Nothing seemed to bother Doc. He put his hands behind his head and lay back on his cot. Flowers gave him a long stare, tapped his clipboard, and walked away.
"What was that all about?" I asked.
Doc shrugged and picked up a medical journal. He was a reading machine. Night and day, he spent every spare moment with his medical publications.
"Where were you born?" I asked.
"Russia," Doc said.
Doc"s Russian heritage, in a roundabout way, had led to his imprisonment. As a bright, young, bilingual physician, Victor Dombrowsky was hired by the U.S. government to translate Russian medical doc.u.ments into English. In an obscure paper, Doc found a detailed account of a chemical used by the Russian army. It was not a compound to be used against enemies; it was used on the army"s own soldiers. The chemical, DNP, when ingested, kept Russian soldiers warm in battle during winter months. It increased the soldiers" body temperatures by three to four degrees. They could bear the bitter cold while the enemy froze to death or retreated.
A tiny footnote, buried among the doc.u.ments, had caught Dombrowsky"s attention. It was a detail any other translator might have overlooked. The chemical had an unusual side effect. In addition to raising the body temperature, the drug elevated the basal metabolic rate of the soldiers. The result: dramatic weight loss.
Doc held both medical and pharmacy degrees, and he had dabbled in drug development, for which he had earned a number of patents. He never forgot what he"d read about in the Russian archives. Two decades later, in the mid-1980s, Doc opened dozens of clinics that specialized in weight loss. He treated obesity with a "heat pill." Its primary ingredient was the formula used by the Russians. The advertis.e.m.e.nts promised that patients would lose up to fifteen pounds per week with no exercise.
"Fat women loved it," Doc said.
Everything went well for Doc until his financial adviser, the man he considered his best friend, became a government informant. The man wore a wire for almost two years, gathering evidence for the federal investigators. He exposed Doc"s offsh.o.r.e accounts. He even recorded Doc talking about how best to evade taxes.
"The f.u.c.king rat told the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds where every penny was stashed."
"So you"re here for tax evasion?"
"Not exactly," Doc said. "The FDA got involved."
It turned out that DNP, the primary component of Doc"s heat pill, had been outlawed as a drug in 1938, though it was still used as a weed killer. Prescribed in the 1920s as a weight loss drug, DNP had caused skin rashes, cataracts, and other medical problems, including loss of the sense of smell. A Viennese physician who wanted to achieve rapid weight loss had taken large doses and literally cooked to death from the inside out. DNP"s side effects were the catalyst for the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938.
Doc insisted there were no permanent side effects to his heat pill because he supplemented the DNP with hormones. In the doses he had prescribed, a patient"s body temperature would level off at about 101 degrees. "Some of our larger patients perspired a lot," he said. "A small price to pay."
With DNP outlawed and with Doc"s clinic serving Medicaid patients, prosecutors tacked on Medicaid fraud charges.
"How much Medicaid fraud?" I asked.
Doc said that depended on who you listened to. Doc"s lawyers argued that $40,000 might have been fraudulent. The U.S. attorney"s conservative estimate ranged between $15 million and $37 million.
"Good G.o.d!" I said. "How much time did you get?"
"Fifteen years," Doc said, calmly. "The system"s f.u.c.ked. Like I I could really get a trial of my peers." Doc insisted a jury of physicians would have understood that his heat pill wasn"t a drug violation; it was part of a total treatment. And according to Doc, it fell under the FDA"s Investigational New Drug exception. could really get a trial of my peers." Doc insisted a jury of physicians would have understood that his heat pill wasn"t a drug violation; it was part of a total treatment. And according to Doc, it fell under the FDA"s Investigational New Drug exception.
The U.S. attorney threatened to prosecute Doc"s children, who were peripherally involved in the business. Doc agreed to a plea deal. He expected a five-year sentence. When Doc appealed the judge"s fifteen-year sentence, the U. S. attorney described in dramatic fashion how Dombrowsky had stolen nearly $40 million by prescribing weed killer to desperate, obese women and harbored the profits in the Cayman Islands.
Doc lost the appeal and was stuck with the sentence. But he was determined to spend the time wisely, learning everything he could about medicine, devouring every medical paper published in America, planning the launch of his impotence cure.
My grandfather Harry, who tried to teach me the value of a dollar, and me.
CHAPTER 9.
The guard who had caught me talking to Ella gave me an additional daily task-mopping the inmate cafeteria. My instructions were to move all the tables and chairs, nearly three hundred, to one side of the room, mop the empty side, and then move all the chairs and tables to the opposite side to complete the job.
The cafeteria floor was checkered linoleum, so I outlined a ten-by-ten square grid with the mop, careful not to go outside the lines. Then I covered the interior squares with soapy water. To divide the floor into small jobs, sets of perfectly square, manageable quadrants, was satisfying. I have a minor, but not debilitating, obsession with symmetry. Once a square was evenly covered and cleaned, I could admire a job well done, then move on to the next.
The repet.i.tive motion, the back and forth of the mop, was strangely relaxing. The job required no mental energy, and my mind wandered.
My pay for this work was fourteen cents an hour. The meager wage reminded me of my grandfather Harry"s attempt to teach me the value of a dollar. When I was four years old, we began a Sat.u.r.day morning routine. As we would drive to downtown Gulfport, Mississippi, he would remind me of my budget. I could spend exactly one dollar on a toy.
"What if I find something I really want?" I would ask. "And it"s a little bit more than a dollar?"
"You"ll have to wait," my grandfather said. I would need to save the dollar from this week and add it to the dollar I would get next week, he explained gently, hoping the lesson would sink in.
We would park in front of the old gray post office. Men and women darted in and out of the department stores, restaurants, and shops. My grandfather would introduce me to his friends as we pa.s.sed on the sidewalk or met in the aisle of a store. When my search for a one-dollar toy ended, we would find a seat at a drugstore counter and order a malted milk shake or french fries. Our last stop every Sat.u.r.day was always the same. My grandfather would take me to Hanc.o.c.k Bank. It was where everyone in our family banked.
We would wait in line on the black-and-white marble floor with the other customers. When it was our turn at the teller window, my grandfather would prop me up on his knee and introduce me to the teller, as if he knew this bank and its employees would play a vital role in my future. Then he would say, "We need to check on our money." The teller would walk away to check the balance in my college savings account. Upon her return, she would present us with a handwritten balance. I would look at the figure and read it aloud to my grandfather, who, when I got the balance right, would nod and smile.
I was glad my grandfather wasn"t alive to see me in prison. I would be ashamed for him to see me like this. But I was determined not to get beaten down by incarceration. I wanted to hold on to, even hone, my skills so I could start a new publishing business when I was released. With a felony conviction, I might have trouble getting hired, but there was no law that prohibited felons from launching magazines. Doc was planning his future, and I would do the same. I had a year to plan, to design mock-ups, and to create a great business and marketing prospectus. I would use this time to plan my financial resurrection. If I could repay my bankers, investors, and creditors-give them a return on their money-it would feel like the money had been invested instead of lost. And I could be back on top.
In the middle of my fifth square, as I neared the five hundred mark of small tiles mopped and cleaned, a guard walked into the cafeteria.
The guard yelled out, "Too slow! You"re too slow, inmate!" I nodded, picked up the pace. "You ain"t got nothin" comin"," he said.
This is what guards told all the inmates. You ain"t got nothin" comin" You ain"t got nothin" comin". I"d heard it every day, but I figured anyone who worked as a prison guard didn"t have much coming either, so it really didn"t bother me. But I hated to be called "inmate." I thought about asking him to call me by my name. I also wanted to ask why he never woke Jefferson and the prisoners from their slumber in the cooler. But I just mopped.
I thought about my days of investigative journalism in Oxford, Mississippi. At twenty-four, I had launched an alternative newspaper to take on the small-town establishment. Though I garnered lots of accolades, I offended a number of politicians and powerful businesspeople. But I did have one very important champion: Willie Morris.
The former editor of Harper"s Harper"s and author of and author of North Toward Home North Toward Home, Willie was the writer-in-residence at The University of Mississippi. He took great interest in my fledgling career as a newspaper editor and publisher. Not so much because he was impressed with my efforts, but because he had a huge crush on my mother, who had recently moved to town fresh from her third divorce.
Willie would call our newspaper offices late at night, inebriated, after the bars had closed and the stores had stopped selling beer. "Mister Editor," he would slur. "For a mere six-pack of chilled beer, I will pen a piece for your fine paper on the ten greatest dogs I have ever known."
I would stop working on the newspaper and take a six-pack to Willie"s home on Faculty Row. His guests partook of the beer while Willie sat at his dining room table and wrote out his piece with a black felt-tipped pen on white legal paper. Sometimes, to avoid interruptions, he would put the telephone inside his oven. When he finished, Willie would stumble over, teary eyed at his own prose, and hug me. Then he would insist I join the group for a beer and give him an update on my mother.
After acquiring Willie"s dog story and another piece on the greatest Ole Miss football players of all time-paid for, in full, with twelve cold beers-Willie forever greeted me as "Mister Editor." I believed it legitimized my place as a journalist.
As I finished mopping the first side of the room and dragged the tables and chairs from the other side, I remembered Willie inviting his famous writer friends to Oxford. He seemed more than happy to introduce them to me, especially if my mother came along. Alex Haley, William Styron, and George Plimpton all visited Willie. He knew I was a Plimpton fan. Not so much for his literature, but for his partic.i.p.atory journalism.
I"d always dreamed of being an undercover journalist, secretly doc.u.menting conspiratorial practices and exploring hidden worlds. Willie arranged for me to meet Plimpton, to interview him for my newspaper, but it was a pretext. For me, the meeting was personal. I wanted to know everything he knew about immersion into a strange culture, clandestine reporting, and impersonation. I wanted to know what it felt like to go undercover, to write about things no one has any business knowing.
I asked Plimpton about his thirty-yard loss in a preseason professional football game when he posed as a quarterback with the Detroit Lions. And about his short stint in professional boxing. And, of course, about his astounding April Fool"s hoax in Sports Ill.u.s.trated Sports Ill.u.s.trated when he convinced the magazine"s readers, and most of the sports world, that a major-league pitcher who had studied ancient Eastern techniques would change the game forever because he had learned to throw a baseball over 120 miles per hour. when he convinced the magazine"s readers, and most of the sports world, that a major-league pitcher who had studied ancient Eastern techniques would change the game forever because he had learned to throw a baseball over 120 miles per hour.
Now, as I mopped the cafeteria floor, a hundred checkered blocks at a time, I imagined what Plimpton would do in my place. And it was obvious. He would write about it.
With mop in hand, I decided. I would not be a federal convict. I would simply pretend pretend to be an inmate. I would record the stories of the leprosy patients, the convicts, the actions of the guards, and the motives of the Bureau of Prisons. I would uncover why the government decided to experiment with mingling inmates and lepers. And if one of us came down with the disease, I would have the doc.u.mentation for an expose. to be an inmate. I would record the stories of the leprosy patients, the convicts, the actions of the guards, and the motives of the Bureau of Prisons. I would uncover why the government decided to experiment with mingling inmates and lepers. And if one of us came down with the disease, I would have the doc.u.mentation for an expose.
This was a great plan. This was precisely what I needed to do. As a partic.i.p.atory reporter, I could earn respect. When the guards called me "inmate," it wouldn"t matter-it would be my cover. I would play the role, but spend my days listening to and befriending other inmates and, from a safe distance, interviewing any leprosy patient who would talk to me.
Suddenly I felt as if I had escaped. I imagined myself on a stage accepting a Press Club award for the magazine piece I had written about my astonishing adventure. To a standing ovation, I would reach the podium, modestly trying to quell the applause before regaling the audience with my spectacular tales of courage and compa.s.sion, bravery and sadness, grit and heroism. That moment would naturally lead to magazine features, newspaper reports, and radio interviews. And, ultimately, perhaps a television special.
I put away my mop and bucket, returned the tables and chairs to their rightful spot, and admired the spotless floor. And I realized I no longer wanted to be transferred. Obviously, I was here for a reason. I was in a remarkable place-one beyond the reach of George Plimpton, even. This was the perfect plan. And I knew the perfect place to start.
CHAPTER 10.
The prison library occupied two rooms in a building in the far back corner of the colony. A prisoner in a khaki uniform sat at a desk flipping through index cards. I asked if he could help me find some books on leprosy.
"What size are they?" he asked.
I shrugged, baffled.
"Then you"re in trouble," he said, pointing to the shelves. "The library is organized by book size."
Small paperback books occupied one set of shelves. Larger paperbacks covered most of two other walls. Hardbacks lined the windowsill.
"You"ve got to be kidding," I said.
He went back to organizing his cards. "Warden likes things orderly."
I looked around the room. The other inmates seemed perfectly content with a library that ignored author, subject matter, the English alphabet, and the Dewey decimal system. I moved to the second room, the prison law library, where three manual typewriters occupied a table next to a set of The Federal Code The Federal Code and a few shelves of reference books. A small man with wavy red hair was typing diligently. He was focused and fast. He looked up, and I asked if he could help me find some books. and a few shelves of reference books. A small man with wavy red hair was typing diligently. He was focused and fast. He looked up, and I asked if he could help me find some books.
Frank, as he introduced himself, told me that a warden in Texarkana started the movement to organize books by size, and it caught on in other prisons. Frank and a couple of other guys came in when no one was working the desk and, clandestinely, organized the books alphabetically by author, albeit within the parameters of size.
"It"s problematic for t.i.tle and subject matter," he said, "but if you know the author"s name, you can usually find the book." When I told him I was interested in books on leprosy, he cringed. "Disgusting," he said, shaking his head again. Then he led me to two books written by residents of Carville, as well as two reference books on the subject. Frank gathered his papers and left. One of the other inmates in the law library asked me if I knew what Frank did on the outside.
Frank, he said, was Jimmy Hoffa"s lawyer.
I was intrigued. Hoffa"s lawyer would make a perfect interview subject. He would add spice to the expose, especially if I could convince him to divulge something about Jimmy Hoffa that no one else knew. I sat at a round table and had just begun to read when I recognized Link"s laugh from the hallway. Link had a new hobby-following me around, asking questions and making fun of my answers.
"Where Clark Kent at?" he yelled. "I got something for him." Link came in, followed by a couple of his buddies who never seemed to speak. "You made magazines on the outside, right?" he asked. Link laughed and looked at his friends. I told him I had been a magazine editor and publisher. Then he tossed a p.o.r.nographic magazine onto the table, open to a particularly graphic spread of a man and woman performing a s.e.x act. Link pointed to the publication and asked, "You make them them kind of magazines!?" kind of magazines!?"
"Of course not," I said. Most of the other inmates in the library were laughing now, too. This was beginning to feel familiar. I took a closer look at the magazine. The pale white woman with jet-black hair had recently had st.i.tches removed from breast enhancement surgery. The scars were pink and swollen and obvious. She also had a vicious rash on her derriere. The man had grease under his fingernails, and the bottoms of his feet were filthy. His mouth was wide open, as if in ecstasy. A handful of teeth were missing.
I pointed out these shortcomings to Link.
"You is lookin" at the wrong parts!" he said. This time, even the guy working at the library information table laughed. "Man," Link said, "you is the borin"est person I ever met in my life!"
I conceded that I probably seemed boring to him.
"What"d you and your old lady do for fun on Sat.u.r.day night?"
"I don"t think it would interest you," I said.
"Come on, man. We ain"t got nothin" but time. What you did on Sat.u.r.day nights?"
"Well...sometimes we"d get a babysitter and go out for dinner. Maybe catch a show. Sometimes we"d go to parties."
"They have crack at them parties?"
"No. These were social events. Wine. Beer. Maybe mixed drinks."
"You not only the borin"est person in the world, you is the whitest man I ever met. You was the motherf.u.c.ker they was talking about when they invented the word honky. honky. You white to the core." You white to the core."
I gathered my books and went over to the desk to check them out. The clerk at the table handed me a form to fill out. Link watched over my shoulder, then grabbed the form from the clerk.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n!" he said. "Even the motherf.u.c.ker"s name is White!"
Carville"s two miles of covered corridors were built because it was believed the sun aggravated symptoms of leprosy.
CHAPTER 11.
After work each day, I walked the perimeter of the prison side. Walking, even in circles, made the time pa.s.s. As I made my way around the corridors, I pa.s.sed by patients and inmates. Best I could tell, about one-third of the inmates were white, one-third black, and one-third Hispanic. The number of healthy inmates (we were called work cadre work cadre) and medical inmates (called broke d.i.c.ks broke d.i.c.ks by the healthy inmates) was about even. Work cadre inmates wore green uniforms. Medical inmates wore khaki. Over one hundred medical inmates were in wheelchairs. Combined with the leprosy patients, more than two hundred wheelchairs moved around the colony on a regular basis. The patients, except for Ella, owned motorized wheelchairs. Inmates had the basic kind, pushed by humans. by the healthy inmates) was about even. Work cadre inmates wore green uniforms. Medical inmates wore khaki. Over one hundred medical inmates were in wheelchairs. Combined with the leprosy patients, more than two hundred wheelchairs moved around the colony on a regular basis. The patients, except for Ella, owned motorized wheelchairs. Inmates had the basic kind, pushed by humans.
My private walks were often cut short by Link. He had yet to get a job a.s.signment, so he spent his days wandering the colony. "This place is a motherf.u.c.kin" country club!" he yelled. "I ain"t never leaving this place!" If Link saw me, no matter how far apart we were, he would scream as loudly as he could to get my attention. "Clark Kent! You borin" motherf.u.c.ker!" Some of the older prisoners demanded that the guards a.s.sign him a job because he was disturbing their peaceful mornings.
Link had spent time in other prisons, so I imagine Carville did feel like a country club. Six television rooms carried basic cable, as well as HBO. The recreation department had a pool table, a Ping-Pong table, an arts and crafts room, a music room, and a television dedicated to Nintendo. Outside there was a horseshoe pit, a shuffleboard court, a sand volleyball court, a walking track, four handball courts, a full-sized basketball court, stationary bicycles, and a fully equipped weight room.
Link started making himself at home in my room, much to Doc"s chagrin. Link"s nonstop talking distracted him from his reading. If I happened to miss Link"s visit, Doc would say, "Your friend honored us with his presence again."
Confounded about why I spent time with him, Doc asked, "You find these people entertaining?"
Link was entertaining, but that wasn"t the only reason I spent time with him. Link told everyone-inmates, guards, even the leprosy patients-that I was out of place. He reminded them I was an idiot criminal who forgot to keep any money. He imitated the way I greeted people, how I apologized when I b.u.mped into someone, how nervous I acted when someone around me violated a rule. In his own way, he was saying exactly what I wanted them all to know. Link told them I was different. He made certain everyone knew I didn"t belong here. I didn"t have to say a word.
And even though Link was making fun of me when he called me Clark Kent, I enjoyed being likened to a superhero.
When I was five, Underdog Underdog was my favorite cartoon. In my parents" bathroom in front of the large mirror, I would tie a towel around my neck and flex my muscles like the superhero. was my favorite cartoon. In my parents" bathroom in front of the large mirror, I would tie a towel around my neck and flex my muscles like the superhero.
I loved to watch Shoeshine Boy run into a phone booth, transform into Underdog, and save Sweet Polly Purebred from the evil villain. On the rare occasion when Underdog was close to defeat, in need of extraordinary powers, he would open the secret compartment of his ring and recite a rhyme: "The secret compartment of my ring I fill, with an Underdog Super Energy Pill." When he swallowed the red pill, Underdog became powerful enough to move planets.
On a Sat.u.r.day morning, I searched through my mother"s medicine drawer and found what I was looking for-a secret energy pill. I pushed the tiny pill out of the flat, plastic container, put it in my pocket, and walked down the block to my friend Mary Eliza"s house. Her mother greeted me at the back door. "That"s a fine cape, Neil," she said, "I"ll get Mary Eliza."
Her mother poured us each a gla.s.s of apple juice. I turned up my gla.s.s and gulped it all down without taking a breath. I let out a sigh and put the gla.s.s down on the table, like I had just won a drinking contest.