Pelican Bay

During the time of the Prussian King Fredrick the Great and into the Napoleanic Wars, it became a custom to release certain officers of the enemy captured in battle on their parole d'honneur, word of honor.  The word of these captured officers was accepted on the condition they would return home and fight no more.  This conditional release--parole--came from the French.  The courtesy was extended to officers only, who were considered honorable and could be trusted to keep their word.  The concept expanded into the English -speaking world, which kept the term "parole" and redefined it into something more expansive and inclusive, given the egalitarian nature of modern society.  There is, however, little honor left in its traditional application and few gentlemen to give it meaning. 

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On his release from California's maximum security prison at Pelican Bay, Jimmy Kendall is determined to re-unite with Rita, his old flame and, he thinks, true love. But Rita, now a call girl with a string of unsavory clients, is not so sure of her feelings. Kendall is also determined to leave behind his prison gang past, in which he served as a hit man for the Aryan Brotherhood in their wars with the Black Guerilla Family. He quickly discovers that the world into which the ex-con is thrust is no less confining than the walls of Pelican Bay, and that his past involvement with gangs and violence has set him on a road with no exits. Daniel Hallford's PELICAN BAY is a fast-paced and riveting look at the ugly underbelly of society where sleazy businessmen and corrupt politicians mingle easily with desperate call girls and ruthless killers.

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                                                  Excerpts from Pelican Bay

 

When Jimmy Kendall got out of Pelican Bay he had all his worldly possessions in a brown paper sack. He never saw a pelican and never even glimpsed the bay. Tucked up in the hills, hidden behind trees, he had felt the cool salt air come swirling through the halls, glimpsed the fog in the slit windows of the exercise yard and heard the sound of a foghorn in his deepest dreams at night. He had only seen three people, the ones who shoved him his meals through the metal door, and heard the voices of two in twelve months. His punishment had been sensory deprivation in Security Housing, the SHU.

They had no other place for him, they said. So he went from his cell in the middle of the day to the exercise yard for an hour and then back to his cell to start the same routine all over again, every day. He did three hundred pushups a day. Every day. Not twenty-five here, twenty-five there. Or sets of fifty, then rest, and another set of fifty. He did them all at one time. Sweat glistening off him afterward, washing himself off in the metal sink and wiping himself with the raggedy T-shirt they gave him.

He listened to Hunter's voice five days a week at around eleven in the morning. Telling him to get out, walk down the hall and into the yard where he jogged around a 20-by-20 concrete box and shot a basketball through a hoop without a net. Then told him to get his ass back to his bunk where he did pushups, read a book, wrote letters to his old lady and jacked off.

He heard the others when he walked past their cells on the way to yard. Fuck you, Kendall, they said as he stepped past the food slots. Your time is comin', brother. They can't keep you locked up and by yourself forever. Someone'll find you, traitor fuck.Hunter had a replacement two days a week and he liked hearing it. It was a female voice. He imagined what she looked like, the shape of her breasts, the smell of her hair, the wetness of her lips. When he got out through R and R he saw two officers, one a woman, whose name he couldn't recall. It stunned him after hearing that voice for the last year. She was overweight, bulging out of her uniform, and had frosted, puffed up hair. After all that time locked down, almost too good to be true.



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They stood outside the grand ballroom knocking back vodka tonics.

"You almost fed me to that fat fuck," she said.

"Relax," he replied. "He just wanted to meet you. So I was doing him a favor."

"You know what this place is. I just want to meet somebody who'll remember me in the morning."

"What about me?"

"What about you? Can you offer me a job? Do you have any money?"

"More than the guy in there. Probably more than a lot of people in there."

"Yeah. What do you do?"

"I'm a businessman."

She almost choked, on purpose so she didn't have to laugh at this joker.

"Well, I'm a businesswoman, except I'm looking for a real job because the economy is tough at the moment."

"No kidding? I would have thought you were some kind of hooker coming to this event. Do you have a business card?"

"Know, if I wanted your opinion?"

"We're getting antagonistic. Let me slow this down. I think you are beautiful. Maybe a little short on morals, but then so am I. I do have a legitimate business. I can offer you a job, maybe even a place if you need it and I'm not a drunk. I apologize if I've offended you but I'd like to get to know you better and if we can steer the conversation in another way, maybe that's possible. What do you say?"

It sounded a lot better. She put on her game face, all her senses on alert. Maybe they could work something out, at least for the time being.

"First thing, what's this all about with Florencio? You two got something going?"

He stood there with a childish look on his face, as if to say it doesn't matter what you ask, I'll tell you everything. But the certainty was that he would tell her only what she wanted to hear, she thought, nothing dealing with the truth if at all possible, and only in bits and pieces if absolutely necessary.

"I need his help. I'm trying to do some business in his district and I need him to grease the skids. He saw you and I thought I would help him out."

"If he weren't so drunk."

"If he weren't a fucking drunk."

"Don't be shy about telling me what you do. I can handle it," she said, ready to be impressed, depending on what he said.

"Have you ever heard of U-Stor?" he said, the crooked smile on his face beginning to look more attractive by the minute.

"You store?"

"Yeah, spelled u-s-t-o-r."

"No."

"It's a storage facility. A place people can put their stuff temporarily while they move or if they don't have enough space in their house."

"Okay. Why?"

"Because that's me. I'm U-Stor. I have storage places up and down the San Joaquin Valley, from Redding to Bakersfield. Every small town up and down highway ninety-nine and some on highway five."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She didn't know what to say to the storage king of the San Joaquin Valley. Maybe something witty, maybe something so she wouldn't laugh derisively.

"Is it profitable?"

"Yeah."

"So it helps kissing up to that fat fuck?"

"Yeah."

"Why don't you just bribe him?"

"I can do that. But I like the personal touch also. It's part of people management skills. Shows that I'm involved."

"Man, you are cynical. What's your name again?

"Randy Lynch," he replied, stretching out his hand.

"The storage king?"

"Call me king."

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                                      All excerpts copyright©2003 by Daniel Hallford