Absolute Midget

University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses 5-22-2006 Absolute Midget Mitchell Sommers University of New Orleans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Recommended Citation Sommers, Mitchell, "Absolute Midget" (2006). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 440. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/440 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSOLUTE MIDGET A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts In Drama and Communications Creative Writing By Mitchell A. Sommers B.A. Franklin and Marshall College, 1980 J.D. The Dickinson School of Law, 1983 May 2006 Table of Contents January, 2001………………………………………………………………..….…1 April, 2001, Thursday……………………………………………………..………4 January, 2001………………………………………………………………….…45 Friday………………………………………………………………….…………48 January, 2001…………………………………………………………………...156 Saturday………………………………………………………………………...159 January, 2001, Philadelphia…………………………………………………….250 Sunday………………………………………………………………………….251 January, 2001, Philadelphia…………………………………………………….291 Monday…………………………………………………………………………292 January, 2001, Philadelphia…………………………………………………….297 Vita……………………………………………………………………………..327 iv January, 2001 Rudy has said nothing to me for at least ten minutes now. That’s not unusual. Some people around here might say he never says anything to me, only at me. I know better. Rudy has been my cellmate for long enough that I know the difference. What throws people off is that he doesn’t actually speak in what are commonly referred to as sentences. He doesn’t use paragraphs. He doesn’t bother with things like syntax. Like I said, I know better. Share a prison cell, a prison job, and prison meals with a man; you learn when he’s speaking at you and when he’s talking to you. And most of the time when he talks, he’s definitely talking to me. Granted, the conversations are all in numbers. Actually, numbers and grunts. He’ll go, “urrgh.” Or “Mmmgh…” Then he’ll punctuate that with “16”, “49”, or a long string of “3’s.” At first I began listening for patterns. Then I just started listening. It’s not as if I spend all my time listening to Rudy. I do have other things to do here as an involuntary guest of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Most of them involve maintaining what passes for the prison law library. I didn’t expect to be assigned this particular job. I didn’t make a big thing out of advertising that I was a lawyer--emphasis on the was--when I got here. I figured I’d be deluged with requests from half the people here to help them out with their appeal, or, as 1 one guy put it, his “labia corpus” petition. I didn’t particularly want to know how their public defender had fucked them over. But word travels, and all of that. So I found myself assigned here, and ended up with a jailhouse practice it’s probably not a smart idea for someone like me to have. But I’ve done a lot dumber things than this, and lived to tell the tale. Sort of. Besides, this passes the time. It amuses me. And that matters. Most lawyers, a category I still include myself in emotionally if not in the eyes of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, have long since stopped doing this particular part of my prison job. Once a week or so, I slip the pocket parts, which are basically supplemental mini-books, in the inside covers of various legal publications. The intent is to update law changes in such things as Purdon’s, which are little green books that house all of the Commonwealth’s statutes. They used to be ubiquitous in law offices. Now, most things are online or on CD. Except here. No sense giving inmates computers. As I work, I occasionally pause and talk to Rudy, talk about the Eagles or the Sixers, or tell him something about my life, the way I would a pet, if a pet was 6’3” and had dreadlocks. That sounds mean, and maybe even a little bit racist. It’s not meant to. I like Rudy. He’s gentle. Even if he did try to take out two Philly cops when they rousted him from an art center closet over in Point Breeze. I understand the desire to gouge a cop’s eye out even if you’re not a violent person, Context. It’s all 2 context. “Hey, Rudy,” I say as I stick the 2000 legislative updates in the back of the Vehicle Code. “You gonna be okay when I’m gone?” Silence. Then, “62. 67, 8.” I don’t think I’ve heard that particular sequence before. “Rudy, could you hand me that next set?” Rudy walks over to a box on a metal desk and grabs a handful, then walks them back to me. “Nice job. You can sit down over there. I’ll let you know when I need some more.” Unlike most of the people in here, Rudy doesn’t complain about his public defender. Though he should. I’m more likely to be elected president of the State Bar Association than Rudy is of being declared competent to stand trial. Some days I think I should do something about that. Mostly, though, I keep my head down, file these pocket parts, or straighten shelves, or generally keep track of things around here, and try not to think about I got here. Except when I do. Which is most of the time. Some days, like today, I think about what’s likely to happen when I get out. 3 April, 2000 Thursday I knew Gail was already trying to decide which was the bigger mistake: bringing me along or letting me stay at home. It wasn’t the look she gave me that told me that. It was the look she gave the mini-bar. I knew the calculations she’d made even before we arrived here, because I was accustomed to being on the business end of those calculations. The decision to bring me to Philly wasn’t random. Her thought process probably went something like this: Bring me. I’d be at high risk to embarrass her or just plain piss her off, but she might have a shot at working all the levers of co-dependency to keep my damage from spreading out too far. Leave me home. Pretend to have fun. Do so with the full knowledge grinding away in her cerebellum that if I did that very something to embarrass her or piss her off, she’d have no means to stop me before I’d thrashed around and done it. That’s the only reason she would have opted for bringing me along. Not for companionship, sex, laughter. Damage control. From her perspective, it was probably the better long-range choice. The short range, however, was what concerned us both now. 4 One day at a time, to use an expression I have been known to invoke, or have had invoked on me, like a mantra or a threat. We threw our bags on the bed. One king-sized bed. Not two double beds. Unless she directed me to the sofa--an extreme banishment, one I’d have to work at to be sentenced--that meant I’d get at least get to share the bed with her tonight. That was the first problem I could tell, she spotted, just from her expression, the way she almost imperceptibly squinted her eyes. The mini-bar. It almost sent us home right there. I watched her whip her head round, in a bed, to mini-bar, then back to bed semi-circle. I saw her eyes roll up. I could almost hear her jaw tense, wondering how she’d forgotten to ask about such a basic thing when traveling with the likes of me. I saw her look at the key in the lock, wonder if she should just grab it, stick it in her pocket, but no, that wouldn’t solve a damn thing, since I’d just go downstairs and say I lost it and she knew it. Because I’d done it before. I watched her size up all the lurking catastrophes in the room as she tried to decide if she should stay or just say, fuck it, fuck long-term and turn around. She could head down the Pennsylvania Turnpike as fast as her new SUV would let her go, dump my ass back in Lancaster, be back in Philly in 90 minutes, tops, and maybe cajole her brain into willful ignorance mold. Would there be shit to clean up? Of course. There was always some sort of detritus with me. It might be physical. More likely it would merely be emotional. But clean-up of some sort was something she could count 5 on. It was a tough call. Worry now. Worry later. But I already knew what she’d do. No turning back.

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