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

that long. "Why don't they send you back to M-R?"

"Because probation officers can't travel outside of the county. And so it looks like you're stuck here with me, pretty boy, until they get off their asses and do it."

I hoped he was wrong, but he wasn't. The next day, the judge postponed my sentencing until the Probation Department could complete a PSI. My lawyer agreed to the continuance, and the judge ordered the Probation Department to move post-haste. My sentencing was rescheduled for three weeks time.

When I got back up to the cellblock, Nate was waiting with a smile and a sneer. "What'd I tell ya?Your ass is up here with me baby boy."

I didn't like how he said it, but I ignored him and went into my cell. My cigarettes were gone.

"Who took my cigarettes?" I yelled out. No one answered.

I stuck my head out. "Who took them?" A couple of guys looked up from a card game, but no one said anything. I looked the other way. Nate came out of his cell.

"Somebody took your shit?"

"Yeah!"

"That's tucked up. Just now?"

"That's right. And it's pretty fucked up too. I'd been sharing with these motherhickers, and they turn around and take my shit!"

"I got your back," he said.

I looked at him, not liking the sound of that.

"Don't worry. I'll get 'em back." But I was more afraid of what that would cost me. He cut me off before I could say anything. "Don't worry. You'll get your shit."

Maybe I could split them with him.

The guys at the card game were grinning. I didn't like the looks of that either.

Sure enough, about an hour later, Nate came into my cell with four of the six missing packs. I'd gone through four already, giving them away or lending them out to guys who would pay me back on Tuesday.

"Where'd you find them?"

"Don't worry about it." He sat down on my bed. "I run things around here."

I handed him two packs. "Here, I really appreciate it."

"Nah, that's all right. I've got some."

I thought he said he didn't have any cigarettes, but I was happy to have gotten some of them back. I opened the pack and lit one. He leaned back and watched me.

"So who took them?"

He waved his hand, dismissing me. "I don't snitch."

"Snitch? I thought that only applied to the police."

"You don't snitch, do you?"

"No."

"Good." He tapped the inside of his thigh with his thumb. "That's good."

"It depends," I said quickly.

"On what?"

"Exactly," I said.

He smiled, and so did I, but I don't think he was amused. He looked at me silently for a moment. At first, I wasn't sure the conversation was going where I thought it was. And then, I wasn't sure if he was testing me, or serious-but now I didn't like the look in his eye or the way his scars were frozen.

"You'd snitch?"

"Yeah," I said slowly. I knew that snitches were killed, but I was afraid that if I told him no, he would take that as an invitation to make the next move. So I was bluffing, and hoped that he was, too.

He shook his head. "You'd actually snitch?"

"Yeah." My hand started to shake.

He tensed up like he was going to hit me.

I looked at him, not knowing what to say. He was sitting on the side of the bed closest to the doorway. I tried to get up, but he moved forward, so I sat back down.

"You know what happens to snitches, right?"

I didn't answer at first. "I'm not a fag."

"Who's talkin' about fags?"

"Well then what are you talkin' about?"

"I'm talkin' about snitchin'."

"Well then, no. I'm not a snitch."

"But you'd snitch if I took that?" He looked down at my ass.

"You're damn right."

He got up and walked out, stopping in front of my cell. "You know where I'm from, right?"

I nodded.

"Boy, if we were at Gladiator School right now-I would have snatched that pussy from your ass two days ago, you snitch ass bitch."

22

What's Under the Covers?

"It's only been a handful of years since the race riots left Detroit smoldering," the reporter from Eyewitness News said. "But in this overwhelmingly white high school of 1200 kids, they've elected a black class president from among their only twelve black students."

Everyone in the auditorium had applauded when Kevin Pregister told the student body, "Don't vote for me because I'm black-Vote for me because I'm the best man for the job."

My parents still had a sign in the living room window that read: THIS FAMILY WILL NOT BE BUSSED.

Kevin was from Inkster, the town next to ours, where they had extended the school district by two blocks.

Yet for all our talk about unity, inside the lunchroom, everyone stuck to their place. The jocks were in one corner, the nerds in another. The popular crowd, the socialites, formed an orbit around the varsity teams, with the club kids straddling the middle-Chess, Science, and Math on one side and Drama and Yearbook on the other. The burnouts were out back, behind the school, sneaking a cigarette or smoking pot. There were a few floaters, kids like me, who didn't seem to fit anywhere else, but we had to be careful, or we'd get lumped with the losers and labeled asgeeks. The only exceptions were the couples, but then everyone mostly dated their own: The jocks with The Socks and The Nerds with The Turds.

I tried to blend wherever I could, slipping from onegroup to another. I rode the bus with the burnouts and ate lunch with the clubs. It seemed my whole destiny would be determined by whatever group accepted me. Myguidance counselor said it didn't matter, which was easy for him to say, since his life was practically over to my thinking.

If a kid sat where he didn't belong; or if someone tried to climb too high-he kids at the top were never shy about smacking him back into place.

The bars closed with a clang, sending vibrations through my body. The