The Animal Factory by Edward Bunker Read Free Book Online Page B

of the year.”
    “Okay, Earl, okay,” Kittredge said. “What I’m trying to tell you is to get your friends to lighten up. That fucking gang is getting too far out of line. Every day the captain gets a dozen snitch letters about those maniacs. There must be a hundred letters that Bad Eye killed that colored guy in the lower yard last year.”
    “What about that white boy they killed in the East block? And the four that got stabbed in the school building? And the bull that they killed in the hospital?”
    Without saying it in so many words, Earl was subtly reminding Kittredge that since the beginning of the racial wars a dozen years ago, and especially since black convicts had begun killing white guards, there was an unspoken alliance between some of the guards and the white convict militants. Before the guards began falling, most of them had been even-handed; now many looked the other way at what white convicts did.
    “So okay … he’s not locked up, is he? But the associate warden doesn’t need much evidence to get him … and the others.”
    When the big yard was crowded with lunch lines, Bad Eye came up to Earl and Paul. Seconds later, Ernie appeared out of the throng. When Bad Eye heard the story, he expressed fury at the “stinkin’, lyin’, stool-pigeon punk,” and vowed to make sure something happened to Gibbs wherever he was sent. Earl kept silent, planning to talk sense to his friend when he was calmer. Bad Eye had come to San Quentin eight years earlier, when he was eighteen, for a ninety-dollar gas-station robbery, but instead of becoming mature, he was wilder, like a bull enraged by pain. “Fuck,” Bad Eye said. “Another bust and I’ll never get a parole. I wish I could escape. Earl, help me bust outta here.”
    “You’re gonna get a parole next year. This is going to be okay. Just hold your temper and be patient.”
    “I didn’t blow it,” Bad Eye said, pointedly looking down rather than at Ernie. He hadn’t greeted Ernie when the latter joined the group.
    Ernie’s earlier toughness was now diluted by fear of the possible lockup. He nagged with questions about Kittredge, whom he didn’t know. Earl reassured him that he was safe, and hid his contempt. He detested falseness, and Ernie was a pussycat trying to be a leopard, though he would probably murder someone from behind if he had ten-to-one odds. To get rid of the man, Earl advised him to go to his cell so he wouldn’t be seen with them.
    Bad Eye went to tell T.J. what was happening, so Earl and Paul found themselves pacing the length of the yard alone. Walking in this fashion was a habit of years. Friends would gather if they stood in one place, but if they kept moving, they were left alone. Earl’s and Paul’s friendship had begun eighteen years ago in the county jail when Earl was going to prison for the first time and Paul for the second. Now Paul was on his fifth term, and where he had once been slim and dark-haired, he was now fat and gray. They knew each other’s faults, but this didn’t mar their friendship; sometimes they argued heatedly, but without lasting rancor.
    “Well, brother,” Earl said dolefully, “we’re having another wonderful day in jail.”
    “Yeah … no work and no taxes and plenty of excitement. If we didn’t have some wrong to do now and then we’d lose all our initiative . This one got fucked up good.”
    “It looks like we skated. You’d better start cooling it; you could get a play from the parole board next appearance.”
    “I was thinking that when I saw Kittredge looking at us. A nickel should be enough for car theft.”
    “Hold it! You weren’t just joyriding. They found a ski mask and there ain’t no snow in L.A., plus some gloves … and a pistol. You should get a parole, but don’t rationalize so close to home. I know you.”
    Paul laughed. “It’s still just a car theft.”
    “Yeah, I figure I’ve got two or three left, depending on how politics are. Nine years is a long