Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (6 page)

My favorite story involved my Dad putting a bag over his head and robbing the neighborhood paperboy, who happened to be his half-cousin. "I know that's you, Dale!" the kid bellyached, as he handed over his money. "I'm telling your Mom."

They laughed hysterically every time that story was told, as if they hadn't heard it a hundred times before. I guess everything sounded funny when you were happy and drinking. In spite of their own craziness, my family always had a good time when they were together.

Of course, we kids tried to copy our parent's pranks. One of my favorites was to go around at night unplugging trailers. It was especially fun to peep through the window to see what the people were doing. Like when they were playing poker-we'd watch as they raised one another back and forth and then, Boom, just as they were about to show their hand-we'd pull the old plug and run.

For a longest time, I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up. Perry Mason was my favorite show on TV. I wanted to be just like him. My Dad said you had to be smart to be a lawyer, but since he never finished the sixth gradeand most of my family had no schooling beyond high school-we didn't know how long it would take in school to become one. Some folks had TVs inside their trailers, and I remember watching from the window while Perry Mason, played by Raymond Burr, cross-examined a witness to elicit a lastminute confession. All of the show's hour-long leads would come down to these last few critical moments, when Perry would have the witness quivering on the stand. His secretary, Della Street, or Paul Drake, his private eye, would hand Perry an envelope then, just as the witness was about to confessBAM ... we'd pull the plug. "Oh Shit! You dirty little bastards!" Off into the darkness we'd run.

A lot of our pranks weren't as much fun if we weren't chased afterward. In fact, being chased was one of the most enjoyable things we did together. I liked the rush that came with it-my heart pounding and the shortness of breath. It made my whole body tingle. Like ridding a roller coaster or watching a scary movie-it made you jump, but then it made you laugh, and you wanted to go again.

There were several pavilions, where groups held family picnics that included a variety of games and prizes. We'd sneak in on the fun and share in the ice cream, watermelon, and potato sack races. Since the camp supervised most of the activities, over time, we got to know the games pretty well. Once, after cousin Rusty won several prizes in a row, including the dance contest, someone wanted to know whose little boy he was, and his cover was blown. We didn't get into too much trouble, though, since it was Uncle Ronnie's idea in the first place. That night, we heard our parents laughing about it.

When Dad's grandma ran out of money, she was forced to move in with Grandpa. Grandpa had rented her house to a hillbilly who stopped taking care of the place, and when Grandpa went to talk him-the man threatened Grandpa with a shotgun. When Dad and Uncle Ronnie found out about it, they went there at night and moved the outhouse back a few feet. They covered the hole with a piece of cardboard and kicked dirt on top of it to make it look like the ground. Then they started a fire behind it and tossed a couple stones at the house to get the man's attention. When the man saw the fire, he ran out and fell into the hole. Dad and Ronnie and a couple of cousins then pissed on the man, telling him that if he didn't move out, they'd kill him next time. I didn't know if they were serious, but Uncle Ronnie said the tenant moved out that very week.

We laughed as much our parents did when Uncle Ronnie repeated that story, but soon they chased us away. We were forced to sit around our own fires and think up our own capers. Sometimes, we laughed so hard at the idea that pulling off the prank wasn't as much fun. We loved it when we could make each other laugh, because in that moment, it meant someone was paying attention. For that fleeting instant, we knew we were loved.

7

Early Induction to an Inverted World

I was given a clean set of underwear, a pair of gray socks, dark green pants with a worn-out waistband, and a pullover shirt that had Wayne County Jail stenciled on back. I got through showering without incident-I didn't know how I thought I'd get an erection when I was so frightened-but then the size of my pants was about three sizes too big, which I wouldn't know until after I was told to walk into the next bullpen buck naked to put them on. When I entered the cell, the other inmates were already dressed and sitting on benches that ran along the sidewalls. I took an empty space on the left and got dressed quickly.

A parade of naked men followed me, each entering the bullpen with bedroll and clothing in hand-their private parts pivoting from side to side. By the time the cell was full, there were two or three dozen of us. Most of them were black, well muscled, in their twenties to early thirties. I felt smaller and skinnier, and paler than ever.

I tried not to be too obvious, but I couldn't help sneaking a look. To my young eyes, everyone's dick seemed enormous. These were grown men, and I couldn't imagine what they'd look like when sporting a boner. I had run out of nails to chew, and my right leg bounced nervously as I tried to distract my attention.

I thought about music and measure and the melody of a metronome. How calming its cadence could be. I thought about the black and white of a piano keyboard, and how I'd always wanted to play. For the first time, I got a glimpse of what it must have been like for a black man, who suddenly found himself in an all-white neighborhood. I thought about old Mayor Hubbard and how it was best not to mention where I was from.

There were three whites in the holding cell, not counting me, and over twenty or thirty blacks. The other whites were older than me, in their early twenties, and one of them looked like a biker. He was big and burly, with curly brown hair and a scraggly beard. He asked for a cigarette, and when I gave him one, he didn't even bother to say thanks. His manner was cold, and his eyes were mean, but when he stepped back from the bars and almost tripped over a black guy, he suddenly looked a lot less threatening.

"Hey! Watch where you're goin', you big ass redneck."

"Hey, fuck you," the biker shot back.

The black guy and two others jumped to their feet.

"Yeah? What are you gonna do about it?"

Two more blacks stood up.

"Yeah, honky. What are you gonna do?"

A flash of fear registered in the biker's eyes.

"Nothing" he said quickly, brandishing a pathetic smile.

The biker was missing teeth, which gave the impression he wasn't so meek, but he didn't stand a chance.

"All right then," the black guy said, slowly backing down. He looked over at one of the others. "Someone's got to teach these woods."

The biker took a seat on the floor, looking more like a defeated fat guy.

The other two whites looked away, disavowing any connection.

Wood was short for peckerwood. It was used like "nigger" or "coon," "porch monkeys" and "spooks"-except peckerwood was a word blacks called whites, along with honky and rednecks, crackers and ghosts. But on that side of the bars, only blacks spoke those words aloud. The jail was located in downtown Detroit, where the whites were highly outnumbered.

It felt like I'd walked inside a photographic negative, where all the values were reversed.

The bullpen was quiet.

An inmate at the back of the cell broke the silence.

"There was this fag in here once," he said. "Called herself Angela Davis."

"I knew her," another said, referring to her as naturally as if she were a woman.

"She sucked off the whole bullpen," he said.

"The whole bullpen," the con next to him said. "No shit?"

"Square business!" He nodded. "Went right around this cell. Must've blown a dozen guys."

"I remember that," another said. "She sucked a mean dick."

"She sure did. And then, when she was done . . ." he paused, holding everyone's attention. "The bitch dropped her drawers and wanted to get tucked!"

The others laughed, and shook their heads, saying things like, "Damn!" or "Shit! Can you believe that? You'd think one dick would be enough."

"Uh, uh." The guy shook his head. "That bitch loved to suck dick!"

"She sure did," the other said, rubbing his crotch. "And I sure could use her now."

To my right, the convicts who were standing at the front of the bullpen looked out at reception with their hands resting on the cross section of bars. It was dark inside our cell, and the deputies didn't seem interested in what went on in there.

I was glad I was dressed. My right leg continued to bounce.

When the heavy metal door of the cellblock slammed shut, a shudder went through my body. A sudden jolt of panic made me want to scream out to the guards, "I was just kidding! I wasn't really going to rob that Photomat. Could I please go home now?"

But it was too late. The guards were already gone.

It was ten o'clock by the time they moved me upstairs. I was placed in a cellblock with mostly white, nonviolent offenders. They no longer segregated by race, the deputy had told me, but they did try to separate first-time offenders. I was six foot two, but at a hundred and forty-eight pounds, I wasn't much more than skin and bones.

On some level, I was still half expecting my parents to show up and take me home-hoping I'd learned my lesson. That maybe this was all just part of a Scared Straight program that I had heard about, where they took teenagers inside a prison to frighten them away from crime. But the reality of my situation was as cold as the metal slab that would cradle me to sleep that night.

I started to cry, but quickly muffled it. I was certain that if the other inmates heard me, they'd see me for what I was-a sniffling coward who was pretending to be something he's not. Or worse, they would see for me for what I was.

"Never!" My brother Rick smacked me on the chin the night before. "Never, let them know what you're thinking."

I could still almost smell the tobacco on his finger, from when he shook it in my face. He was imitating Marlon Brando in The Godfather. We shared a love of gangster films, but in that moment, I was alone in my cell, and the wall of my emotional front was about as thin as the cheap mattress that was folded over my bunk.

Inside the cell, a steel toilet and sink were attached to the back wall. Smoke rings burned on the ceiling spelled out the words Fuck and You and Hell and Here. Simon, '77 was scratched on the sidewall. It reeked of bleach and ammonia, piss and damp cigarettes. And, like the bullpens downstairs, there wasn't any toilet paper in sight.

By the time we got upstairs, we had missed dinner, so it would be morning before I'd eat again. I was hungry, but the pang of anxiety quickly took over. For the first time in over twelve hours, I was alone. I could finally drop the tough guy, this-doesn't-faze-me, I've-been-through-it-all-before act. It probably wasn't working anyway, but I had to keep it up. Ricky had been coaching me for weeks. My God! What'sgoing to happen to me?

I unfolded the mattress across the steel frame and wrapped the sheet around it. They didn't have pillows in the county jail, so I folded the end of the pad under itself to prop my head. I'd rather my feet dangle on cold metal than sleep with my head lying flat.

I stared up at the ceiling and tried to imagine how someone had scorched the letters that formed each word. It would have taken too many matches. Perhaps they burned their sheets?

I lit a cigarette with my last match and thought about my brother. I wondered what he was doing and whether he missed me.

The lights went out with a buzz and a thump. The light from the catwalk cast shadows in my cell. The silhouette of bars, pitched on angles, crisscrossed the walls.

The next morning, the lights came back on with the same buzz and thump that accompanied darkness. I hadn't slept well, tossing and turning on the slab, my head full of visions of street fights and gladiators, drag queens and bikers. It felt like I'd just fallen asleep.

I lay awake for several minutes, wondering if I'd be transferred to Jackson today. An old timer, down in the bullpen, had mentioned the economy and prisons and a shortage of beds. I drifted back to sleep, but the sound of the door to my cell sliding open and scuffling feet woke me up. I looked out and saw several inmates running past my cell.