You Got Nothing Coming

by Jimmy A. Lerner

  If tears were shed on the yard, I didn't hear about it.

  Stanger is waiting for me when I come out of the chow hall after a four-hundred green Jell-O scoop session. He's looking all stract in his black Darth Vader costume, although the jarhead crew cut ruins the Darth effect.

  "O.G.! Front and center, asshole!" Stanger growls this greeting in his best "command voice," which C.O.'s are trained to affect. An old infantry sergeant myself, albeit twenty years removed, I can recognize a fellow graduate of Command Voice 101.

  "Good morning, Sergeant," I say— pleasantly. My mother always said that "good manners cost nothing."

  Stanger is leaning with his back against the chow hall wall, methodically hand-rolling a cigarette from a Bugler can. His state trooper-style shades went out of fashion around the same time that Dragnet went off the air.

  "Just wondering if you got any extra batteries, O.G." Stanger's billy club steel flashlight is out and he's shaking it with exaggerated distress. "Yeah, I heard you sometimes carry a few extra batteries. Oh, but those would be size C, and this baby takes D." Stanger fires up his rollie and gives me that sweet, sadistic smile.

  "Sorry, Sarge, I'm fresh out. I didn't know you were going to have a light show so soon after lunch."

  The rollie is instantly ground out beneath a polished black jackboot. In the army I wouldn't have trusted this guy to carry my backpack. In the corporation he couldn't have carried my briefcase.

  "Still talking shit outta the side of your fucking neck!" The Inferno dawgs have all paused, ready to bear witness or take my back should Stanger go postal.

  "I'm watching you, asshole— nobody fronts me off with the assistant warden. Somebody's gonna roll on your lying ass. Now go roll it the fuck up!"

  This is a shock. "Roll it up?" This could mean going to the Hole, getting released, or just moving cellblocks. I'm voting for door number 2.

  "Are you fucking retarded?" Stanger screams, spraying me with flecks of spit-soaked Bugler. "Roll it the fuck up! Take your sorry-ass shit over to cellblock 4, then report to the law library— your little dick-licking, on-the-leg bullshit got over on the assistant warden."

  O happy day! Free from the kitchen, from the Inferno, from Jerry and Ricki and Montel and whores that may or may not have ass! Back to the sweet peace of a two-man cell.

  Stanger dismisses me on his usual ominous note. "Yeah, got a couple of witnesses, couple of punk-ass bitch dawgs who were kickin' it in front of the store when the Shit Jumped Off and bashed the Hunger's head in… oh yeah, just a matter of tracking the Energizer Bunny back to the slock. A little squeezing, a little pressure— y'unnerstan'?— and one of these punks will roll on you. You understand what I'm saying to you, convict?"

  But I'm already moving, moving fast, back to the Inferno for what I pray is the last time. Things are definitely looking up.

  'Cause I'm rolling it up!

  * * *

  On my way back to the Inferno to roll up my stuff, I stop to watch the latest county jail van disgorge a new batch of fish. This being a great prison spectator sport, I am soon surrounded by a crowd of convicts checking out "the meat." The fish are being marched across the yard by three Security and Escort cops to the Fish Tank.

  The new fish, yet to experience the delights of Luis's laundry service, are dressed in street clothes. They pass through the gauntlet of hard cases who are already taking inventory. Shoes, shirts, pants, rings— all are instantly and expertly appraised by the Yard Rats, who live for these moments.

  Representatives from the various social and fraternal organizations are also here, scouting for new gang members— or fresh victims, potential "renters" of cells or a seat in the chow hall. Or just punks crying out for a "daddy."

  Some fish are warmly greeted. Fish with full sleeves (the badge of the recidivist) or acceptable gang tattoos are hailed like returning war heroes. These dawgs are not true fish. These dawgs have all been down before, and most of them are known quantities on the yard. The Yard Rats award big points to the fish with swastika tattoos, and the teardrop tattoos— said to denote a cop-killer— always win the grand prize of Respect.

  "Yo, dawg! Whatchu down for?"

  "Life Without!" says Teardrop Tattoo to an admiring audience. Life With the possibility of parole is considered a sentence worthy of respect, but Life Without demands adulation.

  The real interest of the Yard Rats is in the fresh fish, the first-time guest, untainted, untarnished, and uninitiated into How Things Really Work Around Here. Today's special focus is on a very young fish whose case has been in the newspapers and on television for the past few months.

  He is thirteen years old and could easily pass for eleven. Food-stamp thin, barely five feet tall with a baby face bursting with freckles, topped by an unruly shock of red hair. The kid's ears stick out from his head at an almost right angle.

  I find myself staring at this child in his Nike sneakers (kiss them good-bye) and 'N Sync T-shirt. He does his best to walk with dignity, despite the shackles and waist chains. He is holding himself straight, head up, ears flaring out, not flinching from the catcalls of the Yard Rats. He keeps his moist brown eyes— just drying now from county?— fixed on Teardrop Tattoo's back. If he's alarmed by all the par-tay invitations, he does not show it.

  "Yo, Bob, come to Daddy! Your daddy's been waiting on you!" Back in the world, "Bob" is the nickname for "Robert." In here it's an acronym for "bend over backwards."

  "Hey! His name ain't Bob— look at them fucking ears! It's Dumbo!" The Yard Rats squeal with laughter— Dumbo! That's a good one— until the next convict tops it.

  "Nah, he ain't Dumbo— Dumbo would fly over the fucking fences! With them fuckin' ears he's a teacup head!" Teacup! That one hits an 8.0 on the Rat Richter scale.

  And "Teacup" will be his name for at least the next forty years because this kid, this meat, is looking at two Life Withs, running wild.

  His trial was covered in lurid detail. At the age of twelve, weary beyond reason of his stepfather's nightly visits to his bed (and emboldened by a six-pack of beer stolen from a neighbor's garage), Teacup decided to pay Stepdad a visit one night.

  With a twelve-inch kitchen carving knife.

  The county medical examiner testified at the trial to forty-seven stab wounds. Had Teacup just called it a night at that point, just gone back to his room, maybe called 911 before booting up a computer game and an 'N Sync CD, he might have been all right. A jury might have looked at the "mitigating factors."

  But, as Stanger is fond of saying, Nooooooo! After dispatching the evil stepdad, Teacup decides his sixteen-year-old sister, Trisha, also has something coming. Because she knew about Stepdad. Knew about the rapes, the beatings, 'cause Teacup had told her, begged her for help when Mom, too drugged and drunk, did nothing, telling Teacup to "just work it out with him."

  So now Trisha's got something coming because she didn't help, didn't even say anything to a soul. Now Teacup's going to work it out.

  So Teacup pays a little visit to Trisha's room, after first fitting his face with a Jason-style hockey mask left over from his Halloween adventures. "Showing clear premeditation," intoned the D.A. at the trial.

  The six-pack of beer apparently slowed Teacup down somewhat because after only thirteen whacks with the cleaver to Trisha's chest and neck, he passed out from exhaustion by the side of her bed.

  Before he could decide whether to return to Stepdad's bedroom and do his passed-out mother.

  Nine-one-one didn't get the call till the next morning when Mom, unable to find her "wake-up"— a shot of speed— went wandering around the house in search of her stash.

  Two hours later, still screaming, she got her shot from an E.R. doctor— a sedative to shut her up.

  Now Teacup, toothpick wrists shackled, belly chains rattling, is our latest and youngest guest. Something about him— maybe it's the moist brown eyes— reminds me of my younger daughter, Rachel. And I just know that Teacup's bridal reception party in the Fish Tank will
make the stepdad look like a saint by comparison.

  As Teacup shuffles by me, I step through the mob and whisper in one of his Dumbo ears.

  "Just listen! When you get to the Tank, ask for Kansas— cell 47, upper tier. You got that? Hook up with Kansas— tell him the O.G. sent you."

  Teacup is startled, but he makes eye contact and nods before they march him away.

  The Bone touches my elbow. "O.G. fittin' to be a daddy?"

  And all the Yard Rats rock with laughter.

  * * *

  Cellblock 4 is considered a "preferred housing unit" by the prison. It's a one-story structure with three blocks— A, B, and C. In this age of euphemism, the prison's official designation is not "A block" or "B block," but "A wing," "B wing."

  I'm relieved to be in a single-tier "housing unit." No worrying about taking an involuntary dive off the upper tier because some J-Cat is struggling with a burning curiosity about exactly what kind of sound my head would make when it splattered on the concrete floor of the lower tier.

  There is also no Bubblecop with a big gun. Just a kiosk-like staff office in the central rotunda. It's like a Fotomat booth encased in steel; wire-mesh and Plexiglas windows with an open counter for the C.O. to hand out mail, toilet paper, or just some verbal abuse.

  In the not unlikely event that the Shit Jumps Off, the guard can simply seal himself in and microwave popcorn and listen to news of the riot over his radio. Waiting for rescue.

  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

  The rotunda has the same setup as the Inferno: a staff office for the caseworker, a closet-size "library," two wall telephones, and a bathroom. A crude, hand-lettered sign reading STAFF ONLY is taped to the bathroom door. Another paper sign beneath it reads "After taking your shit, please proceed directly to the Hole!"

  Sounds like an honor system to me.

  The cop in the kiosk is an aging cowboy with a full head of white hair and a tanned, weather-beaten face. A network of burst capillaries on his face suggests his off-duty hobby. He's also refreshingly courteous.

  "Mr. Lerner," he drawls, consulting the "Movement Sheet." "You'll be in 17 cell, A wing. See the porter for your bedding issue. You can leave your tub right here for now." His nametag reads SCO FALLON. He has two stripes— a senior correctional officer, which is a big deal for these cops.

  Fallon points to a supply room adjacent to the caseworker's office. "Mr. Lerner, if you have anything in your tub, anything at all that you're not supposed to have, I'll give you a couple of minutes now to dispose of it."

  "No, sir, nothing at all." Fallon studies me for a moment, taking in the mostly white beard, the absence of tattoos, and the still semibewildered look of a fish out of water.

  He seems to reach some sort of decision. "Excellent— I think we'll get along just fine. I understand your friend Kansas will be joining us soon from the Fish Tank."

  I don't know if this is some kind of test.

  "Well, I can use all the friends I can get around here," I say, and push open the door to the supply room.

  I find the porter in the back of the supply room, crouching behind a five-foot-high stack of mattresses, sucking greedily on a Pert Plus shampoo bottle— Skell!

  "What's up, dawg?" Skell greets me, shoving the Pert inside a stack of towels. His bloodshot eyes manage to focus for a moment. "O.G.! Aiight! Heard you heading over… yeah, was on the wire, bro. You the new Lawdog and all."

  "I haven't even started in the law library yet."

  "Well, whatchu need, dawg?" Skell whispers in that intimate conspiratorial hiss of his— "Wash shoe need"— that renders even the most commonplace English expression somehow obscene. Skell still has the same four rotting yellow teeth he had back in the Fish Tank, but his shaved head now sports a bright red scab the size of a giant squid, shaped curiously like an old map of North Vietnam.

  A few baby squids decorate his sunken, unshaved cheeks. I tell him I need bedding, soap, and toothpaste.

  "No, dawg— what I'm sayin' is I can hook you up! Y'unnerstan'? I got a Hilton Hotel towel for ya, dawg. I got sheets— real sheets, donated from Saint Mary's Hospice— you think them nuns is gonna let some poor, dying sonofabitch check out on top of some fucked-up rag? Nah, dawg, I'm talkin' cotton!"

  Skell's on a pruno roll now, excited by the prospect of some rollies and stamps. He gives the Mother of All Squids a vicious scratch, unleashing a river of blood that travels down his forehead and links up with a baby squid on his cheek— the Ho Chi Minh Trail?

  "Aiight. I'll take the Hilton, pass on the Saint Mary."

  "Ten stamps, dawg."

  "Five— and give me a mattress without a rat's nest inside."

  "Done deal, dawg," and Skell extends a clenched fist. I tap knuckles, making a mental note to boil my hand later— if Skell will sell me a hot stove.

  "What about a rug, dawg? I got one of them sand-nigger prayer rugs the Muslims gotta use when they beg Allah for another oil well or missile or whatever the fuck those sand toads pray for."

  "No thanks. Figuring out which way is east and praying to Mecca is more than I can handle right now."

  "That's all good then. What cell did Fallon put you in?"

  "Seventeen cell, A wing." Skell grabs a clipboard and looks at the housing roster. "Scandalous! That cell's empty right now. I'll put you in the bottom bunk."

  "Thanks— how much is that?"

  "Seeing as how you Kansas's dawg, it's on me." Overwhelmed by his own generosity, Skell takes a swig of Pert and another swipe at Mother Squid. This time a brigade of Red Chinese troops floods down the Ho Chi Minh Trail toward the Calamari Pass.

  I decide not to wait around for the fall of Saigon. I grab my purchases and head toward my new house. It's the familiar eight-by-six of the Fish Tank except it has a window that I can open and close with a heavy steel lever. The window is some sort of thick plastic, reinforced with heavy metal mesh. But it's a real window with a view of the yard.

  And, until I get a cellie, it's mines!

  * * *

  The law clerk job is a piece of cake, mostly consisting of delivering lawbooks or NSF (nonsufficient funds) packages of writing paper and stamped envelopes to "indigents" in the lockdown units. As I suspected, it requires absolutely zero knowledge of the law. There are plenty of jailhouse lawyers on the yard who charge hundreds of dollars to handle an appeal or a habeas corpus petition to the feds.

  Just when I am falling into a complacent routine, the eses decide to beat the hell out of someone right in front of cellblock 4 when I'm coming back from the law library. Five or six Mexicans— Sureños— surrounding a solitary victim, also Mexican, on the dirt lawn. Punching him in the stomach and kicking him in the face when he falls.

  "Maricón sucio!" they scream. Then they kick him some more.

  "Cabrón!" And a final vicious kick to the head.

  The ese collapses and then sprawls facedown in the dirt while the Sureños calmly stroll off. So casual, just doing a synchronized convict strut. Another walk in the park on a sunny day. Qué paso, ese!

  The sirens go off all over the yard, loudspeakers crackle, then announce, LOCK IT DOWN! CLEAR THE YARD! Convicts scurry from every corner of the yard, streaming like rats back to their cellblocks, the sirens a continuous earsplitting wail.

  It is a surreal scene out of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, the movie with Rod Taylor where the Morlocks sound an "air raid" siren to summon the innocent (but tasty) Eloi to their dark cannibalistic caves. Once the Morlocks have assembled sufficient Eloi ingredients for their feast (and maybe a midnight snack as well), they sound the siren again— this time the good siren sound signifying "all clear."