How To Escape With Peppermint Schnapps
November 12, 1999

Prison is no place for a man to be. Especially if his name is Raiford Starke. So here I am, the aforementioned and beleaguered Starke, forced to consume three square meals a day (with a Hairy Queen treat on Sundays), and watch more Nick At Night reruns than a couch potato chained to an ottoman - ordered by The Judge to spend several lifetimes in a politically correct taxpayer funded attitude adjustment clinic known in these parts as The Sock.

My crime? Trespassing on Columbus Day.

It's not hard to figure where The Sock (Starkansaw Outhouse For Criminals and Kooks) got its name. Some say it is a warden-base flatulent mildew in the ventilation system and others suspect a purposeful fouling of the wall paint, but the odor of this place is like sticking your head in the NFL laundry basket after a double-overtime game at Pro Player in August. To live here is to walk around with Jabba The Hut's day-old jockey shorts wrapped around your head at all times.

We've got an old saying back in the Starkansaw free world. It goes "Don't do the mime if you can't hear him rhyme." (I'm not exactly sure what such wisdom means, but they sure come in handy when I'm getting paid by the word.) The old-timers are always saying, "Learn to pace yourself. Don't burn yourself out. Can I have a cigarette?"

After all, 500 years is a long time. The Judge made headlines in the Enquirer for this one - Judge Hands Trespasser Columbus-size Sentence - and now he's got his own television show and a shot at Attorney General if the Republicans win in November. "Just sit tight, Raiford. I'll get you a pardon once I get on the Cabinet. But right now I need the publicity of you doing time," The Judge told me right before they hauled me away.

Such is justice here in Starkansaw. Keep your nose clean, play your cards right, leave a good-looking corpse and maybe they'll lop off a hundred or two for good behavior. Who knows?

So, everyday I wait, staring at the millenium-copy LED counter going backwards towards my release date, the milliseconds rolling at breakneck speed. I spend a lot of time in the prison Kinky's running off Vote For The Judge flyers as The Judge's campaign manager for The Sock and pumping iron in the prison Ghoul's Gym franchise. That's where it happened.

I was on the Sally Struthers Thigh Master dressed in striped designer prison spandex, Lockman headphones on my ears, watching Hogan's Heroes and suddenly what all my girlfriends' daddies hated about me came roaring out my psyche. I was ready to jump out of my imprisoned skin. This routine was killing me. I got off the machine and settled into the prison Jac (the Ripper) uzzi, leaned back and started floating out of my body . . . back to the . . . green, green grass of home . . . I dried off with my Martha Stewart mail order trowels (extra thick) and decided: now is the time.

Back in my cell, I wait for the right time, staring at my digitally enhanced Miss Jane Hathaway pinup. Soon, in the distance, I see Schultzie the old prison hack ambling down the corridor making the rounds. I quickly reach under my bed for the weekly bottle of government issue hooch I had saved for this occasion, opened the lid and squeezed a whole tube of peppermint flavored toothpaste into the bottle. I shook it up until the concoction was thoroughly mixed. I see the hack coming my way.

"Pssst. Shultzie," I whispered.

"Starke!" the old relic of the Third Reich said in a loud whisper, "vöt do you think you're doing? It is night time and you are sup-posed to be sleep-ing."

"I got a present for you Shultzie boy. . . how 'bout a little peppermint schnapps."

Shultzie's face lit up grinning from ear to ear. "Yah, yah, döt vould be nice!" One thing that Shultzie loved more than Farfugnugen and wienerschnitzel was peppermint schnappes. He took a few sips and ambled on his merry way with bottle in hand. I knew this would keep him on ice for a while. I un-tacked "Miss Jane" from the wall. Behind it was a gaping hole - the result of months of silently gouging concrete with a fingernail clipper (as one of the prison cooks, I was able to dispose of the shards in the chili the men loved so well).

I crawled through the hole and then slid through a labyrinth of ventilator shafts and sewage ducts under the prison walls and razor-wire fences to freedom with a splash into the Johnny River nearby. I floated downstream, washed ashore near the Po Side of Town, and, just according to plan, there was Scott the Limo Driver waiting for me with the Starkemobile.

"What's that smell," he asked me.

"Oh . .. uh, " I tried to brush away what only a gallon of bleach-based scrubbing oil could handle. "That's . . . uh. . .. The Sock, man."

I was whisked away to a place on the edge of town called Alligator Andy's. I darn near had a heart attack when I read the marquee: "Tonight Only, Raiford Starke and the West Memphis Mafia." So much for keeping a low profile! Club owner and residential bass player Kozmo was standing at the doorway nervously looking at his watch. "C'mon man, your guitar and amp are all set up on stage. We were supposed to start 15 minutes ago. Hey, what's that smell . . ."

I was still in my Sock outfit. I quickly changed and walked on stage. The boys were waiting on me. Just like the kid from Tupelo, I strapped on the ol' Sears Silvertone, shaped my fingers into a "D" chord, curled the right side of my upper lip, turned to the boys in the band, and in my best Tupelo by way of West Memphis drawl said, " Okay . . . key of dog, fellas, . . .and lay way back on the first verse . . ."

The stage was dark, except for the lone spotlight homing in on me. I took a deep breath and started singing the first verse to my latest, autobiographical, soon to be a hit song: . . .

I kissed my wife good mornin'/Sent my kid to school

I said, "Boy, you better study hard/'Cause your daddy didn't raise no fool

Well it sure feels good to be back home/But I can't stay for long

'Cause I gotta get back to The Sock/Before they know I'm gone . . .

The crowd was whoopin' and whollerin.' I must have struck a nerve. I went into the second verse . . .

Well, I cut the grass today/Smelled the honeysuckle vine

I sat me on the front porch/And drank some homemade wine

When I say trimmin' the hedge/Is livin' life on the edge

I ain't whistlin' "Dixie" son

'Cause I gotta get back to The Sock/Before they know I'm gone . . .

The rowdy crowd was out of control. There were gales of applause blowing my way. They thought the song was over, but there was still more to say . . .

Well I gotta get back/Ain't got much time

The light at the end of my tunnel/Is where my sun don't shine . . .

This crazy life I'm livin'/I can't make it up on my own . . .

Lord, I got to get back to The Sock, boys/Before they know I'm gone . . .

Yeah, I was trying to tell them, through the power of song, that crime just don't pay. That's why I had to get back . . . to my free room and board . . . and three square meals a day.

After the show, Scott took me back to the Po Side. I jumped out and waved goodbye, excited with the prospect of getting back into The Sock. Problem was, I didn't have a plan. I had to do what a man has to do, what makes Raiford Starke the man he is: I sat down, leaned next to a tree, took my typewriter out of my knapsack and began typing my next column . . .

-- Raiford Starke is the guitar player in Chief Jim Billie's band. You can smell him play Dec. 10 and 11 at Kool Beanz Coffee House in Cocoa.

© November 12, 1999, The Seminole Tribune