Synopsis
In the Place of Justice Award-winning journalist Rideau offers a searing expos of the failures of America's legal system through this dramatic tale of his repeatedly being denied justice until, aided by those who believed in him, he was able to attain his freedom. Full description
Extrait
3
Solitary
January 1972
It’s late, and raining. The buildings before me have been abandoned. Life has drained from the traffic arteries below. The wet pavement of empty Lake Charles streets and parking lots doubles the glare of street lamps and neon signs, intensifying the darkness.
It’s quiet. Profoundly so. Rain whispers against the open window a few feet away. The only other thing you can hear is your own heart, thumping. I’ve known men who could not stand this silence, but I’ve grown accustomed to it. I scratch a fingernail on one of the bars, to reassure myself I haven’t gone deaf. I’ve stood here many nights staring out my second- floor window at the same scene below, week after week, month after month, year after year . . . after year. Except for the rain, it never changes.
I came from that world, was once a part of it. But it’s strange to me now, like a foreign country I’ve only read about. I feel no love, no hate. What lies outside that window represents all of my soul’s yearnings: freedom, joy, home, love, friendship, satisfaction, peace, happiness. But I feel nothing as I look. To me it is inanimate, like a picture on a wall. I’m barred from that world and old memories no longer bridge the gap. I can’t relate to that world, any more than I can imagine what it would feel like to walk down one of those streets, the rain in my face. It’s been too long.
I turn my attention to squashing my cigarette butt in the ashtray, then look around my cell. This is my reality. Solitude. Four walls, graygreen, drab, and foreboding. Three of steel and one of bars, held together by 358 rivets. Seven feet wide, nine feet long. About the size of an average bathroom or— and my mind leaps at this— the size of four tombs, only taller. I, the living dead, have need of a few essentials that the physically dead no longer require— commode, shower, face bowl, bunk. A sleazy old mattress, worn to thinness. On the floor in a corner, a cardboard box that contains all my worldly possessions—a writing tablet, a pen, and two changes of underwear. The mattress, the box, and I are the only things not bolted down, except the cockroaches that come and go from the drain in the floor and scurry around in the shower. This is my life, every minute of the year. I’m buried alive. But I’m the only person for whom that fact has meaning, who feels it, so it’s immaterial.
My eyes return to the open window across the catwalk outside the bars. A block away, twin lights appear as a car cautiously finds its way down the rain- slicked street. A gust of wind whips at me, ice on its lash. I look at my gray, jail- issued coveralls hanging on the wall hook. I should put them on to be warmer, but I don’t. After what I’ve been through, why should I cringe before a simple thing like cold? Strength and the spirit of contest surge through me. This is a challenge, and knowing that the cold cannot defeat me gives me pride. I remain in my T- shirt and shorts, unyielding, feeling strong and powerful. That’s what I’ve been reduced to.
It’s hard to believe that I once experienced a life in that world outside my window. Would I even be able to recognize the neighborhood I grew up in? Are kids playing hooky still shooting craps on those old tombs? Is Old Man Martello still peddling cigarettes three for a nickel to underage smokers? I wonder, but there’s no one to ask. Everyone but my mother has abandoned me.
I turn from the window and walk slowly toward the heavy steel door. I’m restless again. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . turn. Walk back. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . stop. I reach for the pack of cigarettes. Light one. Puff deeply. Fan out the match, flip it out into the catwalk. I exhale the smoke, looking idly out the window, thinking of nothing, then turn lazily toward the center of my cell.
Suddenly, adrenaline is coursing through me. I freeze, like a feral cat who spots a stray dog. It’s the walls! They’re closer! They’re moving in on me, closing up the tomb. Panic is suffocating me. This is what they want; they want to kill me. Somehow, I will my muscles to relax, and my mind follows. The tension dissipates. It’s just my imagination. Steel walls don’t move. Shit, no. I should know that better than anyone. Ridiculous. I just need something to do, that’s all. But what? I look around the cell, wondering what to do. I can read, walk, shower again, or think. And I’m tired of reading, so . . .
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . turn. One . . . two . . . three . . . It’s not right to make a man live like this, alone. But I can take it. I can whip this motherfucker. I am stronger than anything they can do to me. The more they do, the stronger they make me. I actually smile. Haven’t I endured and risen above an experience that would crush most men?
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . turn. Yeah, I’ve seen men broken, destroyed by solitary. Some have come to fear every shadow. Others have committed suicide. Some men would do anything to escape this cell. Some feigned insanity so they could go to a mental institution. Even more cut themselves, over and over, until the Man, fearing a suicide on his watch, moved them out of solitary. Others stayed doped up, whenever they could get the dope. Engaging in such tricks, though, is beneath my dignity; it’s unmanly. I am stronger than the punishment. The only way to beat it, to rise above it, is to regard the punishment as a challenge and see my ability to endure it while others cannot as a victory. Whenever another man falls under the pressure, it’s a triumph for me. Callous, some would call me. A man falls, broken, insane, or dead, and I feel nothing except triumph. But this is no place for pity— not for the next man, nor for myself. It would break me. The hard truth about solitary is that each man must struggle and suffer alone.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . turn. I wonder what time it is. It doesn’t matter, except knowing the time allows me to mark the progress of the night. Breakfast shouldn’t be too far off. Then lunch. Then supper. I look forward to mealtime. The food tastes awful, but I always try to eat it because I have to guard my health. Next to insanity, sickness is most to be feared in solitary, where medical help is hard to come by.
I stop at the bars, grind out my cigarette, look out the window. The rain is falling a little harder. There ought to be something I can do. Turning, I see my bunk. That’s it. I drop into it, lie down. The mattress makes little difference; I’m lying on steel. I close my eyes and let my mind roam freely in search of distraction. I reject thoughts and images of past experiences as they move across the screen of my mind. Good memories are excellent distractions from this grim reality, but I possess very few of them and can’t conjure one up tonight. Restless, I get back up, pace the floor for a while, then go to the steel rail that connects the two steel walls of the shower. I heft myself up, over and over, until I am in a sweat. Chin-ups have made my arms almost as strong as the steel bars that hold me. I move to the sink and push the button for some water.
As I drink, I see a black man peering at me from the polished- steel mirror over my sink. I put down my cup and carefully remove my handcrafted covering from the light fixture. The room is now flooded with light. I take a long, scrutinizing look at this fellow as he does the same to me. There’s a weary slump to his shoulders. Deep furrows are etched across the brown forehead, and small wrinkles accentuate the subtle desperation in his dark eyes. Suffering is what I see in his eyes. I don’t like that. If I can see it, others can also. On second thought, maybe they can’t. I care, so I’m looking for it; but they barely even see me, much less my suffering. No, they won’t see it. Satisfied, I replace the cover on the light fixture and throw the cell into twilight darkness again. It’s a twilight of my own choosing, fashioned with a razor blade and cardboard— a snug-fitting cover to keep the glare of reality at bay. “Mankind cannot stand too much reality,” as T. S. Eliot wrote.
I walk over to the bars, stick my arms through, lean upon them, look out the window. It’s still raining. My ears suddenly pick up the distant sound of a key being fitted into a door down the catwalk. The door clangs shut. Footsteps . . . approaching. It’s the Man, making his rounds. I instinctively pull my arms back into the cell. A man with his arms hanging outside the bars is vulnerable; they can easily be broken. Keys jangle loudly and another door, closer, creaks open. There are voices, movement; a door bangs shut. Men awakened down the line, outside solitary, shout curses into the night. It must be Old Asshole. The bastard. None of the others on this shift would slam doors like that. He does it deliberately, to wake me up if I am sleeping. I’m the only one back here now. Another of Old Asshole’s petty tricks. I mustn’t show my anger.
The trusty appears first, as usual, on the catwalk outside the bars. The trusty is the Man’s first line of defense in case of danger. He’s a faithful lapdog, this one, always eager to do his master’s bidding. He nods at me, his eyes searching my cell, hunting for something to tell his master about. I look through him. Old Asshole appears at his side. He looks at me, and I look right back at him, straight into his blue eyes. I don’t like him, and he knows it. He wants to be important, to feel superior, and the only way he can do it is to grind down the prisoners in his charge. He doesn’t like me because I won’t feed his ego.
“Still woke, huh, Rideau?”
I nod.
“How you gettin’ along? Doin’ all right?”
It’s a meaningless greeting the world over, even among free people. But here it’s stupid, too. What prisoner locked in a system designed to brutalize, crush, or destroy him has ever been “all right”?
“I’m doing just fine.”
“It’s pretty chilly back here. Want your window closed?”
“If you want to. It don’t really matter to me.”
“It’s turning cold. You’re gonna freeze your ass off with the window open.”
“Do whatever you want. It doesn’t make any difference.”
He turns to his lapdog and tells him to close the window. Relief flows through my body as my muscles, taut in their struggle against the cold, begin to relax. My face remains expressionless.
Old Asshole turns back to me. “They tell me your buddy cracked this morning. Tore up his cell. Went stone crazy.”
I nod.
“Guess he couldn’t take that cell no more.”
“Guess not.”
“How long had he been in solitary? About a year, huh?”
“About.”
Old Asshole shakes his head slowly like a snake charmer and tries to pin me with his gaze. “A long time. Course, that ain’t nothing compared
to how long you been locked down. What is it now? Ten, twelve years?”
“Something like that.”
He turns his eyes away from mine, shaking his head. “I don’t see how you held up this long.”
I could tell him that he can’t understand it because he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be your own man. I could tell him that he’s never been a man and never will be, that he doesn’t have the strength. Take away the social props that hold him up and he’d go down like a line of dominoes. Deep down he knows it, and he expects everyone to possess the same weakness. He can’t understand why I don’t, and it aggravates his fears about himself and his own sense of inferiority. I could tell him all this about himself, but I say nothing. He looks at me. “Think you’ll end up like him?”
“Nope.”
A smile brushes his lips. He nods his head, like he knows something I don’t. I feel the urge to slap that smug look off his face.
“You think you’re tough, huh, Rideau?”
“No. Just competent.”
His eyes study my cell, then me. “Everybody else in this place gives, lets themselves go a little. Their cells, their appearance. I even let go sometimes, and I ain’t a prisoner. But you gotta be different. Your cell always gotta be neat and clean, everything in its place. You stay shaved, hair combed— always fixed up like you waitin’ to go somewhere. You don’t ever bend, not even a little, do you?”
“What have you seen since you’ve been here?”
“Oh, I haven’t seen you do it, yet. But I will.”
“I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.”
“I can count on it. You’re not as tough as you want people to believe. And let me tell you something,” he says, tapping the bars with his keys. “No matter how tough you think you are, this steel is a whole lot tougher. You’ll bend.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
He turns to leave. “We’ll see.”
“No. You’ll see. I already know.”
A steel door slams down the walk, and I listen to the footsteps until they fade away. Alone again. Silence engulfs me. I reach for a cigarette, feel the smoke pouring into my lungs as I inhale deeply. I smoke too much. I know I should quit. This poison only contributes to my physical deterioration, compounds the lack of exercise and poor diet. My lungs must be shit.To hell with it. Smoking is the only luxury left to me.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . turn. One . . . two . . . three . . . That idiot. Old Asshole actually expects to see me break. What he doesn’t know is that being broken requires my permission. I’m not about to surrender my manhood, my dignity, or my selfrespect. They may have stripped me of everything else, but I will not permit myself to be reduced to a human dog. I’ll die first. Of course, insanity is always possible— no, probable. How in hell can a man live for years like this and remain sane? It’s impossi—
I halt my pacing in midstride: I could be insane now! I wouldn’t necessarily know it. I shiver. Suppress it, Wilbert. I start pacing again. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . turn. My eyes, searching for something to latch on to, scan the walls and find the rivets. The number of rivets in here impresses me, as it has before. These walls are well held together. But, then, they’d have to be; otherwise I’d get out, wouldn’t I? And they don’t want that. I know the number of rivets because I’ve counted them before: 348 of them. Or was it 358? I frown, trying to remember. It’s important to get it right. I need to know exactly the number of rivets holding me in. I decide to count them again, to be sure. I start counting, and soon I’m on my hands and knees, counting the rivets under my bunk, when a picture of what I must look like flashes through my mind. I have to smile. If Old Asshole could only see me now. He’d laugh until he shit himself, figuring for sure I’d gone crazy. And it is crazy. Me, down on all fours, counting the rivets in a steel tomb. It looks like insanity, but my mind is intact. Old Asshole will have to wait a little longer. When I finish counting, it’s 358 rivets after all.
I crush out the cigarette, which has burned to a nub in the ashtray. I lie down, gaze up at the ceiling, walls. Aren’t we always struggling against walls? I ask myself. Not always of concrete and steel, but walls nonetheless— ignorance, poverty, indifference, oppression? Yes, yes, definitely oppression. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a prisoner. But who is ever really free? “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”; that’s what Janis Joplin sang. I start humming “Me and Bobby McGee” until the thought of all that wasted talent, that gift, gets to me. Shooting shit in her arm. Goddamn! She fought her way out of this stinkhole. Port Arthur, her hometown, is right over the Texas line from Lake Charles. The girl escaped the grip of ...
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