Blame Risperdal for my memory lapse on the bus ride from Roederer Assessment Center to Northpoint. The dummy-dope that gifts boys undesired boobs was what the Paducah quack (she looked dead-on a 20-year old who rolled in from a Goth nightclub, making her Queen of the Out-of-Context 2015) prescribed me the week I carved into Danny using the butcher knife I'd picked up Pop from Walmart probably a year earlier. Mom thought maybe it was connected: not at all, Betty Jane.
     I carry a half-assed recollection of guys in yellow jumpsuits peeing/shitting on themselves because the driver couldn't make a loo-stop. Now, if that was us, or a tale somebody on that big Grey Goose told, damned if I can remember through the nut-pill fog. An excited returning inmate said these dudes needed to get prepped for some "fag shit", but all the drugs would be worth it. To my mind, everything about his assessment USED to apply to me, those arenas of my life gone kaput now - definitely Risperdal talking here.
     Zombified describes me through a year+ of county jail, that depressive mausoleum. Crapping out a brick twice a month, then bleeding and squirming in 9 out of 10 level agony for 12 hours each time, with no sensation of relief accompanying urination, either, plus my noteworthy Johnson shrunk to a pitiful knuckle by psychotropic obliteration (do your squats, young men, they're nature's penis pump), and my sex drive was totaled. Which sucked more: the results, or the side-effects? Tough to say.
     Living a numbed out life in a dead space with guys I didn't want to know, I traveled under the assumption lock-down murdered my soul. A split-decade later, I put together prescriptions were the culprit. ONE night without the bastards, I experienced the act of selfish pleasure for the first time in that span. Small wonder those halls didn't merit a deck-swabbing.
     In jail, I made myself old to be ignored, growing out my 45 year old graying beard and reverse-Yarmulke hair. I craved invisibility, and aging is the express lane its cultural camouflage.
     Laying on my rack, I'd read non-stop when I wasn't playing possum ("opossum" is pronounced uh-possum, BTW. The "o" is a schwa, the upside-down "e" pronounced "uh". Reading this torrid memoir already paid off for some of you clowns) I tore through the stacks, them being crap-tastic to say the least. If I read one I took in 30 Amish romances offering a scintillating juxtaposition to tat-faced meth-heads, reading about farm gals whose looming dilemmas sprung from holding hands with a boy after smiling at another. Even in my neutered state, the schism wasn't lost on me, hearing the thunderous slurps of my bunky's breakfast blow-job from a straight-up, unrepentant pedophile, while poring through pages on "Becca" or some such, waiting on what amounted to a poor man's version of school pizza served through a dirty window.
     2 PM was my standing appointment with "Jeopardy!", the one show I gave a shit about after 45 years of never-not-once on the community TV in the day room (I stayed with the game through the bitter four years later loss of Trebek, then abandoned it when Miyam Bialik got axed after her maiden season. I love smart evolution- not virtue signals or equity hires. "Blossom" augured an exciting future Ken Jennings to me was less of the same. Bialik shit and fell back in it, as my teen-life friend Mia's grandma used to say, announcing her firing from the daily airing over writer's strike solidarity, thus losing her prime-time gig).
     That bunky I mentioned was Bailey, not only the inaugural (out) hip-swisher I met post incarceration, but first to be referred to as a "trim". He came to us for leading some West Kentucky po-po on a double-county, death-defying, half-hour speed chase protecting a cache of meth in his whip. This was his second bit. Like me, the sobriquet didn't fit. He was queer on the street, and A-OK with serving menfolk his manhood. A trim is a male opting to live the woman's life in prison, most often for protection, money, drugs, or all those things they should not be confused with a transgendered person, though many have glommed onto that phenom, crafting chaos and rancor. The pioneer usage is a 1970's moniker from the Black community for pussy ("Shoulda seen the trim Cletus bagged last night!"), so when applied to an inmate they're really being hailed an ambulatory fuck-doll. Immediately, my grounds for disqualification are issued, what with me being ambisextrous (TM pending), meaning I do whatever the vibe at that event calls for. I'm not down with the 'roles' of prison from what I've seen, it becomes about some asshole trying to assert power over, while being unable to function without, me. No thanks. That level of incessant ingratitude and insult begs for whipping up a fucking kid. Somebody in theory will be there to wipe my sagging ass one day, because most prison inmates aren't going to be of use for anything more than wiping a plate clean, says my experience.
     Our Bailey was wilder than a buck. Once, he bit a former fling's earlobe clean off for getting Cell 2's e-cigs confiscated a third week (I, for one, applaud him and his incisors, me being a rabid fan of nicotine/chemical compounds). Ammonia gives butts pizzazz, one reason American Spirits are TRASH) by opening them to burn other materials. A total sex, drugs, and everything else maniac, yet a generous and genuine soul, this heathen informed me upon landing we could engage in any act I wanted. Bringing myself to tell him I was impotent with broke-down equipment fell beyond the boundaries of my ego. He believed I found him grotesque, but actually I found him nothing. Likely, we'd have had a gay old time if my libido hadn't been through the pill crusher, along with my shlong. I considered using him as a "kick starting" experiment, but showing anyone that button mushroom ding-a-ling was too pitiful to imagine. Opportunities naturally abounded with men I knew objectively were hot, but I was numb as a tongue coated in Chloraseptic. I had a musclebound hunk bunky pre-Bailey raring to go and acted like I was too sleepy. I've never felt so lame, and yessir, I've glared back indignantly. Fear not, all you young fellers with huge hooters - you've got a crusader in me. I'm ready to obliterate Big Pharma for these egregious injustices.
      Aside from that TV shared by 20 assholes, county jail was a huge room with a loft devoid of outlets other than fighting, fucking, and drugs that would find their way in sporadically, like "Spice" -- synthetic weed - which made the scene alternately mellow and rowdy. We were supposed to get an hour of recreation a day, which amounted to twice a week having some uniformed slob escort a posse of us to a cemented-in area to stare at the same morons I spent the other 23 hours of my day clawing my way from. On our excursions, I saw one leafless tree the entire year plus change. Fuck food - a pitiful snack selection from the inmate canteen (I get it, "this aint the Waldorf, bitch..."). I binged on my beloved Smartfood, then it was replaced with over-salted and under-cheesed Dollar Store knockoff Brand X that made me crave a gallon of water and some Smartfood. Naturally, there were ramen noodles, the blood pressure accelerant and life's bread of the locked down as well.
     Wolfing down nigh 450 books before Northpoint, each a distant cry from those graphic novels and comics I loved on the streets and discussed, disseminated, and dissected on social media groups I joined and founded while I cared for my 90 year old grandpa. Truthfully, the fistfuls of complementary Percocets gave that gig its razzmatazz. Hard to believe that happened now after a decade steeped asshole-to-elbow in oscillating deep loath, velvety love, throbbing pain, and a laundry list of things I didn't know I wanted but begged for all the time. Bonuses being a breadcrumb trail that would lead to mysteries beginning in my own childhood, and finding the most realized version of me possible in a most unlikely space.
     Amnesia brakes at the sight of razor wire and cinder blocks. The first time someone sees their prison, it gets tattooed on the brain forever; even titans are humbled. Anyone claiming something less is a chest-puffing rooster. Regardless of my numbness, it was akin to, but the horror movie version of, the first time I looked through a window approaching New York City. This time I was shackled and couldn't clutch somebody's hand in response.
     After a perfunctory medical check in, I was told my new home was Dorm 3 upper left. R and D gave me a half-assed mattress and pillow with a product of Bangladesh child labor blanket only a tad less abrasive than the lowest grit sandpaper, along with a ditty bag - a roll of toilet paper, toothpaste, toothbrush, and a comb. I toted them with shaky arms to the given directions, through the wide concrete tunnels, and up the stairs.
     I arrived, and the immediate charm was the wallpaper: a yellow and black decal - CAUTION: ASBESTOS CONTAINING MATERIAL BEHIND WALL randomly breaking up the gray on white aesthetics-fucked bunk-room (I can already hear the coming-to-a-TV-near-you-soon ,"If you or a loved one was incarcerated at Northpoint Training Center, and contracted Mesothelioma, call 1-800..." ad).
     The first stab (too soon?) at friendly contact was made by New York, who while smothering me with unlikely kindness told me everybody said he looked like Vin Diesel. I kept thinking a sleazier Telly Savalas (hit IMDb, kiddos. I'll be here). He was a hirsute mook on me like a bald, greasy, cheap Italian suit. I was anxious fish with no earthly idea no one was that damned nice for no damned reason unless they were up to no damned good in prison. Rookie screw-up exponential.
     This slicked asshole asked if I had a special case. Pharmacologically pickled into a pitiful state propelled by a blue collar, middle class upbringing, naturally I interpreted the question to mean was my felony abnormal? You ask me, mete out a rash of stabbings on your bestie on July 4th weekend while in the sack together, a body achieves that adjective. Answering with a sorry nod, I didn't realize the question was if I boned a baby. Next, he asked the nature of my case, and I gave Aggravated Assault One, plus Assault on a Police Officer. A pregnant pause and solicited repeat later, I wound up telling that I'd stabbed up a dude, then slugged a C.O. in county jail after a fight. New York defined "special case" in prison parlance for me. He kept giving me side-eye, the type one gets after self-outing as a slasher-slash-cop-beater who looks like they rolled straight off the bed complete with eye boogers and a mussed Bozo the Clown 'do. I'm sure calls of verification were done about the bizarre and unkempt uncle figure exuding cho-mo energy. Hell, I woulda ran me in.
     Northpoint's an open dormitory joint - a big Summer camp, chock full of largely horrible grown folks monitored by mall cops carrying tasers, overseen by a sometimes morally bankrupt administration. Pelosis and McConnells abound, outlasting their usefulness, managing the human warehouses while the highest on the food chain line their pockets with tax revenue. Recidivism is their bread and butter.
     Unlike the days of yore, shitters and showers are largely private - only from the shoulders up remain visible at all times. A healthy amount of contentment truly depends on a good neighborhood - bunky, wing (each dorm is split into four - upper, lower, left, and right), and unit.
     Central to the place is our hub, housing two chow halls for sides A and B of the facility; the medical unit, library complete with its legal compliment, and academics department. Behind it all lies R and D, where all receivables come in and out, including inmates. Past that is Special Management Unit (SMU), AKA the Hole. You likely know it as solitary confinement from every procedural TV show ever with some asshole going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, sweating like an electric pig, bearing no earthly resemblance to reality, at least not the one Northpoint nor McCracken County Jail offered anyway in the 40 day isolated stretch I pulled off there. I've known some cats who've pulled off two years in concrete boxes that were steady as you please. Also, I'm familiar with jerks who two days in spackled themselves with doo-doo. These thespians wanted attention and everyone knew it. Not a cry for help, per se, but a whine for privilege like a two man cell. Raised in a dignified Protestant Work environment, I'll straight up defend this hustling. Those enforcing the rules don't follow them, so do as you will - go crazy. Hell, even a healthy dog gets slick and begins showing off that bent paw so fools will lob it pity treats. That's the pitiful state of the culture. Pursuing excellence and following the rules largely gets us ignored, shafted, betrayed, and/or slandered. Pile on that generational shift to laxness, self-victimization, and ghastly levels of cluelessness; this isn't a get-off-my-lawn screed, I'm as pro-inmate and youth as you'll find. I'm furious at the negligent grown (applying the term loosely) folk for the damages they've leveled on these delinquents. Fuck the village and mind your lost brats. The junior Honkeys are blasting the schoolrooms, hanging themselves, and destroying each other online, while the Black ones shoot the shit out out of their peers and everybody else on the street, with the news only getting involved if a Cracker cop pops one of these darling human paychecks. Please fix this - these children are awful and HURT. Retreating to the point, there are pre-25ers bragging about unspeakable acts, showing out for the Administration, and achieving results, rather than taking advantage of compensated GED classes and free vocational education and college. Some days in my blackest funk I feel a foot away from a damn school shooter without a weapon myself, and I'm one of the most optimistic people here. On the inmate level, the most upsetting factor is the migration back to middle school. Here, guys have a chance to carve a new life and focus on mind, body, and spirit without paradigm. The number who worry themselves sick about the opinions of people they won't know or be allowed contact with in a short time is staggering and depressing as fuck. The herd mentality Solomon Ashe showed us back in the day is wildly viral in this cinder-block Petrie dish. This phenomenon isn't age-specific. OK, Sherman, lets set the Wayback for 2016 again...
     New York's friendly-extortion scam lasted until he went to the Hole and attempted to delegate control via proxy. When this good old boy in our wing caught wind of the goings-on, he laid the kibosh on it. Turned out, Dipshits claim of a drug charge was bogus, with Van Dumbass himself having a "special case". Concerned individuals came a'calling and he morphed into a "check-in", a party that decides to take residence at Hotel Solitaire to evade a sound ass-kicking, or bullshit like this here.
     My former extortionist was run out upon an bravado-ed return attempt. For me, a much saner amount with a decent fellow who needed to make scratch and could stomp ass so well he never needed to was agreed upon. Yep, I still paid, and anyone with something to say can straight-up eat me. I was fish, semi-comatose, admittedly terrified, square til Hell wouldn't have it, and hardly alone in this regard. Now I had a personal pit-bull I could holler for in a moment of need, making for greater peace of mind. All these little hard guys - I remember you when. Not long after, I moved over to Dorm 2 lower left where I'd undergo my first prison metamorphosis, but by no stretch my last.
     The new digs were devoted to inmates over 49 that wanted to lay back and do their time, as the syntax would have it. I thought "Hell, that's me all over! Even my pecker's cashed its chips in".
     What I'd do is imitate sleep, eat, and watch rerun marathons of shows like "Roseanne" all the livelong day. I was now officially fatter than fuck and had abandoned reading for the duration. Yessir, without New York being a swollen tick on the budget I could buy lots of food, so I did that, becoming a model 21st century middle-American in stir.
     Summoned to Medical for a required annual presented elevated triglycerides, type two diabetes, and stratospheric blood pressure. I was too mind-wiped to care. I was anxious to waddle back to my cocoon and throw back more salt-crusted fried chicken and tater tots while staring vacantly at screen content. Maybe I'd even heat the vittles up this round (or not).
     I was the Invisible Parade Float. My gut sunk over my belt all the waist around I sported a hobo beard, and got away with the absolute least possible all the time. I was such an anti-person the majority couldn't see me. The most notice I drew was the semi-derogatory nickname "Catfish", for embodying the street dude that munched his dinner off a trash can lid. I bathed at best once or twice a week. Not from filthiness, but pure lack of energy and will. I wasn't a person - I was devoid of scope, agency, concern, or spiritual glue the only thing that aroused me would be an issue I'd have to invest the wherewithal into pretending to give a shit about.
     My opening un-prescribed drug foray happened courtesy of Suboxone, the intoxicant most available on the yard created to battle opioid addiction, and New York, who gave me a teensy piece for Christmas, seeing as I couldn't afford any what with him strong-arming all my dough. "OJ" is the number one reason Honkies will murder one another in prison, beating trims 2 to 1. Mexicans and Blacks exhibit strong solidarity, but bring a near-microscopic piece of bullshit dope onto the stage, and even the staunchest White Pride advocate will toss his top bon vivant under the bus. That, or the endorsement of any Black dude, whichever.
     I snorted the piece out of a toothpaste cap per New York's instructions and wound up almost blistered like the halcyon days of working elder-care. Damned if I didn't feel like one of those "people" you hear about on TV. Almost like it was the missing ingredient to the psychotropic, making that fucker sing.
     Later, as fate dictated, Bailey made the scene at Northpoint and got me a spoonful for breakfast dessert one morning, setting me up for a pleasant day trip. His stint on the NPTC compound was shocking in it's brevity, as he did more time in the Hole than the yard for drugging, fucking, and fighting. He was like that entertaining movie star spicing up a crummy TV show who costs too much to add to the cast.
     For a minute, I had a groovy little side-bunky that provided brain-candy for the both of us, then I started reciprocating. He evolved quick-fast into my first legit buddy, so naturally he wound up getting shipped to another prison in no time. Then I had to venture out and gather goods myself. This meant hitting the bullpen and interfacing with crap humans, which with my tabula rasa-esque personality was SO much pressure.
     Thing too about OJ is that it can be absurdly complex to do. It's not a drug one pops and goes no, there's rituals, kids. Straight off, it comes in minuscule pieces wrapped tighter than balls in cellophane - a bitch to unwrap, that can easily drop and float to the damned floor and vanish. There went 60 bones, loser. I've witnessed this heartbreak multiple times, not to mention the CLAIM of such. You might find this disheartening, gentle reader, but some prison inmates are untrustworthy sorts. The kind who would, say, pocket some dope someone else paid for and claim the shit got eaten by famished floor tiles. I should know as I have dated every single one of these persons. Once the Suboxone is unwrapped, either stick it in the eye - many swear by this method, but it never did a thing for me. Ergo, I went the meltdown route, in warm water stirring until dissolved, then up the nasal passage from a toothpaste cap, New York's style. Your real heavy hitters go the "spike" avenue, AKA shooting up. Never done it myself because a) I know what too good for its own good means and b) I'm a pussy.
     The safest venue for doing this is the shitter stall, having a pull-to door one can sit down behind and play chemistry set on the throne. My prime agitation here was the damnable overhead fluorescent light glaring into the water, making it a monstrous bitch to see if its melted, and the stirrer could pull the Orange the hell out of the wet cap while blinded by the light. Next thing, a pissy soberite who shares a room with 50 assholes is snorting H2O. If a bitch didn't need to get high before all this, they do now for sure I need a stiff belt even writing about it.
     Like I said, all this jazz became complicated, an adjective I avoided, and I had to blend with guys I hated fucking with. More horrific - my chicken and tots budget was getting inhaled, and I was resorting to ramen noodles and godforsaken chow hall garbage. I resolved that Banquet meant more to me than an eight hour buzz. Breaking up isn't always hard to do (SPOILER ALERT: Gobs of make-up sex ahead).
     One constant through these years was Betty, my mom, and the only family I had contact with. Talking a time or two a week, she'd do her level best to visit once every three-odd-months. The trek from far Western Kentucky (practically Illinois) was about four hours, and given her septuagenarian status, it took effort even with her young-hearted constitution. She's how I afforded to get so damned fat, religiously adding money to my inmate commissary account thankfully she exited our cruel planet unawares of New Yorks racket. Needless to say, by the different-minded latter-day mind I feel really fucked-up about that now. I was emblematic of what inmates call a "titty-baby". It had mostly been me and her. She stayed home until I went into first grade. When I was twelve, my dad blew his brains out on Easter, and she chose to remain unmarried until I was 30. Despite our closeness, communication was stunted late in the game, from the gate complicated by the psychic cotton in my throat and ears from that crap psych med. Our post-incarceration dynamic was often awkward. There was a noticeable high-pitched voice she reserved for spilling lies that would now be there for whole calls. The source, I decided later, was the unconditional love approach with instant forgiveness. I call bullshit on us mere mortals trying this stunt. She should've cussed me to my face like a sailor - it likely would have freed the oppressive nature of our dialogue, and connected us better than ever. Hindsight is 20/20, right? Sometimes we'd genuinely talk, and by that I mean bullshit. That's no indictment, it's chicken soup straight-up. Talking about last night's American Horror Story (or bitching in the case of "AMH:New York"), making fun of that douche Prince Harry (I never gave a rat's ass about Kate until I learned she helped talk that dumb twat into wearing the SS uniform for Halloween I wish I could have seen her and William laughing themselves sick at those "Harry the Nazi" headlines - fucking RIOT), or the joys of air-frying. Most of our exchanges were exercises in discomfort, though. Out of nowhere she'd toss a boulder in passing like it was nothing, such as the basement, now officially a lost opportunity for a "Hoarders" episode, stem-to-stern with its mountains of striped tube socks, '90s girls soccer trophies, expired calendars, VHS porno tapes, and scads of other artifacts and ephemera courtesy of Step-dad Mikes severe OCD being remodeled, with a home theater complete with digital cable at last (No more "digital rabbit ears" for the Magnum PI lookalike - Tom Selleck version - Mommy married!), plus a state-of-the-art workout room down there after weeks of neither Jack nor shit to say beyond "not much new here". When I had nothing to offer it was because believe you me, sister, I got NOTHING.
     I suppose that's not entirely true. I'd have scratch to offer, but get me on the line with her high school pal Joy, and it was teacher Annie Sullivan getting teenybopper Helen Keller whom we got bullshitted into believing couldn't see nor hear a thing to blab up a blue streak about water (You know Mrs. Keller would've been all "Bitch, are you KIDDING me with this business?"), or Jane Goodall rapping with the primates and having all the breakthroughs.
     As far as friends go, the closest thing I had to a social circle was a pair of winners named Jeff and Brian. For the sensitive, I'll call Brian a "Little Person", looking like a two-foot bowling alley dyke mash-up of psychic lady Zelda Rubinstein late of "Poltergeist", but prison doesn't cater to Political Correctness. Inside Northpoint, Brian's a midget - to his face without fucks given by the parties on either side of the equation. Same goes for trannies, fat-asses, fags, and about anybody else. In 2025, many Honkeys use "Nigga" sparingly, after clearance from SCAT (Society for Caucasian-Afrocentric Tongues), which oversees such semantic decisions. This office is headed by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrahms, after she was catapulted from the state then remolded into her original form as she is sculpted from shit. Prison has no feelings department, and that's generally a good thing. Fostering actual conversation, rather than disingenuous niceties and virtue signals is productive, refreshing, and cathartic. Civilized society accomplishes virtually no progress. Curiously, we had a vertically challenged community at Northpoint then - maybe six. Jeff was like a more svelte version of myself at that juncture, though how is anyone's guess, tapeworm maybe? This bastard was like a goldfish that would scarf until he blew up, scavenging even the top of the damn garbage. On a tear of eating with him, tossing in ramen and accessories to complement dinner rolls he'd kyped from the chow hall to assemble these curiously addictive casseroles, a concerned (and repulsed) fellow inmate tipped me off to Jeff clawing into his scrotum while preparing our dinner, digging up his butt-hole, all the while not once making the junket to our sink. Even pharmaceutically plastered and apathetic regarding the state of my hygiene, this shit wouldn't stand, so I nixed the casserole craze and slimmed down a belt size.
     Our wing loathed the Disgusting Duo. Midget Brian was a classic example of my rule on shirtlessness: it's NEVER the ones you wanna see. He was engineered like and held the same pallor and luster as a peeled boiled egg, I swear, flaunting his jiggly little ta-tas to the common nausea of the wing nightly. Jeff was separately but equally disgusting: a troll as the parlance defines it. Lazy Susan's worth of food clogging his beard, consuming a ceaseless meal, often busted eating discarded leftovers, and on the regular inches from an ass-kicking. What made these two superstars my pals? Proximity.
     The Department of Corrections shat into this Get Along Gang Willow, my new transgender side-bunky. This person was Black, 25ish, and definitive of "over inflated sense of self importance". Her foot never vacated the soil of Planet Willow, and the Willow state of affairs was the only tune this asshole knew how to play. All conversations lateral, with any attempts to detract re-routed right the fuck back to her sexually dysphoric motherfucking majesty. Sporting globular titties and rocking the "Good Times" Florida Evans 'fro puff, she had a voice like Hell's front gate's rusted hinge. Her favorite topic to spout at me while I sustained a death-stare at the screen with nary a side-glance for all the good it did was how her grandparents raised her right in the church (yeah, I can see it), and the mansion waiting for her in Heaven. She could've been talking to the stool I was sitting on (Northpoint provided them so people could climb onto top racks, despite them being embossed in two languages with a "do not stand upon - tipping hazard" warning. I fell off one and hit my back on the next door metal frame, nearly wrecking my spine once). Narrating her autobiography always and forever, A guard made her do an about-face and walk all the way back through the tunnel hallway for running one day. As she recounted the event with her "Sounds of the Haunted House" LP voice, Lil' Brian was in the studio audience and the hip-tall Weeble got more worked up than usual, offering from his 50 year-old body with a 7 year-old voice "Asshole probably just wanted to watch your boobs bounce up and down and up and down when you went by again", while his fat little head bobbed up and down and up and down, his eyes glazed over under his Coke bottle glasses, the air turning static for a brief eternity.
     Late nights, I started letting the "Tea Bandits" (they got that nickname when the two morons got busted smuggling liters under their shirts from the chow hall - only slightly less obvious than tykes on stilts crashing peepshows beneath trench coats) watch my TV. Never a good deed going unpunished, they began fighting over programming, waking the wing, resulting in everyone pushing up on yours truly and ultimately only one of the louses allowed remote privilege per night thereafter. Randomly, I got moved across the hall temporarily, and upon return I was put in the 10-man adjacency. Little Often Asshole was livid, expressing concern about "his TV". Demonstrating the gall to ask if he could come back, unplug my box cable and all, and take it to his rack at bedtime (never mind the inconvenient detail that if caught, the set would be confiscated). Sarcastically, I said sure, and damned if the little turd wasn't unscrewing my hardware around midnight when I told him to kick bricks, ending my rapport with the Tea Bandits.
     My last sighting was in the chow hall where Brian threw up more vomit than that little vessel should contain. All over himself, the table, the floor, and my psyche. I can handle blood, feces, and urine like the best former elder-care pill-popper you ever met, but puke? I see it, I make it. I gagged my way down the sidewalk, tunnels, stairs and to the TV I used to bleach the images of Munchkin-chunks off the windmills of my mind.
     Soon after came the sweet relief of former Marine Joe, a right sociable sum'bitch. My quiet old dude routine didn't work on this winner like the prior 15 or so bunkies who whisked through the turnstile. Firing questions off that'd do Oprah proud, he outed me casually and instantly. Then, it wasn't in the topical mix. Not that I was closeted, or a subject period. New York knew, I skipped the details of psychotropic impotence, thinking it was the imprisonment/aging combo platter. The fog in my gray matter combined with my super-apathy made this an accepted state of affairs. He was indignant re: my sexual status, then outta the blue he takes a lover in the form of this giant potbellied kid with perpetual duck-lips resembling Baby Huey in Buddy Holly sissy-drag. I had a few nibbles on my hook in Dorm 3, telling them I wasn't in "The Game", as the incarcerated vernacular would have it.
     Joe asked one conversation when I had to take ,"the class", like I was hip to the reference. Turned out he meant SOTP - Sex Offender Training Program. I then learned the consensus on the yard remained me equals cho-mo. That small fee to keep trouble away backfired somewhat.
     Joe became the first inmate I was conversant with, getting perspective on where I existed in space. Directly due to him anchoring me to reality, purely by giving me connection, soliciting responses, and opening awareness in me, I started waking up.
     An errant thought slunk through a fissure in the cement encasing my brain - what if this void in me is chemical? That night when I hit the pill call window, I refused Risperdal. True Believer, I've already mentioned the second Great Flood. It would still take several months to feel myself being poured back into this body drip-by-drip like an archaic coffee pot. Emotions, libido, motivations, even memories trickling into a bloated and congealed body warped out of rhythm. Graduating from Healing Arts in 2004, I know humans are powerful healing machines - body, brain, and spirit. I was becoming a person again, and an inmate at last.
     Stay tuned.
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