Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (25 page)

"It could he a good thing that's she pregnant," Slide Step said.

"How so?"

"When you go back to court for sentencing," he said. "The judge might cut you some slack if you tell him you've got a kid on the way."

"Does that make you a grandfather?" I asked.

This time, Slide Step swatted me.

I didn't know what to think. I couldn't imagine being a father. And now especially, what kind of example would I be-a prison punk for a dad. She didn't say what she was going to do. I'd thought for sure, her parents had thrown away my letter before she got a chance to read it.

"You never told me you slept with girls," Slide Step said.

"You never asked," I said. "I told you I'd never slept with a man."

It occurred to me that other than Slide Step, I had no one to confide in. The next closest person was Manley, but he was more like a babysitter, and his loyalty was to Slide Step. So I didn't have anyone I could be open with. Cisco had just been released, and was probably already in search of his gay motorcycle gangbang. No wonder he was called a horny bitch.

I was horny too. It seemed like all I ever thought about was sex. I was seventeen, so if the wind blew slightly, in any direction, my dick got hard. Though it was sex with someone my own age that I was thinking about.

I was constantly ignoring or turning down offers from older convicts that wanted to sneak off somewhere and do something. I wondered how I would feel if I were in a prison with men my own age. Then maybe I wouldn't mind being pimped. It might even be fun, like Silk Daddy said, doing what I like to do and getting paid for it all at the same time. But that was just fantasy stuff that went on inside my head. The only sex I'd had in here was with those I was forced into having it with-and it wouldn't be until I was with someone I liked that I'd know for certain if I was really gay or not. Maybe these homosexual feelings were just a phase I was going through.

When Manley told one about swapping up, having sex with other boys, he referred to it as "bumping pussies." "I don't have a pussy," I told him as I laughed and grabbed my crotch and shook it at him.

"That's OK," he said. "Then you can just rub your big clits together."

I chased him up the hallway, laughing the whole way.

Swapping up with other boys didn't interest me. If I had a type other than someone my own age, it was not a boy or queen. I liked men, masculine men, but other than Scatter Brain, I hadn't seen anyone who aroused me.

Manley said, "I think you'll like Chet's boy, Brett. He's away at court, now, but he's due back any day now. If you like him, ask Slide Step's permission."

"I don't think so," I said.

When Slide Step set me up with Josh, he was able to do so because Josh was white. But since Scatter was black, it was a lot more complicated. Doing something with Scatter would have raised the issue of disrespect to Slide Step, and it potentially could have created an opening for my being knocked off by Scatter.

The men in prison seemed to live by the same rules that pimps did out on the street. If a boy or queen agreed to go along with another man, it was up to the two men to settle it.

Scatter, I'm sure, wasn't interested in knocking off a boy. He didn't have the juice or the power to own one, but he flirted with me every chance he got, which made me blush like a schoolgirl with a crush. I hated that about myself but I couldn't help it. Whenever he tapped his foot, I turned as red as a taillight.

I wrote to Claudia that night and asked her what she had decided to do. Did she tell her parents? Could she get an abortion? Her parents were strict, and I was glad I wasn't there when they found out-maybe the only time I was relieved to be in prison. I didn't know what to do, but felt like I needed to say something. "I'm sorry," I wrote. "I should've used a rubber."

The first time we had sex was in the back of her dad's Ford Pinto. It was at the drive-in movies in Wayne where she worked in the concession stand. We backed the car into the last lane, dropped the seats and lifted the hatch back. Everyone else parked in the back row was doing the same thing, which had nothing to do with watching the movie.

After we necked for a while, I tried to yawn and act like I was tired, but she said, "Uh, uh," and pulled me back down on top of her. I had to go through with it.

I ended up watching jaws thirteen times that month. Each night I would slip under the fence, drive her car from the back of the concession stand and wait for her in the back row to get off work. To keep from getting bored, I memorized every line in the film. "Uh, oh. We're gonna need a bigger boat," I said, when Jaws leapt from the water.

While my crush for Scatter continued, Miss Pepper seemed to develop a thing for me. She began to smile and stare, and for a queen, could get fairly aggressive. "Now don't start dropping your cookies, honey. I'm just admiring your beauty," she said one day in the bathroom.

"Drop my cookies?" It was a weird expression, but Miss Pepper was good at spicing up her conversation with made up words and twisted phrases. "What are cookies?"

"Them pretty little dimples of yours."

"I didn't know I had dimples," I said. I looked at myself in the shower room mirror.

"Well don't be droppin' your face and hiding the cookie jar, little boy. I ain't gonna bite."

"Thanks." I smiled, out of embarrassment, but I didn't want to encourage her. "I have to go," I said.

"Well one of these days, honey, you're gonna have to shit or get off the dime."

"You're mixing your metaphors," I said, remembering my fifth period English class.

"Now don't be talkie' out the side of your neck, honey. You know Miss Thing don't be doin' no orgies."

She made me laugh.

Later that evening, while brushing my teeth before bed, I stared at myself in the mirror again. I wasn't sure what dimples were exactly, but I was pretty sure I didn't have them. My face was looking clearer. Big Cat's facials were working.

Miss Pepper's feminine features and mannerisms didn't do it for me. Since I liked macho men, I could have sworn, I heard my cookies when they hit the floor when Chet's boy, Brett, returned from court. His blond hair, blue eyes, and rugged good looks of a high school varsity team quarterback completely dazzled me.

19

Taken by Surprise

It's not like there was anything in particular I had done wrong, but I just came to associate parent/teacher conferences with punishment and pain. Most kids looked forward to it, because it meant a half=day off from school, but my parents usually came out of the meetings angry and ready to punish me.

It was after one of these conferences that I learned I was being held back agrade. Because of my behavior, they said. I was still with my mom then, but now I was living with Dad and Sharon.

It was Dad's turn to go that day. "Wait in the car," he said to me.

Would I begrounded again? And for how long? Maybe he'd just hit me and leave it at that.

When Dad returned to the car, he didn't say a word to me. I sat there silently, as we made the thirty-minute drive downtown. I didn't want to ask, in the hopes that by the time we got to wherever we were going, he would forget about whatever it was that was said.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"Not really." When we arrived at Hudson's Department Store, he took me inside and up the escalator to the old-fashioned soda fountain, where he ordered us each a Saunder's hot fudge cream puff.

To this day, I have no idea what the teacher said. I never had the courage to ask.

Peterson came by with the mail, but as usual didn't stop. It had been two weeks since I mailed my letter to Claudia. I was leaving for court at the end of the week and prayed that she'd respond before then. I was finally being sentenced for the Photo Mat.

"The guys don't think you're coming back," Slide Step said.

I had taken a plea bargain, so I was expecting to receive two and a half years, matching the time I was serving for the hotel.

"You'll go through Quarantine again," he said. "And then probably to a camp."

"I don't want to go to a camp," I said. "I want to cone back here." Slide Step had been making my time there as comfortable as possible. And other than having to have sex with him, I felt safe and I was enjoying his company. Considering what had happened when I first got here, it was the last place I wanted to be-but there was an emotional pull that was developing because I was getting the attention here that I wasn't getting at home.

He frowned at me with sadness. "I don't think they'll give you a choice. You won't have enough time to serve to come back here."

"I'm coming back," I said, stubbornly.

Slide Step didn't look convinced. "Black and a few of the others asked me if they could have you before you go."

"What does that mean?" I stared at him.

Since I wasn't coming back, they thought Slide Step wouldn't mind if they pulled a gangbang on me before I left. "I told them to go fuck themselves," he said.

"Thanks."

Slide Step seemed as incensed about the situation as I was. I realized how lucky I was to have him as my man. Red would have let them do whatever they wanted.

Slide Step not only protected me, but whatever I wanted, he got it for me. Yet the one thing I thought I had really wanted, I couldn't have.

Brett was young and handsome and, much like the varsity team-he was untouchable and out of my league. Forget it. It was never going to happen. Neither Brett nor Chet seemed open to his being with anyone else, even if it were another boy.

Since having sex was so common in there-I wanted to at least once have sex with someone I might enjoy. Not being able to have him was tearing me apart inside. I couldn't stop looking at him-my eyes devoured every detail about him. Brett seemed flawless. When he smiled, his teeth were perfectly straight. He was built like a gymnast with his lean and muscular body. Most men didn't allow their boys to lift weights, but Chet didn't care, so Brett spent his time on the yard toning his body. The tiny frays on his jeans mimicked his laid-back nature.

My obsession became so obvious that it started to become a joke. Uh oh, looks like Timmy's lost his voice again.

"If you keep that up," Taylor said. "We're gonna start callin' you Scarlet the way you're turning red all the time."

Brett soon became aware of my interest, and I don't think he liked it. He acted as if he didn't care for the sexual stuff that went on there, not even among boys. He avoided being gang raped, by cutting a deal with Chet, but he never hid his contempt for it. He was serving a fifteen to thirty for sales and possession of drugs, so being locked up in solitary for that long wasn't much of an option.

At least Chet had a small dick. Brett was lucky he wasn't with Red.

Most of the time, Brett wouldn't even look at me, at least not when Chet was around. But then that gave me a glimmer of hope!

One afternoon, while I was walking the yard looking for Brett, Josh said without even asking who I was looking for, "He's over in the school house." He pointed to the small white building on the northeast corner of the yard. I walked over and found him standing at the window on the second floor. He smiled and waved.