My Name Is River Blue

by Noah James Adams

  The cells were very similar to other cells I had seen, and they were tight for two grown men. There were a set of bunk beds, two shelves for personal items, two plastic storage boxes kept under the bottom bunk, a desktop built into the wall, and the standard sink and toilet combo made of stainless steel. There was a very narrow path in the center of the cell, and Leroy and I had to turn sideways to brush by each other. I was hoping for a cell with a solid wall and a door at the front, but ours had open bars so that anyone passing by could see anywhere in the cell. We had a small vertical window high on the back wall that allowed a sliver of daylight, but we didn't need it. There was always artificial light shining from the hallway through the bars day and night.

  Leroy was a decent guy, who was usually in a good mood, and as big as he was, I tried to keep him that way. He gave me some valuable information about prison life such as how to do my time quietly, how to stay out of trouble, and how to get along with the other inmates and the prison staff. He taught me how to get contraband items from certain inmates and where to hide them in case the guards inspected the cell, which he called a shakedown. A few days after I arrived, Leroy gave me a present that he had an inmate make for me. It was a homemade shank suitable for stabbing or slicing another inmate, and Leroy advised me on the proper way to use it to kill a man.

  It had been a good idea to pay an inmate and a guard to look out for me, but it only worked if they stayed in the prison. Two weeks after I arrived, Leroy had a heart attack and died on the way to the infirmary. The word was that he was so obsessed with weight lifting that he took an excessive amount of smuggled steroids and suffered a fatal heart attack. As for CO Lawson, I wasn't the only way he had of supplementing his income, and while I don't know the details, I know he was fired not long after Leroy's death because he was caught taking a bribe.

  When I told Uncle Manny what happened, he spoke with Dunc to find out if he knew of any alternatives, but the county jail guard didn't know any other inmates well enough, and he was leery of propositioning another corrections officer after Lawson was busted.

  I was a new, young inmate who was on my own with no protection. The fact that everyone knew of my disabilities from the accident just made my situation worse. After Leroy's death, I often looked around at other inmates and caught some of them staring at me as if they were wolves stalking their next meal.

  There were inmates who were always jealous of anyone else's accomplishments, and they enjoyed bringing a celebrity inmate down to the lowest level they could. I knew that I was a big target for assault, and there was no such thing as relaxing. I was more alert and paranoid than ever. I was suspicious of everyone and every situation, and I tried to avoid any possibility of the wrong inmates catching me in an unguarded area. While I tried to hide it, I was scared. I thought that it was only a matter of time before I was attacked.

  As I had expected, I found the incidents of rape in prison were exaggerated and sensationalized by the entertainment industry, the news media, and the public. Most of the men in Rockville were never sexually assaulted, but it happened often enough that it was a legitimate fear for young and vulnerable inmates. The fear was especially justified if they weren't tough enough or physically able to earn the respect that putting up a good fight could bring them. With over 2700 inmates in Rockville, sexual assault was a weekly occurrence. Out of each new group of arrivals the size of mine, it was a sure bet that two or three of the young fish would be beaten and raped within his first month. Some inmates were assaulted on a regular basis.

  Before he died, Leroy introduced me to a group of his mostly middle-aged friends, who were of various races. Most of them were career criminals doing longer stretches than I was. One thing we had in common was that they were huge football fans, and they respected me as what they called a "state legend" in high school football. Every evening after dinner, they would take up two tables in the day room to have two games of spades going while they talked football.

  Several years before I arrived, the men started calling their group, "the leatherheads" and that was how everyone knew them. They were sort of like a football club where each member shared his knowledge of the game, and you had to have played organized football on a team to sit with the group. I was fascinated to learn that football helmets were originally made of leather, and I enjoyed hearing all the facts they gave me about the game I loved.

  Even after Leroy's death, Carney, a white guy in his fifties, still invited me to play cards and talk football with them. All the guys looked up to him, so I was grateful that he still included me. I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed when Carney explained that allowing me to sit with them didn't mean that they would protect me, as Leroy would have. They were inmates with the kind of time and reputation that allowed them to remain neutral and independent. They did not belong to a gang, and they never got involved in a gang's business, which meant that they would not defend me if they saw gang members assaulting me. Carney assured me that it was nothing personal.

  A few days after Leroy's death, I was in my cell, as all inmates had to be for the afternoon head count at four o'clock. Just prior to the count, CO Tisdale brought in my new cellmate, who turned out to be Scott, the young guy, who sat next to me on the bench my first day. The CO walked away without saying a word and left Scott holding an armful of bedding and a bag of personal belongings. Scott acted as scared as he did our first day, and it was hard to take my eyes off him. He had scabs and fading bruises all over his face and arms. I guessed that the damage had been done days ago.

  "You got the top bunk," I said. I sure as hell wasn't giving the bottom bunk to a kid younger than I was.

  "Okay," he mumbled.

  Thinner and more fragile than I remembered, Scott acted as if any movement hurt him, and it was obvious that someone had beaten the total crap out of him. When he walked past me to put his things away, I noticed that the back of his head had been stitched. It occurred to me that trouble might follow him to his new cell, and that I might be collateral damage. I didn't want whoever messed him up to come after me the same way, and I worried about other things that could have happened to him that were not so obvious.

  Scott stood looking at his shelf and then glancing at the plastic totes under the bottom bunk. He looked at me. "Can I use a shelf and a tote?"

  "Sure, the bare shelf and empty tote are yours. Isn't that how you did it in your other cell?"

  "No. He made me put my things on the floor in the corner by the toilet."

  "He sounds like a dick. Look, this is your cell as much as it is mine. Ask if you need to borrow something, or if you need a favor, and I'll help you if I can."

  "Thanks." Scott put away his few belongings. He had trouble stretching and bending.

  "Need any help?"

  "No, thanks."

  The four o'clock count came and went with the CO checking us off his list from outside our cell. When the CO left, Scott crawled up to his bunk. He was staring into space as if he were a thousand miles away. I couldn't stand it any longer. For my own good, I had to know who beat him and why.

  "Scott, what happened to you, dude?"

  "What does it look like happened?"

  "Looks like someone almost beat you to death."

  "There's your answer then."

  "Listen, I'm not trying to be nosey for the hell of it. I want to know who and what to look out for. What happened?"

  I wasn't sure Scott would answer. When he did, he sounded weak. Like he surrendered. "Watch out for the white dudes with the shaved heads and swastika tats. They don't like black guys or Latinos, and they don't like whites mixing with either one of them. My parents are black and white, so I paid for the crime."

  "I guess bigots don't change no matter where you put them. Was that all it took?"

  "I refused to hide my cellmate's weed in my stuff or do the other shit he ordered, but I paid for it. Him and three of his friends taught me to do what I'm told."

  "Looks like the guards would have known
better than to put you in there."

  "They knew. They did it on purpose."

  I thought for a second. It didn't make sense. "Then why did they put you with me now?"

  "Because after what happened, they need to look like they put me with a safe cellmate."

  "What are they going to do with those guys who assaulted you?"

  "After I was in the infirmary a few days, the captain came by and told me that there was nothing he could do to those guys I reported. It was my word against four of them. They said it must have been some other guys, and a CO backed their story. He said that he saw them on the yard at the time I said they attacked me. Now they'll probably kill me for snitching on them. I asked CO Tisdale to place me in protective housing, and he said they're full, and I'll have to wait for an opening."

  "That's total bullshit." It sounded as if the gang and the COs had it in for Scott. "Do you think those guys will come here?"

  "Probably. Either here or somewhere else. If they do, I'm not fighting anymore. It's not worth it, and I can't win anyway."

  "What was it he wanted besides storing his stash?"

  Scott waited almost a minute before answering. "At first, my cellmate acted okay when I refused him, and later, him and some other guys dragged me into a storage room. They had a key to it."

  "What's the guy's name? Your old cellmate, I mean."

  "I don't know his real name, but everyone calls him 'Wink.'" Scott hesitated before adding, "Wink talked about you. You're a target. They're going to get you alone. Please don't say you heard that from me."

  Listening to Scott turned my stomach queasy. From that day on, I was even more paranoid of everyone around me, and I did all that I could to minimize my risk. I stayed in sight of the guards as much as possible, always hanging close to the CO supervising inmate movements in the halls. I rarely showered and alternated times. I chose a showerhead that lined me up with the doorway where a CO normally stood guard, and I tried to position myself where I never had to turn my back on anyone. I never closed my eyes when I washed my face or hair.

  Every inmate had to be in his cell four times a day for head counts, and the COs locked everyone in their cells from eleven at night until six in the morning. Most inmates had jobs that usually took only six hours a day and left a lot of free time. The state prison was different from Stockwell in that there were large parts of the day where the inmates were free to move around with little supervision. We could hang out in the day room for activities like watching TV, shooting pool, or playing cards, or we could spend time in the large prison yard where we could walk, run, lift weights, and play basketball. The yard was where a lot of business was conducted such as drug deals, but it was also a likely place for fights and stabbings.

  At night, from fear that someone could cut my throat in my sleep, I never slept with my head on the end of my bunk nearest the cell bars. When we had to leave the safety of our cell, Scott and I would often follow each other at a distance, so one could get help for the other, if needed, but we would not be close enough for a few inmates to grab both of us. It was a stressful time. I worried every minute I was awake and slept poorly when I slept at all.

  The various prison gangs claimed different sections of the yard, and nonmembers were not welcome. Inmates who were not members of any gang, tended to hang with others of his race, but just because a new inmate was Latino, did not mean that he could walk into a yard meeting with a Latino gang. He had to be invited. In my case, I preferred to be alone, and I made no effort to be part of any particular gang no matter what race they were. I wasn't surprised that the only racial gang who openly disliked me was the whites.

  The gang of white supremacists hated me for the same reason they hated Scott. According to them, it was a crime for a white person to "breed" with a non-white, as my parents did, and they decided people like me were only good for serving members of their pure race.

  Wink, Scott's former cellmate, got his nickname because of a facial tic that often made his eyes blink involuntarily. Similar to the rest of his gang, he was a large, muscled guy with a shaved head. He obviously hit the weights hard and used steroids.

  I knew Wink when I saw him, but I had no communication with him until a week or so after Scott became my cellmate. That's when Wink used another young guy to tell me that he wanted to see me on the yard. I ignored the request, and the young guy came back with a message that Wink would take care of me the same as he did Scott. When I was in Stockwell, I learned that threatening another inmate was a serious mistake. It was warning him and giving up the advantage that comes with surprise. In a way, it was disrespecting the other guy, and in prison, that was dangerous. Wink obviously had no fear of me, and no worries about disrespecting me.

  One day at lunchtime, I was in the cafeteria with Scott standing behind me. I was part of the inside line of a double line of inmates waiting to move to one set of servers while the outside line stepped around to the other set. Wink broke through both lines and moved in front of Scott so that he was directly behind me. Two other white men with shaved heads were blocking the view of me from my shoulders down. Wink pressed tightly against me and repeated his threat. I had been expecting one or more of his gang to make a move on me. I was ready for him, but I was relieved when he began talking, which meant that it was not an attack. Not yet.

  "Hey, half-breed, did your cellmate tell you he hung out with us?"

  "No, but he's probably embarrassed to tell it. I know I would be." I knew he wasn't prepared to stick me, or he would have already done it and moved rapidly away. For the moment, I could afford to antagonize him.

  Wink was so close to my ear that I could feel his hot breath. He moved his body against mine and grabbed my butt in an effort to make me take a swing at him. I wanted to fight him, but I couldn't. Since no one could see Wink's hand on me, if I had reacted by punching him, the COs would have charged me with instigating a fight, which would have landed me in the hole for a minimum of fourteen days.

  From what Scott told me, I knew the white supremacists owned at least two of the COs and that meant I had to be careful. I thought I knew who one of them was, but I was not sure about the other one. The hole, a miserable isolation cell used to punish an inmate, was a bad deal, and I knew that it could be much worse for me if a shady CO allowed the white gang access to me with no witnesses.

  In the hole, an inmate wore only his boxers and slept on a thin foam mattress on the concrete floor. There was nothing else in the cell but a hole in the floor to use instead of a toilet. There was no form of communication with others and nothing to read. For twenty-three hours a day, there was nothing to do unless the inmate enjoyed watching cockroach races. For an hour each day, the COs allowed him to pace back and forth outside in a caged run, but there was still no communication with another inmate. Once a week, a CO would take the inmate for a five-minute cold shower. By the time a CO brought meals to one of the solitary cells, the food was in smaller portions, it was cold, and it tasted more like shit than usual. Maybe worst of all, the inmate lost visitor, telephone, and mail privileges during his time in the hole.

  I could smell Wink's rotten breath when he spoke. "You just wait till we catch you alone. We'll see if you can be funny then."

  "We? Oh, yeah. I forgot. You gotta have help from your fag sisters. That's why you got no respect in here."

  My needling was getting to Wink, and there was no doubt that he wanted to hurt me right then, but his game was to goad me into taking a swing at him, so he could jump back with his hands in the air like he didn't know why I attacked him.

  "I'm going to fuck you up, boy."

  I turned my head to make sure he heard me. "You chicken shit. If you really got a pair, meet me alone. No guards. No cons. If you ain't man enough for that, keep your fag mouth shut."

  We reached the point where the two lines separated. Before splitting up, we stared at each other for just a second. His eyes said that he was thinking only one thing. He wanted to kill me.

 
; I ate my lunch quickly because shoveling it in without tasting it was the best way to keep it down. I had watched Wink's table enough to know that he was staring at me, and I knew he saw me get up, clear my tray, and walk out of the cafeteria. I walked slowly enough for Wink to keep track of me. If he followed me alone, I would turn off into a restroom, which was about seventy feet away and around a corner from the entrance to the cafeteria. If any of his gang followed him, or if a guard was in the hall, I would keep walking.

  I ran my hand over the back of my head, peeked back through my fingers, and found him following me alone. Wink was an angry man on steroids, and he plodded purposely forward discarding any plans he had made with his gang. He was too pissed to think of anything but getting his hands on me.

  Most inmates kept their shanks hidden from possible searches, carrying the weapons only when they thought they might need them. My bet was that Wink was walking empty. Knowing that the guards would search both of us afterwards, he would not have risked starting a fight with me in the lunch line if he had been carrying.

  I glanced at the camera covering the hall and the restroom entrance. The tiny light was dark, which meant it still wasn't working. All the inmates knew what worked and what didn't, and they knew that because of budget cuts, the camera was on a long list of repairs. The word was that if the warden paid for all the repairs needed, he would have to cut more guard hours.

  I turned into the restroom.

  An hour later, the COs called for a lockdown as they did any time that an inmate was killed. All inmates were confined to their cells until the investigation was over, and the warden deemed it was safe to return to normal operations. Since a cafeteria CO had seen Wink talking to me in the serving line, I didn't wait long in my cell before the COs came to me. Two of them took me for an interrogation, and the others tore my cell apart looking for a weapon. They found no weapon in my cell because there wasn't one.