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

us turned around and looked down at the blanket. "They're probably jerking each other off," one of them said.

"Fucking freaks," the other shouted.

"Pay them no mind," Paul said. "The motherfuckers are just jealous."

"Bitch, ain't nobody jealous," the first one said.

"That's not what you said the other day," Paul shot back. "When you were cracking on me for that ass."

"Well, if you'd give it up-that'd be a different story."

"Shit! You can't handle this," Paul said.

"I'll tell you what, boy. If you give a me a chance-I'll die trying."

They both smiled.

For a moment, I was afraid we would get into a fight, but Paul had a lot of heart. And inmates respected that. If you were too timid or backed down easily, they'd go in for the kill. But if you stood your ground, in just the right way, they would respect you and back away-so long as they were provided a graceful way of doing that.

"He's cute. I might get with him, later," Paul said. "He's laying like that anyway, just don't nobody know it."

"Really?"

"Square Biz. He's always talking smack just to keep the others off his back. Trust me," Paul leaned over. "He sucks a meaner dick than I do."

"I doubt that," I said.

"Thanks," Paul smiled.

I guess it might have occurred to me to be a little jealous, but Slide Step shown me how he was open about sex. He didn't care if I did it with someone else, so long as he knew about it. Paul felt the same way. It was just sex, Paul said, and it's not like we had a whole lot of other things to do in there.

"Pick one," Paul said.

"What are you talking about?

"Exactly what I said. You can have just about any one of them you want. Ninety percent of these guys will let you blow them."

I didn't know what to say, so I just stared at him with a goofy grin on my face.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. You're in here so you might as well enjoy it."

"Ninety-nine percent," I said. "Really?"

"Oh yeah, but you have to be careful about who, or you'll find yourself in a pickle."

"Interesting choice of words," I said.

"Mmm, a Chilly Willy," he said. "Anyway, I'm mostly referring to the white boys. If you mess around with the blacks, you're messing with fire."

Paul leaned over and pointed to a hot looking white boy name Steve. "What do you think of that one?"

"Him?" I said.

He was young like me, about seventeen, with reddish-blond hair and a baby face. He was skinny and looked more like a target than even me. "Too sweet."

Paul nodded. "How about that one?" He pointed to a guy closer to my liking. He had olive skin and jet-black hair. He was probably Italian-very masculine looking.

"Too old," I said.

"You have to let me know what you like, if you want me to hook you up."

"What do you say to them?" I asked. I'd never talked to another guy about how to hook up. I was completely new to this and was amazed by Paul's lack of inhibition.

"I just tell them that I want to eat them up."

I felt my face blush.

Paul leaned back and smiled at me. "Your parents don't know about you, do they?"

"Hell no! What does that have to do with anything?"

"Because after I told my parents, nothing bothered me again. Shit, this is my life. They've never helped me out in here. So why should I care what they think? Or any of these people?" Paul raised his voice for the guys in the next row to hear.

"All I know is after I told my parents, nothing seemed to bother me again."

"I could never tell them," I said. "They'd disown me."

"Well, then they don't deserve you in the first place."

At that moment, if occurred to me that in spite of how messed up I may have thought my family was, and how they'd all but abandoned me in prison, I still looked to them as my home base. For years they were all I had. Even in prison, they were the place I'd be returning to when I got out. Suddenly, this realization depressed me. Was this really where I wanted to be? I didn't want to talk about it with Paul, so I let it go.

Before we went to bed, Paul gave me a copy of The Front Runner, a gay love story by Patricia Nell Warren.

"Just read it," he said. "We can talk about it later."

My first assignment for The Oracle was covering the inmate representative council. I was eager to do a good job-if only to impress Miss Bain-so I started by interviewing an innate in D-unit. "It don't make no diff," he said. "The Man ain't gonna do shit about nothing no-how." Meaning the Warden's meetings with inmates was a big waste of time.

Spaulding sent me to the warden's office to read the minutes of previous meetings. Warden Handlon's secretary said it would take some time to get them together, but she would send them over as soon as she could. I had to stop by a couple times to remind her, and each time she said the she would, but I had to file a grievance to finally receive them.

"You know Warden Handlon doesn't like grievances," she warned. "You should have sent a kite." Kites were like interoffice memos-for inmates to communicate with staff, but kites didn't generate the same level of attention that a formal grievance did.

"I'm sorry, but I've been asking for the minutes for a while now."

"I'm know, but I couldn't let you read them without his approval, and then he screams at me-like it's my fault." She handed mne the file.

When I got back to the newsroom, I was eager to find whatever it was Warden Handlon didn't want me to see. After several readings, I found nothing. It was the usual gripes: the inmates wanted more items in the store; the warden said space was limited and that if we wanted