So now Trisha's got something coming because she didn't help, didn't even say anything to a soul. Now Teacup's going to work it out.
So Teacup pays a little visit to Trisha's room, after first fitting his face with a Jason-style hockey mask left over from his Halloween adventures. "Showing clear premeditation," intoned the D.A. at the trial.
The six-pack of beer apparently slowed Teacup down somewhat because after only thirteen whacks with the cleaver to Trisha's chest and neck, he passed out from exhaustion by the side of her bed.
Before he could decide whether to return to Stepdad's bedroom and do his passed-out mother.
Nine-one-one didn't get the call till the next morning when Mom, unable to find her "wake-up"— a shot of speed— went wandering around the house in search of her stash.
Two hours later, still screaming, she got her shot from an E.R. doctor— a sedative to shut her up.
Now Teacup, toothpick wrists shackled, belly chains rattling, is our latest and youngest guest. Something about him— maybe it's the moist brown eyes— reminds me of my younger daughter, Rachel. And I just know that Teacup's bridal reception party in the Fish Tank will make the stepdad look like a saint by comparison.
As Teacup shuffles by me, I step through the mob and whisper in one of his Dumbo ears.
"Just listen! When you get to the Tank, ask for Kansas— cell 47, upper tier. You got that? Hook up with Kansas— tell him the O.G. sent you."
Teacup is startled, but he makes eye contact and nods before they march him away.
The Bone touches my elbow. "O.G. fittin' to be a daddy?"
And all the Yard Rats rock with laughter.
* * *
Cellblock 4 is considered a "preferred housing unit" by the prison. It's a one-story structure with three blocks— A, B, and C. In this age of euphemism, the prison's official designation is not "A block" or "B block," but "A wing," "B wing."
I'm relieved to be in a single-tier "housing unit." No worrying about taking an involuntary dive off the upper tier because some J-Cat is struggling with a burning curiosity about exactly what kind of sound my head would make when it splattered on the concrete floor of the lower tier.
There is also no Bubblecop with a big gun. Just a kiosk-like staff office in the central rotunda. It's like a Fotomat booth encased in steel; wire-mesh and Plexiglas windows with an open counter for the C.O. to hand out mail, toilet paper, or just some verbal abuse.
In the not unlikely event that the Shit Jumps Off, the guard can simply seal himself in and microwave popcorn and listen to news of the riot over his radio. Waiting for rescue.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
The rotunda has the same setup as the Inferno: a staff office for the caseworker, a closet-size "library," two wall telephones, and a bathroom. A crude, hand-lettered sign reading STAFF ONLY is taped to the bathroom door. Another paper sign beneath it reads "After taking your shit, please proceed directly to the Hole!"
Sounds like an honor system to me.
The cop in the kiosk is an aging cowboy with a full head of white hair and a tanned, weather-beaten face. A network of burst capillaries on his face suggests his off-duty hobby. He's also refreshingly courteous.
"Mr. Lerner," he drawls, consulting the "Movement Sheet." "You'll be in 17 cell, A wing. See the porter for your bedding issue. You can leave your tub right here for now." His nametag reads SCO FALLON. He has two stripes— a senior correctional officer, which is a big deal for these cops.
Fallon points to a supply room adjacent to the caseworker's office. "Mr. Lerner, if you have anything in your tub, anything at all that you're not supposed to have, I'll give you a couple of minutes now to dispose of it."
"No, sir, nothing at all." Fallon studies me for a moment, taking in the mostly white beard, the absence of tattoos, and the still semibewildered look of a fish out of water.
He seems to reach some sort of decision. "Excellent— I think we'll get along just fine. I understand your friend Kansas will be joining us soon from the Fish Tank."
I don't know if this is some kind of test.
"Well, I can use all the friends I can get around here," I say, and push open the door to the supply room.
I find the porter in the back of the supply room, crouching behind a five-foot-high stack of mattresses, sucking greedily on a Pert Plus shampoo bottle— Skell!
"What's up, dawg?" Skell greets me, shoving the Pert inside a stack of towels. His bloodshot eyes manage to focus for a moment. "O.G.! Aiight! Heard you heading over… yeah, was on the wire, bro. You the new Lawdog and all."
"I haven't even started in the law library yet."
"Well, whatchu need, dawg?" Skell whispers in that intimate conspiratorial hiss of his— "Wash shoe need"— that renders even the most commonplace English expression somehow obscene. Skell still has the same four rotting yellow teeth he had back in the Fish Tank, but his shaved head now sports a bright red scab the size of a giant squid, shaped curiously like an old map of North Vietnam.
A few baby squids decorate his sunken, unshaved cheeks. I tell him I need bedding, soap, and toothpaste.
"No, dawg— what I'm sayin' is I can hook you up! Y'unnerstan'? I got a Hilton Hotel towel for ya, dawg. I got sheets— real sheets, donated from Saint Mary's Hospice— you think them nuns is gonna let some poor, dying sonofabitch check out on top of some fucked-up rag? Nah, dawg, I'm talkin' cotton!"
Skell's on a pruno roll now, excited by the prospect of some rollies and stamps. He gives the Mother of All Squids a vicious scratch, unleashing a river of blood that travels down his forehead and links up with a baby squid on his cheek— the Ho Chi Minh Trail?
"Aiight. I'll take the Hilton, pass on the Saint Mary."
"Ten stamps, dawg."
"Five— and give me a mattress without a rat's nest inside."
"Done deal, dawg," and Skell extends a clenched fist. I tap knuckles, making a mental note to boil my hand later— if Skell will sell me a hot stove.
"What about a rug, dawg? I got one of them sand-nigger prayer rugs the Muslims gotta use when they beg Allah for another oil well or missile or whatever the fuck those sand toads pray for."
"No thanks. Figuring out which way is east and praying to Mecca is more than I can handle right now."
"That's all good then. What cell did Fallon put you in?"
"Seventeen cell, A wing." Skell grabs a clipboard and looks at the housing roster. "Scandalous! That cell's empty right now. I'll put you in the bottom bunk."
"Thanks— how much is that?"
"Seeing as how you Kansas's dawg, it's on me." Overwhelmed by his own generosity, Skell takes a swig of Pert and another swipe at Mother Squid. This time a brigade of Red Chinese troops floods down the Ho Chi Minh Trail toward the Calamari Pass.
I decide not to wait around for the fall of Saigon. I grab my purchases and head toward my new house. It's the familiar eight-by-six of the Fish Tank except it has a window that I can open and close with a heavy steel lever. The window is some sort of thick plastic, reinforced with heavy metal mesh. But it's a real window with a view of the yard.
And, until I get a cellie, it's mines!
* * *
The law clerk job is a piece of cake, mostly consisting of delivering lawbooks or NSF (nonsufficient funds) packages of writing paper and stamped envelopes to "indigents" in the lockdown units. As I suspected, it requires absolutely zero knowledge of the law. There are plenty of jailhouse lawyers on the yard who charge hundreds of dollars to handle an appeal or a habeas corpus petition to the feds.
Just when I am falling into a complacent routine, the eses decide to beat the hell out of someone right in front of cellblock 4 when I'm coming back from the law library. Five or six Mexicans— Sureños— surrounding a solitary victim, also Mexican, on the dirt lawn. Punching him in the stomach and kicking him in the face when he falls.
"Maricón sucio!" they scream. Then they kick him some more.
"Cabrón!" And a fina
l vicious kick to the head.
The ese collapses and then sprawls facedown in the dirt while the Sureños calmly stroll off. So casual, just doing a synchronized convict strut. Another walk in the park on a sunny day. Qué paso, ese!
The sirens go off all over the yard, loudspeakers crackle, then announce, LOCK IT DOWN! CLEAR THE YARD! Convicts scurry from every corner of the yard, streaming like rats back to their cellblocks, the sirens a continuous earsplitting wail.
It is a surreal scene out of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, the movie with Rod Taylor where the Morlocks sound an "air raid" siren to summon the innocent (but tasty) Eloi to their dark cannibalistic caves. Once the Morlocks have assembled sufficient Eloi ingredients for their feast (and maybe a midnight snack as well), they sound the siren again— this time the good siren sound signifying "all clear."
I retreat to my still private suite in cellblock 4. If the Morlocks want me, they will have to come for me. I'm ready for a long lockdown— plenty of store and a stack of novels.
For the next five days my good and great companions are Joyce, Hemingway, and Irwin Shaw. At 5 P.M. I turn on my thirteen-inch TV to watch whatever prison movie is being shown from the central VCR.
Tonight they are showing Chained Heat— Penitentiary Girls III.
I like it— not too much plot getting in the way of the action. The kind of movie my wife and girls would never have let me rent at home.
In prison it's a good mental health habit to focus on the positive. Because the Morlocks can come for you at any time.
And it ain't nothin' nice.
* * *
I take advantage of the lockdown to do some interior cell decoration, relying on the Kansas approach, as opposed to, say, Martha Stewart. I even fashion a monthly calendar, drawing the little squares and pasting it to the cell wall with state toothpaste. Christmas is rapidly approaching and I still haven't shopped.
I study the calendar on the wall and count the days till my Parole Board hearing and then my release. I come up with 520 days. Not so bad. I can do this, I think. My first hearing is in five months; the next, and final one, a year after that.
I wonder how to populate the little blank days on the calendar. At home, before the wife elected to become the former wife, we had a "daily organizer" posted on the refrigerator. I would fill it up with items like "Pick up Alana from soccer practice." "Drive Rachel to Girl Scout meeting." "Chinese food?" "Recital— 7 P.M."
Another life— pre-O.G. Too much time to think in these cells. Avoid self-pity at all costs. That is the dubious luxury of freemen. I stare at the calendar.
Sorry I missed your soccer finals, Alana.
Sorry I missed your choir recital, Rachel.
I turn my face to the cell wall and, not for the first time, sob quietly against the cinder blocks.
Not unlike some punk-ass bitch.
* * *
The law library is a madhouse of ancient, chattering typewriters and lifers researching "post-conviction relief." The typewriters are the latest in 1950s high tech— electric, but before someone added value with the lift-off correction-tape feature. Welcome to Wite-Out. Fortunately I am of an age when carbon paper was regarded as a major advance toward the office of the future. It was the spearhead of what we would now call a "paradigm shift."
Legal books are crammed floor-to-ceiling, some of them on shelves, most of them piled on the floor. Convicts wander in and out yelling questions, answers, insults, and wolf tickets.
"Who's Bogarting the fucking Wite-Out?"
My old Fish Tank chess partner, Big Bird, is guilty. He also has— as they like to say around here— "priors." Big Bird lifts his nappy white head up from a volume of Shepard's U.S. Citations to confront his accuser, a lifer wood.
"If you could type, you wouldn't be trippin' behind no Wite-Out shit, you ignorant muthafucka!"
"Big Fucking Bird, how 'bout I type some 'post-conviction' respect into your goat-smelling old ass?"
The Bird adjusts his state-issue black horn-rimmed glasses to assess the viability of this latest wolf ticket.
"Whatchu fittin' to do, Mighty Whitey Lifer Boy? You fittin' to raise up like you about something? I'll hit you so hard make yo toenail flip like a muthafuckin' poe-tater chip!" Wolf ticket receipted for and resold! Everyone laughs— lifer typists, jailhouse lawyers looking for business, my fellow Lawdogs, and our Freeman supervisor, Mr. Arbuster.
Arbuster, a long-suffering civil servant for the Department of Prisons, favors generous quantities of Brylcreem on his thinning gray hair and Hawaiian shirts over an enormous beer gut. He, like us, is just doing his time.
I was not his pick for this job. He motions me to take a seat in the steel folding chair at the side of his desk. My three fellow Lawdogs— law clerks— momentarily stop pawing at their electrics to better sniff the scent of every word.
"Sergeant Stanger tells me you chumped him off in front of the assistant warden. Says you were way up on the leg! So tell me, O.G.— how did you get this job? Did you suck Noble's dick like Stanger says?" The Lawdogs titter appreciatively from behind their typewriters.
"Just the tip," I answer.
"Say what?"
"Just the tip— I tried, but I couldn't get the entire cock down my throat, which was still sore from sucking Stanger's dick the night before."
Arbuster's eyes bug out before he bursts into a violent giggling attack, his face turning purple.
"Oh, that's off the hook! You really are one sideways-talking twisted dawg!" Arbuster dabs at the tears running down his cheeks, unconscious of his own convict-flavored language. Like the C.O.'s, most Freemen, over time, start talking like the asylum inmates instead of the keepers.
Arbuster's delighted response is the cue for my fellow Lawdogs to howl in approval. On-the-leg sycophants is my perhaps uncharitable judgment. Mighty Whitey Bogart and Big Bird, having made up, laughingly replay it.
"Just the tip," they repeat. " 'Cause his throat be sore— from the night before!" cries the Bird.
Arbuster, whom we all call the Bluster behind his back, tells me to memorize a copy of The Nevada Code of Penal Discipline— it will be my sole job aid. As the new "fish" in the law library, I am assigned the most distasteful tasks— attending disciplinary hearings in the lockdown units.
"You'll work the Fish Tank, the Hole, the P.C. punks, and the fucking Moo."
"The Moo?" I used to know this one, but the acronyms here are worse than in the army, or even the phone company.
"The MHU— Medical Housing Unit, the fucking retards and J-Cats too fucked-up to even wipe themselves. You got a problem with that?"
"No sir, no problem."
"Good, 'cause if you got a problem, the kitchen has an opening for Jell-O scoopers, you understand what I'm saying?" More titters from the Lawdog Gallery.
A former business associate, good friend, and occasional mentor once gave me this piece of advice: "Never underestimate the power of ass-kissing." Mr. Mentor— let's call him Mr. Brown (since that's his name)— rose through the mid-corporate ranks largely on the consistent, massive, and creative application of this principle. In all fairness, he was also brilliant and conversationally adept at any topic of interest to his superiors— fly-fishing, the 49ers ("Hey, how about those Niners!"), metaphysics, duck hunting, nonlinear correlation and regression techniques, you name it. He knew how to Build Rapport— instantly!
I decide that now would be a good time to apply Brown's Axiom. Don't want the Bluster sweating me every day. You Lawdogs think you know On The Leg? I'll show you some pure, unabashed, unrestrained Corporate Obsequiousness!
"Mr. Arbuster, I sure appreciate this overview." I smile— appreciatively. "You're not a lawyer by any chance? I guess you'd have to be one to do your job, having to know all those case histories and all." Brown's Ass-Kissing Corollary to Ass-Kissing Axiom 1 is "Transparency doesn't matter."
Of course it works. The Bluster is puffing up self-importantly, his chest inflating like a hot-air balloon. His fac
e shineth upon me. Finally— a Lawdog who appreciates him, a rare simpatico soul refreshingly attuned to the unjust burdens he single-handedly, heroically carries every day.
"Well, O.G…. er, actually I do have a bit of a legal background— also some sociology and psychology. You need it if you're going to deal with cons all day."
"I can tell." I nod admiringly, nodding to the Great Gods of Unction, cementing our rapport, as the Lawdogs howl and moan in sickened disbelief.
Mr. Brown, wherever in the corporate crevices you are now, thank you.
You Got Nothing Coming: Notes From a Prison Fish Page 19
