by Rick Reilly
“Oh, he must’ve climbed up my Jacob’s Ladder,” Tattoo says.
Kevin replied, “What’s a Jacob’s Ladder?” Only as soon as he asked it, he wished he hadn’t. Because the guy answered, “Oh, a Jacob’s Ladder is the row of bars in my penis. I have them about every half-inch or so. He must’ve climbed up it.”
OK, ewwww.
I asked Kevin who usually volunteers for legging. “Drunk people,” he said. “One year, a couple women put the ferrets down their tops,” he said. What’s that called? Cleavage climbing?
When the square was packed to bursting, the three ferret wranglers entered like prizefighters, bearing six ferrets in handheld cages, plus an armful of sweatpants and blankets. Kevin started seeking volunteers. Amazingly, at least half the hands went up. He picked one guy, three women, and, as arranged, me. I was handed a pair of loose, gray sweatpants. Two guys held up a large blanket about neck-high around me to change behind, since everything has to come off—including underwear—and as I’m doing that, a thought occurs: five volunteers, six ferrets. What’s the backup ferret for, in case there’s accidentally some flesh left?
That’s when Marlene came marching at me with two cages.
“Wanna take a risk?” she asked, grinning.
I nearly revisited my pasty.
“This is Spazz and this is Patrick,” Marlene said, beaming. Spazz was all white and Patrick was a kind of sandy-white. They both looked nervous. That made three of us. “Spazz is an albino and Patrick is deaf.”
“But aren’t albinos really bad at seeing?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
It’s not comforting to know that soon deaf, blind carnivores will be in your pants, searching for meat-based ferret food.
I was made to face the crowd as it began counting down. My thoughts darkened …What if the two ferrets get into some kind of argument and start fighting?… nine, eight, seven! …What if the blind one mistakes Coach Johnson for a scratching post?… six, five, four!… What if one ferret says to the other, “OK, let’s eat one now and save the other for later?”… three, two, one!…
I half expected Kevin to holler, “Ladies, drop your ferrets!” But Marlene just dropped them—wham—into my pants and tied up the waist of my sweatpants.
I’m trying to be honest in this book, even at great embarrassment to myself, and that is why I’m willing to tell you right now …
… I liked it.
It tickled! It was like dropping two Furbys down your pants. They both went for the right leg, foozled around some, then burrowed at my cuff until they escaped. Marlene kept picking them up and sticking them back in my pants. One time she dropped Patrick down, only he wouldn’t go. He hung on to my waistband for dear life. Whatever was down there, he didn’t want to go back. Then they’d both come scurrying out again. Finally, Marlene just came over and held my cuffs shut with each hand. A woman forcefully holding my pants shut? Sadly, not a first for me.
About halfway through the three minutes, one of them (it felt like Patrick) settled on a pattern of circling my left ankle, resting some, then circling again. Spazz (I’m guessing) climbed up my leg and settled in the crotch region and began, how shall we put it, nuzzling the walnuts. (Be a very good title for Ben Stiller’s next movie, by the way: Nuzzling the Walnuts.) This was when the real drama began. Would he be satisfied with mere nuzzling? Or would he get curious as to taste and texture? My heart was in my throat. It was half thrilling, half terrifying, like getting a straight-razor shave from Naomi Campbell. Might turn out fine. Might turn out bloody.
But Spazz—lovely, sweet Spazz—remained tender to the end. I could see people charging for this. Lap Dances! Peep Shows! Ferret Legging! $1 a minute!
Honestly, it felt ashamedly good, especially with 300 people watching. It felt good enough that in Arkansas, we’d have to marry. Put it this way, it kicks hell out of Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan.
With Spazz happy and Patrick happy and me happy, I finally had time to see what else was going on, and that’s when I noticed that one of the women—a blonde in a ponytail—was hollering, “No! Stop it! Hey! It’s biting me! No, really!” The crowd was applauding and laughing and cheering.
“No, he’s chewing my leg!” she kept insisting while people kept hooting with delight. Finally, Rita’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Meagan, ran over to see her. OK, the truth is, the reason Meagan had to run over to the poor woman is that I asked her to take pictures of me. Ooops. By the time Meagan got her mother’s attention and Rita ran over, the time was up. Rita yanked the woman’s pants out of her hiking boots and the ferret bolted into the sunshine.
“Bad Spunkydoodle!” Rita scolded. The poor woman fell to the ground to see how much of her legs were left. “I don’t know what happened,” Rita apologized. “She’s done this three times before without a problem!” The woman was trying not to cry. People were not laughing much anymore. Rita added: “He’s had his rabies shots, so don’t worry.”
Sure! You’ll walk with a limp from this day forward, but at least you don’t have rabies!
Her name was Marta Rowe, thirty-four, and her leg looked like it had been used to stir a pot of porcupines. There were at least fifteen to twenty big scratches, a bunch of gouges, and lots of purple welts. It looked like a baseball bat that had been used to hit purple rocks. “He was chewing my leg!” she said, still a little befoozled. “I kept telling the woman, ‘It’s biting me!’ but she didn’t do anything! She didn’t come over!”
Rita was still apologizing. “He’s a rescue ferret, but he’s very tame.”
(Uh-oh. I know one little carnivore who isn’t moving up to “therapy ferret” anytime soon.)
Marta: “I kept trying to grab its mouth.”
And yet another ferret legger suddenly sees the wisdom of carrying a screwdriver.
By now the only other guy in the competition—a little mousy 5-8 guy with glasses—came over and chimed in with: “Mine was just curled up in the bottom of my pants the whole time. Nothing to it.” Same with the other two women. “I haven’t had that much action in my pants in years,” gushed one of them. No problems at all. Maybe a love scratch or two. Only Marta Rowe got the full shark-of-the-land treatment.
Marlene said, “I think the problem was your pants were too snug. He wanted out.”
The human ferret buffet was there with her husband—a large ex-linebacker type with a beer in his hand—and her two kids, who had an expression on their faces you only see at home seizures. Marlene took the four of them over to the first-aid station, which featured an ambulance with the back door open and three paramedics, all smoking in lawn chairs. Seriously. They even had smokers’ wheezes. Not exactly who you want coming to your rescue.
You: I think my heart has stopped and my right eye is over there near the stop sign!
Richmond paramedic: Can we (wheeze) get to it in five (cough-cough) minutes, boss? We’re on a (hack) cigarette break here.
I asked them to guess how Marta got the cuts and bruises.
The woman paramedic growled: “Sword fighting?”
No, I said.
The fat paramedic grunted: “Axe throwing?”
No, I said. Ferret legging.
The randomly toothed paramedic flipped his Marlboro onto the dirt and said, “Now, that’s just dumb! Those are wild animals you’re putting down there!”
My beloved Spazz? Wild? How dare he?
They put some antibacterial ointment on Marta’s leg and sent her on her limping way. Marta told her husband she just wanted to sit somewhere, so he led her off toward some picnic tables over by the axe throwing.
I was going to warn them, but I decided to go back to Marlene and ask if I could borrow Spazz and try it again.
Hey, I said it’d been a long road trip.
3
Bull Poker
If you were playing poker and were dealt a royal flush, would you fold it? Hell, yes, you would—if you were playing bull poker.
That’s because in bull po
ker, the winner isn’t decided by what kind of cards you have in your hand but what kind of grapes you have in your sack. In bull poker, four guys sit at a card table in the middle of a rodeo ring. A rank, 2,000-pound bull is released. When he and his horns charge the table, the last guy to leave his chair wins the pot. Like to see you bluff that.
When I heard about it, I knew two things: (1) I had to see this, and (2) I do not have those kinds of grapes. I don’t care how much is in the pot, when that bull comes rip-snorting toward our Texas Hold ’Em, I’m off like a prom dress.
But then again, I’m not in Angola State Prison (Angola, Louisiana), which is one of the few places you can see bull poker these days, and I’m not doing a life sentence, which 85 percent of the fellas there are doing. So we humped our butts across the country to go to jail.
Two hours northwest of Baton Rouge, Angola is surrounded by alligators and bears and twenty-five miles of woods and rednecks on all sides. Most of the inmates are on full-ride scholarship—lifers—which explains why approximately 500 necks nearly snapped in half when TLC walked by the exercise yard in a tight “Wonder Woman” T-shirt and spray-on jeans.
Now, TLC is noticeable on Park Avenue, to say nothing of Angola prison. She’s a kind of cross between Faith Hill and a young Cheryl Tiegs. A long time ago, she was Miss Teenage California, it just doesn’t seem like it. About five-nine and built along the lines of Jessica Rabbit, she has Tahiti-blue eyes, California blond hair, and a swing on her back porch that would make the pope bite a hole in his hat. Not many women visit Angola, never mind a TLC, so you can imagine how many bench presses suddenly went unspotted.
TLC was nonplussed. A thousand eyes watched her approach. A thousand eyes watched her reflexively toss her long blond hair back. A thousand eyes watched her sashay away. Five hundred lower jaws lost the will to close. It was a little creepy knowing that night when the lights went off, 500 guys were going to be recalling that same image.
Our female PR escort took us to the chapel room of the prison church, and there we were, face-to-face with four murderers. No guns are allowed inside Angola, including on the guards. It was just two women and a jittery sportswriter against four guys who could take us hostage in three seconds. Break off a table leg. Block the door. Yank a shiv out of a boot. Anything. What was I going to do, squirt them with my fountain pen?
But the more we talked to them, the more relaxed we got. These four were all going to be in the prison rodeo the next day. More than 11,000 people would be coming with the fervent hope of seeing them stomped, trampled, and gouged, which seemed just fine with these guys. “I ain’t scared of no bull,” said Marlon (Tank) Brown, a spectacularly built twenty-nine-year-old black man from Baldwin, La., who was doing life for murder. “I don’t mind playin’ rough. I been playin’ rough all my life. Hell, I hunted alligators. Alligators are worser ’n them.” The escort reminded Tank that two years ago he had his leg stomped upon and his jaw broken by a bull. “Whatever,” he shrugged.
Each man professed even less concern for his physical well-being than the last. “When that bull comes, I ain’t leavin’ the table for nothin’,” said Jerry (Q-Tip) Tucker, a curly-haired white forty-three-year-old from Lodi, California, also in for murder. “Besides, the food’s better in the infirmary.”
An Indian lifer named Rich (Injun) Sheppard, of Shreveport, La., said: “There ain’t been a year I weren’t hit doing the rodeo. I broke my wrist one time. I pulled my groin. I tore my shoulder and my bicep on a bull ride once. By the time the bull poker event comes around, I’m already hurt. But I ain’t goin’ to the hospital ’til it’s over. No way. You got a whole year to get better.”
Turns out bull poker isn’t the only suicidal event the inmates would be in the next day. There were seven others, each sounding more brutal than the last, including:
Bust Out, in which eight (8!) bulls and riders come flying out of the chutes at once, so that the prisoners have to survive not only their own bulls, but the hooves and horns of seven others. I didn’t like their chances.
Wild Cow Milking, which sounds funny but may be the most dangerous of all. Eight teams of three inmates try to grab hold of a wild cow and milk it. First one to present a wet hand wins. “Them cows are worse than the bulls,” Injun stated. “They’ll kick you sideways. And they’ll come over and kick you just to get their friend free.”
Pinball, in which eight prisoners stand inside eight plastic hula hoops lying on the ground. The idea is not to leave your hoop when the bull tries to separate you from your pancreas. The last guy standing in his ring wins.
Wild Horse Race, in which inmates try to grab hold of a wild horse and ride him across a finish line. (The trick to controlling the horse? Bite his ear.)
Guts ’n’ Glory, in which fifty inmates are in the ring when the bull is released. Tied between the bull’s horns is a poker chip worth $500. Good luck trying to snatch it.
In short, it’s a very good day if you own the local splint concession.
Why in the hell would somebody do any of this? Well, pride, for one thing. All their inmate buddies would be back at the prison watching them on closed-circuit TV, grading their falls on a scale of one (pussy) to ten (cheers from death row). “You can’t turn yellow in front of those guys,” said Q-Tip. “You’ll hear about it for a year.”
And don’t forget the prize money. The year before, Tank won $200 in bull poker. What can you do with $200 in prison? Go to the commissary, where you can purchase such fine items as:
Can of soup, large—52 cents
Soup, small—19 cents
Tin of tuna fish—23 cents
Tin of sardines—27 cents
Socks—75 cents
CD player—$38
Also, the winner gets a real silver buckle with gold inlay. Plus, you’re feted at the big steak-and-potato rodeo banquet and even your kids can come.
And how does one find the courage to win the bull poker buckle?
“I think about my bed,” Q-Tip says. “I just try to sit as still as I can and think about my bed.”
“I just pray not to be scared,” said Heywood (Ironhead) Jones, thirty-three, of Slidell, Miss., in for second-degree murder. “One year I saw two guys run and I don’t want that to be me.”
“There ain’t no point runnin’ anyhow,” said Q-Tip. “’Cause the bull might veer at the last second and take the other guys out. You coulda won!”
Injun stated that you want to sit with your back to the chute. “That way you don’t know he’s comin’.”
Of course, that leaves you prey to mind games. “I might tell him wrong,” Q-Tip said. “I might go, ‘He’s runnin’ straight at you!’ Maybe he’ll flinch and that’ll make the bull go at him, see?”
Personally I was shocked at such unethical behavior in an American prison.
Of course, Angola is unlike any prison on Earth—how many prisons do you know with their own nine-hole golf course?—mostly because of its Puckish warden, Burl Cain, a pudgy red-cheeked imp with long white curly hair. He has the look of a teamster elf. When we met him, he was wearing a baseball cap that read: Angola: A Gated Community.
Cain stirred folks up when he started giving inmates a proper burial, complete with horse-drawn hearse, band, and a solemn march to the prison graveyard. Critics howled that murderers didn’t deserve it. Cain howled back louder. “The man has done his time,” he said. “The sentence was for life, not death, too. I’m not gonna kick his body.”
Cain does all kinds of odd things. He started a Returning Hearts Day in which any inmate can bring his kids onto the grounds and play with them for the whole day. He says there’s good in all of his men. The trick is to find it.
“Like this fella that brought you them cookies,” he said, pointing at the deliciously gooey chocolate-chip morsel I’d just put in my mouth. “I call him Hop Sing. He’s in for murder …”
I swallowed.
“… but he’s a helluva cook.”
I looked at the small Vietname
se man through the kitchen door. He wore an orange jumpsuit and leg irons. He was chopping meat with a butcher knife. There were no guards and no guns between us and that knife.
I stopped swallowing.
“I asked Hop Sing once why he done it. He said, ‘Mr. Warden, a man whipped me two times. The third time, I was waiting with a gun. And Mr. Warden, once that automatic starts firin’, it don’t wanna stop.’”
Cain’s rodeo is controversial, too. For one, people say it’s just the lions vs. the gladiators in stripes. They say he’s using the blood of the inmates to fill his coffers. Cain points out that (a) the inmates volunteer to do it, (b) nobody’s died yet, and (c) most of the money goes to the inmates themselves. “These are men who’ve pretty much failed all their lives,” he said. “But when the rodeo is here, people are cheering them! That does a lot for a man.”
I suppose so. I just wondered what it would be like to be sitting in the rodeo and hear, “Hey, Mom! The guy who killed Dad just won Wild Cow Milking!”
Then there’s the massive inmates crafts fair that comes with the rodeo—furniture, leather, and art, often sold by the inmate himself. Cain lets the minimum-security prisoners mix with the crowds, so you get inmate and citizen elbow to rib cage, over tables full of jewelry and bowls of chili. The inmates wear their usual: jeans, Timberland boots, and white T-shirts. The citizens wear their usual: jeans, Timberland boots, and white T-shirts. It can be a little awkward. Ironhead, for instance, makes his famous gumbo at the fair. One time, an old friend showed up at his booth. “Hey, man, I been lookin’ all over for you!” the friend said. “Where you been?” And Ironhead looked at him and said, “Uh, in here.”
One of the biggest criticisms of Warden Cain is that he’s too nice to the people he kills. That’s when I made the mistake of asking him where it happens.