You Got Nothing Coming: Notes From a Prison Fish

by Jimmy A. Lerner

  * * *

  Skell's doing his supply room inventory when I come in for my "hookup." A shipment of crack— "toad food," Skell calls it— arrived this morning, and Skell is doing a brisk Brillo business. Homemade crack pipes of Vantage cola cans require a metal screen, and Brillo does the job nicely. I wonder how Brillo is listed on the NASDAQ.

  He says, "Whatchu need, O.G.?" but Skell's already reaching behind his mattress palace to display a lethal assortment of shanks, pieces of pipe, and trazors. He arrays them like a jewelry salesman on his display case— a cardboard box of SpringFresh toothpaste. Dopey, the inbred dwarf, is playing lookout for the Dirt. C.O. Fallon, who usually takes care of lookout duties, is fast asleep in his pod.

  Skell launches into a well-practiced sales pitch, extolling the relative benefits and features of the weaponry.

  "…then ya got your basic shank here, double-edged blade, good for all-round self-defense, conceals perfect under your shirt… course, your Christmas tree, top-of-the-line…"

  Skell pulls out a length of hollow pipe that has been flattened and sharpened like a spear. "Good for your Zulu uprising, dawg, know what I'm sayin'?" Another piece of pipe bristles with razor blades. "Dat one's five full decks, dawg."

  And on and on as I fade away, fall almost two decades back to the jewelry salesman at Zale's in San Francisco. Diamond engagement rings on an immaculate glass display case. Glittering with the promise of Forever, like long-term debt hidden in the footnotes of the annual report. The salesman explaining the four Cs of diamond purchasing to me. I can only remember one.

  "…cuts clean, dawg, and when the punk pulls the fucking Christmas tree out, he gets a stocking stuffer full of guts in his lap! You down wid dat, O.G.?"

  No sale. "Do you have anything in, say, a nine-millimeter— basic black?" Skell considers this customer request with such gravity that he is compelled to scratch his scabbed head, producing a bloody topograph of the Iberian Peninsula. (I can't be sure. I had high school geography in the sixties— I wasn't there. But watching Iberia taking shape on Skell's skull, my stressed-out synapses summon forth a fragment of a biology lecture from Mr. Horn, my ninth-grade teacher: "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.")

  "Just kidding, Skell," I tell him. "Listen, forget all this stuff. What kind of sandwiches you have today?"

  Skell snaps out of his nine-millimeter reverie and pulls a giant Styrofoam cooler from behind a stack of Saint Mary's Hospice blankets. "Whatchu need, O.G.? Got ham and cheese— real ham, none a dat sand toad substitute."

  "What else you got?"

  Skell pokes through the cooler. "How 'bout pastrami, dawg? Got mustard too." His broken bloody fingernails are clawing through the ice.

  "On rye?" One can always hope.

  "What the fuck you think this is— fucking Nathan's hot dogs? We got Wonder bread." My father once said that Wonder bread was "manna for the goyim," but it beats getting shanked in the chow hall by Two-Tears.

  "Sold, Skell." The ritual tapping of fists and knuckles.

  "Six stamps," says Skell.

  "Only if I get to make the sandwich."

  "I'm down wid dat, dawg."

  * * *

  My dad took me and my brother, Mikey, to Nathan's in Coney Island— the "original" Nathan's. I am six years old and Daddy says Nathan's has the best hot dogs and fries in the world. If I'm a good boy, I can get a candy apple too. Maybe even a cotton candy. Mikey got a cotton candy last year— he told me.

  And Mikey might take me up on the rollacoaster 'cause I'm big now. If I'm good. If I'm a good boy.

  We scream on the rollacoaster, the cyclome, Mikey's breath warm and sweet with cotton candy on my face, an endless New York summer soft and sweet with promise. When magic soared and danced and delighted me. Not yet dimmed, not yet denied.

  Later I get sick. No one sees me throw the candy apple at the feet of the Fat Lady, who once sang to me, the apple still red and rich with promise.

  In my concrete cell I bite into the pastrami on white. My dad was a physician, one of the last of a dying breed of general practitioners who made house calls, day or night.

  My dad had an emergency house call on that Sunday we were supposed to go to Nathan's in Coney Island. Daddy never did take us to Coney Island that summer, but I remember it anyway— the crunchy sound the french fries made in my mouth and Mikey screaming in delight on the Cyclone.

  Sometimes my mind can no longer tell the difference between things that happened and things I just wanted to happen.

  My dad died while I was locked up in the county jail— Suicide Watch Cell No. 3. If there is anyone on this troubled earth that loved him more than me, I haven't met him yet.

  I miss my dad.

  I miss Mikey.

  * * *

  Inventing new pseudo-gang hand signals is one of my favorite pastimes. It began as an innocuous amusement in the semiprivacy of my cell but has now progressed to a full-blown obsessive-compulsive disorder with a unique etiological basis.

  With so many different gangs flashing hand signs on the yard, all of which I find incomprehensible, I have felt driven to develop my own to facilitate my safe passage around the yard. My role model is the sixties rock performer Joe Cocker, who would writhe in contorted agonies while singing. Of particular interest to me were Joe's strenuous spasmodic clenchings of his hands, a spastic display of finger convulsions that I found— well— compelling.

  I walk the yard daily for exercise, counting steps. A dirt-blown rectangle, no curves. The Old Heads say that "a freeman sees a curve— the convict sees an angle." I stride with the demented determination of the born New Yorker, bouncing on my heels, head swiveling to scope out would-be muggers lurking behind parked cars or loitering dangerously in alleyways.

  Whenever I pass the Wood Pile, Kansas and his Mutant Warriors flash me the crossed-finger-on-chest sign for Wood Solidarity. I instantly form an inverted "V" with the fingers of my right hand, gnarl it up Joe Cocker style, and thump it against my chest.

  "Right on!" the dawgs yell, and this pleases me.

  There is a new dawg today, a youngster. I notice two enormous ears jutting out from a red-haired jug of a head. Teacup is now a proud member of the Dawg Pound, courtesy of Kansas, who had his back in the Fish Tank.

  Thanks to Kansas's recommendation (unsolicited) and good word-of-mouth, I am now doing a brisk barter business, reading and writing letters in exchange for civilian clothes, tailors, Gummi Bears, and Hershey's Kisses for Spoony. For two full decks of tailor I'll even write a "love poem" to a dawg's "fiancée." I bundle this service with my legal consultant business, which involves nothing more complex than filling out boilerplate appeal, divorce, and bankruptcy forms.

  I'm not exactly styling during my yard strolls, but there's no state issue on me. I'm wearing new Nikes, blue Dickies jeans, a solid blue T-shirt, and soft paisley socks. Only fish walk around in state issue. It doesn't inspire respect.

  Cassie sashays by in her hot pants. "Nice socks, O.G.!"

  I ignore her. I have no desire to be introduced to her latest "daddy." The Bone has also advised me to never stop and talk to a "he/she" on the yard unless I'm "fittin' to get some stanky on the hang-low."

  Which I ain't.

  "Whassup, O.G.?" A couple of black gangstas that I helped beat their disciplinary write-ups. I favor them with a specially modified Black Power salute from the sixties, because if you live long enough, all old things shall be made as new. My hand signs are now as spontaneous as an outburst of Tourette's.

  I just wish I didn't have to pause every few steps to wipe the dirt off my spectacles. Ruins the image of purposeful menace I am trying to project. Never know when some J-Cat or Two-Tears Tattoo might turn the corner of the yard.

  In my right pants pocket, twenty AA batteries shake, rattle, and roll. In my left pocket rests a large thermal sock. In the event of a surprise greeting from Two-Tears, I'm fittin' to pull an Energizer Bunny out of my slock. Fittin' to bitch-slock the muthafuckin' J-Cat!

>   In short, I'm in role. Kansas says I have gone J-Cat.

  Snake and Scud are coming down the path. "What's up, dawg?" Snake says. Scud just twists his head, thumbs a nostril, and blows his nose. Some of it lands in the dirt. For these old Inferno dawgs I flash the Larry Fine sign, a Three Stooges-inspired gangsta greeting. I place my upraised hand, palm in, under my chin, vigorously wiggling three fingers.

  When Spoony leaves the house to check the contents of the cellblock garbage can— nothing gets thrown away in prison, just endlessly recycled— I practice rapidly assembling my battery slock. I stand, gunslinger style, facing the cell wall, which I imagine supports a full-length mirror. Right hand moves like lightning to the pants pocket, snatching up the AAs, left hand a blur of speed withdrawing the thermal sock. The Energizer cartridges are loaded into the sock cylinder, then secured with a tight slock knot.

  In the imagined mirror I accomplish all this in nanoseconds. I do not dwell on the possibility that a nonvirtual mirror might have reflected a fifteen-minute sequence of fumbling on the cell floor for rolling batteries.

  I face the cinder block mirror, both hands dangling casually but with deadly potential at my sides, slock ready in the right-hand pocket.

  "Yo, punk!" I snarl. "You tawkin' ta me?" I shift my slock hand slightly toward the pocket. Two-Tears Tattoo glares back at me, hesitates. I can smell his fear.

  "Bring it on down, punk! C'mon— whatchu fittin' to do, Frog-Boy? You fittin' to jump, you punk-ass teardrop muthafucka!"

  Two-Tears squints back from the mirror, his hand— too slow— moving for the shank beneath his shirt.

  "Make my day, punk!" I scream at the bare cinder block wall while my energized slock busts out his domelights. Drops him like a bad habit. I study the punk's prostrate body at my feet. My voice is thick with contempt.

  "Next time you're fittin' to bust an omelet, you best be bringing an egg— Home Skillet!" Then I kick in his grill.

  To give credit where it's due, I picked this technique up at a phone company seminar titled "Visualizing Success in the Marketplace." If you think it, you can do it!

  I paid attention.

  * * *

  A cat is a priceless treasure in prison, and my friend Chico, doing Life Without, owns an ancient, half-blind gray tabby he calls Belinda. Chico and Belinda have been doing time together for the last twelve years on Lifer's Row. Chico, a short, dark Chicano, fell twenty years ago behind a gang-banger drive-by that left two dead on the streets of Reno.

  Chico, then nineteen, was the designated driver that day. Since there is no Designated Driver Defense in criminal law, Chico went down just as hard as if he had been the shooter. Never rolled, never ratted out his homie. Homie, less honorable, copped to Murder Two, got a Life With, after testifying Chico was the mastermind behind the hit— was, in fact, the shooter.

  This is Chico's version anyway. I don't care if he's telling me the truth or not as long as he can bring a colorful narrative to the table— y'unnerstan'?

  Homie never got to the "With" part of his sentence. What he got was a visit to his protective custody cell by some of the "La Raza" boys. Homie got a two-foot-long ice pick shoved through his right eye and out the back of his snitch skull. This injury resulted in partial blindness, followed by brain death— in quick succession.

  Doing Life Without, Chico got nothing coming from the judicial system except his cherished Belinda, a legacy from a kinder, gentler era of penology. Belinda, like many of the items in Chico's private cell, is "grandfathered." A decade ago inmates here could receive packages containing books, art supplies, radios, and clothes from relatives or friends. Then the Department of Prisons, possibly in response to the prevailing punitive winds, banned all future care packages, including Book-of-the-Month memberships. Books, boom boxes, and art supplies are brought in the same way the drugs are— illegally.

  Belinda's an anachronism— and she's dying of old age. The store still carries Tender Vittles Gourmet ($2.03) for upscale felines or Purina Cat Chow (18 oz., $1.88) for the Belindas with budgetarily constrained owners like Chico. Johnny Cat pet litter is also available ($1.38) at the store, but Skell provides a generic substitute in exchange for one caramel Twix bar ($.48). It's a good deal for Belinda.

  Since I get store, I handle the candy and cat litter transactions with Skell. In exchange, Chico lets me pet Belinda and use his grandfathered dictionary and other reference books.

  We play chess every Saturday afternoon in Chico's cell, Belinda faithfully attending from the nest of state blankets we have built for her on the upper bunk.

  The score so far in this ongoing chess Olympics: La Raza 3, the Jews 94. The three "losses" I found it prudent to engineer whenever I detected a significant flattening in Chico's learning curve.

  When I worked in the Revenue Forecasting Department, I once produced a statistically solid annual sales forecast for the marketing V.P. My data, bolstered and bursting with "validations of significance," proved disappointing to the professionally sanguine veep. He suggested that my forecast simply did not conform to the "market opportunity," which he viewed as limitless.

  The fact that his boss, our wannabe visionary CEO, had just handed him a very aggressive, "tops-down" sales quota may have considerably broadened the veep's opportunity horizon.

  "I don't like the slope" was his comment after pretending to glance at the supporting data behind the graph.

  I had only worked on this report for twelve straight sixteen-hour days. You might say I was emotionally vested in its acceptance.

  "Then you don't like our sales history," I replied, possibly out of the side of my neck. Even then this sinister sideways malignancy had taken up residence— silently, inexorably metastasizing me off the fast track, out of the Future Leaders inner circle.

  The marketing V.P., universally referred to as the Empty Suit by his legions of resentful underlings, gave me a killer stare that was anything but empty. I didn't recognize the look then, but now I would characterize it as the "you got nothin' comin' in my corporation" look.

  "What's in the history?" Empty Suit demanded. Perhaps I had tainted the data by including actual and accurate sales numbers. I was guilty.

  "There are 120 data points— twelve years of monthly actuals," I told him, already knowing where this was leading.

  "Then that's it!" he cried, smacking a hand down sharply on his desk, which, by its size, could qualify for its own zip code. "The first four years the economy was in a goddamn recession! Did you adjust for that? They were poor performance years."

  "Actually, sir, we were in an inflationary period and I adjusted for that by normalizing the cash flow statements." Empty Suit was unimpressed by my due diligence.

  "Take out years one to four," he commanded. "If it makes you happy, stick a footnote at the bottom. Say the data's nonnormalized for illustrative purposes, or you removed the outer years of the history to, you know, smooth them, or whatever you bean counters call it."

  "Smoothing the outliers?" I asked.

  "Exactly! That's the ticket, son— smooth those goddamn outliers right out of my revenue forecast. Now we're on the same page. Just do it!"

  "Sir, I can run a revised forecast in a couple of days. When do you need this by?" Stupid, stupid question.

  "Yesterday," Empty Suit said. Like he always did.

  In prison my three chess losses to Chico represent my failure to smooth out the outliers. In here, such failures are rewarded with quality petting time with Belinda.

  Breeeoooooow.

  * * *

  Chico's cell walls blaze with color. Every square inch of dirty cinder block is covered with painted canvas portraying birds in flight— eagles, falcons, hawks, all soaring majestically over oceans of infinite blue, purple mountains, or golden beaches bordering lush green jungles.

  The art, like Belinda the cat, is grandfathered. When art supplies, along with cats, books, and music tapes, were declared contraband, Chico mastered the highly lucrative prison art form of pen
cil portraits. Bring Chico paper, pencil, and a photograph of your loved one and he will return a wondrous, slightly idealized portrait to your cell in a week.

  Chico has a backlog of fifteen to twenty customers at all times and a cell overflowing with old grandfathered books. I've seen Chico turn down two hundred dollars to do some tat work on someone's back or chest. He will, however, create a penciled blueprint for your favorite prison tat gun jockey.

  Big Bird is tapping gently on Chico's cell door. We look up from our chess game to the cell door window where a gray-stubbled beard pokes out of a face so black that it seems blue when the sun hits it at a certain angle.

  " 'Scuse me," says Bird, sliding the door open only after Chico nods an okay. In prison you never enter a man's house without permission. Unless you intend him some harm.