(In chapter III of Hard
Time, a rough character named Attila has demanded that I throw a cigarette
across the aisle to him. Trying to be as congenial as possible, I agree...)
"Well,
I think that'll be OK", I called back in as cheery a tone as I could
muster. I pulled out my box of Marlboro's and opened it up only to find one,
single cigarette inside. As far as I knew in my young life, no one ever
expected a person to hand over their very last cigarette, especially when there
were no more to be found. It just wasn't the cool thing to do. So, I looked
back to Attila, who I thought deserved to be spending Hard Time in prison and him
told that, much as I hate to say it, I only had the one cigarette left so
unfortunately I couldn't give him one after all.
Now,
a few years later I found myself working on a battered old wooden shrimp fishing
boat in the North Pacific, and in that life I heard about the worst language
imaginable. Nasty stuff. But I have to admit that Attila the Hun could have
given swearing lessons to the nastiest of the seamen I ever met. Attila grabbed
onto the bars of his cell, started shaking them with all his might and said
something like, "By (swear word!). You'll give me that (many swear words) cigarette
or I'll break through these (swear word) bars and come and get the (multiple
swear words!) cigarette myself!!!"
As
I watched him try to tear apart the steel bars, I sincerely thought that he
might actually rip off the door and come and get me. "Geez", I said
to Attila. "I'll give you the cigarette. Relax."
He
stopped shaking the door and said, "Boy, you just throw that cigarette
over here, and don't screw it up. I'm waiting." I thought to myself that
it was no surprise that they locked up this guy. He just didn't know how to
communicate to normal people in a positive manner at all!
"All
right, here it comes", I said to Attila as I took careful aim through the
bars, and I let my last Marlboro fly. It only had to go about 20 feet or so,
and I had always taken pride in my fine throwing arm - from way back in Pee-Wee
League Baseball when I was a kid. This should have been an easy toss. Maybe
Attila had shaken me up, maybe I was too cold, tired and wet or maybe I didn't
really want to succeed in getting the cigarette to him after all. But, whatever
the reason, the Marlboro just nicked the edge of one of the prison cell bars
and it fell to the floor, right in the middle of the aisle.
"Bummer",
I said as I looked over at Attila. He first stared at the cigarette in
disbelief, then he looked over at me and a new torrent of obscenities came
flying at me as he began shaking the door of his cell again. I backed away from
the door of my cell just in case he broke his door down. Now I was sure he
deserved to be spending Hard Time in the prison.
The
other inmates had been watching and listening to our exchange silently, but now
they began cheering and jeering at Attila which enraged him even more. With no
police officer around, there was no one to calm these guys down. It was like a
riot might happen. Or something. This wasn't good, but there was nothing I
could do about it; the Marlboro was out of reach from all of us. Sitting all by
itself in the amazingly clean, baron floor, tempting Attila without remorse.
Not
being able to do anything about the situation, and feeling quite safe in my
cell, I changed into my dry clothes and crawled under the thin blanket of the
cot. It had been quite an evening, but now the lights were low, the riotous
cheering subsided, I took a few deep breaths and fell sound asleep.
* * *
At
5:30 AM, I was awakened by someone shaking me and whispering to me that was
time to go. I opened my eyes to see an officer in my cell. "Wake up; it's
time to go", he said. "Be quite so we don't wake up everyone
else", he warned. I said OK, and asked him to wake up my buddy Don, down
the line somewhere while I dressed.
I
had hung my wet clothes around the cell and they were somewhat dryer so I put
them on instead of wasting my other set
of clean clothes. Don came around to my cell with the officer, I stuffed my
shorts and t-shirt in my pack, strapped it around my shoulders and I was ready
to go. "Geez Don, you got dressed
fast", I whispered. Don replied, "I went to bed in my clothes, but
didn't get much sleep" and he looked like it.
We
followed the officer back through all the locked doors as we climbed the stairs
back up to street level. This new guy asked a few questions and commented about
us being from Minnesota and all. "Yup, that's right. Minnesota..."
When
we emerged from prison, the clouds had flown away and the sun was beginning to
show on the eastern horizon. I was warm, my clothes were dry, we hadn't wasted
any money on a hotel and we were back on the road. Don suggested we stop at a
little diner not far from the prison and get some coffee and breakfast. Good
idea. They had a cigarette machine there into which I fed 2 quarters to get a
fresh pack of Marlboro's.
We
sat down on one of the round, cushioned seats at the diner's counter and gave
the lady our order as I lit my first cigarette of the day. "You boys look
like you had a rough night", she said. "Well, we just spent the night sleeping in that prison over there", I said as I pointed out the window
toward the prison which was looming a couple of blocks away. "We're from
Minnesota, hitchhiking out to see my cousin at Tuft's, in Medford..."
She
was the first person to have a hard time believing our story; there were to be
many others.
* * *
We
made it to Tufts University in Medford and met my cousin Jody, who snuck us into
the dormitory cafeteria for lunch. Jody introduced us to many of her new
friends and I fell in love with the cutest little red haired girl you ever did
see, Joyce T., - for about 6 wondrous days.
After
our time at Tuft's in Medford, Don and I decided to hitchhike down to New York
City to see Greenwich Village, at that time in the late '60's, the coolest
place ever. After all, we still had a whole week left of our adventure and I
still had almost $75 of my original $100.
But
that's another story...
John Mickman
Overnight
Hard Timer
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