The sneers had come through the cell bars when I’d arrived.
“Look at this, Roger. We got ourselves a new little bitch to play with.”
A jail roughneck who was known for making new inmates his playtoys got the word of my arrival. I looked that motherfucker in the eyes as I passed his cell.
“Listen up, you piece of shit. I’ll kill your mother, your father, your brothers, your cousin, and anyone else that tries it in here. You hear me?” I let him feel the cold chill of my eyes on his face while I held the fury of twenty men in my balled-up fists. He took a beat to size me up.
“Tough guy, huh? You talk like that, you must know something,” he replied, lifting his chin at me.
He was a huge guy with shoulders like small boulders merged into his neck. He gave me a gruesome smile with his big dirty eyes. From the looks, he wasn’t in the pen for armed robbery. He had a quote tattooed across his neck and multiple face tattoos. I knew his type. Plus, he was too big to take me down. Prison law versus street law was different, I found out.
“You got that right. I’m an Outlaw ‘till the day I die,” I yelled loudly as I passed the guy’s cell.
The weedy guard who brought me in was silent the whole time. He opened my rusty cell door, where one other guy lay on a bolted bunk bed. In the corner was a single basin. The tap dripped continuously, and the toilet smelled, well, like shit. One single TV on a swivel was up high in the corner. The faint lime green paint was peeling off the walls, and a few books were stacked on two simple shelves.
“Welcome to your new home for the next five years,” the prison guard snarked as he pushed me in the back and into the hellhole.
So any time I could get out of the cell was my version of heaven.
I moved around a small grassed area with four walls. It was big enough to fit about fifty men comfortably. The first thing I did was stretch out my neck and look up at the open blue sky. Not far from me was a weight bench that had two guys getting in their reps. I knew them. I’d seen them in the yard a time or two. Both of them were in for petty-theft type charges, nothing life-altering.
“C’mon, Marty. We got three to go. Max rep sets.”
Grunts came from the guy underneath the barbell as he strained to lift. I watched as the veins pulsed against the side of his neck, threatening to burst. Eventually, he heaved the barbell off his chest.
One other guy toward the back of the jail was skipping in a nice rhythm, dripping sweat on the grimy pavement. A stiff-looking correctional officer stood in the corner, watching us all like a hawk. He had a baton firmly slotted in his holster and a taser on the other side. His mouth was opening and closing with the gum he was popping.
The guard’s name was Chester, and he was a complete sucker. If I got my farm hands on him on the outside, I would have snapped his neck in half like we snapped our chickens’ necks back in the day. Chester put me in the hole for three days for this one time when I got in a scrap. That shit wasn’t my fault. The guy tried to pull a fucking razor out on me. That’s before I knew the prison hierarchy game. I flashed back to the memory, not a time I would forget easily.
“You talking back, boy?” Chester had hissed in my ear.
He had me in a strong chokehold. My air supply was tied up as I grabbed his forearm to release it for breath. Lopez, being the bitch he was, tried to blame me for his drug shipment being smuggled into the wrong cell. Yes, you could still run drugs in the jail, provided you were in good with the correctional officers.
I was well-matched, physically, to take Lopez. He was about six foot tall like me, heavily muscled, and quick with his speech and movements. He ran with a drug crew on the streets called the Merced Mercenaries. A lone teardrop sat right under his left eye. His caramel complexion and honey-colored eyes made him a target for those who wished he would drop the soap in the showers. He didn’t worry about that, as he was the drug insider and supplied over half the jail, including the correctional officers.
“Heard you knew about the shipment, and you moved it, player.” The right side of Lopez’s mouth turned up as he spoke to me before Chester came in.
He’d just walked into the door with his hands balled into fists. The washing machines whirred around us as I finished folding my laundry. No other people were in the laundry room at that time. In jail, that was usually a no-no. Witnesses were needed for everything. Otherwise, it didn’t happen. I calmly picked up one of the white sheets from the dirty laundry basket and wrapped it around my hand.
My back tensed up as Lopez circled. I let my peripheral vision govern his footwork.
“Oh yeah? Where you hear that? Because I don’t have anything to do with your little operation,” I replied slowly.
“I know you’re not about to do nothing with that sheet. I fucking know you’re not.”
Lopez closed the laundry door behind him. I heard the lock click as he moved a step toward me. I bent my knees and hunched in position. I scanned his body for weapons. He spat out a razor from the side of his mouth. It shot right into his hand. He held up the gleaming piece of metal and grinned.
“See this? This here is what I got for boys like you.”
He looked away briefly but lunged at the same time, trying to catch me unaware. I retracted my head back as the breeze from his swing tried to connect with my face. I let out a whooshing sound. I circled with him, and we started to dance.
“Snow told me you slashed his face. So you think you’re gonna do that to me?” I teased. My hands hung low on both sides, and I stretched my fingers out, ready to pop him in the jaw. I looked at his body. It was wide open.
“That’s right, bitch. Now it’s your turn.”
Lopez lunged. I saw the metal pass the right side of my face. I bumped into the side of the washing machine, and the edge jabbed me in the side. I held it for a quick minute.
Lopez grinned as his eyes narrowed. He swiped again, and this time, I tunneled my left fist into his lower intestine. He coughed as the impact made him draw up into himself and set him back a few feet.
