Chapter 4 - Pushups and Perspective
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 over 2.”
“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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