When I had first made the mistake of telling O. J. that he did look like O. J. Simpson, he said, "I'll bet you think all niggers look alike." He and Rodney laughed when he said it, and I noticed how they stuck together like that. But mostly I felt embarrassed, because I did have trouble telling them apart at first. But how could I if I only lived in one world where everyone looked the same?
"There are a lot of things that are unfair in this world," she said, "but your job is to accept that and learn to work within it." She signed my pass and sent me back to the newsroom.
On my way out of her office, I ran into Reese and a few of his friends in the hall. He stopped talking and looked at me as I passed.
"Both them bitches are gonna need a man," he said.
When I got to the newsroom, everyone else was out following up on stories. I wasn't there when Spaulding handed out the assignments, so I didn't know what kinds of stories they were covering. But my job was mostly typing anyhow.
I picked up my journal and started writing. I struggled to keep up with my thoughts. Here was this woman, a black woman in a man's world, who was better educated than anyone I'd ever known. She stuck up for me as my mother or Sharon never had and said things like I'd never heard before. But it was more than that; it felt deeper, like I was a kid again and peeking at her from around the corner.
Warden Handlon believed that once an inmate was capable of comprehending his circumstances, he would be able to transcend them. My dad, who never completed the sixth grade, used to say that niggers were ignorantbecause that's what his dad had taught him. I used to think that word meant stupid. But I looked it up, like Miss Bain said, and discovered that it meant something else. And now that I was getting an education I was starting to understand what it meant not to have one. I wondered how different I might have turned out had I paid attention to some of these lessons earlier-but how could I if I only lived in one world that didn't value learning? And would I have been ready to listen? Sadly, I had to come to prison to get an education, and maybe this woman could help lead me on a new path, because now that I knew what this world was like-I didn't want to he in it any longer. In here, I was the "nigger." And only then, was I willing to look, learn and listen to what that ugly little word really means.
30
Head Games and Power Trips
Sister Mary was quite clear. If I came to class again without my homework, I'd be sent to Father Bruiser. That's the name given to him by the kids. The name alone speaks for itself.
"Oh, you don't want that," Jimmy Conroy said. "He's got a real leather strap, and he'll use it on you too."
I was supposed to read the catechism and discuss it with one of my parents, but Sharon's bedroom door was closed, and Dad hadn't come home. I stood there, weighing which was worse-the wrath of Father Bruiser or hearing Sharon yell at me. I nearly jumped when I heard her say, "C'mon in." I stood there motionless. "For Christ sakes! I can see your feet!" She sounded like herself this time, so I went in.
"I have to, um, have you read this to me and talk about it." I held up the second grade book.
"Which one?" Sharon asked.
"That one." I pointed to a page where Jesus was playing in a field. "Suffer the little children-come unto me."
Sharon propped herself on a pillow and began to read. Her voice was soft and gentle, and she spoke with a kindness I'd rarely heard from her before, (except when she was answering the phone or talking to a stranger for the first time). She stopped suddenly and looked over at me. "Why are you crying?"
I shrugged a shoulder. I didn't know why. Perhaps it had to do with her tenderness and the way she was reading. Or maybe she reminded me of my mother and how she used to make me feel, by just reading to me. But I could never tell Sharon this, because she hated my mom, and she wouldn't understand.
"Aw, C'mere, "she said, and she held megently against the side of the bed, stroking my hair and back.
A few moments later, I looked back at the book. "So what does it mean?"
"Well, let's see." She hesitated. "You know how you've been peeing the bed at night? Well, God will wake you up, just beforehand-to tell you that you have to go. It's kind of like that, you know?"
I'm not sure I understood what she meant, but it was the last time I ever peed the bed.
Working with Sherry Bain made me feel special, it was as if for the first time I was above prison. Simply speaking to me like an adult allowed me to pretend I wasn't one of the inmates. Her kindness had no motives, unlike the inmates who were nice only when they wanted to fuck me. Paul was different too, he was always happy to see me, even when we just sat in the back of the day room and talked.
"She studied sociology and psychology," I said to him, "but when she got out of college, there weren't any jobs, so she came to work in the prisons."
"What was she hired for?" Paul asked.
"She worked in the Control Center and then in the Tower."
"The Tower! She worked the gun tower?"
"Yep. Can you believe it?" I smiled broadly, proud to know someone as brave as she was. "I'll bet the gun weighed as much as she does, but she outscored a lot of the men at the firing range."
Paul said I was lucky to be working with Miss Bain and encouraged me to study her as much as I could. He said there was much I could learn from her example. Bringing me back to reality, he asked how I was doing with picking a man.
"I've been studying Jake," I said. "He works in the store."
"That's good," Paul said. "He'll be working when we have yard."
"He lives in D-unit, which means I won't have to spend that much time with him. Every time I come to the store, he stares at me and asks how I'm doing. And when I get up to the window, he always slips something extra in my commissary."
"He sounds like a much better choice," Paul said. He had been critical of the others I had been considering. The men knew we were "looking," and a few were eager to kick the tires. But it took me little while to notice the subtleties of those who talked a good game from those who had something going on. But at my age, what did I know about any of this?
In choosing a man, respect was the most critical factor. Whoever I chose would need the respect of others, especially if he lived in another housing unit. I studied how inmates interacted with Jake. He was quieter than most, which Paul said help him hold onto his power. I noticed that his friends seemed to look to him for approval. I paid attention to how he dressed, and the size of his commissary. His cell would be a tell-tale sign, as well, so I used my press pass to sneak over to D-unit for a peak.
Inmates personalized their cells with brightly colored towels that were sewn together to make bedspreads and matching curtains. Small rugs were purchased in the store. Inside their lockers, would be a well-stocked supply of store-bought soap, shampoo, and deodorant. Inmates who didn't have money, were forced to use the green state soap. Cosmetics were a status symbol, and those who had them made a point of bragging about it. "But a true player," Paul said, "was someone who had it all, but didn't need to show it off. For these guys, it's no big deal because they're always supplied and always will be."
Paul said the next thing to find out, was whether Jake was susceptible to being played. This was the trickier, because if he turned out to be coldhearted, then I find myself in a situation like I was in with Moseley. Moseley didn't care about me or any other fag for that matter. To him, we were just a piece of meat.
I wondered how Paul learned all this stuff. How many times had been raped, treated horribly, terrorized before he gleaned all this knowledge? But it clearly came out of a need to survive. Like me, he had been knocked around a few times. And he started a lot earlier than me-being locked up the first time at ten years old. When he came to prison, at sixteen, he was raped immediately. And he was raped again, at Riverside, right before coming here to MTU. When Taylor was thrown in the hole, a guy named Cowboy snatched Paul off into a laundry room and raped him repeatedly over a several-hour period. So it was out of survival that Paul
developed the skill he needed to minimize what was happening here.
"Get a guy to fall in love with you," he said, "and that's your key to the kingdom. That's how you'll control them-with a silk glove. You get their nose wide open."
"Nose wide open? What does that mean?"
"You figure out what turns him on, and you give it to him until he grows dependent on you-and then you pull it out from under him. You get him to drink from the well, then you shut down the well. Giving it up only when he does what you want."
Paul said it was turn on to have this kind of power over someone. You find a guy who's lonely, and you fill the void. "It's supply and demand, baby boy. And as long as you have what he wants more than you want what he's got-you've got 'em. You just have to let him think he's driving the car for a while. When it's really you who's in the driver's seat."
I still wasn't sure I wanted to play to this game, or that I was smart enough to pull it off. But Paul said, "Everyone in here has a game-some kind of hustle to get by. I'm tired of being the sucker."
Paul's way of talking turned me on. He was street smart and wise and could disarm just about anyone. Like an actor, he changed his persona on a dime; from acting tough to sweet-talking someone, depending on what the situation demanded and what he was trying to achieve-respect, money, confusion. Whatever it was didn't matter-Paul was going to succeed.
He had what I wanted.
It was chilly in the TV room so Paul went back to his cell and returned with a blanket. He draped half of it over me, and we held hands under the cover as we watched Battlestar Galactica on TV. His hand felt warm in mine, and I wished we lived in a world where we didn't have to hide our affection for each other under the covers.
Two black inmates in the row in front of us turned around and looked down at the blanket. "They're probably jerking each other off," one of them said.
"Fucking freaks," the other shouted.
"Pay them no mind," Paul said. "The motherfuckers are just jealous."
"Bitch, ain't nobody jealous," the first one said.
"That's not what you said the other day," Paul shot back. "When you were cracking on me for that ass."
"Well, if you'd give it up-that'd be a different story."
"Shit! You can't handle this," Paul said.
"I'll tell you what, boy. If you give a me a chance-I'll die trying."
They both smiled.
For a moment, I was afraid we would get into a fight, but Paul had a lot of heart. And inmates respected that. If you were too timid or backed down easily, they'd go in for the kill. But if you stood your ground, in just the right way, they would respect you and back away-so long as they were provided a graceful way of doing that.
"He's cute. I might get with him, later," Paul said. "He's laying like that anyway, just don't nobody know it."
"Really?"
"Square Biz. He's always talking smack just to keep the others off his back. Trust me," Paul leaned over. "He sucks a meaner dick than I do."
"I doubt that," I said.
"Thanks," Paul smiled.
I guess it might have occurred to me to be a little jealous, but Slide Step shown me how he was open about sex. He didn't care if I did it with someone else, so long as he knew about it. Paul felt the same way. It was just sex, Paul said, and it's not like we had a whole lot of other things to do in there.
"Pick one," Paul said.
"What are you talking about?
"Exactly what I said. You can have just about any one of them you want. Ninety percent of these guys will let you blow them."
I didn't know what to say, so I just stared at him with a goofy grin on my face.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of. You're in here so you might as well enjoy it."
"Ninety-nine percent," I said. "Really?"
"Oh yeah, but you have to be careful about who, or you'll find yourself in a pickle."
"Interesting choice of words," I said.
"Mmm, a Chilly Willy," he said. "Anyway, I'm mostly referring to the white boys. If you mess around with the blacks, you're messing with fire."
Paul leaned over and pointed to a hot looking white boy name Steve. "What do you think of that one?"
"Him?" I said.
He was young like me, about seventeen, with reddish-blond hair and a baby face. He was skinny and looked more like a target than even me. "Too sweet."
Paul nodded. "How about that one?" He pointed to a guy closer to my liking. He had olive skin and jet-black hair. He was probably Italian-very masculine looking.
"Too old," I said.
"You have to let me know what you like, if you want me to hook you up."
"What do you say to them?" I asked. I'd never talked to another guy about how to hook up. I was completely new to this and was amazed by Paul's lack of inhibition.
"I just tell them that I want to eat them up."
I felt my face blush.
Paul leaned back and smiled at me. "Your parents don't know about you, do they?"
"Hell no! What does that have to do with anything?"
"Because after I told my parents, nothing bothered me again. Shit, this is my life. They've never helped me out in here. So why should I care what they think? Or any of these people?" Paul raised his voice for the guys in the next row to hear.
"All I know is after I told my parents, nothing seemed to bother me again."
"I could never tell them," I said. "They'd disown me."
"Well, then they don't deserve you in the first place."
At that moment, if occurred to me that in spite of how messed up I may have thought my family was, and how they'd all but abandoned me in prison, I still looked to them as my home base. For years they were all I had. Even in prison, they were the place I'd be returning to when I got out. Suddenly, this realization depressed me. Was this really where I wanted to be? I didn't want to talk about it with Paul, so I let it go.
Before we went to bed, Paul gave me a copy of The Front Runner, a gay love story by Patricia Nell Warren.
"Just read it," he said. "We can talk about it later."
My first assignment for The Oracle was covering the inmate representative council. I was eager to do a good job-if only to impress Miss Bain-so I started by interviewing an innate in D-unit. "It don't make no diff," he said. "The Man ain't gonna do shit about nothing no-how." Meaning the Warden's meetings with inmates was a big waste of time.
Spaulding sent me to the warden's office to read the minutes of previous meetings. Warden Handlon's secretary said it would take some time to get them together, but she would send them over as soon as she could. I had to stop by a couple times to remind her, and each time she said the she would, but I had to file a grievance to finally receive them.
"You know Warden Handlon doesn't like grievances," she warned. "You should have sent a kite." Kites were like interoffice memos-for inmates to communicate with staff, but kites didn't generate the same level of attention that a formal grievance did.
"I'm sorry, but I've been asking for the minutes for a while now."
"I'm know, but I couldn't let you read them without his approval, and then he screams at me-like it's my fault." She handed mne the file.
When I got back to the newsroom, I was eager to find whatever it was Warden Handlon didn't want me to see. After several readings, I found nothing. It was the usual gripes: the inmates wanted more items in the store; the warden said space was limited and that if we wanted something new-we had to remove something else. The inmates wanted more yard time; the warden said programming was essential to reducing recidivism. The inmates wanted conjugal visits; Warden Handlon said no. From what the file told me, the inmate representative council was a waste of time.
At the first meeting, I sat with twelve other inmates-two from each housing unit-one white and one black, as we listened to Warden Handlon breeze through the agenda.
"I hold this meeting every month, so I can keep a pulse on what's important to you." he said. "It's a forum for airi
ng complaints in a constructive manner."
Spaulding was there, since he had been elected to represent E-unit, and was the first to speak when the warden asked if there was any thing to add.
"I'd like to discuss forming a prisoner's progress association. We'd like to have permission to meet in the school," Spaulding said.
"That won't be necessary," the warden said. "We have these meetings for that." Spaulding tried to reply, but the warden cut him off. "Let's move on."
"Inmates' movies?" one of the white inmates asked. "We still have the issue of the movies being mostly about blacks." The black guys moaned in disbelief.
I was hoping Spaulding would bring Miss Bain's point about the content of the movies being a phenomenon of self-hate-but Warden Handlon said, "We'll have to table this for right now. The Reformatory and Riverside selects the movies, and we take advantage of their budgets by viewing them when they're finished."
I spoke up. "Excuse me, Warden Handlon? I noticed in the minutes that last spring you said the same thing. It we're saving money by letting them select the movies for us, why is the money still coming out of our inmate benefit fund?"
"That's enough," he shouted. "We won't have any sharp shooting in my meetings."
I was shocked, not sure that I understood why he exploded, but I could see that I better let the matter drop. The other cons looked at me like I was a fool. Here I had been proud of myself for digging up facts like Miss Bain had told us. I thought the inmates would be impressed. I should have remembered what she said about choosing your battles.
"Let's move on," Warden Handlon said.
Miss Bain later reminded me that Warden Handlon runs a tight ship. "It's not any different with staff. He's tough and demands respect. You can't question his authority, because you'll never win."
Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison Page 29
