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

high school and college, GED preparation, and training in vocational trades. The place was so strict that if you stepped on the grass between the walkways, you were issued a misconduct report.

The warden, Mr. Richard A. Handlon, prided himself on running a model facility. He was a man in his fifties, who was fat and bald and wore his pants so high above his waist that he looked like Humpty Dumpty. But Warden Handlon was not the kind of man you could fuck with, because he didn't play. The rules were strict, and if an inmate received too many tickets or filed one too many grievances, he'd have them "rode out" or transferred to another prison.

For the most part, the inmates in medium-security were all within a few years of parole, so it wasn't as dangerous as a close-custody or maximumsecurity prison. But just because there was less violence, didn't mean there was none at all.

When I first arrived, I was assigned to G-unit, which was a converted shop class that resembled an army barracks. It had a high ceiling with long double rows of bunk beds and lockers. Fish had to wait up to three or four weeks until a room opened up in one of the six main housing units.

From the outside, the main housing units looked like student housing. Two-story tan brick buildings with faded turquoise trim. But inside, there were open-tiered cellblocks, with single-man rooms in place of the cells. In the newer buildings, the windows opened onto lawns and were large enough to crawl in and out of. Inmates also had the privacy of rooms with doors that locked, and each of us was given a key to his room. The central chow hall once a week served cheeseburgers and pizza. Were it not for the double barbed-wire fences and gun towers that surrounded the compound, it could have passed for a college campus.

But it wasn't just my surroundings that were different: the inmates' behavior and attitudes were different, especially when it came to queers. Perhaps it was because many of them had just come from the outside world and they didn't have long to go before they got out. Or maybe it was because everyone was so young. I heard a guard say that younger inmates were more difficult to control because they were quick tempered and got into fights easily. I had hoped to keep secret all that happened to me earlier, but the inmates had already heard about me.

"He's laying that way," I heard a guy whisper. "He was fucking at Riverside."

I was up on my bunk reading, when someone said, "Uh-oh, Don't squeeze the Charmin." That's when one of them grabbed my ass. I spun and swung at whoever it was, jumping down from my bunk all in the same motion. It electrified the barracks, where hostilities were already tense. The inmates started yelling and cheering.

He was a black man, about my size, and we exchanged a few slugs before wrestling to the floor. "Kill that peckerwood," a black inmate shouted. "Don't take that shit from a nigger," a white hollered, and another fight broke out on the sidelines.

The racial make up was almost evenly split, so tensions were higher than I'd seen earlier at the other prisons. The guards handcuffed us quickly and took us to A-unit, where we were placed in isolation. Three days later I would go to "court."

Since major misconducts could result in the forfeiture of good time (time off your sentence for good behavior), inmates were granted due process and given a hearing. The Hearing Officer was a thin, dark-skinned black man who wore a navy blue suit and tie. The inmate advocate was also present. She was a young white woman who dressed plainly.

The Hearing Officer read from the incident report. "At approximately 1600 hours, C.O. Miller observed an altercation between inmate Parsell #153052 and inmate Williams. . ." There was more to the report, but he stopped reading and looked directly at me. "So what happened?"

"The guy squeezed my ass." I shrugged. "So I hit him."

The Hearing Officer nodded then glanced at the advocate. She said nothing, tucking her long brown hair behind her ear.

He placed the report on the table and checked the box marked, Not Guilty.

"OK, then," he said, without looking up.

We were sitting at a small conference table, and I watched as he wrote something in the Findings section of the report. His handwriting, like his hair and suit, was neat and orderly and his gold wedding band looked new.

"You'll get out of segregation this afternoon," the advocate said with a quick smile.

"I'll call Housing," the Hearing Officer said, "and get you moved to a regular unit."

"Today?" I asked, sounding surprised. I was told it took up to six weeks.

"Well, every now and then, when we see someone who's being pressured, we try to move 'em out of the barracks sooner. You did the right thing, by fighting back. It's the quiet ones that get themselves into trouble over there."

"Thanks." I smiled.

He didn't smile back. "Now, don't let me see you over here again."

"No sir, you won't."

As I bounced out of the Hearing Room, Inmate Williams was waiting in one of the chairs in the hall. A guard stood next to him. "Don't think this shit is over," he said. "You're still gonna need a man, bitch."

"I got your bitch," I said, walking up the hall.

Neither of us had actually won the fight, though it might have been enough to have defended my manhood. Surely they had heard that I'd been turned out at another prison.

I wondered how different my incarceration might have been, had I been sent to MTU originally. Or how differently my situation might have turned out, had I fought Chet in the showers at Riverside; but what chance did I have against the Thorazine? What chance did a seventeen-year-old boy have against any of them?

When I got back to A-unit, the guard was yelling "chow," and so