Michael Lister - Power in the Blood

“What do you think about the escape attempt we had yesterday?

“I think he a fool. Everybody know what they do to the trash. Maybe he wanted to die. Never tell about him.”

“But you don’t think that it was a serious escape attempt?”

“Nosuh. Either he wanted to die, or somebody wanted him to die.”

“I see. What can you tell me about drugs or alcohol on the compound?”

“They’s those who have it. They’s those that would love to have it but can’t afford it. They’s those who do anything for it.”

“Is there a lot of it on the compound?”

“Nosuh, not a lot. And they’s really only two things-buck and hash.”

“How do they get it?”

“Most the liquor is homemade. Inmates in food services or the chapel sneak juice or old fruit and sugar back down on the ’pound. Mix it up and let it ferment.”

“You mean inmates have stolen our communion juice to make buck?”

“Yesuh. Some go to church on communion night ’cause of it. They hold it in their mouth until they get back down to the dorm and then they all spit it into an old can or a plastic bag they stole. The clerk that worked here before me used to steal some every week and sell it down on the ’pound.”

“What about hash?”

“Hash come in during visitation, or some officer bring it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some of the inmate’s family members sneak it in and slip it to them while they visit or leave it in the bathroom and the orderly get it when he clean up. And, they is officers that will sell it to you. Not many left, but they always a few.”

“Is it expensive? Hard to get?” I asked.

“Cost whatever man’s got. Cookies, cards, smokes, or a hit on someone.”

“No cash involved?”

“Nosuh. Not enough of it to be able to bribe officers and it don’t do no good for inmates.”

“Everything’s done on trade?”

“Yesuh. Inmate say, ‘You do this for me or that for me and I give you my canteen.’ They pay-it just ain’t with money.”

“What can you tell me about homosexuality on the compound?”

“Well, they’s the punks, the pimps, the sisters, and then the inmates who use they services. The punks are the real fags. They like it. They was fags before they come in here. They have pimps who look after them and hire them out. The sisters are faggots who just go with each other. They don’t have no one to protect them and they don’t hire out. They just in love, I reckon,” he said, shaking his head and then growing silent.

We were both silent for a moment. I looked at him. He was looking down, which is what he did most of the time. He was old, with solid gray hair, except for the bald spot. He seemed feeble. His brown lips protruded and his nose seemed to spread across his entire face. His eyelids twitched occasionally-probably wishing they had been closed more often throughout his painful life. His hands were very large and his fingers all came to sharp points at the ends.

“You said that some inmates use the services of a punk, but are they not considered to be punks themselves?”

“Nosuh. They straight on the outside. It’s just they can’t get none in here. In here they a big difference between pitching and catching.”

We were silent again, and I mused about the moral difference between pitching and catching in the social order of Potter Correctional Institution. What a strange world I had entered.

“The punks,” he began again, “wear women’s stuff.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Panties, pantyhose, perfume. Shit . . . I mean stuff, like that.”

“What?” I asked truly amazed. “Where in the world do inmates get women’s clothes and perfume?”

“Get it from one of the female officers.”

I gave him a look that said, No way .

“Yesuh,” he said with a world-weary smile. Some of these womans who work out here are lonely. They do lot of stuff for inmates they likes. If they like one, nobody better mess with him.”

“Do any of them actually have affairs with inmates?”

“Some do, not many. Not really affairs, but they have sex. Get an inmate to come into the laundry room with ’em late at night when ’most everybody’s asleep. Some of the black officers get white inmates. They chance to have a white man. But this don’t happen a lot. Too hard in open dorms. But a lot of them let inmates gun them down.”

“Gun them down?” I asked as if I had been born yesterday, and in this world I had.

“They jack while they watch the officer in the control room of the dorm. Control room glass, and you can see everything in the bathroom. They got a squad that get together and gun down the female officers, especially the fat ones. Some of the officers encourage it, and some even expose themselves to the inmates. Some don’t even know it’s goin’ on.”

“Who all knows about this?”

“’Most everybody on the ’pound.”

“Officers too?”

“Some. Not too many. Everything that we do, somebody know about. Everything.”

“So if an inmate does something, it’s because some officer or staff member allows him to do it.”

“Yesuh.”

“Most of the inmates trust you, don’t they?”

“I got respect. Not the same thing. Inmates don’t trust no one. They life say they can’t trust no one, not even the chaplain.”

“Really? So I have no hope of real acceptance and trust from them?”

“Nosuh. You got mine. You probably get others, not many though.”

“I see. What’s the overall feeling about the officers and staff?”

“Nobody give ’em much thought ’less they mess with us. The jits are not smart enough to be cool so that the officers don’t get in our business. They so stupid.”

“The jits?” I asked.

“Jitterbugs. Young inmates. They not convicts like us. They inmates. A true convict don’t get in no trouble. ’Cause if you stay clean or look like you do, officers stay away from you. Convict wants to do his time quiet with no trouble. Jit ain’t got the sense God give a dung beetle. ’Sides, most of them don’t have a lot of time anyway, so they do it the hard way. But, they be back. Eventually they learn.”

“If an inmate-or a convict-wanted to escape, could an officer be bought to help?”

“Nosuh, probably not. They sell you dope, maybe turn they head when you beat up a punk, but they wouldn’t help you get out.”

“Did you know the inmate that tried to escape yesterday? Johnson.”

“Nosuh, not really.”

“What about an inmate named Jacobson?”

“Yeah, I know of him. Watch your back around him. Some people say he crazy, but he ain’t. He’s dangerous. Lot of inmates say they killed before; most of ’em ain’t, but Jacobson’s a killer for real. I bet he’s lost count of the number of people he’s offed.”

“Is there anybody else I should talk with?”

“Yesuh. They’s an old homosexual on the ’pound. He say very little, but he know a lot.”

“What’s his name?”

He started to speak and then stopped. “I don’t know his real namesuh. Everybody on the pound call him Grandma.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate it.”

“Yesuh. Thank you for what you do. You the first chaplain I seen who really care and don’t act like he any better than the rest of us.”

“Mr. Smith, I’ll tell you a little secret: I’m not.”

John Jordan’s first rule of detection: start with what you have, even when what you have isn’t much. I knew that Johnson spent his last night in the infirmary and that Jacobson was there too. So I went to the medical building. The medical building, like every other building at PCI, was gray. At least everybody referred to it as gray; I felt that it lacked sufficient color to actually be classified as a color, even a color as colorless as gray. The medical building, which actually housed dental and classification also, was always filled with inmates lined up waiting for service. Some of them were there to see their classification officer, others to see the dentist, and still others to see a doctor or pick up medication.