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

ring in the pipes seemed to grow louder as the sounds of shouting slowly decreased. My senses were on high alert, which made it difficult to sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about Nate.

He wasn't that tall, but he was solid and, worse, mean. His anger scared me more than anything else about him. He was like Red, only quieter and more intense. I hoped he believed me when I said I would snitch and that the threat of it would be enough to keep him from hurting me. I hadn't been there long enough to tell what the others might do to back him up.

The next morning, the windows along the wall of the catwalk were open. I heard the screeching cries of a lunatic from outside. Every morning, I was told, for the past several years, a woman stood in front of the jail and yelled obscenities because her husband had been killed inside. Yet nobody knew why or how he died.

"The Goon Squad got him," an inmate said, referring to a group of large deputies who were called whenever there was a disturbance. No one fucked with the Goon Squad.

Whatever it was that actually killed him didn't matter. There was genuine agony in her voice. Perhaps she was just crazy. The accusations she hurled at the jail sounded as delusional as the stories that were sometimes told in there.

Even in the early morning, with the windows open, it was hot inside my cell. My sheets were soaked, and beads of sweat trickled down my neck. I vaguely remembered waking in the middle of the night, but I wasn't sure. I was on the floor, and halfway to my feet, moving toward the front of the cell-like I'd been sleepwalking. I remembered screaming something, but maybe it was just a dream.

After breakfast, Nate stopped in front of my cell. "Who's Slide Step?" he asked.

"Huh?" I stared at him in disbelief.

"You called out his name last night."

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

He stared back and nodded. There seemed to be tire in his eyes, which surprised Inc. His eyes had been deadpan since I arrived.

At breakfast earlier, Nate stood behind one of the white guys and asked, "Will you buck for your food?"

"What?" he said. The expression on his face looked as dumbfounded as his voice.

"You heard me. Will you buck for your food?"

"Buck?"

"Buck, motherfucker," said the loud mouth sitting next to him. "It means fight!"

The white guy didn't answer at first, as if pondering a choice, his face turned red. It was one of the few times I ever noticed silence in the cellblock. Even the noise outside had disappeared. "Well, yeah," he said slowly, "if I had to."

"OK," Nate said, and nodded.

The white boy sat down.

Without a word, or the slightest hint of emotion, Nate whacked him with his metal tray, knocking him off the bench. Blood trickled from the side of his car and mouth as he lay on the floor.

Nate reached over, picked up the guy's food and calmly walked to the other table.

"Yo!" the loud one said, covering his mouth with a fist. "That shit's fucked up." He laughed as he said it. "My man here, says, `Will you buck for your food?' and then BOP! Hits the motherfucker on the head."

Two more blacks joined in laugher, giving each other high fives. "Hey Nate! That's fucked up!" They continued to laugh.

The white boys were silent. There were four of us, in total.

The guy picked himself up from the floor and slowly walked back to his cell.

I started to notice how most inmates, when something bad happened, would either get excited, as if entertained by it, or-like the white guystook this glazed expression, as if the situation were hopeless. But Nate was different. He was above it all. He was unruffled by whatever went on.

Now he was in front of my cell, with that glint in his eyes, but then it seemed to dissolve as quickly as it had appeared. "Do you know Shorty?" he asked.

"Who?"

"His real name's Cromwell. He's my cousin, supposed to be at Riverside."

I shook my head. I didn't know him.

"Then I'll have to call my auntie," he said. "See what I can find out about you."

My heart fell when he said this, and Nate seemed to catch it in my face.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm gonna have to do sonic checking on you."

He went back to his cell.

I wasn't sure if he was bluffing or not, but he acted like he knew something. I wanted to take a shower, because it had been so hot, but there was no way I was going to take a chance leaving my cell. Not with the threat Nate had just made. Instead, I'd take a birdbath in my sink that evening, after they closed us into our cells.

"Hey deputy," the white boy who had been knocked to the ground shouted, when the guards came back for the tray.

"Man, what's you want, honky," Loud Mouth said to him from the table. He was playing cards with the others who had been laughing that morning. "Hey, Dep! Hey, Dep!" he said mocking the inmate. "Hey is for horses Motherfucker. You better carry your snitch ass self back to your cell."

"Can I-Can I make a phone call?" the white guy asked.

I stood in the doorway of my cell, as I watched an inmate in an orange jumpsuit grabbed the trays and then the deputy shut the door.

"Can I make a phone call," Loud Mouth repeated. He slapped a card down on the table, before picking it up with the three others that were lying face up. "Go Big or Stay at Home!" he said, slamming down the Ace of Spades. "Trump, motherfucker!"

For the second time that day, the white guy slinked off to his cell.

I was hoping he'd snitch for me, and that Nate would be taken to the hole. But as I'd find out later, Nate and Loud Mouth were part of the same street gang, so