IV
In the morning we are ordered into the new section of the prison. The old bums go to the workhouse, and we await our turn to be placed in the shops, according to our sentences and our work or profession. The distribution of labor among us is strange and mysterious. A butcher, for instance, is sent to work in the stone quarry, a smuggler into the kitchen gang, a lawyer in the "skin gang," a "sissy" into the coal gang, a waiter into the garden; a burglar is sent to make socks, and I am sent into the tailor shop.
In this simple distribution of labor we shall learn many things which will be highly useful and remunerative when we go out into the world again.
I am finally alone in my new cell, which is spacious, clean, airy. I can walk seven or eight paces up and down, like an animal in a cage.
The steel beds are chained to the walls; instead of the filthy canvas, a steel wire is stretched across the frame, but there is no mattress or sheets as there were in the Tombs. There is also a covered bucket in the lower corner, and a tin cup. The bars are strong, but nevertheless plenty of air and light come in from the large windows opposite our cells. Two small hand towels and a piece of scrubbing soap are added to our simple belongings.
The number of my cell is 23, the last one in our row, and on the second tier, which contains men who work in the tailor shop. The shops stand together, in a separate building between the prison and the river, on the Brooklyn side. The shops where they make brushes, shoes, beds, and the tailor and repair shops, are under one roof, and under the control of a contractor. In the shops all kinds of work are performed: repairing, cutting and making clothes for outgoing prisoners; there are machines turning out underwear and socks; mattresses are made, stuffed and sewn up. At one end of the large room a keeper sits on a platform, while another surveys it from the other end.
Although the prisoners are forbidden to talk, nevertheless they communicate as freely as if the rule did not exist. When I attempted to ask my neighbour a question, he hushed me up with a hissing noise—but he answered my question. His lips did not move, but I could hear him talk in a faint murmur which would have been inaudible ten paces away.
It is very hard at first to follow this new method of carrying on conversation, as in everyday life one is used to watching a man's eyes and lips while listening to his voice. But after a while the hearing becomes used to it and is trained to listen and catch these slightest sounds, which escape the untrained ear of the keeper.
The convicts never glance into the speaker's face or at his lips; they look straight ahead and talk in the manner of ventriloquists, but instead of using a loud and clear tone they whisper in a low murmur. Men who have passed years in jail can always be recognized by their monotonous, whispering manner and their almost expressionless faces. This form of speech is necessary in order to avoid punishment.
Under the pretext of helping me, a young convict comes over to my side of the shop. He shows me the intricate workings of the machine which turns out the uncut cloth for the prisoners. Later it is cut and fashioned into prison underwear.
On top of the machine the spools feed the thread incessantly. Care has to be taken not to use "sabotage" methods, as punishment is meted out unmercifully by the contractor, who seems to have as much power over us as the warden.
My other companion is a young Russian sailor, healthy looking, fair and quite peaceful when let alone. He warns me that my anxious instructor is a "stool pigeon," who proves his status by giving me very detailed instructions as to how to manage to escape successfully.
I ask why he has not put his own methods into practice; and he gives as an excuse that he is going to be released in a few days.
Then he furnishes me with paper, pencil, and soap; and he even offers to send out letters for me. When I answer that I have no letters to write he recites an endless list of rules, and tells me how to evade them, and how to keep the friendship of the keepers.
He reveals to my astonished ears the underground system of communication with the outer world. With money and friends a convict can get all the contraband he desires: dope, newspapers, matches, letters—coming in and going out—whiskey, writing paper and pens, stamps, delicacies, tobacco. My mentor has passed a year in the penitentiary for the offense of "repeating," or of voting many times on election day. The gang leader who paid him for his work is looking out for him from his Brooklyn haunts.
Facing us there is a long table at which old convicts are sitting, without making a pretence at working. As long as they keep quiet nobody notices them. Some of them look over seventy years old; sad-faced, pallid, curved, almost venerable in their old age. They are mostly old sneak thieves and pickpockets, the wrecks and failures of their profession. They sit like graven images, silently, patiently, hour after hour, year in and year out, until some fine day one of them will be found rigid in his cell, and then four striped convicts and a keeper acting as a pallbearer will carry him away in a large black coffin to the morgue.
To-day for the first time since my incarceration I beheld the reflection of my face in a mirror. The sight was humiliating and shocking in the extreme. My keen sense of caricature lowered my well fed conceit half way down the ladder of vanity.
Then I consoled myself by thinking of all the good-looking, impressive, well-groomed men friends, enemies and acquaintances of mine; and I tried to imagine them with clipped hair, togged out in ill-fitting, patched, striped garments and cap; collarless and tieless; with a week's growth of beard on their cheeks—and the comparison made me laugh and cheered me up considerably.
The Deputy Warden comes in on his daily visit. His approach has been telegraphed in some mysterious manner and the whole shop takes on a lively bustling appearance. Second in rank as an officer of the penitentiary, the "Dep," a tall, good-looking man, strides into the room like a Prussian officer. He is not disliked by the convicts, as he seems just in his dealings with them.
Going back from work through the yards, a fat German convict who had been working in the brush shops, broke away from the line and, before he could be stopped, jumped into the river in an attempt to drown himself. A few shots were fired. A negro and two white convicts jumped in after him, and with the help of a keeper who patrols the island in a row boat, they fished him out. They laid him flat on the ground and worked to revive him.
His fat belly stuck out like a barrel, his face was livid, his lips purple. Finally he opened his eyes, and sputtered and murmured: "Let me die! Let me die!" "Shut up, you s——!" yelled an angry keeper, and he was dragged feet first to the hospital.