Eating Rice Pudding

Nico was sitting in a booth at a diner with his friends, Frank and Tony and Bobby. They loved to walk the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and talk. They walked for miles it seemed. They especially loved to walk in the rain. The sound of the raindrops pattering on their umbrellas felt good. Their clothes were the uniforms of what they believed the wannabe Writer (with a capital W) wore—the literary intellectual: corduroy jackets over white T-shirts and blue jeans, and of course they sported pipes. When not smoking they placed their pipes in the upper left side pocket of their jackets. Placing the pipe is an art form. Some place the pipe stem down, barrel up; some barrel down, stem up. Nico preferred it barrel down, stem up. This way the nicotine didn’t drip into the stem and give a terrible mouth later when he lit up. They always ended up in Joe’s Diner on Knickerbocker Avenue, and would continue talking and horsing around and eat rice pudding. Sweet.

They thought they knew what was what. They were already reading the New Yorker. Frank even had a subscription. He was the smart one and the real talker. They were all into reading and were would-be writers but the only one who wrote anything was Frank. He already had published in the school paper. And he talked about who he thought was the best of the contemporary writers, Howard Fast. And of course the others had to read Fast in order to keep up with Frank. But he was always ahead of them. Nico thought, but never said, that Fast was great, sure, especially his stories about Washington and Hamilton and the other early founders of the USA, but he really thought Fast was lightweight. Frank said, Sure, Fast was underrated but that’s because he was so easy to read.

When Nico discovered T.S. Eliot and Hemingway and Dostoevsky, Fast was gone for him. And when he tried to speak about them on their walks, Frank would pontificate saying, “Maybe Hemingway was just about OK, but the others—like James Joyce, and Sam Beckett, and everybody else who tries to write like them are the best-unread modern writers of all time, like Shakespeare and Chaucer; and Milton, of course, was the worst.” He said, “When my uncle was in graduate school in a class on Shakespeare, the professor asked all the students in the class, ‘Who’s read the entire works of Shakespeare?’ and nobody raised their hand. ‘How come?’ asked the professor, ‘Shakespeare is the greatest English writer of them all and yet not one of you has read all of his works.’ And Frank said, “So much for the great Shakespeare.”

And Frank was the great chess player. He beat them all. He even beat them together in what he called blitz chess. He’d walk from one board to another and beat them—all. He was smart. And he worked out. He was a short guy, but stubby, a little like a small wine barrel. And he had iron muscles. They all deferred to Frank.

Soon they would graduate, soon go to college, soon they would separate and live different lives. Frank, Tony, and Bobby got into NYU. Nico didn’t have the grades to get into college, and papa, Nico’s father, put it to him straight, “Go to college or go to work.” So he applied to the CCNY extension night classes where those kids who didn’t have the 3.0 average were able to get in. And if they got their grades up they could “matriculate” into the regular day college.

So Nico went to CCNY and to a different world. Now, he rarely saw Frank, Tony, or Bobby. Nico took the subway from Lorimer Street all the way up to the Bronx. The subway car went past the famous 125^th Street. He stared at the station when he got there. Stared at the black people who got on and off. He was dying to get off and wander up and down the street. But he didn’t dare. It would be like entering a strange foreign country. His would be the only white face. He knew about the jazz clubs. About the Apollo Theatre, and the Cotton Club. And the train went by and on to the CCNY stop.

The first day at CCNY Nico just strolled around to see what was what. He went to the lounge to get a cup of coffee and saw the chess tables and players. He sat down when a game opened up and played and beat a kid he didn’t know. It felt so good. So from that day, first thing he did when he went to school was to go to the lounge and play chess. Some-times the game was so hot that when his class started he went on with the game and missed the class. He got better and better at chess. And worse and worse at class. He began reading the chess books and working out the puzzles and working out the different openings. He enjoyed chess more than he enjoyed classes. And he wondered if he could now beat Frank.

Then Robbie sat in the empty chair, across the chess table, after Nico won a game. Robbie was black. They were pretty equal. Robbie maybe a little better than Nico. After playing they talked about 125^th Street and about jazz. Robbie said he would take Nico to the Apollo. His uncle worked backstage, he said, and they could see everything close. They talked about their neighborhoods. About their girls. About their gangs. About the fights they had. They became friends. Robbie told Nico once in a very serious quiet voice that was almost a whisper that he stabbed another kid. And the kid died. He told Nico no one else knew he had done it. He told Nico he never told anybody about this. Now there were best friends. Now they were brothers. Nico was thrilled with fear, and proud to be the brother of a tough black guy.

Robbie did take Nico to the Apollo. And they did go backstage and watched the performances from the wings of the curtain. What a dream. It was wonderful. There were all the black people. Everybody was happy. Everybody sang with the band. Some people danced in the aisles. When an act was booed by the audience a loud siren like the ones on fire trucks would burst into sound and a long hook would reach out from the side of the stage and yank the poor performer off the stage and the audience would whoop and holler and laugh and clap and have a wonderful time. Nico’s was the only white face. He felt yes, he really was in another country. But he was with Robbie and it was OK. Nobody bothered him. Nobody minded him. And the band and the music and the singers and the dancers excited him.

Robbie introduced Nico to 52^nd Street. They went there after their night classes. The Three Deuces, the Front Door, Birdland, and all the other jazz clubs. There were about a dozen or so little clubs on both sides of the street. You could hear the music as you got to the corner. On the south side, it was Dixieland. On the North side, it was modern jazz.

The way it worked was easy. They would enter and go straight to the bar that was always at the far end of the club near the door. And they would order a glass of beer that cost only seventy-five cents. They were able to nurse that one glass through an entire set. The bartenders knew they were kids, and they also knew that they loved jazz and what harm could they do with a measly glass of seventy-five cent beer, when the place wasn’t crowded? After hearing one set, Nico and Robbie would go out to another club and do another set with another seventy-five cent beer. It was wonderful. But on weekends the bartenders kept the bars free for older and higher paying drinkers.

Nico got to hear all the great musicians, like Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Lester Young, and Billie Holiday. He fell in love with Billie—Lady Day. He first saw her and Lester at the Three Deuces. There was a piano player, a drummer, a bassist, and Lester, on this little platform that was supposed to be a stage. Then Billie walked on and stood before the mike. The musicians started playing. Billie began to slowly and quietly swing her body with the music. Then when it was time, when she was ready, when it felt right, she began to sing. Lester followed her with a solo on his tenor sax that was as sweet and mournful and lovely as her singing. Then another chorus from Billie, while Lester would rif behind and in-between her words, and it was as if they were one body, one sound, one marriage of song. Then each player took a solo, the pianist, and the drummer, even the bass player.

Billie’s singing wasn’t separate from the rest of the musicians. It was one sound. They were musicians and together they made music. It wasn’t like the singer singing the song and the band just backed her up. And Billie listened to the solos of the other musicians and swung with them and smiled and even clapped or put her hands together when someone made a good lick, especially Lester.

There was gentleness and sadness and acceptance and defiance all together in her voice. Her singing proclaimed, “This is me, Billie Holliday and I know who I am!” And Nico loved her.

One night Robbie said “Let’s go up to her dressing room after the set and ask for her autograph,” And they did. They got to her dressing room door and Nico bravely knocked on the door and then they heard that wonderful raspy voice say, "Come on in.” They opened the door and Billie probably was surprised to see two college kids, or maybe they were even high school, because Nico was so small. But, she smiled broadly.

Nico timidly said, “Miss Holliday, we love your singing. Can we have your autograph?”

“Why sure,” she said, “come on over, honey.” And they each handed her one of their school notebooks in which she wrote down her blessed name.

Going home back to Brooklyn that night on the subway was like flying through the air.

Nico learned something very important on 52^nd Street. He learned what it meant to swing. It was something that Miles Davis said. The story goes that Miles was standing at a bar and the group playing was the Dave Brubeck quartet. After the set, Brubeck went to the bar and asked Miles what he thought of his group. Miles said, “It’s all head music, man. You play the notes and you play them fast. But the group doesn’t swing. You're the only one in the group that has some swing in you. But not much.” And Nico realized that there was a great divide between white and black jazz musicians. The white musicians made the money and got the biggest gigs. But they didn’t swing. The black musicians swung but they didn’t make the money. Yes, there were great white bands like Woody Herman and Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and such. And they played great numbers and had great hits. But compared with the bands of Count Basie and Duke Ellington, you could hear the difference. White bands couldnt swing like the black bands. The great Benny Goodman who, at his best with his small groups, could swing a little, but that was because the heart of his early small groups were black—the great Lionel Hampton on vibes, the majestic Teddy (Theodosius, they called him) Wilson on piano, and the genius, Charlie Christian on guitar. They swung. Listen to the early Goodman groups with Hampton and Wilson and Christian and then listen to the later groups without them. Listen to the rhythm sections of the Count Basie orchestra and stack it up against any white band. Glen Miller, for instance, had the most famous and the best-paid band in the country. The story goes that once when he went up the Harlem, to the Savoy ballroom, to hear Count Basie’s band, he shook his head and said, “Why can't my band ever swing like that?”

Nico figured out that swing was heart and guts and soul all wrapped up together. It was something that came from deep inside. Something that was there that nobody put there. Something that you were born with. Something that you can't create and make happen. Something you can’t find and yet it was there, everywhere, and it was everything—everything that mattered.

Nico decided that whatever he was to do with his life it had to swing! Whatever act he did, unless it swung—it wasn’t worth it. His relationships with others had to swing otherwise they weren’t worth it. The guiding inner light for him was to swing. That’s what was great about his friendship with Robbie. It swung. And that’s why when one night Robbie wasn’t in the lounge where Nico and he used to meet, Nico was most distressed. He looked for him all over. He searched the cafeterias. He went to all of the classes he knew of that Robbie took. But Robbie wasn’t there. Nico asked around and nobody knew. What happened? He wondered maybe Robbie got into some kind of trouble and had to cool it for a while? Nico went to the Apollo to Robbie’s uncle. He didn’t know anything. Or if he did he wasn’t saying. Nico went to 52^nd Street to the clubs they went to together. But Robbie was never there. Some of the bartenders got to know Robbie, and Nico asked if they had seen Robbie but they all said no, they hadn’t. He just disappeared. Nico waited for Robbie to find him, Nico. Robbie never did. It was strange. It was weird. Like Dante losing his Virgil.

Nico felt lost. Almost betrayed. Without Robbie he slowly slipped away from chess and from 52^nd Street. He began going to his classes. And his grades went up, and he matriculated and eventually graduated in English. He went on to take get a Teaching Credential and a Master’s and landed a job teaching English at Clinton High School in Williamsburg. And he went back to walking the streets of Brooklyn with Frank and Tony and Bobby whenever they could.

*

Now they no longer were kids but adults, and they would still get together every so often. When one of them had the yen he would call up the others and say, “Hey let’s go walking.” And they would meet and walk and talk and end up at Joe’s and eat rice pudding like they used to.

Nico looked at Frank and Tony and Bobby and felt inferior to them, like he used to feel when they were kids. They all had their success stories and told them to one another. Frank got his Ph. D, and taught English Lit at NYU. His major subject was the works and life of Howard Fast. He even knew Fast personally and was a frequent guest in Fast’s home in upstate New York. Tony got his Master’s in Business Administration and had a power job with the City of New York. He met with important people and he’d tell everybody about his meetings. And he’d tell about the pressures of his job and his meetings with the Mayor and even sometimes the Governor. Bobby went to med school in Italy. He came back, a doctor, and developed a thriving practice in Scarsdale. He became fat and rich. He married a woman from Scarsdale, not an Italian, and had a big house, and drove a Mercedes. Nico could only boast that he taught English at Clinton High School in a low-income neighborhood in Williamsburg and that he still lived in the same apartment on Lorimer Street where he was born. Some success story. Not only did he feel inferior—he was inferior!

*

Now, many years later—Nico had retired from teaching and still lived on Lorimer Street. But there were changes. Lorimer Street was now in a preferred upper-scale area populated by yuppies and stockbrokers and all sorts of artists who couldn’t afford to live in Greenwich Village.

Now, Nico was once again at Joe’s Diner. He sat in a booth—one of the booths where he used to sit together with Frank and Tony and Bobby. But they weren’t there. Frank died several years ago after having one massive heart attack after another. Bobby also died of a heart attack—probably from sheer obesity. Tony was still alive, but long retired, living in Naples, Florida, blind, and maybe a little confused. Robbie? Where is he? Is he alive? Does he remember Billie? Is he swinging somewhere? Is he dead? Nico wondered. Then he wondered about himself. What happened? Where is everybody? Am I swinging, he wondered? He placed his spoon into the rice pudding, brought it to his mouth, and began eating. Sweet.

June 10, 2009

Confession

This is Brooklyn of the 1940s, when Saturday is Hassidic shops close, and Catholics go to confession. St. Leonard’s, Hank’s church, is dark inside. Just the sides of the church are lighted where the three-part confession boxes are. The priest sits in the middle and there is a wooden screen door that he slides open and shut on either side of him. When he finishes with one confession he slides the screen shut, turns to the other side, and slides that screen open, and another confession begins.

 

There were lines of around ten on each side. Hank dreaded what he had to confess. He chose Father Murphy because he was the easiest of the priests. Still he was scared. How could he tell Father Murphy? What could he say? Hank said ten Hail Marys, so he could confess it right. Maybe he could be forgiven without having to go into the box and tell him? Hank moved closer to the head of the line and wondered what the people were confessing. Their sins couldn’t be as bad as his. He watched them as they got out of the box and went to the altar to kneel and say their penance, trying to figure out how many Our Fathers and Hail Marys they had to say. How many would he get? Or maybe his penance would be worse? But the worst thing was what Father Murphy would say to him. Sometimes the priests talked loud and everybody could hear. Then everybody would look at Hank as he came out. It would kill him. Maybe they’ll kick him out of the church? Maybe he should beat it and come back another Saturday? But he knew he was in a state of mortal sin, and that if he should die he would go straight down to hell. So he had to stay in line. Maybe he should go to another church where they didn’t know him? Confess there and come back and confess a few venial sins to Father Murphy? But if he went to another church the priest would then know why he hadn’t confessed in his own church. Maybe he wouldn’t give Hank absolution and maybe he’d him to go to his own church and his own priest? Then when he’d go back to Father Murphy and told him he’d be madder than hell. There is a long confession going on inside. Good. But next one is already him. Oh my God!

 

Hank likes being a Catholic. He’s a good Catholic—an altar boy. He serves Mass, often with Father Murphy even.  He goes to St Leonard’s Catholic School. He’s in the fourth grade. He loves getting up early in the morning and walking to church for the six-o-clock mass. The morning streets are different streets. The sweepers are out and they wash the streets with those big circular brushes under the body of their trucks. And everything is fresh and wet and clean. Why did he have to ruin everything with his lousy sins?

 

Maybe they won’t let him have Holy Communion anymore? That would be terrible. He loves Holy Communion. To have u Signuruzzu (an affectionate Sicilian term for the baby Lord Jesus) enter his body and then he would become completely pure. He loved putting on his surplice before serving at Mass. He loved ringing the little bells when Father Murphy raised the host. He loved Passion Week when all the saints were hidden behind purple cloths. He loved the quiet of the church and the smell of the incense in the early morning. His house was always busy and loud and smelled of garlic. Nobody shouted at him in Church. Nobody hit him in church. Nobody knocked him on the ground and rubbed his knuckles against the sidewalk until they bled. Nobody made him take back a rejected loaf of bread to the grocery store. How many times had he served Mass for Father Murphy! Now he has to tell him. It’s his turn. He has to go in. He can still leave. Too late. He enters the box. He’s stuck. Now Father Murphy is hearing the confession of the person on the other side. Then when he finishes he’ll slide the wooden window and he’s next. O God, Let me have more time, he prayed. The window swishes open.

 

“Bless me Father for I have sinned. I haven’t been to confession for a month or so.”

“Why so long,” said Father Murphy’s kind voice. Yes, it was kind. Does he know it’s Hank? Hank’s voice? Does he know who’s confessing?

 

“I couldn’t.”

 

“Why not?” Hank had no answer. His tongue jammed in his dry mouth. He couldn’t open it. Maybe it was stuck? Maybe he wouldn’t be able to talk? Maybe? “Tell me son. Is it so bad?” Father Murphy-kindness again.

“Yes, Father, real bad.”

 

“It can’t ever be bad enough for Christ’s love,” said Father. “You know that don’t you?”

 

“Yes, Father.”

 

“So whatever it is, if you are truly sorry, Christ will forgive.”

 

“O yes, Father. I’m sorry. Very very sorry.” Silence. Father Murphy waited.

 

“Father,” he said, “I did acts of impurity.” It started to come out.

 

“Yes son. How many times?”

“A lot Father. I cant remember how many. A lot.”

 

“Every day?”

 

“Oh yes, Father, every day. Sometimes, two or three times a day—maybe some days not so much.”

 

“Anything else?” said Father Murphy.

“I did impure things with my friends.”

 

“Are your friends boys or a girls?”

 

“Both, Father.”

 

“What did you do?”

 

“I can't, Father. It’s too awful. I don’t know how to say it.”

 

“Just take your time,” said Father, “and tell me everything.”

 

“Everything?”

 

“Yes, everything. Don’t leave anything out.”

 

And then it came out. Hank told Father Murphy, “Sex happened when I wasn’t expecting it. Like that afternoon when Tony and I were walking together after school. Tony said, “Let’s go visit some new friends of mine.”

 

“O.K. I said. Who are they?”

 

“A couple of girls and boy are they great.”

“O.K., I said again, then let’s go!”

 

“So we went a few blocks up Lorimer Street to a house I didn’t know. We rang the door buzzer and the buzzer buzzed back and the door opened. And we went upstairs. We climbed up two flights of stairs and Tony knocked on a door and a girl opened it. And there was another girl inside. And we were all alone in the house and we sat on the floor and began playing spin the bottle and we kissed a lot whenever the bottle stopped and pointed at two of us, the nearest boy and the nearest girl. And we did lots of kissing. And then we played strip poker. We played until we were all naked.”

 

Then Hank told Father Murphy all about the sexual explorations and discoveries they made. The touching and feeling and playing with one another. About how the boys explored the bodies of the girls and touched them all over and how the girls explored their bodies and touched them all over.

 

Hank said, “And that was all of it, Father. There’s nothing more.”

 

Father Murphy felt an arousal. He couldn’t believe it. Why was this happening to me? He knew there were priests who struggled with their bursting sexuality and that some of them had sex with little boys. But he shrank from such acts. It can’t happen to me he said to himself. It won’t happen to me he said to himself.

 

“Are you sure there’s nothing more to tell me?” There was an edge to Father Murphy’s voice.

 

“No, Father.” Hank felt he was in deep trouble.

 

A long pause. A deep sigh came from Father Murphy. Then he said, “Son you’ve committed many grave mortal sins. Not only have you sinned against your own body but also you’ve sinned against the bodies of others. You’ve abused yourself and you’ve abused others. And you have to stop it. Right now your soul is in such a dangerous state that you could go straight to Hell. The things you’ve done are the works of the Devil himself. Do you know that abusing yourself will affect you for the rest of your life? You can permanently injure yourself if you don’t stop. So you must stop. You can’t be a good Catholic and do these things.”

 

“Yes, Father.”

 

“Are you sorry for all the things you have done?”

 

“Oh yes, Father, it’s killing me.”

 

“You must come to confession every Saturday from now on. You must come to me and to me only. You must go to mass every day for a month. You must say the Stations of the Cross once every week. And right now you must go up to the altar and say fifty Our Fathers and fifty Hail Marys.”

 

“Yes Father. Thank you Father.” Father Murphy then raised his hands and said the magic Latin words.

 

Hank was so relieved when he left the confession box. He went straight to the altar and with tears of joy began his grateful recitation of the Our Fathers and Hail Marys. He now had a clean slate. His heart and soul were pure again. He was so happy to be forgiven that he even threw in a few extra Our Fathers and Hail Marys.

 

*

 

Father Murphy heard confessions until eight o clock. And ninety-five percent of them were about sex. Hank’s confession hit him the most. Of course he knew it was Hank. He knew by the voice and the way he talked. Hank had served mass for him many times. How was he going to face Hank now after he had heard all this? What was more disturbing was his arousal while Hank was describing the sex explorations with the girls. It reminded him so much of his own childhood. Now it was happening again. Now Hank was reliving and reviving Father Murphy’s sexual life when he was a kid. And now Father Murphy was erecting again with the memory of the story Hank had told him and of his own childhood and of his own confused present state. This is crazy, thought Father Murphy.

 

He walked down to the altar. The church was empty. At last alone. He knelt at the altar and looked up at the huge crucifix hanging on the wall behind the altar. He looked at the bleeding, dying Christ, and prayed for his forgiveness. He decided to do the same penance he gave Hank and said fifty Our Fathers and fifty Hail Marys. Then he threw in a few extra. He made the sign of the cross, rose and went into one of the side rooms. He took off his habit and put on his civilian clothes. Of course, all black, with the usual starched white rolled collar.

 

He slowly walked out of the church, locked up, and headed for the nearest diner and cup of coffee. He sat down, drinking his coffee, took out his breviary and mentally recited the evening office. But his mind was not on the prayers in the book. He thought of King Claudius who tried to pray but couldn’t saying, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: words without thoughts never to heaven go.” How often, Father Murphy sadly thought have I said these words? He gave a deep sigh, paid for his coffee, rose and went to the rectory of the church where he had a small apartment. He was tired. He was weary. He wanted to go straight to bed and just sleep sleep sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come. He tossed and turned. He reached down but pulled his hand back. What was he doing he thought? He always had a hard time after hearing confessions. He realized that he hated hearing confessions. He loved being a priest. He loved everything about it, except the hearing of confessions. He loved the singing of the old Latin hymns. He especially loved “Tantum Ergo,” and “Panis Angelicum.” He loved the lifting up of the host when Christ entered into it. He loved the holidays, especially Easter and Christmas. Maybe he could find another post? Maybe he could do something that didn’t have confessions? Like a desk job in the Diocese office. But then that wouldn’t be being a priest. That would be being a clerk. And he was a priest.

 

He knew there was trouble with priests. It began in the Seminary even on the first day when all those young men, many of whom weren’t even shaving their faces yet, arrived. He was one of them. And he saw how some of the men were looking at each other flirtatiously, as one would look at a girl. And he didn’t understand quite what was going on. He asked one of his friends about it. His friend smirked, “They're queers.”

 

“Queers? What’s that?”

 

“They do it with boys. Where have you been?”

 

Then it hit him. Then he saw that there was a lot of it going on in the Seminary. He saw that even some of the older Priests, who taught at the Seminary, had a special relationship with some of the younger boys.

And then when they graduated and became priests and were assigned to a parish it would continue. Confession was usually the way it started. The priests easily got to know which boys or girls were ripe. And once it started some

priests even made sex slaves of children like Hank and Tony. He knew he could easily turn Hank’s confession to feed his own sexual needs. Father Murphy tossed and turned. He got out of bed, knelt beside it and prayed long into the night. One Our Father after the other. Over and Over again. But nothing happened. Once again like Claudius. Finally, tired, he got into bed again. And sleep came.

 

Next morning his bed and pajamas were wet. The same morning, a few blocks away, in another house, Hank’s bed and pajamas were dry.

 

May 27, 2009

 

Prison Escape

Louie and the Greek were cumbares, which to those who don’t know mafia talk means something like cousins. They both felt they had been put in the wrong prison. They weren’t the murderers or rapists or hopheads.

 

Greek was auto-theft. But not just any heap. He specialized in Cadillacs. The way it worked was you got the client say in New York and took his or her order; say for a spiffed ‘50 Cad. You get the specs, down to the color. Then you find the car in Miami. You collect it and make all the necessary adjustments down to the stamped registration on the motor. You then deliver the car to your customer, the new owner. It works both ways. New York cars for Miami, Miami cars for New York. You never made a switch in the same city. That was too sloppy. This is the kind of high-class crime Greek was into.

 

Louie was embezzlement. He doctored books clean and tidy. Nobody ever got hurt. Maybe a little dry and thirsty sometimes. But nobody got hurt. Greek and Louie had never had a gun in their hands. Not a knife or even a blackjack. And they counted on some time behind bars as part of the cost of business. They accepted that as their dues.

 

They were in a high-class prison, Danbury, where they expected to be, up in Connecticut. The Country Club of the Federal Prison System. It is a minimum-security prison—a prison you can be proud of. A prison you could boast about to your friends. A prison everybody would be jealous about. But Louie and Greek had gotten a little careless when they were on parole in New York City. And Danbury was crowded so they were sent upstate to a nowhere place called Napanoch, Eastern Correctional Institution. It was a maxi. Why put them in a maxi? Their crimes were nonviolent. Sure but they had long records. Greek since he was fifteen and Louie just about the same. And for that they had to go to a crummy State maxi? To a nowhere place in the mountains and forests with the crazy name of Napanoch? It wasn’t right.

 

At least they weren’t afraid of the hophead prisoners. Greek was big. Great upper body. V shaped. Strong like the ox, they all said. His skin was dark olive. He liked to go around bareback to show it off. His biceps like small bowling balls. His shoulders could smash down four inch-thick wooden doors. He was about five-feet-ten. And he was a ham. He would swing into a pose at any minute. And everybody feared and liked him all at the same time. And he wrote poetry all the time. His favorite poems came from the Reader’s Digest. But he knew his were better. His poems were the awfullest mush and they were long. He loved his own writing and he would corner anyone in sight, and his catch felt forced to painfully listen to Greek dramatically recite his poem. He would enjoy his poems so much and everybody enjoyed his enjoyment. Especially his crazy lines that he would take seriously. Lines like “the tickle of grass as it tickles your ass” and he would look up at you so dramatic-like that you didn’t know if he was serious or just giving you one.

 

He loved to corner a holy dude. Someone who made a big deal about going to church every Sunday and always receiving communion, like the holy chaplain clerks. (Louie was the head clerk of the office.) Greek would read his tickle-grass-poem and try to wheedle a smile out of the victim clerk’s holy face. And the victim knew it and tried to keep the smile back but sooner or later he broke down. And when he did Greek would shout, “You see, you smile. It’s true! It’s true! It does tickle your ass! It does! Hey everybody!” he says, calling everybody to tell them all about his amazing victory, “listen, the grass does tickle his holy ass. Look. Show them your ass. Show them your holy ass. Show them the tickle.” And he would walk away triumphantly.

 

Louie was different. He was a wop. He was small. Wiry. Strong. Smart. He was jovial, engaging, warmhearted, open, and trusting to his friends. He was a “good” Catholic. He was the one to round up all the “Eastside mobsters” he called them, for the choir on Sundays. Louie came from a tough section of Brooklyn: Williamsburg. He enjoyed telling everybody how he used to enjoy walking up the street to go to church and kick the little kids in the ass off of the sidewalk into the streets as he sauntered along, just to show them their place. He said nothing good ever came out of his neighborhood except for him. The rest were all thugs and mobsters. He used to tell about the graduating class of PS 54 where most of the kids played handball. So and so was knocked off. Shot with ten bullet holes in the streets. So and so is pulling fifty years in Leavenworth. So and so burned in the chair. So and so is pulling forty-five for kidnapping. So and so this and so and so that.

 

And Louie loved to argue. He loved to argue for the sport of it. He called himself the black Jesuit. He would argue about anything with anybody. And especially if he could get them mad. He liked to knock you down with his words. It was the volume and persistence that won out.

 

Louie was a bruglione. He loved to get people into an argument and mix them up so that they didn’t know what was up—a bruglione. Like take Slats. Slats was one of Louie’s pigeons. Slats was six-foot-three and stupid. So he was perfect for Louie. Louie would pick an argument with Slats about anything that happened to be floating around at the time. Then Louie would up the pace. He would look around and see if anybody else was listening and he would drag whoever was, by asking for their opinion. Then he would find the newcomer’s opinion worthless so he could set him straight. Now he had two people arguing with him. He would then turn and see if anybody else was there, listening. Most guys were wise to Louie and his ways and usually would flee for their lives when he got started.

 

But most of the guys fell into Louie’s traps because of pulling time. Everybody just everybody in prison no matter what the crime, no matter if they were set up as they usually claimed—everybody had the impossible job of pulling time. Of making time go by. Of making the years shrink into months. The months into days. Because most of the inmates in a maxi had long pulls—twenty or twenty-five or thirty-five years to life. And these years were long. And one of the most valuable things Louie’s crazy embroiled arguments did was kill time. And everybody knew it. And Louie knew it. Louie thought in a way he doing the other prisoners a service. And everybody happily bit the bullet. And Louie had them. And when they were all frothing he would quietly step back and admire his creation as an artist would. And he would end it all with a, “You bunch of shitheads arguing about nothing!” and happily walk away.

 

So everybody at Eastern liked Louie and Greek and everybody at Eastern feared Louie and Greek because they palled together. When the inmates saw Louie and Greek together they thought mafia. They looked mafia. Greek looked like Louie’s enforcer and so the inmates feared and respected Louie and Greek.

 

Louie and Greek basically despised the inmates at Eastern. They treated them as inferiors and the inmates acted as if they were when they were around Louie and Greek. All of this told them that Eastern was not the place for them. They should’ve been sent to Danbury. They applied for one transfer after another but were told that transfers across systems were not allowed. Once in the State Prison System there you stayed. You can’t move from State to Federal or Federal to State. But we were in Federal they argued. It’s only because there wasn’t space at Danbury that the Judge put us here. Our crimes are Federal. No matter. You're in the State system and that’s where you stay.

 

So the idea was born in the minds of Louie and Greek that they had to escape. After studying the place Louie thought that it was easy. So Louie began to make all the preparations for their escape.

 

The plan Louie came up with was simple. Every two months, like clockwork, the Ellenville Elks Club sent a group to the prison. About thirty people, all men of course. They came to visit to give gifts to provide a meal to go to church to show a movie to picnic. It was the Elk’s good deed and display of civic spirit. Louie said that it would be a simple thing just to waylay two of the Elks who were more or less their size. Take their clothes, take their place, and just walk out with the rest of them. What was in their favor was that the day officer who was in charge of security at the admission desk was Officer Robert Pistol. And Officer Pistol was not a pistol. He was a Councilman for the City of Ellenville. But being a Councilman didn’t pay anything so he also had a job working in the prison, like a third of the men and women of Napanoch. Ellenville, Warwarsing, and Kerhonkson, the four towns that surrounded the prison. Pistol loved being a politician, a Democrat no less, in a Republican town. He loved playing politician. Loved talking to everybody about the major achievement of his last year of service as councilman that was to put in a traffic light at a busy intersection. He managed to get the bill to the Council and the council agreed and there was the Pistol traffic light. The good thing for Louie was that Pistol was lame brained and easily distracted. True he had all incoming people to the prison go through the metal detector portals and he checked their IDs. And he stamped their wrists with invisible ink. But everything was done with sort of an air of distraction. When you looked at him while your were talking to him his eyes told you he was someplace else. And Louie liked that and thought Pistol was just perfect. Pistol was gold.

 

Louie managed to get to the front area quite a bit because he was the chief clerk of the Catholic Chaplain who had the best office after the Muslim Chaplain. So he had to come up front to deliver messages, to go to the zerox machine, to make copies of whatever was needed for church services, to go to the business office to order supplies for the Chaplain’s office.

 

Just as Louie expected, the Elks came. When the Elks tour took them to the church, Louie and Greek selected their prospects. Louie approached the two Elks and sheepishly told them the Catholic Chaplain asked if they would please join him in his office for some special gifts. The Elks gladly came. Once inside the office Louie and Greek subdued them, exchanged clothes, went through their pockets, found the keys to the locker units in the front where they had placed their valuables, and most importantly for Louie and Greek, their wallets, for they needed cash. They tied the two Elks up, stuffed handkerchiefs in their mouths, and sealed them with duct tape. It was now two thirty pm. The next count would take place at 4 pm. The Elks had to leave the prison by 3 pm. Louie then picked up the chaplain’s phone, dialed 009 and then the Chaplain’s special code number, to get an outside line and phoned Dick’s Taxi. He informed Dick’s that he was one of two Elks visiting the prison but they had another appointment and couldn’t get back on the bus so could a taxi please meet them in front of the visiting room of the prison at exactly 3 pm? Yessirree. And then seeing that the rest of the Elks had left the church, Louie and Greek carried the two Elks to an old fashioned confessional where the priest would be in the middle with a confessor on each side. The Elks were placed on each side.

 

At around 2:50 pm Louie and Greek joined the group in the front. They went to the lockers and opened their lockers and bless those Elks they left their wallets. Louie and Greek being high class crooks only took the cash the wallets had and left the rest of the contents: photos, and such.

 

Officer Pistol, standing on tiptoe, counted the Elks who were noisily swarming all over the front area and said, “OK guys see you in two months and don’t forget to vote Pistol.” And out they went including Louie and Greek. The taxi was there. They got in and Louie told the taxi to take them to the Kerhonkson Post Office. It was now 3:10 pm.

 

The next part of the plan was to get a car. Again Louie’s plan was simple. They had to get to the Kerhonkson Post Office. The Napanoch Post Office was closer, in fact it was just across the road from the prison, but it was in a shopping center complex and too dangerous for them. The Kerhonkson Post Office was perfect. It was on a cul-de-sac. And the cul-de-sac part was wooded with a trail that led into the woods. Louie figured that the best way to steal a car and the best place to steal a car was in front of a post office because a lot of daffy people would leave their car running, dash into the post office, pick up their mail from their PO box, or do their business, dash back to the car, and off they would go again. The idea was pure poetry. And Kerhonkson was a sleepy town and everybody felt safe. And that’s what Louie counted on. They waited and watched and bingo. The car offered to them was a Honda Pilot station wagon. Louie and Greek agreed this car would be perfect. They could drive all the way down to New Jersey in no time at all. They could even go as far down as Miami and disappear.

 

The woman who left the Pilot shut the door leaving the motor running. As soon as she entered the door of the post office Louie and Greek, who were talking together, as normal people do when they meet at the Post Office, got into the car and drove off. It was now 3:45 pm. Count would take place in fifteen minutes.

 

The entrance to the freeway highway 87 was close and easy. They got on it and headed south. Greek was ecstatic. He kept pumping his arm. You did it Louie! You did it Louie! You're a fuckin genius Louie! You're a fuckin genius Louie! And they laughed and laughed.  Louie looked at the clock on the dash: 4 pm. Count time. Then they heard a wail.

 

“What’s that,” Louie asked? Greek turned around and looked in the back seat and saw a baby strapped in a seat-harness wailing away.

 

“Shit!” he said. “It’s a fuckin baby!”

 

“What” said Louie?

 

“A fuckin baby! A fuckin baby’s what I said. It’s a fuckin baby! Now what the hell do we do?”

 

To emphasize his point the baby obliged by raising the decibel level of wail to ear piercing levels.

 

“Jesus Christ!” said Louie, “What kind of a mother would leave her baby alone in a running car?”

 

“How do you know it was the mother?” said Greek.

“Of course it was the mother. No broad would do that to a baby that wasn’t hers.”

 

“So now we’re in for kidnapping,” said Greek.

 

“We’re no fucking kidnappers,” said Louie and he drove the Pilot off the next ramp off of the freeway. He parked. Greek found the registration in the glove compartment and with the maps there as well they found out where the owner of the car lived and how to get there.

 

The count, of course, was off. The prison was shut down and an intense search was made. The two bound Elks were found and Louie and Greek now were subject to a mandatory six-year stay in the hole or in a super-max once they were captured.

 

The alarm was sounded, search officers were sent into the woods with bloodhounds. But Louie and Greek were not to be found.

 

The house they were looking for was in Poughkeepsie on a street called Academy Street. They drove there. It was an old neighborhood that had received extensive urban renewal. The homes were old Victorian mansions. The gardens were all well kept up. They found the address, parked the car in front of the house and took the baby with them and rang the bell. No answer. So Greek, who was the expert here, picked the lock and they entered. First thing they did was find a bathroom and relieve themselves. Then they made a search for a baby room and found it. It even had a sink and a baby table with all the necessary tools hanging on side pockets of the table: powder, diapers, Vaseline, baby bottles, towels, and changes of baby clothes.

 

Louie got right down to business and unpacked the smelly baby. It was necessary. He dumped the dirty diaper into a hamper at the foot of the table and expertly washed the baby’s ass not forgetting all the necessary amenities like powder and Vaseline and such. He then took a bottle went to the enormous kitchen with an equally enormous frig took out a bottle of milk and filled the baby bottle. He then put some water into a small pot that was hanging over the stove on hooks, lit the burner under that pot, and placed the baby bottle in it to warm up the milk a little. He then removed the bottle, tested the warmth of the milk on his wrist, went over to the baby, picked her (for she was a she), handed her over to Greek with the bottle and said, “Here, feed her.”

 

Greek took the baby in his arms, took the bottle, sat down in a comfortable large sofa and began feeding the baby. And he loved it. He ooed and cooed while Louie looked at him in disgust and told him to shut the fuck up and just feed the baby and don’t drool on it.

 

“Now watta we do?” Asked Greek.

“Watta we do?” responded Louie, “We wait for the mother to get home. We give her hell, we give her the baby, we get something to eat, and we get outta here.”

 

“Wattaya mean we wait? What if she calls the cops?”

 

“She doesn’t cause we’ve got the baby.”

 

“What if the cops come with her after she reports the stolen car.”

 

“No cops in the world are that quick. The best she could do is call a friend or her husband to pick her up come straight home and then call the cops. But we’ll be waiting.”

 

Not for long. They heard the door open. Two women entered, just as Louie said.

 

They went into the living room and saw Louie standing looking at them and Greek with the baby holding a baby bottle of milk in its mouth.

 

“Nellie!” screamed one of the women.

 

“Who are you, the mother?” said Louie.

 

“Yes,” she said, “Nellie, Nellie. Is she all right?”

“What the fuck do you mean leaving that kid alone with the car running? Do you know I could make a citizen’s arrest on you for endangering the life of a baby not to mention criminal neglect? Do you realize what the fuck you did? Not only do you leave the car for anyone to steal you leave your fuckin baby in it so it can be kidnapped. Are you out of your fuckin mind?”

 

The mother was stunned. She looked at Louie and asked, “Who are you?”

 

“I’m the guy that stole your fuckin car and I didn’t appreciate finding a baby in it.”

 

“You stole the car and the baby and you're here with the car and the baby?”

 

“Yeah,” said Louie “but not for long. We’re hungry so whip up a couple sandwiches and coffee for us.”

 

“Yes sir,” said the other woman who went to the frig.

 

Louie and Greek, and the mother, who now held her baby, all sat at the kitchen table. Still in astonishment she said, “You stole the car and the baby and you’re here with the car and the baby? You brought back my baby! My little baby! And you took care of the baby? She has a fresh diaper on. Who changed the baby?”

 

“I did,” said Louie.

 

“You did?” said the mother. “You changed my baby?”

 

“Sandy,” said the other woman, “where are the cold cuts?”

 

“There’s a meat drawer on the top left of the frig, Roz.”

 

“And do you have any cheese, lettuce, tomato? I found the bread.”

 

“Lettuce, tomato in the drawer on the bottom left. Cheese on the top left in the meat drawer.”

 

“Got it,” said Roz.

 

Turning again to Louie and Greek, Sandy asked, “Who are you?”

 

“I’m Louie and this is Greek. We escaped from the prison at Napanoch and if we don’t get outta here soon we’ve got a six year date in the hole for the escape.”

 

“You mean they put you in solitary confinement for six years just for escaping?”

 

“That’s how they do it in New York. Have you called the cops yet?”

 

“No, I just called my husband, but he’s in court, he’s a lawyer, and couldn’t come so I called Roz and she came and he told me to call the police but I was so worried and so upset I just had to get back home first and we come and find the Pilot parked out in front, and you Greek and Nellie and—“clutching her breasts with the terrifying thought, “what are you going to do to us?”

 

“Shit!” said Louie, “Do we look like sex fiends?”

 

“Well you are criminals aren’t you? You just told us you escaped from Eastern. That’s a maximum security prison where they put all the hardened dangerous criminals.”

 

“Nawww,” said Louie. And Roz brought the sandwiches and coffee to the table and sat down joining the others. And Louie and Greek went on to explain how they were sent to Eastern because of overcrowding at Danbury where they should have gone and that they had to get out of Eastern because it would spoil their reputation and that they couldn’t get transferred because of the red tape and that they had to get outta here soon because there wasn’t much time.

 

“But you have time,” said Sandy. “Who knows you're here?”

 

“Naww, it’s too risky,” said Louie. “You phoned your husband. He’s a lawyer. That’s trouble. We’ve gotta go.”

 

So Greek and Louie finished their sandwiches, rose, said good buy to the ladies, went over to Nellie said good by to her, and Louie turned to Sandy and told her she’d better take good care of Nellie otherwise he’d be back, and they left.

 

Sandy and Roz went to the door saw Louie and Greek get into the car and waved as they drove off. Roz rushed back into the house and went to the phone. Sandy, after her shouted, “What are you doing”

 

“Doing,” said Roz, “I’m calling the police so they can stop them.”

 

“No,” said Sandy. “Put down that phone”

 

“Whattaya mean put down the phone? Watta you crazy or something?”

 

“No,” repeated Sandy. “Put down that phone. Don’t call the police.”

 

“Whattya mean? Why not call the police?”

 

“My baby,” said Sandy. “They brought me my baby, they took care of my baby.”

*

A few days later, Sandy got a letter. It was a plain envelope with no return address. It contained a ticket stub from Amos’s Parking Lot in Newark, New Jersey.

 

February 27, 2009