When she finally looks up at us, it’s as if she doesn’t remember we’re there. Then she quickly gathers herself together and continues.
“I’m kneeling there . . .” she says, “. . . and the inmate is looking at me and breathing heavy. He’s holding his stomach and, Heyward, you could just see the blood gushing out all over the floor from his wound.”
She begins to weep again but still continues to talk. “He reached up and I grabbed his hand and that was the first time I saw that he had a big hole in his stomach, and the blood. Heyward, the blood just kept pouring out of him! I grabbed his T-shirt that was almost ripped off of him and tried to put it over his wound. I took his hand and put it over his wound and told him to hold it there. He did it but you could tell that he did not have the strength to apply any pressure. So I did it for him. We were there with the inmate waiting for the clinic staff to arrive. I mean seconds seemed like minutes and minutes seemed like hours before they came. So I am holding his hand and as I look around I see that now he and I are in a puddle of his blood. His breathing is slowing down and he’s looking at me, then he whispered to me because he could not talk and said, ‘CO, please don’t let me die,’ then his eyes rolled up, his grip loosens on my hand, and I knew that he was gone.”
Now she’s all-out bawling and Jones goes over and puts Bryant’s head on her shoulder and hugs her. My stupid ass is sitting there dumbfounded and not knowing what I could do to comfort her, so I lift the bottle up and drink some more. She stops crying, wipes her face, and grabs her bottle of vodka. Before she can drink it, Jones tries to take it from her, saying that she doesn’t need any more. Ya know she gave her the if-you-don’t-let-go-of-this-bottle look. Bryant took a drink and then said, “Now these muthafucka are asking me questions like ‘Why I let the inmate in?’ ‘How did I let him out of the area without Fran and King seeing him?’ I told them that they’re crazy. That I did not see an inmate come or go! Shit, I didn’t even know that they caught him until they told me later. I thought that the inmate that did it was from the same housing area. They telling me shit like I am going to lose my job, that I could face criminal charges and all that.” She breaks down again and starts whining, “What am I going to do? I had nothing to do with this shit. Why are they trying to pin it all on me?” Jones and I just look at each other because we have no answers for her.
—
I hopped in a cab and went home. While walking to my building everything that Bryant had said was running through my head. There were so many questions and scenarios that were going on with this situation, like why were they trying to blame only Bryant? There were three officers on that post, so could one of them have let the inmate in the area unauthorized? Or worse, did they know that he was going to attack another inmate and allow it to happen? I shook my head and thought to myself, People are getting killed because of officers doing illegal shit but I am not the one to throw stones because as it is my black ass is bringing in pouches of tobacco.
Just then I heard POW! POW! Gunshots. The rounds were hitting the wall by me just above my head. Oh, shit, someone is shooting at me! I pulled out my gun, then dropped and crawled behind a nearby car. I waited a second and looked up just in time to see a figure running away and guess what, he had a hoodie on. I recognized the hoodie, because the last time I saw it was when I broke his face. I’m stunned and outraged because I can’t believe what just happened. After growing up together and all the shit we went through together as kids, tonight Biz just tried to kill me.
CHAPTER 31
HANDLE YA BUSINESS
The next day I’m on my way to work, still a little rattled about Biz shooting at me the night before. Biz needed to be dealt with and soon. I wasn’t trying to be in a situation where I’m always having to watch my back—in my own neighborhood. I think about visiting his moms about the whole thing but change my mind because she didn’t have anything to do with what happened. And Biz probably wasn’t staying with her anyway.
I arrive at work, approaching the entrance to my jail, when I see that there is a gung-ho captain searching officers as they enter. I’m not worried because by now I’ve done this a dozen times and I know to be fully dressed in my officer’s uniform when I am making a drop. There is a female in front of me who’s complaining about her rights as an officer being violated and threatening to call the union because the captain has asked her to open her bag. I know better than to bring one, because it slows down the process. She opens her bag and sarcastically says, “Take a look!” It almost sounds like a dare. I am close to her and the captain because I’m next and I also get to see the contents of her bag. The captain looks and then jumps back and so do I. In her bag was a jelly doughnut, aka a used Kotex. The female officer just stands there with a smirk on her face and asks, “Can I go now?” The captain nods, appearing a little embarrassed. I chuckle, because sometimes you just can’t make this shit up.
After that, all the by-the-book precision searching stops and it is back to business as usual with us just being able to put our bags through the scanning machine and keep it moving, beeping and all. I make my way to roll call and prepare for inspection. We do this dance every morning. The captains come and inspect our equipment, which consists of a flashlight, a 911, which is a sharpened knife curled at the end so that we can cut an inmate down if he is trying to hang himself, also a pen holder and pens so there is no excuse for not being able to write reports and do your paperwork, and a memo pad. The pad is for you to be able to write a mini journal of what you did on that day. It’s supposed to be a legal document in case you’re called to court and have to testify on what you did.
The captains make their way through the ranks inspecting officers. You see various levels of equipment being presented. There are some senior officers who ain’t writing shit and who ain’t cutting an inmate down. They will show the captain a rusty memo book with rubber bands around it to keep it together and toilet paper on the inside. Mind you, the captains are supposed to sign the, ah, toilet paper indicating that it was inspected that day. The 911 knife is supposed to have a serial number on it, and if you lose it you’re supposed to be in really big trouble. I guess the captains know which officers give a shit about being written up and which ones don’t. So sometimes they don’t even bother enforcing anything with said individuals.
This time the warden decides to show up to the roll call, taking time to mingle among us common folk. He starts giving us a speech. “These inmates are not your friends.” You mean Flocko? He says, “They will give you up in a heartbeat.”
Some heartbeat, because I know Flocko has been loyal. He continues, “There is nothing that they can do for you.” Well, that ain’t exactly true. “So don’t get caught up.” I won’t, but good looking out anyway.
After roll call I go to my post and am greeted by a female officer named Rains. I am still on edge a bit but begin to feel better because we were cool and I was probably going to have a good day. Sometimes you can have a fucked-up day if you get with a by-the-book type of officer. Me and Rains often flirted but never had sex. We would talk a lot of times and I could tell that in the streets she was a down-for-whatever type of female. I even met her boyfriend once, who happened to be big in the drug game. When I step inside the officers’ station she says, “What’s up, money bags?” I say, “What’s up?” but just look at her like, “You got the wrong person with the money bags name.” She is the B officer from the midnight tour and is supposed to go to the search. She is one of the officers who hate the search and never went when she was supposed to. So now I have a problem because I want to hit Flocko off with some pouches. Due to the recent murder, things had been tight in the jail and the money was slow. Now I’m accustomed to getting my money every time I come to work and I need it right now because I started gambling again and the addiction had me open. I want to get her off this post so that I can take care of business. Then she says, “Go ahead, money bags, do what you have to do. You kn
ow I’m good.”
Confused, I look at her, puzzled, and ask, “What are you talking about?” She smiles and says, “Breathe easy, Big Hey, I just want to let you know a few things. I did not have this post last night. I had the captain switch the post I had so I could be with you this morning.” I raise my eyebrows because now I am really fucked up. She says, “And I know everything.” I still stick to my guns and look at her with the I-still-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about face. She then breaks down my whole organization without stopping for me to either agree or deny her allegations, and after she finishes, without me saying a word, she gets up and pops open Flocko’s cell.
I’m stuck.
I don’t know how to react right now.
I’m scared.
I’m angry because she knows so much. I am wondering how she got her information. I’m wondering who else knows and all that. I try to hide how I’m feeling right now by doing my best impression of a blank face. She sits back down, pulls out a fingernail file, and says, “Like I said before, handle ya business.”
Flocko comes up to the officers’ station to see that we have company. I see something in his expression when he looks at Rains that suggests he knows her. He stops looking at her, then he looks at me, confused, like, “I know you’re not going to do anything in front of her.” I tell him that I need to holla at him in the inmate TV room. I buzz the door and go in while Rains sits back and continues to file her fingernails. I pull him to the side and with a serious face I ask him if he knows her.
“I know of her,” he says.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask.
“My people told me before that she was going around giving head for cash,” Flocko says.
“What!?” I ask.
“Yeah, word is that she is a cokehead and is giving up head and ass for cash. I never had her but some of my peeps did. At first I didn’t believe them because you know how niggas in here be lying on their dick, but when more than one inmate says the same thing . . .”
He throws his hands up and shrugs as if to say, “Hey, you never know.” But what I really need to know is how did she find out about me. I tell him everything that she knows, right down to the part of her popping him out of his cell. He has the look of guilt on his face like somebody fucked up. Then he swears to me that it wasn’t him and suggests that it may have been one of his workers. I could tell that he was telling the truth because he now had the worried look that this might fuck up the joint business venture that we had going. I tell him to find out on his end and I will find out from her. He went back to his cell and I went to the officers’ bathroom. Once inside I’m thinking that I have to figure this shit out. One thing I know for sure, she ain’t here to rat me out. She wants something from me. I had to find out. I had to confront the situation.
I go back to the officers’ station and I sit down in a chair directly across from her and I say, “Okay, shoot, let me know what’s up.” She turns her chair toward me, leans back to where I can see the imprint of her coochie lips through her tight pants, and pats it with her hand. I feel that Flocko was telling the truth about her and then she starts to explain. She says, “Hey, we have been cool for a minute and I feel that I can trust you with what I am about to tell you.” I give her a look like, “I am all ears.” Then she says, “I found out about you through one of my customers who is locked up in here.”
“Customers?” I ask. “What, are you dropping pouches, too?”
“No disrespect,” she looks at me and says, “but I couldn’t pay my mortgage with pouch money. You know that they bagged my baby [her boyfriend] a couple of months ago and shit started getting real tight as far as the money goes. He was paying for mostly everything and I was banking mine but now I have to keep shit right for my four little girls and keep money on his commissary. That’s why I’ve been doing me.”
While she’s talking, I start letting the inmates out of their cells to start the day. She continues, “I started with a few officers in here that have been all up in my face trying to sex me. They were always offering to buy me things and take me on trips and all that. So I just converted all that shit into cash. The first one, I just told him that I needed a bill paid and he did it for a two-minute slurp session.” She makes a slurp sound with her mouth and says, “Right there in area two top. And after that I never looked back.
“Honestly speaking, most of these chicks around here are giving it up for free, and besides me I know of only two others that are rocking like me, but they are bum bitches and be settling for mink coats and snakeskin boots. A chick like me is making school tuition and mortgage money,” she says.
I ask her how she found out about me. She leans back again so that I can see her cunt lips through her pants and pops it twice, then says, “You’d be surprised at what a man will say and do once a woman tightens up on him. It took a few times, but an inmate by the name of Moe told me about Flocko always having tobacco and never running out even when it ain’t visits. So I sat back and watched until I found out he was here in eight upper. Then, judging from the conversations that miraculously we don’t have anymore about your child support situation, I put two and two together and here I am.”
“What do you want?” I ask. “I mean, obviously you ain’t ratting me out, so you must want something.”
“On the real,” she said, “I need protection and I feel as cool as we are and what you’re into and what I am into that I can only trust you.”
“Protection from who? Officers? Inmates?”
“More like a lookout with the officers,” she said, “because I am about to fuck with some bigwigs and I just want you to know who they are just in case a bitch gets into some real trouble, which I doubt, but you never know.”
“What’s in it for me?”
She pops her cooch again.
“I got enough of that,” I tell her.
“I can move pouches for you, one hand washes the other,” she says.
I know she can move and get into places that Flocko couldn’t, and if shit hit the fan, I wouldn’t get caught unless I got caught dirty with pouches on me; everything else would be hearsay. Can I really trust her? Then I rationalize, Hello, you are fucking with a team of inmates, so an officer selling ass might be your safest bet.
I look at her for a long minute and she looks back at me as if she is scared and is wondering has she made a mistake about me. “It’s on,” I say. And seeing that her antics have me harder than a roll of quarters, I ask her when I can sample the merchandise.
“As soon as you can lock these muthafuckas in,” she says.
CHAPTER 32
OVERTIME
“That’s a man! That bitch is a man!” inmates are shouting at the television.
I have gotten stuck on overtime again. I’m working the Mental Observation housing area, aka the Nut House. I’m sitting in the dayroom watching a bunch of inmates watch a talk show that wants the audience to guess whether the person standing onstage is a man or woman. The inmates scream out their guess again, “That bitch is a man!” Another inmate screams out, “If it is, I’d still fuck her shiiieet!” Then they all slap each other a high five while laughing out loud. The MO house is where people are either crazy or pretending to be crazy to try and beat their case. Right now these fools are jumping off the wall until they hear their favorite call, which is MEDICATION! Ah, right on time. They all line up at the front entrance of the housing area to receive their prescribed meds for the day and then, bam! It’s like the house has done a 360-degree turn. No more yelling at the television or nothing, just the walking dead.
Then an inmate sitting nearby starts to talk to me about his case as if I’m interested. I entertain him because, hell, what else do I have to do. He tells me that he shot eight people in the Fort Greene projects because they raped his daughter. I take a look at him and all I see is an old man with salt-and-pepper hair and glasses that are
held together by tape. My assessment, no killer here, but then again, what does a killer look like? He sees the look of disbelief on my face and decides to show me proof. So off he goes to his cell to retrieve what inmates call “paperwork.” These are the court papers that officially tell why an inmate is incarcerated. They are so official that if they ain’t right, meaning if an inmate has paperwork that names him as a snitch, it could mean death. As he runs off I’m thinking, Great, besides being a babysitter, a judge, and a counselor, now I am a fucking psychiatrist. We wear many hats doing this job. While he’s at his cell, I take this time to go to the back of the housing area so that I can get a signal on my cell phone and check my messages.
BEEP, the first one is from Bryant. The murder, from what I hear, is still being investigated, and she sounds hysterical: Yo, these fools are really trying some bullshit! I learn that King is covering Fran by saying that he was on the A side of the housing area when the inmate got killed on the B side. This takes Fran out of the equation as to whose fault this was and still leaves me out there! They both know that when I rolled up into the area both of them was in the officers’ station and what’s bugging me out is why neither one of them is stepping up and saying that I had nothing to do with this shit. And guess what, they suspended me indefinitely! Yo, hit me when you get off.
BEEP, second message is from Mom Dukes: I smelled you when you used the bathroom before you left this morning. You need to drink some water, boy!
BEEP, there are no more messages. I shake my head. Where would I be without messages like that?
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