by Hope Stone
“Heard you knew about the shipment, and you moved it, player.” The right side of Lopez’s mouth turned up as he spoke to me before Chester came in.
He’d just walked into the door with his hands balled into fists. The washing machines whirred around us as I finished folding my laundry. No other people were in the laundry room at that time. In jail, that was usually a no-no. Witnesses were needed for everything. Otherwise, it didn’t happen. I calmly picked up one of the white sheets from the dirty laundry basket and wrapped it around my hand.
My back tensed up as Lopez circled. I let my peripheral vision govern his footwork.
“Oh yeah? Where you hear that? Because I don’t have anything to do with your little operation,” I replied slowly.
“I know you’re not about to do nothing with that sheet. I fucking know you’re not.”
Lopez closed the laundry door behind him. I heard the lock click as he moved a step toward me. I bent my knees and hunched in position. I scanned his body for weapons. He spat out a razor from the side of his mouth. It shot right into his hand. He held up the gleaming piece of metal and grinned.
“See this? This here is what I got for boys like you.”
He looked away briefly but lunged at the same time, trying to catch me unaware. I retracted my head back as the breeze from his swing tried to connect with my face. I let out a whooshing sound. I circled with him, and we started to dance.
“Snow told me you slashed his face. So you think you’re gonna do that to me?” I teased. My hands hung low on both sides, and I stretched my fingers out, ready to pop him in the jaw. I looked at his body. It was wide open.
“That’s right, bitch. Now it’s your turn.”
Lopez lunged. I saw the metal pass the right side of my face. I bumped into the side of the washing machine, and the edge jabbed me in the side. I held it for a quick minute.
Lopez grinned as his eyes narrowed. He swiped again, and this time, I tunneled my left fist into his lower intestine. He coughed as the impact made him draw up into himself and set him back a few feet.
“How do you like that? Huh? I fucking told you I ain’t got nothing to do with your drugs.”
He yelped, “You bastard.”
He staggered, and I thought that would be the last of it. He put his foot out near my left leg, and my foot came out from under me. I fell on one knee to the ground. I tried to stabilize with one hand, but I wasn’t quick enough. He ran the razor across the edge of my neck. My reflexes made it so that it was just a nick, but I felt the blood trickle down my throat. The red shadow of rage pounded behind my eyes, sending me into overdrive. I burrowed my head into his stomach, blasting him into the back of the washing machine on the other side of the room.
I felt the air run out of his lungs as he slumped to the ground, and the razor fell to the concrete slab. The siren went off, and my eyes flew to the camera in the corner. I quickly approached the door to leave, but on the other side was Chester. He put his hand out.
“Stop right there! What the fuck is going on?” He took one look at Lopez slumped in the corner and one at me.
“I was defending myself! I swear.”
He came straight for me and laced me in a chokehold. “You’re going to simmer down in solitary confinement, Outlaw. This is my prison, and we don’t let shit like that fly.”
That was my first-year introduction. I would never forget it.
Now, one stationary camera in the back left hand side focused on the yard’s activity. Not all thirty men came to the yard. Some others went to the common area, a dilapidated room the size of two living rooms and not enough space for a thousand inmates to congregate. That’s too much testosterone for one area. I wanted to get some sets in and talk to some of the old-timers in the yard.
I strolled over to Austin, who was holding the barbell for another guy. Austin was a tough Mexican in his sixties but strong as an ox. His eyes and ears were to the ground in the prison, and he knew everything. I placed the barbell back in its slot as the guy lifted his head off the bench.
Austin, with his scrappy gray beard and bald head, smiled a lopsided grin as I came toward him.
“Hey, young buck. How are you holding up?” He raised his bushy brow at me as he adjusted his gloves.
I pointed at him. “Stay right there. I want to talk to you about something. I need a spot, too.”
Austin nodded and waited until I got under the bar. “You want to know how you can get a message to Frank, right?” He leaned over the bar and turned back to the guard.
“Damn straight,” I said as I flattened my back against the bench with my feet firmly on the ground.
“Okay. What’s the message, young buck?” Austin knew my weights and slid the heavy steel plates on either end of the bar.
“No message. I need face to face. That’s my Outlaw brother. I know he’s coming out of the hole from last month. That place will send you to your grave early.”
Austin’s grave laugh rang out. “You got that right. Solitary is the place for no one. If your mind doesn’t get you, the rats will. Can’t see your food, either, when they slide it through the hole. They probably spit in it. Many have hung themselves down there. You learned to stay away from Lopez, though others might not have. His sole mission was to send inmates to solitary, and if he viewed you as a threat, he started trouble deliberately. The guards were in on it, too. That’s why Chester knew when to come in like he did. You’re not special. It’s their one-two combination. I’m glad that sorry son of a bitch got transferred.”
“Me too. He was out to get me from the jump. He knew I was an Outlaw.”
“Uh-huh,” Austin responded in recognition.
I shook my head as I felt the weight bear down on me. My arms shook with the new test of the extra weight that Austin had added this time.
“That’s it. Hold it. You got it. Lower down slow. Let’s go. I’m testing you today.”
I sucked in and exhaled on the push up. At three-quarters of the way up, Austin took the weight. He threw me the towel to wipe my face.
“So you ain’t a snitch, huh?” he asked.
“Nope. That’s not how we do it in the Outlaws. Got me five years, but I just have to keep my nose clean for the next six months, you know?”
“Could have been no years. Vlad made a situation for you. Frank told me.”
“I know, but now he owes me. No better situation than to be in the driver’s seat.”
“That depends on you making it out of here alive. Now, let me tell you something. These jerks can smell when you’re about to get close to being let out. They’re going to try and rock you, to make it hard. They’ll try to corner you and get more stacked on your sentence. I wouldn’t be coming out to the yard anymore if I were you. Just lay low.”
Austin lifted the weight down on my chest again as I set up for the second set. He lowered as my arms burned from the lactate build-up. I inhaled on the drop and exhaled, straining hard on the lift. Austin put his fingertips under and didn’t lift the burden. I thought the weight would drop on my chest.
“C’mon now. Quit being a pussy. You got it in you. C’mon.”
I grunted with the last drop of force I had, lifting the bar an inch higher. Austin assisted from there.
“There you go. We’ll make one out of you yet.”
The adrenaline from lifting kept me sane in this hell hole, and it felt good to have some of that now. “I hear you about staying low. I just have this one thing I have to get done before I leave here, and I know Frank can help me.”
“No doubt he can. I’ll set it up and send word to you.” Austin watched the guard as he made the rounds around the perimeter of the yard.
“I don’t know how you’ve made it all these years in here, Austin.”
Austin laughed. “I’ve weathered bitter storms, my boy, but none greater than losing my wife in the summer of eighty-nine. I didn’t care to live after that, anyway.”
“You shot the perp nine times. That’s cr
azy,” I replied. I knew of Austin’s story through my cellmate. It was one for the books.
Austin whistled through his teeth. “Yup, that’s what happens when shit goes sideways. That guy tried to come for my baby. I had to avenge her. I didn’t know the guy would keep a gun in the house.”
Austin had received life in prison for the murder. He knew most of the lifers in the pen.
“Put me in touch with Frank. I want to talk to him.”
Austin, with his humble and wise eyes on mine, nodded. “Okay. Consider it done, Colt.”
Amber
I packed up my yellow manila case file folders, gathering them from my desk. All of my questionnaires and profiling information were prepared for the visit. My job as a social worker was a time-consuming part of my life, but I loved it. I stood for justice, especially if it involved kids. This particular case involved a little cutie who was turning seven in a couple of months.
“My daddy’s in prison. I think he did something bad,” she’d said to me on my first visit to see her. I remembered her sitting with her finger in her mouth on her grandmother’s lap. She pleaded with her warm brown eyes. “I want him to come home. Will you bring my daddy home?”
Bella, the poor little girl, had a lot to contend with.
My thick blond hair was down and just below my shoulders. The Merced heat made it unbearable to be touching the back of my neck, so I opened my top drawer and placed it in a ponytail. Our office sat in the middle of downtown Merced. It was a small office with individual cubicles. On my desk, I had a few quotes pinned up to remind me why I did the job in the first place. I fingered the leaves of my potted plant, which I’d affectionately named Josie. Her leaves were looking a little dusty and dry.
“Sorry, Josie. I’ve neglected you again. Mama’s got a little water for you. My bad,” I whispered softly to my plant as I grabbed the bottled water I had left on my desk. I read somewhere that if you talked to your plants, it would help them grow faster, and they would be healthier. I poured the water into Josie’s rich earthy soil and smiled.
Lucy came by at the right moment. She, like me, was a long-standing social worker and a real hoot at times. She pulled her red-framed glasses down from her nose as she walked past. She was a buxom woman with dark hair that she wore in a bob, sometimes curly, sometimes straight. Most people in the office loved her.
“You talking to the plants again, Amber?” She put her arms around the edge of my cubicle and waited for my answer.
I gave her a haughty look. “It helps keep the plants alive. Josie is thriving. I just got a little slack with her watering.”
The tight-lipped Lucy jutted out her ample hip and narrowed her eyes at me. “You need to find you a man. This plant is doing nothing for you right now.”
She gestured in a humping motion, and I looked around to see if anyone had seen her. I shook my head, but we both giggled together. I could take a joke, and Lucy’s facial expressions would have the whole office doubled over in laughter some days. Considering the type of cases we worked on, laughter was the best medicine to keep your mind off things.
I sighed heavily. “I agree with you. It’s been a little while,” I mumbled as I packed a few items into my purse.
Lucy looked at me with pitying eyes. She’d been happily married for the last five years. “You’ll find you a good one. With all that long, blond hair and your tanned California skin, I’m sure there’s one around the corner for you. You just need to put yourself out there a little more.”
I glanced up at her. “Not so easy with my caseload right now, but I’ll get there,” I replied. At twenty-seven, I still felt like I was in my prime, dating-wise.
I stood up to leave. I didn’t want to be late to meet Colt.
“I know! Let’s go out for Friday night drinks. We haven’t done that in a long time. Blow off some steam, you know.” Lucy’s eyes started to twinkle. She dramatically flicked one hand in the air.
I shook my head in feigned pain. “I can’t. I have to help my neighbor Ruth with her planter boxes. I promised her I would.”
Lucy rolled her eyes at me. “See? That’s the reason you don’t have a man. You’re too busy helping all these other people. When are you going to help yourself, Amber? All these sexy curves are going to waste. Give them to me, and I’ll show you what to do with them,” Lucy said sassily as she slapped her hip. I watched it wobble.
Our boss, Donald, came past and spotted Lucy away from her cubicle. “Doing the rounds again, Lucy? You’ve been on lunch break for over an hour and a half. Time to get back to work.”
“Yes, Donald dearest.” She rolled her eyes at him as he walked back to his office. I laughed into my hand.
“Lucy, I have to go. I don’t want to be late.”
She gave me a curious look. “What case did you get?”
I slung my bag over my shoulder. “Colt Winters and his daughter Bella. The mother overdosed, and now Bella is staying with Colt’s mother and father.”
Lucy licked her lips and leaned closer to me, so only I could hear her. “Some of those prison boys are really good looking. I hope you at least get a hot criminal to look at.”
I gave Lucy a light slap on the shoulder. “Lucy! I’m on a case. Shame on you.”
She turned to walk away and looked back over her shoulder. “No, shame on you, honey, if you’re not looking.”
All you could do with Lucy was laugh sometimes. She was a wild one. I made my way to the glass doors and proceeded to my vehicle.
USP Atwater Penitentiary’s conditions were diabolical. The prison needed a major overhaul. Many prisoners were committing suicide in their jail cells, and the death rates were steadily climbing.
“Our hands are tied. We can’t do much about it. We’re externally funded, and they won’t give us the money to upgrade.” That’s what Warden Smith had told me on my last prison visit. I had wanted my brother, Hector, out of there as soon as possible.
My mind flashed back to my brother and when I’d last spoken to him on the prison phone. I’d said, “I’m going to get you out of here. You don’t deserve to be in here. Those charges were bogus that you copped.”
Hector, with his shaved head, put his hand to the glass, sliding his fingers down it. “Sister. I appreciate it, but we already appealed the other one, and it didn’t go through.”
One guard stood at the back of the room as I watched the clock. I had five minutes of talk time left that day. I splayed my fingers on the glass where his fingers were. “Little bro, this is what I do. Prison reform. You can’t stay here. You’re not safe. They just stabbed the prison teacher in here last year. The common room is too small. You’re all bunched together. There are over a thousand inmates crammed in this place. There’s bound to be a breakout of violence.” My eyes bugged out of my head with fear and worry for my brother. I didn’t dare tell Mom or Dad, or they would flip out. It was hard to conceal your brother’s whereabouts for a whole year, though.
Hector looked back at me with hopelessness in his bright blue eyes. “Give up for a while. I’m just going to ride it out. I know what happened. My homeboy let me know what happened. It wasn’t in my section.”
I closed my eyes and grasped the steering wheel a little tighter as I thought back to the moment. It pained me greatly to see my brother like that. The lost look in his eyes hurt me. I vowed to do everything I could to reduce his sentence and protest about the conditions at USP.
As I contemplated my brother’s case, I cleared my head to think about the reason for my current visit. Charlie “Colt” Winters and his baby girl, Bella. As far as I knew, Charlie was in a cell with one other man. I wondered how it was going for him. I guessed I was about to find out.
USP Atwater was right at the back of Merced in the middle of nowhere, a fifteen-minute drive and close to Castle Airport. I had plenty of time to gather my thoughts about the questions I had for Charlie as I drove there. I turned in where the sign said USP Atwater Penitentiary and found a spot to park. The parki
ng lot was a little empty, and the main building was nothing to write home about. A single tier, sandy-colored building greeted me as I got out of the car. Dry, barren land surrounded the jail. I checked my purse for my official badge as I walked in the front door.
“Amber. Hey, how are you doing?” the warden welcomed me.
I smiled widely because it was important to stay in the good books with Warden Smith, so I got the visits I wanted and the access to achieve the prison outcomes I saw for the future of USP.
“Hey, Warden Smith. You’re looking good today. How’s your sweet wife doing?”
Warden Smith was an average looking man of normal height and a penchant for power. He ran a tight ship but, from all I knew, was a just and fair man. He smirked a little, but he couldn’t hide the blush that came over his face. “You’re just saying that. C’mon, who are you here to see?”
“I’m here to see Charlie Winters. It’s about his daughter.”
“Ah. Charlie. Mr. Outlaw. He’s been behaving, and he’s just about served his time. Six months to go on his sentence. He’s a good inmate and an example for the others in here.”
I nodded my head. That gave me some insight into the guy. “That’s good to hear.”
“So you know the drill. You have one hour with the inmate. I’ll just do the standard check of your bag.”
I opened my bag as I approached the backside of the jail. The warden scanned it and me. The scanning paddle that he had made a weird noise and then stopped.
“Okay, you’re clear. He’s waiting for you in the standard meeting room.”
“Okay, thank you. I will see you on the way out.”
“Indeed, you will.” Warden Smith grinned.
A knot formed in the bottom of my throat. I always got a little nervous walking into the prison. The air changed when I walked in. A guard let me in the prison side and led me to the meeting room on the left. I saw the yellow stained door with a small window in it. He gestured me forward into the room.
