Keeplock: A Novel of Crime Read Free Page B

Unless, of course, you’ve done it seven or eight times.
    The Cortlandt Correctional Facility sits in the center of the town of Danville (pop. 1433), New York. Forty-foot walls, complete with gun towers, line one side of Main Street. A mix of shops and homes and a single cheap hotel lines the other. I stood with my back to the walls and swept the street with my eyes. It was just like stepping onto the flats in Cortlandt where hundreds of prisoners milled about, many of them strapped and ready. All of them willing to kill.
    I missed nothing, but even ten feet away, you wouldn’t have picked up the movement of my eyes. The trick, inside, is to see everything without revealing the intense fear that necessitates the search for enemies. It’s not a trick that’s easily unlearned.
    The few citizens on the street seemed mild enough. They undoubtedly made me for a released convict, but that’s the way it goes. As my eyes swept the rooftops, I walked across the street and strolled into the 7-11, where I bought a pack of cigarettes, a Snickers, and a can of Coke. Then I went back outside to wait for the bus. I had no illusions about freedom. With $97.85 and no job, my life would be anything but free. What I did have was a list of the phone numbers of convicts from my crew who’d been released before me. If I wanted quick money instead of poverty, an apartment instead of a homeless shelter, all I had to do was dial a number and tap the old cons’ network. That’s what jail’s all about. That’s what the cons talk about on the courts. The crimes they’ve committed and the ones they intend to commit.
    The good citizens of Danville walked on the outer edge of the sidewalk, as far from me as they could get. I was aware of their distaste, just as I was aware of everything happening on the street, but I couldn’t summon up any indignation. The myth of paying your debt and returning to the community was just that, a myth.
    An experienced con, faced with a long bit, plans the time so it doesn’t stretch out into blank emptiness. I knew I was going away long before I heard my sentence and I decided to get myself an education. I’d graduated from grammar school and gotten my high school diploma in jail. Why not go all the way? The parole board didn’t figure to smile down on me, but a sincere effort at rehabilitation couldn’t hurt. I had to do at least a third of my fifteen-year sentence before I could be considered for parole, and I hoped to be cut loose after seven or eight years.
    I spent the first three years working double shifts in the tailor shop, which was the main industry at Cortlandt. The tailor shop manufactured uniforms for state prisoners, American flags for municipal offices, and nightgowns for women in New York State hospitals. I already knew how to operate a sewing machine and I worked hard enough to please the C.O.’s, who rewarded me with extra work hours.
    After I’d accumulated enough money in my prison account to keep me in cigarettes and coffee, I got myself transferred to the State University satellite school, which operated inside the walls, and graduated four years later. Not that I had any illusions about using my degree after I got out. I didn’t expect the business world to be any more impressed with my rehabilitation than the parole board. The largest part of any employment application (and I’ve filled out hundreds of them) is set aside for the applicant’s working history. What could I put down? Car theft? Burglary? Armed robbery? What would I write under “place of employment”? Spofford Youth House? Rikers Island? The Cortlandt Correctional Facility?
    Work and school had gotten me through a ten-year bit. I never had a major beef (until Franklyn Peshawar) in Cortlandt, because I knew how to do time. I was an experienced con. It was the only experience I had to offer.
    The bus rolled into Cortlandt, a shiny chrome Adirondack Trailways. It pulled up in front of the 7-11 and the driver, a