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

on." The jail prohibited books or magazines about queers. "Smitty's one of us," she whispered, "but we still have to do it on the Q.T."

"On the Q.T.?"

"On the Quiet Tip, girl! How long have you been down?"

I didn't respond.

"I'm just sayin', cause you need to toughen up if you want to make it in here, girl."

"I'm not a girl," I said.

"Well, you're a girl in here, honey."

"You tell her, Miss Thing," another queen shouted.

"You might as well have a vagina honey, 'cause once you're up here with all these scandalous queens, your ho' card is thoroughly punched."

"Speak for yourself," Ginger yelled. "Some of us ladies know how to be discreet."

"Uh-huh," Black Diamond said. "You forget, bitch, I knew your ass in juvenile hall. Back when you were doin' boys for Hostess Ding-Dongs."

"Hello!" someone chirped from the end of the hall, as if keeping score.

Thanks to the meal cart express, they all knew what happened down in the bullpen, as well as what had happened upstairs with Nate. "And even if they didn't," she said. "They know about you now, 'cause you're up here on Queens Row with us."

"That's right," Ginger added. "Ain't no secrets in here. Everyone knows what happened to you."

"Even at Riverside," Black Diamond said.

It took a moment for that to sink in, and I felt my heart sink with it. I sat back on my bunk without saying anything. So everyone knew. I felt humiliated and ashamed.

"Girrlll. You had it going on. If Miss Thing here could've passed herself off as straight and got up on one of those regular floors! I'd a been right up there on it."

I didn't respond.

"But I know what you mean, though. That shit is fucked up when you don't want it, and they decide they're going to just up and take it from you."

"That's right," Ginger said. "But there ain't a whole lot you can do about it."

"Yes there is," Black Diamond said. "You can hurry up and get yourself a man. These motherfuckers think that just 'cause we like dick, it means they can fuck us whenever they want, even if we don't want it."

"And the guards ain't gonna help you none, either," Ginger said.

"I thought you liked dick? is what one of them guards told me," Black Diamond said. "That was after a bunch of motherfuckcrs had Miss Thing spread out over a card table. Shit, I was in the infirmary for almost a month after that. But I don't like to think about that. Shit gets too damn depressing."

I just listened as Black Diamond went on. Perhaps it should have felt validating to hear someone else share an experience that was somewhat similar to my own. I knew I wasn't alone-but Black Diamond was right-it gets too damn depressing to even think about it. So I don't-I changed the subject in my mind.

"`Well a dick's a dick,' is what one of these men told me-and he was serious, too. Uh-uh, I told him-it don't work like that. Is a pussy a pussy? And he said, `Hell no'-so what makes you think it's the same for me? So that's why you need to be real careful with yourself, white boy. 'Cause these motherfuckers all know you're on Queens Row, and they all know your business, so when you go back down to them bullpens-you need to be extra careful with yourself."

"Thanks," I said. It was good advice about being careful, but I rejected the notion of being branded by being placed on Queens Row. And I started being careful right then, by placing the book and cigarettes she had given me back on the cross section of her bars. "Thanks anyway," I said.

When Black Diamond first gave me the book and cigarettes-I told her that I couldn't repay her. She said, "That's OK, you can hook me up later. I'm sure there's something we can swap." I was pretty distrustful of everyone by then, but I thought I was safe, being locked up in a single-man cell, but then I learned they showered us two at a time, and that her cell and mine were numbers 9 and 10.

"Well, you know, I've got quite the reputation ..."

I knew about her reputation. "She sucks a mean dick," was the other thing I'd heard about her, which I suspect was her primary (if not only) attraction.

I had never received a blowjob before, so I wouldn't know what I was missing, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get it up for her. "Thanks, but no thanks," I said.

"Well, suit yourself, but you can't blame a girl for trying."

It may have seemed like a trivial thing, a simple book and a few cigarettes, but as I was quickly realizing, nothing came for free in prison.

Black Diamond placed them back on my bars. "Don't worry about it," she said. "My man puts plenty of coin in my commissary."

"Thanks," I said, but I felt uncomfortable taking it.

"You know, Tim. If you don't want what's been happening, to keep happening, you gonna have to learn how to work it."

"That's right," Ginger shouted. "Your pretty white ass is too fine to be up in here suffering. But don't just survive girl, you gots to learn how to thrive!"

"Never mind her," Black Diamond said. "She's just a nasty old cell hop."

"Don't be getting' shady with me, Miss Diamond. I'm just trying to help the boy. He's sitting on a gold mine, and he don't even know it."

"Ain't nobody gettin' shady with you, but you need to stay out my business. If that boy listened to you, Miss Gingivitis, he'd be turning tricks till he needed dentures."

"Oh yes you are, you ugly bitch, you're over there livin' on Shady Lane with all that smack you're jackin'."

"Say what?" Black Diamond said. "Do you talk to your momma with those lips, or do you just use 'em to suck the Milk Duds out your daddy's ass?" "Hello!" the scorekeeper yelled.

"Look," Black Diamond said, "If you don't shut