by Nesly Clerge
That evening, after resisting using the exposed toilet all day, Starks went to the seat-less, coverless stainless steel fixture. It was bad enough he had no privacy, but his cellmate, whose name he still couldn’t pronounce, had urinated on the rim and not cleaned it. The small attached sink was littered with spat-out toothpaste and beard hairs. Starks gagged. He wanted to shout at the man and tell him, “You’re a pig,” but he didn’t want to be stuck like one while he slept. He also decided to keep his toothbrush far from this part of the cell.
Once he finally fell asleep, the nightmares haunted him: Ozy laughing as he plunged the knife in, Margaret’s grandmother’s bowl spilling blood over the rim like lava, and other disturbing images.
The third time he woke screaming, he heard from the bottom bunk, “Shut da fook up, you.”
CHAPTER 20
“GIMME YA TRAY.”
Starks recognized the man making the demand. He’d seen him strutting around the prison yard the day before, a man, he’d observed, inmates either avoided or deferred to. A need to know what the deal was led him to finally work up the courage to ask an inmate who seemed safe enough.
“That’s Boen Jones,” the inmate had told him. “Called Big Bo, which shouldn’t be hard to figure out why. His gang’s the largest and the worst. Controls big-time illegal shit on the inside, and on the outside. Only the brave or stupid ever mess with him. Or the insane. And, there are insane people in here. Rule is, always avoid them. As for Bo… he wants something from an inmate, he expects to get it. With a smile.”
“I’m used to making demands, not receiving them.”
The inmate had backed up, rocked his head back and forth on his neck. “Funny how stupid doesn’t always look stupid.”
Starks aimed his eyes at his tray. A large hand came at him from his right. The head of a tattooed white serpent began on the back of the hand and wound its way around the dark-skinned, muscular arm. He had to bend his neck nearly all the way back before his eyes locked with Bo’s, and was immediately made aware there was a significant difference in seeing the inmate up close as opposed to at a distance. Everything about the man was enormous, except his voice, which was too high for the container it came from.
“I said gimme ya tray, motherfucker.”
Bo reminded him of crazy Lenny, the grammar school bully who’d taken his lunch every day for a month, laughing at him in class when his empty stomach growled. He finally spoke with his grandfather about the bully. His grandfather patted him on the back and told him that any man without self-respect could never amount to anything; that he was better than that. The next day Starks came home with a black eye. His grandfather listened to the tale of how his grandson had kept his self-respect by bloodying the bully’s nose.
“I meant the bully had no self-respect,” he told his grandson. He cupped Starks’s chin in his hand, examined the black eye and smiled. “But you did all right, boy. Never let anyone crap on you or your life. People will try to take what’s yours, especially your ability to look yourself in the eye in the mirror. Take care of them and do it quick. Longer you wait the harder it is to do what you need to.”
Starks stared into Bo’s dark recessed eyes then at the fleshy round face wearing a self-amused expression.
“No.”
Bo puffed out his chest. “Lookit, fellas, we got ourselves a spicy little fish. This new meat don’t know my rules yet.” His smile became a grimace. “You give me that tray or I teach you my first rule.”
“I said no.”
Bo’s lips curled back over his teeth.
Starks stayed seated, kept his expression as one of being unimpressed, his debate about living or dying in conflict inside him. Confused as to which outcome he desired more, he stood and faced the inmate.
“I can’t take a demand or threat seriously from someone with a voice that sounds like a squeaky-toy.”
A number of inmates laughed. Some started to ease away from the table.
“You fucking sonofabitch. Nobody talks to me like that. Not if they want to live.”
Two guards approached. One of them said, “Enough. Sit down and eat, both of you. Or we’ll escort you back to your cells and keep you there.”
Bo smiled and nodded at the guards then put his face close to Starks’s.
“This ain’t over, you little shit. You gonna learn what’s what in here, and I’m gonna teach you.”
CHAPTER 21
FOUR DAYS LATER, Starks worked up the courage to find the commissary. It wasn’t anything like the upscale stores he was used to shopping in but it had the basics when it came to toiletries he needed. With a small amount of relief, he found some food options that were only slightly better than what was offered in the chow hall—everything was packaged, nothing fresh. He also bought letter-writing materials, envelopes, and stamps. He watched others for several minutes, discovering there were some items he could order that weren’t kept in stock.
The inmate running the commissary told him, “Don’t pin your happiness on your order always getting here on time. It’ll get here. Eventually. But if your happiness depends on it…” He shrugged.
Starks dropped off his purchases in his cell, grabbed his coat then went to the yard, stopping at the exercise equipment. He pretended to check out what was available, keenly aware that Bo and several members of his gang were watching him from about five yards away. Bo said something to his cronies then, alone, started to move closer, until he stood a yard from Starks. The man’s fists were clenched, his squint unblinking.
“When I tell you to gimme your tray, you give me the fucking tray, or anything else I want.”
“Can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I read the sign.”
“What sign?”
“The one that says not to feed the animals.”
“You going down, motherfucker.”
Shorter and smaller as he was, there was no way he was a match to the bigger man. Nor did he believe that Bo was someone who believed in a fair fight. He could let the man take him out. It would end the pain and humiliation and nightmares once and for all. It might even make Kayla realize what she’d done to him. Let the bitch live with my death on her conscience, he thought.
Even as this inner struggle played out in his mind at high speed, one driving thought came to him: I have to live for my children.
So much had been taken from him. And they—Kayla, Ozy, Bret, and the others—had gotten away with it because he hadn’t done what he needed to do. Just as it was with crazy Lenny and every other bully who’d ever crossed his path, this was a matter of self-respect but on a whole different level. His objective became clear: do anything and everything needed to survive—for the kids.
He waited until it wasn’t safe to wait anymore then snatched up a twenty-pound dumbbell, slamming it into the man’s solar plexus. Bo dropped to his knees and gasped for air. Starks threw the dumbbell to the side and with all his strength, kicked the man’s face. Bo collapsed and curled into a ball. Starks leapt onto the man, using his fists to deliver devastating blow after blow to the man’s face and torso. Blood splattered them and anything nearby. Like a man possessed, Starks pounded the downed man, until several prison guards pulled him away.
Starks stared down at the unconscious man.
Not again.
Guards on duty in the yard spoke with spectators, which included some of Bo’s gang. Starks learned a valuable lesson as he listened: A code of silence was an unspoken rule. And he felt certain anyone who broke that rule would be punished swiftly and possibly fatally by other inmates.
Some of the spectators commented that he had a death wish. It became clear to him that rumors would spread around the prison, and that whatever inmates believed about his motivation for the attack, their consensus about him would likely be that he had to be insane.
He hadn’t been here even a full week and he was already a feared man, or at least a man to stay away from.
A man repeating hi
s recent past.
CHAPTER 22
THE GUARDS GOT nowhere with the informal interviews so dragged Starks inside. They shoved him into his cell then locked the door, which didn’t put him in good with his cellmate.
An hour later a shackled Starks was escorted from his cell by two guards, to be questioned by the incidents council, one of them explained. They brought him to a room with a color scheme that hammered home the personality of the place: Gray—walls, linoleum, long metal table, metal chairs, filing cabinets, and five individuals covered in indifference.
Those five men stared at him from the other side of the table. In front of the man at the center was a desk name plate that read Tony Spencer, Prison Incidents Investigator.
Spencer pointed at the chair positioned three feet from the desk. “Sit.”
Starks hesitated a moment then did as asked. All but Spencer, who stared at him over the rim of his eyeglasses, appeared bored.
“Frederick Starks. Hardly started doing your time and already you’re in trouble. Not good. And not very smart to get into it with the inmate you did. So I have to ask, did Boen Jones threaten you? Is that why you attacked him?”
About two feet behind Spencer’s head was a small window filmed with condensation. A bead of moisture swelled at the top of the glass then meandered its way down, revealing a sliver of reality on the other side. Starks followed its descent in silence.
“Starks?”
“No.”
“No? That’s your answer? Then why’d you attack him?”
“I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”
The investigator let silence hang between them for a moment. “You have a death wish, mister, or do you need your attitude corrected?”
Starks shrugged and leaned back in the chair. He could hear Parker reminding him to practice good behavior. Too late now.
“You’re not going to tell me what’s going on, are you?”
Starks remained silent.
“You’re damn lucky Red Dot wasn’t called.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It means all hell’s breaking loose. You hear that announcement, it means rubber bullets are about to fly. You cause a Red Dot call and you’ll have everyone pissed off at you because everyone gets punished. You do that and they’ll fight themselves to see who takes you out. If the trouble’s bad enough, you get transferred to Red Onion, the toughest damn correctional facility in the U.S.”
Spencer aimed his pen at Starks. “I’ve been prison investigator for eighteen years. I know the hierarchal structure of those incarcerated here. I know about every fight, or at least the ones reported to me. I know about some of the sexual assaults and about the drug trafficking—each impossible to stop. But you can help me to help you, if you just tell me what happened.”
“Ask Bo.”
“I tried. Went to see him in the infirmary, where he’ll be for a while. He’s not talking. But he’s way more than angry. You humiliated him. He’s not going to forget and forgive. Frankly, Mr. Starks, I fear for your life. One last chance to speak up.”
Starks stared at his hands. He looked up when he heard Spencer confer in whispers with the other men at the table.
“You leave us no choice, since you admit to starting the assault. Thirty days in the SHU might make a difference. I hope for your sake it does.” Spencer explained in response to Starks’s puzzled expression, “Secure Housing Unit. Not a place you’ll care to return to, I promise you.”
The same two guards escorted Starks down more corridors than he could follow, to a windowless six by eight cell constructed out of concrete. The bed was a concrete slab with no mattress and no pillow, just a thin, scratchy blanket with holes and stains he didn’t want to think about. At least, he thought, the toilet and washbasin will stay clean.
One guard stood watch with his charged taser in his hand. The other guard shoved Starks forward, chuckling when he tripped on the restraints around his ankles.
“Get on in there, asshole. It’s not like we got all day.” He laughed. “Oops. I forgot—you do got all day. Every day for a month!”
The guard was rough as he started to remove the restraints that had abraded skin on Starks’s wrists and ankles.
Starks squinted up at the single blinking fluorescent light buzzing overhead. “Ballast needs to be changed.”
The first guard yanked hard on the chain. “Showing off, prick?”
“You’re going to fix it, right?” Starks asked.
“You may’ve been a big-time mucky-muck out there,” the other guard said, “but you’re nothing in here. Here’s what you can count on, puke. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner shoved through that slot in that door. Maybe your food’ll even stay on the tray.” The other guard snickered. “One hour a day you’ll be taken out to walk around. We might even let you shower so you don’t stink up the place any more than you do now. The rest of the time, you can stare at the fucking walls, for all we care.”
“What about the light?”
“Pretend you’re in a fancy nightclub.”
“What about my stuff?”
“Maybe some of it’ll be waiting for you. Maybe not.”
Just before the door slammed shut, Starks yelled, “There’s no toilet paper.”
His only response was a nightstick rapped against the opposite side of the door.
CHAPTER 23
THE NEXT MONTH went by in a disjointed combination of slow and fast for Starks: Thoughts flickered in his mind like a film of his life’s worst moments. When he did sleep, he was roused by nightmares or the incessant screaming of other prisoners isolated as he was: Some of them yelled to get a CO’s attention or to talk with other prisoners; others carried on because they were not in their right minds. Starks worried he might soon be one of the latter, especially because the anticipated hour outside each day had been prevented by blizzards, ice storms, below-freezing temperatures, and—he was convinced—a certain amount of lying on the part of the guards. He asked about going someplace inside whenever they said the weather was bad. They ignored him.
At the end of thirty days, he was released from the SHU but wasn’t returned to Cell Block C. Instead, he was placed in yet another windowless cell almost exactly like the last one but in a different section. This time the bed frame was steel instead of concrete, bolted to the floor and wall, and with an even thinner vinyl-coated mattress. When he asked about this, he was met with silence and a shove.
Three times a day, he heard the steel flap on the door unlocked—the cuff, he heard one guard call it—and watched as gloved hands pushed a tray through, waiting until he was just about to grab the tray then letting it go. He usually caught the tray, sometimes he didn’t.
And every day, he used the hard bar of soap to make a mark on the wall, to count the days.
After the first week, Starks pounded on the door and shouted, “I want to know why I’m in here. I demand an answer, damn it. I deserve an answer or to be put back in my regular cell. You’re all a bunch of fucking sadists.”
The cuff opened and the voice on the other side barked, “Stand in the middle of the cell.” As soon as he’d done so, the guard said, “You don’t get to demand shit. You’re not behaving right, so you’re gonna get a treat. Nutraloaf. You’re gonna love it.”
The flap was slammed shut, leaving Starks to wonder what this announcement meant.
He learned what it meant when the first heavy brick of the stuff was delivered instead of the usual slop for dinner. Starks picked it apart, able to identify cabbage, carrots, pinto beans, something that resembled shredded chicken, fake scrambled eggs, and way too much bread. The rest of it wasn’t anything he could name. He spit out the first flavorless bite then pounded on the door.
“What the hell is this bullshit? I want something I can eat.”
A guard tapped the door with his nightstick, opened the cuff, and spoke through it. “You figured out yet why you’re getting it?”
“Has to be a form of tortu
re.”
“You’re getting smarter by the minute. Now shut the fuck up.”
No way could he eat it. He drank as much water from the faucet as he could stand but this didn’t quell his hunger.
Breakfast was another brick. He was hungry enough to eat a fourth of the nauseous concoction, which was delivered to him twice a day for two more days. When a regular meal was finally delivered, he devoured it, barely chewing.
The food went down fast. It came up even faster.
After two months in the same cell, with infrequent one-hour respites outside the cell for exercise and showers, Starks used the plastic fork delivered with his dinner tray to rip at the veins in his wrists. It was a painful, pathetic attempt with a sad excuse for a tool but it landed him in the infirmary for treatment. And there, Starks saw an opportunity to surreptitiously acquire a small treasure.
He wasn’t kept in the infirmary but was put on suicide watch and moved to yet another similar cell, one with a round-the-clock surveillance camera placed out of reach, and one of the usual thin mattresses on the bed. This time someone made sure he had his hour out of the cell each day, and he was told he’d have to meet with the prison counselor, as soon as it was set up.
Two afternoons later, on his way to the yard segregated for prisoners in isolation, Starks overheard a couple of inmates comment as he passed them: He’s on suicide watch; he’s considered a wild card—stay clear of him; acts like he has nothing to lose; unpredictable—stay outta his way.
Assumptions about him had run through the inmates like wildfire. They were right that at times he didn’t care if he lived, but that feeling inevitably was replaced by a desire to survive. That his behavior was unpredictable was a fact, one he was having difficulty wrapping his mind around. That his value on life—his or anyone else’s—being non-existent was erroneous, he was relieved to realize. If inmates believed, and advised others, that it was best to avoid him, that worked in his favor, as far as he was concerned.