Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (2 page)

"Not really," I said, ignoring his sarcasm.

"What did you rob?"

"A Photo Mat," I answered, almost sheepishly.

He was silent.

It started out as a joke. I hadn't actually intended to rob the place.

"It was with a toy gun," I added.

He still didn't say anything.

He just sat there looking at me.

My lawyer said it didn't matter that the gun wasn't real. As long as the girl inside the photo booth thought it was real, it was considered armed robbery. I was hoping it'd make a difference here, so that I wouldn't be sent inside.

"So," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Ever suck a dick?"

"Fuck, no," I said.

"Well, you will."

"No, I won't."

He was silent again, for a long moment. The hum of the electric clock seemed to overpower the noise from the crowded cellblock just beyond the door. Seven Block was quarantined, where they assigned the fish-new inmates. We were kept locked down until we were classified and shipped to whatever prison we were to serve our time. The psychologist was the last step before we met with the Classification Committee.

"You're going to M-R until your case is adjudicated," he announced.

I had heard about M-R, The Michigan Reformatory, while I was in the county jail. It's where they sent young inmates who were serving a lot of time. Someone once told me, "Whatever you do, don't let them send you to M-R." Inmates called it Gladiator School. "Where motherfuckers fight each other off with broomstick handles and garbage can lids."

"A pretty boy like you," the psychologist added, "you'll need to get a man."

"Fuck that!" I said, my eyes darted to the floor. I could feel my face burning.

"If you don't get a man, you'll be open game."

"They'll have to kill me first," I said, sitting up in my chair.

"That can be arranged," he said, calmly.

He was enjoying the volley.

I didn't know what to say next, or how he'd respond to it. I studied the books that were sloppily arranged on the shelf above his desk. I was afraid to let my eyes look at him, fearing what they might reveal.

"Your life means nothing to one of these cons who's serving a life sentence. You'll suck dick, or you'll get your throat slit. And then they'll fuck you."

Now I was getting scared, and angry. This prick was having too much fun with me, and I didn't know what to do, but mostly I was scared. I couldn't believe they'd send me to M-R. I was definitely not a dangerous guy. Up until a few weeks ago, I was still living with my parents and reading comic books.

"Fuck you," I screamed. "They'll just have to kill me, You Motherfucker!"

"OK," he said calmly. He got up and walked to the door. "You can have a seat in the bullpen." He tossed my file into a metal basket and opened the door.

"Williams," he called out, reading from the clipboard on the wall. "1-53-2-9-7."

A black inmate got up from the floor of the crowded bullpen and crossed the hall. The psychologist shut the door to begin his next evaluation, and I sat in the space that Williams had just cleared, struggling not to let anything show in my face. I'd learn later, he wrote in my file that I was violent and dangerous and recommended I be sent to M-R.

"Yo! White boy," a black inmate with cornrows said. "What'd he say?"

"He said I'm going to M-R," I shrugged, pretending it didn't bother me.

"Damn, Homey! You're too motherfuckin' pretty to be going to no MR."

"Broomstick handles and garbage can lids," another blurted. "You're goin' to Gladiator School."

"Nah," Cornrows said. "How old are you, Blood?"

"Seventeen," I replied.

"Nah." He said, shaking his head confidently. "They'll send you to Riverside. There's no way they'll send some pretty white boy like you to M-R. No way."

1

Camp Dearborn

Color of Eyes: Blue Color of Hair: Red now, is Blond (8 weeks) Complexion: Peaches and Cream

Remarks: A darling baby boy who smiles and talks to his mommy like crazy. A sweet little bundle of joy. Timmy, at 8 weeks, you are Mommy's precious doll. I hope you will always make me as happy and lovable as you due [sic] right now.

First said `Daddy': 10 Mos. Da Da First said `Momma': 11 Mos.

Other First Words: See, Hurt First put together words: I don't want to

SOURCE: Mom's entries in my Baby Book.

As a boy, I spent my summers at Camp Dearborn. It was located in Milford, Michigan, about thirty-five miles northwest of Detroit. The camp was owned by the City of Dearborn and reserved for the use by its residents.

Dearborn was the birthplace of Henry Ford and home to The Ford Motor Company, where my Dad worked as a painter. During the week Dad stayed at home, while my Mom, older brother and sister and I were out at camp.

On 625 acres of rolling hills, trees and man-made beaches, the campsites offered electric hook-up for tents, pop-up campers and trailers like my Dad's recently painted Air Stream. There were six manmade lakes, paddle and rowboats, a large swimming pool, and playground equipment in the shape of giant rocket ships. I remember climbing up through the four levels of the spacecraft where I could navigate to far off galaxies with a large metal steering wheel. I wanted to be the astronaut who landed the first mission on the moon. Two chambers below was the emergency evacuation slide for when Mom called me to dinner or when Dad had arrived for the weekend. From the top of the ship, I could see our trailer at the foot of the hill. It looked like a giant blue marshmallow, ready for roasting on one of the many campfires that were held at night.

After dinner, I went up the hill with Mom to the shower house where she washed dishes in one of the deep outdoor sinks. It was where the real toilets were, like the kind we had at home. I hated the brown stinky outhouses that were located throughout the park. I was scared of bugs, especially spiders, and I was afraid of falling into the hole. The real toilets flushed and they didn't have all the creepy crawlers.

In the kitchen of our trailer, next to the fridge, Mom had taped all my ribbons to the Friday night talent shows. Mom loved showing them off. I had a ukulele with four strings, and I sang like Elvis Presley and the Beatles and everyone in the camp knew me.

"Hey! There's our little Beatle," someone said, as I walked with Dad down by the paddleboats. I wasn't even in school yet and I was already famous. Dad patted me on the head and rustled my blond hair. My sister had Dad's black hair, but I got his blue eyes.

My favorite song was "She Loves You" and to my young ears, I sang it as good as the Beatles. Mom cut my bangs so I looked just like them. And even before I got up on stage, the audience would start to clap and giggle. They loved my song so much that I'd been singing it all summer.

I won the talent show every week, except the last one, when Connie and her girlfriend won. I didn't think it was fair, because they couldn't even finish their song.

Connie and Laurie were two years older than me and had been practicing all week. I wanted to help, but they kept shooing me away. They rehearsed their routine, so they shook their fingers and then rocked their arms like they were cradling a baby. But at show time, they forgot their moves and stopped doing it the way they had practiced. They looked like Connie's Chatty Cathy doll the way Mom made them costumes on her sewing machine, using blue pastel crepe paper and flowers to hide the pins. They wore their bathing suits underneath, because the talent show was right after swim class.

"Miss Polly had a Dolly ... That was Sick Sick Sick," They pointed their fingers and shook them in unison. Connie started to giggle while Laura kept on singing. "Who called up the Doctor to Come Quick, Quick, Quick!" Then Laura began to giggle and they had to start over. They kept starting over and then cracking up and pretty soon they had everyone laughing. The audience loved them. But I still don't think they should give ribbons for giggling. It didn't take any talent to do that.

The next morning, Connie's Chatty Cathy was found floating in the creek.

When my older brother Ricky wasn't away at big kid's camp, Mom made him look after me. Other times, I'd follow him around, even when he didn't know I was doing it. I loved to spy on him. One time, I caught him and cousin Donnie smoking a cigarette. I watched from the base of the Rocket, as they hid on the side of the ugly-brown outhouse.

A moment or two later, when a grown-up lady went inside the outhouse, they got down on the ground and yelled up through the floor boards, "Hey Lady! We're working down here!" The woman inside screamed and the boys ran off laughing.

When Rick discovered that I was following him, he yelled at me to go back to the trailer, but I threatened to tell on them for smoking and he let me come along. We pulled that trick at the outhouse many times that summer. It was always good for a scream.

The canteen was where we ate when Mom didn't feel like cooking. They served hot dogs and hamburgers and the greatest french fries God ever put on earth. They were crinkle cut-the kind with ridges, and were best when you got them while hot. But not too hot or they'd burn the roof of your mouth. The ketchup was in a large plastic jug, but I needed someone to get it because it was up on the counter and too high for me to reach. The ketchup was always warm so I couldn't use it to cool my fries. I would sit and wait, testing with my tongue every few minutes. But that could be dangerous, because the longer it took for them to cool, the greater the risk that one of my cousins would come along and want some. "It's always polite to share," Mom would say. I hated being polite.

Mom didn't like it when the Parsells were out at the camp. I heard her say once that she thought they were a had influence on Dad. Dad had five brothers and sisters, a couple of cousins plus all their kids. He always seemed happier when they were around.

Dad and Uncle Billy were the only ones who lived in Dearborn; so they had to sneak the rest of them in. They didn't have a trailer either, so they slept in tents. With twenty-six cousins, it wasn't easy getting everyone in. Dad and Uncle Billy would remove the Camp Dearborn sticker from the inside windshield of their cars and share it. Or they'd take turns driving in and out-smuggling the rest of our clan into the park.

At night, they stayed up late drinking and sometimes got so loud it was hard to sleep, but then everyone slept in the next morning and that made it easier to stay up again the next night.

Inside our trailer, I slept on the upper bunk, where I'd watch the bugs fly around the light just outside the door. In the mornings, there were always a few trapped inside the globe. I wondered how they got in there, and how stupid they were for not going back out the same way they came in.

Mom didn't like all the drinking, especially around us kids. She had grown up with a mother who drank a lot and she didn't want us growing up the same way. Mom was only fifteen when she ran off to marry my Dad. She told my Grandpa that she was perfectly capable of raising a family of her own, because she already had. Mom was the oldest of four kids, and when her Mom passed out on the sofa by three in the afternoon-Mom had to look after the others.

My grandparents were married on October 29, 1929. Mom said the stock market's crash that day did little to dampen the spirits of her parents' wedding. The O'Rourkes and The Costellos. My grandma, being the Costello, had fourteen brothers and sisters. All of them eventually died of one form of alcoholism or another.

Mom said the O'Rourkes were very different from the Costellos. They didn't mix well at all, mostly because of the drinking. "The Costello reunions were always the same," Mom would say. "They'd start out falling down laughing and they'd end up falling down drunk." Mom, being the oldest, felt responsible and now that she had her own family-the Parsells were continuing the same tradition.

Mom and Dad argued a lot about the Parsells. I heard them screaming once about choosing and they were both very angry. That was when Mom would start breaking things. She'd grab a plate from the counter or a flowerpot from the window and smash it on the floor. It would scare me and I'd start to cry. She promised me she wouldn't do it anymore, but I knew she couldn't help herself when she got mad at Dad.

Morn said I had a strong mind and that all I had to do was force myself to think about something else. I thought about ice cream and candy and birthdays and Christmas. I thought about G.I. Joe and Tigger and 31 Flavors ice cream. And how hard it was to choose with so many flavors.