Part One: Chapter 7

VII

I’m not a rude man. I’m neither aggressive nor pushy. But back in the days before cell phones, after ten minutes of waiting for a pay phone, I probably would have found a way to communicate my impatience. I would not go overboard: probably nothing more than checking my watch, shuffling my feet, clearing my throat, the kinds of things that either get a response or define the other person’s rudeness. In polite society, that is.

This is a different kind of society. Each of the men who is speaking on the phone is carrying on an animated conversation with occasional scraps of audible and sometimes amusing dialogue. In each case the guy here in the holding cell is doing over ninety per cent of the talking, although it is also entirely possible that there is someone on the other end of each call who is also talking a mile a minute. I would not want to bet folding money on this, but there seems to be some connection, actually, between the conversations of the two guys who are here on this end. But I doubt they are talking to each other, because nobody is listening.

After another five minutes or so – the troopers took my watch and there is no clock on the wall so of course I am just guessing that it is over fifteen minutes altogether – one of the callers lets loose with a tirade of invective and then just walks away from the phone toward the other end of the holding cell. He leaves the handset dangling in mid-air from the blue box. I don’t move, but hang back warily, leaning on the wall and watching the room to see if I can read any hints of protocol as to how the phone’s usage is adjudicated. I see no apparent signals, but it is also not clear that the previous gentleman is entirely finished. The man is standing a dozen feet or so away from the phone now. He appears to be enjoying himself in conversation with another prisoner. He is a tall, well-muscled young man with a very distinctive high-pitched voice that nails Southern black speech patterns without any strong indication of an actual Southern accent. His hairstyle is equally distinctive, with carefully cultivated shoots of naturally curly hair – Would I call these dreadlocks? Not exactly – flying off in a wild array of directions. Amy Tuckerman, who lives with the burden of being my authenticity detector for most things African-American would call this man “nappy-headed,” I suspect, but all I can think of (and it does not make me proud to admit this) is that he has kind of a Buckwheat thing going on. To my dismay, I notice that this man and his friend are laughing it up and pointing at me. I want to disappear through the brick wall on which I am leaning, but that is not an option, so instead I decide to be myself, and play it straight. Myself. I am hard to locate, here, on these foreign shores, but I do the best I can.

I smile at them and turn my palms up. They laugh some more, point at me, laugh some more. A few other guys join in on their joke.

“What?” I am good-natured, willing to accept a bit of self-deprecation.

“Ofay bitch say ‘What,’” cackles one of the later laughers. A new and more intense round of laughter is ignited.

Buckwheat, the one guy at the end of the cell who has not joined in the new round of laughter, turns on the other guy, the most recent speaker.

“‘Ofay bitch?’ Who you callin ‘bitch,’ bitch?” he mocks. Then he turns back to the rest of the guys and says over his shoulder: “Only place you allowed to call another man bitch is when you ass be back in PC with your homeboy girlfriend.”

Buckwheat comes over to me.

“You need to use the damned phone, man?” Even as he rules the roost, there is friendliness in his manner.

“Yes, when it’s free.”

He turns and looks back toward the phone, whose handset is still hanging down toward the floor. He looks back at me, then at the phone again.

“Did you try hollerin for it?”

“Hollering for it?”

“Yeah, I think maybe you think it be a damned dog or something, you holler for the mofuh and it come.”

I laugh, although I am not entirely comfortable. But his gentleness and intelligence come through his masks in spite of himself.

“Probably won’t work.” I observe.

“Tell you what, O.G. You get that mofuh phone to come when you call it you make a ton of money.”

This time my laugh gets a little more comfortable.

“You want to make a call you walk you ass right over there to it and you pick it up real careful-ass so’s it don’t bite you ass, and you make you call.”

“Okay,” I say.

It is not exactly a pay phone. Calls are free. Gwyneth Gannon answers on the second ring.

“Gwyneth, it’s Stanley.”

Her voice becomes toneless.

“I’ll get Wade.” Not hello. Not how are you. Not anything.

A moment later Wade comes on the phone, stiffly.

“Wade Gannon.”

“Jesus, Wade, it’s Stanley. I need your help.”

“Save your breath, Stanley. Gwyneth and I just came from your – uh, from seeing Diana.”

“So you know I have been arrested. I’m at Nashua Street Jail. Talk about the mother of all mix-ups.

“Well.”

“So I need you to come over and get me out of here.”

“No can do, Stanley.”

“I’ve got to spend the night here, Wade.”

“Well, yes, I would certainly think so. I’ll find somebody to cover your arraignment in the morning if you need me to do that.”

There is a stunning discrepancy now between what is occurring in my life and my moment-to-moment expectations.

“You’ll find somebody, Wade?”

“Yes. For your kids’ sakes, anyway. But after that you will need to find another attorney who is willing to take your case.”

“My case? For Chrissakes, Wade, it’s not a case. It’s just a stupid banking snafu!”

“Save the bullshit, Stanley. I’ve spoken to Diana. I’ve gotta go.”

The phone clicks dead.

“It a bitch, ain’t it, man?” commiserates Buckwheat.

I nod. My head spins. I’m grateful for Buckwheat. It would be an overstatement to say he is my new friend. But right now, I’ll take his sense of humor and his acceptance and apparent understanding of life over what is being offered to me from what I thought were more familiar quarters.

I find a seat on a gray steel bench and begin to plan a lawsuit against my bank for whatever it has done to turn my life upside down. I am not a litigious person, but this feels good and right. We will prevail and it will very likely be a pretty good payday for my attorney and me.

It would be nice to be able to file the lawsuit, its preliminary paperwork at least, first thing Monday, but that would be possible probably only if I tap Wade to handle the case for me. I am not going to give the lawsuit to Wade, I decide. I am not a spiteful man, but I prize loyalty, and I feel it is important that there be consequences to Wade’s incredible lack of loyalty just now. I’ll certainly have no trouble finding an attorney who can kick the bank’s backside over this screw-up.

A little bit later, the big guy who has been lecturing and challenging the non-existent cops starts slamming his fist into the concrete wall until it bleeds, and he is hauled off in a black Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department van.

“He getting his wish,” says Buckwheat.

“What’s that?”

“They hauling his ass off to Bridgewater. That’s what he trying to do, keep his ass out of MCI Concord population. He no crazier than any other mofuhs in here, probably less crazy ‘n most of ‘em,” says Buckwheat.

I am embarrassed that I am thinking of this man by the name of a “Little Rascals” character. I offer my hand in an old-fashioned handshake.

“My name is Stanley Branford,” I say.

“Adrian,” he says. “Adrian Todd.”

After another hour the C.O.’s who run the jail start breaking down the guys in the holding cell. They pass out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and little cartons of milk. I am hungry, and the issue of when I may eat again seems likely to be out of my control. Some of us are lugged off to various other state and county correctional facilities. Others, including me, stay overnight here at Nashua Street.