Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison by T. Parsell (ready to read books TXT) 📕

someone's about to leave this motherfucker tonight."

The angrier Chet became, the funnier the situation was to us inmates.

"Damn, Dawg!" an inmate called out. "Someone got your teeth? That's fucked up. How you supposed to eat?"

I lay on my bed and smiled, listening as the guards chased Chet down to his cell. Sleep for me, came fast and sweet.

The next morning, Slide Step knocked on my door. "C'mon Squeeze. We need to talk." He waited in the doorway as I got dressed. It was unusual for him. He normally waited for me at the end of the hall, since he could be given a ticket for being out of place.

"Is everything all right?"

"Just hurry up," he said.

He said nothing more until we got out to the back porch. He told me to keep an eye out, while he pulled the bench away from the wall and removed a loose brick.

"Did you take Chet's teeth?" he asked.

I looked at him for a second. "Is that what this is about?"

He shook his head, no.

Concealed in the wall was a steel shank, which had been sharpened in the metal shop. It looked like an ice pick, with a handle that had been made from a ball of masking tape. Slide Step explained that because of its shape, the puncture wounds from the shank couldn't heal.

"Listen, I want you to go out in the yard until I tell you it's safe."

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Me and Red have to go take care of this thing with Chet and Taylor."

Slide Step wasn't about to let a move on his drug trade go unchallenged, no matter who was involved. I was nervous for him, especially after he had pulled out his shank, but somehow I felt confident that he and Red could handle it. Or maybe I was just relieved that what was about to go down had nothing to do with me.

I stood there frozen and stared at him.

"Don't worry Squeeze, they're not gonna do nothin'. I'm taking this just in case. Nobody wants to die up in here today."

I headed toward the yard as Slide Step had told me, so I wasn't around when whatever went down happened. "If you see Chet coming, I want you to go the other way."

I nodded.

"Are you sure you didn't take his teeth?"

I looked at him without answering at first. "My dad once told me, to never trust a guy who'll tell on himself. Because if he does that-he'll tell on anybody."

Slide Step looked at me and slowly smiled. "You silly ass knucklehead."

"I don't know what you're talking about." I smiled back.

"Listen, we need to talk about something else as well, but it can wait."

I looked at him and nodded. "Be careful."

When I got down to the yard, I saw Brett standing over by 9 Building. I wanted to join him, but I had to respect what Slide Step said. What was about to happen was serious, and I wondered what would happen if Chet was seriously injured and had to leave Riverside. Would Slide Step take control of his boy?

Whatever happened, it didn't mean that Scatter and I were in the clear. I was troubled by Chet's asking me about Scatter. He must have been tipped off somehow.

The emergency siren began blaring, and guards ran across the yard to 10 Building. My heart started to race. Suddenly it dawned on me: What would become of me if Slide Step got hurt? Who would protect me?

"Return to your housing units," the voice over the speaker ordered, above the roar of the siren. "All inmates, return immediately to your housing units."

When I got upstairs, a guard at the top of the landing was sending everyone to the north side. Guards searched inmates as we passed through the corridor.

At the end of the hall I saw a stretcher and a couple of medics through the guard's station. We were sent to our cells and locked in.

Looking out the window of my cell, I saw more guards running into the building. Chet and Taylor were being escorted across the yard in handcuffs. A few minutes later, I saw Manley and Red being taken as well. But where was Slide Step?

I watched the yard while we waited for the guards to clear us from lockdown. There weren't toilets in the single cells and the guards told us to hold it until we were released. "Just piss out the window," my neighbor B.C. yelled.

I thought about it, but we were on the second floor and the inmates below wouldn't have appreciated it. I was in enough trouble already.

B.C. was an overweight Mexican who had a crucifix tattooed on his belly. He had it done when he was young, but now that he was fat, it looked more like Buddha on a cross.

From the vantage point of our windows, we could see the south wing of the building. Inmates hollered back and forth in an effort to piece together what had happened. Someone said they saw Peterson, being escorted across the yard in handcuffs.

"Peterson?" I yelled. "The guard?"

"He was dirty," an inmate shouted. "He was caught moving drugs. Chet and Taylor snitched him out!"

"Snitched him out? Why would they do that?"

"I dunno. Maybe they thought they'd get an early release out of it."

"I knew them bitches were snitching," someone yelled.

"Does anyone know what happened to Slide Step?" I asked.

"I ain't hip," B.C. said, "but I saw two of his crew being taken to the hole."

"What about the medic? Do you know what the stretcher was for?"

"Sure don't," he said, "but it looks like that guard is about to become one of us."

"How so?"

"Heroin," he said. He pronounced it Hair 0' Wine. "He'll catch a case and they'll probably give him prison time."

"They won't just fire him?"

"They don't fuck around with smack," he said. "Mandatory minimums and shit."

"Fuck 'em," another inmate shouted. "He should've known not to trust those two ho's from the get go."

"Chet and Taylor are the ones that snitched on