Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (41 page)

Paul refused to tell me until we got back to our unit. I could tell by looking at him, that he wasn't going to budge. Not knowing was driving me crazy.

"Ever been to New York?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I went to Chicago once."

I was still thinking about the article I read in the prison library about the gay discos. I remembered how the guys in picture didn't seem like queens at all-they looked like Paul and me-though they were older.

"Ever go to a gay bar?" I asked.

"Nah. I wasn't old enough. Shit, I turned eighteen in here. But I'd like to, though. Gays are the only people in the world that have to go out and find their own tribe."

I remembered how I responded to disco music the first time I heard it. And now, how surprised I was to learn that it had originated in gay clubs. I wondered if it was some kind of weird subliminal mating call that drew gay men to New York.

The other two inmates at our table got up and left.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Paul leaned over and said, "I told Moseley you were about to go to The Man."

"You told him I'd snitch!" I nearly shouted, outraged that Paul had put me in jeopardy.

Several inmates looked up from the other tables.

"Why did you do that?" I demanded.

"Because he ain't gonna do nothin', that's why. He's leaving in a few weeks, and he's not about to do anything that will get his Correction Center pulled."

"So you made me out to be a snitch?"

"No, I didn't make you out to be a snitch. You didn't snitch on anybody. I just told him that you were about to."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"Nope. Listen Tim, around here. It's not what you do. It's what these motherfucker's think you're going to do. Perception is 99 percent of the law. It's not how you act, it's how they think you're going to act. How you carry yourself is 99 percent of reality."

I stared at him, not knowing what to think. "What about his friends?"

"Well, I'm gonna teach you how to play on these motherfuckers," he said.

"Play them?"

"Play on them," he corrected.

"Play on them for what?"

"You have to learn how to work these motherfuckers. Turn the shit around on their ass. It's the only way to survive in here. Especially if you're a young, pretty motherfucker like you or me."

Paul paused for a second and stared at me.

It was a lot to take in at once, and it was pretty shocking for me to see someone my own age who was as wise as Paul was. I also felt encouraged. He not only knew how to work the system, but he knew he was gay and was open about it.

"Listen, I didn't make up this game. These motherfucker's did, and so I'm just a player in it and I don't have a choice. Not if I don't want to keep getting pounded like a piece of meat. It's play or be played, so fuck 'em baby boy, you play on these motherfuckers to get some control."

He took a bite of his macaroni and cheese and smiled at me.

"Listen, I can sit around all day long feeling sorry for myself. Pissin' and moaning about how unfair it all is-but it ain't gonna change a fuckin' thing. After chow, I'm still sitting up in this motherfucker and in this situation. But hey! We're not talking about a bunch of PhDs around here either. Fuck, half these guys can't even read. I know I'm smarter than they are-so how do I turn it around on their silly ass?"

I knew he was right, but I still didn't know how to play them. For Paul, it seemed deeper than just defending himself-it was as if his whole identity was at stake. Or perhaps it was his dignity. If Paul had nothing else, he had his self-respect. He was proud of who he was, and that was worth learning how to play the game.

It was consistent with what Black Diamond had said, about having to learn how to work it if I didn't want have keep happening what's been happening.

Paul was right. I hated being the one getting fucked all the time. Plus, I wanted to know how he learned to accept himself.

Paul's hair was straight and long, and he kept it pulled back into a ponytail. His cheekbones were high, and his chin dimpled. He had both a feminine and masculine edge.

I was different from him. I wasn't proud of who I was, and I still felt responsible for all that happened to me. My secret fantasies had drawn me to prison in the first place-but I was too young and dumb to see the reality that laid ahead. Shame and guilt continued to haunt one.

Up until then, sex had remained an unpleasant obligation. I did it because I had to in order to survive. Yet some parts of me, liked it, which only added to my seventeen-year-old confusion. I could never say out loud that I enjoyed any of it. Some parts of it I liked, but I never thought I would be able to admit it to anyone. Paul on the other hand seemed to adapt easily to prison life. Confident. Self-assured. He knew who he was and what he was doing. He was in control.

When it came to being fucked, I still hated it, even with Paul, though I only did it once with Paul-to please him. With Slide Step, I rolled my hips, because it eased the pain, and gave me something else to think about other than his battering-ram dick. It was always painful, especially when he first entered me, but Slide Step went slowly and the pain eventually eased. He enjoyed it, and I wanted to please him because of the attention lie showed me afterward. Paul didn't like it when I rolled my hips. He preferred it if I just lay there. It was more difficult for me without the rolling notion, and it forced me to be present with the uncomfortable pressure.

"Relax," Paul kept saying.

"I am," I said, with hardly enough air inside of me to speak.

Paul stopped, and for a brief second could sense his frustration. He kissed me on the neck and ran his nose through the curls of my hair. It mixed with my sweat and tickled my ear. But it was no use. I was still too tense and shifted under his weight. I had no meat on my bones so my hip cut through the blanket and felt pinched on the concrete floor. It also gave me flashbacks of Moseley and Nate, Loud Mouth, and Red.

"Shh," Paul whispered, "and just relax." I felt him twitch inside me. "Shh," he repeated, and for a moment the ache almost went away.

I didn't want to get fucked, but I felt I had to please Paul. And besides, I looked forward to his blowjobs. Paul delighted in giving them to me, and I enjoyed receiving them. All in all, it was a fair trade. Or at least the fairest of those I had received to date.

To get through sex with Rock, I would pretend he was someone else, but that only worked a few times. I'd slip free of my body, allowing my consciousness to drift someplace else. Anyplace but in the present moment. But Paul made me want to stay present. Unlike all the others, he doted on me, which made me want to be with him. He was interested in me, and he worked hard to please me. For the first time, someone was pleasing me, and I wanted to feel it.

Paul said I was the only person he had ever been able to cum with-I don't know why that was, but he said coming had never before been that important. He never asked to fuck me again, and when I offered, he said that was OK. It made me feel guilty, knowing how much he liked it, but it never stopped me from accepting his continued blowjobs.

My favorite time with Paul was usually after sex-when we cuddled on the floor, under his bed and talked.

Paul's parents were abusive. We compared notes, and the stories of his childhood made me feel grateful I grew up in the house I did.

"I started running away from home when I was seven years old," he said. His eyes stared off into nowhere as he spoke. It took him some time to confide in me, but he eventually shared that his older brother had been abusing him-sexually.

"I was sent to Star Commonwealth for Boys at ten years old, and BTSBoys Training School when I was twelve." He said it like he was proud of it, almost sitting up taller with each graduation to the next level of incarceration. "I came to the joint at seventeen." But then he started to shrink again. "My mom was violent and beat me, and my dad was hardly ever home. Out drinkin' somewhere or getting laid by some whore. When he did come home, he was always drunk, and then he'd get verbally abusive." "Like how?"

He shrugged.

"How?" I repeated, wondering how his father compared to mine.

"I could take his punches," he said, softly. "But when he called me a queer, his little cocksucker-it was like he'd punched my lights out without having to lift a finger."

I wanted to ask him how he knew Paul was gay, since he didn't act like it. But I could tell it would have been useless to probe. Paul kept that part of himself at arm's length.

Instead, Paul shook it off and slid his face down my stomach-the sharp bristles of his stubble scrapping my skin.

"It's why we have to go out and create our own families," Paul said.

He was lying on my chest again, and I stroked his back and caressed his long wet hair. The smell of spent sex hung heavy in the air, trapped under the bed by the blankets used to conceal us.

The springs of his bed above were familiar to me now. The squiggly curves reminded me of the lines my mother used to make on the side of the cakes she baked. When I was a young boy, I remembered she'd let me lick the spoons and the mixers, until my belly ached from too much sugar. She was so good in the kitchen that my aunts used to tell her she should open a bakery. Mom made the cakes, and my Aunt Patsy was known for her pies.

"Do you think you'd ever like to have kids," I asked.

"No way," he said.

"Why not?"

"I'm not into pussy for one," he said.

"Ever have it?"

"Yeah, but the girl I had it with wasn't the best example," Paul said. "And besides, I wouldn't want to bring a kid into this world, no-how."

"Why not?"

"Who'd want to bring a kid into this rotten world?" He kissed my belly. "Anyway, I've already got my baby."

I smiled, and stared back up at the springs.

"I'd like to have a kid," I said, "and I think I'd like to learn how to bake."

29

The Oracle

I was amazed that one word could be worth so many points.

"Mongrels?" Sharon said. "What the hell are mongrels?"

"I don't know. I read it in the newspaper." Mayor Hubbard told some New York paper he didn't think whites should have to live with blacks because it would lead to mongrels. "Whatever they are, it's worth 117 points."

"It is not, "Sharon said. But it was, because the word spanned two red premium squares, which meant you tripled the score, and then tripled it again, plus I had a double letter count on "G". (13 x 3 x 3 = 117).

"And," I said, now nearly gloating, "Iget 50 bonus points for using seven letters in a single play!"

I loved Scrabble!

"Go to bed," Sharon said. "It's past your bedtime, anyway." But that was only after she challenged my word and forfeited a turn.

"It doesn't say I have know what it means. It just has to be a word."

"Well, just get your ass in bed," she said.

It took a long time to fall asleep that night because I couldn't stop smiling. I learned a valuable lesson-that even if I didn't know what something meant-it paid to study the rules of the game.