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He hobbled around the prison. Inmates said he was a “child molester.” They said he molested his brother’s son.

I don’t know
.
All I know is that every time he passed me on the walk he would speak.

“How’ya doin’, Sinclair.”

He had a medical problem. At times he could not control his bowels. He would be walking down the walk toward the kitchen with feces falling out his pants leg.

Younger inmates laughed and ridiculed him.

“What’s wrong, old thing,” they mocked, “can’t hold your mud?”

It’s not easy being old in prison.

And it’s worse if you happen to be a child molester.

But old man Guidry provided me with a story. The following essay is based on a Saturday morning conversation I overheard while waiting to get a haircut.

I rushed back to the dorm and quickly scribbled it down.

I had learned how to record things in my brain – until I could get to pen and paper.

Robert Guidry reminds me of the old Naked City intro – “there’s eight million stories in the Naked City.”

“Framed like Roger Rabbit” is just one of those prison stories.

Prison is filled with a thousand daily mundane conversations – embellished life stories; spirited and angry denunciations of the “justice system”; and lazy talk needed to just “pass the time.”
It was an early Saturday morning – August rain drawn from the perpetual moisture of the Gulf of Mexico had been falling all morning. A group of inmates were sitting on iron benches outside the prison’s barbershop waiting their turn at a haircut. One was a handicap old Cajun named Robert Guidry – a man who passed his time at the C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in conversation with whoever would listen to him.
“It’s a good drink,” the Cajun tells an obese African-American guard sitting nearby to keep an eye on the inmates. “It goes down smooth.”
“Sure does, goes down smooth,” the guard nods in agreement, indicating a fondness for alcohol. “It’s not a cognac, but it’s as smooth as cognac.”
The conversation lulled, drifting momentarily into collective silence. I didn’t catch the name of the drink. It became one of life’s million little insignificant mysteries. The inmates turned their attention, as though signaled by brain implants, to two inmates struggling to remove old paint from the doors leading into the laundry. It was time to “clean up” for the annual American Correctional Association’s accreditation inspection. I always had a special contempt for the accreditation process. The ACA is a sham organization (a collection of “broke dick” old wardens and former prison officials parading as “prison experts”) whose “prison accreditation” process is as phony as the organization.
“Sinclair, a friend of mine was telling me you was on death row for a long time,” the Cajun said, trying to stir up a conversation with me.
“Yes,” I replied, masking impatience at having my thoughts invaded by a foreign voice. “I spent six years there.”
“I don’t know how you done it,” the Cajun said. “That would have done me in right there. The Judge gave me twenty years, the max, and I caught a stroke right after that. Death row would have killed me as shore as shitin’.”
The Cajun tugged at a loose thread on the leg is his state-issued jeans.
“I like to fiddle with things,” he said, by way of explanation.
The stroke explained his handicap – a slow, hop-along gait and a perceptible slurred speech blended with a natural Acadian accent.
“I got my ‘rap-sheet’ the other day,” he said, “and it shows my parole date and my release date on the same day in 2009. Does that mean I will get out on that day? One of the inmate lawyers told me that it does – that I’ll go home that day. You know, I’m under Act 1209 where you gotta do 85 percent of your time.”
The Cajun had told me enough to indicate there had been a clerical error in the computation of his master prison record (commonly called a “rap sheet”). Under Louisiana’s restrictive “goodtime” statute, inmates convicted of violent offenses had to serve eighty-five percent of their sentence before mandatory release; there was no way Guidry’s parole eligibility and goodtime release dates could have been on the same date.
“You will be released on the date your rap sheet indicates,” I said, not wanting to encourage further conversation, or perhaps induce a second stroke in the old inmate by telling him the truth – that he was going to have to serve 85 percent of that 20 years, far past his expected 2009 release.
“Are you gonna keep runnin’ after them women when you get out of here, Mr. Guidry?” a young African-American inmate asked, drawing the Cajun’s attention in another direction.
The Cajun was visibly pleased with the macho nature of the question.
“Only the Lord knows that,” the Cajun replied. “He will decide that – but if I do mess with women, it won’t be with white women. I’m gonna leave them white women alone.”
“Whadda mean you ain’t gonna mess with white women, Mr. Guidry,” the young inmate smiles, enjoying the drift of the conversation. “You white, ain’t ya’?”
The Cajun’s head began to unconsciously bob back and forth.
“Nope, I ain’t messin’ with no white women – they ain’t nuthin’ but trouble. All they good for is to mess a man’s life up – all they want is the money.”
The Cajun rubbed his forefinger and thumb together to emphasize the point.
“When you gettin’ out, Mr. Guidry?” the young inmate asks.
The head-bobbing stops. Life’s surged in the Cajun’s eyes.
“2009,” he responded quickly. “Just around the corner. I’ll be there before you know it.”
I looked at the old Cajun who was probably in his late 60s and in failing health. Unless Mother Theresa had a hand on his shoulder, he wouldn’t make it to 2009 – and if he did, he probably would not be able to “mess” with women.
“What’s bad about it all,” the Cajun told the young inmate, “is that I’m here for something I didn’t do – I ain’t had nothin’ to do with it. I didn’t know nothin’ about it.”
“C’mon, Mr. Guidry, you mean you ain’t done nothin’?” the young inmate asked, clearly doubting the Cajun’s protestations of innocence.
The Cajun exhaled, leaning forward and half-rising from the bench.
“Oh, God,” I thought — another stroke, an investigation, no haircut.
“Told ya’,” the beet-red faced Cajun said. “I ain’t done nothin’ – don’t you understand English. They got innocent people in prison all over – you hear ‘bout it on t.v. all the time. I’m one of them people. That DNA stuff would prove it, too.”
The young inmate raised his hand, slowly lowering it to signal to the Cajun to calm down.
“Did you tell your lawyer all that?” he asked.
“What, my lawyer?” the Cajun stammered. “He’s the one who set me up. He got me to sign all dem papers.”
“Hold it, hold it, Mr. Guidry,” the young inmate interrupted, obvious disbelief in his voice. “You didn’t read the papers before you pleaded guilty?”
The Cajun’s entire body began to slowly rock back and forth as his hands rubbed his thighs. A loud clap of thunder – and an increased downpour of rain did not diminish his excitement.
“I didn’t know what I was doin’,” the Cajun stated emphatically. “I didn’t understand what I was readin’ – my first time in trouble with the law. I didn’t know nothin’ – and I was drunk, too.”
“C’mon, Mr. Guidry,” the young inmate asked incredulously. “You tellin’ me that you was still drunk all them months later! Why didn’t you appeal to the Judge?”
The Cajun had grown testy, impatient – a second stroke was percolating.
“The Judge don’t want to hear nothin’ I gotta say,” he said, impatience giving way to anger, “and I done went to the higher courts and they don’t want to hear nothin’ either. If I was a Rockerfella’, they’d hear what I gotta say – and, believe me, I got plenty to say.”
“Whata ‘bout yore lawyer? You shore he won’t help?”
The Cajun stood up, took a deep breath of wet air, and sat back down. The pounding rain pelted the nearby concrete walkway with a vengeance, matching the beat of the Cajun’s heart.
“The lawyer framed me for $300,” the Cajun said. “He gets $300 a case, so what’da you think – he gonna give back that $300. It’s all about that green stuff – just ask any man with money.”
“Well, the judge should – “
“The Judge, the Judge,” the Cajun spat, drowning out the rain. “He’s in it with the lawyer – they both get $300.”
The young inmate was deeply skeptical.
“C’mon, Mr. Guidry,” he said. “Three hundred dollars! I could understand it if it was three thousand, but $300? C’mon.”
The Cajun stared incredulously at the young African-American, as though looking at an alien. He struggled to find words for his thoughts.
“Goddamnit, don’t you understand nothin’,” he stammered. “It’s the money. I was framed like Roger Rabbit.”
“You’re next, Mr. Guidry,” the guard said, breaking up the conversation he had been monitoring.
The old Cajun got up and hobbled into the barbershop. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. A profound sadness engulfed me as the Cajun’s words reverberated in my brain. It was one of those million dark moments when I questioned whether I would ever be free of prison madness. Hope ultimately replaced sadness before day’s end, but the old Cajun still hobbled about in my thoughts.