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

"Shit, that bitch gives out time like its water," one of the cons in the bullpen said. "She told this one motherfucker, who was being sentenced for armed robbery, `Young Man, do you see that clock on the wall?"'

"Yes ma'am."

"What time does it say?"

"Well it's 10:20, judge."

"Well that's how much time you got, ten to twenty."

The inmates laughed-at least everyone who didn't have her as their judge.

Newspapers reported that attorneys and defendants alike would let out a gasp at arraignment hearings when they heard they'd been assigned to her court. One inmate claimed she told him to look out the window. "Young man, do you see a tree out there?"

"No, Judge. I don't see a tree at all."

"Well, there will be-by the time you're let out again."

Others claimed she kept a coffee can filled with coins and at sentencing time she'd reach in and grab a handful, doling out a year for each one as she counted them out aloud "One, two, three ..."

"That bitch has got some pretty big hands too," another con said.

When she refused to plea bargain, the state tried to reassign her to a lower court, but then there were literally protests in the street. She was the granddaughter of a slave, her father was a civil rights activist, and she was the first black woman in the state to become a judge.

"You'd think she'd cut the brothers some slack," the guy next to me said.

"Shit! She's whiter than that white boy," the other nodded at me. I didn't know what he meant at first, but he didn't need to point, since I was the only "white boy" in the bullpen.

It's not like I wasn't aware of it, but this was the first time someone had commented on it in front of me. I lowered my eyes in silence. It wasn't the only difference -the other difference was easier to hide, and I had hoped that no one would figure it out.

I lied when the Intake deputy asked if I was homosexual. I didn't want to be placed in the lavender tank with a bunch of queens. Miss Pepper said it was like being in placed in Administrative Segregation-the hole. And the longer I waited in the bullpens, the more I began to wonder if saying I wasn't gay was even a lie at all, especially since the only sex with men I had had was forced. The fact that I enjoyed it with Scatter and Brett was a secret I wasn't about to share. And once I got out of there-I wouldn't even admit it to myself. Miss Pepper had warned me. "Once it's on your record, honey. It's there for keeps."

I started to wonder whether I could keep up my self-denial any longer, especially given how much I enjoyed what I did with Scatter and Brett. It was pretty clear to me now what I was-and now that I had a taste of it-it awakened an appetite I couldn't ignore. I shifted in my seat on the bench, and had to cover my crotch from view. Those thoughts would have to wait, until it was safe again. I wished I could have taken Slide Step with me to the county jail. There were twenty-eight of us inside the fifteen by twenty-foot holding tank which was probably built for no more than a dozen men. There was a concrete bench along each sidewall and an open toilet and sink in the rear. Two of the four lights were out, so it was dark toward the back of the cell. We had to take turns stretching out on the floor to sleep, but there wasn't any order to it. You waited for someone to sit up or move and then you slowly had to slither into place. Some shifted more cautiously than others, depending on their size and shape.

It was Sunday afternoon, and I'd been there since I arrived on Friday. I stayed near the front of the cell, where there was more light and it was easier to breathe. The inmates' clothes had absorbed the pool of blood that had been in the middle of the floor-from the guy that had killed his mother-and his tooth was probably embedded in the bottom of someone's shoe. The stench was overwhelming. The toilet had backed up again, and the deputies were slow in coming around. We heard them laughing down the hall and knew it was because we had to piss in the sink and hold our dumps until they were good and goddamn ready to bring us a plunger.

The bars felt cool on the side of my face, as I sat on the floor and leaned against them. I had a headache from lack of sleep, the smell of body odor, and from holding my shit since I first arrived. It had nothing to do with the toilet; I was hoping to wait until I got up to a single cell.

I tried to take my mind off the situation by reflecting on different times. I remembered the locker room at my high school, the musky smell of sweaty boys and stinky feet mixed with the clink of a closing padlock and of the hollow crashing of a locker door. I recalled the softer sound of a sneaker's squeaking on the court, and of the sharp shrill of a whistle echoing in the gym and the rhythmic thump of a basketballs. But none of that worked, because all the sounds and smells of jail kept bringing one back. The clamor and noise of jail or prison was unlike anywhere else in the world. A drunk on the other side of Intake had been shouting for over an hour-something about Castro and Cuba and the CIA. The others finally gave up on yelling at him to shut up.

A deputy with a clipboard came to the front of the cell and shouted, "Open Five." He rattled off several names, ordering us out. "Turn around and face