Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (46 page)

"Well, you sneaky little bastards," Sharon said.

For prison inmates, Christmas is the quietest day of the year. It's probably the one day when there weren't as many fights or violence because everyone is in the same frame of mind. Sad. Even the Muslims, who didn't celebrate Christmas, seemed to struggle not to think about being locked away from family and friends.

"Same shit, different day," an inmate said, trying to pretend he wasn't depressed. When the black phone on the wall behind the guard's desk rang, the entire cellblock went quiet. People on the outside don't realize how important a Christmas visit to an inmate truly is.

A Christmas carol, played on a radio, could be heard faintly a few cells away. The staff was kept down to a skeletal crew, so movement throughout the prison was limited. Short-staffed, they did away with lunch, so breakfast came late, and dinner was served early. Dinner included a generous portion of processed turkey roll with cranberries and stuffing and mashed potatoes. Dessert was pumpkin pie with whip cream.

The guys in the kitchen sold spud juice off the back dock. Inmates who skipped the processed turkey were cooking up in their units. The commissary ran extra items, so you could order things like canned ham and sausage and fresh fruit. They even let you spend extra money from your account, and the money allowed in from visitors was higher than usual. (Normally, visitors were allowed to give you up to $15 in tokens, but on Christmas you were permitted $20.)

Because inmates were depressed during the holidays, the administration loosened things up a bit. Shakedowns were minimized, and guards turned a blind eye to minor rule infractions. Spud juice and drugs were in high supply.

Paul and I had a drink together and smoked a joint. The joint was the width of a shoestring, so I wasn't going to get very high, but my resistance was low-considering how clean my system had become-so I experienced a pleasant buzz.

Religious groups came in on holidays, but most inmates didn't bother to meet them unless decent offerings had been brought along. The Mexicans liked to go for the plastic rosary beads. They'd wear them around their necks for a few days, like it was jewelry. Most groups brought Bibles and other religious artifacts, which couldn't have interested us less.

My parents sent money for a small TV. It was $128. A 12-inch Hitachi, which made my time go by faster. Unfortunately, they cut the power off at 11:30 on weeknights, and at midnight on weekends and holidays. You could purchase a rechargeable battery in the store, which would buy you a couple of hours, but at a cost of $45, it was out of my price range. When I got Jake to buy it for me, Paul was proud of me for working him, but he looked disappointed at the same time. I opened Paul's present, and I understood why. It was an extra battery.

I gave Paul a rug for his cell and a Cheap Trick music cassette I had ordered from the store. "No pun intended," I said.

"I'll give you a pun," Paul said, smiling.

I hadn't taken Jake on as my man yet, though he and I were still discussing the possibility. I held off making a decision, because I wanted to be with Paul as much as I could.

Just then, the phone on the wall rang and the guard answered it.

"Parsell!" the guard yelled. "You have a visit!"

I looked at Paul, stunned.

I didn't know who it was that was out there. My family hadn't seen me in several weeks, and I was starting to think that even Christmas wouldn't bring them around.

Paul looked at me and smiled. "Go for it, Squeeze."

Prison officials, recognizing the need and importance of maintaining contact with loved ones on the outside, granted us up to four visits a month. Seeing family and friends helped maintain emotional stability and avoid disciplinary infractions. I doubted I had much emotional stability left hidden inside, but a visit was most welcome.

Visits kept inmates connected to our previous lives and the world we left behind. The visiting room held up to hundred people, but even with over eight hundred inmates, it was rarely filled. Weekends and holidays were the busiest time, and if it got crowded, we would be limited to just one hour.

The room was long and narrow with rows of chairs that faced each another. When visitors arrived, you were permitted to hug once, and then once more when they left. All other contact was prohibited. On the wall, inmates had painted a mural: a watermill with childlike butterflies and a sun with a happy face. Considering all the roughnecks who were housed there, I wondered who had thought to paint butterflies or put a smile on the sun. Maybe the mural was done with visitors in mind, to help put them at ease.

A guard sat at a podium with a stack of visitor passes spread out in front of him. When your time was up, he would politely walk over and hand you one. Visitors had their hands stamped, on their way in, with an invisible ink so that on their way back out again, the guards could check it under an infrared lamp. Inmates usually stood at the bars and watched as their guests walked back out to freedom. It was always a painful moment, for everyone, and even the toughest thugs had difficulty hiding their sadness.

Bobby had just arrived at M-R and Dad and Sharon had gone to see him first. My Dad looked great-much younger since he had stopped drinking. Sharon looked the same.

"We only have a few minutes," she said. "We have to get home because we have company coming by the house tonight."

Even though I was getting better at hiding my emotions, I must have shown disappointment, because Sharon's tone changed for a second. "What took them so long to get you out here?" she asked.

"I had to shower." It was common for inmates to shower before a visit, even if they took one earlier in the day-to wash away any prison smells.

"Well that's what took so long," she said. "It's your own damn fault."

"It is not," I protested. Even on Christmas she was looking for a fight.

I looked to my dad for help. He was staring off at some people on the other side of the room. "What's he in for?" Dad nodded across the way.

"I don't know," I answered, wondering why they weren't more interested in their own son.

In the row behind my parents, an inmate sat with his family. There were six of them in total, and the youngest reminded me of myself, when I first went to visit my brother. I remembered how Rick used to brag about what went on in there, much in the same way this inmate was now holding his family's attention. I wondered what that boy would take away from the visit and whether he'd romanticize his brother's experience the way I had. Would he be forced to learn the hard truth like us?

"Well, anyway," Sharon said. "How are you doing?"

"Good," I said. We sat there awkwardly for a moment.

"Well, you look good," she said.

"My face keeps breaking out."

"I can see that," Sharon said, nodding. "How's the food?"

I changed the subject. "How's Bobby doing?" I didn't want to talk about the fucking food.

"He's OK, I guess, but it's a damn shame. He didn't need to get ten years."

"He should have taken a plea," I said.

"It's not right," Sharon said. "Your brother is the one who should be over there."

"That's enough," Dad said.

"We'll it's true, damn it. If Bobby would have just told them who he was with, he never would have been sent to prison."

"Now God damn it, Sharon. We said we weren't getting into this here."

Once more I was reminded that this was the home I'd return to after prison, and again my spirit sank in despair. What kind of future was that? And what difference would it make if I told them right then that I was gay? Sharon would probably have loved it. Something else she could hate me for. Mostly, I worried about how Dad would respond. He was always concerned about what others thought of him and my being gay would be a lot for him to handle. He hadn't been around that much anyway-and even when he was-he wasn't really present. But he was all I had.

"You have to tell you parents," I remembered Paul say. "It's the only way to accept yourself."

"I accept myself."

"Look, all I can say is that when I told my parents, it didn't matter what they said. I was finally taking over my life. It wasn't until then that I could start to be proud of who I am."

"Proud? What's to be proud of?"

Sharon voice was starting to rise.

"I'm so sick and tired of sitting in these visiting rooms," she complained. "It's a damn shame-to have to sit over there and listen to Bobby as he tried to entertain us. Like he had to make us feel good and convince us that nothing was wrong."

Sharon's anger was nothing new to me, but her sadness was. Bobby was her oldest son, her favorite, and I could see that she was heartbroken. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a hanky. Suddenly, she wasn't as large as before. I had spent so much time hating her, directing all my anger at her-but the truth was-she was the one who had been there a lot of the time. Seeing her crying, I felt sorry for her for the first time.

Maybe it was all the violence and terror I'd seen in prison that opened my eyes, but I could see in Sharon someone as frightened and powerless as I was. She was only twenty-four when she moved in with my dad, and was suddenly saddled with five kids to take care of. Twenty-four didn't seem that old to me anymore. Yes, I still resented her. However, she now seemed as vulnerable as I was. I didn't understand all of this at that moment, but I saw enough to pity her life.

She was in a rage at Rick, because she blamed him for Bobby going to prison. But not all her anger should have been directed at Rick. Bobby was responsible, too.

If Bobby had tried to entertain them, he was only trying to help. Across the visiting room, I noticed this going on everywhere. Inmates were exaggerating prison life so that it sounded amusing and relatively harmless. They wanted their visitors to laugh and have a good time, because maybe if they enjoyed themselves and kept ignorant of what really goes on inside, they'd come back and visit again.

I remembered how fascinated I was by Rick's stories. Did the pleasures they gave me mean I was gay? And then I started to wonder if I wasn't reading too much into those fantasies. Maybe it was just a phase I was going through after all. Maybe I was just gay for the stay, as some inmates say.

Just then, the inmate sitting behind my parents said loudly, "That's one right over there." He pointed at me, while the six members of his family turned and stared. Like they where at the zoo and suddenly got a chance to see some rare animal.

My heart was beating rapidly, but my parents were oblivious, thank goodness.

The youngest boy kept looking. He was about twelve, and I almost felt I recognized that look in his eye. It seemed to go beyond just a mild fascination. "Stop staring at him," his mother whispered.

"Well, I better be getting back," I said. "I have finals I have to study for."

"Finals?" Dad asked.

"I'm taking college classes."

"College?" Dad said. "What about high school?"

"I graduated. Didn't you get my letters?"

Dad couldn't read, so he was dependent on Sharon to read them to him.

"I must have forgotten," Sharon said. "Well, anyway. We better get going."

"OK," I said, ushering them past the family that was still gawking at me.

I regretted that I couldn't bring myself to tell them I was gay, but I'd get another chance the following day, when my brother Rick came to see me.

Like Dad and Sharon, Rick stopped to visit Bobby first. The Reformatory was on the way, and he didn't want to backtrack.

"Well, I'm glad you finally made it," I said.

"I've been really busy."

"I've noticed. How's Bobby doing?"

"He's having a hard time," Rick said. "Some inmates ran a hustle on him when he first got there." An inmate stopped in front of Bobby's cell and asked him to hold a package, and before Bobby could say anything, the guy tossed it into him. Then, right after count, another con stopped by saying the first guy told him to come pick it up. Bobby gave it to him, only to have the first guy come back, a few minutes later, wanting his shit.

"I gave it to the other guy," Bobby said.

"Who?" the inmate demanded, but Bobby didn't know who he was.

Rick said, "It's one of the oldest con games they play on a fish."

"Well, maybe not the oldest," I said, knowingly.

"Whatever," Rick said. "Since Bobby couldn't identify the guy who came and got the package, they threatened to kill him if he didn't come up with the money to replace it."

"What's he going to do?"

"Sharon took care of it," Rick said. "She sent him the money."

Of course she did, she was his mother. I didn't say anything. But surprisingly, I wasn't angry with Sharon. Where was my mother?