On the Yard (17 page)

“Sit down, Mr. Manning.”

The small office was decorated with reproductions of paintings, clipped from some magazine like
Life
, mounted on sheets of colored paper. Otherwise it was featureless. A desk and two chairs. From A.R. Smith, Manning received an impression of neatness and very little else. Many another small, balding man might have worn a mustache and heavyrimmed glasses, but Smith was clean-shaven and his glasses were as functional as a tool. A manila folder was open on the desk in front of him and Manning was able to see that the contents were charts and duplicated reports, but he was unable to read any of it. His own last name was neatly lettered on the tab, followed by the number they had assigned him.

“Are you familiar with the term pedophile?” Smith asked without looking up.

“No, sir.”

“This is a term we use to describe a person who finds his love objects among immature children—”

Manning winced, and Smith, who looked up just at that moment to catch the involuntary spasm, continued evenly, “Would you say such a term described you?”

“No. Not at all.”

“The probation report describes your stepdaughter as appearing younger than her true age.”

Manning remained silent. Smith had not quite turned his statement into a question. Now he persisted. “Is that an accurate description.”

“She's a delicate girl—small.”

“Small in what way?”

“Just small. She's a little girl, but very active, healthy.”

“Small for her age?”

“Yes.”

“What is her age?”

“Fifteen.”

“A small, delicate girl who looks younger than her fifteen years,” Smith stated as if he were making an entry in a ledger —his voice was free of challenge or judgment.

Manning heard the door open behind him and he turned to see a civilian, holding several memos.

“Excuse me,” he said to Smith, “I didn't realize you were busy.”

“One moment, Dr. Erlenmeyer, I have something here ...”

Smith opened his desk drawer and removed a folder identical to Manning's, except it was lettered
Wilson
. He handed the folder to Erlenmeyer and asked, “Have you encountered this young man? The one they call Stick?”

“Briefly. When he was testing.”

“Would you spend an hour with him? There is something about him—” Smith glanced at Manning. “Something disturbing. He's too cooperative in light of the probationary report.”

Erlenmeyer looked up from the folder with an expression of interest. “He apparently has bright-normal intelligence and I would have guessed dull-normal.”

“Yes, yes, he's alert. You will see him?”

“Of course, if you think it advisable.”

Erlenmeyer withdrew quietly, and Smith shifted back to Manning, his expression preoccupied for a moment. Then his attention returned. “Now, Mr. Manning, would you tell me how you feel about the crime for which the state has imprisoned you?”

“I don't know.”

“You feel something, though?”

“Yes, yes—of course.”

“Why do you say, ‘of course'?”

Nothing came to Manning's mind. It was as if his brain were disabled. He sat silent, sensing the color rising in his face for Smith to note and interpret. Something had to be said.

“It was an impulse.”

“An impulse?”

“That night, what I did. It was an impulse.”

Smith rolled back in his swivel chair, and Manning noticed the dark hair growing deep in his nostrils. “An impulse,” Smith repeated, and Manning became aware of how keen this man's eyes were, a pale blue that now flashed with a cool light as if just turned on. “Suppose you try to tell me just what happened and how you felt about it at the time?”

Again Manning was unable to make any immediate answer and he sensed his silence stretching like a fissure in the earth between them. He found himself trying to remember why it had been necessary to use the upstairs bathroom. He hadn't intended to climb the stairs or he would have put on his slippers. But at the door of the downstairs toilet he remembered that the water flushing in the bowl sometimes woke Pat up.

“I got up to go to the bathroom—sometime after mid-night, I guess—and on the way back I looked in on Debbie. I wasn't thinking anything. I don't remember thinking anything at all ...”

The wedge of amber light from the small bulb at the head of the hall had spread like a path across the carpet exposing one saddle oxford with a white sock crumpled in it, and climbed the edge of the bed to discover her face and shoulder. Her blankets had slipped to the side. She stirred.

—Debbie, he called softly. Are you all right?

When she didn't answer he thought perhaps he should cover her shoulders. The house had grown cold.

“I touched her,” he told Smith, “and then I couldn't let go.”

“You don't mean that literally?”

“That was the feeling I had.”

“Did she wake up?”

“I don't know.”

“She didn't say anthing? Make any outcry? Ask you to stop?”

“No. I thought she might be asleep, even though that didn't seem possible, and then—”

“Then what?”

“She responded,” Manning said defiantly. “At the end she responded.”

Smith nodded. “I see.”

And Manning felt like a sick animal, its teeth bared in this last shred of corrupt male vanity. Still it was true. He had been both shocked and delighted at the vigor of her response.

“How had she acted around you previous to this?” Smith asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Was she affectionate?”

“Yes, she was always an affectionate girl, very affectionate. Even after she began to ... to mature.”

“And how old was the girl when you married her mother?”

“She turned eleven the week after we were married.”

“Did you think of her as your own daughter?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Nothing like what?”

“As if she were my own daughter. Nothing like that. I knew I was attracted to her. She used to come to breakfast in her robe, and I wouldn't mean to look, I'd tell myself not to, and then I would be looking. I suppose I have a poor character. Her mother would tell her to put some clothes on and they'd start arguing, and Pat would say, Your father this, or your father that, and Debbie would say, But Will's not my father. Then Pat would really blow up when she called me Will and Debbie would start crying, which I hated to see. It was beginning to be bad. Other times when I was passing her room, the door would be half open and I'd see her in her slip or less. She was so beautiful, so young, and sometimes it would come to me that in a few years at most she'd be gone, and Pat and I would be alone, alone and growing older.”

Manning paused and Smith asked, “Were your relations with your wife normal?”

“I suppose so.”

“You're not sure?”

“How would I know? She wasn't very interested, but I was never much of a man with women. I didn't get married until I was forty. Before that, well, I had a girl now and then. A few times I paid for it—particularly in the service. I think Pat wanted a home, and she was no young woman herself. She wanted to get married and I thought if I was ever going to marry I'd better do it soon. At first she was warm to me, but she cooled off and then it was one thing or another. I stopped asking her because I didn't like to hear her excuses.”

“It was your wife who reported you to the police, wasn't it?”

“Yes, she did that. I told her myself. It wasn't Debbie. I told her. I'm not sure just why.”

“Were you afraid the girl would tell her?”

“No, Debbie would never have told her. I told her a few nights later when we were in bed. I'd touched her and she'd turned away, and I found myself telling her. I couldn't see her face, but she didn't seem too upset. She said that she'd rather talk about it in the morning, but the next morning neither of us mentioned it, and then that afternoon they came to the firm and arrested me.”

“Were you surprised when the police came for you?”

“Not really. It was almost as if I had been expecting them. They told me I'd have to come with them, and I said, All right.”

“All right? Did you mean that all had been put right?”

Manning frowned, “I don't know ...”

Smith opened his desk drawer and took out a cigarette. He looked up to find Manning watching him. “Would you care for a cigarette?”

“Yes, please.”

Smith removed another cigarette. Manning couldn't tell whether they were in a pack or loose in the drawer. They lit up and Smith took several drags like a thirsty man drinking, the cigarette held between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. He smoked awkwardly like a boy.

“You were saying earlier that you acted on impulse,” he continued. “Do you still believe this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You hadn't thought of your stepdaughter in this way?”

“No, not quite like that. I'd kept it out of my mind. Sometimes the thought would come to me, but I'd be disgusted with myself and push it aside.”

“Now, the girl, what do you think she felt?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you think about going to her room again?”

Manning looked away to answer, “Yes, I thought about it.”

“Would she have received you again?”

“I had that feeling.”

“That she would have been willing to take her mother's place in your life?”

“At the risk of offending you, Doctor, she seemed to get a great deal more out of it than her mother ever did.”

“That doesn't offend me. The situation is a common one, it only becomes uncommon when it becomes an accomplished fact and also a criminal matter. How do you feel about having been sent here?”

Manning shrugged, “I don't know ...”

“This is a real thing,” Smith observed mildly, watching his pencil doodle a frame for the game of tic-tac-toe. “You must feel something about it?”

“It isn't that—well, naturally, I'm upset.”

“Why do you say ‘naturally'? We have men here, many more than you might think, who aren't upset at all. They—” Smith penciled a fat zero in the center of the tic-tac-toe frame. “They like it here.”

Manning looked doubtful. “I've heard some kidding. The same as in the service when we used to say someone had found a home in the Army, but this is different.”

“How is it different?”

“The whole feeling's different.”

“You're talking about your own feelings of guilt, but suppose you didn't feel guilt, then how would it be different?”

“You still have more freedom in the Army. We had passes, furloughs.”

“The professional inmate takes his paroles as furloughs. Perhaps he doesn't always realize this, but he leaves with some money and a fresh charge of energy, and when his money is gone in a month or two he does some desperate or foolish thing and finds his way back ... to his outfit. But that is not you. Mr. Manning, how do you plan to spend your time here?”

“I'll study. Try to equip myself to make a new life whenever I'm freed.”

“You don't sound too hopeful.”

“I'm not too hopeful, but I don't know anything else to do.”

“I'd like you to think about entering one of our therapy groups. It may not help you, but it can't do you any harm.”

Manning began to shake his head, but Smith cut him off, “I'm afraid it's not voluntary. I sometimes give that impression because I feel participation should be voluntary if it is to have the best chance of proving effective, but men with offenses such as yours are required to attend by the parole board, and any parole consideration is contingent on such therapy, though not necessarily on the recommendations of your therapist. There are several groups functioning at the moment. One that I share with Dr. Erlenmeyer and others conducted by Mr. Hamblin and Mr. O'Malley. Offhand, I should think you'll be assigned to the group conducted by Dr. Erlenmeyer and myself since it is currently the smallest.”

Smith closed the folder. He smiled faintly and said, “I hope things go well for you—as well as they can at this point.”

Manning returned his smile gratefully. “Thank you.”

That afternoon in the cell Manning told Juleson something of the interview while Juleson sat cross-legged on his own bunk, his book closed on the finger that was marking his place. Even as he was speaking Manning found time to note that his cell partner, he already thought of Juleson as his friend, wasn't looking well. He was always pale, his eyes weary from steady reading, but now his skin seemed worn, and his expression betrayed anxiety.

When Manning finished, Juleson said, “Smith's a good man. In my opinion anyway.”

“He took after me, hammer and tongs, like a district attorney.”

“Yes, on an initial interview. He hasn't much time to find out all he needs to know. There are some dangerous and violent men coming into this prison and it's his job to earmark them if he can. Where a psychiatric hospital might allow weeks before attempting a diagnosis, he has to make out on a few tests and an hour's interview. If he runs into someone way out, he'll follow up, but otherwise that's all the psych department most cons ever see.”

“I have to attend therapy.”

“Which group?”

“He said probably his, his and some other doctor.”

“Erlenmeyer. That's my group. Smith and Erlenmeyer are supposed to share it, but these days it's mostly Erlenmeyer.”

“What's he like?”

“I don't know. I think he would have made a good dentist, or maybe a pediatrician.” Juleson leaned over the end of the bunk to look out the bars. He could see only a few feet in either direction.

“Did the mail go by?”

“Yes, a few minutes ago.”