"Kansas!" I couldn't take it anymore. "Listen, I understand. How can I put this? It's not really necessary for you to ask me if I understand what you're saying every time you say something."
"Whatchu sayin', dawg?"
"I'm saying all this 'y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin' 'stuff is driving me crazy— you can just assume that I understand what you're saying. Tell you what— if I don't understand what you're saying, I'll ask for a clarification, how's that?"
Suddenly, Kansas's blue eyes were a blaze of cold fire. He took one half-step toward me, and my back was instantly pressed against the cell wall. Looming over me was a rock, the neck swastika pulsing violently with an angry vein.
"How 'bout I clarify your sideways-talking mouth into chopped meat, you fish motherfucker! Nobody comes outta the side of their neck at me! Specially not no fuckin' fish! I been down, behind the walls all my life, dawg— did hard time all over this country. I ain't no fish, I ain't no chump, and I sure as fuck ain't no punk! You unnerstan' what I'm sayin'?"
When I was first promoted into management at the phone company, I, along with a group of Future Leaders, was required to attend a four-hour "seminar" titled "Managing the Difficult Employee." Years later, having earned the reputation of Difficult Employee myself, I was sent off (under threat of a "diminished career path") to a three-day "retreat" near Big Sur, California. The theme was "Building Rapport with Key Stakeholders." One of the techniques they shared with us was Mirroring and Echoing. The idea was that by parroting the body language and speech patterns of a habitually hostile "stakeholder," one could instantly achieve rapport.
Looking up at Kansas, a very hostile stakeholder, I opted for the Echoing technique.
"Aiight, dawg, listen… I'm not looking to disrespect you, I know you been down, dawg. I'm not talkin' outta the side of my neck, neither. All I'm sayin' here, bro, is that we need to maybe work on our communication. Know what I'm sayin'?"
Miraculously the vein beneath the swastika stopped throbbing. The psychotic blaze of his eyes subsided to a small campfire. He backed off a full step and I was able to peel myself off the cell wall.
"Aiight, O.G. I know what you're sayin'." Kansas ducked under the edge of my top tray and inserted his mass of tattooed muscle on his bunk. "All I'm sayin' is that you are a fuckin' fish— I'm tryin' to teach you something so you don't get killed in here, y'unnerstan'? You ain't never been down, never done no time. You got no sleeves, no stand-ups, and no cold jacket— y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'?"
"Uh, not completely— what's this business of 'sleeves'? Not to mention the other things you're talking about." Kansas loved nothing better than to be cast in a mentor mode when it came to the art of doing time.
"Sleeves, dawg? Tats! That's what I'm talkin' about. Any of these woods out there takes one look at your bare, skinny-ass arms, he fuckin' knows from jump street that you're a fish, a fuckin' mark, dawg— y'unnerstan'? Any righteous white boy that's been down more than a few days got full sleeves, tattoos from the neck down to the wrist, know what I'm sayin'?"
To illustrate his point, Kansas extended his elaborately webbed arms. Straight out of Bradbury's Illustrated Man. Not a square centimeter of virgin skin. Snakes, skulls, and more swastikas in all shapes and sizes. His colossal chest boasted a single massive canvas: the Grim Reaper slashing down with his scythe at a naked prostrate woman. The woman, with long dark hair and breasts the size of mutant cantaloupes, bore a strong resemblance to the bare-breasted motorcycle girl on Kansas's back.
I wondered, not for the first time, if Kansas had some relationship issues. Decided our rapport had not yet reached a deep enough level for me to pursue my thought.
"What's the initials on your shoulder stand for?" I asked.
"You really are a fish! That's SWP— Supreme White Power." Kansas stroked his shoulder with obvious pride. Sensing I was on safe conversational ground, I then asked about the knuckle tattoos— NLR.
"That's my motorcycle gang, O.G.— Nazi Low Riders." Kansas studied the back of his right hand as if to confirm his statement.
"Motorcycle? I thought low-rider was a kind of car."
Kansas lay back on the steel tray, closed his eyes, sighed. "Yeah, well, O.G. I was drunk when I got that tattoo, y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'?"
"I think I do, dawg."
"Aiight, O.G. I'm gonna bust some z's, y'unnerstan'?"
"You're going to take a nap?"
"Right on, dawg. Tell you what— when we get up outta this fucking Fish Tank, I'll get a tat gun and hook you up with some righteous artwork on your scrawny-ass chest. You might be doin' some serious time, O.G. Don't wanna look like a fish."
I considered explaining to Kansas that most Jews of my generation were allergic to tattoos. And Nazis. Again decided the rapport levels were not yet rich enough.
"Thanks, Kansas, but I'll pass. My mother would kill me if I got a tattoo, and she's in her seventies."
Kansas opened his eyes as I climbed up on my tray.
"I know what you're sayin', O.G. I just wish my mom had killed me when I was born."
A moment later Kansas was snoring, oblivious to the unending din outside the cell: shouts, screams, laughter, even the occasional muffled sob from behind some cell door.
Of this strange beginning, my friendship with Kansas was born.
* * *
I am happy to report that (so far— knock on wood) I am surviving the Fish Tank with my rectal chastity intact. The promised "par-tay in the butt" (with everybody coming) hasn't materialized.
My cellmate, Kansas ("cellie," he explained, is the proper prison term for a roommate), says I'm too mature to be a prime target for unsolicited affections. Actually, what Kansas said was, "O.G., ain't nobody looking to fuck an old fart like you, especially when we got lots of tight-ass young fish in here— y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin' to you?"
It also appears that I am stuck with the nickname O.G.— "original gangsta"— that the Bone semifacetiously awarded me back in county jail. Kansas and his trailer-trash dawgs have adopted it, so I guess I better get down with it.
Besides, it beats being called "bitch."
Y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'?
* * *
During the thirty-day intake processing phase, new fish are locked down twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I had always had the idea (based on books and movies) that prisoners were legally entitled to a limited amount of fresh air and exercise. Nevada prisons neatly circumvent any such requirement by a "classification system."
Once an inmate is assigned to general population and given a job (usually in the kitchen or laundry), he gains some freedom of movement throughout the yard. He is "classified."
Fish are unclassified. Nonpersons.
Kansas explained it this way. "We got nothin' comin'. Punk-ass cops think they're running a fucking supermax lockdown in the Fish Tank. It's outta line. No books, no canteen, no weight pile, no yard time, gotta eat in your fucking cell— it's scandalous! They try to pull this lockdown shit in Kansas and the shit would've jumped off big-time, unnerstan' what I'm sayin'? This fucking bullshit is outta line! In Kansas we'd of jacked up a few cops. We…"
And on and on. Know what I'm sayin'?
We are let out of our cells for ten minutes every other evening after chow. During this so-called "tier time," we can take a shower or line up to use one of the three phones on the lower tier.
Bubblecop pushes some buttons every ten minutes to crack open only three cell doors at a time. In case a fight breaks out or the Shit Jumps Off (a riot), Bubblecop will only have to shoot six fish.
The ten-minute limit imposed a tough choice. With Fish Tank temperatures rarely dropping below 100 degrees, we all wanted to take a cool shower. Of course, every fish also desperately longed to use the phone. No way to do both in ten minutes. Eight minutes actually— subtract two minutes for travel time to and from the showers and phones.
Even though I was a graduate of the phone company's Time Management, Prioritization,
and Multitasking training (with a framed certificate on my cubicle partition wall), it was Kansas who solved the equation. Kansas, who has managed more prison years than I have managed multitasking minutes.
"Here's whatchu do, O.G. Same as me. You shower using the sink. Use the state soap and towel, dab a little with the toilet paper, and you are good to go. The second that punk-ass Bubblecop cracks open the crib, you fucking fly down the stairs and grab the phone. If some con tries to chump you off, pressures you, sweats you, you fuckin' stick 'im! Stick 'im right through the fucking throat!"
I peered down from my tray to see Kansas busily sharpening the handle of his state toothbrush by scraping it back and forth across the rough surface of the concrete floor. A plastic prison shank was under construction.
Don't leave your cell without one.
Kansas glanced up at me and grinned. "A Bic pen works better, but until Skell brings me one I gotta work with the materials at hand, know what I'm sayin'?"
"Kansas, that seems a little extreme, don't you think? Stabbing a guy over a phone call?"
Kansas paused in his labors to admire the now lethally pointed end of the toothbrush. "It ain't about the phone call, O.G. It's about Respect." "Respect" is one of Kansas's favorite words and he always pronounces it as if it were capitalized— like "God."
"Well, I think I'll try it without the toothbrush," I said.
"Aiight, O.G. Do whatchu gotta do, dawg— do it your fucking fish way. Maybe you'll get to talk to your kids or your mom in about ten years."
The instant the cell door popped open, I was moving like a cat (think of speed, not the grace) down the upper-tier catwalk, the steel guardrail on my left. Behind me I could hear the rapid footsteps of other fish on the same mission.
"NO RUNNING!" Bubblecop screamed, pointing the muzzle of a rifle through the opening in the glass. I slowed down, took the stairs two at a time, and had my hand on the phone receiver when behind me another hand reached out and closed like a steel band on my neck.
The hand was huge, black, and squeezing hard.
I turned to confront the stuff of every white boy's prison nightmare: Big Black Bubba, except this monster looked more like Jabba the Hut from one of the Star Wars movies.
"The phone be mines!" Jabba said, increasing the pressure on my neck. A sharpened toothbrush would have availed me doodley-squat against this black giant. I would have needed a small hydrogen bomb. Maybe two.
Even taller than Kansas but fat. Fat beyond all reason. Fat beyond belief.
Seven feet tall, at least a quarter ton of flab and bad attitude wearing filthy gray boxer shorts the size of a circus tent. An incongruously tiny cornrow head formed the apex of this mammoth.
It was as if God, in a playful mood, had taken a giant spatula and slapped the behemoth's body together, piling one layer of jiggling lard on top of another. For six days. On the seventh He either rested or just ran out of enough clay to shape a full-size head.
The grip on my neck didn't relax until I released the phone. The lips on the tiny head moved.
"I's just fittin' to call my bitch— why don't you just get on line there behind the Bone. Wait yo turn befo' I bust yo dome."
T-Bone, wearing nothing but boxers and his shower cap, glanced up at Bubblecop, who was conveniently on the phone, the rifle resting across his lap. The Bone voiced his disapproval at the state of prison phone etiquette.
"Yo, Big Hungry— Hunger! That ain't right. Cain't a muthafucka make hisself a phone call without y'all acting up and shit? Mighty Whitey look down here, he fittin' to trip and shoot all our asses."
The abomination known as Big Hungry ignored the Bone, started punching in the numbers for the collect call to his bitch. T-Bone tried to console me. "Go haid, O.G. Yo be befo' me. Cain't no muthafucka reason with the Hunger when he fittin' to talk to his bitch."
The Hunger never did connect with his bitch that night. A mighty white hand reached out and pressed down on the switch hook. Tattooed in blue on the backs of the three fingers were the initials "N," "L," and "R."
"Yo, Big Hungry— what's up? There a problem here?" Kansas was as casual and friendly as a life insurance salesman at a high school reunion.
Big Hungry's mouth dropped open, dazzling us with two gold front teeth. A moment later the phone dropped from his bear claw and dangled on its steel cable.
"Whassup, Kansas!" cried the Hunger, suddenly the soul of congeniality. "I thought you was out on pa-role!"
"Was out seven months, Hunger— caught a fucking P.V. You ain't sweating my dawg, are you?"
Hunger tilted his tiny head back and laughed so hard his cornrows vibrated along with the rest of his gelatinous bulk. "She-it, Kansas! Pa-role violation— that's some fucked-up shit! Nah, ain't nobody sweatin' your boy. I was just fittin' to take a shower." The Hunger lumbered off like a tame black bear. Kansas slid the toothbrush shank back under the elastic band of his underwear and climbed up the stairs to our cell.
With three minutes remaining before lockdown, I was able to reach my mother in Florida, who promised to call my girls and give them my address so they could write.
In answer to a mother's worried questions, I quickly assured her that my health was fine and I had plenty to eat. Right before Bubblecop screamed "Lock it down," my mother promised to send me a subscription to the Sunday New York Times so I could stay more or less current with the outside world.
"Thanks, Mom. I love you."
"I love you, Jimmy. Please take care of yourself in there."
Click.
My mother had a lifelong affection for the New York Times. As her life grew longer, she became more and more interested in the obituary section. She would drink her coffee at the kitchen table, reading the entries with intense fascination, then glance up to share the news with me.
"Jimmy, remember Hymie Goldblatt— had that little appetizer store on Flatbush Avenue?"
I was happy to play straight man for my mom. "Yeah, Mom, what about him?"
"Dead! Massive heart attack."
"Sorry to hear that— he always gave me fresh chopped liver."
A few minutes later, "Jimmy— remember Lenny Lipschitz?"
"I think so. Didn't he teach that SAT preparation course?"
"That's the one."
"What about him?"
"Dead! Massive stroke."
And Mom would peek slyly up at me from the paper, both of us smiling at our shared morbid sense of humor.
Bubblecop was still screaming "Lock it the fuck down" when I pulled the cell door shut behind me and climbed up on my cookie tray.
Kansas was raving and ranting from the bottom bunk.
"Ya see, O.G., even when we was trying to show the niggers some respect, started calling them 'toads' instead of 'niggers,' they still act like fuckin' animals. Fuck, dawg! In the Kansas pen a big fat black motherfucker like the Hunger would have been shanked from the jump, y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'? No stand-up con going to put up with his shit. Next time, dawg, you gotta stand up for yourself, you gotta…"
I lay back and closed my eyes, trying to tune Kansas out. Through the cinder block wall I could hear someone in the cell next door pounding something hard against the wall. Then some muted sobs.
I missed my mommy.
* * *
Among the highlights of the Fish Tank calendar were the three meals a day. We would be let out of our cells to descend the stairs to the lower tier and pick up the trays that were wheeled in on steel carts by Skell and the porters.
You Got Nothing Coming Page 6
