Chapter 8


“Coffee?”

“Tea, if possible.” Kezia smiled up at Lucas Johns as he poured a cup of hot water, and then handed her a tea bag.

The suite showed signs of frequent guests—half-filled paper cups of coffee and tea, remains of crackers, ashtrays overflowing with peanut shells and stale cigarette butts, and a well-used bar in the corner. It was an unassuming hotel, and the suite was not large, but it was easy and comfortable. She wondered how long he had been there. It was impossible to tell if he’d made his home there for a year, or if he’d moved in that day. There was plenty to eat and drink, but nothing was personal, nothing seemed his, as though he owned the clothes on his back, the light in his eyes, the tea bag he had handed her, and nothing more.

“We’ll order breakfast from downstairs.”

She smiled again over her tea, and watched him quietly. “To tell you the truth, I’m not really very hungry. No rush. And by the way, I was very impressed by your speech last night. You seem so at ease on the stage. You have a nice knack for bringing a difficult subject down to human proportions without sounding self-righteous about what you know firsthand and your listeners haven’t experienced. That’s quite an art.”

“Thank you. That’s a nice thing to say. I guess it’s just a question of practice. I’ve been doing a lot of speaking to groups. Is the subject of prison reform new to you?”

“Not entirely. I did a couple of articles last year on riots in two Mississippi prisons. It was an ugly mess.”

“Yeah, I remember. The real point about the whole subject of “reform’ is not to reform. I think that abolition of prisons as we know them now is the only sensible solution. They don’t work like this anyway. I’m working on the moratorium on the construction of prisons right now, along with a lot of good people who organized it. I’ll be heading down to Washington next.”

“Have you lived in Chicago long?”

“Seven months, as a sort of central office. I work out of the hotel when I’m here, lining up speaking engagements, and some of the other stuff I do. I wrote my new book here, just holed up for a month and got down to work. After that, I lugged the manuscript around with me and wrote the rest on planes.”

“Do you travel a lot?”

“Most of the time. But I come back here when I can. I can dig my heels in and relax here.”

Nothing about him suggested that he did that very often. He didn’t seem the sort of man who would know how to stop, or when. For all the stillness, one sensed a driving force inside him. He had a very quiet way of just sitting, barely moving, his eyes watching the person he spoke to. But it was more like the cautious stance of an animal sniffing the air for signs of attack or approach, ready to spring in a moment. Kezia could sense too that he was wary of her, and not totally at ease. The humor she had seen in his eyes the night before was carefully screened now.

“You know, I’m surprised they sent a woman out to do the piece.”

“Chauvinism, Mr. Johns?” The idea amused her.

“No, just curiosity. You must be good or they wouldn’t have sent you.” There was the hint of arrogance she had sensed in his book.

“I think it’s mostly that they liked those two pieces I did for them last year. I suppose you could say I’ve skirted the subject of prisons before … if you’ll pardon the pun.”

He grinned and shook his head. “That’s a hell of a way to put it.”

“Then call it ‘a view from the sidelines.’”

“I’m not sure that’s an improvement. You can never see from the sidelines … or is it that you see more clearly? But with less life. To me, it always feels better to be right in the gut of things. You either get into it, or you don’t. The sidelines … that’s so safe, such a dead way to do anything.” His eyes sparkled and his mouth smiled, but it had been a heavy message. “Come to think of it, I’ve read some of your articles, I think … could it have been in Playboy?” He was momentarily bewildered; she didn’t look the type for Playboy, not even in print, but he was sure he remembered an article not very long ago.

She nodded assent with a grin. “It was a piece on rape. In sympathy with the man’s side, for a change. Or rather on false accusations of rape, made by neurotic women who have nothing better to do except take a guy home and then chicken out, and later yell rape.”

“That’s right. That’s the piece I remember. I liked it.”

“Naturally.” She tried not to laugh.

“Now, now. It’s funny though, I thought a man had written it. Sounded like a man’s point of view. I guess that’s why I expected a man to do this interview. I’m not really the kind of guy they usually send women out to talk to.”

“Why not?”

“Because sometimes, dear lady, I behave like a shit.” He laughed a deep, mellow laugh, and she joined him.

“So that’s what you do, is it? Is it fun?”

He looked boyishly embarrassed suddenly and took a swallow of coffee. “Yeah, maybe. Sometimes anyway. Is writing fun?”

“Yes. I love it. But ‘fun’ makes it sound rather flimsy. Like something you do as a hobby. That’s not the way I see it. Writing is important to me. Very. It’s for real, more so than a lot of other things I know.” She felt strangely defensive before his silent gaze. It was as though he had quietly turned the tables on her, and was now interviewing her.

“What I do is important to me too. And real.”

“I could see that in your book.”

“You read it?” He seemed surprised, and she nodded.

“I liked it.”

“The new one is better.”

And so modest, Mr. Johns, so modest. He was a funny sort of man.

“This one is less emotional, and more professional. I dig that.”

“First books are always emotional.”

“You’ve written one?” The tables turned again.

“Not yet. Soon, I hope.” It irked her suddenly. She was the writer, had worked hard at her craft over the past seven years, and yet he had written not one but two books. She envied him. For that, and a lot of things. His style, his courage, his willingness to follow his guts and jump into what he believed in … but then again, he had nothing to lose. She remembered the dead wife and child then, and felt a tremor for something tender in him which must have been hidden somewhere, down deep.

“I have one more question, and then you can get into the piece. What’s the ‘K’ for? Somehow ‘K. S. Miller’ doesn’t sound like a name.”

She laughed at him, and for the briefest of moments was about to tell him the truth: Kezia. The “K” is for Kezia, and the Miller is a fake. He was the sort of man to whom you gave only the truth. You couldn’t get away with less, and you wouldn’t have wanted to. But she had to be sensible. It would be foolish to throw it all away for a moment of honesty. Kezia was an unusual name after all, and he might see a picture of her, somewhere, someday, and the next thing you’d know….

“The ‘K’ is for Kate.” Her favorite aunt’s name.

“Kate. Sensible name. Kate Miller. Kate Sensible Miller.” He grinned at her, lit another cigarette, and she felt as though he were laughing at her, but not unkindly. The look in his eyes reminded her again of her father. In odd ways they were similar … something about the way he laughed … about the uncompromising way he looked at her, as though he knew all her secrets, and was only waiting for her to give them up, to see if she would, as though she were a child playing a game and he knew it. But what could this man possibly know? Nothing. Except that she was there to interview him, and her first name was Kate.

“Okay, lady, let’s order breakfast and get to work.” The fun and games were over.

“Fine, Mr. Johns, I’m ready if you are.” She pulled out the pad with the scribbled notes from the evening before, drew a pen from her bag, and sat back in her chair.

He rambled on for two hours, talking at length, and with surprising openness, about his six years in prison. About what it was like to live under the indeterminate sentence, which he explained to her: a California phenomenon which condemned men to sentences of “five years to life” or “three to life,” leaving the term served to be determined by the parole board or the prison authorities. Even the sentencing judge had no control over the length of time a man spent in prison. Once committed to the claws of the indeterminate sentence, a man could languish in prison literally for life, and a lot of men did, forgotten, lost, long past rehabilitation or the hope of freedom until they no longer cared when they might be set free. There came a time when it didn’t matter anymore.

“But me,” he said with a lopsided grin, “they couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I was the ultimate pain in the ass. Nobody loves an organizer.” He had organized other prisoners into committees for better working conditions, fairer hearings, decent visiting conditions with their wives, broader opportunities for study. He had, at one time, been spokesman for them all.

He told her too of what had gotten him sent to prison, and spoke of it with surprisingly little emotion. ‘Twenty-eight years old, and still stupid. Looking for trouble, I guess, and bored with the life I had. I was piss-eyed drunk and it was New Year’s Eve, and well … you know the rest. Armed robbery, not too cool to say the least. I held up a liquor store with a gun that didn’t even shoot, and got away with two cases of bourbon, a case of champagne, and a hundred bucks. I didn’t really want the hundred but they handed it to me, so I took it. I just wanted the hooch to have a good time with my buddies. I went home and partied my ass off. Till I got hauled off to jail, a little after midnight…. Happy New Year!” He grinned sheepishly and then his face grew serious. “It sounds funny now, but it wasn’t. You break a lot of hearts when you do something like that.”