Doing Time (33 page)

“Yah git in trouble out there, ya on your own!” snarled one of my putative buddies.

Think I been on my own for quite awhile but jus' didn't know it ‘til now, flashed through my brain. But I just nodded and went to hoop it up.

On the round-ball court, I'd hear some trash talk, but it was mostly directed at my two-inch vertical leap. So I got white man's disease, but I can put the damned rock into the hoop at least one shot out of every ten.

One bright shiny day, I was having a monster day on the court. I was in the zone, everything I tossed toward the bucket was falling in! Mook Man, who was guarding me, couldn't believe it, and seemed even more delighted about it than me. The man didn't guard me too tough, probably just figured that I'd chill and start banging bricks off of the side of the rim — as usual.

Out of nowhere some psycho on the sidelines hollered, “Ay, Mookie! Don't let that white boy tear you up! You're making a muthahfuckin' all-star outta the wood!”

Everyone laughed but the Mook Man. Thought about telling him it was just my turn for fifteen minutes of fame, but the game started up again before I had a chance.

Catching the ball in the lane, I felt Mook Man's body on mine for the first time that day, crowding me for the ball. Flashing an up-fake at him, I showed him the ball. When he soared into the air, I spun the other way and softly laid it into the hoop.

Next play, Mook Man caught me in the forehead with his elbow. Wincing in pain, I rasped out, “Hey, Mookie, it's only a game, man. No one's makin' a livin' out here.”

“Men playing.” Mook glowered at me. “Can't take it, get your punk ass to your end of the yard.” He bit off the words as he violently gestured toward the white boys against the far wall.

Flashing my eye around, I saw that all of a sudden I was alone. No one, not a single soul, was meeting my eyes. I'd seen these looks before in the county jail. The Deputy Dawgs would slam a score or more guys into a tank built for a dozen. Jammed in like rats, the pack would begin to form, all of a sudden someone would become a nonentity as the mob got ready to roll. If the victim fought back, he'd just get beaten. If he laid down, it was all about the gang bang rape scene. After awhile, I came to realize that this wasn't about sex, it was about anger, evil, and most of all, power!

As my eyes continued to move to each of the black men around me, I found that my hand was involuntarily rubbing the scar above my right eye. I heard a voice and was startled to discover that it was

mine. “Forget it,” I said in an eerily normal tone of voice. “Let's play ball.”

Next play when the ball went up, I got up as high as I could into the air and ripped my arm toward Mook's skull. Realizing in midnight that I couldn't soar high enough to tag him, I snatched his shoulder, and yanked him down to the concrete. Landing lightly next to him, I booted him in the side of the body while snarling, “You get the fuck offa da court, ASSHOLE!” Just stay down, man, I thought, as I stepped to the side.

Rolling with my kick, Mook Man bounced to his feet, fast, real fast! Throwing a right hand that barely missed my jaw, as I jerked my head in the other direction, his fist smacked hard into the side of my neck.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied that Mook Man's homeboy, J.T., six feet three inches, two hundred fifty pounds of weight-driving muscle, was pounding directly toward my body. Spinning away from Mook to face his homey, I knew that it was futile. J.T.'s just too damn big for me! Bracing myself for the avalanche, all of a sudden J.T.'s passed me and snatched up Mook Man like he was a two-year-old, and simply walked away with him.

My mind blown apart by J.T.'s move, my eyes looked over and immediately flicked up to the gun canine on the catwalk. As I watched, the badge swung the business end of his assault rifle toward the yard. Behind the mirrored sunglasses, I saw the canine's face — it was Sam. Standing quietly, I waited to find out what he was going to do about what just went down.

Sam looked down at me, and then his eyes moved to Mook Man, who was walking the other way as J.T. intently packed words through his ears and into his head.

“Rough ball game,” Sam called from the catwalk. “I'm calling on the radio for escorts to take you and Mookie to your cells. Get your stories straight in case the sergeant interviews you. No punches, no fight, you were just playing a bit too rough. You with me or you want to spend the next six months in the hole?”

Damn! A free pass! The notion rocketed through my head as I collected my workout clothes getting ready to leave the yard, J.T. came at me, blotting out the sunlight with his huge ebony self. “Mook cheap-shotted you, and got his lumps to make it square. Now it's over, man. No reason to start a war over a petty scuffle.”

“I hear that,” I answered as I nodded my agreement while starting to figure that this might work out.

Escorts made the scene. Handcuffed, I walked into the condemned housing unit. Kidnapped, I'm not taken to my cell. Instead, the escort canine took me to a black cage outside the sergeant's office and locked my body inside.

I've been through this before, the sarge will keep us locked in the cages for a couple of hours to soften us up. The canines figure (correctly) that the wait will prey on our minds while we wonder what they're getting ready to do to us. I always try to argue with myself that since I know and understand their tactics, they won't affect me. That's an argument that I always seem to lose. Sitting with my eyes hidden behind my sunglasses, I just kept telling myself, “Worry about what you can control, homeboy, forget about the rest.”

Sergeant Dana walked by me and strode into her office. I've known her for a couple of years. She was one of the first female guards at San Quentin, and she's also openly lesbian. Sergeant Dana belongs to a leather-wearing, Harley-riding biker club called “Dykes on Bikes,” and she never misses a Gay Pride parade in San Francisco. For her to survive and make sergeant in the macho male environment of San Quentin that's openly hostile to her is quite an accomplishment. She did it by being flat-out smarter and better at her job than anyone else.

My thoughts of the sergeant were interrupted by the sight of Sam marching toward Dana's office. Evidently she's called him down from the catwalk in order to make his report in person. Seemed like the female canine was her usual efficient self.

After minutes tick-tocked by, Sam emerged from the office with a grim look on his face. As he walked by he stole a glance at me, but kept right on motoring. I took the quick look as a good sign.

More minutes trudged by before Sergeant Dana sent a guard to escort Mook Man into her office, but Mook wasn't having any. “Tell that bitch I ain't got nuttin' ta tell her, ‘cept to get herself fucked by a man!” Mook Man muttered angrily at the canine.

Deciding that he didn't want to deliver the message, the escort canine called Sergeant Dana to the cage, and Mook Man repeated his words.

Tilting her head away from Mook Man, Sergeant Dana narrowed her eyes at me and snarled, “You refusing your interview too?”

Thanks a lot, Mookie, I thought, you really softened the chick up for me. Smiling, I answered, “Kind of bored hangin' out here. Conversation sounds cool to me.”

“What exactly happened out there?” Sergeant Dana inquired.

Hesitating a beat or two, I looked at the clock on the gray office wall behind her head. The tactic of leaving me in the cage to sweat had its penalty for Sergeant Dana too. By 3
p.m.
she's hot to have me locked in my cell for count or write me a ticket for the hole. In the next thirty minutes, she's got to make a decision, and if I can fill that time with nonsense, I'll be home free.

“Can't really call it, Sarge,” I answered in my most innocent manner. “Me and the fellas were jus' playing a little ball, and the cop tossed us offa da yard.”

“Understand that there was a punch thrown,” Sergeant Dana bluffed, at least I hoped she was bluffing.

“Naw, just a lot of contact. You know we play twenty-five-to-life ball out there...”

Finally, the sarge questioned, “What's that red mark on your neck? Looks to me like you got hit. Tell me the truth, was this a racial attack?”

“Yah know San Quentin's policy is to pull all da fellas with racial problems from the yards.” I grinned at the sergeant. “Yah wouldn't be savin' the classification committee is blowin' it, would you, Sarge? Letting gang members onto the integrated yard?”

For the first time Sergeant Dana smiled back at me because we both know that the classification committee is full of ugly, empty, acrylic suits that wouldn't be able to identify a gangbanger if he had the information tattooed on his forehead. And many gangbangers do just that, tattoo their gang affiliation on their foreheads. But, somehow, the classification committee misses it and assigns them to the racially integrated yards anyway.

“You're looking for what ain't there,” I replied solemnly. “It was just a rough game, nuttin' more.” With that last lie, the interview was over, and the sergeant decided that she didn't have enough to beam my body directly into the hole, so she had me locked back in my cell.

That night I received a “Blue Violation Report,” written by Sergeant Dana. I'd been charged with “Involvement in a Physical Altercation,” whatever the hell that meant. After being locked in my cell for three days, an escort canine came and took me to a disciplinary hearing. The lieutenant found me not guilty, partly because Sam stuck to the story of rough ball game, and mostly because the lieutenant hated Sergeant Dana.

Next day I returned to the exercise yard. Strolling across the concrete, I was more than a little uptight while I wondered what I'd find,

Looking around, I saw that Mook Man hadn't made it to the yard, and my nervousness jumped up and multiplied by ten. The lieutenant found him guilty of disrespecting Sergeant Dana.

Eventually, Sam fell by my cell and said, “We're even.”

“Yeah, we are.” I smiled back at the sunglasses before he turned and walked.

After that day, Sam started dropping by my cell from time to time. Met his parents, his wife through the photos in his wallets, and his life through him. I learned how it was tough for him in the inner city of the flatlands of Oakland. Sam talked with pride about the first house that he'd just bought with his wife in the same neighborhood they'd grown up in.

“Now that you're making money,” I remarked, “why don't you get out of there? Move on out to the suburbs?”

“Wouldn't want to do that,” Sam replied. “Our house is close to the church my family's always attended, and besides, a lot of people in the community helped me when I was a kid. No one, and I mean no one, makes something out of himself in the ghetto — alone. You just don't do it all alone.”

One day after one of our many conversations, I found to my surprise that I didn't think of him as a cop or a black man anymore, just as Sam.

Sam once asked me, “What're you doing in here ? You don't seem to belong on death row.”

Real uncomfortable with the question, I finally answered, slowly, softly, “Guess no one was ever there to reach down and pull me out, Sam.”

Sam simply nodded his head and never brought up the subject again.

A couple of years ago, Sam asked me, “Do you think they will kill Bobby?” Bobby Harris had an execution date, the first one in California since the five-year moratorium on the death penalty.

“Don't know,” I answered. “We'll just have to wait and see what happens.”

Shaking his head solemnly, “Don't know about working here if they start killing you guys. Don't want to support my family on thirty pieces of silver. My wife is praying for Bobby, don't want to see anyone die.”

The next day, a canine dropped by my pad, banged on my bars with his baton, and then said in a serious tone that caught my attention and quickly drew my feet to the front of my cell, “Sam's wife wanted me to talk to you.”

“His wife? You sure?” I wondered in surprise.

“Yeah, Sam's dead,” the canine told me as he began to explain what had happened.

Sam had invited some guards to fall by his house for a get-together. Some young men crashed the party, but Sam and his wife didn't care for the intrusion.

Sam didn't make a big deal out of their drugs, but he did ask one young man to leave, and all of his buddies decided to fly away with him too.

When they had just left, a stone crashed through the front window of Sam's home. Sam and his fellow guards went out to confront the young men. Shots were fired and Sam lay dead in the streets.

After hearing the story, I flipped on my television for the news. Sam's death got thirty seconds on the local news while Bobby's possible pending execution was analyzed in detail for five minutes on the national network news.

1995, California State Prison-San Quentin
San Quentin, California

I was almost asleep when I heard the keys turn the bolt next door. Highly unusual: Unless someone is dying and they can get the guard's attention, the cells are locked and stay locked for the night, period.

Wilson was on duty. I heard his voice, smooth and enticing. “Okay, baby, there's no way out, nowhere to go. I'm gonna fuck you right now.”

“What if I don't want you to?” Jane, my next-door neighbor, said.

“You know you want it, I know you want it. You've been wavin' that ass in my face for too long. I heard you like it black. I'm ready.”

“You have to come and get it then.” Even through the wall I could hear her voice getting husky.

“No problem,” His tone thickened with desire.

Jane was a strange one. She threw herself at any man who walked in the door, but night after night woke up screaming from some internal terror. Ain't this a bitch, I thought. I did not want to hear her fucking Wilson. I did not want to be there. Somebody would peep it and the fallout would be heavy.