"What's on, Kansas? You forget to pay the water bill this month?"
"That's a good one, O.G. Very fucking funny. Let's see if you're still cracking sideways when the cops got you all strained up. Yo! Check it out! Here come the motherfucking Dirt!"
"Who the hell is that?"
"That's the Dirt, dawg— Disciplinary Intervention and Response Team, and they ain't nothin' nice."
Marching across the yard is a phalanx of black-clad storm troopers, their visored helmets, shields, and shotguns glistening magnificently in the desert sun. If the shotguns don't kill you first, the glare from their spit-shined jackboots could blind a dawg.
Strange, fragmentary visions flood my mind, their source either tales from my great-grandmother Goldie or that great underground stream of collective racial subconsciousness. Storefront windows in Berlin shattering like crystal in the night. Farther downstream the screams of shtetl mothers and children as the riders approach for pogrom season.
"O.G.! Quit your tripping— more Dirt coming to the Fish Tank!"
Another black phalanx is marching to the Fish Tank gates. Every third cop has a crazed German shepherd straining against a short leash.
I've always been more of a cat person than a dog person, if you understand what I'm saying, so the arrival of these rabid-looking creatures is less than comforting to me.
"Yo, Kansas, where the fuck do they find these guys— and who dresses them? Hermann Göring?"
"Don't be dissin' Göring, dawg. I know everything about that dude and he was one righteous motherfucker. Hell, the Dirt here ain't shit. Buncha C.O. punk-ass wanna-be police, but too fucking dumb to pass the cop exam. They volunteer for this shit so they can dress up like Johnny Fucking Cash and get to carry guns. Motherfucking punks trying to act like they're about somethin'. In Kansas the Dirt there would have already dropped tear gas canisters in the vents and we'd be puking out our oatmeal."
Maybe the Dirt here ain't shit, but Kansas is frantically tearing apart his mattress, tossing all kinds of contraband on the floor.
"Watch my back, O.G."
My old military training kicks in. In 1975 I played lookout for the M.P.s' for some army buddies who were vigorously defending democracy in a brothel of a small (but ungrateful) Central American dictatorship.
I'm at the forward observer position before the cell door window, my glasses fogging from the heat. Kansas is still removing his verboten treasures from deep within the mattress. Downstairs the double doors hiss open, and the Dirt and the dogs pour through into the Fish Tank.
The barbarians have breached the gates, and Kansas is leisurely studying his contraband. He flips open a Hustler magazine. Hustler is banned in prison, considered too raunchy, I guess. Playboy is permitted, though, probably due to the socially redeeming articles.
Kansas places his latest implement of destruction on the cell floor. It is a toothbrush embedded with a razor blade on top. He fashioned it by stomping one of the Bic disposable razors they give out once a week. After liberating the blade he drove his Cadillac over to Bear's house and picked up a Bic disposable lighter. After heating up the end of the toothbrush he inserted the blade into the molten plastic. Kansas says it's called a "trazor."
The trazor is bad enough. What truly disturbs me are the three New York Times-wrapped packages of drugs.
"What the fuck is that! You told me you got rid of them all, that Skell picked them up!"
The dogs are howling now from the lower tier, but Kansas is smiling. "Don't trip, O.G. All the shit is going out the door now."
Using my tennis sneaker as a hockey stick, Kansas swats the trazor, the drugs, and the Hustler out under the cell door, across the front porch, and over the catwalk. Similar items are being launched from every cell on the upper tier.
The Dirt and the Dirtdogs are assembling in front of Strunk's office awaiting a command from their sergeant, a lean, leathery whip of a man with a jarhead crew cut and a face like a clenched fist.
Big Bear is screaming under the cell door at the cops.
"Punk-ass bitch Dirt faggots!"
Kindred sentiments spill out from other cells.
"Jo! Jo, pen-day-ho! Ju ain' shit, maricón muthafuck!" I recognize my yard acquaintance, La Raza Neck Tattoo.
Lil G is selling wolf tickets to the cops: "Yo, punk-ass Dirtboy! Put down yo gun and come on up my crib, muthafucka. We fittin' to have a par-tay. Up your butt!"
The Hunger finishes it— "And all yo punk-ass Dirt friends is coming, muthafucka!"
Sergeant Jarhead barks out a command to the troops— I count about thirty cops— and the German shepherds are released.
The dogs, raging and frothing, explode throughout the rotunda followed by their Dirt masters.
Big Bear begins barking— literally— under his cell door. He is quickly joined by dozens of other cells, and the Fish Tank, never exactly quiet, sounds like a dog pound in hell. Maybe louder.
The German shepherds experience minimal difficulty in sniffing out the drugs. The drugs rain down like convict confetti on their howling heads. Trazors and shanks sail through the air off the upper tier, and Jarhead shouts out "Shields!" Up go the Plexiglas shields. Out from the lower-tier cells fly Bic pen shanks, Bic trazors, pieces of burned tinfoil, steel-wool pads, more Hustlers, and various tattoo gun components.
Kansas is flat on his face, barking and screaming under the door, his face ablaze with a mad ecstasy. This must remind him of the good times in the Kansas pen.
"Yogee, in Kansas the fucking police gas and handcuff you before you can kick your contraband to the curb— y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'? Here the stupid fucks just kill the water pressure so you can't flush your shit down. Ignorant-ass Dirt motherfuckers!
"Come on, O.G.! Bark! Come on, dawg— it gets the fucking dogs really mad."
The Dirt and dogs are climbing the stairs to our tier. Jackboots thud, doggy toenails clatter on the metal steps.
The Dirt are in front of cell 44, three down. I can hear the cell door popping open, handcuffs jangling, walkie-talkies squawking.
"O.G.! Come on— bark now!"
"Are you completely crazy, Kansas? Why do we want to get the dogs mad? They're already rabid. They'll fucking eat us!"
I have just asked another of those "Why" questions that don't compute within Kansas's dome.
" 'Cause… because…"
" 'Cause why?"
" 'Cause that's just… what we do!"
Cell 45 is cracked open, and the guests are unceremoniously hauled out and flung facedown on the catwalk and cuffed behind their backs.
"All right, Kansas. Why didn't you tell me you had such a good reason? Okay, I can't do a dog— I'm not a dog person— but I can do a hellacious cat, dawg." When my daughters were very little, I would amuse them by making cat noises and pretending there were cute little kitties hiding throughout the house. Probably under their beds and in their closets.
Kansas makes enough room on the floor for me to squeeze in beside him in front of the door.
"Aiight, O.G. A cat is cool— just do it."
I'm pressing my mouth against the opening, swallowing air. I'm ready.
"Breeoooooow!"
Kansas is so impressed he is stunned speechless. The trick is to slowly bring air up from the diaphragm, gradually building up pressure, then controlling and sustaining the release. Much easier than sex. It's a small talent of mine but one that enabled me to belch louder and longer than any of my fourth-grade classmates— no small accomplishment in P.S. 92 in Brooklyn.
I let go with another, even louder:
"BREEEEOOOOOOOOOOW!"
There is a sudden, complete stillness throughout the Fish Tank. For one brief shining moment— my personal convict Camelot— silence while the Dirt, the dawgs, and the dogs contemplate the meaning of this startling newcomer to the zoo.
Then more chaos. The German shepherds are so confused and crazed they are snapping at dust motes in the air. Big Bear, no doubt emboldened and empowered by my
innovation, does a cow.
"Mooooo!"
Little G down in cell 11 lets loose with a funky chicken. "Bwuck, bwuck, bwuck, yo punk-ass bitch po-lease fuck!"
Big Hungry seems to think one of the shepherds is female. He hisses at the dog in front of his cell.
"Clarice… Clarissssse… yo little bitch… I be smelling your pussy from in here!" Another case of life imitating art.
The Bone just whines through his door— "Cain't a muthafucka just do his own time in his house?"
The Dirt has had enough. The dogs are out of control. Jarhead screams into his bullhorn:
"ON THE FLOOR IN YOUR CELLS— FACEDOWN AND HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR FUCKING HEADS. NO TALKING!"
Already facedown and in our cell, Kansas and I clasp our hands to our domes. Kansas can't stop giggling over the cat.
"Yo, O.G. One time in Kansas—"
"Will you please shut up about Kansas? They're right outside the door!"
The cell door is yanked violently open and a snarling German shepherd leaps over our prostrate bodies and lands on Kansas's tray. A Dirtcop handcuffs us behind our backs— tight. Way too tight. Kansas, of course, starts protesting in that patented convict whine he likes to use on the police.
"Excuse me, Officer, but could you loosen them cuffs a bit? I got circulation problems and a medical paper that says I got—"
The sergeant steps into the cell.
"You got nothin' coming, convict. That's all you got. Now shut the fuck up before I bust your dome!"
"This is outta line, C.O. These cuffs are—"
The sergeant brings a foot-long steel flashlight down on Kansas's head. Not hard enough to put out his lights but enough to momentarily shut him up. Blood spills down from his forehead and over the Nazi tattoo on his neck.
"Now get out of the fucking cell! Move! Move! Move!"
Standing up unassisted with hands cuffed behind one's back is impossible. Sergeant Jarhead yanks us to our feet by the cuffs, pulls us out to the catwalk, then slams us back down on the ground. All along the upper tier I see dawgs squirming in pain on their bellies, the cuffs cutting into flesh.
The Dirt storm into our house, tearing it up. This is what's known as a shakedown. And it ain't nothing nice. Mattresses, sheets, towels, toilet paper, state soap, and our legal paperwork are dumped on the floor then stepped on. A letter I just received from my daughters is tossed to the ground and shredded beneath the jackboots. A photograph of my girls, Alana and Rachel, taken at Disneyland when they were eleven and ten, is ripped off the wall. The sergeant examines it briefly before tearing it in half and tossing the pieces in the air.
Ten-year-old Rachel, smiling up at Goofy, lands a few inches from my face. I smile at her.
A photo of Kansas's girlfriend, Star— she of the balloon-laden mouth— receives identical treatment from Jarhead. Kansas is trying to struggle to his feet, enraged beyond anything I have yet seen.
"Yo! That's a picture of my wife you're ripping up and stomping on. Howja like it if I step on your bitches?"
The sergeant emerges from our house. His little metal nameplate identifies him as SGT. STANGER. "You got another fucking problem, convict? Facedown on the ground now or I'll throw your ass in the fucking Shoe for ninety days!"
Kansas knows there are no visiting privileges in the Hole. He clenches his teeth and presses his face to the ground. "O.G.— payback's gonna be a motherfucker. Stanger gonna find out the getback from Kansas is a bitch, know what I'm sayin'?"
I'm still looking for my other daughter, Alana, who was grinning up at Mickey in the picture. I hope she is not lost to me forever.
The Dirt, disgusted at finding no contraband inside any of the cells, uncuff us and shove us back inside. We are on our trays, Kansas pressing a wad of toilet paper to his cut, clearly disappointed by the absence of any real mayhem. Still talking about Kansas.
"Yogee, in Kansas the cops pulled this shit, things would have jumped off big-time, know what I'm sayin'? C.O. there knows better than to fuck with a man's pictures. Kansas woods don't take that shit—"
"Kansas, will you shut the fuck up!" I'm drifting somewhere in Disneyland, two small hands holding mine. I don't want to come back. Not to this.
The toilet starts gurgling and the sink gushes out brown water. Kansas mounts the steel throne for his long-delayed dookie, still talking.
"…in the Kansas pen, dawg, we'd of had something for them fucking dogs too. Would of been a few shanked shepherds for dinner, bro. You unnerstan' what I'm sayin' to you?"
I can't find Alana anywhere in the cell.
"Yo, Kansas," I begin. I'm so weary. Soul-sick. "Listen, dawg— we're not in Kansas anymore. You understand what I'm saying?"
* * *
Our house is a shambles. The Dirt took everything that wasn't issued to us by the state. Kansas and I take a painful inventory while the Dirt are gathering up and bagging all the contraband on the catwalk and rotunda floor. Incredibly they find a full set of handcuff keys among the shanks and drugs.
All my store is gone: two writing tablets, envelopes, stamps, Bic pens, a bag of 4 Aces tobacco with rolling papers, one Heritage Stick deodorant ("Musk"), and a can of Pacific Pearl sardines ("lightly smoked in oil").
Most devastating, though, is the loss of my comfort foods. Kansas says it's critical to make an itemized list in order to file a property claim form later on. He hands me a pencil stub and I start recording the missing-in-Dirt-action items: four Almond Joys, three bags of Digby's Jolly Ranchers (one assorted, two "fire"), a bag of Hershey's Kisses, five Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, two beef jerkies ("kipper"), three bags of Cactus Annie's pork rinds ("hot and spicy!"), one bag of licorice (cherry nibs), and seven bags of Sather's Gummi Bears.
I particularly mourn the loss of the Gummi Bears. They always put me in a frolicsome humor.
Also missing are two tattered paperback novels that Lester the Molester let me have for four stamps. The New York Times is gone, but I'm not sweating that— I'll get a new delivery tomorrow.
All of Kansas's stuff (except his Nazi "literature") has also gone the way of dirt. Kansas ain't trippin' because he never bought any of it. Kansas doesn't believe in buying store. He takes other people's store. He insists other inmates just give him things.
Kansas always allocates a portion of his one-hour tier time to terrorize fish into donating a percentage of their store to him. He tells them it is the standard "cell rental" charge and he is the collection agent for the landlord. Or he allows them to purchase a "life insurance" policy from him. When he spots fish who manifest sufficiently brutal tendencies, he explains that by paying "initiation dues" now they will be given top consideration for membership in his skinhead Nazi Low Rider club. And he means it.
What puzzled me at first was that some of the more seasoned cons, the so-called hard cases, were eager to also pay tribute with candy, stamps, and tobacco.
Skell tells me that Kansas is the Shotcaller again now that he's back in prison. He whispers this to me in the fish yard. Tells me to "keep it on the D.L." "What's the D.L., Skell?" Skell glances furtively around, which is the only way Skell ever glances around. "The D.L., dawg, is the down-low. You keep something on the D.L. and it stays with you— you down wid that?" I tell him I'm down with it.
It's the usual morning hour for tier time, and convicts are banging on cell doors to be let out.
You Got Nothing Coming Page 11
