Prison Time

by Shaun Attwood

  I shudder. ‘Holy shit!’

  He laughs. ‘I’m a porter. I’ll get you cleaning supplies.’

  At least I don’t have a cellmate. Who’d want to live here? Shit! There’s no mattress, light bulb, dustbin or chair. How can I write without a chair? I leave the cell to get a mattress. A guard instructs me to fetch mine from Yard 4. I just talked all that shit to Ken and now I’ve got to go back there. That’s what you get for being a smart arse. Boomerang karma. Dreading dealing with Ken, I trek alongside the rec field to Yard 4. I approach the yard apprehensively and scan Building A. No sign of Ken. Phew! A guard opens the gate. Bracing for Ken to appear, I jog to my old cell and grab the mattress. On my way out, a hand grabs me. My heart knocks on my sternum. I twist around to Booga.

  ‘I’m holding my pee in until my bladder hurts,’ Booga says proudly. ‘Then when I finally pee, it’s orgasmic.’

  ‘You’re insane!’ Flicking my elbow, I knock his arm off. I hasten away.

  ‘You should try it!’ Booga yells.

  As I stride across the yard, people yell my name. Ken appears, spots me and charges across the balcony towards the stairs. I throw the mattress over my shoulder and run. Ken thuds down the stairs, failing to notice T-Bone approaching from the side. When Ken gets to the bottom, T-Bone sticks a leg out. Ken falls. I wait at the gate for the guard to open it. Come on! Come on! Come on! Ken springs up. Exiting, I almost collapse with relief. I take my time walking back to Yard 1, savouring the smell of the freshly cut grass and the pinkish-orange radiance of the mountains under the sun.

  Entering the cell, I spot a skeleton of a hippy vomiting blood in the toilet. I drop the mattress.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in hospital?’ I ask, leaning to help him, inhaling the metallic odour of blood.

  He spits. ‘I’m your new celly, Midnight.’

  ‘I’m England.’

  Rising unsteadily, he raises a chin streaked red. ‘Do you smoke?’ he asks, his cloudy eyes lighting up.

  ‘No.’

  His expression sours.

  ‘That’s a lot of blood,’ I say, furrowing my brows.

  ‘I just spent four days at the hospital. Morphine IVs. A CAT scan. A GI tube down my throat. A cancer biopsy. They said there’s a cancerous lump closing one of my intestines. After I drink fluid, it all comes up bright red.’

  ‘That’s rough. Did they give you anything for it?’

  ‘I’m on Vicodin, Elavil, Omeprazole, Acetaminophen and stomach-nausea pills.’

  I thought Yard 1 was supposed to be mellow. A cheek getting bitten off – and now this. At least I’ve got plenty to write about.

  A white prisoner marches in with a soldier-solid physique and dark hair in a crew cut, German words tattooed at the base of his neck. ‘England.’

  ‘That’s me,’ I say, meeting his eyes.

  ‘I need to speak to you outside.’

  Probably one of Hammer’s thugs.

  I stride out, blood pumping faster and hands fisting. ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask, facing him, scrutinising his body language.

  He points at me. ‘Look, your new celly just got smashed. I’ve been asked to tell you not to get involved. He owes money. Stay out of it. He might have to move off this yard.’

  ‘If he owes money, I’m not getting involved.’ Cellmates should protect each other, but I’ve only just met him and I won’t back anyone up over drug debts.

  ‘Who’s England?’ yells a tank of a man – twice the size of the prisoner I’m with – motoring towards me with no neck, wild eyes, a scar from mouth to ear.

  Shit’s getting out of control. Bracing to shift as he closes in, I say, ‘I’m England.’

  ‘I’m Jim Hogg, Two Tonys’ buddy,’ he says, shaking my hand, almost ripping my arm off.

  Thanks, Two Tonys!

  He barks at the prisoner with me, ‘Is there a fucking problem here?’ The creases in his sunburnt forehead deepen into ravines.

  ‘Nope.’ The prisoner disappears.

  ‘If anyone starts any shit with you, they’ll have to answer to me. Me and Two Tonys go way back.’ After telling me about being Two Tonys’ cellmate, Jim Hogg roams the yard, asking people if they have a problem with me, swinging his arms like a gorilla eager to rip a limb off.

  I go inside. ‘Did someone beat you up?’ I ask Midnight.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve had two fights today. One on Yard 2 before I left and another one just now.’

  ‘In this cell?’

  ‘Yeah, some dude just came in, asked for the time and sucker-punched me.’

  ‘That’s a lot of drama. Will there be more problems coming to this cell?’

  ‘I think it’s squashed now. I’ve got to tell you something upfront, celly,’ Midnight says.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘’Cause of my medical problems, I have to pee through the night. Would you rather I flush the toilet and make noise or just leave the pee in the can?’

  ‘It’ll wake me up. Just leave it in the can.’

  We spend hours scrubbing the blood but keep finding more.

  Chow is announced. I brace to gauge if Hammer still has a problem with me. Best approach him and say hello. Better deal with it than avoid him and risk looking weak. Outside the chow hall, I spot him standing in line. I walk over and wait for him to finish talking. As I ponder what to say, my jaw tightens, my mouth dries and my throat constricts. When he notices me, my words fly out: ‘Hi, Hammer. I finally made it to Yard 1.’ I offer my hand.

  He grips my hand and tugs me towards him. ‘Your accent sounds like it’s changed. Are you sure you’re really from England?’ He cocks his head from side to side, as if reading words on my face.

  I search for a response. My breath pauses, my heart beats like a sparrow’s and pressure rises in my chest. With dozens of prisoners watching, waiting to judge my reaction, I take a chance on trying to defuse the situation with humour. In a slow southern drawl, I say, ‘No, I’m really from Alabama.’

  Everyone laughs.

  ‘Can’t wait to have a food visit,’ I say, breathing easier. ‘When’s the next one?’

  He responds and the prisoners reminisce about food their loved ones brought to the previous visit. When the conversation dies down, I walk away. Hammer can’t be trusted. Stay out of his way. If he wanted me smashed, it would have happened.

  I sit with Weird Al, who joined Yard 1 a few months ago. ‘So, how are you and your celly getting along?’ he asks.

  ‘He’s a smoker,’ I say, picking through potatoes soaked in orange oil in the hope of finding some that aren’t rotten. ‘Even with the best-matched celly in the world, nothing beats your own cell.’

  ‘Yes, even if Mother Teresa were my celly, after three months of living together I’d probably gut-punch her. But there’s an especially dark cloud hanging over your blood-infested cell, the scene of a violent encounter between two men who, despite repeated attempts, failed to kill one another. It’s a karmic part of your black aura. As is being assigned a cellmate who smokes like an eighteenth-century wood-burning train, transmitting his cancerous tumours to your body while you sleep by his simple exhalations. Now that you’ve finally made it to Yard 1, I’ll set about working up anti-British sentiment into a frenzy of further bloodletting. Let’s add some British blood to your cell.’

  Laughing, I realise how much I’ve missed his sense of humour.

  The narrow window at the back of the cell opens at ground level – an invitation to insects. A dragonfly whizzes in and zigzags from wall to wall like a pinball with wings. While I read John Updike on the top bunk, its elongated maggoty body rams my face. Flinching, I slap it away. It descends and buzzes into Midnight’s ear. Cackling insanely, Midnight grabs a shower sandal, leaps around and beats the dragonfly beyond death. Darkness brings mosquitoes. They drill into my skin and whine by my ears, startling me awake. I wrap myself in a sheet but sweat severely in the trapped monsoon heat. The next morning I wake up itching, pink lumps on my head and neck, s
hocked to see the wall splattered with blood – the remains of mosquitoes mangled by the fan blades sucking in their bloated forms during the night and blasting them back out. I take a washcloth to the wall.

  I scrounge a chair and sit to fill out a form requesting a cell change on the grounds the blood is hazardous. Harvester ants spill through the window and crawl on the paper. A harvester ant under threat will pinch with its jaws while curling its stinger over to pierce skin and inject painful venom. I flick them out, but they return in larger numbers.

  After going to Medical, Midnight sits on the bottom bunk and tells me his story:

  ‘In ’93, a semi hit my Olds Cutlass 442 and broke my back. I was paralysed from the waist down, so they did a laminectomy. They took out part of a disc and moved the sciatic nerve a little bit, so it wasn’t being pinched by the L4 and L5 vertebrae. In ’95, I had a fusion: they put in two stainless-steel screws and removed the disc. In ’97, they removed the two screws and put a plate in there, then drilled four screws into it. In 2003, at Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Durango jail, I was smashed for standing up for an old-timer and my L4 and L5 vertebrae were cracked. I thought I was gonna be killed. They broke my eye socket and cheekbone and fractured my skull. Four ribs were cracked. They had to screw a plate and pins in to hold my eyeball in its socket. Feel here.’

  I press the metal at the top of Midnight’s left cheek. ‘That’s enough injuries and illnesses for one lifetime. I hope there’s nothing else wrong with you.’

  ‘I’ve got no gall bladder, appendix or tonsils,’ he says proudly.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask what you’re in prison for?’

  ‘Theft of means. I stole a truck to finance a $250-a-day crack addiction and $100-a-day meth habit.’

  ‘What started you on drugs?’

  ‘Before the accident, I was straight. I was a heavy-machine operator driving backhoes, graders and bobcats, making $23 an hour. Me, my old lady and son had money in the bank. We didn’t want for nothing. After the accident, I couldn’t work. I didn’t feel like a man no more. I took an overdose of Demerol and Valium on my first suicide attempt. I became addicted to painkillers: Valiums, Somas, Vicodin 750s, Demerols and morphine. When the doctor cut me off because he didn’t want me to kill myself on his drugs, I started self-medicating with street drugs and lost every damn thing. My family, home, vehicle – my freedom. I’ve been in and out of prison five times, as I have no one to help me. Last time I got out of prison with the $50 gate money I was picked up by Mesa Police, who reinstated a fine for a shoplifting case and released me with no money, wearing blue dungarees and sandals. I had to shoplift shoes from Wal-Mart. I ended up sleeping next to railway tracks, eating out of a dumpster by Papa John’s Pizzas.’

  After lockdown, Midnight says he witnessed his father’s suicide and shows me his Office of the Public Defender Presentence Report:

  M’s father committed suicide just four days before M’s 18th birthday. M’s father put a 12-gauge shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger … it blew most of his face and the top of his head off. M was reaching for his father’s arm to stop him when he witnessed this horrible tragedy. He was never the same after that.

  In 2004, after consuming a large amount of crack cocaine, M tried to commit suicide. He wanted to die like his father. He took a 9 mm gun and pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed. He was prescribed several medications but did not have the money to get his prescription filled, therefore he didn’t get the necessary medication to help stabilize his condition.

  M’s mother passed away in 2001. She was involved in a serious automobile accident and hemorrhaged to death.

  Deeply moved and horrified, I count my blessings and wonder how I can help him.

  The next day, Midnight returns from Medical. ‘I’ve got three stomach ulcers and the biopsy shows cancer in my upper intestine. The nurse said I need to quit smoking. And the doctor wants me to look at my stool, at my bowel movements. If they’re real dark, then there’s blood in it and he wants a sample. I’m supposed to pick my shit out of the commode and bring it to Medical.’

  ‘You’d better do what they say,’ I call down, lying on my bunk.

  ‘Nope. I ain’t doing it. I drop one, flush one. I ain’t looking at my shit. To be honest, I don’t wanna know if I’m bleeding from my ass. I’ve got enough problems.’

  ‘But you could die.’

  ‘OK. I’ve got a deal for you,’ he says, smiling. ‘Tomorrow, I’ll take a peek and if there’s blood in there, if you want, you can fish some out and take it down to them.’

  ‘If I’d just been diagnosed with cancer, I’d be fishing my own bloody shit out in a heartbeat.’

  The next morning, Midnight refuses to examine his stool. He’s more concerned about the doctor telling him to stop smoking than his cancer.

  55

  Two weeks later, I swap cells with a friend of Midnight’s who smokes. Upstairs, alone, I start to unwind. With fewer mosquitoes, I sleep better. The next morning at 6 a.m. the mechanical sound of the teeth in the doors grinding open wakes me, then comes a chorus of sneezing, coughing, farting, noses being blown, urine splashing, toilets flushing, water running and razors tapping against sinks.

  I laugh as my new neighbour, a massive African-American with frizzy hair, yells in a sexy voice, ‘I’m sooo very gay,’ then begins a song: ‘Jack-jack-jack me off …’

  Smokers emerge on the balcony, yelling.

  To block the commotion out, I put my Walkman on and surf the radio: ‘Call 1-800-Progressive. Progressive Direct Insurance Company … Krispy Kreme Donuts … Do you suffer from heavy or long-lasting or frequent menstrual cycles? Call 886-800-9060 … When you’re a hardcore biker like me, it’s nice to know that Geico … This week on ABC it’s Extreme Makeover … XM Satellite Radio … Do you have what it takes to be a successful rapper? … Zero per cent interest for 60 months. Jim Click Dodge in the Auto Mall … Zicam cold remedy swabs … There is a massive shortage of helicopter pilots … M&M Reece’s Pieces … Arizona women’s basketball is taking off … Circuit City, HD radio … Vegetable oil has an extremely high lubricity factor … How do you not have a celebrity shredding service?’

  Announcements come in a gravelly female voice: ‘Yard 1, last call for chow … Visitation porters turn out for work …’

  A man with rotten teeth and insane eyes peeping from long, dark, tangled hair which resembles seaweed launches into my cell. ‘I’m your neighbour! I’m a dope fiend! C’mon, you bloody bloke! The chow hall’s open!’

  I join the stragglers heading for breakfast and banter with Weird Al.

  After chow, a tall, young Native American walks into my cell – slightly overweight, baby-faced, wearing rectangular glasses – and introduces himself as Max, a friend of She-Ra’s. Aware of my blogging, he’s keen to share a story.

  ‘What’s it about?’ I ask, sitting on the chair.

  ‘Selling my jizz to a prisoner.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ I ask, studying his expression.

  ‘No.’

  ‘This blows my mind. Before we start, how’d you end up in prison?’

  ‘I got nine years for kidnapping. It was a carjacking. I took the guy in the car with me. I was only 16 at the time. I’d just finished Carson High in California.’

  ‘Did you have a weapon or any priors?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘So, you’ve never had an adult life on the streets?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do your tats mean?’

  ‘On my chest is a medicine wheel. On my left arm is the Chukchansi tribal seal: a basket, and the word Hil-le, which is a greeting. I had to earn this tat, “AIM”, which stands for American Indian Movement.’

  ‘How did you earn it?’

  ‘I took off a piece of scalp with a hunting knife.’

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘It’s not like I peeled it down to the cranium. That earned me respect on the st
reets of California.’

  ‘When you getting out?’

  ‘I’ve got six months left. I also have a tat on my cock.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s kind of funny, dude. It’s a dicky bird. Do you want to see it?’

  ‘No, thanks … So, how did you hook up with the jizz buyer?’

  ‘My buddy told me about him.’

  ‘I hope he pays well.’

  ‘It depends, dude, on your looks factor, age and shit. I figured I’m young, I’m not bad-looking, maybe I can get something from the motherfucker.’

  ‘How much did you charge?’

  ‘A $40 sack of commissary.’

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘I dunno. A couple of teaspoons every week and a half or so. Whenever my commissary ran out. I only did it five or six times.’

  ‘How did you get it to him?’

  ‘He told me to put it in a little baggie. And the crazy thing is, if you’ve ever studied your own jizz, it stays solid for a while. It has a gelatine-like consistency, but after it’s been in the open air in a warm environment, it turns runny. Do you know what I’m talking about?’

  ‘No. I’ve gone my whole life without jizz lying around the house.’ We laugh. ‘But I’ll take your word. You delivered it in a baggie?’

  ‘Yeah. I’d walk across the pod with the warm jizz in a baggie in my hand, with all eyes on me. I was trying to keep it a secret, so the dude would keep buying me commissary. What could I have said if someone had stopped me and asked what I was doing? How do you say to someone, “I sold my nut, dude, to an old perv who uses it as skin lotion, finger fucks himself with it and eats it”?’

  ‘Jesus, Max! I thought I’d heard it all. That’s insane! Did he demand a certain consistency or freshness?’

  ‘Yes. He wanted it as fresh as possible.’

  ‘How do you feel about it now?’

  ‘You compromise a lot of morals to survive in prison. I imagine a lot of people would have done the same in my situation, needing soap, shampoo and food. Forty dollars’ worth of commissary is a lifesaver sometimes.’