Doing Time Read online

  Cracking crisply

  As we leave our shells

  And fly over the waves of fresh words,

  Gliding softly on top of the world

  Flapping our wings for the lost horizon.

  1976, Arizona State Prison-Florence Florence, Arizona

  Trina Marie

  Lori Lynn McLuckie

  Walking down the prison hallway

  With your scarlet-lipstick Norma Jean smile,

  Green eyes inviting;

  Deliberately so.

  A woman-child

  With translucent white skin

  And the impetuous manner

  Of a street child

  Who knows the drill;

  How to smoke cigarettes

  And see people for what they really want from you.

  These gray walls,

  These dirty floors,

  This cynicism and despair

  Set off

  Your vivacious and vulnerable glow;

  And the deep gruff sounds

  Echoing between these stark walls

  Are mere background to the clear

  Sweet tones of your childlike voice;

  To your bold laughter

  That defies anything less.

  You forge your way

  Through this confusion every day,

  Burning your candle at both ends

  And loving at whim;

  Not quite sure

  Who to count on,

  What is solid

  Or what you want to be solid.

  And in your concrete room at night,

  Among your cigarettes and lipstick tubes,

  Your letters and pictures,

  You sit on your steel bunk

  And wonder when you’ll be able to settle down

  To that one great love

  You have always imagined.

  1991, Colorado Correctional Institution for Women Canon City, Colorado

  After Lights Out

  Barbara Saunders

  Lonely, ail angles and bones

  knobs and knees and

  eyes like saucers.

  Fat Nugie, a billiard ball

  in a baseball cap and

  tennis shoes.

  Rhonda, the 400 pound flasher

  letting it all hang out

  “not shamed o’ my body.”

  Pie, strippin’ and dancin’ and

  swinging a towel

  and mooning the C.O.

  as he walks away.

  Night wraiths.

  Dancers in the dark.

  Forms move together, coalesce

  separate and re-form.

  Some singing, some laughter.

  The scurry, the sneaking.

  Predators come silently in the night

  and whisper

  “come with me.”

  Those who watch

  immobilized, struck

  dumb

  pretend not to know

  pretend not to see.

  1997, Eddie Warrior Correctional Center Taft, Oklahoma

  poem for the conguero in D yard

  Raymond Ringo Fernandez

  on warm summer evenings

  i hear the tumbao

  of your sky blue conga

  declamando

  carrying your inspiration

  over the wall

  like a refreshing

  Caribbean wind

  if it weren’t for

  the culturally deprived minds

  in the gun towers

  i’d swear

  i was in Central Park

  chilling out

  by the fountain

  con un yerbo and a cold

  can of Bud

  or

  tumbao: a Caribbean rhythm played on the conga; dedamando: reciting; un yerbo: Nuyorican for a joint (marijuana; Sp. hierba, pron. “yerba”); badendo coro at un bembe: singing in chorus at a jam-session; repica vida: make life ring (in hand percussion, hits in rapid succession are called repique); contratiempo con el tiempo: lit. counter-rhythm with the rhythm. (RRF)

  hacienda coru

  at un bembe

  on 110th street

  where even the children

  understand clave:

  cla-cla/ cla-cla-cla

  repica vida conguero

  contratiempo con el tiempo

  que with each slap

  on the conga’s skin

  you bring me closer

  to home.

  1982, Attica Correctional Facility Attica, New York

  In the Big Yard

  Reginald S. Lewis

  Rumors abound Inmate So-and-So done gotta parole date-Last Monday, but sucker don’t even Know his woman done run off with “sweet Cadillac Willie” Who spent her

  welfare check on gasoline an* blow on a new pair of skins. An’ that scary lil’ wimp locks on B Block ain’t cool, man. Snitched on his rap-partner ‘bout that rape-kidnap-homicide-robbery back in ‘76. Hit goin’ down in the Big Yard.

  Stay away, Homey. ‘Cause bookies layin’ ten-to-one odds some lieutenant finds the rat with his head propped up on the end of a long shank. When they find the body what they do is ship it home in a cheap plywood box, tag with his number on it swinging list lessly on his big toe an’ a “Whut have I done to deserve this?” look on his dumb ugly face.

  Other day seen new blood shambling through the reception gate talking loud an’ ail cocky like he Mr, T. So a big mean lookin’ con doin’ life for mutilating his pregnant wife walks boldly up to Young-blood an’

  whispers somethin’ soft an’ sweet to ‘im an’ next day Young-blood’s lips are red an’ glossy an’

  his hair is long an’ straight an’ he’s switchin’ ‘round the Big Yard

  Like he Diana Ross

  An’ the big con man says, “Hot young punk for sale, y’all!” Squinting into the sun, Old Man “Pops” say be been down so long he done lost count.

  “Kinda git used to it afta while, son,” Pops says: the big time hoods an’ their paper Cadillacs on cruise control. The Hos on the stroll down the endless lightless white-ciay strip.

  Crack junkies chillin’ out on smoke-marshmallow clouds. I’seiidoinidlecruals over there rappin’ about (he struggle. An’ ihe hapless chorus of crooners tryin’ to sound like the Temptations.

  Pops says lie don’t pay ‘nn no mind an’ he ain’t hstenin’ Don’i even care ‘bout not bin’ cause he ain’t neva bad a woman noway.

  Old bones tuns the Big Yard through Chugging along like a locomotive thai neva slops. Runs all day long — Hookies layin’ ren-to one odds old I’ops pianinu’ to fly right over the big wall.

  1988, State Correctional Institution Pennsylvania

  Old Man Motown

  Patrick Nolan

  Old Man Motown

  dances toe to toe

  around the prison

  exercise track

  throwing jabs

  as he bobs and weaves,

  dressed in cutoff

  denim shorts

  and hard soled boots,

  while young cons lie

  like rock lizards

  bemoaning the three

  digit heat.

  Old Man Motown alone

  with his thoughts,

  shoots short combinations,

  counters blow for blow

  with some imaginary foe,

  his five-foot-five frame

  heavy with age,

  pushing forward against

  the concrete upgrade

  that emanates a wall

  of rippling heat.

  Old Man Motown

  his raven wing skin

  streaked white with dried

  sweat, knees pulsing pistons

  of determination — to see

  this silver haired grandpa

  with the blue cataract eye,

  one can’t help but smile

  as he dances his dance

  in the sweltering northern

 
; California sun.

  Old Man Motown

  times have changed

  The once noble beasts

  of this barren Savannah

  are almost extinct,

  ravaged by the vicious sweep

  of rat packs that make prey

  of the aged, sick, and weak.

  1997, California State Prison-Sacramento Represa, California

  The Tower Pig

  Scott A. Antworth

  “Caine!” One of the East Wing hogs called after me through the crash and clamor of lunch release. I couldn’t even see the guy, lost as he was in the flood of inmates surging past him for the chow hall, but from the tone of his voice he had to be a block officer. Rookie guards actually take classes: Speaking with Authority 101.

  “Caine!” he barked again because I was acting like I’d not heard him, trying to be just another face in the stampede. “Stop by the SOC office. Captain Kruller wants to see you!”

  Subtle, I thought. Tell me that when I’ve got two hundred cons packed around me to wonder what business I’ve got at the Security Operations Center on a Saturday afternoon. No one goes to the SOC office for good news. Standard convict paranoia — who’s ratting who out — is enough to get at least some of them thinking.

  “Spell my name right when you give your statement.” My neighbor, Hodgson, chortled from deep inside his walrus neck as he lumbered down the stairs.

  “Sure.” I sneered at his back. “You spell it how, d-i-c-k-h-e-a-,” I began, but he was already gone.

  Captain Kruller was six feet of spit-shine and razor-creased blues with a leathery hide looking like it’d been cut from a rhino’s ass and Superglued over an Erector Set, He kept his Marine citations and ribbons velvet-backed and under glass on his office wall to let everyone know he’d perfected his bearing on Parris Island and not behind the walls of Thomaston.

  “Come in, Caine,” he said. He’d pulled my file before I showed up and glanced at my mug shot. “Take a seat,” he said, to give us the illusion of familiarity. I’d been sitting on folding chairs and wooden stools for the better part of a decade. My ass didn’t know what to make of naugahyde and cushions.

  “I’ve got some bad news, John,” he said. Suddenly we were on a first-name basis.

  “Who was it?” I asked.

  “Your grandmother passed away yesterday morning,” he said, his hands flat and precisely spaced on the blotter in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he added as if such sentiments were foreign to him.

  “Thank you,” I muttered, only half believing I’d said it. Please and thank-yous pass between cops and inmates like bricks through a keyhole.

  “You’re taking it well.”

  I said that I’d known it was coming. She’d been sick for a long time. Truth is, I wasn’t about to show him anything. Pain, joy, worry — whatever can be denied them — are shielded away from them until the cell doors slam and we’re secured in our solitude. I’d weathered my first chunk of grieving for Nana when she was still mostly alive. For ten days in the hole, I had nothing to do but hate Strazinski, the Tower Pig, for putting me there and to mourn a grandmother finally too sick to visit.

  “I can let you call your folks,” he offered, gesturing to the phone.

  “Thanks anyway,” I told him, figuring they wouldn’t know what to make of me calling them. We had nothing to say.

  “But they’re letting you go to the funeral, right?” Hodgson asked, leaning against the bars of my house and trying to sound consoling. He could skip deftly from one prison heartache to the next as if they were footprints stenciled on a studio dance floor, but real world problems would always catch him short.

  “Kruller told me I could,” I said. “In full equipment.”

  “Are you shittin’me?” he whined. “Full equipment? You’re minimum security, bro. They should give you a car to go up there, not chain you up like a, well, you know.”

  “That’s what I told him. He just gave me his that’s-just-the-way-it-is speech. Said it was up to me if I wanted to go or not.”

  I was sitting at the head of my bunk, my back to the wall, feeling like I should be doing something but not having a clue. Hodgson’s company with Nana’s hands so firmly on my shoulders was intolerable. I wanted to be left alone but knew the minute he wandered off I’d be crushed by the silence.

  “It ain’t right, Caine, chaining you up like that when you’re so close to getting out.” He shook his head in disgust, warming to his subject. He was back in familiar territory; inmates treated like dogs and pigs riding roughshod over us because they were the ones with the dimestore badges and the power-trip egos.

  “Full equipment.” He sneered, lighting another roll-your-own cigarette. “You know they’re just busting your balls over Strazinski.”

  “Naw,” I said quietly. “They’re screwing with me because they can is all. The pigs like that friggin’ Straz about as much as they do us. Did you ever see him when he’s off that wall? They damn near shake their drawers loose acting like he’s not there.”

  He grins his best Hodgson smirk, the one that looks like it’s been slashed in with a rusty straight razor.

  “It must be a stone bitch,” he said, “to be a pig and have even your own kind think you’re a piece of shit.”

  I figure that’s why Strazinski stays up on the wall whenever he can, sequestered in North Post, the gun tower that commands the prison street from where the road arches inelegantly past the craft shop, from the cell house to the yard. The only times I’ve ever seen him among the living was when he was pulling extra shifts. He clings to the periphery when he’s not on his wall, glowering disdainfully at the inmates and avoiding the knots of officers gossiping and playing grab-ass. He looks as out of place in a crowd as he must feel, pressing his back to the wall and trying to be invisible. Older cons will argue how long he’s been the Tower Pig, but none deny he’s been on that wall longer than most of us have been inside it. His brother officers, doing their eight hours in the towers and loathing their isolation, don’t know what to make of him. He’s a freak, just like the mental cases who stand in the middle of their cells for hours at a go, staring at nothing.

  “You ever wonder what he’s like at home?” I asked presently.

  “All the time,” Hodgson purred, waiting for me to bite. “The hell’s the matter with you? I ain’t thinking of him at all when I ain’t got to. Besides, I don’t figure he’s any different there than he’s here. Donnelson tells me his ol’ lady ditched him years ago. He ain’t got no kids. The friggin’ guy must put in sixty hours a week. Might as well stick a cot in the tower and crash there.”

  “I didn’t know he was married,” I said.

  “He ain’t, at least he ain’t been long as I’ve been here. You’re getting sentimental on me, Caine. Save it for your folks. All that guy’s done for you is get you ten days in the hole.”

  Hodgson was hoping he’d get a rise out of me. He knew I was thinking of Nana again and was doing his best to try and keep me distracted. “All I’m saying? You can go on thinking that their making you go to the funeral all chained up ain’t got nothing to do with you and Straz, but they still thought enough of him to put you in the Seg Unit over it. You hear what I’m saying? Just because he ain’t real popular with them doesn’t change his being one of their own kind.”

  He was right, but I didn’t want to be thinking of any of it; not pigs and inmates, not the last of my bridges over the wall collapsing with Nana’s passing — things as unyielding as the metal bunk, bolted to the wall, on which I sat. I don’t know how long he stayed there talking, jumping from one subject to the next. The more I listened, the more his voiced dissolved into a drone. I offered monosyllables and halfhearted grunts to try to convince him I wasn’t shutting him out completely. Finally, he drifted off with a “see you in the morning” and a sympathetic thump on my bars. I listened to the scuff of his footsteps and then I listened to nothing, already dreading the caverns of a Thomaston night.

 
I would not cry for Nana, but I would want to, wringing myself out through the hours after lock-down with alt the recriminations and should-have-been’s chanting in my head. I’d shed all my teats in the hole and in the weeks before.

  Though Hodgson blamed Strazinski for my stretch in the hole a month ago, I’d gotten myself in that jam. It began the day Cassidy, the aspiring vegetable — who’d huff dry cleaning solvent if it was the only way to get high — stalked into my cell and pulled out a joint the size of his finger. “You want to burn this with me, just say the word,” he said, tossing a book of matches down onto the table like a dare. Cassidy’s the kind of refugee who ambles through life like everything’s casual, drifting in unannounced at the oddest moments to flash enough dope to get us both an extra year as if it were a candy bar. He must have tried to get me stoned fifty times through the year, but that day I didn’t want to btood anymore about Nana wheezing from her hospital bed, those tubes in her arms, alone with the night. I didn’t say no.

  An hour later and on the way to the craft shop, anyone would have thought we were the best of buddies, telling war stories. I felt freer than I had in a very long time, bouncing down that road with a stoner jounce. I didn’t feel the walls of Thomaston crushing me, leaving me unable to do more for Nana than wait for her to die.

  Pausing at the foot of the craft shop stairs, out on the road and in the shadow of North Post, Cassidy was going on and on about this lady friend of his, a flaked-out hippie chick. I was digging it, and I was more interested in letting him finish than I was in getting upstairs to spend the afternoon acting like I was working. The river of inmates on their way to wherever had thinned to a trickle.

  “You!” Strazinski roared from the wall above us, looking like he was having a raging hangover. “Yeah, you! How many times have I got to tell you people to get moving?!”

  “Me?” I asked, my hands on my chest. I always play dumb with the pigs, It makes them nuts.

  “Who the hell do you think I’m talking to, you moron?!”

  “He’s talking to us,” I snickered, turning to Cassidy, but Cassidy had turned to vapor, bolting up the stairs when Strazinski started his tirade.

  “What do you need, someone to hold your hand to get you upstairs? Or do you need to be locked in for the day? What’s your problem, Caine?!”