He made a fist and swung on me hard but only hitting me softly in my arm. “How about you, Chance? When they finally let your ass up out of here, what’s the first thing you plan on doing?”
I didn’t comment.
He studied me before saying, “Man, what I always tell you?”
My mom’s face flashed before me again. I shook my head as if to block her image out.
Then the guards announced that we could go outside for rec.
I needed some air. “You wanna go out?” I asked him. “I need some air.”
He shook his head. “I’m cool in here. I’m going to wash up and take a nap.”
I rose from my bed and stood at my cell door for them to unlock it. I didn’t want to go outside but the conversation was just getting me depressed.
Chapter 13
All was normal on the yard. I sat near a bunch of blacks and reflected on my situation. I tried to keep in mind what Tyson said. I wished I embodied the strength and hope that he did and I was going to miss the fuck out of him when he got released. I wondered how I would be ten years from now. Would I be full of positive energy, like Tyson? Or would I just be a bitter man, angry at the world for being done wrong. Who knows? I knew life would move on without me like I never even existed. Sometimes I didn’t even want to exist. I was in my own thoughts and I almost missed a Hispanic dude toss his bola ball and yell at the top of his lungs, “Sur!”
Tyson told me what it meant before. It was the southsiders’ call. And whenever it yelled out all south-side gangs had to get up and fight. So they did.
And it was on.
The southsiders rushed us!
Next thing I knew all the blacks were fighting.
First it was the southsiders against all the blacks, but then others took the opportunity to get their enemies.
The whole yard was fighting despite the warning given by several guards for us to drop and the loud alarm.
Two dudes came after me. One of them swung on me. I dipped my head back and yanked him down to the ground. I got ready for the other dude, who was trying to take jabs at me.
I packed him out quickly, only to have the dude on the ground take something and stab me in my lower leg with it.
“Ahh!” I yelled in pain.
I took my other good foot and stomped his head on the ground repeatedly. Each time I did, his mouth hit the concrete and blood gushed out. I didn’t want to do this shit but I wanted to survive this shit.
Dudes were everywhere on the yard and we easily outnumbered the guards.
I went to help another black that three Mexicans were fucking up. I grabbed one by the back of his shirt and tossed his ass and knocked the shit out of the other one. I had to get away from this shit if I could.
The only one standing came for me. I was backing up and fighting ’cause I remembered them always telling us that when a riot broke out to lie down on our stomachs with our hands on the back of our heads.
The dude could hang with me and was throwing blow for blow. The advantage I had over him was my height and weight. So I used the advantage.
I started working his ass.
But when two more dudes jumped in the shit to help him, wasn’t nothing I could do but let them fuck me up.
Another joined in on my ass.
The warning for us all to drop was repeated over and over again.
The alarms were going off.
But the fighting continued.
Tear gas was thrown, which caused some to stop and some to keep on going. Some dropped to the ground and covered their faces. Two black dudes took their shirts off, tied them around their face, and rushed the dudes who had rushed me.
That’s when they started shooting.
I thought back to Tyson’s words when I first arrived the prison. I needed to get myself from all the fighting, but how? This shit didn’t make sense, I thought frantically. If I stayed there on the yard and dropped like they said, I would continue to get attacked and have to fight. Which would mean I would be considered part of the riot. I figured the best thing for me to do was fight my way to the building and lie down in there. Why the fuck didn’t I stay inside with Tyson?
I slipped away from the fighting and tried to dodge as many feet as I could along with bullets that were taking a few inmates down. I covered my face with my shirt to avoid breathing in the tear gas.
I dodged the bullets that were continuing to be fired by staying low.
My only thought was to make it to my cell. But as I rushed to the gate I wondered how I was going to get inside? Guards were the only one with access. But I saw inmates rushing inside. I followed after them. And inside the prison there was fighting going on all over the place. Still, I planned to get near my tier. I was pretty sure that’s where Tyson was and probably stayed once the riot started. He didn’t want to jeopardize his release.
Someone must have managed to break into the control center, which was where all the security buttons were to lock or open any part of the facility because all the cell doors were opened. But once I made it to my cell door I was horrified at what I saw. A skinhead was straddling Tyson.
Before I could stop him he took a sharp object and slit his throat.
“Tyson!” I rushed inside.
But it was too late. I watched death pass over his eyes.
I rushed toward the dude who leaped off of Tyson and took a fighting stance. It was the dude who Tyson had beat down.
“You dirty muthafucka!”
Now he was to wielding his knife at me.
I backed up some and placed my fists up.
He moved in on me and slashed my forearms.
I grimaced at the pain but I kept my hands up.
As soon as his arms moved back, I punched him in the center of his face.
He tried to lash me again but I stepped back.
Blood leaked on my shoes.
My heart was thudding in my chest and I avoided looking at the bed, at Tyson’s lifeless body.
Murder was in my eyes. Nervousness was in his. It made him act too rashly.
He tried to swipe me across my face.
I ducked my head down and shot back up. As soon as he paused I gave him two uppercuts.
It made him weak.
I went in again. I delivered another blow to his jaw.
He grew weaker.
I moved to the other side, causing him to move as well, so he tried to intimidate me with his words. “I’m gonna kill you, nigger, like I killed your friend.”
The next hit was to his right cheekbone.
As I drew my hand back his knife quickly pierced the flesh on my hand.
I grunted but keep going. If I didn’t, he was going to kill me like he killed Tyson, who didn’t have a chance to save himself.
I stepped in on him again and punched him in the Adam’s apple. This momentarily stopped his breathing and his hands went for his throat.
That’s when I quickly stepped in and hemmed him up against the bunk bed. My hands went around his hands that were still around his throat. I gripped them with all the power I had left in me, with my teeth gritted. It was either do this or have him kill me, which was his intention.
I continued to strangle him with my fist, tightening my hold by raising my forearms and burying his neck between them.
He flattened against the railing of the bunk bed and I continued, never easing up.
His fingers became loose and dropped somewhat underneath my hands. My grip grew stronger. His lips twitched and mucus flew from his nose. I was blocking off his windpipe and he was not getting air. His hands slipped completely from underneath mine and started flapping at his sides, getting fainter by the second.
I kept the same amount of pressure.
His hands came back and covered mine weakly.
I squeezed with all my might. His hands dropped.
Then he stopped struggling and moving, period.
The next minute he was dead.
I let his limp body slide to the
floor.
But I didn’t want to get caught for killing him. Self-defense did not seem to exist when you were black. So I raced from the cell.
More skinheads were coming my way.
I looked behind me. My only choice was to run the other way but that was where inmates continued to fight.
I had no choice but to jump from the tier to the next tier, which I did.
I landed hard on one of my legs. A few seconds later guards and police were rushing in, telling us all to get down and throwing more tear gas. I stayed down with my head in my forearms and screamed, one from the pain in my leg and two from losing my friend.
Chapter 14
I couldn’t get his face out of my head. Three years had passed since his death and I still saw Tyson. It didn’t matter if it was day or night, eyes opened or closed. His face always flashed before me. I would even hear all the jokes he used to crack, all the hope he had given me while I was there. Seems like such a fucked-up fate to me. He had spent so many years of his life in prison. How crazy was it that he dies the day before he was supposed to get released? What a sick twist of fate.
I had been going to that Bible Study Group that Tyson had talked me into joining to deal with this. I never applied for a pen pal again. I was going so I could put my focus and my thoughts into something before I drove myself crazy. I couldn’t seem to get over the image of seeing Tyson lying in the bed, cut from ear to fucking ear, out of my head.
I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind but they never went anywhere but to the back of my head, forcing me to rethink them later on. When Tyson died I had learned that his death didn’t just affect me—many guards were saddened by it. It was hard to dislike somebody like Tyson. He was always happy, always smiling and trying to cheer people up. And it was hard to judge the actions of someone like him. If someone raped and killed your little sister, what would you do? He didn’t belong in there. He never did. They all knew it. But still, he brought a lot of good to the prison.
The funny part was a few days later, after the riot, when I came back to my cell after showers, I found a beaded rosary on his bed. I was confused because only the Hispanic inmates wore the rosaries. I guess not all of us were divided by race. And I wondered why the riot even happened. I don’t even think the men in here understand what it really meant, anyway, this whole notion of race and racism. To me the Hispanics and blacks had some of the same struggles. One way or another we were both being oppressed. It just didn’t make sense that we feuded with each other.
After the incident, we were on lockdown for a minute. No visits, no mail, no program, which meant no activities. We ate, took our showers, and went straight to lights out. I didn’t care either way. I also found out that the dude who killed Tyson was not just an ordinary dude. He was the son of the man Tyson killed, the man who molested and killed Tyson’s little sister. I couldn’t believe it. Tyson never knew.
In those three years nothing improved in my life. My mother was still in prison and my appeal was denied. I pretty much left it alone at that point. I didn’t have anyone pushing me to fight anymore. That person was now six feet under. Calhoun would still visit me. But he said every time he did he felt like he was looking into the eyes of a stranger, not his boy. I simply told him that’s what prison will do to you. Somehow along the way of being there you forget who you are and eventually you just don’t care about how you were. Shortly after Tyson’s death I had often talked to Calhoun about my friendship with him and when he saw how depressed I was about his death, he warned me not to get close to any inmates again. I promised I wouldn’t. I meant it.
And today, after three years, I had a new person in the bed underneath me, in Tyson’s old bed. It was weird seeing it empty all those years. And no guard dared putting another body there. Until today. Sometimes I wish they had never put him there underneath me and sometimes I’m glad they did.
I mean, he seemed all right, but me myself, I wasn’t too social with anybody. For one, I still felt bad about my friend, for two, my mother was still in jail and it bothered the fuck out of me. And three, I was having a hard time getting over the fate that I had killed a man. All that was just too much to handle.
So when he came to stand by my bunk and introduced himself to me I didn’t have too much to say to him.
“What’s up, homie? My name Randy.”
He was brown skinned and lanky, with a low-cut fade. There was something weird about the look in his eyes. I couldn’t put my finger on it, though.
I shook his hand. “Chance.”
“What did you do?”
I didn’t want to get into that, so I didn’t. So I instead I said, “something stupid,” and turned back to the book I was reading: The Purpose Driven Life.
He studied me. “You don’t like niggas, do you?”
I turned a page in the book. “No.”
“Well, good. ’Cause I love me some women. Man, I could eat me some pussy all day long! Clean it so good, I could put it back on the shelf. And I love fucking doggie style.”
“Well, you ain’t going to find that in here.”
“What?”
“Women.”
“Man, I know. Lord knows I need me some pussy right now.”
I ignored his rambling and kept reading my book. But when he wouldn’t stop, and felt he had to tell me his whole life story, how he got here and how much money he used to make on the street, I had no choice but to put my book down and listen.
“What’s your favorite sexual position?” he asked me.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Aww. Come on, man. Your favorite position?”
I didn’t respond, but in my head I thought, cowgirl. But to be real it just didn’t feel right talking to another man about sex. And the fact that men did fuck each other in here whether they admitted it or not, made it worse. And plus, he was in the bunk underneath me. The shit just felt funny. And I wondered how many quote-unquote straight men went home and told their wives and girlfriends how they fucked these punks in here. Yeah. The powers that be made it just lovely for the black woman. You come in here, do your time, and bring something home to your woman . . . AIDS. It happened and was as common as someone giving another person a cold. Prison was a fucked-up place to be. I don’t think I would ever be able to rid myself of the demons that prison had given me. I killed a man. I kept telling myself that it was self-defense and not because he killed my friend. But that shit still haunted me. I didn’t think I could ever do something like that. I took someone’s life. I thank God that I thought quick and hopped over the tier and didn’t get caught. I also hoped God would forgive me.
“Man, what I wouldn’t do for some pussy right now!”
I felt the same but didn’t bother to tell him.
The mere thought of the cowgirl position reminded me of Toi and making love to her. We always made it an experience. From her sucking my fingers to her taking me all the way in her mouth. I closed my eyes and daydreamed of her riding me in reverse, which is what cowgirl was. She had a mirror in her bedroom and whenever we had sex in that position I would always see her titties bouncing up and down and her saying in a sexy voice, “Give that big dick to me, daddy.”
Just thinking about it made my dick hard and I wanted to jack off right then and there. Then an image of her fucking the dude she showed up to my visit with flashed before my eyes.
It immediately made me angry. So I snapped at dude, “Do you have anything else to talk about besides fucking?”
He laughed. “I’m sorry, dawg. I just miss my girl. She is fine as hell. I call her Hershey. She got some sexy-ass lips. She rocks one of them weaves, but I’m cool with it. But at night the shit pulls off like a damn wig! What they call them, man?”
“A lace front.”
Toi had one of those too. She begged me to buy her one for Christmas. The shit cost five hundred. Then she moved onto Indian hair from a spot called Pauline’s in Bellflower. Damn. He kept taking me back to Toi. I wondered what she was d
oing right now. She was probably fucking that other dude she betrayed me with or moved on to another dude to screw. How in the fuck could she?
He was still talking. “She’s built like a stallion, though, got the big booty and titties! She got her own crib, a new car, and job! I ain’t gotta do shit but kick it.”
I wondered what she saw in him if she was all that. As a man, I would never feel comfortable lying up while my woman worked.
“I can pull some serious bitches, man. I got two more in two other cities. They all got the same credentials and they always break a nigga off!”
This nigga was probably lying, I thought. So I didn’t give what he said too much attention. He didn’t have to lie to impress me. I didn’t have shit no more. I was a prisoner.
He saw my lack of interest so he changed the subject. “Aye. Which guards are cool around here?”
I shrugged. “I don’t fuck with any of them. That’s just me. The person who used to be on your bed was always the same.”
“Where he at?”
“Dead.”
“Damn! How the fuck that happened to him?”
“Riot.”
“Well, I feel you, but you gotta develop juice with the staff. That’s how they look out for you and you get extra shit.”
I didn’t respond.
That’s when the guard came with the mail. Despite all the times I had written my mama, she never responded anymore. So I wasn’t expecting anything other than a letter from Calhoun, who always told me about what he was doing. Which was never shit. He still was not handling his business. He still didn’t have a job and he still was not taking care of his kids. One thing he was still getting in abundance and always bragged about was pussy! He had also managed in these past four years to stay out of prison.
My eyes scanned the top for the letter for the name of the person sending it. It simply said Deyja, with a PO Box address.
I narrowed my eyes. The name didn’t ring a bell. I opened up the letter anyway and started reading.
Hello,
My name is Deyja. I am a member of Christ Baptist Church. I am a new member of Mrs. Grace’s charity group. Since Mrs. Grace has always been of tremendous help to me with things I have gone through, I was given your information and agreed to become your pen pal. She said you had applied for a pen pal a few years before but never again. However, she said you were someone who would really benefit from a pen pal. Understand that my personal business, address, and phone number will never be discussed or disclosed in these letters and I have no problem if you don’t want to discuss any of your info. Actually, I would prefer it. I have no romantic interest in you at all and never will. That is not the purpose of the correspondence. The purpose of this is to assist Mrs. Grace on her mission. She, like God, is a firm believer in forgiveness and converting nonbelievers to Christianity. I will also add a scripture for you to study in my letters. The purpose of our letters is to also bring some type of joy your way, with all you have to endure being locked up. I will write you one letter a month. I know that is not a lot, but with my job it is all that I can do. You can send all letters addressed to me to the address listed on the envelope.
Thug in Me Page 9