“Hello Darrel,” Teddy said as he locked eyes with him. “Is there something I can help you with?”
Darrel Potter was a country boy from some little shithole town down in the backwoods of Missouri. He wasn’t an intellectual in any sense of the word, but had somehow gathered enough knowledge to take up the family business of cooking low-grade meth in an old farmhouse with his six brothers. When the DEA raided his compound, he was the only sibling who had survived the three-hour shootout; his brothers were lost in the ensuing fire that engulfed the lab. Hatred filled the holes that pain had left in his heart and he had transitioned from a light-hearted barroom jokester to a hate-filled monster.
Teddy could stand neither drunks nor racists so there wasn’t any alternate reality where he could picture himself being friends with the likes of Darrel.
“As a matter of fact, yeah,” Darrel said as he nodded towards the cell. “We want to talk about your cellie.”
“I’m not his keeper,” Teddy said as he held a hand out towards his cell. “Go ahead. He’s one of yours anyway.”
Darrel balled his fists and didn’t move.
Teddy stood stoic and kept his composure cool, calm, and collected. He simply sighed.
“What do you want, Darrel? Are you trying to intimidate me with your white power bullshit or are you purposefully trying to piss me off before I’ve had my breakfast?”
“You know what I want to talk about. We have some concerns about your new friend,” Darrel said.
“Why? I already looked at his papers.”
“You think we’re amateurs who’d let anybody walk our yard? Our boys checked him out the minute he done got off the bus. We know he’s solid. Besides, you don’t have a right to look at anybody’s papers.”
“Then why are you bothering me?”
“Because we’re concerned about his wellbeing,” Darrel said. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened last time. If something happens you’re not getting a pass like you did with Cody.”
Teddy shook his head.
“Those were different circumstances. Cody disrespected me.”
“Not the way we see it. Cody was a good man, a good white man, who you beat down over something trivial,” Darrel said with a scowl.
“How many times are we going to go through this?” Teddy asked. “You keep beating that dead horse. Cody tossed my shit around because I wouldn’t give him the bottom bunk. He disrespected me and I dealt with it. I can’t help it that he ran to you for protection after his ass got kicked. He was unaffiliated at the time.”
“So you say. He gave us a different story.”
“Does it matter? He can tell all the lies he wants but he can’t deny the fact that he wasn’t wearing ink. If your boss felt that you were right in your assumption of my guilt, he would’ve taken me out a long time ago.”
Darrel’s face started to redden.
“Unfortunately for you, Andy is one of ours so you can’t get off on some goddamn technicality. The boss already gave us the greenlight. Since you have such tender sensibilities, what are you going to do if you feel disrespected by this one?” Darrel asked as he continued to glare at Teddy.
Teddy glared back.
“I’ll handle it,” Teddy muttered, his stone-cold expression unwavering.
“No, you won’t. You’ll come see me and let us decide how to handle it.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Teddy calmly replied. “I’m a big boy. I can handle myself.”
Darrel stepped towards him.
“I disagree,” Darrel said.
Teddy grinned.
“Tell me something, why are you so concerned about this new guy? Is Cody not sucking your dick the way you like it anymore? Are you looking to trade up for a new whore? Everyone knows the real reason you’re so adamant about protecting that little bitch and it has nothing to do with the color of his skin.”
Darrel’s men started to advance towards Teddy, but Darrel held up a hand.
The men stopped walking.
Darrel jabbed his finger against Teddy’s chest.
“Careful now… That pretty little mouth is going to get you in some real nasty trouble,” Darrel warned.
Teddy casually slid his hands into his pockets and wrapped a hand around the blade’s handle. He glanced down at the finger pressed against his chest and then looked back up at Darrel.
“If you don’t get your goddamn finger off of me you’re going to find out just how nasty I can be.”
Before Darrel could respond, the two men behind him gave a loud whistle and walked away.
Darrel took the cue; he lowered his hand and stepped away from Teddy. He looked down the tier towards Coor and innocently held his hands out at his side.
“Are you starting shit already, Potter?” Coor asked as he walked towards the group with one hand resting ominously on his heavy flashlight.
“Nah boss,” Darrel said with a grin. “I was just shooting the bull with Old Teddy.”
Coor sized up the situation with considerable caution; he wasn’t an idiot. He knew Teddy and the Aryans had an uneasy truce at best.
“That true, Sanders?” Coor asked.
Teddy nodded.
“No problems here,” Teddy said without looking away from Darrel.
Coor was about to speak when the radio on his hip chirped.
“Compound to Bravo A!” the voice blared over the radio.
“Shit,” Coor said as he turned and hustled down the staircase, coughing. He picked up his radio and keyed the mic. “Bravo A to compound, go ahead.”
He nearly tripped as he hurried towards the unit’s sally port, erupting in a coughing spasm.
A large group of inmates were clustered around the door waiting to be let out. They grimaced and made way for Coor as he ran towards the door. Droplets of phlegm landed on them as they stood unaware that the officer just inadvertently signed many of their death certificates.
“Bravo A, release your unit for the morning meal,” the voice on the radio chirped back.
“10-4. Bravo A to Control, open the outside slider,” Coor responded hoarsely into the radio after his coughing fit settled down. He slid the radio back into his holster and unlocked the inner sally port door.
Somewhere in the distance, the control center pushed a button and the outer sally port door rolled open.
“Chow!” Coor shouted to the unit.
The inmates funneled through the sally port outside like mindless cattle.
Teddy walked past Darrel towards the staircase.
“Don’t forget what we talked about, Teddy. Lay a finger on Andy and see what happens to you,” Darrel whispered as Teddy walked by.
“Duly noted,” Teddy muttered as he made his way down the steps. He followed the crowd outside without turning to look back.
Teddy walked along the crowded sidewalk towards the dining hall with his hands in his pockets. He traveled in an ever-growing sea of khaki as more inmates slowly funneled out of other housing units and converged towards the dining hall.
The sidewalk made a large oval around the entire compound. It encircled the recreation yard and connected all of the housing units: Alpha Unit, Bravo Unit, Charley Unit, and Delta Unit. The recreation yard in the center of the compound was surrounded by a chain-link fence. It consisted of a handball court, a dusty softball field with two rows of aluminum bleachers, a jogging track, and a few patches of dead grass. There wasn’t a single tree in sight. In the middle of the rec yard stood a tall concrete guard tower surrounded by double razorwire-topped chain-link fences.
Unlike the rest of the guards, the one manning the tower was armed.
Teddy didn’t do much on the yard except take a few laps in the late evening when the temperature was somewhat bearable and the crowd had thinned out; he detested crowds, especially sweaty ones.
On the north side of the compound stood the main two-story structure. The first floor housed the dining hall, visitation room, medical, lieutenant’s office, and the
special housing unit. The second floor housed the administrative areas and the warden’s office. The massive grey Orwellian building also served as the only way to exit the facility. All traffic throughout the building utilized one main corridor. Inside the dimly-lit corridor movement was strictly monitored and regulated by an elaborate system of iron grilles operated by the control center officers.
The control center was located in a building outside the prison’s towering concrete walls; Teddy never saw the inside of that particular building, so he had no idea what else was hidden away inside.
Honestly he didn’t care.
On the south side of the compound stood a one-story building that housed the education department and a small chapel. Like the main building, it only had one corridor with one main entrance. Teddy spent a lot of his free time in the education department’s library. Losing himself in a book was his only way of escaping purgatory.
The entire prison was surrounded by a massive concrete wall, an electrified fence, and eight guard towers. As if that wasn’t enough of a deterrent, there were patrol vehicles that circled the narrow road around the institution.
Escape was an illusion.
Teddy tried not to let his mind wander too much past the walls of his concrete castle.
The sidewalk was loud and busy but it was orderly; nobody dared push or shove under the watchful eye of the gun tower even though the guard manning it was most likely asleep.
Teddy kept his head low and blended in with the crowd. His thoughts were consumed by Darrel and Andy. He knew that his situation would only end one way. Even though he tried to think of an amicable solution, all of the scenarios he played out in his head ended with him going to SHU.
Teddy walked past a single guard with a potbelly who was standing beside the sidewalk with his hands on his hips and his sunglasses slid half-way down his nose. He was wearing latex gloves and a dirty surgical mask.
“Keep it moving! Let’s go!” the guard shouted at nobody in particular. “Walk and talk! Walk and talk!”
Teddy glanced over at him and frowned. He had noticed that a lot of guards were starting to come in to work with masks on. He figured that the fearmongering media had them all shaken up. Lots of them were pulling double shifts so he didn’t think many of their co-workers were even coming in anymore.
He turned his attention back down at the ground, thinking. If it came down to it, he knew he couldn’t rely on the guards’ protection; the hacks were a joke. The only way they knew about anything going on inside was from other inmates running their mouths. Despite the rigid laws of the convict code, he knew for a fact that a lot of the men around him wearing khaki might as well be wearing the guard’s blue uniforms. The feds paid their snitches well and a well-fed snitch was an especially talkative snitch.
A line of about fifty new arrivals walked past Teddy wearing bus slippers and carrying bedrolls. A few in the group were pale, coughing, and soaked with sweat.
Teddy glanced at the other side of the compound and saw an even larger cluster of new inmates walking together towards the housing units. He had never seen so many new faces come in at once. He suspected that USP Beaumont wasn’t the only institution that was evacuated.
Overcrowding didn’t mean much to him since he figured that his days among the general population were coming to an end.
Teddy approached the main building’s sally port and followed the others as they funneled inside and passed through the metal detector one at a time. A handwritten sign that he had not seen before was taped to the top of the metal detector: ‘IF YOU HAVE FLU-LIKE SYMPTOMS REPORT TO SICK CALL AT ONCE’. As he waited his turn in line, he looked around. All of the security grilles inside the main corridor were closed which restricted access solely to the chow hall and medical. A larger than usual number of inmates were gathered at the medical window and waited in the sick call line, but the vast majority headed straight towards the chow hall.
The main corridor guard, Ruiz, yawned and waved for Teddy to walk through the metal detector.
Ruiz was a middle-aged man in average shape. He had thick black hair and a thick black mustache.
Teddy let go of the crude fiberglass knife and pulled his hands out of his pockets before stepping through the metal detector.
No issue.
Teddy didn’t even know anybody who still used steel shanks so the metal detectors seemed like a waste of time.
Ruiz motioned for the next inmate to step through, sniffling.
“Next!” Ruiz impatiently shouted, voice raw and sore.
Teddy followed the line into the dining hall.
The dining hall looked like a large school cafeteria. The serving section consisted of a long row of warming trays behind a glass sneeze-guard. Inmates wearing hairnets and maroon aprons served the food while a guard leaned against the wall and supervised.
It always reminded Teddy of a really crappy buffet joint.
After waiting about ten minutes in line, Teddy approached the serving station, grabbed one of the stacked plastic trays, and handed it off to one of the kitchen workers.
The inmate who took Teddy’s tray was a Jamaican national who had long dreadlocks sticking out from underneath his colorful Rastafarian headwear. Teddy didn’t know his real name but he knew that he went by the nickname ‘Turtle’ and that he was the one who ran the kitchen crew. Outside of the kitchen, Turtle had a sizable crew of islanders under his command.
Turtle took Teddy’s tray and smiled, revealing a golden tooth.
“Teddy!” Turtle said as he plopped a spoonful of scrambled eggs onto his tray. He glanced over at the guard to see if he was looking.
The guard was staring down at his watch, yawning.
Turtle quickly gave Teddy an extra serving of eggs.
Teddy frowned.
“What gives?” Teddy asked.
“I jus figured I’d take care of ya since it’s yer last meal and all,” Turtle said in his heavy accent.
“Says who?”
Turtle grinned, revealing his gold teeth.
“The walls talk, my brotha!” Turtle said as he passed Teddy’s tray over to the next server who was in charge of the meat.
A heavyset man with a stubbly beard placed a single sausage patty on Teddy’s tray with a pair of silver tongs.
Turtle glared at him.
The heavyset man looked nervous and quickly put two extra links on Teddy’s tray before handing it off to a skinny Puerto Rican who ladled the grits.
“Oh yeah? Well the walls are full of shit, Turtle,” Teddy said as he reached for his tray.
The Puerto Rican man dropped a ladleful of grits on the tray and handed the tray back to Teddy.
Turtle simply laughed, dreadlocks bobbing.
“We will see my friend, we will see!” Turtle said as Teddy started to walk away. “Look round! Ya see all of the new company we’re gettin, no? I think dis time is different. If ya need some friends, ya know where to find me. It’ll cost, as these things often do, but we can talk about the payment later!”
Teddy rolled his eyes and walked away. The very notion of buying protection from some ragtag group of islanders was almost as embarrassing as voluntarily checking into protective custody.
The cafeteria had several silver tables bolted down to the floor with metal stools attached to them. In the center of the room stood a circular beverage station that dispensed water, sweet tea, and juice. Guards wearing surgical masks roamed up and down the middle of the room, watching the inmates. Even though inmates were free to sit wherever they wished, they segregated themselves by gang affiliation and each had their own section. One elderly black man sat alone at a table in the far corner of the room.
Teddy walked to the beverage station, skipped the sour-tasting tea, and filled his cup with water. He started walking towards the far side of the dining hall where the elderly black man was sitting. Most people feared the old man given his reputation, but the man’s attitude towards confinement was one of the reasons Teddy re
spected him as much as he did and why he considered the man a friend in a place where the very word itself held little credibility.
In fact, Teddy was the only person the old man allowed to sit with him.
As Teddy walked past the brotherhood’s table, he couldn’t help but notice that they all stopped talking and stared at him.
Teddy frowned and kept walking. He knew that Turtle was right; the gossip going around had merit. It wasn’t a matter of if the brotherhood was planning something, but more a matter of when.
Maurice’s bifocals were slid halfway down his nose as he methodically scanned his newspaper and ate his grits. Reading the paper over breakfast was his routine, and much like Teddy he found a somber peace in routine. He was quiet and had the keen intellect of a hawk. Back in his day he was also quite dangerous, a reputation that never faded away. His old brown leathery skin was sagging off of his decrepit bones and his curly grey hair had receded into a crown over the years. A crown was fitting for someone with his notorious reputation, considering the fact that he was serving a double-life sentence without the possibility of parole. He didn’t care that he would never see the outside world again. Unlike many others who were incarcerated, he had found peace inside those concrete walls.
He glanced up from his paper just as Teddy approached the table.
“Morning,” Maurice said. He extended his hand towards the stool in front of him.
“Morning,” Teddy replied as he took a seat across from Maurice.
Maurice adjusted his bifocals and studied Teddy for a moment before going back to his paper.
“Trouble?” Maurice asked.
Teddy shrugged.
“I got a cellie today.”
Maurice cocked an eyebrow and glanced up at Teddy.
“By choice?”
Teddy shook his head.
“No, of course not. He came off the bus from some penitentiary in Texas.”
“Ah,” Maurice said with an understanding nod. He rustled his newspaper and went back to reading. “You’re not alone. It looks like lots of people will have new cellies by the end of the day. Lots of buses came in this morning. I had two guys move into my unit this morning all the way from FCI Butner. They look soft. The type that couldn’t crush a grape.”
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