in the Year of Our Lord 1913, men are lying in the
jacket in the
dungeons of San Quentin.
I shall never forget, as long as further living and further lives be
vouchsafed me, my
parting from Philadelphia Red that morning. He
had then been seventy-four hours in the
jacket.
"Well, brother, you're still alive an' kickin'," he called to me, as
I was totteringly dragged from my cell into the
corridor of
dungeons.
"Shut up, you, Red," the
sergeant snarled at him.
"Forget it," was the retort.
"I'll get you yet, Red," the
sergeant threatened.
"Think so?" Philadelphia Red queried
sweetly, ere his tones turned
to savageness. "Why, you old stiff, you couldn't get nothin'. You
couldn't get a free lunch, much less the job you've got now, if it
wasn't for your brother's pull. An' I guess we all ain't mistaken
on the stink of the place where your brother's pull comes from."
It was admirable--the spirit of man rising above its extremity,
fearless of the hurt any brute of the
system could inflict.
"Well, so long, brother," Philadelphia Red next called to me. "So
long. Be good, an' love the Warden. An' if you see 'em, just tell
'em that you saw me but that you didn't see me saw."
The
sergeant was red with rage, and, by the
receipt of various kicks
and blows, I paid for Red's pleasantry.
CHAPTER VIII
In
solitary, in Cell One, Warden Atherton and Captain Jamie
proceeded to put me to the
inquisition. As Warden Atherton said to
me:
"Standing, you're going to come across with that
dynamite, or I'll
kill you in the
jacket. Harder cases than you have come across
before I got done with them. You've got your choice--
dynamite or
curtains."
"Then I guess it is curtains," I answered, "because I don't know of
any
dynamite."
This irritated the Warden to immediate action. "Lie down," he
commanded.
I obeyed, for I had
learned the folly of fighting three or four
strong men. They laced me
tightly, and gave me a hundred hours.
Once each twenty-four hours I was permitted a drink of water. I had
no desire for food, nor was food offered me. Toward the end of the
hundred hours Jackson, the prison doctor, examined my physical
condition several times.
But I had grown too used to the
jacket during my incorrigible days
to let a single
jacketing
injure me. Naturally, it weakened me,
took the life out of me; but I had
learnedmuscular tricks for
stealing a little space while they were lacing me. At the end of
the first hundred hours' bout I was worn and tired, but that was
all. Another bout of this
duration they gave me, after a day and a
night to recuperate. And then they gave one hundred and fifty
hours. Much of this time I was
physically numb and mentally
delirious. Also, by an effort of will, I managed to sleep away long
hours.
Next, Warden Atherton tried a
variation. I was given irregular
intervals of
jacket and recuperation. I never knew when I was to go
into the
jacket. Thus I would have ten hours' recuperation, and do
twenty in the
jacket; or I would receive only four hours' rest. At
the most
unexpected hours of the night my door would clang open and
the changing guards would lace me. Sometimes
rhythms were
instituted. Thus, for three days and nights I alternated eight
hours in the
jacket and eight hours out. And then, just as I was
growing accustomed to this
rhythm, it was suddenly altered and I was
given two days and nights straight.
And ever the
eternal question was propounded to me: Where was the
dynamite? Sometimes Warden Atherton was
furious with me. On
occasion, when I had endured an extra
severejacketing, he almost
pleaded with me to
confess. Once he even promised me three months
in the hospital of
absolute rest and good food, and then the trusty
job in the library.
Dr. Jackson, a weak stick of a creature with a smattering of
medicine, grew sceptical. He insisted that
jacketing, no matter how
prolonged, could never kill me; and his
insistence was a challenge
to the Warden to continue the attempt.
"These lean college guys 'd fool the devil," he grumbled. "They're
tougher 'n raw-hide. Just the same we'll wear him down. Standing,
you hear me. What you've got ain't a
caution to what you're going
to get. You might as well come across now and save trouble. I'm a
man of my word. You've heard me say
dynamite or curtains. Well,
that stands. Take your choice."
"Surely you don't think I'm
holding out because I enjoy it?" I
managed to gasp, for at the moment Pie-Face Jones was forcing his
foot into my back in order to cinch me tighter, while I was trying
with my
muscle to steal slack. "There is nothing to
confess. Why,
I'd cut off my right hand right now to be able to lead you to any
dynamite."
"Oh, I've seen your educated kind before," he sneered. "You get
wheels in your head, some of you, that make you stick to any old
idea. You get baulky, like horses. Tighter, Jones; that ain't half
a cinch. Standing, if you don't come across it's curtains. I stick
by that."
One
compensation I
learned. As one grows weaker one is less
susceptible to
suffering. There is less hurt because there is less
to hurt. And the man already well weakened grows weaker more
slowly. It is of common knowledge that
unusually strong men suffer
more
severely from ordinary sicknesses than do women or invalids.
As the reserves of strength are consumed there is less strength to
lose. After all
superfluous flesh is gone what is left is stringy
and resistant. In fact, that was what I became--a sort of string-
like
organism that persisted in living.
Morrell and Oppenheimer were sorry for me, and rapped me sympathy
and advice. Oppenheimer told me he had gone through it, and worse,
and still lived.
"Don't let them beat you out," he spelled with his knuckles. "Don't
let them kill you, for that would suit them. And don't
squeal on
the plant."
"But there isn't any plant," I rapped back with the edge of the sole
of my shoe against the grating--I was in the
jacket at the time and
so could talk only with my feet. "I don't know anything about the
damned
dynamite."
"That's right," Oppenheimer praised. "He's the stuff, ain't he,
Ed?"
Which goes to show what chance I had of
convincing Warden Atherton
of my
ignorance of the
dynamite. His very persistence in the quest
convinced a man like Jake Oppenheimer, who could only admire me for
the
fortitude with which I kept a close mouth.
During this first period of the
jacket-
inquisition I managed to
sleep a great deal. My dreams were
remarkable. Of course they were
vivid and real, as most dreams are. What made them
remarkable was
their coherence and continuity. Often I addressed bodies of
scientists on abstruse subjects,
reading aloud to them carefully
prepared papers on my own researches or on my own deductions from
the researches and experiments of others. When I awakened my voice
would seem still ringing in my ears, while my eyes still could see
typed on the white paper whole sentences and paragraphs that I could
read again and
marvel at ere the
vision faded. In passing, I call
attention to the fact that at the time I noted that the process of
reasoning employed in these dream speeches was
invariably deductive.