3 Linebacker

I knew that sooner or later I’d have to defend myself in a real fight, and it happened in April 1996, two months after I arrived. I was watching a volleyball game in the yard when a guy sucker-punched me in the nose. I didn’t go down, only bent over a little. He was another longhaired freak, and he was running away. At least twenty men saw what happened. But when I looked up, they were all looking elsewhere.

I sat on a bench till the bleeding stopped. Somebody asked who hit me, and I told them to mind their own fucking business. I waited by the gate where everybody had to pass. The longhaired freak showed up and I hit him flush in the left eye—lifted his ass right off of the ground. Then I body-slammed him. Before I could finish him off, a guard tackled me and I was cuffed and led away.

 

For the next three weeks I learned to deal with life in Cell 105 of the Disciplinary Segregation Unit. I liked the hole. We were locked down twenty-three hours a day, but at least they supplied reading matter. With no distractions I could read a book a day. Breakfast was served on trays in our cells—a lot better than having to go to the dining hall and worry about getting a shiv up your ass.

My stomach started to balloon up on the veggie trays they served, so I just ate breakfast. It was a nice, quiet life—nobody to bother me, nobody to argue with. We could shower every day. On the way I’d hear the other guys yelling at me—how I was a piece of shit and they would fuck me up good when they caught me out in the yard. It was all talk.

 

General population seemed more peaceful when I got back. I’d proved that if somebody challenges me, I will put him down. A friend said that when I swung at that hippie, prisoners ran in all directions. They knew I had nothing to lose by killing again.

From then on nobody challenged me directly. But they kept on circulating rumors. I got a cushy kitchen job as “linebacker,” keeping the food boxes filled up and the line moving. I was the best linebacker they ever had—did the work of two men. But somebody put out word that I intended to poison the population. From then on I was barred from the kitchen jobs. Too bad. I liked that job.

After a while they let me have my own TV and AM-FM radio. That meant I didn’t have to go to the card room to watch the big-screen TV and take the chance that some punk would try to make a name for himself. I would do my assigned work and take my shower, and the rest of the time I’d stay in my cell.

 

In prison danger comes from all directions, especially if you’re high-profile. You can never prepare for it. You have no privacy. My whole world revolved around what went on in front of my cell. My view was of a walkway enclosed in wire mesh. When I was sitting on my toilet, anyone could watch. Sometimes it would be a female guard trying to make me uncomfortable. I tried to put on a good show.

 

One day an inmate came up to me in the yard and started asking a long list of questions. Some of my answers were true and some not. The next day I was called into the security offices. The dude had put a hit on me. He thought he could sell my answers to a crime author, and if I was dead, the information would be worth more. That’s the way their pea-brains worked! This taught me not to give out personal information. And it reminded me to watch my mouth.

The next threat came from cigarettes, which I never touched. OSP was a nonsmoking joint, but that didn’t mean there was no smoking. The guards would break a cigarette into three and sell each section for three bucks. For your money you got a couple of drags. I was happy that I didn’t smoke.

One numbnuts sent a kite to the security unit saying that he would start killing guards if they didn’t restore our smoking rights. He signed my name and added a Happy Face. Lucky for me that he left his greasy fingerprints on the kite. Like I said, they wouldn’t be in prison if they were smart. He wound up in the hole. I wondered if this kind of crap would ever end. It never did. That’s the price of fame.