ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story)

by Glenn Langohr

  The good doctor told me I needed a brace to hold the fractured metacarpal together and then he blessed me with a morphine drip. I slept through the surgery with the benefit of the morphine drip and other drugs but could swear I felt the speed underneath it all holding on to the levers in my brain. As I slept, I studied the terrain of the road I was traveling. I imagined my visit with Bagel and then saw a field of dirt with some seeds scattered on it. I imagined the people he must have called and talked to about everything I’d discussed with him. Then I saw Yerga’s residence turn into another field with seeds in it. I saw him on the phone passing the word through the grapevine and realized his words were feeding those seeds. I tried as hard as I could to imagine what he was saying on the phone. Was he mentioning my rules and regulations properly? Was he painting a good picture of me or a bad one? The harder I tried to focus on what he was saying, the darker my dream got until I was enveloped in ink. It felt like I was stuck there trying to get out for hours. Finally a beam of light started to break apart the darkness and I could see that I was in the middle of a field getting strangled by vines wrapping around my entire body and neck.

  The doctor woke me up. “How’s the pain, do you need any more morphine?”

  I looked at my bandaged hand and realized the surgery was complete. I told the doctor, “No thanks sir.”

  As soon as the doctor left the room, I pulled the I.V. out of my arm and left the hospital. Paul picked me up and I got as wired as possible and analyzed the dream and what my subconscious was trying to tell me. I focused on the wrong thing. I had to find a way to control what the integral components in my territory said about me. That way I could control those vines for my purposes, rather than let them strangle me.

  I studied the third pot dealer that I hadn’t yet introduced myself to in my territory. I found out that he was the biggest provider of the three. I gathered a lot of information but couldn’t penetrate his real name. He went by 420. I found out that was his little joke because 420 represents smoking pot. I looked it up and found out there are 420 known chemicals in marijuana. I also saw that police referred to marijuana as 420 in code. Everyone I spoke to about 420 had something bad to say about him. Things like, “He burns everyone by selling his bags a little light.” Or, “He charges too much because he has the best product and can.”

  I studied 420 and his residence. He lived in a gated community on the beach. That just made the mission more of a challenge and upped the ante. I also had to assume 420 had been forewarned of my presence in the territory. While studying 420’s residence I realized he had some pot plants in his backyard. I decided I didn’t want them, they weren’t even mature yet, I wanted 420’s loyalty and honor. To get that, I decided I needed a little shock value. I thought about how I hadn’t used a lot of shock value with Bagel, but who knew what Bagel had been saying since then? I assumed I needed more of this shock value with Yerga to cultivate and control what he might be saying about me. I was coming to the realization that if I wanted to hold down my territory properly, I’d have to operate like such a pro that my presence would leave my components completely loyal. So loyal, that they would be very careful what they said about me to others. I’d have to do jobs like a surgeon. I’d have to do them solo. That would be the only way to contain things. I’d have to show 420 how easy he is for me to isolate and zero in on… Maybe then I could control his pot hustle and keep his mouth on my side…

  With this in mind I found a window of opportunity and put on a ski mask and hopped 420’s fence. He was already in it watering his pot garden. He looked up at me running towards him and froze. Spracked out on my adrenaline rush, I tackled him.

  I told him, “You’re not going to get hurt. This is just how I do things.”

  420 wasn’t that big. He had wavy brown hair, blue eyes and had a small surfer build. All of the bad things I’d heard about him weren’t making me feel any better about the headlock I had him in. I looked into his scared eyes and the first question he asked me was, “What did I do wrong?”

  420 didn’t at all look like a violent person and the way he asked, “What did I do wrong?”, had me feeling like I was the bad guy.

  I answered from the heart, “You didn’t do anything that wrong… but a lot of people are running their mouths.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “They’re saying that you weigh your bags up light, and you charge too much and rip them off… A little.” Even to my own ears it sounded like a weak excuse to have him in the position I had him. I thought, maybe I’m not cut out for this kind of work. My conscience might be a problem.

  Little 420 looked up at me and said, “You know how it is… Those people are just jealous because I have the best pot and am making the most money.”

  That amount of Truth was shocking me… I admitted he was probably right, but with people talking like that it was inevitable that he’d have problems. I knew he lived alone and that nobody was in his house from my recon. I asked him about it and he told me the truth, that there wasn’t.

  We went inside his house. He looked at my bandaged hand and asked, “Is that what happened when you fought Huddy at Yerga’s house?”

  So word had reached him. He knew I went by B.J. and that I was claiming the territory. At a loss for words I asked him what he’d heard about my rules and regulations.

  To my astonishment he replied, “What rules and regulations?”

  He seemed impressed by the idea of rules and regulations. I wondered how Bagel and Yerga had failed to mention them. I explained that they were in place and being mandated to integrate honor like a line in the sand that couldn’t be crossed. By now I was running them down in even further detail. Besides protecting women and children from predators, I included there wasn’t to be any selling drugs to kids in school, or to any girl who’s pregnant. I explained to 420 that we have to keep informants and shit talkers from polluting our territory!

  420 asked, “Do you think you can stop it?”

  “Only if enough of us come together… I’m going to sift through the territory to find out who the real riders are and send the fraudulent ones packing.”

  420 looked impressed but I could see him on the fence. I could see he was wondering the same thing I was, if it was possible. He asked what looked like the deciding question. “How many of you are there? Do you have a crew to watch your back and help you?”

  I thought about how to answer him. If I told him I was flying solo, I’d look way too vulnerable. On the other hand if I told him I had a crew, he’d pass that information along and the authorities would end up hearing. I responded cryptically. “Think about how many people have gone to prison over an informant. Imagine how much money they lost and how pissed they must be that the informant is still doing business and sleeping with their girlfriend while they are sitting behind bars doing time. How do you think they’re going to feel when they get out?”

  420 nodded his head like it all fit into place. “So with your rules and regulations, and all of those angry enforcers… Things are going to change around here aren’t they.”

  I nodded my head and kept any more questions from coming my way by asking the rest of them for a while. I found out that Bagel had spoken highly of me and seemed to want to go with the new program. Yerga had spoken highly of my fight with Huddy, but was questioning if I should be the one in charge of the territory.

  420 showed me his loyalty by donating some of his pot my way.

  Happy with the progress I was making, I told 420, “I’m going to make you my most integral component. I’ll watch your back and you watch mine. We have to keep our ears to the ground and listen to what people in the scene are saying. We have to control what’s said about us or things will get chaotic.”

  After leaving 420’s residence I went back to Paul’s to study the field I was determined to tend. I broke up what 420 had donated into two equal parts, one for Bagel and one for Yerga. I visited them and dropped their package off and told them what they owed for
it. The price was steep so I left them with it on the strength I’d get the money later. I knew 420 had articulated the first message to them properly by the way they asked about the rules and regulations. Finally they were getting it. Things were starting to look possible to establish the empire with Paul that started with the mechanic shop. Then, I got a phone call from my brother. He was finally getting released.

  CHAPTER 65

  My brother Bo got released from juvenile hall after his year and a half sentence ran out. I found out from him that on the ride home with our Dad he’d told him that he wanted to see two people, me and our mother. My brother explained how my Dad made him feel like having him in the car was the proof he’d always talked about of us turning out bad. My Dad had responded to my brother, “I don’t know where your mother is and I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see her. As far as your brother is concerned, you’re not to have any contact with him either. He is wanted by the law and better turn himself in before he gets into even more trouble.”

  Bo called me on the phone and we made arrangements for me to come over to my Dad’s house while he wasn’t there to reunite. I came over the following day and found out that my brother had done a lot of soul searching while he was locked up. He seemed to have grown up. He told me that he realized while locked up that ,while we were slinging pot to survive, it had narrowed our focus into tunnel vision. We had turned that pursuit into our god. He said he’d kicked himself in the ass that we hadn’t found our Mom since we weren’t living under our dictator father’s roof anymore. He asked me what had been stopping us. I didn’t have an answer.

  I filled him in on what I’d been doing since he’d been gone. I left nothing out and included the spracked out speed business I was involved in along with the visions I had of building a legal empire. As I explained, I realized that I hadn’t left him any room to be right next to me, or any desire to be. Instead of him needing me, I was the one who needed him now. I felt all of this and him pulling away from me and looking at me differently. I saw myself losing respect in his eyes.

  He did pull away from me and explained that he was going to find our Mom through our grandfather. He asked, “Why didn’t you?”

  I tried to tell him that, like he’d just said, our struggle with surviving got all of the attention and narrowed our vision. I kept on explaining how hard it had been with nowhere to live. “I was on the streets, I didn’t’ see any other options. I had to survive. You were gone and I didn’t know what to do.”

  My brother just looked at me with scalding judgment. He wasn’t giving me a break. He told me, “You don’t look like your real self anymore. I can see you’re still in there, but you look possessed. Get off that speed!”

  Right then we heard our Dad’s car pulling up and the garage door opening. I was prepared enough that I had parked my truck around the corner to hide it so I took off running for the backyard. I was already familiar with the escape routes from there and knew which backyard didn’t have a dog in it. I ran to my truck replaying what my brother had said to me and got in the truck with tears flooding down my face. I gritted my teeth against the loneliness and confusion that covered up an unrecognizable humiliation and pulled out my speed. I hated the hopeless feeling that brought all of the tears down my face so I angrily chopped up a humongous line and snorted it. I began to rationalize that I had just been dealing with some bad circumstances the best way I could. Why couldn’t my brother understand that with some compassion? I drove away telling myself that I didn’t have a choice. What else could I do with a bunch of prison time hanging over my head? Just lay down and cry about it. Or make things happen and be pedal to the metal prosperous so I’d at least have something built up to come to out of prison.

  CHAPTER 66

  The following day my brother called me and I heard so much anguish in his voice while he was crying that I knew before he finished telling me that our Mom was gone. He told me how he reached our grandfather, Pistol Pete on the phone and found out it had just happened a couple of days ago. Pete was about to call our Dad to report that his daughter Mary, our mother, had been shot dead in San Jose California while feeding the homeless at a soup kitchen!

  I drove to my Dad’s house still on the phone with my brother. He met me around the corner and we held each other for over an hour crying on each other’s shoulders. I swallowed all of the guilt that it was all my fault for not getting hold of her earlier like my brother had said… Things would have been different. Our Mom wouldn’t have been at the soup kitchen, she would have been here with us! My brother felt my anguish and told me it wasn’t my fault, it was whoever shot her that was at fault. I told my brother to see if I could go to the funeral with him. He told me that our Dad had said that as soon as he sees me he planned to call the police to arrest me so that didn’t seem like a possibility. My brother gave me our grandfather’s number and I drove away fueled by anger that my Dad could be so cruel. It helped mask the atrocious pain of losing our mother so I intensified the anger.

  I called my grandfather and found out the funeral was going to be where our Mom grew up, in New Orleans Louisiana. I explained what my brother told me about my Dad calling the cops on me if he saw me and told him I didn’t care, I had to be at the funeral. He told me not to worry about it, that he’d handle everything. I was to expect a plane ticket ready for me to board at the airport in a few days when he had everything figured out. I told him how I felt about it being my fault for not getting a hold of our Mom through him earlier. He told me, “Boy, God takes you when He’s ready to take you. It has nothing to do with you.”

  CHAPTER 67

  My grandfather picked me up at the airport and explained everything. My Dad had turned down the invitation to stay at our late Mom’s Aunt Chetta’s house and was staying in a hotel with my brother. I guess my Dad wasn’t feeling too comfortable facing some of the things he did.

  At Aunt Chetta’s house I met all of the Italian family from Long Island, New York that I hadn’t seen since I was five years old. The entire 13 family members were dressed in black pinstriped suits, fedora hats and Farragamo shoes. They had a duplicate outfit for me to wear that fit perfectly. I found out that my grandfather had arranged for the Catholic school our Mom had gone to as a little girl , The Divine Light, to run the service. I asked my grandfather how I was going to avoid my Dad seeing me. He told me “not to worry about it, boy. Your Dad doesn’t seem like he wants to socialize much while he’s here. You’re going to be with the family from New York behind some of those gumbahs and your Dad is going to be with the immediate family from Louisiana on the other side.”

  We got to the park where the funeral was being held and I saw the layout of chairs. There were two sets of about fifty chairs angled towards where the Priest and those using the microphone were going to stand at the front. I saw my Dad and brother in the middle of our grandfather and his two other brothers with Aunt Chetta and some younger family I’d never met. I was about fifty feet away in the middle of the New York throng of relatives. My brother found me wearing my Black Fly sunglasses and we stared at each other through our tears the whole service.

  The speakers who spoke from the Divine Light Catholic School spoke of how blessed our Mom’s loved ones were to have had an Angel in their hearts and lives. They went on to say that she was at Home with God looking down on all of the rest of us.

  After the funeral I went back to Aunt Chetta’s house. All of the men in my grandfather Pete’s family were present. I found out that all of the women went with my Dad and brother to another house to eat before heading back to southern California. The men brought out the food and fed me until it felt like I was going to pop. I just couldn’t sample another plate of flavor. There was so much love and support that I felt more comfortable than I could remember feeling since childhood with my Mom. It was okay to be yourself around them so I explained the paths I’d rode since my Mom had left. I didn’t leave anything out. I looked around and saw all of the men nodding their head
s to encourage me and show me they understood. One of the New Yorker’s said, “The kid had no other choice on his own at the age of 14. At that age you haven’t matured enough to make well thought decisions. You’re more or less just reacting to circumstances at that age.”

  All of the sudden, all of their love and concern wasn’t enough for me. I realized I was going to be on my own again in the world and I knew what was coming. My mind was going to tell me, why couldn’t we have called her a couple days earlier. Or why didn’t I call her a long time ago when we stopped living with our Dad. I couldn’t live with the only answers I had, so, I laid the blame on my grandfather and the rest of the Italian family. I asked my grandfather, “Why did you let our Dad keep our Mom from us?”

  My grandfather was suffering the loss as deeply as I was. Tears were pouring down his face when he said, “Your Mom told me to stay out of it. She was confused about what would be the best thing for you kids at the ages you were. She told me she tried to hang on for years and years for your sakes, but just couldn’t anymore. Your Dad wasn’t letting her grow. She was a beautiful flower that had to bloom further to find herself… She wanted it to be as smooth a transition as possible for you kids.”

  We all meditated on how unsmooth I’d explained the transition had been. One of the New Yorker’s said, “Hey Benny! There are rules about getting into a family’s business. Unless there is rape… It takes a lot to get something sanctioned.”

  I understood what my grandfather was trying to say. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Nobody could have predicted it. On a deep level, I knew I couldn’t even blame my Dad for any of it. It wasn’t his fault he was brought up the way he was, or my Mom’s for the way she was. That left me with only myself to blame and I found all kinds of reasons. I immediately thought of my brother in a hotel going through his emotions and I couldn’t even be there with him. I excused myself to the bathroom.