“I filed a lien on the warden's house and then on a few of the guards’ houses too.”
My eyes nearly popped out of my skull. “You put a lien on the warden's house? Why would you do that?”
He shrugged casually. “I have my reasons. I also did it to my sentencing judge. And the prosecutor too. I've basically destroyed their credit. Now I'm starting foreclosure proceedings against them. What are youin jail for?”
Jesus, this mullet was insane!“Manipulating stocks. A bunch of other stuff too. All of it white-collar. How about you?”
Knowingly: “I didn't do anything; I'm innocent.”
Gee, what a surprise! I thought. “Well, what did they sayyou did?”
“They say I wrote bad checks, but that's a lie. I can write as many checks as I want, regardless of how much money is in my account. That's the law.”
“Oh, really? Why is that?” I asked.
“Because the government stole my birth certificate the day I was born and stashed it in some vault in Puerto Rico. In exchange, they gave me a straw man named SAM HAUSMAN—that's SAM HAUSMAN, all in capital letters—not the legitimate Sam Hausman, which is in small letters. That's who I really am: Sam Hausman, in small letters.”
He walked over to his bed, which was less than two feet away, and he handed me a book titled Redemption in Law.“Trust me,” he said. “After you're done reading this book, you'll be filing liens against the warden too. Understand: You're nothing more than a slave, Jordan. You need to reclaim your straw man; there's no other way.”
I nodded and accepted the book. Then, for nothing more than shits and giggles, I asked, “And what about the IRS? What's the story with them?.”
He smiled knowingly. “The IRS doesn't even exist; in fact, if you can find even one law in the U.S. Constitution authorizing the IRS to collect taxes, I'll shave my head.” You mean mullet.“There's only one amendment that even mentionsincome taxes, and it was never ratified.” With that he reached over to a stack of papers on his bed and handed me one off the top. “This is a list of all the U.S. senators who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. Go ahead and count them: You'll see there's not enough for a lawful majority.”
I nodded once more and then took my required reading material and hopped up on the top bunk. I spent the next few days learning everything there was to know about redeeming my straw man. When I wasn't reading about it, Sam was lecturing about it, as barely edible meals were slid through a tiny slot on the steel door thrice daily, to which Sam insisted that whatever I didn't eat I flush down the toilet—including half-consumed apples and unopened packets of ketchup. After all, the evildoers at Wackenhut would recycle whatever was left over, in an attempt to cut costs.
Each morning, Sam would smile and say, “It's time to feed the warden!” Then he would take a world-class dump and flush the toilet with a nod.
I managed to write two letters a day, one to Chandler and one to Carter. I decided it would be best to lie to them—telling them how wonderful camp was and how I was playing tennis all day and working out in the gym. The only reason I hadn't called was that it took a bit of time to get a phone account set up.
And as one day melted into the next, Sam gave me the full low-down on the camp, which was, indeed, a cushy place to do time. For a nominal fee, he explained, I could live like a king; a cook, a butler, a maid, a masseuse, and someone to do whatever job my counselor assigned to me could all be secured for a total monthly cost of less than a thousand dollars, payable either in stamps, cigarettes, food I'd purchased from the commissary, or simply by having one of my friends on the outside send a money order to another inmate's commissary account. And while this latter strategy was slightly against the rules, everyone was doing it, he assured me.
Finally, on the morning of my seventh day in solitary, the steel door swung open and I heard the most glorious ten words in the entire world: “On your feet, Belfort. It's time to go to camp.”
“Thank God,” I muttered, nearly springing tears. I jumped off my top bunk with the speed of a jackrabbit and turned to Sam, taking one last look at his breathtaking mullet. “Good luck redeeming your straw man,” I said.
He winked. “I got these bastards right where I want them.”
It sure as hell looks like it, I thought.
Then I left the cell.
“I'm gonna ram this right down your throat!” barked Tony the meth dealer, who had five years left on an eight-year sentence.
“Go ahead and try,” I barked back. “It's coming right back at you.”
It was two hours later, and Tony the meth dealer was standing approximately fifty feet away from me, on the other side of a tennis net. It was a mild winter day—sunny, in the low sixties—and Tony was preparing to serve. I was doing my best to keep my eye on him, but it was difficult. After all, there was a lot going on at the camp. Behind Tony was a soccer field, where a game was now in progress; to his right was a basketball court, where a game was also in progress; and beyond the basketball court was a grassy field where two dozen Mexicans sat at wooden picnic tables, rolling tacos and burritos for a Friday-night fiesta.
But that was only the beginning: Behind me was a baseball field; to my right were a running track, a horseshoe pit, a volleyball court, and a red-clay bocce court; and, off to my left, in the distance, were concrete walking paths that led to a handful of low-slung concrete buildings—the dining hall, the rec hall, the library, the quiet rooms, the music room, the infirmary, and the camp administration building. Scattered along the perimeter were little white signs— Out of Bounds—and beyond the signs were the flat dusty plains of the city of Taft, bordered by a rather unimpressive mountain range.
Suddenly a booming voice came over the loudspeaker: “Count time, count time! The yard is now closed. All campers return to the unit for the four p.m. stand-up count.”
I was about to drop my racquet when I noticed that none of the other campers were paying attention to the announcement; rather, they kept doing what they were doing. It wasn't until the nextannouncement, which came ten minutes later, that everyone began moseying on over. The unit was a vast space, about the size of a football field. It was crammed with a seemingly endless sea of cinder-block cubicles, bounded on one side by bathrooms and showers, on another side by TV rooms and quiet rooms, and at the front by a half-dozen administration offices, where the staff pretended to work.
I entered the unit and walked down a narrow corridor toward Bunk 12-Lower. On either side of the corridor were small cubicles, each perhaps eight by twelve feet. Like the SHU, they contained only the bare essentials—two bunk beds, two stand-up lockers, and a steel seat-desk ensemble welded to a gray cement floor.
I had briefly met my new bunkie when I first arrived, and he seemed like a decent enough guy (your typical garden-variety meth dealer). He was short, squat, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and wore a perpetually grim expression. His name was Mark, and with the exception of his two front teeth, which were missing, he seemed reasonably healthy. At this moment he was lying on his bed, reading a book. He paid little attention to me as I entered the cube and took a seat at the steel table.
I heard a snappy female voice: “Hey, Belfort!”
I looked up and— a shock!There was a sexy little number standing at the entrance to the cube, staring at me. She was no more than five foot four and had fine auburn hair that rested on a pair of delicate shoulders, which were pulled back like a cheerleader's, accentuating perky little breasts. She looked around thirty. She wore a men's pink dress shirt, untucked, and a pair of skintight Levi's. In the outside world, I wouldn't have characterized her as outright gorgeous, but inside here she looked sexier than a Victoria's Secret model.