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

by T. J. Parsell

  "It's not any worse than what's been going up there," he half-joked, but when he saw I wasn't smiling, he looked as though he regretted saying it. He cranked a knob at the side of the table and one end folded down and receded into a place to kneel on. "Get up here and bend forward over the table," he said. "This shouldn't hurt much. The position will make it easier for you." He squeezed some K-Y jelly onto his gloved finger and then massaged the opening of my ass. I could feel my body tense up, because I wasn't sure I could trust him, but like everything else, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it. It felt humiliating, but he was right-it wasn't anything worse than what I had already been through.

  "Listen, I understand," he said, when he was finished examining me. "You guys are young and all full of hormones."

  I looked down at the floor. My hopes of his helping me were quickly dashed. He was wrong-he didn't understand. How could this man not see what had happened to me?

  I had a fissure, a tear on the rectum wall, but it wasn't so serious that I would need stitching or surgery. "I want you to take a sitz bath with Epsom salts, and use this medicine I give you. And try not to irritate any more for the next couple of weeks."

  Did he think I had any control over the situation? I just nodded and looked away.

  When I got back from Riverside, Moseley wasn't happy with the doctor's orders, but since they were moving me to A-unit to be next to the infirmary, there was nothing he could do about it. Inmates weren't allowed inside the other units and so now maybe, lie wouldn't be able to run my life. I avoided the yard as much as possible. On a good day, Moseley was as thorny as the barbed wire fence that surrounded the prison, but now that he couldn't fuck me, he had become enraged. I was counting the days until he left for the corrections center-a halfway house out in the world. There were twenty-three to go.

  "What are you going to do when you get there?" someone asked.

  "I'm gonna hang with this boy I used to own," Moseley said.

  "A fag?" his friend asked.

  "Fags got money too," he said. He didn't care I was standing right there.

  When Moseley made me meet him in one of the bathrooms at the school, I received another misconduct for being out of place. So when I went to my hearing for the ticket, the hearing officer asked if I was having problems with Moseley.

  "He has a reputation for harassing younger inmates," the hearing officer said. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

  I shook any head. This time, I couldn't bear to look at the Inmate Advocate.

  He frowned and I knew suddenly that lie was on to me. "OK then, five days top lock. And if you're caught again, we're gonna take a look at your good time."

  At least it would be five days I wouldn't have to meet Moseley at chow.

  After serving my five-day sentence, I was standing at the bulletin board looking at the menu, when someone appeared beside me. I'd become accustomed to ignoring people unless they put their hands on me, so I paid no attention to him. I finished reading the dinner menu and finally looked over. It was young Paul, from Riverside. Taylor's boy.

  "Hey, Squeeze!"

  "Hey, Paul! What are you doing here?"

  "Freedom, man." His green eyes were sparkling. "Freedom," he repeated.

  "When did you get here?"

  "Just now. I heard you were here, so I cracked on the housing officer to get me over here."

  "No kidding?" I was surprised, given how indifferent he was to me at Riverside.

  "Square business," he said. He was almost beaming.

  I wondered if he was just relieved to see someone here that he knew.

  Paul King was nineteen years old, serving a ten-to-twenty for armed robbery. He'd been down since 1976, so he was now into his third year. Since he'd reached five years from his first out date, they lowered him to mediumsecurity.

  "How do you feel about it?" I asked.

  "It feels fuckin' great. Are you kidding?"

  "We'll see if you still feel that way after a few weeks in this motherfucker," I said.

  "Count time," the guard yelled, from the desk at the axis of the two open-tiers.

  Count times at MTU were identical to Riverside's. We had to go to our rooms while the guards came around counting heads. It took about thirty minutes to clear us.

  "You can tell me all about it at chow," he said. "Let's meet up and we'll walk over together."

  "OK," I said.

  I met Paul right after count, and we walked together to chow. I was suppose to hang back and wait for Moseley, who was in C-unit, but every now and then the guards would catch me loitering and order me to move along. So I went in with Paul and decided to tell Moseley that guards had ordered me inside.

  Paul talked the whole way to chow, as if he'd just been in solitary and hadn't seen anyone for days. Paul was such a chatterbox that it was hard to slip a word in. But I enjoyed his company and was happy to listen to him. He seemed just as eager to have someone to talk to, but later on when he settled in, he confessed that he was nervous. He said he had wanted to get next to me from the moment he first saw me.

  "I thought you didn't like me," I said.

  "Slide Step wouldn't let me anywhere near you."

  "That's not true," I said. "He'd let me mess with other boys."

  "Not me," he said. "He knew I'd try to snatch you away from him."

  I smiled. He was acting like I didn't know that he was a boy, too. "How's Taylor doing?" I asked.

  "He's all right," he said. Shaking it off, like Taylor didn't mean anything to him. "Taylor and Chet got locked up for some stupid shit they pulled with a guard. They had him moving drugs for 'em, and then they snitched him out-hoping to get time taken off their sentence."

  "I was there when it happened," I said. "Are they still in the hole?"

  "Yep. They were out for a little while, but Slide Step made the bitches lock up." After they had tried to doublecross Slide Step, he wasn't going to let them walk the yard anymore. So they were forced into protective custody.

  I smiled again, but I was smiling not so much because Chet was locked up but because of the way Paul was talking so tough. Not that he was ever feminine, but he was talking a lot of shit for someone who had had a man at least once.

  "You know a lot of people thought Taylor was my man. And he was," he said, "but I ran that. These motherfuckers just don't know."

  "Don't know what?"

  "I'll explain it later," he said.

  Moseley stopped at our table. "What happened to you?"

  I looked up and felt my face burn with embarrassment. Paul was the closest thing I'd had to a friend since I got here, and now Moseley was taking charge.

  "The guards made me go inside," I said.

  He just stood there and watched me.

  "Moseley!" one of the guards next to the window yelled. "Let's go!"

  I looked at Paul and back to Moseley again. Paul stared down at his tray and then looked away. Moseley was now eyeing Paul, too.

  "Let's go Moseley," the guard repeated.

  "Wait for me outside," Moseley said to me. "I want to talk to you."

  Paul glared at him as he walked away. "Don't take that shit from nobody," he said, finally. "You are way better than these motherfuckers."

  I looked down at my tray. My half-roasted chicken looked raw and picked-at.

  When I first sat down with Paul, I hadn't anticipated the reaction I got from Moseley. And yet, at the same time, there was something in the way that Paul spoke to me, that sparked hope. I was so close to being at the end of a rope. It was probably the closest I'd ever been to considering suicide.

  When the guard released our section, we dumped our trays and walked out together. Moseley stared at us as we walked past.

  I stopped outside the chow hall door and lit a cigarette.

  "You got another one of those," Paul asked. I handed him one and lit it for him.

  "Let's go," he said.

  "I can't. I have to wait for Moseley."

  "No you don't
." Paul sounded incensed. "Fuck that!" He grabbed my arm.

  I hesitated. "C'mon," he said. "I'll show you how this game is played."

  I looked back at the door for a second, and then went along with him,

  my heart pounding. "He's going to the Correction Center in a couple of weeks," I said.

  "Even better," he said. "You can't let these bitches run you like that, Tim. Believe me, I know. Stick with me, and I'll teach you. You'll be having these motherfuckers eatin' out of your hand."

  I'm not sure why I went off with him. I looked at him and hoped he wasn't bullshitting me, but Paul's face was proud, unflinching, and his eyes were bright and full of fire.

  "So," he said. "I hear you like to suck dick."

  I stopped suddenly, and my smile disappeared.

  "Relax!" He grinned. "So do I!" He shook his head and frowned. "C'mon, silly rabbit. I'll show you."

  He hooked his arm inside of mine and led me into A-unit.

  28

  Consider Yourself Part of the Family

  The first time I saw a live musical was at Adams Junior High School. It was Oliver Twist, starring Tim Blankenship-a fellow seventh grader. They gave two recitals during the day for faculty and students, with two more at night for family and friends. I was neither in the cast nor crew; so after sitting through three of the first four performances, it should have been an early clue that something was amiss.

  I had arrived early for each show and sat up front on the carpeting of the school's multipurpose room, eagerly awaiting that moment right after a cast member would sing, "Boy For Sale," and as Tim Blankenship climbed up on the coffin (loaned to the Drama Department by a local funeral home) and started singing, "Where is Love?" The tears welled up-in both of our eyes-as parents and teachers whispered all around us, "What a good looking and talented actor Tim was and how he looked like he was almost crying!"

  It was the first time I was called a fag at school.

  I lay there staring up at the bottom of Paul's mattress. Like at Riverside, we had sex under our beds with the sheets and blankets pulled down on the sides to hide from view. Paul was small, and I was skinny so we fit there comfortably. "How did you get the extra pillows?" I asked. My head was resting on two and there was another on top of his bed. "I know the quartermaster from M-R," Paul bragged.

  His short whiskers tickled my skin. He was lying on his side, with his arm draped across my chest, and his right leg bent over mine. My arm felt natural resting on his shoulders and back. I wanted to cuddle up to sleep like that, and then maybe I could finally escape the nightmares that had been haunting me since the county jail.

  It was the first time someone had satisfied me, the way I had been forced to satisfy others. And it was completely consensual. I just wish it could have lasted longer. Paul was a magician the way he worked his tongue and lips. And there was something very generous in the way lie touched one. I offered to return the favor but he gently pushed me back down on the blanket, saying that it was OK-maybe next time.

  "You're funny," he said, "the way you wiggle and shake."

  "It gets real sensitive," I said. "I can't help it."

  "I know, but I've never seen anyone shiver like that."

  I smiled. Paul was amazing, and I didn't know it was possible for someone to make you feel that good. This seemed to go beyond the physical-because my whole being felt tasted and satisfied. For a moment, I felt like pouring my guts out to him, because I finally felt like I'd found a friend that understood me, but I was still feeling cautious.

  "Haven't you ever had sex with someone you enjoyed?" Paul asked.

  "Once," I said, thinking about Brett. "Well, maybe twice, but that one's a secret."

  "Who?"

  "Uh-uh. My Dad always said a guy who'll tell on himself would tell on anybody."

  "C'mon. Who?" Paul leaned up on his elbow and looked at me.

  "Scatter," I said.

  "How was he?"

  I smiled.

  "Cut or uncut?"

  "Huh?"

  "Was he circumcised?" he asked.

  I didn't know what lie was talking about.

  "This," Paul said, pulling on his foreskin.

  "Oh, that's what you call that."

  Everyone in my high school must have been circumcised. Before coming to prison, I'd never seen that extra skin there and it never really came up in conversations back home.

  We heard heavy footsteps approaching and the sound of jangling keys. Paul tensed up and the pounding of my heart increased under his weight. The sound grew louder as it neared and we lifted our heads toward the door. We almost jumped when he heard the squelch of the guard's walkie-talkie. The noise continued past our door then faded down the hall.

  Paul put his head back down on my chest. We were good until the 9:30 count. The other inmates were down in the day room watching TV, or in the card room playing pinochle or spades. I still wasn't out of Moseley's clutches, but he was in another unit, and I wouldn't have to contend with him until the next day.

  "Don't you wish we could double-bunk?" I whispered.

  "With my luck," Paul said, "I'd get an inmate with funky feet."

  "Who snores all night," I added. "And farts in his sleep."

  We both laughed.

  "Shhh," Paul said. The guard was coming back up the hall.

  After he passed, Paul said we'd better slip back out again. If the guard were counting heads, he'd notice us missing.

  The guards changed shifts during the 9:30 count, and we were let back out again until 11:15. Lights out was at 11:30.

  Inmates started their job assignments or school by 8:30 in the morning, and we weren't allowed back inside our housing units until 3:30 or 4:00. The afternoon count was at 4:30, and dinner was between 5:30 and 6:00 P.M.

  When the weather was good, we were allowed a couple hours of yard in the evenings, but we had to he back by 8:30. The yard was in the back of the prison, which you accessed through a gate next to the gym. In the winter, the yard was closed, and inmates used the inner walkways to go to and from the gym, which also housed the store.

  The next day, I was sent to Classification to receive my next job assignment. Since I had finished high school, I now needed a job. I had signed up for college, but that was considered extra, which I would have to attend in the evenings, in lieu of open recreation. One of the classes I signed up for was Corrections 101 where I learned that if I attended college courses while in prison, statistically speaking, my odds of coming back there was less than a third of that of other inmates. Some guards seemed resentful toward us going to college, as if we were undeserving of school or were taking something away from them. But only a few seemed to feel this way-and anyway, it didn't matter-since I was determined to never come back here again.

  Miss Bain, the Classification Director, had her office in the school. She was a young black woman, and the inmates were crazy about her. Not that she did anything to garner their attention, other than being a beautiful woman who worked inside a prison that was filled with horny men.

  "Gee, Miss Bain," an inmate said to her, once. "You sure look pretty."

  "That's very nice," she said. "But I don't really need to hear that now. Do I?"

  As rumor had it, the inmate was assigned to the kitchen for the rest of his stay, washing enormous pots and pans. With over eight hundred inmates to feed every day, he was kept busy.

  As I made my way to Miss Bain's office one day, Moseley saw me coming and headed over to me. He had sent word to me that morning, via an inmate who told me Moseley was angry with me for not waiting for him after chow the night before.

  "Don't let him try to blame it on the guards," Moseley told the inmate. "'Cause I saw him run off with that redheaded hood rat from Hamtramack."

  When I saw Moseley on the walkway, I picked up my pace and tried to get to the school without making it seem obvious I was trying to avoid him.

  Moseley cut me off before I reached the building. "Don't even try it, bitch."
r />   "Moseley!" a guard yelled from around the corner. We both looked up. It was C.O. Miller. "Get your ass over here!"

  He ordered Moseley around like a dog, which he knew he could get away with since he knew Moseley was about to go home. Even one ticket could delay his release.

  When it came to the enforcement of rules, each guard was slightly different. Some would issue a warning or two before they wrote you up, while others, like the newer guards-would give you a ticket right away. But it also depended on who the inmates was, as well. If he were a known trouble maker, even the more lenient guards would write him up for a minor infraction, while a stricter guard might let something slide for inmates who kept to themselves and didn't cause problems.

  It was a game everyone learned how to play, and the longer either side was there, the better they got at playing it. The guards were understaffed anyway, so they couldn't possibly enforce all the rules. If they did, the inmates would probably revolt-so it was a constant balance. Yet as an inmate got closer to parole, the guards had maximum leverage, which is why C.O. Miller was able to talk to Moseley like that.

  Moseley pointed his finger at me. "I'll deal with you later."

  I tried to pretend like I didn't know what he was talking about, but it was obvious to both of us. I dashed into the building. I should have waited for him the night before. I knew there would be a penalty, but I left anyway. Now what was I going to do?

  Miss Bain's skin was a light brown color and her eyes were bright and expressive. She reminded me of Diahann Carroll, the actress that played Julia on TV.

  Like the other professionals and administrative staff, she wore no uniform. Instead, she had on a dark brown suit, with a gold and turquoise blouse. She smiled at me, and told me to have a seat. As I'd find out later, she had majored in social work but when she graduated from college, jobs were scarce-so she went to work in corrections. She brought her passion for making a difference to the position, and so she stood out among the others. Meeting her for the first time, I doubted right away the rumor about her sending that guy to the kitchen.