Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (10 page)

11

Quarantine

The largest part of Jackson Prison, called Central Complex, was home to over 6,000 inmates. Each was housed inside massive cellblocks that contained up to 600 prisoners each. Seven Block, one of the largest, was reserved for Quarantine. The very site ofwhich, made me forget my hunger, which had been haunting me since sentencing. It was hollow inside, with five tiers of cells that went on for almost a mile. On each floor a set of catwalks overlooked the base while another separated the back of the cells from the exterior wall. Several windows were either open or broken, letting in the damp winter cold. Nevertheless, it was hot where we had entered at base, and the air felt static and old. I was struck by the sight of birds flying around in the vast open space, in between the tiers.

At base level, there was a large cluster of tables where the inmates had their meals. Cantilevered from the second tier above, was a control desk where a lone guard sat, observing the area from his station. A black telephone and stacks of paper were on his desk. There were two horizontal openings some 80 feet above where armed guards could maintain control by shooting at the inmates below.

Noise echoed from everywhere making it hard to hear anyone. Screaming, yelling, the rumble of rollers, the pulling of release breaks, and the sounds of a hundred sliding cell doors. The high-pitched squeal of squeaky wheels and the scrape of mop buckets being pushed by porters. Occasionally, a metal food tray crashed to the floor, or another was slammed into the dishwasher that was just beyond the chow line.

As we entered the chow area from the intake bubble, inmates from one of the floors above were already sitting down, while others waited in line. Everyone stopped to look. The heavy metal door closed behind me, heading off any impulse to run. Whistles and catcalls came from everywhere, and a round of applause broke out from the tables.

The guard motioned us to the serving line, even though we hadn't been taken to our cells yet. "You guys go ahead to chow," he yelled, "but stay together. I don't want to have to come looking for you later."

Fat chance of that, I thought.

I couldn't show it, but I was shaking inside of my state shoes.

Never, let them know what you're thinking.

Suddenly, I wasn't hungry.

As we walked between the tables, someone grabbed my ass. I spun around, but the inmates sitting nearby all looked away. The cons on the other side of the table looked up, but said nothing. They seemed to be measuring my reaction.

"That's a pretty motherfucker there," I heard one of them say.

"I'm gotta get some of that," another yelled.

They all laughed.

"We're gonna need to put this one on Two-Special," one of the guards said, looking at me. Two-Special was the group of cells just to the right of the guard's station. It was where they placed inmates that needed extra supervision.

"They put pretty young prisoners and sissies in those cells," Randy, the donut thief said. "So that nothing happens to them."

With over a hundred cells in each row, it was hard for the guards to see what went on after the first ten or fifteen, especially with the chain-link fence on the outside of each catwalk. The caging was installed to keep prisoners from either jumping, or being thrown from the upper tiers. The base floor was solid concrete.

I didn't know what to think about being placed on Two-Special. I was told it was where they put the fags, and I didn't want people to think I was one of them. At least up until that point, at best, I would have considered my sexual orientation undecided. And if anyone were to find out, I would be the one to decide what exactly I was. But it was beginning to feel like some of my choices were quickly being taken away.

"You've got to watch yourself, little bro," Randy whispered. "Your pretty blue eyes and long curly hair might be too much for these motherfuckers. They're going to want some of that fine white booty."

"Fuck that," I said. I grabbed my crotch like I had seen done back at the county jail. "They can have some of this fine white dick."

"Oh, now, now," he quipped. "That's just a little white handle to turn you over with." He and the guy next to him laughed.

They were both in their twenties and bigger than me, so they didn't have the same worries.

"Yeah, well, they can pull on this all day long then 'cause I ain't giving up shit."

Randy tousled my hair and smiled. "Just stick close to me kid, I got your back." He leaned over and checked out my ass.

"Fuck you too," I said.

He and the other laughed.

I smiled too, but I didn't think it was funny. One of those guys at the table had grabbed my ass, and I knew they were testing me, as Rick said they would. I didn't know which one had done it and I couldn't have taken them all on, so I just pretended it hadn't happened. I knew that was probably a mistake, but I didn't know what else to do.

Lunch was a watered-down stew, with potatoes and carrots, a few celery bits and a shredded piece of meat that looked pretty creepy. The roll was stale, and the coleslaw had started to turn sour. But the Kool-Aid, unsweetened in a metal cup, tasted like well water. But that and a skinny piece of yellow cake, topped in a dark brown chocolate, was the only thing I could swallow. Randy said they mixed something called saltpeter into the Kool-Aid to keep us from wanting to fuck each other. I looked over at the other tables, where someone had grabbed my ass and hoped that this was true. But later on, when the library cart came around, I read in the dictionary that it was used for curing a different kind of meat.

As we waited for the guard to come back, I tore off a piece of my bread and tossed it to the floor. I watched as one of the birds sat at an empty table, patiently perched, waiting for a moment when no one was looking. I turned my head for only a second, and when I looked back, both bird and bread were gone.

In the first three cells of Two-Special, there were three black drag queens. Charlene, Tiffany, and Lisa Marie. Lisa Marie was a pre-op transsexual, who already had breasts. She looked just like a woman, except for her genitals, so Charlene and Tiffany started calling her Miss Thing.

I was never clear which of the other two was who, and all three made me too uncomfortable to ask. All three were in their twenties, with exaggerated feminine features: arched eyebrows, long hair and nails, and tin-sounding voices intended to imitate women. I felt embarrassed to walk past their cells. I didn't want to look in, but at the same time I couldn't help myself. All three stared back in uncharacteristic silence. They usually had something to say about everyone, but with me, they just stared quietly.

I was placed in a cell a few down from theirs. In between, were several white guys who looked young and mostly frightened. I hoped I did a better job hiding my fear.

The drag queens' cells were filled with all the trappings of a wealthy prisoner: cigarettes and coffee, commissary items, potato chips, pastries, and bags of candy. The inmates called the goods Zoos Zoos and Wham Whams. I don't know if those were the names of specific treats, or just the slang, but it was the currency of prison, along with drugs and homemade liquor. As far as material goods were concerned, the queens were well treated. The more time an inmate had to serve, the sooner his fantasies were replaced. Drag queens were the closest thing to women some of these guys would see for a long time, and there weren't that many of them to go around, so they were in high demand. I often smelled pot coming from the direction of their cells, and I noticed they were called to the infirmary on a daily basis. Inmate clerks inside the walls prepared the call-out lists, so the "girls" left each morning and returned late in the afternoons, often with fresh boxes filled from the commissary.

Once lights went out that night, I saw something crawl up my wall. It was a cockroach, the size of the one I'd seen that morning at the county jail. I killed it quickly with my heavy state shoe, but no sooner had I smashed that one, then a few more appeared. There were two walls in my cell, one on each side, and a rack of bars at the front and back. The guards walked both catwalks, sometimes sneaking up on inmates, to catch them violating rules.

I smashed a couple more cockroaches and then jumped when I saw another, on the wall just above my bed. After killing a dozen or so, and sitting there poised to get the next, a mouse with a long tail ran through my cell. It could have been a rat, but I'd never seen one of those before either. I let out a yelp, and the guard at the front desk flashed his light.

"No noise over there, 208, or you'll be spending the night in The Rock."

The Rock was the holding cell next to the guard's station. Talking and noise was forbidden at night, so with the exception of an occasional animal noise that the inmates loved to let out, like a cow's moo or a hyena's laugh, the first few minutes after lights out, the convicts pretty much respected the rule. But during those first few minutes, the guards snuck around, tracking the sounds. Some nights it would be barking dogs and cats' meows, while other nights it was lions, monkeys, and bears.

It was a nightly game that ended with a handful of inmates. sitting upright, on the rock-hard floor, until the 6:00 A.M. shift change. It usually took only one night in The Rock for an inmate to give in and respect the rule. But still, each night, there were several minutes of animal cries that echoed up the long stacked rows of cages.

After seeing the mouse, or rat, I climbed under my covers and tucked the sides of the gray blanket between my mattress and slab. I pulled the covers over my head, grabbing the slack around my neck and cried silently. It was going to be a long six weeks until I would be sent to camp. In the morning, I'd ask the guy in the cell next to me if cockroaches bite, or if rats could climb walls. But at that moment, I hated myself for being such a sissy.

If the days were long, the nights were even longer. I'd been there for over five weeks, and nothing had progressed with my classification. With the exception of a once-weekly shower, inmates on Two-Special were not allowed out of their cells. The sliding bars were top locked by a dead bolt at the top of the door, which prevented it from opening when the guards pulled the release brake at the end of the tier. At chow times, the others went down to base while our meals were delivered, usually cold, on Styrofoam plates.

The other inmates were also allowed out of their cells for yard, which made the guy in the cell next to mine pretty angry. He kept saying we were supposed to get an hour of yard every day. "It's in the fuckin' constitution, man. This is crude and unusual punishment!" But the only thing crude was his daily ranting about the injustice of it all.

"Stay out of prison," a guard told him, "and you can play in the yard all you want.

At least we didn't have to worry about someone grabbing our asses.

Inmates would occasionally stop at my cell and stare, or ask me my name or what I was in for, but the guards would appear and order them along. I welcomed the company, at first, but they were never allowed to stay long enough for a conversation. Sometimes, in passing, one of them would say something rude like "That punk is gonna need a man" or "There's no bigger joy than a pretty white boy."

I tried to escape into reading, but the library cart only came twice and by the time it reached us on Two-Special, there were only a few hooks left. They were usually titles that no one there would ever read, like Scruples by Judith Krantz.

I read Black Gangster by Donald Goines, which I was able to trade later for a Louis L'Amour western-I read the latter twice out of boredom. I traded the western for The Drifters by James Michener, and was taken away to Europe, by way of Canada, and to the running of the bulls in Spain. It was the highlight of my six weeks stay in Quarantine, and I read the hook twice, gladly.

I tried to sleep away my days, but the noise was maddening. There was a constant drone of inmates yelling, sliding cell doors banging closed, and the shuffling back and forth of convicts between program testing, the yard, and chow. I eventually learned to ignore it, but the only time I felt solitude was lying awake late at night.

For the once-weekly shower, we were paraded in our towels upstairs where we waited in line for one of the six open stalls at the end of tier three. They were in plain sight, between the two long rows of cells, so that anyone in the cellblock could look up and watch. Privacy was something you forfeited in prison, but I guess it was preferable to showering in a dark room somewhere and being afraid to pick up the soap, like so many back home had joked.

The guards gave us three minutes to shower, at which point, they'd shut off the water. If you still had soap on you, you'd have to use your towel to wipe it off. The green state soap didn't lather much, and even when thoroughly rinsed, your skin still felt greasy.

At first, I was nervous about showering in the open, but my erections were no longer a problem. Since jerking off was about the only thing we had for entertainment, it was probably the real reason I preferred staying up at night. Occasionally, a guard came along taking count with a flashlight and would catch me. But since most other cons were doing the same thing, I'm sure he was used to seeing it. I felt pretty embarrassed, the first time he saw me, but he didn't seem fazed at all.