You Got Nothing Coming

by Jimmy A. Lerner

  But Demetrius isn't smiling. No, the man is far beyond amusement. As a matter of fact he's peeling off his piss-soaked paper jumpsuit until he's sitting butt-naked on his tray, one hand clutching his johnson.

  Waving it at Bubblecop.

  "Ain't no motherfucking zip-locked apples in here, boss!"

  This is one of those phone company "minimal cues." I exit the cell ass-backward, crashing into the Moo cop who has run up the tier in response to Bubblecop's shouts.

  I'm halfway across the catwalk when Bubblecop raises radio backup from the Dirt.

  And Johnson and johnson are waving good-bye.

  * * *

  Kansas gleams like a steel shank in the sun, bench-pressing four-hundred-plus pounds before an admiring pack of spotter dawgs. The weight pile in the Aryan Woods is segregated from the rest of the yard by a razor-wire-topped fence. A steel gate in the fence is remotely controlled by a guntower cop high above the Wood Pile.

  Every hour, on the hour, the gate cracks open, unleashing a bi-directional flow of skinheads and their philosophical cousins and often comrades-in-tattooed-arms, the woods.

  The institutional idea behind the sixty-minute lockdowns is to "contain" the Wood Pile whenever the Shit Jumps Off. This happens at least once a week in the Wood Pile when twenty-pound free weights wing through the air like Frisbees out of hell.

  To qualify for the Frisbee Olympics, a convict needs to supply only an attitude and a target— weights are included, free. The Old Heads tell me that past gold medal winners were able to embed a Frisbee in someone's dome from twenty yards away. These punks today ain't shit. Then they tell me about Attica.

  Kansas spots me across the yard, wheeling my Lawdog handcart.

  "Yogee!" he shouts. "Yogee!" The guntower cop (unkindly called the "Tower Pig" by the Old Heads) watches my progress toward the weight pile with binoculars. He spots Kansas and cracks the gate open long before the hour.

  As they say here, "Kansas got juice!"

  "What's up, dawg?" Kansas greets me like a long-lost brother as we tap clenched fists.

  We kick it for a few minutes, catching up. Kansas beat Stanger's investigation into extortion and drug dealing. The Dirt couldn't produce any witnesses. Kansas denies the yard rumor that an assistant warden may have intervened after noticing a dramatic increase in Nazi Low Riders casually circling around his daughter's preschool playground.

  Kansas did just three days in the kitchen, and not scooping Jell-O. He was the "veg prep dawg," chopping and slicing celery and carrots with one hand, accepting crank and heroin packets from the Freeman with the other.

  "Small-time shit, O.G." Kansas shakes his huge skinhead, eyes now filling with the familiar nostalgia that always augurs a long riff back to "…the Kansas pen, O.G., where I was running a fucking meth lab right out of the bakery— none of this pussy pruno shit these punks got going here, y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'? Fuck, dawg, I remember one time I was doing a little deuce in Marianna— that's fed time, bro, down in Florida, a real stand-up joint…"

  And on and on down what has to be the partially imagined memory lane of a dozen prisons. I have added up all the time Kansas claims to have done and the total is 547 years. He's been down, done time in Sing Sing, Arizona State Prison, Rahway, Marianna, and in Louisiana. He rattles off these credentials the same way a new candidate for our Corporate Fast Track program used to underwhelm me with his Fulbright, Harvard M.B.A., and Yale Law background.

  I guess we all want our ticket punched and admired.

  "And with you being the new Lawdog and all, you can do me a favor, y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin', O.G.?" So here it comes at last— conversational foreplay over, Kansas is turning over his hole card. And I just know it ain't nothin' nice.

  "What kind of favor, Kansas?"

  "Some of my dawgs in lockdown got things coming— y'unnerstan'? Maybe a few items could kind of fall into the bindings of them lawbooks, know what I'm saying?" I understand I'm receiving another Heart Check from Kansas. I decide to flunk. Use a little Bonespeak.

  "Yeah, Kansas, I understand perfectly— you're fittin' ta put me in a muthafuckin' trick bag, dawg. And the only hole in that bag is Hole time— y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin'? Well, fuck you very much for the opportunity to do you a favor, but the only thing I'm fittin' to catch is pa-role!"

  Kansas, astounded, speechless, looking down at me like I just crash-landed my spacecraft and need directions back to Alpha Centauri. I sense that this is one of those "be here now" moments that will define the quality of the rest of my stay on this strange planet.

  Kansas backs off a step and wraps a blue bandana around his dome to keep the sweat from smearing his swastika tattoo.

  "Trick bag?… fittin' ta catch pa-role?" And Kansas's six-foot-six incredibly muscled frame is rocking with laughter. He laughs so hard he starts crying. Wipes away the tears with the bandana.

  "Yogee— you've gone from sideways talk to fucking toad talk! Where'd you pick up this shit?" he splutters, holding on to the Aryan Woods fence for support. His spotter dawgs come rushing over to see what's up.

  Kansas introduces me to the Carful of skinheads, some of whom I have been greeted by in the yard. Their names are a blur to me: Shank, Big Nasty, Chug, Little Feeb, Snake, Shakey, Dizzy, Sandman, Roach, Lurch…

  Confused at first by Kansas's formal introduction, they take turns smacking my knuckles with their SWP-or NLR-tattooed fingers. "What's up, O.G.?" they say.

  "What's up, dawgs!" I exclaim. "Where's Dopey and Grumpy today?" Which sends Kansas into a fresh paroxysm of hysterics. This lets the dawgs know that I am just a sideways-talking kind of guy and they are not being Disrespected. "Aiight, O.G.— later, dawg," they call, and return to the Wood Pile.

  Kansas is sober now. "Listen, O.G.— forget all that shit about the lockdown and the lawbooks an' all. I'll just use the porters or the guards, but ya gotta help with the letters I been getting from all kinds of crazy bitches behind that ad you put in the paper."

  "That's the kind of favor I'd be happy to help you with." And I mean it.

  "Scandalous! I'll bring 'em down to your house tonight."

  "Have you read them yet?" I ask, forgetting that Kansas can barely read. Unless it's a summons, a warrant, or his FBI file.

  "Uh… yeah, you know, a little bit, but I need you to write them back."

  "What house you in now?"

  "I'm over in your cellblock. Same wing, cell 26, Lifer's Row. It's quieter there, know what I'm sayin'? I stopped by your house earlier but no one home except some new fish sleeping on the top bunk— guess you got a new cellie." Skell said he couldn't keep up the scam much longer, so I'm not surprised.

  "All right, Kansas, then I'll see you later." We do the fist tap, Nazi Low Rider knuckle meets Once Nice Jewish Boy knuckle. I'm not that nice boy anymore. Maybe I never was.

  Whatever it is I am, or am becoming in here, I suspect it ain't nothin' nice.

  * * *

  C.O. Fallon calls me over to hand me an "unauthorized mail" notification from the prison. My magazine has been confiscated due to "the depiction of weaponry and gang violence" in one of the articles. The magazine is Newsweek.

  Tonight the prison movie is another showing of a soft-porn "western." I've only seen it three times now. It has at least twelve murders, three rapes, one sodomy (by a dwarf), torture by branding iron, and a great deal of gratuitous mutilation.

  Pretty good movie— I give it three stars.

  My new cellie is asleep on the top bunk, his face pressed against the graffiti-covered wall (FUCK THE POLICE and other forms of misplaced hostility). His shaved head is visible. On the right side of his neck is a beautifully scripted tattoo— "Mandy." The little skinhead seems too young to be a Barry Manilow fan, so I know when he wakes up and tells me his life story (the youngsters here always do that), Mandy will play a starring role in his particular psychodrama.

  He's going to tell me Mandy's his "fiancée"— prison translation: He dated her one time and got l
ucky before she threw up. She's waiting faithfully (by the phone, of course) for him to complete his bid so they can get married and ascend to Trailer-Trash Heaven together.

  After she gets out of drug rehab.

  My less than charitable musings are interrupted by Mr. Mandy's sneezing fit. He rolls over to face me. Young, maybe eighteen, with handsome features in a smooth face trying desperately to sprout a badass prison goatee.

  "What's up, dawg?" He smiles, extending a fist. He still has his teeth, suggesting the crank has yet to catch up with him.

  "I'm Jimmy— pleased to meet you."

  "Shawn, but all my road dogs call me Spoony. You're the O.G., right? I heard about you in the Fish Tank— making a killer slock out of a newspaper! That's the shit, dawg!"

  "Do me a favor, Spoony, since we're celling together. Call me Jimmy, Jim, or O.G., but don't call me dawg."

  "Aiight, O.G."

  Both prison etiquette and convict common sense ("Today's road dog— tomorrow's snitch") counsel against inquiring about one's cellie's "crime." Unfortunately this unwritten restriction has resulted in the rise and concomitant shaping and honing of the Convict Song of Self— an endless, self-serving soliloquy utterly devoid of any real wrongdoing, always ending in the Fall, the convict term for his arrest.

  So Spoony sings the song, clearly in awe of a cellie capable of assault with the New York Times. I wonder what I could have done with that Newsweek. I lie down on my bunk to better appreciate the cadences and rhythm of a ruptured life.

  I half-nap through Spoony's early dysfunctional years shuttling between CPS (Child Protective Services), juvie hall, and his dope-fiend mom. I awaken fully to "so then Mandy's mom kicked us out of the trailer when Mandy got pregnant— said her SSI check didn't cover two more dope fiends, with a baby dope fiend in the making— even though we was planning to get married as soon as we got off the crank, y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin', O.G.?" This is my minimal cue to fake some Active Listening skills.

  "Yeah, Spoony, you were planning to get married and Mom still wanted you out of her trailer— that's scandalous, dawg."

  "For real," says Spoony, retrieving the threads of his Me Melody while I attempt to nap.

  "Then when Mandy got kicked out of the drug rehab, the CPS just took the baby… so we had to move back to her mom's, but I had my eye on our own place— this awesome double-wide with like phone, cable, water hookup, everything, even had a built-in microwave— when I fell behind some crank sales I had to get involved in 'cause Kmart fired me. All the employees was stealing them blind, but they fucking fire me." I always like the part where they are the victim.

  The Fall is a good part too. Convicts don't get busted or arrested— they fall. They fall behind dope, behind a woman, behind a snitch. They had nothing to do with it! The rationale system is staggering in its self-enclosed logic, in its utter absence of volition.

  Anybody can Fall. It's like gravity or something sucks us all down. The earth itself sucks— sucks a righteous dawg like Spoony down.

  The Fall is the convict version of the Slip— a favorite twelve-step term for a drinking or drug relapse. Between gravity and banana peels how can a recovering righteous dawg not Slip and Fall?

  Spoony, all of eighteen, is doing four to ten behind a drug trafficking conviction, measuring out his life with collect calls to Mandy's (mom's) trailer, wondering if Mandy will answer, wondering if she's high, worrying if she's been with someone, if she is with someone at this very moment— and who is it? Jody? Sancho? And wondering just where Mandy is on the long waiting list for the Salvation Army's drug rehab program.

  Spoony's doing "hard time."

  * * *

  In the movies, convicts in prison always get a special meal for Christmas. In here it's the same ol' same ol'— we were served soybean patties with mashed potatoes on top, green Jell-O on top of the mashed potatoes, purple Kool-Aid.

  Events of interest to the denizens of the free world, such as New Year's Eve— the Millennium 2000 Edition— passed unremarked. I watched the ball drop in Times Square. People screamed and danced drunkenly in the streets. Predictions of Armageddon triggered by "noncompliant Y2K" computer chips failed to materialize. If anything unusual happened on Groundhog Day, Dan Rather chose not to report it.

  It stays desert hot in the days, cold now at nights. The dirt and sand continue to sting our faces every day.

  While I am delivering books and attending disciplinary hearings, Spoony attends GED preparation classes in a converted cellblock used as a school. Instead of a hall monitor, there is a Bubblecop with an AK-47 to ensure a rich learning environment.

  Spoony doesn't mind. Says it reminds him of the public schools he briefly attended.

  Spoony, state-raised and institutionally savvy, is a Yard Trick. I arranged the job interview for him (with Kansas) when it appeared that he was in danger of being utilized as a sperm bank depository for some of the more bestial members of the Car.

  I was wrong about Spoony having teeth— he has a full set of dentures, compliments of a juvie prison dentist who first pulled all of Spoony's crank-rotted teeth. The dental plates don't fit properly, and Spoony only wears them for special occasions— like eating.

  When he's not struggling with the mysteries of converting GED fractions to percents and decimals (sometimes they tell him to reverse the process), he can be seen snipe-hunting in the yard— collecting the discarded shorts of rollies. He puts the butts in a Bugler can and rerolls the preowned tobacco in the cell, selling full rollies to new fish.

  He takes care of the Car's laundry and runs contraband from one cellblock to another. I tell him I don't care what he does outside the cell (that's his lookout) as long as he doesn't bring anything into the house that will attract heat. "Y'unnerstan' what I'm sayin' to you, Spoony?" "It's all good, O.G.," he says.

  Sometimes, after he's done an especially thorough job of sweeping and mopping our house, I toss a Hershey's Kiss or a Digby's Jolly Rancher ("fire"-flavored) up to the top bunk.

  The GED fractions are driving Spoony crazy. He was kicked out of school in the seventh grade and never returned. He had trouble sitting still, trouble concentrating. He's a member of the Ritalin Generation and they won't give him any speed in prison. He has to barter for his crank on the yard.

  "The teachers said I was dyslepnic," Spoony confides in me one chilly evening. "They said I got ADD too." Spoony shares these diagnoses with me with the quiet pride of someone whose life challenges have been dignified by an official-sounding disease label.

  I assure him he doesn't suffer from dyslepnic disorders or even dyslexia. I have observed that he can read, comprehend, and concentrate like a Rhodes scholar when given incentives like candy or drugs.

  Spoony just has a different "learning strategy" from most students. After a few evenings of M.B.A. brainstorming with myself, I arrive (as I usually do) at a Breakthrough Learning Paradigm.

  I address the metal bottom of the upper bunk. "Spoony— what do you do when you buy an ounce of crank?"

  "What do ya mean what do I do? I snort some, shoot some, maybe sell the rest. What do ya think I do?"

  "I mean what do you do before you sell it, assuming you and Mandy don't snort and shoot all of it?"

  "We cut it with Ex-Lax," Spoony answers without hesitation, finally in a familiar classroom where he is an A student.

  "Why Ex-Lax?" I'm genuinely curious. Is this another new applications-driven stock I should purchase, assuming I have any cash left after buying up blocks of Bic?

  " 'Cause it's water-soluble so the customer don't get no impurities when he shoots it." Spoony is energized now, practically twitching on his bunk with amphetamine longing.