Chapter 9 - Aftermath
Day 23
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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