A Prison Warden My Friend Lloyd McCorkle
by Richard Korn, Ph. D
HE WAS THE FIRST PRISON WARDEN to earn a doctorate, the first who could
discuss any literary or historical or ethical subject with the range and
depth of a specialist. He was also one of my closest friends and wisest
teachers, and my most formidable antagonist, intellectually and spiritually.
Our interaction was well described by William
Blake's aphorism: "Opposition is true friendship." McCorkle was
a Roman. He would have been at home in the Republic, at its height, and
the Empire at its most despotic. In either era, he would have been a moral
force of devastating power. He believed in the Law, and was loyal to it.
He believed in the State, and was loyal to that. He believed in the individual
also. But in a conflict between the individual and group, between the survival
of the Law and the security of the State, I am not sure where he would plant
his standard. It was in this sense also that he was a true Roman.
We met when both of us were young. I worked at his prison; we collaborated
later as co-authors. At the end of his life we were friends; at friendship
too he was gifted. He was not an easy friend-nor was I. And our friendship
had a dangerous edge: a boundary over which neither of us could casually
stray, except at some considerable, often unpredictable risk. We had shared
an astonishing adventure; we had unforgettable memories and unresolved issues
at the most profound level. I sometimes wondered what would have happened
had we been born in the first rather than the twentieth century. I, sure,
would have been of the party of Zealots, following the strange teacher from
Nazareth. He, just as surely, would have been a procurator of a Roman province
at the very least.
As Commissioner of all Institutions and Agencies in the State of New Jersey,
he was an uncrowned monarch-one who, additionally, was more wise, more reliable,
more dependable and more cunning than most of his subjects. But it was his
sheer success that made it unnecessary for him to break out of the boundaries
set by his own large achievements. Most of us learn to walk by falling.
He rarely fell; he rarely even stumbled.
This is why he never grasped the height of what I think was his greatest
achievement. It happened in an encounter with his most formidable adversary:
the convict Rizzoli, who could not be broken by years of solitary confinement.
Rizzoli had been a combat hero in World War II. After demobilization, he
couldn't settle down. So he and his veteran friends created for themselves
a peace-time equivalent of their war. Their project was audacious. They
would raid the places where organized criminals conducted their weekend
recreational crap games. Each week they would rob a different collection
of gangsters. What made the caper so foolproof, provided they didn't get
themselves killed, was that their victims couldn't go to the police.
(How can gangsters complain to the police that some outlaws had robbed them?)
It was humiliating and infuriating. But such was the terror Rizzoli and
his friends inspired by their light-hearted daring and military efficiency,
that they led a charmed life. Rizzoli was not impressed with gangsters:
the discipline of organized crime offended his anarchistic spirit: they
may have reminded him of the well-drilled enemy he had met overseas.
For a while the gang flourished. But then one of them made the classical
mistake: he confided in a woman he loved, and then he wronged her. She dropped
the dime. The gang was caught in the act. They wound up, more or less intact,
in the New Jersey State Prison at Trenton. And they promptly tried to take
it over. When McCorkle arrived they were doing the same thing in the joint
that they had done outside. Only this time, instead of robbing the gamblers,
they controlled the gambling.
"For the safety and good order of the institution," Rizzoli was
sent to the solitary confinement block-One Left Segregation." Even
there he could hardly be controlled.
Somehow he managed to have a disassembled pistol delivered to him, part
by part. It was only when one of the bullets was intercepted by sheer accident
that we knew what was happening. Rizzoli was unfazed. Time passed. Men were
being discharged from "solitary." Rizzoli maintained his composure
and disdain. His confidence unnerved his keepers. But his family wanted
nothing to do with him. Only his devoted wife-who despised us as much as
he did-would see him. He had broken his mother's heart; she could not bear
to visit him. Then one terrible day, she died. The only place he could say
good-bye was at her funeral.
According to the regulations then in force, maximum custody inmates could
not attend funerals without armed correctional officers as escorts. Overtime
for these officers had to be paid by the inmate or his family. But he had
no money-and no one in the family could come up with it. And Rizzoli was
such a symbol of menace that no officer volunteered. He was crushed.
McCorkle was in a quandary. He wanted to defeat Rizzoli on his terms. Using
a dead mother to break Rizzoli was not part of those terms. The day of the
funeral approached. McCorkle dipped into his own pocket and paid the officers
himself. But he swore them to secrecy: they must promise never to let Rizzoli
know who had paid them. He wanted no thanks or gratitude: these were not
part of his terms either.
Rizzoli attended the funeral. When he came back he was the same unbreakable
rebel he always had been-only now he had even less to live for. And so he
became even more of a menace. Then one day, in a fit of probably justifiable
anger, an officer violated his promise to McCorkle's order. He told Rizzoli
who had paid for his escorts to the funeral.
Rizzoli was practically destroyed. Nothing McCorkle had ever done to him
was as devastating as this one incredible secret act of kindness. Rizzoli
knew that McCorkle had not wanted him to know-and that made the blow even
more devastating. Overnight, without a word, he turned around.
The war was over. The word went out to his friends on the Main Line: "Stop
all planning on my behalf." He had voluntarily retired, His behavior
in One-Left became exemplary in the literal sense. He became an example
to all of the younger outlaws in segregation. And he never said why. He
was determined to safeguard McCorkle's secret. We had to let him out. Back
on the Main Line his behavior was similarly exemplary, again in the literal
sense. The word went out: "Don't bother me; the game is over."
Except for counseling would-be outlaws on the yard to cool it, he had little
contact with other inmates. He and McCorkle did not seek each other out.
Rizzoli asked for nothing. He was finally paroled. He joined the family
business. He became successful as a contractor, and became a deeply respected
figure in the community.
Years later McCorkle was close to death from cancer. We often used to talk
about the old days. Rizzoli's name frequently came up. McCorkle had never
been told that Rizzoli had learned of his secret kindness; no one had dared
to tell him. So he stoutly believed that Rizzoli had turned around because
of our "program" in One-Left. He had always admired Rizzoli-as
great enemies often do-and he credited Rizzoli for using the terrible segregation
experience as a way of confronting himself. It bothered me to think that
McCorkle, the supreme realist, would take this illusion into his grave.
I called Rizzoli. I told him that his great enemy was dying. I said I thought
that McCorkle, who was proud of what Rizzoli had made of himself, would
enjoy a visit from him. Touched, Rizzoli said he'd come at once. McCorkle
was quite pleased. I think he was looking forward to a decisive settlement
of our years-long argument. Present at the meeting in McCorkle's home were
two of the outstanding senior officers who had made McCorkle's achievements
possible. They too had been Rizzoli's antagonists, and like McCorkle, they
greatly respected him. After some light conversation, I raised the subject.
I told him that McCorkle and I had been having an argument for years about
solitary confinement. To this day, I said, neither of us knows who is right.
Then I asked him, "Was it "solitary" that turned you around?"
It was a supreme moment. Rizzoli knew where I stood. Then he looked at McCorkle,
who was watching him with his whole life in his eyes. Rizzoli took a deep
breath. Then he said, "Warden, the best thing you ever did for me was
keeping my bad ass in that hole." McCorkle turned to me with a look
of triumph. While driving Rizzoli back to his home, I considered asking
him why he had fudged the truth. But I already knew. With his characteristic
decency he had instantly recognized that there are values that transcend
blabbing factuality. So I kept my mouth shut and shamed myself with William
Blake's indictment of rote honesty:
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
