Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison

by T. J. Parsell

  Chet leaned over to my ear and whispered, "This man here is one scandalous Motown motherfucker." He said it loud enough for his friend to hear. "His own momma wouldn't trust him."

  "Hey, I'll tell you what," he calmly retorted, "My momma is a big of bull dagger, and your momma is her big ass bitch."

  Chet and I both laughed.

  "I see The Man's sending babies up in here now," he exclaimed, as if the entire north side of the building should be outraged. "How old are you?"

  "Seventeen."

  "Seventeen!" he exalted. "God Damn! What's your number, Son?"

  "1-5-3-0-5-2."

  "God Damn!" He raised his voice as if the world should be outraged.

  "I got drawers older than this boy," Chet declared from over my shoulder.

  I smiled and wondered why they had called them drawers and not underwear.

  "The numbers are up to one-fifty-three!" He kept his eyes locked on mine.

  "Why? How old are you?" He looked to be as old as Chet.

  "Old enough to be your daddy." He looked over at Chet, and they both chuckled.

  "How old is that?" I asked, curiously, still smiling.

  "I'm almost thirty."

  "OOOOOoooooolllldddd," Chet mocked.

  He didn't acknowledge Chet's comment.

  I did the math in my head and questioned whether it was possible for him to have fathered me at twelve years old.

  "Let's go sit into the card room, Tim. I'll introduce you to Taylor here, nice and proper like."

  Chet put his hand on my shoulder and led me to the card room, where two black guys were sitting.

  "Don't worry about the liver, Kid," Chet boasted. "We don't eat that shit in here."

  "That's right!" Taylor said.

  "Cook up!" an inmate named Red piped in, loud enough for the guys in the TV room to hear.

  "Hey! Let's have roast beef tonight." Taylor said.

  "We do our own cook-up," Chet ignored the others.

  "Yeah," Red said, leaning over to me. "Do you like meat?"

  "Hold up Red," Slide Step said from across the room. "Give that boy some room."

  Red was a black man with really dark skin. He was named Red because his eyes always looked bloodshot. They were slanted and gave the appearance that he was almost Asian.

  Red threw his hands up at him, as if to say, "What? Did I say anything?"

  Slide Step ignored him and looked out into the day room. His feet were propped up on another chair, and he was leaning back with his arms casually crossed in front of him. Slide Step wore a scraggly beard and a knit wool hat stretched over what looked a big ball of hair.

  "How old are you," I asked Slide Step, sensing that he was pretty old.

  "Thirty." He seemed amused that I was interested in his age.

  "Wow, that's pretty old."

  He smiled and looked back out into the day room.

  Red and Slide Step, like Taylor, were part of Chet's family. Chet explained that you had to have a family if you wanted to survive inside the penitentiary. He said it was very difficult to make it on your own, especially if it was your first time.

  When you hook up with a family, he explained, you look out for each other. He said it could be a very cold and lonely place inside these walls. I guess he could tell that I was a little lonely. I was so happy to be out of Quarantine and to have people to talk to. I was enjoying their company. It was impossible to hold a conversation when you have to yell over to a buddy in the cell next to you. Especially in Seven Block where it was so noisy. So far, I really liked Chet and his family. They were nice to me, and I felt very lucky that he was taking such a liking to me.

  Chet wouldn't tell me how old he was, but he hinted that he had served as much time as I had been alive. So he sure knew a lot about jailing. If he came in at my age, he would have to be at least thirty-four. Holy cow!

  I was curious about the spud juice that they were cooking up. I wondered how they cooked it and how it tasted. I tried to picture a homemade distillery and wondered if spud juice was like moonshine.

  Chet offered me another cigarette, which I accepted.

  "Count time," a guard yelled from the open door of the officer's station.

  It was the first time that I'd seen a guard since they showed me to my dorm. It was the four o'clock count. We got up from the card room and headed back toward our dorms. Chet handed me the pack of cigarettes he was holding and told me to keep them.

  "Thanks." I put them in the pocket of my state blues.

  "Are you going to dinner," he asked. "Meet me in the day room and we'll go down together. They're having Hungarian goulash tonight. It's pretty good."

  After dinner, I was standing in front of Chet's door. His cell was the first of the three private rooms on the hallway near my dorm. He wanted to show me a picture of a friend of his from The World. That's what inmates called the outside, The World. He handed me a picture of a pretty woman, who was wearing a lot of makeup.

  "What do you think?" he asked, studying me as if he were expecting a reaction. I wasn't sure what he was looking for, but I wanted to give it to him.

  Red bumped into me from behind and reached for the picture. He looked at me with his face just inches from mine and then down at the picture. "Is that Bobbi?" he asked Chet.

  Chet nodded, but kept looking at me.

  "It's a man," he said. His eyes showing the delight in knowing he had fooled me.

  "Really," I said. I took a closer look. I couldn't tell that Bobbi was a man from the photograph. His tits looked real under the flimsy halter-top he had on. Embarrassed, I didn't know what to say. I thought about my last night with my brother and Candy, the prostitute on Woodward Avenue. Chet and Red studied inc as if they expected a particular reaction. I went to hand the picture back; but it slipped from my hand and fell to the floor, sliding under Chet's bed. Red muttered something to Chet as he bent down to pick up the picture. Red's manner made me nervous.

  "She worked the streets for me," Chet boasted. He wiped the picture on his sleeve.

  I remembered a book I read by Donald Goines, a writer who had done time in Jackson Prison. He described how queers lived like beauty queens in prison. That all it took to have a relationship with one was a couple cartons of cigarettes. Cigarettes were the currency of prison. The older queens cost five packs and up, depending on the merchandise. As long as they gave good head, convicts would be willing to pay.

  I couldn't imagine that someone would pay for a drag queen on the outside, unless they didn't know it was man. Bobbi had fooled me. I wondered if he looked as convincing in person.

  I stuttered something, self-consciously struggling for the words to excuse myself. "I'll catch you later," I mustered, and quickly headed toward my dorm. Except, I didn't want to go there, so I turned and walked back toward the day room. Chet and Red seemed amused by my sudden nervousness.

  The day room was crowded and bustling with the inmates who were free until the nine o'clock count. Inmates playing poker hovered over piles of loose cigarettes, and the convicts in front of the TV were lost in Gilligan's Island.

  The poolroom was nearly empty, so I decided to shoot some pool. I had played a lot when I was in The World. My brothers and I played while Dad drank with his friends at the bar, and at home we had a pool table in the basement.

  Nearby, two guys played a game while two others sat on a bench smoking. They looked up at me when I walked in. I crossed the room and leaned on the windowsill to watch the game.

  "How do you sign up to play?" I asked.

  No one answered.

  The guys on the bench just smoked their cigarettes and watched the game. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the guys lean over and say something to the man next to him.

  "Six in the corner," declared the overweight Mexican leaning over the table. He was wearing a pair of state-issued white pants and shirt. He must have worked in the kitchen, as all the guys on the serving line were wearing the same clothes. The Mexican was th
e only one who wasn't smoking. I opened the window to let in some air.

  He hit the cue ball with enough English that it curved backwards after hitting the six in the corner and stopping in front of the two-ball, which was a sitting duck for a shot in the side.

  "Sweet," declared one of the cons on the bench.

  I wondered if they had heard my question but chose to ignore me. I was too self-conscious to ask again.

  Two black guys walked into the room. "Who's next?" one shouted.

  "I am," said one of the smokers on the bench.

  The two guys looked at me, nodded, and took a seat on the green bench opposite the table. One of them kept staring at me.

  Chet appeared outside the room, knocking on the window. He motioned me to come into the day room. I pointed toward the table, indicating I wanted to play, but Chet was insistent.

  "It's probably a good idea if you stuck close to me these first couple of days," he said, "until people get to know you're OK."

  Chet led me to a set of chairs outside the phone room. It was off the corridor next to south side guard's station.

  "I have to call my Moms," Chet said. He pronounced Moms as if he had more than one.

  "How many do you have?" I asked.

  "How many what?"

  "Moms," I said with a smirk.

  "It's just an expression. Moms." He pronounced it as if it had a Z on the end.

  "Momzz," I repeated.

  He just smiled.

  "Hey White Boy!" one of the black inmates asked, "Where are you from?" He sat opposite me and wore a burgundy skullcap. It had tie-strings hanging on each side, like an old aviators cap. He was thin, but the fierce look in his eyes suggested he was tough.

  "Westland."

  "Isn't that over near Inkster?"

  "Yeah," I said, "I lived right on the border. If you crossed my street, you'd be in Inkster."

  "Where's Scatter at?" a guy to his right asked.

  "Hey Scatter!" Skullcap yelled down toward the single cells.

  "Yo!" echoed back from the end of the long sterile hall.

  The building seemed more like a rest home. I was easy to visualize the place as the Psychiatric Hospital it once was. The glazed brick walls and dull floors diffused the fluorescent lighting and created a glow that was fitting for a sanitarium. I half expected to see Jack Nicholson appear at any moment, flanked by a big Indian and a nurse holding a plastic tray with a dispenser filled with bug juice.

  Instead, a young black man sprang from one of the rooms. He sauntered up the hallway with a rhythmic swagger. He was holding his crotch in left hand while his right arm swung wildly back and forth in tempo with his body. He was muscular and handsome with light chocolate-colored skin.

  His walk was what inmates called catin'. It was short for catwalk. The way inmates sauntered up and down the tiers of a prison cellblock.

  "What's happening? What's happening?" he called out. He increased his beat and tempo as he entered the corridor. Scatter flopped down on the armrest of Skullcap's chair.

  "Scatter!" Skullcap said, without looking up, "This boy says he's from Inkster."

  "No shit!" Scatter looked at me, "You're my homeboy?"

  "I lived on the border," I said.

  "What school did you go to?" He had a youthful energy.

  "Wayne Memorial," I said, smiling.

  He was the closest person I'd seen to my age, with the exception of Young Blood, who I rode in with. "How old are you?" I asked.

  "Seventeen."

  "You ain't no motherfucken' seventeen," Skullcap said. He looked over and smiled at the guy next to him.

  "Almost," Scatter said. He crooked his chin and bunching his lips together. "I will be in September."

  "In September," the guy next to them blurted. He got up laughing and went into the phone booth. Scatter scooted over and took his chair.

  "Well this is only April, you silly ass jitterbug." Skullcap sipped a hot drink from a plastic tumbler, and set it down on the armrest that Scatter had just warmed. "That ain't no `Almost."' His laugh had a heavy S-sound that included a slight whistle.

  "Close enough," Scatter played along. He turned to me with the childish look of someone who was caught telling a fib.

  He had been in prison since he was fifteen. He was convicted of felony murder.

  "My rap partner accidentally shot the store manager," Scatter explained. Felony murder was when someone dies during the commission of a felony. It doesn't matter who dies, or how they die. Everyone involved in the crime goes down. Even if a cop or a shop owner shoots one of the criminals, the other guys involved are charged with murder. The rationale being that if you weren't committing the felony, no one would have died.

  "I know this guy who stole a car," Scatter said, explaining the law, "and he was runnin' from the police when he hit some of lady crossin' the street."

  "BAM!" he said with burst of enthusiasm. "He got sent up for murder."

  "That's right," Skullcap said, "even if a motherfucker has a heart attack and shit-your ass is sittin' up in here doin' life."

  "Not for a heart attack," Chet said.

  "Oh, yes sir," Skullcap said with authority. "If that old bitch crossing the street had a heart attack instead of being hit by the car, they would have still jammed the brother up."

  "Now how they gonna know she had a heart attack just 'cause he came flyin' by?" Chet challenged.

  I was getting the impression that everyone became a jailhouse lawyer, since they all seemed to know about crimes and court and how the sentencing and procedures went. Or at least everyone had an opinion on it.

  "Because," Skullcap said, searching for an answer. "Because ... The Man is just lookin' for a reason to send a nigger to prison, Dawg. You know what I'm saying?"

  The answer seemed to satisfy Chet, or maybe he decided it wasn't worth arguing. He did seem to agree that The Man was always looking for a reason to send someone to prison. The fact remained that Scatter and his rap partner had robbed a supermarket and that his rap partner, according to Scatter, killed the store manager. They were both convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison.

  "But regular life," Scatter said. "Not natural life. With natural life, you're down till your ass dies or the governor gives you a pardon."

  "Which ain't going to happen," Skullcap said.

  "With regular life," Scatter continued, "You see the parole board after ten years." He leaned over playfully to Skullcap, "When I'll be almost twenty-six."

  Scatter was given his nickname because the inmates said he was so scatterbrained. I wondered why he was sent to prison and not to juvenile hall since he was only fifteen when he and his twenty-four-year-old cousin committed their crime.

  The psychiatrist that testified at his trial said a teenager's wiring isn't done yet. They can't rationalize things the same way adults can because their brains and emotional reasoning aren't done yet. The judge didn't buy it so tried him as an adult.

  The courts were cracking down on teenagers to solve the gang problems in Detroit. A couple of years earlier, some innocent bystanders were shot and killed at a Kool and The Gang concert at Cobo Hall. They started waving a lot of teenagers over to the adult courts ever since. The mayor eliminated gangs by aggressive sentencing. A large percentage was now over at the Michigan Reformatory.

  "Most of them are in Gladiator School," Scatter said. "Doing five, six, and seven natural lives each. They ain't never getting out."

  "I've got two cousins over there," Skullcap said, "they were part of the B.K.s," referring to the gang, Black Killers. "One got forty-to-sixty, and the other got six consecutive natural life sentences."

  "Now how's a motherfucker going to do six natural life sentences?" Scatter asked.

  "They'll bury 'em, " Skullcap answered. "And then they'll dig their black asses up again."

  "Shit," he added, again with the half whistle. "Both of them fools ain't but nineteen and twenty years old."

  We all sat quietly for a m
oment.

  "The motherfucker wouldn't open the safe, so we shot him," Scatter said, contradicting his earlier claim that the murder had been an accident.

  "What are you in for?" Scatter asked.

  "Armed robbery," I said. I decided to stop mentioning the larceny, since the robbery sounded better.

  Chet handed me a green sheet of paper. It had the official Department of Corrections letterhead and seal on top of it. I took it and looked at Chet.

  "What's this," I asked Chet.

  "Read it," he said.

  I tried, but was distracted by Scatter. It had something to do with a security reclassification.

  "What did you rob?" Scatter asked.

  "A Photo Mat."

  Everyone laughed. Skullcap whistled.

  "A Photo Mat," Scatter said. "Homeboy!" He looked down and shook his head.

  "With a toy gun," Chet volunteered. They laughed even more.

  "You silly ass jitterbugs," Skullcap said. "You should at least go after something that has money in it."

  "How much did you get?" Scatter asked.

  "About hundred and fifty," I lied, tripling the amount.

  "You should have robbed a bunch of'em!"

  "I did!" I announced proudly.

  Everyone laughed.

  These guys made me comfortable, and I felt like I was being brought into the family. "Hey," I asked. "Do they have a lot of fags in here?"

  The room got quiet.

  "Well you're here!" Skullcap said. His face hardened as he looked at me.

  A guy came out of the phone booth, and the stale unpleasant air filled the corridor. They watched me to see how I would react. Stunned and uneasy, I didn't know what to say. I blinked. My brother warned me that I would be tested, and I knew this was part of it, but I didn't know what to do. In that moment, I had decided that I would never ask that question again.

  13

  Lasting Impressions

  Sharon loved to take us to scary movies.

  My mom, on the other hand (though we hardly saw her now), would only take us to see G-rated movies, like The Love bug, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or The Sound of Music. Mom didn't agree with Sharon's choice of films, fearing that they would leave a lasting impression. But now I was almost thirteen, Mom gave in and finally agreed to take me to an R-rated movie. I was eager to show I could handle it.