You Got Nothing Coming: Notes From a Prison Fish

by Jimmy A. Lerner

  * * *

  The store here is not one where you can walk inside and look at the merchandise. It is a warehouse with a "service" window. You enter an opened gate on the yard and hand your order slip to the convict clerk, who, depending on how much store you kick back to him, will fill your order in minutes, days, or never.

  Skell likes snuff. We agree on six cans of Skoal Wintergreen in exchange for his continuing to falsify the "housing roster" to indicate my cell has two guests. After bickering like an Arab rug merchant, he also agrees to throw in two pairs of boxer shorts, which he swears on his skin are not from Saint Mary's Hospice.

  "Ain't no pecker tracks on these, dawg!" he assures me before disappearing behind his mattress fortress where he can inject himself with his daily dose of crank— while safely supervising the helicopter evacuation of the American Embassy in Saigon.

  Every morning I report to the law library, read the kites from the "lockdowns," and load up my handcart with the requested lawbooks. Then I'm ready to roll the wheels of justice to a convict population that prison surveys reveal to be 70 percent "functionally illiterate." Which means they cannot read or understand the disciplinary write-ups that they collect faster than Skell collects stamps and snuff.

  Most of the kites reveal some confusion.

  "To: Law Liberyen— How they got a warent for me back in Tennessee? I never messed with no incense! Ken you pleese help me before they exerdite me to Memfus."

  Having once paid my dues in the Market Research, Assessment and Customer-Driven Analytics Divison, I am especially qualified to add value here. I remove Black's Law Dictionary from a shelf, flip to the definition of "incest," copy it on the kite for delivery under the cell door. Then a quick exit.

  "To: Law Clerk— Kansas says you can help me. The judge recamendit me to a house rest program but my PO says I got nothin coming. Is there any legal remorse avalebul to me?"

  This time, because it's one of Kansas's dawgs, I attach a copy of the house arrest criteria to the kite. I also enlist Mr. Webster's help in providing definitions for both "remorse" and "recourse." The phone company, which loved to talk about our "unparalleled record of customer responsiveness," would have been proud.

  When necessary I would read the kites to the Bluster, who really did know a thing or two about the law. He would listen to the question and then refer me to the appropriate reference.

  "Shepard's U.S. Citations, volume 3," Bluster yells. "Pacific Reporter… Corpus Juris Secundum… Federal Supplement, volume 27… Nevada Revised Statutes 209 point 17 paragraph B… Supreme Court Reporter… Ineffective counsel? Let's see— get Hill versus Lockhart."

  With my vision and his track record we made a hell of a team. Definitely consultative and collaborative, as we used to say in the phone company.

  * * *

  I hate visiting clients in the Moo. The Moo C.O. strip-searches me, then checks the contents of my box, holding each lawbook up by one flap and shaking it. He's always disappointed when no contraband falls out— no nail files, no plastic packets of crank, no decomposed body of Jimmy Hoffa.

  The J-Cats are all in solitary confinement cells, and the ones not too sedated leap to their feet the moment they hear the squeal of the handcart's rubber wheels on the floor— Pavlov's Dawgs: The Next Generation. These are the J-Cats deemed too dangerous to be in general population and too numerous to try to send back to the state nuthouse prison, which is at full capacity.

  I am supposed to "counsel" them about their disciplinary charges before they appear before the Disciplinary Committee, which now consists of one caseworker, Mr. Ringer. My client is on the upper tier in cell 63. The Bubblecop, just a few feet above us, cracks open the cell door. I wait, penal code in hand, until the J-Cat slides it open.

  Most of the J-Cats here are black and my client is no exception. After sliding the door he does the Thorazine shuffle back to his tray, sits. His face is crisscrossed with old razor scars, his eyes blank, unseeing. He wears the standard J-Cat Moo uniform, a white paper coverall. The J-Cat's crotch area is soaked with urine. Give a guy enough psychotropics and he'll easily confuse paper pants with a toilet bowl. The smell ain't nothin' nice.

  "What's your write-up for, bro?" I ask this slowly to match his movements. I keep my voice soft and low. A string of saliva is descending from the J-Cat's mouth.

  I consult my new clipboard, a welcome-on-board gift from the Bluster and, I'm convinced, an object of yard envy. Or possibly contempt.

  "Demetrius," I try again. "Do you know why you're here?"

  Maybe it was the use of his name that did it, but something stirs and spins inside his defective hard drive, his head jerking side to side in little spasms while his mouth gasps open and closed soundlessly. I can practically feel the heat of a billion neurons misfiring in his brain.

  My first J-Cat "case," and my client is not just a sandwich short of a picnic, he's a picnic short of a picnic.

  "What medications do they have you on, Demetrius?"

  His lips convulse and produce some garbled words. "…icks nin… zeen… nay nay nay… quan." But hey, at least we're communicating.

  I'm guessing he's on— or has been on— Prolixin, Thorazine, and Sinequan. The Physician's Desk Reference in the law library lists them all as having a "sedative" effect. I'm wondering why they didn't sedate his bladder along with his brain.

  I start reading from the Notice of Charges, hoping this might jar his two or three still functioning synapses into action. I stand between the open cell door and the closed door of Demetrius's dome. The Bubblecop is at his open slot, shotgun ready. The write-up is in pure Copspeak:

  "…that on December 3 at approximately 7:04 A.M. I, Sergeant Stanger, while making routine rounds in the chow hall, did observe inmate Demetrius Johnson, back number 31458, stuffing an unidentified round object down the front of his pants in a manner suggesting concealment or an attempt to conceal."

  The faintest glimmer of recognition comes to the J-Cat's glazed eyes. He is even managing to wipe the dribble off his mouth. Encouraged, I continue with the Copspeak:

  "…thereupon said inmate did attempt to exit the chow hall in a hurried and stealthy manner… when I confronted inmate Johnson and ordered him to drop his pants, inmate Johnson became irate, waving his arms in a threatening manner and yelling obscenities. Inmate Johnson demanded to know why he couldn't get himself a 'motherfucking apple.' "

  Just the tiniest hint of an insane smile is starting to spread across Demetrius's slack face. Half a sandwich, or at least a pickle, has just arrived at the Thorazine picnic.

  "…loud and abusive language combined with the threatening arm movements led me to conclude the inmate was attempting to incite a riot in the chow hall to cover up the smuggling of contraband…"

  Another page or two of Copspeak and finally the bottom line: "After subduing and placing inmate Johnson in hand and ankle restraints I was then able to confiscate and secure the contraband in question— one partially eaten apple, probably McIntosh in manner, which I immediately sealed in a plastic evidence bag. The Dirt investigation is still ongoing at this time. Inmate Demetrius Johnson, back number 31458, is hereby charged with the following violations of the Nevada Code of Penal Discipline: MJ-27, a major violation, rioting or inciting others to riot; MJ-21, a major violation, theft or possession of contraband; MJ-25, a major violation, issuing a threat, either verbally or by gesture, to a correctional officer; and G-9, a general violation, using profane or abusive language to a correctional officer. In addition we are charging inmate Johnson with a violation of M-7, a minor violation, unauthorized use of institutional equipment, machinery, tools, or food."

  The Bubblecop a few feet above us snorts in derision. "Felonious fucking apple smuggling— what a crock!" The cop suddenly remembers he's wearing a prison uniform and decides to try to clean it up. "Of course, you was outta line, Demetrius— can't have convicts running around with apples beneath their johnsons!" And Bubblecop is cackling crazily over his bad pun, which I
find pretty funny as well.

  But Demetrius isn't smiling. No, the man is far beyond amusement. As a matter of fact he's peeling off his piss-soaked paper jumpsuit until he's sitting butt-naked on his tray, one hand clutching his johnson.

  Waving it at Bubblecop.

  "Ain't no motherfucking zip-locked apples in here, boss!"

  This is one of those phone company "minimal cues." I exit the cell ass-backward, crashing into the Moo cop who has run up the tier in response to Bubblecop's shouts.

  I'm halfway across the catwalk when Bubblecop raises radio backup from the Dirt.

  And Johnson and johnson are waving good-bye.

  * * *

  Kansas gleams like a steel shank in the sun, bench-pressing four-hundred-plus pounds before an admiring pack of spotter dawgs. The weight pile in the Aryan Woods is segregated from the rest of the yard by a razor-wire-topped fence. A steel gate in the fence is remotely controlled by a guntower cop high above the Wood Pile.

  Every hour, on the hour, the gate cracks open, unleashing a bi-directional flow of skinheads and their philosophical cousins and often comrades-in-tattooed-arms, the woods.

  The institutional idea behind the sixty-minute lockdowns is to "contain" the Wood Pile whenever the Shit Jumps Off. This happens at least once a week in the Wood Pile when twenty-pound free weights wing through the air like Frisbees out of hell.

  To qualify for the Frisbee Olympics, a convict needs to supply only an attitude and a target— weights are included, free. The Old Heads tell me that past gold medal winners were able to embed a Frisbee in someone's dome from twenty yards away. These punks today ain't shit. Then they tell me about Attica.

  Kansas spots me across the yard, wheeling my Lawdog handcart.

  "Yogee!" he shouts. "Yogee!" The guntower cop (unkindly called the "Tower Pig" by the Old Heads) watches my progress toward the weight pile with binoculars. He spots Kansas and cracks the gate open long before the hour.

  As they say here, "Kansas got juice!"

  "What's up, dawg?" Kansas greets me like a long-lost brother as we tap clenched fists.

  We kick it for a few minutes, catching up. Kansas beat Stanger's investigation into extortion and drug dealing. The Dirt couldn't produce any witnesses. Kansas denies the yard rumor that an assistant warden may have intervened after noticing a dramatic increase in Nazi Low Riders casually circling around his daughter's preschool playground.

  Kansas did just three days in the kitchen, and not scooping Jell-O. He was the "veg prep dawg," chopping and slicing celery and carrots with one hand, accepting crank and heroin packets from the Freeman with the other.

  "Small-time shit, O.G." Kansas shakes his huge skinhead, eyes now filling with the familiar nostalgia that always augurs a long riff back to "…the Kansas pen, O.G., where I was running a fucking meth lab right out of the bakery— none of this pussy pruno shit these punks got going here, y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'? Fuck, dawg, I remember one time I was doing a little deuce in Marianna— that's fed time, bro, down in Florida, a real stand-up joint…"

  And on and on down what has to be the partially imagined memory lane of a dozen prisons. I have added up all the time Kansas claims to have done and the total is 547 years. He's been down, done time in Sing Sing, Arizona State Prison, Rahway, Marianna, and in Louisiana. He rattles off these credentials the same way a new candidate for our Corporate Fast Track program used to underwhelm me with his Fulbright, Harvard M.B.A., and Yale Law background.

  I guess we all want our ticket punched and admired.

  "And with you being the new Lawdog and all, you can do me a favor, y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin', O.G.?" So here it comes at last— conversational foreplay over, Kansas is turning over his hole card. And I just know it ain't nothin' nice.

  "What kind of favor, Kansas?"

  "Some of my dawgs in lockdown got things coming— y'unnerstan'? Maybe a few items could kind of fall into the bindings of them lawbooks, know what I'm saying?" I understand I'm receiving another Heart Check from Kansas. I decide to flunk. Use a little Bonespeak.

  "Yeah, Kansas, I understand perfectly— you're fittin' ta put me in a muthafuckin' trick bag, dawg. And the only hole in that bag is Hole time— y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'? Well, fuck you very much for the opportunity to do you a favor, but the only thing I'm fittin' to catch is pa-role!"

  Kansas, astounded, speechless, looking down at me like I just crash-landed my spacecraft and need directions back to Alpha Centauri. I sense that this is one of those "be here now" moments that will define the quality of the rest of my stay on this strange planet.

  Kansas backs off a step and wraps a blue bandana around his dome to keep the sweat from smearing his swastika tattoo.

  "Trick bag?… fittin' ta catch pa-role?" And Kansas's six-foot-six incredibly muscled frame is rocking with laughter. He laughs so hard he starts crying. Wipes away the tears with the bandana.

  "Yogee— you've gone from sideways talk to fucking toad talk! Where'd you pick up this shit?" he splutters, holding on to the Aryan Woods fence for support. His spotter dawgs come rushing over to see what's up.

  Kansas introduces me to the Carful of skinheads, some of whom I have been greeted by in the yard. Their names are a blur to me: Shank, Big Nasty, Chug, Little Feeb, Snake, Shakey, Dizzy, Sandman, Roach, Lurch…

  Confused at first by Kansas's formal introduction, they take turns smacking my knuckles with their SWP-or NLR-tattooed fingers. "What's up, O.G.?" they say.

  "What's up, dawgs!" I exclaim. "Where's Dopey and Grumpy today?" Which sends Kansas into a fresh paroxysm of hysterics. This lets the dawgs know that I am just a sideways-talking kind of guy and they are not being Disrespected. "Aiight, O.G.— later, dawg," they call, and return to the Wood Pile.

  Kansas is sober now. "Listen, O.G.— forget all that shit about the lockdown and the lawbooks an' all. I'll just use the porters or the guards, but ya gotta help with the letters I been getting from all kinds of crazy bitches behind that ad you put in the paper."

  "That's the kind of favor I'd be happy to help you with." And I mean it.

  "Scandalous! I'll bring 'em down to your house tonight."

  "Have you read them yet?" I ask, forgetting that Kansas can barely read. Unless it's a summons, a warrant, or his FBI file.

  "Uh… yeah, you know, a little bit, but I need you to write them back."

  "What house you in now?"

  "I'm over in your cellblock. Same wing, cell 26, Lifer's Row. It's quieter there, know what I'm sayin'? I stopped by your house earlier but no one home except some new fish sleeping on the top bunk— guess you got a new cellie." Skell said he couldn't keep up the scam much longer, so I'm not surprised.

  "All right, Kansas, then I'll see you later." We do the fist tap, Nazi Low Rider knuckle meets Once Nice Jewish Boy knuckle. I'm not that nice boy anymore. Maybe I never was.

  Whatever it is I am, or am becoming in here, I suspect it ain't nothin' nice.

  * * *

  C.O. Fallon calls me over to hand me an "unauthorized mail" notification from the prison. My magazine has been confiscated due to "the depiction of weaponry and gang violence" in one of the articles. The magazine is Newsweek.

  Tonight the prison movie is another showing of a soft-porn "western." I've only seen it three times now. It has at least twelve murders, three rapes, one sodomy (by a dwarf), torture by branding iron, and a great deal of gratuitous mutilation.

  Pretty good movie— I give it three stars.

  My new cellie is asleep on the top bunk, his face pressed against the graffiti-covered wall (FUCK THE POLICE and other forms of misplaced hostility). His shaved head is visible. On the right side of his neck is a beautifully scripted tattoo— "Mandy." The little skinhead seems too young to be a Barry Manilow fan, so I know when he wakes up and tells me his life story (the youngsters here always do that), Mandy will play a starring role in his particular psychodrama.

  He's going to tell me Mandy's his "fiancée"— prison translation: He da
ted her one time and got lucky before she threw up. She's waiting faithfully (by the phone, of course) for him to complete his bid so they can get married and ascend to Trailer-Trash Heaven together.

  After she gets out of drug rehab.

  My less than charitable musings are interrupted by Mr. Mandy's sneezing fit. He rolls over to face me. Young, maybe eighteen, with handsome features in a smooth face trying desperately to sprout a badass prison goatee.

  "What's up, dawg?" He smiles, extending a fist. He still has his teeth, suggesting the crank has yet to catch up with him.

  "I'm Jimmy— pleased to meet you."

  "Shawn, but all my road dogs call me Spoony. You're the O.G., right? I heard about you in the Fish Tank— making a killer slock out of a newspaper! That's the shit, dawg!"