Rusty, August 4, 2009
Prison holds no fear for him.' We said that all the time decades ago when I was a deputy PA. We were usually talking about hardened crooks-con men, gangbangers, professional thieves-who committed crimes as a way of life and were undeterred by the prospect of confinement, either because they never considered the future or because a stop in the penitentiary had long been accepted as part of what passed for a career plan.
The saying circulates in my head all the time, because it is a nearly constant preoccupation to tell myself that prison is not so bad. I survived yesterday. I will survive today, then go on to tomorrow. The things you think would matter-the dread of other inmates and the fabled dangers of the shower-occupy their share of psychic space, but they count far less than what seemed to be trivial matters on the outside. You have no way to know how much you enjoy the company of other human beings or the warmth of natural daylight until you live without them. Nor can you fully comprehend the preciousness of liberty until matters of daily whim-when to get up, where to go, what to wear-are rigidly prescribed by someone else. Ironically, stupendously, the worst part of being in the joint is the most obvious-you cannot leave.
Because my safety in the general population is regarded as a high-risk proposition, I am held in what is called administrative detention, which is better known as seg. I routinely debate whether I would be better off taking my chances in genpop, which would at least allow me to work eight hours a day. The inmates here are mostly young, Latin and black gang members who were picked up on drug offenses and do not have a long record of violence. Whether any of them would care to do me harm is a matter of pure speculation. I have already heard through the COs, who are the institution's Internet, that there are two men here whose convictions I affirmed, and by pure addition and subtraction, I can figure that there are probably a few more whose fathers or grandfathers I prosecuted decades ago. Overall, I accept the view of the assistant warden, who encouraged me to volunteer for seg, that I am too famous not to be a symbol to some depressed and furious young man, a trophy fish whom he'd enjoy feeling on his hook.
So I am held in an eight-by-eight cell with cement walls, a short steel-reinforced door through which my meals are delivered, and a single bulb. There is also a six-inchby-twenty-four-inch window, which barely admits any light. In here, I am free to spend my time as I like. I read a book every day or two. Stern suggested I may be able to find a market for my memoirs when I am released, and I write a little every day, but I'll probably burn the pages as soon as I am out. The newspaper comes by mail, two days late, with the occasional articles relating to the state prisons scissored out. I have started to study Spanish-I practice with a couple of the COs willing to answer back. And, like a man of leisure at the end of the nineteenth century, I attend to my correspondence. I write a letter to Nat every day and hear often from several figures from my former life whose loyalty I value immensely, particularly George Mason and Ray Horgan and one of my neighbors. There are also a good two dozen nut-jobs, mostly female, who have written to me in the last month to proclaim their faith in my innocence and to share their own tales of injustice, usually involving a corrupt judge who presided over their divorce.
When the four prisoners who are being held in administrative detention are released together in the yard for our one hour of exercise, I have an instant impulse to embrace each of them, which does not take long to stifle. Rocky Toranto is a transvestite, HIV-positive, who would not stop turning tricks in genpop. The other two who eye me as I trot around the yard and do my jumping jacks and push-ups are criminally insane. Manuel Rodegas has a face like a bug that was crushed. He is about five feet three, and his head seems to grow straight out of his shoulders. His conversation, while occasionally lucid, veers into gibberish much of the time. Harold Kumbeela is everyone's bad dream, six feet six, three hundred pounds, who crippled one man and nearly killed another while he was housed downstairs. He is far too violent to have been assigned to the state work farm and is here only because of a paid arrangement with Homeland Security, which rents half a dozen cells for immigration detainees who are awaiting deportation, which in Harold's case cannot come too soon. Unfortunately for me, Harold has learned that I was a judge and regularly seeks my advice about his case. Telling him I know nothing about immigration law was a feint that bought me only a couple of weeks. 'Yeah, bra,' he told me a few days ago, 'but maybe, dude, you could be studying up, you know. Do a bra a favor, you know?' I have asked the COs to keep an eye on Harold, which they do anyway.
Nat comes down to see me every Sunday, bringing a basket of books, which the staff inspects, and the fourteen dollars I am allowed each week in the commissary. I spend the entire sum on candy, since no matter how much I exercise, the food rarely seems to be worth eating. Nat and I sit at a little whitewashed version of a picnic table. Because it is minimum security, I am allowed to reach over and touch his hand for a second and to hug him when he arrives and departs. We get only an hour. He cried the first two times he saw me here, but we have started to enjoy our visits, where he does most of the talking, generally bringing me news of the world, of work, and of the family, as well as the week's best offering of Internet jokes. We spend much of the hour laughing, although there is always a moment of anguish when we discuss the Trappers, mired in yet another hopeless season.
Thus far, Nat has been my only visitor. It would be imprudent for Anna to join him for many reasons, and she keeps the same distance she has for most of the last two years. Besides, I am not really eager for anybody else to see me in here. On Sundays, when Nat arrives, I am walked through the nesting gatehouses by a CO named Gregg, literally progressing toward daylight.
I am therefore completely startled when the door to my cell swings wide open and Torrez, one of the COs who helps me with my Spanish, says, "Su amigo." He stands aside and Tommy Molto ducks his head to come through the door. I have been lying on my bunk, reading a novel. I sit up suddenly, but I have no idea what to say. Nor does Tom, who stands inside the door, seeming to wonder only now why he is here.
"Rusty." Tommy offers his hand, which I take. "Like the whiskers," he says.
I have grown a beard here, largely because the light in my cell makes shaving hazardous and because the safety razors that we are allowed are famously dull.
"How you doing here?" Molto asks.
I open my hands. "I don't care much for the health club, but at least there's room service."
He smiles. I use the line all the time in my letters.
"I didn't come to gloat, if that's what you're afraid of," says Molto. "There was a meeting here of state prison officials and PAs from around the state."
"Strange place for a get-together."
"No reporters."
"Ah."
"The Corrections Department wants the prosecutors to okay a plan to release some inmates over sixty-five."
"Because they're no longer risks?"
"To save money. The state can't really afford to pay for their health care."
I smile. What a world. No one in the criminal justice system ever talks about the cost of punishment. Everybody there thinks there's no price to morality.
"Maybe Harnason made a better deal than he thought," I tell Tommy.
Tommy likes that but shrugs. "I thought he told the truth."
"So did I. Pretty much."
Tommy nods. The cell door is still open, and Torrez is right outside. To make himself comfy, Tommy in his suit has leaned back against the wall. I have decided not to tell him that moisture often collects there.
"Anyway," says Tommy, "there are some people who think you also ought to be a candidate for early release."
"Me? Anyone outside my family?"
"There seems to be a theory in my office that you pled guilty to a crime you didn't commit."
"That's about as good as the other theories you guys had about me. They were all wrong, and so is this one."
"Well, as long as I was around, I thought I'd look in on you and see what you had to say. Kind of a coincidence, but maybe that means I'm supposed to be here."
Tommy always was a little bit of a Catholic mystic. I ponder what he's said. I don't know whether to be heartened or infuriated when it strikes me that Tommy still seems willing to trust my word. It's hard to imagine what he thinks of me. Probably nothing consistent. That's his problem.
"You've heard it now, Tom. Where'd this theory in your office come from, anyway?"
"I ran into Milo Gorvetich yesterday, and he repeated something people had been saying. I didn't quite understand at first, but it came to me in the middle of the night and it bothered me."
Tommy looks about, then sticks his head outside the door to ask Torrez for a chair. It takes a minute, and the best they can come up with is a plastic crate. I was thinking of offering Molto the seatless stainless-steel commode, but Tommy is too proper to find that amusing. Nor is it much for comfort.
"You were bothered in the middle of the night," I remind him when he is situated.
"What bothers me is that I have a son. In fact, I'm about six months from having another one."
I offer my good wishes. "You give me hope, Tommy."
"How's that?"
"Starting again at a late age? Seems to be working for you. Maybe something good will happen to me once I get out of here."
"I hope so, Rusty. Everything is possible with faith, if you don't mind me saying so."
I'm not sure that's the solution for me, but I take the advice as well-intended, and I tell Tommy as much. There is silence then.
"Anyway," Molto says eventually, "if someone told me I needed to spend two years in the hole to save my boys' lives, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
"Good for you."
"So if I was convinced that somebody I loved had monkeyed with that computer, even with no say-so from me, I might have fallen on my sword and pled guilty, just to end the whole thing."
"Right. But I'd be innocent that way, and I've said to you that I'm guilty."
"So you claim."
"Don't you find this a little ironic? I've told you for more than twenty years I'm not a murderer, and you won't believe me. You finally find a crime I actually committed, and when I say I did that, you won't accept that, either."
Molto smiles. "I'll tell you what. Since you're such a truthful guy. You explain to me exactly how you managed to mess around with that computer. Just me and you. You have my word that no one else will ever be prosecuted. In fact, whatever you say will never leave this cell. Just let me hear it."
"Sorry, Tom. We already made a deal. I said I wasn't going to answer questions, if you accepted the plea. And I'm sticking to it."
"You want me to put it in writing? You have a pen? I'll write it down now. Tear a blank page out of one of your books." He points to the stack on my single slender shelf. 'I, Tommy Molto, Prosecuting Attorney for Kindle County, promise no further prosecutions of any kind related in any way to Rusty Sabich's PC and to keep any information relayed strictly confidential.' You think that's a promise I can't keep?"
"Probably not, to be honest. But that's not the point, anyway."
"Just you and me, Rusty. Tell me what happened. And I can let this whole thing go."
"And you think you'd believe me, Tom?"
"God knows why, but yes. I don't know if you're a sociopath or not, but I wouldn't be surprised, Rusty, if you haven't lied yet. At least as you understand the truth."
"You've got that part right. Okay," I say, "here's the truth. Once and for all. You and me." I get up off the bed so I can look straight at him. "I obstructed justice. Now leave it be."
"That's what you want?"
"That's what I want."
Molto shakes his head again and in the process notices the wet spot on the shoulder of his suit. He rubs at it a few times, and when he looks up I can't quite banish a smile. His eyes harden. I have touched the old nerve between us, Rusty up, Tommy down. I've made him Mr. Truth-and-Justice in town, but when it comes to the two of us, I can still push his buttons.
"Screw you, Rusty," he says then. He heads out the door, then comes back, but only to grab the crate.