Maybe This Ain't Heaven

By Keith George

When millionaire ad executive Rich Larson flees New York for the Catskills, he seeks the kind of happiness derived from a rod, reel, and a bucket of worms. But after he assumes a new identity as Johnny Paycash, a singer-songwriter who regularly performs at the Hooten Holler Taproom, he is inexplicably framed as a drug-dealing terrorist by a crooked, cross-dressing cop.

After his fingerprints are found on a bag of cocaine, Johnny is arrested, thrown in the slammer, and forced to rely on Fat Schanz, his gambling-addicted ex-convict lawyer, to bail him out. If not for his girlfriend, Sugarfoot, a vivacious farm girl who sings like an angel and shoots like Annie Oakley, Johnny might go insanethe exact defense his lawyer is planning on his behalf. As Johnny stands in court in front of Judge Perkins, he receives raucous support from the unruly regulars of the Hooten Holler Taproomincluding Big Al, a house painter who looks like Elvis, and Tommy Dick, a womanizing honky-tonk piano man.

As mayhem surrounds the trial, a mysterious ghostwriting gossip columnist chronicles the adventures and leads the entire oddball group to a surprise unveiling of the truth about a kidnapping, a murder, and quite possibly a miracle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450245852

Keith George

Keith George, a graduate of Syracuse University, is retired from an award-winning career as a reporter, columnist, editorial writer, and editor with Gannett newspapers in Binghamton, New York. He is a songwriter who for years has entertained with his wife Nancy at dinner theaters and taverns in their hometown.

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CHAPTER ONE

Hell, I’d never even heard of Dan Riley until he and two other cops battered down the front door of my camper. I was stretched out on my beat-up old recliner in front of my big flat screen, engrossed in a Keith Olbermann rant against the administration. These clowns busted in without knocking, swinging what looked like a log with handles on it.

It’s true, I shouted as they squeezed the cuffs painfully to my wrists behind my back. The President is rounding up the malcontents. Nobody will ever hear from me again.

See, I thought it was all some prank dreamed up by the guys at the Hooten Holler Taproom. But I saw no humor in the eyes of these three plainclothesmen as they dragged me through my shattered door and perp-walked me toward a New York State Police troop car.

I didn’t mean it about the President! I exclaimed, starting to suspect it was for real. If they got the idea I was a terrorist or was threatening to harm our clueless leader, maybe I really would vanish under the secret rules of the security-crazed administration.

I hate Olbermann! He’s a flag-burning fag! I assured curious people from neighboring campsites, now clustered around the cruiser.

You’re under arrest for first-degree criminal possession of cocaine, Riley solemnly intoned.

Whoa! Hold on a minute! I hollered. I don’t even take aspirin. The only drug I possess is for constipation.

You’d have to see this guy to know what I mean when I say he didn’t look like a cop. He looked like an Eagle Scout with a Prince Valiant haircut and a face never touched by a razor. He was duded up in a wrinkle free gray silk suit and polished wingtips, totally out of place beside his two fellow detectives in their dumpy, threadbare sports jackets.

Despite his gruff manner, Riley had an innocent look. He reminded me of Dick Van Dyke imitating Stan Laurel. Except for the holstered handgun peeking from beneath his jacket and a police badge dangling from his neck, Riley looked more like a well-coiffed game show host than a cop.

Anything you say can and will be used against you, Riley said. Now he was showboating, directing his remarks toward the onlookers.

I’ve seen enough cop shows to know I had the right to remain silent and contact a lawyer. Riley skipped right over that nugget.

Take a good look at this man because he won’t be back for at least twenty years, Riley announced. He’ll be living with a lot of big guys with no sense of humor.

Owee! I screamed, as blood trickled down my nose. You’re supposed to duck my head down when you put me in the car. And the hat! You knocked off my hat!

Riley stooped and gingerly plucked my old red LL Bean felt crusher from the lawn, as if fearing it was contaminated or radioactive. Then he jammed it on my head, partly covering my eyes. My red pony tail dangled from beneath the mashed-on hat, like a snake trying to wriggle under a rock. The troop car took off, siren screaming, down a dirt road toward the Expressway.

"What’s with these guys? I wondered. Am I their first arrest, or what?"

Swat, did you call all the television stations? Riley asked one of his partners, a husky guy on the up side of fifty who sat beside me reeking of cigarettes and garlic.

Yeah, I said we were bringing in a big drug boss, like you told me.

Damn! Riley said a few minutes later. There’s nobody at the barracks but one reporter. It’s Steve Ravine from Middletown and he doesn’t even have a camera. Don’t let him see the prisoner. Drive past and we’ll kill some time.

Swat shoved my face down against the floor. Once out of sight of the barracks, Riley’s thugs sat me up again. I stared at a small half-moon birth mark on the back of Riley’s neck, wondering what I’d done to get on his shit list. I found this all hard to believe. I’m under arrest and the cops are driving up and down dirt roads in the Catskill Mountains, waiting for Eye Weakness News to show up. Finally, on our third pass, a clutch of television cameramen and reporters had gathered outside the barracks. Riley stopped the car and paraded me past the cameras, strutting and squeezing my arm like I was some serial killer. Being no stranger to TV news, I was not surprised when people began sticking microphones in my face and bellowing inane questions.

Are you in the Gambino family? shouted Reaction News, as other personalities chimed in.

Why did you do it?

How many drug runners do you control?

Who killed the Sheik?

Who the hell’s the Sheik? I thought. Of course, nobody expected me to answer. They would have loved it if I had cursed or screamed or spit at them. That’s the kind of stuff that goes national. Short of that, they just wanted to get their faces, or at least their voices, on the six o’clock to impress viewers, editors, and themselves.

What’s your name? Riley demanded after they led me into the booking station and uncuffed me. He loaded up my finger tips with gobs of ink, and then rolled each finger carefully over little square boxes on a print card. Then he tossed me a paper towel to wipe off the ink.

I said your name! Riley demanded.

I believe I have the right to remain silent, I told him. I was sitting in a wooden chair in a slouch, pretty much my usual posture.

You have to say your name, the young lieutenant said indignantly.

Johnny Paycash.

Your real name!

"That’s it. Take a look at my driver’s license. I began pawing through the numerous pockets on my fishing vest, then remembered they had taken my stuff, even my belt and shoe laces, when they frisked me at the desk.

So Paycash is your real name?

Wow, you are a defective. I mean detective.

Shut up! Occupation?

I’m a singer-songwriter-fisherman.

Cut the bullshit! Where do you get all your money, wiseass?

I sing at the Hooten Holler. You must know that. What gives you the idea I’m a cocaine dealer?

For one thing, I have your fingerprints all over a big package of dope we took from one of your goons in a traffic stop last night.

That’s the end of this conversation. You’re wacko. I want a lawyer. I twisted my thumb and index finger on my lips, as if turning a key in a lock. I know. It was corny. But I did it. Then I turned my eyes from Riley and stubbornly stared at a spot on the wall. God, I hoped it wasn’t blood.

Well, I suppose, since you’re a two-bit singer, living in a little trailer, you want a public defender?

No, I don’t. As a matter of fact I want Fat Schanz.

Hey guys, he wants Fat Schanz, Riley yelled, to the snickers of some nearby troopers. He giggled as he walked out of the holding pen, blowing on the fingerprint card.

You picked the only lawyer I know of who has done hard time in state prison. Maybe he’ll advise you of your right to avoid showering. That is, unless you’re a real romantic, if you know what I mean. I can’t wait to give you that ride upstate, Johnny Paycash, he said, emphasizing my name with sarcasm.

Pretty soon I was shoved into a cell, without my fishing vest, belt, shoestrings, crusher or even the ties for my pony tail. As I stared through the bars with my hair hanging loose down past my shoulders, I imagined I looked like Willie Nelson in The Red Headed Stranger. I didn’t have the beard, but my sideburns were sticking down pretty good.

This happened early last summer. It began a bizarre series of events. I was unaware of much of the story when it was happening. But I’ve been able to piece it together in recent weeks from court transcripts, police files and by talking with different people. The weird thing is that a couple of the guys who got me into this mess were secretly taping their talks with each other. Some of those tapes eventually were played in court. I gleaned additional details from police wiretaps that surfaced during a series of court hearings and trials.

I took a few liberties recreating a couple of scenes, but the hard facts are solid, and that’s what counts. So, where to start? I guess right in that cell at the county jail, where I was waiting for my lawyer and buddy, Fat Schanz, to tear himself away from some casino or race track and return the one phone call to which I had been entitled.

TWO

What’s your problem?" said a gangly kid in the cell across from mine. He was tall and skinny. He sort of reminded me of Jimmie Walker in the old Good Times reruns. Well, maybe this guy was a bit tougher looking, but he had that same little goatee.

Why you looking at me?

No problem, I said. Guess I was just day dreaming.

The kid had tattoos. I saw a snake on his left arm and barbed wire around his right bicep. He was putting on a tough act, but I had heard him sniffling in his bunk earlier, like he was trying to stifle sobs.

Guess I was just noticing how you wear your pants way down below your underwear.

You should talk, Pops. Your ass is hanging out, too.

I reached back to feel. Wow, the kid was right. Without the belt my pants were crawling perilously down my rear end. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason it was then, when I grabbed my half-bare, skinny ass, that the impact of my plight hit me. I really was in jail. I would be walking into court in the morning just like all the other prisoners, shuffling to keep my sneakers on and grabbing to keep my pants up. The next stop for many of us would be a New York State prison. I didn’t tell the kid, who said his name was Ashimba, that I had played a large role in the events that led to him wearing droopy, oversized pants. Anyway, he wouldn’t have believed me.

They got me on possession. How about you? he asked.

First-degree criminal possession of cocaine, I said, scarcely believing I was having this conversation.

Shit! Ashimba exclaimed. An old white dude like you, dealing out here in the boondocks? What’s wrong with you? You crazy?

I’m not really a dealer, I said. In fact, I think they nailed me for your cocaine. They have this idea I’m a big time pusher and that you’re my runner or mule or whatever.

That shit was going to Ithaca and the cops know it, he said. I mean if there was any shit and I knew anything about it, he said, glancing toward a guard within hearing.

How come you don’t just stay in New York City and do your business in the neighborhood? I asked Ashimba. I used to live in the city. From what I gathered, at your age you’d be dumped right back on the streets if they arrested you for drugs down there. The judges upstate don’t hand out a lot of dismissals or reduced charges. You can forget youthful offender treatment, too. If your case goes to a jury your ass is in a cast, because the people here resent outsiders coming in with drugs.

Yeah, like they ain’t the ones buying the shit, he said. I guess I moved out of the Bronx for the same reason everybody else does. That was to get away from the crime. Jimmy—he’s my little brother—got shot on the street last year. Soon as he got out of the hospital, Mamma packed us up and we moved to Binghamton. I’ve been trying to make enough money to pay the bills and get us off the welfare, but it’s hard to find a real job.

By now Ashimba was slumped dejectedly on his bunk with his back against the wall. I figured he was about my height, six feet even, and maybe even skinnier than me. He didn’t have my little paunch, which bloomed when I hit forty despite some half-hearted efforts to stay trim.

Guess I won’t see my family for a while, but at least I’m in a good jail.

How do you figure? I said, glancing at the lumpy bunks and peeling paint on the walls.

The judge told me yesterday to take a good look around. He said this is the best jail I’ll ever be in, ‘cause they all get worse.

Since I moved to the Catskills, about two years ago, I’ve taken to writing songs. Mostly they’re novelty songs. My voice is just too ridiculous for ballads. Anyway, I got thinking a little later about what the judge told Ashimba. I asked the guard if I could have a pencil and paper. Because of jail rules, I settled for a crayon.

Mr. Paycash? Ashimba said later, suddenly sounding very young, lonely, and scared. I hope they don’t send you to prison because of me.

It’s just Johnny. And it’s not your fault they’re trying to railroad me. What will you do if you get out of this mess and don’t have to go to prison?

I guess I’ll go home and kiss my mom and hug little Jimmy. Then I’ll try to get a real job. Maybe someday I can finish school and go to college.

I sagged against the dingy wall above my bunk, wrinkled my nose against the strong smell of disinfectant and pervasive dankness, and scrawled on the scrap paper.

I’m writing to tell you dear mother

I’ve got to admit you were right

I should be in school with the others

Not ramming and drinking all night

The judge told me I was through walking

From his courtroom with only advice

He said I stopped listening before he stopped talking

And he was through treating me nice

You’ll have to do Christmas without me

Get something from me for little Jim

But you don’t have to worry about me

I’m in the best jail I’ll ever be in

THREE

Sorry, I was at Saratoga when I heard, Fat Schanz told me early the next morning. We were sitting across from each other, elbows planted in a huddle over a shaky wooden table in a jail conference room.

Schanz, a runt of a man with an irritating nasal voice, was not really what you’d call fat. But his stubby stature made every extra ounce look like a pound. That’s why, as a guest at Attica State Prison, the nickname was bestowed on him by fellow African American inmates. By the time he was released he didn’t mind being called Fat. He told me he got used to it.

Fat says he went to prison as a teenager by accident. He was snoozing soundly in his bed, absorbing a six-pack of beer, when cops smashed into his room and hauled him away. Police had followed footprints in the snow from a nearby convenience store robbery, straight to Fat’s apartment building. The wet tracks ended at Fat’s door. The cops found a handgun and a wad of cash on the floor in his room, and Fat found himself doing a nickel upstate before he was old enough to vote.

With little else to do, Fat searched sedulously through the law books at Attica and Auburn prisons, learning the language, rules and technicalities of American jurisprudence. Through freedom of information laws he managed to wheedle a pile of records from police and hospitals. They revealed that one Jerome Washington, a neighborhood resident, had been treated for a broken leg the night of the robbery. Fat theorized that the man was injured after he ran through the bedroom, dropping his loot and handgun, and then jumped through the second floor window. Fat always slept with an open window. Almost two years after Fat’s conviction, Washington went to prison himself. Sure enough, it was for a string of convenience store heists.

Fat bombarded police, newspapers, the attorney general, the governor, and the chief judge of the state with letters claiming he was wrongfully imprisoned for Washington’s crime. Eventually the internet and talk radio rang out with protests from Fat’s growing band of sympathizers. Washington finally was interviewed and pompously claimed the holdup for which Fat was serving time. Fat was freed early, but stubborn state officials balked at reversing the conviction. They contended Washington’s jailhouse confession was bogus. Representing himself in court, Fat brought a civil suit against the state and city for false imprisonment. It netted him a windfall. He’d earned his high school equivalency diploma and credits toward a college degree while in the joint. The settlement paid his way through college and law school, with enough left over to assuage, temporarily at least, Fat’s persistent gambling jones.

Fat has two weaknesses: Women and horses. His fixation on the latter invariably spoils his relations with the former. He’s chased after a lot of pretty women since I met him, and almost every time the romance started hot. But after spending an evening waiting at home or sitting alone in a movie while Fat ducked out to the nearest off track betting joint, the objects of his affection invariably gave up on him. Come to think, Fat really has just one weakness: The horses.

Fat and I have a history. I met him about five years ago in a bin of broccoli at a Manhattan grocery. Fat wasn’t actually in the bin, but his phone was. While browsing through the produce earlier that day, Fat somehow dropped his cell phone into the veggies. I was leaning on a grocery cart when I heard a faint but persistent bugle call. You know, that thing they play to call race horses to the post at the Kentucky Derby. Turns out that was the vanity ring Fat had installed on his phone.

Hello, I said, after rummaging down a few layers in the greens and pulling out the phone.

Who’s this? What are you doing with my phone? some shrill whiner demanded.

You called. I answered.

I can have you arrested for theft!

Now I was getting nettled.

I want a reward for finding your phone.

Or what?

Or I’ll call everybody in your address book and tell them you’re a pervert, which you probably are. Then I’ll throw this cheap piece of garbage under a bus!

I’ll sue you for slander and defamation, as well as theft and wanton destruction of property. I’m a lawyer!

Oh, yeah? What’s your specialty?

Helping the downtrodden, for every penny I can get.

Do you do real estate? I need a lawyer. I’m selling my residence.

I could handle that.

I was starting to like this guy with a weasel voice and bombastic manner. Long story short: We met, I returned his phone, and he became my lawyer, reliable friend and adviser on legal and financial matters.

Did you tell the cops anything? Fat asked me, lowering his voice so the guards outside the conference room couldn’t hear.

Just my name, and they didn’t believe that. Anyway, I have nothing to tell them. I didn’t do anything.

That doesn’t matter and I don’t care. It’s not what you did, anyhow. It’s only what they can prove you did.

This Lieutenant Riley who arrested me claims they have my fingerprints on a cocaine bag.

Don’t worry, my squat legal luminary replied. If all they have is a print you’ll be out of here tomorrow.

Coming from somebody else that might have been cold comfort, especially since the cops for some reason had it in for me. But given Fat’s educational background—two years in the prison law books, uncounted talks with men and women ensnared in the justice system, law school in Syracuse, and a legal fight against all odds that ultimately got his conviction expunged—my confidence in Fat Schanz could not have been higher.

I’ll see you in the morning, he said. I’m sure the judge will set bail. You’ll be a free man by noon.

Fat’s assurances triggered such a flush of optimism that a new song dawned. I was out of paper. But what the hell, I still had my crayon and everybody else writes on the wall.

I’m leaving something to inspire future lodgers, I said to nobody in particular as I began scrawling my message beside those inscribed by previous tenants.

Hide the women, lock the booze, I’m gonna be a free man

Took my trimmin’, got nothing to lose, I’m gonna be a free man

Owe me some fun and I’m gonna pay

I’m coming out of this can

You’ll need a gun if you get in my way

I’m gonna be a free man

I sat back against the wall, hands folded behind my head, humming a tune to fit the lyrics.

This song is perfect for Big Al, I muttered to myself.

Big Al is an aging but muscular and agile habitué of the fabled watering hole where a lot of this story takes place. The formal name is the Hooten Hollow Lodge and Taproom, but the locals simply call it the Hooten Holler. The hollow, which is a tiny hamlet you won’t find on most maps, was named after a pioneering settler, Joshua Hooten.

Anyway, Big Al sounds, looks and often acts like Elvis might have, had he lived into his seventies and eased off on the drugs and French fry sandwiches. Tall and hard bodied, Big Al is a house painter who for years has spent several nights a week in a gym, refining his skills in the martial arts. I guess that’s why he’s able to enact gyrations and poses uncannily Elvis like. Each evening when Big Al becomes aglow from multiple Yuengling long necks, he yields to coaxing from myself and Tommy Dick, the Holler piano player, and mounts the stage. The regulars absolutely love his renditions of Heartbreak Hotel, Love Me Tender, and other Elvis hits. He sometimes flubs his lines when he exceeds his optimal Yuengling level, but he knows every song Elvis ever sang.

I have seen Big Al make people cry, especially the women. Sometimes it’s almost magic how he zones in, sounding like and resembling an aging Elvis so uncannily that you’d swear the king himself had been dug up.

In what has become part of my shtick, at some point each night I slap on my Willie Nelson braids and the two of us sing To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before. Big Al does his version of Julio Iglesius while our chubby, convivial accompanist, Tommy Dick, pounds the piano.

You’re great! How long have you been doing this Elvis act? I asked Al one night after last call.

Al rubbed his clean shaven chin and reflected. His old gray sweatshirt was generously splashed with varied colors of paint from his day job.

I got interested in Elvis the first time he appeared on Ed Sullivan, Al said, curling his upper lip into that hauntingly familiar sneer. I can still remember it. We were sitting in the living room and my mother said: ‘Al, you’re related to that boy who’s singing. Oh my, look at him wiggle!’

Al stepped away from the bar and shook himself into one of those squirmy Elvis moves. Despite his age and lust for the suds, Big Al still had a full head of gray-tinged black hair. His wide shoulders tapered to an athlete’s waist. Maybe he used hair coloring. I never asked him.

We were nursing what may or may not have been our final beer of the night. The Holler had closed, but if Mindy Joy, the winsome owner of the joint, was in no hurry, she often kept the lights low and beer flowing exclusively for some of the regular gang. I was honored to be among those privileged few elbow benders. The local cops didn’t mind. Occasionally a deputy joined us in the darkened bar for a late nip.

So, Big Al, you grew up in Mississippi?

No, in Kentucky, but Mamma said I was born in Mississippi.

Elvis was your cousin or what?

Well, she never told me, exactly. When I saw Elvis perform that night, I started singing and imitating him, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I never sang in public until you and Tommy Dick came along.

With that, Big Al flopped a heavy arm over my shoulder and squeezed affectionately until I squirmed in pain and my crusher fell onto the bar. Some hug for a guy over seventy.

You can find jails wherever you look, some have bars and some don’t

The guy who fails at life in my book knows how to escape, he just won’t

Play it safe if you choose,