by Shorty Rossi
As the days got closer, my circle of people got smaller and smaller and smaller. Some guys backed off ’cause I was leaving and it was too hard for them to watch people go, and know they were never getting out. Some guys I had to let go. They were relationships that were just gonna get me into trouble. They weren’t worth another day behind bars. I absolutely did not wanna go back to Los Angeles. I had friends in San Francisco. Tony’s wife, Debbie, was gonna let me live in their guest room, and I even had a job lined up doing clerical work for a concrete recycling factory next to Candlestick Park. I petitioned to get my parole transferred, but just like I’d faced after DeWitt, I came up against the political bullshit that is the prison system. Two weeks before my release, the news came back that I couldn’t parole in San Francisco. Never mind that I had no place to live in Los Angeles, and no job lined up down there. It was a slap in the face. I was trying to succeed. I was trying to set up a better situation, but they wanted to ship me right back to where I’d gotten into trouble in the first place. It made me mad, but then I just told myself that I do what I gotta do. Now where would I stay? How was I gonna make money? How would I stay away from the projects?
It looked like I was stuck with Heather. If there’s one thing prison confirms, it’s that you’ve made some pretty shitty decisions in life. But moving in with Heather … that might have topped the list for Single Stupidest Idea Ever. Heather was a Little Person who lived in Los Angeles. Her roommate was a Mexican woman whose boyfriend was one of the Northern Mexican gang guys I’d met at County. Once he found out his girl’s new roommate was a Little Person, he assumed I’d like her, ’cause you know, all us Little People must get along or some such shit. In truth, I prefer my women tall. Really tall. Like six-feet-tall tall. But being that I still had a year left in Folsom, I figured I couldn’t be picky. It wasn’t like I had a lot of choices, unless I wanted to swing the other way, and I didn’t, and good luck trying to hook up with a female prison guard. It’s not like it’s never happened in prison, but it was very rare. So I agreed to the setup.
I can just imagine that conversation. Heather’s roommate saying to her, “Hey, my man’s got this friend. He’s, uh, you know … shorter … like you. And if you want, I can set up a blind date. But there’s just one thing … he’s in prison.” Now, any woman willing to date a guy behind bars has gotta have some problems. I guess the appeal comes from knowing exactly where your man is that night. (Unless, of course, your He is messing with a Him. Which happens.) Then there were the guys that had three or four girlfriends on the outside. I’d watch in awe as they juggled phone calls and visits and letters, and even with all the downtime in prison, I had no idea how they did it. There was this one guy, Scarborough, who was a major player until a guard walked in and told him, “You may wanna cancel your visitation today. Your wife is kicking your girlfriend’s ass right now.” Catfights in the visiting area were common. Scarborough just turned on his heel and said, “Tell my wife I’m in the SHU.” The guard laughed. “Wife? I think you just became a divorcé!”
Heather’s roommate had been coming back and forth from prison for years. She must have filled Heather’s head with all kinds of stories, so I didn’t expect nothing to come of it. Apparently, Heather was game. That should have been the first sign. We started talking over the phone. There were pay phones in the building, but I could call from my office anytime. I kept my calls to a minimum until we’d exchanged Polaroid pictures. Once I saw she wasn’t horse-faced, we started writing more letters, and I called more often. Every call went collect and at $15 for like ten minutes, it was a total rip-off. We really ran up her bill, but she didn’t seem to mind. Our conversations were always fine. Nothing too endearing. I wasn’t looking to fall in love. In fact, not to seem cold, but to me, our “relationship” was a way to mark time. I certainly didn’t need her for cash. I was making enough selling cells. But prison could be a really lonely place. To have a few phone calls. To write some letters. To have a few visits. To kiss a couple of times. It was a much needed distraction. It made the day move a bit faster. Gave you something to think about at night.
It was a whole process to come see me. First, Heather had to apply to get permission to visit. Then they had to run a background check on her. Then she had to get on an approval list for a specific date. Then she had to drive all the way from Los Angeles to Sacramento. Then, once she made it to Folsom, she had to sit for two hours while they put everyone through a security check. Visitors couldn’t bring anything in with them at Folsom. Not books or photos to show. They had to buy the food that was sold there. If they wanted to give you money, they had to leave it on your books, deposit it into your account. They walked in with nothing and walked out with nothing.
And that was just what they put outsiders through. On my side of the bars, any guy seeing a visitor had to strip naked, bend, and cough. Before the visit and after the visit. It’s not an exaggeration to say visitation was a literal pain in the ass. Not to mention I really didn’t care for the whole routine ’cause I stood at the same level as everybody else’s naked junk.
I was always willing to bend and cough to see Janet or Uncle D., but after three or four hours of talking with Heather, I’d get bored. It’s not like we even had the option of conjugal visits, so kissing and talking were all we could do. Four hours of talking—enough! I’d just shoot a look at the guards, and one of them would walk over, tap his flashlight on the table like a warning, and tell me, “Time to go back to work, Shorty.” I’d put on a real show of being disappointed. Then shoot the guard a nod of thanks. I always appreciated that they helped me out that way.
I never had any intention of staying with Heather after I was paroled. I wanted to start my life over, do my own thing, and leave the past behind me. Unfortunately, the CDC had other plans. They paroled me to Los Angeles, and I really didn’t have any other option. I was unemployable, broke but free. I had to live somewhere, anywhere, away from trouble. Reluctantly, I agreed to move in with Heather. She was thrilled.
The last day I woke up in Folsom was a good, good day. I’d made it through the night without any problems. Usually the night before your release, the guys jump you in a pileup, and kind of pummel you, or they’ll grab your neck and twist the skin to make it look like you have a hickey. Somehow, I’d managed to avoid both of those. I’d given away my TV, my radio, anything I had of value to friends who were staying behind. It would have been selfish to carry it out with me.
That morning, Officer Lawrence and Lieutenant Centurino came to walk me from my cell to R&R, reception and receiving. I hadn’t been in R&R since the day I arrived. They shook my hand and said, “Good luck and don’t fucking come back.” Janet sent me some street clothes. I changed into those, then sat and waited and waited and waited for them to process me. This huge, Southern, corn-fed boy, a corrections officer, stuck his head out and yelled at me, “Hey, Shorty, you come back here and I’ll beat the shit out of you.” I flipped him off. “You ain’t ever gonna see me again! ”
I walked out of receiving and reception and saw those big old gates. My friend Tony’s wife, Debbie, was waiting for me on the other side, sitting on the bumper of her purple truck. It was an amazing feeling. They may have brought me in by bus, but I walked out on my own two legs. It felt like a movie moment. I took that long walk to the gate, past the gun towers. I’ll never forget hearing one of the officers call out to me, “Hey, Shorty, your bed will be waiting for you.” But I knew I was never coming back. Ten years, ten months, and ten days had passed since my arrest. It was time to start a whole new life.
7
The Chipmunk
ebbie gave me a big hug and welcomed me back to the world. I climbed into the passenger side of her truck and looked back as we drove away. It wasn’t a sense of relief I felt. I wouldn’t call it that. I was prepared to leave. I’d had ten years of knowing the exact day I’d go home. But leaving Folsom, what I felt was … hungry. “Debbie! Take me to a good fucking Italian restaurant!” Debbi
e just laughed. We had a meal. A big, traditional, delicious Italian feast, then Debbie drove me over to see Ray’s parents on Haight Street. Ray wasn’t there. He was already back in jail. He wasn’t robbing people anymore, but he just couldn’t stay off drugs, a violation of his parole.
I purposely booked the last flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I wanted to spend as much time as I could as a free man, ’cause the next morning, I had to report to my parole officer and move in with Heather. When I landed in Burbank, she and her friend Lena were there to pick me up. I’d barely had a day to stretch my legs, and now I was moving in with a girlfriend I barely knew.
I made the conscious decision to stay away from the projects. I didn’t want to go see my old homeboys or even Mama Myrt, Little Al, or Cerisse. In the years that I’d been locked up, we’d lost touch. Mama Myrt had her hands full with other family members in jail, namely, Little Al, who couldn’t stay out of prison. Cerisse was popping out babies every year. She was on her sixth, and her family life was her priority now. And as for Coco, my first pit bull, he had died while I was in Folsom. There was no reason for me to go back to Nickerson, so I went on the lam from my friends and family.
Unbeknownst to Heather, I kept trying to get my parole transferred to San Francisco. She thought I was applying for jobs and going to interviews, but really I was dealing with the transfer paperwork and registering for general relief. I’d left prison with $200 in gate money. That’s all I had to my name, so I applied for welfare and food stamps until I could either transfer to San Francisco and start my job, or find employment in Los Angeles. I had to have some way to eat. They approved me for $400 a month of relief and $100 of food stamps. How in the hell I was supposed to live on that, I didn’t know. In all the time I’d lived in the projects, I’d never been on welfare. In prison, my top hourly pay rate was twenty cents an hour, but I’d never been strapped, ’cause I had a monopoly on cigarettes. Applying for welfare was humiliating. The lady who processed my form didn’t even believe I’d actually been in prison. She kept fighting me about my application. She had her city job and she thought she was King Tut. I couldn’t give up. I had no other choice. I had to deal with her.
The only good part about being in L.A. was going out dancing. I still loved to dance, so Heather, Lena, and I went out a lot, and everywhere we went, we were the center of attention. My dancing caught the eye of one of Lena’s friends, Chris, a young woman who worked for Universal Studios. She approached me and said, “No pun intended, but we are short on Little People. I wanna give you a dancing job at Universal.” I’d been out about a month, and the transfer to San Francisco was looking less likely by the day. I said, “I’m not taking off my clothes!” She laughed at me. “No, no. It’s in the theme park. That’s the catch.” As long as I could keep my clothes on, I was game. “What do you mean, catch?” Chris kind of blushed with shame. “It’s Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks.” I didn’t even have to think. “Hell no! I’m not into that fucking crap.” But then she said, “It’s good money.” That stopped me in my tracks. I needed money desperately. “How much?” She had me now, and she knew it. “It’s a hundred and fifty dollars a day. You can make over a grand a week.” It was like … Houston, we have landed. I shook Chris’s hand. “Where do I sign up?”
Chris sent me straight to Human Resources. She’d already seen me dancing, so I didn’t have to audition again. I was terrified to fill out the paperwork. I knew if they found out about my criminal history, I wouldn’t get the job. They were a huge corporation catering to families and kids. When it came to the question “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” I checked the “No” box.
I wanted to work. I didn’t wanna be on welfare for the rest of my life. I’d been sitting in front of Heather’s computer every day, trying to track down paralegal work. I knew there was no chance in hell anyone would let an ex-con become a lawyer, but I thought maybe, just maybe they’d let me use my paralegal skills to get a foot in the door. I found out nice and quick that any work in law enforcement or the judicial system was a total pipe dream for me. Universal seemed like my only option. That night, at home, I waited by the phone, expecting a call telling me, “We’re sorry, sir. You have a criminal record a mile high.” That call never came. A week later, I was onstage shaking my furry ass in front of a thousand screaming kids, five shows a day, six days a week.
I loved it. I loved standing in front of a crowd and hearing all those kids laughing and clapping and singing along. I loved the lights and the crowds and the spectacle of the show. I loved hanging with the other performers, all of us a bunch of characters whether we were in or out of costume. I loved that nobody was trying to live a “regular” life. All these artists were their own bosses. They worked as extras on TV shows or stand-ins for the movies. Some were in commercials or touring the country with live shows. Everyone had a dream, and they were chasing it. They had great stories, and I admit, I got some stars in my eyes. It was strenuous work, but I loved it.
Heather did not. She didn’t like that I was starting a new life. She didn’t like that I was happier than I’d been in a long, long time. Jealousy reared its ugly head, and then jealousy turned to rage. The “Bride of Chucky” was now in residence, and she was showing her true colors. I didn’t know it before, but I found out quickly that Heather was addicted to crystal meth. She’d blown through three inheritances like they were nothing. When I moved in with her, she had nothing, even though I knew she’d inherited seventy-five grand from one death, and another hundred grand from another family member’s death. Where all that money had gone, I had no idea. She had nothing to show for it but a lot of emotional baggage. Her mom, her dad, and her sister had all passed away. The whole family was wiped out. I thought they were cursed. I didn’t know that all her relatives were dying ’cause of drugs.
Maybe that’s why Heather was on a mission to have a baby. It was her one and only goal, to start a family. She lied and told me she was on the pill, but when the pregnancy test came back positive, I knew I’d been played. I also knew I wasn’t ready for a kid. I didn’t panic, and it turned out I didn’t need to. Her body, like most Little women, couldn’t hold the pregnancy. She had a miscarriage. I hated that she had to suffer, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was relieved.
After she lost the baby, Heather became suspicious of my every move, and started hounding me with questions, going through my things looking for proof of some imagined affair. She’d accuse me of “using her” for her money, of taking advantage of her, but she didn’t have nothing to use! One night, we were watching TV, when out of the blue she said, “You know, if you ever cheat on me, I will run my head through the TV, then call your parole officer and tell him that you threw me into it.” I kept my eyes on the screen and tried to remain very calm. I managed a “Really?” She glared at me. “I’ll make sure you violate your parole so you get sent back to jail. Then I’ll know where you are and I can control you.” Turns out, the Bride of Chucky had done this before. She wasn’t just the roommate of a convict’s girlfriend. She was also a convict’s ex-girlfriend. In fact, she’d successfully controlled him for years, sending him back behind bars over and over again. The only reason she was fooling with me is that he was locked up and gone. And that idiot kept coming back to her.
After that threat, in the back of my head, I was screaming to myself, “Run, Shorty, run!” I saved up some money, and a few weeks later, when the Bride of Chucky left for work, I grabbed a friend to help me clear out. I made sure the apartment manager oversaw my move ’cause the crazy bitch had told me plainly that if I ever left her, she would take a sledgehammer to the walls and blame me for it. The apartment manager shook my hand and wished me luck. I was gonna need it.
Working as Alvin, I met several other Little People making their living onstage. There was one guy, Dave Myers, who’d known me since I was a kid. I’d met him back in third grade, when my parents had forced me to mingle with Little People. He was an okay guy, a friend of the
family, and even though he knew all about my past criminal record, he started hooking me up with outside jobs. I could make a one-day appearance as Mini-Me or as a leprechaun and walk away with three hundred bucks. It was easy money, compared to the five or six shows a day I was doing at Universal. The Alvin show was hard work. I always played Alvin, and Alvin had the most dancing to do. Every once in a while, I’d have to stand in for Theodore, but the supervisors hated it ’cause I was an arrogant Theodore, and that character was supposed to be shy, calm, and quiet. Either way, I sweated my balls off in those costumes, under a hot blazing sun, covered from head to toe. What had seemed like a fortune, $150 a day to dance, in reality broke down to less than thirty bucks a show. Any extra I could make to supplement my income was welcomed.
After every show, we’d go out into the audience to shake hands, hug the kids, and take photos. We weren’t allowed to speak to the kids, just make gestures and hop around. For the most part, I liked the audience participation, but every so often, you’d get a kid who would pop you in the head. It took everything I had inside me not to pop them right back! Backstage, Dave would tease me, “I wonder if Mommy knows her kids are hugging an ex-con.” We’d crack up. Nobody but Dave knew. But he’d always been a great guy, so I trusted him, and when I escaped from the Bride of Chucky, he let me stay at his apartment for a few weeks until I could find a place to live.
