The eight by ten cell had yellowed cinderblock walls and a skinny window in the wall on the far side. A thin mattress pad was folded in half on a concrete block along the wall to my right. My new bunk. To my left was the familiar stainless steel toilet-sink.

For the first time in 23 days I was surrounded by a suffocating bubble of emptiness. There were no more voices to hear — no orders from COs, no shouts of energetic nonsense from other inmates, no gavels coming down, no cries of love and sadness from family members. Just silence.

I walked across the cell to look out the window. The glass was foggy with age, cross-hatched with chicken wire, and I could only see out of it with both eyes if I turned my head sideways, but I could see well enough that an inner courtyard of the jail was on the other side. The outer walls of the jail were made of red brick and in the far wall of the courtyard was an ordinary looking door with an ordinary looking doorknob. A concrete path led to a small stainless steel table and the rest of the space was taken up by freshly manicured grass. It was the first time I had seen grass in 23 days.

This must be where the staff go to get some fresh air.

I turned around and walked back to the door of the cell. It also had a window cross-hatched with chicken wire but it was a few inches wider than the exterior window. Outside this window in the small pod before me I could see two stainless steel tables, a phone, and a few closed doors. There were no signs of life.

I turned around and sat on the concrete bunk for about three seconds before I remembered that my veins were still full of adrenaline. I stood back up and walked to the exterior window and looked out. Grass. I walked back to the door and looked out. Empty pod. Back to the exterior window. Back again to the door. My heartbeat was thudding in my ears and I had no idea what to do. My body was telling me to do something, my mind was telling me to do something, but there was absolutely nothing to do.

I guess I’ll take a piss. I emptied my bladder into the stainless steel bowl and pressed the button to flush. Except nothing happened — it didn’t flush. What the hell? I pressed the button on the sink and a trickle of water started to flow. I didn’t have soap or a towel, but I rinsed my hands anyway. I tried the flush button again, but still nothing. That’s weird.

“Hey, Number Five,” came a muffled shout from outside my door. I stepped over to the cell door to look out, but I still didn’t see anything. The voice rang out again. “On your left.” I shifted to the right so I could see better and I could just barely make out a cell door with a big number three painted onto the wall above it. A face was in the window for a moment before disappearing again. “Hey, Number Five! What’d you do?” he shouted, before his face reappeared.

“Got into a fight,” I said simply. My voice was a bit shaky.

His face disappeared again. “What? I can’t hear you, speak up.”

“GOT INTO A FIGHT,” I tried again, louder this time.

Each time he spoke his face disappeared. “I still can’t hear you. Put your face into the crack of the door when you talk, like I’m doing.”

I was getting annoyed. I didn’t really want to talk to this guy, but I didn’t want to be disrespectful. And it’s not like I had anything else to do, so I slid my face over to the edge of the door and yelled, “GOT INTO A FIGHT.”

“Motherfucker!” said Number Three. “Did you fuck him up?”

I shook my head. I was still too fired up to start talking about it. I needed to calm down first.

“Oh. Did he fuck you up then?” Number Three asked.

I shook my head again and changed the subject. “HOW DO YOU FLUSH THE TOILETS?” I yelled into the door, completely unsure of how loud I needed to be. This must be how my grandmother feels when she uses a cell phone.

Number Three answered. “Ask the CO to flush it for you when they make their rounds. They do it from the outside. You didn’t take a shit did you?” he continued before I could answer. “If you did, just lay your towel over the toilet to keep the smell in.”

What towel?

POP. The familiar sound of an unlocking door rang out in the distance.

“Oh shit, right on time,” Number Three said. A moment later a young woman’s face appeared in the window of the pod door. After a bit of key jangling she entered and Number Three called out, “Hey CO. Motherfucker in five just took a shit and needs a flush.”

The CO had a blue rubbermaid tub in her hands. My property box! She walked into the pod and placed it on one of the stainless steel tables before walking toward my cell. She found another key on her keyring and opened the pipe chase next to my cell door. The toilet next to me roared to life and about forty thousand gallons of water ran through it for the next three seconds. Her face appeard in the window of my cell and she said, “you’ve got one hour,” before she turned around and left the pod.

“One hour for what?” I yelled. She didn’t respond, but a few seconds later my cell door opened with a POP. I pushed open the door and walked out into the pod to get my property box.

“You got one hour for rec, dawg,” said Number Three. “You can shower, use the phone, or do laps around the pod to stretch your legs a bit.”

“What about commissary?” I asked. “Today’s store day.”

“Not in here, dawg. You can get writing supplies and hygiene items, but no food from commissary. They’ll send back any food that you ordered and refund your books.”

“Damn. Well I should probably shower and call home while I have the chance then.”

“Yea, you do that,” said Number Three. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Mick. Yours?”

“Harvey. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise.” I should’ve walked away. Continued on to take my shower and mind my own business. But some part of me just had to ask the question. “What are you in here for?”

Harvey had a proud look in his eye, almost joyful. “I refused to lock down with a child molester,” he said. “One moved into the pod yesterday and they tried to put him in my cell. I said ‘hell no! You put a chomo in my cell and I’m buckin,’ but they did it anyway.”

As far as jail stories go, Harvey’s was somewhat interesting, but I was having a hard time focusing on what he was saying. I was still trying to process everything that had happened to me. A few weeks ago I had thought all my rights were taken away and that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, and now I’m standing here in the hole because I keep making stupid decisions.

“Come lockdown time I just stood outside,” Harvey continued. “After that one of the CO’s came up to me and said, ‘I’m giving you a direct order. Lockdown now.’ But I stood my ground. No way in hell I’m gonna get in a cell with a child molester.”

I’d like to walk away now. I only have an hour.

“I told him,” Harvey kept going, “I said, ‘CO, you’re gonna have to take me to the hole,’ and then he said if he has to take me to the hole he’s gonna pepper spray me first. So I just stood there with my hands behind my back and my eyes closed while that motherfucker unloaded his pepper spray on me. The whole goddamn can!”

“Wow. That sucks man,” I said.

“Thank god it wasn’t that big can of OC spray. You seen the one that one sergeant always carries?”

Ok. I think that’s enough.

“Yea, I’ve seen it. I’m gonna hit the shower man.”

“Arright then Mick. Good talkin’ to ya,” said Harvey.

I turned back to my cell and grabbed a few things from my property box — a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap, a towel, and my shower shoes. I stripped off my clothes, wrapped the towel around me, and walked to the shower in the corner of the pod. Behind the curtain was a shower the size of a small closet with stainless steel walls and fixtures. I closed the curtain behind me, tossed my towel over the curtain rod, pressed the button on the wall, and I took a deep breath while a steady stream of water started to flow. At least the water’s warm.

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He issued his final shout — “YOU WON’T LAST A DAY IN PRISON YOU PUSSY ASS BITCH!” — before my right arm moved toward him, almost involuntarily. But just as the punch was about to land, I held back. I grabbed his throat instead and held him there. I squeezed until his shouts stopped. Not too hard, I thought. Just enough to make him stop. But the energy in my body didn’t match the energy in my thoughts. As my hand connected with his throat, my legs drove forward, slamming his back against the wall. His face turned red and started to scrunch up in pain. Finally, he’s quiet.

I let go. There were tears in his eyes and he ran to the polished stainless steel mirror in the cell, looking at his neck. A moment later he ran out of the cell.

“CO, CO! This dude’s trying to kill me!” he shouted. “Look at the marks on my neck, he said he’s going to kill me!”

Oh fuck, what have I done. There’s no going back now.

I closed my eyes and shook my head at myself.

The loudspeaker screamed to life. “LOCKDOWN LOCKDOWN LOCKDOWN! LOCKDOWN IN THE FACILITY!”

I stood in my cell and looked out through the open door. From this angle I could only see the adjacent wall and a few closed cell doors; sleepy faces began to appear in their windows to see what was happening. My heart pounded as the adrenaline coursed through my body, radiating energy from my core out through my arms and legs. I tried to stand still and act like a normal human being, but I felt like I was ready to run a marathon or do a thousand pushups or punch a hole through the cinderblock wall or do a hundred pull-ups on the door frame or do a standing backflip or... the list of useless and impossible and unhelpful ideas went on and on inside my head.

The eternity passed in silence. Questioning faces from the other cells looked at me through their windows, hoping I would give them answers. They offered no answers to my questions in turn.

What’s going to happen next? What’s happening now? Saget’s screaming has stopped. Where is he? Why is it so quiet? Should I lock my cell door? I’m definitely going to the hole. Should I stand here and wait? Should I just go out there and accept my fate?

Clint’s voice broke the silence from behind his closed cell door on the tier below. “Fuck him!” he was shouting as loud as he could, but the door was making it sound like he was half a mile away. “Saget’s a bitch! Take him to the hole! Mick didn’t do nothing wrong, it’s all Saget’s fault! Don’t listen to Saget, he’s a fuckin’ liar! His word’s no good! Mick didn’t do shit!”

The main door to the pod opened with a POP followed by the sounds of bootsteps running across the laminate floor. The bootsteps got louder and louder, eventually reaching the metal staircase below me. CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG, they ran up the stairs toward my cell and three faces appeared in the doorway. The one in front was a large female sergeant with a massive can of OC spray on her hip, her arm held off to her side as if she was in a wild west shootout preparing to draw. I don’t know what they expected to see, but it was just me, standing there as calmly as I could. My insides were screaming with energy, my face was flushed, and the veins in my temples and forehead were protruding to the point of bursting, but I just stood there. A look of disappointment crossed the sergeant’s face as her OC spray arm began to relax. She turned to a skinny CO named Larson and issued the order. “Take him out.”

Larson stepped into the cell and asked me very calmly to, “come on Westwood. Let’s step outside.” I followed as he turned and began to descend the metal staircase. The sergeant and other CO stayed in my cell and began talking into their radios.

“He didn’t do it Larson!” Clint’s voice continued screaming behind his cell door. “C’mon Larson, you know him! You know Saget’s an instigator! You know Westwood didn’t do shit!”

When Clint’s cell came into my view I turned to look at him. “Hey man, you’re good,” he said with a reassuring look on his face. He couldn’t decide whether to be reassuring or angry, so he chose to be both at the same time. “Fuck him! You’re alright. Fuck Saget, he’s a bitch! You did what you had to do, you’re alright.”

I gave him a nod of appreciation and continued to follow Larson as he walked through the pod. I was expecting him to lead me to the exit and onward to the hole, but he took me outside onto the concrete rec yard instead. He closed the door behind us and Clint’s shouts of encouragement were silenced. It was just Larson and I now, alone in the late morning sunshine out on the concrete rec yard.

“What happened man?” he asked me.

I didn’t react. I had learned from my previous experience with police that I shouldn’t talk to them before speaking to a lawyer. But there aren’t lawyers in here. I also knew that you weren’t supposed to talk to COs. People who talked to COs were snitches and I didn’t want that label. So I stood there quietly and just shook my head.

Larson gave me a calm look. It was the kind of look I hadn’t seen from anyone in the administration before. I was just one of the rabble to most of them — another liar, another thief, another reprobate. But Larson looked at me like I was a person.

“Clint’s right man, we all know this. Saget’s a piece of shit so we took him straight to the hole. You’ve always been a good dude but I heard him shouting at you. What got him fired up like that?”

I wanted to be skeptical, but I slowly began to trust Larson. He wasn’t the kind of CO who enjoyed a power trip. The consensus among inmates was that he was a good CO to have in the pod because he didn’t take advantage of his position in the bureaucracy. If you didn’t bother him, he didn’t bother you. And it was hard to bother him. I took a deep breath and spoke — my voice shaky with the adrenaline. “I was just sitting in my cell reading when he walked in and started acting like a fool. I asked him for some respect and he got in my face,” I said.

“He said you threatened to kill him. Is that true?” asked Larson.

“No,” I said simply.

“Man, if it was up to me I’d put you right back in your cell and pretend this never happened, but we saw the marks on his neck. You did that?”

“I didn’t want to hurt him. I wanted to punch him, but I held back,” I said.

“Ok,” said Larson. “I’ll just ask you one more time. Did you threaten to kill him?”

“No,” I said again.

“I believe you,” he gave me a pat on the shoulder. “He played you man. He was deep in debt in the pod. Commissary’s about to come today and he doesn’t have anything to pay it back. He was looking for a way out and you gave it to him.” He paused for a moment. I felt like an idiot. I took in a few deep breaths of the fresh morning air while I could. “Unfortunately,” Larson continued, “my hands are tied because of the marks on his neck. I’ve gotta take you out.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.” He turned around and took a step back toward the pod before pausing and turning back to me. “Hey, keep your head up man. You’ll be alright.”

I followed Larson back into the pod through the rec yard door. He asked me to wait a moment while he went over and spoke to the sergeant. Clint’s face followed Larson, then looked at me, then back to Larson again. “That’s right,” Clint said. “You got it right! Westwood didn’t do nothin. That’s right.” It was if he was trying to will the future he wanted into existence.

I couldn’t hear what Larson was saying, but I could see the sergeant’s face. She had a stern look and firmly shook her head before Larson turned around. He looked at me with a half frown and shrugged before returning to me and escorting me out of the pod. “I tried, man,” he said to me quietly.

“What?” Clint’s shouts resumed. “What? Larson! What are you doin’ man! Larson! No! He didn’t do it! That’s some bullshit man! You got it wrong!”

Clint’s shouts of support faded as the pod door closed behind me and Larson began leading me on a long walk down an empty hallway. We went through a door, down a metal staircase, and through another series of doors, before I found myself in a miniature version of the pod I just left. Instead of 50 cell doors, there were five. Instead of a large day room with several TV screens, there was a small day room with no TV screens. An empty cell awaited me at the far end and Larson said one more time, “you’ll be alright man. Keep your head up.”

The cell door closed behind me and enveloped me in silence. I was completely alone except for a stainless steel toilet-sink and a concrete block to sleep on.

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“Five minutes to lockdown, fiiive minutes to lockdown.” Sometimes the loudspeaker announcement was made with great urgency, but on this particular evening it was cool, calm, and collected. On the other hand, the pod volume that had been subsiding came back with a vengeful roar as a new flurry of activity was beginning. Chairs scraped across floors, voices were raised to resolve urgent matters, microwaves roared back to life. Even the COs were out of their chairs trying to make sure everyone was in their cell within the next five minutes.

It was 9:45pm. Breaking Bad was on until 10.

I turned my head to Clint. “Dude, why’d you get me hooked on a show that I can’t finish?”

“It’s good isn’t it?” he said. “I can see the TV from my cell, so I can still finish it. Your cell’s all the way up there though, I doubt it’ll work for you.”

“COME ON GUYS, LOCK IT DOWN,” a CO was shouting.

Clint’s response came swiftly. “We still got five minutes,” he said.

“Four minutes and...” the CO looked at his watch, “three seconds. Let’s go.” He made a shooing motion with his hands before moving onto other groups of inmates. “LET’S GO!”

I got up from my chair in response, but Clint didn’t move.

“Sit back down,” he said. “We still got four minutes and three seconds.”

I sat back down. So what? I’m supposed to ignore the COs authority but obey Clint’s. I felt silly, even though he was trying to teach me something here about holding my ground and standing up for myself. He wasn’t necessarily disrespecting authority. He was just making sure authority didn’t disrespect him. Noted.

Breaking Bad went to commercial just a moment later, so I got back up anyway.

“See you tomorrow man. Thanks for the pizza,” I said to him.

He held out his fist for a fist bump. I had my cup of water in my right hand, so I went for the fist bump with my left.

“No, don’t disrespect me like that,” he said. “Right hand. Right hand only.”

I didn’t understand the difference, but I switched my cup to my left hand and then fist bumped him with my right.

“There you go! See you tomorrow then,” said Clint as he gathered up his things and took three steps backwards into his cell. No wonder he’s so casual about the time limit, he hardly has to move at all!

Another voice entered the conversation. “He’s right though,” said the stranger. “In Islamic culture, you wipe your ass with your left hand and you do everything else with your right hand. I don’t want a fist bump from a shitty hand.”

Is Clint a Muslim?

I acknowledged the tidbit with a nod and made my way upstairs to my cell. Saget was standing in the doorway shouting at people across the pod, as usual. How the fuck does he always have so much to say? He moved aside to let me in while he continued to shout useless nonsense.

I sat down on my bunk, Saget’s girlfriend looking me directly in the eye. He still had his photos pasted to a piece of cardboard that was propped against the wall on the desk.

“What’s store box mean?” I asked when it seemed like there was a break in his shouting.

“Huh?” he turned to look at me, almost as if he forgot I was there. “Oh, it’s when you borrow one soup now and pay back two soups on store day.” We had placed our commissary orders yesterday and would receive them tomorrow.

“How many soups you got comin?” I asked him.

“I can’t remember, at least a few. My baby momma put $10 on my books right on time. Well, she put $20, but I only got $10. The state took the other half.”

“Why’d they take half?”

“Well. You know how they take a dollar a day off your account right?”

I nodded. My mom would put money on by books when I told her I was running low. I could use it to order commissary or make phone calls. And each day there was a dollar less in my account. Cheaper than rent I guess.

Saget continued. “If you don’t have any money on your books then you go negative. Once you go negative, any money that comes in, half goes to the debt and half goes on your books.”

“Oh that’s some bullshit.” I said.

“I know right!” Saget turned back to the cell door that hadn’t been closed yet and started shouting again. “Hey Shorty! I got two soups comin’ for you tomorrow!”

“Lockdown,” the chill loudspeaker voice announced. “Lockdown.” It sounded as if the guy on the intercom was falling asleep.

“LOCK IT DOWN!” yelled the two COs in the pod, much louder than the loudspeaker. By this point everyone was in their cells, but not all cell doors were closed.

“Look at this. Watch,” said Saget. He pulled the cell door closed, but not all the way. Far enough for it to look closed, but not far enough for it to lock. “Shhhh,” he said.

I shook my head. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? It’s like he invites trouble.

“So uh,” I started, not really sure how to broach the subject. “I got a soup missing.”

“Huh?” he said.

“I always order enough soups so that I can have two each night. But tonight when I went to get my last two soups, there was only one left in my box.”

“You sure you didn’t miscount?” he said.

“I’m sure. If I order an even number of soups and only ever use two at a time, I should never have an odd number left. But tonight I only had one left.”

He scrunched up his face trying to think of the logic for a moment before giving up. Then his eyes went wide with realization. “Oh shit!” he said. “Hey, I didn’t take it. I would never take stuff from my own cellie.”

I knew he was in here for burglary. I knew he spent a lot of time at the poker table. I knew he owed Shorty two soups. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he owed things to other people too. But I believed him that he didn’t take my soup.

“Someone said he saw Ike coming into our cell a few hours ago,” I said.

“Ohhh,” said Saget. “Ike stole it. What a piece of shit! He’s all the time tryin’ to play dumb at the card table. Tryin’ to act like he’s got a winning hand, even when he don’t, that kinda thing.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Damn though! He’s got some balls going into someone else’s cell and stealing a soup. That shit’ll get you thrown right in the hole.”

I had already written the soup off as a loss. I wasn’t expecting Saget to pay me back. But I was hoping he would accept at least a little bit of responsibility. Perhaps even offer an apology.

The semi-ajar cell door opened abruptly and a CO’s face appeared in the doorway. “Hey! Lockdown means lock it down!” He slammed the door, making my ears ring.

I was ready for bed and would’ve liked for the rest of the evening to pass in silence, but Saget returned to the door to look out the window. He narrated the comings and goings of pod officers, dropped to his belly and shouted bits of nonsense through the gap under the door, and paced back and forth with jittery energy. I brushed my teeth, splashed some water on my face, and got in my bunk. He has to shut up eventually.

But about 15 minutes later the sound of doors unlocking cut through the air. POP. POP. POP. Several cell doors were unlocked — the doors of people on the cleaning crew.

“Oh shit it’s Clint,” announced Saget. “Clint’s on the cleaning crew tonight.”

Clint was walking by our cell door at that moment, a mop in his hand. “You god damn right,” he said. “Clean this pod for a few weeks and then when a bed opens up in the workers’ pod, I can get the fuck up out of here. They let you stay out till midnight there! So, I can watch Breaking Bad in peace.” He continued walking toward the shower in the corner of the pod.

Being on the cleaning crew was a combination of work and privilege. The privilege was that you could be out of your cell for just a little bit longer each day. The work was that you had to clean up after 90 careless inmates. I had put my name on the signup sheet for the cleaning crew, but I had to wait my turn. Just as Clint was waiting for a bed to open up in the workers’ pod, I was waiting for a spot to open up on the cleaning crew.

“You sign up for cleaning crew?” I asked Saget.

“Fuck no!” he said. “I’m not gonna work for the state for free.”

The night carried on, and eventually Saget stopped shouting and got in his bunk. I could hear him start to snore not too long after that. How the fuck is he asleep before me?

Morning. One day closer to release. After breakfast I looked around for Cornwhistle, but he was nowhere to be found.

“He’s in court today,” said the skinny day-shift CO.

Oh shit. Last time he was in court he declined a plea deal for 16 years. I wonder what’s in store for him today.

Unsure of what to do now that my chess partner wasn’t around, I returned to my cell. Saget usually slept till lunch, but he was out and about in the pod today. There was nothing to do here except sleep or read the only book in the cell — a bible. I remembered Saget’s suggestion the other day, you should start with the book of Matthew, he had said. So I did.

The morning was calm and quiet. The reading was slow and unentertaining, but it was going well. I was reflecting on my life — my past and how I got here, my future and how I’ll get there — when Saget burst into the cell with tremendous energy while shouting more useless nonsense across the pod.

I had had enough. “Dude, show some respect,” I said with a calm, but stern voice.

He turned to me. “What’d you just say to me?” he said defensively.

“I’m trying to read here. It’s a quiet morning and you’re shouting. There’s no need for that. Show some respect.”

“Oh you want to know about respect?” he said aggressively. “You don’t know a god damn thing about respect!” He was in my face now. “You’re about to go to prison and you don’t know the first thing about respect.” His shouts and insults continued without pause. “You won’t last a day in prison!” His energy levels were increasing and I could tell he wasn’t interested in hearing anything I had to say.

But he had crossed a line. I stood up and looked him square in the eye while he continued to shout. I was ready to punch him right in the middle of his face. I hadn’t been in a fist fight since I was much younger and much smaller. What if I break his nose? I thought. I don’t want to do that. Authorities will get involved. I just want him to shut up.

The more thinking I tried to do, the more shouting he did. It was an incessant stream of screams and insults. My heart was racing. “I will hurt you,” I said as calmly as I could. It was the last warning I would give him.

He issued his final shout — “YOU WON’T LAST A DAY IN PRISON YOU PUSSY ASS BITCH!” — before my right arm moved toward his face, almost involuntarily. But just as the punch was about to land, I held back. I grabbed his throat instead and held him there. I squeezed until his shouts stopped. Not too hard, I thought. Just enough to make him stop. But the energy in my body didn’t match the energy in my thoughts. As my hand connected with his throat, my legs drove forward, slamming his back against the wall. His face turned red and started to scrunch up in pain. Finally, he’s quiet.

I let go. There were tears in his eyes and he ran to the polished stainless steel mirror in the cell, looking at his neck. A moment later he ran out of the cell.

“CO, CO! This dude’s trying to kill me!” he shouted. “Look at the marks on my neck, he said he’s going to kill me!”

Oh fuck, what have I done. There’s no going back now.

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POP. POP. POP.

My eyes snapped open. Back to the grim reality that was incarceration.

I was trying to remember what I was dreaming about when the lock to my door opened with a POP. Saget quickly pushed his way out and the quiet cell was immediately flooded with the sound of 90 criminals racing to start their evening routines.

“Woo!” Saget yelled across the pod on his way out. “Hey Shorty, let me store box a soup!”

What the fuck does that mean?

Microwaves roared to life, warming cups of coffee. TV remotes became the subjects of petty arguments. Phone receivers were picked up and numbers were dialed. Chess pieces were set up. Cards were dealt. Commissary bags were brought out to tables. Like a high school cafeteria; the volume was turned up to 11.

It was 6:15pm and two fresh faces occupied the seats at the CO’s desk. All they had to do was survive for the next four hours and then they could ride out the rest of their twelve hour shift in relative silence.

I slowly made my way downstairs to join the fray, happy for the change of scenery, but overwhelmed by the chaos of it.

I wanted to use one of the eight phones in the pod, but all of them were currently occupied. I looked around for my chair — the one with 38-T written on the back of it in big letters. Cell 38. Top bunk. I was surprised to see it wasn’t where I left it, but instead it had been moved to Griffin’s table.

Griffin was sitting at the table going through a laundry bag full of commissary items. Each week we were allowed to order no more than 20 food items. I would always order 14 packs of ramen noodles, a tub of cheese, a bag of refried beans, and four bags of cookies. I could only just barely make it last a full week. We were on day six of the current commissary cycle, and Griffin’s bag was full of summer sausages, pepperoni slices, blocks of cheese, saltine crackers, a bag of chili, and a bag of chips.

Griffin looked up at me as I approached the table. “Hey, you wanna eat with us tonight?” he asked. So many questions entered my mind. Why do you want to eat with me? How do you have so much food left on day 6? What’s it going to cost me to join the table?

Griffin continued before any of these questions could reach my tongue. “You got two soups? That’s all we need,” he said.

“That’s all you need?” I asked in surprise. “Doesn’t feel like a fair contribution compared to what you’re bringing to the table.”

“Well now I see it differently,” he said in his slow southern drawl. “The way I look at it is I can sit here with a sausage in one hand, a block of cheese in the other, and I could take alternating bites like a chump. Or I could find four soups and make us a pizza. Clint already said he’d throw in two soups. You can get in on it too if you want.”

“I got two soups, but I’m waiting on a phone to open up,” I said.

“Go get the soups then. It’ll take me an hour to make the pizza. You can make your phone call and then food will be hot-n-ready right here just like Little Caesars.”

I agreed.

The bustle of the pod continued as I made may way back up the stairs to my cell. I slid my property box out from underneath my bunk and opened the lid. Only one soup was inside. That’s odd, I could’ve sworn I had two. I grabbed it anyway and returned to Griffin’s table. Clint had joined him at this point.

“I’ve only got one,” I said. “I could’ve sworn I had two.”

Clint answered. “I think I saw Ike comin’ out your cell after you first came down after lockdown. I bet you he just took it.”

“What the fuck? Who’s Ike?” I looked around, trying to figure it out. At this particular jail, it was against the rules for inmates to go into any cell other than his own. It was also rare for inmates to close their cell doors behind them. They would automatically lock and you’d have to ask a CO to let you back in. They didn’t like being asked to do this.

Clint continued. “Your cellie has a gamblin’ problem. I bet you Ike thought he was stealin’ from him.”

“Aw shit,” said Griffin. “I wouldn’t put up with that. You gotta straighten your cellie out. Tell him he owes you a soup.”

I looked across the pod at Saget who had just borrowed a soup from Shorty.

“Dude’s broke. He don’t have a soup to give,” I said. I felt stuck. I didn’t know what to do. I could confront Ike, but I didn’t actually see him do it. I just had Clint’s word to go on and I’d never really spoken to Clint before. How good is his word?. I could confront Saget, but I didn’t see how that was going to bring back my soup. I felt like this was a test. I’m supposed to act big and tough. I’m supposed to make a scene, or else people will know they can steal from me forever because I’m a pushover. But the idea of making a scene isn’t my personality. And the consequences of getting into a fight and going to the hole seem way more expensive than a soup that costs 50 cents. I’ll have to think about it.

“Well hand it here,” said Griffin, extending his hand for the soup. “One’s enough.”

I handed him the soup. “Sorry it’s not two,” I said.

“It ain’t your fault,” said Clint.

“Don’t sweat it,” said Griffin. “You can pay your fair share next week. Go make your phone call.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I looked at the phone bank and several phones were open now. I felt pretty insecure as I carried my chair toward the phones. So far I had kept my nose clean. I had learned that the people who got picked on are the child molesters, the old, and the scrawny. I was none of these, but I felt like I was being picked on. I also didn’t fully trust Griffin and Clint. They were two of the biggest guys in the pod and — judging by the laundry bag of commissary items — they had some clout that I didn’t understand. Are they playing me too?

I set my chair down at an empty phone and picked up the receiver.

“Please enter your 10 digit access PIN.”

I complied.

“To make a pre-paid phone call, press 1. To place a commissary order, press 2. To ...”

I pressed 1.

“Enter the 10 digit phone number you wish to dial, followed by the pound key.”

I complied.

“Your call is being connected.”

I stared at the tile floor while the phone rang. After a few rings, my mom picked up.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi mom,” I started to say before the phone system interrupted me.

“YOU HAVE A PRE-PAID CALL FROM,” followed by a recording of my voice that said, “Mick,” before continuing, “AN OFFENDER AT THE SOUTHERN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY. TO ACCEPT THIS CALL, PRESS 1. OTHERWISE, YOU MAY HANG UP.”

She pressed 1.

“Hi mom,” I said again.

“Whew. That lady’s loud! Hi son. How are you holding up?” she asked.

“Oh, ok I guess,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her about what just happened. I didn’t want her to worry and I was also a little embarrassed.

“I’ve got you on speakerphone,” she said, followed shortly by the shout from my dad. “Hi son!”

“Hi dad.”

“Oh, what a minute,” said my mom. “What’s happening? Aww. Joker hears your voice through the phone. He just got up and now he’s looking out the window. I think he thinks you’re coming home.” Few things are more heartbreaking than the knowledge that your dog misses you and you can’t do a damn thing about it.

We made small talk for a bit before my dad asked, “how’s your cell mate?”

I looked up from the floor to see Saget sitting at a card table with five or six other inmates. “He’s fine I guess,” I said. “He told me earlier today during lockdown that his dad was never there for him when he was growing up. Said he was in and out of prison his whole life. He’s hoping to get out soon so that he can be there for his new daughter.”

My mom responded, “I hope so too, for her sake at least.”

Another inmate walked up to the phone next to mine, picked it up, and dialed some numbers. A few moments later he hung up and walked away.

“Yea,” I said. “I hope so too. He seems like a good guy when you talk to him. He just makes bad choices.”

“Don’t we all,” mom said.

“Some of us more than others,” I said.

I turned around in my chair, so I didn’t have to watch Saget. The conversation continued with my parents as I watched Griffin and Clint prepare the pizza from a distance. Griffin was smashing the bags of soups, saltines, and chips against the ground to break them up. Clint was heating up water in the microwave. The broken ingredients were all combined inside a single bag of chips and then the hot water was added. Half of a new clear plastic trash bag was laid out on the table and the “dough” was dumped out onto it. The other half of the trash bag was laid on top and a Suave shampoo bottle was used like a rolling pin to roll out the dough.

By the time I got off the phone, the chili was heated and spread onto the dough, and cheese, pepperoni, and sausage were added on top of that.

“Let’s eat!” said Griffin.

“Wait a minute,” said Clint. “Go get your headphones, Breaking Bad’s on tonight. They ‘bout to rob a train.”

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I sat on my bunk and stared at the wall, not sure what to do with myself. Propped up against the wall was Saget’s photo board. In the center was his girlfriend’s face smiling sweetly — a newborn baby in her arms. I felt like I was invading his privacy by looking at it, but the only other thing to see was a wall of painted cinderblocks. I felt a tickle in my nose and I was on the verge of a sneeze when Saget started to yell.

“Hey Scout, what are you doing!?”

He was standing up against the locked cell door looking out.

“Oh, your cellie’s taking a shit? Ahhhh ha ha,” he pointed out the cell window while laughing. The doors were pretty much soundproof, so he dropped down to his belly to yell through the crack between the door and the floor.

“I bet it fuckin’ stinks in there! Tell him to put some water on it!”

It was noon and we had just returned to our cells for the afternoon lockdown period. The morning rec period was about 4 hours long and ended with lunch. Many people, including Saget, slept through the rec period until lunch, and now they were full of energy.

While Saget continued yelling through the door, I was still fighting back a sneezing fit.

I wish I had my allergy meds.

I slid my property box out from under the bunk and dug around a bit until I found a little bottle of saline nasal spray that I had ordered from commissary. It wasn’t medicine, but I figured it was worth a try.

I stuck the bottle into a nostril and squeezed while breathing in. The saline spray went all the way through my nasal passage and landed on my tongue. It tasted awful and I immediately started coughing.

Saget jumped up from the floor, turned toward me, and said, “yo, you alright?”

I blew my nose into some toilet paper and threw it in the toilet while continuing to cough a bit.

“Yea,” I said. “Just used some of that nasal spray. Shit’s disgusting. It landed on the back of my tongue.”

“Oh ho ho,” Saget said. “You won’t be able to snort cocaine then. That shit does the same thing. And it tastes a lot worse than that nasal spray, I guarantee it!”

I gave him a questioning look. I wanted my allergy attack to stop, I didn’t want to have a snorting competition.

“You could probably do molly though,” he continued. “In fact, you should definitely do molly. That’s my drug of choice. You can stay up all night dancin’ at the club. It’s a blast.” He started shaking his shoulders and dancing around the cell a bit.

“Is that why you’re in here? Possession?” I asked through my stuffy nose.

“No,” he said. “Burglary. You seen in the newspapers people buying cartons of cigarettes here and then driving them over to Port City to sell? A single pack costs double in Port City.”

“Yea, I’ve seen that. Is that you?”

“Oh, no. I got caught trying to steal cigarettes from Big Johns. The little gas station outside of town,” he said.

“Oh. And then you were gonna sell them?”

“That was the plan. Got caught on my 19th birthday too,” he lamented.

“Seems like a hard way to earn a living,” I commented. “A lot of work and a lot of risk for a small payoff.”

“Psh,” he said dismissively. “You got kids?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know what it’s like to not have any money to buy diapers,” he said.

“True.” I paused for effect, “I also don’t know what it’s like to spend all my money on molly,” I said.

He snapped his head back at that and gave me a sideways glance with a smile. The kind of face that said, “you caught me.”

“Well anyway,” Saget continued. “I’m trying to change. My baby momma’s father is the pastor at a church. He’s been real helpful. When we first found out she was pregnant we wanted an abortion, but he convinced us to keep the baby. He said he’d help us when we needed it, and I’ve been going to church on Sundays to try to do my part.”

“Oh, ok. Cool,” I said. I reached into my property box and pulled out a brand new bible. “Where should I start?”

“You should read the book of Matthew,” he said. “And you should go to church here! They got services on Wednesday nights. The pastor who leads it is real cool. He’s done some time before.”

A lot of people would leave the pod on Wednesday evenings for church and it would be pretty quiet in the pod for an hour or two. I had considered going, but I really enjoyed the quiet pod on those nights.

Maybe I’ll go next time to see what it’s all about.

“AH CHOO.”

The nasal spray wasn’t helping at all. But my allergy attack got me thinking of the CO the other day who had the large can of pepper spray on her hip. OC spray is what Saget had called it.

I feel like I’ve just been sprayed with whatever’s in that can.

“What’s OC spray?” I asked Saget.

“It’s like pepper spray, but ten times worse,” he said. “Yea, that shit’ll fuck you up. I’ve only ever seen them use it to break up fights. Even if it’s just a little dust up, they’ll empty the can on your ass. That shit’s no joke either. You go blind if it gets in your eyes; snot pours out of your mouth, your nose, your ears; and you can’t breathe at all so you start coughing and gagging. Feels like you’re suffocating. And then they slap the cuffs on you, yoke you up, and throw you in the hole with no shower and no sympathy. Takes hours to get back to normal.”

I gave Saget a good look from head to toe. He had a short faded haircut — a bit longer on the top and tapering down to very short on the sides. The kind of haircut you had to pay extra for in here. He had a tattoo on his forearm that said, “destined for greatness,” in a fancy script. And he was very thin. He didn’t look like someone who would do well in a fight.

“When did you experience that?” I asked him.

“In juvie,” he answered, but before he could elaborate he was interrupted by a loud POP, and the cell door swung open.

“SAGET!” yelled one of the COs from the pod. “Go down to booking.”

Saget pulled his green scrub shirt on over his white t-shirt and walked out. I poked my head out of the cell. A fat CO sitting at the desk looked me in the eye and yelled, “lock it back down!”

I closed the door and enjoyed complete privacy for the first time in weeks. Well... almost. A COs face would still appear occasionally in the window of the cell door when they made their rounds.

About a half hour later, I was startled from my nap with another loud POP, when in walked Saget. He began talking quickly and loudly.

“These motherfuckers got some nerve!” he said. “Someone broke into my baby momma’s church and stole money from the safe. And they’re tryin’ to say I did it!”

He began pacing the length of the cell. He was breathing loudly.

“They pointed to my tattoo and said they got that on the security camera footage. Psh, I told ‘em that was bullshit. If they had evidence then they wouldn’t be here looking for a confession. So I told ‘em to fuck off and talk to my lawyer.”

“Did you do it?” I asked.

He turned to me with an angry look and shouted, “Fuck no!”

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I rolled out of my bunk with a yawn and a stretch — the thin plastic mat under me complaining noisily. I donned my forest green scrub pants and shirt, took three steps, and emptied my bladder into the stainless steel toilet bowl before pressing the button on the wall to initiate the most powerful flush known to mankind.

“You could flush a sheet down that thing,” said my cellie, Saget, from his bunk without opening his eyes.

I’d probably heard him say that exact sequence of words a dozen times since I moved in a few weeks ago, but I suppose it’s hard to come up with new things to say in a place like this.

I pressed the button on the stainless steel water fountain — er, sink — to initiate a weak stream of water to wash my hands. The water stopped flowing after five seconds, so I guess that’s all I needed. I grabbed the roll of toilet paper from the hole built into the stainless steel toilet-sink contraption and tore off a square — only one square, because only one new roll of toilet paper would be issued to me each week — to wipe the sink and the toilet seat before tossing it into the toilet. One of Saget’s weird quirks was that he didn’t like to see water spots on any of the stainless steel surfaces; a quirk that most other inmates had adopted and one that I would soon adopt as well.

“Funny that the flow of water in the sink is so weak compared to the toilet,” I said.

“It’s not funny,” said Saget. “It’s annoying.”

I guess he doesn’t appreciate irony, I thought.

I stepped over to the closed cell door and pressed my face against the small glass rectangle to look into the empty pod down below. I couldn’t see the clock from here, but I could see other faces pressed up against cell windows.

Breakfast will be here soon.

I could see the two CO’s sitting at the desk below, pretending to work. One was fat and the other was young.

I bet the young one will probably be fat too before I get out.

Not a moment later and both COs lifted their heads to the sound of someone at the door to the pod. The fat one stood up to walk toward the door while the young one started pressing buttons on the touch screen in front of him.

“Trays!” yelled the fat one.

POP. POP. POP.

With each button press on the touch screen, another cell door unlocked.

POP. POP. POP.

I watched from my window as an inmate in white scrubs pushed a cart of trays into the pod. There was one tray per inmate and two trays per CO.

The young one will definitely be fat too before I get out.

POP. POP. POP.

The white scrub inmate left the pod while the green scrub inmates on the bottom tier started crawling out of their holes and lining up at the tray cart.

POP. POP. POP.

Eventually, it was my lock’s turn to POP and I was able to push the door open to join the line.

I was still finishing my fruit loops when Cornwhistle approached me. “Eh yo. Chess today?” he asked. “They got new pieces behind the desk.”

The last set of chess pieces was too far gone to be useful. It looked like someone had put them all in a bag and then stomped them into smithereens.

“Uh, sure,” I said. “How’d you know I know how to play?”

“Just a hunch,” he replied.

After breakfast, most of the inmates returned to their bunks until lunch and I joined Cornwhistle at the usual table. The table was square and could seat four comfortably for a game of cards. The base of the table was a hard plastic that was probably full of sand and the tabletop had a chessboard and backgammon painted onto it. Cornwhistle had a spray bottle of green liquid in his left hand, and a roll of brown paper towels in his right hand. He sprayed the table with the green stuff, ripped off a square of paper towel, and started wiping it down.

“Where’d you get the cleaner?” I asked him.

“They got it behind the desk. You just gotta ask for it,” he said. He paused for a moment. “You didn’t know that? How’d you clean your mat when you moved into the pod?”

“Uh,” I said, a little embarrassed. “I didn’t know that was an option. I just figured it was cleaned before I moved in.”

“Yo dawg!” he said. “Take this shit right now and go clean your mat. Nobody cleans the mats after people move out, so you gotta ask for the cleaning supplies when you move.”

“Ok,” I said, grateful for the lesson.

I grabbed the cleaning supplies and returned to my cell while he started setting up the chess pieces.

“And take a shower!” he shouted to my back. And then a little bit quieter, “dirty-ass motherfucker,” he said to himself.

“I heard that,” I said.

“Eh. I’m just saying,” he held his hands up defensively.

Saget was already sound asleep when I returned to the cell and started pulling the sheets off my bed. I proceeded to strip the sheets, spray the mat, wipe it down, and remake my bed. In the process, I accidentally knocked something off of the desk in the corner of the cell. Saget’s pictures.

His girlfriend had just sent him a handful of photos. One of her face with a sweet look on it and another of a newborn child. He had somehow pasted the pictures to a piece of cardboard and leaned it against the wall on the desktop. I picked it up and put it back on the desk, thankful that I didn’t damage it.

After remaking my bed, I dropped the cleaner off at the CO’s desk with a “thanks,” and returned to the chess table. Cornwhistle had given himself the white pieces and he’d already made the first move — pawn to e4.

“You feelin’ better?” I asked him as I sat down. “I heard you were sick.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Not really. The DA offered me a plea deal for 16 years. Jesus fucking Christ, 16 years for this shit, man. It was just a tiny bag of dope! I couldn’t believe it. I told my lawyer no way I’d sign that, they’re gonna have to take me to trial.”

I didn’t have any idea how much dope corresponded with how much time, so I just said, “damn.”

“After I heard that, I was fucking sick,” he continued. “Had to lay it on down for a few days. But I can’t lay down forever, so... let’s play some chess.”

I wanted to ask him more questions, but I didn’t know where to start. In my case, I wasn’t offered a plea deal. I wrecked my car and my friend died. I was driving 120mph. There was no way I could say, “they’re gonna have to take me to trial,” so I plead guilty immediately and then had a sentencing hearing.

But Cornwhistle seemed set on changing the subject. “What if this was a real army,” he said. “How do you think this guy would feel?”

He pointed to the pawn in the center of the board.

I gave him a solid sounding “uh” before he continued.

“I bet the king be like, ‘Ensign Elliott! March forth into battle’ and then Ensign Elliott be like, ‘yo, all these motherfuckers to my left and right and you chose me. You coulda’ at least sent out the cavalry first.’”

I picked up my e pawn and pushed it forward, playing along. “Private Parker! The white army has made the first move. March forth, and claim some territory for black.”

“Yo,” Cornwhistle continued, “and then Elliott and Parker just have to talk it out cuz they can’t capture each other.”

“Would you two shut the fuck up!” someone shouted from behind a closed cell door.

Cornwhistle struck back with a, “yo, if the sun’s up, I’m up. And I don’t give a fuck what you think about it.”

I gave Cornwhistle a questioning look, as if to ask, “you looking for a fight?”

But he simply said with a shrug, “eh, it’s just Scout. I ain’t scared of Scout. If it was someone else, like Griffin, maybe I’d say sorry instead.”

Cornwhistle and I played chess for an hour or so before we were interrupted by the sound of a long whistle.

“Count time!” yelled the fat CO before putting the whistle back in his mouth and blowing it again. “Inspection count!”

“Jesus Christ,” said Cornwhistle to the CO. “You gotta blow that thing so loud?”

The CO turned to face Cornwhistle and yelled once more, “count time! Inspection count!” He blew the whistle an extra time for good measure.

POP, POP, POP, went the cell doors again while the young CO pressed all the buttons. Some people chose to lock themselves down to go back to sleep, so their doors needed to be reopened. Plus the pops were loud enough to wake everyone up.

Cornwhistle and I left the pieces on the table and returned to our cells. The pod was full of moans and groans, but every single inmate got out of bed, put on their green scrubs, and stood against the wall outside of their cell doors. I fell in line.

POP. went the outside door to the pod as well and then the brass walked in. A sergeant or two, and perhaps a lieutenant. The kinds of COs who have too much power and don’t play any games. Even Cornwhistle shut his mouth and lined up for count without further complaint.

Fat CO took one half of the pod while one of the sergeants took the other. They walked up to every cell, looked at every inmate from head to toe, walked inside every cell, made sure beds were made, and walked out again to inspect the next cell.

I was standing outside my cell door with my back to the wall next to a sleepy Saget when one of the sergeants approached. She was a large woman with what looked like a can of bear spray holstered on her hip. The COs didn’t carry weapons except for pepper spray, but this can of pepper spray was much bigger than any I had seen before.

“Oh shit, she got the OC spray,” said Saget quietly.

She gave him a wry look and then entered our cell. She lingered a bit. When she had inspected other cells she was pretty much in and out, but she spent at least twice as long in our cell. I couldn’t see in so I didn’t know what she was doing, but eventually she returned. In her hand was Saget’s picture board.

“Who’s is this?” she asked.

Saget made a bit of a “tsk” sound before saying, “mine.”

“You can’t have this up. Take it down.”

“What!?” he said defensively. “It’s not against the rules.”

“You can’t have pictures on the wall,” she said curtly.

“But they aren’t on the wall. They’re on a piece of cardboard,” he said with a little bit of sass.

But she wasn’t having it. “I said, take them down! Or I’ll confiscate them instead.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said facetiously.

She paused for a moment while she looked at him. Her eyes flicked toward me for a moment before settling back on him. She didn’t know him well enough to know whether he was being serious or flippant, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. This time.

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Griffin looked me in the eye before walking outside and said, “C’mon man, do some pushups with me.”

It was late morning and the energy in the pod was starting to come alive. The CO just opened the door to the rec yard and the brightness poured through it from outside, beckoning me. I stepped across the threshold to feel the warmth of the sun through the chain-link rec yard roof, and, although I could hear the breeze, I couldn’t feel it through the 30-foot tall cinderblock rec yard walls.

Griffin also seemed to be enjoying the weather for a moment while he waited for me to join him.

“I don’t know if I can keep up with you,” I said.

“Huh? Can you do ten?” he asked with a single raised eyebrow.

“Probably.”

“You’ll do just fine then. C’mon. We start with one.”

Griffin made his way toward the far wall of the rec yard. When he got to the edge he dropped down to do a single pushup before standing up again. I did the same. We then began to walk back toward the door of the rec yard at a leisurely pace.

“I sure do miss them extra breakfast trays,” said Griffin, almost to himself.

“How’d you get extra breakfast trays?” I asked. I was playing dumb. I already knew the answer, I just wanted to see if his and Prairie’s stories lined up.

“Huh?” he said. “Prairie would give me hers.”

We were back at the rec yard door and dropped down to do two more pushups before making our leisurely return the far wall. He looked at me sideways while we walked. I don’t think he wanted to elaborate on the breakfast tray situation, but he also didn’t want me to think he was gay, so he continued. “She came up to me the day she entered the pod and asked for my protection. Said she’d give me her breakfast tray every day to pay for it. That’s all.”

Far wall again. Three pushups.

“Did you ever have to stand up for her?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said curtly. “Easiest money I ever made.”

Back to the door. Four pushups.

Other inmates were trickling outside — some sitting in the sun, some sitting in the shade, others hanging out by the pull-up bar. Silence this time between Griffin and I for the walk back.

Far wall. Five.

“There was this one time,” he began to say, almost hesitant.

Door. Six.

“One night a few weeks ago there was a big commotion up on the top tier,” Griffin said. “Some people were standing in their cell doors pointing at the shower in the corner up there. I heard someone yell, ‘what the fuck!’ And then Prairie’s naked ass ran out of the shower and back into her cell. I was sittin’ downstairs watchin’ TV and when I looked up I could see she didn’t have a towel on or nothin.”

Wall. Seven. I was starting to shake with the effort.

“But after she got back to her cell, the people on the top tier kept pointing at the shower and shouting, ‘come on out, we know you’re in there!’ And a few minutes later, Scout came running out of the same shower, with a towel wrapped around his ass. He tried to play it all cool, but he was caught, dead.”

Door. Griffin finished his eighth pushup when I started to stall on seven. “C’mon! Push!” he shouted. I was barely able to do eight.

“Prairie locked herself down for the rest of the night,” Griffin continued, “so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her until the next morning. She brought me her breakfast tray, as usual, and I asked her if everything was alright. Asked her if she needed me to do something about the night before. But she said no. She said it was consensual.”

Wall. Except I didn’t have the power to do nine pushups. Griffin completed his nine and then squatted down in front of me and put his hands under my shoulders to give me a spot the rest of the way up. “Finish all the reps,” he said. “Keep your back straight.”

On the walk back to the door this time I noticed Scout walk outside and join some of the others who were sitting in the sun. I wondered how he felt about being the subject of such a story. Did he feel ashamed or embarrassed? Proud? Indifferent?

Door. Ten. Seven on my own power, three with Griffin’s assistance.

“That was the hardest ten pushups I’ve ever done in my life,” I said.

“Huh? Hey, good job though,” said Griffin. “You did it.”

The next person to walk out onto the rec yard was Cornwhistle. It had been days since I talked to him. The last I heard, he was “sick” after talking to his lawyer.

“Hey man, what’s up?” I greeted him.

“Oh, you know, just comin’ out here to enjoy some sunshine I guess,” he said.

Griffin interjected, “Huh? What are you doing?” He shot me an angry look. “We ain’t done yet, come on.”

“We did ten,” I said defensively.

“Yea, we did ten up. Now we do ten down. Let’s go.”

“Shit. Alright.”

Griffin and I continued walking back and forth across the rec yard, doing pushups at each end. Ten again, then nine, then eight, and so forth, all the way down to one. My arms felt like jello by the end of it.

“How many you think we did?” asked Griffin. “50? 60?”

“A hundred and ten,” I said.

“Huh? No way it’s that much. It’s like 60.”

“No, it’s 110,” I said. “There’s a formula, n squared plus n.”

“What the fuck.” he said. “Aight then. I’m gonna hit the shower.”

In the corner of the rec yard a steel pull-up bar was bolted to the walls. Cornwhistle was underneath of it holding on.

I asked him, “you gonna do a pull-up?”

“I’m fuckin’ trying ok!” he said without moving.

Eventually he hopped up and started pulling, kicking his legs in front of him with the effort. He just barely got his chin above the bar before letting go and returning to the ground.

“Fuck that was hard,” he said. “Aight then. I’m gonna hit the shower.”

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“One pack of American Spirits please,” I said.

The gas station attendant turned around to scan the shelf full of tobacco behind him.

“Yellow,” I clarified.

The man pulled the pack down from the shelf and slid it across the counter.

“Seven fifty nine,” he said.

I paid the man and pocketed the pack. Excellent. Now I just have to get back to my cell before lockdown, I thought as I made my way toward the convenience store exit. I was full of anticipation for that first drag.

“TRAYS!” came the shout from somewhere, followed by the rhythmic popping sound that was getting louder and louder until POP went the door to my cell.

My hand reached down instinctively to my pocket — Empty.

Damn, another dream.

I didn’t really notice the cravings throughout the day, but the dreams persisted. It was the same every time — a pack of cigarettes was in my hand, but I never got the chance to light one before I woke up. It had been over a month since I’d had a cigarette and probably decades since a pack was $7.59.

“TRAYS!” the shout came again.

I slid on my blue fabric state-provided shoes and walked down the metal staircase from the top tier to take my serving of fruit loops off to the quietest table I could find. Despite the fact that breakfast was the quietest meal of the day, there was always at least a little bit of chatter.

“Fruit loops for eggs,” a guy named Terry called out as he walked around between tables with his tray. “I got fruit loops for eggs.”

He’d try to make eye contact with the newest people in the pod. “Fruit loops for eggs?” he’d raise an eyebrow. Each day it seemed like the deal he offered was worse than the last, but in the end it seemed like he’d always find someone to take him up on it.

“Nobody gonna take you up on that, Fat Terry,” said Griffin. “Sit it on down.”

But Cornwhistle proved Griffin wrong. “Eh, I gotchu Terry. Over here,” he called out.

“There’s always one!” boomed Terry as he walked over to Cornwhistle with some new excitement in his step. His big hand reached down to grab the two hard boiled eggs from Cornwhistle’s tray at the same time as Cornwhistle was scooping the fruit loops off of Terry’s tray with his spoon.

There’s always one, what? I thought. One sucker?

“You don’t know if you don’t ask,” Terry remarked defensively toward Griffin as he returned to his seat.

“I guess you right then,” said Griffin.

Breakfast continued until — one by one — people would finish eating, return their trays to the tray cart, and then head back to their cells to go back to bed. This was the only time of day that the pod was mostly quiet — the time of day that I enjoyed the most. It was then that I noticed Prairie was looking at me from the card table across the pod. Sitting on the table in front of her was a full bag of coffee, and I remembered that she owed me a cup.

I carried my empty cup over to her table, and she scooped two spoonfuls of freeze-dried coffee into my cup as a greeting.

“Two scoops?” I asked. “I only gave you one the other day.”

“Two for one is how we do it in here,” she said.

“Oh ok,” I wasn’t going to argue. “Hey, I noticed you’re always up in the morning, but you don’t eat breakfast. What’s up with that?”

“I give my breakfast tray to Griffin every day,” she answered.

I tried to figure out why in my head. Does he buy her food? Does he threaten her and just take it?

She could read the quizzical look on my face, and so she elaborated.

“Griffin’s a big motherfucker,” she said. “I, personally, am not that hungry in the mornings, but big motherfuckers are. So one of the things I do whenever I go into a new pod, is find the big motherfucker and offer him my breakfast trays in exchange for his protection. He doesn’t have to be my friend or hang out with me or anything like that. But if someone wants to bully me, he’s got my back.”

“Ok ok, makes sense,” I said. “Guess I have to get my weight up then if I want a double breakfast for myself. Hey, where’s Cornwhistle? Did he go back to bed?”

“He’s sick,” was Prairie’s reply.

“Sick? He seemed perfectly healthy to me when he wanted those extra fruit loops.”

“Fruit loops are comfort food. Easier to stomach than those plain hard boiled eggs,” Prairie said. “He’s not sick sick, he’s just depressed. I think he got some bad news from his lawyer.”

“Oh damn,” I said. “I guess we’ll play cards some other time then.”

After a short walk to put the extra coffee away and heat up a cup for myself, I returned to Prairie’s table. She was watching the Crocodile Hunter on Animal Planet with no audio.

“I wish I had a radio so I could hear all the crikeys,” she said. The tv audio was broadcast on an AM radio frequency and could be listened to with a radio and headphones. It cost a bit of money to purchase a radio from commissary though. Now that I knew she couldn’t afford a radio, I felt a little bad taking that extra cup of coffee from her.

“What are you in for?” I asked.

“My fifth fuckin’ DUI,” she said. “This one’s a felony, so I got 3 years for it. Plus I have to do a rehab program at the state penitentiary. I’m hopin’ they send me there soon so I can get the hell out of here.”

I was a little shocked. “Five DUIs!?” I said, “you didn’t put a cab driver on speed dial after the fourth one?”

“I don’t give a fuck,” she said. “This is how I live. I drink and I steal. And sometimes I drive drunk. The judge won’t let me legally change my name, so I have to put Charles down on my job applications. Every time I walk into an interview, they look at me and go ‘Uh, Charles?’ and I have to explain to them that I’m trans. It’s embarrassing! Why can’t I just put Prairie down on my job applications and walk in like a woman? I even hired a lawyer to petition the court for a name change, but the judge said that with my record he didn’t want to create,” she made little air quotes with her hands, “confusion in the courts.”

“Fuck him!” she continued. “So I can’t get a job, I’ll just take what I want then.”

“Sounds like some bullshit,” I said.

At that moment the pod door opened and in walked one of the sergeants on duty.

“Tweet tweet!” someone whistled from somewhere. “They in here!”

Prairie got up from her seat and approached the sergeant. I sipped my coffee and enjoyed some silent Crocodile Hunter until she returned.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Damn! You’re awful nosy today,” she said.

“My bad, just makin’ conversation.”

“Well I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t have a cellie right now. That means that on any given day they can put someone in there with me. For me, it’s hard being paired up with a random stranger. I was just asking the sergeant if they were doing any movement today and he said no, so I’m good for another day at least.”

“You ask him that every day?” I asked

“Yea,” she said. “That’s why I get up in the mornings, so I can catch him making his rounds when everyone else is sleeping. Yesterday he told me I can choose a cellie from in here if I wanted to. I was gonna ask Cornwhistle but, like I said, he’s sick.”

She paused for a moment.

“What about you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I said. “You want me to be your cellie?”

“I mean, you seem safe enough. You’re clean. You keep to yourself. You don’t get involved in any of that bullshit in here. It ain’t like I’m asking you to go out with me.”

I thought for a moment and didn’t see anything wrong with it.

So I said, “yea whatever. I don’t care.”

“Ok!” she said excitedly. She jumped out of her seat again to catch the sergeant just as he was about to leave the pod. I couldn’t hear them talking, but she pointed at me. The sergeant gave me an inquiring look and I shot him a nod and a thumbs up. Then he left and Prairie sat back down.

“That’s a relief,” she said. “Next time there’s movement he said he’ll put you in my cell. Might be tomorrow or the day after.”

I wasn’t quite sure what I had gotten myself into, but the next morning when I woke up to get my breakfast tray, Prairie was gone. Shipped off to prison in the middle of the night.

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“Eh yo. You play spades?” he asked me.

I couldn’t tell if he had a chubby face or if it was just the stubble on his neck that made it look that way.

An effeminate voice rang out from across the pod before I could answer, “I wanna play hearts, Cornwhistle, not spades!”

“Shut the fuck up, Prairie!” a third voice answered, a bit muffled from behind a closed cell door.

“You shut the fuck up!” Prairie shot back.

A lady with wavy blonde hair hurried toward the table where the chubby-faced guy was sitting. She saw the bag of freeze dried coffee tucked into my waistband and stopped short.

“Oh shit, you got coffee. Let me get a shot,” she said. “I’ve got two bags comin’ tomorrow, I’ll get you back.”

“Yo, chill,” Chubbyface said to Prairie. “Dude just got hit with four years and you’re over here tryin’ to scare the shit out of him.”

“Sorry,” Prairie said. She looked me in the eye and said, “I’m a woman who still has a penis so they won’t put me in a women’s pod. You’re all caught up now, so how about that shot of coffee?”

I let the question hang on the air for a moment before letting out an uncertain, “uhh… alright.”

Prairie fist pumped a “yes!” and then started running back to her cell. “I need to get my cup!”

Taking the opportunity to finish my walk to the microwave, I put my cup inside, set the timer for two minutes, and turned back to the table.

“How’d you know I got four years?” I asked Chubbyface.

He pulled a newspaper off of one of the chairs next to him and slapped it on the table. “You made the front page, dawg.”

I glanced down and saw my mugshot next to the headline.

Driver in Fatal Accident Sentenced to 3 Years and 11 Months.”

“I wish they’d put me in the newspaper,” Chubbyface continued. “Eh, at least you got a good mugshot. Looks like you got a good haircut and a nice tan goin. I look like a goddamn drunk raccoon in mine. Those motherfuckers took my picture while I was still talkin’.”

“You don’t stop talking for long, do you?” I said while trying to read the article.

Not a moment later, Prairie returned with a cup in hand. “We’re playing hearts right?” she asked.

“Yo, shut the fuck up for a minute. Dude’s trying to read the newspaper,” said Chubbyface.

“Ooh,” said Prairie. “Did you tell him he has a nice mugshot?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” said Chubbyface. “Eh, where’s your boy? We need a fourth for cards.”

“He’s coming,” Prairie said. “I told him I got us some coffee.” She slid her empty cup toward me.

The microwave beeped to announce that I would never get an opportunity to read the newspaper. I got up, retrieved my cup of hot water, set it on the table next to Prairie’s cup, and put a spoonful of the little brown coffee cubes into each.

Prairie snatched her cup back with a, “thanks!” and ran off to fill it with water.

It was just me and Chubbyface again. I asked him, “so if they put you in the newspaper, what would it say?”

“Oh man,” he started. “I’m glad you asked. They’d do it up big, ‘Cornwhistle, Greatest Drug Dealer of All Time, Cut Down in His Prime’ is what the headline would be.” He made a sweeping motion with his hands above his hand. “You ever seen Cheech and Chong? It was like that, but instead of an ice cream truck I was sellin’ dope out of a meat truck. I’d drive over to Port City cuz the dope’s cheaper over there. I’d pretty much trade a whole truckload of meat for the dope, then drive it back here and sell it for a premium. My boss didn’t care how I sold the meat, as long as he got his cut. I’d give him the money for the meat and keep the rest. Easy peasy!

“But then one day I was driving down route 17 through town and the fuckin’ DEA pulled out of the woods in front of me. I didn’t even know there was woods right there! I tried to back up, but another big black SUV had me boxed in. I was cooked. Fuckin snitches must’ve told on me. But yo, I thought, ‘It don’t matter. They ain’t gonna find the dope on me today.’ All I had was a little eight ball on me and I had it tied to my nut sack. Cops’ll pat you down, but they ain’t gonna touch your nut sack... ain’t that right Prairie,” he said with a cheeky little aside as Prairie sat back down with her cup of coffee.

“Shut the fuck up,” she snapped.

Chubbyface continued, “they said they had a warrant for my arrest, so they brought me here. I tried to act cool, but to be honest, I was sweatin’ bullets the whole ride in the back seat of that cruiser. I prayed that that motherfucker with the sunglasses wasn’t working in booking that day. Anybody else working in booking might not strip search you, but if that motherfucker’s workin, you can count on gettin’ strip searched. Welp. Sure enough, that motherfucker with the sunglasses was workin’.

“Eh,” he went on, “you thought he was fat right? Dude ain’t so fat that he can’t jump right through that window in the dry cell and tackle your ass then and there. I hardly had my pants off before I was face down on the tile floor with a knee in the back of my neck. I let him have it too, called him all sorts of names...”

Chubbyface then proceeded to paint the most artistic picture one can imagine with a palette full of all the banned words.

“How much time did you get?” I asked him after he was finished.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I talk to my lawyer tomorrow. I got a PD. I’m hopin’ for a good plea deal.”

“What’s your name?” came my next question.

“Charlie Cornwhistle. My friends call me CC.”

“Your name is really Cornwhistle?”

“Yep. And eh, I heard all the jokes. Go ahead, let me have it. I don’t give a fuck. That’s just who I am. Charlie Motherfuckin’ Cornwhistle.”

Prairie interjected, “can we play hearts now?”

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The DA’s voice continued to echo in my head until a question came from a different voice. A softer voice.

“How much time did you get?”

I turned my head without unhunching my shoulders to face the young lady on the bench next to me.

“I don’t know. Two years and eleven months. Or maybe three years and eleven months. The judge’s numbers didn’t add up.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She wanted to tell me that she only got eight months, but the thought didn’t reach her lips.

“He said ‘two years and eleven months for involuntary manslaughter plus twelve months for reckless driving’, and then he said, ‘for a total of two years and eleven months.’ What does that mean?”

She was leaning forward - hands on her knees - to get a better look at me.

LIKE A FLAMING BRICK IN A BUCKET OF GASOLINE, the DA’s words continued to echo. Our community is a small one. And some events are like pebbles dropped into a pond. They cause ripples that extend to all the edges. But this event was more LIKE A FLAMING BRICK IN A BUCKET OF GASOLINE!

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“How much time did you get?” I asked.

“Time served.”

An inquiring voice called out into the room, “Barnes?”

Barnes? I thought. Lauren Barnes? The daughter of my kindergarten teacher? The girl who wrecked her car at 25 over the limit? The girl whose boyfriend died? Wasn’t she high on drugs or something?

“WESTWOOD!” boomed a different voice. “Get away from her! In here,” he pointed to an open door.

LIKE A FLAMING BRICK IN A BUCKET OF GASOLINE

I nearly jumped to my feet. I was already breaking the rules but I didn’t even know what they were. I followed the officer’s command and heard “I’ll write you,” from a soft voice in the distance behind me.

My feet carried me through the door and into an eight by ten cinderblock room with a large square cutout on one side. The door slammed closed behind me — no handle on this side of it.

“Shirt,” the officer’s hand appeared a moment later, palm upwards, through the cutout.

I unbuttoned the $80 shirt while the officer waited impatiently. It was probably the most expensive shirt I owned, but it was a bit too small now and the armpits were starting to yellow. I bought it — along with the rest of my suit — before I graduated college so that I’d look nice for job interviews.

“Where’s my jacket?” I asked the officer. He held up a clear plastic trash bag that contained my jacket, tie, belt, and shoelaces. I was forced to hand those over earlier when I walked out of the courtroom and into the holding cell at the courthouse.

“Shirt,” the officer commanded again, hand beckoning. I couldn’t see his eyes behind his blue tinted sunglasses, but I could tell from his expressionless face that he didn’t like answering questions.

I handed over the shirt.

He opened the collar and ran it between his thumb and forefinger. He pulled out the two plastic stays and looked at them one by one before he beamed his flashlight into the slots that once held them. Satisfied with the collar, he pulled each sleeve through his fist and then began carefully inspecting the cuffs.

“Pants,” he said while he continued to inspect the shirt.

At least it’s not too cold in here, I thought.

The procedure continued until I was standing naked with my bare feet on the concrete floor, acutely aware that despite the lack of cold I felt much smaller than normal. I was nervous and tense. And embarrassed.

“Arms up,” came the next command.

I complied.

“Open your mouth... Under your tongue,”

I complied.

“Lift your sack.”

I complied.

“Turn around... Bottoms of your feet.”

I complied.

“Squat... I SAID SQUAT, NOT BEND OVER...”

I eventually complied.

“NOW COUGH!”

It was hard to believe the officer seemed so thoroughly pissed off at having so thoroughly violated me.

After I coughed, he threw a laundry bag onto the floor beside me. Inside was a plain white t-shirt and dark green scrubs with big letters on the back that said “PROPERTY OF THE STATE”.

“Put that on.”

LIKE A FLAMING BRICK IN A BUCKET OF GASOLINE

Will I ever forget these words?

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Premium subscribers gain access to my personal thoughts, reflections, and commentary below and at the end of every chapter. If you are not yet signed up, you can claim one premium post for free to see if you like it. Once you sign up, you gain access to all of the paywalls since Chapter 1. You can read paywalls for previous chapters on the website.

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