Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (16 page)

"So you're gay, right?" Chet asked. He had been talking to me for a while, but this was the fist thing that registered. I hadn't heard anything he had said before this.

"NO," I answered quickly, "I'm not!" At least I tried to say it quicklyinstead my words came out slow and slurred. I wasn't even sure that I got the "I'm not" part of the sentence out or if I just thought I had.

"Uh-huh," he nodded. He wasn't buying it. "Then what did you think was going on? And why did you keep asking if there were any fags here?"

I couldn't say anything. There was a menacing quality to him that wasn't there before. It was as if I was talking to somebody I didn't know. And come to think of it, I really didn't know Chet.

"The picture of Bobbi last night, my classification notice, the party this morning? Did you think I was doing this because I'm a nice guy?"

"The picture? What picture? You mean that guy in woman's clothes?" There was a delay from when I said something, and when I heard myself say it. I think all that came out was a slurred "... picture ... fag."

"What are you talking about?"

The room began to spin. It was like everything in sight was rotating to the left, but then flipped back and turned again in the opposite direction. All I could do was hold onto the bench I was seated on and blink in disbelief.

"The classification document that I showed you last night," Chet said.

"What about it?"

"It said that I was sent here because of homosexual tendencies," Chet shouted. It was becoming clearer to me. "If you weren't gay, why'd you stick around?"

I felt trapped and cornered and didn't know how to respond. I remembered him handing me a piece of paper last night. Why didn't I read it? I looked at it a couple of times, but I was too distracted by Scatter. Did it really say he was brought here because of homosexual tendencies? Fuck! I wished I had read it. Of course Chet was being nice to me. He was interested in me! How could I have been so stupid? How could I not see what he was up to? I wished I read the clues that he'd been sending, like his friendliness, the free cigarettes and spud juice and conversations about family and looking out for each other. Until that moment, the bug in the hallway didn't register, the one that was calling him scandalous. Or what it meant when the guys kept calling him Mr. Wilson. I asked Slide Step what he meant and he said something about Dennis the Menace and about how Mr. Wilson was always nice to the kid. But I still didn't understand. Everybody could see what was happening but me. Or what about that picture of Bobbi-the guy in woman's clothes? How could I have been so naive?

Red! What about Red? Was he in on it too? Why didn't I pick up on all of those nasty comments of his? How could have I been so stupid as to think that Chet was going to protect me from them. Or was this what he was trying to say? Was Chet making a play to protect me? Was he trying to become my Man?

I looked up to ask him something, but he was gone. I was sitting there alone. In fact, the shower room was empty. I started to get up, but I couldn't move. It was as if I was so exhausted I didn't have the energy to get up. The room had stopped spinning, but I still couldn't move. There was saliva hanging from my bottom lip, which I wiped on my sleeve.

Maybe Chet was right. I am gay, but I didn't want to admit it. I still wasn't sure that I was. Even if I were, I didn't want anyone to know about it. Was that why I didn't see what was coming? I did and I didn't want to admit it? I was glad to be so many miles from home, a world away from where anyone knew me. Whatever happened in there was for me alone to know about. Who I became there and what I did inside would be sealed within these walls. It would be my secret alone. I would never see these people again.

Sitting there by myself, I thought about how freeing that would be-to be able to have sex with men in an environment that permits it, someplace where in fact it's even celebrated. All of these strong, masculine men. I just wished they were younger, I wished they were my age, and then maybe I could get used to it. The only one that I'd liked so far was Scatter, and maybe Young Blood. They were my age and both of them were beautiful. I'd love it if somehow something sexual happened with one of them. I didn't know what was happening with Scatter. That guy sitting with him the night before was mean. Maybe he was Scatter's boyfriend. He could have been offended that I asked about fags. I was confused. The booze was good, and I thought it was cool that they got me drunk. Maybe something would happen with one of these young guys. My chest and my body tingled at the thought.

I wished Chet wasn't so old. At least he was white. He seemed to have a handle on how to do time. He's got money, he's got booze, and he'd been very nice to me. Perhaps that's how it worked. He takes care of me, and I take care of him. Yeah, that's it. He takes care of me, makes sure nobody hurts me, makes sure I have plenty of booze so I can check out any time I like, makes sure I have cigarettes and candy and whatever else they sell in the commissary, and all I have to do is take care of him-though I wasn't exactly sure what "taking care of him" would entail. Chet wasn't that had looking. If he first came here in the fifties, he must be in his late thirties. I just wished he were closer to my age.

Chet walked into the shower room and told me to follow him. I tried to tell him what I had decided, but I still couldn't get up, and now I couldn't even speak. For some reason my words were slurred worse than before. I couldn't understand a word he said. Suddenly, someone was at my side helping me to stand. The next thing I knew, I was standing in one of the dorms.

"Get on the bed," Chet ordered. My pants were gone. I didn't remember taking them off. My underwear was missing too. Chet got on top of one and pushed my face into the pillow, muffling my scream. Even with all of the spud juice that I drank, and the fruit, and the Thorazine (as I would find out later) that they spiked my drink with when I wasn't looking-wasn't enough to numb the pain of Chet thrusting himself inside me. It felt like I was being split wide open. I tried to let out a scream, but the air was sucked from my lungs by the sheer terror of what was happening.

Chet paused for a second and whispered in my ear, "Shh. It will stop hurting in a minute." But it didn't. He kept his hand on the back of my head, holding my face down as he pounded away at me, slowly at first and then with an increased rhythm. I sobbed into the pillow until he was done, and then he collapsed on top of me. The back of my neck and hair were wet with sweat. My breath slowed with his. I could hear his breathing in my ear, his heart pounding on my back. The pain had stopped, but I felt wet, like I was bleeding. But I don't think there was blood at first.

Chet ran his hand over the top of my head and then got up. I felt glued there. It was a bunk bed, and there were blankets draped on all sides, like the tents my brother and I used to make as kids. I could hear movement in the room and voices. In my shock, I couldn't make sense of anything. Someone pulled the blanket back and climbed into the bed. It was Red, and he didn't have any clothes on!

"Give me some face." He grabbed my hair and pulled my head to his crotch. He was huge, and I could barely open wide enough. "Watch your teeth," he said. He forced my mouth down on him. I didn't want to have sex-and this hardly counted as sex-but I felt like a coward. I couldn't say anything much less resist. It wouldn't have made a difference. Red weighed about 200 pounds of solid muscle. He looked like all he did was work out in the weight pit all day. His thighs were as big as my waist, and his dick was as thick as my wrist.

I couldn't breath. My nose was clogged from the spud juice or Thorazine or from my tears. He didn't care. I gasped for air and tried to time my breaths so I didn't suffocate, but then I vomited, and the spud juice and some of the fruit came up.

"Oh shit!" Red sprang from the bed. He grabbed the blanket and pulled it from under me. "Get up!" he yelled impatiently. I got off the blanket, and Red pulled it from the bed. He threw it to the floor, kicking it to the side. "Lie back down," he ordered. He was mean, and I was frozen. "Lie down," he yelled. His eyes widened as he stepped toward me. "Now turn over."

The pain was ten times what it was with Chet. I asked him to wait, and he told me to shut up. I sobbed uncontrollably. Where were the guards?

"Shut up, bitch, or I'll give you something to really cry about!" He put the pillow over my head and held it as he pounded me. My whole body felt like it was being stuffed.

"I can't breathe!" I screamed, "I can't breathe!" I struggled, but couldn't move. His weight was crushing me, and he was so strong I couldn't free myself from under his elbow that was holding the pillow down on my head.

Red stopped for a moment and lay there on top of me. I was so glad he was done, but the pain was still there. Please pull it out, I tried in vain to say, but couldn't mouth the words. He lifted the pillow from my face and said to me, "Are you going to stop screaming?" I couldn't answer. I started to cry again because I knew he wasn't finished. "I said, are you going to stop screaming?"

All I could do was nod my head. "All right then!" he said, and he removed the pillow and resumed humping me.

The worst of the pain had eased. Where once there had been a sharp cutting pain, now the pain was dull and pulverizing. With each thrust I could feel a deadening pressure in my stomach, about three inches above the hairline of my crotch. Could he be that big? Or was it my shit being jammed back into my intestines? I had never been fucked before, and it hurt in the worst way. More than I ever imagined. But this was violent and beyond anything I could have guessed. He didn't care that it hurt me and that I was in a lot of pain. He was enjoying the power he was exerting over me. This was what I deserved, I thought. This must be what happened to fags. This was what I got for being what I am. This was what I'd been warned about since I was a little kid. Was this what I secretly wanted?

I turned my head and opened my eyes. There was a pair of legs, crossed, sitting in the chair next to the bed. I lifted my head and saw Slide Step. He had been watching me. Was he next? Embarrassed, I turned my head around.

The pain was numbing, but my awareness had heightened. I wished I could black out and that none of this had happened.

Red continued to fuck me. How long would this agony Continue? Was Slide Step next and was he as big as Red? I was drunk and hazy, and hoped I wouldn't remember anything in the morning.

Gradually the pain lessened more, and then my entire body went numb. It was like being paralyzed, and I was afraid I'd never be able to walk again. Someone threw a glass jar and it shattered next to the bed. Red stopped and lifted himself up on his arms, looking out from the blanket toward the door. I heard whispering and Red said something, but I couldn't understand it. I was in shock, and everything sounded garbled.

"Oh, GOD DAMN IT," he yelled. I heard a wet smack and pain shot down my legs as he pulled his dick out. He jumped from the bed and went over to the door. I felt like I had the runs, but there was no way I'd make it to the toilet. I tried to wiggle my toes but couldn't feel anything.

I heard arguing. At first it was muted, loud whispering, and then there was yelling and shouting. I didn't know what they were saying.

"Get up," Chet startled me. He pulled the blanket from the side of the bed and told me to put my pants on. I couldn't move.

Someone came over to help me, but I couldn't look at him. They wiped my legs with one of the blankets and then helped me put on my pants. My underwear was missing.

I don't remember much after that. The next thing I knew I was sitting in a chair back in the card room where it all began. My arms were dangling on each side. I was blankly staring at Red and Slide Step, who were standing in front of me, yelling back and forth at each other. Red was saying something about, "He's gay, he likes it" and Slide Step was screaming, "I was looking at the boy's face."

Red stormed out and retuned a few minutes later with something in his hand. It was a shank, a prison-made knife. Slide Step walked up to him, pressing his chest against Red's, "What are you gonna do with that, stab me? You've got heart nigger, go ahead-kill me!"

Chet and Taylor jumped in and soon they were screaming too. I wondered where the guards were. I looked down at my lap and saw that I was drooling again. I wanted to wipe my mouth but couldn't. Or maybe I did. Their voices faded away.

When my senses returned, I was walking very slowly and painfully down the hall. Eddie was leading me into his single-man cell, which had a bed against the wall on the left, and a desk, chair, and locker on the wall to the right. There was a small window above the headboard.

"Quick, hide down here." He lifted the blanket and motioned me underneath. It was like a hospital bed, with high posts, a large towel and blanket draped over the footboard so that the guards couldn't see underneath.

I dropped to the floor and slid under the bed. There was a blanket and a pillow laid out on the floor. I believed he was hiding me.

"Take off your pants," he said, as he slipped in behind me.

"No," I said, and started to cry.

"Oh don't worry," he said, rubbing my cheek, "I'll suck your dick." He said it as if it would comfort me. "But you can't tell nobody," he said, "No one knows I'm like that."