CHAPTER 8

The Commissary

6 P.M.

LET’S SAY CELLIE looks up from the commissary checklist he’s filling out and says, “You got money in your account yet?”

You shrug and just look at him.

He’ll snort and say something like, “Whatever. Just seein’ if you want me to get you a candy bar.”

You say, “I really appreciate the offer, but I’m good, thanks.”

You’re probably not good, not really, and you’d chew off your arm for a goddamn candy bar, but there’s no way you’re telling this guy about your money situation, and you’re sure the hell not going to owe him over a bite of cheap, waxy chocolate. You can hold out until next week. Hopefully, your funds are available by then. Otherwise, another seven days from now, you might be ready to sell your soul for an expired Ding Dong.

Commissaries stock mostly personal hygiene items, snacks, and some small electronics. I found different prisons had different items for sale, some with better brands and healthier snack choices, others stocked with powdery shampoo and greasy crap such as Funyuns and Honey Buns. But all of them provided the most important thing: a small slice of normalcy.

When I first went in, I was at a county jail. Just like you, I’d never been in prison before. Suddenly, I had nothing. After a few days, when I was handed the one-page commissary inventory sheet and told I could buy up to five items if there was money in my account, I was actually surprised so many items were allowed. I was prepared to have nothing.

The basics are pretty simple. Most commissaries schedule a day and time for you to “shop,” once per week. In most county jails, commissary slips are handed out and collected the day before, and the commissary is brought back to your cell. In medium and maximum security joints, sometimes you will present your list when you show up and they will gather what is available. Other places will ask you to turn in a list at least one day ahead of time, having you fill out a checklist or simply writing down requests. There is no guarantee you will get what you ask for, but listen to the jailhouse chatter—the biggest source of gossip swirls around what’s new and what’s missing from the commissary shelves, as these guys rework their lists over and over before it’s their turn to order. Complaining when the commissary runs out of something will do you no good. It will only irritate the guy in charge of your supply list the following week. This is not the guy to piss off when you run out of deodorant or toothpaste.

When you first go in, it’s nice if you can put a one-time $400 to $500 in to your account to set yourself up, but you can easily get by on $200. If nothing else, hopefully someone can send you $20; you’ll need it to get at least some toothpaste, shampoo, and stamps. Whatever cash you were arrested with in your pockets will automatically be applied to your account.

If you have family that can help you, it’s best if you can add $200 to $300 in your account each month; this is usually the maximum they would be allowed to give you anyway. You’ll most likely be making only $20 or $30 from your prison work detail, which you can have put directly into your commissary account or send to your family. There will be a limit to how much you can spend at a time; usually it’s $300 per month in federal institutions, but that is more than enough to get what you need, plus a few comfort snacks.

Commissaries were created because it became problematic allowing certain items to be brought in by family and friends as gifts, many of whom were using it as a way to hide illegal contraband. This also allowed for a much bigger black market, giving prisoners a lot of leverage over another inmate for a bar of soap. Now, you should be able to buy at least the necessary basics. But your purchases will be monitored, to make sure you’re not stocking up to run trades, or that you’re not buying items to create a weapon of some kind. This one is tough to enforce, however, since weapons can be made out of anything, which I’ll discuss in a minute.

Many inmates who do not have a lot of money will be interested to see what you can afford once money is posted to your account. If you’re bringing armloads worth of stuff back to your cell, they’re going to notice. Convicts will use your money against you. Some will merely “borrow” items or have you purchase items for them. Others will extort money from you or force you to join their gang. So be smart; don’t flash your commissary “wealth” around, and immediately lock up your stuff.

Damien D., currently on the inside, suggests, “When you first get here, you should immediately buy your hygiene products and then always stay stocked up on them. Once you order your stuff, it can take up to two weeks before you get it, so if you run out of something, you could be burnt for a while. If that happens, someone could lend you a bar of soap, but if they are caught it is an infraction, since it is against the Federal Bureau of Prisons Department of Corrections policy to borrow, lend, or trade, even in these situations. Both parties in a transaction like that get in trouble, so it’s best not to even ask a friend to risk it. Besides, you never want to be in debt to anyone, even if it’s something as small as a bar of soap.”

From experience, I can tell you the following items are useful. You might want to buy them over a period of time, to avoid notice, and to make sure you’re living “within your means,” though I’d get the lock, shower shoes, shampoo, and toothpaste right away—and the coffee, if you’re getting caffeine headaches, but you’ll have to figure out how to make it in the microwave if you don’t have a hot pot.

•   Shower shoes

•   A combination lock

•   Toothpaste/ toothbrush/shampoo/ laundry soap

•   Reading glasses

•   Aspirin

•   Instant noodles

•   Coffee

•   Can opener

•   Cans of tuna / chicken

•   Nail clipper

•   Comb

•   Earbuds / radio / MP3 player / batteries

•   Extension cord

•   Hot pot (Crock-Pot)

•   Hot sauce / soy sauce / ketchup

•   Notebook or stationary

•   Stamps

•   Sunscreen / sunglasses/ rain poncho

•   Socks / underwear

•   Sneakers

•   Thermal underwear

If you find yourself worrying about your safety, watch what others are buying from the commissary. There are a few items inmates can purchase that they might use as weapons—or that you can buy to be used as last-resort protection. A combination lock or can of food swung in a sock. Dental floss as a garrote. The jagged edge of a can lid as a blade, folded in half with a cloth grip. A Hershey bar melted in the microwave and thrown in the face. Women like to use the paper “club,” a rolled newspaper, dunked in the toilet, then rolled even tighter, and left to dry so it becomes rock hard.

The most creative weapon I ever saw was a spiked workout glove. A young homey of mine, Chris from Houston, Texas, was a boxer before he entered the prison system. He’d been in several confrontations while we were in FCI Ashland, Kentucky, prison. He was approximately five foot eight and weighed about a hundred and fifty pounds. He was in phenomenal shape but really needed an edge (a shank) to carry out a vendetta on another inmate. One day, he showed me a pair of spiked gloves he’d created. He’d obtained thumbtacks from the education department and poked at least ten through each glove. Then he slid a second pair of gloves inside to prevent the tacks from moving. The spiked gloves could easily slit holes in vital arteries and rip skin. He’d walk around with the gloves hanging out of his back pocket; no corrections officer was the wiser since they looked like a simple pair of workout gloves.

If someone is coming for you, be on the lookout for the most popular of weapons: the shank, which is any object brought to a sharpened point in order to stab, or to “shiv.” Just so you know, in some state prisons, prisoners found in possession of weapons are charged with a third degree felony and are going to spend time in The Hole. In the federal prison system, an inmate found in possession of a shank or any weapon can be put in The Hole for a very long time, lose commissary and phone privileges, in addition to being shipped to another prison. Unfortunately, violent convicts with long prison sentences don’t care about additional time.

As a matter of fact, one guy who didn’t care about adding time to his sentence set himself up with a nice side hustle selling shanks. He was a crazy Puerto Rican named Lexio who was around five foot five and weighed a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. This Lexio had crooked, rotten teeth, and yet was considered handsome, probably in part because he was very particular about his clean-cut appearance. Unfortunately, the guy just couldn’t figure out how to successfully reenter the chaos of society on the outside and so became notorious for being released and returning to prison within six months. He ran his hustle like a booster who would come through the neighborhood with a bag of stolen goods. Lexio would say, “Hey Doc, I got something to show you,” and it would always be a different shape or size of shank. His shanks would cost anywhere from five to fifteen dollars in stamps, depending on the size. Some were made from melted plastic, or plastic and metal, or steel from things like broken chair legs or a door trim. Anything, really, that can be turned into a sharp, deadly weapon.

Even a small prison can collect over four hundred shanks a year, made from materials such as pieces of fence, to mop handles, to broken lightbulb rims, to melted-down Jolly Ranchers molded into a spearhead and bound to a toothbrush. I saw smuggled cigarette lighters being used to melt several plastic forks together to make a shank with a handle. The “beauty” of this weapon was that you could mold it to fit your hand perfectly.

There are some creative bastards in prison.