The Prison Mirror

It's an Old Mood
Indigo
By Drake

Breathes there a con with heart so gay
Who never to himself did say,
"This is the longest, the loneliest day."

I have just completed a rigorous six-month research into the not-so-gentle art of doing hard time or, as they say on Snoose Boulevard, doing 'er tough, blowing the knob in slow motion, fighting the calendar, and other quaint dingdongs.

The net result of this research is stultifying, to say the least; hardly more than a common, sick headache and a touch of acid indigestion without benefit of alka seltzer. It seems that there are as many degrees of doing hard time as there are people to do it. The difference lies in the methods of application and how long a guy is willing to tear out his hair over any given set of circumstances.

Since the amount of hard time one suffers is in direct proportion to the amount of Self he possesses, it is visible in all shades and colors. Self-love, self-pity, self-abasement all call for crying towels, sleepless nights and that oh-m'-gawd! expression. "What might have been" is the slogan of the self-pitier, while "I wonder who's kissing her now" is the theme song of the self-lover. The self-abaser torments himself by trying to estimate the depth of the hole he fell into.

These are the chronics, the guys whose weary succession of days in prison net about one forced smile in a carload of eons and whose mental progress add up to a large cipher. They are the small minority and there is but one known cure for virulent cases: a prussic acid straight with strychnine chaser.

But the malady in its acute form is something else again. We all battle it occasionally and, with some, it seems to run in lunar cycles-like baying at the moon, etc. To the guy whose happy memories are dated, acute hard time will commence a few days before said dates, reaching a dismal climax on the memoric days and then diminishing slowly. The more dates, the more dismal climaxes.

Noletteritis is probably the granddaddy of more acute hard time than all other afflictions lumped together, although an unsuccessful joust with the parole board has been known to produce a particularly

feverish attack that defies remedy for weeks on end.

When the One and Only scribbles on a postcard, "Tomorrow, dear. I shall write you a real long letter," and then carelessly subjects you to a ten-day vacuum, the result is generally devastating. Or when she writes, "I met such a nice young fellow at the dance last night. His name is Bud and I think if it weren't for you I could go for him in a big way,"-well, that's the time a mood indigo descends in one fell swoop and all lugs named Bud become heels ofthe lowest order.

Sweet music sometimes does the trick.

A haunting. nostalgic melody often, in a split second. turns an otherwise routine evening into an endless holocaust of mixed emotions. Only marches and drum solos are safe listening for certain music lovers-the Casanovas-and even drum solos are not safe if' vou've been in the army.

There are dozens of germs that breed hard time in prison and they do not work union hours. And most of the guys who tell you they've never been bitten by one or more of them are bluffing. Wisely, they wear masks in public but the odds are ten to one that they pull out a few hairs now and then in the seclusion of their concrete boudoirs. It's part of the price we losers pay. The only known antidote is to strive to be good losers and to look ahead more often than we look back or mark time.

Some time ago I heard one fellow giving a sad-looking hombre a pep talk on his system of doing 'er the easy way. The long-pussed one listened listlessly. sighing as he nodded, and mumbling. "It must be wunnerful to be like you. I wish I could do 'er the easy way."

"You can, you can," said the exhuberant one, "if you'll only quit thinking about that 5 to 40 and set vour mind to other things. It's easy if you try: Look at me. I'm just as happy as if I had good sense."

I was deeply impressed by the happy one's attitude and decided to probe further into his secret for success.

It was some time before I happened upon the key to that secret: He was going out in 19 days.