Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (8 page)

After the Bull Durham, we had to wait for commissary, which could take awhile, until whatever personal money we might have had, was transferred from the county jail. I had twenty-eight dollars in my wallet the day I came in.

I was amazed at how much these guys knew about jailing. Almost more than my brother. I had only been there three days, but I felt like I knew what to expect once we got to Jackson. It was as if these guys had been doing time their whole lives. They said we were going to Quarantine, and that's where the state would figure out which prison they would send us to. There were dozens of prisons in the state, and since I had only been sentenced to two and half years, they said I'd probably go to camp. I wondered what the camps were like.

Rooster, a tall talkative black guy, said the camps sucked and he preferred doing time inside, where there were more programs and things to do. But I figured he was just jealous, because he couldn't go. Rooster was twenty-five and had been in prison once before. He was serving ten years for armed robbery and liked to brag about how he and his rap-partner knocked off jewelry stores on the east side of Detroit, using a sawed-off shotgun and a 9mm pistol. But only nonviolent inmates with a couple of years to serve could go to camp.

According to the guys in the bullpen, there weren't any walls or fences at the camps, so other than a new prison term, there wasn't anything that kept you from walking away. Inmates referred to running off, as breaking camp, but it carried up to five years, which was stacked on top of whatever time you were already serving. Meaning, you'd have to finish the full term of your original sentence, before you would begin serving the added time. It was enough to keep most from running away.

I doubted I'd ever escape, but somehow knowing that I could if I wanted to was comforting. The temptation was even a little scary, but I wouldn't want to get more time.

There was a lot of energy in the bullpens that morning. It seemed as if the inmates were excited to be going to prison, but it had more to do with getting out of the county jail. Doing time in the county was the hardest kind of time to serve. "It's the worst," an inmate said, "because all you have to do here is wait. You're either waiting to go to court, or you're waiting to go to prison, but there's nothing else to do, but wait."

"It's so tight up in this motherfucker," a black inmate said, "that the only thing you have to do-is to get on each other's nerves. You can't even get a job assignment. You got no yard. You got no nothin'. It's enough to drive a motherfucker insane." He'd been there for almost year, held without bail for murder, and then his trial kept getting postponed. "I finally copped a plea," he said, "accepting more time than I wanted, but I just couldn't take it no more." He was sentenced to ten to fifteen years for manslaughter.

The bullpen was loud and energetic. Everyone, it seemed, was in high spirits, because at least once we got to prison, we'd be allowed out of our cellblocks during the day. Even if it was just to walk the yard, or perform a work detail, it was better than sitting around all day counting the time. Yet we'd had to get through Quarantine and Inmate Classification first. "But even then," an inmate said, "they let you out of your cell for an hour of yard each day."

I don't think there was much that could've been said to raise my own spirits. I was quiet and apprehensive.

They brought us down at about 5:30 that morning, before the breakfast wagon had come around with our donuts and milk. I didn't like orange juice, so I was able to trade it for a cigarette the day before. I was hoping they wouldn't forget about us, and the deputies would bring it to us in the bullpen. But they didn't. "They never do," Randy, the donut thief said. "They really don't give a fuck." He was also going to Jackson that day.

As we sat waiting in the last holding pen, out of the corner of my eye, I'd noticed something crawling on the wall. I turned my head to look, but it stopped moving. It was small bug, about an inch and half long, that had the same copper coloring as the rust stained walls. At first glance, it looked to have eight legs, but its body was flat and the two front legs turned out to be feelers. Its front tentacles were swinging back and forth, in a stiff, almost mechanical fashion. When it moved quickly, I jumped, and a large black man sitting across from me raised his voice. "It's a flicking cockroach," he said impatiently.

Embarrassed at my skittishness, I looked over and smiled.

"Stupid ass white boy. Ain't you seen a cockroach before?"

When I didn't answer, he looked left to make eye contact with someone and then shook his head. His look echoing his thought, "Stupid ass white boy."

Having grown up in the suburbs, I had never seen a cockroach before, but now that I had, this guy in the bullpen seemed to overshadow its creepiness. His name, I would learn, was Moseley. And going forward-I hoped to avoid them both, but as luck would have it-we were linked together by handcuff and chain.

Moseley didn't care much for white boys. He was enormous in size, well over six feet six, and his skin was so dark it almost looked purple. The chain that connected us would be looped through hooks on the floorboard of the transport. Our other hand was bound at the belly by a chain that was wrapped tightly at the waist and joined by another, which connected to the shackles at our feet-Belly chains and leg irons. It was a good thing they had us enter the vans from the loading dock, because I couldn't have stepped up from ground level. And I hoped they had the same set-up at Jackson, because my hands and feet were bound so tightly, I wouldn't be able to break a fall, and the last thing I'd want to do was take Moseley with me.

I was the only white guy inside my van. I noticed three or four others in the bullpens that morning. With six transports holding up to ten prisoners in each, I wondered why they didn't get a bus.

Jackson Prison was about ninety minutes from Detroit, but it seemed like we arrived in minutes. When the van pulled off 1-96 and onto Cooper Street, the prison was to the right. I turned around to look out, but it was hard to twist with all those chains.

I looked down and noticed my wrist was loose in the handcuff that was attached to the chain, so I brought it up to my other hand to see if I could wiggle free. Bunching my fingers together and pressing my thumb into my palm, I tried to make my hand the same size as my wrist. I squeezed the little finger around, and with my right hand that was attached at the waist I was able to push the cuff down to the bump at the base of my thumb. It felt like it was cutting into my skin, but it didn't break the surface, and the van got quiet as they watched me work. I leaned forward to spit, but missed, and it landed on my jeans. I spit again, and that time it smacked, perfectly, on the back of my hand. I rubbed the spit around the thumb and joint and was able to slip the metal cuff free.

I was fairly pleased with myself, as one or two other smiled on, but then Moseley spoke up. "You're a regular fi►ckin' Houdini. So now what are you going to do?"

I shrugged. If only I could do the same with my other hand, my ankles and the chain that was looped and locked at the waist. Then all I'd have to do is figure a way out of the van, all without alerting the two armed deputies in the front and the others that were trailing behind. At least I didn't have to worry about falling from the van. It also meant I could now twist around to get a good view of the prison.

Through a dark brown cluster of cedar trees, I could see part of the main complex. Covering nearly sixty acres, Jackson was the world's largest walled prison. But my anticipation turned sour, as the van made its way onto a circular drive and past a large arrowed sign that read: INMATE RECEIVING.

I felt a sudden urge to scream, but I kept my head silently turned out the window, afraid my face would betray me. I could not let the inmates see how the sight of the prison's massive walls hit me like I was entering a slaughterhouse. The chain at my waist was squeezing all the air from my stomach, up and out from the lungs. Suddenly, for the first time, I wanted to escape. And as Moseley had said, I was beginning to feel like a regular Houdini. But it was Houdini at the very end, in the movie version, where he was trapped inside a water tank and as everyone looked on, no one could see he was drowning.

10

Convict Orientation

One day on my paper route, a headline story jumped out at me. A ter- roristgroup had kidnapped Patty Hearst, a young newspaper heiress. The story caught my attention because a year earlier, while on vacation in California, we had taken a tour of San Simeon her grandfather's mansion. It sat on top of a hill, from which William Randolph Hearst once owned the land as far as anyone could see.

It was hard to fathom that be made all that money from selling newspapers. And then, later on that year, Patty Hearst was arrested for robbing a bank with the very people who had kidnapped her. She had become one of them.

We entered the prison through a side door. The sound of the electric gate hummed like a swarm of angry bees. Through large double doors and a barred gate, we entered the bubble of the State Prison of Southern Michigan. It was called the bubble, because it was the only portion of the prison that extended out from the structure's five towering walls. It was the reception center for all new inmates serving state time. Over the next six weeks, we would be quarantined until the Classification Committee determined where we would be sent to serve our time.

The bubble was also the entry point for visitors, although they entered through a different door, and once inside, were ushered past metal detectors and taken to the visiting room beneath a large rotunda. I noticed the rotunda as we came up the drive. It was set back beyond the bubble. On top, a large cupola doubled as a gun tower.

It had been easy to step from the van, as I loosely held on to the handcuff that was fastened to the chain. The deputies hadn't notice I'd slipped free, or if they had, they didn't care. Their twelve-gauge shotguns served as a good deterrent.

Before clearing the first chamber, I felt consumed by the noise, the echoes, the sound of distant screams and a dank, cold metallic odor that billowed out from deep within. My heart bounced as the first gate pounded shut. Each new set of bars waited for the ones behind to close. Inside, the air felt oddly still. It was hard to breathe. The last gate opened with a hiss and a wheeze, as the hydraulic pressure released the sliding rack.

I had suffered from asthma when I was younger, but it was triggered by allergies. My doctor said it was my lungs' way of rejecting something my body couldn't handle.

Several vans from other counties had already arrived, so the holding cells were full. There were close to a hundred fish waiting to be issued new prison numbers. If you had been though before, they'd place a B in front of your old number, indicating it was your second time, a C meant your third, and so on. Assuming I got out alive, I was already determined that there'd be no prefix added to mine.

The intake process was similar to the county jail. We were strip searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and showered. The only difference being, we were peppered with a delousing powder, which got into my eyes. It burned, and the redness must have shown in the numerous photographs they'd taken. One set for Lansing, the state capital; two more for the FBI, one was attached to my file, and the last one in the form of an prisoner ID "You look like my kid," one of the guards said, as he handed it to me. "He's a sophomore at Jackson High." I was surprised by his friendliness and how casual he seemed. Never get friendly with the guards, my brother warned, the inmates will think you're a snitch. Looking down at the photograph, the irritation in my eyes appeared as fear, which I knew I needed to hide. I never did take a good class picture.

I was a senior at the time, and I didn't like being compared to a sophomore, but I was skinny and my face was hairless. I looked younger than seventeen. With the exception of a few zits, which the food in the county jail didn't help, my skin was smooth.

"Move over there," the guard ordered, pointing to the next counter. His friendliness had disappeared. "Give them your file, so they can run a check for warrants and control holds."

Next, we saw the Quartermaster, who gave us our bedroll and clothes. State Blues, the inmates called them. They were a pair of dark blue pants and matching shirt. They wore like pajamas and looked like the uniform of a garbage man, but at least they weren't stripes and our numbers weren't printed above the shirt pockets. State Blues were the mark of fish, because as soon as most inmates were shipped to wherever they did their time, they'd immediately send for their street clothes.