Crimes and the People Who Commit Them

A Canticle for Frank-2

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 s**t. 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 s**t. 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 s**t 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 i***t 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 s**t. 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 i***t 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.