Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (51 page)

I sat back and studied the inmates, like Paul had taught me, and looked for someone else that I might be able to control. But I still hadn't figured it out, so I stayed with Jake and learned to navigate the pressures. Balancing when to get Jake involved with someone who was pressing me, and when to just ignore troublemakers who were giving me a hard time. In exchange for his protection, I hooked up with Jake in the projectionist booth once a week during the inmate movie. Jake was as gentle as he could be, but he wasn't Paul, and he wasn't Slide Step.

After Sherry left, I sent several "kites" requesting a transfer to another prison-thinking it might be different somewhere else, but the only other medium-security prison for inmates who were under twenty-five was The Dunes in Kinross, Michigan. But The Dunes was made up of dormitories and, according to the policy at the time, homosexuals could not be housed in dorms.

Ever since I beat that ticket on a technicality, I spent time in the law library studying the Department of Correction's Policy Directives. I was fascinated by them and once again entertained the fantasy of one day becoming a lawyer. There was something empowering about knowing the rules and regulations as well, or even better, than some of the staff. And that's when the idea hit me.

That evening, on my way back to my cell, I picked up a stack of official grievance forms from the guard at the front desk. Warden Handlon hated grievances, so I started filling them out for anything I could think of-no matter how frivolous they might have been. I wrote one for not being allowed to walk on the grass, and another for how homosexuals were discriminated against in housing. And then another for not allowing magazines to be sold in the inmates store that depicted homosexual acts-even though the magazines they did sell like Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse, routinely showed spreads of lesbian action. It was male homosexuality they were outlawing; yet they looked the other way if it were women. I filed another grievance for the types of inmate movies they were choosing, and for Warden Handlon's refusal to allow a Prisoner's Progress Association. Anything I could think of, I wrote a grievance. Then I dropped them all in the box, smiling to myself at the thought of the warden seeing them appear on his monthly report.

Two days later I was called up to the Control Center and when I arrived there, two guards were dispatched to my cell to pack up my belongings.

"Bag and baggage," Mr. Jackson, the Administrative Assistant Warden, said to me. "Warden Handlon has ordered you transferred."

"For what?" I said, sounding innocent.

"For protection," he said. "In one of your voluminous grievances, you stated that you were in fear of retaliation from the guards or other inmates."

"Where are you sending me," I asked.

"M-R," he said.

"M-R! You can't send me to Gladiator School! And you can't increase my security without a disciplinary reason for doing it. At least not without an Administrative Hearing, beforehand."

"For protection, we can," he said.

"And if anything happens to me over there you know I'll sue," I said.

Mr. Jackson just looked at me.

"If you're really doing this for protection, why don't you send me to Riverside?"

"You'd go to Riverside?" he asked.

"Hell yeah," I said. "I've been begging to go there ever since I got here."

"Wait right here," he said.

Mr. Jackson went into the next room, and I could hear him speaking to someone in a hushed a tone. Then he returned.

"OK," he said. "You're going back to Riverside."

I tried, unsuccessfully, to keep from smiling.

Two hours later, I was once again crossing the yard of Riverside Correctional Facility, where the sounds of radios bellowed from all directions. I heard steel weights being dropped on concrete, and the familiar smell of earth and spring was in the air. If the place hadn't changed much, I surely had. I walked with a cat in my stride and few inmates on the yard even bothered to notice me. I was no longer a fish.

Once inside 10 Building, I breathed a sigh of relief when the guard took me upstairs to the second floor. And that's when it occurred to me. What if he wasn't here anymore? I stopped and stood in the hall. The guard, who was escorting me, turned around and looked at me.

I knew Riverside wasn't necessarily the best place for me. It was a closecustody prison, with guys who may not ever get out. And it was where the first of my rapes had happened. But at least Slide Step had protected me after that. And at least in here, there was someone who seemed to care about me. But what would happen if he were no longer here? Foolishly, I hadn't considered that possibility earlier, when I started executing my plan by filing all of those grievances.

I would learn later that at about that same moment, an inmate on the other side of the building ran up to Slide Step and told him, "Wait till you see this bad motherfucker who just walked up in here!"

Epilogue

It's my last night in prison and I sit in my cell hoping I will he able to sleep. My stomach felt nervous all day, and I couldn't eat. The thought of being released was exhilarating, but it was also scary. I didn't want to mess up again, like I had twice before. I was in a minimum-security camp for parole violators.

I remembered Miss Bain once say that if we're not careful, inmates can become institutionalized. We develop a learned helplessness, where we become almost dependent on the structure and security of prison. It seems counterintuitive, yet it would explain why guys were always coming back. Prisons are awful places, but you learn to adjust and after a while it becomes a way of life. I thought of the old timers I met at Riverside, the ones who were doing life on the installment plan, and drinking paint thinner and Mountain Dew. I was not going to become one of them.

I remembered how frightened I was the first time I got out. I was sent to a correction center in downtown Detroit, and as I stood at the corner of Clark and Vernon, I was afraid to step off the curb when the light turned green. It was as if I had forgotten how to cross the street-afraid I'd be run over by the busy traffic. They had given me a food voucher for a Coney Island, which I couldn't eat. And then I remembered the despair I had felt, just a few weeks later, when I realized how hard it was to make it in the free world.

Job prospects were difficult enough with the economy in a recession and the auto industry in the dumps. But then having to take a Department of Correction's job search verification form with me-to every place where I asked for an application-did wonders for getting me hired. I couldn't believe how quickly my dreams all seemed to vanish. At one point, I felt like I was more content inside prison than I did in the outside world. At least while I was in prison I had something to look forward to. On the outside, I had nothing. And worse-I didn't have a clue how to go about getting it.

I violated my parole by getting drunk and running away from the Correction Center. When I came back, the parole board gave me a six-month flop, which I was just finishing. But this time it was going to be different, I was determined to make it out there.

This time through was no easier than when I had been a fish, because everyone knew my story. I wouldn't punk up with anyone by choosing a man. I wasn't going to be anybody's fuck boy any more. At least violence was less of a threat here, since most of these guys too were waiting to be paroled soon.

I stayed calm, even when someone pounded on my cell door and hollered, "Good night, faggot!"

The guards were now flashing the lights for lock-down for the night.

"We'll get you next trip," another inmate yelled.

A few nights earlier, a black guy had tried to corner me in the bathroom-him and three other guys. As had been the case with Moseley, I walked a fine line-because any fights or complaints that might occur in my final days could delay my release. All the inmates knew that, so some took advantage of the situation. Even so, I was not about to let myself be victimized again. I'd grown up at least that much. Luckily, I saw the others hiding in the stall before they were able to grab inc.

"Next time, Baby Boy," the inmate shouted. "That ass is mine!"

That was Carlton; he was on the ride-out list for 7 Block. The board flopped him for having drugs in his urine. He had been out of prison less than thirty days.

The guards pulled the release breaks, and the lock engaged in my door.

I dropped to the floor and did some push-ups, which helped me to vent my anger. It was my last night, in this inverted world, and the rage from my time in prison had swelled inside of me. It had been four years since I first came here. I was locked away between the ages of seventeen to twenty-one years old. So while some kids were away at Penn State, I was sitting in the state pen. It was some education.

When I first went in, I spent most of my time checking out from what went on in here. That had now changed. I struggled to remain present. But being present all the time had its drawbacks. It made me paranoid for one, and the cumulative effects of all that adrenaline can wreak havoc on your body's nervous system. Instead, I found another place-an inbetween world-where I stood with my eyes wide open and my feelings locked away. It was as if an invisible force field surrounded me and nothing could penetrate it. Inmates could call me whatever they liked-faggot, snitch, punk-ass-bitch-but they weren't going to put their hands on me. Not if I could help it.

I was still on the floor, when I sensed someone watching me. It was the guard, Hughes, who had stopped in front of my cell. His eyes, like his hair, were old and gray. He had been indifferent to me since I first arrived, and even now, had a half-smirk on his face as he looked down at me.

"Good luck tomorrow," he said. "I hope you make it."

Then he said something I hadn't expected.

"You don't belong here."

They were simple words, plainly spoken, and yet they rang in my ears. The door at the end of the corridor squeaked open and then closed behind him. Perhaps it was an accumulation of everything that had come before, but what he had said triggered something inside me. I began to bawl uncontrollably. I didn't belong there, and all along I knew it. I tried to muffle the sound, but couldn't suppress the noise. Nor did it matter anymore.

"Yo!" an inmate yelled from down the hall. "Who the fuck is that?"

Another voice hollered, "Someone needs to give her a dick!"

Fuck 'em all, I thought. They could drown in my tears for all I cared. The rage, pain, and sadness escaped from me like a broken pipe, releasing all the pressure of emotions that had been suppressed so long that I had grown numb.

I lay there on the floor, curled and still, soothing my face against the cool metal bedpost. At some point, I had grabbed my pillow and hugged it like a baby as I sobbed. Then almost as suddenly as it had started, the tears stopped and my body calmed itself.

When I had shut down over the years, I had blocked out anything that hurt me or might have hurt me. At the same time, in doing so, I also locked something else in-stuffing it deep within myself. For a split second I caught a glimpse of who I truly was. It was such a brief simple moment-triggered by what that guard had said: "You don't belong here."

I got up off the floor and tossed the pillow on the bed. I threw cold water on my face and stared at myself in the scratched-up mirror above the sink. Then something unexpected happened. I got down on any knees and placed my hands together on the bed.

I could not believe what I was doing. It had been years since I had gone to mass. I felt as cut off from the church as from my family. God, it seemed, had abandoned me around the same time as my mother. But now I was down on my knees, and looking for answers. "Please God, just give me an opportunity, and I'll do the work."

I didn't know where my words were coming from, but I had heard someone say once, that only when your whole being becomes a prayer will God listen to it. I wasn't asking for anything so much as I was making a promise, a pact maybe, and not even with Him, but with myself. I had hit bottom and became willing to do whatever necessary to put the life I had known in the past. "Just give me an opportunity, and I'll do the work."