In North Carolina, you have four levels of custody for prisons. Maximum, Close, Medium, and Minimum. Maximum has only one facility in the entire state. The infamous (C. P.) Central Prison. Home to the gas chamber. Yeah, pine oil heaven. It’s designed to house the most dangerous criminals, and with the most time. Mostly years in the hundreds and lifers. Close Custody is designed to be the next step in promotion from Maximum, or the next step in “demotion” from Medium, and so forth and so on. I started my sentence in Maximum, and then went to Close. When you’re in Medium they always threaten you with Close. In reality though, it’s the please don’t throw me in the briar patch situation. Close Custody is some of the sweetest time you can do. Even though it’s full of gang members, and houses some of the most dangerous inmates in the state; as long as you stay in your lane, and aint no snitch or baby raper, you got it made. The officers are ninety percent female, and respect a real motherfuckers gangsta. It was in close custody at Lanesboro Correctional that I met my nigga Bubba. Bubba was doing eight to ten years for trafficking heroin. He was from Wilmington. The second largest heroin selling city next to Durham. Bubba had just finished his bid about a month ago. I’d already spoken with him twice and told him I’d be seeing him soon. In the pen, Bubba was known to be a money getter in the streets, although he never boasted or bragged. Nine times out of ten, if you got some lame ass nigga always bragging about what he’s got, and where he’s been, Ladies; he’s insecure, and probably not worth fighting for. Slide off. My first night in D- Block cell #28, fresh in with a sixteen to twenty - year sentence, Bubba walked outta cell #26. There were two tiers. We were on the top.
“What’s up bru?” He asked me as I stared over the rail at the action going on below. “Where you from?”
“Bull City. Why what’s up?” I was wondering what the fuck this clown wanted. I hoped he wasn’t making the mistake of thinking that I was a rookie. Unknowingly to him, I removed my foot from the rail, and planted it firmly on the ground, so when I swung, I would go for the knockout!
“Word. You from Durham? You got a homeboy next door in C-Block. Pusha. He good people. I fuck with him sometimes. He keeps some bud. I’m from Port City. Call me Bubba bru.” He held up his fist for some dap and I dapped him up.
“Banks.” I was still on point for the knockout though.
“Ay yo Banks, what they hit you with dog?
“Sixteen to twenty. What you got?”
“Shit bru, I got two years left, on an eight to ten.”
“For what?”
“Trafficking that “boy.”
“That boy? You mean heroin, right?”
“Yeah. Heroin.”
“Oh Okay.” For a brief second I thought this nigga was a sex offender.
“What they get you for?” Bubbas asked me.
“Murder.”
“Word up? It’s a lot of that around here. Shit bru, it’s over a thousand - years worth of sentences, in this block alone! Shit you came off good.”
“Ain’t no way in the fuck you gonna tell me that twenty years is good. One day is too long in this motherfucker.”
“True indeed. True indeed.” Bubba laughed. “Ay yo, ya’ll be selling a lot of dope up there in the Bull City. Port City flooded too.”
“Yeah, I heard. I don’t fuck wit it though. Coke was my thing.”
“Shit, bru I’m telling you, that coke money aint go shit on that heroin money. With the right dope, and the right hustling skills, a nigga can get rich in a year or two. Just like Jeezy said. Do it right and you can leave the whole summer off!”
“Yo Bubba. You still got some of that?” A cock diesel nigga wit tats all over his arms yelled upstairs.
“Yeah Scratch, I got one more. You got cash or stamps?”
“I got cash bru. Hold that for me, I’m on my way up.”
“That’s Scratch right there. He good people but he crazy as fuck. That nigga got like twelve bodies. They say when the police finally caught the nigga he had a list of names with the ones already dead scratched off. The newspapers made a big deal outta the shit and when he hit state everybody started calling him the Scratch Man. Scratch for short.” A minute later Scratch was up the steps and headed into the room wit Bubba. “I’ll be right back Banks. Don’t dip yet I wanna holla at you about something.” A few minutes later Scratch came back out of the room and stopped beside me.
“Yo where you from young?” He asked as he opened a sandwich bag and sniffed the contents.
“Durham.”
“The Bull City.” Scratch grinned. “I used to fuck with this chic from Cornwallis Projects. She dead now though.” I wondered was he the reason for her demise. Every nigga in the penitentiary knows that Durham is infamous for two things. Drugs and Murder. It goes without saying that we got ultimate respect on State. “Yo holla back at ya boy Bull City. I gotta go talk to the clouds.” In a flash, Scratch was back downstairs lost in the crowd of niggas that were playing cards, watching T.V. and working out doing push-ups and dips.
“Yo Banks. Come in here bru.” I heard Bubba call from his room. I was still checking out my surroundings and wasn’t trusting nobody, so slowly and cautiously I stepped into his room. “Come on in and sit down my nigga. I don’t let just anybody up in my castle, but I read the vibes off people good, and my intuition tells me you a real nigga.” Reaching inside his pillow Bubba pulled out what looked to be about a quarter ounce of some tree. “You wanna burn wit me bru? You smoke weed, don’t you?”
“Hell yeah!” Now he was talking my language. I walked in and sat on the stool at his steel desk. “Yo the cops ain’t gone be tripping about two to a room?”
“Man, this close custody. We run this shit not them. They don’t fuck wit us, and we don’t fuck wit them. They know most of the niggas in here aint never going home, so they’d be fools to get us riled up.
Around here you don’t see many fights. Just cutting and stabbing. And they aint trying to get cut or stabbed. You got a banger? If not, I can get you one for cheap. You may not even have to use it, but it’s better to get caught with it, then without. Feel me?”
“I’m feeling that.”
We were halfway through a blunt of Purple Haze, and I was high as the Empire State building, when somebody yelled out, “Man down! Top tier!” Before I had a chance to react, the door slid open and a short, dark - skinned woman with short blond hair, and an ass that she seemed to have to turn sideways just to get in the door, stepped into the room.
“What yall doing in here?” She asked as she locked eyes wit me. Fuck! Day one and I’m going to the goddamn hole! I knew I shouldn’t have fucked with this clown.
“We aint doing shit Ms. Hatchett. Just talking about some things.” Bubba grinned at her. Now I knew this nigga was crazy.
“Oh yeah. Well it smells like yall been smoking in here. Yall do know this is a non-smoking facility, don’t you?”
“Yeah, we know. But why you trippin?” Totally ignoring his question as if it were absurd, officer blond haired Hatchett, walked past me to Bubba’s bed, threw back his blanket and “BAM!” There lay a pile of fives, tens and twenties.
“Uh huh. Just like I thought. Who money is this?” Officer Hatchet asked as she looked back at me.
“That’s my dog right there. He good. Go ahead and grab that.” Shocked, I watched as Ms. Hatchett scooped up the cash and stuffed it in her bra. Just as swiftly, she reached down the front of her pants into what I assumed to be her panties, and pulled out a cucumber sized package wrapped in black tape. “Thank you babydoll, I’ll call you tonight,” Bubba told her as he took the package from her and kissed her on the lips.
“Make sure it’s after nine. I got training.”
“Ten four.” Bubba smiled and smacked her on the ass as she headed back out of the room and slid the door shut behind her.
“Oh, so that’s how it is?” I grinned as soon as she was outta the room.
“That’s my lil boo. Bitches in here recognize and respect a real nigga. They deal with so many niggas on the daily, they become accurate at deciphering the real from the fake. Didn’t you see how Hatchett was eyeing you?”
“Yeah and she had me shook too.” I admitted.
“Nah bru. She was just sizing you up. I saw the twinkle in that bitch eye too. Fucking slut.”
“Nigga you tripping.” I laughed my ass off as Bubba went on about his and her penitentiary relationship, and how he and her would fuck in the mop closet every Friday when he waxed the floors third shift. From day one, me and Bubba were tight. We got high all day, reminiscing about the trap. And from day one, I’d told him I had to find a different way. His thoughts were the opposite. He was going to holla at his amigo, and in his own words, “Get that gwap!” After six years in, he still had a wifey, and a handful
of jump-offs that stayed loyal. As best as you can expect loyal to be anyway. Some niggas are too sentimental. If you love a chic, cool. But if you got 3,4,5,10 years to do, then don’t worry about if she’s going to fuck somebody or not. Because the answer is Hell Yeah! As long as she riding through the years with you and doing her part to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible, then whomever it is, must not be fucking her that good. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Cause she’s still riding. A real ride or die bitch is extremely hard to find. We all know, that when a nigga catch a bid, them bitches run for the hills! Get ghost like Casper on that ass quick! The two years me and Bubba bidded together before his release, was some of the sweetest time I did. He was already plugged in and as fate would have it, Officer Hatchett’s, superior officer and bff, was one Sergeant Nichols! A short thick caramel colored cutie with a Toni Braxton haircut and lips like Angelina Jolie. And she’d been asking about me. But that’s another story. Me and Bubba kept it real from the jump. We smoked tree, worked out, gambled, and fucked wit the female officers who were all ratchet in their own right, no matter how pretty or thick they may have been. The two years went quick. Bubba finished his sentence and went to the crib. I myself still had thirteen and a half years left to do at the time. Bubba turned out to be the real nigga I’d already given him credit for. A week after his release, I got a scribe from him, with a number for me to call. I hit him up and he hit me with the tree, and whatever else I needed through his penitentiary love. Ms. Hatchett. He was home with his wifey now, but he still had grips on the C.O. chic. This kept me from having to make Monique pack that pussy and come on through them gates. Either way I had to have my tree. It was my medication. It was the only thing that kept me from losing it. Still is to this day. Bubba would send pictures of bad ducks and club scenes. Always wit a lil scribe telling me what was new on his scene. He kept it all the way trill wit a nigga for the next two years, all the way up until my unexpected release from the joint. I hit him up when I touched down and the nigga was estatic! He wanted me to come down to Port City. Said he had some shit to turn me on to. He was back fucking wit that “dog food” money heavy, and at the time I was trying to stay as far away from the trap as possible. Now shit is a lot different. All I want is paper. By any means necessary. A sleeping motherfuckin giant has been awakened.