they don't see the point of it. Those colored boys and Mexican boys in the elementary classes don't give a damn about fractions except when it comes to cutting up an ounce of stuff. The only reason they enroll at all is because the parole board tells them to get their asses in school and at least learn to read and write. Even if they should learn something by accident they're still not going to read anything except movie marquees, street signs, and speedometers.”

“It's depressing,” Lorin said with an air of rigidity, his eyes widening still further with indignation until the white was visible all around the iris. “It's depressing to be ordered to involve myself in this kind of waste. I have my own work to do.”

“No one can say the effort's wasted, though I have to agree it looks as if it were—” Juleson started smiling. “Have you ever heard the story they tell about Tannenbaum?”

Lorin shook his head.

“Tannenbaum came in about the time they started the first school. He was here for stealing a cow and he couldn't even write his own name. So they decided they'd make a pilot case out of Tannenbaum and educate him so he would never again have to resort to cow theft. They say he struggled up to the sixth grade before they paroled him. Anyway he was back in three months with a new beef, but not cow theft—he came back for forgery.”

Lorin smiled faintly. His attention had drifted while Juleson was telling the story. Now he asked, “Do you know anything about a tier tender in the south block they call Sanitary Slim?”

“Just what everyone else knows—he's a nut.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“I don't know. I wouldn't think so. Is he trying to shine your shoes?”

Lorin blushed and nodded.

“Ignore him.”

“That's like telling me to ignore a dinosaur outside my cell.”

“That's not true, Lorin,” Juleson said kindly. “He's not a dinosaur, he's a sick old man. If you ignore him, how can he bother you?”

Lorin answered with difficulty. “But why should he have picked me? The implications are—” He broke off and stared at his desk top. Then began again in a lower voice, “The implications are disturbing.”

“He hasn't picked you. He has a route. He's all over the block like a bad odor. You're a nice-looking boy, Lorin.”

“You mean girlish-looking?”

“No, I don't mean that at all. Look, you're not going to spend your life in here, don't start buying the critical judgments of this swamp. You have a good future ahead of you.”

“If they ever let me out.”

“They'll let you out.”

Lorin smiled uneasily. “They don't appear to be in any hurry.”

“Your number'll come up.”

Juleson reached over and picked up a piece of blue-lined binder paper where Lorin was writing out a list of words. He read the first few: Crystalline, Gelid, Nascent, Alluvial, Fracto-nimbus ...

“What's this?” he asked.

“I'm conducting an experiment to determine if poetry can be constructed on mathematical principles.” He indicated a thesaurus sitting at the back of his desk. “I'm taking the words from Roget. He understood categories.”

“Is he your new hero?”

“I admire him.”

“And Hegel's out?”

Lorin frowned. “There were certain inconsistencies.”

“I'm not sure, but I don't think that's news.”

“You know I don't accept authorities or counter-authorities. The old breed—” He smiled apologetically at Juleson, since Juleson at close to thirty was categorically a specimen of the old breed. “The old breed were frequently motivated by considerations no more serious than their own vanities. The intrinsic value of their work was of secondary importance to them. They advanced theories and refuted them like quarreling children. But a conception doesn't belong to the man to whom it occurs. It doesn't belong to anyone. A slender handful—Archimedes, Newton—understood this.”

“But there'll be more?” Juleson asked lightly, both to deflect the tide of Lorin's seriousness, and because he too was anxious not to embarrass his friend and he was willing to appear to be going along with Lorin's fantasy.

“There are more now. A new species hidden throughout the world. Still too young, still without access to the levers of power ...”

Lorin went on describing the benevolent and dispassionate revolution he envisioned, and again Juleson found himself trying to remember the title of the science fiction novel where he had first encountered this particular plot. If he could remember the name he might be able to locate it in the library, and, through the inmate numbers on the withdrawal slip, he could discover whether Lorin had read it. Lorin had the highest IQ in the institution, and while it would be considered outstanding anywhere, it was phenomenal only in comparison with the prison average. Unfortunately this distinction, like his good looks, had not worked to Lorin's advantage.

Lorin continued, the excitement rising in his voice, and Juleson beginning to shift restlessly saw Mr. Cleman coming through the front door, walking with his jerky, eager stride, his arms loaded with folders, his pockets stuffed with notes to himself. “Excuse me,” Juleson said to Lorin and went to join Mr. Cleman.

“Good morning, Paul. Are we ready to go?”

“Yes sir, they're all waiting.”

“Good, good. There's some fine prospects in this bunch.”

Mr. Cleman was always optimistic. The smallest advance, the slightest hopefulness was enough to engage the warm tide of his good nature. Juleson could not always agree, but he felt fortunate to be working for such a man rather than some dreary time server, or one of the pompous blanks or vicious little opportunists who infested the administrative staff. He called the first man and sent him into Mr. Cleman's office and watched as Mr. Cleman shook his hand and offered him a chair. He smiled faintly at the puzzled expression on the inmate's face. Mr. Cleman had a stock of a dozen well-worn stories which he used to illustrate any point that might come up. Sometimes the connection was too remote to trace, obscured in the warm haze of Mr. Cleman's mind, but the inmates always listened hopefully, unless they were hostile, certain they were never going to get a fair shake and anxious to prove that no one was fooling them, then Mr. Cleman could be surprisingly short. “Cry somewhere else, kid, I'm looking for men who want to learn.”

Juleson sat down at his own desk and lit another cigarette. When I consider how my time is spent ... The line was one that formed and reformed in his mind until it blurred into the meaningless rhythms of a charm, a charm against, if nothing more, his self-pity. He didn't like to think about the small gray days that were accumulating into years. His merry-go-round, not of zebras and unicorns, but blind mice. Six days a week he spent at this desk, and Sundays he stayed in his cell to read. Sometimes he saw one of the weekend movies. One Fourth of July he had watched the boxing matches, once he had attended a Christmas show featuring night club acts that were currently appearing in San Francisco. The men seated around him had screamed themselves hoarse. He had envied their easy enthusiasm, but had been unable to shake the unhappy feeling he was an outcast staring through a window to watch a celebration he could never hope to attend.

The interview line finished before noon, and Mr. Cleman went out to the shops. Juleson, as he usually did, used his lunch break to go to the library. When he returned Lorin was deep in the thesaurus adding to his lists. He walked on to his own desk and started one of his books. He read until ten after one, when he suddenly remembered it was his therapy day and he was already late. He checked out of the education building, and crossed the yard towards the hospital.

He found his group already gathered, sitting in the usual symbolic circle. The therapist, a Dr. Erlenmeyer, occupied what was intended as just one more chair, but the group automatically polarized wherever he seated himself. He was dressed entirely in shades of brown, and his shirt was darker than his coat. His glasses were tinted a pale tan, and his full head of hair seemed soft and dusty.

“You're late, Paul,” he said, in a tone that didn't admit the obvious quality of his remark. His voice was opaque.

“I lost track of the day,” Juleson said.

This hung in the air for a moment like a palpable lie, then settled into the heavy silence. The group had nothing going. No one, as they said, was coming out with anything. Juleson settled around in his chair, careful not to look at Erlenmeyer, who might try to make him feel responsible for this wasteful silence. Once Erlenmeyer had stressed how therapy was working on them even while they sat dumb, as sometimes happened, for the entire hour. But he didn't like their silences.

Next to Juleson, Zekekowski was cleaning his fingernails. Bernard stared fixedly at the coal of his cigar. Watson looked at Dr. Erlenmeyer, waiting for Erlenmeyer to recognize his superior qualities. Navarette was slumped low in his chair, arms folded across his chest, and he appeared to be examining the ceiling. Society Red jiggled his feet and whistled soundlessly. Miller, Redburn, and Zubiate slouched apathetically.

Five minutes passed. Erlenmeyer felt through his coat pockets and brought out a tobacco pouch and a curved pipe with a yellow stem. He packed the pipe carefully, lit it, and drew on it once or twice before he let it go out. Juleson couldn't remember seeing him smoke a pipe before.

Finally, Erlenmeyer cleared his throat to ask, “Why do you suppose Paul is late so often?”

They looked at each other to see if anyone were going to attempt an answer. Bernard only shrugged; he didn't care. After a moment, Zekekowski said quietly, “He's got better sense than the rest of us.”

“What's that, Zeke?” Erlenmeyer asked.

“I said, he's got better sense than the rest of us,” Zekekowski repeated, his alert and vulnerable brown eyes partially sheltered beneath his lowered lids and thick lashes. His voice was marred by a faint stammer of nervous excitement.

“Do you believe that?”

“No, Paul's running on dim lights.”

“Then you said it to be hostile?”

Zekekowski spread his arms. “I couldn't be hostile. They've got me on chlorpromazine. I'm packed in cotton batting.”

Erlenmeyer frowned. “Who prescribed chlorpromazine?”

“Dr. Smith.”

Erlenmeyer turned away, and again the group fell silent, a silence modified only by the faint creaking of the wooden chairs as they shifted their weight, and the gradually increasing drone of a floor buffer somewhere out in the hall. Juleson folded his arms, unfolded them, then folded them again. He crossed his legs. Several times he thought he could make out the tune Society Red was whistling. Erlenmeyer relit his pipe. The silence lasted five or six minutes.

Then Zekekowski asked, “You don't think I should get the chlorpromazine?”

“I prefer to restrict it to ward patients,” Erlenmeyer said carefully.

“I was jumping out of my skin.”

“Anxiety has its uses.”

Zekekowski shifted nervously, his eyes glowing behind the shelter of his lashes. “I'm never going to be able to dance. I'm disqualified. You know that.”

Erlenmeyer said mildly, “I don't know anything of the sort.”

“The all-purpose schnook,” Zekekowski continued. “So I shouldn't be able to sleep either. Why not? Why should Zekekowski be able to sleep when he can lay awake and consider what a mess he is.”

“You weren't sleeping well?” Erlenmeyer asked.

“I wasn't sleeping, period.”

“I see. Paul, do you think Zeke's a mess?”

Juleson answered reluctantly. “No, of course not.”

“And he's a qualified mess inspector,” Zekekowski said in quick dismissal.

“What do you think of this kind of outburst?” Erlenmeyer continued to force still another comment from Juleson.

“He's using the hour,” Juleson said. Noticing that Society Red had closed his eyes in the shadow of his cap brim, he continued, “As long as he doesn't disturb Red's sleep.”

And Red said quietly, “Just leave me out of it, sucker.”

“Is that all you have to say, Lester?” Erlenmeyer asked.

“That's about it.” Red pushed his cap up with one finger. “Unless you can tell me if I'm going to get my stuff when I go to the board?”

“I don't know any more than you do.”

“What're you going to write down on me?” Red persisted.

“That sometimes you manage to stay awake in class and contribute to the confusion.”