think you'd have a lot of resistance from conservatives and Fundamentalist Christians on that one, Warden Coots."
"Oh really! Well, we have plenty of them in here too, and I can tell you they look forward to their picnics just as much as everyone else. They disappear into the woods and come out with just as many grass stains on their chins as anybody else-maybe more. Let's face it, Mr. Safer, you can whip the old willow for just so long, and then you want a little human contact. Right?"
"Well ... " Safer paused. "Tell me more about your thoughts on this ."
"Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those bleeding hearts. You know, that 'human potential, anyone can be rehabilitated' bullshit. A rapist shouldn't get for free what he broke the law to get in the first place. No. His fucking days are definitely over.
"When someone goes to prison, all they can think of is how to get sex. I think that's why people get sent to prison. So they'll never bump their uglies again, you know what I mean? A guy robs a liquor store, kills a couple of people. The pollsters come out ... 'Should he get the death penalty?' Well, I'm undecided about that but I do know I don't want him to ever get laid again!
"Look, I'd pull the switch on a lot of these so-called members of the human race and sleep like a baby that very night. But listen, the stakes here at Allenwood are peace and tranquility versus trouble and mayhem. That's the way I run things here. Produce! Earn! Reward! Produce! Earn! Reward! Shit, man!! It's fucking capitalism! It's Darwin and the 'survival of the least humane.' What's that you say pal!? You're going to fall short!? You didn't prosper!? String his ass up!!"
It was getting late now, and Morley Safer had to get to the studio. He had a long day of heavy editing ahead of him.
After the segment on 60 Minutes was aired, Warden Coots became something of a national celebrity, which put him on equal footing with many of the inmates in Allenwood Prison. The media's general consensus on Coots' success at Allenwood was that he was a man who not only suffered fools gladly, but who got a genuine kick out of them. And there were more than enough fools at Allenwood to keep him amused.
For example, take the Garbanzo Brothers, Bruno and Vito. Identical twins, they were not unlike the Corsican Brothers - when one brother got hurt, he made sure the other brother got hurt; when something good happened to one of them, he made sure the other one found out about it. They were in Salt Lake City in the FBI's witness protection program. Four Brooklyn Mafia Dons were doing hard time because of their testimony. Common sense would presumably assure that they would keep a low profile. No one had ever accused the Garbanzos of having common sense.
Now anyone who has been there knows, Salt Lake City is probably the worst town in America to open a topless bar in. A town so uptight you have to belong to a private club to order ketchup, and laughing out loud is a felony. To call the club "The Tush and Bush" and distribute graphic handbills at town hall meetings was something only the Garbanzo twins could have come up with.
They began to dabble in soft-core pornography on weekends and were busted with their movie, Mormon Hormones, only half completed.
The cops that made the arrest and the prosecutor who tried the case didn't know identical twins were involved so only one Garbanzo brother was tried and convicted.
The brothers very honorably alternated doing time at Allenwood. Bruno would serve six weeks and then on visiting day, when the opportunity presented itself, he would switch places with Vito. Warden Coots was probably aware of all this, but as long as one or the other brother was doing the time why make a big deal out of it?
Coots took a personal interest in greeting his newest guest.
There he was, Charles Keating, America's number one champion for a return to the Judeo-Christian ethic and Richard Nixon's most outspoken anti-pornographer, waiting in line for his Allenwood prison uniform. Charles Keating, President and CEO of Lincoln Savings and Loan. Tall, straight and stiff, white haired and born again grim, his wire rimmed glasses wedged on a long pale face. In his silver suit, steel gray tie, and aluminum ass he could have been the Tin Woodsman's uncle. The great Rembrandt could have rendered his portrait with nothing more than a No. 2 graphite pencil and gotten a perfect lifelike likeness. However, his appearance was a veritable rainbow compared to his personality, which was reported missing long before the 250 million dollars he had embezzled from trusting senile retirees-one of which was Warden Coots' mother.
The wind chill factor in Keating's eyes was numbing. To picture him laughing or smiling would require the imagination of Salvador Dali.
In short, Keating was the very image of what H .L. Mencken termed "that most dangerous of nature's predators the Christian businessman."
He had been an elder at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. And he had not missed teaching his Sunday School Bible class in twenty years. Some believe that young children are morally strengthened when confronted with the torment of going to hell forever. A sample of what it might be like every Sunday morning could very well turn those young innocents into good God-fearing Christians.
Warden Coots decided to bunk Keating with Icey Kool Jazzy Zee, who had won last year's Soul Train award for being the most irritating and incoherent rap artist of the year. He not only won the award but actually talked that way all the time.
Coots was not only a superb prison administrator, but a world class voyeur and eavesdropper. He loved his Thursdays. That was when he relaxed at home, had a few belts of Jack Daniels, and reviewed his secret tapes to find out how his ingenious combinations of prisoners were working out. He had spent some time in London in the sixties and remembered that, after a week, he started talking with an English accent. Linguistically speaking, he wondered how the pairing of Icey Kool Jazzy Zee and Charles Keating would work out.
Oscar Nerlman woke up in a cold sweat.
This wasn't the first time he had survived a death sentence in his dreams. His recurring nightmares always ended with him going to the chair or scaffold-and always for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person. It was his gift. A gift that certainly didn't enhance his career as a criminal defense lawyer. As a matter of fact, it had turned many an otherwise brilliant defense into disaster. When he delivered his summations to the jury he invariably miss poke.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it's better that a hundred guilty child molesting murderers go free than that one innocent man be imprisoned unjustly for even one day," he proclaimed and pointed to his client, the defendant Matt "Psycho" Terbloch, accused serial killer, rapist, and pederast.
Somehow the jury didn't feel Terbloch should get the benefit of that doubt, and sentenced him to 4 50 years in Attica-after which he was to be executed. It took the jury four minutes to reach their verdict.
That was long ago. Now Oscar Nerlman was in Allenwood himself. He had made a mistake by deciding to represent himself at his own trial for mail fraud.
"No one has ever been hurt by an envelope! " he shouted with all the sincerity he could subpoena to his lips, " ... except for maybe by a paper cut." He then rested his case.
He was sentenced to two years for an offense that usually got six months, and here he was in Allenwood in a dorm with three of his former clients.
