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

by T. J. Parsell

  "I'll be right behind you," he said. "I'll give you a boost."

  Paul had taken forks from the kitchen and rolled tape around the handles to give us something to grip. "But what if they bend?" I said. "You're not tall enough to boost me."

  "Don't worry," he said. "You'll make it."

  "Maybe we should wait and go over the gate to the rec yard, then scale the other fence in back." The fence that enclosed the recreation yard was different from the others. It was a single rather than a doubled fence, and the gate to the yard didn't have any mesh on it, so we could climb it easilywithout having to use the forks.

  "Yeah, but then we'll have to climb the outer fence in back," Paul said. "And that one has the mesh."

  "So what," I said. "If we wait and go on a foggy night, the guards won't be able to see us. So we can take as long as we need." There was another tower, along the back line of the yard, but that was only manned when inmates occupied the yard.

  Paul looked at me and considered it.

  He leaned back against the building, nodding his head. He looked relieved.

  "We can slip out our windows in the middle of the night and meet over here." He pointed to corner of the gym. "Or better yet, I'll come tap on your window. I know how you like to sleep."

  A couple of days later, when they were late clearing the morning count and called my unit to chow, I looked for Paul but couldn't find him. Certainly, the fog hadn't made it easier to locate him.

  "Hey Tim!" an inmate shouted. "Your boy broke camp last night."

  I stopped in my tracks. He did what? Suddenly, it made sense. The fog, the delayed count, they were off by one. I couldn't move. Several more inmates walked past, "He made it, Dawg. He got away!"

  He was supposed to come get me! How could he leave without me? I'd never felt so abandoned, not even by my family.

  "You should be happy," one of the inmates said.

  He had waited for the perfect night. The fog was so thick the guards couldn't see the fence. It felt like a gunshot had crackled from one of the towers, and it hit me squarely in the chest. I couldn't breath. I looked over at the gates next to the gym to see. The barbed wire drooped at the top. I just couldn't believe he was gone.

  I even watched and waited as the last of the white guys straggled out of D-unit. Naturally, Paul wasn't there. "He made it!" someone cheered. It was true. Paul was gone.

  I went back to my cell and cried. Now I was truly alone.

  A few minutes later, I was called to Unit Manager's office.

  "I'm sure you're aware," Fitzsimmons, the ARUM for C-unit, said. "King escaped this morning. They've asked me to see if you know where he is?"

  As if I would help them. Fitzsimmons was just like the others-a pompous prick who didn't give a fuck about Paul or me. They couldn't stand that we were happy together. Fags weren't entitled to happiness. Even inmates who raped the boy they kept weren't separated. If it weren't for these bastards, Paul would still be here. Well, fuck Fitzsimmons, and the rest of these motherfuckers. But I couldn't say that and jeopardize myself, so I simply shook my head no.

  He started to say something, but stopped himself. "OK then. That's all."

  I went back to my cell laid on the bed. I faced the wall, blocking out everything else, as I did the next day and the day after that. I had classes to attend, but I didn't care. A letter slid under my door. I didn't bother to get up. I left it there on the floor.

  "C'mon," I said to Randy. "Please?"

  "No way."

  Randy was the best tattoo man in the prison. I wanted him to put Paul's name on my arm or shoulder, but he wouldn't do it. Yet he did everyone else's tattoos. He had taken apart an alarm clock, and attached a sharpened piece of guitar string to the hammer that rang the bell. Once wound up, the hammer went back and forth, puncturing the skin. He dipped the "needle" in ink that was made from torn-out pages of a Bible.

  "You'll end of up regretting it," he said, "and you'll blame me."

  "No I won't," I pleaded. "I really won't."

  "I know how you're hurting right now, Tim, and I'm not going to do it."

  "Fine," I said, and stormed back to my room.

  The next day, news of Paul arrived. But it wasn't from the guards and administrators. They wouldn't tell us anything. We found out instead from a Grand Rapids newspaper. On the front page was a picture of Paul, leaning face down over the hood of a police car. According to the paper, he had broken into a house near the prison, tied up a young woman with a phone cord, stole her car and then headed toward the state line. He asked for directions before he left, so when she untied herself-she called the police, described the car he was driving, and the direction he was headed in. The State Police caught him in a roadblock. He was charged with breaking and entering of an occupied dwelling, armed robbery, car theft, and escape. He was taken across the valley to the Michigan Reformatory and was thrown in the hole.

  I didn't know what to feel when I saw the back of his ponytail in that picture. Whereas once I couldn't believe he'd left without me, now I couldn't believe he had been caught. All I could think about was all the time he was going to get.

  "Ten years minimum," one of the cons said. "They gave him a dime the last time, so the judge will give him at least that much."

  Another con pushed his way in to look at the paper.

  "No way. They'll give him twenty. They double it the second time around."

  "Ain't no good time either," the first guy said. "The motherfuckers done took that away. He ain't never getting out."

  "Stacked!" One of them shouted. "They'll stack it on his first sentence, so he'll have to finished serving that time before he begins the next."

  That could have been nee with him-facing all that time, but all I cared about was being back together with him. No matter if it meant twenty more years in prison. He wouldn't have gotten caught if had taken me with him. I wouldn't have let him be so stupid as to ask for directions and then go that way. How dumb could you be? That wasn't like Paul. Hello, Police? I've just escaped from prison, I'm driving a stolen car, plate number: I'm a big fucking idiot-and I'm traveling on Route 66 headed right at you.

  I wrote him a letter and asked him why he had left without me.

  Two days later, I was summoned to the Control Center. Mr. Curtis, the Deputy Warden, was holding the letter I had written to Paul.

  "Are you sure you don't want to talk about this?" he said.

  He was placing me in administrative isolation pending a security reclassification hearing. This was standard practice when they had information that an inmate was planning to escape.

  When I had finally read the letter had been slipped under my door, a few days before, it was from Paul. He sent it to me the same day he left-apologizing for leaving without me.

  "I didn't come get you," he wrote, "because you don't have that much time to go. And I needed to do this on my own. You know how to do your time now. But please know, that I will always love you."

  The letter Mr. Curtis was holding was my response.

  All incoming mail was screened for contraband, yet out going mail was sealed and private. When I mailed my letter to Paul, I hadn't considered what happens at the other end. My letter was screened when it arrived at M-R. They sent it back.

  "You wrote some pretty heavy stuff in this," Mr. Curtis said.

  I didn't know what to say. I was embarrassed about what I had written, even though I couldn't remember most of it. I was trying to express what was tearing me up inside. I remembered telling Paul how I missed him and would give anything to be with him-including going over the fence myself-just to see him again.

  "I don't believe you really intended to escape," Mr. Curtis said. "But I have to lock you up pending a hearing. It's standard procedure."

  Not only couldn't I see Paul, now I couldn't communicate with him either.

  "I'm assigning the Inmate Advocate to work with you. The outcome of this has consequences I'm not sure you're capable of understanding."

&
nbsp; Mr. Curtis was an African American, and like Miss Bain, he surprised me by seeming to be kind.

  They moved me back to A-unit, and into an isolation cell. A few days later, the Inmate Advocate came to see me. The guard unlocked nay door and brought me down to the card room. The housing unit was empty with most inmates away at their assignments.

  Miss Brown smiled, as I sat opposite her, and then waited patiently as I swapped chairs. The first one had a crooked leg and wobbled slightly.

  "I had a hard time getting comfortable myself," she smiled.

  I didn't know who to trust anymore, so just nodded politely.

  "Sometimes, when you find someone else who doesn't belong-it's as good as belonging yourself," she offered. "I know this isn't easy to talk about, but we have to get you prepared for your hearing. The consequences could be serious, and ..."

  "I don't care," I said. "They can increase my security or do whatever they want." And I meant it, too. For once, I spoke the truth of my feelings without fear of the consequences. I had Paul to thank for that.

  "Do you have a cigarette?" I asked.

  "I don't smoke," she said.

  Of course she didn't. She looked too straightlaced and reminded me of a vegetarian character from one of Paul's novels. She wasn't wearing a wedding ring either. For a moment there, I wondered if maybe she was gay. At least that would've given us something to talk about.

  "I don't have anything to say," I said.

  She looked toward the guard's desk.

  "I'll be right back," she said.

  She closed the door behind her, and I put my head down on the desk.

  Whatever they were going to do, I just wished they'd hurry up and do it. It didn't matter anymore.

  The door opened again, and I heard her enter. She placed something on the table and slid it across to me.

  It was a journal, with a black and white cover-similar to the one I was given when I first went to work for The Oracle. I looked up and saw Miss Bain standing there.

  "I don't think Paul would have wanted to see you self-destruct," she said.

  "Hey Miss Bain." I looked down at the floor. I'd not seen her since storming out of her office the day she bawled me out. It was nice to see her, but I was embarrassed by how I must have looked.

  She sat down opposite me at the table.

  "You look like you could use a shower," she said.

  In spite of myself, I smiled at her.

  "You miss him, don't you?"

  I nodded.

  She nodded back.

  She placed a pen on top of the journal and slid it closer to me.

  "I know, for me," she said, "I can sometimes write about things I'm not able to verbalize. Maybe you could start by writing about what he meant to you, Tim. Something seems to awaken inside of you when you write, so let it speak to you."

  I sat in my cell for several days, before I picked up the pen. Yet when I did something really did seem to take over. I wrote about how I felt prior to coming to prison, and what it was like for me when I first arrived there. I put into words for the first time what it felt like to be drugged and raped and forced to get a man. How Slide Step took care of me, and how I was devastated to learn he might have been the one who set up the attack in the first place. I wrote about my experience in county jail and how the probation officer hit on me. "You probably won't believe this," I wrote, to whoever might one day open the journal and read its contents, "but it happened, so I don't care what you think." And then I wrote about Paul and how I had never known anyone similar to him before. Paul was like me-he was gay. He liked what I liked and felt the same way I did about most things. He had been raped, just as I had been, but had learned how to deal with the memory of it. I told how he helped me when no one else would and how he taught me to survive in here. I wrote about how, after having sex with him, for the first time in my life-I no longer felt alone in the world.

  Recalling all of this was enormously difficult. Beyond the painful thoughts I forced myself to summon up, I was made to stay "present" through the writing process. Not zoning out or detaching myself from the deep wounds that up till then had held me back. Like my dad, I retreated inward, to that place where a small part of myself was kept hidden from the rest of the world. Somewhere safe.

  Reluctantly, I let the inmate advocate read it. When at last she'd finished, she looked at me with a gentle smile, knowingly. Something in her expression told me that she understood. Finally someone understood. I came out and spoke the truth of my feelings and someone at long last understood. The feeling of being seen and heard for who I really was overwhelmed me.

  That afternoon, the Classification Committee released me from isolation.

  The following day, I went back to work. Miss Bain had made sure I was reinstated.

  "You have a lot to catch up on," she said.

  I took some folders back to my desk and sat down. I noticed the calendar. The day Paul escaped had been March 3, 1979. Exactly one year since I first came to prison.

  34

  I Will Arise and Go Now

  I stood near the dugout, swinging the two bats together at the same time. This was how Little Leaguers warmed up when it was their turn next to bat. Holding two at a time made it easier when I stepped to the plate with one. I took a practice swing and then another. Suddenly, something inside of me said, "You're going to blast that ball right out of here."

  T m not sure why that happened, but I believed that voice and swung at the very first pitch. The bat let out a crack, and the ball set sail for deep center field. The kids were playing shallow, expecting me to pop up or strike out again. The ball flew over their heads.

  When I came around third, the coach was waiving me in and my teammates were cheering at home.

  I don't know who or what it was that spoke to me that day, but it didn't matter. I believed that voice, and it worked!

  Time passed slowly after Paul left. My days dragged by, each one much like the other, until days had become weeks and weeks became months, turning finally into years. I settled into a routine and struggled to keep my sanity as I watched my body slowly change-filling out some, and finally developing muscle.

  I was glad I wasn't sent to the Michigan Reformatory, Gladiator School, to be with Paul. I remained very afraid of the place. When a prison riot broke out over there, many of the gay men and boys were gang raped. Paul told me he had escaped being victimized himself, because he brandished a shank and kept moving until the National Guard came in and quelled the disturbance. My brother Bobby was spared as well, though all of his belongings were destroyed-including the new television my parents had bought for him. The gangs were prevalent at M-R, and it was no place for a boy like me. Bobby toughened up some, even more than he'd always been, and he learned how to survive on his own. Paul just got someone that he could control-to take care of him.

  I worked for Miss Bain for a couple more months, but she was promoted to Treatment Director and transferred to another prison. I was happy for her, but at the same time devastated. It felt like another abandonment. In hindsight, I believe Miss Bain was aware of this because of how well she handled the transition. She assigned me as a clerk, in the kitchen, working directly for the Food Services Director. It was a position that was demanding and carried a lot of responsibility. So I had some time to adjust before she left.

  To keep others from messing with me, I hooked up with Jake from the innate store. I moved to D-unit, where he was housed, but that only lasted for a couple weeks-the Administration had me moved, because we were spending too much time together. Once I was moved to another unit, the other inmates started pressuring me again. Jake had respect among the other inmates, but it was difficult being separated from him in another unit.

  I sat back and studied the inmates, like Paul had taught me, and looked for someone else that I might be able to control. But I still hadn't figured it out, so I stayed with Jake and learned to navigate the pressures. Balancing when to get Jake involved with someone who w
as pressing me, and when to just ignore troublemakers who were giving me a hard time. In exchange for his protection, I hooked up with Jake in the projectionist booth once a week during the inmate movie. Jake was as gentle as he could be, but he wasn't Paul, and he wasn't Slide Step.

  After Sherry left, I sent several "kites" requesting a transfer to another prison-thinking it might be different somewhere else, but the only other medium-security prison for inmates who were under twenty-five was The Dunes in Kinross, Michigan. But The Dunes was made up of dormitories and, according to the policy at the time, homosexuals could not be housed in dorms.

  Ever since I beat that ticket on a technicality, I spent time in the law library studying the Department of Correction's Policy Directives. I was fascinated by them and once again entertained the fantasy of one day becoming a lawyer. There was something empowering about knowing the rules and regulations as well, or even better, than some of the staff. And that's when the idea hit me.

  That evening, on my way back to my cell, I picked up a stack of official grievance forms from the guard at the front desk. Warden Handlon hated grievances, so I started filling them out for anything I could think of-no matter how frivolous they might have been. I wrote one for not being allowed to walk on the grass, and another for how homosexuals were discriminated against in housing. And then another for not allowing magazines to be sold in the inmates store that depicted homosexual acts-even though the magazines they did sell like Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse, routinely showed spreads of lesbian action. It was male homosexuality they were outlawing; yet they looked the other way if it were women. I filed another grievance for the types of inmate movies they were choosing, and for Warden Handlon's refusal to allow a Prisoner's Progress Association. Anything I could think of, I wrote a grievance. Then I dropped them all in the box, smiling to myself at the thought of the warden seeing them appear on his monthly report.