It Comes Out Easy - Franklin's Bennies Episode 8

Chapter 22: It Come Out Easy

I chomped on my apple and munched on my peanut butter sandwich under the maple tree with the Escape door kicked open. My guess is Mr. Franklin will be transported down south to a level five camp, tomorrow. I pulled out the letter, half excited to read on, half wanting to pitch it. 

The second page of the three-page letter gets down to the facts of what Franklin wants. 

Once you get the drywall off the wall behind the work box. It come out easy, then take out the floorboard. It come out easy to. There it is. All should be rubber banded and in plastic. They be broken into Bens and Uyles 30 or more to a packet. Never did tally amount. No time. But sure there in the 6’s. Might be in the 7’s.” 

I breathed a deep one and looked out my window at the maple and two robins perched, then back to the prison and the fence which surrounds it. 

I’d accused Mr. Franklin of being paranoid about his new cellie. But now with the Sergeant’s sudden interest, his paranoia seemed justified. No one else knows about the stash.

I finished my Red Delicious and my sandwich along with the cheese stick. From under my car seat I grabbed my cell and dialed up Nora. I made an agreement with myself that Franklin’s letter would be something I’d keep to myself for the time being.  

It was a slow day so far at the clinic Nora said. She asked, as she always did, if I am enjoying my lunch. As always, I told her she went way beyond the call of duty preparing it for me. She gives  me the reassuring comment that I am worth it. We told each other we love one another. I tucked the cell back under the seat and read on. 

This is where it gets tricky. But I need to spill this on you cause the younger bangers is looking for the bag. They kno I was the one who took it.”  

Go to club where my cousin Scarlet works. She be there at night usually. But sometimes in the day. Like I say, she don’t kno bout the bags. But you need her. To find Scarlet ask for Big Mike. Now there are three booty clubs on the Walk. And you have to make a visit to each to meet up with my cous. Always ask for Big Mike first. He works when she does. Take one of your homey’s with you.  If you got a black man all the better. Although things settled down now some. But the ladies kno that when some white man come by they shine and pay up. So all be friendly usually. 

Big Mike the biggest man on the walk in Paseo. So hard to miss. When you find him, tell him you be a friend of Coco. That is my street name. And ask for Scarlet. Big Mike and I did a stretch together. Cant trust no one in hood. But Big Mike be close to it. He will take you to Scarlet. 

If you be reading this, means I got shipped out. But I will right Scarlet and say be on the look out for a white man, named Doc. She will tell Big Mike. 

Young black people stay up till the AM. Specially young bangers. So, Scarlet want to meet you late AM. That be after she is off work. Buy her breakfast. She will take you to my aunties. I won’t tell her bout it all. But say to trust you. If you have a homey with you, he can watch your back side whil you take out the dry wall. 

After that, the letter I send to Scarlet will say to point up toward my shysters lawyer, Weinskill.  That be his name we call him. He is a jew lawyer. But the kill added by the street because that what he do in the court. But not for me. Or I wouldn’t be here. He can’t be trusted but kno how to clean the sacks. Best he take it to the place Scarlet kno, a weave shop. But Weinskill might kno some place also. Take pictures with your camera. On your phone. Of Weinskill. If you can. Showing him seeing the sacks. That be your back up.  

Point of this, Doc, is to clean up the sacks. And buy my auntie a nice place. In the south county. Be nice to be on the Kansas side. Caus of my little cous.  

These young bangers be bad but more bad than smart. Big Mike tell you bout them. They leave him alone. And he kno bout my choice to leave them dry from Plaza business. That how all this started. But that be another tale. 

This kite might be found. But if you readin, then not.  

You be a good man. I kno this a lot to ask. I understand if other matters come your way. 

He concluded. 

The Bennies been there since just fore I got locked up. So that been months now.  

I’d scratch out Doc, which could be traced back to me. Just in case. 

Chapter 23: Locked Away a Long Time

I placed the letter under the car seat next to my cell, wiped off some crumbs from the peanut butter sandwich, then locked up  and headed back into the factory, my paranoia growing. 

I’d reminded myself of the words I’d imparted to Franklin; once one crosses over into the world of crime, paranoia becomes a partner. I hadn’t quite arrived in that world, yet.

Just inside the front door in a small alcove, Sergeant Boyce was talking to Lt. Jody, Maria’s husband. Jody smiled and waved me over. Boyce, arms folded, was on-guard. 

“Doc Pedro, been out listening to Rush’s replacement? Guess he’s gone now.” 

I’d shared with Maria that at times I used to tune into the noon-time Rush Limbaugh radio show, to pass the time while I lunched. She, unlike the other mental health staff, didn’t judge my taste in talk radio, and even confessed that for a Hispanic woman she was conservative and had been a Make a America Great Again supporter. I surmised that Jody and Boyce had been wearers of the MAGA red hat too. 

I chuckled. “Not today.” I waited. Jody looked over at Boyce, then back at me, then at Boyce. 

“Too bad he died. I listened from time to time… The Sergeant is curious about one of your clients, uh, a Mr. uh…”

“Franklin,” Boyce said, giving me a half nod, with a glare. He stepped closer to me, letting his beefy arms fall to adjust his belt. “You were talking to him in his house this morning. Curious, as to—.”

“Let’s take a talk in here,” Jody said, motioning us toward the small conference room just off the lobby bathrooms. Inside we took chairs, Boyce at the head, me across from Officer Jody. I wasn't  prepared for an interrogation. But now that Boyce was about to inquire about my association with a client, I had choices to make. Play the “yes sir” game, me being a guest in the prison as the corrections officers often reminded the civilian staff. Do I keep my information about my client close to my vest? 

“Doc  Cleary,” Boyce began…. “ Or, do I call you that? You aren’t a psychologist are you?”

I felt my heart pound. A subtle put-down for the master degree mental health staff. “Just a humble mental health counselor, Lieutenant,” I say, knowing he is a sergeant.

“Sergeant,” Boyce said.

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry.” I said. 

Officer Jody shuffled in his chair. “Robert, go ahead and ask Pedro what it is you want to ask him.”

Jody out-ranked Boyce and I suspected he knew I had been seeing Mr. Franklin more than what was deemed normal, something likely he and his wife Maria, had talked about.

“You are having more than the normal amount of mental health sessions with this Franklin and given his sentence, which is a long one, not really sure why you are finding chats with him more needed than for those men who you can help. I mean this guy is going to be locked away a long time. And is going to a level 5 camp. So---.”

“That’s all the more reason to talk to him, Sergeant. And really all we do is answer an inmate’s request. He sent out MSR’s for me.”

“What are they about?” Boyce asked, burrowing his little beetle eyes toward me. 

I looked over at Jody for help.

“I don’t think Peter is allowed to tell you that Robert. Right Peter?”

“That’s about it. I mean regardless that this is a prison, we still can’t go around talking out right about what an inmate says; unless of course it relates to him wanting to hurt himself or someone else. And Mr. Franklin hasn’t indicated any such thing to me.” 

Boyce glared like I was hiding something. I turned the table on him. “Sergeant, what are you after, anyway?”

He reared back as if he was not used to being asked a question. “Since you ask… well, Mr. Cleary, this inmate who you seem to be so fond of is a dangerous man. He is going to a maximum-security camp and seems he is pressing you for something. I want to know what it is.”

I gave a casual headshake, waiting for anything else he wanted to add. Officer Jody fidgeted, likely curious to. I wanted to spit back to Boyce that Franklin was doing a long sentence under the three strike law, but non dangerous. “OK, Sergeant, but dangerous or not, what is it you want from me?”

The radio hanging onto Jody's belt called out his name for him to respond, alerting him of an emergency. Both men got high alert on their brow. “We got to move, Sergeant. Can we take this up later, Pedro?”

“Sure. You know where to find me.”

Jody replied to someone on the radio and scurried out the door. Boyce slowly followed, giving me a dagger glare. 

Back at my desk,  likely saved by the third degree due to some prison fight, I finished up the morning SOAP notes on the men I saw in the AM.

Maria constantly tells me I need to expound on my assessment of the men I see. Kiddingly she had labeled me an oppositional defiant man. “No matter how much I tell you to write more, Pedro, you just do what you want. You remind me of the cholos back in south central,” she’d said. 

I always obliged her comment with a thank you. 

Chapter 24: Shiip

I wrote the note about my session with Mr. Franklin in his housing unit, touching on his fear of being sent to what he said is a Nazi camp. And also that he is uncomfortable with his new cellie, a much younger man. I left out mention of the letter. 

Despite my training as a counselor, in graduate school, I couldn't recall precisely definitive guidelines on what should be said in a treatment note and what shouldn’t, unless, information from a client had to do with self-harm or a homicidal tendency. There are a plethora of treatment plan reference books, Jongsma publishing for one, about what to include and not include are on bookstore shelves. But I always stacked up on the side of the less said, the better, when it came to note writing.

Under the SHIIP area, which stands for suicide, homicide, ideations, intent and plan, I said Franklin has no plans to hurt himself or others. 

As I closed out the page about him, satisfied I said the bare minimum, Boyce walked into the mental health area and stopped outside my cubicle, this time looking more like he wanted to be friends than ready to go to war with me.

He was alone, no officer Jody to run interference. I’d always gotten along with the correctional staff. They had a hard job and were underpaid. I hadn’t ever had a sit-down talk with the Sergeant. I waved him into my cubicle. 

He was wearing his trooper correctional hat, and placed it carefully on the table next to my desk. “I want to apologize for starters,” he said. “I shouldn’t have overstepped my boundaries asking about your man. But I was alerted to keep a watch on him.” 

I double checked my computer to make sure Mr. Franklin’s note had been closed. “No problem, Sergeant. You have to do your job.” My modus operandi is to let the Sergeant talk without letting on anything privy to Mr. Franklin or my relationship with him. 

“I know we have more than our share of level 5 inmates here,” he said, “waiting to be shipped out to maximum facilities, but someone in administration from the Capital asked us to keep an eye on your man. So the Warden called me and well… there you go… it’s Peter, right…? Probably should have told you that. Just between you and me.” 

“I understand,” I said, wondering why he does tell me about the request from higher ups.”

“Well, Doc, uh, Peter, I didn’t find your man too off-putting when I walked him back to his cell this morning. He seemed almost like some Uncle Tom type.” The Sergeant chortled a chuckle at his description. 

“Sergeant, you should know Mr. Franklin is on medication,” I said. “He is worried about going to the level five camp down south, because he says it is a Nazi camp and has just been coming to vent.” Not untrue. 

Maria poked her head into the cubicle with a heavy frown “Mind if I join the conversation?”

The sergeant offered her his seat. “Stay,” she said. “I just wanted to let you two know I am here to answer any questions should you need me.” 

I knew she'd likely been alerted to the Sergeant’s interest today by husband Jody. And given her fierce desire to be in the know, but also to be the caretaker of her people, she’s here to run interference.

The Sergeant continued. “Well, Dr. Calderon, I was telling Mr. Cleary, here, Peter, that my interest in his man Franklin relates to this inmate being classified as a dangerous felon and also that we’d been flagged to watch him by Director Knox’s office.”

Maria waited. She leaned against the door, arms folded, then said, “Are you sure this request came from the Director’s office? It is standard procedure for the staff there to contact me about any mental health concerns. And I never got a call, so…”

The Sergeant shuffled some, picked up his trooper hat, and flicked off some lent, looking at Maria then me. “Uh, I was just told that by the Warden. Don’t really know where the request came from, but we gave 10-4 here. And here I am.” 

I let Maria do her thing. “Sergeant,” she said sternly, “I think Mr. Cleary has told you what he knows, that being that, this inmate is fearful of being sent to a camp where most of the men are white, and he being black fears for his life. It is my belief the department  of corrections should prevent any possible stabbings or worse yet, deaths and consider sending this man to another facility.” 

Boyce nodded to himself, paused a moment, then hoisted his girth up, putting on his hat. “I will relay that message to the Warden, Doc. Understand, I am just doing my job.” 

Maria moved over to let the man pass by. “And that’s all we are doing, too,” she said. 

“Good day,” he said. 

Maria gave me a discerning lookover, and took the Sergeant’s chair. 

“Thanks, mom,” I said. 

“Pedro, I hope you are telling me everything about this Mr. Franklin. Seems quite odd this interest in him.” She glanced at my computer, then into me. “OK, then, someone, somewhere finds your man a person-of-interest regarding something.”  

I spent the remainder of the afternoon cleaning up my notes until our 4 pm bell.