“With good behavior I could knock off a year and only serve two years in full,” I reminded her.
“You’ve been in the box twice on two tier-three violations. I don’t want to piss on your optimism, but it’s safe to say that you are a guy who can kiss your good-behavior relief goodbye,” she said, and her words silenced me.
“And, if you don’t stop praying and saving your peers’ lives, and if you don’t stop reading and forming study groups—oy veh—before they ship you out of here to another prison, who knows, you could end up back in the box again.” She threw her hands up in frustration.
“That’s funny, right?” I asked her with a straight face.
“Oh yeah, it’s hilarious. If you would have called me about your second jailhouse hearing, and those bogus charges, I would’ve had the ACLU all over their asses for violation of freedom of religion, freedom of speech . . . I mean, these are basic freedoms. All Americans know that,” she said.
“How is your sister?” I asked Ayn Aaronson, my peculiar, passionate, and precious lawyer about her deceased twin.
“She seems to be happier in her world than I am in mine.”
* * *
Transferred from the box after ninety days to C-74, I was now wearing the green jail jumper reserved for convicts. Body more solid than steel. Side by side with other men who were also solid-bodied, regardless of their state of mind. A convict, I’m no longer an accused youth offender. I’m with the adult population, not the cubs, the kids, the youth, the adolescents, anymore. I’m in the adult facility at Rikers. I sleep in a cell, not bed-to-bed in a wide-open dorm. There’s no blood or friendship between my young, “convicted as an adult,” self and these men. But still, I am recognized as family. I’m a Muslim, moving in a space populated with many men who say they’re Muslims. Upon arrival I was approached by a big man who recognized my alamat sala, a prayer mark that appears on the forehead of Muslim men from the continual pressing of the forehead to the ground during prayer. By him acknowledging my mark, which ninety-nine percent of others overlooked, he alleviated the tension that comes when any man approaches another man while incarcerated. I of course saw his mark as well, which caused me to consider that he might actually be a Muslim. I had met enough men claiming Islam who were without prayer. He ended up being a leader in the Muslim population on lockup. They claimed me, although I didn’t ask to be claimed or protected or grouped or ganged up.
Meanwhile, I’m the “supreme soldier,” so dubbed by Redverse and held down by his men, the Jamaicans who run “ ’nough shit in here” and got their own food ring going. They cared more about having fresh fruits and vegetables and “ital” foods than anyone else. They were heavy into commissary. Their women, outside of whatever else they might be bringing in and out on visits, kept them well fed. All cliqued up, the Jamaicans treated me good, like an ambassador, ’cause Redverse gave the order. One of ’em gave me enough fruits and vegetables to fit in a basket. It was a gift, same as gold to them. I had to accept it because I had rejected the weed they offered me, and to avoid causing insult.
It wasn’t until I reached the C-74 adult building that I figured Redverse out. That’s how many hours of rewinding, reviewing, and thinking I had to commit to the puzzle of the drug network I landed in. My hypothesis was that Redverse was linked with the dirty cops in the precinct in his area. They protected his spot and didn’t arrest his soldiers or harass their posse. In exchange, they got a huge cut of the paper. But the paper was only guaranteed if the cops facilitated the drug deliveries coming and going. When I entered the spot unrelated and unknowingly, and once I exited the spot with the red bag, there was a confusion created. Redverse worked the confusion as though the cops failed to protect the product. No product, no paper for them till the next time. That’s why they were furiously trying to link me to the package, and locate the package so that they could collect. Redverse double-crossed the cops. He held on to the product, sold it, doubled his take, and pinned the robbery on me and the blame on the dirty cops who never got paid on that particular take. He dubbed me the supreme soldier for three reasons. One, I could have killed his brother and his men. I didn’t. Two, I could’ve identified his men, snitched, and recounted my encounter to the detectives. I didn’t. But the most important reason was I could’ve fucked his girl in his building or welcomed her in on a visit and done anything to her. I didn’t. What I had not considered back then, and even after my arrest, was that Redverse had a surveillance tape, a television recording everything. Maybe the Red Flamingo didn’t realize it and thought it was just for her use to watch who came in and out of the laundry area and what they were doing while she wasn’t in there. But I concluded that he was surveilling everything. He had her on tape and he had me on tape and could identify me. That’s how they knew who I was. The Jamaicans, many of whom find Islam too strict and confining, owe a debt to the quality of men Islam produces. We know among other things that brotherhood is destroyed the second a man puts his hands on another man’s woman.
I’m the poor righteous teacher, protected by the Five Percent because “Quan said so,” and because DeQuan is also locked up in C-74 where I am. DeQuan was the same as he ever was on our Brooklyn block, with an added seriousness. He was solid from working out continuously. He had an army going at Rikers. It was not only about contraband for him. Some of his soldiers ran a newsletter that kept inmates informed about where men were being moved and what was happening at prisons all around the country, as reported by inmates who had been convicted and moved out of Rikers. DeQuan was like the king of communications, including if anyone needed to get a kite—a letter or message—to anyone using the network that he built. His man Butch, a.k.a. “Broadcast,” was an old-timer whose first arrest had occurred in 1966. He was like a human computer. I peeped why DeQuan recruited him even though he was unlike anyone in the rest of his crew. During the workout, where men were trying to relieve their stress, Broadcast would give random reports, just speaking aloud casually, but in a loud volume with the authority of a news anchor.
“You young’uns better get ready. This is jail. Prison is something else. You think you don’t like the COs up here at Rikers? You’d better get to loving them while the getting is good. Least they look like us and know where we come from ’cause they come from the same place. Once they ship you out of Rikers, you gon’ encounter some big, ugly, hateful white boys. They gon’ be everywhere, their arms as big as your legs. They Ku Klux Klan. They hate the black man. You gon’ feel that hatred instantly. So thick you can choke on it. They don’t only hate the blacks, they hate anybody with a drop of melanin, any kind of color in them. They shave your head with hatred. They’ll grab your balls, shove their fingers in your mouth, choking you with hatred. Say they looking for something they ain’t really looking for. They nasty, you gon’ find out. They’ll spread your cheeks and drill in your asshole ’cause they can, and ’cause they want to, and ’cause they hateful and jealous of you.
“How many prisons you think they got? Almost two thousand prisons in America, not including the federal ones and more than a million prisoners. Oh they got something for all of us. They got jails like this right here. Then they got transitional prisons. Then they got minimum-security prisons, low-minimum, high-minimum, medium, secure-medium, high-medium, maximum . . . Yeah, now they even got private prisons, run by some corporations for profit, or a group of greedy businessmen. One of them private prisons, the COs even got guns. They lawless. They can do anything to you. They got prison farms. Work you harder than a farm animal. They got medical prisons and psychiatric prisons—that feed you dope. They’ll dope you up all night and all day.
“You better watch out. Even if you don’t, it don’t matter. They gon’ do what they do regardless. Some states is worse than others. Watch out! Don’t go to Texas. Soon as you cross the state line, if you black or Latino you under arrest. They got 116 prisons in that one state, not including the feds. Same as Florida. They got 125 prisons, then Georgia and North
Carolina and good old New York. Those the top runners for locking us down brutally.
“Man, it’s gonna be cold up North to the extreme. So cold you can’t talk. And even if you could, you wouldn’t. You got brain freeze. Even your thoughts are frozen. It’s gon’ be hot down South to the extreme. They’ll have you burning in Louisiana. You wake up wet. Get confused, think you already showered but you stink. They’ll bury you in their underground prison. Have you thinking there never was a sun. Make you question whether or not you exist. Make you rather be dead.” And when he spoke like that, every man working out was grunting and lifting more than they ever thought they could. Broadcast got the respect because he was old and knowledgeable about the details of the world of prison. But his impromptu broadcasts tripled the anger, because most knew it was the truth.
I also got respect from the Spanish-speaking inmates from all over. I was the deep, dark black-skinned cat who knows a few key words and phrases in Spanish. Enough to give the greetings, and show respect and receive it back. When I’m around the Spanish-speaking inmates, I don’t get tight when they speak their own language or envious like the African Americans do. I’m at ease.
Upon my arrival at the adult facility, the first one to lock glares with me was Tyriq. I recognized him immediately. He was only three seconds behind before he pinpointed and acknowledged who I am.
“Hustler’s League, Junior Division. I recruited you to play ball. Brownsville, Brooklyn youth,” he said.
“What’s a big man doing in a small place?” I acknowledged.
“I was a ’bout to ask you the same thing,” he said. “But, my peoples ’bout to bail me out. Anything you need I could get it sent in for you—talk quick. I’ll be out of this small space by the morning.”
“I’m good,” I told him. He stared at me in my greens. He wasn’t a convict, just an accused, still wearing his street clothes, looking fresh and fashionable.
“You good? Looks like they about to send you up North,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “Man . . . ,” he continued, “that tournament last summer was crazy. The junior division snatched the light and the hype from the adult league that year. Your skills were undeniable and impeccable. Caused a lot of argument among the judges. I thought you should have been the MVP.”
* * *
Two weeks after Tyriq was bailed out, I received a visitor.
“Tiffany Kelly,” CO Williams, an elder officer, who never referred to the inmates as “ladies,” said to me. I realized then that I had not put in paperwork saying that I refuse all visits since I was moved to C-74. It didn’t matter. I had not put in paperwork detailing my list of approved visitors, either.
“No visit,” I said to him. He left. Before his shift ended he said to me, “Your visitor has a school identification that said she was eighteen. Now I done been around the block. I wouldn’t usually comment. But since you refused her anyway I guess it’s alright.” He leaned into the bars that separated us. “Those big titties she has sat straight up. She’s not a day older than fifteen. We catch a lot of young girls coming up here with fake IDs trying to visit grown men who ain’t their daddys, if you know what I mean.”
Bangs, a.k.a. Tiffany—I’m not even sure if her last name is Kelly, but I am sure that it was her grandmother’s last name. She had that kind of effect on every male of every age. She was all beautiful body. In the spring and summer, she wore pants that fit like panties, had a mean camel toe, a tight waist, and 32D’s that were filled with breast milk that she fed to her infant daughter. She was a runner with pretty thighs. Her legs were always naked. When she wasn’t in her kicks or roller skates, she slid her pretty feet into tiny sandals that showcased her pretty toes. She was not suitable for me. Yet she loved me. Because of my faith, I didn’t go in her. But the beast in me always wanted to.
Her visit, even though I denied her, caused my joint to swell, in a joint where I never wanted to be hard and swollen. Furthermore, her visit propelled me into a memory.
28. THE HUSTLER’S LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP • A Reflection
Beyond a doubt, the black team moved with the idea, energy, effort, and precision that we would be the champions of the junior division of the Hustler’s League. Ricky Santiaga was so confident and certain that he prepared twenty-four-karat-gold championship rings for each of the eleven members of the team. The rings had never been mentioned at the start of the league with the other rewards being offered to the top players. None of us expected them. And, they were not ordinary rings that could be purchased from a catalogue, a retailer, or a trophy shop.
Coach Vega, one afternoon after another rigorous practice, let the whole team walk but held me back. Panama Black, the team captain, Machete, and each team member minus Dolo were used to Vega holding me back and then requiring me to put in extra time, extra laps, extra suicides, extra layups, extra squats, and extra dribbling and handling exercises, as though he was trying to force me to repay the team for the time and the practices I had missed while I was traveling. A few times, some of my teammates stayed back to watch him overwork me. Although my teammates showed me love and welcomed me back, I knew they were secretly satisfied that I was being punished and trained twice as hard as they were. I didn’t mind.
On that particular afternoon the coach held me back, something out of the ordinary occurred. “Meet my boss tomorrow outside of Junior’s Restaurant at noon,” Vega told me.
“For what?” I asked.
“Don’t ask. Just do it.”
On the corner of Flatbush and Fulton, I waited in my sweats with my ball in my grip as usual. I didn’t see him. It was 12:12. Caught off guard and slipping, I smiled when I finally recognized he had been there all along, seated in a ride that was the opposite of any whip I ever saw him push or even lean on. It was a 1972 Oldsmobile Delta 88. No rims, just wheels, not blacked out and customized but with the windows spray-painted black, like it was done by an amateur artist or a small child. His driver’s-side window didn’t ease down. It staggered, revealing that the driver was rolling it down manually.
“That’s you,” I said, not as in asking him if he was himself, but verifying if he was the same man I knew, pushing that piece-of-shit car where he was seated in the driver’s position.
“Get in,” he said. I did. “There’s a time and place for everything,” he said once I was seated on the ugly black velvet cushioned seats. He pulled off.
Moments later, on a fucked-up block in Bed-Stuy, he pulled over, then parked in front of an abandoned building. “First stop,” he said, and we both got out.
“Hold up,” I told him. “This ain’t a ballpark. It’s not the address you gave me for your vending machine delivery, either. Looks like there is no business between you and me right here,” I said. He smiled.
“You gave your word,” he said.
“Remind me,” I said, but I was one hundred percent doubt.
“You owe me a game of chess on a broken-down board in a broken-down place. Now if you wanna back out, just let me know,” he said calmly in his casual denim wear, and I noted it was my first time seeing him out of Gucci loafers or Tod’s and into Air Force Ones.
He’s already playing chess, I thought to myself. Between his jalopy and his clothes, this fucked-up block and the broke-down building he chose, it was his method of intimidation and mind control. That had to be the reason he didn’t notify me in advance that today was game day. I’m sure he gave himself the time to prepare and sharpen his game and his psyche.
I had only managed to get in one session of practice with my man Marty Bookbinder. I had phoned him, placed an order for a book and a map, and then invited him to meet me in a Queens cafe I had carefully chosen one evening to deliver my purchase and play a couple of games of chess. He accepted eagerly.
“Let’s go,” I told him. We walked. Everything with this dude is a test, I thought.
Reverse aromatherapy, the place stunk of mildew and dog shit and some other odor I didn’t recognize. Thought, if he had to go
through all of this, maybe his chess game is no good. Then I warned myself not to underestimate him, because maybe that was part of what he wanted me to do, in his setup.
On a cardboard dollar-store board, on a rickety card table, in an empty room without walls, we both sat on cheap metal folding chairs. I could hear footsteps and movement above and below me. He needs me to feel uncomfortable and surrounded and filled with fear of the unknown. I had no fear. The championship games between the two top teams in the junior league were a week away. He had a vested interest in not doing anything to damage his investment. I took some deep breaths. On the tabletop he flipped the hourglass and it was on. He had the white pieces, the first move.
I was silent while he thought and even as he advanced his pawn. After a few minutes of play, I realized that he would say something each time it was my turn, just to throw me off. “Think on it,” or “Careful now,” or “Are you sure?” On my simplest moves he would even comment, “You give your pawns up too easy. You should appreciate them more.” I checked how we would maneuver to hold onto his pawns, even allowing one move where he sacrificed his knight to save one of them.
Ultimately, I had lost each of my pawns except one, but held onto my queen, one knight, two bishops, and one rook. Half an hour later, I ate up his rook using my bishop. He devoured my bishop using his queen. But then, his king was left open except for the two pawns guarding him. I advanced my black knight and said “check.” Soon as he got ready to move his pawn to gobble up my knight, he realized that once he did, his king would be exposed to checkmate. He chose to move his king to the left instead to avoid my knight, which was of course limited to L-shaped movements. I advanced my one remaining rook from the back of my side of the board, straight all the way to the back of Santiaga’s side of the board. “Check,” I said. As soon as he realized that the only way out for him was to use his queen to eat my rook and save his king, but that if he did, he would lose his queen with my follow-up move, he leaned back. He was paused so long that even the sand had run out of his favor. “Why don’t you call?” he asked me.