THEY CALLED IT THE TENTH FLOOR AND I ARRIVED there on my seventeenth birthday. The Tenth Floor of the Miami-Dade County jail housed the most violent and hardened felons. It was our house of pain. It took what seemed like an hour for my transfer to clear, but the first thing I learned about prison was that my time was not mine. My life wasn’t mine either. I was state property. Dressed in my orange jumpsuit, I went to be processed. The corrections officer had me pick out the items from my box that I was allowed to take with me. They told me to get stamps, phone numbers, one picture, and one of everything for hygiene, such as deodorant. I had to place everything else on the table. They gave me the choice to donate the extra stuff or take it home in thirty days.
Those guards knew no one was going home in thirty days. One inmate that was sentenced to thirty years had arrived the same day as me. He was caught trying to sneak something else out of his box. The guy was huge. He was one of those husky country brothers probably raised on fresh milk and hogs’ feet. He was the Humpty Dumpty of the cellblock. Those guards made his fat ass sing happy birthday to me all the way to my bunk. It was humiliating for us both.
Welcome to prison, nigga.
If you think those beat cops hate their lives more than any other government employee, think again. Those COs were the worst. A person couldn’t meet a more sadistic breed than the men and women society pays to guard its prisoners. Something about those walls chipped away at everyone’s humanity after a while. They hated their jobs, but they hated us more. I thought since neither of us wanted to be there, they would make the time as bearable as possible. Look, asshole, I don’t like coming to this piss-and-shit-infested crap shoot, staring at you sorry inmates. But if we gotta be in here, let’s make the best of it. You let me pass the time watching Sanford and Son reruns and I’ll let you go beat your dick off in peace.
That was too civilized for prison life. They made us the punching bag for every regret suffered in their lives. Imagine an open wound being stabbed with a nail constantly. That day the mind games began. I shook my head.
“Oh, you don’t like that, little nigga? What the fuck you gonna do about it? Try that stone-cold shit in here and I’ll gut you,” said the CO. “I’ll body you, nigga.”
I felt like choking that guard, but something told me otherwise. I got the sense that he was dead serious. It seemed he would be happy to break my neck. The world I was engulfed in right now looked insane. The faces staring outside those bars looked cold to me. As I walked by, I could tell there was no peace here. In a moment of optimism I thought maybe I’d get the stability that was missing in my life in the pen. It sounded good at least. But this place was crazier than all the madness out on Fifteenth Avenue.
“Trustee! Trustee!” one inmate hollered for the inmate assigned to run errands. “My toilet’s backed up! The shit stinks in here!”
The trustee was usually the best-behaved inmate. He wasn’t a snitch or the CO’s pet or anything like that. He was the guy in there that got along with everybody. He was the person who made the place a bit more hospitable with a kind word or two. The COs gave him a bit more breathing room than the other inmates. In return he served as a broker between us and them. That day the CO wasn’t in a good mood so the trustee couldn’t help.
“What you hollering about?” the CO asked.
“Ain’t got no water coming to my cell,” said the inmate. “The toilet’s been clogged since yesterday.”
“Do I look like a plumber, nigga!” yelled the CO. “This shit ain’t the Holiday Inn.”
“How am I gonna brush my teeth?”
“Get creative.”
Humpty Dumpty offered me some sobering advice. “Look, partner, just keep your head low. Those crackers already got you in a hole, don’t dig it no deeper.”
He spoke from experience. He had already served time in the chain gang. He was trying to put me up on game. I tried soaking it in, but I felt more like dying. I shuffled past the stares and crazed faces locked in cages. This wasn’t like high school where the new kid got the love. The new kid got tested.
“Aight, my nigga, this your spot. Be easy,” he told me when we reached the cell.
You can’t be serious.
I looked at the large cage with nearly fifty inmates all packed in like a dog pound. Some were laid out on floor mattresses. One guy was curled around a toilet. There were bunk beds, but the place was packed beyond capacity. The crime rate in Miami was so high the jail was overcrowded. The Tenth Floor looked more like a homeless shelter. I walked over to the bunk that was assigned to me, but before I could put my stuff on the bed, someone stopped me.
“Hold up, my nigga, that’s my bed,” said Lil Bo, creeping up behind me. He wasn’t more than five feet tall, but judging from his scowl, Lil Bo seemed to be a force to be reckoned with. I had seen him around my way in the hood before.
“What nigga?” said Lil Bo, trying to bait me into a confrontation. I hadn’t been on the Tenth Floor more than a day and already this guy wanted me to bring the heat. I put my stuff down. He clenched his fist. The other inmates in the room stood up. The wagering began.
“I got two cigarettes on buddy with the cash!”
One inmate offered me his mat. I turned to look at the CO, but he was placing a bet on Lil Bo to whup my ass. The thought of choking this dude to death brought a particular happiness. Fuck the repercussions. I wanted to break Lil Bo’s neck for trying me. Then, suddenly, he backed off. The crowd scattered like roaches when the closet light is turned on. A familiar voice from outside the cell quelled my inner storm.
“Me and Shrimp gotta bunk for you over here bruh.”
Big Black was standing at the entrance. I paused. I can’t explain how I felt when I saw Black. Before I could speak, Black had the inmate who’d offered me his mat hemmed up on the wall.
“Ain’t nothing sweet round here, motherfucker!” he yelled at the dude.
Black wasn’t overreacting. In the pen, newcomers who sit on another inmate’s bed get their shit pushed in. There were inmates in there trying to make a young inmate his baby. At night while we slept, the baby would serve his daddy his snacks, if you know what I mean. No one who isn’t family to you before you go to prison offers you anything for free.
“You’re cool? I see you’re still outta control,” said Black, pointing to the cast on my arm.
He took me over to his spot in the cage. Black commanded everyone’s respect. It wasn’t because he was a bully. He was an honorable dude. Even those seen as unlawful and ungodly to larger society follow a code of ethics. People respect integrity. Black was all of the above. Word had already got to him that I was on my way in, so he had reserved a bed for me under his.
Black had the top bunk in the corner. It’s what in prison we called the throne. The vents from the AC were located there as well as the television. The cool air and midday game shows weren’t the only reasons for wanting that spot. In most cases, it could mean life or death. In a brawl, the bottom bunk left an inmate vulnerable for an enemy to dive in and shank him. The top gave one a vantage point.
“I gotta see everything that’s going down,” said Black.
In an open-space dorm with lots of beds, the slimiest dude in a crew would sleep somewhere off in the middle so he could be away from the drama when it popped off. When I got over to Black’s area, it was more like a family reunion.
Shrimp, Lil Wil, Lil Al, Melvin, Puerto Ric, and Carmelio were there. They were some of the coldest cats I knew in the street. All had carried a considerable amount of weight. So I started to feel like I was gaining my footing in what was to become my new home. We talked about the snitches and weak cats who folded in the interrogation room. That I held my own in that room earned me respect from the crew, but the brief moment without drama was of course interrupted.
“Partna, I’m gonna deal with you! You could put my old girl on that!” Lil Bo yelled across the hall.
I wasn’t having it. This guy was asking for the pain and I wanted to bring it. I turned to Carmelio. “Bruh, take my cast off.”
Black and the crew look dumbfounded. They knew I had heart, but now I was ready to brawl with one arm.
“Bruh, if you can’t take it off, just hold my arm down for me,” I said. Everyone shook their heads. Then the hall erupted in laughter. Even Lil Bo was chuckling.
“We just wanted to see if you were gonna fight, bruh,” he told me, turning to Big Black.
“You still the truth, bruh,” Black said.
I should have known all along they were just testing my temperature. Black carried the most weight in there. He didn’t want to cosign a chump. He was headed for a life bid after he left the county. I was just passing through. I know he would have looked out for me regardless. He was that type of guy, but knowing that I could hold my own made it a bit less tiresome to watch over me in this madhouse. That night I tried to sleep. I tried to doze off and think about my plan to stay sane while I did my time, but the screams across the hall woke me.
The inmate I saw curled up around the toilet was getting the life beat out of him. The word on the floor was that he came in a couple hours before me. He was all messed up when they escorted him to the cell, crying and begging to go home. The rules on the street apply in prison. Weakness is a death sentence. One inmate was pissing on his head, while another was taking a dump. The CO walked by laughing.
“You cool, bruh?” Black asked me. “You look like you all deep in thought and shit.”
“I’m cool, Black. Just gotta lot of shit on my mind.”
“Well, don’t think too much. That’s how cats end up going off the deep end in here.”