My Name Is River Blue (57 page)

I ate my lunch
quickly because shoveling it in without tasting it was the best way to keep it
down. I had watched Wink's table enough to know that he was staring at me, and
I knew he saw me get up, clear my tray, and walk out of the cafeteria. I walked
slowly enough for Wink to keep track of me. If he followed me alone, I would
turn off into a restroom, which was about seventy feet away and around a corner
from the entrance to the cafeteria. If any of his gang followed him, or if a
guard was in the hall, I would keep walking.

I ran my hand
over the back of my head, peeked back through my fingers, and found him
following me alone. Wink was an angry man on steroids, and he plodded purposely
forward discarding any plans he had made with his gang. He was too pissed to
think of anything but getting his hands on me.

Most inmates
kept their shanks hidden from possible searches, carrying the weapons only when
they thought they might need them. My bet was that Wink was walking empty. Knowing
that the guards would search both of us afterwards, he would not have risked
starting a fight with me in the lunch line if he had been carrying.

I glanced at the
camera covering the hall and the restroom entrance. The tiny light was dark,
which meant it still wasn't working. All the inmates knew what worked and what
didn't, and they knew that because of budget cuts, the camera was on a long
list of repairs. The word was that if the warden paid for all the repairs
needed, he would have to cut more guard hours.

I turned into
the restroom.

An hour later,
the COs called for a lockdown as they did any time that an inmate was killed. All
inmates were confined to their cells until the investigation was over, and the
warden deemed it was safe to return to normal operations. Since a cafeteria CO
had seen Wink talking to me in the serving line, I didn't wait long in my cell
before the COs came to me. Two of them took me for an interrogation, and the
others tore my cell apart looking for a weapon. They found no weapon in my cell
because there wasn't one.

CO Tisdale, the
CO who brought Scott to my cell, was the one that I knew was tight with the
white gang. Tisdale and CO Clark took me to a room where they searched me,
including a body cavity search. They found no weapon, and there was no blood on
me or on my clothes. Tisdale tried to bully me into admitting that I killed
Wink, but even when he slapped my face and punched me in the gut, I maintained
my innocence. He kept me naked and on my knees, while he slapped me or kicked
me in the abs every time I didn't answer him with a confession. The impact from
his blows to my body jarred my back until I was writhing in pain.

I was fortunate
when Captain Lomax, Tisdale's boss, entered the room. I got the impression that
Lomax didn't care about Wink or anyone else in the white gang, but he asked a
few more questions. I continued to deny any knowledge, and when Tisdale angrily
blurted out that I was lying, I acted as scared as I could. I covered my head
and begged him not to hit me again. Lomax's eyes grew big, as Tisdale stuttered
and denied that he had beaten me. I asked Lomax to help me stand and showed him
the fresh marks on my body. Even with my brown skin, it was easy to tell I had
been beaten and kicked. Lomax asked CO Clark what happened, and he hesitated
enough that he answered Lomax's question without even speaking.

While I had
Captain Lomax's attention, I told him that everyone on the cellblock knew that
Tisdale had a deal going with the white gang, and that was why he was so rough
with me. My goal was not to convince Lomax that he had a bad CO. I wanted
Tisdale to understand that if something happened to me, the seed was already
planted with his captain so that Tisdale would be a suspect. Lomax stared at
Tisdale a long moment and then ordered CO Clark to take me back to my cell.

Word travels at
the speed of light in a prison, and by last count that night, I would have bet that
in the entire prison, there was not an inmate who had not heard that Wink bled
out from a severed jugular. The story, which was embellished quite a bit as it
was passed along, was that Wink disrespected my family, my race, and my manhood
in the cafeteria. They say I joked around with him as if it didn't bother me at
all. The speculation was that after I quietly ate my lunch, I cut his throat.
Some of the men thought I had professional training since the COs found no
blood on me or on my clothes. My friend, Tom, would have been impressed with
such a demonstration of skill from one of his students. If the rumors had been true.

No matter what
the word was among the inmates, there were no witnesses, no evidence, and no weapon.
No one could prove anything, and no one, including me, was ever stupid enough
to take credit for Wink's death. When the investigation was over, the Captain
released me back into population and returned me to my cell with Scott.

There was no
doubt that the other men looked at me differently after the lockdown was lifted.
I never heard any more disparaging remarks called out at me, as the older
inmates normally did with the new guys. It didn't mean that I was safe, only
that any inmates who wanted to mess with me would be careful how they went
about it. In some ways, it made me an even bigger target to a select few
inmates.

The white
supremacist gang leader, or shot caller as some called him, was a man named Dugan,
who was in for life on a murder charge. Just like his gang members, Dugan had a
shaved head, swastika tat, and a muscular build from heavy weight lifting,
aided by steroids. If I were close enough, I would often see Dugan staring at
me and sometimes saying something to one of his gang who would look at me and
laugh. The word was that Dugan was not seeking revenge for what happened to Wink.
Dugan reportedly said that Wink was an idiot and got what he asked for, but I
was still a mixed-race bastard, who disrespected his gang, and when he was
ready, I would pay.

***

After dinner one
evening, Carney and I were playing spades in the day room with two guys from
the group. CO Clark had just walked by and dropped a note on the table in front
of me. The note said that I had to take an aptitude test the following morning,
and since Clark walked off without saying a word, Carney explained how the
prison job process went.

"Okay, kid.
About four weeks after a new guy arrives, he takes an aptitude test to see what
kind of work he might be good at doing. A week or two week later, he goes for
an interview with an admin asshole who assigns him a job. Because you're a new
fish, you can expect one of the worst jobs in the prison, but your disability
could play in your favor."

"Which jobs
are bad, Carney?"

"Laundry's
one of the worst," said Carney. The other guys at the table nodded in
agreement. "It's hard, nasty work. It's hot as hell down there, and your
clothes will be soaked and chafing you in an hour. No guard will stand around
in that shit, so they got one civilian boss that stays in his little air-conditioned
office. It's so noisy that no one can hear a kid screaming for help, and the
guard only peeks in once every hour. Can you imagine what can happen to a young
kid like you in an hour?"

Smitty, an old
black guy, added, "Yeah, and if the kid goes on sick call, they patch him
up and send him right back down there for more of it. Usually, after a few
weeks, the fish toughens up or checks out for good."

"Sounds
great." My voice was thick with sarcasm.

"Any of
those jobs in the wood and metal shops are bad, too," added Carney. "Making
mail boxes and license plates can be dangerous work."

"Are there
any good jobs that I got a shot at getting? Can I tell someone my concerns and
request a safer job?"

The leatherheads
laughed a full minute before they realized I was serious.

About a week
after I took the prison aptitude test, I went for my interview with Mr.
Sanchez. I decided that if he didn't offer a decent job that I would play on my
disability as much as possible while still showing a willingness to work hard
where I was physically able.

When Mr. Sanchez
told me that he was placing me in the prison library, I thought he was joking
because I had heard that it was one of the most desirable jobs in the prison.
He explained that it was because I couldn't do strenuous work, and because I
scored one of the highest grades ever on their aptitude test. Apparently,
literacy was a requirement of the position, and there were a surprising number
of inmates, who were illiterate. Mr. Sanchez told me that almost half the
inmates had never finished high school and some of them never made it to high
school at all.

I immediately
thought of Gabby, my old CO from Stockwell. If he hadn't cared enough to push
me, I would have never worked ahead of the other students so that I was on
grade level when I returned to public school. I remembered Gabby encouraging me
to use the reading program by borrowing books from the prison library and the
county library. He told me that reading books on my own was a sure way of educating
me that I would never regret. In addition to those assigned by my teachers, I
chose to read more than sixty books. Because I followed Gabby's advice, I got
one of the best jobs in Rockville.

The library was
part of the Quad, which was the newest and safest part of the prison. The Quad
also housed all the administrative offices, the staff locker rooms and showers,
and the staff cafeteria. Everything was in good repair, including the air
conditioning and security cameras. I noticed right away that the area didn't
smell of human filth and disinfectant like the cellblocks did.

An inmate, who
worked for any of the staff in that quadrant, could earn special privileges for
exceptional performance. Those inmates were allowed to eat at a designated
table in the back of the staff cafeteria if a mealtime occurred during their
work shift. They could also use a part of the staff showers as long as it was
not at a staff shift change. Of course, everything the staff used was better
than the rest of the prison, and the inmates in the Quad worked especially hard
for the privilege of eating the same meals the staff ate.

The library job was
exactly what I needed. If I could work, eat, and shower in the staff area, it
would cut down the opportunities for the white gang to attack me. I knew that
some of the inmates would be jealous, but I wasn't giving up the job. There
were already longtime inmates who were pissed that Mr. Sanchez didn't assign
jobs by seniority, so I thought that maybe Carney and the guys wouldn't give me
too much grief if I told them that I didn't ask to be assigned to the library.

When I told the
leatherheads about my library job, they bitched a little, but most of them
agreed that with my physical problems, maybe Mr. Sanchez finally did something
that made sense. Most of them said that they were glad I caught a break, and
then Smitty asked me if my knees were still sore. I didn't get the question
until Carney explained using a motion that turned my face red and had all the
guys laughing at me. As much as those guys enjoyed teasing a new fish like me,
I should have seen it coming. They gave me plenty of practice at being a good
sport, and it reminded me of the hazing I took as a freshman football player
for the Hawks.

Later, when we
were alone, Carney asked how I really got the job in the library. I was
surprised that he didn't believe my story, and I insisted there was nothing
else to it. He stared into my eyes long enough to make me uncomfortable and
then said, "Kid, I've done seventeen years here, and those jobs always
cost somebody something. If you haven't paid yet, you will."

There were six
of us, who worked for the library. Four of us were at least part Latino, and
all of us were in our twenties. On a normal shift, there would be two of us
using carts to wheel a selection of books through each cellblock to offer them
to inmates, and the same two guys would collect books returning to the library.
Another one would deliver books to the cells of specific prisoners, who had
placed their names on a waiting list. The worker who stayed in the library had to
make sure that all books and magazines were in their proper homes, or that they
were logged out to a prisoner using his cell number and personal prison ID number.
He also kept the library clean and orderly. That inmate was called "the
accountant" because he had to make sure that every single book was
accounted for at the library's closing time each day.

On my first day
at the library, I was surprised that the supervisor, Mr. Cortez, gave me the accountant
job. Mr. Cortez was a middle-aged, Mexican-American, who had worked in another
area of the prison before they reassigned him to oversee the library and the
canteen store. Running the canteen included supervising the inmate accounts,
which is how inmates bought items such as toiletries, snacks, candy, ramen
noodles, coffee, and cigarettes. Inmates were not allowed to have money, but
their family and friends could put money in their accounts each month. I discovered
that inmates used canteen items, mainly cigarettes, for currency and trades
between themselves.

My impression of
Mr. Cortez was that he was a fair and decent guy who expected us to work hard
and follow the rules. If we did a good job, Mr. Cortez would reward us with the
use of staff facilities in three-day increments. After a few days, he told me
that I would have staff facility privileges until he told me otherwise.