Inside the Stockade a Cautionary Tale

Inside the Stockade a Cautionary Tale

Harold Anderson Pugh

Copyright © 2017 Harold Anderson Pugh

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2017

ISBN 978-1-64082-063-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64082-064-7 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Comments/Reviews

A Treatise on Black Freedom

Inside The Stockade: A Cautionary Tale

1. Thought provoking poetry, beautifully arranged (my favorite was Street Life—very powerful message, yet simply written).

2. Good use of third-person narrative (very good use of story being told by a person who has knowledge of the intricate details).

3. As a reader, I found it interesting how you intertwined both prose and poetry to tell the story. This allows the reader an opportunity to clearly visualize the story.

4. Good use of specific topics and brands shows knowledge of preferred attire in the corporate world.

5. Good use of historical analogies shows knowledge of American history, and social study events.

6. Good reference of other authors and novels shows that the writer is well versed.

Because this storyline works so well with a cautionary tale and because Morris’s narrative so neatly embodies the many unresolved tensions—about gender, class, illegal activity, entrapment, and the overall judicial system—bearing down on society in the 1960s/1970s, I believe this story could become a guide for today’s younger generation and could serve as a tool for deterring them from a life of crime and illegal involvement of any sorts.

Most of all, the story depicts the never-ending search for true freedom, hope, and an overall belief that one can achieve the level of success if applied to the fullest potential.

For Anwar, Sheryl and Sis

Only the strong survive

And the weak gotta do

The best they can.

In memory of J. R. Rimedio

Attorney-at-Law

I am giving you a name of honor

Although you did not know me

I am Jehovah

I will strengthen you

I will raise you to righteousness

An’ all your ways I will make straight

Isaiah: 45

Street Life

Street life was far more serious

Than one might at first spontaneously believe

Until one day not quite by accident

One suddenly dissolves into street life

Advancing no further than the broken strands

On an unseen tiny piece of string

Stretching all the way back

To that first lawless act

Street life hurts, kills an’ destroys

The young an’ misinformed mind

Seeing street life for the very first time.

Chapter 1

Chapter 31

To his frankly shocked ears, five to thirty was an eternity of years. It’s a shame to see so much talent go to waste, said the judge, Robert L. Brown, the famous last words that the judge had put down right before he banged his gavel in the silence of the courtroom. And in a motion of adjudication, he was sending the defendant on a first-class trip to the slammer. With all expenses paid to the stockade.

I hereby remand you to the state prison of Ohio, at Chillicothe, for not less than five an’ not more than thirty years! declared the judge in a commanding tone of voice.

Pardon me, Your Honor! Morris blurted out, seeking more clarification of his sentence, wanting to know again how much time he was looking at as the judge had just declared it.

Butta, will you please say that for me one more time? Morris asked the judge.

No! I’m afraid not! the judge matter-of-factly replied. Your sentence was already pronounced once. An’ as it now stands, you’ve taken up enough of the court’s time. This is a matter for your legal representatives to clarify an’ explain. I’m sorry, bailiff, call the next case please!

He was convicted on two pairs of charges. The first set being for an attempted aggravated burglary and carrying a concealed weapon, for which cause his court-appointed mouthpiece was the notable attorney, Jack Rizo. With the second set of charges stemming from a grand theft and two counts of sales to some undercover agents. And his legal voice in that matter was Arthur J. Snyder, who had come upstairs to the jail at the top of the county courthouse building and explained his sentence in detail.

He was looking at three to fifteen years on both sets of charges, running together with an old charge of two to fifteen years for the possession of narcotics, a case he’d picked up a few years back, when he was caught dirty and had foolishly jumped from the front passenger side of Big Gene Benson’s car that was being pursued out Reading Road by the cops, after spotting Big Gene leaving the residence of a well-known heroin supplier, a location that was being heavily watched by some local and federal narcotic agents.

Heh dey cum! Big Gene said. Sonovabitches!

And he slammed his size thirteens on the gas pedal, and out Reading Road he flew through the red light at the intersection of Rockdale and Reading Road. The wheels were spinning on the car and swerving recklessly around the car in front, blocking his path. The cops switched on the emergency lights. The sirens were wailing.

Big Gene exploited the light at Lexington Street, taking the right-of-way down Reading Road. He zoomed by Mann Place Street, zipping past Glenwood Street and on down toward Gholson Avenue, where he pulled the car wildly over into the driveway beside the Avondale Hirsch Rec. Center on Reading Road and catacorner to Gholsen Avenue and right next door to the four-unit apartments where li’l Drake lived. They bailed from the car, hoping to make it to the open field behind the apartments and get safely away.

And Morris, his dumb ass trying to move fast, had reached and grabbed a brown paper bag off the floor of the car filled with fifty-two bundles of heroin, at the exact moment they jumped from the ride, running paranoid through the long driveway that took them to the backside of the rec. building, near the open field alongside the Saint Michael’s Catholic Chapel Church, where he was soon nabbed by a fleet-footed white cop and was taken into custody.

He was arrested and charged for possession of heroin. And was subsequently found guilty at trial and sentenced to the reformatory at Lebanon, Ohio, where serving out his time. He was paroled in 1973. And due to the current sets of charges and convictions presently leveled against him, he was also facing a violation of parole.

And with the old time of two to fifteen still sitting on the shelf, it was combined to run along with the new time of three to fifteen, making it a grand total of not less than five and not more than thirty years.

Involved with their little undercover scheme, the two RENU (Regional Enforcement Narcotics Unit) agents had more or less enticed him to commit a crime for them, a crime designed solely for their ultimate benefit. In the ways, the entrapment game was generally played out.

See, he wasn’t profiteering in the sales of narcotics like he had led them to believe he was. No more than they were the two college instructors they claimed themselves to be. When in fact, they were playing him like he was playing them, but only for the means to both their ends so that he might finance and perpetuate his heroin habit.

Now he knew it was illegal to sale narcotic drugs, in the same way it was illegal to use narcotic drugs—even for the sake of a mental health problem—unapproved by a medical doctor.

And it was most certainly against the law to sell or use a narcotic substance for monetary gain or conscious satisfaction. But by the hand of his own participation, the two agents baited him into committing a crime for them, seeking to gain him something for nothing. And that was where he and his attorney, Arthur J. Snyder, was stuck: on the sharp edges of entrapment.

At the first audience together, mind you, they clashed. And right then and there on that very first day, he disliked the man as his mouthpiece, figuring him as just another routine sellout who couldn’t wait to wave the white flags of surrender.

And Morris was wanting to make the claim of entrapment, his defense in court. But Snyder was refusing that option.

Because, he pointed out, Ohio doesn’t have no laws on the books for the entrapment claim to work, an’ there’s simply nothing there that could legally aid the way for the claim of entrapment to succeed. An’ the guilty plea was the way they should proceed with the case.

And soon as he said it, Morris’s was wanting to lean across the table and knock him over the head for sitting there talking all square about the matter.

But nonetheless, the five to thirty isn’t half as bad as it sounds. I mean it’s tough, true enough. But er, certainly, it’s not the end of the world. Three years an’ it’s all behind you, said Snyder.

Say what? Man, you throwing time around like it’s a cakewalk. However much time it be. Ain’t a soul gotta step it off but me, he said, grunting his displeasure on the matter.

Well, things could always be worse. But what’s unfortunate for you was the fly in your soup. Namely, your sister’s twisted involvement. Otherwise, you stood a decent chance at probation. You certainly made a good enough impression on the court. In the perspectives of the things you wrote about, the court saw something positive in it. An’ if not for your sister’s unlikely entanglement, like I’ve said, you would have likely been freed on probation. An’ I really mean that. But you know, I’m just trying to paint a picture about the point I’d like to make, said Snyder, arching his eyebrow. Understand?

Yeah, man, Morris gruffly answered, I understand all right. I understand that dem dirty rats dun went an implicated my fam on some bullshit she didn’t do. They was all up on it. Starting with them two lying azz undercover cops, the damn judge, the crooked prosecutor, an’ the worst rodent of them all, her so-called defender at law, Judas, the traitor, by his own willful acts. And moves. Ha! Say what now? You damn right she was the lame duck an’ the sacrificial lamb on the top of that.

That may be quite true in an extreme point of perspective. Despite her being found guilty for the crime. In a verdict that was less than favorable for her. Although I will say this much about it: that the trial by jury may have presented a different outcome to her advantage, ’cause with twelve in the box, it gives you twelve different minds to work with an’ see the evidence for whatever the evidence might be. The trial by judge, in my estimation, was a flawed defect on her defender’s behalf. I think so, anyway. ’Cause the job of a good protector is to sustain the truth. For a, well, for a more fair an’ impartial opportunity for realizing the truth that renders the justifiable conclusions of a just verdict. Now I personally believed your version of the facts, regarding her unlikely arrest as it occurred. An’ in all appearances, a jury may have believed it as well, Snyder said and shook his head, his voice raised to a more serious pitch.

Hey, man. I’m glad we on the same page. ’Cause that ol’ crooked lawyer, Brutus, or was it Judas? Gone and take your pick on the matter. When ignoring the merits of his client’s case in court for whatever the reasons was for doing so. Selling illusions with lies and spitting in the wind with the trial now a done deal, and in effect, useless for his client’s benefit—with the once-promising case knocked out the box, like taking a blow to the kidney only makes me angry inside from just talking about it when to think that I had once held the man in the highest regards—leaves me ill on the stomach. ’Cause it ain’t nothing I can do to alter the outcome, interjected Morris, speaking harshly of his sister’s defender, making him wanna bend over and puke.

But the verdict can still be appealed. An’ that’s for any trial verdict that calls for it anywhere in America, Snyder said, staring at Morris. "It’s what the process of appeals was meant for as the common denominator that provides us with the rights for repairing those decisions that are wrongfully made.

"Granted, that it takes time sometimes for justice to move an’ slowly develop. An’ then wait on it until it comes, almost like waiting along the curves of a long an’ winding path with no end to the path in sight.

The process itself is an important aspect of our great judicial system of proof, truth, an’ transparency. That’s made to work when incorporating misleading decisions an’ suspect rulings. Such as appears to be like in your sister’s predicament. Perhaps a higher court, as I’ve said, might see the evidence entirely different an’ rule in her favor by granting her another day to have her say in court due to the obvious merits of the case an’ the dynamics of the sworn testimonies alone.

Maybe he was wrong about Arthur J. Snyder and was underestimating his sincerity as a real person. And not merely on the basis of some mild-mannered attorney-at-law who looked a lot like Clark Kent from the comic book city of Metropolis, draped in the intricate disguise of an ordinary everyday legal defender all decked out in his blue-and-red Superman costume underneath his tailored Brooks Brother gray suit.

But there really was more to the man that instantly met the eye. Then the man just being about an outright give-up-the-battle attorney on a two-bit journey from the defense side to the side of the state. Only showing up for the hidden purposes of pleading away a Negro boy’s life, waving the white flag as though it was some constant act of belief and daily practice, performed by them for them, only one might guess.

That is in the cruel legal aspects of an unconscionable mouthpiece that was only looking for an easy paycheck in the quick surrender of another vulnerable black Negro boy living in the game, above the grave, called life.

At first look, when eyeballing the man, Morris asked himself the question: Why was it that some attorneys had even bothered about acing their bar exams? Only to end up crudely disrespecting the oath in a double-cross meltdown, working some courtroom flimflam in the detriment of one’s defense at trial.

And he wasn’t necessarily meaning that as no demeaning wise guy sort of crack. Or nothing like that. In a vile and discredited way. For whatever a person’s personal reasons might have been about in the selection of any particular profession to pursue as a lifelong purpose of endeavor. For the reason that the Negro boy in the streets might choose to be about a self-imposed and lifelong pattern of crimes and drugs and prisons, in the extremists’ details, one might suggest for beating the odds and paying one’s dues over time.

But hey now, let’s keep this shit real ’cause surely there are some attorneys out there that certainly do fit the square, engaged in those double movements in deception and deceit, for resolving the extreme details of the case that bears no factual evidence. When minus the fingerprints and the eyewitnesses that were so important to its outcome. With every expectation for losing. Like the man caught boozing in the courthouse hallway the other day. You digging on what a Negro boy was tryna get at?

Say either that, or one must primarily lack that charismatic touch when playing double-dutch with your case and all the marbles at stake. For all that your defender was taught and trained what to do. With the pleas in the strong appeal. When flashing some smart legal moves and courtroom skills. And win them hard to win cases that otherwise they might lose. And that’s all the time in fact if they never develop the habit for winning at the beginning of their career.

But getting back to Snyder, who at no cost or lost to himself hadn’t even built a defense for Morris. Custer had stood a better chance at the slaughter of the little big horn.

Only at least Custer and his men (of the Seventh Calvary) had all went down rumbling to the last man. Like them good ol’ boys Jim Bowie and Davey Crockett had done at the famous battle of the Alamo. And it was always some honor to be found in that.

But Snyder’s classic approach to the courtroom was as baffling to Morris, as his slender Clark Kentish disposition of the mild mannered super hero of disguise. And that’s either with or without his dark framed eyeglasses on.

Attempting to offer Morris some logic and some reasoning. As they faced each other sitting across from the long table, in the middle of an inmate-lawyer jailhouse conference room.

An’ by the way, your treatise on black freedom was enlightening. An’ I’m thinking that you just might have you some hidden talents to explore. But whose idea was it to let the court in on it? I’m a bit curious to know, And that’s how he said it too, no bullshit.

It was all Mister Rizo’s idea, Morris told him.

Well, as I’ve said, you might have some untapped skills to be developed as a writer, remarked Snyder, so why not perfect it an’ use your incarceration wisely? An’ get something positive from it. It’s always helpful to know your strengths and weaknesses. An’ that’s what I recommend. That you go in there an’ you learn all that you can learn about the craft of writing. After all, writers can get paid for writing. An’ who knows, heck, u might even write a book one day. An’ forgive me, ’cause I’m not trying to be insensitive of your feelings about going away. It’s just my own personal thoughts on the matter. ’Cause I felt your intent to be admirable. An’ even the judge had to acknowledge it. About your talents going to waste. So take my advice an’ keep you a pen in hand an’ learn all that you can about writing. An’ I can’t emphasize it enough.

Now how enlightening was that? When someone was taking the time out and was tryna tell you something that was positive about yourself. Should you not want to listen at what they had had to say about you? As maybe something that you may had needed to hear and know about yourself. For the possibilities of the future and the personal benefits it might bring. For the idea that you may have possessed the makings of a writer. As an unknown ingredient for the inner truth about you. That was only waiting to be connected and exposed one day.

Something that Snyder had told him in reference to some material that he had written in the county jail. When just tryna make it through another twenty-four hour day. Just killing some anxious and debilitating time. It was all it was.

On the heels of being pronounced guilty as charged on the carrying a concealed weapon case. He wearily stood and gamefully approached the bench. As Judge Brown sitting in his black leather, high-backed, judicial chair. Tilted forward and announced the following words:

It’s the ruling of this court that u be given a stay of execution. An’ placed on probation investigation. Until such time that this court can find out more about you.

So when on hold with the probation investigation. Officially referred to by the county inmates of the jail as the penitentiary installment plan.

And with three other cases still waiting to be resolved. His creative urges surged and emerged on paper.

Now please, please don’t misunderstand him? Because he was unpretentiously appreciative of Snyder’s comments. And his uplifting remarks in the modest compliments of his penmanship. That had made him feel decently good about himself on the inside.

And with his inner esteem unsettled around the edges. It was the kind of encouragement that he had needed to hear. Even if Snyder’s kind words were merely designed to appease him in the head. If not the heart. He felt good about it anyway.

The suggestion that he may have possessed the makings of a writer was something that still remained to be known by him. When overwhelmed by the inspiration that one of these days he might settle down and write a galvanizing book. Telling a down to earth tale. In an epic account of urban reflection and self-examination. On the