Hard Time (24 page)

‘Everyone, roll up! All medium-security inmates in Tower 6 are moving to Towers 2 and 5!’ Officer Mordhorst announced.

‘Moving all of us! I don’t believe it!’ I said, scrambling off the bottom bunk.

‘They’re gonna split us all up, and we’re gonna have fucked-up cellies,’ Stalker said. ‘I really like you guys.’

‘Here’s as good as it gets,’ I said, and joined the worried prisoners gathering on the balcony.

The guards assigned my downstairs neighbours to various pods and cells in Towers 2 and 5. Everyone seemed to be upset with the move except for Little Italy – meaning they were up to something. I feared being rehoused and having to adjust to new cellmates.

Then the announcement came: ‘Everyone on the top tier, grab your shit, you’re moving to the top tier in Tower 2, A pod.’

The tension on the faces of the men on the balcony melted into many incredulous smiles. Marco winked at me, and I knew he’d arranged for the top tier to be moved as one, so Little Italy would remain intact.

The upper tier in 2A was empty due to a race riot ignited by the Aryans. As we moved in, the Aryans from the lower tier announced a mandatory white-boy meeting. As we were all new arrivals, we fell under the rule of their existing head of the whites: Iron Eagle. Dreading the new rules the Aryans would enforce, I joined the white-boy meeting in a crowded cell downstairs. Marco was present, meekly sizing up the Aryans, no doubt running the calculations for his next power play.

‘Any woods kicking it with the other races are gonna get smashed,’ said Iron Eagle. He was a muscle-bound 30-something with a shaved head and an angry look on his square face. He had a big swastika on his chest surrounded by a pattern of white-supremacy tattoos. ‘That means no playing cards with them, no going in cells smoking with them, no selling commissary to them. If you’ve got money on your books, you need to be breaking bread with your own race, helping the indigent white boys out. Also, we heard some fucked-up rumour about a bunch of woods in Tower 6 going to Muslim services. If you woods know who the race traitors are, we wanna know about it.’

The eyes of Iron Eagle and his torpedoes roamed over us. I felt my face turn red. No one volunteered that all of us white new arrivals to Tower 2 had gone to Muslim services with Marco that day.

The next day, Iron Eagle cornered me in my cell. ‘Hey, dawg, how about kicking in some store for the indigent woods?’

‘Sure, dawg,’ I said, resting my golf pencil on the tiny table. ‘What do you want me to order?’ I had no problem helping out penniless inmates. I remembered how strangers had offered me stamps, writing supplies and hygiene products when I’d arrived at Tower 6.

‘Some toothpaste, so they don’t have to use that state shit.’

‘I’ll put it on my commissary list.’

‘What about hooking me up with something to eat, wood?’ He had a violently hungry look in his eyes, common in the jail.

If I fed him, he’d take it as a sign of weakness and be back for more every day. If I didn’t, he might take it as a personal affront. ‘I’m low on store, dawg. How about I order you a rack of cookies for store day?’ I’d agreed to his demands but on my terms. He’d have to wait a week for the cookies to come from commissary, and, with the friction between the Aryans and Little Italy, a lot could happen in a week.

‘Good lookin’ out, dawg.’

I smiled as if happy to oblige.

As the week progressed, the hostility of the Aryans towards Little Italy increased. The Aryans had slightly greater numbers, so Marco went on a recruitment drive. He received a kite from the head of his Praetorian guard, Paulie, who’d finished the loaf programme at the Madison Street jail and wanted to be moved from Tower 5. Marco had him moved in the next day. Paulie wept in Marco’s arms and then went cell to cell on the upper tier bear-hugging everyone. Crushing me with his body, he said Marco needed to speak to me. Eager to find out what Marco wanted, I followed Paulie to Marco’s cell.

‘How many people have been arrested in your case?’ Marco asked.

‘I stopped counting. They arrested them in groups. The last group was 30-something, and they’re still arresting people.’

‘You’ve got co-defendants all over Towers?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re their ringleader?’

‘Alleged ringleader.’

‘Yes, alleged ringleader. After the Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia, you’ve probably got one of the biggest crews in the jail system.’

‘I know, but I’m not trying to run anything as it could be used as evidence against me.’

‘I’ve got a proposition for you.’

‘What?’

‘Shit’s about to go off between my people and the Aryans. Look, Shaun, we work out together, and I know if something goes off, you’ve got my back. But I was thinking it would be safer for all of us if I moved some of your co-defendants into this pod.’

I felt a mix of excitement at the prospect of joining forces with Little Italy, along with apprehension about where it might lead. Deciding the more friends I had in my pod, the less chances of anyone picking on me, I said, ‘Good idea.’

‘Cool.’

But as soon as I’d committed, doubts crept in. ‘But isn’t going up against a prison gang way out of our league?’

‘Yeah, but we’re not in prison. This is jail. It’s far more every man for himself here. The Aryan Brotherhood are far stronger in the prison system than in the jail. Most of their shot-callers are locked down in the state’s super-maximum prison. A lotta the guys in here are just wannabes. I don’t see the Aryans here attacking us if we have greater numbers. If I move your people in, I need to know will they have my back?’

‘Of course, Marco.’

‘Then draw up a list of who you want moved in.’

‘I’ll get right on it. Wild Man would be at the top. And Maddox, he’s six-seven and almost 300 pounds.’ Wild Man’s presence would intimidate most of the prisoners, but I feared he might instigate trouble with the Aryans just for the hell of it.

I compiled a list and Marco moved Maddox, Joey Crack and Grady (one of my youngest security guards from the raves) into one cell. He tried to move Wild Man from the hole, but the computer system prohibited him from being housed in the same pod as me, so he ended up in the adjacent pod, 2D. Joey Crack also had Marco move Kyle the kickboxer over. At Durango jail, a gang of youngsters had smashed my oldest co-defendant, Little Ben. He’d been moved to Tower 1, so we moved him to Tower 2. Little Ben – yet another co-defendant I’d never met – was an old-timer Wild Woman had bought drugs from. He arrived with a cut and bruised face. My crew was now six strong in Tower 2. Although Wild Man was in the next pod, Marco had the guards let Wild Man visit our pod for hours on end, and people took notice. The inmates nicknamed us the Evil Empire, after the title of the
New Times
article.

The five Aryans and torpedoes were not enough to move against ten of us. And none of them dared challenge Wild Man and Maddox, who stood out like a bear and a Cyclops. When he wasn’t in our pod, Wild Man often came to the window in 2D to chat with me in sign language, surrounded by a band of thugs. Wild Man had shaved his eyebrows off to pay a gambling debt and looked like a monster. Another regular at the window with Wild Man was Troll, who’d recently signed a plea bargain for almost ten years and was sporting a bruised face after getting smashed over drug debts.

Unable to take us all on, the Aryans picked on the smallest of us, Little Ben. They sent Bam Bam, an overgrown hick with a husky voice and scaly facial skin, to extort tobacco from him. Bam Bam cornered Little Ben in his cell. The first I knew about it was from the familiar sound of a body getting thrown around. Used to that sound, I dismissed it as just another fight. Then Slopester ran into my cell: ‘Bam Bam’s smashing Little Ben!’

The rest of the Aryans were trooping up the stairs as I rushed from the cell, my adrenalin going like crazy. Little Italy, my co-defendants and Kyle were stampeding across the balcony to Little Ben’s. I got there just in time to see Marco threatening Bam Bam, who was about six inches taller and broader than him. I’d never seen Marco so angry. He was roaring in a deep voice, fists balled, pumping his chest further out with every heavy inhale.

The Aryans tried to push their way through us to get into the cell, but we stopped them. Surprised by our resistance, Iron Eagle assured us we were all dead as soon as we stepped foot into the prison system. I shuddered at the prospect of running into Iron Eagle in prison, where I’d be after sentencing. My bravery dwindled as I imagined the Aryan Brotherhood shanking me to death in the shower.

Inside the cell, the argument between Marco and Bam Bam was about to get physical, and outside Kyle was feinting jabs at the Aryan torpedoes. The
thud-thud-thud
of Marco converting Bam Bam into a punching bag prompted the Aryans to plough into us, restoring my courage. It was more of a pushing match than a fight. Surrounded by large friends, I pushed into them. I was equal parts animated and terrified. Then the fists I’d heard so much about went to work. Kyle let loose a flurry of blows worthy of an X-Man. Blood splattered from an Aryan torpedo’s nose. More blows knocked the torpedo back, his eyes fading in and out as if his brain were shutting down like an old computer.

The control guard’s voice crackled out of the speakers, ‘Lockdown right now!’ The older Aryans yanked Iron Eagle back, and they retreated. The guard kept yelling lockdown. Paulie pulled Marco off Bam Bam, and they got back to their cell just as the backup guards filed into the day room. I was afraid of getting caught and punished for being a part of it, and also worried about Iron Eagle retaliating against us. I envisaged the Aryans picking us off one by one. The guards had seen the fight on the balcony, so they only cuffed and extracted Kyle and the torpedo he’d smashed. We remained locked down for the rest of the day, but we didn’t lose any more men.

Wild Man heard what had happened and offered to smash Bam Bam at Catholic Mass, but Marco said no. A few days later, the guards moved Iron Eagle to Tower 5, further incensing the Aryans, who accused Marco of working with the guards. But Bam Bam continued to menace Little Ben. Wild Man came over to our pod and blatantly cheated at cards while playing Bam Bam. ‘You cheatin’-ass punk!’ was all Wild Man needed to hear from Bam Bam. Wild Man picked Bam Bam up, twisted and pile-drove him head-first into the chow table. Wild Man broke his own thumb. Maggoting around on the floor, Bam Bam was out of action. The Aryans didn’t attack Wild Man, as it looked like a one-on-one fight over a card game, and such fights were routine. A guard escorted Wild Man and Bam Bam to the hole. I spoke to Marco, Marco to the guard, and the guard brought Wild Man back with no disciplinary action. Bam Bam never returned.

There was nothing the few Aryans left in our pod could do now. We vastly outnumbered them. They didn’t object to our decision to crown Marco the head of the whites, and their behaviour towards us slowly became more respectful. We’d shown we would fight back, and the gangs respect that when it suits them. I still didn’t feel safe, though. If I were moved to another tower without my co-defendants or Little Italy, the Aryans could easily get revenge.

In the back rows at the next Catholic Mass sat my friends, Little Italy and Aryans from various towers who knew what had happened. Now they outnumbered us. With them was Carter, who hadn’t regained his swagger since being smashed by SmackDown. Father O’Donnell had to keep stopping the Mass to hush Wild Man, who was incapable of whispering quietly. The Aryans from our pod had associates from four pods present – including one with flames tattooed on his head – and we expected a war to break out. But instead of attacking us, the Aryans laughed at Wild Man throwing his Communion wafer around and disrupting the service. They even praised Wild Man for smashing a baby shaker – the baby had been blinded in one eye and suffered a broken arm according to the legal paperwork.

‘The doctors took me off the Thorazine and told me I’m normal. I’m normal!’ Wild Man boasted in a voice loud enough for all to hear. ‘Everyone who says I’m a Rule 11, you don’t know what you’re fucking talking about! I’m not a Rule 11!’ Demonic laughter. ‘I’m fucking normal!’ More laughter. ‘If the doctors say I’m normal, then I must be fucking normal!’

‘That Wild Man’s fucking crazy,’ said Clubs, a portly redneck, the oldest Aryan from our pod. ‘But I fucking like him. He reminds me of me at his age.’

Later on, Clubs paid me a visit and described how he’d nailed a man to a wall and hit golf balls at him. He was especially proud of how well dressed he’d been that day and what fine clubs he’d used.

Alejandro, whose pus-filled spider bite I’d helped salt with Lev, was rearrested for threatening witnesses and housed in pod 2D next door to Wild Man. Facing a sentence in excess of a century for shooting multiple teenage gang rivals with an AK-47, he said he regretted not going on the run in Mexico while he was out on bond.

The guard who selected him and Wild Man – with a combined weight of about 700 pounds – to serve red death must have been a prankster. In the corridor, besides steel feeding carts stacked with 180 trays, the ravenous twosome put on hairnets and proceeded to steal everyone’s dessert – a stale but beloved chocolate-chip cookie. Watching them shove cookies into their mouths until their cheeks were stretched to capacity, and then hide plastic bags full of them inside their trousers, the inmates banged on the Plexiglas, shook their fists and mouthed threats, but the twosome just laughed them off. The angry prisoners blamed the guards for the disappearance of their cookies, and the two big men were never allowed to serve chow again.

Young Officer Hernandez – who’d recently purchased a video game heavy on British slang – started yelling on his walks, ‘Oh no, it’s the filth!’ in a mock English accent. The prisoners made a sport of parroting him. Mesmerised by this, Slopester sought to consult the man he assumed was the resident expert on matters of English slang: me.

‘When Baptist does his walks, I call him the filth and he goes bright red. I need more shit to throw at him. What do they call prison guards in England?’

‘Screws.’

‘What other bad words you got?’

‘You could call someone a plonker, a pillock or a daft git,’ I said, without giving a second thought to the consequences.

Slopester left giggling over the new additions to his vocabulary. He used them to devastating effect on Officer Baptist, an averagely built, effeminate 40-something who wore big square glasses. Slopester’s barrage sent Officer Baptist scurrying out of the pod. Worried he might call the goon squad, Nick and I asked Slopester to behave himself. Which he did for a few hours, but when Baptist was supervising the inmates serving red death, Slopester opened up on him again in an English accent: ‘Look who it is! It’s the filthy screw! He’s a pillock and a plonker, too!’

The laughter in the day room rose to the lead paint peeling off the ceiling.

‘Yeah, that filth . . . I mean filthy screw. What a daft git he is!’

Officer Baptist’s face turned purple – a show of weakness the inmates pounced on with more fake English accents: ‘Who’s the filth?’

‘That pillock Baptist is!’

‘He’s a filthy fucking screw!’

‘Who’s a screw?’

‘Who’s filthy?’

‘Baptist!’

‘He’s a filthy screw and a plonker.’

Startled by everyone joining in, Officer Baptist panicked. ‘You, lockdown,’ he said to Slopester, in a wimpy way as if close to tears. He stepped out of the sliding door, fumbled with his radio and urged Officer Hernandez to close the door from the control tower.

Slopester refused to lockdown.

‘Everyone lockdown!’ Officer Hernandez announced.

As a dozen men hadn’t been served, the prisoners threatened to riot.

‘Lockdown now!’

Backup guards ran into Tower 2 and tried to force us back to our cells by yelling and waving pepper spray at us. As more arrived, we retreated. The last men in their cells were those who hadn’t been fed.

The next day, those who hadn’t eaten complained to the shift commander, who rewarded them with double rations of red death. Marco reprimanded Slopester. The jail enrolled Officer Baptist in assertiveness classes. The classes apparently worked: he was promoted to Sergeant Baptist.

March 2003

The commander of the jail discovered that Paulie had been moved from Tower 5 to Tower 2. He moved Paulie back to Tower 5, and Slopester with him. A few days later, Marco had the guards on a different shift move Paulie and Slopester back again. They returned teary-eyed and to much fanfare. This incensed the commander, and a tug of war began whereby every few days Paulie and Slopester were moved from one tower to the other. In the end, Slopester was allowed to stay but not Paulie.

Hugo found out he was going to be released, and Marco was sentenced. The release news purged a depression from Hugo, who had expected to be met by a death squad if deported back to Argentina.

The guards moved all of the sentenced inmates in Tower 2 to Tower 5 – except for Marco. He’d arranged with the guards to stay in our pod until his penultimate day at Towers. Hugo roped a banner across the upper tier to prevent access to Marco’s cell. The banner read: ‘V.I.P. Visits by appointment only!’ The banner flabbergasted inmates and guards, especially when they watched Hugo attach and reattach it to let people in and out. But the newly assertive Sergeant Baptist was having none of it. He arrived on the scene with the afternoon shift change, pounced on the unprotected banner and tore it up. When the Italians emerged from their cell and surrounded Baptist, he must have forgotten his assertiveness training because he went red and trembled. Watching him slink away, the Italians mocked his timidity and told him he needed to retake the assertiveness classes.

As the day of Marco’s departure neared, the inmates and even some of the guards saddened. We felt that the close community and minimisation of violence he had engineered were about to end. I was concerned about the Aryans regaining control. I worked out with him during his final days, making sure to enjoy his company.

Marco knew the Arizona Department of Corrections had to collect him from Tower 5, so he chose to roll up from our pod on the eve of his scheduled departure. It was a lengthy process involving devastated looks on the faces of his inner circle and unprecedented levels of bawling by Hugo. Hugging Marco, I knew I’d miss him deeply. The day room cheered and whistled when the guards finally escorted him away. When he disappeared down the corridor, the separation anxiety in the day room heightened. But our discontent lifted an hour later when Marco reappeared to a chorus of cheers fit for a returning war hero.

‘I told the guards I’d forgot some personal property items, so they brought me back,’ Marco said.

The guards collected him an hour later. He left to rounds of applause and even louder cheering than the first time he’d gone. Thirty minutes later, a different set of guards brought him back to collect more forgotten property items. This time Hugo bawled, and the fanfare and drama escalated to its highest levels of the day. With their eyes full of wonderment, the men mobbed around Marco, slapping him on the back and praising him for outwitting the guards. When he left again, the inmates placed bets as to whether or not he would make it back one more time. Some pressed themselves to the Plexiglas in the hope they’d be the first to announce his return. But sadly we never saw him again. A week after his departure, the guards freed Hugo. Little Italy was over.