You Got Nothing Coming: Notes From a Prison Fish

by Jimmy A. Lerner

  "Please don't take my good time, Mr. Ringer," he croaks through his abused throat. Good time, time off a sentence for "good behavior," is computed at the rate of ten days off for every thirty days served. Narducci, almost six years now into an eight bid, is eligible to hit the front gate in a month.

  Was eligible. The drugs that he doesn't do 'cause he ain't looking to get crossed out just cost him two years of accrued good time. Two years crossed out. He now knows he should have taken my advice to plead guilty. Also shouldn't have dissed the caseworker, throwing the code in his face.

  Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

  "Get the fuck outta my office," says Ringer, already studying the next write-up.

  'Cause Narducci got nothin' comin'!

  * * *

  One of the least stressful jobs on the yard is the grounds maintenance worker's, since there is nothing to maintain. For "security reasons" the prison prefers steel, concrete, and asphalt. Between the asphalt path on the yard and the cellblocks are flattened wastelands of dirt. The maintenance crews rake the dirt every morning. The purpose of raking dirt is to discourage inmates from secreting their shanks and hypodermic needles in dirt crevices on the yard.

  For this reason, as well as a love of proximity, cons keep their shanks and drug paraphernalia in their cells or in their yellow plastic tubs. They are confident of the efficacy of the grapevine, "The Wire," to provide them with ample opportunity to move the contraband in case of a shakedown.

  As a former telecommunications manager, I can confidently state that The Wire is the convict analog to the World Wide Web, ubiquitous, accessible, instantaneous. Who needs packet switching? The Wire is capable of quickly disseminating news ranging from a stabbing in the San Quentin yard to the quality of this week's pruno in the bakery.

  Kansas used his juice card to get a job as a raker. This enables him to keep an eye on all yard commerce, human and otherwise. His raking system consists of slinging four rakes behind him, two over each massive tattooed shoulder, while he plows unevenly across the dirt fields, his Walkman delivering his favorite country music.

  Country music captivates many of the woods here with its suspenseful narratives. Will that cheating, lying slut come back seeking forgiveness from her man? And will he forgive her or just kick her to the curb? Where she got nothin' comin'. Will the righteous dawg's dog die as a consequence of him drunkenly backing his pickup over Old Yella? A tragedy caused by that lyin', cheating be-yatch Sue-Ellen.

  Kansas adjusts his headphones, sweat streaming down over the tattooed mural of his chest. The rakes churn dirt, discouraging any green grass conspiracies. Nothing grows on the yard.

  Except where the Witches kick it. Excuse me, the Wiccans— a recognized (by the Supreme Court and reluctantly by the prison) religion. The warden, a man of transcendent tolerance, has even bequeathed (following a court order) a small, miserable patch of dirt for Wiccan gatherings.

  To cultivate and do with as the Wiccans wilt. The Wiccans never tell you what their religion is all about, other than some vague references to the seasons, nature, the moon, and a goddess. They will tell you what they are not— not devil-worshipers, not sacrificers of babies and children, not casters of bad spells (only good ones), and definitely not Christians.

  "Not that there's anything wrong with that," the Wiccans insist. It is not clear if "that" refers to devil-worshipers, baby-killers, or Christians. How do I describe the members here without sounding disrespectful of a recognized religious group? Picture your prototypical pimpled (from excessive masturbation) white teenage Star Trek aficionado. Now picture him in prison for robbery, rape, murder, whatever. Finally he's usually high on crank. Of course, I am looking at a highly biased statistical sampling of the Wiccan population. I am sure that the free Wiccans are nothing like the creatures in here.

  Things grow in the Wiccan patch of dirt. Brown things. Like desert-baked mesquite, they don't grow so much as spread, cancerlike— stunted, twisted little branches rising in tortured chaos from the Wiccans' sacred soil.

  The Wiccan World is fenced off from the rest of us in a special enclosure at the end of the yard. Wiccan ground zero is a pentacle planted in their sacred patch of dirt— a flat piece of contraband metal inscribed with pentagrams. The pentacle is just the right size for a squalling infant.

  Ever the intrepid observer of human diversity, I secrete myself in a blind spot on the yard— a narrow dirt alley between cellblocks 7 and 8. Metal prongs drag on the dirt behind me. I whirl, startled, to face Kansas, who has also succumbed to a voyeuristic spell. Nothing goes down on this yard without Kansas's full knowledge, if not approval.

  "What are these punk-ass Witches up to now?" he asks, removing the headphones.

  "Shhhh…," I warn him— the Witches are chanting softly now, gathered in a circle around the pentacle. We fasten ourselves deep in the shadows of the walls, straining to make out the words— the Secret Spell of the Wiccans! Their chant is a frightening familiar melody— Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda" something or other.

  The actual words, the Wiccan Coven's Chant, are less than terror-inspiring:

  I am rubber

  You are glue.

  Whatever you say

  Bounces back on you!

  It was not until a week later that Hector, one of the Wiccan "Elders," told me the chant was an ongoing practical joke. Whenever the Wiccans suspected any convicts were bird-dogging their ceremony, they simply substituted this child's rhyme for the real thing. Which he would reveal to me for three cans of Bugler.

  Those crazy Witches! You gotta love 'em!

  * * *

  For a Lawdog, wolf tickets come with the territory. Every morning, making my rounds through the Fish Tank, the Hole, and the Moo, I am besieged by shouts, screams, and threats from behind the steel doors. Stopping to chat with any of these dawgs (unless they are on the authorized list for the day) can get me crossed out.

  "Yo, Lawdog! Lawdog! Give me a rollie!" A black face pressed against the cell window. I roll on down the catwalk, mindful of Bubblecop, who watches my every step.

  "Lawdog… take this over to Snake's house, cellblock 1— you know the Snake!" A white wood face against the glass, a white envelope kicked out from under his door. The pale goateed face is brightened by two blue teardrop tattoos. A very scary-looking dawg, definitely not a fish. I roll on ignoring the envelope and the wood, conscious of the implied disrespect to this dawggie at the window. He screams through the cell door. "Good looking out, dawg! I'll see you on the yard, you punk motherfucker!"

  "Yo, homie— homes! Ju gotta lie?" A brown face framed in the glass, gesturing frantically for me to slide a light under his door. I roll on.

  "Maricón!" he shouts. "La chocha de tu madre es sucia!" I don't recall this phrase from my Spanish lessons at the Defense Language Institute, but I suspect it ain't nothing nice.

  I stop to deliver the most popular legal forms— appeals, divorces, and bankruptcies— sliding them under the doors without kicking it. If it's a book, Bubblecop will crack the cell door open. I place it on the cell floor. Most of the lockdowns sleep sixteen to twenty hours a day and rarely stir off their trays except to eat or take a dookie, some of the J-Cats not even bothering with the latter.

  Two-Tears has been in the Fish Tank for quite a while. I can expect to see him on the yard at any time. So why am I not excited about this?

  Inspired by Kansas's example in the Fish Tank, I exercise every day in my cell. Back in the world I was a weekend racquetball warrior and indifferent golfer. My weight-training program consisted of slinging cases of Costco cabernet, chips, cola, and cigarette cartons into a shopping cart.

  Times change.

  This morning, with an unawed Spoony looking down from his crib, I knocked out fifty push-ups (hands close-in to work the chest), 150 sit-ups, took a five-minute break, then repeated. I filled the four-gallon plastic wastebasket (Skell only charged me a bag of Gummis) with water. Did a few sets of curls, fingers grasping the plastic lip.
<
br />   I'm not going to scare anybody in here, but my soft fish underbelly is gone. Somebody wants to stick me, they're going to have to push that shank— at least a little bit. I conveniently forget my grandfather's wisdom about the hammer striking the egg. Besides, this is about a shank striking a belly, and mixing metaphors could be disempowering for me.

  It's a week later and Two-Tears Tattoo is on the yard, heading toward the Wood Pile. He spots me and is coming on fast, one hand beneath his shirt. I don't think he's grasping for a metaphor.

  "Lawdog!" he yells, crossing one of Kansas's freshly raked dirt lawns. I study the dirt, pretend not to hear him, and simply pick up my pace, ever so slightly. Then I'm back in my cell, steel door locked tight.

  Kansas and a few of the Car dawgs— Sleepy, Dopey, and Grumpy, I think (I can never remember these tattooed skinheads' names)— are on my front porch. I slide the door open.

  Kansas looks down at me. "Yogee, who were you running from in the yard?"

  I look up at him like he is completely J-Cat.

  "I wasn't running from anything, dawg— I was walking briskly, getting my aerobics in."

  "He was running," Sleepy volunteers.

  "The O.G. was fuckin' sprinting across the yard, Kansas." This from Dopey, who really is a dwarf— a toothless, tattooed, inbred homunculus, but built like a small stack of bricks.

  Kansas just grins. "Come on down to my house later— we'll kick it." And Kansas is leading his retinue— extras from the cast of Deliverance— back to the Wood Pile.

  Kansas's house, cell 26, marks the informal beginning of Lifer's Row— a section of ten cells at the end of my wing. I can look out my cell door window and see Kansas's face at the windows during our 6 P.M. stand-up count. Two doors down from Kansas, in cell 24, is the local prostitute's house. He/she— her name is Cheekie— always has a line of customers on her front porch. The customers, woods and skinheads, have their wallets ready— full decks of tailors, little plastic packets with white powder, long strips of dollar stamps. Between Cheekie and Kansas are the Bone and his cellie, Big Bird, in cell 25.

  Cheekie, a young, slender blond, has her own door monitor, a former pimp and current vassal in the Kingdom of Kansas, called Big Tiny. Tiny, as you would expect, is the wood facsimile of Big Hungry— huge, fat, and attitudinally challenged.

  You pay at the door. Big Tiny frisks everyone first. No drugs or shanks are allowed in Cheekie's house unless it's Tiny who needs to bring them in for the periodic motivation session with Cheekie. Big Tiny gets to keep a third of the bounty. Kansas is given the rest.

  Cheekie gets the best drugs on the yard and also gets to live to turn another trick tomorrow. Altogether, Kansas considers it a righteous arrangement. Y'unnerstan'?

  Kansas lives in Lifer's Row by choice. Even though he is only doing a four-to-ten bid, he prefers the company of the Old Heads and hard cases. For they are the last, dying vestiges of the True Stand-up, defenders of the Righteous Convict Code.

  Step into Kansas's private cell and you momentarily forget you are in prison. Brightly colored Muslim prayer rugs carpet the concrete floor and camouflage the cinder block walls. A dark blue Saint Mary's Hospice blanket has been transformed into window drapes. A real mattress (maybe not a Sealy Posturepedic, but at least not a vinyl pallet) cushions the lower steel bunk. More Saint Mary's blue, beige, and red blankets and throw pillows complete this cozy nest.

  Kansas is styling!

  He tells me not to worry about Two-Tears. "That punk who's looking to stick you is a piece a shit— used to be a road dog of Snake's. Went J-Cat down in Folsom— thinks he's a fucking cowboy now."

  "A cowboy?" I am trying to contour my cheeks to the toilet seat.

  "Yeah, the J-Cat don't run with nobody. The Car kicked him to the curb. Don't trip behind this piece a shit— the Car got your back, you know that. Better see Skell, though— he'll hook you up with a Christmas tree or something."

  Translation— I'm in deep shit. The Car has my back, but they are not exactly a proactive organization. I do not derive any comfort from knowing the Car will run over Two-Tears after I'm dead.

  Kansas is pulling a letter from his tub. He pretends to read it until he remembers I know he can hardly read.

  "Whatchu think of this bitch, dawg? She loved your ad." Kansas hands me the letter to read to him, and we glide easily into the familiar dance, two old Fish Tank partners. I read the careful, old-fashioned handwriting.

  "Well, O.G.?" Kansas is squirming on his bunk.

  "Good news and bad news, dawg."

  "What? You gonna tell me she's a fat, fuckin' bull dyke or something?" Kansas stands up, expecting the worst, which is his general worldview.

  "No… nothing like that. Actually she sounds like a lovely person. Describes herself as young, well read, and…" I pause, just because I can— it's good for Kansas to sweat a little.

  "And what, O.G.? Don't fuck with me— and what?"

  "She says she's well proportioned."

  "Well portioned? Is that good?"

  "It could be good, depending upon your tastes or how the portions are spread around, if you know what I'm saying."

  "Yeah, I'm down with that. So that's the good news?"

  "Nope. The really good news is she's not an ex-felon or a criminal like Star."

  "Star," Kansas sighs. "That bitch could cram a kilo of coke up her snatch and still shimmy across the Mexican border."

  Kansas sits back down and leans back to savor this romantic image. Which I shatter.

  "Yeah, well, this bitch sounds like she could smuggle a kilo of Bibles in her well-proportioned underwear across the border."

  "Whatchu sayin', O.G.? She like a religious freak or something?" Kansas is on his feet again, alarmed.

  "No, I don't think so. As a matter of fact, Mary— that's her name— sounds like the perfect girl for you. Likes European history and art— and likes working out."

  "So what's up with the Bible shit, O.G.? Or is that just your usual side-a-the-neck shit?"

  "Well… it's just that Mary sort of belongs to a group… like a church… and would like to know, before she will write again, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior. Why don't you let me read some of the other letters?"

  "Christ!" he says, rubbing his smooth dome.

  "Exactly! So how do you want me to answer?"

  Kansas is squirming like a third grader who has just been called to the blackboard to spell out a really tough word— like "chrysanthemum."

  "Fuck, O.G. Whaddya think's a good answer here? I like the 'working out' part and the 'well portioned.' "

  "How about the truth?" I offer. "It's not a trick question."

  Kansas is pouting. I reach deep into my Personnel Development tool bag and come up with a framework for Goal Clarity.

  "Look, what do you really want from this girl— a pen pal, a priestess, or just someone to visit you?"

  Kansas considers a quick lie, always his first instinct, then, surprisingly, tells me the truth. "Let me break it down for you, O.G. You know the state of Kansas got a parole hold on me. The minute I finish this chump-ass bid in Nevada they'll be coming to take me back to finish out my time in the Kansas pen."

  "And?"

  "And then I'm fucked! Unless… unless I had what they call 'roots in the community' here— like a wife, f'rinstance."

  Ah, the sordid, scandalous plot is unveiled at last. Now, at least, my fictional letters to Mary will have some focus.

  "Sounds like you're seeking a long-term relationship."

  "Nah, O.G.— just a marriage."

  "In that case, I recommend an emphatic 'yes' answer to the Jesus question. Hey, it can't be that much of a stretch— I used to hear you saying your prayers at night in the Fish Tank."

  "That ain't the same thing. Prayers is like, personal— y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'?"

  "So what's it going to be? Jesus yes, Satan no?"

  Kansas, who I thought loved the Kansas penitentiary with its snit
chless, J-Cat-free, Stand-up ambience, is hesitating.

  "Aiight, O.G. Do it… and make sure you tell her I can bench-press 440 pounds of Bibles. Ha!"

  "You sure, dawg? 'Yes' to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior? This is a big step, you know."

  "Jesus," Kansas moans. A moment later, "Mary, huh?" Then the epiphany.

  "Yes— tell her yes."

  I start writing, assuring Mary of Kansas's profound love of Jesus and his weight-lifting devotions.

  Poor Mary.

  And Jesus wept.