Doing Time

by Bell Gale Chevigny

  As my eyes continued to move to each of the black men around me, I found that my hand was involuntarily rubbing the scar above my right eye. I heard a voice and was startled to discover that it was

  mine. “Forget it,” I said in an eerily normal tone of voice. “Let’s play ball.”

  Next play when the ball went up, I got up as high as I could into the air and ripped my arm toward Mook’s skull. Realizing in midnight that I couldn’t soar high enough to tag him, I snatched his shoulder, and yanked him down to the concrete. Landing lightly next to him, I booted him in the side of the body while snarling, “You get the fuck offa da court, ASSHOLE!” Just stay down, man, I thought, as I stepped to the side.

  Rolling with my kick, Mook Man bounced to his feet, fast, real fast! Throwing a right hand that barely missed my jaw, as I jerked my head in the other direction, his fist smacked hard into the side of my neck.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spied that Mook Man’s homeboy, J.T., six feet three inches, two hundred fifty pounds of weight-driving muscle, was pounding directly toward my body. Spinning away from Mook to face his homey, I knew that it was futile. J.T.’s just too damn big for me! Bracing myself for the avalanche, all of a sudden J.T.’s passed me and snatched up Mook Man like he was a two-year-old, and simply walked away with him.

  My mind blown apart by J.T.’s move, my eyes looked over and immediately flicked up to the gun canine on the catwalk. As I watched, the badge swung the business end of his assault rifle toward the yard. Behind the mirrored sunglasses, I saw the canine’s face — it was Sam. Standing quietly, I waited to find out what he was going to do about what just went down.

  Sam looked down at me, and then his eyes moved to Mook Man, who was walking the other way as J.T. intently packed words through his ears and into his head.

  “Rough ball game,” Sam called from the catwalk. “I’m calling on the radio for escorts to take you and Mookie to your cells. Get your stories straight in case the sergeant interviews you. No punches, no fight, you were just playing a bit too rough. You with me or you want to spend the next six months in the hole?”

  Damn! A free pass! The notion rocketed through my head as I collected my workout clothes getting ready to leave the yard, J.T. came at me, blotting out the sunlight with his huge ebony self. “Mook cheap-shotted you, and got his lumps to make it square. Now it’s over, man. No reason to start a war over a petty scuffle.”

  “I hear that,” I answered as I nodded my agreement while starting to figure that this might work out.

  Escorts made the scene. Handcuffed, I walked into the condemned housing unit. Kidnapped, I’m not taken to my cell. Instead, the escort canine took me to a black cage outside the sergeant’s office and locked my body inside.

  I’ve been through this before, the sarge will keep us locked in the cages for a couple of hours to soften us up. The canines figure (correctly) that the wait will prey on our minds while we wonder what they’re getting ready to do to us. I always try to argue with myself that since I know and understand their tactics, they won’t affect me. That’s an argument that I always seem to lose. Sitting with my eyes hidden behind my sunglasses, I just kept telling myself, “Worry about what you can control, homeboy, forget about the rest.”

  Sergeant Dana walked by me and strode into her office. I’ve known her for a couple of years. She was one of the first female guards at San Quentin, and she’s also openly lesbian. Sergeant Dana belongs to a leather-wearing, Harley-riding biker club called “Dykes on Bikes,” and she never misses a Gay Pride parade in San Francisco. For her to survive and make sergeant in the macho male environment of San Quentin that’s openly hostile to her is quite an accomplishment. She did it by being flat-out smarter and better at her job than anyone else.

  My thoughts of the sergeant were interrupted by the sight of Sam marching toward Dana’s office. Evidently she’s called him down from the catwalk in order to make his report in person. Seemed like the female canine was her usual efficient self.

  After minutes tick-tocked by, Sam emerged from the office with a grim look on his face. As he walked by he stole a glance at me, but kept right on motoring. I took the quick look as a good sign.

  More minutes trudged by before Sergeant Dana sent a guard to escort Mook Man into her office, but Mook wasn’t having any. “Tell that bitch I ain’t got nuttin’ ta tell her, ‘cept to get herself fucked by a man!” Mook Man muttered angrily at the canine.

  Deciding that he didn’t want to deliver the message, the escort canine called Sergeant Dana to the cage, and Mook Man repeated his words.

  Tilting her head away from Mook Man, Sergeant Dana narrowed her eyes at me and snarled, “You refusing your interview too?”

  Thanks a lot, Mookie, I thought, you really softened the chick up for me. Smiling, I answered, “Kind of bored hangin’ out here. Conversation sounds cool to me.”

  “What exactly happened out there?” Sergeant Dana inquired.

  Hesitating a beat or two, I looked at the clock on the gray office wall behind her head. The tactic of leaving me in the cage to sweat had its penalty for Sergeant Dana too. By 3 p.m. she’s hot to have me locked in my cell for count or write me a ticket for the hole. In the next thirty minutes, she’s got to make a decision, and if I can fill that time with nonsense, I’ll be home free.

  “Can’t really call it, Sarge,” I answered in my most innocent manner. “Me and the fellas were jus’ playing a little ball, and the cop tossed us offa da yard.”

  “Understand that there was a punch thrown,” Sergeant Dana bluffed, at least I hoped she was bluffing.

  “Naw, just a lot of contact. You know we play twenty-five-to-life ball out there...”

  Finally, the sarge questioned, “What’s that red mark on your neck? Looks to me like you got hit. Tell me the truth, was this a racial attack?”

  “Yah know San Quentin’s policy is to pull all da fellas with racial problems from the yards.” I grinned at the sergeant. “Yah wouldn’t be savin’ the classification committee is blowin’ it, would you, Sarge? Letting gang members onto the integrated yard?”

  For the first time Sergeant Dana smiled back at me because we both know that the classification committee is full of ugly, empty, acrylic suits that wouldn’t be able to identify a gangbanger if he had the information tattooed on his forehead. And many gangbangers do just that, tattoo their gang affiliation on their foreheads. But, somehow, the classification committee misses it and assigns them to the racially integrated yards anyway.

  “You’re looking for what ain’t there,” I replied solemnly. “It was just a rough game, nuttin’ more.” With that last lie, the interview was over, and the sergeant decided that she didn’t have enough to beam my body directly into the hole, so she had me locked back in my cell.

  That night I received a “Blue Violation Report,” written by Sergeant Dana. I’d been charged with “Involvement in a Physical Altercation,” whatever the hell that meant. After being locked in my cell for three days, an escort canine came and took me to a disciplinary hearing. The lieutenant found me not guilty, partly because Sam stuck to the story of rough ball game, and mostly because the lieutenant hated Sergeant Dana.

  Next day I returned to the exercise yard. Strolling across the concrete, I was more than a little uptight while I wondered what I’d find,

  Looking around, I saw that Mook Man hadn’t made it to the yard, and my nervousness jumped up and multiplied by ten. The lieutenant found him guilty of disrespecting Sergeant Dana.

  Eventually, Sam fell by my cell and said, “We’re even.”

  “Yeah, we are.” I smiled back at the sunglasses before he turned and walked.

  After that day, Sam started dropping by my cell from time to time. Met his parents, his wife through the photos in his wallets, and his life through him. I learned how it was tough for him in the inner city of the flatlands of Oakland. Sam talked with pride about the first house that he’d just bought with his wife in the same neighborhood they’d
grown up in.

  “Now that you’re making money,” I remarked, “why don’t you get out of there? Move on out to the suburbs?”

  “Wouldn’t want to do that,” Sam replied. “Our house is close to the church my family’s always attended, and besides, a lot of people in the community helped me when I was a kid. No one, and I mean no one, makes something out of himself in the ghetto — alone. You just don’t do it all alone.”

  One day after one of our many conversations, I found to my surprise that I didn’t think of him as a cop or a black man anymore, just as Sam.

  Sam once asked me, “What’re you doing in here ? You don’t seem to belong on death row.”

  Real uncomfortable with the question, I finally answered, slowly, softly, “Guess no one was ever there to reach down and pull me out, Sam.”

  Sam simply nodded his head and never brought up the subject again.

  A couple of years ago, Sam asked me, “Do you think they will kill Bobby?” Bobby Harris had an execution date, the first one in California since the five-year moratorium on the death penalty.

  “Don’t know,” I answered. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

  Shaking his head solemnly, “Don’t know about working here if they start killing you guys. Don’t want to support my family on thirty pieces of silver. My wife is praying for Bobby, don’t want to see anyone die.”

  The next day, a canine dropped by my pad, banged on my bars with his baton, and then said in a serious tone that caught my attention and quickly drew my feet to the front of my cell, “Sam’s wife wanted me to talk to you.”

  “His wife? You sure?” I wondered in surprise.

  “Yeah, Sam’s dead,” the canine told me as he began to explain what had happened.

  Sam had invited some guards to fall by his house for a get-together. Some young men crashed the party, but Sam and his wife didn’t care for the intrusion.

  Sam didn’t make a big deal out of their drugs, but he did ask one young man to leave, and all of his buddies decided to fly away with him too.

  When they had just left, a stone crashed through the front window of Sam’s home. Sam and his fellow guards went out to confront the young men. Shots were fired and Sam lay dead in the streets.

  After hearing the story, I flipped on my television for the news. Sam’s death got thirty seconds on the local news while Bobby’s possible pending execution was analyzed in detail for five minutes on the national network news.

  1995, California State Prison-San Quentin

  San Quentin, California

  Lee’s Time

  Susan Rosenberg

  I was almost asleep when I heard the keys turn the bolt next door. Highly unusual: Unless someone is dying and they can get the guard’s attention, the cells are locked and stay locked for the night, period.

  Wilson was on duty. I heard his voice, smooth and enticing. “Okay, baby, there’s no way out, nowhere to go. I’m gonna fuck you right now.”

  “What if I don’t want you to?” Jane, my next-door neighbor, said.

  “You know you want it, I know you want it. You’ve been wavin’ that ass in my face for too long. I heard you like it black. I’m ready.”

  “You have to come and get it then.” Even through the wall I could hear her voice getting husky.

  “No problem,” His tone thickened with desire.

  Jane was a strange one. She threw herself at any man who walked in the door, but night after night woke up screaming from some internal terror. Ain’t this a bitch, I thought. I did not want to hear her fucking Wilson. I did not want to be there. Somebody would peep it and the fallout would be heavy.

  I closed my mind and drifted. After you do time for a while, you learn how to build your own wall. You learn to show nothing and hear nothing. After eight years I can shut out almost anything.

  When Wilson came back at 6 A.M. to unlock the doors, it was business as usual. As everyone went to work, Jane passed me on the tier and nodded her normal hello. We weren’t friends, but once in a while we’d run the track together. She looked cool, more dressed than usual, with more makeup, and she’d rolled her hair. I had a bad feeling about this.

  Night came again and we locked down. Not one hour later I heard it happening again: Wilson opening Jane’s door. I heard them laughing, then moaning. If I could hear, so could Maria on the other side. I thought about banging on the wall. I wanted to yell at them; “Don’t put me in your shit!” But I didn’t.

  Wilson and Jane went at it for a few more nights and then stopped. I don’t know why. Maybe they got spooked, tired, or their thing just fizzled. There weren’t any rumors on the unit. I hoped it was all over. But a week later on my way to work in Mechanical Services, I saw Jane at the officers’ station leaning across the desk laughing with Wilson. He put his hand on top of hers in one sexy move. Keisha, my best friend here, walked by and saw it too. As soon as Wilson saw Keisha, he pulled his hand away, and Jane straightened up and walked out the door.

  On the line at lunch, Keisha and Maria were talking. I picked up a tray and inched up behind them. “For sure, I hate that shit,” Keisha was saying. “Wilson is fine, and he don’t need to be with no white broad.”

  “Fuck her, she’s crazy. That’s why she screams every night,” Maria said. We got our beige-colored slop and moved to the tables. Maria looked at me. “Lee, I know you can hear them every night, too. I get hot just listening.”

  “What are you talking about?” I hoped I sounded casual.

  “Yeah right,” Keisha shot me a look. “I remember how you can’t hear. When Sally Barnes lived next to you and had that seizure, you heard enough to bang and yell, even though Maria slept through it. Remember what’s-her-name, Miss, uh, Havers? She came a half hour later and Sally was blue ‘cause she’d swallowed her tongue, and you were screaming at her: ‘Where’s the med team?’ “

  Yeah, I remembered. Havers had freaked out and let me out of my cell — very irregular — because she knew 1 could get Salty breathing. Then she’d turned around and locked me in the hole for being out of my cell after lockdown just to cover her simple-assed self.

  Fortunately we couldn’t find an empty table, so we couldn’t continue the conversation. We had the “hate prison food talk” instead.

  Every time I put on my khakis I think about my old life, my free life when I’d put on my whites, my nurse’s uniform. It’s always a passing thought, a second of longing. Then I do my crunches to get my blood flowing before I leave the cell.

  I walked out and ran into the unit manager, Mr. Jason. He’s one sick guy. No decision is made without his personal approval. He’s king here and we’re his “girls.” Behind our backs, he calls us his “bitches.” That gives the guards a green light to treat us like dogs. Whenever a guard cops a feel on me doing a pat search I think, “Mr. Jason, one day there will be divine justice.” Jeffrey Jason, Bureau of Prisons, hack supreme: Mr. white suit, brown shirt, Brut-smelling, “family values man.” I hate him and usually I stay out of his way.

  But this morning he stopped right in front of my cell. “Lee McMann, this your room?”

  “I live in this cell, yes.”

  “Get to work.”

  I did, but I looked back and saw that Jason was in my cell. At lunch I went back to see what was missing or if he’d found my petty contraband (cinnamon and oregano from the kitchen, a little Comet for my sink) but everything was exactly as I’d left it. The man had looked but not touched. Something had been violated, but I didn’t know what.

  I started back to work but bumped into Maria on the tier. “Los puercos were in my cell this morning,” she said. “The vent between mine and Jane’s was opened. That’s the only thing they touched. Big Daddy Jason was in yours, too.”

  “Yeah, I hate that man.” I wasn’t going to discuss this with Maria. She talked a good line against the cops, but she was a government witness in her own case. As far as I was concerned, that meant she was a snitch.

  Maria pus
hed it. “Do you think it’s about Wilson? How could they know so fast?”

  I shrugged. Maybe ‘cause you told them, I thought. It was closing in on me, and I started to get mad. Fuck all this. Fuck Jane and her lying ass. Fuck the lieutenants. Fuck Wilson.

  Well, maybe not Wilson. He’d always been all right with me, and everyone else too. When my coworker Cakes’s mom had a heart attack, he’d called the hospital and let her talk with her brother. Another time he’d found two women in bed so he just counted them right there and never said a word. He was a human being first — and that can be dangerous for a cop.

  When I got to Mechanical Services, my boss was at lunch, as usual. All the work orders were filled, the tools locked up, and there was nothing to do. Keisha, Louise, and Cakes were sitting around having a loud argument.

  “I don’t care,” Louise was yelling — very unusual for her. “All these men walking around, patting us down, walking in the cells when we’re on the toilet, pawing through our clothes. I hate it. I hate all of them. Talking to us any way they want, calling us bitches and whores. I believe her.”

  “You’re one stupid, blind white girl. You just saying that ‘cause he’s black and she’s white.” Cakes heaved herself up from the chair and glowered. The sweat on her forehead glistened and her temper was about to blow.

  “Lee can tell us. Right, Lee?” Keisha looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. “We all know you’re a space case — but only when you wanna be, right? Cakes heard that Jane said Wilson raped her. How about it? Yes? No? Is the white girls’ club gonna put on their robes, or what?”

  I shot back: “I don’t know what the KKK’s gonna do. The white girls’ club can tar and feather themselves to death.”